"Fretted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... father. She fought away from the idea that her sister might be breaking physically, and tenderly as a mother yearned over her. Anxious-eyed, she noted the pallor of the childlike face, the melancholy expression that had come to be habitual. She fretted over the spareness of the younger girl, who ate only when she was urged. If, sated with sleep, Marylyn moved in the night, Dallas aroused on the instant and ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the war into the enemy's camp; for if the "young girl" has interfered with the freedom of the artist in France, what has she done in England and America? "What are they doing here?" cried Goethe once, teased and fretted by the presence of this restricting influence. "Why don't they keep ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... saying now that I was, though I would not confess it to Rose, who fretted enough ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... lads!" the Captain cried, "for sure the case were hard If longest out were first to fall behind. Aloft, aloft with studding sails, and lash them on the yard, For night and day the Trades are driving blind!" So all day long and all day long behind the fleet we crept, And how we fretted none but Nelson guessed; But every night the Old Superb she sailed when others slept, Till we ran the French to earth with all ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... all the more appealing. He remembered that he had looked at her a moment before he could speak, and in that moment love smote his heart. He had wished to see her father and she had laid the sick child on a couch while she left the room. The little one had fretted and he had sat down beside it and shown it his watch and his revolver, and it had put out its hands to him, and when Marguerite came back she had found the big, tall, broad-shouldered man cradling the sick child in his arms. He halted in his moody pacing of ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... and shaded lanes in the dim green coolness of evening, lounged in the orchard hammock, drifted down the little river, past still pools, reed-bordered, under vaulting sycamores, over hurrying reaches fretted with pebbles, forgot everything except one another and their fancies and made, as youth must, love. That was the programme complete, except for the talk, the fascinating, never-ending talk. Volumes on volumes of it—whole libraries ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the temptation to pursue this thread of fancy is very great. Suppose, for instance, it had not chanced to rain on a certain day at Clifden, when a cricket match was being played in which Frederick, Prince of Wales, happened to be interested. A fretted Prince would not have had to retire to his tent like Achilles, would not have insisted on a game of whist to cheer his humor. There would have been no difficulty in forming a rubber. There would have been no need ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to the utmost a long ecstatic tone from a sensitive violin. 'What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light; and then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and saffron trees.' It is very nearly ecstasy with him in that astonishing Christmas night which no one then at the front can ever forget—a solemn night, a blue night, full of stars and of music, when the order and the divine unity of the universe ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... Raleigh put it to its unnatural use—had at last been exhausted on Pitcairn Island, and the mutineers had to learn to do without it. Some of them said they didn't care, and submitted with a good grace to the inevitable. Others growled and swore and fretted, saying that they knew they couldn't live without it. To their astonishment, and no doubt to their disgust, they did manage to live quite as healthily as before, and with obvious advantage to health and teeth. Two there were, however, namely, Quintal and McCoy, who would ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the place to look into that soul—its turn will come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give an account of them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague, and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that he had lost his bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange and almost surprising desires; for instance, after midnight he suddenly had an intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go to the lodge and beat Smerdyakov. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... he prepared my woodland couch, but I was too nervous for that, and so jumped off and dropped onto the ground, worn out with fatigue and pain. The night was still dreamily beautiful, and I should have been enchanted with the adventure (for I had fretted and complained a good deal, because we had no excuse for camping out) had it not been for that impertinent headache, which, you remember, always would visit me at the most ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... my spirit follow thee, sweet bird, Ling'ring for ever in the midway air, Earth shrouded 'neath me by ascending mists, And sunny-crested cloudlets, like the base Of bright Imagination's airy halls, Whose roof is the star-fretted empyrean: Thence let the world hear my full gushing joy, And thrill at pleasures they can never know, Hear the sweet tumult of my throbbing breast, Like a clear spring of joyance bubbling up And overflowing time and space with ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... week, Andre-Louis went out alone early in the morning. He was out of temper, fretted by an overwhelming sense of humiliation, and he hoped to clear his mind by walking. In turning the corner of the Place du Bouffay he ran into a slightly built, sallow-complexioned gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a tie-wig under a round hat. The man fell back at sight ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... comes. It is a great novelty in my lot; felt as a very considerable blessing; and really it has arrived, if it have arrived, in due time, for I had begun to get quite impatient of the other method. Poverty and Youth may do; Poverty and Age go badly together.—For the rest, I feel fretted to fiddle-strings; my head and heart all heated, sick,—ah me! The question as ever is: Rest. But then where? My Brother invites us to come to Rome for the winter; my poor sick Wife might perhaps profit by it; ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... for this was one of Claude's fretful days. He grew weary of being confined to one room; he longed for the company of his sister and Clement. His brother came in for a little while after he had had his dinner; but he was in one of his troublesome moods, and vexed and fretted Claude so much that Christie was fain to give him over to Martha's charge, bidding him not come into the green room till he was ready to ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... to all succeeding ages cursed: For close designs and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pygmy body to decay.... A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms: but for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... teachers lacked the power of imparting vitality to what they taught. Athwart all play and amusement, however, a thread of seriousness ran through my character; and many a sleepless night of my childhood has been passed, fretted by the question 'Who made God?' I was well versed in Scripture; for I loved the Bible, and was prompted by that love to commit large portions of it to memory. Later on I became adroit in turning my Scriptural knowledge against the Church ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... carry the fire of your temper too near the gunpowder. If the wife be easily fretted by disorder in the household, let the husband be careful where he throws his slippers. If the husband come home from the store with his patience all exhausted, do not let the wife unnecessarily cross his temper; but both stand up for your rights, and I will promise ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... at every corner unfolded the sublimest scenery, my imagination conceiving nothing beyond the grandeur and wild magnificence of the rugged mountains whose castellated peaks, gray and black with time and storm, were fretted into all combinations of pinnacle and turret raised like fortifications out of their perpendicular, blank sides. To allay the parching heat and sombreness of scene, the roar of falling water reached the ear, and here and there the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... and this font was a tomb, which merits special attention. It was the chantry of Sir Reginald Delme, the chief of his house in the reign of Harry Monmouth. It was a mimic chapel, raised on three massive steps of grey stone. The clustered columns, that bore the light and fretted roof, were divided by mullions, rosettes, and trefoils in open work; except where the interstices were filled up below, to bear the sculptured, and once emblazoned shields of the Delmes, and their cognate families. The entrance to the chantry, was through a little turret at its north-eastern ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... nearer five than four when the Lady May, her engine barking aggressively, moved out of Denboro Harbor. Mr. Bartlett, the passenger, had been on time and had fumed and fretted at the delay. But Issy was deliberation itself. He had forgotten his quahaug rake, and the lapse of memory entailed a trip to the blacksmith's. Then the gasoline tank needed filling and the battery ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... she grew rapidly worse and worse, spite of medicines, charms, and dances. At length she died. The fox had not intended to bring misfortune on the village in this shape, for he loved the beautiful daughter of the chief, so he kept in his lodge and mourned and fretted ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... once. No time must be lost," Mr. Carrisford fretted. "Have you any new suggestion ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a merry day among the children of her own age in the village; she fretted at coming away, and was frightened at turning into so lonely a path through the hazel stems, trotting after Patience because she was afraid to turn back alone, but making a low, peevish moan all ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... family—as soon as he learned of the first attack, to come and remain by the side of his dear comrade Feodor. He had done this after each attack, without forgetting one. He was a faithful friend. But he fretted because they might not go bear-hunting as in their youth. 'Where, he would ask, are there any bears remaining in Courlande, or trees for that matter, what you could call trees, growing since the days of ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... was built, it rose in the midst of other work fanciful and beautiful as itself; that every dwelling-house in the middle ages was rich with the same ornaments and quaint with the same grotesques which fretted the porches or animated the gargoyles of the cathedral; that what we now regard with doubt and wonder, as well as with delight, was then the natural continuation, into the principal edifice of the city, of ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... the Aricie to Mme. de Stael's Phedre. This life that seems to us so fascinating, has been described too often to need repetition. It had its tumultuous elements, its passionate undercurrents, its romantic episodes. But in spite of its attractions Mme. de Stael fretted under the peaceful shades of Coppet. Its limited horizon pressed upon her. The silence of the snowcapped mountains chilled her. She looked upon their solitary grandeur with "magnificent horror." The repose of nature was an "infernal peace" which ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... came. She had thought of perhaps going out since the morning was so fine, walking down to the village, which was quite within her powers, and of planning several calls which might be made in the afternoon to take advantage of the fine day. But she became really fretted and annoyed as the morning crept along. Lucy was losing even her politeness, the Dowager thought. This is what comes of what people call happiness! They get so absorbed in themselves, there is no possibility of paying ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... choir-stalls within, and a cloister and a grand tall tower without. The ramshackle old wooden church had been dear to them, had even remained dear to them after the railroad had laid down its tracks under their very eaves; but they were fretted by the crudely caustic comments of strangers coming to the town, and they were still more fretted when the puffing, screeching Sunday trains drowned the voice of the good old rector whose mannerly traditions forbade his puffing and ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... cloud of mosquitoes rose and enveloped horse and rider. The vicious insects settled like a grey cloth upon the heated mare, and Prudence's soft flesh was punctured by hundreds of venomous needles at once. The girl swept the insects from neck and face, heedless of the torturing stings. The mare fretted and raced up the opposite slope, while the girl leant forward in her saddle and sought to relieve the staunch little creature's agony by sweeping the poisonous insects from her ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... but they saw nothing of Gid. It was known that he was at home, for Jim Taylor had told the news of his return. At this neglect the Major was fretted, and one morning he sent word to Gid that he must come at once and give an account of himself. It was nearly noon when the old fellow arrived. Clumsily he dismounted from his horse, and meekly he made his way into the yard, tottering as he walked. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the sweet presence of Nancy, willingly losing all sense of that hidden bond which at other moments galled and fretted him so as to mingle irritation with the very sunshine, Godfrey's wife was walking with slow uncertain steps through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes, carrying her ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... out the sun was down, and the women, bearing torches in their hands, conducted them to a great and gorgeous hall which they had not seen before, built of fretted stone and having a carved and painted roof. Along one side of this hall, that was lit with cressets, were a number of round-headed open arches supported by elegant white columns, and beyond these a marble terrace with flights of steps which ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... characters. They might as well say that they prefer square, plain, unornamented houses made from square blocks of stone. St. Peter's is none the less strong and solid because of its elegant columns and the magnificent sweep of its arches, its carved and fretted ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... O'Moy greeted him petulantly. Since she spent her life in keeping other people waiting, it naturally fretted her ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... ridiculous buoyancy of youth! What luckless pigs are we who moon and fret and grow besodden with the waters of our misfortunes! This cheeky corkiness of youth! Shove it under the fretted sea of trouble, and free it will twist, up it will bob. Weight it and drop it into the deepest pool; just when it should be drowned, pop! and it is again merrily bobbing ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... lucky that it was no worse, for very few, he had noticed, ever recovered from serious wounds of spear or arrow. The wounded generally died; only the fortunate escaped. Thus he ran on, talking as much for his own amusement as that of his guest. He fretted because he could not join the camp and help work the artillery; he supposed the ram would be in position by now and shaking the wall with its blow. He wondered if Baron Ingulph would miss ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... are forsaken now; Dark mould and moss cling to thy fretted towers; Deep rents and seams, where struggling lichens grow, And no sweet voice of prayer at vestal hours; But voice of screaming shot and bursting shell, Thy deep damnation and thy doom foretell. The 'fire' has left a pile of broken ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... linen and poultry of the neighbourhood, were never heard of in our parts again; whilst the poor girl whom he had seduced and abandoned, with sense enough to feel her misery, although hardly sufficient to be responsible for the sin, fretted, moaned, and pined—losing, she hardly knew how, the half-unconscious light-heartedness which had almost seemed a compensation for her deficiency of intellect, and with that light-heartedness losing also her bodily ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... the jailer came in with some subordinates, and commanded that the prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard. The King was overjoyed—it would be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and breathe the fresh air once more. He fretted and chafed at the slowness of the officers, but his turn came at last, and he was released from his staple and ordered to follow the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... recounted the sad tale as he halted his horses on the bridge; and as his passengers looked down the rock-fretted brown torrent towards the fall, Isabel seized the occasion to shudder that ever she had set foot on that suspension-bridge below Niagara, and to prove to Basil's confusion that her doubt of the bridges between the Three Sisters was not a case of nerves but ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... smith was found and his work done, an hour had been wasted. Before the end of the first stage the horse collapsed; there was considerable difficulty in getting a remount, and the animal procured was a sorry beast for pace. Martin fretted at the delay, and cursed the adverse fates which so hindered him. Once he was within three miles of the coach, and then his horse went dead lame. Hours were lost before he could get another horse and resume the journey, and during those hours ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... over her, she gave way to tears. For a whole day her hate changed to feverish tenderness, and Helene felt happy once more; but on the morrow, when the doctor entered the room, the child received him with such a display of sourness that the mother besought him with a look to leave them. Jeanne had fretted the whole night in angry regret over her own good-humor. Not a day passed but what a like scene was enacted. And after the blissful hours the child brought them in her moods of impassioned tenderness these ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... pelf, Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself, Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways, Caring as little for censure as praise; Having some friends, whom he loves dearly, And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely; And never for great, nor for little things, Has he fretted his guts[2] to fiddle-strings. He might have made them by such ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... were laid out with well-ordered primness, and in them he delighted to see growing the fragrant flowers that reminded him and his visitors of home life in England. All this is in danger of becoming a shell-fretted wilderness now. "Long Tom" once having turned his attention in this direction continued to pound away until two shots struck the house itself, and, bursting inside, shattered the dainty contents of ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... people, ignorant people, sick people, poor old souls on parish pay, satisfied with the plenteousness of God's house, and drinking so freely of God's pleasure, that they knew no thirst, fretted not, never were discontented. All vain longings after this and that were gone from their hearts. They had very little; but it seemed to be enough. They had nothing indeed, which we could call pleasure in this world; but somehow what they had satisfied them, because it came ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... clash with hell, and with the everlastingness of misery; but the point, the edge, and the poison of all these thoughts will still be galling, and dropping, and spewing out their stings into the sore, grieved, wounded, and fretted place, which is the conscience, though not the conscience only; for I may say of the souls in hell, that they all over are but one wound, one sore! Miseries as well as mercies sharpen and make quick the apprehensions of the soul. Behold Spira in his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... about both in body and mind. Seeing which, Richard had begged his mother to take the dog with her on leaving town. Camp benefited, unquestionably, by his return to country air. His coat stared less. He carried his ears and tail with more sprightliness and conviction. Still he fretted after his absent master, and followed Katherine's footsteps very closely, his forehead more than ever wrinkled, and his unsightly mouth pensive notwithstanding its perpetual grin. He attended her now, squatting beside her when she paused, trotting slowly ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... in black-and-white—hung over the grand-piano in the light of the west windows. It was globular in form, and represented, Simeon explained, the "War of Light and Darkness." One-half of the globe was darkly shaded, curiously fretted by the lighter half. Above sat a snow-white eagle. Beneath, with prodigious wings outspread, and eyes gleaming like points of ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... offered to interrupt or question the queer old man. None dared. One or two of the party had already had a taste of his quality when fretted or interfered with, and no one desired to draw upon himself the sharp "talk" ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... brought a different tale. Marmion fretted like the impatient charger that "snuffs the battle from afar." It was true that Douglas had changed in his demeanor, had grown cold and silent. The dejected Clare sought retirement. Courteous she was to Lady Angus, shared in ceaseless prayers for the safe return ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... Christian housekeepers who would be somewhat cumbered, or distracted too, if thirteen hungry men dropped in suddenly some day, and they had to entertain them, preparing them a meal. Still, the lesson unmistakably is that Martha should not have been fretted; that she should have kept sweet amid all the pressure of ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... like a man in a dream, was pulling with her on the halyards of both sails. The wind thundered in them as they rose; the main boom jerked violently at the sheet and lashed to and fro the width of the deck; the anchor chain fretted and sawed in the hawse hole; the whole schooner strained and creaked and shook to the keelson. Gregory, in amazement, asked Madge ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... would strike him on the shoulder with a familiar air and say to him: "Do you notice that enchanting smile? It is a grin of hatred." And then the demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and would trace on the street-wall a word which might serve as a pendant to the "Drink!" which was the only oracle obtainable ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... wonder—I wonder if she will really try to get the place," Olga said to herself as the door closed. She set to work then, but her restless anxiety affected her nerves and the work did not go well. The baby too fretted and required more attention than usual. As the day wore on Olga began to worry about the baby—her small face was so pinched, and the blue shadows under her eyes were more noticeable than usual; so ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... bent over to examine the sign. Sure enough, it was the track of a man's knee; and the plastic mud exhibited on its surface a print of fretted lines, which must have been ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... that fifty years ago a dentist traveled about over the country from place to place, sometimes pulling a tooth and sometimes breaking a colt. He practiced his art with an outfit consisting of two pairs of iron forceps—one pair being saber-toothed while the other pair was merely saw-fretted—and he gave a man the same kind of treatment he gave a horse, only he tied the horse's legs first. But now electricity is in general use and no dentist's establishment is complete without a dynamo attachment which makes a crooning sound when ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... talks we have held together, that Other One and I. But I must say this, that he will not always come for being called. I sometimes call to him and get no answer; sometimes he cries out beside me suddenly in the air. He seems to have a life of his own, quite distinct from mine. Sometimes when I am fretted and vexed, he is quietly joyful and elate, and then my troubles die away, like the footsteps of the wind upon water; and sometimes when I would be happy and contented, he is heavy and displeased, and takes no heed of me; and then I too fall into sorrow and gloom. He is ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... child of one of my brother's old shipmates, as rose to be better off," said Mrs. Miller, "for she's fretted about a captain, and cried bitter to go to him when I put her to bed." Then the two returned to the little parlour, and talked long and earnestly about the child, about the necessity for Mrs. Miller's now employing the services of "a girl," and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... We mounted, and Andrews drove, for the first three miles, with some moderation. He then began to play tricks; took a high quarter and a low one, where he could find them, to shew his dexterity; whipped and fretted the horses, increased their rate, and at last put ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... impossible to make her yield assent to his wishes. To the outward observances of obedience and respect she submitted, but whenever these differences occurred, he felt that in the end she was unconquered. Inconsistent as it may appear, though fretted for the time by her firmness, he loved her the more for her "wilfulness," as he termed it; and despotic and exacting though he certainly was in many respects, he stood somewhat in awe of his pure-hearted, calm-eyed child. His ward and nephew, Hugh Seymour, had resided ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pursued the little bush, And drove away the leaves November left; then clambered up And fretted ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... frightened and humiliated him in the presence of his immediate followers and most powerful chiefs, and entailed upon him a loss of prestige which it would be difficult if not impossible to recover. He was childishly jealous of the slightest interference with his supreme authority, and he fretted and chafed himself into a state of fury almost bordering upon madness as he reflected upon the veiled menaces to himself which had been only too distinctly recognisable in every manifestation of these strangers' extraordinary power on the preceding day. He recognised that ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a few inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important than even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch feels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is stimulated by this means it is not easy to learn, but his action in manipulating their seeds is more ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... changes all has changed This guarded pleasaunce, green and fair, And soldier-ranks therein have ranged And trod its beauty hard and bare, Have tramped and tramped its fretted floor Learning the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... aground by boat. He fretted. The only emergency equipment he could possibly need was a heat-suit. He doubted the urgency of that. But he packed some clothing for indoors, and then defiantly included his specbook and the volumes of definitive data to which specifications ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the creed she herself repeated—and doubted more and more. Faithful enough. He never came or went without the customary kiss. When he had typhoid fever, no one might be near him but her, until her exhaustion could no longer be concealed, when he fretted about her—until he fretted himself back into high ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... least for Henry, was to be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... man's character, still she felt the fall, and inwardly grieved over it. She had not known herself at first,—how grievous would be her isolation when she found herself alone. Such was the case with her now, so that she fretted and made herself ill. By degrees she confined herself more and more to the house, till her mother seeing it, interfered. She became sick, captious, and querulous. The old family doctor interfered and advised that she should ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... tail were black as midnight and glossy as satin. The great, lustrous eyes held a living fire, the delicate nostrils were a-quiver every moment, the faultlessly curved ears alert as a wild creature's. And he WAS half wild, for never had saddle rested upon his back, girth encircled him or bit fretted the sensitive mouth. A halter thus far in his career had been his only badge of bondage and the girl caressing him had been the one to put it upon him. It would have been a bad quarter of an hour for any other ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... it was pleasant enough; pleasant enough, to be sure! But I cannot bear to think of leaving our dear attic home. You went away last winter with Hezekiah and Scamper. And what happened? Why, we nearly fretted our hearts out, waiting for your return. Something was always happening at the Lake. Baby Squealer got lost, Wiggle 'most got drowned, Limpy-toes came near burning to death, and the barn burned to the ground. If you listen to me, Zenas Whiskers, you'll ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... slightest ailment, a doctor must be sent for. Alas! her own ailments, neglected and unheeded, were growing beyond the reach of medicine. Anxious fearful—gnawed by regret for the past—the thought of famine in the future—she daily fretted and wore herself away. She had cultivated her mind during her secluded residence with Mr. Beaufort, but she had learned none of the arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from the door; no little ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sez, as my eyes fell from the contemplation of art-decked freeze and fretted archways onto the old familar freckled face, and green alpaca dress, and Bizer's meek ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... said gravely, "your son is living and there's a chance of his getting well. His cheerfulness and absolute quiet of mind may save him. If he had fretted or desponded he would have ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... outside a palace, there was such a chamber in all France. Of superb proportions, the room was panelled from floor to ceiling with oak—richly carved oak—and every handsome panel was outlined with gold. The ceiling was all of oak, fretted with gold. The floor was of polished oak, inlaid with ebony. At the end of the room three lovely pillars upheld a minstrels' gallery, while opposite a stately oriel yawned a tremendous fireplace, with two stone seraphim ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... doth sobbe Coo coo; Neither do sparrow, merle or mavis fail, And there the owl at midnight singeth Whoo. And where there are a Laurel and a Rose, Beneath whose branches wide a broode doth haunt; The whom high walls and fretted gates enclose, Where goode may enter, badde are bidde avaunt. And there is one yclepen Margarete, Who alsoe for the nonce is clepen Rose, For she must on some other hille be sette When Hymenaeos shall her lotte dispose. And, little booke, it is to her you runne. And sisters ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an engagement will act upon me to torment, e.g., when I have undertaken, as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them, in perfect inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head, that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... beamed with pity or flashed with indignation, as it was directed to one side or the other—her symmetry of form, which the close riding-dress displayed—her graceful movements, as she occasionally restrained her grey palfrey, who fretted to resume his speed, all combined with her sudden and unexpected appearance to induce the boatswain and his men ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... comparison. That coast, to begin with, stretching toward the sunset, was itself almost as fantastic as a sunset cloud. It was cut out against the emerald or indigo of the sea in graven horns and crescents that might be the cast or mold of some such crested serpents; and, beneath, was pierced and fretted by caves and crevices, as if by the boring of some such titanic worms. Over and above this draconian architecture of the earth a veil of gray woods hung thinner like a vapor; woods which the witchcraft of the sea had, as usual, ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... the street entrance, equally held her—a cool interior with slatted wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports and a bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle for cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in old ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Dora were in high glee at the success of their ruse, while Netty took to herself the sole credit of the idea. Dora went home from the rectory in the best of spirits. The colonel had fretted and fumed at her prolonged absence, for he missed her sorely, and was very glad of ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... pens. 9. From these pens sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. 10. A stately squadron of snowy geese was riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks. 11. Regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard. 12. Guinea fowls fretted about, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. 13. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing up the ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... is cold, and his enquiring mind can no longer expatiate on the wonders of life, for "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest!"—to the graceful building, which in its perfect proportion transcended the rude forms of nature, the fretted gothic and massy saracenic pile, to the stupendous arch and glorious dome, the fluted column with its capital, Corinthian, Ionic, or Doric, the peristyle and fair entablature, whose harmony of form is to the eye as musical concord to the ear!—farewell ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all sides by fat, grey clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted the spray into lacework on ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... was wrong, fretted around the door of Sundown's temporary habitation. Finally he threw himself down, nose on outstretched paws, and gazed at the lights and the men across the way. Later, when the town had become dark and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... that one of Desiderio's over the middle columns has much charm and power. The doors, from Brunelleschi's own hand, in a doorway perfect in scale, are noble and worthy. The chapel itself I find too severe and a little fretted by its della Robbias and the multiplicity of circles. It is called Brunelleschi's masterpiece, but I prefer both the Badia of Fiesole and the Old Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and I remember with more pleasure the beautiful doorway leading from the Arnolfo cloisters ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... could not be increased by this. At Dalton Hall she had become habituated to imprisonment, and of a far more galling kind to her than this. She had been in the power of a tyrant, at his mercy, and shut out from all means of communicating with the world at large. Her soul had perpetually fretted and chafed against the barriers by which she was confined, and the struggle within herself was incessant. Afterward there had been the worse infliction of that mock marriage, and the unspeakable dread of a new tyrant who called himself her husband. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... that when his name was announced the Senator looked up from his work with a fretted ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to catch the next and last she would have to leave Turnhill at 5.55. She said that she would wait and see. Her work for the first number of the paper was practically done, but there was this mysterious conclave which fretted her curiosity and threatened exciting development; also the Majuba disaster would mean trouble for somebody. And in any event she hated the very thought of quitting Turnhill before the Chronicle was definitely ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... and Charlie agreed with her, and there was no appeal, and Mr. Prohack had the air of an ignorant outsider whose opinions were negligible. Further, he was absurd in that, though he assuredly had no desire whatever to go to the dance, he fretted at the delay in getting there. Even when they had all got out to the porch of the theatre he exhibited a controlled but intense impatience because Charlie did not produce the car instantly from amidst the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... its hangings and deep-tufted upholstery of maroon and royal blue velvets, its lace and twisted cords with heavy tassels, and hassocks crowded on the sombrely brilliant rugs sacred in mosques. There was a mantle in colored marbles, cabinets of fretted ebony, tables of onyx and floriated ormolu, ivories and ornaments of Benares brass ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast. To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience. The manager displayed a beautiful resignation. I fretted and fumed and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz; but before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... it quickened us all with a new life. The horses fretted for their heads, and went off at a gallop, needing no cluck or spur. We pulled up at the chateau well before the luncheon hour. D'ri took the horses, and I was shown to the library, where the count came shortly, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... opposite to mine. It was M. de Perrencourt's, no longer calm, but pale and twitching. This was the last thing I saw clearly. The King and his companions were fused in a shifting mass of trunks and faces, the walls raced round, the singing of the sea roared and fretted in my ears. I caught my hand to my brow and staggered; I could not stand, I heard a clatter as though of a sword falling to the floor, arms were stretched out to receive me and I sank into them, hearing a murmur close by me, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... turned to slag and cinders, and the coal grime blackened even the sheathing from which the young leaves were unfolding their vivid green. Their train twisted along the banks of the Ohio, and gave them now and then a reach of the stream, forgetful of all the noisy traffic that once fretted its waters, and losing itself in almost primitive wildness among its softly rounded hills. It is a beautiful land, and it had, even to their loath eyes, a charm that touched their hearts. They were on the borders of the illimitable West, whose lands stretch like ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... House to ourselves. Mr. Jelnik's gray cottage, set amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance away, and we didn't know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not. It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols than of any possible ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... only a refinement of art. The sky never was empty and never idle; the clouds were continually at play for our benefit. Over against us, from our station on the hills, we saw them piled and dissolved, condensed and shifted, blotting the blue with sullen rain-spots, stretching, breeze-fretted, into dappled fields of grey, bursting into an explosion of light or melting into a drizzle of silver. We made our way along the rounded ridge of the downs and reached, by a descent, through slanting angular fields, green ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... most wide and distant, where no ship heaves, and no isle lifts beckoning trees above the level of the waves; a sea soundless, with no life below its lamentable surface, no little fish or proud leviathan plunging and romping and flashing from the silver roof of fretted wave dishevelled to the deep profound. The moorfowl does not cry there, the coney has no habitation. It rolled, that sea so sour, so curdled, from my feet away to mounts I knew by day stupendous and not so ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... either side formed the trough of the brook, vegetable life was evidently more delicate and luxuriant than elsewhere, in the season when it had sway. Even now, when the reign of the frost held all such life in abeyance, this grave of the dead summer lacked neither fretted tomb nor wreathing garland; for above, the bittersweet hung out heavy festoons of coral berries over the pall of its faded leaves, and beneath, on frond of fern and stalk of aster, and on rough surface of lichen-covered rock, the frost ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... to her, it was true, and he showed her many strange and beautiful things—books, pictures, and curios. But he still fretted audibly over his own helplessness, and he chafed visibly under the rules and "regulatings" of the unwelcome members of his household. He did, indeed, seem to like to hear Pollyanna talk, however, and Pollyanna talked, ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... martial Marmion found, His feet upon a couchant hound, His hands to Heaven upraised: And all around on scutcheon rich, And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion lay not there. From Ettrick woods a peasant swain Follow'd his lord to Flodden plain,— ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a fretted ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... ye Proud, impute to these the fault If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... speech on the devastation of Kansas by outlaws and guerrillas. Commenting upon the fact that a company of armed slave owners had crossed the borders at night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumner said: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, they do not seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like the African slave-traders ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Miss Thusa," said he, handing it to her as he spoke, "which I put aside on purpose for you. It contains an account of a celebrated murder, which occupies several columns. It is enough to make one's hair stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretted porcupine.' I am sure it will lift the paper crown ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his fathers' place, Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand: Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen On fretted pillar and jewelled screen, And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen On the drift of the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the Welsh hills; the Peregrine had sheered her way through a hundred miles or more of fretted waters before her captain, in his hammock slung for the nonce near the men's quarters, stirred from his profound sleep—nature's kind restorer to healthy brain and limbs—after the ceaseless fatigue and emotions ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... such antecedents, was she to enter suddenly into all the activity of an English clergyman's home? There were the schools, and the vestry meetings, and the sick and the destitute to be fretted after from Monday morning till Saturday night—Eustace and Marion hardly ever had a moment's respite or a leisure hour the whole week; whilst Sunday, of course, was the hardest day's work ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... did not love me as I loved him. Next,—oh, Uncle John, how much I was to blame!—I watched every word and look, gave meanings to things that had none, asked explanations where Herbert had none to give, and fairly put him under such restraint that he could neither look nor act himself. He fretted under it,—who would not?—and then began the thousand excuses for being away from home, business engagements, club-meetings, some country-customers of the firm, who must be taken to the theatre, and, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... tends that way; but it did seem to me that the whirl of the great maelstrom left but few people in a condition to think, or to form well-considered opinions, or to meditate much upon anything. Yes, I know it,—"The mind is its own place," (nothing was ever better said), and it may be fretted and frittered away to nothing in country quiet, and it may be strong and calm and full in the city throng. . . . And more and more do I feel that this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in God and immortality. Everywhere in the creation there is a proportion ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... Jadwin chafed and fretted at his inaction and his impatience harried him like a gadfly. Would no one step into the place ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... the wintry loneliness of a mountain snowstorm, his eyes could see visions of mighty things and his soul could dream unmeasured dreams. His heart beat responsively to an inward voice which assured him that he might equal and surpass the greatness of Destiny's greatest sons. He fretted for a larger world, knowing that in it he could conquer. In Hamilton Burton dwelt the soul of a Napoleon or a Caesar ... he might have ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... those in the mouths of the caves durst come near them, but lay still out of fear, some of the armed men girt on their armor, and by both their hands took hold of the chain by which the chests were let down, and went into the mouths of the caves, because they fretted that such delay was made by the robbers not daring to come out of the caves; and when they were at any of those mouths, they first killed many of those that were in the mouths with their darts, and afterwards pulled those to them that resisted them with their ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the Sabine's crew chafed and fretted like captive birds which beat their wings against the bars of their cage to no purpose, there were two who stood aloof from every one and from each other; who never spoke a word, but who nevertheless came to a perfect understanding through the interchange of frequent and expressive ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... up and down, fretted by the walls of her Roman house, her homesickness grew into a violent desire for the old life. Perugia was rebuilt, and rehabilitated, in spite of the conquering name of Augustus superimposed upon its most ancient Etruscan portal. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... tales. After dinner to the pay of another ship till 10 at night, and so home in our barge, a clear moonshine night, and it was 12 o'clock before we got home, where I found my wife in bed, and part of our chambers hung to-day by the upholster, but not being well done I was fretted, and so in a discontent to bed. I found Mr. Prin a good, honest, plain man, but in his discourse not very free or pleasant. Among all the tales that passed among us to-day, he told us of one Damford, that, being a black man, did scald his beard with mince-pie, and it came up again all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Thornton was not indoors. He was strong enough now to move about the place a little, though he still fretted under a weakness that galled him, so Bas found ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Mrs. Millar fretted. "They ought to send at night for Newton or Capes from Woodleigh—it is only a step for any of the young doctors, instead of disturbing a man ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... chastised them with whips, but Shah Soojah, whom the English had brought, was chastising them with scorpions. And they felt his yoke the more bitterly because, with the shrewd acuteness of the race, they recognised the really servile condition of this new king. They fretted, too, under the sharp bit of the British political agents who were strewn about the country, in the execution of a miserable and futile policy, and whose lives, in a few instances, did not maintain the good name of their country. Dost ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... some maniacs are—the bloated ruin of what was once a living witness to the soul within—I could fancy that death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of the self-tormented young man shows. Have we not all seen the anguish of thought-fretted faces smoothed out by the hands ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... pillars, the great rose windows that hung like a network suspended as by a miracle in air above the vast doorways. I saw the doors at the end of the side aisles, the aerial galleries, the stained glass windows framed in archways, divided by slender columns, fretted into flower forms and trefoil by fine filigree work of carved stone. A dome of glass at the end of the choir sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... to what happened from my burning of the letters. When my niece found that week after week passed, and she never heard from Mr. Carr, she fretted about it much more than I had fancied she would. And Joshua unthinkingly made her worse by wondering, in her presence, at the long absence of the gentleman of Jay's Cottage. My brother was a man who could not abide his habits being broken in on. He had been in the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... taste besides, because I was born with that. An inheritance, no doubt. And my uncle never complained at all about the bills. I seemed to have become, in some way, a person of considerable importance in the house. Ann Coddle no more fretted at me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook ceased to bully me, and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I remembered the long years of bullying, and put no faith in her assurances. I did not know exactly why this change had happened, but supposed it might ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... spacious tale from age to age; Where history's pen its praise or blame supplies And lies like truth, and still most truly lies; He wand'ring mused, and as the moonbeam shone Through the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, And the high-fretted roof and saints that there O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer; Reflected in fantastic figures grew Like life, but not like mortal life to view; His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom, And the wide waving of his shaken plume Glanced like a spectre's attributes, and gave His ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... year of Captain Rothesay's absence passed,—not without anxiety, for it was war-time, and his letters were frequently interrupted. At first, whenever this happened, his wife fretted extremely—fretted is the right word, for it was more a fitful chafing than a positive grief. Sybilla knew not the sense of deep sorrow. Her nature resembled one of those sunny climes where even the rains are ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... day go on well like, and settled a body's mind, when I fretted for what could not be helped. But I try not to fret after it now, and Mr. Hazlewood said, if I did my best wherever I was, the Lord would still join ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Silence! thou hast watched and fretted for me preciously, I'll warrant: but the road from Brisac is long, and this rough night half ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... those in all the wards who stood aloof from the merriment, and would have none of the jinks. Lean-visaged men walked moodily up and down the passages like caged wild beasts. Their lucid interval was upon them, and they fretted at the irksome restraint and degrading companionship. It was a strange thought; but I fancied they must have longed for their mad fit as the drunkard longs for the intoxicating draught, or the opium-eater for his delicious narcotic to drown the idea of the present. There were those ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies |
