"Distressful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and vacant mind Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread. 1490 SHAKS.: Henry ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... burned, but this accident 'neither altered the resolution nor the cheerfulness of Lady Harriot, and she continued her progress a partaker of the fatigues of the advanced corps. The next call upon her fortitude was more distressful. On the march of the 19th, the Grenadiers being liable to action at every step, she had been directed by Major Acland to follow the route of the artillery and luggage which was not exposed. At the time the action began ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... our narrative the neighborhood of Ballymacan was in an unsettled and distressful state. The small farmers, and such as held from six to sixteen acres, at a rent which they could at any period with difficulty pay, were barely able to support themselves and their families upon the produce of their holdings, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... determined posse; unacquainted with his whereabouts, ignorant of any way of escape from that hollow square, round whose sides window after excitable window was lighting up in his honour; all in all, as distressful a figure of a fugitive from justice as ever was ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... work on that distressful field closed, after nearly two years of such effort as one would never desire to repeat. The financial management of that field, so far as the Red Cross was concerned, was done under the attorneyship of the ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... live contentedly on so little, was the most open-handed of men, the most liberal and cheerful of givers; and whether to Samoans in distressful times, or to others who sought his aid, his purse was never closed; while his hospitality was like Sir Walter's. Probably, in his hour of greatest success, he never was among "the best sellers." But any financial anxieties which may have beset him were assuaged, and his heart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his days of preparation upon the hills of Twin Islands would return: the ill temper and cunning and evil secretiveness, joined now with the hang-dog air he habitually wore in the city. And these distressful appearances would by day and night increase, as we passed the Funks, came to Bonavist' Bay, left the Bacalieu light behind and rounded the Brandy Rocks, until, instead of a rotund, twinkling old sea-dog, with a gargoylish countenance, with ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... lived at Court, was patronized by the early Guptas. The blank in Buddhist history which follows his career can be explained first by the progress of Hinduism at the expense of Buddhism and secondly by the invasions of the Huns. The Chinese pilgrim Sung-Yuen has left us an account of India in this distressful period and for the seventh century the works of Hsuean Chuang and ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... him all she honestly could, and corrected his many blunders so quietly that he soon ceased to be a deep, distressful red during recitation, and tugged away so manfully that no one could help respecting him for his efforts, and trying to make light of his failures. So the first hard week went by, and though the boy's heart had sunk many a time at the prospect of a protracted ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... overboard! Trust not that loose plank nor attempt the move, but quickly clasp the feet of Jesus walking on the watery pavement, shouting until He hear thee, "Lord, save me, or I perish." Sin beautiful at the start—oh, how sad, how distressful at the last! The ground over which it leads you is hollow. The fruit it offers to your taste is poison. The promise it makes to you is a lie. Over that ungodly banquet the keen sword of God's judgment hangs, and there are ominous ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... whiteness, and had the nostrils plugged according to some Oriental habit of Secundra's. No sooner was the grave filled than the lamentations of the Indian once more struck concern to every heart; and it appears this gang of murderers, so far from resenting his outcries, although both distressful and (in such a country) perilous to their own safety, roughly but kindly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... timorousness again, beat her hands lightly together, in a distressful flurry. "No, he's there," she whispered, and glanced anxiously about her. Then she came nearer. "I heard Gallito and Bob talking about him only yesterday and Bob said there was some mischief brewing among Jose's pals down on the coast, and ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... nearer to the village than seven miles, and in a vile country,—it so fell out that the poor gentleman was scarce a whole week together without some piteous application for his beast; and as he was not an unkind-hearted man, and every case was more pressing and more distressful than the last;—as much as he loved his beast, he had never a heart to refuse him; the upshot of which was generally this; that his horse was either clapp'd, or spavin'd, or greaz'd;—or he was twitter-bon'd, or broken-winded, or something, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... a very distressful journey for all, and not least for the poor little infant missionary! People may wonder what was the necessity of taking this last at all. [Footnote: Dr. Cronin and his wife were both engaged to come out to Mr. Groves. Then she died, and ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Distressful she had been, a land Of kine curtailed and burning ricks, Until we others oped our purses To rectify her feudal curses And freed the soil with generous hand— Prior ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... ornament of Italy and of literature, languished, in his old age, in the most distressful poverty; and having sold his palace to satisfy his creditors, left nothing behind him but his reputation. The learned Pomponius Laetus lived in such a state of poverty, that his friend Platina, who wrote ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and, notwithstanding the insolence of the Orioles, he continued his benevolent offices the whole day, roosting at night as before. On the third or fourth day he seemed extremely solicitous for the liberation of his charge, using every expression of distressful anxiety, and every call and invitation that nature had put in his power, for him to come out. This was too much for the feelings of my friend. He procured a ladder, and mounting to the spot where the bird was suspended, opened the cage, took out his prisoner, and restored him to liberty and to ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... and, as we have seen, the shades of those who die by their own hands are believed to lead a miserable and lonely existence in a distressful country, Tan Tekkan, in which they wander picking up mere scraps of food in the jungle. Nevertheless, suicides occur among Kayans of both sexes. The commonest occasion is the enforced separation of lovers, rather ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... William! You describe the guano-carrying industry by a somewhat rude expression; but as a seafaring man who has had the misfortune to be engaged in the transportation of the distressful but highly useful product, I shake your hand even as I shake the greasy hand of Mr. William Miller, the New Bedford blubber-hunter. My ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... and let us draw upon content for the deficiencies of fortune.' As my eldest son was bred a scholar, I determined to send him to town, where his abilities might contribute to our support and his own. The separation of friends and families is, perhaps, one of the most distressful circumstances attendant on penury. The day soon arrived on which we were to disperse for the first time. My son, after taking leave of his mother and the rest, who mingled their tears with their kisses, came ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... winter drought had parched up all the grass, leaving the bare red dust in the roads or streets as dry and desolate as the sand of the desert. The town itself consisted of some sixty melancholy and distressful houses, bare, square, and flat-roofed, standing unenclosed along a dismal high-road, and with that congenitally shabby look, in spite of their newness, which seems to belong by nature to all southern buildings. Some stagnant pools alone remained to attest the presence after rain of a roaring brook, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... great efficacy in tempering and restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling. This may be illustrated by appealing to the Reader's own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the re-perusal of the distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe, or the Gamester. While Shakespeare's writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act upon us as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure—an effect which is in a great degree to be ascribed to small, ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... in this faulty setting-out, I heard for the first time in that life, the calling of the Voice. And though the Records made mention of it; yet not often was it heard. And the calling was shrill, and very peculiar and distressful and horrible; as though a giant-woman, hungering strangely, shouted unknown words across the night. And this was how it seemed to me; and many thought this to ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... later the harbor of Porto Cortez in Honduras was shaken with the roar of cannon. In comparison, the roaring of all the cannon of all the revolutions that that distressful country ever had known, were like ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... overcoat wide open over his loyal breast, beams his best and most cordial smile; there is a significant wrinkle on his brow, however. He is uneasy about the surprises which may be held in store for them by the establishment, of the distressful condition of which he is better aware than any one. If only Pondevez had taken proper precautions. Things begin well, at any rate. The rather theatrical view from the entrance, of those white fleeces frisking ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... gutters to the shop of his Chinaman opposite. From there he watched the little company issue forth and turn into Crooked lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make her thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and found there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in advance, to say that she had not ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... sleet-laden squalls. In the cheerless light of it the Commandant, who, albeit numb with cold, had had not yet found time to feel fatigue, caught sight of Dr. Bonaday's face, and was smitten with sudden compunction. The old Doctor had sat through six distressful hours like the stoic he was; but his face showed like that of a corpse, and the usually plump and florid cheeks of Mr. Pope hung flaccid, blue with the pinch of the cold and yellow for lack of sleep. The Commandant ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... disposed to serve if he were acquainted with his case. This poor fellow (whom I know just enough of to vouch for his strict integrity & worth) has lost two or three employments from illness, which he cannot regain; he was once insane, & from the distressful uncertainty of his livelihood has reason to apprehend a return of that malady—He has been for some time dependant on a woman whose lodger he formerly was, but who can ill afford to maintain him, and I know that on Christmas night last he actually ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... was the gambling-room of the Reception. There stood Morrow with the men under foot; there was the bottles and glasses; the chips and cards, and also the distressful spectacle of Tarantula Bill Joyce, a number twelve man, all gleaming teeth, and rolling eyeballs, inserting hisself into a number nine opening, and doing ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... reputation, and though frequently involved in very distressful perplexities, appeared, however, to be gaining upon mankind, when both his fame and his life were endangered by an event, of which it is not yet determined, whether it ought to be mentioned as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... hour; and found good means To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart, That I would all my pilgrimage dilate Whereof by parcels she had something heard, But not intentively; I did consent; And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke That my youth suffered. My story being done She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore—in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful; 'twas wondrous pitiful; She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... him out of his garden, to the gate of a neighbouring meadow. A beautiful black-horned white cow stood there, her head over the bars, looking up and down the road, and now and then uttering a low distressful "moo." ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... cultivate the habit of looking rather at the round of the ladder of fortune which is below our own and realising the countless points in which our lot is better than that of others. As Dr. Johnson says, 'Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable from whom they may learn to rejoice in ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Ziska destroyed 550 churches and monasteries in Germany alone; and, for attempting reforms in religion, Huss and Jerome of Prague were cruelly burnt alive at the stake. These and similar horrors of those distressful times, which find fit counterparts in revolting incidents in the Annals, could not but deeply affect the soul of a man ardently loving liberty and devoted to humanity as, unquestionably, was the forger of that work: hence throughout his book the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... great poetry can fully express, and volumes of bad poetry cannot quite destroy. It has besides a real political value, binding the State together, and giving it a stronger moral coherence than can be attained by any legal or constitutional authority; a fact that is illustrated by those distressful countries in which its limits are not conterminous with the political boundaries of the State. I am inclined to think that just because true patriotism is of the nature of a personal affection, it is an emotion that cannot be inspired by an empire, any more than personal affection can be ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato |
