"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look at Aunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hard on ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of the responsibilities which he had assumed, was called upon, imperatively, to act, there was but one, that of the magician or wise man, in which, by temperament and training, he was fitted to excel, and the functions of this profession drove him into to intolerably irksome and distressing position, yet a position from which throughout his life he found it impossible to escape. No one who attentively weighs the evidence can, I apprehend, escape the conviction that Moses was at bottom an honest ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the one hundred and fiftieth day, quiet was once more in evidence and the fact that God remembered, and Noah with his sons and their wives, as also the animals, was refreshed after terror so great and continuous. If a storm of two days duration causes seafarers to despair, how much more distressing was that tossing about for ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... were widening the bounds of knowledge of this new subject with details that cannot be more than referred to here. But the crowning achievement of the period in this direction was the discovery made by the German, J. L. Schoenlein, in 1839, that a very common and most distressing disease of the scalp, known as favus, is really due to the presence and growth on the scalp of a vegetable organism of microscopic size. Thus it was made clear that not merely animal but also vegetable organisms of obscure, microscopic species have causal relations to the diseases ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... was exemplified the old adage, "that man is but the creature of circumstances." Who could have foretold that in two short weeks we should think so differently, and yet in that fortnight of dark anxiety, undefined dread and forebodings, more distressing than reality itself, we had seemed to live years of misery. The bodily sufferings we had endured from the heat and burning fever of the scorching sun seemed as nothing in comparison with the horrors we afterwards underwent, and it was almost impossible to imagine that we had ever ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... sense of despair in his heart. Added to the anxiety caused by this hasty departure, jealousy entered his soul, and in this agonizing moment of disappointment the most distressing explanations ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... gentleman's name—it was altogether a disjointed, feverish business anyway—had never been pronounced in Parr's hearing. The stranger had seemed at once a torment and a comfort to Mr. Teck. Occasionally, when Parr entered, it was as if he had interrupted a distressing scene. Mr. Teck had then jumped up with a queer smile, knocking against the chairs as he went to look out of the window. There the strange gentleman would join him, to put his hand on his shoulder, soothe him in a low voice. Then one morning Mr. Teck's rooms ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... off. O that I never had been born! O that I had followed that loving Savior's voice, so often clearly heard. It is now too late, too late! O that I had returned to my first love when within my reach. But I rejected the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and justly am I now rejected. In this distressing despair I opened a little book—the Christian experience of one whose exercises of the mind traced through my own experience, even to my present despairing state, as nearly as I could have related it in my own words. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... numbers of the poor whites into the cities and towns, just now would seem to be the high tide of the Negroes' opportunity to become an independent class of citizens; and we should be careful to seize it at its flood, or all the rest of our life's voyage may be bound in shallows and miseries more distressing than those already passed. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the long level of K Street—once a cheerful, busy thoroughfare, now distressing in its silent desolation. The turbid water which seemed to meet the horizon edge before us flowed at right angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged herself on the local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... to live on the income from a miserable fifty thousand, and actually laughed in my face when I reminded her of the young lady's exalted preference for love in a cottage and joy at any price. Biding my time, I permitted the distressing truth to sink in. You will remember that Anne's letters began to come less frequently about four ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... whose care I have committed myself, has a wise and a tender heart . . . he saw no harm in my concealing from my father the spiritual reason of my giving up my curacy (for I have given it up), and only giving the outward, but equally true reason, that I found it on the whole an ineligible and distressing post. . . . I know you will apply to such an act that disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me—for my horror of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough—to show how differently, according to the difference ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... reverenced in England, and Americans in particular notice with shame the attitude which middle-class Englishmen adopt towards ladies. If the people who complain could only hear how women are spoken of in the homes of Jollity, they would feel no more amazement at a distressing social phenomenon. The talk which is chuckled over by men who have daughters of their own is something to make an inexperienced individual redden. Reverence, nobility, high chivalry, common cleanliness, cannot flourish in the precincts of the bar, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... had given him was good and true, but it had been neglected, and its very truth and excellence now made the remembrance of it unpalatable. He had, nevertheless, intended to write; but the idea of such exertion from hour to hour had become more distressing ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... admiring his unusual beauty and identifying him with the Pope fortune, had paid him small attention. She had been absorbed then in the wretched conclusion of the Foster affair. Derrick Foster had been distressing and annoying her unmercifully. After the warm and delightful friendship of several months, after luncheons and teas, opera and concerts in the greatest harmony, Derrick Foster had had the daring, the ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... howitzers and small mortars were possessed. Upwards of a thousand shells were thrown into the works this night, and every spot alike became dangerous. To talk of the thundering of the cannon, the cries of the wounded, and the shrieks and distressing gestures of the inhabitants, whose dwellings were in flames, and knew not where to seek for safety, will but give a faint picture of what was taking place. Yet amidst all this havoc, destruction, and suffering, the known scarcity of everything necessary to ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... closely connected with the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots were of course the most interesting to visitors; and in her audience-room, where she had such distressing interviews with John Knox, the famous Presbyterian divine and reformer, we saw the bed that was used by King Charles I when he resided at Holyrood, and afterwards occupied on one occasion, in September 1745, by his descendant Prince Charlie, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... whispered Honor, looking up from an inspection of some not first-rate needlework; 'it is distressing her, and displays are contrary to all ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... medical attendant called in said that he might linger thus for some time, but that, even if he recovered his intellect, which was more than doubtful, he would never be able to resume his profession. I could not leave Louise in circumstances so distressing,—I remained. The little money Duval had brought from Paris was now exhausted; and when the day on which he had been in the habit of receiving his quarter's pension came round, Louise was unable even to conjecture how it was to be applied for. It seems he had always gone for it in person; but ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the road the Doctor read his works, especially those relating to cases in hand. This custom of keeping up with the new works and periodicals of the profession he never relaxed, even after old age and the most distressing physical infirmities prevented his practice. Neither was the old shay ever abandoned; our citizens remember it well, moving carefully along these streets, with its huge calash top and faithful horse. No storm of rain or snow prevented him from keeping an appointment while he was able ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... the sound dictates of reason and experience, we, in peace, neglect our military establishment, we must, with a powerful and skilful enemy, be exposed to the most distressing calamities." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... for me properly to dispose of Pym and Peters. Peters knows no more—in fact, not as much—of Pym after he returned home, as do we. Poe, we know, in the note to his 'Narrative,' alludes to 'the late sudden and distressing death of Mr. Pym.' This is all we know, and even this fact, when I told it to Peters, was new to him; for Pym and Peters parted in the month of February, 1830, at the City of Montevideo, Uruguay; Peters, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... not only says, but FEELS, "God's will be done," is mailed against every weakness; and the whole historic array of martyrs, missionaries, and religious reformers is there to prove the tranquil-mindedness, under naturally agitating or distressing circumstances, which self-surrender brings. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Jennie; "if it were not for fear of distressing mother, I would insist that we go ten or fifteen miles further ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... about lack of concentration, an inattention; and this brings about an inefficiency that worries the patient beyond words as portending a mental breakdown. Fatigue of purpose brings a listlessness of effort, a shirking of the strenuous, the more distressing because the victim is often enough an idealist with over-lofty purposes. Fatigue of mood is marked by depression of a mild kind, a liability to worry, an unenthusiasm for those one loves or for the things formerly held dearest. And finally ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... Willading was laid upon his arm, and he yielded to this silent but impressive entreaty, for just then he saw that his sister was about to be relieved from her distressing solitude. The throng yielded, and a decent pair, attired in the guise of small but comfortable proprietors, moved doubtingly towards the bride. The eyes of Christine filled with tears, for terror and ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... eyes would fill with sympathy. "Poor Mrs. Pendleton," she would often say to Elsie after one of these distressing allusions. "How terrible it must have been. Think of seeing some one you love dying that way, by inches before your eyes. She must have been very fond of him, too. She always speaks of him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... an eternity he lay thinking, unable to come to any rational conclusion. The distressing effect of the light rays increased, rather than diminished, as his nerves became more and more unstrung. It seemed, even with, his eyes closed, that he could feel the weight of the cone of light upon his face. The desire to escape from its searching glare became well-nigh irresistible. ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... difficulty of their consisting so much more of "character" than of "incident" (heaven save the artless opposition!) though this last element figured bravely enough too, thanks to some of the forms taken by our young Albert's wild wilfulness. He was so weak—after the most approved fashion of distressing young men of means—that his successive exhibitions of it had a fine high positive effect, such as would have served beautifully, act after act, for the descent of the curtain. The issue, however ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... breathing constantly increasing on him, Henry wore through the greater part of the day, upon the river, until it was necessary to land, and be taken through the forest in his litter. He was now obliged to be lifted from the barge; and his weariness rendered the conveyance very distressing, save that his patient smile never faded; and still he said, 'All will be well when I come to ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very distressing to me, Sir, to give this information,' said Miss Witherfield, 'but I fear a duel is going to be ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Shakespeare's day, however, painted scenery had appeared, first at university plays, and then in the regular theaters.[135] In all our first plays female parts were taken by boy actors, who evidently were more distressing than the crude scenery, for contemporary literature has many satirical references to their acting,[136] and even ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Green Mountain Boys, than the raising of the paltry force which even the bes' of these propositions involves. And I doubt not the means of so doing may be soon and abundantly supplied, without infringing the constitution or distressing the people. And I therefore move, sir, that this council resolve to raise a full regiment of men, forthwith appoint their officers, and take such prompt and speedy measures for their enlistment, that, within one week every glen ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... stared at him in an amazement that gradually changed to something like admiration. She suddenly realized that, if she could have chosen her escort, nobody would have so well suited as Marty Day under these distressing circumstances. He might not be very wise, but he was ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... it seized upon a person, brought upon him a most distressing horror of mind. This was followed by fever and delirium. But the certain signs of the plague were spots, pustules, and swellings, which spread over the whole body. Death in most cases rapidly followed. Some there were who recovered, but the majority gave themselves over for lost ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... me," he said apologetically, "for recalling what must be distressing. But we newspapermen often have to do things and ask questions that are distasteful. I believe it is rumored that your father suffered from ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the other vessel was out of hearing, Dr. Perrin turned to me and said: "Mrs. Abbott, we came out to see Mr. van Tuiver, to warn him of a distressing accident which has just happened. Mrs. van Tuiver was asleep in her room, and Miss Lyman and another of the nurses were in the next room. They indiscreetly made some remarks on the subject which we have all been discussing—how much a wife should be told about ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... attentively for the slightest sound. A sudden crash in the jungle at a great distance assured us that we were once more discovered. The chase seemed hopeless; the heat was most oppressive; and we had been running for the last hour at a killing pace through a most distressing country. Once more, however, we started off, determined to keep up the pursuit as long as daylight would permit. It was now 5 P.M., and we had one hour left before darkness would set in. The wind had entirely ceased, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... illustrative instances. He worked most of all in the East End, he told Frida confidentially: there he could see best the remote results of certain painful English customs and usages he was anxious to study. Still, he often went west, too; for the West End taboos, though not in some cases so distressing as the East End ones, were at times much more curiously illustrative and ridiculous. He must master all branches of the subject alike. He spoke so seriously that after a time Frida, who was just at first inclined to laugh at ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... objects of the deepest spite;—the one for interfering, the other for having been the innocent cause; and he no sooner saw her in the post-office than he promised himself revenge, such revenge as only the meanest and most cowardly spirit could have taken pleasure in. His best way of distressing Ellen, he found, was through her horse; he had almost satisfied himself; but very naturally his feelings of spite had grown stronger and blunter with indulgence, and he meant to wind up with such a treatment of her pony, real or seeming, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... contemplative character, averse to uproar, undue exercise of his bodily members, and all kind of useless confusion, nothing can be more distressing than a proceeding in all men-of-war called "general quarters." And well may it be so called, since it amounts to a general drawing and quartering of all ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... variation of the magnetic needle or of the pulse. Variety is a succession of changes or an intermixture of different things, and is always thought of as agreeable. Vicissitude is sharp, sudden, or violent change, always thought of as surprising and often as disturbing or distressing; as, the vicissitudes of politics. Transition is change by passing from one place or state to another, especially in a natural, regular, or orderly way; as, the transition from spring to summer, or from youth to manhood. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... marriage WOULD have been happy, but my husband met with a distressing accident, which necessitated an amputation ^{of his right leg} of his wrong leg. So ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... Last night brother Craik and I were called out of bed to a poor woman ill in the cholera. She was suffering intensely. We never saw a case so distressing. We could hardly say any thing to her on account of her loud cries. I felt as if the cholera was coming upon me. We commended ourselves into the hands of the Lord when we came home, and He mercifully preserved us. ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... the period in which our tale opens, an event occurred which altered the course of Captain Ellice's life, and for a long period plunged him into the deepest affliction. This was the loss of his wife at sea, under peculiarly distressing circumstances. ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... in his kindness that it would be much more distressing if the Germans came into Ghent ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... the step before he repented of it. His letters to his brother George, who with other friends bestirred himself for Coleridge's release as soon as his whereabouts was discovered, are rather distressing in their self-abasement. The efforts of his friends were successful and in April he returned to the University, where a public admonition was the extent of his punishment, and he continued in receipt of his Christ's ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... very trying!" he was saying, as I came in; but he never sounds an r, so that he said, "vewy twying." I don't know whether it is that he can't, or that he won't. "Very trying, truly, Madam, to see men give their lives for a falling cause. Distressing—quite so." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... We had a mutual terror that he was dead, but we did not give it utterance; there was no need. We knew that the same fear was in both our minds, and we tried to avoid it. We imagined that we ought to be very cheerful, and banish all gloomy and distressing subjects. It was a kind of hymeneal day with us! There were wild altars in our thoughts, hung with garlands, and lighted up by sunshine; and to these we brought our vows and offerings, and all the mirth and gayety, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... some remark which he asked Ibrahim to explain; the latter replied in a sarcastic manner in Arabic, a language with which I am unacquainted. [1] This determined hostility on the part of the Ras el Caffilah was particularly distressing to me, as I feared he would do me much mischief. I therefore determined to gain him over to my interests, and accordingly, taking Deeni on one side, I promised him a handsome present if he would take an opportunity of explaining to Ibrahim that he should be ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... allowing his temples to be moistened with some refreshing waters, and had with difficulty been brought to give his consent; he said he feared it was too great a luxury. When the same friend offered him some liquid to allay his distressing thirst his answer was the same.'