"Discontented" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mind," the recipe for a beautiful face must be something that reaches the soul. What can be done for a human face that has a sluggish, sullen, arrogant, angry mind looking out of every feature? An habitually ill-natured, discontented mind ploughs the face with inevitable marks of its own vice. However well shaped, or however bright its complexion, no such face can ever become really beautiful. If a woman's soul is without cultivation, without taste, without refinement, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... At last I felt as if someone were trying, rather ineffectually, to remove the sack itself. Finally, that actually did rub its way over my head, and something soft and silken began to wipe my eyes with a surprising care, and even tenderness. "This was stupidly done," came a discontented remark; "you do not handle ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... to live on what she earns, at least for a time. To earn an extra silk dress does not seem an adequate object. I think if our accountant had gone on many years as she began she would not only have taken the place needed by some one else, but she would have made other accountants discontented because they could not dress as she did. She would have raised the standard of luxury among them without adding anything to ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... beloved, how you are—I shall hear it to-night—shall I not? To think of your being unwell, and forced to go here and go there to visit people to whom your being unwell falls in at best among the secondary evils!—makes me discontented—which is one shade more to the uneasiness I feel. Will you take care, and not give away your life to these people? Because I have a better claim than they ... and shall put it in, if provoked ... shall. Then you will not use the shower-bath again—you promise? I dare say ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Discontented with the mode in which his guardians conducted his education, and with some view apparently of forcing them to send him earlier to college, he left this school after less than a year's residence—ran away, in short, to his mother's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... to leave, Clark said to the men: "We are going to the Mississippi." Some were faint-hearted and wished to turn back. "You may go," said Clark, for he wanted no discontented men among his number. From those remaining he carefully picked out the ones who seemed robust enough to endure the extreme hardships which ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... Gil," he said; "you don't grasp it, but to be a boy, sir, is the grandest thing in the world. Never be discontented because you have no ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... it according to human nature, or is it a thing contradictory (as I would fain believe)? But anyhow, there was, upon Exmoor, no more discontented man, no man more sure that he had not his worth, neither half so sore about it, than, or as, John Fry was. And one thing he did which I could not wholly (or indeed I may say, in any measure) reconcile with my sense of right, much as I laboured to do John justice, especially because of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the course of your Lerne, which I found to be of the same quality as the porcelain clay of Meissen, does it still merely bear a few scanty blades of corn, or is its value appreciated, and is it occupying hundreds of those who starved and were discontented, to the great surprise of their respectable landlords? I wonder whether a few little figures that I modelled in the clay for specimens, and baked in my hostess's oven, are still in existence. The forms of clay were there. Alas! I asked in vain of your English magnates for the fire from ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the rolls and paid for, and take about one-third of the pay of what remain for themselves. The singer, Rajee-od Dowla, the prime favourite above named, has two regiments thus treated, and of course altogether inefficient, ragged, hungry, and discontented. It will be easy to remedy all this, get excellent men, and inspire them with excellent spirit by instituting a modified pension establishment for men disabled in the discharge of their duties, and providing for their regular pay and ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... every man of known influence has so many petitions which he cannot grant, that he must necessarily offend more than he gratifies, because the preference given to one affords all the rest reason for complaint. "When I give away a place," said Lewis XIV., "I make a hundred discontented, and one ungrateful." ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... tiny steamers left a trail of smoke, while sailing-craft, their canvas glistening in the sun, slowly melted from the sight. On all these things the "Terrace" turned a stolid eye, and, counting up its gains of the previous season, wondered whether it could hold on to the next. It was a discontented "Terrace," and had become prematurely soured by a Board which refused them a pier, a band-stand, ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... of his duty he must necessarily pass to and fro at frequent intervals between the cabin and the cook's galley—the occupant of which, it may be mentioned, though a surly sort of fellow, and as discontented with everything as ships' cooks generally are, had declared himself absolutely neutral,—and up to the present he had been allowed to do so without let or hindrance. The doctor's plan, therefore, was that he was to go forward to the ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... discontented charioteer glanced back contemptuously at a group of women a short distance away, who were following with their eyes a flock of wild ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... punishment, to ruin his character, and render him an object of abhorrence and contempt, in the absence of even bare presumptive evidence, was an act of cruelty and injustice, which could excite but one feeling; and, from that day, the man who would have gloried in dying for his country, became a discontented, gloomy, and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... pacification of the nations. Bache, for his part, old mystical humanitarian that he was, claimed that the only solution would come from Fourier, who by decreeing an alliance of talent, labour and capital, had mapped out the future in a decisive manner. Nevertheless, both Bache and Morin were so discontented with the slow-paced bourgeoise Republic of the present day, and so hurt by the thought that everything was going from bad to worse through the flouting of their own particular ideas, that they were quite willing to wax indignant at the manner in which the conflicting parties ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... but bankrupt in character and purse, organized a conspiracy to seize Rome, murder the magistrates, and plunder the rich. He gathered about himself outlaws of every description, slaves, and starving peasants —all the discontented and needy classes throughout Italy. He and his associates were desperate anarchists who sought to restore their own broken fortunes by overturning the government. The spread of the insurrection was checked by Cicero's vigorous ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... with Gwen?" he said impatiently. "She will just put notions into her head and make the child discontented." ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... indifference to all the elements of a manly character. As a nation, we cannot afford to have amongst us either this indifference and stupidity, or that burning sense of wrong. These sable millions are too powerful to be allowed to remain either indifferent or discontented. Enfranchise them, and they become self-respecting and country-loving citizens. Disfranchise them, and the mark of Cain is set upon them less mercifully than upon the first murderer, for no man was to ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Bobilier to celebrate the marquis's arrival at the castle of his ancestors, stirs the bile of Toussaint Gilles, who sees in it a base adulation of the ci-devants. As president of the republican club of Chateaugiron-le-Bourg, he, on the following day, incites a few discontented spirits to a popular demonstration, to consist in burning down the triumphal arch erected by the servile justice of peace, and in hoisting a brand-new tricolored flag on the tree of liberty—a poplar planted, during the glorious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Booth, with his young friend Mr. Railton abetting him, who, discontented with the dullness and conservatism of the Christian Mission, drove the Reverend William Booth, an ex-Methodist minister preaching repentance in the slums, to fling restraint of every kind to the winds and to go in for religion as if it were indeed the only thing ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... his imperfect recognition of their services during the Servian War, and for the introduction of German military instructors at its close. Among the malcontents was Bendereff, the hero of Slivnitza, who, having been guilty of discourtesy to the Prince, was left unrewarded. On this discontented knot of men Russian intriguers fastened themselves profitably, with the result that one regiment at least began to waver ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... of Ternate, and a large force of troops is to be sent to its aid. A controversy arises among the Spanish officers over the appointment of a commander for this expedition, which Davalos proposes to settle by himself going as commander—thus satisfying all the discontented captains, as he informs his royal correspondent. He desires the king to grant him authority to punish the Chinese for vicious practices, and thinks that the friars should convert and baptize these heathen more rapidly than they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... which she gives of him that he was a man of very considerable intellectual and physical force, but also of most irregular tendencies, which in his later years debased him to serious immoralities. He was a superior workman, discontented with his lot. He sought to better it by speculative operations outside his vocation. As his daughter expresses it, "he went in pursuit of riches, and met with ruin on his way." She also remarks of him, "that he could not be said to be a good man, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... question—how tired I am of hearing the same words. I suppose it is very wicked of me to be so discontented,' thought Mildred, as she sat on the sofa with her key-basket in her hand; 'but I have got so tired of Sutton. I know I shouldn't bother Harold; he is very good and he does his best to please me. It is very odd. I was all right till Mrs. Fargus ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Guthrie, found ready belief among the Northwestern delegates. It was surmised, too, that the defeat of Seward at Chicago had strengthened the chances of Horatio Seymour, on the ground that the disappointed and discontented Seward Republicans would allow him to carry the State. Whatever truth there may have been in these reports, all admitted that the New York delegation had in its hands the destiny of the convention, if not that of the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... kinds. Every man with a sort of trained intellect must have them. You remember John Stuart Mill's problem: 'Which would you sooner be—a contented hog, or a discontented philosopher?' At the Front you have all the joys of ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... however, once more cut off the prince's bow and pierced the vitals of the prince himself with many arrows. Thus pierced, the prince felt great pain. Then Bhima, of great wrath, holding the car of Drona, O monarch, slowly said these words unto him: "If wretches amongst Brahmanas, discontented with the avocations of their own order, but well-versed in arms, did not fight, the Kshatriya order then would not have been thus exterminated. Abstention from injury to all creatures hath been said to be the highest of all virtues. The Brahmana is the root of that virtue. As regards ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... from being discontented with my dreary life than from any wonderful impulse of affection, that I asked very often the same question about my mother. I always received the same answer—she was away. When I asked where, I was told that that was a secret. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... the inmates of the house and the guests, after the brawl of the day before, had arisen gloomy and discontented with themselves. In vain the Seneschal's daughter invited the ladies to tell fortunes with cards; in vain they suggested a game of marriage to the gentlemen. They would not amuse themselves or play, but sat silently in the corners; the men smoked pipes, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... at all times her thinness and pallor give her the appearance of suffering both in body and mind. Her complexion was dark, her hair of a rich brown; she had very large eyes, which generally wandered in an absent, restless, discontented way. If she smiled, it was with a touch of bitterness, and her talk was wont to be caustic. Cecily had only known her for a few weeks, and did not feel much drawn to her, but she compassionated her for sorrows known and suspected. Though only six ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... and the grey-green soldiers, and the street was left to the little gangs and groups of hangdog, discontented men, all thoroughly out of countenance. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... of a keen sense of virtue. All their games are of a manly character. To materialize this glorious people, to commercialize and mammonize it, to make it think of economics instead of life, to make it bitter, discontented, and tyrannous, this is to strike at the ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... terms of peace, if carried out to their full possibilities, bars them from the prospect of a better future. Their only way of deliverance may well come to seem to them to lie in the grouping of the discontented nationalities, and the faith that by this means, at some time which may come hereafter, a new balance of power may begin to be ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... to hand this troublesome Casimir over to his keeping. On entering the room Chupin realized the valet's condition at the first glance, and his face clouded. He bowed politely to M. Fortunat, but addressed Casimir in an extremely discontented tone. "It's three o'clock," said he, "and I've come, as we agreed, to arrange with ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... that it works well; but all men are not alike, and while some play the hypocrite and profess good conduct, others are never allowed their liberty because they brood over their past life so much that they never smile. They are marked as sullen and discontented, and are worked until their spirits are broken, and they no longer hope for freedom. The energy and enterprise of liberated felons have increased the trade of Australia until she is no longer a burden to the mother country, and I hope, before ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... between Palmer and Christine was steadily widening. She was too proud to ask him to spend more of his evenings with her. On those occasions when he voluntarily stayed at home with her, he was so discontented that he drove her almost to distraction. Although she was convinced that he was seeing nothing of the girl who had been with him the night of the accident, she did not trust him. Not that girl, perhaps, but there were others. There would ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... assistance he had rendered in Wandle's arrest. This was, however, a matter that must stand in abeyance until he saw Curtis, for he had come down to investigate some complaints about the reservation Indians, who were in a restless, discontented state, and the business demanded careful thought and handling. He was studying the report of a local constable when there was a knock at the door, and he looked up with annoyance as Jernyngham came in. The man had his sympathy, but he ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... had employed, too, his utmost influence in softening the consequences of that insurrection to the unfortunate gentlemen whom a mistaken sense of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded by the esteem and affection of his country in an uncommon degree. This popularity, with a discontented and warlike people, was supposed to be a subject of jealousy at court, where the power to become dangerous is sometimes of itself obnoxious, though the inclination is not united with it. Besides, the Duke of Argyle's independent and somewhat haughty mode of expressing himself in Parliament, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... unworthy to those who are willing to immolate themselves for an idea. There are always at least two ways of looking at any question, and I have sometimes placed myself in the position of those who take an unfavorable view of woman suffrage, and who reason in this wise: "These women are discontented. They must have been unfortunate. They seek to overstep the limits which nature and circumstance have placed about them. Not content with the round of domestic duties which has hitherto constituted the sum total of woman's life, they seek to perform the functions which custom has allotted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... agitators who railed at everything British, women who set fire to empty buildings, and destroyed mail-boxes as a protest against unfair social conditions—and they made the mistake of thinking that these discontented citizens were traitors who would be glad of the chance to stab their country to the heart. They knew that the average English found golf and cricket much more interesting than foreign affairs, so they were ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... The value of our property depends on the civilization of our people. If the people are happy and contented, if the workingman receives good wages, then our houses and our farms are valuable. If the people are discontented, if the workingmen are in want, then our property depreciates from day to day, and national bankruptcy will only be a ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to you, Bigot," said she, looking hard at him. "You are discontented with me, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... curled up on the white bearskin rug with a book in her hand, munching biscuits. Netty was generally eating something. Her eyes were red, but she had not been weeping much, and, as she stared into the embers, her pretty, expressionless little mouth was drawn in a discontented ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... she can be, but I wish she didn't look so discontented all the time. Why, she hasn't smiled ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... managed to unfasten the gate there too, and choosing a wide-spreading apple-tree, from which she could see the meadow and the river, flung herself on the grass beneath it. There she fell asleep, and Tom found her an hour after. His fine face looked worried and discontented, and he flung himself ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... round about the county, but a few were from the village homes in western Iowa and southern Minnesota. Two or three boys wore real tailor-made suits, and the easy flow of their trouser legs and the set of their linen collars rendered me at once envious and discontented. "Some day," I said to myself, "I too, will have a suit that will not gape at the neck and crawl at the ankle," but I did not rise to the height of expecting a ring ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... solitary example."—Abbott cor. "Each day, and each hour, brings its portion of duty."—Inst., Key, p. 272. "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, resorted unto him."—Bible cor. "Every private Christian, every member of the church, ought to read and peruse the Scriptures, that he may know his faith and belief to be founded upon them."—Barclay cor. "And every mountain and every island was moved ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... stationed at Fort Dallas, and had some experience in Indian warfare. In 1848 he had been married to Miss Dent; but in the wilds of Oregon he was separated from his family. There was nothing there to satisfy his reasonable ambition, no hope of rising in his profession, and he became discontented. In 1853 he was commissioned as a full captain; but this did not reconcile him to his situation, and he resigned his position in the army to enter upon an untried life ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... growing discontented, you are no longer happy; you, who only wish to live like a retired baker." Caderousse sighed. "Well, what have you to say? you ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of whom from a foolish apprehension had slept in the woods until the election, now began to perceive that the nights were wholesome, and remained in their cabins. They seemed sullen and discontented, and sometimes whispered among themselves of ill-usage and unfair treatment; but they were not noisy and clamorous, as they had been before the work of "redemption." It was especially noted that they were much more respectful and complaisant to their superiors than they ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... of it, I suppose. If 'twas my daughter that was coming back to White Sands, after three years of fashionable life among rich, stylish folks, and at a swell school, I wouldn't have a minute's peace of mind. I'd know perfectly well that she'd look down on everything here, and be discontented and miserable." ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... far from being sufficient of itself to confer happiness. Indeed, under almost all the ordinary circumstances in which parties of travellers are placed, the question whether they are to enjoy themselves and be happy on any particular day of their journey, or to be discontented and miserable, depends so much upon little things which they did not at all take into the account, or even foresee at all in planning the journey, that it is wholly uncertain when you look upon ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... of a week Norcross found himself restless and discontented with the Meekers. He was tired of fishing, tired of the old man's endless arguments, and tired of the obscene cow-hands. The men around the mill did not interest him, and their Saturday night spree at the saloon ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... preparation, and, in spite of Mrs. Rowland's gladly given assistance, the dish-washing and the kitchen-tidying had been longer still. All day Kate's step had been more than lagging, and her face more than discontented. In the twilight, as the two women sat together, Mrs. Rowland laid hold of her courage with both ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... says: "Arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." And the greater and nobler and more sublime the spirit, the more constant is the discontent. Discontent may come from various causes, so it will not do to assume that the discontented ones are always the pure in heart, but it is a fact that the wise and excellent have all known the meaning of world-weariness. The more you study and appreciate this life, the more sure you are that this is not all. You ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... This, Lionel thought the height of unkindness; he could ride just as safely as in the holidays; and it was too cruel to make him give up the one pleasure he best liked, while he was still able to enjoy it, and though not sufficiently familiar with them to attempt any remonstrance, he became doubly discontented and sullen. He would not walk with the girls, but wandered far away over the downs by himself, often not coming back till very late, and till both his parents had been in some alarm. At last, after about a week, Marian ventured to expostulate; she prevailed, and he was allowed ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of inward thought or outward observation. He was not yet forty years old, but bore the cast of premature decay, more aged than age. What showed of his hair beneath his hat was sparse and faded; and of his visible teeth he had no more than a perishing stump or two left in his jaws. His discontented, satiated, exhausted mien, had a strange look there in ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... prevent disturbances from these different parties, Lord Clarendon, and many more of the king's council, from maxims of policy, encouraged emigration, which they considered as a sovereign remedy for political disorders. A new field was opened in Carolina for discontented and turbulent spirits, to whom the proprietors promised grants of land, upon condition they would transport themselves and families to that quarter. They knew that industry was a good cure for enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm was an excellent spur to new and ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... lost all his self-respect. He became discontented and addicted to low company, dissipating with vile curs whose owners enjoyed anything but unblemished reputations,—a fact first notified to me by a clergyman of my acquaintance who knew him well. The worst of this was, that he wore a collar with my name engraved on it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... it back to her, and leaned in his chair, staring at his boots with a very discontented expression. I am no eavesdropper, Sophia, but the Admiral was still engaged with his plate, and I could not withdraw; and though I looked pointedly at the lady, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... I became rather discontented with my acquisition, inasmuch as I wished my paper-weights to be of a sedentary disposition, and thought it very unnatural that feet should walk about without legs, then I commenced to experience a feeling closely ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... us have it and have it over with by all means. No sane being will stand much of it without making an effort to get at its cause. It has been said that the most important part of progress is to make people think; it is vastly more important that they should feel. The average individual is not discontented with his surroundings, else he would go to work to change them. As a product of them he is benumbed by their mechanical influence, and consequently expresses himself within their limits. He is the mouthpiece of existing conditions, and, accordingly, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... was troubled by the loose discipline and self-confidence of the barbarians, who called on him to attack the enemy, and were impatient of delay, and he attempted to pacify them with reasons. Seeing, however, that they were discontented, and were unwisely pressing him with their demands, he let them have their way, and winked at their engaging with the enemy, in so far as not to be completely crushed, but to get some hard knocks, which he hoped would render them more tractable for the future. Things turning out as ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... miles west of Bethlehem where David gathered "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented" (1 Sam. 22:2). ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... other particulars they at last discovered that none were concerned in it but Orellana and his people. On this Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on the quarter-deck, before any of the discontented on board should so far recover their first surprise as to reflect on the facility and certainty of seizing the ship by a junction with the Indians in the present emergency. With this view Pizarro got together what arms were ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... a good illustration. Pallid from long hours indoors, stooped from his concentration upon interminable columns of figures, dissatisfied, discontented, moving along painfully in a narrow groove, out of which there seems to be no way, underpaid, he is one of the tragedies of our commercial and financial age. While the section-hand may become a section boss, a roadmaster, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... surprise arrival, the Agha of Djazerta, chief of the Ouled-Mendil, had written a confidential letter to Colonel DeLisle. He had a young daughter whom he adored. Foolishly (he began to think) he had let her learn French, and allowed her to read French novels. These books had made the girl discontented with her cloistered life. Being the only child, and always rather delicate, perhaps she had been too much spoiled. Greater freedom than she had could not be granted; but seeing her sad Ben Raana had asked himself what he could do for her happiness. Before long she would ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... broken,—what have they now to say to the printing-office or the apothecary's shop? They enter both gladly; with quick woman's wit, learning as much in six months as men would in a year; but grumbling and discontented, that, in competing with men who have spent their whole lives in preparation, they can only be paid at half-wages. What does common sense demand, if not that women should make thorough preparation for trades or ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... began to wish he had gone to that wedding. When he saw how gaily the birds flew about and how the Hare and the Chipmunk and all the other animals ran nimbly by, always eager to see everything there was to be seen, the Tortoise felt very sad and discontented. He wanted to see the world too, and there he was with a house on his back and little short legs that could hardly drag ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... but, so long as Heaven permits us to retain the rank with which we have been intrusted, we shall take care not to imitate the example of Henry the Fourth, in becoming a tool in the hands of our nobility." The discontented lords, who had carried so high a hand under the preceding imbecile reign, feeling the weight of an authority which rested on the affections of the people, were so disconcerted by the rebuke, that they made no attempt to rally, but condescended to make their peace separately ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... so blest as to have gained a degree of knowledge or of fortune superior to them. Let your carriage towards them be always respectful, reverent, and submissive; let your words be always affectionate and humble, and especially beware of pert and ill-seeming replies; of angry, discontented, and peevish looks. Never imagine, if they thwart your wills, or oppose your inclinations, that this ariseth from any thing but love to you: solicitous as they have ever been for your welfare, always consider the same tender solicitude as exerting itself, even in cases most opposite to your desires; ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... and then I'll go back to town next day,' thought Logan. 'I am doing no good here, and I don't like it. I shall tell Merton that I have moral objections to the whole affair. Miserable, mercenary fraud!' Thus, feeling very moral and discontented, Logan walked back to the house, carefully avoiding the ghostly robes that still glimmered on the lawn, and did not re-enter ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... country. If she refuses me, I shall go on to the end. Speak to the colonel, Madam; it is too late. Like myself, he has gone too far. Why did you open the way for me as you did? I should have been satisfied with a discontented clerk. You threw this girl across my path, indirectly, it is true; but nevertheless ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the peace of the community, or the stability of the government to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to be raised to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess? A third ill effect of the exclusion would be, the depriving the community of the advantage of the experience gained by the chief magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Black Sambo Blind The Lantern and the Fan How Fire was brought to Why the Bear has a Short the Indians Tail Echo Why the Fox has a White Piccola Tip to his Tail The Story of the Morning- Why the Wren flies low Glory Seed Jack and the Beanstalk The Discontented Pine The Talkative Tortoise Tree Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice The Bag of Winds The Golden Fleece The Foolish Weather-Vane The Little Boy who wanted The Shut-up Posy the Moon Pandora's Box Benjy in Beastland The Little Match Girl Tomtit's Peep ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... I left the place discontented and weary, glad in a way that Marie had not come. No doubt the dressmaker had disappointed her, or maybe she had felt too ill. There was no time to go to inquire in the morning, for I was breakfasting with Octave, and in the ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... well,—pretty well," answered Midas, in a discontented tone. "But, after all, it is but a trifle, when you consider that it has taken me my whole lifetime to get it together. If one could live a thousand years, he might have time to ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... should abate a little. These stones will be too hot in another hour, he said. But it will be cool enough under the boughs, Joseph answered. Perhaps too cool, Azariah muttered, and Joseph wondered if it were reasonable to be so discontented with the world, especially on a morning like this, he said to himself; and to hearten Azariah he mentioned again that the path up the hillside zigzagged. You'll not feel the ascent, Sir. To which encouragement Azariah made no answer ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... existence into which Edward Lynde had drifted was almost the reverse of the career he had mapped out for himself, and it was a matter of mild astonishment to him at intervals that he was not discontented. He thought Rivermouth one of the most charming old spots he had ever seen or heard of, and the people the most hospitable. The story of his little family jar, taking deeper colors and richer ornamentation as it passed from hand to hand, made him ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... well succeeded in demoralising the public, in creating disaffection and ill-will towards the government, and assisting the nefarious views of demagogues and chartists. It is certain that men would rather laugh than cry—would rather be amused than rendered gloomy and discontented—would sooner dwell upon the joys or sorrows of others in a tale of fiction than brood over their own supposed wrongs. If I put good and wholesome food (and, as I trust, sound moral) before the lower classes, they will eventually eschew that which is coarse and disgusting, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... disposed to think that the human race degenerates? Guard against the illusion and paradoxes of the misanthrope. Man, discontented with the present, imagines for the past a perfection which never existed, and which only serves to cover his chagrin. He praises the dead out of hatred to the living, and beats the children with the bones of ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... subjects. In all the other provinces a harsher system prevails. In Sardinia capital executions for political causes are frequent, and long and mysterious detentions are resorted to, as in Lombardy, with a view to strike terror into the minds of a discontented people. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... into love. Ultimately she ran off with him, and they took up house at Bennecourt, where they lived happily for several years, a son being born to them in 1860. She was devoted to Claude, who was engrossed in his art, and when she saw that he was becoming discontented in the country she urged his return to Paris. There he became obsessed by the idea of a masterpiece, by means of which he was to revolutionize the world of art, and Christine allowed him to sacrifice their child and herself to his hopes of fame. They began to encroach on the principal of ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... said never a word when she learnt that it was a boy, and not a girl, but took her bonnet by the strings in the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at the doctor's head with it, put it on bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented fairy. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... feel, my dears," said Mrs. Fairchild, "is not exactly envy, though it is very like it; it is what is called ambition. Ambition is the desire to be greater than we are. Ambition makes people unhappy and discontented with what they ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... little mortified and jealous. It was not that they had fallen into a lower and narrower place in her affection, but that they saw Chateaubriand installed in a higher and larger place. They feared that her peace would be wrecked in wretchedness by an intimate connection with one so discontented and capricious, a sort of spoilt idol, a hero of ennui, filled with causeless melancholy, voracious of praise, querulous, exacting, his own imperious and inevitable personality ever uppermost. ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... take me a little out of "the hollow,"—make me a little more like the soaring eagle, gazing at the whole wide world beneath him while he wheels "slow as in sleep." But whether or not, I'll try not to be a discontented shepherd, but remember what Mr. Baxter said, that the little strip that I see "twixt the hill and the sky" is able to hold all of earth and all of heaven, if only I have the eyes ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to have caught many discontented people on the rebound, and to have given them an excuse for a loyalty which ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... papa. I know I am a trouble to you. But I am a trouble to myself first. I fear I have a discontented mind and a complaining temper. But I do try, and I will ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... overtaken it, passing it on a road that lay parallel to its line of march. Then it was that the Federal commander began to hear rumors and reports all along his route that Forrest was making a rapid retreat before him. It was stated that his men were discontented and that the condition of his ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... another long and tender salute to her dog, and a "Good-bye, my dear!" to her daughter, she quitted her to display her charms to a brilliant drawing-room, leaving Mary to solace herself in her solitary chamber with the whines of a discontented lap-dog. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... you do?" The voices were very near now, and Paul's discontented sneer made the Captain smile; but his hand sought the pocket ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... high,' said Dimmock in a discontented tone.' This gun jumps a bit. Sharp there, with that ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... at not having had news from you for a long time. Are you at Croisset? You must have been in Paris for the funeral of this poor friend. What cruel and repeated separations! I am angry with you for becoming savage and discontented with life. It seems to me that you regard happiness too much as a possible thing, and that the absence of happiness which is our chronic state, angers you and astonishes you too much. You shun friends, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... arising, it is quite certain they have greatly decreased. Neither can it be denied, that the natives are no longer the manly, independent race they formerly were. On the contrary, we now find them gloomy and dispirited, unhappy and discontented. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... tranquillity of soul, desiring to have a guest (but finding his desire ungratified), should eat what remnant of food may still occur in the house. By acting in this way, one becomes a practiser of the religion of the Munis. One should not be arrogant, nor proud, nor cheerless and discontented; nor should one wonder at anything. Indeed, one should behave equally towards friends and foes. Verily, one who is the foremost of all persons conversant with duties should also be friendly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... very significant room in the Interpreter's House where our pilgrim saw Passion and Patience sitting each one in his chair. Passion was a young lad who seemed to our pilgrim to be much discontented. He was never satisfied. He would have all his good things now. His governor would have him wait for his best things till the beginning of next year; but no, he will have them all now. And then, when he had got all his good things, he soon lavished and ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... with all courses, and so leave it quite, with only y^e pore cloaths on my back. But gathering up my selfe by further consideration, [34] I resolved yet to make one triall more, and to aquainte M^r. Weston with y^e fainted state of our bussines; and though he hath been much discontented at some thing amongst us of late, which hath made him often say, that save for his promise, he would not meadle at all with y^e bussines any more, yet considering how farr we were plunged into ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... care for outlandish places went east to India or west to Canada. Nobody wanted to go to a small, dull, out-of-the-way garrison town like Louisbourg, where there was no social life whatever—nothing but fishermen, smugglers, petty traders, a discontented garrison, generally half composed of foreigners, and a band of dishonest, second-rate officials, whose one idea was how to get rich and get home. The inspectors who were sent out either failed in their duty and joined the official gang of thieves, ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... last sat in that box had not dealt kindly with her. Her discontented face showed that she was one of the many victims of arrested development, still hampered in middle age by the egotistic longings of youth. In youth we all want to receive instead of to give, to be loved, to be served, to be admired. Middle age ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... passions, feelings, interests."[36] "Socialism has the advantage of appealing to the interests as well as to the enthusiasm of all except the few who think the world good enough as it is.... It is, of course, to the discontented wage-workers that the Socialist can appeal with the greatest chance of success."[37] These indiscreet words, which might have been written by the most implacable of Anti-Socialists, sum up and explain the Socialistic ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... would have liked to have something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burthen); but William Dobbin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not without reason that Bonaparte reckoned upon the inaction of the Continent. Austria, although profoundly discontented by much he had done since the peace of Luneville, in 1801, was too thoroughly disheartened and exhausted by the unsuccessful and protracted struggle which preceded it, to be ready to renew the strife. Limited as she now was, by the treaty, to the eastern bank of the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... belonged to neither party. He was obliged to resign his chances of election to du Croisier, he exercised no influence, and played a secondary part. The false position reacted on his character; he was soured and discontented; he was tired of political ambiguity, and privately had made up his mind to come forward openly as leader of the Liberal party, and so to strike ahead of du Croisier. His behavior in the d'Esgrignon affair was the first step in this direction. To begin with, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... of Buxar to Benares I was followed and fatigued by the clamors of the discontented inhabitants. It was what I expected in a degree, because it is rare that the exercise of authority should prove satisfactory to all who are the objects of it. The distresses which were produced by the long continued drought unavoidably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... success of Serbia in the Balkan wars of 1912-13 brought out the dangers and defects of Austrian policy. For the Serbs were kin to the great majority of the Bosnian people and to millions of other South Slavs who were subject to the Austrian crown and discontented with its repressive government; and the growing prestige of Serbia bred hopes and feelings of Slav nationality on both sides of the Hapsburg frontier. The would-be and the real assassins of the Archduke, while technically Austrian ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... as Sophy crossed the sands and vanished into the shadows beyond, a strange, sad presentiment of calamity oppressed her heart. Being herself in the enthusiasm of a first love, she could not conceive such treachery possible as Sophy's word seemed to imply. The girl had always been petted, and yet discontented with her situation; and had often made complaints which had no real foundation, and which in brighter moods she was likely to repudiate. And this night Andrew, instead of her Aunt Kilgour, was the object ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... disgust with everything, her search for something new and different, the fascination she felt for saying and doing dangerous and reckless things—this I could understand so thoroughly! I was in a very reckless and discontented mood, but I was able to get away from myself and become Hedda for awhile; and this made me think of what a wonderful thing it is, what a power Ibsen has, to produce such emotions by merely stringing a few ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... gone, he was moody and discontented. A few weeks later Tom Barkesdale, his chum in college, who resided in New Orleans, came to his home to spend a few days. Edward and his father were courteous and munificent hosts, and did all that was possible to make the guest happy. He was happy, but he could not help seeing that ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... at folly so prodigious, reproaches him for this complaining, these regrets. What, is he so soon weary of the marvels with which her love surrounds him? Discontented so soon with being a god? Has he so soon forgotten the old unhappiness? "My minstrel, up! Take your harp! Sing the praise of love, which you celebrate so gloriously that you won the Goddess of Love herself." Tannhaeuser, thus bidden, seizes the harp and warmly entones a hymn of ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... obscure origin, took up arms to resist his authority. Thus Huniades, instead of blunting the edge of his sword upon foreign foes, had to bridle the insubordination of his own countrymen. Luckily it did not take long to force the discontented to own the weight of his arm and his superiority as a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... As a London authority puts it: "The condition of the house may degrade its occupants. The careless life and habits of the occupants will spoil the house, and make it filthy and unhealthy." The friendly visitor should try to make the family healthily discontented with unsanitary surroundings, and so prepare them for better quarters. Removing families from unfit tenements is not enough, however, if these tenements are almost immediately reoccupied. Their condition should be reported to the Board of Health, and, if ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... without any seemingly adequate reason; shopkeepers became flippant, disobliging, and careless of custom; cabmen shouted derisive or denunciatory language after their rapidly retreating fares; in short, everybody was in a discontented, almost spiteful humour, with the exception of those few aggressively cheerful persons who are in the habit of always making the best of everything, even bad weather. Down the long wide vista of the Cromwell Road, Kensington, the fog had it all its own way; it swept on steadily, like ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... just a rose—my dearest," said Bent-Anat. "Well! when I was fifteen I was so discontented, so insubordinate and full of all sorts of wild behavior, so dissatisfied in spite of all the kindness and love that surrounded me—but I will tell you what happened. It is four years ago, shortly before your wedding with Mena; my father called ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... milk is almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging in Dublin the routine duties of his office,—as to which there was no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face of the country,—he became sick at heart and discontented. Like the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle and the noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. When the rope gets taut, the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs. - I am much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading WESTWARD HO! for the second time, instead of taking to electricity or picking up nautical information. I am uncommonly idle. The sea is not quite so rough, but the weather is squally ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for which Walter made great festivities; but a little afterwards, a new idea coming into his mind, he wished with long experience and with intolerable proofs to try her patience. First he began to annoy her with words, pretending to be disturbed, and saying that his men were very discontented with her low condition, and especially when they saw that she had children; and of the daughter, that she was born most unfortunately; and he did nothing but grumble. But the lady, hearing these words, without changing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... province;" and the governor himself in his speech at the close of the preceeding assembly, insinuated that matters had been conducted by a party in the house; and declared that "the evils which threatened this injured country, arose from the machinations of a few, very few discontented men" - "false patriots who were sacrificing their country to the gratification of their own passions," and that it was "by no means to be charged upon the generality of the people," yet he did not think ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... Fortune and the Muse, of great generals, of first-rate actors, of celebrated poets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glittering eminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same tempting career,—not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants are in vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with 'the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes'; how many half-starved strolling players are doomed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... but if he is not more liberal to others than to himself, he loses in popularity. I have known instances in this and other tribes in which individuals aggrieved, because they had been overlooked, fled to other chiefs. One discontented person, having fled to Lechulatebe, was encouraged to go to a village of the Bapalleng, on the River Cho or Tso, and abstracted the tribute of ivory thence which ought to have come to Sekeletu. This theft enraged the whole of the Makololo, because they all felt it to be a personal loss. Some of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... exhausted. The wearied citizens wanted repose, and placed all their hopes in royalty. The parliaments, ashamed of having allowed their ancient loyalty to be surprised by the deceitful caresses of the discontented nobles, returned voluntarily within the prudent limits of their institution, satisfied with having seen the government recognise all their legitimate complaints, and bind itself to respect their just and necessary independence. The aristocracy thought itself ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... he was eaten up with curiosity to know where Ellie went to; so that he began not to care for his playmates, or for the sea-palace or anything else. But perhaps that made matters all the easier for him; for he grew so discontented with everything round him that he did not care to stay, and did not care ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... of the chief causes of the revolution; the intention of which was, to overturn the then existing order of things. The ignorance of the great proprietors concerning of their true interests, and the smallness of their numbers, disabled them from protecting themselves. The middle orders were discontented, and wished for a change; and the lower orders were so degraded, that, at the first signal, they became as mutinous and as mean as the Plebians at Rome, in the days of ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... I say, a second later, putting my hand into that of Mr. Musgrave (for it is he), as he comes stepping, in his usual unsmiling, discontented beauty, to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Gwendolen comes to be aware of somehow. But all of us know how a chance word in a confused conversation stays by the hearer, who is forced to listen to what is no elucidation of it, and is discontented. Such a word had struck this young lady; and she watched for her father, as lunch died away, to get the elucidation overdue. She was able to intercept him at the end of a long colloquy with Sir Coupland. "What did you mean, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... reality from his eyes, or its image from his mind. He will show why Slavery, disdaining its old argument from expediency, challenged discussion on its principles. He will explain the process by which it became discontented with toleration within its old limits, and demanded the championship or connivance of the National Government in a plan for its limitless extension. He will indicate the means by which it corrupted the Southern heart ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... chuckling. This talk with Fritz had vastly entertained him; nor was he altogether discontented with his bearing at the farm; men, he was able to tell himself, had behaved worse under smaller provocation. And, to harmonise all, the road and the April air were both delightful to ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... points to the true north, a fact without precedent. Next day a water wagtail is seen, betokening an approach to land. Two pelicans alight on board, with the same significance. These promises fail, and the crew becomes disheartened and discontented. On October 11th Columbus sees a light, presumably on shore: four hours later, next day, land is descried and named by Columbus San Salvador. Discussion as to where this place is: the balance of probability inclines to Watling's ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... on the fourth evening that we were sitting in the little kitchen, tired, discontented, and miserable, with Mrs Dean stitching away more quickly than ever, when we all started, for there was a double knock at the ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Is not your wish a silent prayer? And is it not answered every day? Who sends the seals, and fishes, and birds, even when we do not ask with our lips? Did these animals make themselves? Stupid-face! you say your soul is healthy. Sometimes you are angry, sometimes discontented, sometimes jealous, sometimes greedy. Is an angry, discontented, jealous, greedy soul healthy? You know it is not. It is diseased, and the disease of the soul is sin. This disease takes the bad forms I have mentioned, and many other bad forms—one ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne |
