"Discontent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who sincerely love their country and mean to do their duty to her disappoint the hopes and expectations of those who are actively working in her cause. They seem to have lost whatever moral force they may have once possessed, and to go drifting about from one profitless discontent to another, at a time when every citizen is called upon for cheerful, ready service. It is because their minds are bewildered, and they are no longer truly themselves. Show them the path of duty, inspire them with hope for the future, lead them upwards from the turbid stream ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... progress had been higher, Had he owned his brother man, Left his narrow, selfish circle, For a world-embracing plan! There are some for ever craving, Ever discontent with place, In the eternal would find briefness, In ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... and puttees are distributed with like impartiality, and we dismiss, the unfortunate ones growling and grumbling in discreet undertones until the platoon commander is out of hearing, whereupon the murmurs of discontent become ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... this desert travel I did not hear any discontent and serious complaint, except in one case, and that was at the Jayhawker's camp, where they burned their wagons at the end of the wagon road, in Death Valley. Some could not say words bad enough to express their contempt, and laid all the trouble of salt water to Lot's wife. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... equipments, the explorers started out. Their progress was necessarily slow, but the greatest difficulty with which the leaders had to contend was a spirit of envy and discontent among their followers. This led to an entire change in Burke's plans, and perhaps also to the sad catastrophe ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... importance."(651) The junction of his forces with those under Browne, who had been despatched (23 June) to protect the country between London and the royalist army, served only to increase the general discontent. "My London regiments," he wrote (8 July), "immediately looked on his [i.e. Browne's] forces as sent to relieve them, and without expectation of further orders, are most of them gone away; yesterday no less than 400 out of one regiment quitted their colours. On the other side, Major-General ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the sectaries of Southern France in the thirteenth century. Its unscrupulous atrocities extirpated Protestantism in Italy and Spain. Nor did it confine itself to religious affairs; it engaged in the suppression of political discontent. Nicolas Eymeric, who was inquisitor-general of the kingdom of Aragon for nearly fifty years, and who died in 1399, has left a frightful statement of its conduct and appalling cruelties in ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... certain plantations, and bring them to the camp. The immediate consequence was a renewal of the old suspicion, ending in a widespread belief that they were to be sent to Cuba, as their masters had predicted. The ultimate result was a habit of distrust, discontent, and desertion, that it was almost impossible to surmount. All the men who knew anything about General Hunter believed in him; but they all knew that there were bad influences around him, and that the Government had repudiated his promises. They had been kept four ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... queried in regard to the future with not a little anxiety. In her present distress and poverty she might naturally be glad of the refuge he had offered; but as time passed and the poignancy of bitter memories was allayed, might not her life on the farm seem monotonous and dull, might not weariness and discontent come into her eyes in place of gratitude? "Well, well!" he concluded, "this marrying is a risky experiment at best, but Tom Watterly's talk and her manner seemed to shut me up to it. I was made to feel that I couldn't go on in any other way; and I haven't ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... rule had led to rebellion in Afghanistan, and Sir Robert Sale was sent with a brigade to clear the passes to Jelalabad. Lady Sale remained at Kabul, where the signs of discontent became daily more evident. The British native troops were disheartened, and eventually it was decided to ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... of difference. To be honest, the thing nearly floored me at first, for I never had anything like this happen to me before. But that's all the more reason why I should brace up to this first occasion,—and from now on, you won't hear another peep of discontent out of ME. If we have to stay here four weeks or eight weeks or twelve weeks, I'm going to behave myself like a desirable citizen. And I'm only sorry that I've acted horrid ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... stood on the banks of the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... my wife in bed talking with great pleasure Lay chiding, and then pleased with my wife in bed Liability of a husband to pay for goods supplied his wife Many thousands in a little time go out of England Matters in Ireland are full of discontent Money, which sweetens all things Most flat dead sermon, both for matter and manner of delivery Much discourse, but little to be learned My maid Susan ill, or would be thought so My wife has got too great head to be brought down soon My wife and her maid Ashwell had between them spilled the pot.... ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... monarch would have been very angry at such freedom in a son, and would have made him repent it, but the sultan loved him, and preferred gentle methods before he proceeded to compulsion. He communicated this new cause of discontent to his prime minister. 'I have followed your advice,' said he, 'but Camaralzaman is further than ever from complying with my desires. He delivered his resolution in such free terms that it required all ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... healthy have a great gift of God, but they are tempted by that very gift to recklessness, inconsiderateness and self-injury. The sick receive peculiar blessings of patience and resignation, but are much tempted to selfishness and discontent. The business man is tempted by his very knowledge of the world to the hardness of materialism; the minister is tempted by his very indifference to the world to unsophisticated imprudence. Wherever on earth a man may be he must scrutinize his future, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... the perfection of that style, it awoke in Leonardo some seed of discontent which lay in the secret places of his nature. For the way to perfection is through a series of disgusts; and this picture—all that he had done so far in his life at Florence—was after all in the ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... of misgovernment, during which John had enraged the barons and excited general discontent by endless impositions, matters were brought to a climax by his submission to the pope, it was in the city of London that the first steps were taken by his subjects to recover their lost liberty. On the 25th August, 1213, a meeting of the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... that his actions might agree with his condition, 'twas concluded necessary to wear an air of discontent; that he should with a stately stiffness, like quality, often cough, and spit about the room; that his words might come the more faintly from him; that in the eye of the world he shou'd refuse to eat or drink; ever talking of riches, and sometimes, to confirm their belief, shou'd break into these ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... of vice might, in the inferior animal, be observed without the disgust and hatred which the same vices would excite, if seen in men, and might be associated with features of interest which would otherwise attract and reward contemplation. Thus, ferocity, cunning, sloth, discontent, gluttony, uncleanness, and cruelty are seen, each in its extreme, in various animals; and are so vigorously expressed, that when men desire to indicate the same vices in connexion with human forms, they can do it no better than ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... taxation increased, and though no nation ever allowed its manners to be less corrupted by the possession of wealth, yet there was a sensible change; but the change in the way of thinking was the most pernicious. Discontent with the government, and disagreements amongst themselves, completed their misfortunes, while England was [end of page 66] all the time endeavouring to supplant them in the most beneficial sources ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... all the writers in the country, from the highest down to the obscurest corners of Grub-Street, may wear their fingers to the roots of the nails with their pens, before they will work the slightest discontent in the public or change in the government. Nothing, gentlemen, is more common with writers and speakers, than to discourse of states by figures drawn from the government of a ship; and I will tell you what I once heard from a friend of mine who has served his country in our navy, and ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... sought, not merely to soften that resentment, but to attach them to his person and government by favors. He completely succeeded; some of the tribes of that nation continued during his life to rank among the bravest soldiers of his army and formed a powerful check upon the discontent and turbulence of his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... belonging to the colony to his favorites, and subsequently, in 1734, a ferment in Georgia, even under the mild proprietary rule of the philanthropist Oglethorpe, were all really outbursts of popular discontent largely against the oppressive form in which land was held and against discriminative taxation, although each uprising had its local issues differing from ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... vindictive-looking and suspicious groups; they whisper together, as if fraught with some secret purposes; and I am also told that they frequently hold nightly meetings to deliberate on what may be done. Between the M'Clutchys and M'Slimes, I must say they have ample cause for discontent." ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... wounded at this discourse, and brought into such a dilemma as I never expected. I asked him, if he was to die that moment, whether he was sure to enter the kingdom of God? and added, 'Do you know that your sins are forgiven you?' He answered in the affirmative. Then confusion, anger, and discontent seized me, and I staggered much at this sort of doctrine; it brought me to a stand, not knowing which to believe, whether salvation by works or by faith only in Christ. I requested him to tell me how I might know when my sins ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... her, she stay'd [3] at home, And on the roof she went, And down the way you use to come, She look'd with discontent. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... terminated by the battle of Stoke] the king learned an important lesson, that it was not his interest to wound the feelings of those whose principles had attached them to the house of York. His behaviour to the queen had created great discontent. Why, it was asked, was she not crowned? Why was she, the rightful heir to the crown, refused the usual honours of royalty? Other kings had been eager to crown their consorts: but Elizabeth had now been married a year and a half; she had borne ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Sim Gage's gate, the ancient mule, his head out of the stable window, welcomed him, braying his discontent. Here lay the ragged wood pile, showing the ax work of a winter. At the edge of a gnawed hay stack stood the remnant of Sim's scant cattle herd, not half of ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... always on hand at meal-times, and played a very lively tooth on the nuts which his mother had collected, always selecting the very best for himself; but he seasoned his nibbling with so much grumbling and discontent, and so many severe remarks, as to give the impression that he considered himself a peculiarly ill-used squirrel in having to "eat their old grub," as he very unceremoniously ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... affair further at present. I have told you how matters stand because I promised you I would, if I saw anything of this kind going on. But in the present condition of things, we can neither make nor mar; we can only wait.' And he took up his hat to go. But the squire was discontent. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... more pleasing evidence. At or about Christmas, in the year 1597, there was enacted here in Cambridge, in the hall of St John's College, a play called "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," a skittish work, having for subject the 'discontent of scholars'; the misery attending those who, unsupported by a private purse, would follow after Apollo and the Nine. No one knows the author's name: but he had a wit which has kept something of its salt to this day, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... social order is tied to an economic system which starves and mutilates the great majority of the population, and under such conditions its religion necessarily becomes a spiritual drug, administered for the purpose of subduing the popular discontent and relieving the popular misery. The only way the associated life of such a community can be radically improved is by the leavening of the inert popular mass. Their wants must be satisfied, and must be sharpened and increased with the habit of satisfaction. During the past hundred years ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... anathema), Quarles and Donne, Ambrose Phillips and Cowper—perhaps the most motley crew that was ever brought together for excommunication. It is not, however, till the end of the essay that the true root of bitterness between the critic and his victims is suffered fully to appear. "A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of society seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar sentiments." In other words, the Edinburgh takes up the work of the Anti-Jacobin; with no very good grace Jeffrey affects to sit in the seat of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... restive at many of the Lieder which they were obliged to learn, but when Fraeulein turned up one morning with a volume of songs of her own composition, their discontent verged towards mutiny. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the preference of others, but these two well-broken and submissive gentlemen made no visible protest. However much they may have chafed inwardly at the delay, they knew better than to object; any outburst of discontent would, they knew, recoil on themselves. Not only were they perfectly patient now when summoned before the officers of justice, they were most eager to give every assistance to the law, to go beyond the mere letter, and, if ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... engaged us all, at length, and we must have become adapted by morning, for when we were all awake and lay in the dim light, listening to the quiet music of the continuing rain, there was no voice of discontent. Elizabeth thought it likely that she was considerably bruised, but, as she made no complaint later, this ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of many foregoers! He too is a notability gone out, the last of his kind. Twenty years ago, he crossed the OEil-de-Boeuf with Papers, just setting out to cut Teutschland in Four; and in the Rue de Lille, No. 54, with that grandiose Enterprise drawing to its issue in universal defeat, disgrace, discontent and preparation for the General Overturn (CULBUTE GENERALE of 1789)) he closes his weary old eyes. Choiseul succeeds him as War-Minister; War-Minister and Prime-Minister both in one;—and by many arts of legerdemain, and another real spasm of effort upon Hanover to do the impossible ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... first [do] the nuptiall torches beare, As brightly burning as the mid-daies sunne; But after them doth Himen hie as fast, Clothed in sable and saffron robe, And blowes them out and quencheth them with blood, As discontent ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... one could see a little advance in the way of real refinement and true elegance among all the vast improvements we are making in frippery and follies," cried Mr. Monson, throwing down an evening paper in a pettish manner, that sufficiently denoted discontent. "We are always puffing our own progress in America, without exactly knowing whether a good deal of the road is not to be traveled over again, by way of undoing much that we have done. Here, now, is a specimen of our march ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... watched in silence Bakahenzie was aware of the state of their minds towards him and grew the more perplexed in his search for an entertainment sufficiently stimulating to postpone the effects of their discontent. Sapiently he decided that any more messages from Tarum would be unwise in the present atmosphere. An idea of a revelation by divination to appoint a substitute for Bakuma as the Bride of the Banana and thus thrust forward a reason for a feast, as there was now no Yabolo to object, was abandoned ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... no anger and no strife; I only feel, with dreary discontent, That something bright has vanished from my life; I know not what it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... .Your letter reached me at Cudrefin, where I have been passing ten days. With what pleasure I received it,—and yet I read it with a certain sadness too, for there was something of ennui, I might say of discontent, in the tone. . .Believe me, my dear Louis, your attitude is a wrong one; you see everything in shadow. Consider that you are exactly in the position you have chosen for yourself; we have in no way opposed your plans. We have, on the contrary, entered into them with readiness, saying ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... to give her comfort; but finding her only satisfaction was to express her discontent, she arose to take leave. But, turning first to Miss Belfield, contrived to make a private enquiry whether she might repeat her offer of assistance. A downcast and dejected look answering in the affirmative, she put into her hand a ten pound bank note, and wishing them good ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... III. Grievous discontent among several classes of the population of Oudh, viz., the nobility of Lucknow and the members and retainers of the Royal Family, the official classes, the old soldiery, and the entire country population, noble and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Wells who had not been a candidate before was also successful. But in the following September he resigned his membership of the Society, assigning as reasons "disagreement with the Basis which forms the Confession of Faith of the Society and discontent with the general form of its activities," together with a desire "to concentrate on the writing of novels." He explained that "a scheme which proposes to leave mother and child economically dependent on the father is not to me Socialism at all, but a miserable perversion of Socialism." The letter, ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... and Hotep already had more than he could feed. During the Month of Midnight Snows the entire population of the city watched the river with apprehension, noting its slightest fluctuation. But day after day the people saw no change, and idleness fostered grumbling and discontent among them. Zaphnath and the Pharaoh were privately criticised because they did not attend or contribute to the sacrifices made to the god of Overflow; because they hoarded so much grain, and did nothing to alleviate the distress of the people. And there were many who attributed the unusual action ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... than the promptings of land-hunger and the desire for wealth and adventure was the call made by a social and religious movement which was but a phase of the general restlessness and popular discontent. The Reformation, in which this movement had its origin, was more than a revolt from the organization and doctrines of the mediaeval church; it voiced the yearning of the middle classes for a position commensurate with their growing prominence in the national life. Though the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... Indies, touching once the mainland of South America. No need to go into the details of his after life. How can one have the heart to tell of the quick subsiding of his triumph, the malicious envy of courtiers, the unreasonable discontent of subordinates, the selfish ambition of rivals, the wanton wickedness of the West Indian settlers; of his removal from the governorship, and his voyage home in chains, over his Atlantic, of his weakening health, his accumulating anxieties, his troubled old age? ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... increased, if possible, his unpopularity with the Commons, and suspicions had been rife that he desired to raise revenue without Parliamentary consent. The disasters which attended the last stages of the war did not allay the general discontent, and when the peace was at last signed on July 2lst, 1667, it found Court and Ministers alike under the cloud of popular jealousy. Only two months before Clarendon had lost the stay and support of that colleague, whose sympathies were closest to his own, the loyalty of whose friendship ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... shall be excluded from the class of Chinese laborers, for it is this very competition of skilled labor in the cities where the Chinese labor immigration concentrates which has caused the embarrassment and popular discontent. In the subsequent negotiations this definition dropped out, and does not appear in the treaty. Article II of the treaty confers the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to citizens and subjects of the most favored nation upon ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... tears in his voice that he was giving his final instructions to his sub-editor, in whose charge the paper would be left during his absence. He had taken a long time doing this. For two days he had been fussing in and out of the office, to the discontent of its inmates, more especially Billy Windsor, the sub-editor, who was now listening moodily to the last harangue of the series, with the air of one whose heart is not in the subject. Billy Windsor was a tall, wiry, loose-jointed young man, with unkempt hair ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... earnings of the English people would bar the way. To the victor of the present the spoils of war are valueless. Japan, victor over the great Russian Empire, staggers under a colossal debt. The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been transformed from a gainful occupation into economic folly, and war will cease because ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... on his eyebrows in heavy discontent. "It's mighty rough, jest ez a feller reckons he's got quit of her and her jackass bo', to hev her prancin' back inter school agin, and rigged out like ez if she'd been to a fire in ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... subjugated there was still much discontent among Columbus's men. There being no gold to pick up and sell, by tilling the land only could they live; and even to farm profitably takes years of experience. For everything that went wrong, they blamed the man who had brought them to the New World, and ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... at Corunna—do not give way in this your last and most glorious battle. The stake is greater than it was at Vittoria, or Salamanca, or Corunna, or Waterloo. The eternal welfare of a single human soul weighs a thousand times more than all the crowns and empires in the globe. You are in danger, sir. Discontent is a great enemy of the soul. You must pray against it—you must fight ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... does it begin and end except with antipathy to the world in general, which is now such a common feeling? Inexperienced vanity does not suspect that it indicates only lack of reason and sense, but regards it as a high-minded discontent with the universal ugliness of the world and of life, of which it really has not yet the slightest presentiment. It could not be otherwise; for industry and utility are the death-angels which, with fiery swords, prevent ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... commonly must, the uneducated Irishman from his native bogs as a house-servant. If she employs the accomplished and well-recommended foreign servant, he is too apt to disarrange her establishment by disparaging the scale on which it is conducted, and to engender a spirit of discontent in her household. Servants of a very high class, who can assume the entire management of affairs, are only possible to people of great wealth, and they become tyrants, and wholly detestable to the master and mistress ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... their worship would naturally produce it. But it is from their situation, not from their conduct, from the wrongs which they had suffered, not from those which they had committed, that the existence of discontent among them must be inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours and suspicions, strange grounds for a law inflicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a large ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to prate— - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind Of this ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... forgot many duties which even blue-stockings and innamoratas are expected to perform, and slowly all the homely humdrum cares that housewives know became Nan's daily life, and she accepted it without a thought of discontent. Noiseless and cheerful as the sunshine, she went to and fro, doing the tasks that mothers do, but without a mother's sweet reward, holding fast the numberless slight threads that bind a household tenderly together, and making each day ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... were first Planted where the daisies burst, And the greenest grasses grew In the fields we wandered through,— On, with childish discontent, Ever on and on we went, Hoping still to pass, some day, O'er ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... looking back from her seat in the carriage by Mrs Trevor's side, could no longer see Dennis and Maisie making signs of farewell, she leaned back with a pout of discontent. Her visit to Fieldside was over, and she had been so happy, that it seemed flat and dull to be going home with only Miss Mervyn to see when she got there. As they drove quickly through the village, she looked ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... by our approval, and by the shower of coins with which our host rewarded his performance, but when he had disposed of them in his own mysterious fashion, some source of discontent seemed yet to remain. He looked sadly at Dennis and said, "Ah-Fo like to do so, allee same as you." And then began gravely to shuffle his feet about, in vain efforts, as became evident, to dance an Irish jig. We ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you decide. What ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... into a chair and glanced at his cousin's profile. The delicate oval of her face was firelit; her night-black hair one with the deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery in the lovely dusk of Diane's eyes—and discontent—and something mute and ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... a character similar to those I have described, are to be found in almost every vessel, and are always the cause of more or less trouble; of discontent and insolence on the part of the crew, and of corresponding harsh treatment on the part of the officers; and the ship which is destined to be the home, for months, of men who, under other circumstances, would be brave, manly, and obedient, and which SHOULD be the abode of kindness, comfort, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... jeu d'esprit, "feels like a fish out of water, and discontent is rife. The newly-poor man wishes he had in him the stuff of which millionaires are made, and the profiteer sighs for a few pints of the true ultramarine Norman blood, as it would be so helpful when dealing with valets, gamekeepers and the other haughty vassals of his new entourage. And that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... been bad, the coast was blockaded, and their difficulties were aggravated by the heavy taxes imposed, and rigorously levied by Championnet for the support of his army. These impositions, and a decree for the disarming of the people, produced discontent even amongst the friends of the new institutions. Nevertheless, Championnet, by showing an interest in the rising Republic, had gained a certain degree of popularity, when he was recalled to Paris to be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... a pretty place, Shadow Hill, but it's dull. Everybody in the town is dull, stupid, and perfectly satisfied: everybody owns at least that acre which Ilse demands; there's no discontent at Shadow Hill, and no reason for it. I really couldn't bear it," she added gaily; "I want to go where there's healthy discontent, wholesome competition, natural aspiration—where things must be bettered, set right, helped. You understand? ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... food. Her profile only was visible to the strangers, though, from a slight motion of her eye, they perceived that she was aware of their presence. Her features were pinched and spare, and wore a look of sullen discontent, for which the evident wretchedness of her situation afforded a sufficient reason. This female, notwithstanding her years, and the habitual fretfulness (that is more wearing than time), was apparently healthy and robust, ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... prevail in the household. Joy will be a constant guest. Happiness will crown the board. Habits of good will be formed in the young which will not forsake them when they are old. In youth the foundation is thus laid for honorable success in later years. Reverse this picture: instead of happiness, discontent; instead of joy, distress; instead of peace, contentions and broils; instead of respectability, disgrace; instead of honor, shame. What an amazing difference between the rewards of obedience and the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... has known that for thirty years past there has been a feverish and jealous discontent expressed in the cotton States. It had its first ebullition in 1832, when South-Carolina assumed the right to nullify the revenue laws of Congress. Since that time the North has continually been accused of an ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... the Indians generally has been orderly and their relations with their neighbors friendly and peaceable, two local disturbances have occurred, which were deplorable in their character, but remained, happily, confined to a comparatively small number of Indians. The discontent among the Bannocks, which led first to some acts of violence on the part of some members of the tribe and finally to the outbreak, appears to have been caused by an insufficiency of food on the reservation, and this insufficiency to have been ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... but that discontent has never betrayed itself, that I know of, and if, like a man of heart, I have spoken out before your majesty, I have not even thought of the matter, before ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... catch her husband's eye, but he evidently avoided meeting hers; yet something of discontent, and something of trouble too, showed itself in his manner. The Candidate, on the contrary, appeared not in the slightest degree troubled, but reclined perfectly at his ease in an armchair, and cast searching glances on three ladies, who evidently ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Farwell carried out the mother's commands and heeded not the muttered discontent or the approach of the horse and buggy bearing Doctor Ledyard and Dick Travers. He was one in the drama now and he ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... honestly! However that may be, I have no cause now to talk about him. After I had stayed there some days, my father took me away from Michel Agnolo, finding himself unable to live without having me always under his eyes. Accordingly, much to my discontent, I remained at music till I reached the age of fifteen. If I were to describe all the wonderful things that happened to me up to that time, and all the great dangers to my own life which I ran, I should astound my readers; but, in order to avoid ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... your health will be hurt. If so, all their saints will be damned by the navy. The king would be better employed digesting a good government; everything gives way to their pleasures. The money spent at Palermo gives discontent here; fifty thousand people are unemployed, trade discouraged, manufactures at a stand. It is the interest of many here to keep the king away: they all dread reform. Their villanies are so deeply rooted, that if some method is ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... exaggerating?" he suggested. "Are you sure that Adair—— What I mean to say is, he may be only philandering. Heaps of men do that—go through all the motions of making fools of themselves and actually do nothing. He may be only expressing the discontent of the moment, the revolt from suspense, the flatness of quiet after terrible excitements. One didn't need to be a fighting-man to share those excitements. You say that Phyllis made a nest of her home. Perhaps he didn't like nests. It may be that that's done it. Adair ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... a melancholy manner at seeing this great political question resolved by the discontent of such humble interest. He for a moment ran over in his mind the glorious existence of the surintendant, the crumbling of his fortunes, and the melancholy death that awaited him; and to conclude, "Did M. Fouquet ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... instance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarian poet, who would rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine at Whitehall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough to show discontent at a peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozen others I could name, were not such scandals as these ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... genius, of professional skill; but beyond all these, he was a patriot. While climbing, at first with slow and toilsome but reliant steps, and, later on, with swifter, surer progress, that summit to which his genius urged him, he was often and again confronted by the clamor of discontent, the jealousies of his profession, and the various forms of opposition his rapid, upward course evoked; and until the present generation of actors in the great drama in which he played so conspicuous part ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... case, as it is now, that land was taken up more readily when offered privately and voluntarily than when it came through offcial sources. Meanwhile competent and thoughtful men saw well that the sullen discontent of the peasantry continued, in Lord Bacon's phrase, to threaten "the might and manhood of the kingdom.'' It had existed since the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, and had become more articulate with the spread ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... artistically before him. It makes him tired, and he has not enough energy to scold an intruder, as he would in the comfortable days of summer. No amount of coaxing or tapping will tempt him from his lofty watch-tower, or win more recognition than a silent look of weary discontent. Another cousin, the chipmunk, no longer displays his daintily-striped coat. Oblivious in his burrow, he is sleeping away the days, and waiting for ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... strange names struck us; and it immediately occurred to us that they were but pseudonyms, under which d'Artagnan had disguised names perhaps illustrious, or else that the bearers of these borrowed names had themselves chosen them on the day in which, from caprice, discontent, or want of fortune, they had ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reflections as these one may wean oneself from that discontent with one's fortune, which makes one's own condition look low and mean from too much ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the cause of discontent,' said Lorimer; 'the upstart ways of her kin were not to be borne. To hear Dick Woodville chaffer about the blazoning of his horse-gear when he was wedding the fourscore-year-old Duchess of Norfolk, one would have thought he was an emperor at the ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "How long, oh Lord, how long?" Not only from the huts of toil, the dens of sin and shame, From lordly halls and peaceful homes the cry goes up the same; Deep in the heart of every man, where'er his life be spent, There is a noble weariness, a holy discontent. Where'er to mortal eyes has come, in silence dark and lone, Some glimmer of the far-off light the world has never known, Some ghostly echoes from a dream of earth's triumphal song, Then as the vision fades we cry, "How long, oh ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... it. She asks no concessions on account of sex. Men's passions are but weapons forged for her necessity; and as for genuine love-affairs, like Cleopatra, she had but two, and the second ended in disaster to herself. This tale is of the first one that succeeded, although fraught with discontent for certain others. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... feeling was far from hostile to the invaders. The discontent with the vicious government had been extreme, and the imposts now levied were less onerous than those which had been wasted in profusion and extravagance. The conduct of the troops had been admirable; and in the case of Count Eulenfurst, the personal visit of the king to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... I must say, modern books are very consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with myself and ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... excesses of a spirit that had been lately released from the monotony of a sea-life. The repose which usually reigned in the countenance of the Alderman had been a little troubled; but he succeeded in concealing his discontent from any impertinent observation. When the chief actor in the foregoing scene, therefore, saw fit to withdraw, the usual tranquillity was restored, and his presence ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... had no children, though he had so many wives. He knew not what to attribute this barrenness to; and what increased his affliction was, that he was likely to leave his kingdom without a successor. He dissembled his discontent a long while; and, what was yet more uneasy to him, he was constrained to dissemble. At length, however, he broke silence; and one day, after he had complained bitterly of his misfortune to his grand vizier, he demanded of him if he knew any remedy ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... parchment and handsomely bound, so that the getting up of a person's birth formula is a test of his social position. They commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. was a member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for in every way, and had no cause of discontent, &c., &c., he did of his own wanton depravity and restlessness conceive a desire to enter into this present world; that thereon having taken the necessary steps as set forth in laws of the unborn kingdom, ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Chancellor, Count Wrede, whose opinion appeared to him the most expedient, to remain after the others left. The latter showed him letters from which it appeared that, as a matter of fact, the horse-dealer's forces had already come to number four hundred men; indeed, in view of the general discontent which prevailed all over the country on account of the misdemeanors of the Chamberlain, he might reckon on doubling or even tripling this number in a short time. Without further hesitation the Elector decided to accept ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... at her in surprise. It was so unlike her to express discontent. She had always seemed so happy. "Why, I thought you couldn't be ever induced to live any other place," ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... this life may be compared to the gourd of Jonah, that notwithstanding we take great delight for a season in them, and find their Shadow very comfortable, yet their is some worm or other of discontent, of feare, or greife that lyes at root, which in great part withers the pleasure which else we should take in them; and well it is that we perceive a decay in their greennes, for were earthly comforts permanent, who would look ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... clothing,—and that his only literary skill lies in the abuse of better men than himself is his misfortune, rather than his fault. Yes! ... he is my paid Critic, paid to rail against me on all occasions public or private, for the merriment of those who care to listen to the mutterings of his discontent,—and, by the Sacred Veil! ... I cannot choose but laugh myself whenever I think of him. He deems his words carry weight with the people,—alas, poor soul! his scorn but adds to my glory,—his derision to my fame! Nay, of a truth ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... from the moment he had got out of bed that something was amiss with the world. Either he was in the grip of some divine discontent due to the highly developed condition of his soul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two. Or it might have been the reaction from the emotions of the previous night. On the morning after an opening your sensitive ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... When the father died in 1851, the pension was not continued to the son. He was bitterly disappointed that his income was cut off, and it stirred up all the bad blood in his nature, and there was a good deal of it. He did his best to foment discontent, and succeeded too well; for the mutiny ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... realism, as it was once opposed to classicism. As, in one way, its freedom and lawlessness, its love of novelty, experiment, "strangeness added to beauty," contrast with the classical respect for rules, models, formulae, precedents, conventions; so, in another way, its discontent with things as they are, its idealism, aspiration, mysticism contrast with the realist's conscientious adherence to fact. "Ivanhoe" is one kind of romance; "The Marble ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Disease broke out. Hundreds of New England soldiers died and their bones now lie in graves, unmarked and forgotten, on the seashore by the deserted fortress; at almost any time still their bones, washed down by the waves, may be picked up on the beach. There were sullen mutterings of discontent at Louisbourg. Soldiers grumbled over grievances which were sometimes fantastic. Rumor had been persistent in creating a legend that vast wealth, the accumulated plunder brought in by French privateers, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... (Spieker. Hof u. Hofordnung Al. d. Gr., 1904). He wore on occasions of state the Persian dress. (According to pseudo-Plutarch, de fort. Al. i. 8, it was the simpler Persian dress, not the Median.) A discontent began to work among the Macedonians, and at Prophthasia the commander of the Macedonian cavalry Philotas, the son of Parmenio, and certain others were arraigned before the army on the charge of conspiring against the king's life. They were condemned and put to death. Not satisfied with procuring ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Deronda had come full of a gladdened consciousness, which inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, Lapidoth was at a crisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes of freedom, and Deronda's new amenity encouraged them. This pre-occupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual show of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting by even when there was reading which he could not ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Wind, seeing that his temptations had succeeded, replied, in great glee, that he would do his best; and so he went away, chuckling at the discontent ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... bred discontent and mutiny among the crew. They had been enlisted with lavish promises of prize money, but saw before them nothing but a profitless cruise. The spirit of discontent spread rapidly. Three or four ships that were sighted proved ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... popular assemblies, and sometimes became the objects of bitter popular hatred. The disputes were apt to be concerned with questions in which taxation was involved, such as the salaries of crown officers, the appropriations for war with the Indians, and so on. Such disputes bred more or less popular discontent, but the struggle did not become flagrant so long as the British parliament refrained from meddling ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... black soldiery from Gedaref, Kordofan, and Darfur continued. Large quantities of grain, of camels and other supplies, were requisitioned from the people of the Ghezira (the country lying between the Blue and White Niles) and stored or stabled in the city. The discontent to which this arbitrary taxation gave rise was cured by a more arbitrary remedy. As many of the doubtful and embittered tribesmen as could be caught were collected in Omdurman, where they were compelled to drill regularly, and found it prudent to protest their loyalty. The strength and tenacity of ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... steadily on in the path of conservative progress; had widened its suffrage by the Reform Act of 1832; had relieved distress and disarmed discontent by the free trade policy of Sir Robert Peel; her factory legislation had met a crying need of the new industrial epoch, and she had pacified and energized Canada by giving her self-government. Meanwhile American progress had been along lines of its own. The country had grown at ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... men as they came along, to see if there was any possible danger. Toward the end of the procession one man said to me: "Chauncey Depew, I don't belong to this crowd. I am well enough off and can take care of myself. I am an anarchist. My business is to stir up unrest and discontent, and that brings me every night to mingle with the crowd waiting for their dole of bread from Fleischmann's bakery. You do more than any one else in the whole country to create good feeling and dispel unrest, and you have done a lot of ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... account of the sale of Dunkirk, agreed to the transfer, and the baronetcy of Clyde with the appurtenant estates passed to the house of Wentworth, where, probably, they brought trouble to Sir William and joyous discontent to his aspiring lady. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... is now behind us. Some perhaps began it with high resolves and brave hopes, and are disappointed at the apparently small results. None, we trust, are wholly satisfied with themselves, for that would point to a condition far worse than despair. There is such a thing as divine discontent, and every true Christian should know something of it. For all the conscious failures ask pardon, but do not give ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing couples. Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances without feeling any desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent, which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the case with youthful glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some of the capers cut by prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled upon one couple with a ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... the rules for sitting and lying conclude with the statement that not to move at all, not to stir, is the best rule. To lie naked, bitten by vermin, and not to disturb them, is religion. Like a true Puritan, the Jain regards pleasure in itself as sinful. "What is discontent, and what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither. Giving up all gaiety, circumspect, restrained, one should lead a religious life. Man! Thou art thine own friend; why longest thou for a friend beyond thyself?... First troubles, then pleasures; first pleasures, then troubles. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... this day, in the case of church-rates, may show the real nature of the grievance. It was not the amount paid, but partly the degradation of paying it, and partly, perhaps, resentment in many places at some unfair assessment. Discontent exaggerates every burden, and a feather is as heavy as a mountain when laid on unwilling shoulders. When the new arrangement was made by Alcibiades or the later demagogues, Andocides asserts that some of the allies left their native countries and emigrated to Thurii. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was too great to leave them a probable prospect of victory. A battle, however, was not to be avoided. The opinion of the public and of Congress demanded it. The loss of Philadelphia, without an attempt to preserve it, would have excited discontent throughout the country, which might be productive of serious mischief, and action, though attended with defeat, provided the loss be not too great, must improve an army in which not only the military talents, but even the courage of officers, some of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Juno muttered their discontent as they sat side by side hatching mischief for the Trojans. Minerva scowled at her father, for she was in a furious passion with him, and said nothing, but Juno could not contain herself. "Dread son of ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... peace; his nights of sweet unconsciousness. For holding himself foreordained to the dominion of the entire Archipelago, he upbraids the gods for laggards, and curses himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as having had wrested from him, what he never possessed. Discontent dwarfs his horizon till he spans it with his hand. 'Most miserable of demi-gods,' he cries, 'here am I cooped up in this insignificant islet, only one hundred leagues by fifty, when scores of broad empires own me not for their lord.' Yet Uhia himself is envied. 'Ah!' cries Karrolono, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... lady who had come to the camp for that purpose, and would leave them for half an hour. The man evidently was such a favorite that black looks were cast on Miss Greeby for depriving the Romany of his society. But Pine paid no attention to these signs of discontent. He finished his speech, and then pushed his way again toward the lady who, awkwardly for him, was acquainted with his true position as a millionaire. In a hurried whisper he asked Miss Greeby to follow him, and led the way into ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... bondman, for he walked erect and self-possessed. He could not be more than twenty years of age; that was evident in the young soft hair on his upper lip, chin, and cheeks; but in his large blue eyes there shone no light of youth, only discontent, and his lips were firmly closed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