—Sermon at the funeral of the Right Rev. ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the truth as one of the rankest and most criminal offenses possible. One dared not "talk out loud," one dared not report life as it was, as one lived it. And one of the primary warnings I had received from the president of this very organization—a most eager and ambitious and distressing example of that American pseudo-morality which combines a pirate-like acquisitiveness with an inward and absolute conviction of righteousness—was that while he wanted something new in fiction, something more virile and life-like than that "mush," as he characterized it, to be found ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... protection, and we were too short of beads and cloth to search out for and pay another chief of more moderate inclinations. This was a serious misfortune; for, having once entered his dominions and established our headquarters there, we could not very well leave them. This was the more distressing, as comfort, pleasure, and everything is at the mercy of these headsmen's wills, and we were destined for a long sojourn here. To war with these chiefs is like "cutting off the nose to spite the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Elphinstone entered. On his observing my mother's paleness, he requested to know if anything of a serious nature had occurred in the family. "No," replied she, "except the loss of a favourite bird, which I certainly regret, as it was killed by the cat in a most distressing manner, and," added she, "my spirits are not at this moment very good in consequence of my son's wishing to enter the Navy." "The first," said he, "I lament, as it has deprived you of a pet; the latter may in the end be a matter of rejoicing. Who knows but ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... not suspect. I thought there was no need of distressing her. I wanted to tell you while I was able, because—" Harry hesitated, then he continued: "Father wanted to tell you how sorry he was not to make any better provision for you," he said, pitifully. "He didn't want you to think it was because he ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the glade their voices reached him. They were there, after all! He could hear them utter their pitiful "ay-ee—ay-ee!" and, as he thought, in a louder and more distressing tone than ever. What could be the matter? They had been silent for some time, he was sure, for such cries as they now uttered could have been heard easily where the rest were. What could be the meaning of this fresh outburst? ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... extraordinary dress, and the strained tones of her voice so surprised me that I hesitated some moments before replying. Her agitation at my silence was distressing, and calming her as well as I could, and promising to help her to get a cab, I asked her a few questions. Her answers showed that she was suffering from some terrible nervous excitement. She asked me if I knew any baronet—any ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... number of babies were born under the most distressing and pathetic circumstances, the mothers in many cases being unattended by either husbands or relatives. In Golden Gate Park alone fifteen babies were born in one night, it was reported. The excitement and agony of the situation brought the little ones prematurely into the world. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... expedients begotten by the practical logic of momentary convenience, we must confess that its gifted authors lacked a direct eye for the wayward tides of national and international movements; were, in fact, smitten by political blindness, and did the best they could in these distressing circumstances. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... strange officers and the insolence of strange servants, repeated over and over again within the compass of every month. They have also that other misery of packing and unpacking trunks—of running the distressing gauntlet of custom-houses—of the anxieties attendant upon getting a mass of baggage from point to point on land in safety. I had rasher sail with a whole brigade of patriarchs than suffer so. We ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... they were not coupled with their corresponding practice in regard to moral and domestic obligations. There is generally a due proportion kept in 'the music of men's lives.' ... Of many of the facts of this distressing case we are not ignorant; but God knows they are not for a newspaper. Fortunately they fall within very general knowledge, in London at least; if they had not they would never have found their ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... very distressing, because, in the first place, Dorothy was extremely fond of visiting, and, in the second place, she was getting rather tired of sailing about on the sideboard; and she was therefore greatly pleased when she presently came to a door without any notice upon it. There was, moreover, ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... prodigies by shutting between the upper berth and the wall three times as many blankets, mattresses, board partitions, and other paraphernalia as one would have thought the space could possibly contain, and was sitting in the corner section reflectively chewing a toothpick. There appeared to be a distressing lack of interest in the train on the part of all its proximate officials; no one seemed ready to alter the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... with her name brazenly announced as author. Suppose it were Passion's Perils! She would surely have to leave town after that! She would be too ashamed to stay. Still she would be proud, also, for by that time they would be calling her to Hollywood itself. Of course nothing so distressing—or so grand—had happened yet, for none of her dramas had been accepted; but she was coming on. It ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... down, and drew my hat over my face. I could not endure to stare at them, and, full of our real errand, I felt ashamed , even of being seen by them. The very idea of a design, however far from illaudable is always distressing and uncomfortable. Consequently, I should have stood in the herd, and unregarded; but Lady Louisa's kindness and good breeding put me in a place too conspicuous to pass unnoticed. The moment the queen had spoken to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... inside prison-door heard a cry of murder near the outer door of the jail, and running to the door she saw Morgan struggling with the two men who had come for him. He continued to scream and cry in the most distressing manner, at the same time struggling with all his strength; his voice was suppressed by something that was put over his mouth, and a man following behind rapped loudly upon the well-curb with a stick; a carriage came ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... two days after his distressing loss, befriending this sheik and trying to involve ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... these people were most peculiarly and unpleasantly situated. Conscious in their own minds that the sentence of the law had been fulfilled upon them, it must have been truly distressing to their feelings to find that they could not be considered in any other light, or received into any other situation, than that in which alone they had been hitherto known in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... will come when all that pomp will be very irksome to you, and you will wish that the Company would let you dress simply and sensibly in a uniform suited to this terrible climate, and in which you could use your limbs freely without distressing ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... of the Irishman flushed scarlet, and his confusion was distressing. "Teddy," he continued, "I am displeased at the manner in which you have acted for the last week or two. Had it not happened that I left the village sooner than usual to-day, most probably my wife and son ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... say you are both right, and in any case I shouldn't like to persist in a point of view which might naturally enough become distressing to our young friend here. Tell you what I'll do to show my penitence. I shall order a bottle of wine, and we'll drink to the welfare of the missing Mr. Philip Romilly, wherever he may be. Pommery, steward, ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of silence which had been imposed on him by a desire to avoid unnecessarily distressing his mother, had been years of thought, perhaps the richer and riper from the fact that he had refrained from active participation in political life. Like all his class at the South, he was, if not a ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... comes. But they will not count for much then. Most of them will be heartily ashamed of what they said in those first three or four weeks of blue funk (I am too timid myself not to make allowances for that most distressing and universal, but fortunately transient effect of war); and most of those who are not will be ashamed to bear ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... sorry for you. For it is sad to see the friends one loves change. This replacement of one soul by another, in a body that remains the same as it was, is a distressing sight. One feels oneself betrayed! I have experienced ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... here—or the delicacy of the approach of General Fox; then, it is only for me to grieve, and intreat of you to come here, and bring the Northumberland—that, at least, I may prevent supplies getting in: and, for this purpose, I shall be under the distressing necessity of taking as many ships as possible from Minorca; which, I assure you, would hurt ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... at the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be no other than anonymous, or the inquiry ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... fear and shuddering, only allowed the children to live with grandmother for a limited time, and that in fact as soon{30} as they were big enough, they were promptly taken away, to live with the said "old master." These were distressing revelations indeed; and though I was quite too young to comprehend the full import of the intelligence, and mostly spent my childhood days in gleesome sports with the other children, a shade of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... support than the direst certainty. The strokes of the unfortunate miners continued to reply to theirs, which added to their agitation, from the fear of not being able to afford them effectual help. They almost thought that in such a painful moment their situation was more distressing than those they sought to save, as the latter were, at any rate, sustained ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... he would come to poverty, and that he was eternally lost." The whole middle-class have a conception of things,—a conception which makes us call them Philistines,—just like that of this poor man; though we are seldom, of course, shocked by seeing it take the distressing, violently morbid, and fatal turn, which [187] it took with him. But how generally, with how many of us, are the main concerns of life limited to these two,—the concern for making money, and the concern for saving our ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... accept the proffered bribe. On the contrary, his whole recorded career ought to disprove the supposition. Yet it is painful, to find him, at this crisis, assiduous in his attempts to undo the great work of his own life, and still more distressing to find that great rewards were distinctly offered to him for such service. Immense promises had been frequently made no doubt to William the Silent; nor could any public man, in such times, be so pure that an attempt to tamper with him might not be made: but when the personage, thus solicited, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bewildered sense. Nor could she remain on the present terms of relation—that, also, was but too clear. If Ralph were at home, how different everything would be! He would lead her with a word out of this distressing maze. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... became silent. The tones of the instrument died slowly away, and the voice of the singer ceased to pour forth its song. The windows were still unclosed, for the invalid had reached that distressing stage in his malady, when his oppressed breathing required a constant circulation of free air. A lamp burning beneath an alabaster shade was swung from the centre of the ceiling, and its mellow lustre diffused a faint moonlight radiance throughout ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... veil of yellowish grey, that shut out the face of the sun. The streets were utterly silent, being indeed almost entirely deserted; and not without cause, for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the blood, closes up the pores of the skin, and is terribly distressing, therefore, to every animal that encounters it. I returned to my rooms dreadfully ill. My head ached with a burning pain, and my pulse bounded quick and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the instance of the poor Levantine, whose death I was mentioning), the fear and excitement which I felt in trying ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... pioneer efforts. These differences are both climatic and geographical. For instance, the conditions in the south are more severe than those in the north, both in the lowness of the temperatures and in the distressing frequency of blizzards and strong winds. And the geographical difference between the work of the northern and the southern sledge-traveler is as great as the climatic, if not greater, for the main ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... poor woman seemed to have reached the last pitch of endurance. "Let me die!" she cried. "I can bear life no longer." To Mary and the saints she appealed with a passionate grief that was distressing to witness. All the efforts of her husband and her children failed to sooth her; and, as often happens in a complication of troubles, she seized upon the most trifling as the text of ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... the Honourable Company's ship Glatton. We made signals to her with our handkerchiefs at the mast-head, she unfortunately took no notice of them, but tacked and stood from us. Our situation was now truly distressing, night closing fast, with a threatening appearance, blowing fresh, with hard rain and a heavy sea; our boat very leaky, without a compass, anchor or provisions, and drifting fast on a lee-shore, surrounded with dangerous rocks, and inhabited ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... anxiety of her official friends that she should not outlive her powers: her influence generally was so great that to them the thought of this was distressing. They were always very solicitous about her health, writing to her frequently to say that she should take life more easily, "Take care of yourself, Ma—as much as you can." "Don't be so ridiculously unselfish." "Learn a little selfishness—it ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... repetition of what it knows is safe; but such heavy things as theories, opinions, and arguments must be kept carefully concealed from it, for fear of causing congestion or paralysis, or, worse still, that parlous condition which betrays itself in distressing symptoms such as one sees daily in society, or sits and shudders at in one's own friends, when the victim, swelling with importance, makes confident mis-statements, draws erroneous conclusions, sums up and gives advice so fatuous ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... chapter on Healing and Teaching,(8) and was so deeply interested that I began reading that blessed chapter over again,—when I found I was cured of my dyspepsia, that I could use my strength in lifting without feeling the old distressing pain in my side, and also that the pain in the kidneys only came on at night, waking me out of sleep. Then I began my first conscious treatments: of course I followed no formula, and I needed none. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... unnatural than that we should at times be perfectly happy and well contented. Thus are we all made, and thus are we all, at times, inconsistent; being often unhappy when there is no assignable cause, and often experiencing the sense of great happiness, under circumstances apparently the most distressing. ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... according to his promise; distressing reports were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived in Milford Haven with the dukes of Albemarle, Exeter, and Surrey, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... it not distressing to find that this talented author, so superior in other respects to the crude compilers of monkish history, cannot rise above the superstition of the age? Is it not deplorable that a mind so gifted could rely with ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... journey. My interest in the oyster is now secondary. They don't flourish in Southwark; whelks more in our way down there. Still one cannot forget old associations, and confess I'm rather knocked over to hear this report MACINNES has brought up. Can't imagine anything more distressing than the spectacle of a drunken oyster—probably with dishevelled beard—coming home late at night and trying to get into another Native's shell under impression that he has recognised his own front door. Must see WILFRID LAWSON about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... silence, I think I can answer, particularly when I give him a gentle hint of the station of Beckendorff, for his preserving the confidence with which it will now be our policy partially to entrust him. It is, to say the least, awkward and distressing to leave you alone; but what is to be done? It does not appear that I can now be of any material service to you. I have assisted you as much as, and more than, we could reasonably have supposed it would have been in my power to have done, by throwing some light upon the character and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... perhaps a few months later, as when exposed to the elements in the open air. Nay, had it lost a thousand of its best men in the way in which it lost so many at the storming of New Orleans, the blank ere now would have been completely filled up. The calamities of fire or of decimation even, however distressing in themselves, never yet ruined a country: no calamity ruins a country that leaves the surviving inhabitants to develope, in their old circumstances, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... country, and the confidence of his own State, as we have recently seen, by his being called from that honorable retirement to take part in the grave and solemn duties of this assembly. Sir, he came among us in obedience to the solemn call of patriotic duty, at a most exigent and distressing period in our national annals. He came here on an errand of peace, in the spirit of peace and conciliation. Such was the feeling entertained toward him by the whole of this assembly, that without the slightest preconcert, so far as I know, he was invited by general consent to preside ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... was looking tired and limp after a distressing night and day, said, "What shall you ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... advancing; the men were exhausting themselves in vain efforts: hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the Viceroy at length found himself necessitated to order his artillery and all his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The owners had scarcely time to part from their effects; while they were selecting from them the articles which they most needed, and loading horses with them, a multitude of soldiers ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... citizens of the United States, or those claiming to be such, are large holders in Cuba of what is there claimed as property, but which is forbidden and denounced by the laws of the United States. They are thus, in defiance of the spirit of our own laws, contributing to the continuance of this distressing and sickening contest. In my last annual message I referred to this subject, and I again recommend such legislation as may be proper to denounce, and, if not prevent, at least to discourage American citizens from holding or dealing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... may have been their untutored ignorance, but when that sheeted rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval College, and a solid squad or two of our lads went down, and following that the snipers began to get them in ones and twos and threes—when that happened there was no distressing confusion in their ranks. When, later, it became necessary for the Prairie and Chester to fire just over their heads to batter the walls of that same War College, it made no difference. The ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent—they knew it would be—and when the shells went whistling through ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... shrewd idea of them—but the irrational excitement which keeps the brain constantly thinking of the impending race, and prevents the sufferer from sitting still or having any comfort, or, in the most serious cases, any sleep, for two or three days before it. It is a real malady, which is most distressing to those who are subject to it, but which, luckily, does not do any harm when once the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... well-intentioned persons and well-wishers to the fund, who, having all along paid their subscriptions regularly, are so unfortunate as to die before the six months, which would entitle them to their freedom, are quite completed. One can hardly imagine a more distressing case than that of a poor fellow lingering on in a consumption till the period of his freedom is almost in sight, and then finding himself going with a velocity which makes it doubtful whether he shall be entitled ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Many distressing thoughts took possession of Sir Thomas as he lay in bed. He had made up his mind that he would in no way break the law, and he didn't know whether he had not broken it already by giving these people tobacco and wine. And yet it would have been impossible for him to have refused Mr. Trigger permission ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... every sensation of onward movement; and the effect was of being shaken in a stationary apparatus like a mediaeval device for the punishment of crime, or some very newfangled invention for the cure of a sluggish liver. It was extremely distressing; and the raising of Mrs Verloc's mother's voice sounded like a wail ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... from you, I don't know for what purpose, at least I must make some little use of my pen, to prevent all communication from being cut off between your excellency and myself. I have written lately to you my distressing, ridiculous, foolish, and, indeed, nameless situation. I am sent, with a great noise, at the head of an army for doing great things; the whole continent, France and Europe herself, and what is the worse, the British army, are in great expectations. How far they will be deceived, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... of Martiniques, a sort of wild, untamed creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French which even he did not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly dubbed patois. Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names only at the question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only to those who open wide their mouths and cry, "Caje-vous?" Then on again ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... your Blanket Club remain in bankruptcy, or what must have been an even more distressing alternative to you, did Jobling continue to use bad language ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... mind should for a time be spared the agitation of business. The physicians who attended him agreed, as to his disorder, only in this, that it was the result of mental fatigue and melancholy, and could be cured only by removing all distressing and perplexing subjects from his thoughts, but all the physicians in the world could not have succeeded in turning his attention for an instant from the great cause of his country. Leyden lay, as it were, anxious and despairing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was considered an experienced Indian trader. It was a great object with Captain Bonneville to get to the mountains before the summer heats and summer flies should render the travelling across the prairies distressing; and before the annual assemblages of people connected with the fur trade should have broken up, and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Evil, Neuralgia, Gout, and kindred complaints all arise from the derangements which these PILLS rapidly cure. Take them perseveringly, and under the counsel of a good physician if you can; if not, take them judiciously by such advice as we give you, and the distressing, dangerous diseases they cure, which afflict so many millions of the human race, are cast out like the devils of old—they must burrow in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... strong a character, that he winced, as with extreme pain, at every application of censure to her name. These censures were often exaggerated, it is true; but when they were just in their judgment of the outward circumstances of the case, they were not the less painful and distressing to him. His first rebound to Jemima was occasioned by Mrs Bradshaw's account of how severely her husband was displeased at her daughter's having taken part with Ruth; and he could have thanked and almost blessed Jemima when she dropped in (she dared do no more) her pleading excuses and charitable ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it seems to me he has been the innocent cause of a far more distressing fever which rages high just now; what we may call the Benevolent-Platform Fever. Howard is to be regarded as the unlucky fountain of that tumultuous frothy ocean-tide of benevolent sentimentality, "abolition of punishment," all-absorbing "prison-discipline," and general ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... they reached shore some old friends of her father's took her and him to their house, a quiet place upon the Berea. Here, now that the first excitement of rescue and grief was over, the inevitable reaction set in, bringing with it weakness so distressing that the doctor insisted upon her going to bed, where she remained for the next five days. With the healing up of the wound in her head her strength came back to her at last, but it was a very sad Benita who crept ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... limited bounds. The embargo, passed without limitation of time, (a thing unprecedented,) was fastened upon the bosom of her commerce, until life was extinguished. The ostensible object of this measure, was to force Great Britain to terms, by distressing the West Indies for food. But while England commanded the seas, her colonies were not likely to starve; and for the sake of this doubtful experiment, a certain and incalculable injury was inflicted upon the Northern States. Seamen, and the numerous classes of mechanics connected ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... to the dangerous illness of your niece?" said Brigida. "I heard of it this evening. Let us hope that your fears are exaggerated, and that we may yet meet under less distressing circumstances. I have no present intention of leaving Pisa for some time, and I shall always be glad to thank Father Rocco for the politeness and consideration which he showed to me, under delicate circumstances, a ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... the last of the letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son, Mr. Philip Stanhope, who died in November, 1768. The unexpected and distressing intelligence was announced by the lady to whom Mr. Stanhope had been married for several years, unknown to his father. On learning that the widow had two sons, the issue of this marriage, Lord Chesterfield took upon himself the maintenance of his grandchildren. The letters which follow show how ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... sermons. What is the admission I was going to make? Well, I will now tell you, right off. I fell in love. Quite hopelessly, desperately in love. It was very annoying and distressing, for had I not, up to then, loved so many that I loved no one in particular, at any rate, except for short periods of time. What was coming over me, I wondered? Oh, but, whatever it was, it was indeed sweet, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... and distressing truth occurred to me. Did she believe that I pitied her? I hoped not. Any woman of common sensibility would almost die of shame at the thought of being loved out of pity; and, what is more, she would think none the better ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... feathers, perched upon the brim of the hat where the Goblin had been sitting, and, after solemnly gazing at him for a few moments, softly murmured, "I'm a Cockalorum," and flew heavily away. All this was very sad and distressing, and Davy was mournfully wondering what would happen to him next, when it suddenly struck him that his legs were feeling very cold, and, looking down at them, he discovered, to his great alarm, that the crown of the Goblin's hat had entirely disappeared, leaving nothing but the brim, upon ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... eyes and swollen eyelids, while I was in the daily habit of visiting the Liverpool literati—these, on my settling at Keswick, were followed by large boils in my neck and shoulders; these, by a violent rheumatic fever; this, by a distressing and tedious hydrocele; and, since then, by irregular gout, which promises at this moment to ripen into a legitimate fit. What uninterrupted rural retirement can have had to do in the production of these outward and visible evils, I cannot guess; what share it has had ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... was not very distressing. John and Erasmus Henry were abroad; and each had an office at Rome, in which he was able to support himself. Charles had for some time been entirely dependent on his father, and administered to his effects, as he died ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... midnight excursion to the orchard had given him a fresh attack of a familiar and distressing ailment to which he always alluded as "the brown kittys." Fortunately, however, the cure for asthma and bronchitis was contained in the same quart bottle, and needed only to be heated in order to ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... portents already mentioned, there was no sign of the coming breeze. The night fell as dark as a wolf's mouth; the air was so close and hot that the mere act of breathing was performed with difficulty; and the quick, jerky roll of the schooner at length became positively distressing in its persistent monotony. Of course, under the circumstances, turning in was not to be thought of, so far as I was concerned. I therefore made myself as comfortable as I could upon the wheel-grating, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... things to Ethel's judgment, and her instructions as jotted down on a slip of paper included three possibilities. "Eggs, stuffed, devilled, or farci," she had written, and the Goblin was endeavouring to decide which of these presented the least distressing responsibility. He was a student of mathematics, and had attempted to reduce the problem to a logical syllabus. He read over ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... good or beautiful. By degrees we submit, and are reconciled to our fate, like patients to the physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying, as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this thoroughly and like a master, and we forgive all ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... had to go on board the train and identify him," persisted Flame's Mother. "It was very distressing.... The Constable was most unwilling to release him. Your Father had to use every kind ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... party, and recovered the girls. The same day on which this attempt was made, the Indians divided themselves into different parties, and attacked several forts, which were shortly before this time erected, doing a great deal of mischief. This was extremely distressing to the new settlers. The innocent husbandman was shot down, while busy cultivating the soil for his family's supply. Most of the cattle around the stations were destroyed. They continued their hostilities in this manner until the fifteenth of April, ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... city were under water from the overflow of the Potomac, which was backed up by the influx of the Atlantic into Chesapeake Bay, and the most distressing scenes were enacted there, people fleeing in the utmost disorder toward higher ground, carrying their children and some of their household goods, and uttering doleful cries. Many, thinking that the best way to escape, embarked in frail boats on the river, which was running up-stream with frightful ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... been a distressing time indeed for the Duchess of Cumberland. She has lost her eldest son (killed in an automobile accident on the way to Schwerin to see his sister, the Grand Duchess) and now it is her brother who is taken so tragically. The young duke was very unwise to take that particular road. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone |
