"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Which grew where suns most genial shine, And formed a thick and matted bower Which might have turned a summer shower, Was saved by ruinous assault. The hunters thought their dogs at fault, And called them off. In danger now no more The Stag, a thankless wretch and vile, Began to browse his benefactress o'er. The hunters listening the while, The rustling heard, came back, With all their yelping pack, And seized him in that very place. "This is," said he, "but justice, in my case. Let every black ingrate Henceforward profit by my fate." ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... would kill you in winter. And he would not like it. We are bound to think of that for her sake cold-hearted, thankless, meagre-minded creature as ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... seemed a thankless wretch, my dear Miss Mitford,' etc. etc. 'You, my dear friend, know too well what it is to have to finish a book, to blame my not attempting,' etc. etc. 'This is the thirty-ninth letter I have written since yesterday morning,' says Harriet Martineau. 'Oh, I can scarcely hold ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case. It was not in vain that they passed their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless work that barely brought them bread. It was not in vain that they and their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced. Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... tired at last of waiting, patiently, humbly, resigned like the beast of burden which awaits the slaughterhouse. Beasts of burden! Are we not that, all we who with brow bent under humiliation, injustice, thankless toil; with the heart embittered by tedious deception and tedious despair, miseries of heart and miseries of body, wait, wait ever, wait vainly for a more brilliant sun to shine at last, until at the ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... let us hence, beyond the reach of power, Where fortune's hand shall never part us more! In this calm state of innocence and joy, I'll press thee to my throbbing bosom close. Ambition's voice shall call in vain; the world, The thankless world, shall never claim thee more, And all thy business shall ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing thankless by and saying nothing. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with her for laziness. I'm glad she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the time I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I should at once ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I was alone in my own room for the night and had again been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... unhappy than you. I love you, and you would be thankless indeed if you ceased to love me. Let us love each other, but let us not endeavour to give one another proofs of our love. It might be fatal. That accursed widow! She is gone away, and in a fortnight we shall be going also to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... so full of miracles? When did God show His power with more effect? Will you have always eyes that do not see A people thankless?—still your ear be struck With greatest wonders, and your heart unmoved? Must I, then, Abner, call to mind the course Of prodigies accomplished in our days? Of Israel's tyrants, the notorious shame, And ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... justice had decreed, And save the guilty from perdition's storm; Celestial victim in a human form! Whose mediation, soft'ning wrath supreme, Taught nature to revive, in mercy's beam. Gracious Restorer of a race condemn'd, Tho' by the thankless tribes revil'd, contemn'd. Yet gratitude, and truth, who round Thee fly, With all thy menial angels of the sky, Viewing thy gifts with rapturous amaze, Hail thy beneficence with heavenly praise: All bear eternal witness, that Thou art Justly a Sovereign in the human heart. Man cannot ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... looked black indeed. He had staked his all and lost, and he was resolved to abandon all further efforts to press his invention on an unfeeling and a thankless world. He must pick up his brush again; he must again woo the fickle goddess of art, who had deserted him before, and who would, in all probability, be chary of her favors now. In that dark hour it would not have been strange if his trust in God had wavered, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... And believe me, c'est un vilain metier cet de president. If he leans a little too much on this side he goes down into the mud, a little too much on the other he rolls in the dust. One must feel some respect for the man who undertakes such a thankless office. And, again, when a man rides in an open landau in pelting rain, when il lui pleut dans le nez, without an umbrella, with his hat off, saluting right and ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... each case by the fact that the experience of each has hardened him and rendered him completely hopeless and unsympathetic. "The work of the buffalo in the oil-press," says Captain Temple, "is the synonym all India over—and with good reason—for hard and thankless ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... intimate friend, William Blathwayt, an influential English official interested in the colonies. He had been in the employ of the government, and now, probably at the instance of Southwell and Blathwayt, he was selected to fill the difficult and thankless post of commissioner to New England. That he had ability and courage no one can doubt, and that he pursued his course with a tenacity that would have won commendation in other and less controversial fields, his career shows. His devotion to the interests of the Crown and his loyalty to ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... a thankless task. There are plenty of Scotch names about here, but not the one we want. I'm heartily tired of going about from churchyard to churchyard, poking around like ghouls or medical students. We've been ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... carrying on the work of the martyred Francisco Ferrer, had reached this same conclusion. In Italy, Enrico Malatesta, the valiant leader who was after the war to play so dramatic a role, was likewise combating the current dogma of the orthodox Socialists. In Berlin, Rudolph Rocker was engaged in the thankless task of puncturing the articles of faith of the orthodox Marxian religion. It is quite needless to add that these men who had probed beneath the surface of the problem and had diagnosed so much more completely the complex malady of contemporary ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... stood gazing at her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, who only have themselves to blame, since they flock to him, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... make the truth as clear as day. For that pure star, that brightened with his ray The undeserving nest where I was born, The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn; None but his Maker can due guerdon pay. I speak of Dante, whose high work remains Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood, Who only to just men deny their wage. Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, Against his exile coupled with his good I'd gladly change the world's ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... so as was terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... there was no provision for a systematic examination of the benevolent and correctional institutions under the control of the State and local authorities. The members of the board serve without pecuniary compensation. It is simple justice to them to say that they have faithfully performed the thankless task of investigating and reporting the defects in the system and in the administration of our charitable and penal laws, and have furnished in their reports information and suggestions of great value. If it is ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... world what a Kingdom can be with a clean King—a strong King! I've fitted you to bear a burden which only a man could bear—to remind the world that 'King' means the Man Who Can—and I thought you could do it!" He paused only to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. "Yes, your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Princelings as you who must send clean blood down to the thrones of to-morrow.... Is that not enough?... Have I built a King, day by day, year by ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... p 262., and has, I believe, been mentioned elsewhere. It may be said that this kind of repetition might be obviated by the publication of the various readings that have been suggested in the text of Shakspeare, but who is there to be found Quixotic enough to undertake so large and thankless a task, one which at best can only be most imperfectly executed: the materials being so scattered, and often so worthless, the compiler would, I imagine, abandon the design before he had made great progress ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... with wrathful inscriptions," added the petition, "designates our Society as a perpetual hotbed of regicidal conspiracy, and presents us to credulous people as an association of ambitious, thankless ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... "Thankless creature! You hesitate—you are not sure! How shameful of you to deny the gods you have once worshiped! But that is the way with you men. If you cease to love, you will not admit that you ever had loved. Tell me, was there ever a moment in your life when you could ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... grudge against the Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give, but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray the cost of the quantity required. Some delay was made, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... genial shine, And form'd a thick and matted bower Which might have turn'd a summer shower, Was saved from ruinous assault. The hunters thought their dogs at fault, And call'd them off. In danger now no more The stag, a thankless wretch and vile, Began to browse his benefactress o'er. The hunters, listening the while, The rustling heard, came back, With all their yelping pack, And seized him in that very place. "This is," said he, "but justice, in my case. Let every black ingrate Henceforward ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... young mistress, with all the ardor of inexperience, bent herself to the task of reformation and improvement, and teaching Katty Maloney—who was old enough to be her mother—a great many desirable things which she herself did not very well understand. It was thankless work and resulted as such experiments usually do. Katty gave warning at the end of a week, affirming that she wasn't going to be hectored and driven round by a bit of a miss, who didn't well know what she ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... image always appears simple and clear. In order to get the ideal solution into practice, there is required a struggle against matter, and the bringing to an issue is the most thankless ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... lasted he lounged about, visiting all the taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he went each month to purchase a stock at a neighbouring town, where he pretended ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... in the place, be assured of that," answered the dragon, emphatically. "I should not be here if there were; it is a thankless task to keep guard over a Princess; it means nothing but spells and fighting and unpleasantness, and in the end the Princess complains that you have kept the right people away. Oh, no, nothing would induce me to take another ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... forget, when the evil consequences of his act are upon them. Fricka constitutes something of a living reproach to her husband, though a certain tender regard still exists between them through the introductory Opera. A thankless part is Fricka's, like that of Reason in opposition to Feeling ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... when Nebar found A helpless man in sorrow on the ground, He took him up, and on the noble steed Gave him a place; but what a thankless deed! For Daher shouted, laughed, and, giving rein, Said, "You will ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... which so much embarrasses the Executive and heads of Departments as that of appointments, nor is there any such arduous and thankless labor imposed on Senators and Representatives as that of finding places for constituents. The present system does not secure the best men, and often not even fit men, for public place. The elevation and purification of the civil ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you for ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cause of my love for you; for it was the cause of my intimacy with your aunt Stanhope.—Mrs. Stanhope is really a clever woman—she knows how to turn the hatred of all her friends and acquaintance to her own advantage.—To serve lovers is a thankless office compared with that of serving haters—polite haters I mean. It may be dangerous, for aught I know, to interpose in the quarrels of those who hate their neighbours, not only with all their souls, but with all their ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... this thankless world the giver Is envied even by the receiver; 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion Rather to hide than own the obligation: Nay, 'tis much worse than so; It now an artifice does grow Wrongs and injuries to do, Lest men should ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... brother-in-law's house; and though avoiding all society, except that of Teresa, whose affectionate nature never wearied of its cares, he resumed many of his old occupations. Again he appeared to take delight in desultory and unprofitable studies, and in the cultivation of that luxury of solitary men, "the thankless muse." By shunning all topics connected with the gloomy cause of his affliction, and talking rather of the sweet recollections of Italy and childhood than of more recent events, his sister was enabled to soothe the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... on life's uncertain main Mishap shall mar thy sail; If faithful, wise, and brave in vain, Woe, want, and exile thou sustain Beneath the fickle gale; Waste not a sigh on fortune changed, On thankless courts, or friends estranged, But come where kindred worth shall smile, To greet ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... thankless, king, and perjured both: Thou swor'st by Alha, and hast broke thy oath. But thou dost well; thou tak'st the cheapest way; Not to own services thou canst ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... private secretary; and that you may be a master as well as a servant, I present you the estate Czernihon, near Rheinsberg. There you will be lord of your peasants and workmen, and learn if it is not a thankless office to rule. Are ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were riveted upon him with a fascination that nothing could distract. I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy —notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race—and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth could prevent the patient ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... military chief of staff and forwarding cases of literary ammunition to various bases where his vans would re-stock. His idea was that his travelling salesmen could be recruited largely from college professors, parsons, and newspaper men, who were weary of their thankless tasks, and would welcome an opportunity to get out on the road. One of his hopes was that he might interest Mr. Chapman in this superb scheme, and he had a vision of the day when the shares of the Parnassus on Wheels Corporation would pay a handsome dividend and be much sought ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... of the man who, theoretically at least, was the greatest power and the visible ruler of the Shore of Refuge. Belarab still lingered at his father's tomb. Whether that man of the embittered and pacific heart had withdrawn there to meditate upon the unruliness of mankind and the thankless nature of his task; or whether he had gone there simply to bathe in a particularly clear pool which was a feature of the place, give himself up to the enjoyment of a certain fruit which grew in profusion there and indulge for a time in a scrupulous performance ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... are told, on a mountain-top, overlooking the Pacific. At first it seemed so much easier to distrust a News Agency than to accept Stevenson's loss. "O captain, my captain!" ... One needs not be an excellent writer to feel that writing will be thankless work, now that Stevenson is gone. But the papers by this time leave no room for doubt. "A grave was dug on the summit of Mount Vaea, 1,300 feet above the sea. The coffin was carried up the hill by Samoans with great ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which distinguish an honourable man. But he has one terrible defect. In his nature, there is the fatal pliability which finds companionable qualities in bad friends. In this aspect of his character, he is a dangerous man—and he may be (forgive me!) a bad husband. It is a thankless task to warn you to any good purpose. A wife—and a loving wife more than another—feels the deteriorating influence of a husband who is not worthy of her. His ways of thinking are apt to become, little by little, her ways of thinking. She makes allowances for him, ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... age and cares, his feeble arm Had now forgot the war; but this alarm Gathers his dying spirits; and as we An aged ox worn out with labour see By his ungrateful master, after all His years of toil, a thankless victim fall: So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny: Yet died a man; but his surviving queen, Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen. I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king let pass, With Lydian Cr[oe]sus, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! Get out ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... checked for a few years by the strong hand of Charles George Gordon, already famous through his achievements in China, and invested with unlimited power by Ismail; but, that potentate being overthrown, the great Englishman left his thankless post, no longer tenable by him. Then it seemed that chaos had come again; and a bold and keen, though probably hypocritical, dervish, self-styled the Mahdi, or Mohammedan Messiah, was able to kindle new ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... combination. Compared with Laval and Frontenac, Duchesneau was not a strong character, but he possessed qualifications which might have enabled him in less stormy times to fill the office of intendant with tolerable credit. It was his misfortune that circumstances forced him into the thankless position of being a henchman to the bishop and a drag ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... an effusion and an example of the same academic sagacity or lucidity of appreciation which found utterance in other contemporary protests of the universities against the universe. In that abyss of dulness "The Return from Parnassus," a reader or a diver who persists in his thankless toil will discover this pearl of a fact—that men of culture had no more hesitation in preferring Watson to Shakespeare than they have in preferring Byron to Shelley. The author of the one deserves to have been the author of the other. Nobody can have been by nature such a fool as to write either: ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... certainly had never met any one at all like Mr. Halloway, and she was soon of the settled conviction that she should never meet any one quite like him again. He was true to his promise to help her; (he never made a promise that he did not honestly try to keep;) and he applied himself to the by no means thankless task with the good-humored directness and energy that characterized all his actions. There was quite a number of young girls in his parish, more proportionately than in the others. Bell Masters and Amy Duckworth had long been hovering on its borders, and the advent of so young and prepossessing ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... basilicas of the apostles received, in the devastation of the city, not their own people only, but every fugitive; and the fury and greed of the invaders were quenched at these holy thresholds. Yet with thankless arrogance and impious frenzy these men, who took refuge under that Name in order that they might enjoy the light of fugitive years, perversely oppose it now, that they may languish ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the great change for which he had not dared to hope. The evil consequences of his long months of pampering disappeared. Regret for what had been grew faint. He was glad of the present: he held out glad arms to the future—that future of labor, possibly thankless, which he was to dread no more. In fact, he was become a man, honest and clean and strong; and, for a time, he dwelt in peace with his best self, and believed his struggle ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... than any one else in the world would do. They did things that a father would do about once. Then he would be ready to give up his job. But your mothers went right on day after day, year after year, doing hard, thankless, disagreeable things. I bet you get this preached to you a lot, boys, but I want to say it to you, too. If you are away from them, write a letter, a real letter once each week. It is not much to do. Do it, boys! And don't forget the kisses. If you kiss your mother every time you come into ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... "Antiquity of Man" opens up a wide field of speculation into a variety of difficult and obscure though interesting subjects. In the light of modern research it would be an easy task to pile up a mountain of criticism on points of detail. But, though easy, it would be a thankless task. It is scarcely too much to say that the dominant impression of most readers after perusing this book will be one of astonishment and admiration at the insight and breadth of view displayed by the author. When it was written the subject was a particularly ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... setting other people right. This is a thankless as well as useless task. They probably do not want your assistance, or they would ask for it. Besides most people are sensitive about their shortcomings, and prefer to get help and counsel ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... enough good and promise to justify those who had been brought up in it remaining where they were, as long as they saw any prospect of improving it, and till they were driven out. That was a duty—uncomfortable and thankless as it was, and open to any amount of misconstruction and misrepresentation—which they owed to their brethren, and to the Lord of the Church. But it involved plain speaking and its consequences; and Mr. Ward never ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... (in spite of the unpopularity caused by their doing so). And one of the remarkable features of later Irish history is that whenever there was a period of acute difficulty and danger there were always country gentlemen to be found ready to risk their lives and fortunes or to undertake the thankless and ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... of the personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery, inasmuch as he must be a peer malgre lui. He served a long apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless, his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have found for him office in other department than that of the Whip. But Mr. Gladstone, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... little, frank, honest-hearted creatures, and say out what they think, as such plebeian people will, used to tell her roundly she was thankless for the ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... in everything. And this would not have been so irksome had it been a person that he loved, but Master Stamford he hated. He never met him but to be called by some foul epithet, or booted out of the way. He had no choice whom he would serve, and there would be no end to the thankless servitude but death. ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... pitch of intensity which it never has reached before. The competent, to whose energies the riches of the world are due, are to put these riches away from them as though they were food offered by the devil. The incompetent, with thankless but perpetually open mouths, are to swallow this same food as though it were the bread from heaven. In other words, according to our Christian socialist, the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is involved in the enjoyment of riches, is not the ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... fiddle's capacity to play first?" he asked the baby, with his face against hers. "Never mind, little one, never mind. Baby doesn't know—but John Rayburn does—that this being a means of education to other people is a thankless task sometimes. Don't cry. Aunty Charlotte will kiss her hard and fast by and by, to make up for losing her temper with the little maid. I suspect you were very, very trying, to make Aunty Charlotte ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... remains for thee during length of living, Catullus, 5 Out of that Love ingrate further to solace thy soul; For whatever of good can mortal declare of another Or can avail he do, such thou hast said and hast done; While to a thankless mind entrusted all of them perisht. Why, then, crucify self now with a furthering pain? 10 Why not steady thy thoughts and draw thee back from such purpose, Ceasing wretched to be maugre the will of the Gods? Difficult 'tis indeed long Love to depose of a sudden, Difficult 'tis, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... her man return; he would never again make the fire for her in the morning, nor yet keep the bairn when she was sick. Indeed, many of these poor fellows (as the event proved) were upon their last cruise; the deep seas and cannibal fish received them; and it is a thankless business to speak ill ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convicted of baseness by this conduct, who hast received benefits from me such as thou acknowledgest thou hast, and doest us no good in return, but evil, as far as in thee lies? Thankless is your race, as many of you as court honor from oratory before the populace; be ye not known to me, who care not to injure your friends, provided you say what is gratifying to the people. But plotting what dark design have they determined upon a decree of death ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... unwelcome note in America. I am as sure of the high quality of A Suburban Pastoral as I am sure of anything; and have never found a critic who, after reading the tale, disagreed with me. In 1885 Professor Beers published a little volume of poems, The Thankless Muse; and in 1917 he collected in a thin book The Two Twilights, the best of his youthful and mature poetic production. The variety of expression is so great that no two poems are in the same mood. In Love, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... In the midst of peace and the commonplaces of drill and manoeuvres there must be dangerous and trying work where the only distinction is service for the cause—our cause of three million against five. Find a task for me, no matter how mean, thankless, or dangerous, Lanny. The more exacting it is the more welcome, for the better will be my chance ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... 'Fiesco' was unsuited to the stage and would need to be radically revised. So the luckless author, having no other recourse, returned to the village of Oggersheim, in the vicinity of Mannheim, and there, with the faithful Streicher to keep him company, he spent the next few weeks, partly upon the thankless revision of 'Fiesco' and partly upon 'Louise Miller', which interested him more. Having done his best with 'Fiesco' he sent it to Dalberg, who curtly refused it a second time. His theatrical hopes thus completely baffled, Schiller turned ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... will sometimes prompt, "With the year seasons return, but not to me." It would, however, be most ungrateful to complain. To live at all is a great favor—an undeserved and unspeakable favor; and though it be a life of pain and weariness, and even grief, may it never become a life of thankless ingratitude! We who have tried our heavenly Father's patience so long, dare we complain of ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... weapon. Is it the desperation of your fear Makes you thus rash and sudden with a friend, Now ruined for your sake? If honest anger Have moved you, know, that what I just proposed 60 Was but to try you. As for me, I think, Thankless affection led me to this point, From which, if my firm temper could repent, I cannot now recede. Even whilst we speak The ministers of justice wait below: 65 They grant me these brief moments. Now if you Have any word of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... fresh, stupid house-maiden, but, sooner than take the trouble of teaching the new servant where everything was, and how to give out the stores if she was busy, she would go back to Worms. For, after all, housekeeping for a brother was thankless work; there was no satisfying men; and Heppenheim was but a poor ignorant village ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... company with several rough-looking pack-train teamsters similarly incased; I pass a not altogether comfortless night, the pattering of rain against the one small window effectually suppressing such thankless thoughts as have a tendency to come unbidden whenever the snoring of any of my fellow-lodgers gets aggravatingly harsh. In all this company I think I am the only person who doesn't snore, and when I awake from my rather fitful slumbers at four ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... my life here?" he thought. All which had made it of value and lightened its solitude was gone. Even his people had turned against him; suspicious, thankless, hostile. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... with terror. Her dismay at seeing her face so altered that she did not know herself cannot be told. Whereupon the old man said to her, "You ought to recollect, Renzolla, that you are a daughter of a peasant and that it was the fairy that raised you to be a queen. But you, rude, unmannerly, and thankless as you are, having little gratitude for such high favours, have kept her waiting outside your heart, without showing the slightest mark of affection. You have brought the quarrel on yourself; see what a face you have got by it! See ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... back to Blois by the way of the Chateau de Cheverny. The road took us out of the park of Chambord, but through a region of flat woodland, where the trees were not mighty, and again into the prosy plain of the Sologne, - a thankless soil, all of it, I believe, but lately much amended by the magic of cheerful French industry and thrift. The light had already begun to fade, and my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural novel of Madame Sand. I passed a couple ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... down last in the accounts, after the customer's and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate; Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fired, Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in state, And, thankless, starv'd what ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... their strength for the future Somme offensive. For them Verdun was a sacrificial sector to which they sent, from now on, few men, scant munitions, and only artillery of the older type. Their object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However, the generals in charge of this thankless task, Petain and Nivelle, decided that the best defensive plan consisted in attacking the enemy. To carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed on the battlefields of Central Africa, the Soudan, and Morocco, General Mangin, who commanded the 5th Division ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... tintless sheet For Love to write on. Sporting 'mid the flowers, Caroling with the birds, or gliding light As fawn, her fine, elastic temperament Took happiest coloring from each varying hour Or changing duty. Kind, providing cares Which younglings often thoughtlessly receive Or thankless claim, she gratefully repaid With glad obedience. Pleas'd was she to bear Precocious part in household industry, Round shining bars to involve the shortening thread, And see the stocking grow, or side by side With her loved benefactresses ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... a great undertaking to describe accurately all these canals and the various positions they have occupied at different epochs, and the task would at best be most thankless and useless, for, with the exception of the larger ones, the minor ones keep constantly changing their course by cutting themselves new beds in the soft soil. Anybody who has visited eastern Sistan, even ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Thankless too for peace, (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! Alas! for ages ignorant of all Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... best land round the cottage to the widow—just enough for her to manage—and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name—only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent—we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the Squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, and so—I wish ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... television and radio-phone, rendered feasible the control of all the machines from one central station, built at the edge of the Northern Glacier. Here were brought the scant few of the prolats that had been spared, a pitiful four hundred men and women, and they were set to endless, thankless tasks. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... he said, turning back and smiling at his oversight. "We need a new director to take your father's place. When I'm away Burdon looks after things, so I suppose he may as well take the responsibility. It's a thankless position, but some one has ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... the second year of the "Annees de Pelerinage," together with the manuscript of Seroff's arrangement for two pianofortes of Beethoven's C-sharp minor Quartet. Will you be so good as to get Schott to let me know the fate of the C-sharp minor Quartet? Although two-piano arrangements are somewhat thankless articles of sale, yet perhaps Schott may manage to bring out this Quartet, of which ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... Lady Alianora La Despenser, who was left in charge of the King's said son. And two days afore Saint Francis [October 2nd] he left the Tower, and set forth toward Wallingford, leaving the Bishop of Exeter to keep the City: truly a thankless business, for never could any man yet keep the citizens of London. Nor could he: for a fortnight was not over ere they rose in insurrection against the King's deputies, invested the Tower, wrenched the keys from the Constable, John de Weston, to whom the Lady Alianora had confided them, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... for a man from the North who is free already, and so has nothing to gain in that way,—whose rights as a man and a citizen are denied,—for such a man to enlist and to fight, without bounty, pay, honor, or promotion,—without the promise of gaining anything whatever for himself,—condemned to a thankless task on the one side,—to a merciless death or even worse fate on the other,—facing all this because he has faith that the great republic will ultimately be redeemed; that some hands will gather in the harvest of ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... I will instruct you. Y' have been ill-nurtured, methinks, and yet ye have the makings of some good, and, beyond all question, saved me from the river. Nay, I had forgotten it; I am as thankless as thyself. But, come, let us on. An we be for Holywood this night, ay, or to-morrow early, we had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they give not Or forgive not Gifts or thefts for grace or guerdon, Love that misses Fruit of kisses Long will bear no thankless burden. ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... not without considerable interest from the light they throw upon the characters and motives of their writers. The position of a go-between is always more or less perilous; his task, however well performed, is generally a thankless one; nor in such matters can the adeptest diplomacy, joined to the most thorough bona fides, always ensure the conduct of the common agent against misapprehension and sore feelings. Of this the particular negotiation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... another dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a good lad. Now we'll be off to old London again—eh, Lake? Good-bye, Borkins. Best ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... said, calmly, "the papers talk like that. It gives their readers something to laugh at! I wonder what you would say, my friend, if I told you that I, too, am engaged in that same thankless task. I, too, am striving to do the best I can ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dreadful; she had misunderstood him in everything. She would never know that his prodigality with the salt had been due to the perversity of his heart in longing for what it would now never possess. Manfully he stuck to the thankless part he had to play, and admitted that ill-health had something to do ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... bitterly—"to bring up daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... 8th.—There ought to be, in the January number, an article on the Organisation of the Liberal Party. I have asked several leading politicians of the party to undertake it, but in vain. The truth is, that it is a very thankless and hopeless subject; and the recent discussion of the county franchise by Lowe and Gladstone renders it still more difficult. I put my own opinions wholly out of the question, and should give carte blanche to any competent and accredited writer to treat the subject. I think ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... "Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went on, almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with human nature from all angles, and—well, I suppose we do some good. Somebody's ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... bitter crying of the helpless when the branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters? ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... effect doubtless of the heat that she scarcely seemed clad at all; slippered, shuffling and, though somehow hatted and vaguely veiled or streamered, wrapt in a gauzy sketch of a dressing-gown, she pointed to my extravagant attention the moral of thankless personal service, of the reverse of the picture, of the cost of "amusing the public" in a case of amusing it, as who should say, every hour. And I had thrilled before her as the Countess in "Love"—such contrasted combinations! But she carried her head very high, as with the habit of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... quite as bad as a thankless child, and that is a thankless parent—an irate, irascible parent who possesses an underground vocabulary and ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... prayer! How fair, how lovely even in death! The pitying destroyer has touched gently on those heavenly features. That sweetness was no mask—the hand of death even has not removed it! (After a pause.) But how is this? why do I feel nothing. Will the vigor of my youth save me? Thankless care! That shall it not. (He seizes ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the vacancy of all other information. You will perhaps know before you receive this, that after having employed Pitt, and through him, me, and also General Ross, separately, to press Tom to accept the thankless office of his Secretary, Lord Cornwallis has, without one word of communication to him, written to say that, Pelham declining, he desires to have Lord Castlereagh. It is of a piece with all the rest! Pelham has declined, and so the whole thing will go on exactly as it does now. Yet, lamenting ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... accustomed grace when the scanty mid-day meal was placed upon the table. "Nothing is blessed to me," he said, when his wife pressed him to say the word for their child's sake. "Shall I say that I thank God when my heart is thankless? Shall I serve my child by a lie?" Then for hours he sat in the same position, in the old arm-chair, hanging over the fire speechless, sleepless, thinking ever, as she well knew, of the injustice of the world. She hardly dared to speak to him, so great was the bitterness of his words when ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... experiment is as good an extravagance as another. England was fantastically rich; and some of the very rich allowed some of the very clever to wheedle from them great sums of money, knowing all the time that these would be applied to such unsettling activities as the education of thankless labourers or anti-sweating propaganda. Even towards Art rolled a few coppers; indeed, the best painter in England tells me that about this time he was earning as much as two hundred a year. It was thought odd but not shameful in Mr. Thomas ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... You will miss what are called your chances, you will be a failure; but you will be trusted and loved by children and simple people; they will depend upon you, and you will make the atmosphere in which you live one of peace and joy. You will have selfish employers, tyrannical masters, thankless children perhaps, for whom you will slave lovingly. They will slight you and even despise you, but their hearts will turn to you again and again, and yours will be the face that they will remember when they come to die, as that of the one person who loved them truly and ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for you from morning till night, you thankless chit, you? And don't you begrudge me all the little amusements which turn the tradesman into the man and sweeten the pill of ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dark outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that was ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... martyr; from whose ashes arose the Royal Literary Fund, which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate. Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names which might be mentioned out of the many. What a noble army of martyrs Literature ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... clinging to his neck now, wild-eyed like a Maenad. He felt pitifully ridiculous. The role of Joseph is so thankless and humiliating. A month ago he would have ordered her sternly to get out of the room and behave herself. But the hot month in Tokyo had relaxed his firmness of mind; and familiarity with Reggie's bohemian morality has sapped his ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... "Mine is a thankless task, senora, but the general decided you are the best keeper of this," and he gave to her the scribbled page torn from ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... prevented him from hearing the word "father!" and all that met his eyes was one black girl roughly using another. Alas! the poor man had been by that time so much accustomed to witness acts of cruelty that the incident gave him little concern. He passed doggedly onward to his thankless, unremitting toil, which had been rendered all the more severe of late in consequence of his despairing violence having compelled his drivers to put the heavy irons ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... cold and crafty world: I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise. Wiser than seer or scientist—content To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills, Here let me lie beneath this dear old elm, Among the blossoms of the clover-fields, And listen to ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... oftener found In cobbler's parlour, than in critic's bower. The sorest work is what doth cross the grain; And better to this hour you had been plying The obsequious awl with well-waxed finger flying, Than ceaseless thus to till a thankless vein; Still teazing Muses, which are still denying; Making ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... voice broke, and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and thankless as a stone ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... For this thankless and rather sad head, like that of an overworked child, was beginning the overwhelming work that oppresses every brain at the start of life. He had, in less than five or six weeks, to get into his mind, taking shape within it, an image and a satisfactory conception of the universe. ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... see the old proverb is true—Save a drowning man, and beware of an adders sting. But I have power: and can punish the thankless heart. So rise, traitor, and back to ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... are not loth To entice their lovers' wiles. None but thankless folk and rough Can resist when Love beguiles. Now enlaced, with wreathed smiles, All together dance and play.— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... looked at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... personal concert, under the simple necessity of the moment, to meet a pressing evil, and not to establish any particular system, or any specific combination of ideas, resolutions, or designs. Its sole policy was at first confined to the support of the Restoration against the reaction: a thankless undertaking, even when most salutary; for it is useless to contend with a headlong counter-current. While you are supporting the power whose flag serves as a cloak to reaction, it is impossible to arrest the entire mischief you desire to check; and you ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... performed the ever-thankless task of translation; and, in preparing Madame Lenormant's work for the American public, has somewhat restrained the author's tendency to confusion and diffusion. Here and there, as editor, she has added slight but useful notes, and has accompanied the Memoirs with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... not even stable. They were restless birds of passage who fidgeted through their years, and even through the days of which the years were made: intent on their own affairs and their own companions; thankless for small favors and kind attentions— even unconscious of them; soaking up goodwill and friendly offices in a fashion too damnably taken-for-granted ... You gave them an evening among your books, with discreet things to drink, to ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... incident to the office of Secretary of State, that of making appointments was the most annoying and thankless. They were sought with a bold and rabid pertinacity. Success was attributed to the favor of the President; ill success, to the influence of the Secretary. When the applicant was a relative his patronage was naturally expected; but, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... a fitting knight to play a leading role with my young lady, the desire for whose wellbeing had taken grip of me. For her sweet sake, and the sake of the fragrant manliness of the stalwart and deserving knight, I straightway resolved to enter the thankless and precarious business of matchmaking, one in which I had not had one iota of experience; but as women have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a first effort I determined that Dawn should chaperon me ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... must be ground to powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to cut into such a nature, to which her own formed the strongest contrast. Mademoiselle Thuillier was remarkable for her regular and correct beauty, but a beauty injured by toil which, from her very childhood, had bent her down to painful, thankless tasks, and by the secret privations she imposed upon herself in order to amass her little property. Her complexion, early discolored, had something the tint of steel. Her brown eyes were framed in brown; on the upper lip was a brown floss like a sort of smoke. Her ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... receptive to Don's criticisms and instructions. But Don's task was no easy one and it grew harder as the season progressed and the second team, especially as to its linemen, failed to develop the ability Mr. Boutelle looked for. Don more than once was on the point of resigning his somewhat thankless task, but Tim refused to sanction it, and what Tim said had a good ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... that the lawless blood of the Lorrigans ran swiftly through the veins of Tom, who had set himself to win a million honestly. It was then that he remembered his quiet, law-abiding years regretfully, as time wasted; a thankless struggle toward the regard of his fellow men. Of what avail to plod along the path of uprightness when no man would point to him and say, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... greedy and thankless, he never wagged his tail, but would snap at the victuals his mistress herself was eating; and when she did give him the choicest dainties that came off her gridiron, and the very top of the cream, he would only ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and instructing upon American topics, but to what has already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; never was one word of compromise uttered by him throughout ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... posthumous fame I am not in the habit of thinking; that is for others, not for me: but to do right at the moment, not to neglect my duty, not to prejudice my honor,—that is my care. We have already had too many words; now go—and receive the thanks of the thankless, whom I spare." ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... me the more ashamed of myself to think that perhaps my rudeness had a share in bringing them.—Yours is no doubt thankless ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal, That with all this I still can look around, And worship ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... labor to prove that Christ changed the Sabbath? Whoever does this is performing a thankless task. The pope will not thank him; for if it is proved that Christ wrought this change, then the pope is robbed of his badge of authority and power. And no truly enlightened Protestant will thank him; for if he succeeds, he only shows that the papacy has not done the work ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... him. "I began by sending two of them to people to whom I am indifferent. That made me think of the difference there is between a present and a testimony of friendship. The first will never find in me anything but a thankless heart; the second.... Ah, if you had only given me news of yourself without sending me anything else, how rich and how grateful you would have made me; instead of that the pullets are eaten, and the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... their masters in the extremity of their fortunes; and shewn to their undone patrons, that fortune was all the difference between them; but as I design this my speculation only as a gentle admonition to thankless masters, I shall not go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observation, that I never saw but in Sir ROGER'S family, and one or two more, good servants treated as they ought to be. Sir ROGER'S kindness extends to their children's children, and this very morning ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... have proved, or nothing; law divine Nor human ordinance shall hold thine hand. Thou wert our leader on the banks of Rhine; Henceforth our equal; for the stain of crime Makes all men like to like. Add that we serve A thankless chief: as fortune's gift he takes The fruits of victory our arms have won. We are his fortunes, and his fates are ours To fashion as we will. Boast that the gods Shall do thy bidding! Nay, thy soldiers' will Shall close the war." With threatening mien and speech Thus through the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... work that led Mr. Prywell to give up his days and his nights as his history tells us he did. Mr. Prywell ran himself into many dangerous situations both within and without the city, and he lost himself far more friends than he made by his devotion to his thankless task. But necessity was laid upon him. And what held him up was the sure and certain knowledge that his King would have that service at his hands. That, and his love for the city, for the safety and the deliverance ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... farm. Latterly he had been working upon land which his father had given him, in the hope that he would marry and settle down. He had become restless. The village was beginning to look small, and he asked himself with wonderment how he had been content in it so long. The work was hard and thankless. Was this life? Was there nothing beyond this? Was there not not a great world outside the forest? What was this? Was it not stagnation? The woods—yes, the woods were beautiful, but why was it they made him sad? Why was it that when the sun set against the background ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... darling wife! I should be a cur, and worse than a cur—a thankless wretch—to wish to restrain you in anything!" he answered, sealing his agreement on ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... tread'st its fertile breast, Dost thou feel a glow for it? Thou of all its charms possest. Living on its first and best, Art thou but a thankless guest Or a traitor foe for it, If thou lovest, where's the test? Wilt thou ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... very sympathetic task," he said, "to explain the slowness of the masses in feeling their way to a comprehension of all that the democratic idea meant for them, but it is one equally difficult and thankless to account for the blank failure of the philosophers, historians, and statesmen of your day to arrive at an intelligent estimate of the logical content of democracy and to forecast its outcome. Surely the very smallness of the practical results thus ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... their triumphs and their failures, their loves and their hates, their friends and their foes, much as men have them in that maturer life of which the days of youth are an epitome. It would be rather an uninteresting task, and an entirely thankless one, to follow in detail the career of Frederick Brent as he grew from childhood to youth. But in order to understand certain traits that developed in his character, it will be necessary to note some, at least, of the circumstances that ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... energy displayed in a land where Nature is a godmother, what progress agriculture might make if capital would go into partnership with the soil, which is not so thankless in Champagne as it is in Scotland, where capital has done wonders. The day when agriculture will have conquered the unfertile portion of those departments, and industry has seconded capital on the Champagne ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... lies, Hidden in chests from human eyes, A fire may come, and it may be Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee. Thy vessel that yon ocean stems, Loaded with golden dust and gems, Purchased with so much pains and cost, Yet in a tempest may be lost. Pimps, and a lot of others,—a thankless crew, Priests, pickpockets, and lawyers too, All help by several ways to drain, Thanking themselves for what they gain. The liberal are secure alone, For what we frankly give, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... I am not thankless of your thought of me. But I cannot go; for even if I had the spirits to sustain the role of a woman of fashion in the gay capital this winter, I feel that in doing so I should still further displease and alienate my husband. No, I must remain here in retirement, doing what good ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Ryder, takin' the paper an' puttin' on his specks, an' at the same time as thankless after his nose-paint as if he'd been refoosed the beverage; 'no, it don't put me in mind of nothin' nor nobody. One thing shore, an' you-all hold-ups can rope onto that for a fact, it don't remind me none ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Delia counted on her, but to such a different end, just as poor Mr. Flack did, just as Delia wished to persuade her that Mr. Probert did. The girl gave a sigh, looking up with troubled eyes at her companion and at the figure of herself as the subject of contending policies. Such a thankless bored evasive little subject as she felt herself! What Delia had said in turning away was—"Yes, I'm watching you, and I depend on you to finish him up. Stay there with him, go off with him—I'll allow you half an hour if necessary: only settle ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James |
