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Thankless   Listen
adjective
Thankless  adj.  
1.
Not acknowledging favors; not expressing thankfulness; unthankful; ungrateful. "That she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!"
2.
Not obtaining or deserving thanks; unacceptable; as, a thankless task. "To shepherd thankless, but by thieves that love the night allowed."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books



... the pupil's manhood;—his avarice, his ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil, Monsieur!—so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving! ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... is determined in each case by the fact that the experience of each has hardened him and rendered him completely hopeless and unsympathetic. "The work of the buffalo in the oil-press," says Captain Temple, "is the synonym all India over—and with good reason—for hard and thankless ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... morning there, but found nothing except the skeleton of a sheep picked clean by the ravens. It was a thankless job, and I got very cross over it. I had an ugly feeling that I was on a false scent and wasting my time. I wished to Heaven I had old Peter with me. He could follow spoor like a Bushman, and would have riddled the Portuguese ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal, That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various

... Ulysses sought with slanderous tongue To daunt me, scattering in the people's ear Dark hints, and looked for partners of his wrong: Nor rested, till with Calchas' aid, the seer— But why the thankless story should ye hear? Why stay your hand? If Grecians in your sight Are all alike, ye know enough; take here Your vengeance. Dearly will my death delight Ulysses, well the deed will Atreus' ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... madam; indeed I am not thankless of your thought of me. But I cannot go; for even if I had the spirits to sustain the role of a woman of fashion in the gay capital this winter, I feel that in doing so I should still further displease and alienate my husband. No, I must remain here in retirement, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... the helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters? ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... strain and friction in regard to the countless details of an Indian household was, in itself, an unspeakable relief. During the first few months of his marriage he had persevered steadily in the thankless task of instructing his cheerfully incompetent bride in the language and household mysteries of her adopted country. But the more patiently he helped her the more she leaned upon his help; till the futility of his task had threatened to wear his temper threadbare, and to put a severe strain on a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends; Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail, This more than pays whole years of thankless pain— Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves; consenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... luck in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath, occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other employment, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... know also that I have devoted my life to a difficult, thankless task; that I ... that we shall have to expose ourselves not only to dangers, but to ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you for ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... our Indian empire—who, triumphing over obstacles hitherto insurmountable, has caused the tide of victory to flow from East to West, and make the Sepoy invincible—may not erelong be called upon to fulfil the thankless task of suppressing insurrection, and to control the kindling fury of a mistaken, it is true, but of a kindred population? Shall the day indeed come when in our streets there shall be solitude, and in our harbours be heard no sound ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... lady!" said the artist; "I pity her from my inmost soul. Doesn't the himmortal bard observe how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child? And is it true, ma'am, that that young woman has been ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... baffled in all her schemes ... and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour ... but the justices of the peace for Middlesex ... selected her from 124 competitors to the office of turnkey for a county Bridewell, which she held till her decease, more than thirty years afterwards, remaining single all that time.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... her sharply, but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell yo' all ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... banded themselves together to resist the terrorism of the pro-King komitadjis. If he had been in Montenegro during the years after the War he would possibly agree that komitadji is the proper name for the many lawless elements who have found the traditional fighting life more congenial than the thankless task of tilling their very barren land. The moral effect of opposing to these the Montenegrin Omladina instead of Serbian troops was to destroy all pretence of the movement being a national Montenegrin insurrection against the union, and the cessation of assistance from Italy resulted in ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... "Yes, by all means," said he, "bid him bear no grudge against the Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give, but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray the cost of the quantity required. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... expected pain, Calphurnia, To labour for the thankless.—He who seeks Reward in ruling, makes ambition guilt; And ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... learned to love you, but simply as F. M. Kelly I love you better than them all. Can you quit these shadows of existence, and come and be a reality to us? Can you leave off harassing yourself to please a thankless multitude, who know nothing of you, and begin at last to live to yourself ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther

... shock me, it does make me feel that the world is indeed out of joint, to see a child die. I believe it to be a priceless boon to the child to have lived for a week, or a day: but oh, what has God given to this thankless earth, and what has the earth thrown away; and in nine cases out of ten, from its own neglect and carelessness! What that boy might have been, what he might have done as an Englishman, if he could ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... wake, For 'tis their offerings, not their alms we take. "Long may these founts of Charity remain, And never shrink, but to be fill'd again; True! to the Author they are now confined, To him who gave the treasure of his mind, His time, his health,—and thankless found mankind: But there is hope that from these founts may flow A side-way stream, and equal good bestow; Good that may reach us, whom the day's distress Keeps from the fame and perils of the Press; Whom ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... Sometimes, what has been sought with importunity, is received with coldness, or enjoyed with ingratitude. No sooner is the blessing bestowed, no sooner is the tear of agony dried up, than every pledge is forgotten, and the mind relapses into thankless indifference. The sun shines, and our impressions pass away with the storm. But Hannah adopted a measure well calculated to excite every member of the family, and his mother in particular, to a perpetual recurrence to the goodness of Providence. She was resolved ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... danced for joy, when at last he rose And silently flew away. Then little Clover bowed her head, While her soft tears fell like dew; For her gentle heart was grieved, to find That her sisters' words were true, And the insect she had watched so long When helpless, poor, and lone, Thankless for all her faithful care, On his golden wings had flown. But as she drooped, in silent grief, She heard little Daisy cry, "O sisters, look! I see him now, Afar in the sunny sky; He is floating back from Cloud-Land now, Borne by the fragrant air. Spread wide your leaves, that he may choose The ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott

... nodded here. "You have set my thankless service above your life, above your honor. I find the rhymester glorious ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... already, and so has nothing to gain in that way,—whose rights as a man and a citizen are denied,—for such a man to enlist and to fight, without bounty, pay, honor, or promotion,—without the promise of gaining anything whatever for himself,—condemned to a thankless task on the one side,—to a merciless death or even worse fate on the other,—facing all this because he has faith that the great republic will ultimately be redeemed; that some hands will gather in the harvest of this bloody sowing, though ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... awakening memory. Many wore uniforms—French, Austrian, Belgian, Mexican. Some were dancing gaily, laughing and flirting as they went by. Others looked careworn and absorbed by the preoccupations of a distracted state, and by the growing consciousness of the thankless responsibility which the incapacity of their rulers at home, and the unprincipled deceit of a few official impostors, had placed upon them. But all, whether thoughtful or careless, whether clairvoyant or blind, whether ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... thankless traitor, whether king or beggar he!" And a dagger gleamed above us with a fierce glare at the light, Then was struck upon my bosom near the place the heart might be, And my false friend, through the people, ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... as yet made no remarkable impression on the religious mind of the Siamese. Devoted, persevering, and patient laborers, the field they have so faithfully tilled has rewarded them with but scanty fruits. Nor will the fact, thankless though it be, appear surprising to those whose privilege it has been to observe the Buddhist and the Roman Catholic side by side in the East, and to note how, even on the score of doctrine, they meet without a jar at many points. The ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... she could not help it. She was overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and, rather than let any of that valuable liquid go to waste, she poured some of it, not inappropriately, on the thankless cat. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... finish, or some bargain to arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after the customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, no! you see women and children are our bane. They soften our hearts; they ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... casually from day to day, as the ripe eggs descend from the ovaries. They are prepared long beforehand, during the bad weather, at the end of March and in April, when flowers are scarce and the temperature subject to sudden changes. This thankless period, often cold, liable to hail-storms, is spent in making ready the home. Alone at the bottom of her shaft, which she rarely leaves, the mother works at her children's apartments, lavishing upon them those finishing-touches which ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... and to their fate resigned The restless, thankless, rebel kind; Left to themselves, they went to work, First signed a treaty ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... last of waiting, patiently, humbly, resigned like the beast of burden which awaits the slaughterhouse. Beasts of burden! Are we not that, all we who with brow bent under humiliation, injustice, thankless toil; with the heart embittered by tedious deception and tedious despair, miseries of heart and miseries of body, wait, wait ever, wait vainly for a more brilliant sun to shine at last, until at the end of the day there rises before ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... altered that she did not know herself cannot be told. Whereupon the old man said to her, "You ought to recollect, Renzolla, that you are a daughter of a peasant and that it was the fairy that raised you to be a queen. But you, rude, unmannerly, and thankless as you are, having little gratitude for such high favours, have kept her waiting outside your heart, without showing the slightest mark of affection. You have brought the quarrel on yourself; see what a face you have got by it! See to what you are brought ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... with a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. For Deborah was crying thankless tears, according ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis

... very unrestrained manner, and, on leaving, bade Clare never to come to London without seeing him. Quitting the house in Albemarle Street, Clare ran right against Mr. Gifford, who was coming up the steps. Both apologised, and both felt somewhat confused concerning the thankless old business of giving and ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... love triumpheth o'er his buskined poet. What lawful is, or we profess love's art: (Alas, my precepts turn myself to smart!) 20 We write, or what Penelope sends Ulysses, Or Phillis' tears that her Demophoon misses. What thankless Jason, Macareus, and Paris, Phedra, and Hippolyte may read, my care is. And what poor Dido, with her drawn sword sharp, Doth say, with her that loved the Aonian harp. As[328] soon as from strange lands Sabinus came, And writings did from divers ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... control of all the machines from one central station, built at the edge of the Northern Glacier. Here were brought the scant few of the prolats that had been spared, a pitiful four hundred men and women, and they were set to endless, thankless tasks. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... Hegels, just as there were two Voltaires; and the later, or more conservative Hegel, had developed his All-godhead till it had become a compromise with the Christian view. And so Father Uriel, who never wanted to be behind the times, became a rationalistic Christian, who was given the thankless task of combating Rationalism and himself. (Pause.) I'll shorten the whole sad history for Father Uriel's sake. In 1850 he again became a materialist and an enemy of Christianity. In 1870 he became a hypnotist, in 1880 a theosophist, and 1890 he wanted to shoot himself! I met him ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... David; 'but he has prodigals that trouble him sair, and we maun see til't 'at we binna thankless ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... thankless children, gracious Lord. The good thou dost afford Lightly do we employ, All careless of the ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski

... army's name! Say, had her blood stained temple[1] missed the kindness Of some vow promised fruit of victory, Foiled of some glorious armour through thy blindness, Or fell some stag ungraced by gift from thee? Or did stern Ares venge his thankless spear Through this night foray that ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... were closed. Even the forlorn Mrs. Starkey seemed to go back almost as happy as when she had issued forth in the evening with her newly found nephew. The sudden gleam of hope which his unlooked-for coming had let in upon a toilsome and thankless life—for we know more about her position in Mr. Manlius's household than we have been at liberty to disclose—had, indeed, gone out in darkness; but the Christmas merriment, and the kindness which for one evening had flowed around her, had so fertilized one little spot in her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... of the New York delegation remained unbroken. The minority tried new arguments, planned new combinations, and racked their brains for new devices, but when Richmond finally gave up the hopeless and thankless task of harmonising the Douglasites and seceders, a vote of 27 to 43 forced the minority of the delegation into submission by the screw of the Syracuse unit rule, and New York finally sustained ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Billy, who in the space of half a minute had ranged himself alongside his master. "You to question the word o' Miller Lyddon, you crooked-hearted raven! Who was it spoke for 'e fifteen year ago an' got 'em to make 'e p'liceman 'cause you was tu big a fule to larn any other trade? Gert, thankless twoad! An' who was it let 'em keep the 'Green Man' awpen two nights in wan week arter closin' time, 'cause he wanted ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... reward, to bear up manfully against injustice, and not to despond because his rewards are slow. It would be very easy for an author to make everybody good, or, if any were bad, to dismiss them, out of hand, to purgatory and places even worse. But it would be a thankless toil to read the writings of such an author. His characters would fail in vraisemblance, and his incidents would lack in interest. The world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which most have sores, either of greater or less degree of virulence. Some are ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... why anybody should bother his brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... privilege of occupying the floor of a small out-building in company with several rough-looking pack-train teamsters similarly incased; I pass a not altogether comfortless night, the pattering of rain against the one small window effectually suppressing such thankless thoughts as have a tendency to come unbidden whenever the snoring of any of my fellow-lodgers gets aggravatingly harsh. In all this company I think I am the only person who doesn't snore, and when I awake from my rather fitful slumbers at four o'clock ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... prayer! How fair, how lovely even in death! The pitying destroyer has touched gently on those heavenly features. That sweetness was no mask—the hand of death even has not removed it! (After a pause.) But how is this? why do I feel nothing. Will the vigor of my youth save me? Thankless care! That shall it not. (He ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Sakr-el-Bahr, of what thou art, of what I have made thee. Bethink thee of all the bounty these hands have lavished on thee. Thou art my own lieutenant, and mayest one day be more. In Algiers there is none above thee save myself. Art, then, so thankless as to deny me the first thing I ask of thee? Truly is ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... gave him, to his great joy and astonishment, the living of Drumston, worth 350L. a-year. And now, at last, he might marry if he would. True, the morning of his life was gone long since, and its hot noon spent in thankless labour; but the evening, the sober, quiet evening, yet remained, and he and Jane might still render pleasant for one another the downward road toward the churchyard, and hand-in-hand walk more tranquilly forward to meet that dark tyrant Death, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... go, and I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and seal lay it down! To-morrow ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... dog was so greedy and thankless, he never wagged his tail, but would snap at the victuals his mistress herself was eating; and when she did give him the choicest dainties that came off her gridiron, and the very top of the cream, he would only ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... mouth the words nigh flew - The past, the future, I forgat 'em: "Oh! if you'd kiss me as you do That thankless atom!" ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... This fine moral, that not to enjoy our being is to be ungrateful to the Author of it, is well expressed in Spenser, F. Q. b. iv. c. viii. st. 15. For he whose daies in wilful woe are worne The grace of his Creator doth despise, That will not use his gifts for thankless nigardise. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... Ye thankless ones!" the Old Year cried; "Have I not given you night and day, Over and over, score upon score, Wherein to live, and love, and pray, And suck the ripe world to its rotten core? Yet do you reek if my reign be done? E're I pass ye crown the newer one! At ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... handling money and keeping it straight as the class had thought when they had elected him to his post of business manager. Paying bills and rigorously noting down every expenditure was no easy task. It was a thankless job, anyway—the least interesting of any of the positions on the paper, and one that entailed more work than most. To kick at Mel would be rank ingratitude. It was not likely he had made a mess of things wittingly. Therefore the only alternative, since neither Mel's pride nor his own would ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

... They? Yes. We'll probably lose the Philippines now," he added gloomily; "but it's my thankless country's fault; you all had a chance to make me dictator, you know. Miss Erroll, do you want a second-hand sword? Of course there are great ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth, While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth; Say if remembrance days like these endears Beyond the rapture of succeeding years? Say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestow So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe? Can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son, Can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won, Can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys (For glittering bawbles are not left to boys), Recall one scene so much beloved to view As those where Youth her garland twined for you? Ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of age You ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... talked about nothing for a fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up some, and smiled ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... bring up daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... who thus devote themselves to the tending of sick have often curious histories if anybody would be at the trouble of collecting them. It is by no means always mere regard for the securing of the necessaries of life which has brought them to the thankless and toilsome occupation. We have all read of nunneries in which women immured themselves, anxious to sequester themselves from all association with the outer world and to devote themselves to a life of penance and devotion. After all their piety was aimless and of no utility to humanity. There ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing thankless by and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... wife! I should be a cur, and worse than a cur—a thankless wretch—to wish to restrain you in anything!" he answered, sealing his agreement ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... tooth it is to have a thankless child!'" exclaimed Mrs. Conly in anguished accents, rising as if to go, but instantly falling ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... that I have been the means of imposing upon Her Majesty's troops a laborious, ungracious, and apparently thankless duty; but my intentions and motives have been so fully, and I trust, satisfactorily discussed throughout Great Britain, that I dare hope that the officers and men will believe that I invited them to participate in a constitutional measure, which I felt ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... with the troops; partly, he desired to leave the administration free from his overpowering presence, that it might learn to go alone; partly and chiefly, he wished to spend such time as might remain to him where he could do most service to his country. But he was growing weary of the thankless burden. He was heard often to say that he had lived long enough. Men of high nature do not find the task of governing their ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I should ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... There's fennel for you, and columbines:] Fennel was considered an emblem of flattery, and columbine was anciently supposed to be a thankless flower; signifying probably that the courtiers flattered to get favours, and were thankless after receiving them. Columbine was emblematical ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... the paper an' puttin' on his specks, an' at the same time as thankless after his nose-paint as if he'd been refoosed the beverage; 'no, it don't put me in mind of nothin' nor nobody. One thing shore, an' you-all hold-ups can rope onto that for a fact, it don't remind ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... assumed the duty of replying to that very explicit statement. "There is none here," he said, "that is not grateful for the benevolence he has received at the hands of the Tokugawa. If there be such a thankless and disloyal person, and if he conceive treacherous designs, I, Masamune, will be the first to attack him and strike him down. The shogun need not move so much as one soldier." With this spirited reply all the assembled daimyo expressed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... gone? she had slipped away from the merry party, and was by Joe's couch. Joe's heart was very full, full with the newly-awakened sense that he loved and that he was loved; full of earnest resolves to become less selfish, less thankless, less irritable. He knew his lot now, knew all that lay before him, the privations, the restrictions, the weakness, and the sufferings. He knew that he could never hope again to share in the many joys of boyhood and youth; that he must lay aside his cricket ball, his hoop, his ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... almost here," said Mrs. Candy. "Well, it would have been a great deal better for you to have remained here with me; but I am clear of the responsibility, that is one thing. If there is one thing more thankless than another, it is to have anything to do with children that are not your own. You know how to darn stockings, at any rate, Matilda; I have taught ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... as was terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled and set out with his followers for ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels. Yet, with deference, I deny that my old uncle Johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. Love a hater, indeed! Who smacks his lips over gall? Now hate is a thankless thing. So, let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. Ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard. Love is a delight; but hate a torment. And ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... fruit of deliberation, if I had had the time or power to deliberate, I know not. My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity. To shut this spectacle from my view was the first impulse; but to desert this man, in a time of so much need, appeared a thankless and dastardly deportment. To remain where I was, to conform implicitly to his direction, required no effort. Some fear was connected with his presence, and with that of the dead; but, in the tremulous confusion of my present ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... duties and offices again and again forced upon John Jay—whether as a writer, jurist, envoy, or legislator—the evidence of his own letters, and especially the testimony of his fellow statesmen, adequately confute such misrepresentations as we have noted. It is a thankless, and, we believe, a superfluous task to vindicate the manliness, sincerity, and patriotism of the authors of the 'Federalist' and their fellow statesmen; indeed, their illustrious opponents in political questions again and again bore witness to the worth, wisdom, and integrity of the men, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... respected him and even loved him as a dear friend, but that I could not be faithless to the memory of my adored husband. I was very sorry; for he was very angry. He called me cold, silly and even ungrateful, so to reject his hand. I began to think that it was selfish and thankless in me to disappoint so good a friend, but I could not help it, loving the memory of my sainted husband as I did. I was grieved to ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... a hard, hard life and thankless for every one concerned, from bill-topper to sweeper; yet there is a furious colour about it, and I think no one connected with it would willingly quit. The most hard-worked of all are the electricians. First in the ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... and cant, ever saw the ideal above it all, who, loving her profession and loving humanity and promised to a life of service, gently, beautifully, firmly stood by her principles. For three months they were in daily contact—three thankless months for the nurse, three months of cunning, evil-minded, suspicious testing by the patient. Finally the very goodness of her friend seemed intolerable, and a paroxysm of rage and resentment broke loose, in which she cursed ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... victims of the scourge. They did not utter a complaint nor ask for a "soft" detail; they did their duty as they found it. Another battalion was detailed immediately after the surrender to guard the Spanish prisoners. This most thankless duty was performed by them with fidelity and care. The commander of the battalion and half his officers were proficient in the Spanish language as a part of their preparation for the campaign, and they soon established cordial ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... thankless madam," she said, shaking her white-capped head; "maybe ye think that the fifth commandment says nocht aboot grandmithers; but ye'll be tamed some day, my woman. Mony's the gamesome an' hellicat [madcap] lassie that I hae ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... clergyman, but his distaste for theology did not go unexpressed. So perverse and persistent were his inclinations that they preyed on the mind of his father, who quoted King Lear and said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... She knew pretty well what ugly face would look up at her when she spoke; for she felt sure that the slouching, ungainly figure was that of Simon Hartley. Her heart burned with indignation against the graceless, thankless churl who could rob the man on whose charity he had been living for two years. She made a step forward, with words of righteous wrath on her lips; then paused, as a new thought struck her. This man was an absolute ruffian; and though she believed him to be an absolute coward also, still ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a good lad. Now we'll be off to old London again—eh, Lake? Good-bye, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... diplomatist, and of Southwell's intimate friend, William Blathwayt, an influential English official interested in the colonies. He had been in the employ of the government, and now, probably at the instance of Southwell and Blathwayt, he was selected to fill the difficult and thankless post of commissioner to New England. That he had ability and courage no one can doubt, and that he pursued his course with a tenacity that would have won commendation in other and less controversial fields, ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... thanks," says S. Paul. Remember, Adam and Eve were in Paradise surrounded by every blessing, but we do not hear that they thanked God for them, and they lost them. Beware lest a thankless spirit forfeit those good things which you now enjoy. "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! Who forgiveth all thy sin: and healeth all thine infirmities: Who saveth thy life from destruction; and crowneth thee ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... envoys at the Hague exhausted themselves in efforts, both private and public, in favour of the prisoners, but it was a thankless task. Now that the great man and his chief pupils and adherents were out of sight, a war of shameless calumny was began upon him, such as has scarcely a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... leading role with my young lady, the desire for whose wellbeing had taken grip of me. For her sweet sake, and the sake of the fragrant manliness of the stalwart and deserving knight, I straightway resolved to enter the thankless and precarious business of matchmaking, one in which I had not had one iota of experience; but as women have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a first effort I determined that Dawn should chaperon ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely

... could see and a kingdom he could desire, but adequacy of preparation for world-conquest never crept into his thought. He was as niggardly in supplying his generals and armies as Queen Elizabeth, and all but as voluble in abuse of his servants in the field or cabinet, and as thankless to those who had wrought his will. Parma, and Requesens, and Don John, and Alva, he drove almost frantic by his excessive demands and expectations, coupled with his entire inadequacy in preparation and supplies. His soldiers were always on the point ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... like to be disturbed when he was playing the flute. He was a man whose hair had turned gray already in the thankless task of tying up wounds on battlefields where others reaped ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... by the various cooks of the seamen's messes, and driving the laggards up the hatches, when all hands are called. It is indispensable that he should be a very Vidocq in vigilance. But as it is a heartless, so is it a thankless office. Of dark nights, most masters-of-arms keep themselves in readiness to dodge forty-two pound balls, dropped down the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... "So touching when a father—no matter how selfish—is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I warned him six years ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... life's uncertain main Mishap shall mar thy sail; If faithful, wise, and brave in vain, Woe, want, and exile thou sustain Beneath the fickle gale; Waste not a sigh on fortune changed, On thankless courts, or friends estranged, But come where kindred worth shall smile, To greet thee in the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... the death of the Prince, the mystery has not yet been removed, and the field is still open to conjecture. It seems a thankless task to grope in the dark after the truth at a variety of sources; when the truth really exists in tangible shape if profane hands could be laid upon it. The secret is buried in the bosom of the Vatican. Philip wrote two letters on the subject to Pius ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the knife to cut into such a nature, to which her own formed the strongest contrast. Mademoiselle Thuillier was remarkable for her regular and correct beauty, but a beauty injured by toil which, from her very childhood, had bent her down to painful, thankless tasks, and by the secret privations she imposed upon herself in order to amass her little property. Her complexion, early discolored, had something the tint of steel. Her brown eyes were framed in brown; on the upper lip was a brown floss ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... elder son, My best beloved! See, thy mother calls! Come to her! Nay, no more will I be harsh, No more enangered with thee! Thou shalt be Most precious in mine eyes, the one thing left I call mine own! Hark to thy mother! Come!— He turns his face away, and will not! O Thou thankless child, thou image of thy sire, Like him in each false feature, in mine eyes Hateful, as he is! Stay, then, where thou art! I know thee not!—But thou, Absyrtus, child Of my sore travail, with the merry face Of my lost brother whom with bitter tears I mourn, and mild and gentle ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... what has already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... BAR. Thou thankless fair! (raises ZAPHIRA.) Thus to repay the labours of my love! Had I not seiz'd the throne when Selim died, Ere this thy foes had laid Algiers in ruin. I check'd the warring pow'rs, and gave you peace, Make thee but mine, I will descend the throne, and call ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... University had been the digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the University in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their schools up to ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... failures. She had learnt lessons when she felt inclined, and left them undone when she was idle; and she had managed to make life in the schoolroom such a purgatory that it had been difficult to persuade any teacher to stay long at the Castle, and cope with so thankless a task ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... said Hackee the Second, feeling Phil's nose anxiously. "I thought I might have bitten it off just now when you got in my way," he said to Phil with much relief, finding it was still there. "Never come between fighting creatures, boy—it's a thankless task." ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... December, 1870, my predecessor declared that— There is no duty which so much embarrasses the Executive and heads of Departments as that of appointments, nor is there any such arduous and thankless labor imposed on Senators and Representatives as that of finding places for constituents. The present system does not secure the best men, and often not even fit men, for public place. The elevation and purification of the civil ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes

... Treason's writhing asp Struck madly at her girdle's clasp, And Hatred wrenched with might and main To rend its welded links in twain, While Mammon hugged his golden calf Content to take one broken half, While thankless churls stood idly by And heard unmoved a ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thankless existence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw me into a profound depression, until I began to cherish the idea ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and glum, while some were impudent and thankless, and said to supply them with food was just what I should do, for the swagmen kept the squatters—as, had the squatters not monopolized the land, the swagmen would have had plenty. A moiety of the last-mentioned—dirty, besotted, ragged creatures—had ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... the senseless happy mass, Flow'd in the stream, or shiver'd in the grass? "Father of mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake, and curse me into birth? Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, And make a thankless present of thy light? Push into being a reverse of thee, And animate a clod with misery? "The beasts are happy; they come forth, and keep Short watch on earth, and then lie down to sleep. Pain is for man; and oh! how vast ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... "It's a thankless thing, any way ye like to take it, Hepsy, hevin' other folks' youngsters round. I don't see why we should be bothered with 'em;" with which remark Josh ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... was hard and thankless work. There was the apathy of the people and the active opposition of the Press and the politicians. It would be hard to say now whether the abuse of the Conservative Cork Constitution or that of the Nationalist Eagle, of Skibbereen, ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... here to show up that man as a fraud. But what do I find? A poor, unpaid, half-starved man that loves his thankless work better than his life, teaching what not one schoolmaster in a thousand can teach; teaching his whole school four better things than were ever printed in any school-book,—how to study, how to think, how to value knowledge, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... imperfect part of what she had been bred to regard as "living decently." She suspected that but for Etta's example she would be yielding, at least in the matter of cleanliness, when the struggle against dirt was so unequal, was thankless. Discouragement became her frequent mood; she wondered if the time would not come when it would be her fixed habit, as it was with all but a handful of ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... was not surprised, for "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," but my step-mother was disappointed with the results of all her anxious solicitude, and began to see when it was vain, how thankless such indulgent efforts prove in the end. Freddy's soul was altogether absorptive, taking in whatever offerings gratified him, but yielding no return, and I ask, is there anything so discouraging to an ardent love as this cold neutrality, which ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... and we must garland that pump with flowers. And believe me, c'est un vilain metier cet de president. If he leans a little too much on this side he goes down into the mud, a little too much on the other he rolls in the dust. One must feel some respect for the man who undertakes such a thankless office. And, again, when a man rides in an open landau in pelting rain, when il lui pleut dans le nez, without an umbrella, with his hat off, saluting right and left, he ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... fostering evermore A soft content of soul! But ah, I shudder at thine anguish sore— Thy doom thro' years that roll! Thou could'st not cower to Zeus: a love too great Thou unto man hast given— Too high of heart thou wert—ah, thankless fate! What aid, 'gainst wrath of Heaven, Could mortal man afford? in vain thy gift To things so powerless! Could'st thou not see? they are as dreams that drift; Their strength is feebleness A purblind race, ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... The journey would kill you in winter. And he would not like it. We are bound to think of that for her sake cold-hearted, thankless, meagre-minded creature as ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... He is not the first great man who has found the world thankless. Oddly enough, it troubled him little in comparison with the satisfaction he felt in seeing his exalted projects meet with success. So that good things were effectually accomplished, he cared not a whit who ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring—she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow Eleseus keeps coming here for, anyway. ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... laborious man. Hunting is his profession, but it is one by which he can barely exist. He hopes to sell a horse or two during the season, and in this way adds something of the trade of a dealer to his other trade. But his office is thankless, ill-paid, closely watched, and subject to all manner of indignities. Men suspect him, and the best of those who ride with him will hardly treat him as their equal. He is accepted as a disagreeable necessity, and is dismissed as soon as the country can do better ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... solvent in use for its isolation, as it does not dissolve the majority of the remaining constituents of the hop, especially the hop-resin, which they contain in considerable quantity. Still, the extraction of hop-bitter acid from hops is a troublesome and thankless job, the petroleum ether taking up certain substances which add greatly to the difficulty of purifying the crystals. On the other hand, we can readily and quickly attain our object, if we employ for our original material ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake. The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house. He was to get twenty-five per cent. on ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... than a literary one. Let me give you fair warning—it is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and uncalled-for task. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... of him had undergone a change: the great change for which he had not dared to hope. The evil consequences of his long months of pampering disappeared. Regret for what had been grew faint. He was glad of the present: he held out glad arms to the future—that future of labor, possibly thankless, which he was to dread no more. In fact, he was become a man, honest and clean and strong; and, for a time, he dwelt in peace with his best self, and believed ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... these youths ran past one's eye, ran through one's fingers. They were not static, not even stable. They were restless birds of passage who fidgeted through their years, and even through the days of which the years were made: intent on their own affairs and their own companions; thankless for small favors and kind attentions— even unconscious of them; soaking up goodwill and friendly offices in a fashion too damnably taken-for-granted ... You gave them an evening among your books, ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... everybody, either in a few big things or a multitude of little ones. Do the people who keep the world turning around ever get due recognition? I was thinking in much the same resentful vein myself to-day, in my own small way, how thankless the job of an executive officer is; how you never reach any big end, or even feel that you have made progress, but just keep on the job, watching and inspecting and fussing to keep the whole personnel-materiel machine running smoothly, and knowing that your recognition is purely negative, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... suppose, of a brilliant and capable man who holds his own and makes himself felt. The only result on the mind, from contemplating him, is that one revels in the possibility of metempsychosis and pictures him as being born again to some dreary and thankless occupation, a scavenger or a sewer-cleaner, or, better still, penned in the body of some absurd and inefficient animal, a slug or a jelly-fish, where he might learn to ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... send him out to take supreme military command and to retrieve the disasters with which the second Sikh war began. They were very reluctant to do so, and Napier himself had little wish for further exertions in so thankless a service. But the Duke of Wellington himself appealed to him, the nation spoke through all its organs, and he could not put his own wishes in the scale against the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... the dream, and will run till it becomes a waking reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too, as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth of the pit,—why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a far narrower imagination than ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... capacity of forlorn hope. And this on Miss Marrable's own birthday! and this in her father's house! and this after the unutterable sacrifices of six weeks past! Of all the domestic disasters which the thankless theatrical enterprise had inflicted on the Marrable family, the crowning misfortune was now ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... bathed in sweat, his fair skin burnt and blistered, his delicate hands and smooth legs scratched by brambles, his slender neck bowed beneath the weights he carried on shoulders stretched to cracking point—Silvestro worked from dawn to dusk, rejoicing in the thankless office. Thankless it was, since Master Pilade took no sort of notice; yet Silvestro gave thanks. Pilade allowed the other to stoop to his shoe-ties, to wind the swathes about his sturdy calves, to carry his very cloak and staff, while he slouched along with hands ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... in vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case. It was not in vain that they passed their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless work that barely brought them bread. It was not in vain that they and their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced. Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the constellations, they temper the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... is ever an unpleasant and thankless job, and the first six months of our new regime was no exception to the rule. If you remember, the military forces of the colony comprised no less than four separate systems—the Regulars or Permanent Artillery, the partially paid force, the Volunteers, and the rifle ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... for more than a year after we saw him in Ireland at his thankless work. It was our first year in London, and we were near enough to watch closely the progress of his fight. But it was a fight not to be won. The spring of 1882 saw his resignation—on May 2d—followed on May 6th by the Phoenix ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward



Words linked to "Thankless" :   unrewarding, grateful, ungrateful, unthankful, ungratifying, unappreciative, unappreciated, thankless wretch



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