"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glory of God, and good of his generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever, which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop, at least, to his publick services for four years. In this distressing season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to sir Thomas Abney's family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... man without friends or influence, not attractive in appearance, more than distressing to listen to,—just one more worker thrown off from the gear of the rapidly-turning wheel of life. The consulting doctors agreed that no skill could perform a cure, could not even arrest the creeping death. Winnipeg is big and busy, and no corner of it more ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... don't; but you see that aggravates my state of mind to a distressing degree. And then I'm afraid he will go somewhere where I can't keep watch ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... remember the first time in my waking life that I saw an oak tree. As I looked at the leaves and branches and gnarls, it came to me with distressing vividness that I had seen that same kind of tree many and countless times in my sleep. So I was not surprised, still later on in my life, to recognize instantly, the first time I saw them, trees such as the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... exertions by the distressing scene just witnessed, the pursuers pushed forward, with increased expectation of speedily overtaking and punishing, the authors of this bloody deed; leaving two of their party to perform the sepulture of the unfortunate mother, and her murdered infant. But before the whites were aware of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... to understand any other tongue. As you have to spend hours with the police in the Magyar capital before you obtain permission to stay there and again before you obtain permission to go away, this is peculiarly distressing. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... paying wages than not. That's the case now. Four months of coal is in yards or on cars, and it's an absolute benefit to the Company to turn seventy or eighty thousand dollars of dead product into live money. Don't deceive yourselves with the hope that you are distressing the owner by your foolish strike; you are putting money into his pockets while your families suffer for food. There is no great principle at stake to make your conduct seem noble and to call forth sympathy for your suffering,—only foolishness and the blind ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing nature. But she was "some betta," as he told Hosmer, who found her walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... nor could it well fail, as details became known to him, that he should pass a silent censure upon proceedings, which contravened alike his inward professional convictions, and his expressed purposes of action for a similar contingency. "I have had, as you will believe, a very distressing scene with poor Sir Robert Calder," he told Lady Hamilton. "He has wrote home to beg an inquiry, feeling confident that he can fully justify himself. I sincerely hope he may, but—I have given him the advice as to my dearest friend. He is in adversity, and if he ever has been my ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... "Distressing picture of the valiant pioneer looking for discomforts and failing to find them," said Bob, laughing. "It's so difficult to feel really pioneerish in a place where there are taps, and electric light, and motors, and no one appears to wear ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Tagus with contraband goods of the Spaniards. These ships the queen intended to have restored, as desiring to have compromised all differences with those trading cities; but when she was informed, that a general assembly was held at Lubec, in order to concert measures for distressing the English trade, she caused the ships and cargoes to be confiscated: only two of them were released to carry home the news, and to inform these states, that she had the greatest contempt imaginable for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... "It's distressing that I should be little and powerless," said the boy. "I don't believe that I am able to help you." "You can't make me believe that you are powerless because you are little," said the cow. "All the elves that I've ever heard of, were so strong ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... sat alone in the embrasure, living a life of emotion in a few minutes; nor did she find any calm for her agitated spirits until the thought flashed upon her that she was distressing herself needlessly. It was most improbable that Colonel Philibert, after years of absence and active life in the world's great affairs, could retain any recollection of the schoolgirl of the Manor ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... South Carolina for and against exclusion may be gathered from scattering reports in the newspapers. In September, 1785, the lower house of the legislature upon receiving a message from the governor on the distressing condition of commerce and credit, appointed a committee of fifteen on the state of the republic. In this committee there was a vigorous debate on a motion by Ralph Izard to report a bill prohibiting slave ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... a distressing position. Colonel Mildmay, essentially a kind-hearted man and most averse to giving pain, felt it acutely. But he was not one to temporise. It was a ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... 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 ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... This distressing circumstance in the life of Hagar was a link in a great chain of events, which were connected together by an invisible agency, and held in the divine hands. A superficial observer might see nothing in all that transpired but a curious concurrence ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... been near us again," said Ralph, "but he never fails to ask after my mother's distressing illness when I meet him ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... weight you have taken off my mind! The truth is that I found myself constantly, and without knowing why, in distressing opposition to that venerable priest. I am very sorry ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... his mother would not be idle on this occasion. She was a perfect mistress of all the camp qualifications, and thought it a duty incumbent on her to contribute all that lay in her power towards distressing the enemy. With these sentiments she hovered about the skirts of the army, and the troops were no sooner employed in the pursuit, than she began to traverse the field of battle with a poignard ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Keene's news, since this was merely a statement of his financial disability. All along Jane had been dreading the hour when, instead of this frank disclosure of "hard luck," there should come to her a parcel of money. Not to have any money to send might conjecturally be distressing to Mr. Keene; but Jane felt that he would be able to endure his embarrassment better than she herself any question of barter ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... most distressing days we have seen was last Tuesday, when two hundred and fifty all broken down, stood and sat, three long hours, waiting and hoping that the Commissary would send bread or rations, but none came, and we could get only twenty-five loaves for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... silence. "What I really don't see is why, from his own point of view—given, that is, his conditions, so fortunate as they stood—he should have wished to marry at all." There it was then—exactly what she knew would come, and exactly, for reasons that seemed now to thump at her heart, as distressing to her. Yet she was resolved, meanwhile, not to suffer, as they used to say of the martyrs, then and there; not to suffer, odiously, helplessly, in public—which could be prevented but by her breaking off, with whatever inconsequence; by her treating their discussion as ended ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... 'Like a person unwilling to forgive an insult, Arjuna of keen speech and prowess, and possessed of energy, betraying great fierceness and licking the corners of his mouth, said these words of grave import, smiling the while: "Oh, how painful, how distressing! I grieve to see this great agitation of thy heart, since having achieved such a superhuman feat, thou art bent upon forsaking this great prosperity. Having slain thy foes, and having acquired the sovereignty of the earth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... been no leave from camp, no going to Y.M.C.A. huts, and no visiting canteens. They had been shut up to the company of the members of their own barracks, and there were times when that palled upon Cameron to a distressing degree. Once when it had snowed for three days, and rained on the top of it, and a chill wind had swept into the cracks and crannies of the barracks, and poured down from the ventilators in the roofs. The old stoves were roaring their best to keep up ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... he, "you must cheer up. Of course it's very distressing, very painful and all that. But do you know, it ain't such a bad thing either for you or me? What with his death and your visit to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moment she gazed at him with parted lips, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes began silently to cry. The sudden spectacle, in this condition, of a self-controlled woman of the world was infinitely distressing to Hodder, whose sympathies were even more sensitive than (in her attempt to play upon them) she had suspected. . . She was aware that he had got to his feet, and was standing beside her, speaking with an ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cattle, and horses as well; he planted trees, cut canals, and raised banks. The house he hardly touched. He gained physically by this new interest, which made him more active and hardy, and his character improved at the same time. The melancholy which had been so distressing to him decreased, and he became more cheerful, his self-confidence increased, as he had more intercourse with people, whilst the fits of anger, rage and despair which used to come over him without any cause, making him seem like an epileptic to the servants, grew rarer and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... It took me six years of meditation and hard study to discover that my teachers were not infallible. What caused me more grief than anything else when I entered upon this new path was the thought of distressing my revered masters; but I am absolutely certain that I was right, and that the sorrow which they felt was the consequence of their narrow views as to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... there is a certain class, professors of that low morality so greatly more distressing than the better sort of vice, to whom you must never represent an act that was virtuous in itself, as attended by any other consequences than a large family and fortune. To hint that Burns's marriage ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the growing activities of the revival season of the anti-slavery movement, Garrison had some personal experiences of a distressing nature. One of these was the case of his quondam friend and partner in the publication of the Liberator, Isaac Knapp. He, poor fellow, was no longer the publisher of the paper. His wretched business management of his department tended to keep the Liberator ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... do you want?" she queried, and she added these distressing words, "I can't be sure that you are ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... very distressing to me to be obliged to make this enquiry," she began, "but it is absolutely necessary that we find out what has become of those missing notes. I put you all on your honour to tell me what you know. Can any girl throw ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... o'clock. It is a journey of only two hours and a half. Richmond is a prettily situated town, but, like other towns in slave districts (as the planters themselves admit), has an aspect of decay and gloom which to an unaccustomed eye is most distressing. In the black car (for they don't let them sit with the whites), on the railroad as we went there, were a mother and family, whom the steamer was conveying away, to sell; retaining the man (the husband and father, I mean) on his plantation. The children cried the whole ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... I always said was, that for the commonalty, there's no getting out of an Irish cabin a girl fit to be about a lady such as you, Mrs. Carver, in the shape of a waiting-maid or waiting-maid's assistant, on account they smell so of smoke, which is very distressing; but this Honor McBride seems a bettermost sort of girl, ma'am; if you can make up your mind to ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... mother's paleness, he requested to know if anything of a serious nature had occurred in the family. "No," replied she, "except the loss of a favourite bird, which I certainly regret, as it was killed by the cat in a most distressing manner, and," added she, "my spirits are not at this moment very good in consequence of my son's wishing to enter the Navy." "The first," said he, "I lament, as it has deprived you of a pet; the latter may in the end ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... grave prognosis is indicated. The tongue is often dry and coated with a black crust down the centre, while the sides are red. It is a good omen when the tongue becomes moist again. Thirst is most distressing, especially in septicaemia of intestinal origin. Persistent vomiting of dark-brown material is often present, and diarrhoea with blood-stained stools is not uncommon. The urine is small in amount, and contains ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... bar of judgment, and that eternity is its last and fixed dwelling-place. If you would know with sadness and with profit, that sin is the enslavement of the will that originates it, consider that all the distressing fears that have ever been in your soul, from the first, have not been able to set you free in the least from innate depravity: but, that in spite of them all your will has been steadily surrendering itself, more and more, to the evil principle of self-love and enmity to ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... is very real and most distressing in connection with this problem of shelter and ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... say so!" 