"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing circumstances of his own case, Mr. Swiveller folded up the parcel again, beat it very flat upon the palms of his hands, thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... and labour. I returned to the fleet and assisted in the tedious work of dragging the vessels over the shallows. In the evening I returned to the diahbeeah, and having dragged the dingy across the sudd, I explored the channel ahead for an hour, for about three miles; passed over distressing shallows for a space of a quarter of a mile ahead of the diahbeeah, after which I entered a deep, narrow channel ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... stone-walls, down to Dangan; then take a short cast up the hill, blow him a bit, and give him the park wall at the top. You must come in then fresh, and give him the whole run home over Sleibhmich. The Badger knows it all, and takes the road always in a fly,—a mighty distressing thing for the horse that follows, more particularly if he does not understand a stony country. Well, if he lives through this, give him the sunk fence and the stone wall at Mr. Blake's clover-field, for the hounds will run into the fox about there; and though ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... disorganised camp that I saw for the first time the soldiers returning from Moscow. It was a most distressing spectacle. All ranks were mixed together, no weapons, no military bearing! Soldiers, officers and even generals clad only in rags and having on their feet strips of leather or cloth roughly bound together ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... nothing of these stay-at-home little housewives, the angels of many a happy hearth, whose busy fingers, beaming smiles and gentle accents are the rest and refuge of many a toil-worn weaver at life's heavy loom. To lay aside the world's distressing cares at sunset, to wipe his moistened brow, and "homeward plod his weary way" to his cabin small and lowly, where glows this cheerful love in one dear breast, in one sweet face, is to the uncouth "ploughman" a joy, a comfort, which many ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 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. Through the instrumentality ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Larnaca; this is situated at the west end of the town near the fort, close to which there is a public fountain supplied by the aqueduct to which I have already alluded. Brass taps were arranged around the covered stone reservoir, but I remarked a distressing waste of water, as a continual flow escaped from an uncontrolled shoot which poured in a large volume uselessly into the street. Within a few yards of the reservoir was a solitary old banian tree (ficus religiosa), around ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... distressing the ills which might happen to Athens through Philip's success, they could not be worse than those which were sure to beset her in any event; while for Greece as a whole, Philip's victory would mean unity and peace such as could have been ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... the distressing circumstances surrounding you, I should deeply regret my misplaced confidence in your character; and certainly you must acquit me of the selfishness that could desire to engross your attention ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... lady spent that whole evening in making preparations for her flight with Reilly. Her manner was wild and excited; indeed, so much so that the presence of mind and cool good sense, for which her maid Connor was remarkable, were scarcely sufficient to guide and direct her in this distressing emergency. She seemed to be absorbed by but one thought, and that was of her father. His affection for her enlarged and expanded itself in her loving heart, with a force and tenderness that nearly drove her into delirium. Connor, in the meantime, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... distressing interview with his mother, he went gaily round to Mrs. Richie's to pound David on the back, and say "Congratulations, old fellow! Why in thunder," he complained, "didn't I come back before? You've ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... consider briefly a most distressing disease, one that perhaps was never cured by the power of doses, and that most happily illustrates the structural changes ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... species of property. If, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thousand millions of coin or bullion in the world, not very unequally divided between gold and silver, it is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results which will prove distressing to millions and utterly disastrous to tens of thousands. Alexander Hamilton, in his able and invaluable report in 1791 on the establishment of a mint, declared that "to annul the use of either gold or silver ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... with a 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 ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... part the five men remained in complete idleness. Hatteras was pensive and always lying on the bed; Altamont was drinking or sleeping, and the doctor took good care not to rouse him from his slumbers, for he was always afraid of some distressing quarrel. These two men seldom spoke to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... a height of thirty to forty feet. But the ground was covered with long, coarse grass, which was tinted a soft green in summer, but in winter was yellow and dry. At all seasons the haulms were so hard that the toes of one's boots wore out with distressing quickness. It was in winter that the grass fire became a ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... Lombards, in the subjection of the old capital to a distant and despotic lord, were so great that eye-witnesses declare no language could express them. That they were to the Popes themselves unspeakably distressing, that the Popes did all in their power to avert them, the letters of the Popes remain to testify. I must now dwell for a time on the singular result which they had upon the Roman Primacy. When temporal calamities ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... 'This petitioning is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get petitions either against quarter-guineas or half-guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The object is not important enough. We ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... great agony through these two distressing complaints. This chapter describes all the symptoms of these complaints, and gives simple, safe remedies for them. A lady can easily attend to herself and ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... the incidents of the night, and reproached himself for his wild excesses, and his reckless and imprudent confidence in a stranger. He dreaded to think what the consequences might be, and again became confused with the memories of his distressing dreams. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... adopt the same mode of action in both cases.... To a mind accustomed, as is every educated mind, to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself, the power of God as put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; it pains the imagination to be obliged to assimilate those operations, for ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... twelve years altogether, and a sad night it was, indeed, when he had a fit and died. The breakfast-table next morning presented a most distressing spectacle. We were all positively swimming in tears. The whole family was upset at his death; and when, later on in the day, he was wrapped up in a fish basket and buried in the garden, next door to a favorite rabbit—on whose grave a cabbage had been planted, most unkindly ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... lived, for the most part, in wretched cabins, which swarmed with men, women, and children, while every nook and corner not thus occupied was filled with pigs, fowls, sheep, or dogs; and the thick smoke, or, as the people emphatically call it, 'cruel steam,' is most distressing to the eyesight, which suffers greatly ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... showed distressing weakness. He seemed scarcely to have enough strength for another snap. "By w'ich I could be!" he whipped back feebly; "or shall 'ave been!" ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Christ towards his people: So there is also a HEIGHT, "That ye may comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length, and depth, and HEIGHT." There are things that are high, as well as things that are low; things that are above us, as well as things that are under, that are distressing to God's people. It is said when Noah was a preacher of righteousness, there were giants in the earth in those days (Gen 6:4). And these, as I conceive, were some of the heights that were set against Noah; yea, they were ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... father always keeping near to help her, and continually singing at his daily toil of providing for his family as charmingly as if he were still a gay bachelor; for Meadowlarks are very affectionate both toward each other and their young. It is really distressing to hear the sadness of the song of one who has lost his mate. He seems to be crying, 'Where are you, dear?' and beseeching ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... below to ascertain if Mynheer Kloots was sufficiently recovered to come on deck. He found him sunk into a deep sleep, and with difficulty it was that he roused him, and made him acquainted with the distressing intelligence. Mynheer Kloots followed Philip on deck; but he still suffered from his fail: his head was confused, and he reeled as he walked, as if he also had been making free with the liquor. When he had been on deck a few minutes, he sank down ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... the nastiest earth in America. All through the night the windows of heaven were open, as if weeping over the spectacle of two hundred thousand men preparing to butcher each other. Occasionally the rain fell in torrents, greatly distressing the soldiers, who had no tents. On the morning of the 18th the rain ceased, but the day continued cloudy, and the sun did not show himself until the moment before setting, when for an instant he blazed forth in full glory upon the forward ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Lawyer. "Everything is gone. And I regret to say, Miss Clair, that it is my painful duty to convey to you a further disclosure of a distressing nature. It ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... moment peace fled his mind. He went instantly home; but instead of devoting himself, as before, to those studies in which he delighted, and in which he was wont so highly to excel, he immured himself in his chamber, giving way to gloomy abstraction, and agonizing his spirit with painful and most distressing fancies. The great power of his imagination caused him, in a peculiar manner, to suffer from the remembrance of what he had witnessed; and, accordingly, his waking as well as his sleeping hours were haunted with visions of noses,—noses of stupendous size, which arose, like ocean islands, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... blind as was the persecutor of the Christians—but with a steady lightning-flash of light that was intensely distressing. It discovered to her her heart full of sin and shame. It betrayed the slippery sands upon which her feet were treading. It revealed the gulf into which she had been about to plunge. Upon such a flood of light she could not close her eyes. She reflected that Paul had cried, "Lord, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... what the Divinity determines. If we do this voluntarily, we shall not be grieved: if involuntarily, we shall not escape at all what is fated and we shall lay upon ourselves besides the greatest of ills,—distressing our hearts to no purpose. The proof of it is that men who bear good-naturedly the most outrageous fortunes do not regard themselves as being in any very dreadful circumstances, while those that are disturbed at the lightest disappointments feel as if all human ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... in which we find transferred to Buddha and Buddhism ideas and language distinctively Christian; the solemn saying of Simeon to the Holy Mother, "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also," and the still more solemn, "It is finished" of the Cross, being made to supply particularly distressing instances ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... conjured him to allow me to sit up with him and share any danger which might arise, but he implored me with irresistible earnestness not to add to his troubles by thwarting his arrangements. Seeing that I was really distressing him by my pertinacity, I at last allowed him to close the door and to turn the key upon the outside. I shall always reproach myself for my want of firmness. But what can you do when your own father refuses your assistance or co-operation? You cannot ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strain of three bouts of three days each has often been found sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressing consequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regular percentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in a copy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago, the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful scene ensued. He tore ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... she almost wailed. "I do not walk in my sleep, and that colored girl is as honest as your own mother, I feel positive. Please tell me you will try and find out the answer to this distressing puzzle." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... walked about in the plaza and listened to the band playing and mingled with the populace at its distressing and obnoxious pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging to the upper classes, mostly rockaways and old-style barouches, such as the mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poorhouse at Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in the middle of the plaza they drove, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... I came from London to Bury. I found my father in a very declining state (the painful rheumatism of some years had changed to ulcerations of the legs, and he was otherwise helpless and had distressing hallucinations). On Jan. 8th I walked to Cambridge. At both places I was occupied in preparations for the Smith's Prize Examination and for lectures (for the latter I obtained at Bury gaol ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... considered as contraband, and as such liable to confiscation, wherever depriving an enemy of these supplies is one of the means intended to be employed for reducing him to terms. The actual situation of France, (it was said,) was notoriously such, as to lead to the employing this mode of distressing her by the joint operations of the various powers engaged in the war; and the reasonings of the text writers applying to all cases of this sort were more applicable to the present case, in which the distress resulted from the unusual mode of war adopted by the ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... greatly excited, that, "when our neighbors were dying around us," our child, knowing the fact, should be permitted to make one of a gay and thoughtless crowd! I was taken aback, for I had not realized the distressing condition of the wounded, and undertook to explain; but feeling condemned, mortified, and chagrined, I immediately proposed to send for her, which he promptly approved of, and, in a few moments, the carriage (which had just returned) was sent back, with an explanatory note from me. Lizzie had that ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... for a long time we have seen his approaching financial downfall, and have helped him in every way we could to avert it, he would not relinquish his plans while there was yet time. Do not ask me to go into any further details. It is really most distressing. Your father's attorneys will understand the matter fully when the estate ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... which her heart was interested, was lying in a manner senseless: that Jane Wilson was (to use her own word, so expressive to a Lancashire ear) "dazed"; that is to say, bewildered, lost in the confusion of terrifying and distressing thoughts; incapable of concentrating her mind; and at the best of times Will's proceedings were a matter of little importance to her (or so she pretended), she was so jealous of aught which distracted attention from her pearl of price, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... by her beauty and grace, because the moral and intellectual worth of the young girl he had not the taste to admire, even had he, at this early period of his acquaintance with her, an opportunity to judge. The attentions of Richard Delany to his cousin were not only extremely distressing to her, but highly displeasing to his father, who had formed, as we have seen, the most ambitious projects for his son. Richard Delany was not far wrong in his conjecture concerning the young usher, who was no other than our old friend William Dulan, little Willie, who had now ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... with a visage which had become elongated to a really distressing degree, Sir Asinus was sighing, and casting ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... master," whose name seemed ever to be mentioned with 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 disquiet rested ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... in assent, and so ended one of the most painful and distressing scenes it has ever been ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... sleep was profound, but by and by the associations of blows and wounds carried him back to the field of Evesham. The wild melee was renewed, he heard the voice of his father, but always in that strange distressing manner peculiar to dreams of the departed, always far away, and just beyond his reach, ever just about to give him the succour he needed, but ever withheld. The thunderstorm that broke over the contending armies roared again in his ears; and then again recurred ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moment realize through what suffering and hardship the troops passed during the three months the Siege of Delhi lasted. Day after day, under a burning sun or through the deadly time of the rainy season, with pestilence in their midst, distressing accounts from all parts of the country, and no hope of relief save through their own unaided exertions, the soldiers of the army before Delhi fought with a courage and constancy which no difficulties could daunt and no trials, however severe, could overcome. In the end ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... olden time, leaped the red Eve when the red Adam had been driven away by a devil who had fallen in love with her. Adam, who was paddling by the shore, saw she was about to fall, rushed forward, caught her, and saved her life. The law of gravitation in those days did not act with such distressing promptitude as now. Manitou, hearing of these doings, restored them to the island and banished the devil, who fell to a world of evil spirits underground, where he became the father of the white race, and has ever since persecuted the Indians ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the authority of a command to put an end to the distressing spectacle. They desisted at length; and the screeching and affrighted wretches were permitted to take themselves away—all disappearing rapidly beyond the light ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... a distressing remembrance. Despite the cold, we advanced briskly enough until noon. Then the wind grew stronger, whilst we got weak from the exposure. The cold increased. A numbness of mind and body was creeping over us, and our limbs were heavy to move. At about ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... too startled to move, and stood listening to the distressing, almost blood-curdling groans which issued from the man's lips, as, for a moment, he lay face downward before her. Then she recognized the apparel of Moses Jones and bent over ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... was treated to a distressing scene for having disobeyed and played Paul Pry behind the door. She sulked, and he returned with coaxing submissiveness to the old subject, for he wished ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... face all grey, her fingers lacing and interlacing with pain. Only Pierre sat with masterful stillness, his eyes never moving from the face of the player; his arms folded; his feet firmly wedded to the floor. The sound became strangely distressing. It shocked the flesh and angered the nerves. Upon Lazenby it acted singularly. He cowered from it, but presently, with a look of madness in his eyes, rushed forward, arms outstretched, as though to seize this intolerable minstrel. There was a sudden pause ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... altogether mistaken view of the subject. He knew by the comments of such friends as were intimate enough to speak, and the coolness of many others, that he was considered to have behaved very badly toward her. And this thought was a most distressing one, for he was deeply attached to Mary; and had he not been convinced that from some reason or other she herself had ceased to care for him, and was anxious to break off the engagement, he would have gone any length towards ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... spark of colour came into her cheeks. She turned to the custard pie and began to eat with a silent voracity distressing to watch. She did not even look to see what was left for ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... as yet but occasionally appeared on deck. Men generally suffer more from the distressing sickness than women. As soon, however, as the news had been communicated below, that the ladies were on deck, some of the gentlemen immediately repaired to their trunks, to make themselves presentable, and then hastened ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of winter weather, there are other distressing things that may happen to make life in the country just a little bit less enjoyable. The first of these is the possibility of an old-fashioned blizzard that may block roads and cut off the country dweller from the usual source of supplies. Before the days of the automobile, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... that education is a bad thing. If any representative of the once large and powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimed this opinion, still exists in a semi-fossil state, he keeps his thoughts to himself. In fact, there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in their harmony, raised in favour of the doctrine that education is the great panacea for human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to go to the dogs, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... ever came to sovereign power a young man of twenty under more distressing, hopeless-looking circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none; a mere Protestant appendage dragged about by a Papist Kaiser. His Father's Prime-Minister, as we have seen, was in the interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... point the game became specially interesting. Dr. Rotten was aware that Herr H.'s brother and his family had been closely in touch with the Emergency Committee, and had received considerable help in difficult and distressing circumstances. In recognition of the assistance given to his brother, he at once offered to lend to the camp, for the period of the war, a spectrometer and prisms valued together at 1,650 marks. The 900 marks collected ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... General, "I wonder that you, too, are not driven to prayer, to intercede for help in this distressing predicament. Think of that extravagant repast we consumed last night. God help me, but I was so famished I never gave a thought to consequences. Unquestionably, the breakfast will be on a like scale. And ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 politician by ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Fainting fits, spitting of blood, and other dangerous symptoms, usually attend severe attacks of veta. The sensations which accompany this malady somewhat resemble those of sea-sickness, and hence its Spanish name mareo. But sea-sickness is unaccompanied by the distressing difficulty of breathing experienced in the veta. This disorder sometimes proves fatal, and I once witnessed a case in which death was the result. Inhabitants of the coast and Europeans, who for the first time ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... almost contemplated the idea of turning back toward the virgin forest. The heat was oppressive, the bells of the tramways jangled all the time, the rattle of the mediaeval carriages on the cobble-stones of the pavement was distressing. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... night for the first time with the great change in the Duke of Wellington's looks; others have noted it before. He is no longer so straight and upright, and old age is taking possession of his features in a way that is distressing to see. He has lived long enough for his own renown, but he cannot live long enough for the good of his country, let what will happen and when it may. It is a fine sight to regard the noble manner in which he is playing the last act ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... soon forget Those ills and cures distressing; One's future lies 'neath gorgeous skies When one is convalescing! So now, good-by To drugs say I— Good-by, thou phantom Sorrow! I am up to-day, And, whoop, hooray! I'm going ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... the saneness of this revived art and yet, here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible intuition to follow ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... is distressing to the young man, busy burying his secret sorrow under a mound of silence, to be slapped on the back by commonplace people and asked—"Well, how's 'the hump' this morning?" and to hear his mood of dignified melancholy referred to, by those who should ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... she went to bed, and slept till wakened by the return of Flora, who had crept down in her dressing-gown to see how matters were going. Margaret was in the same state, papa was asleep, after a restless distressing night, with much pain and some fever; and whenever Richard had begun to hope from his tranquillity, that he was falling asleep, he was undeceived by hearing an almost unconsciously uttered sigh of "Maggie, my Maggie!" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... of July the operation of extracting the crystalline lens was performed on the left eye. Light became very distressing to his eye. After allowing the eyelids to remain closed for a few minutes, and then opening them, the pupil appeared clear, but he could not bear exposure to light. On my asking him what he had seen, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... one of those who succumbed to the vertigo of events. Amid the distressing spectacle of the thousands of writers, artists, and thinkers who, within a few days, laid down their role as guides and defenders of the masses, to follow the maddened herds, to drive these herds yet more crazy by their own cries, to hasten the rush into the abyss, Maxim ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... 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 ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... strange feeling attacked him first at the Nativity Chapel, but by the time he got to the Crowning with Thorns he could stand it no longer, and fell as one dead, to rise again presently perfectly whole, and relieved of his distressing complaint. ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... distressing pause, for the topic admitted of neither hope nor consolation. "Put your chain on again, Barbara," Mr. Carlyle said, after a while, "and I wish you health to wear it out. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... from all his family and from all his friends, except two or three confidants. While he was making preparation for his departure, most distressing and alarming news came from America—the retreat from Long Island, the loss of New York, the battle of White Plains, and the retreat through New Jersey. The American forces, it was said, reduced to a disheartened band of three thousand ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... quite a long time scouring the woods that covered the side of the valley. He had not put up anything worth while, and was even thinking about heading back to the place where he had agreed to meet his chum, when a distressing little accident occurred. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... unable to scale the cliffs, would surely all be drowned. This picture, as vividly presented as possible, seemed to give him and his brother great satisfaction. We laughed at his prophecy, but his efforts to talk were distressing. It may be said in excuse for him, that in some paddling up the river from that point, he had arrived at perhaps an honest conviction of what would happen to any one going below; and also, that other wise men of the town ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... observed in the Histories brought forward in chapter iii that the position of married inverts (we must, of course, put aside the bisexual) is usually more distressing than that of the unmarried. Among my cases 14 per cent. are married. Hirschfeld finds that 16 per cent. of inverts are married and 50 per cent. are impotent; he is unable to find a single cure of homosexuality, and seldom any improvement, due to marriage; nearly always ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... think a woman any less beautiful or interesting because she is a fully developed physical being,—because her muscles have been rounded and matured into strength, so that she can meet the inevitable emergencies of life without feeling them to be distressing hardships? If there be a competent, well-trained servant to sweep and dust the parlor, and keep all the machinery of the house in motion, she may very properly select her work out of the family, in some form of benevolent helpfulness; but when the inevitable evil hour ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter. But from this access she more speedily recovered. "This is all very well," said she, nodding at him gravely, "but I am still in a most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find it difficult indeed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the Lucy, which made its way out of the harbor, but fourteen hours later was captured in the Gulf Stream by the Federal cruiser Santiago-de-Cuba. He was taken to Point Lookout prison, where he spent four months of dreary and distressing life. To this prison life Lanier always attributed his breakdown in health. In "Tiger Lilies" he afterwards attempted to give a description of the prison and the life led by prisoners, but turned with disgust from the harrowing memories. The few pages he did write serve ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... peace. One immediate effect of new happiness, new love, is to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its difficulties, heal its breaches, forgive its wrongs. We think most hopefully of distressing things which may still be remedied, most regretfully of others that have passed ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... made very sick, and every few moments threw himself on his bed, making violent but unsuccessful efforts to vomit, which rendered his sickness more distressing. I was fortunate enough not to be at all inconvenienced, and was thus in a position to give him all the attention he required; though all the persons of his suite were sick, and my uncle, who was usher on duty, and obliged to remain standing at the door of his Majesty's ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... I knew all about it. Yes! in others, but now began to understand it for myself. Gradually my personal appearance faded. My once faultless linen became unkempt and unclean. Down further and further went the heels of my shoes, and I drifted into that distressing condition "shabby gentility." If the odds were against me before, how much more so now, seeing that I was too shabby even to command attention, much less a reply to my enquiry ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... is established there is no cure for it. Proper attention paid to the diet will relieve the distressing symptoms to a certain extent, but they will undoubtedly reappear in their intensity the first time the animal overloads the stomach or is allowed food of bad quality. Clover hay or bulky feed which contains but little nutriment have much to do with the cause of the disease, and therefore should ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... and brought forth sin, and sin brought forth shame." And the eyes of both of them were opened, not so as to have an advanced knowledge of things pleasant, profitable, and useful, as was promised and expected, but of things very disagreeable and distressing. Their eyes were opened to see that they had broken God's law, lost his favor, destroyed their home, and left themselves exposed to the terrors of the judgment. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... But distressing as the scene was, before it closed I was sufficiently myself to recognise, with satisfaction, the majestic march of justice—the resolute, but humane administration of the law. It was sad to behold the ghastly pictures of despair then breathing, but destined so speedily to cease to breathe. Such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... Not only does the scamp desert her when she most needs his protection and acknowledgment, but he is silent when his equally vicious parents drive her forth to a life of intense hardship. She is spurned at every door and reduced to beggary. Her child is born under the most distressing circumstances, and under conditions that strike the note of horror the infant is slain before her very eyes while she gazes ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... Bentley had deemed it a duty to tell the commander of the disturbance between Willett and Case, ascribing it to Case's vinous excitement after some transaction at cards, and though Archer believed the bookkeeper totally innocent of any part in the distressing affair that followed, both he and Bentley believed it due to everybody that Case's possible connection with it be looked into. With Craney they visited Case's own sanctum in the store building not two hours after the sound of the shot. There in its accustomed place was Case's revolver, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... does not exist, but only the long, lax, and retractable prepuce, that is considered a perfectly physiological condition, the prepuce is liable to cause very distressing and complicating annoyances during the progress of other diseases. The writer has noticed that cases with a thick, leathery, and redundant prepuce, even when perfectly retractable, are more liable to require the use of the catheter during the course of a continued fever. Such ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... to her home, and her rest had so refreshed her that she was more than usually able to hold her own with Madame. Many unpardonable words were said on both sides; and the quarrel, thus early inaugurated, raged from day to-day, either in open recrimination, or in a still more distressing interference with all Sophy's personal desires and occupations. The servants were, in a measure, compelled to take part in the unnatural quarrel; and before three weeks were over, Sophy's condition was one of such ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... picture that every Negro in the country may contemplate with satisfaction and pride. In the stronghold of slavery, under the shadow of the legalized institution of slavery, within earshot of the slave-auctioneer's hammer, amid distressing circumstances, poverty, and proscription, three unlettered ex-slaves, upon the threshold of the nineteenth century, sowed the seed of education for the Negro race in the District of Columbia, from which ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... law at Bloomington; and I have heard him state that he gave Davis the first case he ever had in Tazewell County, by advising another to employ him. But he re-enacted, on the less conspicuous forum, the distressing experience of failure of Disraeli in his first attempt to address the English House of Commons. Davis broke down in the speech he had prepared to make, to the great mortification of my father, who had exhibited such unusual pride and confidence as to counsel his employment in the case. Subsequently ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... wedding anniversary was a rather disappointing affair since Beatrice had to remodel her wedding gown in order to wear it. That fact alone was distressing. And at the eleventh hour Steve was called out of town, which left Beatrice in the hands of her angel-duck brigade, who all felt it their duty to paint Steve in ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... his—Mountjoy. It's altogether a most distressing story. He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared, and the papers for an entire month were full of him. What would you do if he were to turn up here? The girl was engaged to him, you know, and has only thrown him off since his own father declared that ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of his day—his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps from this cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the same decision served him in another and more distressing case of divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him with unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did not adore her as he adored my father—although ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... corporal debility or mental affliction, are liable to the above diseases;—but it is also too frequently found to render the most healthy victims of these alarming complaints. And as nervous disorders are the most complicated in their distressing circumstances, the greater care should be taken to avoid such aliments as produce them, as well as to choose those which are the most proper for their relief and prevention. Those who are now suffering from the inconsiderate use of improper tea, what pitiable objects of distress and ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... a strange word to make use of. Pray be more particular in your choice of terms. The mercenary view you take of the case is very distressing to my feelings. A proper recompense for your time and trouble it was my intention to make you; but as regards the five thousand pounds, I hoped to be able to fund it in toto, to add it to my little capital, and to leave it intact for those who will ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... Holinshed's version in 1605 under the title of 'The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three Daughters—Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella.' Shakespeare did not adhere closely to his original. He invested the tale of Lear with a hopelessly tragic conclusion, and on it he grafted the equally distressing tale of Gloucester and his two sons, which he drew from Sidney's 'Arcadia.' {241b} Hints for the speeches of Edgar when feigning madness were drawn from Harsnet's 'Declaration of Popish Impostures,' 1603. In every act of 'Lear' the pity and terror of which ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... not surprising, to know that some noble men and women teaching in negro schools in the South are discouraged. This is natural, but nevertheless perilous, as well as distressing. One teacher, long in the service, speaks thus: "Some are much discouraged; we have expected by this time to see results more permanent in the negro character; we thought it would be somewhat as we have seen it in our Western colleges after a ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... wasn't a gentleman, you know. He drank too; not to be intoxicated, but too much—too much! For he will find the temperance man too many for him. I'll win the race, the waiting race;" and he laughed again in a distressing, hysterical fashion, that quite ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... exclaims Sir Penthony. "Miss Amherst, if you wish to make me eternally grateful you will point them out to me. There is nothing so distressing as not to know. And once I was introduced to a beauty, and didn't discover my luck until it was too late. I never even asked her to dance! Could you fancy anything more humiliating? Give you my honor I ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... The distressing casualties in steamboats which have so frequently happened during the year seem to evince the necessity of attempting to prevent them by means of severe provisions connected with their customhouse papers. This subject ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... no one but the man himself. It was at this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire like steel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioning Gavitt? If she should, would he tell her the truth? And if he should tell the truth, would it make the distressing duty any easier? Not easier, she concluded, but ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... him until you have had time to see General Washington," he reassured Harriet, moved by her grief at parting from her brother. "'Tis a most distressing affair, and there is no one in the American lines who does not desire that General Carleton will give us the ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... could not but be aware that the purpose of the eavesdropper must be to communicate all that he had overheard to his master. At this thought the last drop of bitterness was added to his trouble, for what could be more distressing to any man of honor than to possess the consciousness that such a wretch should have overheard so sacred a conversation as that which he had enjoyed with the young lady. She, upon her part, could not have been aware that the man had listened to what she had been ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... and constant 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 ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... sense of depression stealing upon him. He was a man capable of putting a very great restraint upon his feelings, and he so behaved during the long and weary meal as to rouse no suspicions, either in Charlotte's breast or in the far sharper one of the Australian uncle. But, nevertheless, so distressing was the growing sense of coming calamity, that he felt the gay laugh of his betrothed almost distressing, and was truly relieved when he had to change it for the gravity of her father. As he went from the dining-room to Mr. Harman's study, he reflected with pleasure that his future father-in-law ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... my room, the cause of my late symptoms became manifest in the first breath I inhaled of the atmosphere; even as it now was, comparatively purified by a current of fresh air, the gaseous smell continued disagreeable and distressing. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... While deliberating in distressing incertitude, now shrinking with the timidity of her sex and years from the enterprise, and now resolving to rescue her brother at every hazard, Frances turned her looks towards the east, in earnest gaze at the clouds which constantly threatened to involve her again in comparative ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... and truth, than the mingled mass of life will easily afford. Such men are in haste to retire from grossness, falsehood and brutality; and hope to find in private habitations at least a negative felicity, an exemption from the shocks and perturbations with which publick scenes are continually distressing them. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests retired, and I ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the case of one, who, having formerly suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same night, and hardly three hours later, occurred the reverse case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the inspired records, or listen to the authoritative teaching of Revelation, the book of Genesis, or the warnings and prophecies of the Gospels, or the Symbolum Quicumque, or the Life of St. Antony or St. Hilarion, and he may certainly experience a most distressing revulsion of feeling,(44)—not that his reason really deduces any thing from his much loved studies contrary to the faith, but that his imagination is bewildered, and swims with the sense of the ineffable distance of that faith from the view of things which is familiar to him, with ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... and they are Real objects of pitty—they are still confined and in houses where there is no fire—poor mortals, with little or no clothes—perishing with hunger, offering eight dollars in paper for one in silver to Relieve there distressing hunger; occasioned for want of food—there natures are broke and gone, some almost loose there voices and some there hearing—they are crouded into churches & there guarded night and day. I cant paint the horable appearance they make—it is shocking to human nature to behold ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... justices and clergymen, reduced many pious families to the severest sufferings, while thousands fled to the wilds of America for that refuge among men called savages, which was denied them by their much more savage countrymen. It is distressing to read the narrative, published in 1670, of those proceedings in Bedford, while Bunyan was an inmate in its jail. The porters, charged to assist in carrying off the people's goods, ran away, saying, that "they would be hanged, drawn, and quartered, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... each mile we heard more distressing tales from those leaving. Men called us fools to be going toward the doomed town. Thousands were traveling away; we were the only ones going toward ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... our humble faith address His mercy and his power; We shall obtain delivering grace In the distressing hour. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... to go in a body to communicate it, in order that they might offer him the best consolation in their power. This, however, was a grief beyond their sympathy, the affection which Henry bore towards his sister having been unshaken throughout their lives; and the distressing intelligence was no sooner imparted to him than he burst into a passionate flood of tears, and desired that every one should withdraw, and leave him alone with God. He was no sooner obeyed than he caused the windows of his closet to be closed, and admittance ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... deeds, but she would not. Now he declares that he will cause his judgments to descend upon her and her followers. By casting her into a bed is doubtless meant that he would bring her down upon a bed of sickness and pain and thus make her a most distressing object. Her partners in sin were to suffer "great tribulation," and "her children," or disciples, he would kill with death, or deadly pestilence. Thus would this whole corrupt party be visited with divine judgments according to ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... town on the promontory, upon the summit of which a brass six-pounder was mounted. Farm lands were laid out on the mainland, and in a short time the little community was in a thriving condition. None of the distressing misfortunes encountered by the colony at Monrovia marred the early ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... 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 ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... respecting some proper person; but in vain, and now he had been from twelve to one searching for any groom in possession of the necessary toggery. He would have let the veriest tailor in Carrick get on his mare if he had merely been legitimately dressed. Really, his exertions and his misery were distressing, for at last he was obliged to send her back to Boyle, after having paid the stakes and the stable charges for her, and console himself by telling his friends that the gentleman from Galway, who was to ride for him, had deceived him, and that ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... no friends?'—'I had—but, by God's blessing, Have not been troubled with them lately. Now I have answer'd all your questions without pressing, And you an equal courtesy should show.' 'Alas!' said Juan, ''t were a tale distressing, And long besides.'—'Oh! if 't is really so, You 're right on both accounts to hold your tongue; A sad tale saddens doubly, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... curved downwards, indifferently captious; a short white beard grew sparsely on the chin; the skin of the narrow neck was fantastically drawn and creased. His limbs were thin, the knees and elbows sharpened to a fine point; the hands very long, with blue, corded veins. As a rule his clothes were a distressing combination of black and dark blue; either the coat, the waistcoat, or the trousers would be black, the rest blue; the trousers had the old-fashioned flap-pockets, like a sailor's, with a complex apparatus of buttons. He wore loose white cuffs that were continually ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... pleasure in fattening Toine, in making him monstrous and absurd, in tingeing his face with a deep crimson, in giving him the appearance of superhuman health, and the changes he inflicts on all were in the case of Toine laughable, comic, amusing, instead of being painful and distressing to witness. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in the general field of labour to be occasioned by their exile; a blank into which there would not be an influx of white labourers, successively taking the place of the exiles, and which, without such an influx, would have an effect distressing in prospect to the proprietors ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... came over Daisy now, not about what was to be done, but how to do it. The cripple was in her flowery bit of ground, grubbing around her balsams as usual. The clear afternoon sunbeams shone all over what seemed to Daisy all distressing together. The ragged balsams the coarse bloom of prince's feather and cockscomb some straggling tufts of ribband grass and four-o'clocks and marigolds and the great sunflower nodding its head on high over all; while weeds were only ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... little pleasures as he found them. His life had shaped itself; was, no doubt, to continue always along these same lines. A woman had entered his small world and instantly there was discord. The disturbing element had appeared. Wherever the woman had put her foot a score of distressing complications had sprung up, like the sudden growth of ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... hours of wakefulness; and the sun, at its next rising, found him sicker than before. The pains in his head and chest were more severe; his skin was hot and dry; his cheeks were flushed with fever; he breathed with difficulty, and his cough had become quite distressing. He felt cross and fretful, too, and nothing that was done for him seemed to give him satisfaction. He was unwilling that any one should attend upon him, except his mother, and refused to receive ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... a joke, but the words refused to come. They saw themselves confronted by the police-court, the prison, the hospital and, in the background, the asylum. They did not know what was going to happen, but they felt instinctively that a species of scourging awaited them. Their only comfort in their distressing situation was the fact that he, Mr. Theodore, was one of them. It was not clear to them why that fact should be a comfort, but they knew intuitively that no evil would happen to the son ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... no possibility of any commercial mementos ever penetrating to the rural retreat of his family; such mementos, I mean, as, by reviving painful recollections of that ancient Schreiber, who was or ought to be by this time extinct, would naturally be odious and distressing. Here, therefore, liberated from all jealousy of overlooking eyes, such as haunted persons of their expectations at Brighton, Weymouth, Sidmouth, or Bath, Miss Smith and Miss Watson used to surrender themselves without restraint to their glad animal impulses of girlish gayety, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... most fierce look-out. Sabbatini, one of the Duke of Modena's court, was asking me who all the people were? and who is that? "C'est miladi Hartington, la belle fille du Duc de Devonshire." "Et qui est cette autre dame!" It was a distressing question; after a little hesitation, I replied, "Mais c'est Mademoiselle Violette?" "Et comment Mademoiselle Violette! j'ai connu une Mademoiselle Violette, par exemple."(40) I begged him to look ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M. Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here; he ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... share human sorrows. The eyes of the beautiful being showed tokens of tears; her colour was heightened as she listened to her aged companion; and it was plain, from his melancholy yet displeased look, that the conversation was as distressing to himself as to her. When they sate down on the bench we have mentioned, the gentleman's discourse could be distinctly overheard by the eavesdropping soldier, but the answers of the young lady reached his ear ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... don't like it at all," said the orphan, fretfully; "and then the dogs bark at me in a very distressing manner." ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... the Lord passed at appointed times to their rest, and others were ordained in their stead. The state of blessed prosperity and of common ownership continued for a period of a hundred and sixty-seven years; but soon thereafter came a most distressing change. Pride displaced humility, display of costly apparel superseded the simplicity of happier days; rivalry led to contention, and thence the people "did have their goods and their substance no more common among them, and they began to be divided into classes, and they began to ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... his immense army and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think: but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone." What he thought was true of all men was certainly true of himself. He hated and dreaded to be alone. It was the pain of solitude quite as much as the pleasure of society that drove him abroad, and induced him to make a business of keeping alive old friendships and procuring new, ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... when 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 on the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... subject of your consultation is serious and momentous to the state, I will endeavor to advise what I think important. Many have been the faults, accumulated for some time past, which have brought us to this wretched condition; but none is under the circumstances so distressing as this, men of Athens; that your minds are alienated from public business; you are attentive just while you sit listening to some news, afterward you all go away, and, so far from caring for what you heard, you forget ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... ones, so wonderfully intrusted to his care, must be removed at once from the place in which they had suffered so keenly. Both he and the major agreed that it would be best to take them out by way of the shaft, and though they were full of curiosity as to how the Darrells came into their distressing position, both manfully refrained from asking questions until they had escorted them to the entrance. For this forbearance the major deserved even greater credit than his young friend; for as yet he had no knowledge of who the strangers were, nor how it happened ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... 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
... expose myself to the risk of being irritated by the sight of my willing but mechanical hostess scraping the white ashes from the embers, parcelling out these into little heaps of fire upon the hearth, throwing salt into the swinging pot with a hand the colour of which may be distressing to the imagination, then tasting the soup: all this, and much more, I leave her to accomplish in the gathering darkness of the kitchen, and, sparing her the pain of lighting lamp or candle while there is still a gleam of day, I wander out beyond ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening, fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... me 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 well rewarded if he behaved ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... force we urged her away from the distressing sight, and when, after long labor, we had gained the bank of the ravine, we found that the poor woman was nearly unconscious, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... all events it was perfectly evident that the missiles had got home somewhere, for the huge creature was now rolling and bellowing in agony, as it clawed frantically at its eyes with its immense feet. It was a distressing sight to see such an enormous animal suffering so intensely, so presently Phil and Dick ran out, put fresh arrows to their bows, and stood at a distance of about a dozen paces from the beast, watching for an opportunity to plant an ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... for returning empty-handed he had resigned himself at last to the strangeness of the proceedings. The book meant money, that was all he knew; so he slipped it into his loin-cloth as had been his rather distressing habit when handed a bundle of notes by the bank-clerk who, with his co-workers, had never tired of gazing at the gigantic creature in white shorts, crimson tunic, ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... which has restored a comparative tranquility to my thoughts. Yes, my friend, there is a triumph in fortitude, an exultation in heroical resolve, which for a moment at least, sets a man above the most abject and distressing circumstances. Since I have felt my own dignity and strength, the tumultuous hurry of my mind is stilled. I look upon the objects around me with a calm and manly despair. I have not yet disclosed my intentions to the duke, and I may perhaps find some difficulty in inducing ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... her burst of indignation, she began to cry, while the doctor, wholly misunderstanding her, attempted to smooth the matter somewhat by saying: "I had no intention of distressing you, Mrs. Blodgett, but I thought I might as well free my mind. Were you a poor woman, I should feel differently, but knowing ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... boy, listened to him attentively, marvelled at his unaffected goodness and at the heavenly favors shown him. Stanislaus told him of the distressing obstinacy ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... mail,—papers, letters, packages. Here comes news from home, sweet, tender, tearful, hopeful, sad, distressing news; joyful news of victory and sad news of defeat; pictures of happy homes, or sad wailing over homes destroyed! But the mail has arrived and we cannot change the burden it has brought. We can only pity the man who goes empty away from the ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... original sin of my character consists in a careless indifference to public opinion, and to the attacks of those who influence it; that praise and admiration have become yearly less and less desirable, except as marks of sympathy; nay that it is difficult and distressing to me to think with any interest even about the sale and profit of my works, important as, in my present circumstances, such considerations must needs be. Yet it never occurred to me to believe or fancy, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... an agonising pause, during which each member of the club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... he and his wife were staying at Hastings. For nine or ten days she seemed to be dying. "We got her through the acute crisis.... I resigned her a full month ago, and have since not dared to hope that she can do anything but linger. Nevertheless her life is less distressing and more worth having than it was. She moves from her bed into an arm-chair; sits at table for dinner.... She talks cheerfully, and can enjoy seeing her sisters. When I look at her I fancy she is pretty well;... yet I feel that she might be carried off very ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... But here a distressing doubt strikes me; how will the manager get back? He will have got far beyond the reach of gravitation to restore him, and so ambitious a wing as his could never stoop to a downward flight. Indeed, as he passes through the constellations, that famous question ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter |
