"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case," exclaimed Roland, "I shall retire, and I ask you to put me in a position to repay Herr Goebel the money I extracted from him. I resign the very thankless office of so-called leadership." ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... all the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he went each month to purchase a stock at a neighbouring town, where he ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... fire may come, and it may be Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee. Thy vessel that yon ocean stems, Loaded with golden dust and gems, Purchased with so much pains and cost, Yet in a tempest may be lost. Pimps, and a lot of others,—a thankless crew, Priests, pickpockets, and lawyers too, All help by several ways to drain, Thanking themselves for what they gain. The liberal are secure alone, For what we frankly give, forever is ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... given it to the great captains to do more than the privates to make the plan and shout the order, shall I feel thankless for my share of glory? Shall I be envious and turn traitor and want to crucify the leaders ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... protracted reward, to bear up manfully against injustice, and not to despond because his rewards are slow. It would be very easy for an author to make everybody good, or, if any were bad, to dismiss them, out of hand, to purgatory and places even worse. But it would be a thankless toil to read the writings of such an author. His characters would fail in vraisemblance, and his incidents would lack in interest. The world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which most have sores, either of greater or less degree of virulence. Some ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... stories are told of the abusiveness of the class, but a simple and effective rule is to overpay them at once and be done with it. I have sometimes had one cast a sorrowing glance at the just fare pressed into his down-stretched palm, and drive off in thankless silence; but any excess of payment was met with eager gratitude. I preferred to buy the cabman's good-will, because I find this is a world in which I am constantly buying the good-will of people whom I do not care ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... rejoiced in it. Pressure was coming from all sides. More than ten years had elapsed since the enactment of the Dingley bill and the position of many industries had been altered with the course of time. Evidently the day for revision—at best a thankless task—had arrived. Taft accepted the inevitable and called Congress in a special session. Until the midsummer of 1909, Republican Senators and Representatives wrangled over tariff schedules, the President making ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... since that will come to him in the ordinary course of nature. He is one of the personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery, inasmuch as he must be a peer malgre lui. He served a long apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless, his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have found for him office in other department than that of the Whip. But Mr. Gladstone, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... therefore a difficult matter to interest capital in their projects. Railroad committees were in time formed in all cities of any importance, but, with capital cowardly, as usual, and governments distrustful, their task was often a thankless one. Railroad projects matured very slowly, and, when matured, were often wrecked by jealous and short-sighted governments. After the formation of a company five and even ten years would often pass away before a charter could be secured and the ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... from the contemplation of my own. I have not succeeded, and shall not succeed in expressing the affection I feel for you, or the triumph with which I find that what I undertook as a distasteful and thankless duty has rescued my life and labor from waste. My literary travail, seriously as it has occupied us both, I now value only for the share it has had in educating you; and you will be guilty of no disloyalty to me when you come to see that though I sifted as much sand as most men, I found ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... desert; who will give me wings? In cloudy horror, who shall lead my steps? The eye of God maketh the night as day. O brothers, fulfill then The terrible duty; Throw down from the altars The dim-burning tapers; And be all joy, and be the love of God In thankless hearts that know not Peter, quenched, As is the little flame that falls and dies, Here in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... a woman. A man can grit his teeth and smash through some way, unless he sinks back into absolute indifference as a good many Indian agents do. But a woman—well, dear, I dread to think of your embarking on a task which is at once so alluring and so endless and thankless." ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... is blessedness! A year ago I did not see it as I do to-day,— We are so dull and thankless; and too slow To catch the sunshine till it slips away. And now it seems surpassing strange to me That, while I wore the badge of motherhood, I did not kiss more oft and tenderly The little child that brought me ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... nights, in which the brain grew dizzy and the heart heavy and clogged with the intensity of my pursuits. Were the dungeon and the scaffold my reward Heaven knows that I would not flinch eye or hand or abate a jot of heart and hope in the thankless prosecution of my toils. Know me, then, as one of fortunes more desperate than your own; of an ambition more unquenchable; of a philanthropy no less ardent; and, I will add, of a courage no less firm: and behold the utter hopelessness of your projects with others, when to me they ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... art not bigger Than is the diamond in my ring; Yet, every black, star-gazing nigger Looks at thee, as at some great thing! Yes, gazes at thee, till the lazy And thankless ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to be a ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters? ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... the thankless morning, The gifts of noon unused; Think of the eve of scorning, The night ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... Oh, thankless Crimean land! in ruin laid Are now the castles that were once your pride! Here serpents and the owls from daylight hide, And robbers arm them for the nightly raid. Upon the lettered marble boasts are made, Brave words on battered arms in gold descried, And broken splendor years have scattered ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, who only have themselves to blame, since they flock to him, like flies to honey, all ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... disposition in the army of William II. to relax the severity of service even temporarily. My German friends sincerely believe that the black stock and the hot tunic are what has made Prussia a strong nation, and to disturb that superstition would be a thankless task. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... who had yet discovered anything on the island, I was now invested with a certain importance. Also, I had a playfellow and companion for future walks, in lieu of Cuthbert Vane, held down tight to the thankless toil of treasure-hunting by his stem taskmaster. But at the same time I was provided with an annoying, because unanswerable, question which had lodged at the back of my mind like ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he'll make a good king. I ain't so much down on kings as I used to be, Hinnissy. I ain't down on thim anny more because I don't invy thim, an' ye can't be down on anny man ye don't invy. 'Tis a hard job an' a thankless wan. A king nowadays is no more thin a hitchin' post f'r wan pollytician afther another. He ain't allowed to move himsilf, but anny crazy pollytician that ties up to him is apt to pull him out be th' roots. He niver has anny childhood. He's like th' breaker-boys ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... "Ye're a thankless madam," she said, shaking her white-capped head; "maybe ye think that the fifth commandment says nocht aboot grandmithers; but ye'll be tamed some day, my woman. Mony's the gamesome an' hellicat [madcap] ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... than a literary one. Let me give you fair warning—it is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... but only leave All things to our Father! Would we only cease to grieve, Wait His mercy rather! Meek resigning childish choice, Graceless, thankless pressing— Listen for His gentle voice, 'Child, receive this blessing!' Faithless, foolish hearts! see you Seeds' earth-hidden growing? What our God for us will ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... that Carl should become a clergyman, but his distaste for theology did not go unexpressed. So perverse and persistent were his inclinations that they preyed on the mind of his father, who quoted King Lear and said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... still begun—And this for sin? Could I offend, if I had never been, But still increas'd the senseless happy mass, Flow'd in the stream, or shiver'd in the grass? "Father of mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake, and curse me into birth? Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, And make a thankless present of thy light? Push into being a reverse of thee, And animate a clod with misery? "The beasts are happy; they come forth, and keep Short watch on earth, and then lie down to sleep. Pain is for ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... all her being quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and thankless as a stone ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Man's burden— Have done with childish days— The lightly proffered laurel The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... a kindred spirit, a well-wisher, a man after your own heart, a promoter, if I may be bold to say it, of your pursuits. See to it that you catch not the tone of our latter-day philosophers, and be thankless, petulant, and hard of heart, to him ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... a Kingdom can be with a clean King—a strong King! I've fitted you to bear a burden which only a man could bear—to remind the world that 'King' means the Man Who Can—and I thought you could do it!" He paused only to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. "Yes, your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Princelings as you who must send clean blood down to the thrones of to-morrow.... Is that not enough?... Have I built a King, day ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... that we have not acted rightly; for incited by counterfeit oracles we drove out into exile men who were very closely united with us as guest-friends and who undertook the task of rendering Athens submissive to us, and then after having done this we delivered over the State to a thankless populace, which so soon as it had raised its head, having been freed by our means drove out us and our king with wanton outrage; and now exalted with pride 76 it is increasing in power, so that the neighbours of these men first of all, that is the Boeotians and Chalkidians, have ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... fair Nymphs, they are not loth To entice their lovers' wiles. None but thankless folk and rough Can resist when Love beguiles. Now enlaced, with wreathed smiles, All together dance and play.— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... she was held in her seat by the certainty that Robin would not let himself be carried off; and sooner than say good-bye and then find he was staying on alone she would sit there all night. Thus do mothers sacrifice themselves for their children, thought Mrs. Morrison, for their all too frequently thankless children. But though she would do it to any extent in order to guard her boy she need not, she said to herself, be pleasant besides,—she need not, so to speak, be the primroses on his path of dalliance. Accordingly she behaved as ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... finds necessary in order to house an egg may easily equal or even exceed that of the worker in building her cell and filling it with honey. That industrious one has regular and continuous work, an excellent condition for success in her egg-laying; the other has a thankless and precarious task, at the mercy of a thousand accidents which endanger the great undertaking of installing the eggs. One has only to watch the prolonged hesitation of a Coelioxys seeking for the Leaf-cutters' ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse? Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days, But the fair guerdon when we hope to ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... is hardly anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs be thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper classes at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their way in the world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they are Jacks of all trades and ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... those who are appreciative. We can be heroic, in an emergency, but if we are not properly thanked, we do like to growl a little. It is gratifying to our vanity to be ranked with our masculine associates, but when it comes to the hard, thankless tasks which they accept without a murmur, then we proceed to show that we know what is what, and that our refined tastes ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... fantastically rich; and some of the very rich allowed some of the very clever to wheedle from them great sums of money, knowing all the time that these would be applied to such unsettling activities as the education of thankless labourers or anti-sweating propaganda. Even towards Art rolled a few coppers; indeed, the best painter in England tells me that about this time he was earning as much as two hundred a year. It was thought odd but not shameful ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... fellow-citizens. In this point of view, a few votes less are but little sensible, while a few more would have been in their effect very sensible and oppressive to me. I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office. And never since the day you signed the treaty of Paris, has our horizon been so overcast. I devoutly wish you may be able to shun for us this war, which will destroy our agriculture, commerce, and credit. If you do, the glory will be all your own. And that your administration ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fresh, stupid house-maiden, but, sooner than take the trouble of teaching the new servant where everything was, and how to give out the stores if she was busy, she would go back to Worms. For, after all, housekeeping for a brother was thankless work; there was no satisfying men; and Heppenheim was but a poor ignorant village ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... good wife and homemaker says to her children, "Where thou goest, I will go." She puts off her own inclinations to ease and selfishness. She studies the men who propose to educate her children; she exhorts mothers to sit beside fathers on the school-board; she will even herself accept such thankless office in the interests of the helpless youth of the schools who need a mother's as well as a father's and a teacher's care in ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... task," he said, "to explain the slowness of the masses in feeling their way to a comprehension of all that the democratic idea meant for them, but it is one equally difficult and thankless to account for the blank failure of the philosophers, historians, and statesmen of your day to arrive at an intelligent estimate of the logical content of democracy and to forecast its outcome. Surely the very smallness of the practical results thus far ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... Nature that is hardest to please, however he may be hardest to satisfy, with the attempt to follow her. The accomplished poet will derive pleasure from verses which are a mockery to the soul of the unhappy mortal whose business is judgment—the most thankless of all labours, and justly so. Certain fruits one is unable to like until he has eaten them in their perfection; after that, the reminder in them of the perfect will enable him to enjoy even the inferior ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... and will run till it becomes a waking reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too, as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth of the pit,—why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a far narrower imagination than Grace's would have done what Grace's did—concentrate ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... danger, accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But when he entered the palace, the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was the impression of his glory on the minds of men, that Justinian, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... mouth the words nigh flew - The past, the future, I forgat 'em: "Oh! if you'd kiss me as you do That thankless atom!" ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... our sweet Lady, Saint Mary, worketh miracles at Walsingham, never was poor woman so be-plagued as I, with an ill, ne'er-do-well, good-for-nought, thankless hussy, picked up out of the mire in the gutter! Where be thy wits, thou gadabout? Didst leave them at the Cross yester-morrow? Go thither and seek for them! for ne'er a barley crust shalt thou break this even in this house, or my name is ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... up there where he is safe, and not tempt the shafts and arrows any more. What, I 'haven't done anything then, after all?' O, haven't I! Jane, you are worse than a serpent's tooth: if Lear had been in my place, he would have talked about a thankless sister. It has been a weary, toilsome, painful task, and few men could have carried it through to so happy an end. And when I come back hungering for sympathy—I told you what my nature was—you ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... airs; then the boy was compelled to jump through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth. Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks, remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure, rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing but nonsense. "I bought a company of comedians," he went on, "but I preferred for them to put ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which they promise is reached only after weary wandering through the desert. Prince Louis did not possess the self-denial requisite for it. So he continued his life devoted to purely external things and meanwhile was as much bored as Jonah in the whale. ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... thus devote themselves to the tending of sick have often curious histories if anybody would be at the trouble of collecting them. It is by no means always mere regard for the securing of the necessaries of life which has brought them to the thankless and toilsome occupation. We have all read of nunneries in which women immured themselves, anxious to sequester themselves from all association with the outer world and to devote themselves to a life of penance and devotion. After all their piety was aimless and of no utility to humanity. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-grammar master. That thankless traitor was found out, as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with 'The Family' by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... is a rough account of the actual work of diplomacy. It is not a full account. There are many wrong things done which deserve criticism, but which we have not had space to mention. There is also much self-sacrificing and thankless work done by diplomatists and consuls in distant parts of the world—much seeming drudgery which can hope for no reward—many honourable services rendered to the public of which the public never hears. But the above account will suffice to give a rough idea of the organisation ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... well aware of the nature of Jerry's infatuation as though Jerry had told it himself. If Una cared for him as deeply as I had had the temerity to suppose, then her position was difficult—painful and thankless. But whatever her own wish to help him, I am sure that the nature of the desire was unselfish. After events prove that. All that Una saw in the situation of Jerry and Marcia was a friend who needed helping, who was worth helping from the snare of ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... constant and kind letters, which supply the vacancy of all other information. You will perhaps know before you receive this, that after having employed Pitt, and through him, me, and also General Ross, separately, to press Tom to accept the thankless office of his Secretary, Lord Cornwallis has, without one word of communication to him, written to say that, Pelham declining, he desires to have Lord Castlereagh. It is of a piece with all the rest! Pelham ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends; Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail, This more than pays whole years of thankless pain— Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves; consenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice from ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... giving them a chance to develop. (8) Keawe-ulu-pu. It was his function to promote the development and fruitage of plants. (9) Keawe-lu-pua. He caused flowers to shed their petals. (10) Keawe-opala. It was his thankless task to create rubbish and litter by scattering the leaves of the trees. (11) Keawe-hulu, a magician, who could blow a feather into the air and see it at once become a bird with power to fly away. (12) Keawe-nui-ka-ua-o-Hilo, a sentinel ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... me," Copper said as she looked up from the pile of cards she was sorting. He had given her the thankless task of reorganizing the files, and she was barely half ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... continued the captain. "Well, there 'tis. What am I goin' to do? When they wanted me to take the job in the first place I kind of hesitated. You know I did. 'Twas bound to be one of those thankless sort of jobs that get a feller into trouble, bound to be. And yet—and yet—well, SOMEBODY has to take those kind of jobs. And a man hadn't ought to talk all the time about how he wishes he could do somethin' to help his country, and then lay down and quit on the first chance that ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... BAR. Thou thankless fair! (raises ZAPHIRA.) Thus to repay the labours of my love! Had I not seiz'd the throne when Selim died, Ere this thy foes had laid Algiers in ruin. I check'd the warring pow'rs, and gave you peace, Make thee but mine, I will descend ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... my wish, was a fitting knight to play a leading role with my young lady, the desire for whose wellbeing had taken grip of me. For her sweet sake, and the sake of the fragrant manliness of the stalwart and deserving knight, I straightway resolved to enter the thankless and precarious business of matchmaking, one in which I had not had one iota of experience; but as women have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a first effort I determined ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... "Antiquity of Man" opens up a wide field of speculation into a variety of difficult and obscure though interesting subjects. In the light of modern research it would be an easy task to pile up a mountain of criticism on points of detail. But, though easy, it would be a thankless task. It is scarcely too much to say that the dominant impression of most readers after perusing this book will be one of astonishment and admiration at the insight and breadth of view displayed by the author. When it was written the subject was a particularly ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... this of course depends in a great measure on your reply." My reply, dwelling on the fatigue and cost, had the reception I foresaw. "Notwithstanding what you say, I am still in the same mind about coming to London. Not because the proofs concern me at all (I should be an ass as well as a thankless vagabond if they did), but because of that unspeakable restless something which would render it almost as impossible for me to remain here and not see the thing complete, as it would be for a full balloon, left to itself, not to go up. I do not intend coming from ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... work?" said I sullenly: "I cannot please though I toil like a slave." "Work, work!" reiterated the inward voice. "I may work, it will do no good," I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a packet of letters and commenced my task—task thankless and bitter as that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... be a night expected more propitious to an escaping criminal: means of disguise Williams now had in excess; and the dens were innumerable in the neighborhood of the river that could have sheltered him for years from troublesome inquiries. But favors are thrown away upon the reckless and the thankless. That night, when the turning-point offered itself for his whole future career, Williams took the wrong turn; for, out of mere indolence, he took the turn to his old lodgings—that place which, in all England, he had just now ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... century. It was deluding the people and trifling with national interests. It is certain that no financier before or since ever, in Cromwellian phrase, made such a conscience of the matter, or ever found the task more thankless.[359] Great as was the effect of the close and searching argument that accompanied all this invective, even Mr. Gladstone's friends thought it too impassioned and too severe upon Lewis, in whose favour there was consequently a reaction. The cool minister contented himself ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... judges is determined in each case by the fact that the experience of each has hardened him and rendered him completely hopeless and unsympathetic. "The work of the buffalo in the oil-press," says Captain Temple, "is the synonym all India over—and with good reason—for hard and thankless ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! Get ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... thankless child has been, But never one like mine; Her meat was served on plates of gold, Her drink was rosy wine; But now she'll share the robin's food, And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again To meet her ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... fools!" he exclaimed—"O thankless and disloyal people! What!—ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me? ... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay, is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel, should have stood so long among ye disregarded! How comes it your dull eyes ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... while the short 'large hours' toward the longer 'small hours' trend, With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat, Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street — Sinking down, sinking down, Battered wreck by tempests beat — A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... least, was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that clean agility and vigilance, which ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... return; he would never again make the fire for her in the morning, nor yet keep the bairn when she was sick. Indeed, many of these poor fellows (as the event proved) were upon their last cruise; the deep seas and cannibal fish received them; and it is a thankless business to speak ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... laziness. I'm glad she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm getting sick of this family business, I'm ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... at Asteroid Station Three. The work is not hard but it's a thankless, monotonous existence. You're alone on an anchored world a half-mile in diameter. You sign on for three years, and there you stay. You have every need within reason, including technical library and one-way radio. A government ship ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... added the petition, "designates our Society as a perpetual hotbed of regicidal conspiracy, and presents us to credulous people as an association of ambitious, thankless and corrupt assassins!" ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out, as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... it as Orlando did with Morgana, breaking the talisman and dissolving the enchantment This would be a pity; but it would also be a pity that these two young persons should not come together. But why should I trouble myself with matchmaking? It is always a thankless office. If it turns out well, your good service is forgotten. If it turns out ill, you are abused by ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... slanderous tongue To daunt me, scattering in the people's ear Dark hints, and looked for partners of his wrong: Nor rested, till with Calchas' aid, the seer— But why the thankless story should ye hear? Why stay your hand? If Grecians in your sight Are all alike, ye know enough; take here Your vengeance. Dearly will my death delight Ulysses, well the deed will Atreus' ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... were the days and oh! wicked the weather— Endless and thankless the round— Grinding God's Grit into rookies together; I was the upper stone, he was the nether, And Gad, sir, they groaned as we ground! Bitter the blame (but he helped me to bear it), Grim the despair that we ate! But hell's loose! The dam's down, and none can repair it! 'Tis our turn! Go, ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... reconstructing the political and economic organisation of Egypt. It was her hope and intention that the work should be done as rapidly as possible, in order that she might be able to withdraw from a difficult and thankless task, which brought her into very delicate relations with the other powers interested in Egypt. But withdrawal was not easy. The task of reorganisation proved to be a much larger and more complicated one than had been anticipated; and it was greatly ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... prompt, "With the year seasons return, but not to me." It would, however, be most ungrateful to complain. To live at all is a great favor—an undeserved and unspeakable favor; and though it be a life of pain and weariness, and even grief, may it never become a life of thankless ingratitude! We who have tried our heavenly Father's patience so long, dare we complain of waiting ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... control. Fire he utilized only for purposes of cooking food, but not for the development of machinery of warfare. He has no vessel upon all the seven seas. To seize and master and utilize these energies appeared a thankless job, albeit a necessary one. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... misery of your awn choosin'; go to him an' the rubbish-heap he calls a farm! Thankless an' ontrue,—go,—an' look to me in the future to keep you out of the poorhouse and no more. An' that for ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... every mercy been taken as a matter of course, and every pleasure been enjoyed with a thankless forgetfulness of the hand from which it flowed? If such has been the case, let it be so no longer; but awake and rouse ye from your lethargic slumber, be true to yourselves, and remember that you are responsible beings, and will have to account for all the time ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... industrial energy displayed in a land where Nature is a godmother, what progress agriculture might make if capital would go into partnership with the soil, which is not so thankless in Champagne as it is in Scotland, where capital has done wonders. The day when agriculture will have conquered the unfertile portion of those departments, and industry has seconded capital on the Champagne chalk, the prosperity of that region will triple itself. Into that land, now without luxury, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... zeal, under the impression at once of the immensity of the evil, so defying the feebleness of their remedial means and efforts, and of its noisome quality. At times, the rudeness of the subjects, and perhaps the ungracious reception and thankless requital of their disinterested labors, aggravating the general feeling of the miserableness (so to express it) of seeing so much misery, have lent seduction to the temptations to ease and self-indulgence. Why should they, just they of all men, condemn themselves ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand, Fear not to touch the best, The truth shall be thy warrant; Go, since I needs must die, And give ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... your mind is care-ridden," bandied Martin, falling in with the other's mood. "It must be a wearisome and thankless task to scatter universal knowledge amidst the brainless. Have you still got your book? That thing you ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for once, like other people. I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf came! I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask. If I had had anything special to ask ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around And worship ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... object the Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Parliament, he would have been expelled from the House. But of course in Parliament they wouldn't have those horrid things to roll down the aisles. Poor dear Humphrey! The career of a gentleman in politics is a thankless one in this country. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... may be making too light of criticism to say with Gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as Criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of Blenheim or of Waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us why it has triumphed, or still more unprofitably contending ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... turn, began to converse in a very unrestrained manner, and, on leaving, bade Clare never to come to London without seeing him. Quitting the house in Albemarle Street, Clare ran right against Mr. Gifford, who was coming up the steps. Both apologised, and both felt somewhat confused concerning the thankless old business of ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... for you from morning till night, you thankless chit, you? And don't you begrudge me all the little amusements which turn the tradesman into the man and sweeten the pill of bondage—eh, you ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and read through all that seemed to concern me the first day. I have doubted whether it would be most considerate to return you thanks for it, making you pay for a letter: or to leave you thankless, with a shilling more in your pocket. You see I have taken the latter [? former], and God forgive me for it. The book is a good one, I think, as any book is, that notes down facts alone, especially about health. I wish we had diaries of the lives of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... lips; to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular weakness, have gilded,—"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... if not, he will defend himself.[257] As for his country, he has done more for his country than has even been desired of him; and he thinks it to be better to leave the helm in the hands of pilots, however incompetent, than himself to steer when passengers are so thankless. Then we find that he robs poor Tullia of her promised pleasure at the games, because it will be beneath his dignity to appear at them. He is always very anxious for his friend's letters, depending ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... so idle when he ought to have been grave and wise, but that he felt that he had been altogether remiss in his duty as guide, philosopher, and friend. There were old sorrows, too, on this score. In the main Sir Thomas had discharged well a most troublesome, thankless, and profitless duty towards the son of a man who had not been related to him, and with whom an accidental intimacy had been ripened into friendship by letter rather than by social intercourse. Ralph Newton's ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... And he cursed his eldest daughter, Goneril, so as was terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled and set out ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... wondering what things the coming years might hold for them and for their parents. At one time, you know, Philip Bawdrey was as innocent and guileless as any of those little shavers; and yet, in after years he proved a monster of iniquity, a beast of ingratitude, and—Oh, well, let it pass. He paid, as thankless children always do pay under God's good rule. I wonder what his thoughts were ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... understands it. Further, he gives us credit for understanding it. He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange density of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimless iconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging a thankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress. He is doing the same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we, when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way, forthwith ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... with a hard eye. "You put the cart before the horse, I think," says he. "That which I had given was a portion of my liking, which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered." He paused a bit. "And I warn you, you do not know yourself," he added. "Youth ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Marrapit declaimed from the window, "old as mankind; not therefore less bitter—the tragedy of ingratitude. At stupendous cost I have supported, educated, clothed you. You turn upon me for more. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... know you will; if not me, some other man. You will have discovered that doing the world's work even well is a thankless job, and that fame and success are the husks that swine do eat compared with even the tears and griefs of love. But you will not be lovable then, Selah; you will only be horribly intelligent and capable. I can see that, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... there was a boy wanted and barrack for myself properly, and she used to help me and see me through to the best of her ability. I'm afraid I didn't always feel as grateful to her as I should have felt. I was a thankless kid at the best of times—most kids are—but otherwise I was a straight enough little chap as nippers go. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't been. My relations would have thought a good deal more of ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... pity," she sighed. "So touching when a father—no matter how selfish—is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I warned him six years ago. Didn't ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it being brave. I call it being unnatural ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... When one undertakes the thankless task of analyzing coldly and critically the style of Scott, the faults are plain enough. He constantly uses two adjectives or three in parallel construction where one would do the work better. The construction ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... MISCARRIAGE.—It is one of the many thankless tasks of a physician's life to insist on each patient staying in bed at least ten days after a miscarriage. The average woman and frequently the intelligent woman fails to appreciate the absolute necessity for this procedure. It is necessary and it ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... they did when they came out of the oven. Think of those loaves baked eighteen hundred years ago, and still preserved as witnesses against that wicked city. God was good to those people in Pompeii, and prepared their corn, and bread to strengthen their heart, just as He does for us. And they went on thankless and careless in their sin, till the fiery stream overtook them, and that same fire which destroyed them preserved the bread, as a sign of God's goodness ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes: Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy genius, in thy love too, blest! One greatful woman to thy fame supplies, What a whole thankless land to his denies." ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... believe me, c'est un vilain metier cet de president. If he leans a little too much on this side he goes down into the mud, a little too much on the other he rolls in the dust. One must feel some respect for the man who undertakes such a thankless office. And, again, when a man rides in an open landau in pelting rain, when il lui pleut dans le nez, without an umbrella, with his hat off, saluting right and left, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour; and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other spot of earth, in preference. It ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the first time published—are not without considerable interest from the light they throw upon the characters and motives of their writers. The position of a go-between is always more or less perilous; his task, however well performed, is generally a thankless one; nor in such matters can the adeptest diplomacy, joined to the most thorough bona fides, always ensure the conduct of the common agent against misapprehension and sore feelings. Of this the particular negotiation of which we are now speaking is a typical instance. Bute's offer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... three, being of one mind, In hearing of all men refused to judge Judgment so thankless: they would none of it. Therefore they set the high-born sons of Troy There in the midst, spear-thralls although they were, To give just judgment in the warriors' strife. Then in hot anger Aias rose, and spake: "Odysseus, frantic soul, why hath a God Deluded thee, to make thee hold thyself ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... meager. A task he could see and a kingdom he could desire, but adequacy of preparation for world-conquest never crept into his thought. He was as niggardly in supplying his generals and armies as Queen Elizabeth, and all but as voluble in abuse of his servants in the field or cabinet, and as thankless to those who had wrought his will. Parma, and Requesens, and Don John, and Alva, he drove almost frantic by his excessive demands and expectations, coupled with his entire inadequacy in preparation and supplies. His soldiers were always on the point of mutiny for food, or ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... was soon of the settled conviction that she should never meet any one quite like him again. He was true to his promise to help her; (he never made a promise that he did not honestly try to keep;) and he applied himself to the by no means thankless task with the good-humored directness and energy that characterized all his actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had long been ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... nearly forgot," he said, turning back and smiling at his oversight. "We need a new director to take your father's place. When I'm away Burdon looks after things, so I suppose he may as well take the responsibility. It's a thankless position, but some one has to ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... ladies are never old—quite young or only moderately young, they took to the work like ducks to the water and did yeoman service. As in the case of the cable censorship, employment in the postal censorship was a thankless job; but the labourers of both sexes in the branch had at least the satisfaction of knowing that they had done their bit—some of them a good deal more than their bit—for their country ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... his hand, which he partially immerses: he remains steadfast and unmoved, and we all know that he must be drowned. The multitudes who daily perish in this manner to attest a philosophical truth, and whose bodies the unreasoning wave casts sullenly upon our thankless shores, have a truer claim to be called the martyrs of science than a Galileo or a Kepler. To use Kossuth's eloquent phrase, they are the unnamed demigods of ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll |
