"Discomfort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... while a chilly and boding discomfort spread itself through his system, "In a republic of deer and men where all are free and equal, misfortune is a crime, and the prosperous gore the unfortunate to death." Then he said aloud, "Here in the boarding house, if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... reasons not given they were refused. She was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Graefin von Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... High School, came home with unmistakable tokens of measles, and Primrose did the same, in common with most of their contemporaries at Rockstone. Nor was there any chance that either Lily Underwood at Clipstone or Lena Merrifield at the Goyle would escape; indeed, they both showed an amount of discomfort that made it safer to keep them where they were, than to try to escape in the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... minor sources of daily discomfort, there are few individuals so mentally gifted that they are impervious to the distress occasioned by variations of temperature and of weather; to the annoyance caused by criticism, neglect, and lack of ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... home from the Derby had been a long one, but Glory had enjoyed it. When she had settled down to the physical discomfort of the blinding and choking dust, the humours of the road became amusing. This endless procession of good-humoured ruffianism sweeping through the most sacred retreats of Nature, this inroad of every order of the Stygian demi-monde on to the slopes of Olympus, was intensely interesting. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Addy, peering through the gathering darkness, "is Squire Robinson's." She darted a mischievous glance at Carry, that, even in her discomfort and fear, brought the quick blood ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... a grimly serious adventure, calling for fortitude and triple brass. The man was indeed lucky who could make the passage from shore to shore in six weeks of stormy sea, and the journey generally took a much longer time, and under the same conditions of discomfort and of danger that attended on the voyage of the "Mayflower." The vast majority of Englishmen concerned themselves as little with America as they concerned themselves with Hindostan. Both were British possessions, and as such important, but both were too far away to assume any very ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... reckless generosity of soul that spends its best for the pure joy of spending. With the instinctive miserliness of the man who realizes that passion to last must be hoarded, not scattered, he had drawn back almost unconsciously from the simple abandonment of her love. He wanted her because the deep discomfort of his nature could not be satisfied without her; but in possessing her he did not mean to give up anything else. Never for an instant had he deluded himself with the mystic ecstasies of Gabriella. The passion which had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... such an entertainment with the good-humor of the American people, no matter what may be the annoyance and discomfort. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... about in his ingenious mind for some means of getting the younger children's attention off the discomfort of a room the temperature of which was down to sixty. In one corner were two stacks of sectional bookcases which Aunt Jo had just bought, but which had no books in them and no glass fronts. Russ considered them for a moment, and then looked ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... did not mind this; rather, she revelled in it. Her heart was in her prospective career as a violinist, and she was willing to undergo any discomfort if she could but ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... as befitted husband and wife. Torpenhow's boots creaked that night, and his strong voice jarred. Dick's brows contracted and he murmured an evil word because he had taken all his success as a right and part payment for past discomfort, and now he was checked in his stride by a woman who admitted all the success and did not instantly ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... You, who've been brought up in the lap of luxury—never known a day's discomfort in ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... that life was the absence of real hazard. Adventure and danger, which make discomfort tolerable to such men as they, were altogether wanting; in their place was nothing but a dull, dead level of endurance, an expenditure of time and ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... limits of choice; moreover, had I waited for the express, I should have missed the coveted pleasure of this meeting with you. The rosy glamour of happy anticipation conquers even the discomfort ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his quarters there he had half a mind to change again, for the landlady and the fellow-lodgers were by no means to his taste; but the Montreal coach started within a day or two, and he consoled himself by the thought that the discomfort would only last for that short time. Having written home to Mary to announce his safe arrival, he employed himself in seeing as much of the town as was possible, walking about all day, and only returning to his room ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of room in which no member of the family is likely to be found except after dinner or after death. The chairs and tables looked like poor relations who had repaid their keep by a long career of grudging usefulness: they seemed banded together against intruders in a sullen conspiracy of discomfort. Mrs. Quentin, keenly susceptible to such influences, read failure in every angle of the upholstery. She was incapable of the vulgar error of thinking that Hope Fenno might be induced to marry Alan for his money; but between this assumption ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Beyond these and the glowing boxes which I have mentioned, there was nothing else in the coffin. I had no time to examine them, for at that moment the old man opened his mouth and began to breathe, evidently with some discomfort and effort, as his empty lungs filled themselves with air. Then his eyelids lifted, revealing a wonderful pair of dark glowing eyes beneath. Next he tried to sit up but would have fallen, had not Bickley ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... that the young life emerges into a haunted world. Some are reckless of these dangers, some grow hardened to them, some enjoy the tussle with them, some turn their minds away from them, while others, chiefly the imaginative or the intellectual, shrink from them with the discomfort which, as years go on, becomes worry, anxiety, foreboding, or any other of ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;—and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... feeling heart which money cannot buy. No doubt to them, accustomed to the cleanness and comfort of the farms and cottages of Westmoreland, those 'homes of ancient peace,' with their warm stone porches and their shelter of household sycamores, the dirt and discomfort of the inns and of the humbler abodes they entered must have been repulsive enough. Even the gentlemen's seats had to them an air of neglect and desolation, and the new plantations of larch and fir with which they had then begun to be surrounded, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... night of extraordinary blackness; you could not distinguish a hedge until the twigs stung across your face; the road was narrow, great tree-trunks with bulging roots lined it, at times it was very steep—and, besides and beyond every other discomfort, there was the rain. It fell pitilessly straight over the face of the country with a continuous roar as though the earth was a hollow drum. Both travellers were drenched to the skin before they were free of Saxmundham, and one ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... him—that again he didn't believe; but he had to come to the house in some discomfort, so that he frowned a little at her calling it thus a luxury. Wasn't there an element in it of coming back into bondage? The bondage might be veiled and varnished, but he knew in his bones how little the very highest privileges of Lancaster Gate ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... at times finding a brief abiding-place, and then carried forward to parts unknown by circumstances beyond control. The street leading into the village was almost deserted; and the few who came and went hastened on with fluttering garments, head bent down, and a shivering sense of discomfort. The fields were bare and brown; and the landscape on the uplands rising in the distance would have been utterly sombre had not green fields of grain, like childlike faith in wintry age, relieved the gloomy outlook and prophesied of the sunshine and ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... that his condition was one of cramped discomfort, apart from its peril. The tightly packed mass of human beings smelt offensively, for the German, even in peace time, is a dirty animal, not fond ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled—for the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, starved, little ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... wraps; the soft charm of a lovely and gracious woman made even the penetrating warmth of the huge fire-logs a secondary feature of our welcome. To those who have never crossed a greve; who have had no jolting in a Normandy char-a-banc; who, for hours, have not known the mixed pleasures and discomfort of being a part of sea-rivers; and who have not been met at the threshold of an Inn on a Rock by the smiling welcome of Madame Poulard—all such have yet a pleasant page to read in ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the sailors, and praying alternately to Saint Paul, Saint George, and Saint Thomas for a slant of wind which would put them along side their enemy. He was silent; but his hot heart was simmering within him. His spirit had risen even above the discomfort of the sea, and his mind was too absorbed in his mission to have a thought for that which had laid Aylward flat upon the deck. He had never doubted that Cock Badding in one way or another would accomplish his end, but when he heard his speech of despair he bounded off the bulwark and stood before ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... southern shore of the Baltic. Scarcely had they set sail than the weather changed, and a sudden tempest burst upon them. Higher and higher grew the wind, and the vessels were separated in the night. The Lillynichol laboured heavily in the waves, and the discomfort of the troops, crowded together between decks, was very great. Presently it was discovered that she had made a leak, and that the water was entering fast. Munro at once called forty-eight soldiers to the pumps. They were relieved every quarter of an hour, and by dint ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the congruous, choose to adhere to the new form in its entire range of exchangeability for the old, let it be hoped that they will find, in Mr. Marsh's speculative approbation of consistency, full amends for the discomfort of encountering smiles or frowns. At the same time, let them be mindful of the career of Mr. White, with his black flag and no quarter. The dead Polonius was, in Hamlet's phrase, at supper, 'not where he eats, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... with Lady Locke? You are so wonderful as you are, so complete in yourself, that I scarcely dare to wish it, or anything else for you: and you live so comfortably upon debts, that it might be unwise to risk the possible discomfort of having money. Still, if you ever intend to possess it, you had better not waste time. You know my theory ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... when he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them—particularly the shorter of the rays—enter the eye is to invite trouble. There is no warning sense of discomfort, but from six to eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure results in blindness, though a moderate ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... other hotels—such as the Majestic. And so far he was not mistaken. Once Wilkins's had not resembled other hotels. For many years it had deliberately refused to recognize that even the nineteenth century had dawned, and its magnificent antique discomfort had been one of its main attractions to the elect. For the elect desired nothing but their own privileged society in order to be happy in a hotel. A hip-bath on a blanket in the middle of the bedroom floor richly sufficed them, provided they could be guaranteed against ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... a change in his tone that Gerard had heard before, and never had succeeded in analyzing; not the change from gayety to gravity, although that was present, but some more subtle alteration that stirred the hearer to a strange, illogical sense of discomfort and failure on his own part. The feeling was transient and most unreasonable; common-sense swept it aside almost as it was formed. He said nothing, nor did his companion ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... in the entire course of its life had it experienced such a difficulty. During the whole of that period, too, Jonah carried on a kind of prayer meeting, and the strange rumbling in its belly must have greatly added to the poor animal's discomfort At last it grew heartily sick of Jonah, and vomited him up on dry land. We have no doubt that it swam away into deep waters, a sadder but wiser whale; and that ever afterwards, instead of bolting its food, it narrowly scrutinised every morsel before swallowing it, to make sure ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... biting chill from Jack Frost in this home. In the short time I sat there I wondered if the occupants appreciated the good things around them. How could they, if they had never known hunger and cold and discomfort? ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... about such a traveller, though robbers undoubtedly were to be feared, even in the eighteenth century,[405] and though inns were undoubtedly dirty. A repugnance to dirt and discomfort is justifiable enough, but there is something especially peevish in the tone of many Georgian travellers. Sam Sharp's Letters from Italy breathe only sorrow, disillusion and indignation. Italian beds and ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... at breakfast, but she only exhibited an extreme reserve. It was enough, however, to make him repent that he should have done anything to produce discomfort; for he attributed her manner entirely to what he had said. But Grace's manner had not its cause either in his sayings or in his doings. She had not heard a single word of his regrets. Something even nearer home than her husband's blighted prospects—if blighted they were—was the origin of her ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... the door of the crimson salon was raised by the page who stood in waiting. Her stately father rose to greet her—which he had never done before in all her little life. She felt with a sudden vague discomfort, that the world was ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... your candid opinion about everything. I wished to be made better off, quite as much to improve your condition as well as for myself. * * * Two weeks ago, dear Lizzie, we were in that den of discomfort and dirt. Now we are far asunder. Every other day, for the past week, I have had a chill, brought on by excitement and suffering of mind. In the midst of it I have moved into my winter quarters, and am now very comfortably ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... sleep, haunted by nightmare dreams, woke aware of a general discomfort, misery and horror, and of acute pain in my wounds. I seemed to have a good appetite and ate with relish; but, hardly had I ceased eating, when I appeared definitely feverish and the pain in ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... hollow in the ground, of the shape shown in fig. 2 (next page), before spreading their sleeping-rugs. It is disagreeable enough to lie on a perfectly level surface, like that of a floor, but the acme of discomfort is to lie upon a convexity. Persons who have omitted to make a shapely lair for themselves, should at least scrape a hollow in the ground, just where ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... have been so occupied as to miss what he meant. It had set forth to them the truth of God's heart towards them; revealed the loving care without which he would not be God. Had they learned this lesson, they would not have needed the reminder; for their hearts would not have been so filled with discomfort as to cause them mistake his word. Had they but said with themselves that, though they had but one loaf, they had him who makes all the loaves, they would never have made ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... out here in the summer moonlight. She forgets her discomfort in it, and is very happy; but when it ends she feels that her duty is done, that she would like to go home, and ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... nature had foreseen that it would be especially needed there, and I slept in comparative immunity, though my prior experiences in hostelry had never given me an adequate understanding of the khan filth and discomfort. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... one of the side-streets he was met by two convicts in fetters and four soldiers with rifles in charge of them. Ivan Dmitritch had very often met convicts before, and they had always excited feelings of compassion and discomfort in him; but now this meeting made a peculiar, strange impression on him. It suddenly seemed to him for some reason that he, too, might be put into fetters and led through the mud to prison like that. After visiting the artisan, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a moment later I occupied a position which, to my lively discomfort, I had filled once or twice before in my short life, but which I had not supposed that I should fill again after what the archbishop had said. I set my teeth to endure; I was full of bewilderment, surprise, and anger. The archbishop had ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... so fixed that the two men met at the deanery. Lord George had determined that he would speak fully to the Dean respecting his brother. He was always conscious of the Dean's low birth, remembering, with some slight discomfort, the stable-keeper and the tallow-chandler; and he was a little inclined to resent what he thought to be a disposition on the part of the Dean to domineer. But still the Dean was a practical, sagacious man, in whom he ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... display on the mountains for Elijah's benefit had been at least emulated, but it was the still, small voice that was best appreciated again, when it remarked that it was a good job the cooks had just finished making "gunfire" or we should never have had a dixie of hot tea to cheer us up in our discomfort. Although the men had to stand all night on sentry in the outposts in their wet things ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... reform of dress. This particular drawing of Mr. Huyshe's, for instance, proves absolutely nothing, except that our grandfathers did not understand the proper laws of dress. There is not a single rule of right costume which is not violated in it, for it gives us stiffness, tightness and discomfort instead of ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... probed. A modern intelligence can scarcely prefigure heaven or hell as a reward or punishment for mere carnal comfort or discomfort—as many literal-minded persons believe that Jesus taught. The Son of Man was too subtle a philosopher to teach that a rich man is lost by his wealth and a poor man saved by his poverty, though primitive ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... million-dollar bonus. Other eager capitalists had hastened to offer the city a continuous payment of $100,000 a year. Similar futile attempts had been made year after year to get the franchise. The rich residents of Broadway opposed a street car line, believing it would subject them to noise and discomfort; likewise the stage owners, intent upon keeping up their monopoly, fought against it. In 1863 the bare rights of the Broadway franchise were considered to be worth fully $10,000,000. Vanderbilt and George Law were now frantically ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... bungalow, prettily placed in a clump of trees, seemed the abode of luxury to us after the discomfort of Ghari Habibullah, and we fondly hoped that, being now upon the main road which runs from Rawal Pindi to Srinagar, our troubles ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I never shrink from personal discomfort: I never refuse ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he could know it only as Swedenborg's most celestial angels perceived evil, as something distressful, angular. The ill-will that seemed nearly always to go with adverse criticism made him distrust criticism, and the discomfort which mistaken or blundering praise gives probably made him shy of all criticism. He said that in his early life as an author he used to seek out and save all the notices of his poems, but in his latter ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... solid waves; then came wind, out of the south, cold and biting, with real waves, that rolled even over the house, forcing us to lash ourselves. The red glow to the north was hidden by the rain and spume, and, to add to our discomfort, we were showered with ashes, which, even though the surface wind was from the south, must have been brought from the north by ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... for a distance down this floor of the coulee, until he could see the better going in the improving light which greeted them as they came out from the gully-like defile. Cursing his ill fortune, and wretched at the thought of the danger and discomfort he had brought upon the very one whom he would most gladly have shielded, Franklin said not a word from the beginning of the mad dash down the coulee until he got the horses again into harness. He did not like to admit to his companion how great had been the actual danger ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... death-dealing syringe; but, fortunately for themselves, they died easily. The reptiles, perhaps on account of the wider distribution of the nerve centres, had more lingering but not painful deaths, often, while in articulo mortis, leaving the holes with which they seemed to connect their discomfort, and making a final struggle along the ground, only to die more quickly as a result of their exertions. We have applied this also to the potato-bug, locust, and other insect pests, no victim being too small for the ubiquitous, subtle germ, which, properly cultivated and utilized, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... on our way back were somewhat different, but they were quite as great as on our upward journey. Some of the streams we had to cross were not fordable, and we had great difficulty in getting ourselves ferried over. A few nights were spent in exceeding discomfort, our carts not having come up with our tents, and we were shelterless and supperless—rather, if I may coin such a word, dinnerless. One night cover was got for my wife and children, but a missionary brother and myself ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... least doubtful. But now she took her seat, with a radiantly happy face, to hand in her certificate and answer the questions. She had suffered from renal tuberculosis; her certificate proved that. She was here herself, without pain or discomfort, to prove that she no longer suffered. Relief had come during the procession. A question or two was put to her; an arrangement was made for her return after examination; and ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... farther off, my gracious lord, Than this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue And bids me speak of nothing but despair. One day too late, I fear me, noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. O! call back yesterday, bid time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late, O'erthrows thy joys, friends, ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... which Miss Austen said, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,"—the history of the blunders of a bright, kind-hearted, and really clever girl, who contrives as much discomfort for her friends as stupidity or ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... got some sleep. No one really suffered, any discomfort just showed them how soft they were getting with easy living. Considering everything, they were coming along just fine. And in a few days everything would be all right again. They went to sleep thinking that even if there was some equivalent to the ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... claim—and also to reward," she answered me with a warmth that gave me a great discomfort. "And how did you escape from the General into feminine society on your very first day? Wasn't there work for you at the Capitol? I understand that they are expecting that French Commissioner very soon now." She asked the question with an ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... subject quickly. Clayton did not try to turn it back into its former channel. The boy was uncomfortable, unresponsive. There was a barrier between them, of self-consciousness on his part, of evasion and discomfort on Graham's. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... discomfort with which these well-seasoned pioneers took their hardships must needs impress the reader. It was a common thing for men, or for a solitary man, to be caught out of camp by nightfall and compelled to bivouac, like Captain Lewis, in the underbrush, or the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... in the influence of his wonderful pants, led all odds in betting. But one evening, when Joe had managed to get himself in the front row and directly before the little teacher, that lady turned her head several times and showed signs of discomfort. When it finally struck the latter that the human breath might, perhaps, waft toward a lady perfumes more agreeable than those of mixed drinks, he abruptly quitted the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... the sea-shore, All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous odor of powder Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents of the forest. Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his discomfort; 730 He who was used to success, and to easy victories always, Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by a maiden, Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom most he had trusted! Ah! 't was too much to be borne, and he fretted ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... they were—if Benson was, at any rate. Why, I never knew his watch to be right in all my life—it was always too fast or too slow; it must have been a daily discomfort to him. It ought to have been. Depend upon it, his money matters are just in the same irregular state; no accounts kept, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the tunnel-like mouth of my dim cave the day reared itself in a wall of blinding sunshine. After a time I crawled to the entrance, and, for the sake of greater discomfort, lay down in the burning sunshine on a narrow ledge of rock. It positively baked me, that terrible sun, and the more it hurt me the more I delighted in it, or in myself rather, in that I was thus the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... herself in re-arranging the wretched furniture; in setting in order the glaring ornaments on the chimney-piece; in hiding the holes in the ragged window-curtains; in changing, as far as she could, all the tawdry discomfort of my one miserable little room. She was still absorbed in this occupation, when the church-clocks of the neighbourhood struck the hour—the hour that warned her to ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... from the hubs of existence had led us to regard them all as hardened by a keener struggle than ours, and critical, if not suspicious, of those who were satisfied to endure greater physical toil and discomfort than they for so much smaller material return. In the Labrador even a dog hates to be laughed at, and the merest suspicion of the supercilious makes a gap which it is almost impossible to bridge. But Norman Duncan created no such gap. He was, therefore, ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... to the young noble, he poured out his love, devotion and gratitude for being able to serve his beloved lord's noble son; while poor Hal stood under the discomfort of being surrounded with friends who knew exactly what to say and do to him, their superior, while he himself was entirely at a loss how to show himself gracious or grateful as he knew he ought to do. It was a relief when Sir Lancelot said 'Enough, good Simon! Forget his nobility for the present ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Spenser calls "two unequal beasts," namely, a trotting horse and a horse that could only canter, with a very uncomfortable carriage, the turnout costing over a pound—pretty well, that, for a three hours' drive. However, in spite of discomfort, we would not have missed the journey on any account. The site of this little cotton-spinning town is one of the most extraordinary in the world. We first traverse a fruitful, well cultivated plain, watered by the sluggish Meurthe, then begin to ascend a spur of the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... for Patricia to try to hide her merriment. She could not help laughing. She rarely felt sorry for any one's discomfort, and ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... not the bloated millionaire living in coarse luxury, but the man who loved to be always busy for himself or his friends, and whose knowledge of men and things was so thorough that he could make a fortune without anxiety to himself or discomfort to others. What amount of capital he realised in these various ways we do not know, but the mass of his fortune came to him after he had been pursuing them for many years, in the form of a legacy from an uncle. This uncle was a typical capitalist and money-lender of a much lower ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... noticed the curious fact of the extreme apparent inequalities of time, though it is, in its essence, of all things the most uniform. Periods of pain or acute discomfort seem unnaturally long, but this lengthening of time is fortunately not true of all the melancholy scenes of life, nor is it peculiar to things that are painful. An invalid life with its almost unbroken monotony, and with the ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... demand such easy-to-wear garments as the fat man. On the contrary, he will undergo extreme discomfort if it gives him a distinctive appearance. He wants his house to be elegant, the grounds "different," the ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... bought and arranged by an easterner with all the accessories of profitable farming. Death had put an end to the settler's industry, and the property had come, at a low figure, into Solano's hands; whereupon everything industrious lapsed, neglect and discomfort usurping the place ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... voluptuousness, drinking into her being the feverish fumes of that place—one of the most fatal at that season and at that hour of all that dangerous coast—until she shuddered in her light summer gown. Her shoulders contracted, her teeth chattered, and that feeling of discomfort was to her as a signal for action. She took another allee of rose-bushes in flower to reach a point on the bank barren of vegetation, where was outlined the form of a boat. She soon detached it, and, managing the heavy oars with her delicate hands, she advanced toward ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... tried on a lecherous story for the entertainment of the General, who did not look the sort of man to resent it; Grant, who did not wish to set down an older man roughly, and had no ready phrases, but had, as it happens, a sensitive skin, was observed to blush to the roots of his hair in exquisite discomfort. It would be easy to multiply little recorded traits of this somewhat unexpected kind, which give grace to the memory of his determination in a duty which became ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... mixed up with discomfort, that it loses half its plumage," she said. "I'll tell you all I can about Paris some other time. Now you tell me," she went on, folding carefully a silk blouse and putting it in a drawer, "are there any neighbours here? ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... that feeling, we shall perceive it to be, primarily, one of uneasiness, of expectation, of looking forward, of aspiration. It is a source of constant discomfort, for it behaves like a skeleton at the feast of all our enjoyments. We go to the theatre and laugh; but between the acts it raises a skinny finger at us. We rush violently for the last train, and while we are cooling a long age ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... who seek to spare us the discomfort of repentance by teaching us to declare with a new inflection, "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," forget that there is another side to this argument. It is, of course, very alluring to be told that we are not really blameworthy for acts which ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... excellent thing, whether (1) in a country; (2) in a household; (3) in the conscience. There we had the three heads; on these he dilated. First we had a picture of the miseries of war in a country, and the converse picture of prosperity in peace. Then, secondly, we had a description of domestic discomfort, where husband and wife were at loggerheads, and—naturally, a charming family piece where both were in unity. Then came, thirdly, the special topic of his discourse, peace in the conscience, and how it was to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... hollow of the amphitheater was a dingy area of brownish black under a lowering canopy of sullen cloud, for the sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain all day, though not a drop fell. The windless air was damp and penetratingly chilly, so that we almost shivered under our swathings. The discomfort of not being warm enough and the dispiriting effect of the grim sky and gloomy interior of the amphitheater was manifest in a sort of general ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Cabanet Of my choise Jewels and to bring me thence A ring, a riche and Violet Hiacinthe, Whose sacred vertue is to cheere the heart And to excite our heavie spirits to mirthe; Which[56], putting on my finger, swift did breake. Now this, indeed, did much discomfort me, And heavie to the death I went to bed; Where in a slumber I did strongly thinke I should be married to the beautious Dutchesse, And coming to my Chappell to that end, Duke Constantine her brother ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... more wearing than it had been to rock him through long hours at night when he was a teething baby. These details seem very homely no doubt, yet such as these largely make up our lives. Comfort or discomfort, happiness or unhappiness, springs from them. There is no crop in the country so important as that of boys and girls. How could I manage my ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... coming season. And he would, without a week's delay, make his offer to Mary Bonner. A dim idea of some feeling of disappointment on Clary's part did cross his brain,—a feeling which seemed to threaten some slight discomfort to himself as resulting from want of sympathy on her part; but he must assume sufficient courage to brave this. That he would in any degree be an evil-doer towards Clary,—that did not occur to him. Nor did it occur to him as at all probable that Mary Bonner would refuse his offer. In ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... felt a growing discomfort. He ate his dinner and answered the brisk questions of his wife with increasing preoccupation. Like Miss Ware, he was picturing Jim solitary and suffering in his lonely cell. With the utmost sincerity and ingenuousness ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... not appear to deserve. When they reached the second floor, the two traversed an immense hall dimly lighted. From this hall Benedetto was shown into an apartment so brilliantly illumined as to cause him discomfort and suffering, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... was very long. Toward night-fall he eluded Dunham, and wandered back to the ship in the hope that she might still be there. But she was gone. Already everything was changed. There was bustle and discomfort; it seemed years since he had been there. Captain Jenness was ashore somewhere; it was the second mate who told Staniford ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... easterly winds in January since the Holy Blood of Hailes was lost,' she sighed. 'In its day I could get me some ease in the wrist by touching the phial that held it.' She shivered with discomfort, and smiled distractedly upon Katharine. Her large and buxom face was mild, and she seemed upon the point of ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... so unwilling to be classed with Stuffy and Ned, as distasteful to Bess, that he came to me a little while ago, and asked me to touch his warts with caustic. I have often proposed it, and he never would consent; but now he bore the smart manfully, and consoles his present discomfort by hopes of future favor, when he can show her fastidious ladyship a ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... very bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper's Ferry, presents as striking a vista among the hills as a painter could desire to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown away amid discomfort; and when we alighted into the tenacious mud and almost fathomless puddle, on the hither side of the Ferry, (the ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge had been destroyed by the Rebels,) I cannot remember that any very rapturous emotions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... limited the amount of service to be exacted with great precision, so that it was in the nature of a moderate personal tax. No Peruvian was to be required to change his place of residence, from the climate to which he had been accustomed, to another; a fruitful source of discomfort, as well as of disease, in past times. By these various regulations, the condition of the natives, though not such as had been contemplated by the sanguine philanthropy of Las Casas, was improved far more than was compatible with the craving ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... than the other; both to my thinking are excellent, and I have no sympathy with those who would suppress every pastime which is fraught with some roughness and danger. The tendency of civilisation is naturally towards softness, effeminacy, and a dread of pain or discomfort; and these evils are far more serious than bruises, sprains, broken collar-bones, or even occasionally a more ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... My lord of Portingale, by this you see That which may comfort both your king and you, And make your late discomfort seeme the lesse. But say, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... took in the situation. To our poor, racked frames a coal-hod would not have suggested more discomfort. We dragged up our hampers, packed with steamer-rugs and pillows, and my sister sat on hers while I took another turn at the bell. While the maid is answering this bell I shall have plenty of time to tell you what we afterwards discovered the process of ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... abuse or condemn a man like Medland—though all that he had said she had said, and more, to Medland himself. She was too miserable to think; she lay with closed eyes and parted lips, breathing quickly, and restlessly moving her limbs in that strange physical discomfort which ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... take place without causing us physical discomfort, and this condition is a serious stumbling-block in the way of the acquisition of poise, for, in view of the great stress the man of timidity lays upon the opinion of others, he will be apprehensive of giving them any inkling of his distress, ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... branches on the stones, set fire to them. The lurid flames for a moment brightened the interior; but soon, half blinded, the women rushed choking into the open air, while the smoke curled upwards, and the warm fire glowed within. There was nothing else to do; they must become accustomed to the discomfort; and, driven in by the cold, they crowded about the blaze. Claude could not but feel how soon such a life must make them even as the red men. Their eyes grew weak and bloodshot; poor old Bastienne became almost blind, and soon could only grope her ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... native land is an event which can never be forgotten. Many of my excursions on horseback through wild countries, or in the boats, some of which lasted several weeks, were deeply interesting: their discomfort and some degree of danger were at that time hardly a drawback, and none at all afterwards. I also reflect with high satisfaction on some of my scientific work, such as solving the problem of coral islands, and making out the geological structure ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... these things. But it is a separate quality, for all that, and not merely a result of faculties and circumstances. It is strangely and wilfully independent of its surroundings, and it is not inconsistent with the gravest discomfort of body and even affliction of mind. A ruinous combination of distressing circumstances does not by any means inevitably produce unhappiness. The martyr who sings at the stake among the flames is presumably happy. It may be said that he ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thoughts gave Garnett a sharp twinge of discomfort, but he made shift to answer good-humouredly: "If you refer to my present errand, I must tell you that I don't find it disagreeable to do anything which may be of ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... ended there it would have presented no difficulties, created no fog; but, unfortunately, there was another element which he admitted with great reluctance, an inborn discomfort. Although he had been clear about what had actually happened with Nettie there was reasonable doubt that the same limitations had operated with her. Briefly she had missed him more than he had realized. He explained this to his sense of innate masculine diffidence by the loneliness of her days. She ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Brighton yesterday morning, it being the day of the weekly Cattle Fair. William Allen and myself went in a wagon, carrying a calf to be sold at the fair. The calf had not had his breakfast, as his mother had preceded him to Brighton, and he kept expressing his hunger and discomfort by loud, sonorous baas, especially when we passed any cattle in the fields or in the road. The cows, grazing within hearing, expressed great interest, and some of them came galloping to the roadside to behold the calf. Little children, also, on their way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... out, without much risk, but some discomfort. You could strike south-east to the Bird Reefs, take a small boat, and get over to the mainland. As soon as the blockade is off, the yacht can take your luggage around. The trip would be rough for you, but not dangerous. Not as dangerous as staying ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... when new remedies are multiplying in such infinite excess over newly discovered diseases? New diseases? What is there essentially new that can be treated with remedies, in the coated tongues, foul mouths, high temperature and pulse, pain, discomfort, and acute aversion to food, that is to be found in the rooms of the sick? Are there really specifics for ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey |
