"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lay out the Country, and the other player choose from which side he would come. And to-day we play over such landscapes in a cork-carpeted schoolroom, from which the proper occupants are no longer evicted but remain to take an increasingly responsible and less and less audible and distressing ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... and had suffered much from illness during this eventful summer, but his anxiety for the Commonwealth, caused by these distressing and superfluous squabbles, were wearing into him more deeply than years or disease ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his case. His voice was for the gallows,—but, in consideration of the criminal's rank, he would consent to commute the cord for the axe. After him, four voted for death; then, five for banishment. Six to six. Anxiety had now reached a distressing point. The Chancellor stormed and threatened; but in vain. On the twenty-fifth of December the result was known. Nine for death, thirteen for banishment. Saved! "I am so glad," Sevigne wrote to Simon Arnauld, "that I am beside myself." She exulted too soon. The King was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... most part," he is careful to state, "personally unhappy," but rather with reference to their imperfect senses. This view is clear enough, and in one sense is doubtless correct; but it does not express the entire situation in respect to the deaf. While their deafness must always be a serious and distressing affliction, and even handicap and burden as well, and while the deaf must often bemoan their fate, it yet seems to be true that the deaf as a lot are not "unhappy." They are good-natured, see the world ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... Salt Lake. The attacks on Hill 10 went to pieces, not against the Turks, but by mishap. The first assault made by one or two Companies succeeded, but the assailants were taken for Turks and were attacked in turn and driven off by others of our men. A most distressing affair. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Elfride in her sleep on the steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of something, or it would be her ruin—a circumstance hitherto deemed so trivial and meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten it. All these things infused into him an emotion intense in power and supremely distressing in quality. The paper in his ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... a British periodical only because he could not endure the ordeal of rejecting the thousands of submitted manuscripts. This is a distressing phase of an Art Director's duties and to my mind his most sacred obligation. No matter how hardened by experience, a conscientious editor cannot fail to suffer for and with the unhappy authors and artists ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... other comment on the distressing subject than this; were there no hopes of obtaining assistance on application in a public manner, I should be easier under your silence, but when the reverse is the case, to lose the present critically favorable moment, and hazard thereby the ruin of the greatest cause in which mankind were ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... establishment from the fourth century to the French Revolution. It passed into ecclesiastical hands again in the Second Empire and became a Cistercian monastery. Although the restoration was accomplished with distressing thoroughness forty years ago, some parts of the chapel date back to the seventh century, and a huge double donjon—the dominating feature of the island from the coast—remains from the twelfth-century fortifications. A road, on which are ruins of four medieval ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... paying everybody when rents were not to be had; but she undertook the whole, borrowing money in small sums, paying off encumbrances, and repaying the borrowed money as the times improved; thus enabling her brother to keep the land which so many proprietors were then obliged to sell, and yet never distressing the tenants. ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... exchange of commodities with England and the West Indies, and the cod and whale fisheries; and in these occupations many people had grown rich. The war had destroyed all these sources of revenue. Imports and exports had alike been stopped, so that there was a distressing scarcity of some of the commonest household articles. The enemy's navy had kept us from the fisheries. Before the war, the dock-yards of Nantucket were ringing with the busy sound of adze and hammer, rope-walks covered the island, and two hundred keels sailed yearly in quest of spermaceti. At the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... those sanguinary laws, to which reference has been made: hence, too, the increasing disposition which is every where seen to render the situation of the free blacks intolerable. Never was it so pitiable and distressing—so full of peril and anxiety—so burdened with misery, despondency and scorn; never were the prejudices of society so virulent and implacable against them; never were their prospects so dark, and dreary, and hopeless; never ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... curse could be imposed on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, desires or struggles. The feeling that life is destitute of any motive or necessity for action, must be of all others the most distressing and insupportable to a rational being. The Marquis de Spinola asking Sir Horace Vere what his brother died of, Sir Horace replied, "He died, Sir, of having nothing to do." "Alas!" said Spinola, "that is enough to kill any general of ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... matter of sport to them, and they endeavoured to heighten it by every means in their power. This studied and degrading insolence, to which I was constantly exposed, was one of the bitterest ingredients in the cup of captivity; and often made life itself a burthen to me. In those distressing moments I have frequently envied the situation of the slave, who, amidst all his calamities, could still possess the enjoyment of his own thoughts; a happiness to which I had, for some time, been a stranger. Wearied out with such continual insults, and ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... the saneness of this revived art and yet, here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being alarmed, he thinks that the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... great catastrophe has happened, and the identity of the victims has not been established, "a great day" invariably follows at the Morgue. The attendants are so accustomed to the horrors of the place that the most sickly sight fails to impress them; and even under the most distressing circumstances, they hasten gaily to and fro, exchanging jests well calculated to make an ordinary mortal's flesh creep. As a rule, they are far less interested in the corpses laid out for public view on the marble slabs in the principal hall than in the people of every age ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... his motor-bicycle and gone for a trip into Italy," she said. "No, I do not think I should speak to him, even if he were here. He may come round in time, Francois. You can understand that it is terribly distressing; he hoped I would make a great marriage. You must ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... Coleville is come to stop the duel at any cost," I observed, halting at the door. "May we not hope to avoid a distressing scene, Jessop?" ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... that moment something within her was struggling, like a little, anxious, active creature, striving fiercely, minute though it was, to escape out of a trap. It seemed to her that it was the introduction of Hamza into her life by Baroudi that was furtively distressing her. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... distressing. Both the belligerents in Europe were guilty of depredations on American commerce. War on both of them was out of the question. War on France was impossible because she had no territory on this side ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... every blessing, Load to misery most distressing, Gladly how would I resign thee, And to dark ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... wish to discuss the subject. It is a very painful one," he said (and I believe it was as physically distressing to him as the thought of Cripple Charlie's malformation). "I have no wish to force your confidence when it is too late," he added (and it was this which I felt to be so hard). "I don't blame you; you have other friends who suit you better, but you have never been fully open with me. All I can say ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... have seen apparitions, one half have—as I should term it—chosen to do so. I have all my life suffered from a tendency to imaginary terrors, and have always felt sure that a determined exercise of self-control would effectually keep them from having the dominion over me. The most distressing form of nervous excitement that I have ever experienced was one that for many years I was very liable to, and which always recurred when I was in a state of unusual exaltation or depression of spirits; both which states in me were either directly caused or greatly aggravated ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... most distressing days we have seen was last Tuesday, when two hundred and fifty all broken down, stood and sat, three long hours, waiting and hoping that the Commissary would send bread or rations, but none came, and we could get only twenty-five loaves for them. Many came from the suburbs of the town, some ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... was christened Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... getting away from funerals. So I adopt an explanation that I take from the anthropologists: burial in effigy. Perhaps the Elvereans would not come to this earth again until many years later—another distressing occurrence—one little mausoleum for all ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... proposition to Mercer was made on the spur of one of those moments when the spirit of a hunch possessed him. His morning had been one of unexpected excitement, and now he leaned back in an effort to review it and to forget, if he could, the distressing thing that was bound to happen to him within the next few hours. But he could not get away from the thickening in his chest. It seemed growing on him. Now and then he was compelled to make quite an effort to get sufficient air ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... she run into mischief, that my thoughts continually turn on the unaccountable wanderings of her mind. She seems to think she has been very ill used, and, in short, till I see some more favorable symptoms, I shall only suppose that her malady has assumed a new and more distressing appearance. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Professor replied. "That's the Problem, no doubt. Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one. Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very distressing!" He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle, "As to myself, I think you mentioned that ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... they have drifted—to use the happy expression of Lord Clarendon to describe what is so truly unhappy—they have drifted from a state of peace to a state of war; and to no Member of the Government could this state of things be more distressing than to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for it dashed from him the hopes he entertained that session after session, as trade extended and the public revenue increased, he would find himself the beneficent dispenser of blessings to ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in another ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... every day; and the Perseus who is destined to cut them is, I expect, some mischievous little boy at a Board-school. But as the question has been asked, I will own that sometimes, even when deepest in works of this, the now orthodox school, I have been harassed by distressing doubts whether, after all, this enormous labour is not in vain; and, wearied by the effort, overloaded by the detail, bewildered by the argument, and sickened by the pitiless dissection of character and motive, have been tempted to cry aloud, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... a rapid view of the destroyed ramparts of the town and returned to the hospital, where there were men whose limbs had been amputated, many wounded, many afflicted with ophthalmia, whose lamentations were distressing, and some infected with the plague. The beds of the last description of patients were to the right on entering the first ward. I walked by the General's side, and I assert that I never saw him touch any one of the infected. And why should he have ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... though I have been off work and off—as you know very well—letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty letters, and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny has had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only now beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is lying—though she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven—in her big cool, mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bitternesses have been my lot my whole life, I find the cause of each one was what I have learned. Many a night did I lie awake in agonized distraction, while my servants were snoring in peace. I desired to see before me a person as happy as it was my ideal to be; a person free from those distressing tortures, which the civilized world has discovered for the persecution of man by man. Well, I have begun by telling you why I did not teach Czipra ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... that the woman, while exhausting herself, was also distressing her mistress, he moved forward with the intention of warning Tochatti she was endangering her own health; but his word of caution was never uttered, for as he approached her she spun round with a last fierce torrent ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... could not before have believed to prevail in any civilized country, much less in this country, which laid peculiar claims to civilization, and boasted of its religious and humane principles."[234] "Distressing as were the cases which he had mentioned, there were others ten times worse remaining behind—so horrible, indeed, that he durst not venture to shock the feelings of the House by relating them."[235] Sir George Grey, after ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... Bolan Pass. Hence they descended to Curachee to embark for their respective quarters in India. The fate of one of the regiments of the division, the 17th, as it is recorded in a Bombay paper, is most distressing. They embarked at Curachee for Bombay, and sailed in the morning with a fair wind and a fine breeze, but before the night closed in upon them the ship was fast aground upon a sandbank, off the Hujamree branch of the Indus, scarcely within sight of land. Everything was thrown overboard ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... his fortitude exhausted, began to cry. A man's sobs are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face, forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She now clasped ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenly clouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeable publication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson? Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... together through the dark his chagrin returned in full force. Mrs. Cortlandt maintained a distressing silence, and he could not see her face. Presently he began to plead brokenly for forgiveness, stumbling in the effort not to offend her further and feeling that he was making matters worse with every word he uttered. For a long ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... riveted every day; and the Perseus who is destined to cut them is, I expect, some mischievous little boy at a Board-school. But as the question has been asked, I will own that sometimes, even when deepest in works of this, the now orthodox school, I have been harassed by distressing doubts whether after all this enormous labor is not in vain; and wearied by the effort, overloaded by the detail, bewildered by the argument, and sickened by the pitiless dissection of character and motive, have been tempted ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Marquis de Lafayette; and my friendship for him has been constant and sincere. It is natural, therefore, that I should sympathize with him and his family in their misfortunes, and endeavour to mitigate the calamities they experience, among which his present confinement is not the least distressing. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... knew she would take it in that way," said Mrs. Curtis. "And so you understand us, my dear, we could not bear to ask you to do anything so distressing except for your ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it. But it is none the less a fallacy, and doubly so. In the first place, the change of line-lengths and rhythms in a short poem written in "free verse" is nearly always arbitrary, and does not succeed in doing what is claimed for it in this direction, while it often does succeed in distressing the ear and so obscuring the sense, though that is by the way. It is not as though given rhythms and line-lengths had any peculiar emotional significance attached to them. A dirge may be in racing anapaests, laughter in the most sedate iambic measure; a solemn invocation may move in rapid three-foot ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in the water about me. I could hear them crying out to one another. And I heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... vote for an increase of fifty thousand men for the Navy Mr. GEORGE LAMBERT solemnly announced that the Admiralty was "fumbling with a magnificent weapon." It is distressing to think that a body which for nearly ten years enjoyed his services as Civil Lord should have deteriorated so rapidly since he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... Daughter of Pandarus; within the grove's Thick foliage perch'd, she pours her echoing voice Now deep, now clear, still varying the strain 650 With which she mourns her Itylus, her son By royal Zethus, whom she, erring, slew,[85] So also I, by soul-distressing doubts Toss'd ever, muse if I shall here remain A faithful guardian of my son's affairs, My husband's bed respecting, and not less My own fair fame, or whether I shall him Of all my suitors follow to his home Who noblest seems, and offers richest dow'r. My son while he was infant yet, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... was rarely combative. Fighting was not his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was, never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat, fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients; but, here and there, a student of human nature found it delightfully whimsical. Sometimes ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the country, and depression in financial affairs inevitably and quickly reduces the postal revenues. Therefore a larger discrepancy than usual between the post-office receipts and expenditures is the expected and unavoidable result of the distressing stringency which has prevailed throughout the country during much of the time covered by the Postmaster-General's report. At a date when better times were anticipated it was estimated by his predecessor that the deficiency on the 30th day of June, 1893, would ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... It was distressing to Mehetabel to be rebuked in public, but she made no rejoinder. Jonas had seized on the opportunity to let his visitor see that he was not tied to his wife's apron string, but was absolute master in his own house. The blood mounted to Iver's brow, and he clenched ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... full of distressing illustrations of this ethical law. A man who owns but the clothes he wears one day, is a millionaire the next, and he attempts the impossible task of bisecting life, which has been manifestly planned as a whole. He appears to succeed for a time, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... veil of yellowish grey, that shut out the face of the sun. The streets were utterly silent, being indeed almost entirely deserted; and not without cause, for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the blood, closes up the pores of the skin, and is terribly distressing, therefore, to every animal that encounters it. I returned to my rooms dreadfully ill. My head ached with a burning pain, and my pulse bounded quick and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the instance of the poor Levantine, whose death I was mentioning), the fear and excitement which I felt in trying ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... of tobacco smoke from Mills' pipe drove between my head and the head of Mr. Blunt, who, strange to say, yawned slightly. It seemed to me an obvious affectation on the part of that man of perfect manners, and, moreover, suffering from distressing insomnia. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... imagining that I was at hand and alive, had entered our dwelling, to apprise my wife of the latest intelligence, confirming all that had been said before respecting my fate, and to comfort her under the distressing dispensation. At this affecting crisis, while both were standing in the center of the room, the one relating, the other weeping, I opened the door, bathed in perspiration, covered with dust, and in a state ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... figure in the world-war, the calmness of the natives was a source of constant wonder. In the regions where the Germans had not yet come they went on with their accustomed round of eating, drinking and trading with a sang froid that was distressing to the ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... didn't believe there was any cause for alarm; the child was patently and plainly an astounding little liar! About Calamity? Oh, yes, Eleanor was not to be alarmed! She had gone off in those mad fits ever since her baby died up on Saskatchewan. It had been very distressing; was in winter time, and she wouldn't release the dead child from her arms; they had to take it from her by force; she always came back after a week or two of wandering! Would Eleanor like some one to come over and ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... accident," explained the old man. "Most distressing. I have broken my glasses. I am ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... It was distressing, indeed, to look at some battalions, which I had seen near Mons only some three or four days earlier in all their fresh glory and strength, now brought down to a handful of men and two or three officers; but the glorious spirit I saw animating ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... fighting with the devil was now over, and who was passing to his reward. The 2nd of September the General came on board the Golden Hinde "to make merry with us." He greatly deplored the loss of his books and papers; and Mr. Hayes considered that the loss of manuscripts could not be so very distressing, and that there must have been something behind, certain gold ore, for instance, which had perished also— considerations not perhaps of particular value. He was full of confidence from what he had seen, and talked with all eagerness and warmth of the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... demanded of the essayist that he shall give some small thought to the question of corporal punishment by means of the "cat," and "ground-ash." We have given the subject the most elaborate attention; we have written page after page upon it. Day and night we have toiled and perspired over that distressing problem. Through Summer's sun and Winter's snow, with all unfaltering purpose, we have strung miles of ink upon acres of paper, weaving wisdom into eloquence with the tireless industry of a silkworm fashioning his cocoon. We have refused food, scorned sleep, and endured thirst to see our ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... children. He was at the time of his death, his wife having crossed over the river in April, 1868. His disease was aneurism of the aorta. A tumor pressing on the pneumo-gastric nerves and trachea caused such frequent spasms of the bronchial tubes, which were exceedingly distressing. Death took place at 4:25 p. m. May 23, 1868. His last words were addressed to his faithful doctor, H. R. Tilton, assistant surgeon of the United States army, and were "Compadre adois" (dear friend, good bye). In his will he left property to the value of $7,000 ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... 1883, Professor Sayce, of Oxford, wrote a letter, which was published in The Argus, pointing out the obligation that lay upon the Australian colonies to make a scientific study of a vanishing speech. The duty would be stronger were it not for the distressing lack of pence that now is vexing public men. Probably a sum of L300 a year would suffice for an educated inquirer, but his full time for several years would be needed. Such an one should be trained at the University as a linguist and an observer, paying especial attention to logic and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... was profound, but by and by the associations of blows and wounds carried him back to the field of Evesham. The wild melee was renewed, he heard the voice of his father, but always in that strange distressing manner peculiar to dreams of the departed, always far away, and just beyond his reach, ever just about to give him the succour he needed, but ever withheld. The thunderstorm that broke over the contending armies roared again in his ears; and then again recurred the calm still night, ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that full load of blessing, For sorrow distressing my heart's pulses fail, If Death overtake me, the whole truth be spoken! My heart it was broken by ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... be well and good. But though he speaks, now that he is at home, in a plausible manner, the moment he gets abroad, his old mania will break out again, and it will be hard to exercise any check over him. Yet, it isn't worth the while distressing yourself too much about him! If he does actually mend his ways, it will be the happiness of our whole lives. But if he doesn't change, you won't, mother, be able to do anything more; for though, in part, it depends on human exertion, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... frankness—"I'm really afraid you may be right, Miss Tabitha! I had hoped that I should not have had to speak of a matter,—a very disagreeable matter which happened the other night—but, under the circumstances, it may be as well to mention it. You can perhaps imagine how distressing it has been to me—distressing and painful—and indeed incredible,—to discover the lady whom I have every right to consider almost my promised wife, entering into a kind of amorous entanglement down here with ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the major. "The elder Mr. Castleton bared the truly distressing details to me at ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... of well-being that follows a substantial meal, between the lines of that triumphant apology he evoked, by way of contrast, the panorama of his own life, his wretched childhood, his haphazard youth, no less distressing to recall, the days without food, the nights without a place to lay his head. And suddenly, when the reading was at an end, in the midst of a veritable overflow of joy, of one of those outbursts of Southern effusiveness which compel one ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... says but feels, "God's will be done" is mailed against every weakness; and the whole historic array of martyrs, missionaries and religious reformers is there to prove the tranquil-mindedness, under naturally agitating or distressing circumstances, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... "The most urgently distressing circumstances, sir. The fact is, that he inherited nothing from his father but a most scandalous list of debts, which he most honorably sold every farthing of his own little property to pay—relying for his subsistance upon the small stipend be was to receive from Mr. Thomas. You don't ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the case of one who, having formerly suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same night, and hardly three hours later, occurred the reverse case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by the battle, blindly allowed herself ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... to herself desperately, "what makes me so stupid. I'm afflicted with chronic mental nearsightedness. Most distressing. This is really a tragedy I'm mixed up in—a tragedy. And tragedy's a thing I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... if he understood. But though she glanced at him, she hardly saw him. In her mind was another picture—the betrayed garrison; the soldiers slain!—and the horror of it threw such a film over her gaze that he became as a figure in some distressing dream. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Cruz to effect the change, and with great difficulty obtained it. The Friars Minor returned on the appointed day, and gave him the habit of the Order, in the Convent of Santa Cruz itself, and took him back with them to that of St. Anthony. The loss of so estimable a member was very distressing to the canons; one of them who felt it more than the others, said to him with bitterness, as he left the house:—"Go, perhaps you shall become a saint." To which Ferdinand answered with humility:—"When you hear that it is so, you will doubtless give ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man wrongfully attacking another honest man. Gentlemen, let us never willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... this point the game became specially interesting. Dr. Rotten was aware that Herr H.'s brother and his family had been closely in touch with the Emergency Committee, and had received considerable help in difficult and distressing circumstances. In recognition of the assistance given to his brother, he at once offered to lend to the camp, for the period of the war, a spectrometer and prisms valued together at 1,650 marks. The 900 marks collected were thus released to be used for other enterprises. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... in upon him, "that's too curious, because, do you know, I thought you never had rain at all, and I do detest rain so. It's too distressing when one has a new frock or must go to some stupid place to see some one. But I'm too awfully glad that you've come here, Mr. Trojan. We do want waking up a little, you know, and I'm sure you're the very person to do it. It ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... it was neither. She was often amused by her mother's ways; sometimes ashamed of them; sometimes distressed by them. The Mark Ablett affair had seemed to her particularly distressing, for Mark was so obviously in league with her mother against her. Other suitors, upon whom her mother had smiled, had been embarrassed by that championship; Mark appeared to depend on it as much as on his own attractions; great though he thought these to be. They went a-wooing together. It was ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... renewed at the end of a thousand years by Shah Abbas, the wisest and most powerful of his successors. [84] His ambition was fired by the hope of launching a Persian navy from the Phasis, of commanding the trade and navigation of the Euxine Sea, of desolating the coast of Pontus and Bithynia, of distressing, perhaps of attacking, Constantinople, and of persuading the Barbarians of Europe to second his arms and counsels against the common enemy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... which roused so great a storm of protest when they appeared in the Cornhill Magazine that their publication had to be suspended. The attitude of the public toward such works as these,—its alternate excitement and apathy,—the death of his parents, combined with the distressing events mentioned above, darkened Ruskin's life and spoiled his interest in everything that did not tend to make the national life ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... which some of the clothes were found which had belonged to the Spaniards. They discovered seven or eight men buried near the fort, whom they knew to have been Christians by their clothes. While employed in this distressing search, a brother of Guacanagari and some other Indians made their appearance, who spoke a little Spanish, and who were able to name all the men who were left in the fort: From these men, by the help of one of the Indians who had been in Spain, called James Columbus, they received ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... of the last man whose work has interested him. At one time it was only in his most unguarded moments that he could see a landscape otherwise than as Monet saw it; a year or two later it was Whistler who dictated certain schemes of colour, certain harmonious arrangements of black; and the most distressing symptom of all is that Mr. Brabazon could not hold an exhibition of some very nice tints of rose and blue without inspiring Mr. Steer to go and swish water-colour about in the same manner. Mr. Steer has the defect of his qualities; his perceptions are naive: and just as ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed, it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who do not, are guilty of cruelty, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... devoting himself, as before, to those studies in which he delighted, and in which he was wont so highly to excel, he immured himself in his chamber, giving way to gloomy abstraction, and agonizing his spirit with painful and most distressing fancies. The great power of his imagination caused him, in a peculiar manner, to suffer from the remembrance of what he had witnessed; and, accordingly, his waking as well as his sleeping hours were haunted with visions of noses,—noses of stupendous size, which arose, like ocean islands, amid ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... thus, my son," he cried, "This peerless maiden for your bride, Bids each distressing thought depart, And joy again possess my heart. Fair princess, thine the happy fate, To heal the wounds of mutual hate; No longer shall this bosom know, An Eastern-Saxon as my foe; And she, who bids ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... had as yet but occasionally appeared on deck. Men generally suffer more from the distressing sickness than women. As soon, however, as the news had been communicated below that the ladies were on deck, some of the gentlemen immediately repaired to their trunks to make themselves presentable, and then hastened on deck. The first ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... 'Oh, how distressing it is,' said he, 'to be bewitched by a bad woman! It metamorphoses one entirely. He loses all semblance to his former self, parts with all his reason, no more walks upright, and bids philosophy adieu. One drop from the cup of her incantations, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thought of that ephemeral fame, for she remembered the faded wreaths of Cabinska and the bygone fame of Stanislawski, for she was thinking with growing bitterness of those thousands of famous actors who were dead and whose names even were forgotten. Janina felt a distressing conflict of feelings in her breast. She leaned more heavily on Glogowski's arm and walked on without saying ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... done, it was conveyed close to it. I then opened a prayer-book, and, amid showers of tears, read the funeral service over the remains of my valued master. Not a single person listened to this peculiarly distressing ceremony, the slaves being at some distance, quarrelling and making a most indecent noise the whole time it lasted. This being done, the union jack was then taken off, and the body was slowly lowered into the earth, and I wept bitterly as I gazed for the last ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... at the entrance like a bull at a gate, Castro followed, and I toiled after them with the men. Up we went, some cheering, but the majority with closed lips, saving their breath. In our fatigued state the climb was fearfully distressing: men sank to the ground gasping, or fell while trying to grasp the overhanging ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... Wales still continue, though the apprehension of some of the rioters who destroyed the Pontardulais gate has had some effect. The following distressing scene is reported ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... public, Agnes would find herself in an extremely unpleasant position. Certainly the letter was forged, but that would not be easy to prove. And even if it were proved and Agnes cleared her character, the necessary scandal connected with the publicity of such a defence would be both distressing and painful. In wishing to silence Silver, and yet avoid the interference of the police, Lambert found himself on the horns ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... hasten at the slightest call of Elise, to defend her with his life against any attack or any danger, and Elise felt herself bound to him in gratitude, and yet this duty of gratitude was a burden to her. It was distressing and painful to her to see Bertram's quiet and mournful countenance, to read in his dimmed eyes the presence of a grief so courageously subdued. But yet she had endeavored to overcome this feeling, and she had often come to him lately to chat with him about past times and to reward ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the fouler atmosphere of overcrowded cabins, they were especially subject to miasmatic fevers. Many died, and of those who survived, a great number, after they had outgrown the more immediate manifestations of disease, retained in nervous disorders of all kinds the distressing traces of the maladies which afflicted their childhood. In the early life of Lincoln these unwholesome physical conditions were especially prevalent. The country about Pigeon Creek was literally devastated by the terrible malady called "milk- ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Pueblo we discovered a number of range cattle impounded in the town. I cannot give it as a fact, but the supposition among the cowmen was that the object of the officials was to raise some revenue by distressing the cattle. The result was that an outfit of men rode into the village during the night, tore down the pound, and turned the cattle back on the prairie. The prime movers in the raid were suspected, and the next evening when a number of us ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... of this cordial invitation! During the few days which elapsed before our ambulance train started for the front we paid a visit to the theatre, but we found the stage tenanted by a "Lilliputian Company," and it is always tiresome and distressing to watch precocious children of twelve aping their elders. One feels all the time that the whole performance scarcely rises above an exhibition of highly-trained cats or monkeys, and that the poor mites ought all to be in bed long ago. Nevertheless, this dreary theatre was, in default ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... often occur," he was explaining in a very matter-of-fact voice. "They are unusual, though not unheard-of, and very distressing at the time. But I am confident that Miss Myra will be quite herself again in a day or two. Meanwhile, she had better go to bed and rest, and take care of herself while Angus fetches Doctor Whitehouse. No doubt he will give her some lotion to wash her eyes with, ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... Hugh?" she almost wailed. "I do not walk in my sleep, and that colored girl is as honest as your own mother, I feel positive. Please tell me you will try and find out the answer to this distressing puzzle." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... If, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thousand millions of coin or bullion in the world, not very unequally divided between gold and silver, it is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results which will prove distressing to millions and utterly disastrous to tens of thousands. Alexander Hamilton, in his able and invaluable report in 1791 on the establishment of a mint, declared that "to annul the use of either gold or silver as money is to ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... sent back word to the main army acquainting them with these facts, and the army accordingly resolved on a change in their policy. Instead of harassing and distressing the Persians as they had done, to hasten their departure, they now determined to improve the situation of their enemies, and encourage them in their hopes, so as to protract their stay. They accordingly allowed the ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... their own purposes, but they have no store worth mentioning in comparison with this. If a foreign creditor is so kind as to wait his time and buy the bullion as it comes into the country, he may be paid without troubling the Bank or distressing the money market. The German Government has recently been so kind; it was in no respect afraid. But a creditor who takes fright will not wait, and if he wants bullion in a hurry he must come to ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... scene of the disaster, and, learning that Lizzie had gone to the party, was amazed and greatly excited, that, "when our neighbors were dying around us," our child, knowing the fact, should be permitted to make one of a gay and thoughtless crowd! I was taken aback, for I had not realized the distressing condition of the wounded, and undertook to explain; but feeling condemned, mortified, and chagrined, I immediately proposed to send for her, which he promptly approved of, and, in a few moments, the carriage (which had just returned) was sent back, with an explanatory note from me. Lizzie had ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... The peals of merriment that followed this second misadventure apparently aroused the interest of some other visitor outside, for again the door opened and a youth of about seventeen stood before us. This was really getting too much of a good thing, for what may be considered a joke once becomes distressing if repeated a second time, and absolutely appalling on ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... to suffocate body and soul, being ignorant that the one purpose of law is to call forth the exercise of love. They make works superior to love, and a maid to her matron. Such perversion prevails to an extent distressing to think of, not to mention hearing and seeing it, or more, practicing ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... very distressing season for the poor; and Mr. Waddington and myself gave a ton of potatoes to the poor prisoners in the King's Bench every week; nor, during the time that I was there, did we ever fail to relieve not only every applicant, and they were numerous, but also to seek ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... point E was half an inch to the left of the point F. For so long as we are neither examining into ourselves, nor called upon to make a choice between two possible proceedings, nor forced to do or suffer something difficult or distressing, in fact so long as we are attending to whatever absorbs our attention and not to our processes of attending, those processes are replaced in our awareness by the very facts—for instance the proportions and relations of lines—resulting from their ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... Elpidias, since you are aware of this sad truth, have you not asked yourself what is the most distressing thing ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... her what she wants,' a somewhat husky voice announced from the interior, followed by a fit of coughing quite distressing to hear. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... came suddenly, like the bursting of a dam. A bad time certainly; it was hard to be torn so, yet to make no cry or sound; in any case, distressing to others. And surely salt water couldn't be good for this lovely ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... left New Zealand on the 26th of November, and entered the glacial regions which she had already traversed; but the circumstances attending her second voyage were distressing. The crew, though in good health, were overcome by fatigue, and less capable of resisting illness, the more so that they had no fresh ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... in a tone of exasperation, "but I am a weak, ailing woman and you a big, strong man, used to exertion and exposure." The sentence ended in a distressing fit of coughing that seemed to ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... to the park, he was by no means displeased. This seemed but part of the all-pervasive magic of this strange afternoon. Richard smiled at the phantasies of his own mood; yet he forgot to be shy, forgot the distressing self-consciousness which made him shrink from the observation of strangers—specially those of the other sex. The adventure tempted his fancy. Even familiar things had put on a new and beguiling vesture in the last half ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... match for Hannibal's veterans. He refused to accept battle but forever he followed Hannibal, destroyed everything eatable, destroyed the roads, attacked small detachments and generally weakened the morale of the Carthaginian troops by a most distressing and annoying form ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... place before you information which must be of a very distressing nature, and which at the same time will have the effect of greatly increasing your responsibilities and opportunities. Unless you have happened to see the brief despatches which have appeared in the Press this letter ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... very exciting work, he still finds time for attending all the meetings of charitable institutions of which he is a member, more especially those of his own community; while he is often met in the house of mourning performing duties sometimes most painful and distressing to ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... and horse thieves and other criminals were not then uncommon. I have twice come on corpses swinging in the wind, hung from trees or telegraph posts. But the most distressing sight witnessed was in Denver's fair city when a man, still alive, was dragged to death all through the streets by a rope round his neck, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... such convenient terms, that he did not leave Perth until after the arrival of that General. He then retired with the spoils he had acquired, and continued for some years in the practice of the same marauding incursions which had already proved so troublesome and distressing to his neighbours. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... exaggeration at the time when it was written. The condition of the working classes during the subsequent years does not admit of any comprehensive uniform description. It has suffered successive harassing fluctuations, and been probably at all times severely distressing in one part of the ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... which, I may state, she steadily persists—to some mistaken and misplaced sense of propriety; or, if that fails me, then I will set it down to the fact that Marie's presence would recall too many painful and distressing scenes, and be too full of unpleasant associations. Thus understood, the duchess' refusal was quite natural and agreed completely with what she had done in respect of the necklace—for it was out of the question to turn the edge of the difficulty ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... Suicide is less distressing. Neither Beethoven nor Wagner suffered such tortures. What would Wagner have done on a like occasion? He would have written the symphony without doubt—and he would have been right. But poor Berlioz, who was weak enough to sacrifice his duty to love, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... die. She never thought so herself. She felt in no dying case; she had neither pain nor sickness. Her appetite was diminished; she knew the reason. It was because she wept so much at night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it. Sleep was coy and hard to be won; dreams were distressing and baleful. In the far future she still seemed to anticipate a time when this passage of misery should be got over, and when she should once more be calm, though perhaps never ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... were by no means exhausted by his distressing conversation with the young ladies in the post office, and the next one fell on him as he was leaving the little town early on the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... develops naturally in proportion as the growth of moral courage becomes complete. Fear is nowhere so distressing as in our relations with our Creator. That which is by nature best becomes worst when it is perverted; and as the blessed hope to which, as children of God, we are all born heirs, is in its fulness an infinite source of joy and blessing to the soul, so when it is reversed and perverted into fear, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... it had meant when the throne itself was the stake for which parties played some forty years before. There was, in fact a substantial personal centre for each side. The one party rallied round a respectable but maniac monarch, whose mental afflictions took the most distressing form, the other round his gay, handsome, dissolute—nay disgusting—son, at once his rival and his heir. The spirit of each party was therefore personal, and their attacks on one another were more personal ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... bag, which is forthwith closed and placed in the tin box that will serve as a conveyance for the whole party. When releasing the Bees, all you have to do is open the bags. The whole performance is thus effected without once giving that distressing ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... like steaming without steering. Set them on a finely broken horse, on a colt, or a restive horse, and they become helpless children—the powerless prisoners of the brutes they bestride. How often does one see one's acquaintance in this distressing situation, with courage enough to dare what man dare, but without the power to do what the rough-rider has just done! First comes the false indication of the rider, then the confusion and hesitation of the horse; next the violence ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... variable climate," said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that we should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear! So distressing for the poor." ...
— Reginald • Saki
... must read it for yourself. There are expressions and statements in these pages, Margaret, that will necessarily shock you very much; but you should remember, as I tried to while reading them, that Mr. Taggett has a heart of steel; without it he would be unable to do his distressing work. The cold impartiality with which he sifts and heaps up circumstances involving the doom of a fellow-creature appears almost inhuman; but it is his business. No, don't look at it here!" said Mr. Slocum, recoiling; he ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... country of revolutions. Things soon dropped into working order, and I found reason to be pleased with the change of crew. We glided smoothly along down the river, thence wishing never again to see Rosario under the distressing circumstances through which ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... soundly, spite of the dissolving views of the novel panorama, when above the two voices that kept inviting him to "be seated," there arose, in muffled tones at first, and then with distressing distinctness, a sound of sobbing. It made the old man turn on his pillow even while he slept, for it was the voice of a woman, and he was tender of heart. It seemed in the dream and yet not of it—this awful, suppressed sobbing that disturbed his slumber, but was not quite strong enough ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the great Egyptian singer, who died recently. His only daughter met her death in a distressing way. It was her wedding night, and bride and bridegroom died of suffocation owing to the scent of flowers and perfumes in the bedroom where they lay. At sight of the two corpses Abdu broke his lute and swore a solemn oath ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... shocked,' he says in his journal, 'at beholding the emaciated countenances of the doctor and Hepburn, as they strongly evidenced their extremely debilitated state. The alteration in our appearance was equally distressing to them, for since the swellings had subsided we were little more than skin and bone. The doctor particularly remarked the sepulchral tone of our voices, which he requested us to make more cheerful if possible, unconscious that his own partook ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... not. That's the case now. Four months of coal is in yards or on cars, and it's an absolute benefit to the Company to turn seventy or eighty thousand dollars of dead product into live money. Don't deceive yourselves with the hope that you are distressing the owner by your foolish strike; you are putting money into his pockets while your families suffer for food. There is no great principle at stake to make your conduct seem noble and to call forth sympathy ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... convinced that everything bad originated in want and misery. Distrust and selfishness came from misusage; they were man's defence against extortion. And the extortion came from insecure conditions, from reminders of want or unconscious fear of it. Most crimes could easily be traced back to the distressing conditions, and even where the connection was not perceptible he was sure that it nevertheless existed. It was his experience that every one in reality was good: the evil in them could nearly always ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... as objects of the deepest spite, the one for interfering, the other for having been the innocent cause; and he no sooner saw her in the post-office, than he promised himself revenge, such revenge as only the meanest and most cowardly spirit could have taken pleasure in. His best way of distressing Ellen, he found, was through her horse; he had almost satisfied himself; but very naturally his feeling of spite had grown stronger and blunter with indulgence, and he meant to wind up with such a treatment of her pony, real or seeming, as he knew would give great pain ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell |