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 spoke to her for ten minutes and never so much as paid ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... (it is necessary to set forth this miserable statement to awaken the gratitude of faction towards the family of the dead,) has left a rising family totally unprovided for. We are satisfied that it is only necessary to allude to this distressing circumstance, in order to enlist the sympathies, &c. &c., (in short, to get up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... 1899 when Mrs. M. E. Crowe became matron, the lack of water was so distressing it was made the subject of prayer. Mrs. F. D. Palmer, a secretary of the Board visited the school at this period and after an address, the question was asked, "How many will join in prayer for water to be given Oak Hill?" Quite a number responded and, at the ringing of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... said in a soothing way, still busying myself with the arrangement of my button-hole, and secretly wondering what new emotion was at work in the volatile mind of my victim. "No doubt it was distressing to witness—but you could not have been very sorry—he was an old man, and, though it is a platitude not worth repeating—we must ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... But one distressing incident interrupted the serene progress of that wonderful supper—when the paper cup of ants and bugs and beetles and flies that Sarah had captured before sitting down, upset directly into her saucer of home-made ice cream. Even that catastrophe could not mar the general ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... longer upon it than is necessary, Alexander; believe me the subject is too distressing, but I wish you to know it also, and then to give me your opinion. You are of course aware that it was on the coast of Caffraria, to the southward of Port Natal, that the Grosvenor was wrecked. She soon divided and went to pieces, but by ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... actions convinced me that he was suffering acutely. If we were certain that Leith intended to do no wrong to the party, the fact that he was within speaking distance of the two girls was particularly distressing after the knowledge we had gained in the night. With extreme caution we wormed our way forward, the Professor's piping voice acting as a verbal signpost in helping us to locate the spot where he was engaged in holding the argument. We were close enough to hear his ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... knowledge of this new subject with details that cannot be more than referred to here. But the crowning achievement of the period in this direction was the discovery made by the German, J. L. Schoenlein, in 1839, that a very common and most distressing disease of the scalp, known as favus, is really due to the presence and growth on the scalp of a vegetable organism of microscopic size. Thus it was made clear that not merely animal but also vegetable organisms of obscure, microscopic species have causal relations to the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... a weight had been removed from his soul Walter moved away. The whole world had suddenly become a different place. Although the calamity of Lola's disappearance was none the less distressing at least on his own particular horizon there no longer loomed the spectre of discharge and all the disgrace that accompanied it. He could have tossed his cap into the air for very joy and gratitude. In his relief he was bursting to talk to somebody, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... christened Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... this was to be our floating home. With space so circumscribed, ventilation was inadequate, and the cook's galley pungent. Finally the United States mail was passed on deck, the last loiterer was on board, the gangway was hauled on to the wharf by the stevedores; the engine gave three distressing whistles, not clear and sharp, but asthmatic ones, as though not having clearly made up its mind to whistle at all; the pilot took his station on the bridge, and the screw began to revolve. The bow-line ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... the softer emotion. He pressed hard with his feet upon the floor, every nerve in his body tense with that distressing passion peculiar to the shyly arrogant. Regard him, and you had imagined he was submitting to rebuke for an ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... It is positively distressing to walk in the glorious forest amidst such treasures and feel they are all thrown away upon one. My collection from the Abrolhos is interesting, as I suspect it nearly contains the whole flowering vegetation—and indeed from extreme sterility the same may almost be said of Santiago. I have sent ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... follow a line of scent leading in a quite opposite direction. Now and then, a young rabbit is so overcome by fright, that the sly, watchful carrion crow obtains, with little trouble, an unexpected meal. The birds of the hedgerow—finches, robins, and the like—are also subject to the distressing influence of fear, directly they catch sight of a hungry weasel "performing" in the ditch. When the weasel sets itself to lure any such creatures, its movements are remarkably similar to the contortions of a snake; and the birds, fascinated as their enemy's strange actions ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... up the crest of his hair, like his wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see it out." It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I could not help smiling. Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed a ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... deceased, was discovered in a retired chamber of the house. He was thirty-eight years old, and had been confined there since his twelfth year. The other case, also mentioned by Feuerbach, was still more distressing. Dr. Horn saw, in the infirmary at Salzburg, a girl, twenty-two years of age, who had been brought up in a pig-sty. One of her legs was quite crooked, from her having sat with them crossed; she grunted like a hog; and her actions were "brutishly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... those of an old, gouty subject. Hypochondria, baby as he was, seemed already to have fixed his fangs upon him. He had days of profound melancholy, when nothing provoked a smile, and others of bitter, silent fretting, inconceivably distressing; again there were periods of the wildest joy, only restrained by that reticence which had become habitual, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... the subject of this distressing difference between the brothers, which no doubt assumed an altogether exaggerated importance in the sensitive and affectionate, but self-centred, mind of poor Charles Yorke, shaken as he was by the strain and struggle of these days, but which was probably the ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... forget that singular chase, which is probably unparalleled in the history of the universe. A prey to anxiety and the most distressing emotions, we did not properly observe the marvellous, the Titanic, I had almost said the diabolical aspect of the country beneath us, and still we could not altogether blind ourselves to it. Colossal jungles, resembling brakes of moss and canes five hundred or a thousand feet in height—creeks ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... always close at his heels, especially at night. It follows him like a hungry dog. There are times when I would swear it is not fear of a living thing. That is what makes it—disturbing. It is weird—distressing. It ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... 1868. His disease, aneurism of the aorta, had progressed rapidly; and the tumor pressing on the pneumo-gastric nerves and trachea, caused frequent spasms of the bronchial tubes which were exceedingly distressing. ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... most loth to let us go. It was almost distressing to see the expedients he adopted to keep us with him for a few minutes longer. But it was fast growing dusk, and in the tropics it darkens almost suddenly; so we were at last obliged to tear ourselves away, and leave him with his soap, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... to replace this envied tranquillity in our home. A Frenchman, named Letendre, one day suddenly presented himself. He had come from Chicago, with the distressing intelligence of the extreme—indeed, hopeless—illness of our dear relative, Dr. Wolcott. My husband immediately commenced his preparations for instant departure. I begged to be permitted to accompany ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... dressed for company, strive to appear easy and natural. Nothing is more distressing to a sensitive person, or more ridiculous to one gifted with refinement, than to see a lady laboring under the consciousness of a fine gown; or a gentleman who is stiff, awkward and ungainly ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... gathering thicker and thicker. Spring, with its opening buds and rejoicing birds, brought no gladness to the spirit of Clara Maltby. She was gradually wasting away. Change of air and scene had been recommended, but she would not hear of leaving home, and clung with a distressing tenacity to her round of daily studies, shortening her brief time of exercise, and seeming anxious to goad herself into the attainment of the utmost amount of knowledge which it was possible for her to acquire, grudging every minute ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... now, how I must have seemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her—I never talked of anything else if I could help it, except when I changed the subject because I was ashamed to be always talking of you. I see how distressing it is for all of you. But tell me that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was only in his most unguarded moments that he could see a landscape otherwise than as Monet saw it; a year or two later it was Whistler who dictated certain schemes of colour, certain harmonious arrangements of black; and the most distressing symptom of all is that Mr. Brabazon could not hold an exhibition of some very nice tints of rose and blue without inspiring Mr. Steer to go and swish water-colour about in the same manner. Mr. Steer has the defect of his qualities; ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... 24 | Road good through rich alluvial land irrigated by river Purali. Road near to Beila intersected by deep nullahs distressing to camels. Water ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... do not, however, 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 ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... twenty-four hours) or inordinate thirst attracts attention. When it is fully established, there is great thirst, the passage of large quantities of sugar urine, a terrible appetite, and, as a rule, progressive emaciation. The thirst is one of the most distressing symptoms. Large quantities of water are required to keep the sugar in solution and for its excretion in the urine. Some cases do not have the excessive thirst; but in such case the amount of urine passed is never large. The thirst is most intense an hour or two after meals. The digestion ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... swiftly but noiselessly towards the robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a scalping-knife in his girdle. He soon reached the open side of the wooded hollow, guided thereto by Drake's persistent and evidently distressing cough. Here it became necessary to advance with the utmost caution. Fortunately for the success of his enterprise, all the sentinels that night had been chosen from among the white men. The consequence was that although ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... so suddenly developed that the soul has more matter than she has learned to recognize, so that the hapless individual is always awkwardly conscious of too much limb; and in Amaziah's case, this consciousness grew particularly distressing when Mary was in the room. He liked to have her there, he said,—"but, somehow, she was so white and pretty, she made him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... and healthy housing. Until this is effected, all other efforts to raise them mentally and morally must fail of their expected result. The London Times, and other metropolitan, and many local, journals publish almost daily distressing accounts of the miserable tenements occupied by the men and women whose labor makes England the garden of fertility and beauty that it is. Editors are making the subject the theme of able and stirring articles, and some of the most ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... round the pair, and neither stirred a finger. At this Caesar, greatly disturbed, started to his feet, and desired Theocritus to make inquiry as to whether Tarautas were wounded or dead; and while the favorite was gone he could not sit still. Agitated by distressing fears, he rose to speak first to one and then to another of his suite, only to drop on his seat again and glance once more at the butchery below. He was fully persuaded that his own end must be near, if indeed Tarautas were dead. At last he heard Theocritus's voice, and, as he turned to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the sight of Pembroke Somerset, which had conjured up ten thousand fond and distressing recollections; and with impatient anxiety, determining to watch till the performance was over, he thought of inquiring his friend's address of the servants; but on looking round for that purpose, he perceived the chariot ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... to-night," muttered Rackliff. He lighted a cigarette, but the first whiff threw him into a most distressing fit of coughing and he flung it out through the open door. "Can't seem to get anything out of a smoke," he complained. "Cigarettes don't taste good, and they raise the merry dickens with this old cough of mine. I've got a beastly headache, and I suppose I ought to be in bed, but ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... thus rendered unfit for action the design of giving battle was reluctantly abandoned by Washington and a retreat commenced. It was continued all the day and great part of the night, through a cold and most distressing rain and very deep roads. A few hours before day (September 17th), the troops halted at the Yellow Springs, where their arms and ammunition were examined, and the alarming fact was disclosed that scarcely a musket in a regiment could be discharged and scarcely ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... seduced by poetry; for, the instant a man has composed a verse in feet, and has woven a more delicate meaning into it by means of circumlocutions, he straightway concludes that he has scaled Helicon! Take those who are worn out by the distressing detail of the legal profession, for example: they often seek sanctuary in the tranquillity of poetry, as a more sheltered haven, believing themselves able more easily to compose a poem than a rebuttal charged ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... or replacement of the article stolen; but stealing within the community, and perhaps even more so within the clan or village, is regarded as such a disgraceful offence, more so, I believe, than either killing or adultery, that its mere discovery involves a distressing punishment to the offender. As regards wounding and killing, the recognised rule is blood for blood, and a life for a life. The recognised code for adultery will be stated in the chapter ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... part," I cried gladly. We shook hands. Jasper, Jr. slapped me on the back. "It's a most distressing, atavistic habit I'm getting into, knocking people down without ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... for which had been taken. I carefully examined into this case and all its surroundings. The woman had sustained the reputation of being a sober, industrious, honest person; her state of mind was truly distressing, her greatest fear was that her husband would relapse, and she would be the cause of all his future misery. I submitted all these facts to the district attorney; he could not consent to any compromise, and again ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... crisis. None but those who were there can for one 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 ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... myself—well, for lack of a better word to express it—logy. Otherwise, in all physical regards, I felt as brisk and peart as ever I have, despite the circumstance of having reached the age when a great many of us are confronted by the distressing discovery that we are rapidly ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... week of June, 1894, was an important one in my life. An event then occurred which undoubtedly changed my career completely. It was the direct cause of my mental collapse six years later, and of the distressing and, in some instances, strange and delightful experiences on which this book is based. The event was the illness of an older brother, who, late in June, 1894, was stricken with what was thought to be epilepsy. Few diseases can so disorganize a household and distress its members. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... make inquiry into Parisian industry, has assured me that the manufacturers have revealed to him a very striking fact, which proves, better than any reasoning can, how much insecurity and uncertainty injure the formation of capital. It was remarked, that during the most distressing period, the popular expenses of mere fancy had not diminished. The small theatres, the fighting lists, the public-houses, and tobacco depots, were as much frequented as in prosperous times. In the inquiry, the operatives themselves explained this phenomenon thus:—"What ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... Wee Frees,' now possesses the wealth that was the old Free Kirk's before, in 1900, it united with the United Presbyterians, and became the United Free Church. It is to be hoped that common sense will discover some 'outgait,' or issue, from this distressing imbroglio. In the words which Mr. R.L. Stevenson, then a sage of twenty-four, penned in 1874, we may say 'Those who are at all open to a feeling of national disgrace look forward eagerly to such a possibility; they have been witnesses already too long to the strife that has divided ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... a long breath of relief; then with another glance at his face, "But what is wrong? certainly something is distressing you greatly. And mamma is shedding tears," as she saw Rose furtively lift ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... worm is liable to attack a number of animals at the same time. The weakest sheep and young lambs are the first to show signs by coughing forcibly, distressing, hacking and convulsive in character. A stringy mucus is sometimes expelled during the spasm of coughing. This mucus contains worms which can be detected, or their ova observed under a magnifying glass. In the latter stages of the ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... however, not only to the fire of her chosen victim, but also to that of the Trajan. At ten minutes to eleven o'clock a shot from the Eole took off Pasley's leg, and he was carried down to the cockpit, whereupon the command devolved upon Captain William Hope. It must have been a distressing moment for Flinders, despite the intense excitement of action, when his friend and commander fell; it was indeed, as will be seen, a crucial moment in his career. A doggerel bard of the time enshrined the event in a verse as badly in need of surgical ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... were therefore obliged to put but few in the boat at once; and, what is still worse, all of us were frequently under the necessity of getting out to drag and lift it over the reefs. This cost us much labour and fatigue; and, what was yet more distressing, we could not avoid having our legs cut and torn very much with the rocks. There were only four people that would work with me at the oars; and they consisted of three black men and a Dutch Creole sailor; and, though we went ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... the English, who feared that the Indians were going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty of getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to the wordy confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of drunkenness breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the strict discipline that always punished it. It was not till 1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any Indians, and the next day admitted them ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... four of them to some steep whence they would slide of themselves into the ocean. Yet so much did I dread the undertaking, and abhor the thought of the tedious time I foresaw it would occupy me, that I cannot imagine any other sort of painful and distressing work that would not have seemed actually agreeable as ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... battle is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand, or the ten thousand, with great composure; but after the battle these scenes are distressing, and one is naturally disposed to do as much to alleviate the suffering of an enemy as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... two days after his distressing loss, befriending this sheik and trying to involve Jack ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... diseases) stripped and walked into the loch, performing their ablutions three times. Those who were not able to act for themselves were assisted, some of them being led willingly, and others by force. One young woman, strictly guarded, was an object of great pity. She raved in a distressing manner, repeating religious phrases, some of which were very earnest and pathetic.... These utterances were enough to move any person hearing them. Poor girl! What possible good could immersion be to her?... No man, so far as I could see, denuded himself for a plunge.... ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... France fill me with more horror than any former ones. The King is to be moved only by the fear of some approaching danger to his person. The Queen is agitated by all the alarming and distressing thoughts imaginable. Her health is visibly altered; she cries continually, and is, as Polinitz says of K(ing) James's Queen, une Arethuse. Her danger has been imminent; and the K(ing) left his capital, and her in it, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... him. It is not for me to question the propriety of your enmity, but I had a right to expect that my name should not have been mixed up in your hostilities. This has been done, and been done by you in a manner the most injurious and the most distressing to me as a woman. I must confess, Mr. Arabin, that from you I expected a different sort ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... often summons to church only the parson and an occasionally conforming clerk; while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics are huddled together in a miserable hovel, and pelted by all the storms of heaven. Can anything be more distressing than to see a venerable man pouring forth sublime truths in tattered breeches, and depending for his food upon the little offal he gets from his parishioners? I venerate a human being who starves for his principles, let them be what they may; but starving for anything is not at all to the taste ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... in my command was distressing. Wheat, of whom I have written, was gone, and Seymour, and many others. I had a wretched feeling of guilt, especially about Seymour, who led the brigade and died in my place. Colonel Seymour was born in Georgia, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... distressing me beyond measure. The barber was rolling up his apparatus. The temptation was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in another direction when incidents occur, not ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... about Appomattox.[5] But he was at that time not well enough to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox accomplished once more in his life—to have gotten the matter off his mind—that he was as talkative as his old self. He received Susy very pleasantly, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... an OMNIPOTENT God, a conception entirely of our own creation, and one which, if we look at it closely, has no meaning. It is because God COULD have done otherwise, and did not, that we are confounded. It may be distressing to think that God cannot do any better, but it is not so distressing as to believe that He might have done ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... corn-sheaves—or on a couch of snow—and that they are all as warm as so many pies; while, instead of feeling what you call "the lack of vigour attendant on the loss of sleep, which is as enfeebling and as distressing as the languor that attends the want of food," they are, to use a homely Scotch expression, "neither to haud nor bind;" the eyes of the young lads being all as brisk, bold, and bright as the stars in Charles's Wain, while those of the young lasses shine with ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his spiritual being becomes an imperative necessity to a man when he has exhausted the sources which tradition supplies. It is terrible to wake up one morning and see one's past life in a new and strange illumination, and the dust of ages lying inch-thick upon one's thoughts. It is distressing to have to pretend that you do not hear the doubt which whispers early and late in your ear, Vanitas, vanitas, vanitas vanitatum. Few are those of us who have the courage to face it, to rise up and fight with it, and rout it ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... he had resolved that he would not again go to Berkeley Square. But all that was very much altered now. He was there almost every day, and consulted the lady about every thing. She had induced him even to talk quite openly about this Italian boy, to express his suspicions, and to allude to most distressing duties which might be incumbent on him. She strenuously advised him to take nothing for granted. If the Marquisate was to be had by careful scrutiny she was quite of opinion that it should not be lost by careless confidence. This sort of friendship was ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Near the mouth its loose sands are comfortable to camels and distressing to man and mule. The gravel of the higher section is good riding; the upper part is often made impassable by large stones and overfalls of rock; and the head is a mere couloir. Flaked clay or mud show the thalweg; and the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... of Thomas, the intelligence and tact of the good French poilu, the awful moments and the wild jests in between—these are all shown. The splendid humour with which "PAT BEAUCHAMP," the author, bravely endured her own casualty with its distressing effects is typical in itself of that spirit in the Anglo-Saxon race which made the Teuton race wish it hadn't. In my view, the obiter dictum of an anonymous Colonel sums up the values of this ladies' contingent better than does the preface of the distinguished Major-General: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... press, Like ladies, athletes, boys, and devotees. Don't ask the price at present, if you please. There I'll parade each amatory fetter That John and Thomas to our town unites, There publish every pink and perfumed letter That William to his tender Jane indites; There you shall read, among "Distressing Scenes"— Instead of murders and burnt crinolines, The broken matches that the week's afforded; There under "goods for sale" you'll find what firms Will furnish cast-off rings on easy terms; There ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... rarely combative. Fighting was not his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was, never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat, fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients; but, here and there, a student of human nature ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... team, was chiefly to blame for this. In his old age Vulcan was afflicted with a bad digestion, for even Eskimo dogs may be liable to this infirmity, hardy as they generally are. The protracted blizzard had given the old fellow a relapse, and he proclaimed this distressing fact by incessant howling. This kind of music was not calculated to lull us to sleep, and it was three or four in the morning before we could snatch a nap. During a pause I was just dropping off, when the sun showed faintly through ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... wife, with several others, went out and followed the dog, who led them through the darkness of the night, which was very great, to the top of a precipice, nearly fifty feet deep; and standing on the bank, held his head over, and howled in a most distressing manner. They were convinced that the poor man had fallen over; and having gone round to the bottom of the pit, they found him, lying under the spot indicated ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... even mediocre. They show little inclination toward any study or any work. They have weaknesses of character that will inevitably handicap them, no matter what vocation they enter. They are the real problem. There is another class, almost equally distressing. They are the people who are brilliant, who learn easily, and who are so adaptable that they can turn their hands to almost anything. They are usually so unstable in temperament that it is difficult for them to persist ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... [FN102] Al-Danafthe Distressing Sickness: the title would be Ahmad the Calamity. Al-Zaybak (the Quicksilver)Mercury Ali Hasan "Shuuman"a pestilent fellow. We shall meet all these worthies again and again: see the Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... succession of changes or an intermixture of different things, and is always thought of as agreeable. Vicissitude is sharp, sudden, or violent change, always thought of as surprising and often as disturbing or distressing; as, the vicissitudes of politics. Transition is change by passing from one place or state to another, especially in a natural, regular, or orderly way; as, the transition from spring to summer, or from youth to manhood. An innovation is ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... well face the truth, my dear," said the mathematics teacher, eyeing the distressing curves of the fleshy girl without prejudice. "Here are upwards of a thousand girls—or will be when all have arrived and registered. And ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... the very reason that it sprang from a concern about real human beings instead of abstractions about democracy or righteousness. From the point of view of the political hack, Judge Lindsey made a most distressing use of the red herring. He brought the happiness of childhood into political discussion, and this opened up a new source of political power. By touching something deeply instinctive in millions of people, Judge Lindsey animated dull proposals with human ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... may be said frankly that he was not imposing. He was not chubby nor rosy; had no dimples. His face was a puckered protest at the infliction of animal life. In the white garments conventional to his age he was a distressing travesty, even when he gurgled. In the nude he was quite impossible to all but the most hardened mothers, and he was never photographed thus in a washbowl. Even his own mother, before he had survived to her one short year, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... obtaining leave of absence. Whoever will visit the neighboring town must ask my formal permission first, no matter if the distance is inconsiderable. You all remember that two of the gentlemen of this regiment were forced to retire under peculiarly distressing circumstances, because of large debts contracted in the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... taken away; I know it's there," persisted Amy, who had evidently been distressing herself with the question how a heart, sinful on earth, could be fit for the pure atmosphere ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... of the commonest psychic alterations through which customary sensation states are displaced by unnatural and usually distressing ones. ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... discovering a way of ingress for the host behind him. He had no map, but he had the Plough and a fitful moon to guide him, and he held a clear notion of the disposition of the trenches in his retentive brain. On his left he could hear the distressing sounds of Dunshie's dolorous progress; but these were growing fainter. The reason was that Dunshie, like most persons who follow the line of least resistance, was walking in a circle. In fact, a few minutes later his circuitous path brought him out upon the ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... furnished much more than was enjoyed by Democrats. An effort was made to stay the tide in favor of Harrison by poetry as well as by argument. The effort was fruitless. The contest of 1840 had its origin in the most distressing financial difficulties that ever rested upon the country, and it was conducted on the part of the Whigs by large expenditure of money, for those days, and with a degree of hilarity and good nature that it is difficult now to realize. This may have been due to general confidence, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... credit to itself under his command during the late revolt in this Colony, the accompanying resolution of the Honourable Court of Policy, expressive of the sense entertained by the Court of that officer's conduct, and that of the officers and men placed under him during that distressing period. ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Corona could do nothing to calm her. The tears might be a relief to the girl's overwrought faculties, but they were most distressing ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... has invented no more fearful suffering than what is called "close confinement." There is nothing that will sooner demoralize a man, crush his will, and utterly conquer the most powerful energy. There is no struggle more distressing than the struggle between an innocent man accused of some crime, and the magistrate,—a helpless being in the hands of a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... evidently not forgotten Susan's behaviour in the past, and did not wish to have her for a friend. It was the more distressing because Susan had made a plan which she thought a very pleasant one, and was anxious to carry out. It was to ask her mother to allow her to have Sophia Jane on a visit in London. She would then be able to show her many ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... sir," sighed Burgsdorf, "would that I did not know, for it is a most sorrowful knowledge to an old soldier and in a most distressing condition is ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... 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!" and then the head turned ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... should be condemned unheard." So thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of person and chattel intermingled, that, when Governor Bennett petitions for mitigation of sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I ask this, gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing loss," it is really impossible to decide whether the predominant emotion be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems—general propositions—are especially distressing, because together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations alone they are wrong to fear ideas and not ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... phase, he felt with gratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows, he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to be a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and even profitable refuge from distressing thoughts, and he threw his manhood into that ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... his friend and medical adviser, Dr. Macrae, who had been summoned from Calcutta, on the first alarming indications of his illness. By this time the disorder had declared itself in such a form as to cause the most serious apprehensions to others, as well as to himself the most distressing sufferings. There had been a momentary rally, during which the fact of his illness had been communicated to England. But this passed away; and on the 6th of November Dr. Macrae came to the conclusion that the illness was mortal. This intelligence, which he communicated ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... magical voice on the king of Spain. His Majesty was absorbed in the deepest melancholy; nothing could excite an emotion in him; he lived in a state of total oblivion of life; he sat in a darkened chamber, entirely given up to the most distressing kind of madness. The physicians at first ordered Farinelli to sing in an outer room; and for the first day or two this was done, without producing any effect on the royal patient. At length it was observed, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Naples for our trip to Pompeii reminded me very strongly of that other car of which I was part owner. Between them there was a strong family resemblance, not alone in looks but in deportment also. For patient endurance of manifold ills, for an inexhaustible capacity in developing new and distressing symptoms at critical moments, for cheerful willingness to play foal to some other car's dam, they might have been colts out of the same litter. Nevertheless, between intervals of breaking down and starting up again, and being helped along by friendly passer-by automobiles, we enjoyed the ride ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... is "tantalising in the suggestion of deeper meanings than were ever there." There is, in truth, a hint of allegory, like that which baffles and fascinates in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"; a hint so elusive that the comparison often made between Geraldine and Spenser's Duessa, is distressing to a reader of sensitive nerves. That mystery which is a favourite weapon in the romanticist armoury is used again here with consummate skill. What was it that Christabel saw on the lady's bosom? We are left to conjecture. It was "a sight to dream of, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... is," said she, panting in a very pretty and distressing way, "but not for RUNNING. I do protest—ha!—and vow that I really can scarcely stand. I'm so tired of running ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Duke of Wellington, under whom he had proved his valour in India and in the Peninsula. When {62} in 1834 an epidemic of cholera ravaged Halifax, Sir Colin went down into the thick of it, and worked day and night to assuage the distressing agonies of the sufferers. In politics, however, he was under the sway of the Council. He now refused to communicate Lord John Russell's dispatch to the House, and when that body passed a vote of want of confidence in the Executive, Sir Colin met them with a curt reply to the effect that 'I have had ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... mental disquietude only appeared, in a certain softness and tremor of his voice, especially when speaking to Johnny, who, as the night drew on, asked him over and over again, at short intervals, "Don't you think, Arthur, that we shall certainly find land to-morrow?" This was truly distressing. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... vain-glory, in saying—"Be sure you send them to-night, for I start at five in the morning!" But beneath all this show of gallantry, my heart like that of many another hero on equally desperate occasions—my heart was ill at ease. I have often thought that my feelings, for the whole of that distressing afternoon, must have been very like those of a person about to go, for the first time, up in a balloon. I returned to Reeves' Hotel, College-green, where I was lodging. "I'll pack my portmanteau (the contents of which were scattered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... comment. Aloud she said dreamily, "Gordon is my hero. I love to hear about him. He was too generous to others to heap up money for himself. I suppose he didn't care about it. I wish I didn't, but I do. It's so very distressing to be always short of money. All the good people in books are poor, but for myself I think it's bad for the temper. They talk about the peril of riches, but I should like to try it for myself, wouldn't ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in Wales still continue, though the apprehension of some of the rioters who destroyed the Pontardulais gate has had some effect. The following distressing scene is reported in ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... What in the world was he going to do about her? She would probably wait here for him until she starved to death or, equally as distressing, until she was apprehended. Abruptly he shrugged his shoulders—to the extent that his pauldrons permitted—and remounted the rohorse. Why should it matter to him what became of her? He'd returned to the Age of Chivalry to steal the Sangraal, not to play nursemaid to damosels in distress. ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young |
