"Distress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the meteorology of the Far East; but precisely similar modes of procuring rain have been resorted to in Christian Europe within our own lifetime. By the end of April 1893 there was great distress in Sicily for lack of water. The drought had lasted six months. Every day the sun rose and set in a sky of cloudless blue. The gardens of the Conca d'Oro, which surround Palermo with a magnificent belt of verdure, were withering. Food was becoming scarce. The people were in great ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the desert vast, in the wilderness, On the bellowing sea, in the lion's lair, In the midst of battle, and everywhere. In his hand he holds with a father's care The tender hearts of the motherless; The maid and the mother in sore distress He shields with his love and his tenderness; He comforts the widowed—the comfortless, And sweetens her chalice of bitterness; He clothes the naked—the numberless,— His charity covers their nakedness,— And he feeds the famished and fatherless With the hand that feedeth the birds of air. ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... will send you, pleased most people of good taste here; the boxes were crowded till the sixth night, when the pit and gallery were totally deserted, and it was dropped. Distress, without death, was not sufficient to affect a true British audience, so long accustomed to daggers, racks, and bowls of poison: contrary to Horace's rule, they desire to see Medea murder her children upon the stage. The sentiments ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... with a young man of the name of Morris who is at the same Tutor's. The horse became unmanageable, the two young men were thrown, Morris pitched on his head and was killed on the spot, young Smith was very little hurt, but his state of distress is such that they hardly know what to do ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... tormented burghers did not want war; they wanted peace! Peace at any price. The States, too, who held their session in Berlin, wanted peace, and to this end had sent out a deputation from their midst to the Elector at Koenigsberg to implore him to pity their distress and to command the Stadtholder in the Mark to abstain from ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... REACHED.—Retaliatory measures were at once adopted by the English government. General Gage was appointed governor of Massachusetts. The port of Boston being closed by act of Parliament, business was stopped and distress ensued. The Virginia assembly protested against this measure, and was dissolved by the governor. Party lines were drawn. Those opposed to royalty were termed Whigs, and those supporting it, Tories. Everywhere were repeated the thrilling ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... now, don't pray forget me. If you are not here in three-quarters of an hour, I shall fire signals of distress, and make the forest ring ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... rode on, and at sunrise halted on the top of a high hill to breakfast on cold roast antelope and wild artichokes. Chaf-fa-ly-a's horse bore her light weight without seeming fatigued, but Souk was heavy and his steed began to show signs of distress. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... more for himself than for Conkling. Under these circumstances the Senator naturally turned to Cornell, an efficient lieutenant, who, having encountered heavy seas and a head wind, hoisted the signal of distress and waited for Conkling's coming. The Senator, however, did not appear. His rooms were engaged, his name was added to the hotel register, and Cornell's expectant friends declared that he would again capture the convention ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in distress who are strong and well, and who have enough gold to buy food, have too much conscience to ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... no comment, his eyes perceiving a pathetic pleading in her upturned face. Suddenly there came to him a belief that the girl was crying; he could feel the slight tremor of her form against his own. He glanced furtively at her, only to catch the glitter of a falling tear. To her evident distress, his heart made instant and sympathetic response. With all respect influencing the action, his hand closed warmly over the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... returned from Oatlands; we had an immense party, the most numerous ever known there. The Duchess wished it to have been prolonged, but there were no funds. The distress they are in is inconceivable. When the Duchess came down there was no water in the house. She asked the reason, and was informed that the water came by pipes from St. George's Hill, which were stopped up with sand; and as the workmen were never ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Miss Polly's tongue to question her niece further; but the obvious distress on the little girl's face stayed the words ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... been so gradual that she saw it without consternation, but when Eliot came down in November he couldn't hide his distress. To Eliot the significant thing was not Anne's illness or Jerrold's illness but the likeness in their illnesses, the likeness in their faces. It was clear that they suffered together, with the same suffering, from the same cause. ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... which Washington laid the greatest stress as a means of obtaining redress from government, was the non-importation scheme; "for I am convinced," said he, "as much as of my existence, that there is no relief for us but in their distress; and I think—at least I hope—that there is public virtue enough left among us to deny ourselves every thing but the bare necessaries of life to accomplish this end." At the same time, he forcibly condemned a suggestion that remittances to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and pressure—every engine of political and moneyed power—was put in motion, and worked for many months, to excite the people against the President; and to stir up meetings, memorials, petitions, travelling committees, and distress deputations against him; and each symptom of popular discontent was hailed as an evidence of public will, and quoted here as proof that the people demanded the condemnation of the President. Not only ...
— Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution • Thomas Hart Benton
... he cried in mock alarm. "You distress me! Never be serious. Life has too many disappointments for that. Have you not read ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... drew his foot back as though to kick the stiffening clay. But the blow did not come, and, instead, he wrung his hands at his sides like a child in distress. Harsh sobs broke tearless from his lips; his breast heaved with inexpressible agony. Then he flung himself face downwards upon the sodden earth, and his fingers dug into the carpet of dead ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... illustrious son has left a tooth or two on the arena. Fred's run is on everybody's lips, and we as the authors of his being are made much of. Mr. Leggatt, the banker, works his way up to me through the crowd at great personal distress, for he is a fat man, in order to say, with an enthusiastic shake of ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... he was asked by the Spanish Consul at Southampton to escort to London a young woman who had just landed there. He found her, he says, "a remarkably handsome person, who was in deep mourning and who appeared to be in great distress." While they were alone in the railway carriage, he improved the occasion and extracted from his travelling companion the story ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... could not be induced to remount. She did not, however, object to his keeping his gig alongside her; and in this manner, at a slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trantridge. From time to time d'Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanour. She might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he had forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... written as bravely as she could, trying not to alarm or distress them unduly, but there could be no disguising or softening one terrible fact. Jack, strong, sinewy, broad-shouldered Jack, whose strength had been his pride, lay as helpless as a baby, and all the hope the physicians could give was that in ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... calamity, as from all the lessons of life, Wordsworth drew all the benefit which it was empowered to bring. "A deep distress hath humanized my soul,"—what lover of poetry does not know the pathetic lines in which he bears witness to the teaching of sorrow? Other griefs, too, he had—the loss of two children in 1812; his sister's ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... have to devise by craft some provision for their journey. He whose sword-point is dull should only probe things that are soft and tender. He who has a blunt knife must search out the ways to cut joint by joint. Since, therefore, it is best for a man in distress to delay the evil, and nothing is more fortunate in trouble than to stave off hard necessity, I ask three days' space to get ready, provided that I may obtain from the king the skill of a ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the crowds, I have often felt my heart tighten with distress as I watch the unknown women. Reverie has often held me all day because of one who has gone by and disappeared, leaving me a clear vision of her curtained room, and of herself, vibrating like a harp. She, perhaps, was the one I should have always loved; she whom I seek gropingly, desperately, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... GOES WITH YOUNG FOR NINE MONTHS, and the affection and solicitude she evinces for her offspring is more human in its tenderness mid intensity than is displayed by any other animal; and her distress when she hears its bleating, and is not allowed to reach it with her distended udders, is often painful to witness, and when the calf has died, or been accidentally killed, her grief frequently makes her refuse to give down ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... said Annabella, pressing Wych Hazel's hand to mark her meaning. 'My mother must be in distressand it is just as near ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... morning came peering over the jagged heights to the east, and looking in upon a garrison whose eyes were equally red and bleary through lack of sleep—a garrison worn and haggard through anxiety and distress gravely augmented by the events of the night. All Sandy had been up and astir within five minutes after Norah Shaughnessy's startling cry, and all Sandy asked with bated breath the same question: How on earth happened it that this wounded ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... princes, and to contrast them with Antipater, who, although he pretended to be only a private citizen, wore shabby clothes, and lived on humble fare, really tyrannized over the Athenians in their distress more grievously than either ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... he offered her "not near half as much as he afterwards agreed to give another Performer, and less than he then gave to some others in his Company." Mrs. Clive could not but conclude that the managers were in league to distress her.[20] In the final third of her essay, Mrs. Clive presents a rather touching account of the personal costs of a piece of legislation which was itself manipulated and "interpreted in the narrow sense of forming the legal safeguard to the ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... trifling yet equally unaccountable occurrences. Once, too, a young lady visiting the house heard in the next room to that in which she was loud and lamentable sounds, as of a woman weeping bitterly and in sore distress. She listened in considerable perplexity for some time, fearing to intrude on the sorrows of some member of the family; but at last she resolved to go and proffer aid, if not consolation. As he approached the door between the two rooms the sound suddenly ceased, and, to her amazement, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... if they do not win the war the financial day of reckoning will come, nevertheless, owing to the clever financial handling of the country by the government and the great banks, there is at present no financial distress in Germany; and the knowledge that, unless indemnities are obtained from other countries, the weight of the great war debt will fall upon the people, perhaps makes them readier to risk all in a final attempt to win the war and impose indemnities upon not ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... this logic does not hold. For every new mischance makes us forget the one preceding; and the last and worst is bound to be the harbinger of good fortune. Yes, every people, we imagine, has its aphorisms on the subject: Distress is the key of relief, says the Arabic proverb; The strait leads to the plain, says the Chinese; The darkest hour is nearest the dawn, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... best-loved notes! As the chorus swelled from shadowy shrubs and vines to the sparking tree-tops I listened for some sound from Georgiana's room, but over there I saw only the soft, slow flapping of the white curtains like signals of distress. ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... direction of the arroyo, beyond which lay the residence portion of Heart's Desire. Presently there was to be distinguished the voice of a woman, raised in terrified lamentations, accompanied with the broken screams of a child in evident distress. There appeared, hastening toward the group in front of the store, Curly's mother-in-law, wife of the postmaster of Heart's Desire, and guardian as well of the twins of Heart's Desire. It was one of these twins, Arabella, whom she now hurried along with her, at such speed that ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... by two doctors, by Baptiste, and by the shooting-master, who came to carry me to my apartments. Then at last Varvilliers prevailed on her to allow herself to be smuggled out through the back gate of the gardens, and himself took her to her house in a condition of great distress and collapse. She, at least, was not deceived by the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... they never gave him an unpleasant word. Then he fell upon them and beat them fearfully, in such sort that they were not able to help themselves or to turn them upon the floor. This done he withdraws and leaves them there to condole 10 their misery and to mourn under their distress. So all that day they spent their time in nothing but sighs ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... proprietors, and groaned under the hated yoke of Roman Catholic masters, whom the favour of the Emperor and the Jesuits had enriched with the plunder and possessions of the exiled Protestants. Others, taking advantage themselves of the general distress, had purchased, at a low rate, the confiscated estates. The blood of the most eminent champions of liberty had been shed upon the scaffold; and such as by a timely flight avoided that fate, were wandering in misery far from their native land, while the obsequious slaves of despotism enjoyed their ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... not difficult," said Joan. "I was not ever fond of wounds and suffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings did always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my liking, my disposition being toward peace and quietness, and love for all things that have life; and being made like this, how could I bear to think of wars and blood, and the pain that goes with ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... lived a long time among the Ainu, where an Ainu father and an Ainu mother reared me. I now come to thee. I have brought a variety of good things. I saw while living in Ainuland a great deal of distress. I observed that some of the people were possessed by demons, some were wounded by wild animals, some were hurt by landslides, others suffered shipwreck, and many were attacked by disease. The people are in great straits. My father, hear me, and hasten to look upon the Ainu and help ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... fashioned a sail out of a tarpaulin, and stepped a mast well forward, and with other things we took signal-pennants and a British ensign, and from the foremast of the Kut Sang he flew a signal of distress and a message in the international code about pirates or some such thing, so that, in case Thirkle should get away in the boat and be picked up, he would have a great deal of difficulty in explaining about himself if the same vessel should sight our ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... better than smooth." The rough paw caught in her lace frill, and it was torn to pieces before "down! down!" and the united efforts of Lady Cecilia and Helen could extricate it.—"Don't distress yourselves about it, pray; it does not signify in the least. Poor Neptune, how really sorry he looks—there, there, wag your tail again—no one shall come between ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... with his distress, and felt dreadfully sorry that he and Papa (both of whom I loved about equally) had had a difference. Then I returned to my corner, crouched down upon my heels, and fell to thinking how a reconciliation between ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... are quite pale, don't distress yourself, darling," said Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added: "He ought to be happy at seeing you, and ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... servant-maid who was alone in the house, had thought for a few hours that she heard cries of distress, and as they continued she climbed the hill to look out. There she saw Bernt upon the rock, and the boat, bottom upwards, rocking up and down against it. She immediately ran down to the boat-house, launched the old four-oared boat, and rowed it along ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... and thus enable it to reproduce the various tissues of the body that have been wasted by disease. In cases where the stomach has become so weakened and sensitive that the lightest food or drinks cannot be taken without causing much uneasiness and distress these fluids are invaluable. They strengthen the stomach and neutralize all undue acidity, while at the same time they soothe the irritation by their bland and demulcent qualities. When carefully and properly prepared, according to the directions ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... young Freer came to him and crept under the cover of his cloak, sobbing as if his heart would break. Napier tried to soothe and comfort the boy, and learnt from him that he was fully persuaded he should lose his life in the approaching battle, and his distress was caused by thinking of his ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... up. He attempted to conceal it by burying his head in his handkerchief for a moment, in mock distress, but his satisfaction showed even behind his ears. The Skeptic bent down and elaborately tied his shoe-ribbon. The Gay Lady regarded Dahlia sweetly, and said, "That's surely ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... distress you. I knew you were having a hard-enough pull down there without additional worries. It happened very suddenly while I was out on the road. I got the wire in Peoria. She died very suddenly and quite painlessly. Her companion, Miss Tate, ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... followed this advantage with a quick left and then another right to the Frenchman's face. Both blows had steam behind them, and his opponent, plainly in distress, ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... In some distress at this frank announcement, Donald said, "But I don't like to have you put yourselves out for me. I wouldn't ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the window of his room and wrote down their prattle. Hawthorne was attached to his mother, and had been a good son, but there was something now that startled his nature, perhaps in the unusual nearness in which he found himself to her life, and he was hardly prepared for the distress of the circumstances. His wife wrote, "My husband came near a brain fever after seeing her for an hour;" and the hour is the one which Hawthorne himself recorded, in a passage vividly recalling the tone and character of those scenes in which Carlyle painted the darker moments ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... hurts them will be sure in some strange indirect way to hurt us. Our brothers here have had the fever, and we have escaped; but we have felt the fruits of it, in our purses—in fear, and anxiety, and distress, and trouble—we have found out that they could not have the fever without our suffering for it, more or less. You see we are one family, we men and women; and our relationship will assert itself in spite of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... International Mobile Satellite Organization (London); provider of global mobile satellite communications for commercial, distress, and safety applications at sea, in the air, and ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... tearing about hither and thither, watching his troop, the dear shepherd! Now the good man went about careless of the state of his cassocks, mantles, and breeches, so that the naked members of the church were covered. He was so charitable that he would have pawned himself to save an infidel from distress. His servants were obliged to look after him carefully. Ofttimes he would scold them when they changed unasked his tattered vestments for new; and he used to have them darned and patched, as long as they would hold together. Now this good ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... little supper, he said: "My dear parents, I have some news, which I fear will affect you considerably." I felt a qualm come over me, and said nothing. Lupin then said: "It may distress you—in fact, I'm sure it will—but this afternoon I have given up my pony and trap for ever." It may seem absurd, but I was so pleased, I immediately opened a bottle of port. Gowing dropped in just in time, bringing with him a large sheet, with a print of a tailless ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... the collision of the Active with the Spanish galleon no one had noticed the accident which had befallen Geoffrey Vickars, and his brother's distress was great when, on the ship getting free from among the Spaniards, he discovered that Geoffrey was missing. He had been by his side on the poop but a minute before the mast fell, and had no doubt that he had been carried overboard by its ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... whether they were going to enlist. Three of them said they were, and Cappy promised each of them a month's salary the day he should report to him in uniform. Nine others appeared to be uncertain of their duty, so Cappy fired them all, to the great distress of Mr. Skinner and Matt Peasley. Cappy, however, turned a deaf ear to ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... he wants us to come back and help pull him out," answered Dave, and sounded a reply to show that he had heard the call of distress. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... "Are you in great distress?" asked a nurse of an American soldier whose legs had been shot away on the battle-field. "I am in as great peace," said he, "through Jesus my Lord, as a man can ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke
... impoverished by sensual indulgence, extravagance, and riotous living, but by his lavish generosity to those who in many instances needed help less than himself. Like many other men of genius and sensibility, he could not say "no" to even the pretense of distress and suffering. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... I do? what shall I do?" she said aloud in great distress; and, as though in answer ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Gospel mark, and the Christian faith may suffer from its default. But the increase of it and the multiplication of its monuments since the world has been comparatively at peace cannot be denied; while of the distress which still calls for an increase of Christian effort, not the whole is due to default on the part of the wealthier classes. Idleness, vice, intemperance, improvident marriage, play their part. Let us not be led away upon ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... the heat of hell made me apply myself to a devouter way of living, and I reflected that if my bodily distress were somewhat eased I should be able to throw myself with greater zeal into the practice of vigils and austerities. And at length, having set forth to the Abbess that the sultry air of my cell induced in me a grievous heaviness of sleep, I prevailed ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... distress that for a time his reason trembled in the balance. He vowed that he would not be separated from her even by death; he threatened to put an end to his own life since it had been reft of all that made it worth living. And when cooler moments came, he swore a terrible vengeance against ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... tried to think of something he hadn't paid, but he couldn't; and I never saw a man try harder, either." Clementina smiled; she put her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing; but Gregory frowned his distress in the untimely droning. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to get accustomed to the low ceilings, only seven feet high; but this did not distress us, though in our parlor, a room twenty-eight feet long, the effect ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... of 1844 also was a season of distress. Referring to this year, a beautiful young Indian woman said to the sympathetic priest, "I did not wish to eat the arm of my father. I was then a small child of eight, and I had not been able to see my old father eaten without crying out with loud screams. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... better stick to the needle and the duster, and not go pokin' about law business that didn't concern 'em. But the worst of it was," added Victoria, with some distress, "he won't accept any more fruit. Isn't he silly? He won't get it into his head that I give him the fruit, and not my father. I suspect that he actually believes my father sent me down there to tell ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Lord my God, I praise and bless, For He hath heard my soul's distress, And hath inclined His ear to me Who love Him ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... said a thousand times again!—because it has come to everyone at some moment, and so its pain is universally understood. To have attained serenity would mean that one was strong enough not to allow suspense to cause one a moment's doubt or distress. I am far from serenity, I fear—for I am filled with unrest—I try to tell myself that Alathea Sharp does not matter in my life at all—that this is the end—that I am not to be influenced by her movements or her thoughts, or her comings and goings—I try not to think of her even as "Alathea"—And ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... "the heart-piercing, mind-bewildering" mystery of evil and pain which has quenched the light in many a sincere and fervent heart. But it is not for ever. Two things we may remember for our guidance amid all this weltering sea of sorrow and distress. First, it is not all nature. It is only a side of it; and if it is the most obvious, it is only because it is a breach of the order and beneficence so uniformly obtaining. And next, the holiest hearts, the spirits of the just made perfect on earth were not adversely influenced by it. In ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... not in any respect physical, and advises me to find out what is on her mind. As if that had not been my first care! I have also consulted her most intimate friends, all who know her well, but they can give me no clue to her distress. They see the difference in her, but can not tell the cause. And I am obliged to go away and leave her in this state. For two weeks, three weeks now, my movements will be very uncertain. I am at the beck and call of the State Committee. At any other time I would try change of scene, ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... funny batch of letters on my birthday that year: "Dear, sweet Miss Terry, etc., etc. Will you give me a piano?" etc., etc.; another: "Dear Ellen. Come to Jesus. Mary"; another, a lovely letter of thanks from a poor woman in the most ghastly distress; and lastly an offer of a two years' engagement in America. There was a simple coming-in for one woman acting at Brooklyn on ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... till it made her so sick she was forced to desist. The result cannot yet be judged. Wrote to Mrs. Thomas Scott to beg her to let her daughter Anne, an uncommonly, sensible, steady, and sweet-tempered girl, come and stay with us a season in our distress, who I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... In this state of distress and danger, the admiral arrived at Cape Santa Cruz on the 18th of July, where he was entertained in a very friendly manner by the Indians, who brought him abundance of their bread made from grated roots, which they name cazabi[18]. They ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... of the little lad gave a cry of bitter distress, a cry which went to Tom's very heart. 'My Phil! my little Phil!' was ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40s. 3d. and in 1851 38s. 6d. On the other hand, stock farmers were doing well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to come down; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture; distress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture in 1850, the Times sent James Caird on a tour through England, and one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his tour is, that owing to protection, the majority ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... arrived at the Cape on the 17th December, but being unable to reach the proper anchorage, I was on the 20th driven to sea again, with the loss of two anchors and cables. On the 22nd we again reached the bay, with a signal of distress flying, and thro' the exertions of Captain Bligh, who was there in the Providence, we were got into safety, and receiv'd anchors and cables from the shore. My people being very sickly, the effects of that destructive place Batavia, their slow progress in recovery detained me ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... under the table, to the great amazement of the steward, who had probably never had a live fish jump so promptly before into his hands. And we had it for dinner. One day a ship made to us a signal of distress, and sent a boat, saying that they were completely out of fuel; also that their passengers consisted entirely of the celebrated Ravel troupe of acrobats and actors. It would have been an experience to have crossed in that packet ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... laugh of the father, or with exclamations of satisfaction. Sometimes the Doctor was interrupted by a quick, eager question from the mother, that helped to make the story clear. Many times they uttered half-whispered exclamations of wonder, distress or indignation. ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... of closing or reducing hours. They go on, and take risk and trouble on themselves in working through bad times, rather than close their works. The whole class of those-who-have are quick in their sympathy for any form of distress or suffering. They are too quick. Their sympathies need regulating, not stimulating. They are more likely to give away capital recklessly than to withhold it stingily when any alleged case of misfortune is before them. They rejoice ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... Needless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engaged in conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Goneril bestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where the strangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... must not look as if you wished not to be seen: that would be a great, almost irreparable mistake. What would they think if they saw you in tears and great distress? They would say you were sure of your son's guilt; and the few who may still doubt will doubt no longer. You must control public opinion from the beginning; for it is absolute in these small communities, where everybody is under somebody else's immediate ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... poor wreck could no longer send up a cry for help. Its sad body was still towering upward at the bow in colossal majesty. Rockets flew, signals of distress fluttered briskly from the foremast; a futile language in that merciless raging ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... essay—nothing that ought to be published shall be kept back,—and this she certainly intended to correct, augment, and re-produce—but I open the doubled-up paper! Warn anyone you may think needs the warning of the utter distress in which I should be placed were this scoundrel, or any other of the sort, to baffle me and bring out the letters—I can't prevent fools from uttering their folly upon her life, as they do on every other subject, but ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... of distress might well have softened the hardest heart; but men like Ambrose Gifford are not troubled with what is commonly understood by a heart. He spoke, however, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... The change would pass away after a few minutes, during which she seemed unconscious, or, at least, never spoke—never appeared to heed what was said to her. But in the expression of her countenance there was no character of suffering or distress; on the contrary, a wondrous serenity, that made her beauty more beauteous, her very youthfulness younger; and when this spurious or partial kind of syncope passed, she recovered at once without effort, without acknowledging that she had felt faint or unwell, but ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had. He says three things must [be] remedied, or else we shall be undone by this fleete. 1. That we must fight in a line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable ruine; the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them. 2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship, when there is no hopes left him of succour. 3. That ships, when they are a little shattered, must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Butler he was in a fever of excitement and distress. Late in the afternoon he went to his room and, with his one hand, began, hastily and confusedly, to pack a small steamer trunk. His daughter found him ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... allowed her liberty to go wherever she pleased. In her trouble she used to run into the woods, with a sort of blind sense that physical distress would act counter to her sick soul. She would run as fast as she could: her tears flew behind her like rain. Over and over to herself she whispered Prosper's name as she ran—"Prosper! Prosper le Gai! Prosper! Prosper, my lord!" and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... he begged in a low voice, as he lifted her so that her head rested against his arm. "You have been splendid—wonderful! Please believe that I am truly sorry to distress you so, and that very soon, I hope, you may ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... distress was so acute that his ideas seemed to blend in one vast confused whirl. Some answer was imperatively necessary, and no answer could evolve itself. Hesitation would be interpreted as the sign of a guilty conscience. And in this dreadful arrest of ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... all intercourse to cease. Vessels taking spirits from hence, not to be allowed communication with any dependent settlement, unless the master produces a letter from the governor, or officer in command (to relieve distress excepted); and no spirits to be landed at the settlement he may touch at, unless the governor's certificate of price, etc. be produced. All commanders are also strictly forbid entering seamen from other ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... without quarreling with him. Sometimes Christophe suspected her tricks: then he would scold her, and wax indignant. She would go on playing the contrite little girl, and be affectionate and sorry: and she would look tenderly at him—feminae ultima ratio.—And really it did distress her to think of losing Christophe's friendship: she would be charmingly serious and in that way succeed in disarming Christophe for a little while longer. But sooner or later there had to be an explosion. Christophe's irritation ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... trying experience. His brother, the Earl of Ferrars, a licentious man, murdered an old and faithful servant in a fit of rage, and was executed at Tyburn for the crime. Sir Walter, after the disgrace and long distress of the imprisonment, trial, and final tragedy, returned to his little parish in Ireland, humbled but driven ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... also of the tower in Jerusalem were kept so strait, that they could neither come forth, nor go into the country, nor buy, nor sell: wherefore they were in great distress for want of victuals, and a great number of them perished ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... embarrassment that was extreme. The accumulated deficits of five years had become a heavy incubus, and the deficit of 1842-3 was likely to be not less than two and a half millions more. Commerce and manufactures were languishing. Distress was terrible. Poor-rates were mounting, and grants-in-aid would extend impoverishment from the factory districts to the rural. 'Judge then,' said Peel, 'whether we can with safety ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and I and the atheling sat with Thrond and Thorleif, and told and heard all the story of the raid on Weymouth until the stars came out. And I was well content; for no Saxon can ask aught better than to serve his lord, whether in wealth or distress. ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... block up the entrance to the nest with a hard sod, and lurk in ambush behind the tree till the bird returns to feed her nestlings. When she perceives that she cannot get into her nest she will fly round the tree uttering cries of distress, and then dart off towards the sun-setting. When you see her do this, take a scarlet cloak, or if that be lacking to you, buy a few yards of scarlet cloth, and hurry back to the tree before the woodpecker returns with the ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... establishment of the house of Ommiyah; and the caliph Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the Africans themselves. The successors of Heraclius had been informed of the tribute which they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs; but instead of being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar amount. The ears of the zantine ministers were shut against the complaints of their poverty and ruin their despair was reduced to prefer the dominion of a single master; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... get back, how differently I shall write! When you've faced the worst in so many forms, you lose your fear and arrive at peace. There's a marvellous grandeur about all this carnage and desolation—men's souls rise above the distress—they have to in order to survive. When you see how cheap men's bodies are you cannot help but know that the body is the least ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... graven, Mulaxe Vel Timere Sperno. Motionless sat the ladies beneath the dais, but their faces were troubled and pale, for Amanda was one of them, and their imaginations were busy with what might now be befalling her. Dorothy sat in much distress, for although she could lay no evil intent to her own charge, she was yet the cause of the whole fearful business. As for Scudamore, though he too was white of blee, he said to himself, and honestly, that the devil might fly away with her and welcome for what he cared. One woman in the crowd ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... councils had both so decidedly refused the dated creed; but the court was not yet at the end of its resources. The Western deputies were sent back to Ariminum, and the bishops, already reduced to great distress by their long detention, were plied with threats and cajolery till most of them yielded. When Phoebadius and a score of others remained firm, their resistance was overcome by as shameless a piece of villany as can be found in history. Valens came ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... being, I say, we might have anticipated some correspondent ruggedness and terribleness of aspect, some such refusal to comply with ordinary laws of beauty, as we often see in other things and creatures put to hard work, and sustaining distress or violence. ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... spread that he had abandoned his intention to advance. The Indians, when they recognised him, completely forgot the orders they had received from their Spanish masters, and in mingled joy at seeing their beloved Bishop again and distress at being there under such duty, they threw themselves at his feet, weeping, protesting, and imploring his forgiveness for their compulsory part in opposing him.(63) Knowing that the poor creatures would pay dearly ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... was a weak woman, but not a cruel one. Ailsa's distress moved her to such keen sympathy that she wept too, declaring that if only she could find the sweet, unfortunate child she would make amends ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... remembered that the flavors, as well as the odors, of fruits, are due chiefly to what is known as their volatile, or ethereal, oils. Fruits in which these oils are very strong are often irritating to certain persons and cause distress ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... life remain with thee and canst thou hope for deliverance after this day?" Said he, "O wicked Wazirs, shall a man of understanding renounce all esperance in Almighty Allah? Howsoever a man be oppressed, there cometh to him deliverance from the midst of distress and life from the midst of death, as in the case of the prisoner and how Allah delivered him." Asked the king, "What is his story?" and the youth answered, saying, "O king, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... any attempt to influence the impression of the dreadful news, she began her story, softening the communication only by making it as the knowledge had come to her—telling first her mother's distress at Sarah's letter, then the contents of that letter, and then those of her uncle's. She could not have done it with greater fairness to her friend: his practised self-control had opportunity for perfect operation. But the result was ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... said Patty, bewildered, for she did not recognise the voice, and it sounded like some one in deep distress. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... concluded to establish his colony on its banks, and, proceeding about two leagues above its mouth, built a fort upon a pleasant hill of "mean height," which, in honor of his sovereign, he named Fort Caroline. The colonists, after a few months, were reduced to great distress, and were about taking measures to abandon the country a second time, when ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... a dark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either side, I heard the fawn answering her, below me among the big trees, and knew instantly that something had happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry of distress, in the black darkness of the spruces. The mother ran around him in a great circle, calling him to come; while he lay helpless in the same spot, telling her he could not, and that she must come to him. So the cries went back and forth in the listening ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... must ever gauge success By ideal types, and know the more and less Of things as being in the end defined, For this our human life by righteousness. And if I base this in Eternal Mind— Our fathers' God in victory or distress— I cannot argue for my hardihood, Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood, And made me what I was in olden time, And keeps me what I am ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... known as the "Enabling Act," the "Law To Remove the Distress of People and State," of March 24, 1933 (document 11-II, post p. 217), swept away parliamentary government entirely. By abrogating the pertinent articles of the Weimar Constitution, it enabled the Nazi Cabinet under Hitler's chancelorship to appropriate money and legislate ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... back sharply. It was impossible to conceal her distress all in a moment. She moved aside, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... would have restored harmony. Anne gave birth to a son. The child was baptized at Hampton Court with great pomp, and with many signs of public joy. William was one of the sponsors. The other was the accomplished Dorset, whose roof had given shelter to the Princess in her distress. The King bestowed his own name on his godson, and announced to the splendid circle assembled around the font that the little William was henceforth to be called Duke of Gloucester, [406] The birth of this child had greatly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and dissolute prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes; and Manuel, in the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured a bitter reproach from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he quenched his thirst, he complained that the water of a fountain was mingled with Christian blood. "It is not the first time," exclaimed a voice from the crowd, "that you have drank, O emperor, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... can equal in pathetic beauty many of those to be found in Myers's Human Personality. Take, for example, the story of the lady[98] who was waked in the night by the sound of moaning and sobbing, as of someone in great distress of mind. Finding nothing in her room, she went and looked out of the landing window, "and there, on the grass, was a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture before a soldier, in a General's uniform, clasping her hands together ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... Bunch a purse; "take this—all the expenses here have been paid beforehand—this is what remains of my last bag. You will find here some twenty-five or thirty Napoleons, and I cannot make a better use of them than to serve a comrade in distress. Give them to Agricola's father; he will take the necessary steps, and to-morrow Agricola will be at his forge, where I had much rather ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Barbara cried in distress, "I really can't do that. They have telegraphed for Madame Belvoir's son from Neuilly—he will do. I really could not appear ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... not only suffering much physically, but was in great mental distress as well. He feared that at any moment Charley, alarmed by his long absence, might call or fire off one of the guns and bring the outlaws to his hiding-place. How could he warn him of the danger he was in? Suddenly the bound lad was seized ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... her woes express, Or Virtue braves unmerited distress; Love sighs in sympathy, with pain combined, And new-born Pity charms the kindred mind; The enamour'd Sorrow every cheek bedews, And TASTE impassion'd woos ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... clergyman who preached last Sunday,' for the patient told the Doctor the play raised such horror and contrition in his soul that he would, if it would please God to raise a friend to extricate him out of that distress, dedicate, the rest of his life to religion and virtue. Though I never knew his name or saw him, to my knowledge, I had, for nine or ten years, at my benefit a note sealed up, with ten guineas, and these words—'A ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... might be allured next week by the meretricious attraction at Bounders Green. Yet even such solicitude for the welfare of the flock of which he was the assistant shepherd seemed scarcely to account either for his obvious distress, or for the fragments of soliloquy that escaped him at every fresh ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to laugh. Millar bowed with impressive politeness and left the room. Herman bowed the strange guest out, and then noticed for the first time Olga's weariness and distress. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... in her son. She wants him to do the thing she has never been able to do. She thirsts for honors, applause, publicity, and all those things that bring trouble and distress and make men ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... all true,—all that John Gordon alleged on his own behalf. But then he was able to salve his own conscience by telling himself that when John Gordon had run through his diamonds, there would be nothing but poverty and distress. There was no reason for supposing that the diamonds would be especially short-lived, or that John Gordon would probably be a spendthrift. But diamonds as a source of income are volatile,—not trustworthy, as were the funds to Mrs Baggett. And then the nature of the source of income offered, enabled ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... the troops shut up in Nisibis, and of chastising the rebels and their abettors. It was in vain that the Mesopotamians sought to disarm his resentment by declaring that they had taken up arms in his cause, and had been only anxious to distress and injure the partisans of his antagonist. Though they sent ambassadors to him with presents, and offered to make restitution of the Roman spoil still in their hands, and of the Roman prisoners, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson |
