"Discouraging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inspiring," said Mrs. Alsager; "they're discouraging, because they're vulgar. The other problem, the working out of the thing itself, ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... Are they in short of evil or of good? The problem is complex—its solution most difficult. The author who of late years has studied most profoundly the savage races of the globe, expresses the discouraging conviction: "Their religions have not acted as levers to raise them to civilization; they have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing everything unintelligible in nature to spiritual agency, ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... with his whole heart, go into it: the EUREKA out of all these difficulties, which had so long seemed insuperable. Prince Henri "had an Interview with the Austrian Minister next day" (February 19th), who immediately communicated with his Kaunitz,—and got discouraging response from Kaunitz; discouraging, or almost negatory; which did not discourage Friedrich. "A way out," thinks Friedrich: "the one way to save my Prussia and the world from incalculable conflagration." And entered ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... as a blush, was what appealed to them fellows. If Manley handed it out liberal enough, they wouldn't bother his bride. Very likely, Arline had assured her, she wouldn't see one of them. That, on the whole, had been rather discouraging. How was she to show herself a gracious lady, forsooth, if no one came near her? But she kept these things jealously tucked away in the remotest corner of her own mind, and managed to look the relief ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... At a discouraging time in the history of Israel, an angel appeared to Gideon, bringing the message, "The Lord is with thee," and calling him to the work of ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... discouraging Frank, made him assume an air of bravado. He took his shirt, wrung out the water, shook it and proceeded to put it on. How cold it was; how it stuck to his little body. It only made him shiver the more. He put his stocking ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... for readers in America, have been eliminated. Little Perrine's loyal ideals, with their inspiring sentiments, are preserved by her through the most discouraging conditions, and are described with the simplicity for which Hector Malot is famous. The building up of a little girl's life is made a fine example for every child. Every reader of this story leaves it inspired for ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... while you are always running after your Plymouth Brethren and your Bible Christians, and your other ignorant fanatical people, instead of going with me respectably to St. Alphege's to hear the dear Archdeacon! It's very discouraging to a mother, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... At all events, what Mr. Traill Taylor says is suggestive, and is well worth being borne in mind by any one investigating the subject. Some careful experiments have been made of late years, mostly, so far as I have heard, with inconclusive, or discouraging results. But I am not aware of any serious sustained study of the question by any English photographer since ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... Radwin, though he spoke rather lazily. "It's fine to have only one rival left in the field, but it's discouraging to know that we're number two, and that the other fellow holds number one rank. Rhinds, I wonder if we can really get an order for any of our boats from the government. I hope that we can, at least, get rid of the three that we have ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... Then why did he come to it? Because he so loved it that he gave himself for it. Small room do we still leave for Jesus as we crowd him out of our hearts and lives and out of our social order and civilization with our selfishness and sin. Is it a discouraging fact that there is so little room for Christ in the world? Then let us note the fact that there is more room for him to-day than ever before, and this ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... empire having possessions in Alsace, should be reinstated in their feudal rights In case of refusal, they threatened France with a war in which all the powers who were guarantees for the French monarchy would concur. This declaration, so far from discouraging, only served to irritate the assembly and the people. Men asked only another, what right the princes of Europe had to interfere in the government of France; by what right they gave orders to great people, and imposed conditions upon it; and ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... and English, until the captain began casting me odd, uncomfortable looks, as though he wished himself well out of the entertainment. Indeed, poor John Paul's perturbation amused me more than the gentleman's anecdotes. To be ill at ease is discouraging to any one, but it was peculiarly fatal with the captain. This arch-aristocrat dazzled him. When he attempted to follow in the same vein he would get lost. And his really considerable learning counted for nothing. He reached the height of his mortification ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... once suggested—a Court of Honour; to take cognizance of such offences as would naturally fall within its province. The effects of this establishment would doubtless require to be enforced by legislative provisions, directly punishing the practice; and by discouraging at court, and in the military and naval situations, all who should directly or indirectly be guilty ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... were also put under canvas, while the ships which carried them were careened and cleaned. Sir Sidney Smith had already returned with the news that there was practically nothing that could be called an army in Syria, and his report was so discouraging that General Abercrombie and Lord Keith resolved that it would be far better to land the army in Egypt than to disembark at Jaffa and take the long and fatiguing march across the desert, merely in order to gain the aid of a few thousand useless ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... Montgomery's tavern, only four miles from Toronto by way of Yonge Street, the road connecting Toronto with Lake Simcoe. The subsequent news of the dispersion of the rebels at St. Charles was very discouraging to Mackenzie and Lount, but they felt that matters had proceeded too far for them to stop at that juncture. They still hoped to surprise Toronto and occupy it without much difficulty. A Colonel Moodie, who had taken part in the war of 1812-15, ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... him, to let him know how much of that unveiling was my act; and there was a moment when I probably should have done so had not one of the ladies of our party, snatching a place at his other elbow, just then appealed to him in a spirit comparatively selfish. It was very discouraging: I almost felt the liberty had ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... take what money of mine is in his hands, and give him acquittance. If you think Davis has stock or credit enough to do justice to the farm, give him a discharge for the rent that is due, this will animate his industry; for I know that nothing is so discouraging to a farmer as the thoughts of being in arrears with his landlord. He becomes dispirited, and neglects his labour; and so the farm goes to wreck. Tabby has been clamouring for some days about the lamb's skin, which Williams, the hind, begged ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Under such discouraging conditions the voting strength of the Republicans rapidly melted away. The party organization existed for the Federal offices only and was interested in keeping down the number of those who desired to be rewarded. As a consequence, ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... founding-house in the College grounds, basing his claim on their custom of giving accommodation to the arts subservient to learning, on his own services to the University in the matter of the Greek types before mentioned, and on his having undertaken, in spite of the discouraging results of that speculation, to cast a large and elegant Hebrew type for the University press. He estimated that the building would cost no more than the very modest sum of L40 sterling, and he offered to ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... more and more discouraging, and the kind admonitions of your mother grow more earnest, as if (though the thought does not come to you until years afterward) she was preparing herself to fasten upon you that surplus of affection which she fears may soon ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... it, but have not yet arrived. "Man partly is and wholly hopes to be." And can we ever arrive? I do not see how. We are chasing a flying goal. The nearer we approach, the farther it removes. Shall we call this fact discouraging, then, or even say that self-development is a useless process, since it never can be fulfilled? I think not. I should rather specify this feature of it as our chief source of encouragement; for ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... the dry season continues so long, there is no running stream of fresh water upon the whole island, but only small springs, which are at a considerable distance from the sea side:"* this conflicting account was discouraging; but as we had lately had much rain it was hoped that there would be a sufficiency in ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... hopelessly the adjustments of disputes, the taking of territory, and the acceptance of opposing ideals. The biggest artillery and the best brains for butchery at present are having their day. Humanity in the making has its discouraging side." ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... declared had been sanctioned by the treaty; impractical liberals, who were disappointed because Wilson had not inaugurated the social millennium, joined hands with out-and-out reactionaries. But the most discouraging aspect of the situation was that so many persons permitted their judgment to be clouded by their dislike of the President's personality. However much they might disapprove the tactics of Senator Lodge they could not but sympathize to some extent with the Senate's desire to maintain its independence, ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... not know," Albertine answered very impertinently; and Lucien, less surprised by Albertine's answer than by a note from Mme. de Bargeton, took the billet, and read the following discouraging lines:— ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... patrons of our branch libraries are largely the wives and daughters of business men with good salaries, whose general scale of living is high, the percentage of fiction circulated is unduly great, I do not say, as I am tempted to do "How surprising and how discouraging that persons of such apparent cultivation should read nothing but fiction, and that not of the highest grade!" I say rather: "What an evidence it is of our great material prosperity that persons in an early stage ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... a drug store, a writer overheard a clerk make a request for a deposit from a woman who desired to have a prescription filled, an incident which led him to write a special feature for the New York Times on this method of discouraging persons from adding to the drug store's "morgue" of ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Taranto into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus—"dulce Galaesi flumen"—is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle with the Little ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... the house will not be hard to describe. It was clean as could be, but with a typical bachelor's cleanliness: there was no dirt, but a great deal of disorder. Across the head of the iron bed was hung a miscellany of socks, neckties, and suspenders. A discouraging assortment of boots, shoes, and leggings protruded from beneath the bed. Some calendars ornamented the wall, and upon a table stood a smoky lamp and some tobacco and a smelly pipe. On a rack over ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... burying the carcass of a pig—an animal abhorred by all Moslems—in the grave with the body of the assassin. When I was in Jolo the governor told me of a novel and highly effective method which had been adopted by the officer commanding the American forces in that island for discouraging the custom. A number of American soldiers had been killed by Moros running amok. The American commander took up the matter with the local priests but they only shrugged their shoulders with true Oriental stoicism, saying that when a man went ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... from the elections in other Northern States were equally discouraging, from the Democratic point of view. Only seven out of forty-two who had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill were re-elected. In the next House, the Democrats would be in a minority of seventy-five.[520] The anti-Nebraska ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... is difficult to think out a plot that has not been done before; but this very fact, instead of discouraging the writer, should offer him the greater incentive to discover original ideas for his stories. That the manufacturers are once in a while forced to make over their old plays should convince the photoplaywright that they are more than willing to buy new ones ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... trudging away, alone, designing to walk some distance from town, and then try his fortune with the coaches, told Mr Haredale that he feared he might not find a magistrate who would have the hardihood to commit a prisoner to jail, on his complaint. But notwithstanding these discouraging accounts they went on, and reached the Mansion House soon ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... backward, for both had been tried. Travel ahead had been discouraging—in fact, it had convinced them that their normal passage through the years had to be stopped. The reason had been made dramatically clear—they, the master race, did not exist in the future. They had vanished and the lower forms of life had ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... prevented only by frequent bathing and by wearing clean clothes, and there is no surer indication of a proper self-respect than the habit of cleanliness, both as to one's person and one's clothes. There is also the very practical feature that cleanliness is an effective method of discouraging infection and disease, partly by the removal of scurf and partly by the greater healthfulness ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... This was sufficiently discouraging for Jim. He had given the petulant child the half of his kingdom, and she was blue. If anything could have made him bluer than he was it would have been this proclamation of his failure. He had done the honorable thing, and ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... very discouraging," groaned Morgan. "To think that we may be picked off before we've even began ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... obliged to disguise ourselves at times," I explained. "The police are always meddling. It is discouraging." ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... associations, etc, to arouse public interest, demonstrate possibilities, and stir up municipal holidays, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Arbor Day, Thanksgiving Day, etc, should be used to stimulate civic pride in these matters; pulpit and press should be brought into line. It will be a slow and discouraging, but necessary, task to awaken the people to a realization of the potentialities for a better civilization that lie in the utilization of government powers. What should be done in the way of public education? The principle of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... one. Forebodings of misfortune swept over the insurgents. The enthusiasm and confidence of the previous evening seemed to die away in the darkness. In the morning there were gloomy faces; sad looks were exchanged, followed by discouraging silence. Terrifying rumours were now circulating. Bad news, which the leaders had managed to conceal the previous evening, had spread abroad, though nobody in particular was known to have spoken. It was the work of that invisible voice, which, with a word, throws a ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... within, the sphere of its influence soon become impressed with the fact. And it is regarded as one of the most hopeful of signs when the new inmate is drawn into accord with this sentiment, and as a most discouraging one if he sets himself ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... physicians. This, however, was but a continuation of that rivalry between the advancement of science and the conservation of theology, which is as old as history. In our examination of the influence of Christianity upon mental healing, it may be well for us to glance at the discouraging attitude of ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... said, "twice; I'm very fond of Italy." He spoke of it in a familiar tone that might well have been discouraging to one of her total unacquaintance with it. Presently he added of his own motion, looking at her with his interest in her as a curious study, "You're going to Venice, I ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... ducks, and other aquatic birds; we shot many of these from the ship's deck, but were, much to our mortification, obliged to see them drift away, the pilot, seconded by our austere captain, strenuously objecting to a boat being lowered; this was very discouraging, as such a change in our diet would, after a rather prolonged voyage, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... under a receiver, from handling Burlington business, it made it all the easier for the company to handle the little traffic that came to them and gave the road the appearance of running trains. All this was discouraging to the men, and at last, having exhausted all fair means, and some that were unfair, the strike was declared off. While the company refused to the last to accept anything short of unconditional surrender it is pleasing to be able to record ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... eminently discouraging. Outlay was needed everywhere—income was small. As the chances of peculation diminished, the castellans deserted their posts and left the castles to decay. The Burgundian commission of 1471 found the difficulties of their exploration ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... that he was not by any means out of the woods. He was still decidedly in the enemy's country, and getting out of it promised to be a difficult and a perilous task. He was handicapped by his lack of knowledge of the place and what little he did know was discouraging. He had proof that human enemies were not the only ones he had to fear. And the only way he knew that offered a chance of getting out offered, as well, the prospect of encountering the men who had pursued Dick Mercer, returning. It was just as he made up his mind to ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... returned was like the others, cold but not discouraging. A gaze of many moments elicited no reply; and Ruth prepared to quit the place, troubled by uncertainty concerning the intentions of the guardian she left with the girls, while she still trusted that the many acts of kindness which she had shown him, during ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... it was not easy to make him smile. To tell the truth, the look of the farm was rather discouraging. He kicked the earth over with his foot, and said the soil was poor and every thing seemed run down. But Eyebright would not give in to this view at all. It was a lovely place, she insisted, and she ran about discovering ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... discouraging statement Rip made straight for Jellico's record tapes and routed out the one which dealt with Terraport and the landing instructions for that metropolis of the star ships. To land unbidden there would ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... to its own size, what the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn are, compared to those two large planets, any observer could perceive them, from the earth. Herschel was not a man to be deterred by such discouraging conjectures. Therefore, since powerful telescopes of the ordinary construction, that is to say, with two mirrors conjugated, had not enabled him to discover any thing, he substituted, in the beginning ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... her. He found indirect means for conveying his idea and that of her friends that she was wasting herself upon a folly, and was destined, if she persisted in it, to only the most mediocre success. An exhibition of her works, undertaken with the avowed wish to know "just where she stood," had been discouraging in its results. The art critics either refused to take her seriously or expressed the opinion that there were already in the world too many sculptors of distinguished technique and no imagination whatsoever. Her friends told her that she was a "wonder." And there were little incidents of the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... day, July 3, 1775, Washington took command of the Continental Army under a large elm tree, which still stands on the Cambridge Common. The patriot army was a rather discouraging sight. The 16,000 men had been called together without any preparation. They were farmers, fishermen and shop-keepers. They had very little discipline or order and were in need of everything—arms, ammunition, food, clothing, tents, shoes. As yet they were not one army, but ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... as easy as thought. But now it is labour. No facilities are made by Serbia for Hungary or Hungary for Serbia. International trains with sleeping cars carefully avoid what are known as ex-enemy capitals. In this night-train from Belgrade all the arrangements are discouraging and fatiguing. First, second, and third class carriages are the same, all wood, but some are marked "1" and others "2" and others "3." There are no lights in the train, and it is very crowded. You crawl all night through the ex-Austrian territory now part of Serbia. At four in the morning ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... for power, tried to manage the government {396} upon its particular theory, and signally failed. The struggle in the House of Commons, had it not finally brought about such great consequences, would be disgusting and discouraging in the extreme. The struggle in England for liberty of conscience and for government of the people through Parliament went on through turmoil and disgrace for two centuries. It was king against the people, Catholic against Protestant, and, within the latter ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... in the same year, to Campbell, after reading the proofs of my first book of verse, Days and Nights, contained a criticism which I thought, at the time, not less discouraging than the criticism of my Browning. It seems to me now to contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about that particular book, and to allow for whatever I may have done in verse since then. The first letter addressed to me is a polite note, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... courts are always unpleasant. And humanity if seen only in the setting of a criminal trial would be a discouraging object. Turning to the more civil court, we find an almost equal unfitness between the courts and ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... published for 1767. That for 1770 was not published until 1769; but it seems probable that Cook either had proof sheets, or the manuscript calculations.) Without it the Calculations are Laborious and discouraging to beginners, and such as are not well vers'd ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... that, for a few moments, the boys did not know what to say. They had been so sure they were journeying in the right direction, that, to find they had merely gone back on their own trail, was more than discouraging. ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... difficulties attending the first attempt to create in the English literature, anything which should bear any proportion to those finished models of skill which were then dazzling the imagination of the English scholar in the unworn gloss of their fresh revival here, and discouraging, rather than stimulating, the rude poetic experiment;—considering what weary lengths of essay there are always to be encountered, where the standard of excellence is so far beyond the power of execution; we have no occasion to despise the first bold attempts to overcome these ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... head, reluctantly discouraged and discouraging. He had not gone to the city during those intervening hours; he never, then or afterward, spoke of where he had been ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... many and most discouraging difficulties, peculiar to itself. As far as my inquiries have extended, there is not a building in Venice, raised prior to the sixteenth century, which has not sustained essential change in one or more of its most important features. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Weller issued forth upon his quest, in no way daunted by the very discouraging prospect before him; and away he walked, up one street and down another—we were going to say, up one hill and down another, only it's all uphill at Clifton—without meeting with anything or anybody ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... own health was impaired by a constitutional gravelly complaint to which confinement had given accelerated force, and by a bilious disorder arising partly from the same cause, from the return of hot weather, and discouraging reflections on our prospects. We were therefore visited by Dr. Laborde, principal physician of the medical staff, who judged the air and exercises of the country to be the most certain means of restoration; and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... manifestation of the lameness before a discovery has been made of the lesion from which it has originated, and there is no recall for the lapsed time. And by the uncompromising seriousness of the discouraging prognosis must the energy and severity of the treatment and the promptness of its administration be measured. The periostitis has been overlooked; any chance that might have existed for preventing its advance to the chronic stage has been lost; ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... before as overseer of a road party. This poor fellow relinquished his place of authority over other men and in which he received 1 shilling per diem, again put on the grey jacket, and set a valuable example as the most willing of my followers, wherever drudgery or difficulty were most discouraging. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... a great pet of Leonard, and had many profound secrets together, most of which related to their wonders if Jemima and Mr Farquhar would ever be married. They watched their sister closely; and every day had some fresh confidence to make to each other, confirming or discouraging ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... contradiction to his passion for the oneness of the race. In my intimate association with him I sometimes saw that, much as he liked me, he felt that I was of another "class." In the work which resulted in my book, The Spirit of Labour, I frequently came in discouraging contact with this "class" distrust of me—in him and in others. Marie alone seemed free of it, in her relation to ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... might surely with all confidence present oneself in Bryanston Square. Was he not an educated man, by birth a gentleman? If he had no position, why, who had at one-and-twenty? How needlessly he had been humiliating and discouraging himself! In the highest spirits he went down into the garden to talk with Mrs. Hannaford and Olga. They gazed at him, astonished; he was a new creature; he joked and laughed and could hardly contain his ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Officers is nearing 20,000 it would seem that it can very well spare a few of them. What fills me with wonder is not that some go, but that so many remain. This is one of the facts which, amongst much that is discouraging, convinces me of the innate nobility of man. An old friend of mine of pious disposition once remarked to me that he could never have been a Christian martyr. At the first twist of the cord, or the first nip of the red-hot pincers, he was sure that he would have thrown incense by the handful ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... of Dan; and she took it sadly to heart that her last and most interesting boy had turned out so ill. The theft was bad, but the lying about it, and allowing another to suffer so much from an unjust suspicion was worse; and most discouraging of all was the attempt to restore the money in an underhand way, for it showed not only a want of courage, but a power of deceit that boded ill for the future. Still more trying was his steady refusal to talk of the matter, to ask ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... noticed about the time of its publication as an interesting and truthful piece of writing by an authority on the subject. Mrs. Shelley's very modest and retiring disposition gave her little confidence in herself, and she seems to have met, with various discouraging remarks from acquaintances; she used to wonder afterwards that she was not able to defend herself and suppress impertinence. This last book is spoken of by Mary as written to help an unfortunate person whose acquaintance ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... she?" said Frank, taking leave of Mr. Vanstone at the hall door. "I'm to come to-morrow, and hear more of her views—if you have no objection. I shall never do it; don't tell her I said so. As fast as she teaches me one speech, the other goes out of my head. Discouraging, isn't it? Goodnight." ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... to be two sties on Split's left eye just then, and a third on the upper eyelid of the right one. But this, of course, was no reason for discouraging the overtures of a poor old man like Westlake, who, it appeared to Split, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... as she did had the disastrous news arrived either a week later or a week earlier; but it came just in the middle of a discouraging ten days' downpour, which had caused a dam to break and a chain of valuable cranberry bogs to be drowned out for that year. The cranberry bogs were especially dear ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night; and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village; where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... lessens the superiority, or increases the inferiority of the profit of improvement: and, in the one case, hinders capital from going to improvement, and in the other draws capital from it; but by discouraging improvement, the monopoly necessarily retards the natural increase of another great original source of revenue, the rent of land. By raising the rate of profit, too, the monopoly necessarily keeps up ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Bannerworth Hall; he had walked away when the altercation between Jack Pringle and the admiral began, for he had seen sufficient of those wordy conflicts between those originals to be quite satisfied that neither of them meant what he said of a discouraging character towards the other, and that far from there being any unfriendly feeling contingent upon those little affairs, they were only a species of friendly sparring, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... happened to be one of special annoyance for Tressady. His reports from Ferth were steadily more discouraging; his attempts to sell his land made no way; and he saw plainly that, if he was to keep their London life going, to provide for Shapetsky's claims, and to give Letty what she wanted for renovations at Ferth, he would have to sell some ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and arrest that followed Shiloh, the slur of being made a fifth-wheel second-in-command, the demoralizing strain of that "most anxious period of the war" when his depleted forces were thrown back on the defensive, and the eight discouraging months of Sisyphean offensive which preceded his triumph at Vicksburg. No one who has not been in the heart of things with fighting fleets or armies can realize what it means to all ranks when there is, or even is supposed to ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... of the discouraging and almost desperate condition of affairs, General Lee seems still to have clung to the hope that he might be able to cut his way through the force in his front. He woke from brief slumber beside his bivouac-fire at about three o'clock in the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... of Judith when the day came. Three schooners cast away beyond us; one might be the Likely Lass: I would search for Judith, thinks I, when day came. 'Twas very long in coming, and 'twas most bitter cold and discouraging in its arrival: a thin, gray light, with no hopeful hue of dawn in the east—frosty, gray light, spreading reluctantly over the white field of the world to a black horizon. I wished, I recall, while I waited for ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... of the various insurrections in France, Spain, and Italy was, naturally enough, discouraging to Bakounin and his followers. The Commune of Paris was the one uprising that had made any serious impression upon the people, and it was the one wherein the Bakouninists had played no important part. The others had failed miserably, with no other result than that of increasing ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... he does not understand the workings of the United States Patent System. After I have explained to him the operation of the Patent Law on some particular situation, Dr. Marchare frequently begins to mutter to himself as if I were no longer in the same room with him, and I find this most discouraging. As if this were not bad enough, many of Dr. Marchare's scientists ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... is true of the religious people. Why, the Rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expecting God to favor their side: for one of our soldiers, who had been taken prisoner, told Senator Wilson a few days since that he met nothing so discouraging as the evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we will talk over the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... discouraging! I went to your door twice and looked in, but once you were praying, and the last time you had your face down on Willie's pillow, and as I could do nothing, I came back. Dr. Whitmore told me he would die, and it only made me suffer to look at what I could not relieve. I am ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... German from Cattaraugus County at that time; and, besides being a German, he was also a Prohibitionist. Among the Democrats were Hamden Robb and Thomas Newbold, and Tom Welch of Niagara, who did a great service in getting the State to set aside Niagara Falls Park—after a discouraging experience with the first Governor before whom we brought the bill, who listened with austere patience to our arguments in favor of the State establishing a park, and then conclusively answered us by the question, "But, gentlemen, why should we spend the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... The most discouraging thing about it was that the others in the company seemed not to feel it in the same way. Anabel Astor for example: night after night she seemed to be born anew into her part with the rise of the first curtain; she fought ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... was, from early youth, filled with ardent, dreamy vagaries, to which she gave expression in verse—poems which reflect a pessimism which is rather the expression of her life's experiences, and of twenty-four years of solitude after two years of happy wedded state, than an actual depression and a discouraging philosophy of life. Her poetry shows a vigor, depth, precision of form, and strength of expression seldom found in poetry ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... where he underwent such experiences as an opinionated Englishman with new methods would be likely to meet. Soured by failure, he returned to England, and published an account of his travels, partly with the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America. His opinion of the country he summed up thus: "If a man should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let him take her to America, and keep her there three or four years in a country-place at some distance ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... since Crochard had been arrested; and his imprisonment, so far from discouraging him, had raised his spirits. At first, his arrest and the examination had frightened him; but, as the days went by, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the patient. Make no unne- 396:6 cessary inquiries relative to feelings or disease. Never startle with a discouraging remark about re- covery, nor draw attention to certain symp- 396:9 toms as unfavorable, avoid speaking aloud the name of the disease. Never say beforehand how much you have to contend with in a case, nor encourage in the patient's 396:12 thought ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... had stated that he was seeking a position in the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide difference between tossing over ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... abruptly, and laid the book on the seat. His manner was quite as discouraging as it had been ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... dredging solid clay. It gives, however, excellent results with sand and gravel, and for this work is much superior to the bucket dredger. The experience in working was then described, showing that a great many very discouraging failures preceded successful working, about a year being expended in getting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... lighted lamp, would trace with pencil the outline of the shadow as it fell on the paper. Soon he tried painting with paint and brush. At first his efforts were crude, and to anyone less determined and enthusiastic, discouraging. Not so to Albert. He worked along day after day, and in time could paint well enough to attract some ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... climbing a tree," she thought, gazing round in search of something climbable. But the tall, smooth trunks were discouraging; there were few with boughs within her reach, and the few there were were too low to be of any use as observation posts. She sat down and resolutely opened her book. "Never say die till you are dead," she repeated, firmly fastening the Guide's smile on to her face. "I'll read, and ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... "finish" was only made for fools, and the story-teller in art was the unclean thing. His ambition, like Whistler's, was to paint a full length in three days, and hear it hailed a masterpiece. And, like Whistler, he had no sooner painted it than he scraped it out; which most sitters found discouraging. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rather discouraging, but Peter upon thinking it over on his watch-tower, reflected that Mr. Morgridge used to believe in Santa Klaus, and that the queer fellow only visited boys: besides, he thought it might be owing to the snuff that he disbelieved ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... on their face are encouraging rather than discouraging. They show that our receipts from living donors are better by a few thousand dollars than last year, an evidence of the hold that we still have upon the churches, made all the more conspicuous in these hard times. But these figures do not tell the ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... weeks during the legislative session to work in the interest of the women's petitions and the Personal Liberty Bill. This was a season of great enjoyment for her, notwithstanding much tramping about in the rain and snow and many discouraging experiences with the Legislature. She writes a friend: "Well, I am a member of the lobby but lacking the two most essential requisites, for I neither accept money nor have I any to pay out. Dr. Cheever speaks tonight in the Assembly chamber ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... exchange was near at hand—every day brought something to extinguish the hopes of the preceding one. We took these varying phases according to our several temperaments. The sanguine built themselves up on the encouraging reports; the desponding sank down and died under the discouraging ones. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... "The patent protects the product, but does not reveal the method." Sir William Pope has also brought out this point, showing how the Germans use thousands of bogus patents to protect their chemical industry. He tells us,[1b] "In fact, some German patents are drawn up for the purpose of discouraging investigation by more practical methods; thus, any one who attempted to repeat the method for manufacturing a dyestuff protected by Salzman & Kruger in the German patent No. 12,096 would be pretty certain to ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... therapeutic philosophy. It is true in practice just to the extent of human impressibility. A cheerful physician or friend, by encouraging words impresses the idea of recovery and thus sometimes produces it. Judicious friends never speak in a discouraging manner to the invalid. The success of mind cure practitioners is based on this principle. They endeavor to impress on the patient's mind the idea of perfect health, but they know too little of the whole subject to know how to place the patient in that passive and receptive condition ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... it is not time to expect them. All the artists are complaining, and there are many of them, and they are all poor. The arts are as low as they can be. It is no better at the South, and all the accounts of the arts or artists are of the most discouraging nature." ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of the gallant Brock's unhappy fall reached us, which, by necessarily removing General Sheaffe to Queenstown, the command at Fort George devolved on me as next senior officer. At this moment the scene around was awfully discouraging, the gaol and court house were suddenly wrapped in flames, which as containing many political prisoners, I at first imagined the act of an incendiary, but other buildings soon appearing in a similar state of conflagration ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... eternal harping on gratitude which at one time was the only safe tone for pulpit, press and public speech; it irritating because it ignored questions of current policy, and it was discouraging to the Filipinos who were reminded by it of the hopeless future for their country to which time had brought no progress. But with all the faults and unworthiness of the later rulers, and the inane attempts ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... time I drew, in my own mind, a clear distinction between the doctrine of circumstances and Fatalism; discarding altogether the misleading word Necessity. The theory, which I now for the first time rightly apprehended, ceased altogether to be discouraging; and, besides the relief to my spirits, I no longer suffered under the burden—so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions—of thinking one doctrine true and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial. The train of thought which ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Beautiful story, ain't it? A good wife she made him, too, I bet, if she was a little copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture? But Smith appears kinder sick. Evidently thinks his goose is cooked; and I don't wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a discouraging club. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... beginnings of the experiment were discouraging the results have more than offset the original disappointment. At the last meeting (in January) seventy of the eighty-five paid up members were present, intelligent, eager, interested, participating heartily in the discussions. It has cost years of ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... between individuals and between one time of life and another. There are some to whom hope is a shining beacon light never absent; whatever happens, hope remains, like the beautiful fable of Pandora's box. There are others to whom any obstruction, any discouraging feature, blots out hope, and who constantly need the energy of others; their persuasions and exhortations, for a renewal of energy. Here, as elsewhere in life, some are givers and others takers of energy. In the presence of the hopeless it is hard ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... from the confidence in the doctor. Of course it can work very differently. The expectation can upset the nervous system and produce unrest instead of suggestibility and, instead of confidence, the patient may feel that discouraging diffidence which settles easily upon those who have tried one fashionable physician after another. But where there is real confidence, based perhaps on the fame of the doctor and on the reports of his powerful achievements, there the conditions for effective suggestions are greatly strengthened. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... received a few dollars; sometimes he did a day's farm work for a neighbor; now and then Mr. Emerson called and clandestinely left a bank note, and many valuable packages came out from relatives in Boston; but frugal housekeeping was the chief asset of the family. Discouraging as the outlook was, some bitter experience might have been escaped if the Alcotts had remained in Concord, pursuing their unambitious career. It was, however, the era of social experiments in New England. The ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... noise, girls. Your voices can be plainly heard in Miss Archer's office and she is too busy now to be disturbed." This last with a view to discouraging any attempt on their part to ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... in the poor-house, and whose education was so scanty that he had to write his letters over many times before they could be posted, by his indomitable perseverance, tenacity, and grit, fascinated the world with the genius which neither his discouraging father, poverty, nor ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... possessed ripeness of design, and accurate, if in many instances somewhat mannered and artificial execution. The native collection exhibited a poverty in conception, and a harshness and crudity in performance, sadly discouraging to one who would fain see the fine arts progress in equal measure with the more material elements of civilization. Since that time, however, year by year, the art of painting, at least, has steadily advanced, the light of genius has been granted to spring from our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... driving teams of stags, scorning to eat fish by the seaside, deploring his lot that he has never yet been able to dine on a phoenix. Enormous must have been the folly and wickedness which has incarnated itself in such a sovereign, and should his reign be prolonged, discouraging is the prospect for the morals of ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... most discouraging, for we had now hoped to have the road exclusively to ourselves; but still we did not despair. However, we had yet to run on regular time, which was, unfortunately, very slow time—not more than twelve or fifteen miles an hour. Thus unavoidably consuming ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... a furtive glance at Philip's camp, had been hostilely considering the discouraging effect of Aunt Agatha's presence upon the rival camper. That Aunt Agatha would presently discern degenerative traces of criminality in his face by reason of his reprehensible proximity to her niece's camp, Diane did not doubt. That the aggrieved ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... leave no hope of a passage or even a portage without great labour in removing rocks, and in some instances cutting away the earth. To surmount these difficulties would exhaust the strength of the party, and what is equally discouraging would waste our time and consume our provisions, of neither of which have we much to spare. The season is now far advanced, and the Indians tell us we shall shortly have snow: the salmon too have so far declined that the natives themselves are hastening ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... word. I believe in your scheme and will help you if I can." The week rolled by and a change of commanding generals occurred. Gen. Wade was ordered away, taking McArthur with him, and no progress had been made. It was discouraging. ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... commodious, possessing almost every conceivable means for gratifying the normal appetite of a healthy-minded but tired and homesick soldier boy. Then again it might be, as in the present instance, that circumstances prevented any display, and the restoration bivouac had to be opened under rather discouraging conditions, while the supplies also ran low, for it was not easy to get them so ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... those sententious observations with which Defoe essayed to give a sober purpose to his narrative. The first is his counsel of "invincible patience under the worst of misery, indefatigable application, and undaunted resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." The second is his wise remark that "the height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a great calm within under the weight of the greatest storm without." They were ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... sowing has the advantage of discouraging a growth of weeds, there is a limit that cannot be safely passed. Seed too thickly sown will mat and damp out, leaving great patches on the lawn. Do not exceed the ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... his strength. He bore up against the pain and faintness which beset him as long as he could; but at last, to the oft-repeated inquiries of Captain de Banyan in regard to his condition, he was compelled to answer in the most discouraging terms. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... to the comparative merits of railways and canals. For several years horse-power was proposed to be employed, but before actual work began the superiority of steam had been demonstrated. In the face of indifference, skepticism, and active opposition, which brought about discouraging delays, the road was built, and the first railroad train entered Pittsfield May 4, 1841. That week occurred the first accident. An old man jumped off the train as it approached his house, and was severely injured. Thus, in 1842, chiefly ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... possibilities of comfort in quarters like these, or as bravely busy herself to fix them up. She knows that the stay is indefinite, that it may be for six months, or possibly six years, but that matters not. It is her army home—Brass Button's home—and however discouraging its condition may be, for his sake she pluckily, and with wifely pride, performs miracles, always making the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... dark, dismal, obscure, dim, shaded, lowering, overcast, lurid; melancholy, dejected, sad, despondent, pessimistic, disheartened, morose, crestfallen, glum, saturnine; disheartening, depressing, discouraging. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... admitted long before that a married man was too much cumbered for his undertaking. At the same time he mentally insisted that in that foreign land life without his wife would be to him intolerable. It was truly distressing and discouraging that five years had passed by with but the most trifling results. He thought, and not for the first time, that were he settled in the faraway, quiet village of Newberg, his life might not pass away so unprofitably. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... suffered from the continued lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by 38% in 2003, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices. Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, the burden of foreign debt, and the unwillingness of the government to adopt market-oriented reforms. However, Turkmenistan's cooperation with the international community in transporting humanitarian aid to Afghanistan may foreshadow ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... On communicating this discouraging fact, my friend's countenance instantly assumed a cold and stony expression, and I almost expected that he would have stopped his horses and set me down, to walk with other poor men. As may well be supposed, I was never afterwards honoured with a seat ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... to an exploiting capitalist, then there would be a magazine for the purpose of interpreting and popularizing the gospel of Friedrich Nietzsche, the prophet of Evolution, and also of Horace Fletcher, the inventor of the noble science of clean eating; and incidentally, perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts, and the scientific breeding of men and women, and the establishing ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the vain hope of seeing the people come out in a typical multitude. But there had been no feast of bulls; and we had to make what we could out of the walking and driving in the Paseo del Gran Capitan toward evening. In its long, discouraging course there were some good houses, but not many, and the promenaders of any social quality were almost as few. Some ladies in private carriages were driving out, and a great many more in public ones as well dressed as the others, but with no pretense of state ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... said Mr. Quinby drily. "I've heard that talk before, but I notice that the Blues usually give a good account of themselves when it comes to an actual fight. It was so in my own college days. There'd be all sorts of discouraging rumors afloat and the general public would get the idea that the team was going around on crutches. But when the day of the game came, they'd go out and wipe up the field with their opponents. So I'm not worrying much for fear you'll ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... democratic nations are almost always exposed to the suspicion of dishonorable conduct, they in some measure lend the authority of the government to the base practices of which they are accused. They thus afford an example which must prove discouraging to the struggles of virtuous independence, and must foster the secret calculations of a vicious ambition. If it be asserted that evil passions are displayed in all ranks of society; that they ascend the throne by hereditary right; and that despicable ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the bay next morning at dawn, and about nine o'clock I got on shore at a little place called Lochaline. My kit was all on my person, and my waterproof's pockets were stuffed with chocolates and biscuits I had bought in Oban. The captain was discouraging. 'Ye'll get your bellyful o' Hieland hills, Mr Brand, afore ye win round the loch head. Ye'll be wishin' yerself back on the Tobermory.' But Gresson speeded me joyfully on my way, and said he wished he were coming with me. He even accompanied ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... was discouraging. All the vats not filled with plants seemed to have corpses in them, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... smirching one's boot-heel. There is even a feeling of triumph as we see it lying sulky and impotent on either side, while we bowl along dry-shod. When Noah and his family came out of the Ark, and found all "soft with the Deluge," it was very different. The prospect must have been discouraging. I thought of it as we went through, or rather over, the prairies. But if there had been in those days an Ararat Central, with good "incline" and stationary engine, they need not have sent out dove or raven, but might have started for home as soon as the rails shone ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Pamphylia. Here John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, by whom they had been hitherto accompanied, refused to proceed further. He seems to have been intimidated by the prospect of accumulating difficulties. From many, on religious grounds, they had reason to anticipate a most discouraging reception; and the land journey now before them was otherwise beset with dangers. Whilst engaged in it, Paul seems to have experienced those "perils of waters," or of "rivers," [75:5] and "perils of robbers," which he afterwards mentions; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... tunnelling either way I should gain no advantage. It would not bring me an inch nearer the desired goal; and even after I should have made a stage in either direction, I should still be only in the "second tier." This was discouraging enough—more loss of labour and time—but I dreaded that horrid bale ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... arrested by the poetry of a run of luck. The misfortune of Venice being, accordingly, at every point, what we most touch, feel and see, we end by assuming it to be of the essence of her dignity; a consequence, we become aware, by the way, sufficiently discouraging to the general application or pretension of style, and all the more that, to make the final felicity deep, the original greatness must have been something tremendous. If it be the ruins that are noble we have known plenty that ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... zeal than discretion, and after trying three thousand experiments on his farm, he was glad to pay L100 to another tenant to take his farm off his hands. This experience as a practical agriculturist, far from discouraging him, qualified him in his own opinion to speak with authority, and he became a devoted missionary of the gospel of agricultural improvement. The enthusiasm with which he admired more successful labourers in the cause, and the indignation with which he regards the sluggish and retrograde, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... covered with one unbroken land-floe, attached to all the shores extending from the island where we stood, and which formed an abutment for it each way along the land as far as the eye could reach. After this discouraging prospect, which wholly destroyed every hope of finding a harbour among the Seven Islands, we returned to the place where the men had deposited the provisions, and, after making the necessary observations for the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... had its alleviating circumstances. One was Miss Ferris's hearty approval of the way in which Betty and Eleanor had managed their discovery, and another was Jean Eastman's unexpected attitude of helpfulness. She assumed her full share of responsibility, discouraging gossip and speculation about the thefts as earnestly and tactfully as Betty herself, and taking her turn of watching the Blunderbuss at the times when Miss Ferris couldn't follow her without causing ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde |
