"Insupportable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this may Stand with the rules of policy, I know not; Most sure I am, it holds no correspondence With the Rites of AEgypt, or the Laws of Nature; But grant that Cleopatra can sit down With this disgrace (though insupportable) Can you imagine, that Romes glorious Senate (To whose charge, by the will of the dead King This government was deliver'd) or great Pompey, (That is appointed Cleopatra's Guardian As well as Ptolomies) will e're ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... become the slave of another chief man. This announcement affected us more than anything which had occurred. Together, we thought that we could have borne our misfortunes; but parted from each other, we felt they would be insupportable. ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... Montalais, "she is insupportable. Whenever there is a question of laughing a little or of amusing ourselves, La Valliere begins to cry; whenever we girls have reason to cry, because, perhaps, we have mislaid our dresses, or because our vanity as been ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all its contents. Butterflies are not so numerous as in England, but I think all different. Common flies and mosquitoes (or gnats) are abundant, and the latter so tormenting as to make one conclude that if the flies in Egypt were mosquitoes, the plague must be almost insupportable. Here are beetles of many species; scorpions of two sorts, the sting of the smallest not mortal; land crabs in abundance, and an amazing number of other kinds of insects. Fish is very plentiful, and the principal animal food of the inhabitants. I find fewer varieties ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... "that unfortunate rencounter! Great Heavens, what if I stand here a murderer, with the blood of a fellow-creature, hurried, I fear, in the very midst of his profligacy, into eternity! The thought is insupportable; and I know not, unless I can strictly preserve my incognito, whether I am at this moment liable, if apprehended, to pay the penalty which the law exacts. The only consolation that remains for me is, that the act was not of my seeking, but arrogantly and imperiously ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... satisfaction: and when he saw them pleased with the facility of his concessions, he observed to them, that, since amity was now in effect restored between them, it were better on both sides to dismiss their forces, which otherwise would prove an insupportable burden to the country. The archbishop and the earl of Nottingham immediately gave directions to that purpose: their troops disbanded upon the field: but Westmoreland, who had secretly issued contrary orders to his army, seized the two rebels without resistance, and carried them to the king, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... to mimic and to caricature what were then regarded as the outward signs of sanctity. The nation was not duped. The restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints. Those restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept up for the profit of hypocrites. It is quite certain that, even if the royal family had never returned, even if Richard Cromwell or Henry Cromwell had been at the head of the administration, there ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the existing national government, that it is an insupportable despotism, wielded by a power which is superior to all legal and constitutional restraints—equally indisposed and unable to protect the lives or liberties of the people—the prop and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... being linked to stupidity, or ignorance, for life, of feeling always anxious, when in company, lest your companion utter the follies he does at your fireside, must be insupportable. If you have a husband, whom you cannot trust as a man of common sense at least, woe ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... all things considered, for the wilderness had already the advantage of first attack—and of a hostage. The fate of their comrade hung over them with a steadily increasing weight of oppression that finally became insupportable. ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... I had been married, if I had no longer control of my actions, I should have thought I was in love with Edgar.... I should have mistaken for an odious and culpable passion, the fearful trouble, insupportable uneasiness that his love caused me to feel. But my vigilant reason, my implacable good faith watched over my heart; they said: "Shun Roger;" they said: "Fear Edgar...." If I had married Roger, woe to me! Conventional love, leaving my heart all its dreams, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... I knew not where—somehow, but I knew not how—by some beings, but I knew not by whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, was traveling through all its stages—was evolving itself, like the catastrophe of some mighty drama, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable, from deepening confusion as to its local scene, its cause, its nature, and its undecipherable issue. I (as is usual in dreams, where of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement) had the power, and yet had not the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... sneers. When their carts were sent to fetch the necessaries of life, lynch-pins were loosened; in more than one case the draught oxen were houghed; the provisions, when received, were mouldy and unwholesome. At last sickness broke out, with stories of poison; then the tension became insupportable. The Voizin chief, too proud to go to his neighbours, summoned them to him; the messenger was murdered. This assassination, of which the natives denied all knowledge, was met by prompt reprisals; three Perelle fishermen were hung on ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... their shirt sleeves.' I don't wonder that they have adopted this plan, as the climate is very warm. The region is decidedly tropical, the air is damp and oppressive, and in the daytime especially the heat is almost insupportable. I wonder, though, that they don't adopt the white linen jacket for dinner purposes, just as the Europeans living in China and Japan ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... be," said my father, "but it's just as I feared. She's got all the ideas of her father's family. She talks of nothing but God and the Bible and of her religion, and that's insupportable in this house." ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... occurred at the little town of El Salado, and was caused by the terrible sufferings the captives had endured upon the march, added to many insults and cruelties, to which they had been subjected, not only by the Mexican soldiers, but the officers having them in charge. These had grown altogether insupportable, at El Salado ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... eyed all with the listlessness of a man who has given up hope. The prelate's face was as finely drawn as an ancient cameo, and as immobile. He gazed at Madame with one of those looks which penetrate like acid; and, brave as she was, she found it insupportable. There was a tableau of ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... true, with great people, and known as having distinguished talent. Now, all this would seem to me delightful if you had an income of fifty thousand francs; but, in your position, you must absolutely have an occupation which will enable you to live, and free you from the insupportable weight of dependence on others. From this day forward, my dear child, you must look to this end alone if you would find it possible to pursue honorably the career you have chosen. Otherwise constant embarrassments will so limit your genius, that you will fall below your own capacity. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... the French to surround the colonies was the immediate and just cause of the war; that without the protection afforded them during the war, they must have been a prey to the power of France; that without the compensation made them by Parliament, the burden of the expense of the war must have been insupportable." In their address to the King they make the same acknowledgments, and at the conclusion promise to evidence their gratitude by every expression of duty and loyalty ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... (growing as near clamor as was possible in those fashionable betting-circles, so free from roughs and almost free from bookmakers), the conflicting opinions clashing here and there—even, indeed, the graceful condolence of the brilliant women—were insupportable to him. He longed to be out of this world which had so well amused him; he longed passionately, for the first time in ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... topsail given way, there was nothing to be expected in such boistrous weather but certain death on a coast so inhospitable and unknown. And now to reflect, if we had not reached the port with that seasonable supply, what could have become of this colony? 'Twould have been a most insupportable blow, and thus to observe our manifold misfortunes so attemper'd with the Divine mercy of these occasions seems, methinks, to suggest a comfortable lesson of resignation and trust that there are still good things in store, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... native of Brazil. You are not ignorant of the frightful slavery under which my country groans. This continually becomes more insupportable, since the epoch of your glorious independence; for the cruel Portuguese omit nothing which can render our condition more wretched, from an apprehension that we may follow your example. The conviction, that these usurpers against the laws of nature and humanity only meditate new oppressions, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... The extreme agitation of the females leads them to traverse the combs in all directions. They pass through groupes of bees, injure and derange them; they communicate a kind of delirium, and these tumultuous motions raise the temperature to an insupportable degree. We have frequently proved it by the thermometer. In a populous hive it commonly stands between 92 deg. and 97 deg., in a fine day of spring; but during the tumult which precedes swarming, it rises above 104 deg. And this is heat intolerable to bees. When exposed to ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... to begin to put forth its natural buds again as freely as if this were indeed the Flowery Land. The funeral pageant moves,—a dozen carriages preceded by mourners on foot, clad in white, their heads covered, their feet bare, their grief insupportable, so that an attendant is at hand to sustain each mourner howling at the wheels of the hearse. An orchestra heads the procession; the air is flooded with paper prayers that are cast hither at you to appease the troubled spirit. They are on their way to the cemetery among the hills ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... as insupportable," rejoined M. Moriaz, casting a melancholy look at his pillow. "Now, candidly, is it the thing to seek the presence of the President of the Academy of Sciences between eleven o'clock and midnight, to pour such silly stuff into his ear? You are wanting ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... glide upon them, and rejoice in their beauty. But what is your surprise while, as you are flowing along so happily, you suddenly encounter a steeper slope, longer and more dangerous than the first! Then the torrent recommences its tumult. Formerly it was only a moderate noise; now it is insupportable. It descends with a crash and a roar greater than ever. It can hardly be said to have a bed, for it falls from rock to rock, and dashes down without order or reason; it alarms every one by its noise; all fear to approach ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... insupportable agonies and distraction of the scourge and the rack, recanted, or promised a recantation, a large proportion immediately on being released from the sufferings which had overcome them, abjured their retractions, re-professed with redoubled energy the faith of Christ, and ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... was not. I told as plump fat lies as you would wish to hear. I said I "was obliged to go into Hollingford on business," when the truth was there was no obligation in the matter, only an insupportable desire of being free from my visitors for an hour or two, and my only business was to come here, and yawn, and complain, and lounge at my leisure. I really think I'm unhappy at having told a ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the fullness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supreme law of the empire. He also wrote of events when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable. He describes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself. He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the early emperors, and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... burst out helplessly in the grip of deadly hate and agony. He hated her then—hated her beauty—and the betrayal of her fear for him. What was life to him now? Oh, the insupportable bitterness! ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... our follies and iniquities as he had observed them in himself as well as in others. It was as mild a misanthropy, probably, as ever caressed the objects of its malediction. But I believe it was about the year 1900 that his sense of our perdition became insupportable and broke out in a mixed abhorrence and amusement which spared no occasion, so that I could quite understand why Mrs. Clemens should have found some compensation, when kept to her room by sickness, in the reflection that now she should not hear so much about "the damned human ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... him to the door, and noted well how pale he was, and how his hurried tread indicated that the least delay was an insupportable restraint upon him, and how he was burning to be active and away. As he closed the door behind him, she looked round at her mother. The old woman trotted to her; opened her hand to show what was within; and, tightly closing it again in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... panther turned her head towards the Frenchman and looked at him fixedly, without moving. The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their insupportable clearness made the Provencal shudder. The beast moved towards him; he looked at her caressingly, with a soothing glance by which he hoped to magnetize her. He let her come quite close to him before ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... of some who, on the death of their relations, have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one, in particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits that by degrees his head sank into his body, so between his shoulders that the crown of his head ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... its influence in displacing planets, and of the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, and then I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of the sea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music. A dog talks by smell. There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound or of heat or of light. And the blind reveal vibration of touch, the holiest of the senses. We talk now by sound, but are learning to ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... if not impossible of discussion, even when an apparent necessity of their discussion arrives in the course of life. The present reserve between Hermione and Vere rendered even the idea of any plain speaking about the revelation of Peppina quite insupportable to the mother. She could only pretend to ignore that it had ever been made. And this she did. But now that she knew of it she felt very acutely the difference it had made in Vere. That difference was owing to her own impulsive action. And Emile knew the whole truth. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. Some to the fascination of a name Surrender judgment hoodwinked. Some the style Infatuates, and, through labyrinths and wilds Of error, leads them by a tune entranced. While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought, And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... both you and myself, and all that I have ever known or tasted of happiness, by never seeing you more. I pray of you, I implore you to be comforted, and to believe that I cannot cease to love you but with my life." [61] In another part he says, "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you. Your letters to F * * and myself do wrong to my motives—but you will yet see your injustice. It is not enough that I must leave you—from motives of which ere long you will be ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... arrived after luncheon. Garth was at the piano, thundering Beethoven's Funeral March on the Death of a Hero. The room was being rent asunder by mighty chords; and Simpson's smug face and side-whiskers appearing noiselessly in the doorway, were an insupportable anticlimax. Nurse Rosemary laid her finger on her lips; advanced with her firm noiseless tread, and took the telegram. She returned to her seat and waited until the hero's obsequies were over, and the last roll ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... were fighting." Had the disappearance of the box concerned himself alone Cleggett's sense of disaster might have been less poignant. But the thought that his own carelessness had enabled the enemy to get possession of a thing likely to involve Lady Agatha in further trouble was nearly insupportable. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands in ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... that surround him,—that the curse of Cassandra is upon him, forever to burn and writhe under awful visions of truths which no one around him will regard. In early life the associate only of the cultivated and the refined, Father Francesco could not but experience at times an insupportable ennui in listening to the confessions of people who had never learned either to think or to feel with any degree of distinctness, and whom his most fervent exhortations could not lift above the most trivial interests of a mere animal life. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... oppression long and unremittingly practised upon the colonists of Texas, having at length become insupportable, and having impelled them to take up arms in defence of their rights and liberties, it is due to the world that their motives, conduct and causes of complaint should be fully made known. In order to do this it will be ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... had written a political essay for "The North Briton," which opened with the preluding flourish of "A spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:" it was, however, though accepted, not printed, on account of the Lord Mayor's death. The patriot thus calculated the death of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... commerce and manufactures begin to flourish a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The business of traders and artisans requires their constant presence and attention. In such a community there is little superfluous time; but there is generally much superfluous money. Some members of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest from a task inconsistent ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... affection—my life will yet be lost, for it depends on his safety. Should he come at my call, and meet with any misfortune on the road ... death, with accumulated agonies, would end me. May Heaven avert such insupportable distress!" ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... began to fear that certain private transactions of his own would not escape Hiram's observation. He felt magnetically that instead of bullying and domineering over the new-comer, Hiram's eyes were on him whatever he did. This was insupportable; but how could he help it? The more work he imposed on Hiram, the better the latter seemed to like it, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... alloy of fear; for she knew that the day he felt himself to be in full possession of his powers he would attempt again to conquer Sunnysides. So from day to day her apprehension mounted until it became well-nigh insupportable. And her own helplessness maddened her. What could she do? Nothing! Nothing but wait, and pray God to protect him. Every night she prayed for him, and every morning, on her knees; and every hour the prayer was in her heart. She ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... purpose; an atom of the vast creative Being beyond the Universe, loaned for an infinitesimal part of time to the excrescence calling itself The United States of North America, on the dot called Earth. Now the part is played, and I am to be withdrawn. That my human heart is torn with insupportable anguish, matters not at all. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Bach, can do an incalculable amount of harm. Why, gentlemen, just think what consequences must follow if his principle were, admitted! For the only reason that could give it any plausibility would be that the patient's life is become useless and insupportable. If that were a reason for taking human life away, then it would follow that, whenever a man considers his life as useless and no longer supportable, he could end it, he could commit suicide. That reasoning would practically justify almost all suicides. For, when people kill themselves, ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... different years. Still it is something to know that in the last year—a year of almost unparalleled pecuniary pressure—it amounted to more than forty thousand dollars. This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for what? Many silly reasons are given, as is usual in cases where a single good one is not to be found. One is that by giving us the proceeds of the lands we impoverish ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... being present, all armed; a funeral pile was erected, and the body placed upon it. The widow then set fire to the pile, and was compelled to stand by it, anointing her breast with the fat that oozed from the body, until the heat became insupportable; when the wretched creature, however, attempted to draw back, she was thrust forward by her husband's relatives at the point of their spears, and forced to endure the dreadful torture until either the body was reduced to ashes, or she herself ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... war came on it found in the family, as in so many others in that State, a divided sentiment; the young man was loyal to the Union, the others savagely hostile. This unhappy division begot an insupportable domestic bitterness, and when the offending son and brother left home with the avowed purpose of joining the Federal army not a hand was laid in his, not a word of farewell was spoken, not a good wish followed him out into the world whither ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... man, and find safety in prison lodgings vender Government. The short confinement for a civic offence was not his idea of safety; he desired to be sheltered by Austrian soldiers and a fortress, and said that his torments were insupportable while Barto Rizzo was at large. This infamous Republican had latterly been living in his house, eating his bread, and threatening death to him unless he obeyed every command. Sarpo had undertaken his last mission for the purpose of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... -22 deg., and the wind blowing strong from the northwest. The effect of a breeze upon the feelings is well known to every person, even in comparatively temperate climates, but at low temperatures it becomes painful and almost insupportable. Thus, with the thermometer at -55 deg., and no wind stirring, the hands may remain uncovered for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour without inconvenience; while, with a fresh breeze, and the thermometer nearly as high as zero, few people can keep them exposed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... hopeless embarrassment; famine was filling the kingdom with misery; his armies were everywhere defeated; the imprecations of a beggared people were rising around his throne; his palace was the scene of incessant feuds and intrigues. His children were dead; he was old, infirm, sick, the victim of insupportable melancholy—utterly weary of life, and yet awfully afraid to die. France, in the person of Louis XIV., who could justly say, "I am ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... suggested. We were to leave by the train for Civita Vecchia at six to-morrow morning, and catch the steamer which leaves Leghorn to-night. Don't tell me of wine. He was prepared for it!" And she looked round about on us with an air of injured majesty in her face which was almost insupportable. ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... surrounded by lofty hills, in such wise that the direct rays of the sun beat upon it at midday, while as the sun goes down its rays are reflected from the mountains, in front, behind, and all around, rendering the place insupportable. The rays of the sun are most fierce when they are reflected, rather than direct, nor are they themselves pernicious, as may be observed among the snows on high mountains. Your Holiness is not ignorant of this. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... extraordinary remedies on such occasions; and my surgeons apprehend some fear that it may grow to a gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.' In effect, his countenance discovered that he was in much pain, which, he said, was insupportable in regard of the extreme inflammation. I told him I would willingly serve him; but if, haply, he knew the manner how I could cure him, without touching or seeing him, it might be that he would not expose himself to my manner of curing; because ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... persons, now assembled in the pretty sitting-room upstairs, were in a position of insupportable ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... bitter pang, "he is now trying to let me know how absurd was my former idea that he might perhaps learn to love me!" This thought is almost insupportable. Her pride rising in arms, she subdues all remaining traces of her late emotion, and, turning suddenly, confronts him. Her face is quite colorless, but she can not altogether hide from him the sadness ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... degrees, to the heavy and glittering idea which is beating in my brain and dazzles me. I am rich, you see, and from this moment until the time when I shall have acquired the habit of being rich, I know myself, and I shall be an insupportable animal. Now, I am not enough of a fool to wish to appear to have lost my wits before a friend like you, Athos. The cloak is handsome, the cloak is richly gilded, but it is new, and does ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... secouer le joug insupportable des prjugs qui t'affligent. Laisse des Hbreux stupides, des frntiques imbciles, des Asiatiques lches et dgrads, ces superstitions aussi avilissantes qu'insenses: elles ne sont point faites pour les habitans de ton climat. Occupe-toi ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... speak. She was wrestling with the most insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her side—"He does not love you. It is not you ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... store. After my meal, I went to the pit and filled a can with water, which I brought to the dingle, and then again sat down on my stone. I considered what I should next do: it was necessary to do something, or my life in this solitude would be insupportable. What should I do? rouse up my forge and fashion a horse- shoe? But I wanted nerve and heart for such an employment; moreover, I had no motive for fatiguing myself in this manner; my own horse was shod, no other was at hand, and it is hard to work for the sake of working. What should I do? read? ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... my remonstrances and to my entreaties," he replied, sadly. "Nothing remains for you but to submit, my son. I shall not tell you that time will assuage the sorrow that now seems insupportable—you would not believe me. But I do say to you, that you are a man, and that you must prove your courage. I say even more: fight against thoughts of Marie-Anne as a traveller on the verge of a precipice fights ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... evidences of its presence every day. I watched again all of last night in the same cover, gun in hand, double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleep—indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible, insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad; if they are fanciful I am ...
— The Damned Thing - 1898, From "In the Midst of Life" • Ambrose Bierce
... general, or to particular faults; but add nothing to this view by your own reflections. These continual reflex acts of the mind, do not help you; they do not remove the faults. I am not surprised, that you find in yourself so many evils; evils which render you almost insupportable to yourself. When God accomplishes the work of purification, he removes all that is opposed to ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... they are arrived at full-ripe years, and for whom, on their return from their warlike or hunting expeditions, they think it necessary to provide such objects of amusement. They pretend withal, that they are subject to insupportable pains in their loins, if such a remedy is not at hand to relieve them. But once more you are to remember, that I am only speaking of those people not yet converted to Christianity, by which this licentiousness ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... in spiritual exercises, and in the relish of heavenly things, the more insupportable to her was the tumultuous life of the city. She sighed after the deserts, longed to be disincumbered of attendants, and to live in a hermitage, where her heart would have no other occupation than on God. The thirst after ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... directions, and returns to take care of her sick neighbour. Johnny is expected with the doctor by eleven; but the clock strikes eleven, and twelve, and one, without the appearance either of Johnny or the doctor. Betty's restless fears become insupportable; and she now leaves her friend to look for her idiot son. She goes to the doctor's house, but hears nothing of Johnny. About five o'clock, however, she finds him sitting quietly upon his feeding poney. As they go home they meet old Susan, whose apprehensions have cured her, and brought her ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... eye, and mouth, and at the very moment before the miracle had fallen upon her cheek (as she declared in her deposition), was found to be quite dried up; the bone, which had been rotted and putrified, was restored to its former condition; all the stench, proceeding from it, which had been so insupportable that by order of the physicians and surgeons she was separated from her companions, was changed into a breath as sweet as an infant's; and she recovered at the same moment her ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... trepidation, the awful silence that succeeded the supernatural music threw an additional damp upon her spirits, and the artful Fathom affecting to snore at the same time, she could no longer contain her horror, but called upon his name with a fearful accent, and, having owned her present situation insupportable, entreated him to draw near her bedside, that he might be within ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... directly he perceived a kitten, his flesh shook on his bones, like a snail in vinegar. I once relieved him from one of these paroxysms by taking a kitten out of the room; on my return he thanked me, and declared his feelings to be insupportable upon such an occasion. Long subsequently, I asked him whether he could in any way account for this agitation. He said he could not, adding that he experienced no such sensations upon seeing a full-grown cat; but that a kitten, after he had looked ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... wonderful, so sure that the eyes of his brain did not dare to look at it unflinchingly. Boyishly and with a boy's gesture he had thrown himself upon the bed and hidden his face from the light as though the very atmosphere of this wonder world were insupportable. Good God, that it should have happened to him, Alban Kennedy; that it should have been spoken of as his just right; that he should have been told that he had a claim which none might refute! A hundred guesses afforded ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... other. And it was naught to Johnnie! By the thought of all this the woe in him was strengthened and embittered. Nevertheless his youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, still struggled sturdily against it. And he ate six times more breakfast than his suffering and insupportable father. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... misinterpreter of Christ, I openly protest against." And, in another passage, he rebukes those who would rest "in the mere element of the text," as favoring "the policy of the Devil to make that gracious ordinance (of marriage) become insupportable, that what with men not daring to venture upon wedlock, and what with men wearied out of it, all inordinate license ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... commercial traffic soon to flow from east to west by the way of the Isthmus of Darien; it is to build up our merchant marine; it is to furnish new markets for the products of our farms, shops, and manufactories; it is to make slavery insupportable in Cuba and Porto Rico at once and ultimately so in Brazil; it is to settle the unhappy condition of Cuba, and end an exterminating conflict; it is to provide honest means of paying our honest debts, without overtaxing the people; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... very angry with me, as Lady Townshend assures me, for not having been near her. The truth is, that when I carried George to wait on her the day that he was in town, before his going to school, her room was quite insupportable, and for that reason I could not allow him safely ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... will still, no doubt, have applicants for removal equal to your means. Yes, Sir, people who will not only consent, but beg you to deport them. But what sort of consent—a consent extorted by a series of oppression calculated to render their situation among us insupportable. Many of those who have already been sent off, went with their avowed consent, but under the influence of a more decided compulsion than any which this bill holds out. I will not express, in its full extent, the idea I entertain of what has been done, or what enormities will be perpetrated ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... us insupportable through life. Happy the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it." Perhaps the praises of our mothers tarry in our brains too long anyway. It may be a provision ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... does Peter mean to avoid the new field of duty, if he be sure of turning out on the Dean's death? Oh! I see—"finish his days at his College, if the changes at the University have not rendered it insupportable to one who remembers elder and better days." Poor Peter! Well; these are direful consequences of Miss Sandbrook's fit of flightiness! Yes, I'll show her the letter, it might tame her a little; and, poor thing, I own I liked her better when ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all the energy of despair, had entered my antagonist's side. But I was like to pay dearly for it. Uttering a deafening yell of pain and fury, the monster clasped me closer to his foul and loathsome body; his sharp claws, dug deeper into my back, seemed to tear up my flesh: the agony was insupportable—my eyes began to swim, and my senses to leave me. Just then—Crack! crack! Two—four—a dozen musket and pistol shots, followed by such a chorus of yellings and howlings and unearthly laughter! The creature ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... mind to tie his neckcloth in a particular way, not all the eloquence of Cicero or the tears of O'Neil would have induced him to alter it; and Adelaide, the haughty, self-willed Adelaide, soon found that, of all yokes, the most insupportable is the yoke of an obstinate fool. In the thousand trifling occurances of domestic life (for his Grace was interested in all the minutiae of his establishment), where good sense and good humour on either side would have gracefully yielded to the other, there was a perpetual contest for dominion, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... had now become almost insupportable; as, for the reason before assigned, every window and door was shut. However, this inconvenience, if it was severe, was luckily of short duration. A little after nine, their Majesties retired towards the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... The Nautilus was no longer moving, the heat was becoming unbearable. The sea, which till now had been white, was red, owing to the presence of salts of iron. In spite of the ship's being hermetically sealed, an insupportable smell of sulphur filled the saloon, and the brilliancy of the electricity was entirely extinguished by bright scarlet flames. I was in a bath, I was choking, I ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... believe that if offences are finite, punishment must be finite too; that it must be remedial and not mechanical. We must believe that if we deserve punishment, it will be because we can hope for restoration. Hell is a monstrous and insupportable fiction, and the idea of it is simply inconsistent with any belief in the goodness of God. It is easy to quote texts to support it, but we must not allow any text, any record in the world, however sacred, to shatter ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is as proud as a beggar grown rich and dressed in his first suit of embroidery. By St. Anthony, he is become quite insupportable. Do you not observe how he increases the number ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... drunken hands. It must be understood by those of my readers who have never seen a western steamboat, that the boilers are entirely above the first deck, and that when the fires are well kept up for any length of time, the heat is almost insupportable. Were it not for the draft occasioned by the speed of the boat it would be very difficult to attend the fires. As the boat was booming along through the water close in-shore, for, in ascending the river, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... free to order her new life wherever and under what conditions she chose as most favorable to it, and that she could dispose of this house that was wearying to her when Susy was away, and which the girl herself had always found insupportable. She could settle this question of Clarence's relations to her daughter out of hand without advice or opposition. She had a brother in the East, who would be summoned to take care of the property. This consideration for the living pursued her, even while ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... in reply, "would you, Fathers, have me go? Where shall I be safe as long as I act in behalf of these poor creatures? Were the cause mine, I would drop it with pleasure, but it is that of my flock, of these miserable Indians, wearied and oppressed by unjust slavery and insupportable tributes, which others of my flock have imposed upon them. Here I wish to remain; this church is my spouse, it is not mine to abandon. This is the purpose of my residence [here]. I wish to irrigate it with my blood, if they take my life, so that zeal for God's service may ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... discreetly and moderately in cool and general terms and in a low, even tone of voice. Here, the imperial machine, too aggressive, soon broke down; immediately, the iron arm by which it held adults seemed insupportable to them and they were able more and more to bend, push it away or break it. Today, in 1890, nothing remains of it but its fragments; for twenty years it has ceased to work and its parts, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for Alfred to announce the sad news to his widowed mother; and here the power of language fails us—the shock was so sudden, so unexpected. The half of her life was so suddenly torn from the bereaved one, that the pang was well-nigh insupportable. But God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and has promised that the strength of His beloved ones shall be even as their day. So He strengthened the sensitive frame to bear a shock which otherwise ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... consequence as the child grows up. The very cause that makes it a squaller at three years of age will make it stubborn and refractory at twelve, quarrelsome at twenty, imperious and insolent at thirty, and insupportable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... any note of time,—never felt it lag heavily on her hands; but it appeared to her now that these interminable days of vacation would never come to an end. She passed one of them with Edith and Rufus Malcome, and this was by far the most insupportable of any. "She loved Edith dearly," she said; "but could not endure the childish prattle and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... refused such submission in England, and fled from their native country because it was demanded. Thus, however incredible it may appear, blind fanatics became public legislators, and those who were unable to endure tyranny in England, became the most insupportable ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Lord Mayor's banquet in the evening, his heart gave a bound of relief and delight, for he felt that he should not be friendless, now, among that multitude of strangers; whereas, an hour earlier, the idea of their going with him would have been an insupportable terror to him. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Death when they think he is far away; but let him appear near, and the very sense of his approach almost drives the life away. Men then resume the burden of cares which they had thrown down as insupportable, being content to bear the ills they have than fly to others that they ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... had been taken away from me, Annette had left me; now for the first time I was guilty. I had wounded the most lovely heart to its very depths; and the period of a gloomy repentance, with the absence of a refreshing love to which I had grown accustomed, was most agonizing, nay, insupportable." ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hote of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... with tyrannical and frantic fury, lamed their oxen and horses, daily impounded their sheep and poultry, striking down, killing, and slaying their swine and pigs; while at the same time the servants of the prior were oppressed in the Earl's court with insupportable exactions, were often assaulted in the highways with swords ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Aunt Almira's roof, life at home became insupportable. Mrs. Quimby said it was Almira herself, not the life. Clash followed clash; there came sneers, tears, squabbles, rows, and at last practical banishment. Old Quimby could stand it no longer. Almira went to ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable? The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they look scornfully ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... economical system of defense. It gave birth to a competition between the States which created a kind of auction for men. In order to furnish the quotas required of them, they outbid each other till bounties grew to an enormous and insupportable size. The hope of a still further increase afforded an inducement to those who were disposed to serve to procrastinate their enlistment, and disinclined them from engaging for any considerable periods. Hence, slow and scanty ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... "Marian could break a record if she thought John Gilman cared now as he used to. It's almost a necessary element to her success. If he doesn't care, she ought to be made to feel that somebody cares. This thing of standing alone, since I have found a friend, appeals to me as almost insupportable. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and the fiery wine began to tell, horses and dogs, wine and women, guards and grievances, promotion and patronage, began to exert their influence on the discourse, and by the time the cloth was removed, every one seemed to talk louder than his neighbour, and the din was almost insupportable. Then, through the roar of the many voices, was heard an ominous shuffling behind the screen, now extended all across the room; an attuning scream of the clarionet, moan of the violin, and grunt of the bassoon, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the impenitent who resist his righteous authority. "With the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." (Is. xi. 4; Luke xix. 27.) "His countenance as the sun shining in his strength," disclosed to the beloved disciple such splendor as to overwhelm him. The like display of divine majesty was insupportable to Saul of Tarsus when on his way to Damascus. (Acts xxvi. 13.) To the workers of iniquity, "our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. xii. 29.) It is a certain truth,—"The vengeance of the gospel is weighter than the vengeance of the law." (Heb. ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... in which practically every young person who has attained the age of fourteen years enters a factory. When the work itself offers nothing of interest, and when no public provision is made for recreation, the situation becomes almost insupportable to the youth whose ancestors have been rough-working and ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... out of the country. At the same time, he gave him the articles which he wished. Key-way-no-wut found this a very convenient way of getting what he wanted, and followed up this sort of game, until, at last, it became insupportable. One day the Indian brought a very large otter skin, and said "I want to get for this ten pounds of sugar, and some flour and cloth," adding, "I am not like other Indians, I want to pay for what I get. Mr. B. found that ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... echoed he, "'that beset our path!' Really, Ralph, life will become insupportable to me if you and Jack go on in this fashion. A man of nerve and sanguine temperament might stand it, but to one like me, of a naturally timid and leaning nature, with the addition of low spirits, it is ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... should never, on any account whatever, be allowed to whip a child. "Does ever any man or woman remember the feeling of being 'whipped' as a child, the fierce anger, the insupportable ignominy, the longing for revenge, which blotted out all thought of contrition for the fault or rebellion against the punishment? With this recollection on their own parts, I can hardly suppose any parents venturing to inflict it, much less allowing ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... impatience! The abominable cooking, the dawdling progress,—how was one to endure them? Especially when we had turned homeward, and were sluggishly repeating the ground already traversed, did the delay become almost insupportable. At length, on the 24th of August, we fairly said good-bye to Labrador, and came sweeping southward with the matchless speed of which our schooner was capable when she got a chance. It wellnigh tore Bradford's heart-strings to leave his icebergs once and for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... hence, neither do I suggest, or so much as think that infinite Power cannot form a something (tho' inconceivable to us here) which shall be as tormenting, and as insupportable to a Devil, an apostate Seraph, and to a Spirit, tho' exalted, unembodied and rarified into Flame, as Fire would be to other Bodies; in which I think I am orthodox, and do not give the least Occasion to an Enemy to charge me with profane Speaking, in those Words, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and cried out at each encounter. From far they stretched their arms to dip their fingers in the holy water, but getting nearer, saw its color, and the hands retired. They scarcely breathed; the heat and atmosphere were insupportable; but the preacher was worth the endurance of all these miseries; besides, his sermon was to cost the pueblo two hundred and fifty pesos. Fans, hats, and handkerchiefs agitated the air; children cried, and gave the sacristans a hard ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... plunderers, he lived among the Picts above twenty years in banishment; learning more heartily to despise earthly vanities, and making it his whole study to serve the King of kings. His subjects, groaning under the yoke of an insupportable tyranny, took up arms against their oppressors, and induced the royal prince, upon motives of compassion for their distress and a holy zeal for religion, to put themselves at their head. Several battles were prosperousiy fought; but at ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and transparent effect within these singular habitations gave one the idea of being in a house of ground glass, and their newness made them look clean, comfortable, and wholesome. Not so the more substantial bone huts, which, from their extreme closeness and accumulated filth, emitted an almost insupportable stench, to which an abundant supply of raw and half-putrid walrus' flesh in no small degree contributed. The passages to these are so low as to make it necessary to crawl on the hands and knees to enter them; and the floors of the apartments were in some places so ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... farewell of the two men was sad and touching, for a long time must elapse before they met again. Monte-Leone had resolved to leave Naples for some time. The proximity of Sorrento lacerated his heart, and to see her he loved the wife of another would to him be insupportable. Taddeo was aware of the reasons why the Count had determined to travel, and had he no mother he would also have been ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the distrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her ear saying, soft and low, "Go forward, Daughter of God, and I will help thee." Then she added, "When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is insupportable!" ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... wishes, and messages for mutual friends in England. It was rather a hot journey down, and the train seemed full, but the scenery was lovely. As we approached Colombo the heat became greater, and in the town itself it was almost insupportable. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... would come, and he felt that, upon the whole, this was the worst part of the performance. He could bear her anger or her sullenness with fortitude, but her lachrymose caresses were insupportable. He held her, however, in his arms, and gazed at himself in the pier glass most uncomfortably over her shoulder. "Oh, Jack," she said, "oh, Jack,—what is to come next?" His face became somewhat more lugubrious than ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... but although the authority exercised was at first mild, and ensured to the bondsmen almost the same privileges with their masters, yet the idea of power soon crept in upon the mind, and at length lenity was converted into rigidity, and the gall of servitude became insupportable; the oppressed, soon found that that liberty, which they had just given up, was an inalienable privilege of man, and sought means to regain it: this was effected,—but not until a time when ignorance began to decline, when improvements were made in the arts, commerce and governments, and when men ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... necks to the yoke of prelacy as the only security against the heavier one of Papist supremacy. In a far different manner the cleareyed and plain-spoken John Milton met the claims and demands of the hierarchy in his time. "They entreat us," said he, "that we be not weary of the insupportable grievances that our shoulders have hitherto cracked under; they beseech us that we think them fit to be our justices of peace, our lords, our highest officers of state. They pray us that it would please us to let them still haul us and wrong us with their bandogs and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... cannot tell. Inquire immediately at Hoebel's in the Kothgasse, whether the Hoebel who belongs to this place set off from Vienna to Baden? It is really so distressing to me to depend on such people, that if life did not possess higher charms, it would be utterly insupportable in my eyes. You no doubt got my yesterday's letter, and the 2 florins for the chocolate. I shall be obliged to drink coffee to-morrow; perhaps after all it is better for me than chocolate, as the prescriptions ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... never eat any thing with so much appetite in all my life. Water was also found in this place, but it was of an abominable taste. After this truly frugal repast, we continued our route. The heat was insupportable in the last degree. The sands on which we trode were burning, nevertheless several of us walked on these scorching coals without shoes; and the females had nothing but their hair for a cap. When we reached the sea-shore, we all ran and lay down among the waves. After remaining there some time, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... be cast out. I dreaded discovery. Your visit filled me with uneasiness, that, as the day wore away, reached intense anxiety, and finally arose to insupportable anguish and suspense. Then I went to listen at the door, only to hear whether your conversation concerned me—whether I was still to be left in peace or to be cast out upon the bitter cold world. Ah, do not blame me too much! ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... necromancy and discovers a spell in an old Greek manuscript, whereby, having shod his horse with gold and ridden seven days into the west, he comes to the enchanted land of Dame Venus and dwells with her a season. But the bliss is insupportable by a mortal, and he returns to his home and dies. The poem has analogies with "The Earthly Paradise" and the Tannhaeuser legend. The ancient city of Poitou, where the action begins, is elaborately described, with its ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... waltzed in there, and told them a tale, and showed every sign of walkin' right out again without askin' them a thing. They couldn't even tell us to go to hell, because it looked like we didn't care what they said. It was insupportable, Willis! Characters that make trouble, Willis, do it to feel important. And we'd left them without a thing to tell us that was important enough to mention—unless they told us about the Cerberus. We had 'em baffled. They needed to say something, ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... spider men, tearing at the tentacle arms that encircled them and drew them relentlessly into the basket-weave cage. There was a tremendous thump and the warping of the very universe about them all. Bert Redmond, his body racked by insupportable tortures, was hurled into the ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... than two years after the war, Washington kept neither clerk nor secretary. At length the labor became insupportable, and through the kind offices of General Lincoln, he procured the services of Tobias Lear, a talented young gentleman of New Hampshire, who had recently left Harvard college with honor. Mr. Lear took a social position at Mount Vernon, as one of the family at table and among the guests, and became ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... famous all over America, for their multitude, the troublesomeness of their buzzing and the venom of their stings, which occasion an insupportable itching, and often form so many ulcers, if the person stung does not immediately put some spittle on the wound. In open places they are less tormenting; but still they are troublesome; and the best way of driving them out of ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... world, delivered to vulgar pedants of every kind, to idleness and to ennui, the youth saw the foaming billows which they had prepared to meet, subside. All these gladiators glistening with oil felt in the bottom of their souls an insupportable wretchedness. The richest became libertines; those of moderate fortune followed some profession and resigned themselves to the sword or to the church. The poorest gave themselves up with cold enthusiasm to great thoughts, plunged into the frightful sea of aimless effort. As ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to enjoin the use, in State criminal proceedings against them in New Jersey of evidences claimed to have been obtained by unlawful search by State police. Said Justice Frankfurter, "If we were to sanction this intervention, we would expose every State criminal prosecution to insupportable disruption. Every question of procedural due process of law—with its far flung and undefined range—would invite a flanking movement against the system of State courts by resort to the federal forum * * *"[932] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... thoughts, both sleeping and waking, since she had parted with him on the beach the evening previous. At the sound of every horse's feet she started, and her heart beat quicker. But he came not that day, and as evening approached, her disappointment became almost insupportable; she tried to frame excuses for him; he had never been to the house; perhaps he had, by a very natural mistake, gone to her uncle's house in town, instead of that where she now was, and which was rather more than a mile from St. Blas, and whither ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the continuous dominion of this influence, under the persistent tyranny of this fascination, the convalescent was conscious of a sort of bewilderment and fear, as if both the dominion and fascination were insupportable to his weak state. The incessant colloquy between him and the sea gave him a vague sense of prostration, as if the sublime language were beyond his restricted powers, so eager to grasp ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... antiquities at Thebes. Its gallery is of very small dimensions, and it winds about in the hill in corkscrew fashion like the tomb of Aahmes at Aby-dos. Owing to its extraordinary length, the heat and foul air in the depths of the tomb were almost insupportable and caused great difficulty to the excavators. When the sarcophagus-chamber was at length reached, it was found to contain the empty sarcophagi of Thothmes I and of Hatshepsu. The bodies had been removed for safe-keeping in the time of the XXIst Dynasty, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... At first, they excited indignation and grief. I knew the source whence they sprung, and was merely able to suppress the utterance of my feelings in her presence. My looks, however, were abundantly significant, and my company became hourly more insupportable. Abstracted from these considerations, my father's remonstrances were not destitute of weight. He gave me being, but sustenance ought surely to be my own gift. In the use of that for which he had been indebted to his own exertions, he might reasonably ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... wicked in hell will be indescribably great. Think what is represented by torment, by burning flame, by insupportable thirst, by that state when a single drop of water would afford relief. Remember that all this is but a representation of the pains of the damned, and that this will have no relief, day nor night, but will continue from year to year, ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... certain slave named Androcles, who was so ill treated by his master that his life became insupportable. Finding no remedy for what he suffered, he at length said to himself: 'It is better to die than to continue to live in such hardships and misery as I am obliged to suffer. I am determined, therefore, to run ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... object in view, or, though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by the power of imagination, that motion carries out the soul, by its impetuosity, to such violent, eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable. Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I repeated the words, "Oh that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... in such manner that we can scarcely exist; for my own part I am confined by them to my bier at least 3/4ths of my time. my dog even howls with the torture he experiences from them, they are almost insupportable, they are so numerous that we frequently get them in our ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... is heartless and that the rich and well-to-do drop their friends the moment financial reverses force them either to reduce their scale of living far below the standard, or go to work. When that happens it is the fault of the reversed, not of the entrenched. False pride, constant whining, or insupportable irritabilities gradually force them into a dreary class apart. If anything, people of wealth and secure position take a pride in standing by their old friends (their "own sort"), in showing themselves above all ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton |
