"Bitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Suevi and Alani into Gaul, by which that province and Spain were lost to the empire. We next hear of Alaric as the friend and ally of his late opponent Stilicho. The estrangement between the eastern and western courts had in 407 become so bitter as to threaten civil war, and Stilicho was actually proposing to use the arms of Alaric in order to enforce the claims of Honorius to the prefecture of Illyricum. The death of Arcadius in May 408 caused ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with you," went on the King of Galavia. "You married me—because State reasons demanded it. I could not win your love—he did!" He turned toward Benton, and his voice, though it held its slow control, was bitter. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... continued so I know not, but when I came to myself a little reflection told me what had happened. A hurricane had risen and torn away the vessel while I slept heavily, for the night before we had all drunk too freely, and my remorse was the more bitter for remembering Mr. Randal, the good man whose warnings, had he lived, would have prevented ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... his throbbing pulses. The moonlight, streaming through the window, flooded the room with a soft light, in which he seemed to see Rena standing before him, as she had appeared that afternoon, gazing at him with eyes that implored charity and forgiveness. He burst into tears,—bitter tears, that strained his heartstrings. He was only a youth. She was his first love, and he had lost her forever. She was worse than dead to him; for if he had seen her lying in her shroud before him, he ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... blind dogs, and children," he went on, speaking with bitter contempt. "They fight because they are so many that one encourages the other, but they are not brave, and they are not warriors. The young men of the Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth are all warriors, and laugh ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... bent herself. "I can't believe in such sudden things! I feel indignant with you for talking to me like this, when you know—when you know what harm you've done me! You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted! Out upon such—I don't ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... regained self-control, his grief was deep and bitter. Ann Rutledge was buried in Concord cemetery, a country burying-ground seven miles northwest of New Salem. To this lonely spot Lincoln frequently journeyed to weep over her grave. "My heart is buried there," he said to one ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... scene stilled his unrest, the strange freedom of longings unleashed that day. What had come over him? He shook his head; but with the consciousness of self returned a feeling of fatigue, the burning pain in his chest, the bitter-sweet smell of ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... annum. The priests are in general held in very little respect by all classes, even by the peasants, who, however, kiss their hands when they meet them, and often have a feeling of regard for them. There are numerous dissenters, who are frequently treated with the most bitter persecution by ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... in finest raiment and thine every wish shall be at thy will." When she heard this, she buffeted her face and cried out, saying, "Ah, well-away! I have not won my beloved and I have lost my father and mother!" And she wept bitter tears over what had befallen her, whilst the Sage fared on with her, without ceasing, till he came to the land of the Greeks[FN24] and alighted in a verdant mead, abounding in streams and trees. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... share with the latest American encampment, in which competition she cannot hope to excel? But she who holds in her hands the dust of St. John Baptist, who has seen the cup of the Holy Grail, whose sons stormed Jerusalem and wept beside the Tomb of Jesus, through whose streets the bitter ashes of Augustine have passed, and in whose heart Columbus was conceived, and a great Admiral and a great Saint, is worthy of remembrance. Let her gather the beautiful or curious remnants of her great ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... its three hundred men, first directed its course so far to the north that, even in the month of July, monstrous heaps of ice were found floating on the sea. 'There was,' so Sebastian told his friend, 'in a manner, continual daylight.' The forbidding aspect of the coast, the bitter cold of the northern seas, and the boundless extent of the silent drifting ice, chilled the hopes of the explorers. They turned towards the south. Day after day, week after week, they skirted the coast of North America. If we may believe Sebastian's friend, they reached a point as far south as ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... welcome for them there: whatever feeling great mountains evoke, THAT feeling was clear in Rodriguez and Morano. They were all amongst those that have other aims, other ends, and know naught of man. A bitter chill from the snow and from starry space drove this ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... the text, and have merely corrected some statements incidental to the condition of geological knowledge at the time this work was penned. "The Cruise of the Betsey" was written for that well-known paper the "Witness" during the period when a disputation productive of much bitter feeling waged between the Free and Established Churches of Scotland; but as the Disruption and its history possesses little interest to a large class of the readers of this work, who will rejoice ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... mind it," she said, "pray don't, really—let it be—" But Whiskey Dick, feeling himself on safe ground in this attention, persisted to the bitter end of a disintegrated and well-worn "Travatore." "So that is what Mr. Munroe ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... who, in the minority, made their presence felt by their showy gowns, rustling movements, and attitudes of superior boredom. In a vast building like this extremes touch with eagerness on the part of the poor, to whom these furtive views of the rich and indolent brought with them a bitter consolation. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... bethumbed than the others, "after the old woman had threatened me. This here young woman allows that she is sorry that her aunt has to take money of me on account of her cousin being killed, and she is still sorrier that she is so bitter against me. She says she hadn't seen her cousin since he was a boy, and used to play with her, and that she finds it hard to believe that he should ever grow up to change his name and act so as to provoke anybody ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... solemnity and ceremony; when it was ladled out each man lighted his pipe or took a cigar, and the tongues began to wag. Other folk came and went; the old gentlemen were oblivious of anything but their own talk. Now and then a young gentleman of the town dropped in to take his modest half-pint of bitter beer and to dally in the presence of the barmaid; such looked with awe at the patriarchs: as for the patriarchs themselves they were lost in ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy! The world is weary of the past,— Oh might it ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... their cruel ferocity. Before the eyes of its captive mother the fatal tomahawk was raised, and by one dastard blow its keen edge was made to mingle with its brains. The horrid work failed not to bring the bitter woes and anguish of despair to the breast of the unhappy mother. It was then thrown into Red River, which was the stream nearest to the scene of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... that fall, Phebe was having her first experience of bitter homesickness. She had always supposed herself immune from that dire disease, and, for some time, she had no idea what was the matter with her. In vain she tried to trace the cause of her complaint to malaria and to every known form of indigestion. She ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... trunks a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, and the tree thirty feet high. But the Swedish robin's taste for its berries is to be noted by you, because, first, the dogwood berry is commonly said to be so bitter that it is not eaten by birds (Loudon, "Arboretum," ii., 497, 1.); and, secondly, because it is a pretty coincidence that this most familiar of household birds should feed fondly from the tree which gives the housewife her spindle,—the proper name ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... Constitution should or should not prohibit slavery. When the Constitution of the Union was being settled, slavery was the subject of most careful compromise; but in any union formed between slave States and free, a bitter root of controversy must have remained, and the opening through which controversy actually returned was provided ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Jenny's trusting nature, and removed the sting from the sorrow he inflicted by making her believe it inevitable. Thus this little wellspring of romance forever watered and kept fresh her otherwise withered life; if subdued, she was not bitter; and no one can tell how the thin, wan face renewed its youth, and the wrinkled cheeks their pinkish bloom, caught in that far-off spring-time in her father's orchards, as, sitting in her solitary room, she remembered the man, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... And kissed the dust to melt his Dives's mood. At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, He issues smiling from the fatal door, And buys with lavish hand his yearly store Till his small borrowings will yield no more. Aye, as each year declined, With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind He mourned his fate unkind. In dust, in rain, with might and main, He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain, Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the stack above our heads and whirled round and round in front of our eyes. Gradually we began to feel the cold again. Many of us got up and walked about, for it was nipping our feet. I was stiff in every limb and full of bitter thoughts. I hoped the half-hour ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... had frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life. Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and made a blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for they were now nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air was bitter and keen. Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy adieu, he threw his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of whatever chance might throw in his way. Looking back he saw the old man and the young girl ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by bitter disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... seed and her seed. {78b} Therefore he saith in another place, they can mix no better than Iron and Clay. I say, they cannot agree, they cannot be one, and therefore they should be aware at first, and not lightly receive such into their affections. God has often made such Matches bitter, especially to his own. Such matches are, as God said of Elie's Sons that were spared, to consume the eyes, and to grieve the heart. Oh the wailing, and lamentation that they have made that have been thus yoaked, especially if they ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... last three years, Mikolas has been lying at home with blood poisoning—once for three months and once for nearly seven. The last time, too, he lost his job, and that meant six weeks more of standing at the doors of the packing houses, at six o'clock on bitter winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground and more in the air. There are learned people who can tell you out of the statistics that beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, these people have never ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... The cold became bitter as De Leyva's ships made their way towards the Orkneys. The storm was furious, and the sailors, unaccustomed to the cold and weakened by disease and famine, could no longer work their ships, and De Leyva was ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to Middleburg, thence east to the Swazi border and over the Eastern Transvaal, reaching as far south as Bethel, to Springs, near Johannesburg. Eighty per cent of the men had on arrival at Springs neither shirts nor socks, and the bitter cold of the high veldt pierced keenly through the thin Indian khaki drill. The column required generally doing up before again "taking the floor." It was expected by all that the infantry at least would be relieved by ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... homely commonplace pathos in that little letter of the girl's if read aright, that is to say, if read with what was between the lines supplied. It is impossible to live in cities any length of time and with any sort of eyes without learning the bitter unromantic truths about poverty—city poverty. In quiet, desolate places one may be poor, very poor, without much conscious suffering. There are no teasing contrasts, no torturing temptations. But in a city, if one knows anything at all of the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... white population of Apia numbered about two hundred, of whom one half were Germans—the rest were principally English and Americans. For two years past a very bitter feeling had existed between the staff of the great German trading firm, and the British and American community. The latter had their places of business in Apia, and the suburb of Matautu, the Germans ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... misleading judges by citing fictitious authorities, and then smiling at their professional ignorance when they had swallowed his audacious fabrications. Moreover, the manner of his speech was sometimes as offensive as its substance was dishonest. Strafford spoke a bitter criticism not only with regard to Maynard and Glyn, but with regard to the prevailing tone of the bar, when, describing the conduct of the advocates who managed his prosecution, he said: "Glynne and Maynard used me like advocates, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Even from these does nature every day extract effects of constancy and patience, more pure and manly than those we so inquisitively study in the schools." And he goes on to describe them working to the bitter end, even in their grief, even in disease, until their strength failed them. "He that is now digging in my garden has this morning buried his father, or his son. . . . They never keep their beds but to die." The whole chapter is fine, pathetic, to the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... I have this morning been helped and comforted, I must confess much unsubdued evil has manifested itself even within these few days. The bitter waters within, the tendency to what is evil, the corrupt root, have sadly appeared.—Oh, there is the one cause, not minding enough the good part which shall not be taken away, and so disquieted at the loss ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... you can feel that we have been so blessed. When the house is so quiet and I think of those white graves in the cemetery I confess I feel very bitter." ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... to lie—and I won't lie to you whatever happens. I simply won't. We both know what your place in the University means; I perhaps better than you, because I've seen my father's experience. I don't often get bitter, but I come very near it when I look back and think how my mother had to plan and scrimp. I feel like condemning the whole University to the bottomless pit. I suppose Margery Randall would resent it if I told ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... appointment than they made the awful discovery that they had enrolled upon their staff a person who was unprovided with the Ph.D. degree. The man in question had been satisfied to work at Philosophy for her own sweet (or bitter) sake, and had disdained to consider that an academic bauble should be ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... death, although preaching this gentle creed of love and simple truth, Akhnaton waged a bitter and stern war against the priesthoods of the old gods. It may be that the priesthoods of Amon had again attempted to overthrow the new doctrines, or had in some manner called down the particular wrath of the Pharaoh. He issued an ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... Mr. Gerrish was very bitter about the double fraud which he said Northwick had practised on the community, in having allowed the rumor of his death to gain currency. He denounced him to Mrs. Munger, making an early errand from South Hatboro' to the village to collect public opinion, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... half an hour, and brought down and clapped with the hands as before. This is done three successive times, until the leaves become to the touch like soft leather; the beating and putting away being said to give the tea the black color and bitter flavor. After this the tea is put into hot cast-iron pans, which are fixed in a circular mud fireplace, so that the flame cannot ascend round the pan to incommode the operator. This pan is well heated by a straw or bamboo fire to a certain ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... my dernier mot, it would be much more to his disadvantage than anything I liked to insert in my biography. I see his American biographer has accused me of 'bitterness.' I do not think that what is contained in my book is 'bitter' at all. But if I were to have told my last interview with him,—when I was driven practically to drive him out of our house, more or less drunk, or mad with some opiate—the charge might have had some colour. He was not a good man, and not a true or honourable one, by any manner ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been bitter, hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... and to which he must have long aspired. He hinted at the long absence of the Whig party from political power as the cause of this delay, which offended Clerk; and he paid it off by intimating in his pithy and bitter tone, which he could so well assume, that it was not of so much consequence—"Because," as he said, "ye see, my Lord, I was not juist sae sune doited as ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... sleep," said Vitalis; "I'll wake you when it's my turn, for although we have nothing to fear from animals or people in this cabin, one of us must keep awake to see that the fire does not go out. We must be careful not to get cold, for it will be bitter ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... "Thou art cynical, bitter at thy disappointment. Let us discourse together hard by. A flask of good Rhenish will soften and assuage thy humours. A drop of kirchenwasser, too, might not be taken ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... does need it, and He asks for it. And though He bore Simon the Cyrenian's sins 'in His own body on the tree,' He needed Simon the Cyrenian to help Him to bear the tree, and He needs us to help Him to spread throughout the world the blessed consequences of that Cross and bitter Passion. So to us all is granted the honour, and from us all are required the sacrifice and the service, of helping the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... books and work and fruit and flowers, piled up on a little table beside her, and every wish of her heart gratified, looking serenely happy, and smiling and nodding and beckoning to Beth. But following fast upon the vision, Aunt Victoria would be beside her in the bitter wind, wearing her old brown dress with white spots that was far too thin, and making believe that she did not shiver; then they had returned from the morning walk, and Aunt Victoria was pausing a moment at the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... pale out of our souls all our thoughts about ourselves! and we may well hold them loosely now, and be ready to let them go. Towards this result St Paul had already drawn near, when he who had begun the race with a bitter cry for deliverance from the body of his death, was able to say that he judged ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... never expected anything serious to happen, and now they were dreadfully afraid. A valiant few took arms and joined in the fray by the sides of their husbands; but the rest, finding after a few minutes that the fight raged furiously, gave way to bitter tears, and wailed protests from a safe distance, while the children followed their example with all the vigour of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... confess to him: but when I saw that he held steadfastly some opinions for no other reason than that the church so believed, and without bringing any proper evidence of the fact, viz. from councils or from the fathers, and burst out upon me with exceeding bitter words, saying, "Know that the church neither deceives, nor is deceived, and be quiet;" and when I wished him to instruct me according to the word of God, with the simple object of glorifying God and fulfilling his will, I saw that he was not disposed to support ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... be some good in the old boy," admitted Willard. "But I don't happen to like him. I do like the boy. Blood does tell, Jinny. But if he's really as much of an Ellersley as he looks, there's a bitter enlightenment before him when he comes to see Dr. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... as well, distinguishes him from Debussy. The humor of the latter was, after all, light and whimsical. That of Ravel, on the other hand, is extremely bitter. No doubt, the "icy" Ravel, the artist "a qui l'absence de sensibilite fait encore une personalite," as one of the quirites termed him, never existed save in the minds of those unable to comprehend his reticence and delicacy and essentiality. Nevertheless, besides his lyrical, dreamy, romantic ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... 'You'll have bitter words together to-morrow, Arthur; you and your mother,' said Jeremiah. 'Your having given up the business on your father's death—which she suspects, though we have left it to you to tell ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... one bitter glance at the thicket in the ravine; by only the little matter of a few yards he had failed to gain liberty. For Weir his visage when he looked around again was never more hard, hostile, full of undying hatred. Though balked, he was not submissive, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... suddenly and energetically added, with a stern look around and a bitter suggestiveness on the word as if it were enough to pronounce it; and in truth, it silenced both De La Lande and Chamilly, and appeared to make a ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... may have any one of several ends. But the girl of fourteen or fifteen, forced in this manner to leave the one room called home, and able to earn at the best a paltry five or six shillings per week, can have but one end. And the bitter end of that one end is such as that of the woman whose body the police found this morning in a doorway in Dorset Street, Whitechapel. Homeless, shelterless, sick, with no one with her in her last hour, she had died in the night of exposure. She was sixty-two years ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... meanwhile, who had been at her scrubbing since four o'clock, so that she should be through and have on her pink calico before the milk-cart rolled by, went in and cried herself sick: tasting the tears now and then to see how bitter they were,—what a hard time she had in the world; and then remembering she had not said her prayers last night, and so comprehending this judgment on her. For the Mippses were Calvinists, and pain was punishment and not a test. So Ann got up comforted; said her prayers twice with a will, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... impossible that at this late date history should have to be rewritten. Such is the fact if we would have our history true. Not Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle discovered the West, but two poor adventurers, who sacrificed all earthly possessions to the enthusiasm for discovery, and incurred such bitter hostility from the governments of France and England that their names have been hounded to infamy. These were Sieur Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur Medard Chouart Groseillers, fur traders of Three Rivers, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... stood tall and straight above them, fully revealed by purposely clustered lights. He volleyed reproach and insult upon his listeners, he gave them taunts instead of persuasion. They stood enthralled by the passionate voice, and bitter words found their mark, and ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... was far from being discouraged. He had not yet shot his bolt. When this leader of the shingle-makers learned about the magnificent offer which his father had made, surely he could never hold the same feelings of bitter resentment and hatred toward the new owner of all those miles of cypress swamps, with their millions upon millions of feet of valuable ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... relations. His engagement to the daughter of a prominent Conservative would not indeed have told in his favour with his party, to say nothing of the anomaly of Mr Milburn's unyielding opposition to the new policy. "I never knew Father so nearly bitter about anything," Dora said, a statement which left her lover ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... companions of the invincible strength and daring which he had displayed in the sudden danger, awakened a universal enthusiasm, and the plaudits and encomiums with which the whole camp resounded were doubtless as delicious and intoxicating to him as they were bitter to the king. ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... shelter, warmth and health, And love's contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... party; and these, with du Croisier as their unacknowledged head, laughed at an aristocratic oasis which nobody might enter without proof of irreproachable descent. Their animosity was all the more bitter because honest country squires and the higher officials, with a good many worthy folk in the town, were of the opinion that all the best society thereof was to be found in the Marquis d'Esgrignon's salon. The prefect himself, the Emperor's chamberlain, made overtures ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... wrong who call you wilful, although the name they give you is not kind. Have you ever considered that you stand alone in the world, and that your perverseness must make your sick mother's illness worse to bear, her life more bitter? And what sound reason can you have to give for rejecting an honest hand, stretched out to help you and ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were this a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter, into which they were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... rested upon his chest. He had all the appearance now of a man who talks in bitter earnest. Yet Hamel wondered. He looked towards the Tower; there was no sign of Meekins. The sea-gulls went screaming above their heads. Mr. Fentolin never moved. His eyes seemed half closed. It was only when Hamel rose to his feet that ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sane as death, Thy bardic chantings move; Rugged as earth, and salt as sea, And bitter-sweet ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... Lemminkainen, Thus the son of Kalevala, Was recovered from the bottom Of the Manala lake and river. There were wanting many fragments, Half the head, a hand, a fore-arm, Many other smaller portions, Life, above all else, was missing. Then the mother, well reflecting, Spake these words in bitter weeping: "From these fragments, with my magic, I will bring to life my hero." Hearing this, the raven answered, Spake these measures to the mother: "There is not in these a hero, Thou canst not revive these fragments; Eels have fed upon his body, On his eyes have fed ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... lament the loss of his friends, principally from imagining them deprived of the conveniences of life? Take away this opinion, and you remove with it all grief; for no one is afflicted merely on account of a loss sustained by himself. Perhaps we may be sorry, and grieve a little; but that bitter lamentation and those mournful tears have their origin in our apprehensions that he whom we loved is deprived of all the advantages of life, and is sensible of his loss. And we are led to this opinion by nature, without ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... his heart was bitter. He believed Macdonald had won. Some hint of proprietorship in his manner, together with her slight confusion when she saw them on the porch, had weighted ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... of Fulkerson's offer, he would have had the courage to take all the other risks himself, and would have had the satisfaction of resigning his place. As it was, he must wait till he was removed; and he figured with bitter pleasure the pain she would feel when he came home some day and told her he had been supplanted, after it was too late to close ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the bitter cherry of Canada, (tho' exceedingly unlike to ours) which would yet be propagated for the incomparable liquor it is said to yield, preferable to the best limonade, by an incision of two inches deep in the stem, and sloping to the length ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... an aromatic taste, slightly bitter and acrid, and a very marked perfume of anise which with its star-like form gives the plant one of its names. It is a very useful stimulant, tonic, ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... He grew bitter as with smiling face but shrinking soul he made his way through that crowd of his fellow-creatures whose contact was defilement. He would have lost them all rather than a song of Hester's—and yet that he would on occasion have ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the extreme Abolitionists, but as regards the South it is rather a confession than a defense. On a subject involving its whole prosperity, its essential character, its relation to the world's civilization, did it reverse its course at the bitter words of a few critics? If that were true, it would bespeak passionate irritability, an incapacity for the healthy give-and-take of practical life, in keeping with the worst that could be said of the effect of slavery on the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... they've thought themselves, with their diamond rings and big cigars. 'Wait a bit,' I've always said to myself, 'there'll come a day when you'll walk in and be glad enough of your chop and potatoes again with your half-pint of bitter.' And nine cases out of ten I've been right. James Wrench followed the course of the majority, only a little more so: tried to do others a precious sight sharper than himself, and got done; tried a dozen times to scramble up again, each time ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... a bitter tone, "Madame Gerdy is no longer the adored Valerie: 'A friend, cruel as all true friends, has opened my eyes. I doubted. You have been watched, and today, unhappily, I can doubt no more. You, Valerie, you to whom I ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... hold council, and Agamemnon sends the embassy to Achilles. The envoys bring back his bitter answer; and all men go to sleep in their huts, deeply ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... without being molested. Strange that a daughter's feelings toward a father and brother should be those of horror, and that her desire with reference to them should be merely to keep out of their sight. I had no occupation, and needed none, for I had my thoughts and my memories. These memories were bitter, yet sweet. I took the sweet, and tried to solace myself with them. The days are gone forever; no longer does the sea spread wide; no longer can I hear his voice; I can hold him in my arms no more; ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... bitter, the old stickler went through the hated words: "It is moved and seconded that we ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... takes the form of a pouring out of the heart (42:4; 62:8; 100:2, title). The psalmist does not seem to go before God with fixed and orderly petitions so much as simply to pour out his feelings and desires, whether sweet or bitter, troubled or peaceful. Consequently the prayers of the psalmist consist of varying moods: complaint, supplication, confession, ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... Semitic immigration has quickened the half mythical, half astronomical religion with a more spiritual element—of fervent adoration, of prayerful trust, of passionate contrition and self-humiliation in the bitter consciousness of sin, hitherto foreign to it, and has produced a new and beautiful religious literature, which marks its third and last stage. To this stage belong the often mentioned "Penitential Psalms," Semitic, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... note, a kind of dance music, runs through the whole piece in an incorrect and odd manner, and continually recurs, but it is always harsh and rough; it might be likened to an orange shriveled with the cold and rendered bitter. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... determined that Susan, much against her own will, submissively took the spoon and drank the soup. It tasted poor and thin, like hot water with something bitter in it; but she finished it all, and Mademoiselle received the empty basin with a nod of satisfaction. Then she busied herself in examining the condition of Susan's wet clothes, and presently hung them all to dry at a careful distance ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... the lees Drain thy bitter chalice, Pain? Silent grief all grief excels; Life and it together part— Like a restless worm it dwells Deep ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... many who quite seriously believed the racial feud was over. There were others who knew that it was still exceedingly bitter. There were others again who said very little, and perhaps professed to know very little, but in the quietness of their own thoughts pondered deeply and patriotically how a real and sincere union, and not ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... her with a bitter laugh. "Neighbors! Yes, we had neighbors then, our own people, who were with us in joy and sorrow. But here, Jacob Aboaf and I are merely tolerated by the burghers. True, they allowed us to land when we came from Jamaica on the 'Pear Tree.' ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... cup-shaped hoofs, heavy with brown loam, men's faces red with tan, blue overalls spotted with axle-grease; muscled hands, the knuckles whitened in their grip on the reins, and through it all the ammoniacal smell of the horses, the bitter reek of perspiration of beasts and men, the aroma of warm leather, the scent of dead stubble—and stronger and more penetrating than everything else, the heavy, enervating odour of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... dawn there came disappointment keen and bitter, for in the night the north-east trade had died away, and now wild, swooping rain squalls pelted and drenched the island from the westward, following each other in quick succession, and whipping the smooth water inside the reef ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... in the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience you are doing a foolish thing, one that will bring you many hours of bitter regret. This is the parting of the ways with you. Take the advice of one who loves you well and turn into the road leading to honor and success. The path which you are about to choose is obscure and difficult, and none may ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... evening sunshine. Again rocky crevices ran through the forest, giving them terribly hard work to get over, perhaps to come at once upon some boiling spring, whose water, where it trickled away and cooled, was of a filthy bitter taste that was most objectionable. Then again there were blistering pools of mud ever rising in a high ebullition, and bursting with ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... family in the world. They came of a very gentle race—an Inuit seldom loses his temper, and almost never strikes a child—who did not know exactly what telling a real lie meant, still less how to steal. They were content to spear their living out of the heart of the bitter, hopeless cold; to smile oily smiles, and tell queer ghost and fairy tales of evenings, and eat till they could eat no more, and sing the endless woman's song: "Amna aya, aya amna, ah! ah!" through the long lamp-lighted days as they mended their ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... here as delegates of the whole Tyrol," said Anthony Wallner, "to ascertain the wishes and intentions of the emperor and his government, prefer our bitter complaints, and declare the firm resolution of the Tyrolese to shrink from no sacrifice in order to be reunited with Austria and to reconquer our ancient rights ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... I do not, and I cannot, regret the end of the man Menendez. But for three reasons I should regret to pay the penalty of a crime which I did not commit, These reasons are—one," he ticked them off upon his delicate fingers—"It would be bitter to know that Devil Menendez even in death had injured me; two—My work in the world, which is unfinished; and, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... You never said so much that was good concerning me, save to introduce some bitter censure, of which your praises were the harbingers. I am honest, and so forth, you would say, but a hot brained brawler, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... to help those perceptibly below us we are apt to be condescending and to feel a secret pride. Probably this inward satisfaction accounts for the readiness of many people to undertake forms of missionary work, though they are by no means thoughtful of those around them. There has often been bitter criticism of foreign missions to the heathen on this ground. Part of it is, no doubt, just. But as bitter criticism might be made of much noble work at home, like that of the Associated ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... well as I do that your name is notorious throughout the whole land, and little hope can I give you if you are brought to trial. However, I will do what I can to delay the time as much as possible; perchance from your great age, and the bitter heart-remorse you must, no doubt, suffer, you may end your miserable life before they can lay violent hands on you. Pray to the Lord God, therefore, day by day, for your speedy death! I will, likewise, pray for you. Meanwhile, if any evil befall you, I will write petitions in your favour to all ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... hard straits by famine and disease, and conquered Antigonus in battle after killing the Roman guards that he kept about him, and reduced him by siege when he took refuge in Jerusalem. The Jews had committed many outrages upon the Romans,—for the race is very bitter when aroused to anger,—but they suffered far more themselves. The first of them were captured fighting for the precinct of their god, and later the rest on the day even then called the day of Saturn. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... group of large-site administrators who pushed through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of {USENET} during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list} disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, but the ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... an expression of relief began to steal over her countenance; but as Mary ceased speaking, she turned her face, beautiful in its angelic purity, full upon her. A bitter smile curled Florence's lip, and muttering hoarsely, "A few more hours and the struggle will be over," she turned to her bureau, and arranged her ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... threw himself into an easy-chair and awaited 'Zekiel's return. What was up? Could 'Zekiel and Huldy have parted, and was 'Zekiel glad of it? Quincy, as the saying is, passed a "bad quarter of an hour," for he did not like suspense. The truth, however bitter or unpalatable, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... when he had promised to go forward, when the doing so meant ruin to his reputation, and possibly to the cause of his king, was not only a bitter alternative, but a responsibility heavier than he was ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... by her bitter logic. His heart, in the actual physical state of it, ached for her. She would not let him save her, he thought despairingly; indeed, perhaps she could not. For she alone knew the noisome perils of her way. He relinquished his proposition, without comment, and he could see at once ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... said, almost fiercely. "For God's sake don't say such things. They—they hurt, and hurt badly; they leave a bitter taste in the mouth, a nasty pang behind. And if it were true—but it isn't, Ida!—it is I who love. Good Lord! don't you know how beautiful you are? Haven't you a looking-glass in your room? don't you know that ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... man, had much mettle in him, especially when his blood was up. He had become a Shoshone, in all except ferocity; he heartily despised the rascally Crows. As to the chief, he firmly grasped the handle of his tomahawk, so much did he feel the bitter taunts of his captive. Suddenly, a rustling was heard, then the sharp report of a rifle, and one of the Crows, leaping high in the air, fell down ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... bleeding at her feet, and her men threw the body into the sea. But God never allows a murder to go unpunished: James preferred the queen to her sister, and the widow of Charles of Durazzo gained nothing by her crime but the contempt of the man she loved, and a bitter remorse which brought her while yet young ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the stair-way alone toward a side entrance. The lady stood on the landing above, looking after him with a bitter, sneering smile. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like you well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment, as long as it lasts. It is not I who will make him hateful to you—it is his own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and its consequences: don't expect thanks for this noble devotion. I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as strong as I: the inclination is there, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... went by. The weather was colder. Bitter winds and frowning clouds were hastening somewhere to a conclave of the wintry elements. It was four days only to Christmas. Neither the promised Noah's ark to present to tiny Skeezucks nor the Christmas-tree on which the men had planned to hang their gifts was one whit ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... nothing of it, but began to toss in the delirium of his fever, living over again some of the bitter experiences of the ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... e'er his time by hardship none may know Who shirked the bitter schooling of the North, He passed away, and now forever stands As close ...
— Out of the North • Howard V. Sutherland
... feet in height. The tubers were generally small, but I found one, of an oval shape, two inches in diameter: they resembled in every respect, and had the same smell as English potatoes; but when boiled they shrunk much, and were watery and insipid, without any bitter taste. They are undoubtedly here indigenous: they grow as far south, according to Mr. Low, as latitude 50 degrees, and are called Aquinas by the wild Indians of that part: the Chilotan Indians have a different name for ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Gad and the Lord Fleetwood. Fleetwood, even in an age of Tartuffes, was especially distinguished for the fluency of his canting hypocrisy and godliness. He was a bitter persecutor of Catholics, a warm favourer of Anabaptists and the extremer fanatics of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... was profitable conversation for the Sabbath day," said Elsie, with a smile meant to be chastened, but which Aggie took for bitter, and laughed in her sleeve. A few minutes more and the two were again absorbed, this time with a point in conic sections, on which Aggie professed to require enlightenment, and again Elsie was left out. Nor did this occur either through ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the subjects to whom she had endeared herself by her goodness of heart. Funeral orations in her honour were delivered both at Mantua and Milan, and Ariosto pronounced a panegyric in verse over her grave. The young Duchess Beatrice, who had been with her mother at Venice so lately, wept bitter tears, and for several weeks could scarcely be persuaded to leave her room. Some anxiety was felt respecting her sister Isabella, who, after being married for three years, was now expecting the birth of her first child, and during ten ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... have I brought you but pain and deep anxiety? Oh, Alford, Alford! you will waken some bitter day to the truth that you love but the wraith of the girl who unconsciously won your heart. You have idealized her, and the being you now love does not exist. How can I let you ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... purpose, I do not think it right to expose myself to temptation. And now that I have put your majesty in full possession of my sentiments," she added to the king; "now that I have told you with what bitter tears I have striven to wash out my error,—I implore you to extend your protecting hand towards me, and to save me from further persecution on the part ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... refused to receive him that they might not on their part acknowledge the treaty as null, the late commander-in-chief stood in his shirt and with his hands tied behind his back for a whole day before the gates of Numantia, a pitiful spectacle to friend and foe. Yet the bitter lesson seemed utterly lost on the successor of Mancinus, his colleague in the consulship, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. While the discussions as to the treaty with Mancinus were pending in Rome, he attacked the free people of the Vaccaei ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Donovan; he could not make up his mind to resign from the regulators, and to-day his record is by no means as good as it should be. Neither Fred nor Sam cared to take him with them, for both knew by bitter experience the aim of his association, and did not wish to introduce anything of the kind ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... from Sydney, who took away with him the niece of a Bay of Islands chief, and after living with her for months abandoned her on shore in the Bay of Plenty, where she was first enslaved and finally killed and eaten by the local chief. The result was a bitter tribal war in which ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have cast themselves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young chief, who had stood motionless, with raised hand and unmoved face, during the werowance's bitter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a bracelet of gold, carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had. The excited voices fell, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... face as pale as she had ever seen it. The hand he had been holding out in protest began to shake. He lowered it to his side again, lest she should perceive its tremor. Thus a brief second, while the battle was fought within him, the bitter engagement between his desires and what he conceived to be the demands of his honour, never perceiving how far his honour was buttressed by implacable vindictiveness. Retreat, he conceived, was impossible ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... but with the initials M. T., for her proper name, Margaretha Thome. There were many fluctuations in Tabea's mind and many persuasive notes from Scheible before the nun at length promised to forsake the convent, now grown bitter to her, for the joys of a home. Even then Daniel could not help feeling insecure in regard to a piece of good fortune so dazzling, and he sent note after note to urge her to have the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... is said by European writers to be bitter to the taste, and it is regarded there as poisonous. This character seems to be the only distinguishing one between the Hypholoma sublateritium Schaeff., of Europe, and the Hypholoma perplexum Pk., of this country ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... facts clearly and these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine ceases. His is mine.' Surely words, words, words! What can be more idle, when one of the world's bitter puzzles is pressed on the teacher, than that he should betake himself to an altitude whence it is not visible, and then assure us that it is not only invisible, but non-existent? This is not to see the facts clearly, but to pour the fumes of obscuration round them. When he ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... they would be spurned by her instincts and her traditional habits of thought. The terrible voice of the Psalmist would hush every other sound. Her sweet soul would pine under the blazing fire of a curse, real or imaginary; her life would be henceforth but a bitter penance. Like the girl in Coleridge's poem of 'The Three Graves,' her very flesh would waste before the fires of her imagination. 'No,' said I, 'such a calamity as this which I dread Heaven would not permit. So cruel a joke as this Hell itself would not have ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton |
