"Unendurable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... river, and scarce a soul did he see, unless a stork in its nest on top of a tall badgir or a naked dervish lying in a scrap of shade asleep under a lion skin. It was as if Dizful drowsed sullenly in that July blaze brewing something, like a geyser, and burst out with it at the end of the unendurable day. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... humour was too gentle to suggest scepticism of the aggressive kind. It is almost too free from cynicism. He cannot adopt any dogma unreservedly, but neither does any dogma repel him. He revels in the mental attitude of hopeless perplexity, which is simply unendurable to the commonplace and matter-of-fact intellects. He likes to be balanced between opposing difficulties; to play with any symbol of worship without actually worshipping it; to prostrate himself sincerely at many shrines, and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... understand that, circumstanced as we are, your brother's visit here,—what I mean is, that it is very difficult for me to act and speak exactly as I should do, and a few unfortunate words spoken may make my position unendurable." ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... down the stairs in that inner state which her country had once found unendurable: she was half slave and half free. And on the stairs she forgot Hugo entirely. She was thinking, in her loneliness and depression, of Vivian, who had pledged his help to her; wondering if she could ask him ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I repeatedly urged her to consent to the publication of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a more earnest work for the disinthralment of millions still remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from publicity. She said, "You know a woman can whisper her cruel wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can record them for the world to read." Even in talking with me, she wept so much, and seemed ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... very successful until the last two days when Battalion Headquarters received the just punishment for tempting fortune too far. Both 4th and 5th Battalions had their Headquarters in the cellar of Gorre Chateau—cramped and stuffy at any time, and in the hot weather unendurable. Our Headquarters, therefore, cleared out a room on the first floor for a mess—it had a carpet and other luxuries, and its only blemish was a shell-hole in the corner of the window. With great pride we invited Brigadiers and others to our new mess, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... fright;' but the murdered Frank by accident came to life again. 'He leaped up, and with a hoarse laugh gave me a severe blow in the face.' This was too much. To have your grief flapped back in your face like a wet sheet is bad, but also and at the same time to have your claret uncorked is unendurable. The 'Ancient Mariner,' then about seven years old, could not stand this. 'With his cross-bow'—no, stop! what are we saying? Nothing better than a kitchen knife was at hand—and 'this,' says Samuel, 'I ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... sat there for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable—and the odour ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... his by right of birth, so that there was nothing other than a long-dead scandal in the French Navy that might have proved a bar to an affiance such as he dreamed of. And now to be thwarted at the last moment! It was unendurable. That pig of a Ward had sealed his own death warrant, of that Theriere ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... deliberately closed their eyes to all nature, and had gone on inquiring, "Where do you put your brown tree?" A vast revelation was made to them at once, enough to have dazzled any one; but to them, light unendurable as incomprehensible. They "did to the moon complain," in one vociferous, unanimous, continuous "Tu whoo." Shrieking rose from all dark places at the same instant, just the same kind of shrieking that is now raised against the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of the first kind glance, the first encouraging word, the ineffable passion stored up in the Christian's heart for the immortal beings who, in the days of Bernard and Francis, descend cloud-like on earth and fill the cells of the saints with unendurable glory. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... suddenly and the other guest of the house glided into the kitchen. Her eyes were crinkled up as if with an almost unendurable pain, her fingers were pressed to her temples, her ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... in which Mr. Barlow perpetually insists on my sustaining the character of Tommy, which is more unendurable yet, on account of its extreme aggressiveness. For the purposes of a review or newspaper, he will get up an abstruse subject with definite pains, will Barlow, utterly regardless of the price of midnight oil, and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... valuable for diagnostic purposes as the semi-failures of the Brownings. They show to what extent literary art may lean on the collective art of the language itself. The more extreme technical practitioners may so over-individualize this collective art as to make it almost unendurable. One is not always thankful to have one's flesh ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... me to have a Mark Tapley temper; the more unendurable the weather got, the cheerier he grew with his guttural and yet limpid cries to the oxen, and his ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... that the present time, above all others, is inopportune for flight, even though it bring safety. For while it is impossible for a man who has seen the light not also to die, for one who has been an emperor it is unendurable to be a fugitive. May I never be separated from this purple, and may I not live that day on which those who meet me shall not address me as mistress. If, now, it is your wish to save yourself, O Emperor, there is no difficulty. For we have much money, and there is the sea, here the boats. ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... seeing a priest close by asked him who had won, she or Shiva. "Shiva," the priest replied. Parwati became very angry and cursed him, so that he became a leper, and the pains which overtook him were absolutely unendurable. One day a band of Apsaras [18] came down from heaven to the temple. They saw that the priest who lived in it was a leper, and they asked him the reason. He told them how Parwati had cursed him. They replied, "Do not be afraid; do as we tell ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... out, shutting the door after him. Not one word of punishment; but he left Roxy trembling with a strange terror. She shook with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think our girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather laid her in her grave any day! That ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... the laws. The "Mutiny Act," as it was called, ordered that the colonies should provide these soldiers with quarters and necessary supplies. This evident attempt to enslave the Americans aroused burning indignation. To be taxed was bad enough, but to shelter and feed their oppressors was unendurable. The New York assembly, having refused to comply, was forbidden to pass any legislative acts. The Massachusetts assembly sent a circular to the other colonies urging a union for redress of grievances. Parliament, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... my arms, and the sting and torment of my remorse had closed them round her like a vice. Yes! my remorse. The white despair of Walter's face, when my cruel words struck him to the heart in the summer-house at Limmeridge, rose before me in mute, unendurable reproach. My hand had pointed the way which led the man my sister loved, step by step, far from his country and his friends. Between those two young hearts I had stood, to sunder them for ever, the one from the other, and his life and her ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... even in the moment in which they were made. She had suffered for meddling; that was bad: it was worse to the Imp not to meddle; inactivity was the one thing unendurable. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... summer heat had become unendurable, we made a pleasant excursion to Edisto Island. We left St. Helena village in the morning, dined on one of the gun-boats stationed near our island, and in the afternoon proceeded to Edisto in two row-boats. There were six of us, besides an officer and the boats' crews, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... his menace him so sore smote, With invisible wound incurable, That in his guttes carf* it so and bote,** *cut **gnawed Till that his paines were importable;* *unendurable And certainly the wreche* was reasonable, *vengeance For many a manne's guttes did he pain; But from his purpose, curs'd* and damnable, *impious For all his smart he would him not restrain; But bade anon apparaile* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... face to his, and the temptation that had gripped him many a time of late came back with an intensity that was almost unendurable. He did not flinch from her steadfast eyes. Though the path of honor was steep and straight he must tread it to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the southern serfs was bad enough before America was "discovered"; and quite unendurable in earlier times. There is a village not many hours from Naples where, in 1789, only the personal attendants of the feudal lord lived in ordinary houses; the two thousand inhabitants, the serfs, took refuge in caves and shelters of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... father said, with clouded brow. "But, as you say, it has come about without intention on your part. I am glad you have told me everything, for now I can better guard you from future mischances. My relations to this young man's father are such that it would make it very disagreeable, indeed, positively unendurable, if his son should seek your society. You should also remember that Mr. Houghton would be as bitterly hostile to any such course on his son's part as I am. Your pride, apart from my wishes, should lead you to repel the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... must set his theories into motion, drive them out into the lives of the people, and get reactions. But how? In what way? His brain refused to think, and he felt nothing save a misery and poverty of the spirit that were unendurable. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... opening a glimpse could be had of the sovereign, who had resumed his weary, anguished tramp between the fireplace and the window. Back and forth he shuffled with heavy, dragging steps, and ceased not, despite his unendurable suffering. An aide-de-camp had just entered the room—it was he who had failed to close the door behind him—and Delaherche heard the Emperor ask him in a ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... aimless as themselves. There were fewer women, because the unemployed woman of this class has an old-fashioned habit, or instinct, of seeking work by direct assault; the method of the male being rather to sit on a bench and discuss the obstacles, the injustices, and the unendurable insults heaped by a plutocratic government in the path of ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... apartments. When the mulatto chambermaid came there, in the ordinary course of her duties, she would shrink back in her chair and shade her eyes, as if some hideous spectre had crossed her path; but, if Agnes Barker entered, this nervous shock became unendurable, and it was with the greatest effort that she could refrain from rushing madly into the next room, and holding the door ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... shawled women felt that same madness; if the inspectors and the company officials had insisted they could not have kept the mine closed long—the people would have opened it by force; it was felt unendurable to seal their men below; the shaft was unsealed in twenty-four hours. But the smoke came out, and then the watchers realized that a wall of flame was worse than a wall of planks and sand, and ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... an intensity of longing that was well-nigh unendurable—for either the indignant denial or the easy, mirthful scorn wherewith an innocent man might be expected to ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... woman, could he point as possessing any motive for such a deed. She had been the victim of some mistake, his lovely and ever kindly disposed daughter, and while the loss was irreparable he would never make it unendurable by thinking otherwise. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... again, but sleep was as far from him as ever. After another long and almost unendurable period he opened them once more, and it seemed to him that there was a faint tint of gray in the east. He sat up, and looking a long time, he was sure of it. The gray was deepening and broadening, and at its center it showed a tint of silver. The dawn was at hand, ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... servants, who reported to their employer every careless word. Removed from Belriguarda, he was ordered to be confined in the Ferrarese convent of San Francisco; and two friars were appointed to watch over him continually. Such a life was unendurable to the proud poet, who disliked the nauseous medicines of the convent as much as its restraint; and taking advantage of a festa, when his keepers were unusually negligent, he made his escape by a window. In the disguise of a shepherd he travelled on foot over the mountains of the Abruzzi, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathsheba sprang towards him. All the strong feelings which had been scattered over her existence since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered together into one pulsation now. The revulsion from her indignant mood a little earlier, when she had meditated upon compromised ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... unendurable," he told her firmly. "Whatever one has suffered, and however dreary the present, there is ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as far as possible they should never draw blank; even in the matter of selfishness, which was the anchor-sheet of his existence, he contrived to be noted, and justly noted, for doing remarkably unselfish things. As a ruler he would have been reasonably popular; as a husband he would probably be unendurable. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... wildly beating heart she had seen the King, Von Ritz and the escort ride up to the entrance and disappear. She had waited—waited—waited, her nerves set for the climax, until the continued silence seemed an unendurable shock. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... me!" but Charlie ran away, saying, "You, Eric! what? you a thief!" and then a chorus of voices took up that awful cry—voices of expostulation, voices of contempt, voices of indignation, voices of menace; they took up the cry, and repeated and re-echoed it; but most unendurable of all, there were voices of wailing and voices of gentleness among them, and his soul died within him as he caught, amid the confusion of condemning sounds, the voices of Russell and Vernon, and they, too, were saying to him, in ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... 1812 these unendurable insults to our flag were not repeated by Great Britain, but her Government steadily refused to make any formal renunciation of her right to repeat them, so that our immunity from like insults did not rest upon any better foundation than that which might be dictated ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... a matter of expediency—to save Carmel from the unendurable curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under assumed names. She was, therefore, forced ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... reason for the difference assigned by this gloss is that it is hard to bear with those who sin through weakness, merely because they persist a long time in evil, wherefore it is said that they are borne with longanimity: whereas the very fact of sinning through pride seems to be unendurable; for which reason those who sin through pride are stated to be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Hope, thou sweet, bright angel of God! Without thee life were an evil unendurable, with thee for companion gloomy Doubt, sullen Fear and dark Despair flee utterly away, and we, bold-hearted, patient and undismayed by any dangers or difficulties, may realise our dreams at last. O sweet, strong angel of God, with thee to companion ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... arrangements for testing their courage with his iron grays, on the following morning; so long did his eye linger upon her, who had full command of his every thought, that he did not observe miss Winnie, who was trembling lest her fresh supply of mischief should come to an unendurable crisis, before he ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... that he lied. This was no great reproach, for, more or less, every statesman lied, but the intensity of the private secretary's rage sprang from his belief that Russell's form of defence covered intent to kill. Not for an instant did the Legation draw a free breath. The suspense was hideous and unendurable. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Carefully inspecting his ground he took the leap. A lighted torch was lowered to him. With this he marched off, the light growing quickly faint in the darkness. "Oya! Oya! 'Tis strange. The stench—it is unendurable. The darkness too thick even for the torch. It fails to burn." For a time his voice was heard rumbling off with increasing distance. To repeated shouts no answer was returned. Said Heima—"Isuke has gone too far, out of range. Some other must bear him aid.... What! ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... shady places! He fell into mournful mood over the troubles of his race. Always a kind-hearted fellow, he had not been used to think about such things; he had had troubles of his own, and had got through at least some of them; people must have troubles, else would they grow unendurable for pride and insolence. But now that he had begun to hope he saw a glimmer somewhere afar at the end of the darksome cave in which he had all at once discovered that he was buried alive, he began also to feel how wretched those must be who were groping on without even a hope in ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... fit, or what not—took possession of me, that at last I could bear it no longer. I went to the door, and, after listening, very attentively but quite in vain, for any sound, I at last knocked pretty sharply. There was no answer. Feeling that longer suspense would be unendurable, I, without more ceremony, turned the ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... not stay here. I must use myself to solitude, but the solitude of London is unendurable. I shall go back to Cumberland if I can find a home there. The mountains will remind me of the days which, sad as they were, were less sad than the present. I little dreamed then when I had gained everything my loss would be so great ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... sorely tired of the positions which they had been so long constrained to keep; for, to tell the truth, sitting astride upon the hard branch of a tree, though easy enough for a short spell, becomes in time so painful as to be almost unendurable. Caspar especially had grown impatient of this irksome inaction; and highly exasperated at the rogue who was forcing it upon them. Several times had he been on the point of forsaking his perch, and stealing down for his gun; but Karl, each time perceiving his design, ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... in prison many days, close-pent In the black lower dungeon, housed with thieves And murderers and divers evil men; So foul a pressure, we had almost died, Even there, in struggle for the breath of life Amid the stench and unendurable heat; Nor could we find each other save by voice Or touch, to know that we were yet alive, So terrible was the darkness. Yea, 'twas hard To keep the sacred courage in our hearts, When all was blind with ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... to society, and to active and useful life, of these awkward, undeveloped, and backward youth,—of educating their hitherto undeveloped faculties, of eradicating those habits which rendered them disagreeable, and often almost unendurable; but these youths are not idiots, and no such analogy exists between them and idiots as would enable us to infer with certainty the successful treatment of the latter from the comparatively rapid development of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... have died with fatigue. We should be looking like ghosts ourselves, and despair would be seizing on our hearts. We should be in continual squabbles with our guides and porters, and completely exposed to their unbridled brutality. During the daytime, a damp, penetrating, unendurable humidity! At night, a cold frequently intolerable, and the stings of a kind of fly whose bite pierces the thickest cloth, and drives the victim crazy! All this, too, without saying any thing about wild beasts and ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... to say so. She thought that he was behaving with an unwarrantable degree of freedom in saying anything of the kind; but she did not know how to tell him either by words or looks that such was the case. And, perhaps, though the impertinence was almost unendurable, the idea conveyed was not altogether so grievous; it had certainly never hitherto occurred to her that she might become a second Mrs Stumfold; but, after all, why not? What she wanted was simply this, that something of interest should be added ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... to Poppins' lodgings, and there quarrel with her old friend Polly. It may be that at this time she did not receive all the respect that had been paid to her some months back, and this reverse was, to her proud spirit, unendurable. "Polly," she said, "if you wish to turn your back upon me, you can do so. But I won't ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but, everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie might begin ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... every kind of quarters; the sea was smooth, so that few were seasick, but the sun beat down from directly overhead, out of a sky almost cloudless, and even under the awnings the heat and moisture were well-nigh unendurable. The gold seekers who clung to their heavy boots and trousers and flannel ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... the apparently interminable stretches of undulating prairie, partially covered with sage brush and wild cactus. Though early in the season, the heat was intense, and the glare of the sunlight reflected from the patches of white, chalk-like sand, was so blinding as to seem unendurable. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... said with a corroborative, birdlike nod of politeness. With the megaphone upon the floor by Kenny's chair, he made no further pretense of deafness. He said nothing at all and Kenny found his new inscrutable trick of silence unendurable. One singular fact loomed out above all others. Adam shamelessly accepted the word miser with a gloating chuckle. He seemed to like it. For Kenny, generous to a fault and prodigal with money, the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... bubbles darted up from the bottom and burst. More hot stones were thrown into the water. Steam, soft and caressing, filled the cave. The temperature rose by leaps and bounds. The roots of Andramark's hair began to tickle—the tickling became unendurable, and ceased suddenly as the sweat burst from every pore of his body. His eyes closed; in his heart it was as if love-music were being played upon a flute. He was no longer conscious of hunger or thirst. He yielded, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... an orderly at last, finding the suspense unendurable, and gave him a scribbled line to ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... there it ended. He stood still in the House; he stood still in society; nobody liked him; he made no friends. It was all the old story over again, with this difference, that the soured man was sourer; the gray head, grayer; and the irritable temper more unendurable than ever. His wife had her rooms in the house and he had his, and the confidential servants took care that they never met on the stairs. They had no children. They only saw each other at their grand dinners and balls. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... Baudraye; he would forgive an infidelity, because he could make capital of it, but he would be doubly implacable if you should touch him on the spot so cruelly wounded by Monsieur Milaud of Nevers, and would make your life unendurable." ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... was favorable was suppressed; the unfavorable was most rigorously enforced. Jews living outside the Pale were driven back into it on the slightest pretext and in the most inhuman manner. To increase the already unendurable congestion, the Pale was made smaller than before. In accordance with the first clause of the "May laws," Jews were expelled from the villages within the Pale itself. In 1888 the districts of Rostov and Taganrog, ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... of Palestine effected a change in the condition of the Jews. Never before had Judah undergone such torture and suffering as under the sceptre of Rome. The misery became unendurable, and internal disorders being added to foreign oppression, the luckless insurrection broke out which gave the deathblow to Jewish nationality, and drove Judah into exile. On his thorny martyr's path he took naught with him but a ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... not unendurable that this girl, who was left unsought in our father's house for years, should be living in such splendor? I shall hate the sight of my own palace ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... been denied by him, and is not in itself probable. But there are understandings which prove to be understandings on one side only; politeness may be misinterpreted; and the world would have found Count Bismarck unendurable if at every friendly meeting he had been guilty of the frankness with which he informed the Austrian Government that its centre of action must be transferred from Vienna to Pesth. That Napoleon was now scheming for an extension of France on ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... binds the heartstrings of those who have once lived in it! To find it unendurable in life, to yearn back to it in the hour of death! Many have known the experience. So our tiny God's Acre, shrunk to a small fraction of human acreage through pressure of the encroaching tenements, has filled up until now it has space but for few more of the returning. Laws have been invoked ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ought not to remain much longer at your present post. You will, in all human probability, be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor. Separated from your family and all your kin, and an object of suspicion, you will find your position unendurable. A fatal infatuation seems to have seized the southern mind, during which any act of madness may be committed. . . . If the sectional dissensions only rested upon real or alleged grievances, they could be readily settled, but I fear they are deeper and stronger. You ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her loneliness became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed the court of the castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him her husband came out of the chapel; and the next day the old ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... plight must always be touching, but her touchingness was indescribable—almost unendurable to the ripe aged woman of the world who watched and heard her. It was as if she knew nothing of the meaning of things—as if some little spirit had been torn from heaven and flung down upon the dark earth. One felt that one must weep aloud over the exquisite incomprehensible remoteness ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unfolds to our horror-stricken gaze the terrors of this infernal region; its fiery deluge of ever-burning sulphur; its 'regions of sorrow;' its 'doleful shades'—the unhappy abode of fallen angels who 'in floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,' alternated by exposure to unendurable cold and icy torment, experience the direful consequences ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... Louis! The two Vetos were so natural: are not the Priests martyrs; also friends? This Camp of Twenty Thousand, could it be other than of stormfullest Sansculottes? Natural; and yet, to France, unendurable. Priests that co-operate with Coblentz must go elsewhither with their martyrdom: stormful Sansculottes, these and no other kind of creatures, will drive back the Austrians. If thou prefer the Austrians, then for the love of Heaven ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to cure them, are his symbol for the recalcitrant Donatists. The little donkeys, obstinate and cunning, that trot in the narrow lanes of Algerian casbahs, appear here and there in his sermons. The gnats bite in them. The unendurable flies plaster themselves in buzzing patches on the tables and walls. Then there are the illnesses and drugs of that country: the ophthalmias and collyrium. What else? The tarentulas that run along the beams on the ceiling; the hares that scurry ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... other to clearer vision and nobler living. And from such companionship to have fallen to a Schnorrer's! Oh, it was unendurable. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... life," he said, with a sigh. "Those who drink the waters in the morning are inert—like all invalids, and those who drink the wines in the evening are unendurable—like all healthy people! There are ladies who entertain, but there is no great amusement to be obtained from them. They play whist, they dress badly and speak French dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter—but I am not acquainted ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... think you children could manage to remember to shut the screens doors behind you," remarked Doctor Hugh one morning at the breakfast table. "If there is one thing positively unendurable, it ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... faith, the Maid, not shouting triumphant on the height of victory, but kneeling, weeping, on the verge of torture. Human nature could not bear this long. A hoarse cry burst forth: "Will you keep us here all day; must we dine here?" a voice perhaps of unendurable pain that simulated cruelty. And then the executioner stepped in ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... convey a prim rebuke. The blue, English eyes, by her side, were also bent on me. But, oh Heavens! what a glance to receive from such a beautiful creature! As for the mob cap, not a fig did I care for it; but, to be taken for anything but a cavalier, by the ringleted one, was absolutely unendurable. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... profound, was different in character. Her sex and various other considerations taught her more restraint; but she also felt the situation to be altogether unendurable, and after a few moments of bitterly eloquent ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... on earth! Ah, what is there in life for me when I've lost all that gold I guarded, oh, so carefully! I've denied myself, denied my own self comforts and pleasures; yes, and now others are making merry over my misery and loss! Oh, it's unendurable! ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... mental temperament to which dubiety is the one unendurable condition; he had none of that cowardice which postpones an unpleasant solution until the inevitable moment. Whatever this hideous mystery he would solve it as quickly as possible and then put it out of his life. Beyond question poor Helene was the victim of blackmail; ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... all knowledge in the limitations of the intellect, and is thus the representative of the human mind with its unattainable goal: knowledge of the secret of being, the erotic has gone a step further. He has found the boundary in the very perfection of his personality and, to him, the barrier is unendurable. In the rare love of the rare personality is discovered the eternal separateness of the ego; only the destruction of its origin, the annihilation of itself, might, perhaps, throw down the barrier which separates the lovers. Inevitably there arises in the soul the desire ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... said John Carker, reading the letter, '"why your name would henceforth have an unnatural sound, in however remote a connexion with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it, would be unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all engagements between us, from this date, and to request that no renewal of any communication with me, or my establishment, be ever attempted by you."—Enclosed is an equivalent in money to a generously ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and sold. He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing—it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day, I lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand it, and wouldn't she please shut him up. The tears came into her eyes, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... sudden warmth about his neck made him aware that he had turned red, and then, departing, left him pale. For a panicky moment he thought of facing about in actual flight; he had little doubt that Lucy would meet him with no token of recognition, and all at once this probability struck him as unendurable. And if she did not speak, was it the proper part of chivalry to lift his hat and take the cut bareheaded? Or should the finer gentleman acquiesce in the lady's desire for no further acquaintance, and pass her with stony mien and eyes ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... the external parts, is a most annoying affection, which often renders life itself almost unendurable. Its most frequent cause is due to irritating discharges from the uterus or vagina. Quite a large per cent of the women who are passing through the "change of life" are troubled in ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... statement gravely, without protest, and that sincerity was like a skilled hand on a wound. It brought comfort where a fumbling kindness would have been unendurable. It made him strangely, deeply happy to know that she would see too that he had failed. "I've never had pity on anyone—not even myself—I've ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... everything!" groaned Mary to herself, as she ran up-stairs when Girlie was at last out of sight. She felt that nothing could compensate her for the loss of the whole morning, and the thought of losing any more precious time in that way was unendurable. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the Academy, having rejected him several times, elected him among the Forty Immortals. In the previous year had been successfully acted "Ruy Blas," for which play he had gone to Spanish sources; with and after the then imperative Rhine tour, came an unendurable "trilogy," the "Burgraves," played one long, long night in 1843. A real tragedy was to mark that year: his daughter Leopoldine being drowned in the Seine with her husband, who would not save himself when he found that her death-grasp ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... look of the worshipper who could lose self in a passion. But this was no dread god that demanded unlovely sacrifice. It was a glad creature that desired laughter, song, and dance. Priscilla had seen to that. A repetition of her father's creed would have been unendurable. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... handkerchief, and threw him ungently upon the bench before they passed through the open door to comparative freedom. Cherry locked and bolted the door behind them, and pulled down the outer shutter, with which, on occasions, the gaoler made life in the cells a little more unendurable by excluding the light. The cells were below the level of the courtyard, and they moved along the trench from which ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... instant of his withdrawal, a Rogan turned toward the lever to push it back up into contact and release the red kingdom from the burden of Jupiter's unendurable gravity. And now ensued a curious struggle. The lever, placed for the convenience of creatures twelve feet or more tall, was about five feet from the floor. And ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... on fire, however, and would not be lulled to sleep by the influence of night and the anthem of ocean. The poor lad suffered such torment of soul as we can scarcely imagine; to the young, compulsory inaction during mental pain is almost unendurable, and sometimes Yaspard felt that to fling himself into the water, to struggle there and drown, would be better than sitting on the holme idle, helpless, picturing ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... to Cape Guardafui in a gale, a sticky hot gale which made life unendurable. The Red Sea was a relief and not too hot, but how we pitied the poor devils quartered at Perim, and the lighthouses seen at the Two Brothers. I would as soon camp for ever on the lee side of Tophet. But my first trip through the Canal was charming. At night, when the vessel's search-light ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... which he was chiefly devoted, might have led us to anticipate. This Play was evidently written at a time when the conviction that the state of things which it represents could not endure much longer, had taken deep hold of the Poet's mind; at a time when those evils had attained a height so unendurable—when that evil which lay at the heart of the commonweal, poisoning all the social relations with its infection, had grown so fearful, that it might well seem, even to the scientific mind, to require the fierce 'drug' of the political revolution,—so fearful as to make, even to such a mind, the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... makes deeper the chasm dividing the rich and the poor; it increases vastly the ranks of the uneducated; and, finally, while most unnaturally forcing the increase of the already threatening African infusion, it also tends to make the servile condition more unendurable, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... sketch is fairly typical of a very large class—perhaps of all except those of exceptionally firm and sensible parents. The strangest thing about the matter is, however, that the fruit does not by any means correspond to the seed; the wind is sown, but the whirlwind is not reaped. The unendurable child does not necessarily become an intolerable man. By some mysterious chemistry of the American atmosphere, social or otherwise, the horrid little minx blossoms out into a charming and womanly girl, with ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... buried, where hyenas prowled and jackals wandered, and where the desolate cry of the night-owls echoed over the rocks. In winter the wind sweeps up the valley and howls round the rocks; in summer the sun makes it a veritable furnace, unendurable to man. There is nothing here to remind one of the God Who watches over him, and the tender Aton of the Pharaoh's conception would seem to have abandoned this place to the spirits of evil. There are no flowers where Akhnaton cut his sepulchre, and no birds sing; for the King ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... gravely gravitate to the left side of the walk while all the Town in chattering parties took seats on the right. "That's right, Burns, take off my last summer coat," he added, still in a whisper to me as the Burns parent struggled out of the unendurable gift garment and thus gave a signal that whipped off every coat on the left side of the walk in the twinkling of an eye, to the evident distress of the tightly girted and uncomfortable but more formal feminine members of the Settlement contingent. Conjugal strife was about to make its appearance ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the fourth Presidential election. This was found to be necessary by the circumstances of the contest between John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr. It was then found that the complications in the method of election created by the original clause were all but unendurable, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... has fallen bankrupt? By all means let it fall bankrupt; in the name of God let it do so, with whatever misery to itself and to all of us. Imposture, be it known then,—known it must and shall be,—is hateful, unendurable to God and man. Let it understand this everywhere; and swiftly make ready for departure, wherever it yet lingers; and let it learn never to return, if possible! The eternal voices, very audibly again, are speaking to proclaim this message, from ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... self) malvesti, senvestigi. Undulate ondolinii. Undulating ondolinia. Undulation ondolinio. Unearthly supernatura. Uneasiness maltrankvileco. Uneasy maltrankvila. Unemployed senokupa. Unendurable nesuferebla. Unequal neegala. Unerring neerara, certa. Uneven neebena, malglata. Unexpected neatendita. Unexpectedly neatendite. Unexpressed neesprimita. Unfair (dishonest) malhonesta, malrajta. Unfaithful malfidela. Unfasten malligi. Unfavourable ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... sympathy, would only excite laughter. Maimed and bleeding, I toiled on, and wishing, oh! so fervently, that the next blow might be on my head, instead of the inferior parts of my body. Towards evening, my torture became unendurable, and throwing my tired body on the ground, I determined not to work longer, let the consequences be what they may. This conduct was so entirely unexpected, that it took my captors by surprise, and finding blows of ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the little chamber where I kept my treasures. I was hotly and tightly dressed in black, all day long, as though ready at any moment to attend a funeral with decorum. Sometimes, towards evening, I used to feel the monotony and weariness of my position to be almost unendurable, but at this time I was meek, and I bowed to what I supposed to be the ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... proposed remedies were worth. He has told us that he became a Socialist at this time only because it was intolerable not to be a Socialist. The Socialists seemed the only people who were looking at conditions as they were and finding them unendurable. Christian Socialism seemed at first sight, for anyone who admired Christ, to be the obvious form of Socialism, and, in a fragment of this period, G.K. traces the resemblance of modern collectivism to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... and kept going on so long that his audience were forced to go off and assuage the pangs of hunger which prolonged abstinence and mental excitement at last rendered unendurable. But no sooner was appetite appeased than the magician and his hearers returned to ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... life. I had no ballast, nothing to steady me in the tempest. My hope had been all in the present, and it perished with her. I cared for nothing, my little children were a misery to me, the old home was unendurable. I got leave of absence from my employers, and came up here—desperate. I dashed into every sort of dissipation and extravagance; I tried one excitement after another, if only I could drown every memory I had. I abandoned myself to so-called 'friends' of the worst sort, who degraded ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... solitudes of the large house Mary Fawcett found life unendurable. Still handsome, naturally gay of temper, and a brilliant figure in society, she frequently deserted her elderly husband for weeks at a time. The day came when he peremptorily forbade her to leave the place without him. For a time she submitted, for although a woman of uncommon independence ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... upon until she bound him to a cabinet maker in the city. To him, the restraint was unendurable, and he ran away. He came after dark to bid me good-bye, left love for mother and Elizabeth, and next morning left Pittsburg on a steamboat, going to that Eldorado of ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... sounded about my head. It was a huge fly which had been sleeping in a corner of my room and had been roused by the heat of the stove. It flew about in great circles, now around the bed, now in all four corners of the chamber—"buzz—buzz—buzz"—it was unendurable! At last I heard it creep into a bag of sugar which had been left on the window sill. I sprang up and closed the bag tight. The fly buzzed worse than ever, but I went back to bed and attempted to sleep again, feeling that I had conquered ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... majesty's liberality, I hope to retain the pension I held from the empress. The loss of it heightens my grief for the death of my husband, and makes life unendurable. Without it I should have to part with my carriage, with a portion of my household, and live in complete retirement. I am sure that your majesty's own sense of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... They cannot express themselves in the dull labour which is their daily task. They just have to go on and on doing the same monotonous jobs, not in order to enjoy life, but just in order to live at all. Their "rut" is well-nigh unendurable. Of what good, for example, is education, an appreciation of art and beauty, any of those things, in fact, which are the only things which make life splendid and worth living, if all one is asked to do, day in, day out, is to clean some lift in the morning and ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... royal pair at my 'umble home, all its surroundings began to lose the charm of rustic simplicity, and appear shabby, inappropriate, and unendurable. It became evident that the entire place must be raised, and at once, to the level of ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... there lies the gulf that parts truth and falsehood, heaven and hell, it is no perceptible withdrawal of his love from her that forces on her this conviction. It is his falseness and treason to the dead. Then comes the crisis of her career; her flight from the unendurable burden of that divided life; her meeting with Savonarola; and her being through him brought face to face with the Christian aspect of that deepest of all moral truths,—the precedence of duty above all else. Savonarola's demand might well seem to one such as Romola ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies. Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... seized upon Elizabeth's feelings at all; now he was convinced that it would be no less hard for her than for Katie; hard through her friendship and her pride. But this one's tender little heart would break. After all, it was only of her that he could think. The waiting was growing unendurable. Yet he felt that his father was right when he said that the easiest way, the shortest in the end, was to prove if possible that Harwin's story of his vocation was fabricated. Indeed, there was no case for appeal to the Court unless that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... those who had set out to find it had been overtaken by the storm and had not even yet returned. Poor Sir Walter was especially filled with shame, and almost hoped the king would order his head to be cut off, for to think of that sweet little face down amongst the goblins was unendurable. ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... go! Let her go, you fool, you FOOL—!' cried Ursula at the top of her voice, completely outside herself. And Gudrun hated her bitterly for being outside herself. It was unendurable that Ursula's voice was so powerful ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Lord has shown that a great and blessed life is possible on conditions which the world pronounces simply unendurable. He would not accept the world's maxims, would not be ruled by the world's principles, did despite to the world's most favorite plans. He even tasted the dregs of reprobation that the world metes out to those who oppose her, enduring the cross, and despising the shame. But His life was blessed while ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... (December 17, 1620), and shortly after his arrival in Manila, he was sent to Caraga to aid the fathers who were laboring in the missions there. At the time of the insurrection, he was captured in the village of Bacoag, but after four months of almost unendurable captivity, was ransomed. After this he remained several years in Caraga, but was finally recalled to Manila. His life was most active, for he made five trips to Caraga, and three to Calamianes, with despatches or to accompany the fathers going to those posts, and often ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... overcome with unendurable sadness as she listened to the simple sketch. It blended strangely with her past, into which her recollections ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... confusion, how unbearable it had been to hear him say, "That you with your youth and your innocence and your candour...." He had thought it too horrible to suspect her, and by that confidence he made her load of guilt almost unendurable. ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... to the "Baby-Talk Lady's" good-bye dance, not to be present was unendurable. Now William again gets the dress suit, and how he wears it at the party, and Genesis discloses the fact that the proud garment is in reality his father's makes up the story ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... ceased to sound, and she heard the outer door close softly, then she went back to her room and covered her face with her hands; perhaps she was praying; if so, it was unconsciously; but she still listened for the detectives, the police-officers who might be coming. The strain was almost unendurable, and it was with a strange, inexplicable relief that her suspense was brought to an end by the sound of someone approaching the opposite door and knocking. She rose, trembling, and listened, as she had listened so many times that eventful night. The knock was repeated ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... afternoon in particular, on a hot, airless day in June, when Joan reached the last point of her endurance. Everything had combined to make the office unendurable. One of Mr. Strangman's most agitated moods held him. Early in the morning he had indulged in a wordy argument with Chester, the Literary Page editor, on the question of whether or not the telephone was to be used by the office boys to 'phone ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... excellent Miss Joyce. A beginning very far down would have to be made, if she were to reach the individuality of this perfectly nurtured modern child of hers. There was nothing bad about Molly; she was irritatingly blameless. But what she lacked was appalling! At eighteen she would be unendurable. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... wild, odd man, in whom the family genius had degenerated into mere eccentricity, never did anything for his own livelihood, but lived always upon John Gibson's generous bounty. In John's wealthy days, he and Mr. Ben used to escape every summer from the heat and dust of Rome—which is unendurable in July and August—to the delightfully cool air and magnificent mountain scenery of the Tyrol. "I cannot tell you how well I am," he writes on one of these charming visits, "and so is Mr. Ben. Every morning we take our walks ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... principal industry, I find that my own particular nightmare of monotony takes the form of examination papers—quires of them, reams of them, stacks of them—a horrid incubus, always oppressive, but then most unendurable when the book-room begins to smell musty in the morning, and the fire is unlit upon the hearth, and last night's student-lamp is stuccoed all over with tiny gnats, and the breath of the blossoming grape is wafted in at the open ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... her side, and share her thoughts. Again he was the outsider; behind these two was a life full of detail and circumstance, of which he knew nothing. His excited brain called up pictures, imagined fiercely at words and looks, until the darkness and stillness of the room became unendurable; and he sprang up, threw on his clothing, and went out. Retracing his steps, he found the very spot where they had met. Guiltily, with a stealthy look round him, though wood and night were black as ink, he ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of helplessness to which this double calamity can reduce a man. To be cut off from the sights and sounds of the world, with these two avenues of perception closed, so as to be able to take cognisance of external things only through scent and touch! It would seem to be well-nigh unendurable! He had learnt to read raised type with his fingers, and had been presented by some friends with two or three books of this kind. His speech was, as is always the case, affected, but still intelligible. Only the simplest facts could be communicated ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... position in society, had proved but empty boasts—he would no longer hide the fact from her, not in the hope of being received at home as a repentant prodigal (even the thought of such a course was unendurable), but with the purpose of obtaining from her the means of entering upon a ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... cost, and a mean little vanity that sacrificed lives when not appeased. She is the most disagreeable figure in modern drama. Were it not for her good looks and pity for her misspent life and death she would be absolutely unendurable. The dramatic genius of Ibsen makes her credible. But what was the matter with ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... an unendurable bore as a continuance; but take my word for it, George, if you could bring yourself to do it for six months, by the end of that time you would have the game ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... swift dromedaries over half the Sahara, and are a terror to their settled neighbours and to caravans. On their raids they cover immense distances in a short time. To ride from the heart of their country to the Sudan after booty is child's play to them. They have made existence in many oases quite unendurable. What use is it to till fields and rear palms when the Tuaregs always reap the harvest? The French have had many fights with the Tuaregs, and the railway which was to pass through their country and connect Algiers with Timbuktu is still only a ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... He stood up, and was astounded to feel his own weakness against that terrific onslaught. Grimly he forced his way to the open window. The veldt was alight with lurid, leaping flame. The far-off hills stood up like ramparts in the amazing glare, stabbed here and there with molten swords of an unendurable brightness. He had seen many a raging storm before, but never a ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... miscreants who had no scruples about corrupting one of the disciples, but shuddered at the thought of putting back into the treasury the money they had taken from it, Judas becomes noble. His remorse is so unendurable that it drives him ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... they keep in this horrid place!" she said to herself. "Well, well, I always did know that school would be unendurable." ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... his relatives cast him out. One winter day he was walking barefoot about the city, with an empty stomach and torn clothes. Evening came on and still he had not found any food. Without end or aim he wandered about the market place. He was hungry, and the cold seemed well nigh unendurable. So he turned his eyes upward and began to ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... horses. Two ears were issued to each man. It was parched in the coals, mixed with salt, stored in the pockets, and eaten on the road. Chewing the corn was hard work. It made the jaws ache and the gums and teeth so sore as to cause almost unendurable pain. ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... I saw her glances wander to his face, I groaned in spirit, stammered some words of choking sorrow and was gone, before her embarrassment would let her speak words, which I knew would only add to my grief and make this hasty parting unendurable. ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... by her large gold watch, which she held in her hand as if she were counting the pulse of the afternoon, and that, by the kitchen clock, which she felt sure was not an hour too fast, it had already struck six. The lapse of time was rendered the more unendurable to Mrs. Jerome by her wonder that Mr. Jerome could stay out in the garden with Lizzie in that thoughtless way, taking it so easily that tea-time was long past, and that, after all the trouble of getting down the best tea-things, Mr. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and their life became more and more unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing them together, it ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... delicate oval face was pinched and drawn. The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some unendurable distress. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the misery of his poverty arose up before him. It was not unendurable simply because he ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did begin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it. Yes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was made almost unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives, if we stay in our own country, in a manner which would be unendurable to a ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... to Harut, because we are too valuable to be killed just now, if for no other reason; also as to the suspense, which is unendurable. Therefore I will walk with you to look at that snake, Ragnall, and so no doubt will Hans. The exercise ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... out of the ground and carried to the refineries is not all of the business by any means. The early oils crusted on the lamp wicks, their smell was unendurable, and they were given to exploding. Evidently, if oil was to be used for lighting, it must be improved, and the first step was to distil it. To distil anything means to boil it and collect the vapor. If you hold a piece of cold earthenware in the steam of ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... policy of that period two factors must be borne in mind. The acceptance of Great Britain's offer would have placed a tie upon the German Empire which would have been unendurable. Germany would have become the strong but stupid Power, whose duty would have been to fight British battles on the continent. Besides which the choice concerned Germany's world future, above all the development of ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... was pretty cruel, this sudden shutting of the door of hope in his face. The discovery of Frances's presence in the city had brought again in full tumultuous surge the old love and longing, and the hours of waiting had been well-nigh unendurable. And now he would have to wait until day after to-morrow. He would go to-morrow night to this Mother Somebody. What was her name? He could remember nothing, was, indeed, as stupid as if he had been knocked in the head. Well, he had been. Where did this woman live? ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... son is a tell-tale, Mr. Grace, and allow me to say that this is none of his business. When I am insulted, I resent it." To be chaffed by his own uncle when under sentence of a court-martial had not been agreeable, but this admonition was unendurable. He ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was unendurable. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... chance assuming that he bears with your manner on account of his own comfort? You might at least be generous or acute enough to see that it is only for my sake that he exercises so much self-control. He does not want to make my position here more unendurable by quarrelling with you. It makes me furious to see what you force him to put up with, the way you speak to him, and look at him, as if he were your slave, or a disobedient dog. His self-control is wonderful. I admire him ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... fired with passion that each sentence is like a cry to a lover in the dark. As De Peyster says: "In them the animal instincts override and spur and lash the pen." Mary was committing to paper the frenzied madness of a woman consumed to her very marrow by the scorching blaze of unendurable desire. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... moods and interprets the thoughts. A wise and sympathetic bandmaster—and the masters that I have met have been that—can lift a battalion out of depression, cheer it in sickness, and steady and recall it to itself in times of almost unendurable stress. [Cheers.] You may remember a beautiful poem by Sir Henry Newbolt, in which he describes how a squadron of weary big dragoons were led to renewed effort by the strains of a penny whistle and a child's drum taken from a toyshop in a wrecked French town. I remember in India, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Stanhope went out as usual on the terrace, and the others followed. It began to grow dark. Clarissa's anxiety became unendurable; what could have happened to ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... suffered greatly from the shock, and it was thought that she could not possibly live more than a few months. Quite unexpectedly, however, she began to improve; it seemed that the desire to quit Torquay, which had grown unendurable to her since the tragedy, gave her strength of body. During the spring and summer of 1841 she was able to resume work on translations, compositions, plans for new poems. Indeed, it was this which saved her, for she wrote some ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... then would be to commit suicide, and, thinking this over too, Philip decided minutely what painless drug he would take and how he would get hold of it. It encouraged him to think that, if things became unendurable, he had at all events a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... little company broke up, loath to leave the charming spectacle. The guests departed with the greatest reluctance, having given Dawson a half-sovereign for waiting up to lock the door. Mrs. Beresford said that it seemed unendurable to leave matters in such an unfinished condition, and her son promised to come very early next morning for the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... bored and bothered neighbours lived, made it inevitable. The mere fact that Mr. Polly had to see them every day, that there was no getting away from them, was in itself sufficient to make them almost unendurable to his frettingly ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... just such a chance with Dr. Johnson as Presto (a little dog) would have were he to fight Dash (a big one).'" He adds that she left the room in a huff to the amusement of the party. If scenes like this were frequent, no wonder the "yoke" became unendurable. ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi |
