"Tedious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... certain no other passengers would turn up. Consequently no trains were ever on time, and the Government was forced to do away with time entirely. Another thing that was abolished was hot weather. It had been found too tedious to tilt the axis of the earth, therefore all the thermometers were re-scaled. When the temperature was really 96 degrees, the mercury registered only 70 degrees, and every one was saying how jolly cool it was for the time of year. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... for the one to whom they gracefully alluded as 'this undoubtedly youthful, but nevertheless, distinctly promising writer of books.' While admitting that altogether they found the production undeniably tedious, they claimed to have discovered indications of an obvious talent, and therefore they unhesitatingly counselled the person in question to take courage at the prospect of a moderate competency which was certainly within his grasp if he restrained ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... this country. One of them settled in Bordentown in New Jersey, and Achille Murat, after his marriage to his Virginia bride, became a resident of Florida. Madame Murat told me of some of the visits she made to France when the voyage was long and tedious. She had many articles of vertu around her, and I especially recall a superb marble bust by Canova of her mother-in-law, Queen Caroline. I expressed surprise at the extreme attractiveness of the late Queen, as ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... blessed vision gleam'd. Its mystery woke The romance of his nature. Every day Moved lighter on, and when he laid it down, It breathed "good night!" like a complacent child Going to rest. One barrier less remain'd Between him and the goal, and to each night A tarrying, tedious guest, he bade farewell, Like lover, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... that they capture, and their duties mere pastime pleasures compared with their own arduous ones, and it is a natural consequence, in the nature of man, that he should become dissatisfied under these circumstances. Patriotism fails, in a long and tedious war like this, to sustain the ponderous burdens which bear heavily and cruelly upon the heart and soul of man." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiii. p. 1081.] General Rosser recommended the absorption of the partisan bodies into the ordinary brigades, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... about for something more satisfactory than mystic symbolism; so also was Emerson. "Mysticism" (he writes) "consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. . . . The mystic must be steadily told, 'All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it.'" Emerson's uneasiness is manifest. He is rebelling, but is not quite sure of his ground. At one time he inclines to think the mystic in fault because he "nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false." ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... the terms of the news Reeled random round my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom Of ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... were, yet full of life and strength. The trip from the chasm had been tedious, merely a long succession of hours in the rushing air, with unbroken forest, hills, lakes, rivers, and ever more forest steadily rolling away to westward like a vast ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... mistake of the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing, or column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the left was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace, made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... very tedious and dry to me. I could, get through Smudge's quantum of accounts easily in half my time:—the rest of my hours ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... has been the development of this rudimentary love to the highly evolved love of to-day, just so long and tedious would be my sketch of that development. However, the factors may be hinted. The increasing correspondence of life with its environment brought about wider and wider generalisations upon that environment and the relations ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... disproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should, therefore, always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an incumbrance, and instead of lightening ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... cohorts and the more odious drone of meddling monks!" And yet, as Mackinnon observed, there still stood the dirty friars and the small French soldiers; and there still toiled the slow priests, wending their tedious way up to the church of the Ara Coeli. But that was the mundane view of the matter,—a view not regarded by Mrs. Talboys in her ecstasy. "O Italia," she continued, "O Italia una, one and indivisible in thy rights, and indivisible also ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... at hand—long days of barrack routine and enforced idleness. To Captain Grant these days coming after the excitement of Mexico were at first welcome, then speedily grew tedious. He had always hated the humdrum life of the drill ground. Now he was shifted, after a few months, to a camp at San Francisco. The distance was so great, travelling as they did by way of the Isthmus of Panama (this was long before the railroads), that he could not take ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... no one would prevent their flight. Further, if they awaited the assault it would cost me the greater part of my remaining ammunition, and my best men; while, if the enemy fled, nothing would be accomplished, but on the contrary a long, tedious, and costly war would be entered upon. Hence, with the opinion and advice of the captains I negotiated for peace; and told them that I would admit them to friendship ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... all very true, I dare say," observed the pacha; "but you will oblige me by leaving out all those you knows, which I agree with your comrade Hussan to be very tedious." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of Standing Water in the Subsoil* may be best explained in connection with the description of a soil which needs under-draining. It would be tedious, and superfluous, to attempt to detail the various geological formations and conditions which make the soil unprofitably wet, and render draining necessary. Nor,—as this work is intended as a hand-book for practical use,—is it ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... which he lives must be one of general laws, and not of capricious expedients; and that there are two restraints on his wild or pernicious activity,—one inward, from his moral nature, the other outward, from material Nature. After illustrating these at considerable, though by no means tedious length, Dr. Dewey proceeds to exhibit the adaptation of the material world to human culture,—the physical and moral constitution of man, and the complexity of his being,—the mental and moral activity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... increases with the size of the masses. If the advancing armies are large and unwieldy, and the distances to be covered great, it will be a difficult and tedious task for the defending commander to take proper measures against a surprise attack. On the other hand, the prospects of success of the attacking General will be very favourable, especially if he is in the fortunate position of having better troops ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... vastly pleased. His scheme for evading the tedious responsibilities of sovereignty had been executed without a hitch; he was officially dead; and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a miller and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to be unimpeachably conducted. He assumed the name of Paul ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... (Reverend Rational-bliss we may render his adopted name), representative of Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. The representative Hindu was not even a member of the priestly caste, as we have already told. It were tedious to analyse his Hinduism, as set forth at Chicago and elsewhere, into what was Christianity or modern thought, and what, on the other hand, was Hinduism. Suffice it to say that as Narendra Nath Dutt, B.A., he figures on the roll ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... here they taste Are sharp and tedious too, The Lord, who saves them all at last, Is their ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... young people not accustomed to the dramatic form of writing. But this fault, if it be a fault, has been caused by an earnest wish to give as much of Shakespeare's own words as possible: and if the "He said" and "She said," the question and the reply, should sometimes seem tedious to their young ears, they must pardon it, because it was the only way in which could be given to them a few hints and little foretastes of the great pleasure which awaits them in their elder years, when they come to the rich treasures from which these small and valueless ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... hope for success in our search. To date all had gone according to plan. We had followed the route of Omega as far as it had been charted, and then gone on, studying the stars ahead for evidence of planets. We had made our first finds early in the fourth year of the voyage. It had been a long tedious time since then of study and observation, eliminating one world after another as too massive, too cold, too close to a blazing primary, too small to hold an atmosphere. In all we had discovered twelve planets, of four suns. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... helpfully—took to being a worker in the vineyard, I have not touched those devil's picture-books; nor should I have touched them to-night but for my hope that a little game would help to while away your time of tedious waiting. As for playing for money, that would have been quite impossible had it not been for my niece's suggestion that my winnings—in case such came to me—should be added to our meagre parish fund. I trust that I have ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... east Prussia, which had been held by the order under Polish suzerainty since 1466. The new master, however, showed no desire to be conciliatory, and as war appeared inevitable, he made strenuous efforts to secure allies, and carried on tedious negotiations with the emperor Maximilian I. The ill-feeling, influenced by the ravages of members of the order in Poland, culminated in a struggle which began in December 1519. During the ensuing year Prussia was devastated, and Albert ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... immediately: to make a dash from his cover, bind the girl's mouth with his handkerchief, toss her over his shoulder, and fly with her to the yacht. That was the way these things ought to be done, not by the tedious and furtive methods of chicanery. But, since this man-like method was forbidden him, why should he not at least cross boldly and go in—a lost wayfarer inquiring for directions—anything to start up the vitally necessary acquaintance? ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which I have spoken. Mr. Craven and I were alone in the office. He had come late into town and was reading his letters; whilst I, seated by a window overlooking the Thames, gave about equal attention to the river outside and a tedious ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... and tedious climb ensued, during which, without declaring the way to be impassable, they both averred that it was so extremely difficult that they thought it would be of no utility, and after some four hours' hard work assisting each other up by means of ice-axe and rope, they were ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... thanks, as author of the "Brigand's Bride," was, it must be confessed, extremely tedious. It seemed there would be no end to it; when he got upon the subject of Ireland especially, which somehow was found to be intimately connected with the interests of music and the theatre. Even the choristers pooh-poohed this speech, coming though it did from ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... absence of rain, it was next to impossible to distinguish the tracks of two days' date from those most recent upon the hard and parched soil; the only positive clue was the fresh dung of the elephants, and this being deposited at long intervals rendered the search extremely tedious. The greater part of the day passed in useless toil, and, after fording the river backwards and forwards several times, we at length arrived at a large area of sand in the bend of the stream, that was evidently overflowed when the river was full; this surface of many acres was backed by ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... favoured by "the boys," as it indicated a tedious reference to facts by no means to their taste, and the same voice that suggested the three ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... year of the century had lapsed in the even race of time when, after many dreary weeks, on the first of January 1801, the long low lines of sandhills on the Lancastrian coast loomed in sight. The escort drew away, swiftly southwards, as if in joyful relief from the tedious task, leaving the convoy to enter the Mersey, safe ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be clear in how many different senses the words of such a professed revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as preternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she herself may have considered them such, and ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... "Post Office" Mauritius, so called because the words "Post Office" were inscribed on one side of the stamp instead of the words "Post Paid." There were two values, 1d. and 2d. They were designed and engraved by a local watchmaker, and were printed from single dies, and issued in 1847. The tedious process of printing numbers of stamps from single dies was soon abandoned, and only 500 copies of each value were struck. Of those 1,000 stamps only twenty-two copies are known to exist to-day. There are in the hands of leading collectors two copies of the 1d. unused, and three ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... a neighbour's house will go; But in her atmosphere alone, The tedious hours meanwhile you may employ, In blissful dreams of ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... weather commencement was looming near. One Wednesday morning there was a long and tedious amount of practice over the singing that was to be offered at the close ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if William himself would sit down and rattle off the whole business to you any time you chose to ask him to do it? Would you follow Scott's printed narratives through their devious and tedious periods if Sir Walter in spirit would come to you on demand, and tell you all the old stories over again in a tenth part of the time it would take you to read the introduction to one ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... cry out, "I am baffled!" and submits to be floated passively back to land. From the first week of my residence in X—— I felt my occupation irksome. The thing itself—the work of copying and translating business-letters—was a dry and tedious task enough, but had that been all, I should long have borne with the nuisance; I am not of an impatient nature, and influenced by the double desire of getting my living and justifying to myself and others the resolution I had taken to become a tradesman, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Not I! I think I heard him called a Baron Something— But was too chill to stay and hear his titles: You know they are sometimes tedious in the reckoning, If counted over by the noble wearer. 50 Has't any wine? I'm wet, stung to the marrow— My comrade waited to escort the Baron: They will be here, anon—they, too, want cheering: I'll taste for them, if ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... was a spendthrift, and, like Godfrey Evans, had a great desire to be rich, but he never thought of working and saving in order to gain the wished-for end. This good old-fashioned and safe way was too long and tedious for him, and he was constantly on the lookout for a short road to wealth and consequent happiness. Before he had been twenty-four hours under his uncle's roof, he thought he had discovered it, and this was ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... the Cape was long and tedious. On the whole way out, Guy made but few friends, and talked very little to his fellow passengers. That unhappy recognition by Granville Kelmscott the evening he went on board the Cetewayo poisoned the fugitive's mind for the entire passage. He felt himself, in fact, a moral ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... "Excuse this tedious letter. To be tiresome is the privilege of old age and absence: I avail myself of the latter, and the former I have anticipated. If I do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. My day is over—what ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... position of the wireless station, the high post of which, with its numerous wires, stood out alone against the blue sky. The relieved men, who plainly showed their delight at getting away from this God-forsaken, tedious outpost, made themselves comfortable in the shade afforded by the sail, and began to chat with the crew of the Mindoro about the commonplaces of military service. A shrill screech from the whistle of the Mindoro resounded from the mountain side as a farewell greeting to the little troop that ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... hotels are fairly good, but there being nothing at Vladikavkaz itself sufficiently inviting to encourage a longer stay than is absolutely necessary, the following choice of routes lays before the stranger. He may post through Eastern Caucasus and embark at Petrovsk for Astrakhan and the tedious voyage up the Volga; or take the railway to Rostof en route to Moscow; or travel by rail to Novorossisk on the Black Sea, and there embark; or, following that line as far as Ekaterinodar, post thence to Taman and cross ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... policy, and of complicated agreement, he has probably never been excelled. His lucid arrangement of topics, his pure polished style, and his appearance of dispassionate conviction secured the pleased attention of his audience. The more tedious parts of his argument or narrative were from time to time relieved by touches of the playfulness which is more popular than humour; but the colleagues and opponents who thoroughly understood his object, knew that it was pursued with undeviating ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... his Service, on any Terms he thought fit. Adding withal, that I had a Mind to see Spain, where my Lord Peterborow was now going; and that if his Lordship would favour me with a Recommendation, it would suit my present Inclinations much better than any further tedious Recess. His Lordship was so good to close with both my Overtures; and spoke so effectually in my Favour, that the Earl of Peterborow, then General of all the Forces order'd on that Expedition, bad me speedily prepare my self; and so ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... much more than the title of the play to Ben Jonson. Acutus, overflowing with bitter and tedious moralising, is evidently modelled on Macilente in Every Man Out of His Humour. The very dog—Getica's dog—was suggested by Puntarvolo's dog. Indeed, throughout the play we are constantly reminded of Every Man Out of His Humour; but the unknown writer had some inventiveness ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... horn, it was the only fault of which his employers could complain. He kept the fittings of the car at the very zenith in the matter of polish, he was punctuality personified, and most skilful at the tedious business of repairing or changing tires; he rarely spoke addressed, but when questioned he seemed to have a good acquaintance with the country, knew which were the best roads, and what sights were worth visiting in the various places ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... which few of their admirers will deny, and which appear chiefly to have influenced them in acting their several parts upon the public stage. For I do not intend to draw their characters entire, which would be tedious, and little to the purpose, but shall only single out those passions, acquirements, and habits, which the owners were most likely to transfer into their political schemes, and which were most subservient to the designs they ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... toilet, to array him in the ornaments which he will carry to Hades, destroyed by his own mother's hands. It is characteristic of Euripides—part of his fine tact and subtlety—to relieve and justify what seems tedious, or constrained, or merely terrible and grotesque, by a suddenly suggested trait of homely pathos, or a glimpse of natural beauty, or a morsel of form or colour seemingly taken directly from picture or sculpture. So here, in this fantastic scene our thoughts are changed in a moment by the singing ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... who have gone through a long and tedious campaign, or who may be living a struggling life in some young colony, can know how great is the delight afforded by letters from home. For a time the readers forget their surroundings, and all the toil and struggle of their existence, ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... then, the party commenced the tedious ascent of the mound by the narrow path to the top, until at some hundred and twenty feet above the surrounding plain they found themselves actually under the wall of the mighty building. The ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... more tedious journey. Quarles hardly spoke a word the whole way, but sat leaning forward, looking keenly from one side of the road to the other, as if he were bent on obtaining a mental picture of every yard of the way. Arriving ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... village, but the water has become shallower, owing, they say, to a larger portion being carried off by the Dea-soon, which runs into the Tenga-panee. We reached the village Ghat about four in the afternoon, but our people arrived very little before six o'clock. The march was tedious and difficult, owing to the numerous stones which are strewed in the way: and the necessity for crossing the river was so frequent, that all idea of shoes was quite out of the question. To increase the difficulty, the stones ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... thus tedious in dwelling on Turner's powers of memory, because I wish it to be thoroughly seen how all his greatness, all his infinite luxuriance of invention, depends on his taking possession of everything that he sees,—on his grasping all, and losing hold of nothing,—on ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... proceedings in London, in October, 1309, under the presidency of the Bishop of London. Several French ecclesiastics had come over to take their seat upon the bench as judges—an ill omen for the English Templars. After the usual preliminaries, which were long and tedious, the articles of accusation were read. They stated that those who were received into the order of the Knights of the Temple did, at their reception, formally deny Jesus Christ and renounce all hope ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sorry when we once more made sail, with the ship's head to the westward. We had a somewhat tedious passage down the Mediterranean, having frequent baffling or light winds. At times of the year gales, however, blow with great fury in that sea, though they seldom last long. Most to be dreaded are the sudden gales which, under the name of "white squalls," have sent many a vessel, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... well. This means probably, not that the bacilli are all dead, but that the patient has developed in his blood a sufficient antidote to the poison, so that the effects of the latter are no longer noticeable. The period of recovery, if the patient does recover, is most tedious, since the condition of the alimentary canal is such that great care must be exercised lest serious disorders there occur, and, although the patient is excessively hungry and really in great need of nourishing food, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... night, I turned into a large tent erected in a purlieu of Shadwell, the district to which I happened to have been called. It proved to be an evangelistic meeting of the then famous Moody and Sankey. It was so new to me that when a tedious prayer-bore began with a long oration, I started to leave. Suddenly the leader, whom I learned afterwards was D.L. Moody, called out to the audience, "Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer." His ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... eternal sleep, Sickness, and pain, debility, and woes, All the dire train of ills Existence knows, Thou shuttest out FOR EVER!—Why then weep This fix'd tranquillity,—so long!—so deep! In a dear FATHER's clay-cold Form?—where rose No energy, enlivening Health bestows, Thro' many a tedious year, that us'd to creep In languid deprivation; while the flame Of intellect, resplendent once confess'd, Dark, and more dark, each passing day became. Now that angelic lights the SOUL invest, Calm let me yield to thee a joyless Frame, THOU ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... still remain uncultivated, without any benefit to the community, and are likewise a discouragement to the settling and improving the lands in the neighborhood of them, for from the uncertainty of their boundaries, the patentees of these great tracts are daily enlarging their pretensions, and by tedious and most expensive law suits, distress and ruin poor families who have ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... is machine work—rapid, tedious and often dangerous. There is the uninteresting repetition of the same act of motions day in and day out. The sights, sounds and smells of the mill are never varied. The fact that the mill is permanently located tends to keep mill workers grouped about the place of ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... sometimes deemed more convenient to settle disputes by the summary method of an appeal to arms than to await the issue of a tedious and uncertain lawsuit such an appeal being perfectly competent to those who preferred it, and the belief being strong among the fiery spirits of the age that Odin, the god of war, would assuredly give victory ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... despitefully use us and persecute us. So long as we are soldiers, Andy, we cannot be good Christians; and I thank God for it that we fought like downright brave heathens. But after the enemy has been expelled from the country, and peace prevails again everywhere, and I have returned to my tedious convent at Seeben, I will become again a pious Capuchin, and exhort our dear brave Joseph Speckbacher to become as good a Christian as our ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... refinements and excesses of gallantry, were alien to Scott's manly and eminently practical turn of mind. It is hardly possible to fancy him reading the "Roman de la Rose" with patience—he thought "Troilus and Creseyde" tedious, which Rossetti pronounces the finest of English love poems; or selecting for treatment the story of Heloise or Tristram and Iseult, or of "Le Chevalier de la Charette"; or such a typical mediaeval life as that of Ulrich von Liechtenstein.[53] These were quite ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... like this would, however, never have been laid at the door of the managers, however it might invalidate the test; but when the utterly absurd decision announced in the papers, after a tedious delay had led the public to expect an exhaustive statement, gave rise to general disappointment and excited the utmost dissatisfaction, it became manifest that a manly, straightforward course on their part was not to be hoped for, and that any protest against the consummation of the farce ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... keeps the plums of his pudding for the last, but who is so tedious in getting through the beginning, that his plate is taken away before he gets to his plums, so I often put off what I think the plums of my letters till "the post, ma'am," hurries it ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... on a March night of wind and hail—and this time by telephone after much tedious trouble with the wire, Doctor Cole's voice, tired, sorrowful and kind, came stabbing intrusively into his full-blown equanimity with ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... a small kerosene lamp flickered fitfully over the faces of a score of villagers squatting silently in the shadows. The darting glowworms and distant oil lanterns of the huts wove bright eerie patterns into the velvet night. It was the painful hour of parting; a slow, tedious journey lay before ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... was suspended. Dudley was appointed censor of the press, and nothing was allowed to be printed without his permission. All the public records of the late New England governments were ordered to be brought to Boston, whither it thus became necessary to make a tedious journey in order to consult them. All deeds and wills were required to be registered in Boston, and excessive fees were charged for the registry. It was proclaimed that all private titles to land were to be ransacked, and that whoever ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... to be cominycatyfe [Sidenote 1: MS. Iit.] In matires vnto purpoos according, So that a wight sume not excessyfe, 318 For trusteth well, hit is tedious thyng For to here a childe multiplie talkyng, Yif hit be not to the purpose applied, And also ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... said Jeronymo, make it your care that my dear friend be treated, by every soul of our family, with the gratitude and respect which are due to his goodness. Methinks I am easier and happier, this moment, than I have been for the tedious space of time since I last saw him. He named that space of time to the day, and to the very ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... and none the worse that he made us toe the line of our duty. He always, however, appeared to prefer me to Langley, and to admit me to more of his confidence. Since Bill's promotion we had not seen so much of the mate, but still, during our late tedious voyage from Calcutta, he had often come upon deck in our watch, and hundreds of long miles of the Indian Ocean had been shortened in the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... alterations; managers always do." Triplet then determined to adopt these alterations, if judicious; for, argued he, sensibly enough: "Managers are practical men; and we, in the heat of composition, sometimes (sic?) say more than is necessary, and become tedious." ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... fair wind, and the boatman assured me that we should reach Rotterdam in less than five hours (forty miles); but it soon lulled to a dead calm, which left us to the tedious operation of tiding it up; and, to mend the matter, we had not a fraction of money between us, nor any thing to eat or drink. I bore starvation all that day and night, with the most christian-like fortitude; but, the next morning, I could stand it no longer, and sending ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... ceremonial was long, for the master of it insisted on translating the Hebrew into jargon, phrase by phrase; but no one found it tedious, especially after supper. Pesach was there, hand in hand with Fanny, their wedding very near now; and Becky lolled royally in all her glory, aggressive of ringlet, insolently unattached, a conscious beacon of bedazzlement to the pauper Pollack we last met at Reb ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... all their care Elsie was confined to her room for several weeks, and her recovery was slow and tedious. They were all thankful, though, that nothing more serious resulted from exposure to the storm, which was the worst that had visited the country for ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... at the risk of being thought tedious, in giving a circumstantial detail of our various visits, as it will impress upon this statement the stamp of authenticity, and at least serve to show that we were anxious by all the means in our power to arrive at a knowledge of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... introduction, and so forth, over, Mr. Minns took his seat: not a little agitated at finding that he was the last comer, and, somehow or other, the Lion of about a dozen people, sitting together in a small drawing-room, getting rid of that most tedious of all time, the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... parties had to give up the case as hopeless, all concluding that Maroney was an innocent man. Among the detectives, however was one from New York, Robert Boyer, by name, an old and favorite officer of Mr. Matsell when he was chief of the New York police. He had made a long and tedious examination and finding nothing definite as to what had become of the money, had turned his attention to discovering the antecedents of Maroney, but found nothing positively suspicious in his life previous to his entering the employ of the company. ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... over twice; my book having fallen down I picked it up and read it for one whole hour upside down, without knowing it—I wished to make a monosyllabic sonnet—extremely interesting occupation—and failed. My quatrains were tedious, and my tercets ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... forced no more to groan [xxxvi] O'er Virgil's [18] devilish verses and his own; Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse, He flies from Tavell's frown to "Fordham's Mews;" (Unlucky Tavell! [19] doomed to daily cares [xxxvii] By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,) 230 Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain, Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... over the stony face of the famous locality, and under its influence Mary, the daughter of Joachim, dropped the wimple entirely, and bared her head. Joseph told the story of the Philistines surprised in their camp there by David. He was tedious in the narrative, speaking with the solemn countenance and lifeless manner of a dull man. She did not ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... watched for hours whilst the bell of the Beffroi tolled all the hours of that tedious night. A thin rain began to fall in the small hours of the morning, a wetting, soaking drizzle which chilled the weary ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... It was a tedious ride, and de Spain was much too engaged with his thoughts to sleep. The Morgans were in his head, and he could not be rid of them. He recalled having been told that long ago some of these same Morgans lived ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... old Sherry, Whose shrugs and jerks would make us merry, If not by tedious languor wrung— 45 ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... even more rarely refused. Therefore, Sir Critic! whose dog-eared manuscript has circulated from one publisher's drawer to another until its initial pages are scarcely readable, while the ample residue retain all their pristine freshness of hue, you are welcome to your revenge! Your novel may be tedious beyond endurance; your epic a preposterous waste of once valuable foolscap; but your slashing review is sure to be widely read ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... whole concern has been to get a little rice to satisfy their wants, or to cheat their oppressive merchants and zameendars, have scarcely a word in use about religion. They have no word for love, for repent, and a thousand other things; and every idea is expressed either by quaint phrases or tedious circumlocutions. A native who speaks the language well finds it a year's work to obtain their idiom. This sometimes discourages me much; but blessed be God I feel a growing desire to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, and I know that my labour shall not be ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... and undulating, and very fertile. The chief industry is agriculture, oats and potatoes are the best crops; decayed shells found in beds on the shore are an excellent manure; sheep and horses are raised with great success. The climate is healthy, milder and clearer than on the mainland, but with a tedious winter. Coal exists, but is not wrought. The fisheries are the best on the Gulf, but are not developed. Manufactures are inconsiderable. Discovered by the Cabots, it was settled by the French in 1715, and ceded to Great Britain ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with the other, continue ever after to sympathize, no matter what space may divide them. 'T is in a nutshell, you perceive,—and giving me the entire principle of an unlimited telegraphic communication. All that was to do was to systematize it. Tedious work, you may conceive, Monsieur; yet I did not shrink from it, nor find it irksome, for my assured result was ever leading me onward. Ah, bah! what did ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... rich man, imprisonment is merely the privation of ease and comfort, tedious hours, and the pain of separation from his family—distresses not unworthy of interest, for all suffering deserves pity, and the tears of the rich man separated from his children are as bitter as those of the poor. But the absence ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... none endeared himself so rapidly to the people as did Frederick of Milvania. His complete lack of vanity, his thoughtfulness, the intense reserve which so obviously indicated a strong character, his power of listening placidly to even the most tedious of local dignitaries, all these were virtues of which previous royal visitors had given no sign. Moreover on set occasions Prince Frederick could make a very pretty speech. True, this was read for him, owing to a slight ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the railroad company might be ordered by the commission to return an overcharge to a certain shipper, but this did not prevent it from continuing the excessive charge. If the overcharged shipper again wanted relief it was his privilege to again apply to the commission, and to continue this tedious process until either his or the commissioners' patience became exhausted. The people soon found that the new system of control was almost as inadequate as that which it had displaced. Some attributed the weakness of the commission to its personnel, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... about Fielding! How jealousy, spite, and the confusion of mind that befogs a prig when he is not taken seriously, do darken the eyes of the author of "those deplorably tedious lamentations, 'Clarissa' and 'Sir Charles Grandison,'" as Horace Walpole ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... threatens already? For example, the Thessalians by many benefits he seduced into their present servitude: no man can tell how he cheated the poor Olynthians, giving them first Potidaea and many other places: now he is luring the Thebans, having delivered up Boeotia to them, and freed them from a tedious and harassing war. Of these people, who each got a certain advantage, some have suffered what is notorious to all, others have yet to suffer what may befall them. As to yourselves; the amount of your losses I ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest: Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... they had crouched down in the fern. Jacob remained immovable till the animal began to feed again, and then he advanced, crawling through the fern, followed by Edward and the dog, who dragged himself on his stomach after Edward. This tedious approach was continued for some time, and they had neared the stag to within half the original distance, when the animal again lifted up his head and appeared uneasy. Jacob stopped and remained without motion. After a time the stag walked away, followed by the does, to the opposite side of ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... frequently, the Little Douglas, either from his youth or his slight stature. The reader will observe, that in the romance, the part of the Little Douglas has been assigned to Roland Graeme. In another case, it would be tedious to point out in a work of amusement such minute points of historical fact; but the general interest taken in the fate of Queen Mary, renders every thing of consequence which connects itself ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... qualities. I found this season much more difficult to endure than all the cold of Lapland, and in spite of pleasant society and the charms of rest after a fatiguing journey, our sojourn in Stockholm was for a time sufficiently tedious. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Louisa Stuart that 'Mr. Saddletree is not amusing,' nor that there is too much Scots law for English readers. It must be remembered that until Scott opened people's eyes, there were some very singular conventions and prejudices, even in celestial minds, about novels. Technical details were voted tedious and out of place—as, Heaven knows! M. Zola and others have shown us since, that they may very easily be made. Professional matters, the lower middle classes, etc., were thought 'low,' as Goldsmith's audience had had it, 'vulgar,' as Madame de Stael said of Miss Austen. That the farrago ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... pass over the wooing so cavalierly. It has been told, with perhaps tedious accuracy, how Eleanor disposed of two of her lovers at Ullathorne; and it must also be told with equal accuracy, and if possible with less tedium, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to recount the twentieth part of the scenes that I have witnessed in this sport, it would fill a volume, and become very tedious. A few instances related will at once explain the whole character of the sport, and introduce a stranger to the wild ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... excelling his companions in all boyish feats, on land and water, he had an unconquerable aversion to the confinement of the school-room. At that day, the school-room was, indeed, a dull and uninviting place, the lessons a tedious routine of learning by rote, and the teacher a tyrant, enforcing them by the terrors of the stick. The boy went to school a little, now and then, but learned little more than to read, write, and cipher, and these imperfectly. The only books he remembers using ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... presented in the foregoing sections, of what a woman ought to be, is sufficient to guide you, with a little care in the application. Such as are forward, soon become tedious. Their character is what no man of taste will bear. Some are even anglers, aiming to catch gudgeons by every look; placing themselves in attitudes to allure the vagrant eye. Against such it is quite unnecessary that I should warn you; they usually give you sufficient ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Shell Island, the labor of getting to Corpus Christi was slow and tedious. There was, if my memory serves me, but one small steamer to transport troops and baggage when the 4th infantry arrived. Others were procured later. The distance from Shell Island to Corpus Christi was some sixteen or eighteen miles. The channel to the bay was so shallow ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of being tedious, we have dwelt at some length on the initial experiments which in less than a single year had led to the discovery and development of two distinct methods—still employed and in competition with each other—of dismissing balloons into the heavens. We are now prepared to ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... application of 200 lbs. of Peruvian guano. I may remark, it is not usual, in Eastern Virginia, to sow more than a bushel of wheat to the acre, and that I deem amply sufficient. Upon this subject I hope a few details may not be considered tedious or uninteresting. I applied last fall $350 worth of guano, partly Peruvian and partly Patagonian, on a poor farm "in the forest," which cost a few years ago four dollars an acre, and reaped 1089 bushels of beautiful ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... horse, when weary with the cares of the Republic, to renew his vigour by exercise and change of scene. In these rides he has been accompanied by Cyprian, who has in such a lively manner stated the cases which had come up on appeal, that an otherwise tedious business was turned into a pleasure. Even when the King was most moved to wrath by what seemed to him a thoroughly bad cause, he still appreciated the charm of the Advocate's style in setting it before him. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... given time. James Phillips wrote to his friend William Rathbone, who was one of his own religious society, and who resided there, to procure them. They were accordingly sent up. The examination of these, which took place at the chambers of Richard Phillips, was long and tedious. We looked over them together. We usually met for this purpose at nine in the evening, and we seldom parted till one, and sometimes not till three in the morning. When our eyes were inflamed by the candle, or tired by fatigue, we used ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... wet and blowy to spread the linen, and Denas felt the morning insufferably long and tedious. Her father, who had been on the sea all night, dozed in his big chair on the hearthstone. Joan was silent, and went about her duties in a tiptoeing way that was very fretful to the impatience of Denas. ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... cordial invitation to visit his place. 'You will find Durban a very interesting spot,' said he, 'and the only bad thing about it is getting ashore. There is a nasty sea breaking there most of the time, and it is tedious work getting from a ship into a small boat and then getting safe to land. You must come prepared to be soused with salt water two or three times before you get your feet fairly ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... ARRAGON. What we have to recite would tedious prove By declaration; therefore, in, and feast: To morrow the performance shall explain, What Words conceal; till then, Drums speak, Bells ring, Give plausive welcomes to our ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the entire circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It is true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk brackish water and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a pound of his tea for a half-penny less than the English merchant, and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... at every stage of his journey. He went straight to Winchester, having a fancy for the quiet old city and the fair pastoral scenery surrounding it, and thinking that Mr. Holbrook's borrowed retreat might possibly be in this neighbourhood. The business proved even slower and more tedious than he had supposed; there were so many farms round about Winchester, so many places which seemed likely enough, and to which he went, only to find that no person of the name of Holbrook had ever been ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... parting to permit, Then go deere loue, yet stay a little while, Some what I am shure, tis more I haue to say, Nay nothing now but Heauens guide thy steps. Yet let me speake, why should we part so soone, Why is my talke tedious? may be tis the last. Do women leaue their husbands in such hast, Pom. More faithfull, then that fayre deflowred dame, That sacrifizde her selfe to Chastety, 440 And far more louing then the Charian Queene, That dranke her Husbands neuer ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... this voyage made so strong an impression on my mind, and is so deeply fixed in my memory, that in committing it to paper I did not omit one material circumstance; however, upon strict review, I blotted out several passages of less moment, which were in my first copy, for fear of being censured as tedious and trifling, whereof travellers are often, perhaps not ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... bright; My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins, The vehemence of transfiguring thought— Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains— That made thy wonders wonderful. For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee, Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play, Empty of meaning and so of all delight. Now thou hast blessed me with a great pure bliss, Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth, And I have ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... April before the rest of the fleet entered Magellan's Straits, and the passage was tedious and dismal, several of the sailors dying from the extreme cold. At last, on the 25th of May, 1526, they entered the Pacific Ocean, where they were met by another storm, which dispersed ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... self-constituted protectors, to which I can only briefly allude, show the value of this argument as applied to past ages; and in demonstration of its value as applied to more recent times, even at the risk of being tedious, I will give some examples from my own professional experience. I do this because nothing adds more to the efficacy of truth than the translation of the abstract into the concrete. Withholding names, I will state the facts with ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... all those hours of tedious travelling—in the flaming glow of day, or in the still, cool watches of the night, he had with him a recollection—Lilith Ormskirk's face haunted him. Those eyes seemed to follow him—sweet, serious; or again mirthful, flashing from out their ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... idea of the truth in the law courts hasn't that semblance of reality possessed by the Medium's description of life in the world beyond. That is what makes matrimony often such a gamble with loaded dice, and holidays so often more tedious than work. To be in the company of one's lover for one ecstatic hour tells one nothing of what he will be when, day after day, one has to live with him in deadly intimacy until death doth ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... better, and confining themselves entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously toil on in the drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, and I think a very erroneous, method of proceeding. Of every large composition, even of those which are most admired, a great part may be truly said to be common-place. This, though it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improvement. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... one-legged man must sit down for work, while for his part he stood, but he had not realized that Ike considered any more restful posture essential. "A blind man sees more'n most folk" is a common claim of Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish are scarce, yet fishing is a trade where "'tis dogged as does it." He suspected that Ike took it easy in the stern while he worked in the bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one day, from a passing boat, some one called out: "'Tain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile. ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... hideous for Lord and Lady Bute proved to be unfounded, and he had the grace to say, "She is much more discreet than I expected, and meddles with nothing"; but he could not refrain from saying that "she is woefully tedious in her narrations." ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... taken out from under Tom's jacket, and was found to be still alight, an important matter, for striking a light with flint and steel was in those days a long and tedious business, and then opening it Tom threw the light into the cabin. It was a tiny place, and upon a bench, wrapped up in a blanket, the bargeman was lying. As the light fell on his eyes, he moved, and a moment afterwards started up with an oath, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty |
