"Bitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting lungs as he ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... tales of all sorts, from the tragic adventure of "An Accident" to the pendent portraits of the "Two Clowns," cutting in its sarcasm, but not bitter—from "The Captain's Vices," which suggests at once George Eliot's Silas Marner and Mr. Austin Dobson's Tale of Polypheme, to the sombre revery of the poet "At Table," a sudden and searching light cast on the labor and misery which underlies the luxury of our ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... misery of wretched, broken hearts, could have penetrated these stones, one might almost fancy that they would have sweat with human histories in the ditch where they lay, and discolored the puddles they bridged with the bitter distilment of grief centuries old. On that gentle rising from the little Nen stood Fotheringay Castle. That central depression among the soft-carpeted ridges marks the site of the donjon huge and horrid, where many a knight and lady of noble ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... his dressing-case, also the maternal present, a pair of scissors, with which he nipped carefully the stalk of the flower, and placing it in a glass of water opposite his bed, he sought refuge there from care and bitter remembrances. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been open to the pestilence! the pestilence could but have killed the body, but this boy—this fore-front fighter in the devil's battle—did much to ruin many an immortal soul. He systematically, from the very first, called evil good, and good evil, put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. He openly threw aside the admission of any one moral obligation. Never did some of the Roslyn boys, to their dying day, forget the deep, intolerable, unfathomable flood of moral turpitude and iniquity which he bore with him; a flood, which seemed so irresistible, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter feeling of shame which had ever ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... music. Her days were an endless round of dish-washing and baby-tending—first for her mother, later for herself. There had been no money for music lessons, no time for piano practice. Hester's childish heart had swelled with bitter envy whenever she saw the coveted music roll swinging from some playmate's hand. At that time her favorite "make-believe" had been to play at going for a music lesson, with a carefully modeled roll of brown paper suspended by a ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... upon her knees in bitter grief, the desolation of earth was spread like an impenetrable pall over his whole future. Suddenly he looked up, full of a strange, bright ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... swung to blot out the glowing Mediterranean and the western hemisphere. Gray desert banks closed in upon her strictly, slid gently astern, drawing with them to the vanishing-point the bright lane of traversed water. She gained the Bitter Lakes; and the red conical buoys, like beads a-stringing, slipped on and added to the two converging ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... responsiveness to their most friendly excitation was not needed in her for it was not expected. "The shy, quiet thing you always are, dear child," Aunt Belle often used to say to her and said now. (And within the week was to beat her breast in that same drawing-room and cry with an exceeding bitter cry, "Shy! We thought her shy! Sly! Sly! Sly to the tips of ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... It was his son, brought up by his uncle in the sternest tenets of Puritanism, who, coming home after a lengthened journey, found that during his absence his sister had been shamefully seduced. He turned her out of doors, then and there, in the midst of a bitter January night, and the next morning her dead body and that of her new-born infant were found half buried in the fresh-fallen snow on the top of the wolds. The 'white lady' is still supposed by the villagers to haunt that side of the glen. And so it went on. A beautiful, heartless Mervyn ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... reported in the Guardian of 16th February), when he made the statement that the greatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God of Love. His exact words were: "I believe that there are a great many of us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever difficulties there are about religious belief are difficulties about believing in a God of Love; whatever is our experience, and however sunny is our disposition, any steady thinking will make it apparent that thought, apart ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... with a bitter imprecation, vowed, that he had not offered the least indecency; that he was frightened at the terrible manner I was taken with the fit: that he should desist from his attempt; and begged but to see me easy and quiet, and he would leave me directly, and go to his own bed. O then, said I, take with ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... The tenets of this tribe, you are aware, are in several instances wonderfully similar to our own; only, they abjure in their totality the filthy rags of the moral law, which has drawn upon them the bitter persecution of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... amazed At the emptiness of life, and wonder What keeps sorrow and death asunder. 'Tis the forced seclusion most galls the mind, And sours all other joy which it may find. 'Tis the sneer, tho' half hid, is bitter still, And wakes dormant anger to passion's will. But oh! 'tis harder yet to bear them all Unangered and unheedful of the thrall, To list the jeer, the snarl, and epithet All too base for knaves, and e'en still ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... while in the intoxication of our freedom we have fled from it to throw ourselves into a stranger world. We regret this place of safety, we earnestly long to come back to it as soon as we have begun to feel the bitter side of civilization, and in the totally artificial life in which we are exiled we hear in deep emotion the voice of our mother. While we were still only children of nature we were happy, we were perfect: we have become free, and we have lost both advantages. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Monday, and was so called on this occasion. In the 34th of Edward III. (1360), the 14th April, and the morrow after Easter Day, King Edward, with his host, lay before the City of Paris, which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold that many men died on their ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... spoke to her. She turned towards him almost fiercely, and saw that he was offering her a shawl. She steadied her voice to decline it, and turned back again to the window. But now as she looked across the street, she was filled with a new and very bitter envy. The woman over there had the right to suffer for ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... is locked, and Miss Bright has to wait a moment before it is unfastened. Hazel has been crying, and the tears must have been both plentiful and bitter, for unmistakable traces exist, in spite of hurried efforts to efface them. For once, though, Brightie is thoroughly self-engrossed, and fails to notice ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... his life was to be in all points the opposite of what it had been; the Crucified had given himself to him; he on his side had given himself to the Crucified without reserve or return. To uncertainty, disquietude of soul, anguish, longing for an unknown good, bitter regrets, had succeeded a delicious calm, the ecstasy of the lost child who finds his mother, and forgets in a moment the torture of ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... never echoed through the halls of her childhood. Her father, stern and silent, buried all memories of his guilty child deep within his heart; whilst the mother, wan, broken-hearted, hopeless, wept in secret those tears of bitter agony whose ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... "This bitter and public affront came to sir Charles Blount's ear, who sent him a challenge, which was accepted by my lord; and they went near Marybonepark, where my lord was hurt in the thigh and disarmed: the queen, missing the men, was very curious to learn the truth; and when at last it was whispered out, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Manlius, the saviour of the Capitol during the Gallic siege, is said to have come forward as the champion of the oppressed people, with whom he was connected by the ties of comradeship in war and of bitter hatred towards his rival, the celebrated general and leader of the optimate party, Marcus Furius Camillus. When a brave officer was about to be led away to a debtor's prison, Manlius interceded for him and released him with his own money; at the same ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and there by lanes of sunlight set in purple heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, assuredly, of this blowsy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of salt, with a touch of ugliness. It has a sting like the sting of bitter ale; you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste for olives. And the wonderful clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart tinkling to a new tune—or, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... scratches,' he said. 'They'll be hit hard enough as it is.' If he'd been a poor devil on eighteen shillings a week it would have been different. He was an engineer earning good wages; so he wasn't feeling sore and bitter against half the world. Suppose you tried to run an army with your men half starved while your officers had more than they could eat. It's been tried and what's been the result? See that your soldiers ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... LOW, thou bitter northern gale; Heave, thou rolling, foaming sea; Bend the mast and fill the sail, Let the gallant ship go free! Steady, lad! Be firm and steady! On the compass fix your eye; Ever watchful, ever ready, Let the rain and spray go ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... entertaining the hope that matters would mend by-and-by. It would only be self-deceit. I tell you openly, matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse. These are bitter truths, and people may perhaps turn their backs on me; but then I shall have the consolation of having ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... lingered in her some dim hopes that possibly somehow their own acquaintance with the old lady might have been of use to her friends. Jacinth, though she said nothing, was feeling very chagrined indeed, and not a little bitter. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... contribute to that of others; nothing could exhilirate him; he became the enemy of himself, the persecutor of his fellow-creatures, because his felicity here below was interdicted; he passed his time in heaving the most bitter sighs; his reason being forbidden him, he fell into either a state of infancy or delirium, which submitted him to authority; he was destined to this servitude from the hour he quitted his mother's womb, until that in which he was returned to his kindred dust; tyrannical ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... up" was an admonition to the reporters. Jim always felt that the papers had been bitter to us, although some of them had been staunch supporters of the proposal for our parole. The day we were paroled, Jim said to a visiting ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... never set foot on her soil again.' How petty, how like a hysterical woman that is! How, in its way of taking a possible trifling personal injustice as if it were a thing of vital and even national moment, he betrays what was always to remain narrow, as well as bitter, in the centre of his being! He has recorded it against himself (for he spared himself, as he proudly and truthfully said, no more than others) in an anecdote which is a ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... things?—Not if you are wise. You see, the cigarette habit will kill you sometime, by inches, if not right away, or else drive you crazy; and no sane person wants to kill himself or spoil his health. That is what I am doing, though," he admitted, with a bitter smile and a sad shake of his head. "But I cannot stop it now. I have gone too far, and I cannot help myself. I am a wreck, a blot on ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Macaulay and him; but then I knew how the contest would end; so that I was to see him triumph. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you cannot be sure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two people in a dispute by which their passions may be inflamed, and they may part with bitter resentment against each other. I would sooner keep company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man who contrives to bring me into a dispute with somebody that he may hear it. This is the great fault ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... that wud've inlisted if he hadn't been too old, an' th' contractin' business in such good shape. There's Bill Cory, that come near losin' his life at a cinematograph iv th' battle iv Manila. They're all here, bedad, r-ready to sarve their country to th' bitter end, an' to r-rush, voucher in hand, to th' city threasurer's office ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... gone?" murmured Evangeline piteously; she could not hide her disappointment, and shed bitter tears. ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... Perhaps, after all, his alarm had been needless. The trouble with Pirate might be the infrequency with which he had been saddled and ridden. But he knew that the girl would not soon forget his interference. There would be more humiliations, more bitter pills for him to swallow. It pleased him, however, to note the ease with which ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these—outrages—of the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some rowdy elements—drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly want protection. I shall see that ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... must do something, and because they dared not face what might be before them. They avoided looking at one another while they stood helplessly beside the still figure of the man they had maligned. If he died, they would always have that bitter spot in their memory—and even with the fear of ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... rose into a furious and bitter struggle for victory. The deck of the vessel was actually slippery with blood, and many were lying in an almost lifeless state. Several were pitched into the hold, and had their legs and arms broken by the fall; ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... vain bravado of a young soldier going into action. The poor child betrayed herself to the experienced woman, trained either to detect or to practise artifice, and who found bitter amusement in watching the girl's assumed 'sang-froid'. But the mask fell off at the first touch of genuine sympathy. When Giselle, forgetful of a certain coolness between them ever since Fred's departure, came ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... heart knows its own bitterness; and a stranger intermeddleth not with his joy;" Prov. xiv. 10. No sooner doth Satan perceive what God is doing with the soul, in a way of grace and mercy, but he endeavoureth what he may to make the renewing thereof bitter and wearisome work to the sinner. O what mists, what mountains, what clouds, what darkness, what objections, what false apprehensions of God, of Christ, of grace, of the word, and of the soul's condition, doth he now lay before it, and ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... is something devilish in man! Were Heinrich only dead! But others live who know my birth,—my sister! my poor, neglected sister, she who had the same right to intellectual development as myself! How I fear this meeting! it will be bitter! I must away. I will hence—here will my life-germ be stifled! I have indeed fortune—I will travel! This animated France will drive away these whims, and—I am away, far removed from my home. In the coming spring I shall be a stranger among strangers!" And his thoughts melted into a quiet melancholy. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... and grief I threw myself on the solitary bench, for they had not sought to mock my misery with the presence of a bed, and as thoughts of my wife and friends came upon me, I covered my face with my hands and wept. How long that flood of hot and bitter tears continued I know not, but they partially relieved my almost bursting head. I arose, and in the darkness paced my prison floor. Even in these terrible hours hope did not utterly forsake me. The swift revolution ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... against the articles, reversing Dr. Kenyon's decision, and gave costs against Mr. Macmullen. [Footnote: For this outline of the proceedings in Macmullen v. Hampden, I am indebted to accurate memoranda kindly furnished me by Mr. David Lewis, late Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford.] Mr. Badeley's bitter comment will amuse the reader: 'Mischievous idiots! and so all the conclusive arguments you put before them, are set at nought, and the battle is to be fought again!' [Footnote: Mr. Badeley to Mr. Hope, January 6, 1844] However, there was ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... likewise helped to round up the fathers of Nappy Martell and Slugger Brown. Mr. Martell and Mr. Brown were sent to prison on the charge of aiding the enemy, while Nappy and Slugger were marched off to a detention camp in the South. When being taken away Nappy and Slugger were very bitter against the Rovers, and vowed they would square accounts the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... of a grave I come to tell you this, — Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow That blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is, — Bitter, but one that faith can never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this — To tell ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... which had long prevailed in the room, the bitter reflections which still held the despairing father and the patient daughter speechless alike, were at length interrupted by a hollow and melancholy voice from the street, pronouncing, in the form of a public notice, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... suspected him of a bitter personal intention had it not been so clear that Jinny's genius was no longer in question, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... the celerity of youth to the summit of the pylon, and taking in his hand some banners, made signals toward the palace. They saw and understood him, that was evident, for a bitter smile came to the parchment like face of the ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... The first lesson had been on the horror of cruelty; the second, on the power of truth; the third, on the good that comes from firmness. It is very easy to make an idol and a fool of a boy; but Mrs. Bennington always had the future in mind. It was hard, it was bitter, that another should step in and claim the perfected man. She had been lulled into the belief that now she would have him all her own till the end of her days. But it was not to be. Her sense of justice was evenly balanced; her son had the same right that his ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... entertain you in magnificent style, but it was the will of Providence to visit us with a bitter trial, so we are now receiving you ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... conflict of religions and partly one of politics. The Turks came into Europe as the religious emissaries of the Mohammedan religion. In all the provinces of Turkey in Europe which they conquered, the Christians of the Greek, Armenian and Catholic churches were the victims of a bitter persecution. The Czar of Russia is the head of the Greek church. He has made repeated wars in defense of the children of his faith. There have been many wars and long sieges which, like the present, were said to be only in defense of the faith of the Greek church—a crusade ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... of her heart seemed to run over with red tears, and the bitter waters trembled in her eyes. Her thoughts wandered over the long white night and her sleepless sorrow, and her vigil by the window, looking out into the rose garden, and her tired eyes straining in vain through the dark for any sight, and her tired ears straining in vain for any sound ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... his master, despairing of ever getting him again, offered to pardon him if he would return home. It is always understood that such intelligence will reach the runaway; and accordingly, at the entreaties of his wife and mother, the fugitive once more consented to return to his bitter bondage. I believe this was the last effort to obtain his liberty. His heart became touched with the power of the gospel; and the spirit which no inflictions could subdue, bowed at the cross of Jesus, and with the language on his lips—"the cup ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... be served from without removing the others. All these meats were served up at once, before we sat down. Our drink was simple water, or boiled with an herb called Cauhaw,[415] giving it a somewhat bitter taste. Dinner being over, the governor led me into an inner room, where he was attended by four little boys, who were his catamites. Being here seated on a crimson velvet carpet, all the rest of the room covered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... Life is a bitter gift sometimes. An ambition or a passion possess us, flatters and mocks us. Death is not so dreary a ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... midst of uncertain weather; whatever softness lingered was veiled by doubt. "I don't know," she said hesitatingly, "I'm not sure yet. I can't tell. Must you have your answer to-day?" And she looked at him half defiantly. An expression of bitter disappointment swept over Bulchester's face and seemed actually to affect his whole personality, for he appeared to shrink into himself until there was less of him. "You see," Katie went on, "between you I am driven, I am tossed; I don't even know what I feel. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... to the wall, Alfred answered his father in kind following one of his most bitter arraignments of show people: "Father, what are you talking about? Something you know nothing of. Eli was not a showman, not a minstrel man. He was only with an amateur minstrel show eight days. Nothing in his associations made him lower than he was ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... if you know how important?" she asked seriously. "He is the apple of my eye. His bitter words, his cynicism and sarcasm, are all on the surface—masks that hide a great sensitive spirit. You can't know with what brooding tenderness I have always loved and worshipped him. I will ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the fact of that gentleman being still seated on her gloves and handkerchief—and probably, also, by Moore's want of punctuality—was by no means in good humour. She first shrugged her shoulders at him, and then she said a bitter word or two about his "insupportable tardiness." Moore neither apologized nor retorted. He stood near her quietly, as if waiting to see whether she would recover her temper; which she did in little more than three minutes, indicating the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... clothing! bitter words and big; But who applies them? first the speaker scan; A suckling Tory! an apostate Whig! Indeed a very silly, weak ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... whirlwind; past the great gap in the woods, to stand open God knows how long. I was glad to turn my face to the south shore, for in Canada there was now a cold welcome for most Yankees, and my fists were sore with resenting the bitter taunt. I crossed in a boat from Iroquois, and D'ri had been waiting for me half a day at the landing. I was never so glad to see a man—never but once. Walking home I saw corn growing where the forest had been—acres ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... conscience that avenging Heaven had taken to itself the man she had so deeply injured, and left her to grope darkly on in her own wickedness and sin. True she had been cruelly disappointed, and through long years compelled to struggle on in all the bitter loneliness of feelings unreplied to, bound by indissoluble chains to one who had no tastes or sympathies in common with her. Death had freed her now, but, ah! too late. The taint of sin was on her soul. She had forgot her vows at the altar, debased herself and wronged her husband by listening ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... smile. And I staid by poor Lizzie, for I have drank of the same cup, and I know how bitter was the taste of it. Old Elspeth McDonald stretched the corpse, and her and I had a change of words; but ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... religion; passed away without a successor. In the beginning of the 18th century, the most profligate man in France was an ecclesiastic, the Cardinal Dubois, prime minister to the most profligate prince in Europe, the Regent Orleans. The country was convulsed with bitter personal disputes between Jesuit and Jansenist, fighting even to mutual persecution upon points either beyond or beneath the human intellect. A third party stood by, unseen, occasionally stimulating each, but equally despising both, a potential fiend, sneering at the blind ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the Grand Commander then observe? A. Pilgrim, the fifth libation is taken in the most solemn and impressive manner; we cannot be too often reminded that we are born to die; and the fifth libation is an emblem of that bitter cup of death, of which we must all sooner or later partake, and from which even the Saviour of the world, notwithstanding his ardent prayers and ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... search for runs; but the local demand was soon supplied. In two years and a half all the best land was occupied. An intending settler, who had driven a herd of cattle seven hundred miles, had some bitter complaints to make about the country in June, 1843. He said: "The whole length of Gippsland, from the bore of the mountains in which the road comes, is 110 miles, and the breadth about fifteen miles, the whole area 1650 square miles, one-third ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... hypothesis, the second point was—what might be the object of her elaborate and most bitter jest? Well, I thought that I could guess. First, she wished to show her power, or rather to make me believe that she had power of a very unusual sort. Secondly, she owed Umslopogaas and myself a debt for our services in the war with Rezu which we ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... sense, can neither hear uttered complaints nor can return them? For now he has sped away into the midst of the seas, nor doth any mortal appear along this desolate seaboard. Thus with o'erweening scorn doth bitter Fate in my extreme hour even grudge ears to my plaints. All-powerful Jupiter! would that in old time the Cecropian poops had not touched at the Gnossian shores, nor that bearing to the unquelled bull the direful ransom had the false mariner ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... fled, the Trojan horses groan'd. The foremost ranks cut off, back tow'rd the ships Patroclus drove them, baffling their attempts To gain the city; and in middle space Between the ships, the stream, and lofty wall, Dealt slaughter round him, and of many a chief The bitter penalty of death requir'd. Then Pronous with his glitt'ring spear he struck, Where by the shield his breast was left expos'd, And slack'd his limbs in death; thund'ring he fell. Next Thestor, son of OEnops, he assail'd; He on his polish'd car, down-crouching, sat, His mind ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... interior of a cavern, still shown at Bethlehem as the scene of the Nativity, in front of which was a ruined house, once inhabited by Jesse, the father of David, and near the spot where David pastured his sheep: but the house was now a shed partly thatched, and open at that bitter mason to all the winds of heaven. Here it was that the Blessed Virgin "brought forth her first-born Son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... long way south, but yesterday's observation still showed 79 deg. 54' north latitude. We must have drifted a good way north during the last days before this wind came. The weather yesterday and to-day has been bitter, 35 deg. Fahr. and 36 1/2 deg. Fahr. below zero (-37 deg. and -38 deg. C.), with sometimes as much as 35 feet of wind per second, must be called cool. It is curious that now the northerly winds ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark! 