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More "Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the instinct of carnage. And was it right to do so? Which of the felons whom he had cut of prematurely could pretend that a court of appeal would have reversed his sentence? But the consequences were distressing. A new set of characters in every act brought with it the necessity of a new plot; for people could not succeed to the arrears of old actions, or inherit ancient motives, like a landed estate. Five crops, in fact, must be taken off the ground in each separate tragedy, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... grates harshly on the sense. Of the ordinary "cow-music" I am a great admirer, and take as much pleasure in it as in the cries and melody of birds and the sound of the wind in trees; but this performance of cattle excited by the smell of blood is most distressing to hear. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... great anxiety of her official friends that she should not outlive her powers: her influence generally was so great that to them the thought of this was distressing. They were always very solicitous about her health, writing to her frequently to say that she should take life more easily, "Take care of yourself, Ma—as much as you can." "Don't be so ridiculously unselfish." "Learn ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... harsh, stern, rigorous, exact, cruel; serious, sedate, grave, austere, sober; distressing, afflictive, sharp, acute, violent, intense; inexorable, stern, exacting, peremptory, unrelenting, unmerciful; plain, austere, unembellished, unadorned; methodical, strict, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... those good souls who saw no harm in the vilest of creatures; faults were hidden by her veil of sympathy. When distressing reverses or abject despair visited any one, Mrs. Allison's affability and indescribable tenderness smoothed over the troubled situation and brought forth a gleam of gladness. Quiet, kindly, magnanimous, tolerant, she could touch hearts to the depths in a manner ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... high-spirited and they're always full of beans. Hard as nails, too," he added. "You'll never kill him. Tell me." He brandished the horn which he held in his right hand. "Don't you think this sounds the best?" With an effort he produced a most distressing sound. "Or this?" Putting the other to his lips, he emitted a ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... was spoken of as if he had been three months instead of three days away. It was like going back a century or two into primitive life, to go into "the district," where civilisation did not prevail to any very distressing extent, and where people in general spoke their minds freely. But even when he came out of No. 10, where the poor woman still kept on living, Mr Wentworth was made aware of his private troubles; for on the opposite side of the way, where there was ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... value. But in addition to the materials mentioned above, there is present in cocoa and chocolate some tannin and stimulating materials. The large percentage of fat existing in chocolate may produce distressing effects when taken in addition to a full meal. If, however, the use of these beverages causes no ill effects, they may be classed among the nutritious foods and are much preferable to tea and coffee especially for girls ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... on the 1st of October; on the 3d the King's mind gave way, though his bodily suffering lasted longer than that of Bunsen. Little more is to be said of the last years of Bunsen's life. The difficulty of breathing, from which he suffered, became often very distressing, and he was obliged to seek relief by travel in Switzerland, or by spending the winter at Cannes. He recovered from time to time, so as to be able to work hard at the "Biblework," and even to make short excursions to Paris or Berlin. In the last year of his life he executed ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Garrett, I insist; besides, my watch tells me I have but very little time left in which to get my things together and take the train. No—not another word—it would be more distressing to you than you imagine, perhaps. Now there is just one thing I want to say. I feel that I am really indirectly responsible for this illness of yours, and I think I ought to defray the expense which ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... support than the direst certainty. The strokes of the unfortunate miners continued to reply to theirs, which added to their agitation, from the fear of not being able to afford them effectual help. They almost thought that in such a painful moment their situation was more distressing than those they sought to save, as the latter were, at ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... was a rather disappointing affair since Beatrice had to remodel her wedding gown in order to wear it. That fact alone was distressing. And at the eleventh hour Steve was called out of town, which left Beatrice in the hands of her angel-duck brigade, who all felt it their duty to paint Steve ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... be distressing to feel herself the least attractive, the least noticed among her companions, and on such an occasion. I cannot conceive how I could bear to form part of such a spectacle; but if I were in her place, I suppose I should be hurt and humbled at finding that nobody cared to ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... motive of mercy, being something pertaining to misery, is, in the first way, anything contrary to the will's natural appetite, namely corruptive or distressing evils, the contrary of which man desires naturally, wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that "pity is sorrow for a visible evil, whether corruptive or distressing." Secondly, such like evils are yet more provocative of pity if they are contrary to deliberate ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... to go in, but were again driven back by the distressing fumes. The fire was eating down, now. There was a hole burned in the roof, and by the leaping tongues of flame Tom could see his aeroplane. It was almost in ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... over each mile we heard more distressing tales from those leaving. Men called us fools to be going toward the doomed town. Thousands were traveling away; we were the only ones going ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... direction there was more chance of being picked up by a French vessel. Would their strength and provisions hold out? Of this there was serious doubt. Late in the year as it was, the heat and glare were as distressing by day as was the cold by night, and the continued exertion of rowing produced thirst, which made it very difficult to husband the water in the skins. Tam and Fareek were both tough, and inured to heat and privation; but Arthur, scarce yet ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... changes or an intermixture of different things, and is always thought of as agreeable. Vicissitude is sharp, sudden, or violent change, always thought of as surprising and often as disturbing or distressing; as, the vicissitudes of politics. Transition is change by passing from one place or state to another, especially in a natural, regular, or orderly way; as, the transition from spring to ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... person unwilling to forgive an insult, Arjuna of keen speech and prowess, and possessed of energy, betraying great fierceness and licking the corners of his mouth, said these words of grave import, smiling the while: "Oh, how painful, how distressing! I grieve to see this great agitation of thy heart, since having achieved such a superhuman feat, thou art bent upon forsaking this great prosperity. Having slain thy foes, and having acquired the sovereignty of the earth which has been won through observance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of a tragedy which he exhibited on the stage at Athens; and after he had been for a short time listened to with complacency, when amid all its fine language the tragedy became more and more distressing, it was condemned by the indignation of the people, who thought that it was insulting to produce this as the subject of a dramatic poem, and that it had been prompted not by a wish to console, but only to remind them to their own disgrace of the sufferings which that beautiful ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... observed that the Buchers cared nothing about all this. Young men, as we have seen, were expected to go on larks. No one spoke of the distressing occurrence. There was no disagreeable testimony that he had made great trouble. No looks of reproach attacked him. His Puritan habits had been, in fact, very curious to the parents. They felt now that he was a youth whom they could ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... distressing news. Mary fancied she had told them a good story, and that with a few others like it she could satisfy their curiosity and keep them at home until the brief summer would have passed. Not so, however, thought the children. They saw their advantage and were resolved to keep ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... of my character consists in a careless indifference to public opinion, and to the attacks of those who influence it; that praise and admiration have become yearly less and less desirable, except as marks of sympathy; nay that it is difficult and distressing to me to think with any interest even about the sale and profit of my works, important as, in my present circumstances, such considerations must needs be. Yet it never occurred to me to believe or fancy, that the quantum of intellectual power bestowed on me by nature or education was in any way ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... but if they have sent me far from you, I don't know for what purpose, at least I must make some little use of my pen, to prevent all communication from being cut off between your excellency and myself. I have written lately to you my distressing, ridiculous, foolish, and, indeed, nameless situation. I am sent, with a great noise, at the head of an army for doing great things; the whole continent, France and Europe herself, and what is the worse, the British army, are in great expectations. How far they will be deceived, how ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... BARTHWICK. Most distressing! The more I see of it, the more important this question of the condition of the people seems to become. I shall certainly make a point of taking up the cudgels in the House. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... address itself to the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith; a religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a grave shadow over the future; a religion which holds up to admiration the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... may come to hate horses and mules, particularly mules, in this country. Our travelling is above all a matter of surface. Distance counts and weather counts, but surface counts for more than either. See how fast we came across the Seward Peninsula in the most distressing weather imaginable! A well-used dog trail becomes so hard and smooth that it offers scarce any resistance to the passage of the sled, and for walking or running over in moccasins or mukluks is the most perfect surface imaginable. The more it is used the better it becomes. But put a horse on ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... great favourite in the service, and for a time his melancholy end cast a gloom over the little community at the Bell Rock. The circumstances of the case were also peculiarly distressing in reference to the boy's mother, for her husband had been for three years past confined in a French prison, and her son had been the chief support of the family. In order in some measure to make up to the poor woman for the loss of the monthly aliment ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... into a flux, of which thirty persons died. From the continuance of calms and contrary winds, and the mortality among the people, the whole company became amazed, and believed they should never be able to get out from their present distressing situation; insomuch, that they solicited the general to return to Calicut, or some other part of India, and submit to what God might appoint, rather than to die on the sea of these terrible diseases, for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself. But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in of an ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... sake, count, for heaven's sake, chevalier," said Monsieur, "do you not see how you are distressing me?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the North Pole. The common house fly was probably at one time peculiar to the Eastern Continent, but it followed the footsteps of the Pilgrim Fathers, and is now as great a nuisance in the United Slates and the Dominion as in any part of Europe. It is curious, but distressing, to note the tendency of evils to become international. We have communicated to America the house-fly and the Hessian fly, the "cabbage-white," the small pox, and the cholera. She, in return, has given us the Phylloxera, a few ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the lightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... sir," sighed Burgsdorf, "would that I did not know, for it is a most sorrowful knowledge to an old soldier and in a most distressing condition is the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... and distressing enough, and Kendrick, although he did not take the threat of self-destruction very seriously—somehow he could scarcely fancy George Kent in the role of a suicide—was sincerely sorry for the boy. He ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... convey the distressing intelligence that M. Gordkin is suffering from a complete nervous breakdown. His temperature has never been below 117 for the last week, and his pulse varies from 240 to 260. The doctors take a serious view of his case, and all his engagements have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be no other than anonymous, or the inquiry would not ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... so he was to be in her company. All the same, his instinct pulled him by the sleeve. Hazily he reflected that to retrace such steps as you have taken along the path of Love is a bad business, and that the farther you have elected to venture, so much the more distressing must be your return. And he would have to return. In the absence of a miracle, that journey could not be avoided. For an instant the spectre of Reckoning leaned out of the future.... Then Patch flushed a stray pig, and Valerie laughed joyously, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... America as soon as possible. I feel this sad affair has thoroughly spoilt your visit to Paris; and speaking as a man who has children himself, I am sure it has not been well, either for Miss Daisy or for your son, to have become absorbed, as they could hardly help becoming, in this distressing business." ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... of the city were under water from the overflow of the Potomac, which was backed up by the influx of the Atlantic into Chesapeake Bay, and the most distressing scenes were enacted there, people fleeing in the utmost disorder toward higher ground, carrying their children and some of their household goods, and uttering doleful cries. Many, thinking that the best way to escape, embarked in frail boats on the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Your arrival has already been notified to us by the avant-courier of the fashionable intelligence, so that we are well aware," here laughing lightly, "of the distinctive right you have to a hearty welcome in Naples. I am only sorry that any distressing news should have darkened the occasion of your return here after so long an absence. Permit me to express the hope that it may at least be the only cloud for you ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... remain tranquil during the absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreams are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was at the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, or rather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a large part of their lives, like ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that this is an impossibility, and every now and again society will have to submit to be shocked by the revelation of a palpable miscarriage of justice. At the same time it is important to take every possible precaution against the occurrence of such distressing accidents. This can only be effected by placing the administration of the law in all its departments, from the policeman to the Home Secretary, in the hands of thoroughly competent officials who have not only their heart, but what is equally important, their head in the work. When this is done, ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... out his watch. It was now nearly half-past ten o'clock. His manner was nervous, verging on to excitement. In almost any other case he would have said that it was not possible for him to go. But the exigency and the peculiarly distressing circumstances attending upon this made it next to impossible for ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... itself could have dared to number, to counteract the general homeliness of her face and figure. To complete the picture, it was easy to remark, from the Princess's negligence in dress and the timidity of her manner, that she had an unusual and distressing consciousness of her own plainness of appearance, and did not dare to make any of those attempts to mend by manners or by art what nature had left amiss, or in any other way to exert a power of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... carefully to the cry and complaints of the people, and as he does so he feels sure they are not raised without cause. There is undoubtedly great and distressing poverty in the city, and he finds that this may be traced ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... 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, which ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... according to his promise; distressing reports were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... enough, but the conversation was considerably worse. Whatever else Garnet was, he was an English gentleman, as his letters testify; and Sir William Wade was not. He was, on the contrary, one of those distressing people who pride themselves on being outspoken, and calling a spade a spade, which they do in the most vulgar and disagreeable manner. He favoured the prisoner with his unvarnished opinion of the Society to which he belonged, and with ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... habit that Fraulein had, to weep silently at unexpected moments, and say her feelings were hurt. This was so distressing that the children were always anxious to avoid it if possible. She stood looking on now with a pleased smile, grasping her camp-stool, and understanding very little of the chatter going on round her. Fraulein was very ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Calhoun, "disregarding the sound dictates of reason and experience, we, in peace, neglect our military establishment, we must, with a powerful and skilful enemy, be exposed to the most distressing calamities." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... not threaten him; but I told him the distressing truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's will be critical, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... that rots itself in case on Lethe's wharf," who found nothing curious and provocative about these Sirens and Centaurs and Lemures and Larvae and Cabiri and Phorkyads! I can myself endure very pleasantly even the society of those "Blessed Boys" which some have found so distressing. As for the Devil, in the end, making "indecent overtures" to the little Heavenly Butterflies, who pelt him with roses—even that does not confuse my mind or distract my senses. It is the "other side of the Moon"—the under-mask of the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... sentimentality to the absurd, and he was rather pleased with himself for being able thus to correlate the general past and the particular present. What he did not suspect was the existence of circumstances which made the death of Mr Shushions in the workhouse the most distressing tragedy that could by any possibility ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... intelligent men looked upon it as something extremely remarkable; were in dread of it; and said, as it proved to be, that it was an omen of important events which had not yet taken place. And the priest Andres, on Whit Sunday, made a long and excellent speech, and turned the conclusion of it to the distressing situation of the townspeople; telling them to muster courage, and not lay waste their excellent town by deserting it, but rather to take the utmost care in all things, and use the greatest foresight against all dangers, as of fire or the enemy, and to pray to God ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... departments of work. Inventions looking toward the saving of labor have closely followed each other for so many years that their object is about accomplished, and all the pain and sorrow accompanying daily toil are things of the dead past. Even our animals are relieved from distressing labor and share with us the blessings of an advanced civilization, every heavy weight being raised and every burdensome load being drawn by an arm of steel or aluminum, which neither tires nor feels. We do not need to pity a machine. Why should flesh and blood, whether of dumb beasts ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... no friends?'—'I had—but, by God's blessing, Have not been troubled with them lately. Now I have answer'd all your questions without pressing, And you an equal courtesy should show.' 'Alas!' said Juan, ''t were a tale distressing, And long besides.'—'Oh! if 't is really so, You 're right on both accounts to hold your tongue; A sad tale saddens doubly, when 't ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... you're right—I hope it is absurd, my dear young lady," he said. "Your cousin, you say? Dear me, that's most distressing—most distressing, upon my word! However, you will understand I had nothing to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... listened to both speakers, and agreed with both alternately, experiencing more and more that distressing condition of mental chaos, in which he found himself of two absolutely contradictory and diametrically ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... especially when they are in distress and wish man to help them. And they often combine to help one another. I was on a sheep ranch in western Texas once when one of the sheep came bleating up to the camp late in the afternoon. She uttered the most distressing calls. A friend, whom I was visiting, assured me that something unusual was wrong. Together we followed the sheep back to where she had been feeding in the pasture, she going forward in short spurts ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Wose, Amen," she said, but she meant, not God, but her friend. He, her friend, had never sent her anything before, and now that Rose had come straight from him, she must have a great deal to tell her about him. Nothing puzzled her more than the distressing fact that she wondered sometimes whether her friend was ever really coming again, whether any of the wonderful things that were happening on every side of her wouldn't suddenly one fine morning vanish altogether, and leave her to a dreary world of nurse, bread and milk, and the Romans ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... have been found embedded in the Egyptian mummies. It begins its life in a water snail, transfers itself through the mouth and skin to the body of any human being it can, and there makes hay of his or her internal arrangements in a peculiarly distressing manner. All Egyptians are bilharziotic and seem to thrive on it; but we were strictly forbidden in our own interests to give the little beast an entree. Behind the line were salt marshes and sand. East of the Canal were two or three palm trees, a little mosque and a couple ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... above her head, and a Portrait of Mrs. F. Lucas, were also shown; but Greek Girls playing at Ball is not only the most important, but is also a picture that shows the mannerism of Lord Leighton's treatment of drapery at its finest. Elsewhere the undulating snaky coils may be somewhat distressing, here they float in the air and help the suggestion of movement. The landscape at the back is also both typical and beautiful. An Elegy was the fifth of the artist's contributions to the ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... learn. Only to-day I made official report that nothing whatever could be discovered about him. Certainly he is nowhere in Romero, and it is my personal belief that the poor fellow was either drowned in the river or made way with for his money. Probably the truth will never be known. It is a distressing event, but I assure you my soldiers do not kill American citizens. It is our boast that Federal territory is safe; one can come or go at will in any part of Mexico that is under Potosista control. I sincerely hope that we have heard the last of this ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... is my great misfortune to be obliged to inform you of events not less afflicting to the people of the United States than distressing to my own feelings and the feelings of all those ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... not paying you all this money as a simple attendant for papa. I could get two at the price. The fact is papa has an unfortunate faculty for getting involved in street disputes. On account of his prominence a certain publicity is attached to it. Very distressing to the family. I shall expect you to keep him out of such troubles. You will have to be firm. He is very obstinate. But I authorise you to take any measures, any measures to save him ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... once more proof was given, if, indeed, further evidence was required, that our Government was strong enough to quietly and peacefully endure a sudden change of rulers and of administration, no matter how distressing and odious the cause. ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... appeared to have undertaken the painful role of spokesman, while Lindsay, mute and impatient, fidgeted with the hilt of his long sword, "it is distressing to me to have to undeceive you on this point: it is not your mercy that I come to ask; it is, on the contrary, the pardon of the Secret Council that I come to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had come prepared to spend the night, but his throat tickled and he had a distressing habit of snoring, therefore he deemed it the part of caution to depart before he dropped off into the land of dreams. He effected ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... cavernously hollow, he looked like a man in the last stages of consumption. Little life as Sundry Buyers showed, Nancy showed even less life. And these were bosuns!—bosuns of the fine American sailing-ship Elsinore! Never had any illusion of mine taken a more distressing cropper. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... amis de Bonaparte sans etre ses esclaves.' He apologised for this language, and said I must not consider it as coming from a Prussian Minister, but from a man who unbosomed himself to his friend.... I have only omitted the distressing picture of M. de Hardenberg's agitation during this conversation. He bewailed the fate of Prussia, and complained of the hardships he had undergone for the last three months, and of the want of firmness and resolution ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... soon he hit a prodigious swipe, well over cover-point's head,—or rather, in the direction where cover-point would have been. "Ye're awfu' bad in the whuns," said the orphan boy; and, indeed, BULGER'S next strokes were played in distressing circumstances. The spikes of the gorse ran into his person—he could only see a small part of the ball, and, in a few minutes, he had made a useful clearing of about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... trunk, with a visage which had become elongated to a really distressing degree, Sir Asinus was sighing, and casting a ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... of march, next on the other side of the Euphrates, were toilsome and distressing in the extreme; through a plain covered with deep snow (in some places six feet deep), and at times in the face of a north wind so intolerably chilling and piercing, that at length one of the prophets urged the necessity of offering ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... children, and infirm persons, as the city was likely soon to be "the scene of a bloody conflict." He stated that when the Rose and Phoenix sailed past, "the shrieks and cries of these poor creatures, running every way with their children, was truly distressing." Pastor Shewkirk says: "This affair caused a great fright in the city. Women and children, and some with their bundles, came from the lower parts and walked to the Bowery, which was ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... attendant called in said that he might linger thus for some time, but that, even if he recovered his intellect, which was more than doubtful, he would never be able to resume his profession. I could not leave Louise in circumstances so distressing,—I remained. The little money Duval had brought from Paris was now exhausted; and when the day on which he had been in the habit of receiving his quarter's pension came round, Louise was unable even to conjecture ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Dollie, a distressing story has reached me. It concerns your former life, but I know you must have repented, or you would not be doing hard, honest work for your living. Surely there are many you know and would like to help lead better lives. It ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... in it, I hope.' He laughed a little. 'The difference isn't distressing, but just enough to be taken into account. At forty, or near it, a man who is happily married gets used to his slippers and his pipe—especially if comfort, and all the rest of it, have come after half a lifetime of homelessness. I might often say to myself that I was wasting ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... number of clerks, shopmen, &c., who daily arrive in Australia, there is a worse chance of their gaining a livelihood than if they had remained at home. With this description of labour the colonial market is largely overstocked; and it is distressing to notice the number of young men incapable of severe manual labour, who, with delicate health, and probably still more delicately filled purses, swarm the towns in search of employment, and are exposed to heavy expenses which they can earn nothing to meet. Such men have rarely been ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... prolong the pain of my disclosures by longer withholding the distressing truth that breakfast next morning was a failure too? To begin with, I couldn't get any of those lovely crisp crescent rolls that accord so rhythmically with orange marmalade and strawberry jam. I couldn't ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... said Sir Chichester sadly. "Well he might be!" He looked up and caught Harry's eye. "They say, Luttrell, that breaking a habit is only distressing during the first few days. With each refusal of the mind to yield, the temptation diminishes in strength. I believe that to be ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... reminds me that one distressing phase of early rising is the incongruous and unpleasant contact of the preceding night. The social yesterday is not fairly over before nine A. M. to-day, and there is always a humorous, sometimes a pathetic, lapping ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... of what has happened," counseled Dr. Thornton, "the young gentlemen will do well to leave nothing of value in their coats in the locker rooms. And while nothing distressing, has yet happened in the young ladies basement, I trust they will govern themselves by what has happened on ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... more unsteady in her voice as she went on. She was trying hard to keep calm, but she was evidently feeling so acutely, so violently, that it was distressing to, have to watch her. I was so sorry. I wanted to put my arms round her and tell her not to mind so much, that of course I'd go, but if only she wouldn't mind so much whatever it was. Then at last she began to lose her hold on herself, and got up and walked ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... of the army was equally distressing. Drastic drafting had long since taken into the army all the able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Boys from fourteen to eighteen, and old men from forty-five to sixty, were also ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... as I jumped up and shook myself all over, "I will not have this distressing experience for nothing; I will make good use of it; I cannot recall the past, but I will act differently for the future;" and down I lay again to make plans for the future. Coming events cast no shadows before, either in the glass or in my dreams. I knew nothing about what I might, ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... way through the pressing, distressing multitudes, following Ahmed Bey into the Mosque, while the Army Officer mounts a platform in the court and dispenses to the crowd there of his Turkish blatherskite. We stand in the Mosque near the heavy tapestried ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... gazed at him with parted lips, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes began silently to cry. The sudden spectacle, in this condition, of a self-controlled woman of the world was infinitely distressing to Hodder, whose sympathies were even more sensitive than (in her attempt to play upon them) she had suspected. . . She was aware that he had got to his feet, and was standing beside her, speaking with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... looking down on the road tonight, from a hill perhaps two hundred yards away, we saw distinctly a column of soldiers in dark blue uniforms, marching across country, and just behind them the ground seemed to writhe and wriggle in a distressing manner. For a moment we could not imagine what was happening, when soon a company of men in khaki began to evolve itself from the landscape. Does that not prove the inestimable value of earth-colored clothes? For as close as they were to us, we ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... from the original seven volumes into one volume of one hundred and seventy-six closely printed pages, with several full-page copper-plate illustrations. The plot, however, gains rather than loses in this condensed form. The principal distressing situations follow so fast one upon the other that the intensity of the various episodes in the affecting history is increased by the total absence of all the "moving" letters found in the original work. The "lordly husband and father," "the imperious son," "the ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... pressed the white maternal breasts, and had played with the kisses of the fond maternal lips,—it was scarcely conceivable; and a delicate-minded matron, like Mrs. Gingerford, may well be excused for not entertaining any such distressing fancy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... still escaped this somehow, yet they were brought into straits by the assessments, and as they were terribly destitute of money they too were in a way deprived of everything. Moreover, the following device, distressing to hear but most distressing in practice, was put into operation. Whoever of them wished was allowed by abandoning his property afterward to make a requisition for one-third of it, which meant getting nothing and also having trouble. For when they were being openly and violently despoiled of two-thirds, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... This was rather distressing, as her real business with her guardians made it proper her conference with them should be undisturbed: and Albany was not a man with whom a hint that she was engaged could be risked: but she had made no preparation to guard against interruption, as her little ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Miss Jillgall. It pleased me to find that they were talking in a friendly way when I joined them. A quarrel between Helena and my husband that is to be—no, my husband that shall be—would have been too distressing, too unnatural I might ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... an outrage on common human feeling; if he fall into disaster, it is merely what he deserves. Neither is it admissible to represent the misfortunes of a thoroughly good man, for that is merely painful and distressing; and least of all is it tolerable gratuitously to introduce mere baseness, or madness, or other aberrations from human nature. The true tragic hero is a man of high place and birth who having a nature not ignoble has fallen into sin and pays ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... 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 done so? They were in the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Captain Martin, of the Impetueux, whose feelings as a man, as well as his zeal as an officer, were on this distressing occasion so conspicuous.—It is the desire of the officers and crew of the Venerable in this place to express the high sense they have of the obligations they are under to his personal exertions, as well as those of the officers and boats' crews whom he employed in this difficult ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... dispelled them and made them irrelevant and uninteresting. So long as one believed that life span unprogressively from generation to generation, that generation followed generation unchangingly for ever, the enormous preponderance of sexual needs and emotions in life was a distressing and inexplicable fact—it was a mystery, it was sin, it was the work of the devil. One asked, why does man build houses that others may live therein; plant trees whose fruit he will never see? And all the toil and ambition, the stress and hope of existence, seemed, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... that the one who is smiling is happy and every happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we all understand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There is truly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forever grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our most cheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the little, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... rendered unfit for action the design of giving battle was reluctantly abandoned by Washington and a retreat commenced. It was continued all the day and great part of the night, through a cold and most distressing rain and very deep roads. A few hours before day (September 17th), the troops halted at the Yellow Springs, where their arms and ammunition were examined, and the alarming fact was disclosed that scarcely ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... smile spoke volumes, though his natural reserve prevented his addressing Edward, while the young and lively members of the party seemed to find abundant amusement in the anecdotes and adventures he narrated. Arthur Myrvin gazed earnestly at him, and for a time banished his own distressing thoughts in the endeavour to trace in the fine manly youth before him some likeness to the handsome, yet violent and mischievous boy he had first and last seen in ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Truth to tell, she had felt many doubts as to the reception of her fineries, but the mental vision of Elma's tasteless home-made garments, against the background of the beautiful old Manor, had been distressing enough to overcome her scruples. She dimpled as she read, and laughed triumphantly. Things were going well; excellently well, and those dresses ought to exercise a distinctly hurrying effect. Four or five days—maybe a week. "My!" soliloquised ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... between us. There came an illness, an operation, and he rose from it ailing, suffering, dwarfed and altogether changed. Of all the dark shadows upon life I think that change through illness and organic decay in the thoughts and spirits of those who are dear and close to us is the most evil and distressing and inexplicable. Suddenly he was a changeling, a being querulous and pitiful, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... however, urged Mme. Verdurin to let the pianist play, not because he supposed her to be malingering when she spoke of the distressing effects that music always had upon her, for he recognised the existence of certain neurasthenic states—but from his habit, common to many doctors, of at once relaxing the strict letter of a prescription as soon as it appeared to jeopardise, what seemed to him ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... for him of the eagle. He has indeed the strong wing and the swiftness of the king of birds. And yet the works of few really great painters—and among the really great we place Ferrari—leave upon the mind a more distressing sense of imperfection. Extraordinary fertility of fancy, vehement dramatic passion, sincere study of nature, and great command of technical resources are here (as elsewhere in Ferrari's frescos) neutralized by an incurable defect of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... intelligence they brought, and the seasonable refreshment they bore to the sick, were joyfully welcomed by the whole community; and the spirits of the settlers rose at the prospect of securing Indian friends and allies, who might, under their present distressing circumstances, afford them such essential help and security. The necessity for such aid had lately become more urgent than ever, for a party of their untiring enemies, the Nausetts, had very recently invaded the enclosure within which lay the loved remains of all who bad perished since their arrival ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... kindness, but quickly fell into great distress on being unprepared for eternity. It would break a heart of stone to hear her: 'Oh! dear sir, what shall I do?' ... Oh! the horrors of that night. It was one of the most distressing I ever knew. She wouldn't close her eyes for fear of dying. In the morning was a little more resigned, fell asleep, awoke refreshed, but still in darkness. 'Oh! dear father,' she would say, 'I have dreadfully apostatized ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... that she had heard? There was his mother, probably trying to restrain her voice, for it came up now just loud enough to make it most distressing to try to catch the words, which sounded like something pitying. 'Ay, ay—just like his poor father; when they be decliny, it will come out one ways or another; and says I to Mother, I'll go over and cheer poor Cousin King up a ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... poison of most snakes and many other noxious animals affects only the circulating system, and may therefore be swallowed with impunity, the poison of the bee acts powerfully, not only upon the circulating system, but upon the organs of digestion. The most distressing head-aches are ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... had a most distressing scene at Amelia's this morning. She insisted on knowing what he thought of her, and then burst out bitter complaints and lamentations, charging it to husband that she had this disease, declaring that she could not, and would not die, and insisting that ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... and 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
... is relapsing into paganism is, as we have seen, the sincere conviction of many earnest Christians. Why this should be so, they cannot understand. In their desire to account for so distressing a phenomenon, they will have recourse to any explanation, however far-fetched and fantastic, rather than acknowledge that it is the Scripture lesson in the elementary school which is paganising the masses. If the Churches could have their way, they ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... my Elpidias, since you are aware of this sad truth, have you not asked yourself what is the most distressing ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... good for the cause. My voice faltered 190 a little, for I was somewhat agitated; though not so much on my own account as for the uneasiness that so kind and friendly a man would feel from the thought that he had been the occasion of distressing me. At length I brought out these words: 'I must now confess, sir! that I am author of that poem. It 195 was written some years ago. I do not attempt to justify my past self, young as I then was; but as little as I would now write a similar poem, so far ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... not, however, expose myself to the risk of being irritated by the sight of my willing but mechanical hostess scraping the white ashes from the embers, parcelling out these into little heaps of fire upon the hearth, throwing salt into the swinging pot with a hand the colour of which may be distressing to the imagination, then tasting the soup: all this, and much more, I leave her to accomplish in the gathering darkness of the kitchen, and, sparing her the pain of lighting lamp or candle while there is ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... and through, the chapter on Healing and Teaching,(8) and was so deeply interested that I began reading that blessed chapter over again,—when I found I was cured of my dyspepsia, that I could use my strength in lifting without feeling the old distressing pain in my side, and also that the pain in the kidneys only came on at night, waking me out of sleep. Then I began my first conscious treatments: of course I followed no formula, and I needed none. A cry for help, knowing it would be answered; precious texts from the Bible, which had ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... Now, feeling the barrier between them, he fancied that perhaps it might be removed more easily by such another discussion. And this notion of his was not any proof of want of subtlety on his part. Without knowing why, Hermione felt a lack of self-confidence, a distressing, an almost unnatural humbleness to-day. He partially divined the feeling. Possibly it sprang from their difference of opinion on the propriety of Vere's reading his books. He thought it might be so. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... seen his approaching financial downfall, and have helped him in every way we could to avert it, he would not relinquish his plans while there was yet time. Do not ask me to go into any further details. It is really most distressing. Your father's attorneys will understand the matter fully when the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... delicate animal, and is subject to a variety of ailments. A common disease is a swelling in the throat, which in bad cases prevents it from feeding. Another complaint resembles gout in the legs, which swell to a distressing size, and give exquisite pain, especially when touched. This attack is frequently occasioned by allowing elephants, after a long march under a hot sun, to wade belly-deep in cool water in order to graze upon ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... not, for the sake of my bibi!" said Mrs. Creighton. "It is the prettiest little hat I have had these three years; it would be distressing to have it spoilt before it has ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Harriet Then gave a sad recital of a trial And a divorce; and (but reluctantly) Told of a terrible suspicion, born Of a remark, dropped by a servant once, Concerning her unlikeness to her father: But never could she wring a confirmation Of the distressing story from her mother. "Tell her," said I, "you mean to leave your sister A handsome legacy." She promised this. Then saying I would call the following day, I hurried off to see poor ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... the early difficulties; and another, more distressing in its way, was my discovery of the fact that it was apparently impossible for me to think consecutively, or to write when I had thought, in a room which was my wife's living place. It was strange that I should never have given a thought before ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... and on the same day he forwarded a letter to Messrs. Ricardo. "I wrote to you a few days ago," he said, "from Malta, and, as the packet sailed with a fair wind, you will receive that letter very shortly. You will thereby perceive the distressing suspense in which I have been held, and the inconvenience to which I have been exposed, by remaining on board this small vessel for a period of five months, during all the heat of a Mediterranean summer, without exercise or ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... fellows, his friend Mr. Scott[1285], who accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel inn, and passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation. Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BOSWELL. 'May not he think them down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. To attempt to think them down is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the story that my lips could not utter in Spanish, for she smiled upon me sweetly, arose, and put her hand upon my shoulder. My arm encircled her waist and I began to waltz. Unfortunately my companion did not follow, but began to hop up and down in a manner most distressing. Supposing the attack to be only temporary, I paused and, much to my relief, she soon showed signs of recovery; and in the course of time she came to a standstill looking up into my face in an inquiring sort of ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... 1868. His disease, aneurism of the aorta, had progressed rapidly; and the tumor pressing on the pneumo-gastric nerves and trachea, caused frequent spasms of the bronchial tubes which were exceedingly distressing. ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... becoming civilized. Improvements were being installed in most of the houses. Boarders, which meant mainly school-teachers, preferred a house with Improvements. The abode of the sisters Weston had none. It was half a company house, with a pump in the kitchen which drew up brown water of a distressing odor. ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... centuries of quiet was given by a series of earthquakes which did an immense amount of damage at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a district which had from time immemorial been subject to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks, though unusually distressing and destructive to life and property, were evidently unconnected in the popular mind with their true cause: the reawakening to life of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... same errand, I presume, my distressed and distressing sister, that has brought you. Have you seen her?" he demanded, with ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... it a life-rule to wipe out from his memory everything that has been unpleasant, unfortunate. We ought to forget everything that has kept us back, has made us suffer, has been disagreeable, and never allow the hideous pictures of distressing conditions to enter our minds again. There is only one thing to do with a disagreeable, harmful ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... shouting, which, if he 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 direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... Independents, there was the same lack of personal affection, or even of a capability of it—excepting always Mrs. Lane— and, in fact, it was more distressing amongst the Unitarians than amongst the orthodox. The desire for something like sympathy and love absolutely devoured me. I dwelt on all the instances in poetry and history in which one human being had been bound to another human being, ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... removed half of the wet meal to another pan, filled it with water, and set both pans on the stove. Then he poured a stream of cold water into the coffee-pot, which by this time was almost red-hot. The effect was as distressing as it was unexpected. A cloud of scalding steam rushed up into his face and filled the room, the coffee-pot rolled to the floor with a clatter, and there was such a furious hissing and sputtering that poor Winn dropped his bucket of water and staggered ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... weight had been removed from his soul Walter moved away. The whole world had suddenly become a different place. Although the calamity of Lola's disappearance was none the less distressing at least on his own particular horizon there no longer loomed the spectre of discharge and all the disgrace that accompanied it. He could have tossed his cap into the air for very joy and gratitude. In his relief he was bursting to talk to somebody, and as he had permission to use ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... dark days preceding the fall of Sumter that a crowd of office-seekers gathered at Washington, most of them men who had little interest in anything but the spoils. It is a distressing commentary on the American party system that, during the most critical month of the most critical period of American history, much of the President's time was consumed by these political vampires who would not be put off, even though a revolution was in progress ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... man's behavior is scrutinized by science, it cannot be other than grim and distressing to the reader. It is this to the writer. But all the really significant facts of life are grim and often repulsive in the material presented. To the "irony of facts" must be ascribed the shadows as well as the high lights. No distortions or speculations can influence the findings of ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... in Jesus' might; Against themselves the godless fight, Themselves, not us, distressing; Shame and contempt their lot shall be; God is with us, with him are we: To ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... a distressing, hopeless sight, the vessel rising before us like the roof of a house, the deck planks stove in, a horrible jumble of running rigging, booms and spars, blocking the way forward. Aft it was clearer, the top-hamper of the after mast having fallen overboard, smashing a small boat as it fell, but ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... in contact with his stepmother, to be compelled to advise her, overlook her expenditures—it was intolerable. At all cost he felt he must get out of it—that is, at all cost save that of exciting and distressing his father. Ah, that was the difficulty! How could he refuse without giving the old man some hint ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... There were others who at first glance seemed perfectly normal, but on closer scrutiny revealed the absence of one or more toes or fingers. Others had horribly swollen ears: some had no nose left and were distressing objects; but it was not until we visited the various wards of the hospital that we saw leprosy in all of its horror. Here were dozens of cases so far advanced that they were no longer able to walk; ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... especially before subordinates. Mr. Furze could not have suffered more than two or three days' inconvenience if Orkid Jim had been discharged, but a vague terror haunted him of something which might possibly happen. Partly this distressing weakness is due to the absence of a clear conviction that we are right; it is an intellectual difficulty; but frequently it is simple mushiness of character, the same defect which tempts us, when we know a thing is true, to whittle it down if we meet ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to the lips, which were full and parted, as if she must breathe through her mouth. He noticed immediately the shortness of her breath. It was very distressing, and after a little while induced the same thing in himself. And not in him only, but I can fancy that the whole group of them sitting round her where she was crouched against Miranda King's knees, were panting away like steam-engines before they had done ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... brought none home with me. Those who owed me, for the most part, took advantage of the depreciation, and paid me off with sixpence in the pound. Those to whom I was indebted, I have yet to pay, without other means, if they will wait, than selling part of my estate, or distressing those who were too honest to take advantage of the tender laws to quit scores with me." Should we not all be glad if to-day a hundred or two multi-millionaires could give such an account as that of their losses incurred in the public service, ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... knows," said Chippo plaintively, "exceptin' that later my clothes was mysteriously dumped at th' billet with the pockets empty. But I think the distressing circumstances are such as warrants me in arsking fer the loan ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... so silent, dearest Edith, and ought not to pull such a melancholy face," said the Colonel's wife, turning to her with a gentle reproach. "I perfectly understand that the sad events of your private life are distressing you. But all personal sorrow should now be merged into the general grief. What is the fate of the individual, when his country is exposed to such danger? I know that you are as good a patriot as any Englishwoman, but it appears to me that it is ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... that comes with the hope of motherhood—woman's crowning glory; but the joy and happiness had gradually given place to anxiety and fear, and latterly, since it had become impossible for her to hide her condition from those around her, she was filled with trouble and distressing forebodings, Her sensitive nature received continual wounds. Suspicious looks and taunting sneers, innuendos and broad suggestions all came to her with exceeding bitterness. She knew that every day the cloud which hung over her grew blacker ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the reader will now be directed to letters of Mr. Southey, briefly relating to Mr. Coleridge, and to circumstances connected with the publication of the "Early Recollections of S. T. Coleridge," 1837;—with a reference to the distressing malady with which Mrs. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... which the attempt exhibits to the demoralising influence of the slave system than to actual hypocrisy. The spectacle of a crowd of learned and no doubt pious men standing forth as the avowed apologists of a system which deprives their fellow-men of all the rights of humanity is, perhaps, the most distressing evidence of its blighting and blinding influence which has yet been exhibited to the world. It ought to have its effect. As we have said, it is the duty of every man to study the lessons which this address of the Confederate clergy has for him. If his sympathy and influence ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... an occasional home for their brother, could hardly be a fitting residence for the children of strangers. They had, in all likelihood, become silently aware that his habits were such as to render his society at times most undesirable. Possibly, too, they had, by this time, heard distressing rumours concerning the cause of that remorse and agony of mind, which at times made him restless and unnaturally merry, at times rendered him moody ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was engaged, and his mother would not be idle on this occasion. She was a perfect mistress of all the camp qualifications, and thought it a duty incumbent on her to contribute all that lay in her power towards distressing the enemy. With these sentiments she hovered about the skirts of the army, and the troops were no sooner employed in the pursuit, than she began to traverse the field of battle with a poignard and a ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Grande Armee certainly fewer than 50,000 men—recrossed the Niemen on 13 December, and, in pitiable plight, half-starved and with torn uniforms, took refuge in Germany. Fully half a million lives had been sacrificed upon the fields of Russia to the ambition of one man. Yet in the face of these distressing facts, this one man had the unblushing effrontery and overweening egotism to announce to the afflicted French people that "the emperor has never been ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... away from me in utter amazement as if I had been only recently created, or with an affected modesty as if I had been just guilty of some grave indecorum towards her sex which she really could not stand. The frequency of these exhibitions in the public highway were not only distressing to me as a simple escort, but as it had the effect on the casual spectators of making Consuelo seem to participate in Chu Chu's objections, I felt that, as a lover, it could not be borne. Any attempt to coerce Chu Chu ended in ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and have been on such a glorious tour: scampering over all the land. He calls himself the 'Mountain-Torrent.' He is now behind a mile or so, and may be down upon us before long, to free us from this distressing imprisonment you speak of." ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... swiftly but noiselessly towards the robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a scalping-knife in his girdle. He soon reached the open side of the wooded hollow, guided thereto by Drake's persistent and evidently distressing cough. Here it became necessary to advance with the utmost caution. Fortunately for the success of his enterprise, all the sentinels that night had been chosen from among the white men. The consequence was that although they were wide awake and ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... separated, a few days afterward, by the distressing news which reached me of the state of my brother's health. I went at once to his house in the country. His medical attendants had lost all hope of saving him: they told me plainly that his release from a life of ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... was aware that a young, unmarried Frenchwoman has usually less liberty than her English sister. And yet in the case of this lady it continually came out in her conversation that she had seen and known much of the world. It was the more distressing to me as whenever she had made an observation which pointed to this she would afterwards, as I could plainly see, be annoyed by her own indiscretion, and endeavour to remove the impression by every means in her power. We had several small quarrels on this account, when I asked questions to which ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... difficult to remedy and most distressing was the want of provisions and hay. Such a scene of misery of man and beast we never saw before. There was not anything of bread kind equal to a bushel of meal for every person when the schooner sailed for Newbury the 6th of February (three months ago) and less of meat and vegetables in proportion—the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... Longpoint we lost him for good. I went to bed again, but I could not sleep. I used to boast that I could sleep in a boiler-maker's shop; but the long dread of that fellow's pilot had unnerved me. I had wild, distressing dreams. ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... worse than profitless fashion natural to women of her stamp. But in his daughter Martin had every kind of faith, and he longed to speak to her without reserve. Two days after her return from Exeter, he took Sidwell apart, and, with a distressing sense of the delicacy of the situation, tried to persuade ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... mother, take the blessing Of a grateful nation's heart; May the news that is distressing Never cause your tears to start; May there be no fears to haunt you, And no lonely hours and sad; May your trials never daunt you, But ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... interfere with the natural course of the disease, or rob the patient of some chance he might have had of recovering by himself. On the contrary, it will simply give nature and the constitution of the patient a better chance in the struggle, probably shorten it, and certainly make it less painful and distressing. ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... iron; such coldness and hardness, I thought, could scarcely have ever been experienc'd before by any creature, so great was the depth of my baptism at this time; nevertheless, as I endeavor'd to quiet my mind, in this conflicting dispensation, and be resign'd to my allotment, however distressing, towards the latter part of the meeting a ray of light broke through the surrounding darkness, in which the Shepherd of Israel was pleas'd to arise, and by the light of his glorious countenance, to scatter those clouds ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... many, many years? Even Lenine admits that "a sound solution of the problem of increasing the productivity of labor" (which lies at the very heart of the problem we are now discussing) "requires at least (especially after a most distressing and destructive ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... her vehemence. "Lady Mar," returned he, "I am incapable of saying anything to you that is inimical to your duty to the best of men. I will even forget this distressing conversation, and continue through life to revere, equal with himself, the wife ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... 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 never ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... natural transition Mr. Hogarth has passed his hero from a gaming house into a prison—the inevitable consequence of extravagance. He is here represented in a most distressing situation, without a coat to his back, without money, without a friend to help him. Beggared by a course of ill-luck, the common attendant on the gamester, having first made away with every valuable he was master of, and having now no other ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... from the fire of the enemy behind stumps, or logs, or the vacant cabins, and were waiting orders; when the Colonel finding that the Indians were on their defense, dispatched orders for a retreat. This order, received with astonishment, was obeyed with reluctance; and what rendered it the more distressing, was the unavoidable exposure which the men must encounter in the open field, or prairie, which surrounded the town: for they were apprized that from the moment they left their cover, the Indians would fire on them, until they were beyond the reach of their balls. ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... 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 it appeared that this spice of egotism sprang ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... 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 food ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the Histories brought forward in chapter iii that the position of married inverts (we must, of course, put aside the bisexual) is usually more distressing than that of the unmarried. Among my cases 14 per cent. are married. Hirschfeld finds that 16 per cent. of inverts are married and 50 per cent. are impotent; he is unable to find a single cure of homosexuality, and seldom any improvement, due to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 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 be traced back to something ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Powell would go like that—in that distressing way—she must at least let him walk back with her. Agatha wouldn't mind. He hadn't seen Mrs. Powell ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... that they will not do such work for double wages, for it ruptures them.' Would that have been a welcome communication to the Committee? Would that have been a communication suited to the public? I was resolved 'to do or die,' and, instead of distressing and perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write nothing until I could write something perfectly satisfactory, as I now can; {132a} and to bring about that result I have spared neither myself nor my own money. I have toiled in a close printing-office the whole day, during ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the cancerous segment of the gullet, in suitable cases, even if it does not yield a permanent cure, not only prolongs life but relieves the patient of her most distressing symptoms. It is rarely possible to secure an end-to-end anastomosis, but the feeding by means of a tube introduced into the open end of the gullet is more satisfactory and the laryngeal symptoms are more efficiently relieved, than by either of the purely palliative operations. In ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... slaves went into the pastoral communities, worked on the public highways, and served as valets in private families. Their increase was stealthy, their conduct insubordinate, and their presence a distressing nightmare to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... known since her arrival. Truth to tell, she had felt many doubts as to the reception of her fineries, but the mental vision of Elma's tasteless home-made garments, against the background of the beautiful old Manor, had been distressing enough to overcome her scruples. She dimpled as she read, and laughed triumphantly. Things were going well; excellently well, and those dresses ought to exercise a distinctly hurrying effect. Four or five days—maybe a week. "My!" soliloquised Cornelia, happily; "I recollect ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sat alone in the embrasure, living a life of emotion in a few minutes; nor did she find any calm for her agitated spirits until the thought flashed upon her that she was distressing herself needlessly. It was most improbable that Colonel Philibert, after years of absence and active life in the world's great affairs, could retain any recollection of the schoolgirl of the Manor House of Tilly. She might meet him, nay, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... soul of every blessing, Load to misery most distressing, Gladly how would I resign thee, And to ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... accounts brought from France fill me with more horror than any former ones. The King is to be moved only by the fear of some approaching danger to his person. The Queen is agitated by all the alarming and distressing thoughts imaginable. Her health is visibly altered; she cries continually, and is, as Polinitz says of K(ing) James's Queen, une Arethuse. Her danger has been imminent; and the K(ing) left his capital, and her in it, as he was advised ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... (in spite of and against all who are occupied with works of their own choice): "Behold, this work is well pleasing to my God in heaven that I know for certain." Let them all come together with their many great, distressing, and difficult works and make their boast, we will see whether they can show one that is greater and nobler than obedience to father and mother, to whom God has appointed and commanded obedience ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the men were exhausting themselves in vain efforts: hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the Viceroy at length found himself necessitated to order his artillery and all his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The owners had scarcely time to part from their effects; while they were selecting from them the articles which they most needed, and loading horses with them, a multitude of soldiers hastened up; they fell in preference upon the vehicles of luxury; they broke in pieces and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... closed in he turned his horse from the timber and mounting a slight elevation near it, he gazed around for landmarks. To his surprise, he recognized the country as that near his own ranche, and feeling the pangs of hunger in a most distressing degree, he urged his horse in the direction of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... replace this envied tranquillity in our home. A Frenchman, named Letendre, one day suddenly presented himself. He had come from Chicago, with the distressing intelligence of the extreme—indeed, hopeless—illness of our dear relative, Dr. Wolcott. My husband immediately commenced his preparations for instant departure. I begged to be permitted to accompany him, but the rapidity with which he proposed to journey obliged ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... duty to see that you are cared for properly, and I must not leave you to yourself unless I am quite assured beforehand that you are certain to be bright and brave when I am gone.'He placed his hand beneath her chin, and coaxed her eyes to meet his own. 'You won't nourish these distressing fancies any more, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... evidence against you was conclusive, and it only remains for me to pass such a sentence upon you, as shall satisfy the ends of the law. That sentence must be a very severe one. It pains me much to see one who is yet so young, and whose prospects in life were otherwise so excellent, brought to this distressing condition by a constitution which I can only regard as radically vicious; but yours is no case for compassion: this is not your first offence: you have led a career of crime, and have only profited by the leniency shown you upon past occasions, to offend yet more seriously against ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Sundry odd applications. The "autograph bed-quilt.'' Associations with the diplomatic corps. Count Delaunay. Lord Odo Russell. The Methuen episode. Count de St. Vallier, embarrassing mishap at Nice due to him. The Turkish and Russian ambassadors. Distressing Russian-American marriage case. Baron Nothomb, his reminiscences of Talleyrand. The Saxon representative and the troubles of American lady students at Leipsic. Quaint discussions of general politics by sundry diplomatists. The Japanese and ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... he finally rose to his feet, wiped the perspiration from his face, and stood there, bowing and smiling in a manner that was little short of distressing. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... surprised at this singular view of the case, "that Rashleigh Osbaldistone has done this injury to my father, merely to accelerate a rising in the Highlands, by distressing the gentlemen to whom these ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... released my arm and was standing rigid and motionless in the center of the illuminated roadway, staring like one bereft of sense. His face in the moonlight showed a pallor and fixity inexpressibly distressing. I pulled gently at his sleeve, but he had forgotten my existence. Presently he began to retire backward, step by step, never for an instant removing his eyes from what he saw, or thought he saw. I turned half round to follow, but stood irresolute. I do not recall any ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... towards the palace, found him with a large staff, pages and officers as well as women, in a plantain garden, looking eagerly out for birds, whilst his band was playing. In addition to his English dress, he wore a turban, and pretended that the glare of the sun was distressing his eyes—for, in fact, he wanted me to give him a wideawake like my own. Then, as if a sudden freak had seized him, though I knew it was on account of Maula's having excited his curiosity, he said, "Where does Bana live? ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Can Be Cured.—This most distressing and most agonizing complaint may be quickly and entirely cured by a thorough course of treatment with Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. This remedy should be taken continuously; not a day should pass without the ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... night, and reproached himself for his wild excesses, and his reckless and imprudent confidence in a stranger. He dreaded to think what the consequences might be, and again became confused with the memories of his distressing dreams. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... our grief in presence of such a loss, let us accept these catastrophes with resignation! Let us accept in it whatever is distressing and severe; it is good perhaps, it is necessary perhaps, in an epoch like ours, that from time to time the great dead shall communicate to spirits devoured with skepticism and doubt, a religious fervor. Providence knows what it does when it puts the people ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... I like him," was the mental comment. Aloud she said dreamily, "Gordon is my hero. I love to hear about him. He was too generous to others to heap up money for himself. I suppose he didn't care about it. I wish I didn't, but I do. It's so very distressing to be always short of money. All the good people in books are poor, but for myself I think it's bad for the temper. They talk about the peril of riches, but I should like to try it for myself, wouldn't ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... A circumstance of a truly alarming and distressing nature, to which Dashall alluded in this place, was recently made known to the public in the daily journals, and which should serve as a lesson to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... met you! Your arrival has already been notified to us by the avant-courier of the fashionable intelligence, so that we are well aware," here laughing lightly, "of the distinctive right you have to a hearty welcome in Naples. I am only sorry that any distressing news should have darkened the occasion of your return here after so long an absence. Permit me to express the hope that it may at least be the only cloud for ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... practice of the law at Bloomington; and I have heard him state that he gave Davis the first case he ever had in Tazewell County, by advising another to employ him. But he re-enacted, on the less conspicuous forum, the distressing experience of failure of Disraeli in his first attempt to address the English House of Commons. Davis broke down in the speech he had prepared to make, to the great mortification of my father, who had exhibited such unusual ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Miss Byron to Miss Selby.— Sir Charles Grandison communicates to Miss Byron the farther distressing intelligence he had received from Bologna:—His friend Signor Jeronymo dangerously ill, his sister Clementina declining in health, and their father and mother absorbed in melancholy. The communication comes from the bishop of Nocera, Clementina's second ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... and old, weak and strong, to use the treatment without the possibility of danger. It achieves the desired result far more effectively than any other known apparatus, with the least possible inconvenience to the patient, and yet so gently and easily that the operation, so far from being distressing or disagreeable, becomes ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... Stumfold]—desired that I should establish a church here, on my own bottom, quite independent of Mr Stumfold. The Stumfolds would then soon have to leave Littlebath, there is no doubt of that, and she has already made herself so unendurable, and her father and she together are so distressing, that the best of their society has fallen away from them. Her treatment to you was such that I could never endure her afterwards. Now the opening for a clergyman with pure Gospel doctrines would be the best thing that has turned up for a long time. The church would be worth ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... a little tin steamboat she had been holding escaped from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness that I hear at this hour. Lord Iffield had already seized her arm; with a violent jerk he brought her round toward him. Then it was that there met my eyes a quite distressing sight: this exquisite creature, blushing, glaring, exposed, with a pair of big black-rimmed eyeglasses, defacing her by their position, crookedly astride of her beautiful nose. She made a grab at them with her free hand ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... missionary expressed his surprise at finding the different classes so little affected by the prejudices of sect in their intercourse with members of the mission. The illness of Mr. Lanneau became at length so distressing, as to require his absence from the field for nearly two years. Before his return to the East, which was early in 1843, the Committee had expressed an opinion, that it was expedient to suspend further efforts at Jerusalem. Mr. Lanneau, however, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... men are in haste to retire from grossness, falsehood and brutality; and hope to find in private habitations at least a negative felicity, an exemption from the shocks and perturbations with which publick scenes are continually distressing them. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... forcibly recommended as the great secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her duty, as everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?—a duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable creature's neck, and weighed her down with a distressing ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... end of this distressing business, and went listlessly along the street to attend to other errands. These occupied her till four o'clock, at which time she recrossed the market-place. It was impossible to avoid rediscovering Winterborne every time she passed that way, for standing, as he always ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... was acquitted cannot be doubted. His case speaks for itself. But it is noteworthy that we hear of him no more at Oea, where he had resided for three years at the time of the trial. This distressing family quarrel must have caused some bitterness of feeling, and Augustine (Ep. 138. 19) mentions a quarrel with the inhabitants of Oea on the question of the erection of a statue in his honour. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... happened that every year the governor was subject to a most distressing illness, which, for the time being, entirely deprived him of his reason. When it began to come on, he would talk and chatter incessantly. Each year he had some fresh hallucination, at one time fancying himself an oil-jar, at another ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the day was coming when he would weigh out soap and sugar, and hand them over a counter in exchange for money, he would have held the prophet ripe for Bedlam. Yet here he was, a full-blown tradesman, and as greedy of gain as any tallow-chandler. Extraordinary, aye, and distressing, too, the ease with which the human organism adapted itself; it was just a case of the green caterpillar on the green leaf. Well, he could console himself with the knowledge that his apparent submission was only an affair of the surface. He had struck ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... ceased to belong to the Council of State. The violent hostility in which you have lately indulged, without the shadow of a pretext, against the King's government, has rendered this measure inevitable. You will readily understand how much it is personally distressing to myself. My friendly feelings towards you induce me to express a hope that you may reserve yourself for the future, and that you will not compromise by false steps the talents which may still advantageously serve the King ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... day there was added to his growing disillusionment a third ugly impression, trivial indeed to describe, a mere necessary everyday incident of a state of war, but very distressing to his urbanised imagination. One writes "urbanised" to express the distinctive gentleness of the period. It was quite peculiar to the crowded townsmen of that time, and different altogether from the normal experience ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... this life, as well as that which is to come. Our supreme thought is to hasten on the time when there shall be a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. This has been, and this is, our work. Now we need to meet our indebtedness. It is a distressing load to carry. We are seeking to pay our obligations this Jubilee Year. We have not pressed our grievous burden upon the churches as urgently as we would have done, because our sister societies, in like ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... upon its discipline and good will. Nevertheless, although the English were often obliged to content themselves with scanty rations, they did not, owing to the arrival of great numbers of birds, pass a very distressing winter. But, on the return of spring, as soon as the ship was prepared to resume her route to England, Hudson found that his fate was decided. He made his arrangements accordingly, distributed to each his share of biscuit, paid the wages ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... about it, thought I knew all about it. Yes! in others, but now began to understand it for myself. Gradually my personal appearance faded. My once faultless linen became unkempt and unclean. Down further and further went the heels of my shoes, and I drifted into that distressing condition "shabby gentility." If the odds were against me before, how much more so now, seeing that I was too shabby even to command attention, much less a reply to ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... told of her misfortunes was of the most distressing nature, and was enough to stir up all the tender, as well as abhorrent feelings in the bosom of humanity. She had suffered every deprivation in fame, fortune, and person. She had been imprisoned; she had been ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... The distressing symptoms do not escape the fond father's observation. Indeed he knows all about them, now knowing their cause. Only through the Natchez newspapers was he first made aware of that secret correspondence between his daughter and Clancy. But since she has confessed all—how ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the bridegroom was roaming sadly about, thereby distressing his wife, who followed him with her eyes, hoping to see his state of innocence come to an end, the ladies believed that the joy of that night had cost him dear, and that the said bride was already regretting having so quickly ruined him. And at breakfast came the bad jokes, which at ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... the effect he had intended it to have. It set the young lady who was called Belinda asking about ways and means of getting to Salisbury; it brought to light the distressing fact that V.V. had the beginnings of a chafed heel. Once he had set things going they moved much too quickly for the doctor to deflect their course. He found himself called upon to make personal sacrifices to facilitate the painless transport ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... of all his hopes, had thrown himself into the Thames from the neighbouring boat-stairs; and though he had been hooked out uninjured by the man who always attends there with two wooden legs, the effect on his parents' minds had been distressing. Shortly after this occurrence the chief clerk had been invited to attend the Board, and the Chairman of the Commissioners, who, on the occasion, was of course prompted by the Secretary, recommended Mr. Hardlines to be a leetle more lenient. In doing ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... cottage door and, not answering these distressing generalities, fell back on his one fact. "Look," he said, pointing to an empty peg, "he must have gone after fir-cones; you see the basket has gone; he took it with him; I am sure he would not have taken it to ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... her ability. The intimacy between these two young ladies was only riveted more closely by the necessity of living under different roofs; Adeline, indeed, protested that she found the separation so distressing, that she thought it would be an excellent plan, to divide the winter together, between Charleston and New York; Jane to pass the first three months with her, and she, in her turn, to accompany her friend to Charleston, later in the season. But Jane thought her ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... modulated laughter saluted his ear, though startled for no stranger had the right of entry 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
... in the manger lying, Me and thee Calleth He, In sweet accents crying, "Banish, brethren, what's distressing, All your ills, All that falls, I bring ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... callous, almost inhuman; it jarred the girl's agonized transports back into a species of spiritual calm, a mental state akin to the fatalism often exhibited by Asiatics when death is imminent and not to be denied. The apparent madness of the captain was now more distressing to her than the certain loss of the ship or the invisible missiles that clanged into white patches on the iron plates, cut sudden holes and scars in the woodwork, or whirred through the air with a buzzing whistle of singularly menacing sound. She began ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... to play one more very shameful, distressing, and final role in the free life of Liubka. She had already complained to Lichonin for a long time that the presence of Simanovsky was oppressive to her; but Lichonin paid no attention to womanish trifles: the vacuous, fictitious, wordy hypnosis ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... and yet I'll soon forget Those ills and cures distressing; One's future lies 'neath gorgeous skies When one is convalescing! So now, good-by To drugs say I— Good-by, thou phantom Sorrow! I am up to-day, And, whoop, hooray! I'm ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... that we should feel out of place indeed had we to go back, even for a short time, to their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned—not a special aptitude or genius for governing—must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the manner ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... an emotional man. He had never been deeply stirred by religious feelings of any kind. He had had no agonies of penitence, no distressing doubts, no strong struggles with temper, no vivid thought of the possibility of his being excluded from eternal blessedness. His heavenly Father was to him rather a theological abstraction than a near and ever-loving friend. ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... Mathews would have been out of it. In the midst of my discomfiture, however, he came on to the stage by another entrance as "cool as a cucumber." He told me afterwards that he had turned the incident to good account by referring to me as "Every man in his humour," or, "A bailiff in distressing circumstances!" ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of person and chattel intermingled, that, when Governor Bennett petitions for mitigation of sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I ask this, gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing loss," it is really impossible to decide whether the predominant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... for company, strive to appear easy and natural. Nothing is more distressing to a sensitive person, or more ridiculous to one gifted with refinement, than to see a lady laboring under the consciousness of a fine gown; or a gentleman who is stiff, awkward and ungainly in a ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... glade their voices reached him. They were there, after all! He could hear them utter their pitiful "ay-ee—ay-ee!" and, as he thought, in a louder and more distressing tone than ever. What could be the matter? They had been silent for some time, he was sure, for such cries as they now uttered could have been heard easily where the rest were. What could be the meaning of this fresh ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... during which each member of the Club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have been so ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... orator's worth. When he praises, he praises with all his heart. When he raises the strain of moral indignation we can almost always beneath the orator's enthusiasm detect the rhetorician's art. We shall have occasion to notice in a future page the distressing loss of power which at a later period this affectation of moral sentiment involved. In Cicero it does not intrude upon the surface, it is only remotely present in the background, and to the Romans themselves no doubt appeared an excellence rather than a defect. Nevertheless, if ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Appetite, King's Evil, Neuralgia, Gout, and kindred complaints all arise from the derangements which these PILLS rapidly cure. Take them perseveringly, and under the counsel of a good physician if you can; if not take them judiciously by such advice as we give you, and the distressing dangerous diseases they cure, which afflict so many millions of the human race, are cast out like the devils of old—they must burrow in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 'We will certainly respect your incog. if you wish it. Wild horses shall draw no evidence from us. It is, of course, very distressing, but what is man after all? Are we not as the beasts that perish, and is not our little life rounded by a sleep? Indeed, yes. And now—with ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... the instant, so ludicrous to Richard that, in spite of the distressing situation, he had to choke back a laugh. Years afterwards, if he wished for any momentary revenge upon Marion (and he had a keen sense of wordy retaliation), he simply said: "Wo-won't you let ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... just now in great concern for the terrible death of General Conway's son-in-law, Mr. Damer,(256) of which, perhaps, you in your solitude have not heard.-You are happy who take no part but in the past world, for the mortui non mordent, nor do any of the extravagant and distressing things that perhaps they did in their lives. I hope the gout, that persecutes even in a hermitage, has left you. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "cow-music" I am a great admirer, and take as much pleasure in it as in the cries and melody of birds and the sound of the wind in trees; but this performance of cattle excited by the smell of blood is most distressing to hear. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... addressing Edward, while the young and lively members of the party seemed to find abundant amusement in the anecdotes and adventures he narrated. Arthur Myrvin gazed earnestly at him, and for a time banished his own distressing thoughts in the endeavour to trace in the fine manly youth before him some likeness to the handsome, yet violent and mischievous boy he had first and last seen in ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... bear the voyage; and the Captain drinking nothing scarcely but gin, had never troubled his head about taking in water; so that they were soon reduced to short allowance, which, in that sultry clime and season of the year, was a distressing predicament. Meeting, too, with violent squalls of wind, they were driven off their course. The leak became alarming, and their troubles increased so fast upon them, that they were obliged to steer for Boston in New England; where they arrived, with much difficulty ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... proper niceties of sword-play which, without any indecent hacking or maiming, should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, before he had a chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to an honourable duellist. Angelo was scored with blood-marks. Feeling that he dared not offer another chance to a fellow so desperately close-dealing, Weisspriess thrust fiercely, but delayed his fatal stroke. Angelo stooped and pulled up a handful of grass and soft earth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the prevailing fallacies of the times, that to mount a Highland hill is a very difficult operation, and that one should hire a guide on the occasion. We lately witnessed a very distressing instance of the alarming prevalence of this notion, in a young Chancery barrister, fresh from Brick Court Temple, who asked us in a very solemn tone of voice, if we could recommend him to "a steady guide to the top of Arthur Seat." When matters have come to such a crisis, it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the doings of the morning clear away from me. Little I cared about the Carstairs affairs and all the mystery that was wrapping round them in comparison with the news which Murray had sent along in that peculiarly distressing fashion! I would cheerfully have given all I ever hoped to be worth if he had only added more news; but he had just said enough to make me feel as if I should go mad unless I could get home there and then. I had not seen Maisie since she and my mother had left ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... censure which the precipitate publication of mere conjectural suggestions may incur; but shall think himself fully rewarded by having excited the attention of those, who may point out the most appropriate means of relieving a tedious and most distressing malady. ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... up?" cried the vicar's young wife, forgetting for a moment a certain preoccupation caused by the arrival of the tea-tray, and by a rapid resignation to the thickness of the bread and butter and the distressing absence of such hot things as would have been in readiness if Mrs. Venables had been expected for a single moment. It showed the youth of Morna Woodgate that she should harbor a wish to compete with the wealthiest woman in the neighborhood, even in the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... deafness on the occasion. But not long afterwards, we were compelled, during an attack of disease which affected the nervous system, to hear the whole discordant performance repeated again and again, with a pertinacity which was really very distressing. Such a case prepares us to give credit to a far more remarkable story, related in one of the works of Macnish. A clergyman, we are told, who was a skilful violinist, and frequently played over some favourite solo or concerto, was obliged to desist ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... and, indeed, through these bars the meals of the prisoners are served. The prison is capable of containing about 700 people; the usual number, however, is 400. The state of the apartments in which the criminals pass their time is truly distressing. The stench is overpowering; and though visitors remain in the rooms only a few minutes, they often retire seriously indisposed. The expense of maintaining the prisoners is 8,000 cruzados, or about 1,000l. per annum. Of this sum, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... nothing left but hatred of individuals and, in the extreme case, the desire to remove those individuals. To those, on the other hand, who see in certain underlying economic forces the source of nearly all of our distressing social evils, individual hatred and malice can make in reality no appeal. This volume, on its historical side, as well as in its survey of the psychology of the various elements in the labor movement, is a contribution to the ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... dun-coloured spectacles when you took your walks abroad," she said, smiling. "No one else seems to have discovered so distressing a state of affairs as you have ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Ryland:—"Felix is shrivelled from a missionary into an ambassador." To his third son the sorrowing father said:—"The honours he has received from the Burmese Government have not been beneficial to his soul. Felix is certainly not so much esteemed since his visit as he was before it. It is a very distressing thing to be forced to apologise for those you love." Mr. Chater had removed to Ceylon to begin a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... this year I made a trip to California in search of health, which I had lost through overwork, and was now paying the penalty in a very distressing form of insomnia. I took one of the first through trains to the Pacific, and on reaching the State, I found sight-seeing and travel so irresistible a temptation, that I lost the rest and quiet I so absolutely needed. I was constantly on the wing; and I encountered at every point, the "settler," ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... steps will give invaluable information. This is particularly true when the older persons are attempting to conceal facts or are too much excited from a death or an accident to talk. Children usually are less unstrung by distressing events and can give a more connected account. Moreover, they are almost always willing to talk, and they generally try to tell ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... inclination toward any study or any work. They have weaknesses of character that will inevitably handicap them, no matter what vocation they enter. They are the real problem. There is another class, almost equally distressing. They are the people who are brilliant, who learn easily, and who are so adaptable that they can turn their hands to almost anything. They are usually so unstable in temperament that it is difficult for them ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... English sea-captain relates the following fact, of which he was an eyewitness:—"A collier brig was stranded on the Yorkshire coast, and I had occasion to assist in the distressing service of rescuing a part of the crew by drawing them up a vertical cliff, two or three hundred feet in altitude, by means of a very small rope, the only material at hand. The first two men who caught hold of the rope were hauled safely up to the top; but the next, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the good and bland, thou blessing Of the good, the bad's distressing, Sweet of taste by all confessing, Hail, thou world's felicity! Hail thy hue, life's gloom dispelling; Hail thy taste, all tastes excelling; By thy power, in this thy dwelling Deign to ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... utterly unfelt. In a word, that state of the human heart, occasioned by the mutual affection between the sexes, and from whence proceed the happiest, the most interesting, and sometimes also, the most distressing moments of life, has no existence in China. The man takes a wife because the laws of the country direct him to do so, and custom has made it indispensable; and the woman, after marriage, continues to be the same piece of inanimate ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... save for the deaths of your agent and Colonel Saint-Maurice. As for M. Roland de Montrevel, I have the satisfaction of informing you that nothing distressing has befallen him. I did not forget that he was good enough to receive me at ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... gentleman assured me that, at times, his feelings had bordered on those of mental derangement; he thought every body hated him; and he in turn hated every body. He had often, after lying awake for several hours in the night, under the most distressing forebodings, arisen, smoked his pipe to procure a temporary alleviation of his sufferings, in fitful and half delirious slumbers. He even thought of suicide, but was deterred by the dread of an hereafter. In ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... prepare in youth and in middle age the means of enjoying old age pleasantly and happily. There can be nothing more distressing than to see an old man who has spent the greater part of his life in well-paid-for-labour, reduced to the necessity of begging for bread, and relying entirely on the commiseration of his neighbours, or ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... neighbours,—affairs in which they might be said to have almost a personal interest. The conversation turned to other matters; but across the way they saw enacted some of the preliminaries and accompaniments of a mysterious complication that finally became as distressing and as ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... self-possession, I got through the service without any distressing error—I ought not to have read the Absolution, that being restricted to priests, nor should I have upset the cushion on which I was kneeling, for, not having sufficient confidence to replace it, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... like it. He preferred her as she had been when he had first come to her house on an autumn evening. To him there was something almost distressing in this change which he noticed specially to-night. And her look into the glass had shown him that she was preoccupied about her appearance. Such a preoccupation on her part seemed foreign to her character as he had conceived of it. Her greatest charm had been her extraordinary lack, or apparent ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... come. They saw themselves confronted by the police-court, the prison, the hospital and, in the background, the asylum. They did not know what was going to happen, but they felt instinctively that a species of scourging awaited them. Their only comfort in their distressing situation was the fact that he, Mr. Theodore, was one of them. It was not clear to them why that fact should be a comfort, but they knew intuitively that no evil would happen to the son ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... bold youth, in a Scotch play, the title of which I have forgotten, but the speech began with, 'My name is Norval: on the Grampian Hills my father fed his flocks...' And this in a voice so weak and distressing as to put me in mind of the plaintive squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on them. As we were going home (one of my boys and I) he, after a silence of half a mile perhaps, rode up close to the side of my horse, and said, 'Papa, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... 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. Herr H. also sent a warm ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... retaliation, which added to our trouble. This got worse on the following days, doubtless owing partly to the fact that we dug a new advanced trench. This was in a deplorable mess, and our men who had to occupy it had a most distressing time. Casualties rose rapidly, especially in B Company, whose front line trench was enfiladed from Adinfer Wood. Our carrying parties, who had to take up Royal Engineer material, ammunition of all sorts, rations and other stores ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... case in these commercial cruces, the man was on the rack. My own position, if you consider how much I owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and that yet I lived and fattened on these questionable operations, was perhaps equally distressing. If I had been more sterling or more combative, things might have gone extremely far. But, in truth, I was just base enough to profit by what was not forced on my attention, rather than seek scenes; Pinkerton quite cunning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... matter at all, so he was to be in her company. All the same, his instinct pulled him by the sleeve. Hazily he reflected that to retrace such steps as you have taken along the path of Love is a bad business, and that the farther you have elected to venture, so much the more distressing must be your return. And he would have to return. In the absence of a miracle, that journey could not be avoided. For an instant the spectre of Reckoning leaned out of the future.... Then Patch flushed a stray pig, and Valerie laughed joyously, and—the shadow was gone. Cost what it might, Anthony ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... returned about two hours later with a wagon load of full barrels. He had discovered a detachment of the Royal Army Service Corps and, posing as an orderly officer or a.d.c., had told its officer a distressing story of a brigadier who for several hours had been separated from his personal baggage. The arrival of the wagon was greeted with cheers and after its load was taken off, the men came up and gazed reverently ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... not need more than half-a-dozen running footmen—the stoutest that could be found—to put their shoulders occasionally to the wheel, and help the eight black horses to drag the ponderous vehicle through the heavier parts of the road. Science came to the aid of beauty in these distressing circumstances. Springs were invented that yielded to every jolt; and, with the aid of cushions, rendered a visit to Highgate not much more fatiguing than we now find the journey to Edinburgh. Luxury went ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... my championship. You don't like it, every one to his own taste. Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems—general propositions—are especially distressing, because together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... excellent, and his spirits and courage seldom flagged. I remember him as lying much on the sofa in those days, and liking to have his head "scratched" by the hour together, with a sharp-pointed comb, to relieve by external irritation the distressing sensation's, which he compared to those made, sometimes by a tightening ring, sometimes by a leaden cap, and sometimes (but this was in later life) by a dull boring instrument. Yet he was the centre of the family life, and of its merriment as well; and ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... him. He reached Marseilles on the 12th of October, and on the same day he forwarded a letter to Messrs. Ricardo. "I wrote to you a few days ago," he said, "from Malta, and, as the packet sailed with a fair wind, you will receive that letter very shortly. You will thereby perceive the distressing suspense in which I have been held, and the inconvenience to which I have been exposed, by remaining on board this small vessel for a period of five months, during all the heat of a Mediterranean summer, without exercise ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... story, "The Old Home," is not less distressing than the preceding one. A young revolutionary, condemned to death by court-martial, has been executed, but for his dear ones this death has never been a reality. His mother and sister, and even the old servant, have not the ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... We employ the German tincture, prepared from the green herb. In many of the distressing nervous complications to which both males and females are subject in certain diseases of the generative organs, we have found it very effectual. The dose is from two to ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the rate of population. When you have saved your children alive, then you must settle what to do with them. But a living dog is better than a dead lion; I would rather have the living child, and let it take its chance, than let it return to God—wasted. O! it is a distressing thing to see children die. God gives the most beautiful and precious thing that earth can have, and we just take it and cast it away; we toss our pearls upon the dunghill and leave them. A dying child is to me one of the most dreadful sights in the world. A dying man, a ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... that he must drift no longer, and in perfect sincerity resolved to make the most of his brief separation from his family, hoping that with a physician's advice he could speedily overcome his morbid craving and distressing need. He left the farmhouse with the resolution that he would never touch the drug again, believing that before a week expired the horrible depression, both mental and physical, would so far pass away as to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... this time of the day it being now about noon. I observe the indian women collecting the root of a speceis of fennel which grows in the moist grounds and feeding their poor starved children; it is really distressing to witness the situation of those poor wretches. the radix of this plant is of the knob kind, of a long ovate form terminating in a single radicle, the whole bing about 3 or four inches in length and the thickest part ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... smiling; "although, if any man durst say it, it should be myself. But you are to keep in view my responsibility, and that as the voyage has now become highly dangerous, and your business—if you ever had any," says he,—"brought quite to a conclusion by the distressing family intelligence you have received, I should be hardly justified if I even suffered you to proceed, and run the risk of some obloquy if anything regrettable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of my own fellow townswomen, Miss Mary E. McDowell," said Miss Addams, "who has had what I may call a distressing life in the stockyards district of Chicago for many years, and she will tell you what she thinks of the franchise for women." ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... sleeping 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, ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... You will find at my house, among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M. Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I wish Javert were here; he would ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... few months later, as when exposed to the elements in the open air. Nay, had it lost a thousand of its best men in the way in which it lost so many at the storming of New Orleans, the blank ere now would have been completely filled up. The calamities of fire or of decimation even, however distressing in themselves, never yet ruined a country: no calamity ruins a country that leaves the surviving inhabitants to develope, in their old circumstances, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... happiness of his life in her keeping; and when to this source of embarrassment is added the consciousness of having culpably raised expectations that she shrinks from realising, the situation becomes doubly distressing. On the present occasion, agitated, ashamed, and confused, Frances, instead of honestly avowing her fault, which would have been the safest thing to do, had recourse to a subterfuge; she answered, that she had been betrothed by her father to the son of his dearest friend, and that she was not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... ill-at-ease than I'd ever seen him before, "But there's positively no danger, remember. It won't be so bad as your morning paper will try to make it out. They've sensationalized it, of course. That's why I wanted to be here first, and give you the facts. They are distressing enough, God knows, without those yellow reporters working them over ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... to conform myself to that further fictitious, not to say factitious, standard of taste, according to which, just as,—though a hemorrhage from the nose, howsoever ill-timed, distressing, or even dangerous to the patient, is comic,—one from the lungs is poetical and tragic; and an extravasation of blood about the heart is not inappropriate to the demise of the most romantic civil hero, (who would seem, indeed, capable of escaping an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... honesty of Wildeve's intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most distressing to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman's ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... superstitious were overpowered with horror and dismay. The description which a gentleman of South Carolina gave of the effect produced by this phenomenon upon his ignorant blacks will apply well to many hardly better informed white persons. "I was suddenly awakened," said he, "by the most distressing cries that ever fell upon my ears. Shrieks of horror and cries of mercy I could hear from most of the negroes of three plantations, amounting in all to about six or eight hundred. While earnestly listening for the cause, I heard a faint voice near ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... and certain classes of railway officials are the most liable to suffer from neural exhaustion. Next to these come merchants in general, brokers, etc.; then, less frequently, clergymen; still less often, lawyers; and, more rarely, doctors; while distressing cases are apt to occur among the overschooled young of ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... But these distressing thoughts did not continue long. Mr. Northcott happened that evening to say a great deal about kindness and its effects in his sermon; and Mrs. Churton, while she listened, again and again recalled those words which her daughter had spoken, and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... this most distressing position—when he sat with his mother in shame and retirement in obscure lodgings, which had been taken for them by one of their former servants, and with no immediate means of livelihood—then first ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... out, old fellow," begged the sufferer through white, drawn lips, his gasping voice being hardly less distressing than the ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... heartily at the distressing picture, and the plaintive tone of his voice pierced her armour. "What's the matter with you?" ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... God, and good of his generation he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever, which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop at least to his public services for four years. In this distressing season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to Sir Thomas Abney's family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest friendship. ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... furnished much more than was enjoyed by Democrats. An effort was made to stay the tide in favor of Harrison by poetry as well as by argument. The effort was fruitless. The contest of 1840 had its origin in the most distressing financial difficulties that ever rested upon the country, and it was conducted on the part of the Whigs by large expenditure of money, for those days, and with a degree of hilarity and good nature that it is difficult now to realize. This may have been due to general confidence, and to a consequent ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... throwing up his hands and shouting, which if he 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 reconnoitering in another direction when ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... and dissuasion of my colleague, I gave myself a partner in the rashness of all rather than in the prudence of one. Camillus sees his own glory in your fortune, whatever it be; for my part, unless the battle is restored, I shall feel the result with you all, the infamy alone (which is most distressing)." It was deemed best that the horse should be transferred into the line whilst still unsteady, and that they should attack the enemy by fighting on foot. Distinguished by their arms and courage, they proceed in whatever direction they perceive the line ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... granddaughter happened to witness a very unfortunate and distressing affair. A duel was fought at sunrise, in the edge of the woods yonder, and the challenged party, Mr. Dent, of Georgia, was killed. I came to ask permission to bring the body here, until arrangements can be made for its interment; and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... they tried to go in, but were again driven back by the distressing fumes. The fire was eating down, now. There was a hole burned in the roof, and by the leaping tongues of flame Tom could see his aeroplane. It was almost in the path ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... Morrison was "half out of her mind over the distressing affair" had prepared him to encounter a weeping, red-eyed, heart-broken creature of the most excitable type. He found instead a pale, serious-faced, undemonstrative girl of somewhat uncertain age—sweet of voice, soft of step, quiet of demeanour—who was either one of those persons ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Belgium was the central 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 fevered outsider. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... could not utter in Spanish, for she smiled upon me sweetly, arose, and put her hand upon my shoulder. My arm encircled her waist and I began to waltz. Unfortunately my companion did not follow, but began to hop up and down in a manner most distressing. Supposing the attack to be only temporary, I paused and, much to my relief, she soon showed signs of recovery; and in the course of time she came to a standstill looking up into my face in an inquiring sort of way, apparently wondering why St. ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... very much of a blank to Benita. When they reached shore some old friends of her father's took her and him to their house, a quiet place upon the Berea. Here, now that the first excitement of rescue and grief was over, the inevitable reaction set in, bringing with it weakness so distressing that the doctor insisted upon her going to bed, where she remained for the next five days. With the healing up of the wound in her head her strength came back to her at last, but it was a very sad Benita who crept from her room one afternoon on to the verandah and looked out at the ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... greatly distressed to find her inconsolable, and, besides— what made it more distressing—he liked Nunez for many things. So he went and sat in the windowless council-chamber with the other elders and watched the trend of the talk, and said, at the proper time, "He's better than he was. Very likely, some day, we shall find him as sane ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... a loyal and grateful disciple to guard himself sedulously against the peril of overstatement. For to the unerring taste, the sane and sober judgment, of the Master, unrestrained and inappropriate praise would have been peculiarly distressing. ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... of fact, Jimmy had danced with many girls; true, it was usually when there was no other man left to "do duty"; but still he had done it. Why then should he feel such distressing hesitation about placing his arm around the waist of this brown-eyed Diana? Try as he would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really seemed ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... wheels in Fleet Street. We exercised this voluntary deafness on the occasion. But not long afterwards, we were compelled, during an attack of disease which affected the nervous system, to hear the whole discordant performance repeated again and again, with a pertinacity which was really very distressing. Such a case prepares us to give credit to a far more remarkable story, related in one of the works of Macnish. A clergyman, we are told, who was a skilful violinist, and frequently played over some favourite solo or concerto, was obliged to desist from practice ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... spoke these words, it seemed as if she were about to faint. With a deep and distressing moan, she covered her ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a period of sore conflict. For several days I had had gloomy and distressing feelings. I had struggled with all my might against them. I had tried to draw near the Lord and to get special help from him. It was hard to pray, and it seemed that when I prayed no answer came. Discouragement pressed ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... might linger thus for some time, but that, even if he recovered his intellect, which was more than doubtful, he would never be able to resume his profession. I could not leave Louise in circumstances so distressing,—I remained. The little money Duval had brought from Paris was now exhausted; and when the day on which he had been in the habit of receiving his quarter's pension came round, Louise was unable even ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... probably the Zeus of Orchomenos, Zeus Laphystius, who is explained by Suidas as "the Glutton Zeus". The cognate verb ((Greek text omitted)) means "to eat with mangling and rending," "to devour gluttonously". By Zeus Laphystius, then, men's flesh was gorged in this distressing fashion. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... provider, sought to augment her scanty means, by opening her house during the summer months to casual visitors. She had been beautiful once, and she was young still; but the glow and the freshness of life's youth had vanished, not so much before time as sorrow, for peculiarly distressing circumstances had attended the loss of her dearest friend, and now, disease had almost, unsuspected, commenced its insidious ravages on a naturally ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... of the universe at large which came to be hers, although strengthened by the positivistic trend of her mature studies, was generated in her sickly youth and a reaction from the narrow theologic thought with which she was then surrounded. Always frail—subject through life to distressing illness—it would not be fair to ask of this woman an optimism of the Mark Tapley stripe. In part, the grave outlook was physical, temperamental: but also it was an expression of a swiftly approaching mood of the late nineteenth century. And the beginning can be traced ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Again, it is distressing to the young man, busy burying his secret sorrow under a mound of silence, to be slapped on the back by commonplace people and asked—"Well, how's 'the hump' this morning?" and to hear his mood of dignified melancholy referred to, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... not according to his promise; distressing reports were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived in Milford ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a little drowse fell upon the two charter members. They had lunched more richly than was their wont. "Oh, these distressing, heavy lunches!" as Aldous Huxley cries in one of his poems. But Lawton was still of bright vivacity. At that time the club was perturbed by the coming Harding-Cox election. "Which of the vice-presidents are you going to vote for?" he cried, and then ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... been removed from his soul Walter moved away. The whole world had suddenly become a different place. Although the calamity of Lola's disappearance was none the less distressing at least on his own particular horizon there no longer loomed the spectre of discharge and all the disgrace that accompanied it. He could have tossed his cap into the air for very joy and gratitude. In his relief he was bursting to talk to ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening, fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new treatment which ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Speaker on that night was of the most distressing nature. A sincere and ardent enemy of the measure, he headed its opponents; he resisted with all the power of his mind, the resources of his experience, his influence, and his eloquence. It was, however, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... was trained for his life-work in the school of temptation; he experienced painful mental conflicts, and the assaults of the tempter, at a very early period. It is recorded that, at six years of age, he was conscious of distressing doubts, in relation to the Divine existence and perfections. These exercised and agitated his mind for a period of two years. In answer to prayer, and by meditation on the power and goodness of God, as seen in creation, he overcame the temptation, and attained to internal ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... legions after crossing the Niemen and the site of his army-hospitals. When our travellers entered it, it was filled with a horde of panic-stricken fugitives, who made the town a temporary resting-place before continuing their flight to the frontiers; nor were they long in learning the, to them, distressing news that the French army was in swift retreat, and that the duke de Bassano, so far from being at leisure to attend a diplomatic conference at Wilna, was then on the frontiers hurrying forward reinforcements to cover the retreat of his emperor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... The Chesapeake was not yet ready for action. Her crew was undrilled in the use of ordnance, her decks littered, appliances for reloading were wanting, and at the supreme moment neither priming nor match could be found. Under these distressing circumstances, the boarding officer of the Leopard took the deserters and sailed for Halifax. The sight of the dismantled Chesapeake, with its dead and dying, aroused the people irrespective of party into demanding reparation or war. "This ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... at him with parted lips, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes began silently to cry. The sudden spectacle, in this condition, of a self-controlled woman of the world was infinitely distressing to Hodder, whose sympathies were even more sensitive than (in her attempt to play upon them) she had suspected. . . She was aware that he had got to his feet, and was standing beside her, speaking with an oddly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... part, in wretched cabins, which swarmed with men, women, and children, while every nook and corner not thus occupied was filled with pigs, fowls, sheep, or dogs; and the thick smoke, or, as the people emphatically call it, 'cruel steam,' is most distressing to the eyesight, which ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... own breathing's when she slept; and remember that the girl was Winifred herself, and that the boy—the happy boy—had Winifred's love. Ah! but that last element of that hour's bliss is just what the reader cannot realise, because he can only know Winifred through these poor words. That is the distressing side of a task like mine. The beloved woman here called Winifred (no phantom of an idle imagination, but more real to me and dear to me than this soul and body I call my own)—this Winifred can only live for you, reader, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Frees,' now possesses the wealth that was the old Free Kirk's before, in 1900, it united with the United Presbyterians, and became the United Free Church. It is to be hoped that common sense will discover some 'outgait,' or issue, from this distressing imbroglio. In the words which Mr. R.L. Stevenson, then a sage of twenty-four, penned in 1874, we may say 'Those who are at all open to a feeling of national disgrace look forward eagerly to such a possibility; they have been witnesses already ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... weary journey, that return from the quest of the White Squaw. But the weariness had been mental. The excitement of their going had eaten up their spirit, and left them with a feeling of distressing lassitude. They were sobered; and, as men recovering from drunkenness, they felt ashamed, and their ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Manchu Imperial Family made them ready not only to capitulate but to run away. The chief point at issue was, however, not the fate of the monarchy, which was a dead thing, but simply what was going to happen to Chang Hsun's head—a matter which was profoundly distressing Chang Hsun. The Republican army had placed a price of L10,000 on it, and the firebrands were advocating that the man must be captured, dead or alive, and suffer decapitation in front of the Great Dynastic Gate of the Palace as a revenge for his perfidy. Round this issue a subtle battle raged ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... impossible to strike a blow at the two states without touching the very heart of the Cape Dutch—impossible to inflict losses and bring ruin upon some members of the family without seriously disturbing and distressing the rest. The physical boundaries separating the British colonies from the Republics made no separation as far as the people were concerned. In speech, religion, character, and blood, the Dutch are essentially one throughout South Africa. And it was owing ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... your fault, but you are indirectly responsible for the presence of all those men and women out there. It is a very distressing thing. Newspapers have their place and uses, of course; we all recognize that, but we cannot at a time like this be besieged by a horde of men and women, not all of whom, I regret to say, have the delicacy to show ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... 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 ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... inform him that, having lost his place at the Embassy through the translation of his chief to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, he should be obliged to return to England in October before Smith's arrival in Paris; and in the next, to consult him on a new perplexity that was distressing him, whether he should not come back to Paris and spend the remainder of his days there. In compensation for the loss of his place, he had obtained a pension of L900 a year, without office or duty of any kind—"opulence and liberty," as he calls ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... a professional man. For the past five-and-twenty years, with only one exception (the year following the Diamond Jubilee of the late QUEEN VICTORIA), I have fallen a victim during the first days of November to an attack of bronchial catarrh. In this distressing complaint, as you may be aware, an early symptom is a fit of sneezing, with other manifest discomfort which I need not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... 24 | Road good through rich alluvial land irrigated by river Purali. Road near to Beila intersected by deep nullahs distressing to camels. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... morning, Louise did not dare to look me in the face. Without distressing her, however, I managed to look at her more than I had ever before done; and I really wondered what I had been thinking about, during the preceding two months, not to have sooner found out her manifold ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... actually urged Cowper to abandon the task of translating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind from thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious character, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a rule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences. Newton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving people into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove one poor victim to an asylum he says: ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... the Nth Blankshires was seated in his office. It was not an imposing room to look at. Furnished simply but tastefully with a table, officers, for use of, one, and a chair, ditto, one, it gave little evidence of the distressing scenes which had been enacted in it, and still less evidence of the terrible scene which was to come. Within these walls the Colonel was accustomed to deal out stern justice to offenders, and many a hardened ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... fleet and assisted in the tedious work of dragging the vessels over the shallows. In the evening I returned to the diahbeeah, and having dragged the dingy across the sudd, I explored the channel ahead for an hour, for about three miles; passed over distressing shallows for a space of a quarter of a mile ahead of the diahbeeah, after which I entered a deep, narrow ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... of thing I have only a despairing admiration. I can get an impression if I am given time and can think about it beforehand. But it requires thought. This fact was all the more distressing to me in as much as one of the leading editors of America had made me a proposal, as honourable to him as it was lucrative to me, that immediately on my arrival in London;—or just before it,—I should send him a thousand words on the genius of the ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... this is also true. A little show of bravura, possibly in a passage which has not cost the pianist more than ten minutes of frivolous practice, will turn many of the unthinking auditors into a roaring mob. This is, of course, very distressing to the sincere artist who strives to establish himself ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... was a great favourite in the service, and for a time his melancholy end cast a gloom over the little community at the Bell Rock. The circumstances of the case were also peculiarly distressing in reference to the boy's mother, for her husband had been for three years past confined in a French prison, and her son had been the chief support of the family. In order in some measure to make up to the poor woman for the loss of the monthly aliment regularly allowed ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... he is a heavy burden upon our hearts," continued the unhappy father; "when he is with us we find it most distressing to behold the utter wreck his excesses are making of him, and when he is out of our sight it is still worse; for we don't know what sin or danger he may be running into. Indeed at times we are almost distracted. Ah, Travilla, much as I love my wife and children, ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... delicate and distressing position, dear friend, I thought of you: yes, to you, to you only, shall I owe my restoration to health. Do not therefore be surprised if, in the course of a few days, you should see my shadow approach your hospitable door; and prepare for it, I beg you, a ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... course, thinking from what Arthur had said that in this direction there was more chance of being picked up by a French vessel. Would their strength and provisions hold out? Of this there was serious doubt. Late in the year as it was, the heat and glare were as distressing by day as was the cold by night, and the continued exertion of rowing produced thirst, which made it very difficult to husband the water in the skins. Tam and Fareek were both tough, and inured to heat and privation; but Arthur, scarce yet come to his full height, and far ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more sermons. What is the admission I was going to make? Well, I will now tell you, right off. I fell in love. Quite hopelessly, desperately in love. It was very annoying and distressing, for had I not, up to then, loved so many that I loved no one in particular, at any rate, except for short periods of time. What was coming over me, I wondered? Oh, but, whatever it was, it was indeed sweet, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... waked up, and, reflecting on the previous day, I felt a certain discomfort.... I was, as it were, ashamed of all my own actions. With instinctive uneasiness I thought of the visit to be made that day, of my interview with Ivan Semyonitch.... This uneasiness was acute and distressing; it was like the uneasiness of the hare who hears the barking of the dogs and is bound at last to run out of his native forest into the open country...and there the sharp teeth of the harriers are awaiting him.... 'Why was I in such ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... is cultivated in the Punjab and in Tibet. Its poisonous qualities are attributed to its excessive proportion of nitrogenous matter, which requires dilution. Another species of the genus, L. cicer, grown in Spain, has similar properties. The distressing effects described in the text have been witnessed by other observers (Balfour, Cyclopaedia, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... family without an unhealable wound. Everywhere the traces of the bloody struggle; and, alas, most poignant and distressing fact of all, burghers who fought side by side with us in the earlier stages of the struggle are now to be found in the ranks ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... may not appear tremendous to those unacquainted with the source of jewelry; but when I say that the only thief employed by any West-end jeweller since famous Thangobrind's distressing doom is this same Neepy Thang, and that for lightness of fingers and swiftness of stockinged foot they have none better in Paris, it will be understood why the Bond Street jewellers no longer cared what became of their ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... of three bouts of three days each has often been found sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressing consequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regular percentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in a copy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago, the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful scene ensued. ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... United States was last evening plunged into affliction by the death of a beloved child. The heads of the Departments, in consideration of this distressing event, have thought it would be agreeable to Congress and to the American people that the official and private buildings occupied by them should not be illuminated in the evening ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... do that. Not a breath as to any unfortunate conditions anywhere. But on every deck, wherever equals met, the fearful plight of the queer folk down nearest the water was softly debated. Distressing to feminine sympathy was the necessity of instant burials, first revealed up-stairs by that woman's cry of agony down on the lower gangway. But masculine nerve explained that such promptness would save lives and might confine ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... less assuming or more pleasing in his manner. Seeing his external simplicity, persons with whom he was arguing were sometimes tempted to treat him cavalierly; but then the solemnity with which he would mystify his adversary, and ultimately lead him into the most distressing absurdity was one of the most delightful scenes that conversation ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... slumbers did not remain tranquil during the absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreams are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was at the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, or rather worm-holes, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man into that perpetual too-much whereby he tries to make amends for a currency debased. No more than any other can a witty writer dispense with a sense of humour. In his moments of sentiment the lack is distressing; in his moments of wit it is at least perceptible. A sense of humour cannot be always present, it may be urged. Why, no; it is the lack of it that is—importunate. Other absences, such as the absence of passion, the absence of delicacy, are, if grievous negatives, still mere negatives. These ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... society. In any company of Americans who are discussing public affairs the stranger is struck by what seems the lack of logical connection between the statements of facts and the judgments passed upon them. The facts may be most distressing and yet nobody seems much distressed, still less is any one depressed. The city government is in the hands of grafters, the police force is corrupt, the prices of the necessaries of life are extortionate, the laws on the statute book are not enforced, and new laws are about to be enacted ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... sadly pierced our ears. He moves our trudging lives to the beauties of golden measures. He laughs heartily at our absorbing charities and meetings, upon which we waste our health and grow thin. He answers our distressing plea for the rights of the oppressed, and the "all-men-born-to-be-free-and-equal" with a smiling strength, which assures us therein lies the wealth and the equality which we are trying to manufacture out of such materials as association, organization ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... spoke, he glanced at the little tuner, and could not help admiring her dignified composure under circumstances which might have been distressing to any one; and when she rose with the others he followed her, and ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... indeed had we to go back, even for a short time, to their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex method of governing themselves, and their intricate political machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being overgoverned—not a special aptitude or genius for governing—must have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders made in directing public affairs, and from the ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... generally yields to the pressure brought to bear upon her, and terminates a miserable life by an awful death; her horrid shrieks, while burning, mingling with the clamor of sounds raised to drown them by the heartless throng of spectators, and yet sometimes rising with distressing distinctness above them. When the wife of a Hindoo dies, does he sacrifice himself upon a funeral pile, in order to honor her in another state of existence? By no means. His precious body can not be committed to the flames; ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... burst of indignation, she began to cry, while the doctor, wholly misunderstanding her, attempted to smooth the matter somewhat by saying: "I had no intention of distressing you, Mrs. Blodgett, but I thought I might as well free my mind. Were you a poor woman, I should feel differently, but ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... for the distribution of the scanty ration, and then, indeed, the truth was forced upon us in a new and startling light. Toward evening I was seized with violent pains in the stomach, accompanied by a constant desire to yawn and gape that was most distressing; but in a couple of hours the extreme agony passed away, and on the 3d I was surprised to find that I did not suffer more. I felt, it is true, that there was some great void within myself, but the sensation was quite as much moral as physical. My head was so heavy that I could not hold it ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... 1:24; namely, because others got good thereby. And that he said, "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all" (Phil 2:17). But why rejoice in this? Why, because though his sufferings were to the distressing of his flesh, yet they were to the refreshing, comfort, and stability of others. This was it also that made him jostle with the false brethren among the churches; to wit, "that the truth of the gospel might ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the grand achievements of our arms short of the completest success, all conspire to assure us that the dreadful disorder hitherto consuming our national vitals is to pass finally away in the convulsive disease of its last throes, so distressing to us all. It being thus certain that this consecrated crime is to be dismantled, dishonored, and abandoned forever, the question is forced upon us: 'What is to be done with the negroes?' Some four millions of human ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... was 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 strange steamboat had lowered its boats. As the time went by I marvelled that I ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... us are probably born with instincts that make it easy for us to acquire the art of lying; but we have also the instincts that make us love the truth and speak it. Indeed, a child may acquire a hatred of untruth that is so keen as to be positively distressing; and this condition is just as morbid and undesirable as that of the other extreme, which accepts lies ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... 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 ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... distress me. Tell me at once what you mean." It glanced through her mind that' Mr. Casaubon had left the property away from her—which would not be so very distressing. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... announce to you that you have ceased to belong to the Council of State. The violent hostility in which you have lately indulged, without the shadow of a pretext, against the King's government, has rendered this measure inevitable. You will readily understand how much it is personally distressing to myself. My friendly feelings towards you induce me to express a hope that you may reserve yourself for the future, and that you will not compromise by false steps the talents which may still advantageously serve the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... seems impossible, too. And yet he is afraid. That fear is always close at his heels, especially at night. It follows him like a hungry dog. There are times when I would swear it is not fear of a living thing. That is what makes it—disturbing. It is weird—distressing. It makes ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... for me the very room to which Isabel had led me on the night of my first arrival, and in which she had knelt beside me. Miss Plinlimmon had scarcely known Isabel, and I found her cheerfulness almost distressing when she came to wish me ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the sound dictates of reason and experience, we, in peace, neglect our military establishment, we must, with a powerful and skilful enemy, be exposed to the most distressing calamities." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... the conclusion that followed was a very distressing one. Mrs. Vanstone, feeling what was due to her long friendship with Miss Garth, had apparently placed the fullest confidence in her, on one subject, by way of unsuspiciously maintaining the strictest reserve toward her on another. Naturally frank ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before the little train had zig-zagged down the seven thousand feet to the foot of the Himalayas ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... poorer order of workers filled the mills, but even skilled labor made constant complaint of cruelties and injustices. Not only were there distressing cases of cruelty to children, but outrage of every kind had been found to exist among the women workers, whose wage had been lowered till nearly at the point known to-day as the subsistence point. Parents then, as now, gave false returns ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... this, dear reader, does not alter the mysterious and distressing truth, and one cannot make disharmony bearable by denying it. So much is certain that my father's assertion, declaring my horror wholly unreasonable, affected me like an attempt at lopping off my toes to make the boot fit. I resisted passionately, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... quarters certain events which gave Bob cause for thought. Strangely enough, these events, one and all, had some effect, either direct or indirect, upon the habitues of Tony the Barber's place. To begin with, Tony himself was summoned to headquarters and forced to spend a distressing half-hour with a harsh, ill-natured police official, as a result of which the pinochle-room at the rear of the barber- shop was closed and the door nailed up. With an unnatural show of indignation Tony warned its frequenters to stay away from his shop. Naturally he had recourse to Melcher, who ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... to say that papa has hitherto been exempted from any attack. My sister and myself have each had a visit from it, but Anne is the only one with whom it stayed long or did much mischief; in her case it was attended with distressing cough and fever; but she is now better, though it has ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... couldn't begin to live on the income from a miserable fifty thousand, and actually laughed in my face when I reminded her of the young lady's exalted preference for love in a cottage and joy at any price. Biding my time, I permitted the distressing truth to sink in. You will remember that Anne's letters began to come less frequently about ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity which ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and power alone Never make a blessing; Seek not e'en a throne By one wretch distressing. Better toil a slave For the blood-earned penny, Than be rich, and have A curse ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... receive. To himself this young missionary had admitted long before that a married man was too much cumbered for his undertaking. At the same time he mentally insisted that in that foreign land life without his wife would be to him intolerable. It was truly distressing and discouraging that five years had passed by with but the most trifling results. He thought, and not for the first time, that were he settled in the faraway, quiet village of Newberg, his life might not pass away ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... news was followed by another not less distressing. A number of runaway slaves arrived from Kaarta on the 14th, and reported that Daisy, having received information concerning the intended attack upon him, was about to visit Jarra. This made the negroes call upon Ali for the two hundred ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... 'Poor child!' on receiving this distressing intelligence about Edith; and the minute lap-dog in Mrs. Shaw's arms began to bark, as if excited ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... he saw that the affair would be unthinkably distressing. He felt that it would kill him, and he put ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... wood, feasting on the superabundant grubs and larvae. But no sooner did they notice the prisoner than all thought of food vanished. Like the jays, they never failed to take advantage of an opportunity to tantalize some other creature, especially if they found the latter under distressing circumstances. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... The most distressing embarrassments now surrounded M. Roland. He could not abandon power without abandoning himself and his supporters in the Assembly to the guillotine; and while continuing in power, he was compelled to witness deeds of atrocity from which not only his soul revolted, but to which it ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... cold accents, "it must have been very distressing to you to be obliged to have recourse to such a ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... figures were particularly distressing to the individual black soldier, as indeed they were to his civilian counterpart, because as a member of a highly visible minority he became identified with the wrongdoing of some of his fellows, spectacularly reported in the press, while his own more typical attendance ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... of obliging others, for they will not be freely offered to you; you must now exercise your own observation to find out what they would once have frankly told you,—whether you are tiring people physically or distressing them morally, or putting them to practical inconvenience. I do not make the extravagant supposition that all those with whom you associate have attained to Christian perfection; the proud and the resentful, as well as the delicate-minded, will suffer much rather than repeat ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... rises in the mind, that the same Great Being would adopt the same mode of action in both cases.... To a mind accustomed, as is every educated mind, to regard the operations of Deity as essentially differing from the limited, sudden, evanescent impulses of a human agent, it is distressing to be compelled to picture to itself, the power of God as put forth in any other manner than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws, which have so plainly an eternity to work in; it pains the imagination to be obliged ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... often experienced worse sufferings, I have never led a life so uniformly distressing as this period of unrest and anxiety, when I wandered incessantly from one doubt to another, gaining nothing from my prolonged meditations but uncertainty, darkness, and contradiction with regard to the source of my being and the rule ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... marvellous. But, as is so often the case among New England women of culture, the body had paid the cost of the mind's estate; and, after the birth of her first child, she sank at once into a hopeless invalidism,—an invalidism all the more difficult to bear, and to be borne with, that it took the shape of distressing nervous maladies which no medical skill could alleviate. The brilliant mind became almost a wreck, and yet retained a preternatural restlessness and activity. Many regarded her condition as insanity, and believed that Mr. Dorrance ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... horrible beyond all expression, and alarmed and overwhelmed me with unutterable terrors and distress. On one occasion I fancied that both I and my father had both been doing something wrong, and this seemed most horrible and distressing of all; and as I wandered about in my mysterious state, I howled most piteously, and cried and wept as if my heart would break. I never recollect being roused from that dismal state while I was walking about the house, except twice. ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... 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 to the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... upon his feelings, and he so behaved during the long and weary meal as to rouse no suspicions, either in Charlotte's breast or in the far sharper one of the Australian uncle. But, nevertheless, so distressing was the growing sense of coming calamity, that he felt the gay laugh of his betrothed almost distressing, and was truly relieved when he had to change it for the gravity of her father. As he went from ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... elapsed before any reply to Marston's letters was received. A short epistle at last arrived from Lord H——, the late Sir Wynston's uncle, deeply regretting the "sad and inexplicable occurrence," and adding, that the will, which, on receipt of the "distressing intelligence," was immediately opened and read, contained no direction whatever respecting the sepulture of the deceased, which had therefore better be completed as modestly and expeditiously as possible, in the neighborhood; and, in conclusion, he directed that the accounts ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... out of breath and red with haste. He had stolen ten minutes from his accounts and stores to bring Miss Van Diemen a piece of information which was to him important and distressing. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Eval too, his smile spoke volumes, though his natural reserve prevented his addressing Edward, while the young and lively members of the party seemed to find abundant amusement in the anecdotes and adventures he narrated. Arthur Myrvin gazed earnestly at him, and for a time banished his own distressing thoughts in the endeavour to trace in the fine manly youth before him some likeness to the handsome, yet violent and mischievous boy he had first and last seen in the ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... about after his usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he intended to do, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... soldier's narrative at leisure, holding the words of this honest Varangian as positive proof, in whatsoever he avers from his own knowledge.—And now, my grave and worthy counsellors, we must close this evening's service in the Temple of the Muses, this distressing news, brought us by our dearest son-in-law the Caesar, having induced us to prolong our worship of these learned goddesses, deeper into the night than is consistent with the health of our beloved wife and daughter; while to ourselves, this intelligence ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... driven away by a devil who had fallen in love with her. Adam, who was paddling by the shore, saw she was about to fall, rushed forward, caught her, and saved her life. The law of gravitation in those days did not act with such distressing promptitude as now. Manitou, hearing of these doings, restored them to the island and banished the devil, who fell to a world of evil spirits underground, where he became the father of the white race, and has ever since ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Chester felt that he should like to give the bookkeeper a good shaking. He could not help despising a man who appeared to enjoy distressing an unfortunate woman ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... said, "this is distressing even to a stranger; but it may be better for my poor father to be in this way, than if he ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... spoken of as if he had been three months instead of three days away. It was like going back a century or two into primitive life, to go into "the district," where civilisation did not prevail to any very distressing extent, and where people in general spoke their minds freely. But even when he came out of No. 10, where the poor woman still kept on living, Mr Wentworth was made aware of his private troubles; for on the opposite side of the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... of 1840 adjourned, Governor McDonald sent an urgent message to both houses calling upon them to frame some means for the speedy relief of the people. The situation in Georgia was very distressing. The rains and floods of that year had swept the crops from the fields, and there was much suffering among the planters. Coming upon the heel of the session, the Whig members of the legislature looked upon the message as a surprise, and rather ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... one distressing phase of early rising is the incongruous and unpleasant contact of the preceding night. The social yesterday is not fairly over before nine A. M. to-day, and there is always a humorous, sometimes a pathetic, lapping over the edges. I remember ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... often been alone together without the slightest embarrassment, but now, perhaps from the reaction, and being a little unstrung, she felt a most distressing sensation of it, besides which the anti-climax of his occupation after her overwrought anticipations of their mutual fate, gave her an hysterical inclination to a peal ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
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