"Ordeal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like to have me come to visit you tomorrow?" suggested Elizabeth, who dreaded the ordeal almost as much ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Breakfast was another ordeal, but not so bad as the tea of the night before; after breakfast came prayers, and then the class-room. Peggy found herself seated at a desk, beside one of her classmates, Rose Barclay, a pretty brunette, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... tranquillity, and, abandoning everything which had hitherto sustained him, he gave himself up to all the terrors of remorse and despair. It was in vain for Reuben to reason or for Eve to plead: so long as they could suggest no means by which this dreaded ordeal could be averted Adam was deaf to all hope of consolation. There was but one subject which interested him, and only on one subject could he be got to speak, and that was the chances there still remained of Jerrem's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... all right, just like I told you; no green hand with all his senses ever escaped it. Maybe you'll have it light, though," she added, hopefully, as if to hold him up for the ordeal. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... demoralization of master and man, its incompatibility with all things beautiful or good, its defiance of God and his truth; and to show the intensely human character of the slave, who, through this fearful ordeal of two hundred years, had preserved so much goodness, patient hope, unwavering trust in Jesus, faith in God, such desire for knowledge and capability of self-support—such she felt to be her mission, and as such she performed ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Inside, a lumber trust lawyer and his official assistants were administering the "third degree" to the arrested loggers, to make them "confess." One at a time the men were taken to the torture chamber, and so terrible was the ordeal of this American Inquisition that some were almost broken—body and soul. Loren Roberts had the light in his brain snuffed out. Today he is a shuffling wreck. He is not interested in things any more. He is always looking around with horror-wide eyes, talking of "voices" ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... unblinking and remorseless aloofness. It was not hard to imagine him, when the Etna, with her crew seduced or drugged to man her, should be clear of soundings and the business of the voyage put in shape, when every watch on deck would be a quaking ordeal of fear and pain, and every watch below an ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Portico and after him six thousand blind and insane enthusiasts followed, expecting imminent miracle. Above them towered the heights of Moriah, now veiled in smoke. Up the great white bank of stairs they rushed after him, facing an ordeal which must mean a baptism in fire, and on through a curtain of luminous smoke into a gate pillared in flame, up into the Royal Portico, resounding with the tread of the advancing Destroyer, out into the great Court of Gentiles wrapped in cloud through ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... ashamed to tell. No educated man can conceive how little his acquired mental advantages will avail him against his natural human inheritance of superstition, under certain circumstances of fear and suspense, until he has passed the ordeal in his own proper person. We most of us soon arrive at a knowledge of the extent of our strength, but we may pass a lifetime and be still ignorant of the extent of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... or twice, and for an instant only, by a sudden passing memory of a little child. It would be too much to say that the memory comforted him. Nothing could do that, yet. All he dared hope for was for the strength to go through his ordeal with something approaching manliness and dignity. The visits of his friends were a strain to him, as well as to them, and it was sadly easy to see how the sense of his hopeless case depressed them. He could imagine the long breath they drew as they left his tent and found themselves ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... buds gleamed like pearls on the lichen-covered, twisted limbs of the old "dragon-plum" by Ume's chamber ledge, when Tatsu and his adopted father entered once more together the little Kano home. If the young husband had realized, all along, what this coming ordeal might mean, he had given no sign of it. Kano and the physicians feared for him. The last test, it was to be, of sanity and of endurance. The actual hour of departure from the hospital fell late in January. More than once before a day had been ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... shone with a look that was daily growing more hunted. Nearly six weeks had passed since Kars' bullet had crashed through his arm, and left a shattered limb behind it. His final journey had had to be delayed while Bill had exercised his skill in healing that the prisoner might face his ultimate ordeal whole. Now the healing was nearing completion, but the irony of it all lay in the fact that the prisoner's well-being was of necessity the first thought of those ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... questions he asked himself without being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. He did not go to sleep soon after retiring, and the night brought many thoughts. The next day would be Saturday. The ordeal had already begun,—now there were twenty-four hours between him and the supreme trial. What would be its outcome? There were moments when he felt, as every man, howsoever brave, must feel at times, that he would like to shift all his responsibilities ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... early days of the Exile; that they must have been written about the middle of the second century; that they were therefore an account of what was going on, by an onlooker, couched in these phrases of vision and prophecy. The people of Israel were passing through a terrible ordeal; they needed to be heartened and nerved for resistance and endurance. Their heroic leader, Judas Maccabeus, was urging them on to prodigies of valor in their conflict with the vile Antiochus; such a ringing ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... insensible. Hence it is that, against the shadowy curtain or background formed by the crowded and suffering masses of humanity, are relieved and detached such tragic silhouettes as those of Ringan and of La Maheude. In the nature of the long-drawn unrelenting ordeal to which each of these is subjected they are identical; for both of them are rich only in human affection, and of this both live to see themselves entirely denuded. Gilhaize, who is raised above the struggle for mere ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... first start in the speaking line (Feb. 1830) in a strong oration much admired by his friends, in favour,—of all the questionable things in the world,—of the Treason and Sedition Acts of 1795. He writes home that he did not find the ordeal so formidable as it used to be before the smaller audiences at Eton, for at Oxford they sometimes mustered as many as a hundred or a hundred and fifty. He spoke for a strongly-worded motion on a happier theme, in favour of the policy ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Childs, of Philadelphia, was also a member of the party. She was on her way West, and reached Altoona on Friday, after untold difficulties. She is almost prostrated by the severe ordeal through which she and many others have passed, and therefore had but little to say, only averring that Mrs. Wilcox and her friends, who were on the lost train, had passed through perils beside which her own ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... dozen men together, when a process of 'searching' takes place that is debasing to any human being, but perfectly revolting to men whose sensibilities have never been blunted by familiarity with crime—an ordeal of examination, and the coarse audacity with which it is perpetrated, as would make manhood blush, and which it would assuredly resent, as an outrage upon common decency, in any other place than a prison. And again, when the ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... from the ordeal and passed the Gulab Begum to where the Bagrees stood in line, Nana Sahib said, "Do you know, General, what that baboon-faced jamadar ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... by a clan council, consisting of chiefs (tecuhtli) elected by the clan, and inducted into office after a cruel religious ordeal, in which the candidate was bruised, tortured, and half starved. An executive department was more clearly differentiated from the council than among the Indians of the lower status. The clan (calpulli) ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... not acting under a blind impulse. We have carefully counted the cost of this warfare, and are prepared to meet its consequences. It will subject us to reproach, persecution, infamy—it will prove a fiery ordeal to all who shall pass through it—it may cost us our lives. We shall be ridiculed as fools, scorned as visionaries, branded as disorganizers, reviled as madmen, threatened and perhaps punished as traitors. But we shall bide our time. Whether safety or peril, whether victory ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to take more interest in the proceedings, and she was full of eagerness to be set free. She did not shrink from the unpleasant ordeal of a trial. She could talk of Haddo with composure. Her friends were able to persuade themselves that in a little while she would be her old self again, for she was growing stronger and more cheerful; her charming laughter rang through the little house as it had been used to do in the Paris ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... died for conscience' sake. While there was no wavering of purpose, there was an agony of fear and sorrow, as, after the momentary confusion of mind caused by the suddenness of the occurrence, the terrible nature of the ordeal before ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... many generations. Those who learned that most tigers are not conquered by walking up to them and hitting them on the noggin undoubtedly died before they could pass this bit of information on. Then, one day, a Nipe survived the ordeal. His mind now contained conflicting information, which must be resolved. He knows that tigers are killed in this way. He also knows that this one did not die. Plainly, then, this one is not a tiger. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... parting was formal, in the family circle. Mr. Athel displayed even more than his usual urbanity; Mrs. Rossall was genuinely gracious; the twins made many promises to write from Switzerland. Emily was self-possessed, but Wilfrid read in her face that she was going through an ordeal. He felt the folly of his first proposal, that she should play a part before Mrs. Rossall through the winter months. He decided, moreover, that no time should be lost in making the necessary disclosure to his father. Naturally it would be an anxious time with Emily till she ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... with bitter clearness. Jim had been inveigled to the Mingo camp taking risks as he always did, and there been ordered to reveal the whereabouts of the hunting party. He had refused, and endured the ordeal... Memories of their long comradeship rushed through Boone's mind and set him weeping in a fury of affection. There was never such a man as old Jim, so trusty and wise and kind, and now that great soul was being tortured out of that stalwart body and he could only look on ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... ordeal so preyed upon my mind that I spent a most restless night, during which, so Suzanne afterwards told me, I announced at frequent intervals the popping of the weasel. The day dawned with a steady drizzle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... glad of his coming, and that she made some little show of welcoming him. A book was always put away, very softly and by the slightest motion; but Herbert well knew what that book was, and whence his mother sought that strength which enabled her to live through such an ordeal as this. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... trembling strangely, reseated himself at the desk, and covered his face with his hands. Twice he drew them with feebly stroking movement over his eyes, as though to rally the stunned faculties and face the trying ordeal. Then a shiver passed through his frame, and with sudden lift of the head he fixed his gaze on Chester's face ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... vaccinated and the two young people received many precautions, and injunctions, with medicine and a strict regime; and even then the old doctor shook his head dubiously. If those two beautiful faces should have to pass through the ordeal of that dread disease his old heart would be quite broken. All that skill and science could do to prevent it should ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... few imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of this volume, where in Yuen-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral degradation as they lived ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... miles of the city, with a numerous army in the highest spirits, and of thorough efficiency. Now, he lay on the banks of James River, thirty miles away from the capital, and his army was worn out by the tremendous ordeal it had passed through, and completely discouraged. We have not dwelt upon the horrors of the retreat, and the state of the army, which Northern writers painted at the time in the gloomiest colors. For the moment, it was no longer the splendid ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Victor Crummles stepped out into the street. But he did not notice the fact. True, he put his umbrella up, but that was mere force of habit. He was not aware that he had put it up. His mind was far too engaged with the ordeal before him to permit any consciousness of external things to creep into it. He was "up against it and no mistake," he observed to himself. There was the paper in his pocket telling him the time and place at which he was to present ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... but too fast when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is likely to break prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I confide; whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience! ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... was followed by the gloom of madness. Owing to his ungovernable fear of a public examination, which was necessary to secure the position offered by an uncle, Cowper underwent days and nights of agony, during which he tried in many ways to end his miserable life. The frightful ordeal unsettled his reason, and he spent eighteen months in an ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... thickness of their skulls. The aggressions of other tribes were punished by reprisals, but they rarely pursued a foe. Offences among themselves were treated according to their supposed enormity: the culprit had to stand while a certain number of spears were thrown at him. By this ordeal he was cleared, and the keenness of his eye and the agility of his motions, usually enabled him to escape a fatal wound. Faults, of slighter consequence, were punished without damage: the transgressor was set on the branch of a tree, and had to endure the mockery of the by-standers. It may ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... one's face between these two points. The possessor of a rotund countenance experiences considerable difficulty in performing this feat, and is apt to spill the contents over himself, yet every one of the emperor's guests has to submit to the ordeal, for an inscription on the goblet says that all persons attending shooting-parties at Rominten for the first time must empty the vessel of its contents,—a pint bottle of champagne,—at one draught, to the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... placed the manuscript of my sermon on the pulpit sofa beside where I sat. Looking around to put my hand on the manuscript, lo! it was gone. But where had it gone? My excitement knew no bound. Within three minutes of the greatest ordeal of my life, and the sermon on which so much depended mysteriously vanished! How much disquietude and catastrophe were crowded into those three minutes it would be impossible to depict. Then I noticed ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... were taking an awful risk, though, doing a thing like that. If they got caught, they might receive a public scolding—which was, of course, no more than they deserved—but he could not bear to think of Corisande exposed to such an ordeal. ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith
... head, or consulting watch or clock—or, even without looking up at the scorching sun overhead, had my eyes been sufficiently glare-proof to have stood the ordeal—I knew who the intruder was, and could have also told you that it was ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... more discomposed than usual, and, being put on to construe soon after entering the school, acquitted himself very well and with the most perfect sang froid. Fortunately Saurin was not subjected to the same ordeal or he would have been considerably flustered, if not totally unable to fix his mind on the subject; and he might have excited suspicion as to something unusual going on, which again might have caused inquiry, and ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... home to make the needful preparations, and Juanita Sterling went to encourage Miss Crilly for the coming ordeal. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... In truth the ordeal of carelessly carrying off an alias is said by those who have undergone it (and the report is confirmed by an experienced class of public officials) to require a species of hardihood which, fortunately for society, is somewhat rare. The most daring Smith will sometimes stammer when it comes ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... weeks, a diet varied only by a pitifully negligible allowance of corn meal. In the words of one of the foragers, "this kind of feeding caused all our skin to peel off from head to foot as if we had been dead." The arrival of supplies ended the ordeal. But soon hunger descended again and the oyster beds would have been the natural recourse if it had not been winter and the water too cold to wade in. So the oysters were ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... point, I was assured that the book trade in Mulhouse had greatly declined since the annexation. The student class has diminished, many reading people have gone, and those who remain feel too uncertain about the future to accumulate libraries. Moreover, the ordeal that all have gone through has depressed intellectual as well as social life. Mulhouse has been too much saddened to recover herself as yet, although eminently a literary place, and a sociable one ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... cool draughts of clear water from the spring and the restful bathe had taken away the weary sensation of nauseating distaste for food consequent upon the ordeal through which the doctor and his ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... purposely exposed to temptations of various kinds, and when they have passed through this ordeal triumphantly, they obtain a conditional release. This cannot take place, however, until the prisoner is provided with regular employment of some kind, procured by his own exertions, through friends, or by the ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... and gave me a little push as my cue came and the music began. I could scarcely hear it; it was like music a great distance off, coming very faintly to my ears. And I said a prayer, inside. I asked God to be good to me once more, and to give me strength, and to bear me through this ordeal that I was facing, as he had borne me through before. And then I had to step into the full ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... With a few months before me—with my salary as housekeeper, and the sale of my little valuables, and the proceeds of my work for the picture-dealers—I can, and will, replace the money. You are rich. What is a loan of five thousand florins to you? Help me to pass through the terrible ordeal of your day of reckoning on the sixth of the month! Help me to see Minna married and happy! And if you still doubt my word, take the pearl necklace as security that ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Father inherited to the full the sturdy traits of his ancestors. I well remember that for three years, during our life in Indiana, he worked eighteen hours a day as a miller. For this hard service he received only twenty dollars a month and bran for the cow. Yet out of the ordeal he came seemingly as strong and healthy as when he ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... changed in an instant to a haughty self-possession, her eyes flashed defiance, and, becoming immovable as a statue, she stood there perfectly calm and beautiful. She was satisfied that she now had an ordeal to pass and a victory to gain worthy of her powers. In a moment her eye scanned the immense audience, the music began and then followed—how can I describe it?—such heavenly strains as I verily believe mortal never breathed except Jenny Lind, and mortal never heard except from ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... possess considerably higher attainments than those who have come in upon simple nomination; and, we may add, that we cannot doubt that if it be adopted as a usual course to nominate several candidates to compete for each vacancy, the expectation of this ordeal will act most beneficially on the education and industry of those young persons who are looking forward ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the cradle her own two children, presumably conveyed there by the Fairies. In the first tale, we are informed that she saw the goblins save their offspring from a watery grave. Subjecting peevish children to such a terrible ordeal as this must have ended often with a tragedy, but even in such cases superstitious mothers could easily persuade themselves that the destroyed infants were undoubtedly the offspring of elfins, and therefore unworthy of their fostering care. The only safeguard ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... glands refuse to act; the innocent munch away at their rice contentedly, but the guilty wretch feels as if he had ashes in his mouth. At a given signal all spit out their rice, and he whose rice comes out, chewed indeed, but dry as summer dust, is adjudged the thief. This ordeal is called chowl chipao, and is rarely unsuccessful. I have known several cases in my own experience in which a thief ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... sir,' said Chalks, 'must approve his mettle by undergoing something in the nature of an initiatory ordeal. We may now drop foolery, and converse like intelligent human beings. You were asking ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... fiery ordeal well,' said Louis; 'and I verily believe that you will soon find that it ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... no retreat now. The ordeal had to be passed through. At last the time of trial came, and she descended with her friend, and stood up with her before the minister of God, who was to say the fitting words and receive the solemn vows required ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... devouring your writings and trying as hard as she could to assimilate every good and noble idea that she came across—I say that she's a saint and a heroine," said Maurice, with sudden passion and enthusiasm, "and we've forgotten that not a girl in a thousand could have come through a trying ordeal so well!" ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... meditations, and her visitor, who was prepared to give time to the affair, asked himself whether, in spite of her little conscientious air, she was not playing into her brother's hands. At the same time he was half ashamed of the ordeal to which he had subjected her, and was touched by the gentleness with which she bore it. "If she were a humbug," he said, "she would get angry; unless she be very deep indeed. It is not probable that she is as ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... natural that a young girl who had gone through so fearful an ordeal should for some time feel its effects. Her situation excited the warmest sympathy of all on board the ship; and her appearance was such as might inspire a chivalrous respect in the hearts of those rough but kindly and sensitive sailors who had taken part ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... commerce, so far as I could judge, were in a state of decay, owing partly to these exactions, and partly to the recovery of debts being now very much neglected in the courts of justice, which seems to be one of the causes of the increase of trials by ordeal. A poor creditor, in general, has no resource against a powerful debtor, except sitting Dherna on him; and unless the creditor be a Brahman, he may sit long enough ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... thick mountain fog which makes even the neighboring treetops invisible, while the mothers have their infants laid away under the bushes with only a shawl between them and the cold ground. In their ball plays also each young man, before going into the game, is subjected to an ordeal of dancing, bleeding, and cold plunge baths, without food or sleep, which must ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... their daughters' feet: his reply was, "Very bad custom." On my inquiring further, whether he had any daughters, and whether their feet were treated in the same way, he answered in the affirmative, but asserted, that they had been subjected to the cruel ordeal by their mother, against his will. He added, that, in a China-man's house, where there were young girls, no peace could be had, night or day, for their cries, which lasted till they were six years old. He gave us a reason for the mother's insisting on her daughter's submitting ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... against the sand, dreaming in the sun, and not an eyelid quivered when she approached, yet she understood perfectly that the animal knew every move she made. She would have attempted to dress the wound again, but the memory of the ordeal of yesterday was too terrible. She might break down in the midst of her effort, and the first sign of weakness, she knew, was the only spur which Black Bart needed. So she went, instead, to the chair where Dan often sat for hours near the dog, and there she took her ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... improvement in methods of administering justice. Accused persons no longer had to submit to the ordeal of the red-hot iron or to trial by combat, relying on heaven to decide their innocence. Ecclesiastical courts lost their jurisdiction over civil cases. In the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), great grandson of William ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... mine. The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject of discussion, and his fitness or unfitness for office may be fairly canvassed by any person. Those whose too sensitive feelings shrink from such an ordeal, have no right to accept the emoluments of office, for they know that it is the condition to which all must submit who are paid from the ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... went home, and he took care to ride as fast as before, in order to avoid questions, so that he got back to his old ancestral home without going through the disagreeable ordeal of having to explain to any one what had ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... this heroic element in man and woman that makes self-sacrifice an ennobling and purifying ordeal in any religious profession. The man really is taken into a higher region of his own nature, and finds a pleasure in the exercise of higher faculties which he did not suppose himself to possess. Whatever sacrifice is supposed to be duty, whether the supposition be really correct or not, has in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... much for her iron self-control that she remained quiet at this point. A lesser person, after a far less tiring ordeal than she had passed through, would have found relief in some cry or exclamation— possibly even in ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... of this part of his life may be referred to his own harrowing—sometimes even repulsive—narrative, or to the biography written by his accomplished friend, Mr. Cecil. None of the Evangelical leaders passed through such an ordeal as he did; but the experience which he underwent as a slave-trader, and as the menial servant of a slave-trader, stood him in good stead after he had become an exemplary and respected clergyman. It enabled him to ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... depends upon ourselves. You feel that the air is close and heated within our retreat. In half an hour's time the present temperature would seem like winter if offered in contrast to what we shall endure. We shall suffer for water, and perhaps none of us will survive the ordeal; but let me tell you that our hope of safety is in keeping still, and enduring all without a murmur. If a disturbance does come in our midst, and one of you loses his reason, remember I shall not hesitate to sacrifice him to preserve the rest. I have my pistols ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... suppose that the elector having successfully passed the ordeal of the registration officer would be allowed smooth sailing during the remainder of the voyage to the polls. But no; having passed Scylla, he must encounter Charybdis at the very brink of the ballot box; for section 3644 of the above ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... friends of orthodoxy is a condition of permanent success. The theological crisis of to-day may be followed by others more severe. But the Faith of the Church teaches the invaluable lesson that God designs, by the ordeal of the earthly crucible, to prepare her for higher honor and perfect service. She does not desire a premature termination ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wraps with a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dusty wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out to the playground—out to Sylvia's ordeal. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... forget, we do not. He is as well as a nervous boy can be after such an ordeal. He is looking forward to seeing you this afternoon to try to say to you what we all feel. Monsieur La Mothe, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... views and actions, as, indeed, he did those of most women. Her present mission was undertaken for the love she bore Mabel and her sister. It was not kind to send the girl to tell her own story. It was neither kind nor fair to subject their guest to the ordeal of an unheralded disclosure of his sentiments and aspirations, with the puissant lord of Ridgeley as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... she would have tried to escape, she would hesitate in her story, she would contradict herself, break down, attempt to shed false tears, act as only a woman who has committed a first great crime could act. And this child stands here, submitted to this fearful ordeal, defended by none, but defending herself with the whole innocence of her nature, the glory of truth in her eyes, the self-conscious courage of a stainless life in her heart. Is this assumed? Is this put on? You have seen murderers—it ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... been thrilled and delighted to know that Olga so much wanted to come in after dinner and see the tableaux, so he found it quite easy to induce Lucia to nerve herself up to an ordeal so passionately desired. Indeed he himself was hardly less excited at the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... days of waiting and uncertainty were a severer ordeal to Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred than ever. Mr. Jocelyn, bent on gaining time, kept putting them off. His new duties upon which he had entered, he wrote, left him only the evening hours for his quest of rooms, and he had not succeeded in finding any that were suitable. Thus they expected something ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... now, dearest, and perhaps it won't be later. You could visit some friend for a few weeks and come back the better able to carry on the siege. Otherwise you'll be crushed by the weight of the ordeal." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... practised on taking an oath, and at their funeral obsequies. A person accused of a crime and who asserts his innocence is in some cases acquitted upon solemnly swearing to it, but in others is obliged to undergo a kind of ordeal. A cock's throat is usually cut on the occasion by the guru. The accused then puts a little rice into his mouth (probably dry), and wishes it may become a stone if he be guilty of the crime with which he stands charged, or, holding up a musket bullet, prays it may ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... to visit Vauxhall before its gates were closed for the last time,—the Amelia beloved of all readers of "Vanity Fair." Naturally, she does not go alone. Thackeray had too much affection for that gentle creature to make her face such an ordeal. No, there was the careless, high-spirited George Osborne, and the ever-faithful Dobbin, and the slow-witted Jos Sedley, and the scheming Rebecca Sharp. That Vauxhall episode was to play a pregnant part in the destiny of Becky. Such an auspicious ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... "it was the old question of the survival of the fittest. Christianity fell upon the Jews, originally a race of agriculturists and shepherds, and forced them, for many centuries, through the most terrible ordeal of persecution the history of mankind bears any record of. Only the strong of body, the cunning of brain, the long-headed, the persistent, the men with capacity to live where a dog would starve, survived the awful trial. Like breeds like; and now the Christian world ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the time of my marriage drew near, thoughts of the physical relationship of husband and wife became, of course, more insistent. The idea of establishing sexual relations was not at all a pleasant one. I dreaded it as an ordeal. I wondered if it would be possible for us to retain the same love and affection for one another after such intimate relations were established. This was a recurrence of the fallacious notion that there was something inherently indecent in sexual things. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal, requiring active duties, very few in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the learned. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... been drunk, Audubon's was proposed by Skene, a Scottish historian. "Whilst he was engaged in a handsome panegyric, the perspiration poured from me. I thought I should faint." But he survived the ordeal and responded in a few appropriate words. He was much dined and wined, and obliged to keep late hours—often getting no more than four hours sleep, and working hard painting and writing all the next day. He often wrote in his journals for his wife to read later, ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... Tooke was a Company's servant. He had distinguished himself in the defence of Calcutta in 1756, when he was wounded, and, being taken on board the ships, escaped the dreadful ordeal of the ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... Since, however, we know that slavery existed among them, we must consider a moment what kind of slavery it was, and how soon it disappeared without passing, as in the rest of Europe, through the ordeal of serfdom. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature—a contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... Mr. Graham's name stirred up uncomfortable recollections. In any case, much as she had admired and liked him, she would have dreaded meeting him again; and to entertain him alone for an indefinite period, with his undivided attention focussed upon her, seemed an ordeal not only to be dreaded ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... disgust, Sunny was forced to an unwilling ablution, which, by strategy, he had hoped to escape. However, the ordeal was manfully borne, and his reward was quite worth his trouble. Vada promptly exclaimed when she saw his face emerge from the dirty towel, shining with grease off ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its way either into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology. The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the fanciful name given by a botanical missionary. It is used as an ordeal poison by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and is kept as a secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained under very extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country." He opened ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ordeal to which this alarming letter forced me to submit was the breaking of the news it contained to my two brothers. The disclosure affected them very differently. Poor dear Owen merely turned pale, lifted his weak, thin hands in a panic-stricken manner, and then sat ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Mayflower came up dismantled and helpless from her terrific ordeal, the throng on the Breakwater gave one great groan of agony. "They're lost! They're lost!" The cry was audible even to the men ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... still with the Beckets, as I knew; but she was only going to stay a few months more. One of the children had died, and the other two were to be sent to a boarding-school in England. Again I went through the proposing ordeal, and again it was useless. 'Confound it!' I shouted, 'do deal honestly with me! What's the matter? Are you engaged already?' She kept silent for a long time, then said 'Yes!' 'Then why in the name of the Jotuns didn't you tell me so before?' I was brutal (as I often ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of re-organising their constitution, without passing like France through the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be excused for asking at this moment—Does the lecturer of the Ligurian Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... contemptuous brusqueness which brought it there, though that was not without its effect. It was evident that the most he could hope for was Larry's clemency, and that would be difficult to tolerate. But there was another ordeal before him. Hetty was also coming back, and would see him a prisoner in the hands of the men he had looked down upon with ironical contempt. Had the contempt been assumed, his position would have been less intolerable; but it was not, and the little delicately venomous jibes he ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... in store for Louise, though she came from the ordeal with flying colours, and once more the grand self-sacrificing nature of the young woman shone out conspicuous amidst its surroundings of sordid self-interest. It was in this way. The nephew of Van Zwanenburg, with the approval of his uncle, wooed and eventually ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... his part, was almost silent. This was due to some extent, no doubt, to the reaction from his severe ordeal of the day before, but it may have been caused somewhat by the feeling that he had gone too far in taking them fully into his confidence. His secret was no longer his, and while he was strongly drawn toward these ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... bark of the gedu tree, which when ground and mixed with water, makes a poisonous draught, believed to be infallible in the detection of crime. It is, in fact, "a trial by ordeal;" if the drinker survives he is innocent, if ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... "You've made me weep." The author was so disconcerted that he said not a word, and retreated in confusion. After the publication of "Bracebridge Hall" he met her in company again, and was persuaded to go through the ordeal of another presentation. The stately woman fixed her eyes on him as before, and slowly said, "You've made me weep again." This time the bashful author acquitted himself with ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... the opening night she had a sharp attack of pleurisy. A doctor was called, who, being intoxicated, treated the case wrongly. Another physician had to be summoned to undo the work of the first, and as a result Daly's new actress was in a condition little calculated to give her confidence for such an ordeal as the coming one. She says, "I could not swallow food—I could not! As the hour drew near my mother stood over me while with tear-filled eyes I disposed of a raw beaten egg; then she forced me to drink a cup of broth, fearing a breakdown if I tried to go through five such ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... doctor is still upstairs with mother and sister. When the Coroner comes, I would like to have you be here as a witness. It's an ordeal—I'll tell ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... her nephew—was bent upon doing her own duty. She asked all the proper questions about the girl's journey, about the cousins at Florence, about her last letters from home. Miss Foster answered quickly, a little breathlessly, as though each question were an ordeal that had to be got through. And once or twice, in the course of the conversation, she looked again at Mrs. Burgoyne, more lingeringly each time. That lady wore a thin dress gleaming with jet. The long white arms showed under the transparent ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unintentional cause of a whole household of men being burnt to death; and lastly, by his own quarrelsome temper, and some "metaphysical aid," he misses the chance of clearing himself by "bearing iron" (ordeal) before King Olaf at Drontheim. Olaf, his own kinsman, tells him with all frankness that he, Grettir, is much too "unlucky" for himself to countenance; and that though he shall have no harm in Norway, he must pack to Iceland as soon as the sea is open. He ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... In that wild solitude the white stars looked down upon him pitilessly and pityingly. They had shone upon a desert that might once have been alive and was now dead, and might again throb with life, only to die. It was a terrible ordeal for him to stand along and realize that he was only a man facing eternity. But that was what gave him strength to endure. Somehow he was a part of it all, some atom in that vastness, somehow necessary to an inscrutable purpose, something indestructible in that desolate ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... young priest-like doctor the ordeal of his trial was a severe one. It lasted eight days. It was only at midday on the sixth day that the evidence was concluded. Not only was Castaing compelled to submit to a long interrogatory by the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the little boy fall with a profusion of blood upon the ground at the foot of the rope. By means of an incantation these resume their natural positions, and the little boy gets up and walks off, apparently none the worse for his most trying ordeal. ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... level. No; the rest of you folks keep back, or we'll all be over, first thing we know. There! Over she comes!" With a final effort they had landed Tommy on the shelf. She was sobbing pitifully. Her ordeal had been sufficient to upset ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... a distinguished father, was pronounced, and remained unshaken at the advanced age of nearly four-score years and ten, through the terrible ordeal of parting with two sons killed, one at Antietam and the other at Gettysburg, while contending for the existence of a government their grandfather had exerted himself so grandly in ...
— Fifty years with the Revere Copper Co. - A Paper Read at the Stockholders' Meeting held on Monday 24 March 1890 • S. T. Snow
... liking so well as those in Ninety-sixth Street, but Mr. King wrote to me again the other day that the same fellow was around again to serve me with that subpoena. Hoboken may not be so desirable as home, but I think you would both be sorry to return and undergo the ordeal we have been delivered from by coming here. I am trying a little plan now which, if it works, may bring us home soon. I think it is the safe way out. Mr. Smith and I are now at work on it. If all goes ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... therefore, if to any commander-in-chief, Turgesius must have succeeded. The shores of all the inland lakes were favourite sites for Raths and Churches, and the beautiful country around Lough Erne shared the fiery ordeal which blazed on Lough Ree and Lough Neagh. In 839 the men of Connaught also suffered a defeat equal to that experienced by those of Meath in the previous campaign; but more unfortunate than the Methians, they lost their leader and other chiefs ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... a power as profound, as fruitful as life and less precarious. It is terrible that this experience should have been made, for it is the most pitiless and the first in such enormous masses that mankind has ever undergone; but, now that the ordeal is almost over, we shall soon derive from it the most unexpected fruits. It will not be long before we see the differences increase and the destinies diverge between the nations which have acquired all these dead and all this glory ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... issued from the Boston barracks at sunrise for the suppression of pretentious rebellion. Knapsacks were thrown aside. British veterans stripped for fight. Not a single regiment of those engaged had passed such a fearful ordeal in its whole history as a single hour had witnessed. The power of discipline, the energy of experienced commanders, and the pressure of honored antecedents, combined to make the movement as trying ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... manner. The scheme, the root motive of the book, may be said to be a vindication of the present generation—the generation that was condemned as neurotic and decadent by common consent a little more than three years ago, but is now enduring the ordeal of the war with great singleness of heart. This theme, in Miss Sinclair's hands, assumes big proportions and gives her at the same time ample opportunity for character analysis, in which art she is equalled by ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... take her arm as her feet touched the unprotected path, but the girl, though unnerved by the ordeal, shook off his big claw, and with her hands clasping mine I led her across the short but dangerous ledge of rock that led to the opening in the wall. I felt strong enough to fight a dozen devils like Leith at that moment. The trusting ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... herself up for this ordeal: the crushed worm was turning on the cruel foot that had trodden it for so long. She did not mean to give way, even though she had fully weighed in the balance all that she would have to pay in the future for this ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the parting, as it might be too touching to the feelings of our fair readers. Lucy, having had to undergo the same ordeal just before, was able to console her sister-in-law. Jack's manly heart felt very full, but he tore himself away, and, hastening on board, ordered the ship, which was at Spithead, to be got under weigh. Round went ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... as though asking him to brace himself for the ordeal, and then opened the door. He showed small mercy in announcing Ware's coming. "Anne, here is Mr. Ware come to see you. Tell him ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... root, then boiling down to three pints, and straining through calico. Also Marsh Mallow ointment is a popular remedy, especially for mollifying heat, and hence it was thought invaluable by those who had to undergo the ordeal of holding red hot iron in their hands, to rapidly test their moral integrity. The sap of the Marsh Mallow was combined together with seeds of Fleabane, and the white of an hen's egg, to make a paste which was so adhesive that the hands when coated with it were safe ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Dave replied. "Just now, of course, with all the men thinking of war, and so many women wearing black for dear ones they've lost at the front, the city can't show much of its former gayety. Paris is going through her ordeal of fire. These are dark ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... We may assume, however, without much risk of error, that Saqnunri came forth safe and sound from the ordeal; that Apopi was taken in his own trap, and saw himself driven to the dire extremity of giving up Sutkhu for Amonra or of declaring war. He was likely to adopt the latter alternative, and the end of the manuscript would probably have related ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... were just about to begin; and, I could readily imagine what was in store for both me and my companion in distress, the ex- bricklayer, who, like myself, having never been to sea before would have to go through the painful ordeal as well as being made fools of and laughed at by all our grinning shipmates around; so, seeing Tom Jerrold and Sam Weeks conspicuous right in front of me, and Mr Saunders looking on too with much gusto, I made another desperate attempt to free myself from those holding me, urging on Joe ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... expected from him. We believe that the Gold Medal and Fellowship of the Royal Society were waiting for him; but, as one of his friends said to his widow, "neither worth nor talent avails when the great ordeal is presented to us." In a letter from Professor Pritchard, he said: "Your husband has left his mark upon his age. No optician of modern times has gained a higher reputation; and I for one do not hesitate to call his loss national; for he cannot be replaced at present by any one else ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... the like, as the extent of our power should have authorized. We might even have consigned the Southern States to a species of provisional and quasi nationality, with the claim and expectation of their ultimate return within the pale of the Union, when, through the severe ordeal of military despotism or anarchy at home, or from other causes, they should have purged themselves of that institution, adverse to all our policy, which has been the sole cause of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... teacher, and then estimate the many things that the pupils could accomplish in that time. If the thirty-minute teacher could be transformed into a ten-minute teacher, the children could have three more hours each day for play, and that would be far better for them than the ordeal of sitting there in the class, the unwilling witnesses, or victims, of the time-wasting process. Or they might read a book in the two hundred minutes and that would be more enjoyable, and the number of books thus read in the course of a year ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... He looked older, and while still handsome, for nothing could rob him of his regularity of feature and extreme elegance of proportion, showed little of the spirit which, in spite of the previous day's depression, had upheld him through its most trying ordeal and kept his eye bright, if only from excitement. This was fact number one, and one which I stored away in my ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... arose before his mind, from the time of their departure from Rheims to the crushing defeat of Sedan. It seemed to him that in that night, in the inky blackness of that cellar, where the groans of two dying soldiers drove sleep from the eyelids of their comrades, the ordeal of the army of Chalons had reached its climax. At each of the stations of its passion the army of despair, the expiatory band, driven forward to the sacrifice, had spent its life-blood in atonement for the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... I seemed to see or feel some slow, mighty force gathering in Steele to meet this ordeal. Then he appeared as ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... a debutante at an afternoon tea has become, because of its simplicity, a favorite method. It affords opportunity to invite a number of young "rosebuds" to cluster about her, and it does not subject the "bud" to the ordeal of a ceremonious, or ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... possession of personalty, is it any wonder that they are not to-day in the van of industrial and commercial progress? Nay, more, was it to have been expected that the character of a people so persecuted and ostracised should have come out of the ordeal of centuries with its adaptability and elasticity unimpaired? That would have been impossible. Those who are intimate with the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, and at the same time familiar with their history, will ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... busy in preparing him for his ordeal. When they inspected him carefully it was somewhat like the examination that grooms give a horse before a race; and they were amazed, staggered by the whole affair. Their astonishment ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... this influence very soon, and her second letter to Aunt Barbara was filled with praise of Clifton, where she had made so many friends, in spite of her evident desire to avoid society and stay by herself. She had passed through the usual ordeal attending the advent of every new face, especially if that face be a little out of the common order of faces. She had been inspected in the dining room, and bathroom, and chapel, both when she went in and when she went out. She had been talked up and criticised from the way she wore her ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... till every one had landed; when he presented the object of his benevolence in a light that Maisie scarce knew whether to suppose the depth of prostration or the flush of triumph. The lady on his arm, still bent beneath her late ordeal, was muffled in such draperies as had never before offered so much support to so much woe. At the hotel, an hour later, this ambiguity dropped: assisting Mrs. Wix in private to refresh and reinvest herself, Maisie heard from her in detail how little she ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... recounting the facts in the foregoing chapters should cause one's thoughts to turn to the future. The Empire has passed through a period of great danger, during which its every interest was threatened, and it has come successfully out of the ordeal, but to those upon whom the responsibility lay of initiating and directing the nation's policy the serious nature of the perils which faced us were frequently such as to justify the grave anxiety which sprang from full knowledge of events ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... state of our Union is strong, but our economy is troubled. For too many of our fellow citizens—farmers, steel and auto workers, lumbermen, black teenagers, working mothers—this is a painful period. We must all do everything in our power to bring their ordeal to an end. It has fallen to us, in our time, to undo damage that was a long time in the making, and to begin the hard but necessary task of building a better future for ourselves and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... from the peculiar suavity of his manners. Mounting a flight of stairs, they found the Baron at one end of a handsome room, more like a drawing-room than an office, with a number of persons seated round it, all waiting to undergo the ordeal of his friendly inquiries. Nearly all civilised nations were there represented,—English, Germans, French, and Spaniards. Among them they recognised some of their fellow-passengers. The simple, round, good-natured face ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... never a strong one, had been undermined by the luxurious pleasure-seeking of her life and the deadly nerve-poison of the morphia. That night and day on the upturned boat—drenched with the waves, chilled, famished, tortured with thirst—had been an ordeal to shatter even a woman with big reserves of strength, and Olive had no ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... their own body, from whose decision every one is informed whether he shall be acquitted, respited, or pardoned, as well as respecting the supposed most skilful way of conducting his defence. One of the housebreakers, who had already passed this ordeal, and was stalking up and down the room with a forced bravery, exclaimed to his companion, that he was as rich as the Duke of Bedford himself. He had five guineas and a half, which was as much as he could possibly spend in the course of the ensuing month; and what happened after ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... sobbed. Then, with a wonderful effort, she aroused herself, dried her eyes, and composed her features for the ordeal of facing her guests again. With remarkable self-control, she assumed her social manner as a mummer dons his mask; and, after one clasp of her husband's hand and a sympathetic look, went back to her guests with that leisurely, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed, against all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... like son," and I knew that she was thoroughly determined to make both of them pay dearly for their pleasant interlude. Breakfast the next morning was a rather trying ordeal. Grandfather once more resorted to his game leg with renewed vigor, referring several times to the defense of the Alamo, so I knew he was pretty low in his mind. Father withdrew at the sight of bacon. Mother laughed scornfully as he departed. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... the punishment of which was death. He declared his innocence, and desired to test it with his accusers by walking through a field of living fire. He believed God would protect him from the flames, like the worthies of old. His enemies were unwilling to go with him into the fiery ordeal. He was condemned and executed. The martyr of Florence in after years became ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... around to prepare Aun' Sheba for the ordeal, but she and Vilet had gone out upon their mercantile pursuits, and Uncle Sheba also had disappeared. To Sissy the direful intelligence was communicated. In spite of all Mr. Birdsall's efforts to console, she was left sobbing and rocking back and forth in her ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... whip the false Moor, who was immediately led off to punishment. After that, Sarastro ordered the lovers to be veiled and led into the temple to go through certain rites. They were to endure a period of probation, and if they came through the ordeal of waiting for each other properly ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... that his comrades offered him console him any. He was assured that there would be no doubt about his learning all of his military duties at Fort Leavenworth—if he lived to get through the ordeal. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... writing my last letter to you, I have bought a house near St. James's, and set up an establishment second to none. I will confess that I find myself like to be overawed by my retinue of servants, and their grave and decorous politeness; I also admit that dinner is an ordeal of courses,— each of which, I find, requires a different method of attack; for indeed, in the Polite World, it seems that eating is cherished as one of its most important functions, hence, dining is an art whereof the proper manipulation ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... followed down the steps to the Weissesaal, where the members of the Diplomatic Corps defiled before the throne and made our courtesy—one only—before the Emperor. All the suites and court gentlemen stood massed together opposite the throne. It was quite an ordeal to walk under the fire of so many eyes, as the parquet was without any carpet and very slippery, and the ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... conducted by the illustrious Hilaro Frosticos, the Lady Fragrantia, and a prodigious crowd of nobility, and placed sitting upon the summit of the whale's bones at the palace; and having remained in this situation for three days and three nights, as a trial ordeal, and a specimen of my perseverance and resolution, the third hour after midnight they seated me in the chariot of Queen Mab. It was a prodigious dimension, large enough to contain more stowage than the tun of Heidelberg, and globular like a hazel-nut: in fact, it seemed to be really ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... up under it is more than I can now tell," said Mrs. Darlington, with an involuntary shudder. "And the toil, and suffering, and danger through which we have come! I cannot be sufficiently thankful that we are safe from the dreadful ordeal, and with so few marks of ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... came the most trying ordeal. The lad was obliged to follow quite a stretch of road where there was woods on both sides. This deepened the gloom, for the highway was so narrow that ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... meet what but for dignity would be humiliation, to do one's work in spite of misunderstanding, and accept one's position thoroughly, entrenching it with recognized duty, is no easy matter. As to how Cosmo stood this ordeal of honesty, I will only say that he never gave up trying ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... this deed in the Farey Islands, rather than here between your hands, sire. But I am ready to clear myself, and my whole ship's crew, of this act, and to make oath according to what stands in your laws. Or, if ye find it more satisfactory, I offer to clear myself by the ordeal of hot iron; and I wish, sire, that you may be present yourself at ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... nor even within a lifetime from their death, that the works of our greatest authors become valuable. 'Fame is a revenue payable only to our ghosts,' wrote Sir George Mackenzie, and for literary fame Time is indeed the ordeal by fire. We may look upon the auction-room as a Court of Claims to Literary Fame, but it is public opinion, backing the authorities who sit round the table, that determines each claimant's case. It is the book that makes the price, not the price that makes the book. Doubtless those who, relying ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... the gates of death with a wonderful smile of love; and, as she walks upon the heavenly Jordan's shining waters, hand in hand with Him, she will see her erst-wrinkled face reflected from them in angelic beauty. Ah, but to tackle a Johann Wolfgang Goethe or a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—what an ordeal for the celestial Professor of Apologetics! Perhaps that's what the Gospel means—only by becoming little children can we enter the kingdom of heaven. I told my little god-daughter yesterday that heaven is so pure and magnificent that they ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