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... of an organ, sorrow or pain is mingled with apprehension, directly, as regards the apprehensive powers of the sensitive part, which have a bodily organ; either from the sensible object disagreeing with the normal condition of the organ, as the taste of something bitter, and the smell of something foul; or from the sensible object, though agreeable, being so continuous in its action on the sense, that it exceeds the normal condition of the organ, as stated above (Q. 33, A. 2), the result being that an apprehension which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Jacob Nowell the story of his engagement, and the bitter disappointment which had befallen him on his return from Australia. The old man listened with every appearance of interest. He approved of Gilbert's notion of advertising for the particulars of a possible marriage, and offered to bear his part in the expenses ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... pay for the loss of old friends, herr. Gros has been looked upon as a companion by Andregg for these many years. It will be a bitter thing to go ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... slowly-ripening plot, which but for its timely discovery must have seriously imperiled, if not altogether lost to us, the glorious inheritance we have held these hundred years. One can fancy the martial figure of the brave, bad man pacing back and forth beneath these very trees perhaps, absorbed in bitter reflections on his real and fancied wrongs—the rapid promotion of men younger than himself both in years and services, whilst his own bold deeds had met with but tardy acknowledgment from a cold and cautious Congress; the long array of debts which arose like spectres to harass him even in this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... close and compact; the leaves clean, crisp, and sweet. When it is too young or running to seed the taste is bitter. Pale patches on the leaves are caused by mildew and are a sign ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... Guerrero begins his rule over the churches of the islands; and controversies at once arise between him and the governor over the royal patronage and other church affairs. Among these is an attempt to divide the Dominican province into two, which is favored by Corcuera. This arouses bitter controversies, which involve both ecclesiastics and laymen and many conflicting interests. A case occurs in Manila in which a criminal's right of sanctuary in a church is involved; this leads to various complications between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... dull and hollow-eyed. Then she gave an abrupt, bitter little laugh. "We make our journey together in singular stages. Rather than be alone, I'll come with you—but you know that if I set foot in Sant they will ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... with wasteful fury; Blue Jeans with a cold hatred of his cruelty—a cold and bitter hatred of his opulence. The superintendent struck him once with a wild, wide swing. Once—only once. For he hugged to the superintendent after that and those wild swings went past. And he jabbed! ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... in bitter grief and sorrow, was forced to witness an abuse that he had no longer any power to check. "I fear," he wrote in after years to a friend, "that this detestable barter of bishoprics will bring down the curse of God upon the country." A few years later, when civil war, pestilence ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... be a little larger than the egg, and about a quarter of an inch thick; only just give it a yellow colour: if you toast it brown, it will get a bitter flavour; or moisten it by pouring a little hot water upon it: some sprinkle it with a few drops of vinegar, or of ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... of his stay saw old Mr. Dexter die. After his death Ellen drooped visibly. General disgust at life, insufficient food and sleep, and a hopeless passion for Mr. Joseph sapped a naturally weak constitution, and her sister soon realized another bitter shock when she helped Ellen to her bed one sultry September night from which she never rose again. The windows of the little cottage were open, and the unhappy girl could see the giant oak outside their door. How often she had sat there with her cruel friend, her hand ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... brutally cruel that it required all my strength of will to restrain myself from action. My fingers closed upon the pistol in my pocket, and every impulse urged me to hurl myself on the fellows, trusting everything to swift, bitter fight. I fairly trembled in eagerness to grapple with Kirby, hand to hand, and crush him helpless to the earth. I heard his voice, hateful and snarling, as he cursed Rale for his slowness, and the hot ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... to San Rafael, was seized by a mood of bitter dissatisfaction with herself. What did she know—what could she do? She was fitted neither for the stage nor for literature, she had no gift of music or of art. Lost opportunities rose up to haunt her. Ah, if she had only studied something, if she were ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... of mind was as far off from him as ever. First the bitter thought came to him that 'in all this Satan tells me I am doing it to be thought mortified and holy'; and then he was obsessed by the still bitterer feelings of ineradicable disappointment and regret. He had lost a great ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... tenderly, as she would for a half-witted or idiot child. He is the only wild creature for whom starvation has no terrors. All the forest is his storehouse. Buds and tender shoots delight him in their season; and when the cold becomes bitter in its intensity, and the snow packs deep, and all other creatures grow gaunt and savage in their hunger, Unk Wunk has only to climb the nearest tree, chisel off the rough, outer shell with his powerful teeth, and then feed ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... Winchester, to her first-born son. Four days later, on Sunday, (p. 014) 24th September, the child was christened in the minster of the old West Saxon capital, and given in baptism the name of Arthur, the old British king. It was neither Yorkist nor Lancastrian, it evoked no bitter memories of civil strife, and it recalled the fact that the Tudors claimed a pedigree and boasted a title to British sovereignty, beside the antiquity of which Yorkist pretentions were a mushroom growth. Duke of Cornwall from his birth, Prince Arthur was, when three years old, created ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... no one supposes that there is more than one species; they extend from the hottest parts of Bengal, into the dry, cold, bitter steppes of Siberia, into a latitude of 50 degrees,—so that they may even prey upon the reindeer. These tigers have exceedingly different characteristics, but still they all keep their general features, so that there is no doubt as to their being tigers. The Siberian ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... manifest irritation of the brain, bromid of potassium, 4 drams, or ergot one-half ounce, may be resorted to. Salicylic acid and salicylate of sodium have proved useful in certain cases; also phosphate of sodium. Bitter tonics (especially nux vomica one-half dram) are useful in improving ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the manner in which Pope has drawn the portrait of Atticus and that of Sporus. The latter is a masterpiece of pure invective; no allowances are made, no lights relieve the darkness of the shadows, the portrait is frankly inhuman. It is the product of an unrestrained outburst of bitter passion. The portrait of Atticus, on the other hand, was, as we know, the work of years. It is the product not of an outburst of fury, but of a slowly growing and intense dislike, which, while recognizing the merits of its object, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Shelley and Byron, down to Tennyson, there is scarcely a poet who has attained world-wide assent to his position in the first or second rank who was not at the hands of the reviewers the subject of mockery and bitter detraction. To be original in any degree was to be damned. And there is scarcely one who was at first ranked as a great light during this period who is now known out of the biographical dictionary. Nothing in modern ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... thy fainting courage by the suggestions of good counsel. For such as thou the world has no compassion. Mankind will pursue thee to the grave with execrations. Their cruelty will be justified or palliated, since they know thee not. They are unacquainted with the goadings of thy conscience and the bitter retributions which thou art daily suffering. They are full of their own wrongs, and think only of those tokens of exultation and complacency which thou wast studious of assuming in thy intercourse with them. It is I only that thoroughly know thee and can rightly estimate ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... be necessary, and will long continue to exist; nor can it be now denied that there are legitimate advantages, not disconnected with office holding, which follow party supremacy. While partisanship continues bitter and pronounced and supplies so much of motive to sentiment and action, it is not fair to hold public officials in charge of important trusts responsible for the best results in the performance of their duties, and yet insist that they shall ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... stones found near the tomb of a celebrated and beautiful woman, named Zacosta, whose loveliness, goodness, and varied talents, created for her many bitter enemies, and exposed her to cruel persecutions. She died heart-broken, and her tears are said to have been petrified into these precious stones called Zacostees which are greatly prized as ornaments for turbans ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they were like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's presence, while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning. But there was no help for it. It should never be true of him that in this meeting to which he had come with bitter resolution he had ended by a confession which might be interpreted into asking for her fortune. Moreover, it was actually true that he was fearful of the effect which such confessions might have on ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... bitter shakings of the head here. Business! Standing in a buggy at street-corners, jauntily urging a crowd to buy the magic grease-eradicator, toothache remedy, meretricious jewelry, what not! first playing a fiddle and ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... chanced as Mr. Fielden had desired (if, as he once half meditated, he had spoken to Lucretia herself); though a marriage that could have brought happiness to none, and would have made the misery of two, was at an end,—he yet felt a bitter pang, almost of remorse, when he learned what had occurred. And Lucretia, before secretly disliked (if any one he could dislike), became dear to him at once, by sorrow and compassion. Forgetting every other person, he hurried to the hotel Lucretia had chosen; but her coldness deceived and her ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I don't tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, what mad wild despair, what a sensation as if the whole world was tumbling from under me; I make no doubt that my reader hath been jilted by the ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own sensations when the shock ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray |
