"Irksome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afterward to gladly accept his authority, had given up to their studies, Favre had passed in the humble shop of his father, a carpenter at Chene, a small village at a half league from Geneva. It soon becoming somewhat irksome for him in the village, he left the paternal workbench to start on what is called the "tour of France." He was then eighteen years of age. Three years afterward, he was undertaking small works. It was not long ere he was remarked by the engineers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... be said, also, that while George Melville evinced an aptitude for teaching, Herbert showed an equal aptitude for learning. The tasks which he voluntarily undertook most boys would have found irksome, but he only found them a source of pleasure, and had the satisfaction, after a very short time, to find himself able to read ordinary French and ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in this style is pleasant enough, but when the unhappy traveller has to live, and cook, &c., for days together in one of these craft it becomes very irksome and trying to the temper. Moreover, the smell from the remnants of the crew's meals, such as stale fish and decayed fruit and vegetables—which they will not take the trouble to throw overboard, but invariably drop under the "lanties" or bamboo ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... philosophy with biblical laws and Talmudical traditions. His method is both original and valuable; indeed, this deserves to be considered the most important part of his work. Detailed exposition of his reasoning may prove irksome; we shall, therefore, consider it ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... a good shoemaker, for example, as a good millionaire; that human life, in short, is a complex of countless different uses, each one of which is as important on its own plane as any of the others. But the intermediate period is undeniably irksome. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Benares must be slow, the soldier seems to have so much routine work in India when there is no frontier campaign going on. It must be irksome for anyone fond of fighting. My cousin here (a Captain) is Cantonment Magistrate, which means he has to turn his sword into a foot rule and do Government's factory work—lets you a plot of land for your house and sees your neighbour ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... determined support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's recent works as his finest, are good and right; and if the prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not been either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of our present schools, of the uncomprehended ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... away, and as his boat receded Robert saw departing with it the best chance he had yet had of escape from his irksome captivity. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... company, than that which concerns the moral worth of this or that action by which the character of some person is to be made out. Persons, to whom in other cases anything subtle and speculative in theoretical questions is dry and irksome, presently join in when the question is to make out the moral import of a good or bad action that has been related, and they display an exactness, a refinement, a subtlety, in excogitating everything that can lessen ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... tenderness for those same years of tutelage and all they had brought him, not only in over-flowing animal spirits, happy intercourse and intellectual attainment; but in their limitation of private action, their security of obligation, of obedience to authority, which at the time had seemed irksome enough and upon release from which he had so recently ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... fact that they had succeeded in promoting by proxy the mission which had brought them to Belgium, the Americans found the next day an exceedingly irksome one. In the company of Lieutenant von Holtz they were permitted to walk about the city, but they found little pleasure in that, owing to the bustle of outgoing troops and the arrival of others to replace them. Nor did they care to stray ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... whilst the father, mother, sisters, and two elder sons were all hard at work doing all in their power for the relief of the sick, the younger lads were kept at home, to be as far as possible out of harm's way, and they had felt the confinement and idleness as most irksome. Their mother employed them about the house when she could, but it was not much she could find for them to do. To be sure there was some amusement to be found in watching the life on the river; for though traffic was suspended, many whole families ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... had to entreat Papa's consideration on this point. My nervous system is soon wrought on. I should wish to keep it in rational strength and coolness; but to do so I must determinedly resist the kindly-meant, but too irksome expression of an apprehension, for the realisation or defeat of which I have no possible power to be responsible. At present, I am pretty well. Thank God! Papa, I trust, is no worse, but he complains ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... continuance is a just quarrel; manna itself grows tedious with age, and novelty is the highest style of commendation to the meanest offers; neither doth he in books and fashions ask, How good? but, How new? Variety carries him away with delight, and no uniform pleasure can be without an irksome fulness. He is so transformable into all opinions, manners, qualities, that he seems rather made immediately of the first matter than of well-tempered elements; and therefore is in possibility anything or everything, nothing in present substance. Finally, he ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... talks and conferences of the two friends—really not so far separated in age as one of them thought—generally took place in the library, she assisted at a large proportion of them. Rossiter would not have had it otherwise, though to David she was at times excessively irksome. Her husband had long viewed her as a lay figure on these occasions. He rarely replied to her flat remarks, her inconsequent platitudes, her yawns and quite transparent signals that it was time for the visitor to go. Sometimes David took her hints and left: ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... apothecary—true; but I well knew the difficulty of obtaining employment in what is termed a liberal profession, without interest or recommendation; neither did I wish for close confinement, as the very idea was irksome. As a mountebank, a juggler, a quack doctor—I spurned the very idea. It was a system of fraud and deceit. What then could I do? I could not dig, to beg I was ashamed. I must trust to the chapter of accidents, and considering ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... at the Briskows' turned out to be less irksome than the visitor had anticipated, for the afternoon was spent with Buddy examining the Briskow wells and others near by. It was an interesting experience, and Gray obtained a deal of first-hand information ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... wish to discuss that subject, for it was irksome to him at a time when he felt that he did not know whether the Darleys and he were enemies or friends, his thoughts going toward the former as being the more natural ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Gregorio need have no fear for his ladies. Their sojourn at the hotel may be somewhat irksome, and uncongenial; still they are safe. Rough-looking and boisterous as are some of their fellow-guests, they are yet in no way rude. The most refined or sensitive lady need not fear moving in their midst. A word or gesture of insult to ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... observing the scene with displeasure, Looked on the weeping girl, and said in a tone of vexation: "This then must be the return that I get for all my indulgence, That at the close of the day this most irksome of all things should happen! For there is naught I can tolerate less than womanish weeping, Violent outcries, which only involve in disorder and passion, What with a little of sense had been more smoothly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... painful task; for, although she now no longer felt herself the daughter of the murderer, there was so much disingenuousness in her position as the most loved and trusted friend of the woman who still regarded her father as the criminal, as to make it in the highest degree irksome to be with her. She now tried to occupy herself as much as possible at home; and while she did so, the calm to which she had forced herself outwardly began to sink into her heart, and she found, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... (mercifully)." One story Clark tells of an extraordinary attempt to smoke. Referring to the compulsory "chapels," he says that as a rule everybody behaved with propriety, whether they regarded the attendance as irksome or otherwise. But, he admits, "'Iniquity Corner,' as the space at the east end on each side of the altar was called, may occasionally have effectually sheltered card-playing; but when a young snob went so far as to light a cigar there, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by these enemies; but it was good dimostrazione to be silent before the oppressor, and not let him know that they even enjoyed their dinners well enough, under his government, to chat sociably over them. To tell the truth, this duty was an irksome one to Tonelli, who liked far better to dine, as he sometimes did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of the people (gente del popolo), as he called them; and where, though himself a person of civil condition, he discoursed freely with the other guests, and ate of their ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... minutes later, we drew up outside the church of Martinville. I did not know the reason for the pleasure which I had found in seeing them upon the horizon, and the business of trying to find out what that reason was seemed to me irksome; I wished only to keep in reserve in my brain those converging lines, moving in the sunshine, and, for the time being, to think of them no more. And it is probable that, had I done so, those two steeples would have vanished for ever, in a great ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... peculiarly irksome and embarrassing to Washington, was the nature of his correspondence with Governor Dinwiddie. That gentleman, either from the natural hurry and confusion of his mind, or from a real disposition ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... spirit, but he argued philosophically that imprisonment for filibustering, while irksome, brought with it no reproach. And, indeed, sometimes the only difference between a filibuster and a government lies in the fact that the government fights the gun-boats of only the enemy while a filibuster must dodge the boats ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... is somewhat irksome, and requires much patience. But the Arabs have a proverb, that patience is the price that must be paid for all success, and act accordingly. They have horses trained for the purpose; and, when they first start the ostrich, they go off at an easy gallop, so as ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... light as the Queen of Spain's legs—facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues—for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we longed to ask?—was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to man-milliner, as occasion ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... equipped war parties of the Shawnee Indians used gorges and gaps for the passage of the Allegheny Mountains which were prohibitive to all white pioneers except the lonely trapper. Finally, this mobility gets into the primitive mind. The Wanderlust is strong. Long residence in one territory is irksome, attachment is weak. Therefore a small cause suffices to start the whole or part of the social body moving. A temporary failure of the food supply, cruelty or excessive exaction of tribute on the part of the chief, occasions an exodus. The ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... half of the tender things said to MD is equal to any whole, and takes nothing from the whole of Stella's half. But the sentimentalist has fought against Mrs. Dingley from the outset. He has disliked her, shirked her, misconceived her, and effaced her. Sly sentimentalist—he finds her irksome. Through one of his most modern representatives he has but lately called her a ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... In this branch, hours of work are unlimited; when the season is on, they transcend imagination. Furthermore, it is here that the sweating system is generally in vogue, i. e., work given out by middlemen (contractors) who, in recompense for their irksome labor of superintendence, keep to themselves a large part of the wages paid by the principal. Under this system, women are also expected to submit to ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... it to me, it would be all the same as if it were said to her. She considers that in the relation I bear to her and the family, a message delivered to me is the same in effect as if given to her. I told her I did not think you would, as a gentleman, wish to hold her to any promises that might be irksome to her now." ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... stage still madly sweep, Whilst the tired serving-men without Wrapped in their sheepskins soundly sleep. Still the loud stamping doth not cease, Still they blow noses, cough, and sneeze, Still everywhere, without, within, The lamps illuminating shine; The steed benumbed still pawing stands And of the irksome harness tires, And still the coachmen round the fires(11) Abuse their masters, rub their hands: But Eugene long hath left the press To ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... ways of a farm, to all the phases of life and work in yard and field, that nothing there came strange to him—except having to stick to what he was put to, and having next to no time to read. Many boys who have found much amusement in doing this or that, find it irksome the moment it is required of them: Clare was not of that mean sort; he was a gentleman. Happily he was put to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... and had to make atonement by surrendering a portion of his private property. There can be no doubt, however, that as the population increased and as uncultivated areas grew less frequent, the arbitrary establishment of koshiro or of nashiro became more and more irksome, and the pages of history indicate that from the time of Keitai (A.D. 507-531) this practice was ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... his entire attention; on the one hand was a diminishing treasury; on the other an expenditure reckless in itself and beyond the demands of the administration. Without the sympathy of either the Senate or House, Mr. Gallatin's position became daily more irksome, until at last he abandoned all attempt to control the drift of party policy, took the war party at their word, and sent in to the House a ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... into contact with the vanities of wealth and social position and the other things that cause a human being to feel that he or she is lifted clear of and high above the human condition. Josephine had her consolation. For Norman the only consolation was escape from a marriage which had become so irksome in anticipation that he did not dare think what it would be in the reality. Over against this consolation was set a long list of disasters. He found himself immediately shunned by all his friends. Their professed reason was that he had acted shabbily in the breaking of the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... safety valves through which the ships' companies of the silent Fleet in the North can rid themselves of a little superfluous steam. Only those who have shared the repressed monotony of their unceasing vigil can appreciate what such a day means. To be spared for a few brief hours the irksome round of routine, to smoke Woodbines the livelong day; to share, in the grateful sunlight, some vantage point with a "Raggie," and join in the full-throated, rapturous roars of excitement that sweep down the mile-long lane ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... quietest animal, the two hands may be needed for control or guidance. Besides, an even feeling on the reins when they are held in one hand, can be maintained only by keeping the hand in the centre-line of the horse's body, which is naturally a more or less irksome task for the rider. With only one hand on the reins, the rider's available strength is reduced by nearly one-half, and the reins have to be held much shorter than if both hands were on them. One-handed ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... did the work of two until the battery had left the field. But it was in the bearing, more than in the daring, of the soldier's life that his lovely character displayed itself. He never avoided the most trying and irksome duties. If he had selfishness, those who knew him long and well as schoolmates and comrades never discerned it. More than once I have heard his beautiful Christian example spoken of by irreligious comrades. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... world, you would blame me when I admire and adore his decrees, and for accepting with gratitude his laws, which make justice a requisite for happiness! You will consent to have peace only when it clashes with your welfare, and liberty is irksome if it imposes no sacrifices! What then prevents you, if self-denial has so many charms, from exercising it as much as you desire in your private actions? Society will be benefited by your so doing, for some ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... brotherhood is limited to comradeship in arms for defence or attack. Many will be found to ridicule the idea that any real progress in unity has ever been made, or that the world can ever be envisaged except as an irksome enclosure of rival armed forces thirsting for the fray. But to those who are not prepared to accept this as the last word in human association the argument of this volume may have some weight. It will lead those who follow it to a quiet but well-grounded ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... there?' she asked. Phyllis had been rather amazed than shocked at his proposition. Her position in her father's house was growing irksome and painful in the extreme; his parental affection seemed to be quite dried up. She was not a native of the village, like all the joyous girls around her; and in some way Matthaus Tina had infected ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... here mentioned cannot be questioned; and it is much to be regretted that it is not strictly enforced in every regiment in the service. Young officers may find it irksome at first; but they soon become sensible of the advantages, and learn to applaud the commandant who has had the firmness to consult their permanent interests more than their present inclinations. [W. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson; but the perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in the first years of our friendship and irksome in the last. Nor could I pretend to support it without help, when my coadjutor was no more. To the assistance we gave him, the shelter our house afforded to his uneasy fancies, and to the pains we ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Now, just imagine this, and put yourself in my position. However, I know they will all go to sleep, so I do not fret myself. I can say truly, no man has ever been so forced into a high position as I have. How many I know to whom the incense would be the breath of their nostrils. To me it is irksome beyond measure. Eight or ten men to help me off my camel! as if I were an invalid. If I walk, every one gets off and walks; so, furious, I get ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... he was released from the business at his own request.[Footnote: My notes from the Stationers' Registers of 1645 and subsequent years; Lords Journals, Sept. 30, 1647; and Commons Journals, May 22, 1649. There is some evidence, however, that, before this last date, Mabbott had found the duty irksome (see Commons Journals, Aug. 31, 1648).] The effect of Milton's argument on Mabbott in particular, therefore, was not so immediate as Toland represents. There can be no doubt, however, that as Milton, in his Areopagitica, had tried to make the official licensers ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... on the whole of benefit to the public. But even if this feature of the law were abolished, there would remain as an equally objectionable feature the difficulty and delay now incident to its enforcement. The Government must now submit to irksome and repeated delay before obtaining a final decision of the courts upon proceedings instituted, and even a favorable decree may mean an empty victory. Moreover, to attempt to control these corporations by lawsuits means to impose upon both the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... subject upon the attention of the Congress and ask for such legislative action or expression as will lead the way to our relief from obligations both irksome and unnatural. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... in the use of the raw material, perfection of the manufacturing process, and celerity of labor. Now, in spite of all my vigilance, how am I to prevent my workmen from wasting the materials? How am I to induce them, each in his own province, to seek for the most simple and least irksome processes?" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... picture, or each separately paint the same picture twice in two different frames.— With the Slavs and Greeks, faith, like the Church and the rite, is a national thing; creed forms one body with the country, and there is less disposition to dispute it; besides, it is not irksome; it is simply a hereditary relic, a domestic memorial, a family icon, a summary product of an exhausted art no longer well understood and which has ceased to produce. It is rather sketched out than completed, not one feature having been added to it since the tenth century; for eight ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the Sabbath day of the Shipley family. With what a sense of relief had she often sat and chatted with Col. Baker at the close of what had been to her an irksome day, and felt that at last the sense of propriety would not be shocked if they laughed and bantered each other ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... him that the painful process of adjustment would have to be continued through an interminable period of years. Perhaps it is only the stiff, bent shoulders of age that are really fitted to bear the burdens that impetuous youth find unendurably irksome. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fell upon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, in which he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being the sole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people even talking of the approaching nomination of Deputy Sacco as Minister ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and more infrequent. Neither could read all the time, games were soon used up, their mates were at school most of the day, and after a week or two the poor children began to get pale and fractious with the confinement, always so irksome to ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... A soldier's life becomes irksome when he is encamped for any great length of time at any one point. A change of scenery, or the busy bustle of a march, wearisome though it be, makes the hours pass lightly. This is our eighth day at this place, and beautiful though the surroundings are, yet they begin ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... she was going along one of the lower paths, she perceived at the farther end of it two horses tied to a tree and recognized them at once; they belonged to Gilberte and Julien. The loneliness of the place was beginning to be irksome to her, and she was pleased at this chance meeting, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... de Ville, now occupied as headquarters by the German staff, rather than the buildings formerly used by the Second Corps d'Armee of France. These hostages, it was explained, would be shot at once if orders were not obeyed or if Germans were attacked. There were many irksome rules. Every citizen was required to salute a German officer whenever he saw him. Lights must be out at a certain hour each night, and after that hour any citizen found in the streets without a permit ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... day three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, with the same person, in the same room, at the same table, is unspeakably irksome to him. He may love that other person with completeness and constancy, but he occasionally demands what Bernard Shaw calls "domestic ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... speak as though they remembered the past—if they looked at each other with full recognition—they must take fire again. So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle flickered low in the socket, the silence all the while becoming more irksome to Adam. Arthur had just poured out some more brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm behind his head and drew up one leg in an attitude of recovered ease, which was an irresistible temptation to Adam to speak ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... neighbouring Raja, and when the Raja's daughter came to a tank to bathe, the tiger seized her and carried her off into the jungle, where she was married to the Kumhar's son. The princess was very pleased with her new husband, but found the life with the tigers in the jungle very irksome. She constantly begged her husband to run away, until at last he agreed. One day when the tigers were at a distance they started off and soon arrived at the palace of the princess' father. Leaving her husband by the palace ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... darkness is dispelled, and a great brightness arises and shines forth. My heart laughs, my mind is exalted, my soul becomes cheerful, all things around me are blithe and merry; whatever is around me and within me is turned to Thy praise. That which before seemed hard, difficult, irksome, impossible, becomes suddenly easy and pleasant. To give myself to fasting, watching, and prayer, to suffer or abstain or avoid, in a word all the hardnesses of life seem when compared with Thy presence to ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... going on; that I was no longer a child had made only the difference that progress must make; and I had no thought that they would not thus go on always. They were never for a moment irksome to me; I might be tired by them, but never of them. We were regularly at work together by seven, and after half an hour for breakfast, resumed work; at half-past eleven our lessons were over. But although the day was then clear of the imperative, much the greater part of it was in general ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... now. They haven't given you a fair chance; I see that. They've cowed you down and have nearly broken your spirit. All right. Show them that you're going to make something of yourself, all the same. We all have our troubles," and Frank told something of his own irksome, unpleasant life with his ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... Graecia'? Its three and a half hundred thousand souls include the largest Greek urban population resident in any one city. Shall it be united to Greece? Greece herself might well hesitate. It would prove a very irksome possession, involving her in all sorts of continental difficulties and risks. There is no good frontier inland for such an enclave. It could hardly be held without the rest of westernmost Asia, from Caria to the Dardanelles, and in this ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... though he had made some preparation for this kind of writing by his elaborate and multifarious editorial work, especially by that on Dryden and Swift, was to a great extent new; and it required, what was always irksome to him, elaborate reading up of books and documents for the special purpose. No man has ever utilised the results of previous reading for his own pleasure better than Scott, and few men, not mere professed book-grubbers, have ever had vaster stores of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... little heeded the dangerous sensibilities they were fostering. I thus became a little creature of passion, before reason was developed. In a short time I grew too old to be a plaything, and then I became a torment. The tricks and passions I had been teased into became irksome, and I was disliked by my teachers for the very lessons they had ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... far from town in rural hall, Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... would at any time have been irksome to him. It was especially so in the condition of affairs represented to him. Each day fresh reports were brought of the desperate state of the Acropolis. "The affairs of the fortress of Athens," we read in one ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... hospitalities of the Parsonage for a few days, if I could at the same time offer him the company of a brother, or if my father were young enough and strong enough to walk with him on the moors and show him the neighbourhood, or if the peculiar retirement of papa's habits were not such as to render it irksome to him to give much of his society to a stranger, even in the house. Without being in the least misanthropical or sour-natured, papa habitually prefers solitude to society, and custom is a tyrant whose fetters it would now be impossible for him to break. Were it not ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... work irksome at times. True, it had its interest. He was the liaison between organized labor, which was conservative in the main, and the radical element, both in and out of the organization. He played a double game, and his work was ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... yes before the mayor at the civil ceremony,[11] like some everyday response in church, which one is in a hurry to get over, and which has almost the suggestion of an imperious law, to which one is bound to submit, and of a state of bondage, which will, perhaps, be very irksome, since the whole of existence is made up ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard's way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura's quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel's news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard's! Val had not much ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... free sweep across the spaces, To the irksome bounds of mortal law, From the all-embracing Vision, to some face's Look ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... of its effects on the outcome of the war. The rules of the game, it is contended, must be observed by us, however much they may be disregarded by the enemy. This considerateness and scrupulosity may be chivalrous, but they form an irksome drag on a nation at war with Teutons. The two ships were at once transferred by Germany to the Turks.[74] Some two months later, deeming their war preparations completed, the latter suddenly bombarded the open Russian town of Theodosia in the Black Sea, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... depression was obvious to both Judge Nelson and myself. I was gratified at the character of the counsels you were desirous of pursuing, and much impressed with your observation that a civil war might be prevented by the success of my mediation. You read a letter of Mr. Weed, to show how irksome and responsible the withdrawal of troops from Sumter was. A portion of my communication to Judge Crawford, on the 16th of March, was founded upon these remarks, and the pledge to evacuate Sumter is less forcible than the words you employed. These words ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... and left me in a worse condition than before. My days I now passed with the most irksome uneasiness, and my nights were restless and sleepless. The story of our amour was now pretty public, and the ladies talked of our match as certain; but my acquaintance denied their assent, saying, 'No, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... not dare to express her desire to be liberated from her irksome position. Why was she afraid to do so? She asked herself the question; the only reply she could make was, that yesterday it would have been easy for her to say, "Father, I want to take a little walk in the meadow;" but ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... the size of a man's farm, did not allow women to inherit land, and forbade the importation of rum, or of slaves. These restrictions were irksome, and great discontent prevailed. At last the trustees, wearied by the complaints of the colonists, surrendered their charter to the crown. Georgia remained a ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... as in Denmark, it is the custom to keep the dead a week above ground. It may be readily imagined that to a non-Icelandic sense of smell, it is an irksome task to be present at a burial from beginning to end, and especially in summer. But I will not deny that the continued sensation may ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... evidently about to give a discourse, and much as she admired him, this idea prompted her to quit the church; for, though she could sit still for hours to hear music, she found nothing more irksome than to be compelled to listen for any length of time to a speech she might not interrupt. She was therefore rising to leave; but Papias held her back and entreated her so pathetically with his blue baby-eyes not to take him away and spoil his pleasure that she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... To them Christianity connoted regeneration. "Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and TEMPER of our Minds, and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is FIRST a Temper, and THEN a Place."(1) To the man of heavenly temper, they taught, the performance of good works would be no irksome matter imposed merely by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a delight. To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial stage, but it ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... sense, but with some kind of diminution thereof, the termination some is added, denoting something, or in some degree; as delight, delightsome; game, gamesome; irk, irksome; burden, burdensome; trouble, troublesome; light, lightsome; hand, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... had adjusted this slight misunderstanding we occupied our seats comfortably before the fire. I wished to give Paddy and Jem plenty of time to conciliate Strammers, but I must say that the wait grew irksome. Finally I arose and went into the corridor and peered into the taproom. There were Paddy and Jem with their victim, the three of them seated affectionately in a row on a bench, drinking from quart pots of ale. Paddy was clapping the gardener ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... himself fully to every exertion of personal aid which he could still give them, by appearing in public, holding his levees, opening his house, &c. &c.; or, on the other hand, of opening immediate communication for a capitulation, the terms of which, irksome as they would now be, must daily become more and more so by the inevitable course of events, independently of those peculiar circumstances of personal temper which are unhappily so evident even in this moment, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... of a few of wise-mooded heroes, 30 He onward advanced to view the surroundings, Till he found unawares woods of the mountain O'er hoar-stones hanging, holt-wood unjoyful; The water stood under, welling and gory. 'Twas irksome in spirit to all of the Danemen, 35 Friends of the Scyldings, ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... law that beauty is variety. Monotony, though magnificent, will become irksome, but variety is an unceasing delight. Versailles, with its formal avenues of shorn foliage, and its geometrical lawns and terraces, may please you more at first sight than an English park, because the mind feels a sort of pride in being able to grasp such ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... then we will go into the town and find them." And he moved off with alacrity, as if in sight of the end of an irksome duty. Bessie inquired if her uncle was going forward to Abbotsmead, to which he replied that he was not; he was going across to Norway to make the most of the fine weather while it lasted. He might be at horns in the winter, but his movements ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... myself than an obscure feeling of revolt had been gradually coming to a head in his slow mind, but to challenge this was the undoubted fact that he had never shown any impatience with the monotony of his life. If, seized by an intolerable boredom, he had determined to be a painter merely to break with irksome ties, it would have been comprehensible, and commonplace; but commonplace is precisely what I felt he was not. At last, because I was romantic, I devised an explanation which I acknowledged to be far-fetched, but which was the only ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... limitations existed. First, as each civilization matured its leaders and policy makers ceased to labor on the land or in the workshops, preferring to keep their hands and clothes clean, to free themselves from irksome demanding toil and devote themselves to tasks more befitting "gentlefolk." This was notably true of landlords as a class. It was also true of the richer traders, merchants and moneylenders, particularly of the third and ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... book assiduously; it was the "Comic Almanac," but I don't know that it made me feel very much inclined to laugh. The clock ticked loud and disagreeably. I determined not to speak till I was spoken to; but after a time the silence grew irksome, and the ticking of the clock so loud, that I ventured on a slight cough, merely to break it. "Ahem," said I, still intent on the "Comic Almanac." John turned slowly round, made a half rise, as if out of compliment to my presence, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... idle now to inquire too closely into the springs of Philip's resolve to take service under a foreign flag. Perhaps the irksome state of affairs at Las Flores, where there was no mean between loafing and soldiering, was intolerable to a spirited youngster. Perhaps San Benavides, constantly riding in from the front, irritated him beyond endurance by ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... me?" he whispered, that lover's text for every sermon which the unloving find so irksome ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... great many things rather than let any of his people go hungry. But it was only because they were his people, part of the state and circumstance of Redmarley. He didn't care for them a bit as individuals. Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him. Dialect afflicted him. He had nothing to say to them, and they were stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence. He was well content to have few personal dealings with those, who, in his ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... they were past Ekaterinburg, Godfrey's guard, a good-tempered-looking young fellow, seemed to consider that it was no longer necessary to preserve an absolute silence, which had no doubt been as irksome to him as ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... is one moment wish'd, The next, is irksome. Did you not just now, Sick of inaction, bid us deck you out, And, with your former energy recall'd, Desire to go abroad, and see the light Of day once more? You see it, and would fain Be hidden from the sunshine that ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... of your present vocabulary altogether are the words you encounter but do not recognize, except (it may be) dimly and uncertainly. Some counselors would have you look up all such words in a dictionary. But the task would be irksome. Moreover those who prescribe it are loath to perform it themselves. Your own candid judgment in the matter is the safest guide. If the word is incidental rather than vital to the meaning of the passage that contains it, and if it gives promise of but rarely crossing ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and lovely garden, where she had spent so many happy hours with her flowers and her birds, distributed her pretty things among her friends, and accepted all the small trials of strict convent life—no bath, nor mirror, coarse underlinen and sheets—no fire, no lights, no privacy, the regular irksome routine of a nun's life, and is perfectly happy—never misses the intellectual companionship and the refinement and daintiness of her former life,—likes the commonplace routine of the convent—the books they read to each other in "recreation," simple stories ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... staff appointment I owed the opportunity of witnessing that stupendous feature of war, a siege; and as many of my friends formed part of the blockading force, I spent more than one night in the trenches. Indeed, except for this, the tiresome monotony of life was most irksome at this period. Day after day the incessant rain poured down. The supplies were bad, scanty, and irregular; the hospitals crowded with sick; field-sports impracticable; books there were none; and a dulness and spiritless depression ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... this, to me unknown, who has for me increased an irksome course? I have with snow been decked, by rain beaten, and with dew moistened: long have ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... the condition in which he found himself. It more than equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... many Absurdities that are taught by the Church of Rome, the little Claim which Popes can lay to Infallibility, and the Priestcraft there is in what they say of purgatory and all that belongs to it. But to persuade him likewise, that the Gospel requires no Self-denial, nor any Thing that is irksome to Nature, and that the Generality of the Clergy of England are sincerely endeavouring, in their Lives and Doctrine, to imitate the Apostles, as nearly as Human Frailty will let them, and is consistent ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... thinking a great deal of late as to the best course to pursue in ridding himself and Claire of this menacing incubus. He had a feeling that Claire, having exhausted the novelties of her position as accompanist to Lily Condor, was beginning to find the affair irksome. ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... pleasant prospect the Voyage closes. Begun as it was to while away the enforced solitude of his cabin, a condition, which no man, he tells us, disliked more than himself and which mortal sickness rendered especially irksome, these pages, some of which "were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author," reveal Fielding to us if not as Mr Lowell has said "with artless inadvertence" at least with perfect fullness. The undimmed ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... gentlemen. The wages given by the directors had been too low to keep servants long in the place, or to secure a good class of girls who would be above dishonesty or other weaknesses; and this made the duties of their superintendent particularly irksome; while there was a good deal to be done for the patients themselves, though not so much by the second as by ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... mean, weather-beaten, goose-brained gull! Conscience, thou art a bloodhound, whose growl wakes us readily at the paltry stir of a rat or mouse as at the step of a lion. Can I not quit myself, by one bold stroke, of a state so irksome, so unhonoured? What if I kneel to Elizabeth, and, owning the whole, throw ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... that any banker was worthy of death who issued notes without having the specie wherewith to pay them. He insisted that the payment should mean specie in the value of the day on which the note was issued. This item the regent liked little, as being too irksome for his temper. Was it not of record how Louis, the Grand Monarque, had twice made certain millions for himself by the simple process of changing the value of the coin? Dicing, drinking, amorous Philippe, easy-going, shallow-thinking, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... friends found for Watts a bride in the person of Miss Ellen Terry. The painter and the youthful actress were married in Kensington in February of that year, and Watts took over Little Holland House. The marriage, however, was irksome, both to the middle-aged painter and the vivacious child of sixteen, whose words, taken from her autobiography, are the best comment we possess on ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... eating or drinking. No Brother is allowed to hold any lengthy interview with a Sister, nor to work, walk, or drive with her alone; but these protective customs, which all are bound in honor to keep, are too much a matter of everyday life to be strange or irksome. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... overmastered all your life by a disastrous spirit of willfulness. All your impulses have led you towards what is undisciplined and lawless. You have never been willing to submit to any restraint. Anything in life that has seemed irksome to you, you have thrown aside recklessly and unscrupulously, as if it were a burden that you were free to rid yourself of if you would. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and so you left your husband. Your duties as a mother were irksome to you, so ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... upon herself many of mother's irksome cares; such as remembering where the patches and old linen were—the hammer and nails; watching the sweetmeat pots; keeping the run of the napkins and blankets; packing the winter clothing, and having ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... had been running wild on the range. They had never known the touch of a whip or a spur, nor felt the weight of a rider. The nearest approach to constraint they had ever experienced was that furnished by the encircling fence of the corral into which they had been driven yesterday. That this was irksome and even terrifying was evident by their dilated nostrils, their wild expression, and the way they pawed at the bars and at times measured the height of the fence, as though contemplating a leap over it into the wide spaces beyond. But their instinct told them that they could not make it, ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... partner of my lawful Bed, Your cruelty hath frighted from mine arms; And her I now was wandring to recover. Think you that I had reason now to leave you, When you are grown so justly odious, That ev'n my stay here with your grace and favour, Makes my life irksome? here, surely take it, And do me but this fruit of all your friendship, That I may dye by you, ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... mankind still require to be released from the drudgery of irksome, physical exertion, which, when power has been cheapened, will be seen to be to a very large extent avoidable. Pleasurable exercise will be substituted for the monotonous, manual labour which, while it continues, generally precludes the ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... children's honour, she fenced her three daughters around with precautions which rendered their lives irksome to themselves and troublesome to all who were about them. Maria and her younger sisters were literally shut up within the narrow limits of the apartments they occupied in the palace—happily for them it was not the Palazzo Vecchio ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... prisoners would feel degraded, and this feeling would prevent their reclamation! The error here consisted in imagining that the criminal class possessed the feelings of gentlemen; whereas the real thing to be thought of, was to give them labour so excessively toilsome and irksome as to be remembered with salutary horror all the days of their life. For example, no kind of punishment, we believe, has proved so sure a terror as that of the shot-drill in the military prisons. This consists in lifting a cannon-ball of perhaps twenty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... kindness, and the self-denial which he seemed to be exercising for me, brought me but little happiness. Perhaps the value of liberty cannot be known until it has been experienced; and the memories of the freedom of my childhood had been almost effaced by the irksome and dreary life at school, from which my spirits had scarcely recovered. In addition to this, my father had urged new tasks upon me, so that altogether Paris was an enigma. You must acquire some knowledge of its pleasures before you can amuse ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... should have to go there!' he said to himself. And then Lady Palliser went into an adjoining chamber and brought forth little Vernon, to exhibit him, as a particular favour and privilege, to Ida's husband; and Brian, who detested children, had to appear grateful, and to address himself to the irksome task of making friends with the little man. This was not easy, for the boy, though frank and bright enough in a general way, did not take to his new connexion: and it was only when Brian spoke of Ida that his young brother-in-law ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... some sense for the first time, the dread with which his name inspired the enemy rendered the service far too inactive for his lordship's taste. To watch the motions of a timid enemy, and wait the tedious periods of their venturing out, was to him a most irksome task. He disdained, however, any strict blockade of Toulon: but encouraged the boastful fleet, ignominiously skulking there, to come fairly forward; by always leaving them sufficient sea room; though he endeavoured to preserve over all their ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... children the nightmare a century after the stern-browed promulgators of them were dust. The early laws against crime in New England were severe, though death was seldom or never inflicted save for murder. But more irksome to one used to the lax habits of to-day would have been the punctilious rigidity with which they guarded the personal bearing, speech, and dress of the members of their community. Yet we may thank them for having done so; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... she had the letters brought to her first, so that she could read them, and not disturb Maxwell with them at his work, if it were not necessary. He willingly agreed to that; he saw that it helped to pass the irksome time for her. She did not mean to conceal any answer she should have from L. Sterne, but she meant when the answer came to prepare her husband for it in such sort that he would understand her motive, and though he condemned it, would easily forgive ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... He would have liked to push on if only to lull thought by the monotony of their march. Moreover during these last two hours, some faint rushlight of hope had been kindled in his mind which made all delay irksome. He himself would not believe that his friend John Lattery, with all his skill, his experience, had slipped from his ice-steps like any tyro; Michel, on the other hand, would not believe that he had fallen from the upper rocks of the Blaitiere on the far side of the ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... civil to the military. The iron hand by which Cromwell was obliged to rule, if he ruled at all, at last became odious to all classes, since they had many rights which were ignored. When they clamored for the blood of an anointed tyrant, they did not bargain for a renewed despotism more irksome and burdensome than the one they had suppressed. The public rejoicings, the universal enthusiasm, the brilliant spectacles and fetes, the flattering receptions and speeches which hailed the restoration of Charles II., ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... shattered frame, produce instant pain, uneasiness, restlessness, and suffering. Such, however, is the common condition of convalescence, and therefore I observe it with much more concern than surprise - and Mr. Hay assures me all is as well as can possibly be expected after so long and irksome an illness. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... servants was merely a burden; but she would have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait on herself even for an hour. As she looked now at the gardens in front of her, and away to the woods beyond, and to the great stretches of greenhouses and conservatories to southward, she thought how irksome they were, how unnecessary, and ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... irksome to children, they mitigate the mental pain by wrinkling their brows, or they fidget and put themselves into strange attitudes. These odd motions, which at first are voluntary, after they have been frequently associated with certain states of mind, constantly ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... unless the strictest discipline is maintained aboard. I know, for I've been in similar circumstances before, that when cold and hunger, and, it may be, sickness, press upon us—should it please the Almighty to send these on us in great severity—you will feel duty to be irksome, and you'll think it useless, and perhaps be tempted to mutiny. Now I ask you solemnly, while your minds are clear from all prejudices, each individually to sign a written code of laws, and a written promise that you will obey the same, and help me to enforce them even with the punishment of death, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... ready to pass over, as I discern through the faint light." And he to me, "The things will be clear to thee, when we shall set our steps on the sad marge of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to him, far as to the river I ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... of successfully acting a part is to be it," said Holmes. "I give you my word that for three days I have tasted neither food nor drink until you were good enough to pour me out that glass of water. But it is the tobacco which I find most irksome. Ah, here ARE some cigarettes." I heard the striking of a match. "That is very much better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear the step of ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... find this kind of monotony irksome the march is a dreary business, while to others its bare outline is filled with the interest of a thousand little happenings. The tired, dusty, shabby "Tommy" is a man much more agreeable to talk with than his ancestor of the barrack-room at home; ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... was irksome to the new master. With the iron decision characteristic of Hohenzollern, William II ended the situation, with a stroke of his imperial will. In this attitude William not only acted wisely, but showed himself ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Indeed, there are Indian communities in America which are far ahead of them in culture. I seemed once more in a wild country. But our host (for, being on his ground, we were his guests) was most amiable and polite. It certainly was rather irksome to sit solemnly in his best room and stare at each other without a word. Below the open window stood our guide, so when it became absolutely necessary for me to make our friend understand, or for me to die of suppression of urgent speech, I called to Joao and bade ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... And prays him, on a damsel's part, 'that he To her would think not irksome to repair; Whom of unequalled affability And sweetness, he would find, as well as fair; Or otherwise would be content, that she Should to his bark resort, to seek him there, Nor prove less pliant than had been before All the knights errant, who had ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... said he, "I daresay you will. Very irksome to be idling about the decks all day. I should think change of air would do ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... narrative unduly irksome, were I to set down carefully every single man put to death by this ruler,—all that he despatched because of false information, because of unjustified suspicions, because of notable wealth, because of distinguished family, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... by what he said, was unable to take her eyes off him. Mass seemed always irksome to her in spite of the frequent changes of posture and her conviction that it was good for her soul. She was at her happiest plunging through woods or panting up cliffs which squaws dared not scale. Yet enforced hiding with ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Point had not his benefactor suddenly died. Strange to say, the life of a soldier with which he had become familiar during the years spent at the different posts assigned to the Colonel, did not appeal to him. The restraint and routine of the life appeared irksome, and a year later the then great undeveloped West numbered him ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Doctrines, such the Lessons, which are endeavoured to be inculcated in the following Sheets by an Example in natural Life. The more unfashionable, the more irksome, these Doctrines, these Lessons, are to the Young, the Gay, and the Healthy, the more necessary are they to be inculcated. Religion never since the Reformation was at so low an Ebb as at present: And if there be those, who suppose this Work to be of the Novel ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... any thing on compulsion, my lord; I prefer to assign you a position in which your talents, being unfettered by your antipathies, will shine with undimmed lustre. You have complained of late that the duties of the war department have become irksome to you; if so, I can give you an appointment less onerous to you, but equally important to the state. I am just now in need of an intelligent representative before the imperial Diet. This charge I commit to you, premising that ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... bells inviting him back into the foretime days. And so these two unkempt men, toughened and browned to the texture of leather by wind and snow, brought by trail and campfire to disregard ceremony and look upon mealtime as an unsatisfying, irksome period, stood speechless, affording the girl the feminine pleasure of ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... be remembered, were to read his Bible, and not to use his brush on Sundays. The good Sir Joshua gave the desired promises with a full heart, for these two great men loved one another; but subsequently discovered the Sabbatical restriction not a little irksome, and after a while resumed his former practice, arguing with himself that the Doctor really had no business to extract any such promise. The point is a nice one, and perhaps ere this the two friends have met and discussed it in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... count every moment precious could such a delay have been irksome. The place was a paradise, the garden a corner of Eden, and the Reina Cristina more like the country house of some Spanish ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... line, never passing it. The gorgeous beauty of this historic old park, so full of traditions and the lore of centuries, wrought strange fancies and bold inclinations in the head of the audacious visitor. He felt the bonds of restraint; he resented the irksome chains of convention; he murmured against the laws that said he should not step across the granite road into the cool forbidden world beyond—the world of kings. Hobbs knew he was doomed to have rebellion on his hands before long; he ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... people, who run quite amuck whenever they open their mouths, there are large numbers of men and women of some intelligence who never make the effort to express conscientiously any ideas or opinions. They find it irksome to think. They are completely indifferent as to whether a play is really good or bad or who is elected mayor of the city. In any event they will have their coffee, rolls and honey served in bed the next morning; ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the duty of first lieutenant, and pretty hard duty it was; but it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I never refused, during the whole course of my naval career, any duty offered me, however hard or irksome it might ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... sorrow not less painful, a feeling of hopelessness in this world which only finds comfort in the prospect of another, which longs for the consummation of all things that we may join those who have gone before. To return to the duties of life is irksome, even to those duties which were a delight when the candle of the Lord shone upon us. I do not arraign the decrees of Providence, but even in the bitterness of my soul I acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of God, and endeavour to be resigned to His will. It ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... prevent my running behindhand in the world, I am somewhat contented therewith, and shall make my wife so, who, poor wretch, I know will consider of things, though in good earnest the privacy of her life must needs be irksome to her. So I made Gosnell and we sit up looking over the book of Dances till 12 at night, not observing how the time went, and so to prayers and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to teachers may not be considered superfluous. In the first place, I have found historical anecdotes an excellent aid in teaching English. Pupils find it far from irksome to relate the stories in their own words, and to reproduce them in compositions. Secondly, whenever a city or country is mentioned, every pupil should point out its location on the map. By such means only can any one properly understand an historical narrative; and in the present case there is ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... no reply. One secret of her bad temper was that she had all her life been allowed to vent it, and now that she was married she felt the necessity of restraining it very irksome. Whenever she had gone far enough with Ned, and saw that he was not to be trifled with, she found that she possessed not only power to control her temper, but the sense, now and then, to do so! On the present occasion she at once busied herself ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... and much sympathise with, what you say of your feeling lonely, and not what you can honestly call "happy." Now I am going to give you a bit of philosophy about that—my own experience is, that every new form of life we try is, just at first, irksome rather than pleasant. My first day or two at the sea is a little depressing; I miss the Christ Church interests, and haven't taken up the threads of interest here; and, just in the same way, my first day or two, when I get back to Christ Church, I miss the seaside ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... townships and taught the arts of peace. But though the Guaranis at first entered into the Jesuit reductions as a refuge against their persecutors, the Portuguese and Spaniards, soon, as was only natural to men accustomed to a wild forest life, they found the Jesuit discipline too irksome, and often fled back to the woods. Then the poor priest, left without his flock, had to take up the trail of the flying neophytes, follow them to the recesses of the forests, and persuade them to ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... classes of the Sunday school should be organized. Young men and women especially, who are in danger of finding the Sunday school irksome because their intelligence has passed beyond its control, should be organized in classes which on week days have a club or society character. The Sunday school should use as an ally their tendency to organization and should satisfy their social needs by giving them regular and approved opportunities ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... the society of men, but rather a wish to forget that she had ever known any. Life had made a hole in her heart which she meant to fill if she could, but only with inanimate things and the love of children. So that Mr. van Cannan's unsociable restriction, far from being irksome, suited her perfectly. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... rid of him; and some of his followers, it must be confessed, are just like him. You must resist them both, or they will never flee. But if they do flee after a day's tarry, do not complain. You protest against turning your house into a hotel. Why, the hotelry is the least irksome part of the whole business, when your guests are uninteresting. It is not the supper or the bed that costs, but keeping people going after supper is over and before bedtime is come. Never complain, if you have nothing worse ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... equipage to the costs of the journal. His associates, Massol and du Tillet agreed to this so readily that he really believed them the best fellows in the world. Without this help, however, life would have been simply impossible to Raoul; as it was, it became so irksome that many men, even those of the strongest constitutions, could not have borne it. A violent and successful passion takes a great deal of space in an ordinary life; but when it is connected with a woman in the social position of Madame ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... alone and friendless, will wonder that I should be thus overcome, or reproach me for giving way to impulses which I felt it impossible to control? There was a terror of the future, which even recollection of the happy past was powerless to dissipate. Society, even books, became irksome, and I went out into the garden alone, there to have uninterrupted communion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... father, which took place early in 1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irksome. His mother was left with little more than the means of providing for the wants of her household, and was unable to furnish him any remittances. He would have been compelled, therefore, to leave college, had it not been for the occasional contributions ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving |
