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Galling   /gˈɔlɪŋ/   Listen
Galling

adjective
1.
Causing irritation or annoyance.  Synonyms: annoying, bothersome, irritating, nettlesome, pesky, pestering, pestiferous, plaguey, plaguy, teasing, vexatious, vexing.  "Aircraft noise is particularly bothersome near the airport" , "Found it galling to have to ask permission" , "An irritating delay" , "Nettlesome paperwork" , "A pesky mosquito" , "Swarms of pestering gnats" , "A plaguey newfangled safety catch" , "A teasing and persistent thought annoyed him" , "A vexatious child" , "It is vexing to have to admit you are wrong"






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"Galling" Quotes from Famous Books



... by the fire of the fort, or in any way embarrassing it, they secured a clear sweep for their guns, raking their opponents; who, being for the time unable to deviate from their course, could not reply to this galling attack. By gradually retiring, the Confederate gunboats could retain this superiority during the advance of their foes, until the latter reached the wide hole within, where there was room to manoeuvre. This position and the subsequent course of ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... former gaiety and good humour, repeated the flattering things which, though they had once been fatal, I durst not now distrust. At last, taking my hand and kissing it, 'It is thus,' said he, 'that love will last, while freedom is preserved; thus let us ever be blessed, without the galling thought that we are tied to a condition where we ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... The one galling fact that Karl could not overlook, in Marshal Soult's raid, was the desecration of the genealogical tree. This huge painting with its shields of the Bismarck descent was slashed from end to ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... time in his history Grant Maitland found his men look askance at him. For the first time in his life he found himself viewing with suspicion the workers whom he had always taken a pride in designating "my men." The situation was at once galling to his pride and shocking to his sense of fair play. His men were his comrades in work. He knew them—at least, until these war days he had known them—personally, as friends. They trusted him and were loyal to ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... possible is to be unhappily yoked together. You see, it is impossible to break the yoke. The more you pull apart, the more galling the yoke. The minister might bring you up again, and in your presence read the marriage ceremony backward, might put you on the opposite sides of the altar from where you were when you were united, might take the ring off of the finger, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... error driven? Is Virtue then no more the care of Heaven? But peace, bold thought! be still my bursting heart! We, not ELIZA, felt the fatal dart. Scaped the dark dungeon, does the slave complain, Nor bless the hand that broke the galling chain? Say, pines not Virtue for the lingering morn, On this dark wild condemned to roam forlorn? Where Reason's meteor-rays, with sickly glow, O'er the dun gloom a dreadful glimmering throw? Disclosing dubious to the affrighted eye O'erwhelming mountains tottering from ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... on, the chain galling more deeply, and a bitter sense of humiliation as well as bondage robbing him of ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... orders were issued for the greater part of the troops to return to Chieveley, and among the first to leave were the Maritzburg Scouts. They were heartily glad to be off. During the three preceding days the position of the cavalry had been a galling one. They had seen nothing of the fighting, being kept down at Potgieter's Drift in readiness to advance the moment that orders came. They had nothing to do but to stand or sit down near their horses, watching the fire from the enemy's batteries on the hills, and ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... another blow which at this particular moment was galling to loyalists out of all proportion to its intrinsic importance. The removal to the House of Lords of the Marquis of Hamilton, the member for Derry city, created a vacancy which was filled at the ensuing by-election ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... clique in the social calendar; the obscure circle was as clannish and distinctive in its way as any other group. But Claire Robson was forced to admit that she did not belong even to the obscure circle. She belonged nowhere—that was the galling and oppressive truth ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... bed more weary than the other two days, which, I think, proceeded from our galloping so much, my other weariness being almost all over; but I find that a coney skin in my breeches preserves me perfectly from galling, and that eating after I come to my Inne, without drinking, do keep me from being stomach sick, which drink do presently make me. We lay all in several beds in the same room, and W. Joyce full of his impertinent tricks and talk, which then made us merry, as any other fool ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... explained himself more clearly. The marquise, amazed and at first incredulous, allowed him to say enough to make his intentions perfectly clear; then she stopped him, as she had done the abbe, by some of those galling words which women derive from their indifference even ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... the troops, with drums beating and colors flying, were to rush to the assault. Archdale's opinion, that heavy guns at the lighthouse would be disastrous to their old enemy the Island Battery, had been confirmed by two Swiss deserters, and that place was now almost untenable under a galling fire. The Circular Battery, built to protect the entrance to the city, was little better than a mass of ruins, while the fire that morning from Pepperell's fascine batteries was so hot that the enemy could not stand to their guns. Land and sea trembled with the shock of the cannonade. In the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... sense of his own importance and dignity, and this being run in just like some paltry pickpocket in a crowd, was galling to his vanity ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... lions—savage beasts that could climb trees and fall upon the defenseless; of our catamounts, deer, wolves, bears, foxes—all these we killed without molestation from anybody; I told him how all American sportsmen were like the Nimrods of old. How galling, then, for a true shootist to be misunderstood, decried, denounced, and arrested for so insignificant a beastie as a rabbit! This indignity my very dear friend, Herr Wilhelm Fuedels-Shimmer, had suffered—a most estimable young man—careless, perhaps, in ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... a time in the bed of the stream directly under the balloon, and stood in the water to our waists awaiting orders to deploy. Standing there under that galling fire of exploding shrapnel and deadly Mauser bullets the minutes seemed like hours. General Wheeler 25 and a part of his staff stood mounted a few minutes in the middle of the stream. Just as I raised my hand to salute in moving up the stream to post the leading squadron ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... silence of several minutes, during which each heart struggled in secret rebellion under the galling ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... through the development of monarchy and the citizenship of the modern state. It was a rude attempt to find the secret of social organization. The spirit of revolt of the oppressed lived on suppressed by a galling tyranny. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... your oppressor. My Country was my Idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up myself, O God! No, my lords; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, from the ignominy existing with an exterior of splendour and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... galling time of idleness. In June we went with General Brown—D'ri and I and Thurst Miles and Seth Alexander and half a dozen others—down the river to the scene of our first fighting at Ogdensburg, camping well back in the woods. It was the evening of the 27th of ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... to you! I know what such kindness is. A sweet, gentle indifference, that for ever keeps you at arms' length, or that proud patronage of manner, which is more galling still. Oh, yes, I have felt ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... and he thought she trembled a little on his arm, but he could not be sure. He thought—but he was thinking too much again; at least, Lady Pippinworth seemed to come to that conclusion, for with a galling little laugh she moved on. He saw with amazing clearness that he had thought sufficiently for ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... her? Why, I had often driven the Honourable Victoria Violet Finlay, the girl—for she was only eighteen—who had once flirted with me when I was in her father's service. Why, I wondered, did he mention her? Could he know the truth? Could he know the galling bitterness of my own heart? I think not. Through the many months I had been the Count's chauffeur I had held my secret, though my heart ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... characteristic of his age is the declaration that "there is no natural science which makes us so certain of the Divinity of Christ as Magic and the Cabbala.[341]" For there was at that period a curious alliance of Mysticism and natural science against scholasticism, which had kept both in galling chains; and both mystics and physicists invoked the aid of Jewish theosophy. Just as Pythagoras, Plato, and Proclus were set up against Aristotle, so the occult philosophy of the Jews, which on its speculative side was mere Neoplatonism, was set up against the divinity of the Schoolmen. In ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities of party, And instincts toward oligarchic power, Galling the many to relieve ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... have said is true. Wealth, indeed, is in those packs, and patience and cunning and utmost skill, defiance of the snows and the crackling cold, long miles on snowshoes and the hardships of the trail, the nights in the bough-tied huts, the pack galling the shoulders. But what is all this beside that which waits the runner of the trail at every 'set' in those many miles? Here he finds his leaning-pole. There have been little tracks up its slim roadway, but those were covered by the fall of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... divorces between those who cannot endure each other; and to multiply irritations, quarrels, sorrows, and agonies between those who may endure, but cannot enjoy, each other. In marriage, the intimacy is so great and constant that the slightest friction easily becomes galling. Nowhere beside is there such need of magnanimous forbearance in one, or else of equality of worth and refinement in both. "Love does not secure happiness in marriage, often the contrary: reason is necessary." So said ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... galling and tantalising. I was so near discovering the truth, and yet my inquiries had only plunged me more deeply into a quagmire of suspicion and horror. The more I tried to extricate ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... gentleman, the sublime and the ridiculous, quite marvellous to behold,—making our little friend (who you are aware was moulded in one of Nature's odd freaks) appear, to tender imaginations, almost supernatural. The mistake and misplaced approbation is very galling to Mrs. Brown; so much so that she becomes angry with the tea-urn, and, in turn, burns her fingers—venting her ire in the shape of a box on the ears of Master Bold, who ventured to hint Mr. Spohf's absence a "jolly shame;" and, now ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... the dogged strength of unreasoning antipathy. I tell you, Mr. Bull, that were you pitted to-morrow against a race that had not one idea in kindred with your own, were you fighting a deadly struggle against a despotism the most galling on earth, were you engaged with an enemy whose grip was around your neck and whose foot was on your chest, that English-speaking cousin of yours over the Atlantic, whose language is your language, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... lovely maid whose form and face Nature has deck'd with ev'ry grace, But in whose breast no virtues glow, Whose heart ne'er felt another's woe, Whose hand ne'er smooth'd the bed of pain, Or eas'd the captive's galling chain; But like the tulip caught the eye, Born just to be admir'd and die; When gone, no one regrets its loss, Or ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... might be lurking in that direction. This step was wisely taken, for a half a mile advance showed a heavy force approaching, who fired upon them with great slaughter. This force taken by surprise, was compelled to retreat, which they did in good order under a galling fire. At 6 o'clock the fire had become general along the entire front, the enemy having driven in the pickets of Gen. Sherman's division and had fallen with vengeance upon three Ohio regiments of raw recruits, who knew nothing of the approach of the enemy until ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... are very galling to the arrogant young Prince of Orange, for he is one of those men who desire, at all cost, to make a noise in the world, and who would set fire to Solomon's Temple or to the Delphian Temple, it mattered not which, so long as they made ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so. To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But is it not galling after all? ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... burdened toiler o'er life's road, Who meets us by the way, Goes on less conscious of his galling load, Then life indeed, ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... deprived of their arms at the taking over of Detroit by Robert Rogers; and for the most part the settlers maintained a stolid attitude towards their conquerors, from whom they suffered no hardship and whose rule was not galling. The British had nothing to fear from them. But the Indians were a force to be reckoned with. There were three Indian villages in the vicinity—the Wyandot, on the east side of the river, opposite the fort; ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... in their new dress, with slightly altered spelling, and all the signs of punctuation added. There was only one part of the book with which he was not pleased, which was the part headed 'introduction.' It gave an untrue account of his life, and, what was still more galling to the pride of the poet, spoke of his poverty as the main point deserving public attention. All this deeply hurt his feelings; nevertheless the predominating sentiment of joy and satisfaction prevented him saying anything ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... to one of the memorable episodes in this vexed decade of our political history. The sullen demon of slavery died hard. The negro still wore about his neck galling links of the broken chain. The transitory stage of apprenticeship was in some respects even harsher than the bondage from which it was to bring deliverance, and the old iniquity only worked in new ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... a superior prudence, which has little or nothing in common with the maxims of the copy-book. That many of us lead such lives as they would heartily disown after two hours' serious reflection on the subject is, I am afraid, a true, and, I am sure, a very galling thought. The Enchanted Ground of dead-alive respectability is next, upon the map, to the Beulah of considerate virtue. But there they all slumber and take their rest in the middle of God's beautiful and wonderful universe; the drowsy heads have nodded together in the same position ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on a man totally unfit for the exalted station in which he has been placed, and unworthy of the trusts that have been reposed in him. When I speak of one who has so deeply stabbed my honor, my wounds bleed afresh, and I must be allowed that freedom of expression which the galling reflection of my injuries and my misfortunes naturally draws from me. Shall your servants, unchecked, unrestrained, and unpunished, gratify their private views and ambition at the expense of my honor, my peace, and my happiness, and to the ruin of my country, as ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... were rapidly going, the English were rapidly spreading, the Puritan laws and religion were being forced upon him. It was galling that he, a king by his own right, should be made a subject of another king whom he ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... in man's nature to submit to such galling thraldom as this, without at least an attempt at retaliation. Least of all was it the nature of such a people to submit to such measures—a nation, the most ancient in Europe, dating their ownership of the soil as far back as man's memory could ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... Canada, Australia, and South Africa would not, even if we could be imagined to have wished it, be transferred to German rule. And yet the Germans chafed, and if we can put ourselves in their places we may admit that it was galling that the surplus of their manhood should go to build up the strength of an alien and possibly a rival State. So far we could see their grievance, or, rather their misfortune, since no one was in truth to blame in the matter. Had their needs been openly and reasonably expressed, and had ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... Very galling was the severe censorship of their letters. Mrs. van Warmelo's high spirit rebelled against the continued surveillance of her correspondence and she determined to ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... said Clement. "It is galling enough to have your whole position in life depend on the word of a worthless woman, but there are things that must be taken patiently, as the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... consequent on an abandonment of the restrictive policy under which the empire has long prospered, there were immediate consequences which to a high-minded people must be galling and degrading beyond endurance. The treaties have robbed them of their independence: compelling them to abdicate sovereignty to the extent of absolving resident foreigners from Japanese jurisdiction. In various publications ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret of his galling spiritual pain—the fact that he had failed to order his life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he had failed to attain the better and the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... that I became alienated all at once. That was impossible. I loved her very dearly. After she had kicked me away my love still lasted. It was a galling thought to a man like me that she, a common girl, the daughter of a small tradesman, should have kicked me; me, the descendant of Crusaders, by Jove! and of the best blood in England; but after a while pride gave way to love, and I tried to open ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... the making of gentlemen heretofore hath been greatly misliked by her Majestie in the Kinges of Armes; much more displeasing, I think, it will be to her, that you, being no Officer of Armes, should erect, make and put down Earles and Barons at your pleasure." It must have been peculiarly galling to him that by the influence of Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, Camden was advanced over his head to the dignity he himself desired. After being appointed, for form's sake, Richmond Herald for one day, Camden was made Clarenceux, October 23, 1597, between the first ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... know what to do or say. Daisy's pleading eyes decided him, much against his judgment, to drop the matter where it was, galling to his pride though it might be. He escorted his sweetheart into the parlor, where the entire party followed, in a most ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... estate: quenches each swelling aspiration after a higher and more tolerable destiny; withers each ennobling aim, cancels each creditable effort that would assure its eventuation; opposes each soul-stirring resolve to no longer rest under the galling, gangrenous imputation ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... Letters of Junius, which appeared at intervals in the Public Advertiser between January 21, 1769, and January 21, 1772. These letters are distinguished for their polished style, their power of invective, their galling sarcasm, their knowledge of state secrets, and their unparalleled boldness. Every prominent man connected with the government was attacked: even the king himself was not spared. As revised by their pseudonymous writer in ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... intimate friend. The delight of having a man to speak to, and a man who knew others of his friends, was almost intoxicating. To think of getting one evening—nay, one hour of liberty from that ever-present chain of matrimonial intercourse which was galling him so sorely, was a bliss for which he could hardly find words ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... had let himself drop back against the pillows. He set his teeth and waited. It was hard. An opportunity of escape from the galling restraints of his infirmity had been presented to him, and his mother—his mother after promise given, after the sympathy of a lifetime; his mother, in whom he trusted absolutely—was unwilling he should accept it! As he lay there all the desperate longing for freedom ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... one point. The girls did not treat Miss O'Day with that studied formality which is more galling than open neglect as they had on former occasions. Mary, in particular, was quite agreeable, and Nora herself ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... lost "one or two men every time they charged each gun anew." The losses on the English side were fully as severe; for, sheltered though they were, the buccaneers lost heavily. The lying still under a hot sun was galling to the pirates' temper. They made several attempts to storm, but failed in each attempt owing to the extreme gallantry of the defence. Towards noon they made a furious attack, carrying fireballs, or cans filled with powder and resin, in their hands "designing, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... was once my wife, but the law set her free from the galling chain. Will some one call Densie Densmore in? I ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... the holder with a scorpion's bite; and Decker, who had been lashed in "The Poetaster," produced his "Satiromastix, or the untrussing of the humorous Poet." Decker was a subordinate author, indeed; but, what must have been very galling to Jonson, who was the aggressor, indignation proved such an inspirer, that Decker seemed to have caught some portion of Jonson's own genius, who had the art of making even Decker popular; while he discovered that his own laurel-wreath ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... itself, yet, from our social superiority, highly rarified education in our lofty top, and large and liberal sweep of the aggregate of things, we were in a good degree free from those useless, personal prejudices, and galling hatreds against conspicuous sinners, not Sin—which so widely prevail among men of warped understandings and unchristian and uncharitable hearts. No; the superstitions and dogmas concerning ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... could realize how bitterly galling to my own pride and self respect is this appeal to a man who hates and spurns all whom I love, I think, sir, that even you would pity me so heartily, that your hardened heart would melt into one last farewell message of forgiveness to your unfortunate daughter. I would rather carry her one ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... him, and it increased her anger, for the fact that this barbarian of the bush should venture to express pity for her was galling. Still, she had no intention of admitting it, and regarded him inquiringly with a half-contemptuous indifference which she had found especially effective with presumptuous young men in England. Somewhat to her astonishment it apparently had no result at all, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... despotic enactments, which are so well calculated to engender hatred and rebellion. In like manner, the best possible way to tame the refractory reason of man, and hold it in subjection, is to bind it with the silken cords of divine truth, and not fetter it with the harsh and galling absurdities of man's invention. Melanchthon himself furnished a striking illustration of the justness of this remark; for although, like other reformers, he taught the doctrine of a divine fatality of all events, in order to humble the pride of the human intellect, his own ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... opportunity of doing so. But in his eighth chapter, when speaking of the causes which led to the Licensing Act, he takes occasion to refer to his assailant in terms which Fielding must have found exceedingly galling. He carefully abstained from mentioning his name, on the ground that it could do him no good, and was of no importance; but he described him as "a broken Wit," who had sought notoriety "by raking the Channel" (i.e. Kennel), ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... dissatisfied with a son whom you know. I write to him with warmth, with an honest pride, wishing that he should think of me as I am; but my letters shock him, and every expression in them is interpreted unfavourably. To give you an instance, I send you a letter I had from him a few days ago. How galling is it to the friend of Paoli to be treated so! I have answered him in my own style; I will be myself.' Letters of Boswell, p. 110. In the following passage in one of his Hypochondriacks he certainly describes his father. 'I knew a father who was a violent ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Street. Whitehead was one of the Irish-American or American-Irish party of the Land Leaguers or Home Rulers, who entertain the idea that by committing horrible outrages in England. they will succeed in making Ireland "free from the galling yoke of Saxon tyranny" and every Irishman independent of everybody and everything everywhere. Well supplied with funds from New York, Whitehead quietly arranged his little manufactory, buying glycerine from one ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... though almost essential, condition of not being engaged in retail trade,—that those who are just excluded by it are apt to feel their position somewhat unintelligible, and, therefore, all the more galling to their pride and self-respect It would be curious to ascertain what proportion of the minor inconveniences and vexations of modern life is due to the perplexity, on the one side, and the soreness, on the other, created by the exclusiveness of class-distinctions. That these distinctions are ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... went by Noel became every day more restless and gloomy. He was unhappy if he stayed away from Christine, and yet to be in her presence merely as a friendly visitor was often galling and depressing to an almost intolerable degree. He scarcely ever saw her alone for a moment, and he had a certain conviction that while Mrs. Murray did some gentle plotting to leave them tete-a-tete Christine managed ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... the commander-in-chief with a change of manner, "and was but putting off a take-in on you. My own courting was done while colonel of the First Virginia regiment, and well I remember how galling the military duties were. 'T is to be feared I was not wholly candid in the reasons calling me from the regiment to Williamsburg, that I alleged to my superiors, for my business at the capital took few hours, and both going and returning I managed to stay many at ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... crowds from the demolished works to the great gate of the city; they were distinctly seen in all their movements by the light of their burning navy and arsenal. The battery in the upper angle of the town, which, was too high to fire upon, kept up a galling fire, and another further to the eastward was still at work. To bring our broadside to bear upon it, a hawser was run out to the Severn, on our larboard bow, the ship was swung to the proper bearing, and we soon checked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... time the troops had been scattered, crouching under hastily-constructed small stone shelters, and exposed to a galling shell and rifle fire, and throughout maintained ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... an automaton. Such passivity was worse than undignified, it was galling; I knew that well. I resented it with secret rage. But in that room, in that presence, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... the afternoon fresh in mind, Larcher had promptly identified this big-talking vulgarian. Hot from several affronts, which were equally galling, whether ignorant or intended, he could conceive of nothing more sweet than to ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... desk at Church. I shut myself into this place of seclusion, after breakfast, and meditate. At such times, I observe the young man loading an imaginary rifle with the greatest precision, and maintaining a most galling and destructive fire upon the national enemy. I thank him publicly for ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... not made returns to him as yet. He was cornered, it was his only way to square himself with those who were pressing him for a settlement. Although Alfred knew full well that Harrison did not intend to injure him, the reports became so annoying and the insinuations so galling that Alfred took ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... words of Pirate Smee, was 'a kind of a compliment', but it was also, to quote the same hero, 'galling'; and I have wished for an opportunity of disowning the pretension which I found attributed to me of setting up as a pundit, or a pontiff, or a Petronius Arbiter; for I have neither the sure taste, nor the exhaustive reading, nor the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... outhouses—represent to his mind a town, and he will resent a less appreciative rating of them. This may appear unreasonable: it is, but it is none the less true; and in a great measure the variance of focus between the English and the Colonial mind has been responsible for the girth-galling which at the beginning of the war marked our efforts in harness with our colonial confreres. We have heard all the defects of the British officer, because the Colonial thinks quickly and lightly, and wastes no time ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... been, even Mrs. Lennox taking it upon herself to lecture him for his misdemeanors, sobbing as she lectured, and asking "how he could treat Katy so?" He did not like, either, to lose Helen's good opinion, as he was sure he had, while, worse than all the rest, was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and was undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He had said that he forgave Morris, and at the time he said it he fancied he did, but as the days went by, and thought was all the busier from the moody silence he maintained, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... sense of honor was keen. From that virtuous poise, her mind had neither variableness nor shadow of turning. No children came with silken wrappings to hide and make softer the bonds that held her to her husband in a union that only death could dissolve; the hard, icy, galling links of the chain were ever visible, and their trammel ever felt. Cold and desolate the elegant ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... May 28 this division attacked the commanding German position in its front, taking with splendid dash the town of Cantigny and all other objectives, which were organized and held steadfastly against vicious counterattacks and galling artillery fire. Although local, this brilliant action had an electrical effect, as it demonstrated our fighting qualities under extreme battle conditions, and also that the enemy's troops ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... torn between a profound admiration of her and the galling reflection that until she had named the engagement, none had virtually existed which diplomacy, aided by time and accident, might not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... who has long been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart. Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of a master, reflection is suspended; he has not ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... galling chain, I 've shed the tear o' care, But feeling aye lost a' its pain, When my wee wife was near. My wee, wee wife, my wee, wee wife, My bonnie bairnies three, The chains we wear are sweet to bear, How sad ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... a bare name be thus influential on the minds and affections of men, and a political aggregation blind them to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to answer, NO; the far more galling business of Ireland clenches the negative from nearer home. Is it common education, common morals, a common language or a common faith, that join men into nations? There were practically none of these in the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... they had been neither better nor worse than the average. But he had breeding and a sure sense of the fitness of things, and this present week-end visit, with the ostentatious care the younger crowd took to allow him time to see Natalie alone, was galling to him. It put him in a false position; what hurt more, perhaps, in an unfavorable light. The war had changed standards, too. Men were being measured, especially by women, and those who failed to measure up were ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... begun to think,—to try in some way to devise a plan that would offer hope of escape. But there seemed to be no possible loophole, no stratagem or maneuver by means of which he could win release. Inaction was galling, and, after lying still for a long time, Teeny-bits again began to struggle and twist and squirm. These bonds with which his arms and hands and feet and legs were fastened did not give way under his most violent efforts and, as previously, he exhausted ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... desire for renewal of the former conditions of intimacy met with no encouragement from those who could not but constantly bear the past in mind, and who felt that, for the highest interests of the work, a new relationship must be established. This attitude was naturally regarded as aloofness, and was galling to those whose love had been set on the young missionaries fresh from Norway, with all the enthusiasm of youth, to whom they themselves had taught the language and who belonged to them ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... heard little that Harry said as he rambled on about the plans for the future. He answered the big Cornishman's questions with monosyllables, volunteering no information. He did not even show him the advertisement—he knew that it would be as galling to Harry as it was to him. And so he sat and stared, until finally his partner said good night and ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... more than magic sounds, when Athens stood By his superior eloquence subdued. The Marathonian chief, with conquest crown'd, With Cimon came, for filial love renown'd; Who chose the dungeon's gloom and galling chain His captive father's liberty to gain; Themistocles and Theseus met my eye; And he that with the first of Rome could vie In self-denial; yet their native soil, Insensate to their long illustrious toil, To each denied the honours of a tomb, But deathless fame reversed the rigid ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... first mild days we found poor old Furry dead in the warehouse. Life had long been a burden to him, which his unhappy temper rendered yet more galling. ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... and the matter might therefore have been suffered to drop, since the right to veto treaties was explicit, and did not need to be supported by an appeal to the preamble of 1881. The term, however, though useless to Britain, was galling to the Transvaal, which suspected that it would be made a pretext for infringements upon their independence in internal affairs; and these suspicions were confirmed by the talk of the Uitlander spokesmen in Johannesburg, who ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... their number were killed, others were wounded, and their ammunition began to fail. Their only alternatives were destruction or retreat; and to retreat was not easy. The order was given. Though steady at first, the men soon became confused, and over-eager to escape the galling fire which the Iroquois sent after them. Maisonneuve directed them towards a sledge-track which had been used in dragging timber for building the hospital, and where the snow was firm beneath the foot. He himself remained to the last, encouraging his followers ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... playing gay music, as we wound our way through the crowd to a table. I was painfully conscious that my shabby coat and straw hat attracted attention. Some of the women stared at me with a look of conscious superiority in their eyes, others with a look of still more galling pity. Charley, too, I thought, seemed nervous. Perhaps he did not relish being seen by some possible acquaintance with ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... Territory train does not need to bend its neck to the galling yoke of a minute time-table, yet, like all bush-whackers, it prefers to strike its supper camp before night-fall, and after allowing us a good ten minutes' chat, it blew a deferential "Ahem" from its engine, as a hint that it would like to be "getting ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... like to devote to the subject. Dusk came, and I had failed in obtaining the least clue to her whereabouts; evening followed, and still no trace of the fugitive. What was I to do? Take Mr. Gryce into my confidence after all? That would be galling to my pride, but I began to fear I should have to submit to this humiliation when I happened to think of the Chinaman. To think of him once was to think of him twice, and to think of him twice was to be conscious of an irresistible desire to visit his place and find out if any one ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... and lifting mailed hand, pointed to a certain tree. But hereupon, Sir Pertolepe, staring round about him and down upon his galling ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... face and form of Phillip Lawson rose before him with such vividness that he many times closed his eyes to shut out the sight remorse would seize upon him and hold him in galling chains, shewing us that the Divine impress was not entirely obliterated from his nature and that some day one might expect ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... enemy and the random shooting of the regulars, the slaughter of the English officers had been frightful: out of the eighty-six who went into the battle, only twenty-four came off unhurt. Gen. Braddock had five horses killed under him. By this time, he had given up all hope of regaining the day; and, galling as it must have been to his proud spirit, was at last forced to think of retreating as their only chance of safety. Just as he was on the point, however, of giving orders to this effect, a bullet—said by some to have been a random shot from one ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... minutes Melville recommenced conversation,—no more reference to Lily than if she had never existed. "Yes, my last picture has been indeed a success,—a reward complete, if tardy, for all the bitterness of former struggles made in vain, for the galling sense of injustice, the anguish of which only an artist knows, when unworthy rivals ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had interfered, to acquiesce was to own defeat, which was galling, and while he hesitated Batley watched him with an air ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... was so situated that one year of moderation might not improbably be rewarded by thirty years of undisputed ascendency. Was it possible the politic and experienced Lewis would at such a conjuncture offer a new and most galling provocation, not only to William, whose animosity was already as great as it could be, but to the people whom William had hitherto been vainly endeavouring to inspire with animosity resembling his own? How often, since the Revolution ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Confess'd is thine, as once thy fathers aid. So guide me, goddess! so propitious shine On me, my consort, and my royal line! A yearling bullock to thy name shall smoke, Untamed, unconscious of the galling yoke, With ample forehead, and yet tender horns, Whose ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... for and complimented with the superior name of real good nature. A man, by this specious appearance, has often acquired that appellation who, in all the actions of private life, has been a morose, cruel, revengeful, sullen, haughty tyrant. Let them put on the cap, whose temples fit the galling wreath! ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... One of the galling incidents of this visit was that he came back on a Randolph Street car, and without noticing arrived almost opposite the building of the concern with which his son was connected. This sent a pang through his heart. He had called on his boy there several times. Now the lad had not ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... Penstephen pere, and in consequence he inherited a baronetcy. This change of fortune affected his views, and as time passed by he became as orthodox a baronet as any you could wish to find in Burke. All of which was galling to David's mother, who loved and was jealous for those children who were born to suffer for their parents' original morals. The situation required very delicate handling, and Mr. PRYCE is to be congratulated warmly upon the manner in which he has developed it. Perhaps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... constantly boasted of the wealth and power of the nation, which he was wasting, and which he lavished with an unsparing hand, to carry on an unjust, an unnecessary, cruel, and vindictive war against the people of France, because they had made a hold, a manly, and a successful effort to throw off the galling yoke of one of the most infamous and detestable tyrannies that ever disgraced the character of an enlightened people. It was very true the landholders grew rich from the great advance in the price of land, and the farmer grew rich from the advance in the price of grain; but, alas! ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, yet those afflictions shall not befal thee for those causes for which they befal the slothful and backsliding Christian; neither shall they have that pinching and galling operation upon thee, as on those who have left their first love and tenderness for God's glory ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... could this jape have been taken seriously, but, with a gravity that would have delighted Charles Lamb, Knox denounced the skit from the pulpit as a fabrication by the Father of Lies. The author, the human penman, he said (according to Calderwood), was fated to die friendless in a strange land. The galling shaft came out of the Lethington quiver; it may have been composed by several of the family, but Thomas Maitland, who later died in Italy, was regarded as the author, {264b} perhaps because he did die alone ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... He made vague calculations. He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in the present place, and with all the circumstances to go backward would exalt too many others. Their hope was to push the galling foes away ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... reached the position in which she intended to anchor, the "Essex" was seen to be underway. Hillyar could only suppose that her cable had been severed by a shot; but Porter states that under the galling fire to which she was subjected, without power to reply, he cut the cable, hoping, as the enemy were to leeward, he might bring the ship into close action, and perhaps even board the "Phoebe." The decision was right, but under the conditions a counsel ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... regarded merely as a temporary expedient for quieting discontents which had seemed likely to become serious. The independence, the safety, the dignity of the nation over which he presided were nothing to him. He had begun to find constitutional restraints galling. Already had been formed in the Parliament a strong connection known by the name of the Country Party. That party included all the public men who leaned towards Puritanism and Republicanism, and many who, though attached to the Church and to hereditary ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... reputation of Dryden. With this view, that tyrannical person of honour availed himself of his credit to recommend Crowne to write the masque of "Calisto," which was acted by the lords and ladies of the court of Charles in 1675. Nothing could be more galling towards Dryden, a part of whose duty as poet-laureate was to compose the pieces designed for such occasions. Crowne, though he was a tolerable comic writer,[11] had no turn whatever for tragedy, or indeed for poetry of any kind. But the splendour of the scenery and dresses, the quality ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... to blow that day Was easterly, and rather strong, too: It loved to see the galling way That clothes vex those whom they belong to: "Now watch me," cried this spell of weather, "I'll ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... life far more resemble what those of ours still are in England, than what Goethe's in Germany were. Alas, these men did not conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They were not heroic bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it. They lived under galling conditions; struggling as under mountains of impediment, and could not unfold themselves into clearness, or victorious interpretation of that 'Divine Idea.' It is rather the Tombs of three Literary Heroes that ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... see Lord Clare, pray tell him that in consequence of his having been spoken of by the Duke of Bedford and Lord Holland last night in a manner extremely galling to my feelings, I took the opportunity to express the sentiments which I believe he knows I entertain of his character and conduct. This passed with the doors of the House shut, so that he will ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... must naturally be supposed to find a pleasure in the remedies for his sufferings, and therefore evinced no regret whatever at the leaden prospects, but, on the contrary, made a most exasperating exhibition of saintly resignation, very galling to the young lady, who considered herself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... Vavasour was the evil spirit who brought about this sinister gathering. She was awed by Bower, she would not risk a snubbing from Mrs. de la Vere, and she was exceedingly annoyed to think that Helen might yet topple her from her throne. To one of her type this final consideration was peculiarly galling. And the too susceptible Georgie would be quite safe with the lady from the Wellington Theater. Mrs. Vavasour remembered the malice in Millicent's fine eyes when she refused to quail before Bower's wrath. A hawk in pursuit of a plump pigeon would ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... Wood found her when anxiety at her long absence induced his wife to search for the missing invalid. The storm of sobs and tears had spent itself, fortitude took the measure of the burden imposed, shouldered the galling weight, and henceforth, with undimmed vision, walked steadily to the appointed goal. The miller was surprised to find her so calm, and as they went homeward she asked the particulars of all that had occurred, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... paternal roof, in the quiet of its peace and virtues, he trusted that the sympathy of Pembroke, the only confidant of his past sorrows, would tend to heal his recent wounds (though the nature of the most galling, he felt, must ever remain unrevealed even to him!) and so fit him, should it be required, to yet further brave the buffets of an adverse fate. Nor was Miss Beaufort forgotten. If ever one idea more than another ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... so stoical, and who always like to appear incapable of fear or excitement, were, for the time being, wild and panic-stricken like the rest. Some of them fled from the tents at first without their guns and had to return later, under a galling fire, and get them. Some of those who had presence of mind enough left to seize their weapons were too badly frightened to use them at first and stampeded, like a flock of ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... sulphurous floods with lessened fury glow, The aching limbs find respite from their pain, While, in glad freedom from the galling chain, The tortured ghosts a ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... In the confusion that arose, the Swedes, a reserve of whom had been held in readiness, immediately seized the barbican, mounted from it to the gate-tower, which was now commanded by their artillery, and placed sharp-shooters in it, who at once opened a galling fire with double arquebuses, hand-grenades, and stones on the occupants of the nearest posts held by the defenders. By way of covering themselves from this fire, the besieged at once constructed a new battery on the upper cistern in the Peter ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... who had recently fretted at the galling 'ban' under which, for the transient love of the gipsy girl, he had voluntarily placed himself, now rejoiced at being delivered from it, and entered with all the zest of novelty into the social pleasures of the place. He loved his beautiful and high-born wife with both passion and pride, and she ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... Perhaps he was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and that his violence was as impolitic as it was useless. In a few moments he was as quiet as a lamb, and remained so for half an hour, though his bondage was no less galling than before. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... far surpassing any thing which we have heretofore experienced; and at every manifestation of unwillingness on our part to submit, we should have the sword tauntingly thrown in the balance. With foreign aid and foreign allies they could soon make our condition more galling than death. We should be the butt of every nation, humiliated and trampled on in every international dispute, and in every such difficulty the South would become the great power of America, and its rising sun would easily find means to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... a moment, letting himself drip, quite undecided as to what he should do. He had never been ducked before, with all his clothes on; the clammy, weighted sensation was most unpleasant, the thought of his damaged and perhaps ruined suit was galling, the indignity of his appearance was particularly hard to bear. He felt that Baldersnaith and the others were trying to be as polite and considerate as possible, and yet they could not refrain from exhibiting ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... fiery spirit of Cigarette rallied, though a rare and galling sense of intense inferiority, of intense mortification, was upon her; though she would almost have given the Cross which was on her breast that she had never come ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... over the line of torpedoes the three smaller gunboats of the enemy took their position on her starboard bow and ahead, whence they kept up a raking and most galling fire, to which the Hartford, confined to the direction of the channel, could only reply with her bow guns, one of which was speedily disabled by a shell bursting under it. As the flag-ship advanced they retreated, keeping their ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... do it, now that he knows—something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that it is the most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only way out of a false position, and a very galling one." ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... at the utterance of the Dutch syllables, leaving a tinge of witless envy. Dartrey—Fenellan had buried the wife whose behaviour vexed and dishonoured him: and it was in Africa! One would have to go to Africa to be free of the galling. But Dartrey had gone, and he was free!—The strange faint freaks of our sensations when struck to leap and throw off their load after a long affliction, play these disorderly pranks on the brain; and they are faint, but they come in numbers, they are recurring, always in ambush. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... promptly met, to Redmond's great delight—delight which was soon changed into vexation, for the War Office stepped in, declared the proceeding irregular, and prohibited the holding of colours by any temporary battalion. General Parsons was obliged to publish an explanation which must have been galling to himself, and which went far to confirm the impression that the War Office, with all its preoccupations, had time to keep an unfriendly eye on ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn



Words linked to "Galling" :   disagreeable



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