"Difficult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... field, and is there used in the manufacture both of wool and cotton to cheapen the fabric. The vigilant eye will often detect it in woollen manufactures, in shawls, and even in sail-cloths; but when spun with cotton or wool, it is very difficult to discover its presence. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... difficult for him to fix a price at first, not being acquainted with the coin of the realm, but he put his whole mind to the acquisition of reliable information on this point, and his ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... out of doors, Glasgow and Manchester, and, I think, Liverpool, began to move, but in a manner much more slow and languid than formerly. Nothing, in my opinion, would have been less difficult than entirely to have overborne their opposition. The London West India trade was, as on the former occasion, so on this, perfectly liberal and perfectly quiet; and there is abroad so much respect ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... innocent-appearing head, which shows no flattening (the popularly understood mark of the venomous species), and partly to its lethargic and peaceful disposition. Experimenters wishing to secure the venom of the Elaps often find it difficult to rouse the snake to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... that Carlyle travelled with us to Paris? He left a deep impression with me. It is difficult to conceive of a more interesting human soul, I think. All the bitterness is love with the point reversed. He seems to me to have a profound sensibility—so profound and turbulent that it unsettles his general sympathies. Do you guess what I mean ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... knowledge of Chinese to be able to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular crockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, a being too of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion, none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire it. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. He intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the instrumentality of the first ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... lay it. Her natural honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his generosity for forgiveness: she knew also that as mere policy it would be better to tell him early if he was to be told at all. The longer her concealment the more difficult would be the revelation. But she put it off. The intense fear which accompanies intense love in young women was too strong to allow the exercise of a moral quality antagonistic ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... cheek upon her wasted hand, and thought with all her might. By degrees her extraordinary brain developed a twofold plan of action; and she proceeded to execute the first part, being the least difficult, though even that was not easy, and brought a vivid blush to her ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... feelings as to the pretensions of Coleridge, I am not likely to underrate anything which he did. But a thing may be very difficult to do, very splendid when done, and yet false in its principles, useless in its results, memorable perhaps by its impression at the time, and yet painful on the whole to a thoughtful retrospect. In dancing it is but too ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the precious tablet, together with the flag and pennant, was lost in the flood. After two days' vain effort to recover the tablet and flags we continued on the river until at length further ascent seemed unpractical. From this point, with packs on our backs, we made a difficult foot journey of several days ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... presume that is quite a large sum, and it would be rather difficult for you, grandpapa, to get it ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... are rather young, but the duties are not hard or difficult to learn. I think you'll do. I was resolved not to fill that place until I could find a perfectly honest and trustworthy boy for it. I believe I have found him. I discharged the last boy because he ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... find the mathematics a little difficult," continued Miss Roscoe; "but Miss Woodville shall coach you until you've caught up the rest of the class. She can also go over the arrears of Latin translation with you. With that help you shouldn't be so far ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... women and men more lawless yet than herself or her husband. Overbearing where her likings were concerned, and full of a certain generosity where but her interests were in question, the slackness of the social bonds in the colonies had favoured her abnormal development. It is difficult to say how much man or woman is the worse for doing, when freed from restraint, what he or she would have been glad to do before, but for the restraint. Many who go to the colonies, and there to the dogs, only show themselves such as they dared not appear at home: they step on a steeper ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... furnishing of a modern kitchen would be quite incomplete without some form of stove or range. The multiplicity of these articles, manufactured each with some especial merit of its own, renders it a somewhat difficult task to make a choice among them. Much must, however, depend upon the kind of fuel to be used, the size of the household, and various other circumstances which make it necessary for each individual housekeeper ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... century ago, that the "Gens de Lettres" were working hard at the completion of it; but the then complaints of bibliographers at its imperfect state are even yet continued in Fournier's last edition of his Dictionnaire Portatif de Bibliographie, p. 468. So easy it is to talk; so difficult to execute! I believe, however, that M. Van-Praet, one of the principal librarians, is now putting all engines to work to do away the further disgrace of such unaccountably protracted negligence. My copy of this magnificent set of books is ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... mosaic, independent of the rest. Now it is easy to see how the selection of small, continuously varying characters could take place in Nature by the destruction of all those individuals which failed to reach a certain standard, but it is much more difficult to understand how natural selection could act on comparatively large, sporadic, unco-ordinated 'sports'. There is thus a distinct tendency at present to regard natural selection as less omnipotent in directing ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... effects from causes, they are always reduced at last to conjecture causes from effects. That it is easy to be secret, the speculatist can demonstrate in his retreat, and therefore thinks himself justified in placing confidence: the man of the world knows, that, whether difficult or not, it is not uncommon, and therefore finds himself rather inclined to search after the reason of this universal failure in one of the most important ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... promised also to procure him such other aid as might lie in their power. A little lighter in heart, he went to pay his visit to Thornley, whom he found occupying his old rooms. As Bruce recrossed the familiar threshold, the contrasts of past and present were almost too much for him, and he found it difficult to restrain his tears. He stayed but a short time, and then returned to London to his poor and ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... illegitimate son of the Marquis of Waterford, entered the army at 16, and served in every quarter of the globe. After his defeat at Buenos Ayres he captured Madeira, and was made governor of that island. In 1808 he successfully covered the retreat of Sir John Moore to Corunna, a difficult feat, for which he received a marshal's baton, and was made commander-in-chief in Portugal. In 1811 he defeated Marshal Soult at Albuera, and subsequently took part in the victories of Salamanca and Vittoria. For these services he was made Duke of Elvas, and the British government conferred ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... beyond measure, beyond what is comic, almost beyond the license of farce; and the comments, which remind one rather of the heavy jesting on critics in Un Prince de la Boheme and the short-lived Revue Parisienne, are labored to the last degree. The part of Nathan, too, is difficult to appreciate exactly, and altogether the book does not seem to ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... young lady's motives," the Sergeant went on; "we will only say it's a pity she declines to assist me, because, by so doing, she makes this investigation more difficult than it might otherwise have been. We must now try to solve the mystery of the smear on the door—which, you may take my word for it, means the mystery of the Diamond also—in some other way. I have decided to see the servants, and to search their thoughts ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... and others expected that Napoleon would merely direct military operations from Paris, they were soon undeceived. Massena was at the head of the army in Italy, and found it most difficult to hold Genoa against the Austrians. Moreau was at the head of the army in Germany. Apart from other reasons for taking the field in person, it would not have been safe for the new ruler of France to allow himself to be eclipsed in military fame by Moreau. Napoleon, as ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of Rama's exile in the jungle is one of the most obscure portions of the Ramayana, inasmuch as it is difficult to discover any trace of the original tradition, or any illustration of actual life and manners, beyond the artificial life of self-mortification and selfdenial said to have been led by the Brahman sages of olden ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... believe is a matter of much annoyance to him, for he is uncommonly vain regarding his personal appearance. Knowing this, some of the boys delight in playing off jokes upon him. One day last week, Mr. Lawrence was leaning over a desk, working out a difficult example in Arithmetic, directly behind him was Ned Stanton, the most mirthful and fun-loving boy in the whole school. Ned took a match from his pocket and, first giving me a sly nudge to look, held it close to Mr. Lawrence's head, making believe to light ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... in monarchical governments; for in Venice, the Netherlands, and other free governments there are none. The head is to call the body together; and for the clergy the bishops are chief, for shires their knights, for towns and cities their burgesses and citizens. These are to treat of difficult matters, and counsel their king with their best advice to make laws[A] for the commonweal and the Lower House is also to petition the king and acquaint him with their grievances, and not to meddle with the king's prerogative. They are to offer supply for his necessity, and he to distribute, ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... feats, walking, standing upright, and bicycling are the merest trifles; yet it is only by going through the wanting, trying process that he can stand, walk, or cycle, whereas in the other and far more difficult and complex habits he not only does not consciously want nor consciously try, but actually consciously objects very strongly. Take that early habit of cutting the teeth: would he do that if he could help it? Take ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... of receiving the charge upon the sword the matador may achieve the "volapie" (half-volley), by running towards the bull and driving the sword home as the two meet. Or, a favourite method, but a difficult one, is to sever the spinal cord behind the skull with the point of the sword as the great head goes down to toss. Yet another variation that I have seen more than once is the tinkling of the sword upon sand, a rapid leap, as it seems, of three feet into the air, by the matador, and ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... Therefore, difficult as was Lucy's present existence, she put behind her all temptation to desert this solitary woman and leave her to die alone. Was not Ellen her father's sister, and would he not wish his daughter to be loyal to the trust it had fallen to her to fulfill? Was she ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... Marcus, and teach yourself. Am I a bait to win your soul? The path is not so easy, it is very difficult. ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... however, before the young man could overcome his natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... was not so sure of that. He was very well aware that the Wrychester police authorities had a definite suspicion of his guilt in the Braden and Collishaw matters, and he knew from experience that police suspicion is a difficult matter to dissipate. And before he opened the door of the little room which he used as a study he warned himself to be ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... for their lives, spurred on by the further knowledge that even if they escaped capture or death they yet had to undertake a difficult journey on tired beasts if they would save the expedition from the attack evidently meditated by Alfieri and his cohort of plunderers, the two, then—Englishman and Arab—rode like men who valued ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... she was it was impossible to hear plainly, so stepping to the door, she put her ear down close to a crack through which the light was streaming. She listened intently to all that was taking place, although at first it was difficult to make out any sense from the babel of voices. Occasionally she could hear Norman's voice urging the men to be quiet or to leave the house. That the visitors had found the rum was quite evident, for she could hear them dipping ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... It was difficult to talk at the speed that they were making, with their own horses breathing heavily, O'Rourke's especially; the guns thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front, and their attention distracted every other minute ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... bottom of my heart. [Taking and holding BLANCHE'S hand.] But I want her not to decide anything now; wait till the first blows over, and then—well, then I feel sure she will do the strong, noble thing—the difficult thing—not ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... terms in some cases. It is not in any way necessary that these devices should have been invented by the men who advocate their adoption, in order to secure that advocacy. The intrinsic attractions of the scheme suffice to evoke eulogy; and engineers sometimes find it very difficult to make those who believe in such devices understand that there are valid reasons standing in the way of their adoption. One such device is hydraulic propulsion. A correspondent in a recent impression suggested its immediate and extended use in yachts at all events, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... whom the duty of initiative should chiefly reside, who have minds atrophied by dull studies and deadening suggestions, and he thinks that this is a matter of the gravest concern for the future of this land and Empire. It is difficult to avoid agreeing with him either in his observation or in his conclusion. Anyone who has seen much of undergraduates, or medical students, or Army candidates, and also of their social subordinates, must be disposed to agree that the difference between the two classes is mainly ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... cook in copper know well how difficult is the cleaning of copper. All cooking is a double labour unless ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... prevented from invading the Papal States in the previous year. In spite of their common patriotism the volunteers of Garibaldi and the army of Victor Emmanuel were rival bodies, and the relations between the chiefs of each camp were strained and difficult. Garibaldi himself returned to the siege of Capua, while the King marched northwards against the retreating Neapolitans. All that was great in Garibaldi's career was now in fact accomplished. The ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... even though the cloud had passed. There was no sound of quarrelling, abuse or laughter. Vassilissa found herself in an exceptionally difficult position, since, now that her mistress was restored to health, she was called ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... incline in this famous contest, have, it must be confessed, very little to do with the true merits of the case. And if we make a serious attempt to lay all such considerations aside, and to look into the controversy with cool and rigid impartiality, we shall find it very difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. There are two questions to be decided. In advancing their conflicting claims to the English crown, was it Elizabeth or Mary that was in the right? If Elizabeth was right, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... make Ahenobarbus believe that you are not indifferent to his advances. Slander Drusus before him. Complain of the provisions of your father's will that, despite your uncle's intention, will make it difficult to avoid a hateful marriage. If in the past you have been cold to Ahenobarbus, grow gracious; but not too rapidly. Finally, at the proper time, do not hesitate to urge him to commit the act we know he is meditating. Then he will make you a full ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... It is difficult to arrive at even approximate figures, but the following statements will render the idea clear. I. Wherever I have compared the mortality of the Revolution with that of the ancient regime I have found the former greater than the latter, even in those parts of France not devastated by the civil ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... floor that was full of inequalities and that pitched steeply ahead of him. His fire was almost out, deteriorating into a mere smudge curling up from dying embers. The air was bad, thick and heavy; breathing was difficult. He looked up and made out the dim square by which Betty knelt. He could go a little further without danger, since if the air grew worse he could still turn and run back up the steps? The floor seemed to be pitching still more steeply. Fearful of a precipice or a pit and a fall, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... I scanned my new friend with much interest, and truly, it was not difficult to imagine him the hero of a very serious love affair. Picture to yourselves a young man of middle height, but very well proportioned, a bright, expressive face, dark hair, blue eyes, moist lips, and white and ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... to inform you, that the Count Panin and the Count d'Ostermann do not understand English; this will render your communications with these Ministers difficult. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... was only one problem that baffled her, a new problem: Mag Henderson. It was difficult to arrange a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... his sentences seemed awkward and difficult. The things of the world were temporal and the nations of the world were out of harmony with God. Men were biting and devouring each other who ought to live as brothers. "Cheat or be cheated" was the rule of life, as the modern philosopher had said. On the one side were the many dying ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... all free governments; and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What those fundamental principles are, it would perhaps be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... themselves. It would not be a particularly edifying volume, but it certainly would be without parallel in the literature of this or any other country for sheer extremity of frankness. Mrs. Pepys appears to have been a very beautiful and an extremely difficult lady, disagreeable enough to tempt him into many indiscretions, and yet so virtuous as to fill his heart with remorse for all his failings, and still more with vexation for her discoveries of them. But below all this surface play of pretty disreputable outward conduct, there seems to have been ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... pushed—returned—advanced on—retreated from each other with all that careful yet scarcely perceptible caution which characterizes men well experienced and equally matched. But at this moment, Eumolpus, the elder gladiator, by that dexterous back-stroke which was considered in the arena so difficult to avoid, had wounded Nepimus in the side. The ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... hedge, and defended with two pieces of artillery. A mortar battery was planted north of the slaughter-house. Next along the line was the church, converted now into a granary, and in the churchyard was a mortar battery. Next came the house of Lieutenant Innis, a weak and difficult post to hold, commanded as it was by several houses outside the inclosure. Commanding the extreme north point, which was in itself very weak, was the Redan Battery, a well-constructed work. From this point, ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... It is not difficult for us to see that sports and games and play help to physical development, but it is not so plain that they may be made to develop ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... A difficult moment had now come for Cornelli. She had secretly hoped that she would be able to spend all day alone with Dino, and that nobody else would notice her. Now she had to sit at table with Dino's mother and sisters. Mux, however, ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... what our eyes can see and our hands handle. Our natures are so sentient that objects of sense please us best. It is from this that object lessons attract the young. They can best apprehend what their senses can grasp. It is very difficult for the mind to grasp abstract truth. But right here lies the basis of all true education. The power to comprehend truth in the abstract, to take hold of its ramifications as subjects of thought, and reduce them to order in the mind, so as to develop and give them ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... logically. She has touched the tender in him. He will begin to think women are somebody after all. We think he should have measured his calibre before making such a tilt.... Regarding his condition as rather awkward, and finding it difficult to be quiet, he appears in the Friday Star with ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Charles; but Henry Waters signed him to keep quiet. The Waters brothers, as the reader is aware, were twins and looked so much alike, that it was difficult to ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... fellow Irishmen, he could take no credit for Jock's conversion. He had set out to interview the McPherson one night after a session meeting, but fortunately J. P. Thornton prevented his impetuous friend making the mistake of approaching the elder on that difficult subject. Jock was still feeling a little dour over the temperance question and the wise Englishman knew that whichever side of the cause was presented first that was the side to which the McPherson was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Even with an ample supply it would be difficult to hold out. As things are, such a course becomes ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... answered, with some dignity. It is, perhaps, difficult to be stately when one is only five feet tall, but John felt stately inside, as well as shy. The stranger turned and made a sign to the other men, who came quickly, bringing a gang-plank, which they ran out from the schooner's deck to the wharf. The Skipper, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... all things of Folk origin, there is usually more than one version of each Negro Folk Rhyme. In many cases the exercising of a choice between many versions was difficult. I can only express the hope that my ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... apart he wore a hard-boiled hat, a flaming tie, a checked vest, a coat cut too tight for even his emaciated little figure, and long toothpick shoes of patent leather. A fairer mark for cowboy humour would be difficult to find; but I had a personal interest and a determined character so the gang took a look at ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... a change—for there never was any—always upset her very much. Aunt Juley, who had more spirit, sometimes thought it would be quite exciting; she had so enjoyed that visit to Brighton the year dear Susan died. But then Brighton one knew was nice, and it was so difficult to tell what heaven would be like, so on the whole she was more ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dashing against the projection of steel and lashed their salty spray over the lad as he wrapped his legs about the slippery pole and began to climb. It was difficult work as the vessel lurched in the turbulent sea, but Ted persevered and succeeded in throwing the noose over the end of the pole above the eye of the periscope. Sliding deftly back again, unfurling the flag as he came, he was soon safe again ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... the other hand, shows a complete mastery of form. He was a close student of Horace; he tried successfully the most exacting of exotic verse-forms, and enjoyed the distinction of having written the only English example of the difficult Chant-Royal. Graceful vers de societe and bits of witty epigram flowed from him without effort. But it was not to this often dangerous facility that Bunner owed his poetic fame. His tenderness, his quick sympathy with nature, his insight into the human heart, above all, the love and longing that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... reconnoitre the day before, for when platoons reached the appointed rendezvous, the guides were not there. We had had sufficient experience by this time to know that, although all possible precautions were taken, it was a most difficult problem to make certain that every guide was a picked man, knew exactly where he was to meet his party, what that party was, and where it was to be guided to, and to be able to do all this by night without a hitch. Ian Hay has classified guides in two grades (a) ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... steering, just a touch of the rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no limit to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes Miss M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther, who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his mind was ever fertile ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cause hee thought good first of all to inuade England, being perswaded by his Secretary Escouedo, and by diuers other well experienced Spaniards and Dutchmen, and by many English fugitiues, that the conquest of that Island was lesse difficult then the conquest of Holland and Zeland. Moreouer the Spaniards were of opinion, that it would bee farre more behouefull for their King to conquere England and the lowe Countreys all at once, then to be constrained ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... occasion, I think it fair to leave to those who are to act on them, the decisions they prefer, being to be myself but a spectator. I should not feel justified in directing measures which those who are to execute them would disapprove. Our situation is truly difficult. We have been pressed by the belligerents to the very wall, and all further retreat is impracticable. I salute ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... did as well as they could. To govern the people, they must incline the people to obey. The work was difficult, but it was necessary. They were to accomplish it by such materials and by such instruments as they had in their hands. They were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to the laws, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... difficult to say how long Mr. Hoopdriver's pensiveness lasted. It seemed a long time before his thoughts of action returned. Then he remembered he was a 'watcher'; that to-morrow he must be busy. It would be in character to make notes, and he pulled out his little note-book. With that ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... tramp of feet, and a great barking of dogs, as all dogs in those days were trained to bark at every beggar they saw, and now it was difficult to restrain them. ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Richard, schooling his face to a difficult seriousness, "there has been much in your recent experiences, Mr. Gwynn, to justify the thought. It will do no harm were you to take the steps you suggest towards becoming a citizen, even if it should not end in a seat ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... so rigid and immovable on her back, with her hands crossed on her breast, a white linen handkerchief folded over her head and fastened under the chin, looked so resembling death, that it was difficult to think of her as a living, breathing thing. Helen gazed upon her with indescribable awe, sometimes believing it was nothing but soulless clay before her, but even then she gazed without horror. Her exceeding terror of death was gone, without ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... pay civilities to a person she did not like through three long months!—to be always doing more than she wished, and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... George did not raise so many difficulties as he had expected. He said it might be done, if neither he nor my father were to go beyond the statues. "And difficult as it will be for you," said George, "you had better come a second day if necessary, as I will, for who can tell what might happen to make ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... need for my personal endurance. Of course, the quieter and really studious spirits among us soon resigned these duties, and only the flower of the flock of undergraduates remained so staunch that it became difficult for the authorities to relieve them of their task. I held out to the very last, and succeeded in making most astonishing friends for my age. Many of the most audacious remained in Leipzig even when there ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... practical talent, the personal worth, the aptitude for public service, the love of self-sacrificing duty thus developed and nursed into power, and brought to the knowledge of its possessors and their communities, it is difficult to speak too warmly. Thousands of women learned in this work to despise frivolity, gossip, fashion and idleness; learned to think soberly and without prejudice of the capacities of their own sex; and thus, did more ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... was enwrapped in flames, and the Roman legions flooded Jerusalem, the spiritual leaders of Jewry sat musing, busily casting about for a means whereby, without a state, without a capital, without a Temple, Jewish unity might be maintained. And they solved the difficult problem. ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... had some success at opening doors with a hydraulic jack, I believe, in some very difficult raids," put in Kennedy. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... troopships to extinguish all lights and proceed with only shaded lights at bow and stern." Military books and papers were quickly gathered together, and the remaining few minutes of daylight were used for getting into bed, while the difficult task was set us of trying to sleep the round of the clock. Thus, night after night, with lights out, we steamed along our northward track, the days being spent in drill and ball firing with rifles and the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... cases which I was eating, and feeling it soft and cold, showed as much disgust at it, as I should have done at putrid blubber. Jemmy was thoroughly ashamed of his countrymen, and declared his own tribe were quite different, in which he was woefully mistaken. It was as easy to please as it was difficult to satisfy these savages. Young and old, men and children, never ceased repeating the word "yammerschooner," which means "give me." After pointing to almost every object, one after the other, even to ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... then there has been a renewal of Turkey's vigor and prestige; then again its situation has been rendered yet more precarious. It has been a buffer between the clashing interests of the great powers. Speaking of Turkey's difficult position in this respect, the London Fortnightly Review, May, 1915, expressed ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... could make existence real 318:1 to Thomas. For him to believe in matter was no task, but for him to conceive of the substantiality of Spirit - 318:3 to know that nothing can efface Mind and immortality, in which Spirit reigns - was more difficult. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... "So little is known regarding the chemical composition of vitamines that it is difficult to classify them. Since the three food essentials termed as fat-soluble A, water-soluble B, and water-soluble C are individual substances and very different in character, it may be that they will be classified later as three ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... of it. The path of the road is worn by torrents into a channel, which is blocked up in places by huge fragments, so that it would be a horrid road on a level; but on a hill so steep, that the best path would be difficult to ascend—it may be supposed terrible: the labourers, two passing strangers, and my servant, could with difficulty get the chaise up. It is much to be regretted that the direction of the road is not ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... communications, and wait for the French King. Give no battle, offer no provocation, let hunger do your affair. I know where the King of England is, and shall be with you before him.' He went on to be more precise, but I omit the details. It was difficult for them to go wrong, but if the truth is to be known, he was in a mood which made him careless about that. He was free. He was going on insensate adventure; but he saw his road before him once again, like a long avenue of light, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... in the little school-house were to the effect that rivers, except as they flowed as they listed to confusing points of the compass, rising among names difficult to remember, and emptying into the least anticipated body of water, were chiefly to be avoided for their proclivity to drown small boys intent on swimming or angling. Mountains, aside from the desirability of their recognition as forming one of the divisions of land somewhat easily distinguishable ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... herself obliged to say something, and declared for the roast fowl and sausages; but she found it very difficult to pay much outward respect to a person who would pay so much outward respect to her. A day or two after her arrival it was decided that she should ride about the place on a donkey; she was accustomed to riding, the doctor having generally taken care that one of his own horses should, when required, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the Moors, as were also the Hebrew rabbis; but the Church was poor, and the continual wars between the Saracens and the Christians, together with the reprisals which set a seal on the barbarities of the reconquest, made the continuance and life of worship extremely difficult. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... representing the actual course pursued by the apex, but he speaks of the "branches executing round their axes of growth a movement of torsion." From the particulars above given, and remembering in the case of twining plants and of tendrils, how difficult it is not to mistake their bending to all points of the compass for true torsion, we are led to believe that the stems of this Ceratophyllum circumnutate, probably in the shape of narrow ellipses, each completed in about 26 h. The following statement, however, ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... being a drunkard, he was not proof against a carouse, especially when out of reach of his Bet and of his master, and he was not by any means Tib's equal in fine and delicate workmanship. But on the other hand, Tib pronounced that Stephen Birkenholt was already well skilled in chasing metal and the difficult art of restoring inlaid work, and he showed some black and silver armour, that was in hand for the King, which fully ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on a pleasant journey. There is, however, a very difficult question concerning the other ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme
... Shelters in one of the provincial cities, I was shown a certain building which had recently passed into the possession of the Army. The Officer who was conducting me said that the negotiations preliminary to the acquisition of the lease of this building had been long and difficult. I remarked that these must have caused him anxiety. 'Oh, no,' he answered, simply. 'You see I had talked with the Lord about it, and I knew that we should get the ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... indicate a petty nature; but in art insincerity is death. A strong man may lie upon occasion, and make restitution and be forgiven, but for the artist who lies there is hardly any reparation possible, and his forgiveness is much more difficult. Art, being the embodiment of the artist's ideal, is truly the corporeal substance of his spiritual self; and that there should be any falsehood in it, any deliberate failure to present him faithfully, it is as monstrous and unnatural ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... or from some of them, follows one result which must be familiar to many readers of King Lear. It is far more difficult to retrace in memory the steps of the action in this tragedy than in Hamlet, Othello, or Macbeth. The outline is of course quite clear; anyone could write an 'argument' of the play. But when an attempt is made to fill in the detail, it issues sooner or later ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... in them as, in truth, a being only too much like himself, seen from one side; reflects his taciturnity, his touchiness, his incredulity except for self-torment. Agitated, dissatisfied, he is wrestling in her with himself, his own difficult qualities. He demands from her a freedom, a frankness, he would have been the last to grant. It is by first thoughts, of course, that what is forcible and effective in human nature, the force, therefore, of carnal love, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the child, but for the successor," said Talleyrand. "You know, the son of his brother Louis and his stepdaughter Hortense was to be his heir—the future Emperor of France. You see how difficult it is to say in advance who is to be the heir of a throne. Some accident—a brick falling from a roof, an attack of the measles, a contemptible cough—may bring about the ruin of dynasties and the rise of new ones. The hopes of Josephine ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... I have not, my dear. We have certainly no wood on the place which would make the rollers; besides, it would be rather a difficult business.' ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... upon the vessel from the side opposite to the fort, and effect a more complete surprise. Two dozen bold fishermen were entrusted to take the boats along the rocky shore to the point of embarkation. The night was quite dark, and, the water rough, so it required great skill to accomplish this difficult feat. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... observes, one of the most difficult artifices of composition; and here are upwards of a hundred Spanish names, circumstances, and allusions, incorporated with the story written, as M. Neufchateau assures us, by a Frenchman concerning the court of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... reasonably good eyesight and nerve, can fly, and fly well. If he has nerve enough to drive an automobile through the streets of a large city, and perhaps argue with a policeman on the question of speed limits, he can take himself off the ground in an airplane, and also land—a thing vastly more difficult and dangerous. We hear a great deal about special tests for the flier—vacuum-chambers, spinning-chairs, co-ordination tests—there need be none of these. The average man in the street, the clerk, the laborer, the mechanic, the salesman, with proper training and interest ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... seems at first a very simple arrangement of the people into four classes, it is in reality a very complex one. For it rests upon three distinct systems of division: namely, upon race, occupation, and geographical position. It is very difficult even to guess at the number of the Indian castes. But there are not fewer than 3,000 of them which have separate names, and which regard themselves as separate classes. The different castes cannot intermarry with each other, and most of them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the sons of a disobedient people, to give ear to my words. O Lord of the world, Thou dost send me to Egypt to redeem sixty myriads of Thy people from the oppression of the Egyptians. If it were a question of delivering a couple of hundred men, it were a sufficiently difficult enterprise. How much severer is the task of freeing sixty myriads from the dominion of Pharaoh! If Thou hadst called upon the Egyptians to give up their evil ways soon after they began to enslave Israel, they might have heeded Thy admonitions. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... don't know who started the gossip. The source of such tales is always difficult to discover. Some enemy, no doubt. Every man in this world of ours ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... suddenly went into the business and tried to conduct it according to his own ideas. Wouldn't he make a mess of it? He might make a splurge for a while, as long as his money lasted, but his store would soon be empty. It's just the same with a reformer. He hasn't been brought up in the difficult business of politics and he makes a mess of ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... knowledge, my reverence and high regard for science. Science—whose temple we may enter only when filled with intensest Will, and with pure Truthfulness vowed to the furtherance of her Service—be the results sweet or bitter, fraught with success or failure, easy or difficult, new, or along the well-worn paths. It was in this sense that I sought to adventure—was bound to venture, for the die was cast. It was, therefore, with all the powers I could bring to my aid that I decided to embark on my quest—no matter what the attendant ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... years since the communal house obtained. Before some of the houses stand grotesque kapatongs, and the majority of the population lives in the atmosphere of the long ago. I was still able to buy ethnological articles and implements which are becoming increasingly difficult to secure. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... have been more anxious to stop the proceeding. "I wish you kindly good-evening, sir," he went on, getting out to the steps. "I'm much obliged to you. I will be scrupulously punctual on Monday morning—I hope—I think—I'm sure you will soon learn everything I can teach you. It's not difficult—oh dear, no—not difficult at all! I wish you kindly good-evening, sir. A beautiful night; yes, indeed, a beautiful night for ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... "Such cases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon," said Lydgate. "The only point on which I can be confident is that it will be desirable to be very watchful on Mr. Casaubon's account, lest he should in any ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the afternoon, and found everybody gazing at the heavens with eager looks, in which it would be difficult to say whether fear or curiosity predominated. Many would not venture to bed till their hopes were made certain by the striking of the midnight hour; and then they were so overjoyed at what appeared a new lease of life, that sleep, that "sweet restorer," was a stranger during the night. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... canopy and between two walls of fire. The intense heat burned our eyes, which we were nevertheless obliged to keep open and fixed on the danger. A consuming atmosphere parched our throats, and rendered our respiration short and difficult; and we were already almost suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned, either in endeavoring to protect our faces from the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment fell upon our garments. In this inexpressible distress, and when a rapid advance seemed to be our only ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... found it difficult to convince himself of this, much as he desired to do so. The existence of a gang of robbers in the vicinity, referred to by Bradley, was not calculated to reassure him. If Carter did not belong to this gang, ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... especially in difficult country, such as when traveling through a forest, and over broken mountains and ravines, for you to make your own landmarks for finding your way back by "blazing" (cutting pieces of bark from the trees), breaking small branches off bushes, piling ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... Scriptures. His readers may, however, be disposed to believe that herein he was self-deceived, judging both from the character of his composition and the nature of his doctrine. As respects the former, he writes feebly, is vacillating in his views, and, when watched in his treatment of a difficult point, is seen to be wavering and unsteady. As respects the latter, among other extraordinary things he teaches that the world is the chief angel or first son of God; he combines all the powers of God into one force, the Logos or holy Word, the highest powers being creative ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... camp their passes would be of no use to them, for it was said that the country between there and Mooreville, forty miles east of Baton Rouge, was over-run with Federal cavalry. They reached the camp without any mishap, ran the guard in order to get out of it (but that was not a difficult thing to do, for nearly all the soldiers in camp were conscripts who had not had time to learn their business), and before they had gone ten miles on their way toward Mooreville, came plump upon a small ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... but one need not necessarily think of such controversies within the communities; Jewish notions might be meant, and this, according to Apol. I. 63, is the more probable). The judgment is therefore so difficult, because there were numerous formulae in practical use which could be so understood, as if Christ was to be completely identified with the Godhead itself (see Ignat. ad Eph. 7. 2, besides Melito in Otto Corp. Apol. ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... a deep voice, "are Hortensias. How is it that you have never made anything in wax for me? Is it so difficult to design a pin, a little box—what not, as a keepsake?" and she shot a fearful glance at the artist, whose eyes were happily lowered. "And yet ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... noticed a venerable-looking old gentleman seated school-boy fashion on the top rail of a five-barred gate. The contrast between his patriarchal appearance and his attitude and position made her find it difficult to keep her countenance; so, turning her head away lest he should see the smile on her face, she was quickening her pace, when she became aware that he had jumped down from his elevated seat and ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... remained until at eleven at night one of the boatmen came to them with news that the wind had changed, and was now blowing in from the sea. They again took their places on board, but the water was low in the river, and it was difficult work passing the shallows, and it was not until Saturday afternoon that they passed the boom below the town and entered ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... which the stalls abound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if it was a sufficient cause for his contemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys under the same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met with in authors, as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Gregory and Ralph from Norfolk were together at the Royal Academy. Although it was not yet ten when they entered the gallery, the rooms were already so crowded that it was difficult to get near the line, and almost impossible either to get into or to get out of a corner. Gregory had been there before, and knew the pictures. He also was supposed by his friends to understand something of the subject; whereas Ralph did not know a Cooke ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... at once her preparations for that removal which she had so long contemplated, which had been so often postponed, throwing Chatty into an excitement so full of conflicting elements, that it was for some time difficult for the girl to know what her own real sentiments were. She had been figuring to herself with a little wistfulness, and an occasional escapade into dreams, the part which it was now her duty to take up, that of her mother's chief companion, the daughter of the house, the dutiful ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... generation to generation, linking the time that the first human life was created to the time when somebody finally decided to write it down. This particular version is the work of unknown Egyptians. The lack of historical allusion makes it difficult to precisely date the writing, however, using other pseudepigraphical works as a reference, it was probably written a few hundred years before the birth of Christ. Parts of this version are found in the Jewish Talmud, and the Islamic ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... for you, as you believe in your personal responsibility to your Maker, to pick out of the clamouring crowd any grain of spirituality that may lie therein. If to the cure of souls you add that of bodies, your task will be all the more difficult, for the sick and the maimed will profess any and every creed for the sake of healing, and will laugh at you because you are simple enough to ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... ascribed. For, although Admiral Coligny thought himself sufficiently strong to have attacked the enemy on the following day,[213] if he could have persuaded his crestfallen German auxiliaries to follow him, he deemed it advisable to abandon the march into Normandy—difficult under any circumstances on account of the lateness of the season—and to conduct his army back to Orleans. This, Coligny—never more skilful than in conducting the most difficult of all military operations, a retreat in the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Taglioni lived here for a while too. Another calle, the Giustinian, a dull house with a garden and red and white striped posts, and we are at the Iron Bridge and the Campo S. Vitale, a small poor-people's church, with a Venetian-red house against it, and inside, but difficult to see, yet worth seeing, a fine picture by Carpaccio of a ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... and then they took water in their mouths to make them utter the gurgling sounds of the nightingale when they spoke to any one, so that they might fancy themselves nightingales. And the footmen and chambermaids also expressed their satisfaction, which is saying a great deal, for they are very difficult to please. In fact the nightingale's visit was most successful. She was now to remain at court, to have her own cage, with liberty to go out twice a day, and once during the night. Twelve servants were appointed to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... considerable property, situated in Tyre and neighbouring places, to which, had she been a free woman, she would have succeeded by inheritance. You may think that Tyre is a long way off and that it will be difficult to take possession of this estate, and, of course, there is something in the objection. Still, the title to it is secure enough, for here I have a deed signed by Titus Caesar himself, commanding all officials, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Nicholas! If you only knew how you are torturing me; what agony I have to endure for your sake! Good thoughtful friend, judge for yourself; can I possibly solve such a problem? Each day you put some horrible problem before me, each one more difficult than the last. I wanted to help you with my ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... tendency to indefinite variation, and as the minute incipient variations will be in all directions, they must tend to neutralize each other, and at first to form such unstable modifications that it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how such indefinite oscillations of infinitesimal beginnings can ever build up a sufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or other object, for "Natural Selection" to seize upon and perpetuate. This difficulty is augmented when we ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... was a difficult one, but hardly, except to Harmony Wells, a tragedy. Few of us are so constructed that the Suite "Arlesienne" will serve as a luncheon, or a faulty fingering of the Waldweben from "Siegfried" will keep us awake at night. Harmony had lain awake more than once ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in general appearance resembling the swamp white oak, but better adapted to upland; grows rather slowly in any good, well-drained soil; difficult to transplant; seldom disfigured by insects or disease; occasionally grown in nurseries. Propagated from seed. A narrower-leafed form with small acorns (var. olivaeformis) ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... personality, which becomes the subject of the relation subject-object. We artificially endow this personality with the faculty of having consciousness; and it results from this that the entity consciousness, so difficult to define and to imagine, profits by all this factitious addition and becomes a person, visible and even very large, in flesh and bone, distinct from the object of cognition, and capable of ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... no visitor imposed a check on the family circle, inconceivably pained Evelyn, and greatly contrasted the flow of spirits which distinguished her when she found somebody worth listening to. Still Evelyn—who, where she once liked, found it difficult to withdraw regard—sought to overlook Caroline's blemishes, and to persuade herself of a thousand good qualities below the surface; and her generous nature found constant opportunity of venting itself in costly gifts, selected from the London parcels, with which ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not to have a voice in the manner in which the taxes are expended, that a woman whose property and liberty and person are controlled by the laws should have no voice in framing those laws, it is not so easy. If women are fit to rule in a monarchy, it is difficult to say why they are not qualified to vote in a republic; nor can there be greater indelicacy in a woman going to the ballot-box than there is in a woman opening a legislature or issuing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Stephens, who pressed the claims of the Negro to fair and even generous treatment at the hands of the Southern whites. It is certain that these in the main meant well of the black race. It is equally certain that, difficult as the problem was, they were more capable of dealing with it than were alien theorizers from the North, who had hardly seen a Negro save, perhaps, as a waiter ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton |
