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Painful   /pˈeɪnfəl/   Listen
Painful

adjective
1.
Causing physical or psychological pain.
2.
Causing misery or pain or distress.  Synonyms: afflictive, sore.  "The painful process of growing up"
3.
Exceptionally bad or displeasing.  Synonyms: abominable, atrocious, awful, dreadful, terrible, unspeakable.  "Abominable workmanship" , "An awful voice" , "Dreadful manners" , "A painful performance" , "Terrible handwriting" , "An unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room"
4.
Causing physical discomfort.  Synonym: irritating.



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"Painful" Quotes from Famous Books



... from his imprudent excesses in drinking, and the sort of poisoning with which he had crowned the whole. He lay upon his bed in the same position in which he had first been placed, and was sleeping that heavy, painful sleep which serves as an expiation for bacchic excesses. Gerfaut was seated a few steps from him, at a table, writing; he seemed prepared to sit up all night, and to fulfill, with the devotion of a friend, the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... escaped from a very disagreeable company I was obliged, so much against my will, to be in. As a very particular relation of this evening's conversation would be painful to me, you must content yourself with what you shall be able to collect from the outlines, as I may call them, of the characters of the persons; assisted by the little histories Mr. Lovelace gave me of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... my painful duty to let you know that certain rumours have reached my ears very prejudicial to your character as a clergyman, and which I understand to be very generally current in Carlingford. Such a scandal, if not properly dealt with, is certain to have an ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... and, torn by unworthy jealousies and dissensions, were unable to resist the well-trained armies which the wise and mighty Saladin brought forward to crush them. But the news of their fall created a painful sensation among the chivalry of Europe, whose noblest members were linked to the dwellers in Palestine by many ties, both of blood and friendship. The news of the great battle of Tiberias, in which Saladin defeated the Christian host with terrible slaughter, arrived first in Europe, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... course, infinitely worse, and should never be tolerated. The practice carries its own punishment, as it invariably ruins the voice; and tones so produced always betray the effort (frequently in a most painful degree), and ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... is in the diction of Patrick Henry's letters the nameless felicity which, even with great natural endowments, is only communicable by genuine literary culture in some form. Where did Patrick Henry get such literary culture? The question can be answered only by pointing to that painful drill in Latin which the book-hating boy suffered under his uncle and his father, when, to his anguish, Virgil and Livy detained him anon from the true ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... stood, with the tail swinging in that pendulum-like motion; the great eyes gazing heavily at him; while during those painful minutes Dyke's brain grew more and more active. He thought of mice in the power of cats, and felt something of the inert helplessness of the lesser animal, crouching, as if fascinated by the cruel, claw-armed tyrant, waiting ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... recalling the old happy times, she deplores that she has nothing left but the painful memory that they are past. Beyond that, she has no regret except that against her will she must now be innocent. "My misfortune was to have cruel relatives whose malice destroyed the calm we enjoyed; had they been reasonable, I had now been happy ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... never even smiled. He just nodded understandingly. "I don't think I could wear a coat of father's to church,—it's cut down of course, but—there's something painful about the idea. I wouldn't expect father to wear any of my clothes! You can see how it is, Mr. Harold. Just imagine how you would feel wearing your wife's coat!—I don't think I could listen to the sermons. I don't believe I could be ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... it tight, and not give it up to any one whatsoever!" His own hand was trembling with excitement. The eagerness of delight with which he listened to every word uttered by the low-toned and gentle voice was almost painful; and yet he knew it not. He was as one demented. This was Gertrude White—speaking, walking, smiling, a fire of beauty in her clear eyes; her parted lips when she laughed letting the brilliant light just touch for an instant the milk-white teeth. This was no pale Rose Leaf at all—no dream or vision—but ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... I often thought that I would instantly return and take you along with me to some fertile island where we should live at peace for ever. As I returned my fervent hopes were dashed by so many fears; my impatience became in the highest degree painful. I dared not think that the sun should shine and the moon rise not on your living form but on your grave. But, no, it is not so; I have my Mathilda, my consolation, and ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... their altruism, their intelligent critique. The stopping of tendencies by stimulation, the transformation of tendencies into ideas, the deliberation, the endeavor, the reflection; in one word, both the moral effort and the call upon reserves for executing painful acts are suppressed. There exists visibly a lowering of level, and it is right to say that these ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... sentence to be engraven on his tomb in Naples: "Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want and woe, to serve proud masters, bear that superstitious yoke, and bury your clearest friends, &c., are the sauces of our life." If thy disease be continuate and painful to thee, it will not surely last: "and a light affliction, which is but for a moment, causeth unto us a far more excellent and eternal weight of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17. bear it with patience; women endure much sorrow in childbed, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... thing was true up to a certain point or under a certain aspect; but there was always some restriction, some distinction to be made, which he alone had perceived. This labor of attention was hard for him, often painful for the others; but sometimes there resulted from it happy observations and brilliant hits. However, by the anxiety of his glances, one could see that he was uneasy about the success that he was having or might have. There never was, I think, a more delicate, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... And after Flo's repeated efforts, assisted by chastisement from Glenn, had kept Spillbeans in a trot for a couple of miles Carley began to discover that the trotting of a horse was the most uncomfortable motion possible to imagine. It grew worse. It became painful. It gradually got unendurable. But pride made Carley endure it until suddenly she thought she had been stabbed in the side. This strange piercing pain must be what Glenn had called a "stitch" in the side, something common to novices on horseback. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... poem is the musical expression of mental emotions by language. The essence of musical feeling consists in this, that we endeavour with complacency to dwell on, and even to perpetuate in our souls, a joyful or painful emotion. The feeling must consequently be already so far mitigated as not to impel us by the desire of its pleasure or the dread of its pain, to tear ourselves from it, but such as to allow us, unconcerned at the fluctuations of feeling which time produces, to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... unanimously agreed that the pit was on fire, for a light smoke curled up from the pit mouth, and some already began to whisper that it would have to be closed up. There are few things more painful than to come to the conclusion that nothing can be done, when women, half mad with sorrow and anxiety, are imploring men to make an effort to ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... drawing a deeper breath than before, or after each short hacking cough, it gives a little cry, which it checks apparently before it is half finished; and this, either because it has no breath to waste in cries, or because the effort makes its breathing more painful. If disease is going on in the head, the child utters sharp piercing shrieks, and then between whiles a low moan or wail, or perhaps no sound at all, but lies quiet, apparently dozing, till pain wakes ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... political rights as the superior. How will the relations of two races so living together be adjusted? The experience of the Southern States is too short to throw much light on this problem. It is, however, a painful experience in many respects, and it causes the gravest anxieties for the future. Similar anxieties must press upon the mind of any one who in South Africa looks sixty or eighty years forward; and they are not diminished by the fact that in South Africa the inferior race is ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... of learning new tunes only in autumn and winter, when strong gales were blowing. On a calm summer evening every note of the cornet, whether right or wrong, was heard. Even the sounds which were not quite notes but only painful grunts penetrated open windows and doors. But when a storm was raging most of the notes were blown away, and only occasionally, when there happened to be a lull, did anybody except young Kerrigan himself hear anything. The plan ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham

... succeeded a painful silence, while all eyes were fixed anxiously on the spot opposite where a light west wind, blowing down through a cut in the hills, occasionally lifted the blanket of fog and dimly disclosed the river ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... God," justification bears a striking resemblance to the development of the foetus in the maternal womb. Like physical birth, spiritual regeneration is preceded by travailing, i.e. fear and painful contrition. ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... his far off Scottish home.... The Samoans passed in procession beside his bed, kneeling and kissing his hand, each in turn, before taking their places for the long night watch beside him. No entreaty could induce them to retire, to rest themselves for the painful arduous duties of the morrow. It would show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did not spend their last night beside him. Mournful and silent, they sat in deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal folks, fulfilling the duty ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... she may have possessed. Perhaps it was because, as I have said, she felt that the relation of mutual confidence was really broken and nothing very much mattered. Anyway, she went so far in her carelessness that Terry could not help coming in disagreeable contact with what was growing painful to him, though he would be ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... though he was from the infirmities of age, yet wandering was less of a hardship than it would have been to other men, to one who had been a wanderer for the greater part of his life. At the best it was a painful and dreary ending for so vigorous a life, and unless we pitilessly regard it as a retribution for his moral defects, it is some comfort to think that the old man's infirmities and anxieties were not aggravated by the pressure ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... order of any kind, no organized police-force, and robberies and assassinations took place almost nightly. Small-pox was raging in the place when Gerome left it; also a loathsome disease called the "Bouton d'alep "—a painful boil which, oddly enough, always makes its appearance upon the body in odd numbers, never in even. It is caused by drinking or washing in unboiled water. Though seldom fatal, there is no cure for the complaint but complete change ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... tranquillity and repose in one, who has divested himself of all responsibility in matters of religious belief and practice, enjoying an entire immunity from the anxious and painful labour of trying for himself the purity and soundness of his faith, is often painted in strong contrast with the {8} lamentable condition of those who are driven about by every wind of novelty. The condition ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... England commenced with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A comprehensive view of that metaphysician produces a painful impression. Though gifted with capacity for any sphere of thought, he did not excel in either so far as to enable us to assign him a fixed place in literature. He is known as poet, theologian, and philosopher. But his own desire was that posterity might regard him as a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... 23rd. To-day, my son, Two turgid years ago, Your father battled with the Hun At five A.M. or so; This was the day (if I exclude A year of painful servitude Under the Ministry of Food) I struck my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... less painful and more funny for the most part, with one amongst them of a dramatic complexion; but the greatest experience of them all was Mr. B-, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... to talk about him in future. And there is something else I wish to say. I do hope you won't be offended with me, but indeed I—I hope you will not ask me to go to the Manor again. I feel I ought not to go. It is painful; I suffer ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... buckeye, the syringa, and the wood anemone, and here and there the master noticed the dark-blue cowl of the monkshood, or deadly aconite. There was something in the odd association of this noxious plant with these memorials which occasioned a painful sensation to the master deeper than his esthetic sense. One day, during a long walk, in crossing a wooded ridge he came upon Mliss in the heart of the forest, perched upon a prostrate pine on a fantastic ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... Cecily's neatness is a painful example to me, and I don't believe she would tell a ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... will link me to you eternally." In 1822, when O'Meara was slandering Lowe's character, the Czar Alexander met his step-daughter, the Countess Balmain, at Verona, and in reference to Sir Hudson's painful duties at St. Helena, said of him: "Je l'estime beaucoup. Je l'ai connu ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... to believe that the revelation I am about to ask of you will be exceedingly painful for you to make, but you must consider that your sister's happiness is deeply concerned and that, for that reason, no matter what may be your motives, you have not ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... threats he fell to blows. The stubborn brute the blow sustains; Assaults his leg, and tears the veins. Ah! foolish swain, too late you find That sties were for such friends designed! Homeward he limps with painful pace, Reflecting thus on past disgrace: 50 Who cherishes a brutal mate Shall mourn the ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... to each of them leave of absence for fifteen days, that is all—to Athos, whose wound still makes him suffer, to go to the waters of Forges; to Porthos and Aramis to accompany their friend, whom they are not willing to abandon in such a painful condition. Sending their leave of absence will be proof enough that I ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and had two teeth filled, one under the gum, which is still rather painful; but the amusing point is that on my way there at some cross roads I was held up for a quarter of an hour by the Germans shelling the place. I hid in a building, and when they got off the line of the road I resumed my ride on to my dentist. Just at this moment they are shelling our usual front ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... up in purgatory and hell itself. The sign was made in a way that conveyed the sense of something devilish and spiteful; the perpendicular line of the cross being drawn gently enough, but the transverse one sharply and violently, so as to leave a painful impression. Perhaps the monks meant this to express their contempt and hatred for heretics; and how queer, that this antipathy should survive their own damnation! But I cannot help hoping that the case of these poor ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... circumstances where the most humane of generals finds himself in the painful position of having to expose his troops openly to enemy fire; but it often happens that certain commanders deploy their men uselessly in front of enemy batteries, and take no steps to avoid casualties, although sometimes this is very easy, particularly ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... the Rue Royal, that anything of importance occurred. The moment he entered that bare and cloistral restaurant where Monsieur Jules could dish up such startling uncloistral dishes, his eyes fell on Abe Sheiner, a drum snuffer with whom he had had previous and somewhat painful encounters. Sheiner, it was plain to see, was in clover, for he was breakfasting regally, on squares of toast covered with shrimp and picked crab meat creamed, with a bisque of cray-fish and papa-bottes in ribbons of bacon, to say nothing of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... of the Thermometer.—The origin of the instrument is involved in a depth of obscurity considerably below zero; Pliny mentions its use by a celebrated brewer of Boeotia; we have succeeded, after several years' painful research, in tracing the invention of the instrument to Mercury, who, being the god of thieves, very likely stole it from somebody else. Of ancient writers, there are few except Hannibal (who used it on crossing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... cheerfully to the time when, the Jehad (Holy War) being proclaimed, the Moslems will be permitted to cut the throats of all the Unbelievers who trouble the Moghreb. In the fatalism of our neighbours lies our safety. If Allah so wills, never a Nazarene will escape the more painful road to eternal fire; if it is written otherwise, Nazarene torment will be posthumous. They do not know, nor, in times when the land is preparing for early harvest, do they greatly care, what or when the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... in eight that they arrived in Rome on a sunny afternoon of January preoccupied with expectations of an instant ease in their inn which seemed the measure of their merit. They indeed found their inn, and it was with a painful surprise that they did not find the rooms in it which they wanted. There were neither rooms full south, nor over the garden, nor off the tram, and in these circumstances there was nothing for it but to drive ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... was taken to visit the ladies in the palace of the Imam of Muskat, at Buscheir, he found that their faces were covered with black masks, though the rest of the body might be clothed in a transparent sort of crape; to look at a naked face was very painful to the ladies themselves; even a mother never lifts the mask from the face of her daughter after the age of twelve; that is reserved for her lord and husband. "I observed that the ladies looked at me with a certain confusion, and after they had glanced ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... could be reproduced elsewhere—the palaces, the bazaars, the caravans, the mosques and temples with their worshippers—but not the jungle, the Himalayas, the vast swamps through which our elephants waded up to the Plimsoll, the almost too painful ecstasies of the pursuit of an ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... at her wan, sallow countenance, that had begun for some days to wear an expression of painful anxiety. At that moment I saw over a hedge—but she could not—Claude and Marie walking in a neighboring field, and pausing now and then to bend their heads very close together in admiration of some very common flower. "Poor old maid," thought I, "you will have no reward save the consciousness ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... familiar acquaintance.... At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son." Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friendship and admiration ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... Armand du Cantal, George Beaunoir, Felix Verdoret, of whom you have never heard. Mesdames Constantine Ramachard, Anais Crottat, and Lucienne Vouillon threaten me with their blue friendship. We dine editors totally unknown in our province. Finally I have had the painful happiness of seeing Adolphe decline an invitation to an evening party to which I ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... swept Nick a frightened courtesy,—one that nevertheless was full of coquetry. And at that instant, to cap the situation, a rotund little man with a round face under a linen biretta grasped Nick by the hand, and cried in painful ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... interposed, with dignity, "you will pardon me, I am sure, when I tell you that any discussion on this point would be intensely painful to me, as I now belong ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... breeze which fanned my fevered cheek, that the ship was close hauled on a wind, and probably far at sea. I looked at my arms; they were wasted to half their usual size, and my head was bandaged and very sore and painful. Slowly and with difficulty I recalled the events of the few hours preceding that in which I had lost my senses—then I remembered the melee on the mole. Evidently I had been severely wounded, and while senseless been brought off to the ship. Then came the inquiry, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... Church in America that the social status and personal composition of its congregations, in its earlier years, have been such that the transition into it from any of the Protestant churches could be made only at the cost of a painful self-denial. The number of accessions to it has been thereby lessened, but (leaving out the case of the transition of politicians from considerations of expediency) the quality of them has been severely sifted. Incomparably the most valuable acquisition which the American Catholic ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... from a nobleman whose character does honor, not only to his own country, but to human nature. The subject, Sir, on which I presume to implore your assistance, is too heart-piercing for me to dwell on; and common fame has, most probably, informed you of it; it therefore renders the painful ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... indication of many a silent struggle that only the trees and stars are witnesses of; and the trapper's deadfall, with its quick, sure blow, is only a merciful ending to what else had been a long, slow, painful trail, ending at last under a hemlock tip with the snow ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... implicating the spinal medulla, on the other hand, were proportionately the most fatal of any in the whole body to the wounded who left the field of battle or Field hospital alive, and these cases formed one of the most painful and distressing features of the ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... reached the cloud-banks, with the altimeter marking three thousand, down came the rain. My word, how it poured! It drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring my glasses so that I could hardly see. I got down on to a low speed, for it was painful to travel against it. As I got higher it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action—a dirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... on the grand stand and bleacher seats, were beating with painful rapidity. What ailed the home boys? Or were the Filmore youths, as they themselves fondly imagined, the gridiron stars of the school world! Filmore, like Gridley, had a record of no defeats ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... engorged before parturition, and a doughy swelling, pitting on pressure, extends forward on the lower surface of the abdomen. When this goes on to active inflammation, one or both of the glands becomes enlarged, hot, tense, and painful; the milk is dried up or replaced by a watery or reddish, serous fluid, which at times becomes fetid; the animal walks lame, loses appetite, and shows general disorder and fever. The condition may end in recovery, in abscess, induration, or gangrene, and, in some cases, may lay the foundation ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... that Browning has given his Grammarian not only courage and heroism, but the reckless, dashing, magnificent bravery of a cavalry leader. In the march for learning, this man lost his youth and health, and acquired painful diseases. Finally he comes to the end. When an officer in battle falls, and his friends bend over him to catch his last breath, he does not say, "I commend my soul to God," or "Give my love to my wife,"—he says, "Did we win?" and we applaud this passion in the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... wealth and—what is a thousand times more precious than wealth—liberty. The workingmen, supported by the favor of an indiscreet press, in demanding an increase of wages, have served monopoly much better than their own real interests: may they recognize, when their situation shall become more painful, the bitter fruit ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... matronly for toys? One's so-called education is hammered into one with rulers and with canes. Each fresh grammar or musical instrument, each new historical period or quaint arithmetical rule, is impressed on one by some painful physical prelude. Why does Time, the biggest Schoolmaster, alone neglect premonitory raps, at each stage of his curriculum, on our knuckles ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... her eyes fixed on the ground. Presently she removed her hand from her father's shoulder, let it fall to her side, and stood alone. It was a painful pause, felt to be so by all four, and broken presently by Thore himself. "Lady," he said, "I hope to have your good will in this. I have few pretentions to a lady's liking, but believe I am an honest and friendly man. If you will accept of ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... cannon's roar. There is the soldier's glory, his haven, his expected end; and of all deaths, that upon the battlefield, surrounded by victorious companions and waving banners, the triumphant shouts of comrades, is the least painful. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... they had been there. Nor does it seem that the dress of a foreign Embassador is considered of much consequence in the eyes of the Chinese; for, when these gentlemen wished to excuse themselves from going to court, on account of their dusty and tattered clothes, in which they had performed a most painful journey, the Master of the Ceremonies observed, that it was not their dress, but their persons, which the Emperor, his master, was desirous to see. And, it can hardly be supposed, they would omit observing the fourth ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... in a subdued tone. "I beg your pardon," he added, as people often do, unconsciously, when they fancy they have accidentally roused in another a painful train of thought. Then he turned to go. "We dine at half-past seven, you know, so as to be early for Miss Nellie," he said, ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... was still mistress of all the technique of her art, but her voice was worn and it was not easily conceded that she was a delightful vocalist. Many of her songs seemed like the ghosts of the blissful happy songs she had sung in her youth. There was something half painful in their jocund gayety and archness. I went far away from the piano and seated myself with a group of young people, paying little attention to the music. Presently, however, a strain sought me out, a sweet, passionately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... however, the State Department then published an equally favorable report, which, coming from the American Embassy and published with the approval of the Foreign Office in Berlin, caused the complete collapse of Dr. von Mach. This incident made a very painful impression in America, and led to a series of bitter attacks on Dr. von Mach and the whole movement, which was thus exposed in a most unfortunate light. The favorable report on the milk question was drawn up by a Dr. E. A. Taylor, and definitely confirmed, and, indeed, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... this time, remembering those mournful words, Jacques was absorbed in painful thought. Morok perceived his absence of mind, and said aloud to him, "You have given over drinking, Jacques. Have you had enough wine? Then you will want brandy. I will send ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Grace looked up. The self-consciousness that had scarcely left her, save these past few moments, now returned with painful suddenness. Her eyes met his, and a vivid flush overspread her face, but she ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... hot haste—men whose homes have been made desolate, their kindred carried into captivity. Each has his own painful reflections. In that hour, at that very moment, his beloved wife, his delicate daughter, his fair sister, or sweetheart, may be struggling in the embrace of a brawny savage. No wonder that to them every hour seems a day, every ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... roving that he took up the matter in ignorance? Well, I consider that extremely impudent on your part! You ought to know that Burdovsky has no need of being excused or justified by you or anyone else! It is an insult! The affair is quite painful enough for him without that. Will nothing make ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... over her hand and kissed it. As I neglected to release it at once, the cuff of Poopendyke's best coat slid down over our two hands, completely enveloping them. It was too much for me to stand. I squeezed her hand with painful fervour, and then released ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... afterwards. She is now "clean," and can mix again with people.[142] Other Indians of Guiana, after keeping the girl in her hammock at the top of the hut for a month, expose her to certain large ants, whose bite is very painful.[143] Sometimes, in addition to being stung with ants, the sufferer has to fast day and night so long as she remains slung up on high in her hammock, so that when she comes down she is reduced to a skeleton. The intention of stinging her with ants is said to be to make her ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... was not destined to drop here. Something had appeared in the young caballero's bearing, which made it painful to have addressed him with harshness, or for a moment to have entertained such a charge against such a person. He despatched his cousin, therefore, Don Antonio Calderon, to offer his apologies, and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... formally appointed king over Ireland, and accompanied by Glanville, landed in Waterford on the 25th of April. His coming with a new batch of Norman followers completed the misfortunes of the first settlers. The Norman-Welsh knights of the border had by painful experience learned among their native woods and mountains how to wage such war as was needed in Ireland-a kind of war where armour was worse than useless, where strength was of less account than agility, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... capable of sin. For instance, when Sally had left them to search for her lost sheep, little Dan McCoy, moved by a desire for fun, went up behind little Charlie Christian and gave him an unmerited kick. It chanced to be a painful kick, and Charlie, without a thought of resentment or revenge, immediately opened his mouth, shut his eyes, and roared. Horrified by this unexpected result, little Dan also shut his eyes, opened his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... fight every inch from start to finish. I was going to let no chink of their armour go untried. I was going to make a good fight. My teeth chattered like castanets, jarring in my jaws until it was painful. But that was only with ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit me only to submit to your majesty's consideration, whether his long imprisonment and the confiscation of his estate, and the indigence and dispersion of his family, and the painful anxieties incident to all these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of sufferings which recommend him to the mediation of humanity? Allow me, Sir, on this occasion to be its organ; and to entreat that he may be permitted to come to this ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... reestablishment of his health. But, alas, in an unguarded moment, he dared to taste again the forbidden cup, and with this fled all his resolutions and restraints. From that time he drank more openly and freely. His fits returned with painful violence; friends remonstrated, entreated, pleaded, but all in vain. He thus continued his course of intemperance, with intervals of fits and sickness, about eight or ten months, and at length died drunk in his bed, where he had lain for two or three weeks in a continual ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... was apparently quite otherwise. He unbent with difficulty. Always solemn and dignified, it was rather painful than pleasant to him to stoop to the petty matters of every-day existence. He had no small affectations, and was not forever asserting that he was without ambition; as if that, without which nobody is of much use in the world either to himself or to others, were a weakness ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... why I have not written as I should have done. All summer long my eyes were so strained and painful that I had to let all reading and writing go. And I have suffered terribly with my back. But now I am able to be about again, do most of my own work, and my eyes are much better. So now I shall not treat you so badly again. If you ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... having called for "four stouts," with which he and his party refreshed themselves, began to think what would be the most amusing topic of conversation with Pen, and hit upon that precise one which was most painful to our ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of crackled black, the German chose to obey Kagig and came leaping back through the fire, and lay groaning on the floor, where the kahveh's owner's seven sons poured water on him by Kagig's order. His burns were evidently painful, but not nearly so serious as I expected. I got out the first-aid stuff from our medicine bag, and Will, who was our self-constituted doctor on the strength of having once attended an autopsy, disguised as a reporter, in the morgue at the back of Bellevue ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... asked by the finite of the infinite, by the mortal of the immortal; answer to it there is none save in the unending preoccupation of life and labour. And if this old question was in truth first asked upon the sea-shore, it was asked most often and with the most painful wonder upon western shores, whence the journeying sun was seen to go down and quench himself in the sea. The generations that followed our primitive man grew fast in knowledge, and perhaps for a time wondered the less as they knew the more; but we may be ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... the events as they happened; and in it I have adhered closely to fact in every particular, and endeavored to give each thing its true character. In so doing, I have been obliged occasionally to use strong and coarse expressions, and in some instances to give scenes which may be painful to nice feelings; but I have very carefully avoided doing so, whenever I have not felt them essential to giving the true character of a scene. My design is, and it is this which has induced me to publish the book, to present the life of a common sailor at sea ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... down in its spiritual aspect in Christianity and in every form of Christianity. The difference consists in this: that in Occidental Christianity it acted as a germ—as the principle of an evolution which led through a painful ascension of numberless steps to the idea of juridical and social equality. In Oriental Christianity the germ remained secluded in the spiritual sphere, without taking ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... then were in. It was the same in the Pyrenees:—for more reasons than one I was extremely sorry when we had to quit Pampeluna for Bayonne"—and the old gentleman sighed, and looked wistfully up at the ceiling, as though many a painful recollection came across ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... There is yet another home. Writing to Mrs. Wordsworth on February 18, 1818, Lamb gives a painful account, very similar in part to this essay, of the homeless home to which he was reduced by visitors. But by the time he wrote the essay, when all his day was his own, the trouble was not acute. He tells Bernard Barton on March 20, 1826, "My tirade against visitors ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... attempted by Sir William Howe. Soon after he resigned the command of the army. So far back as the month of October in the preceding year he had requested to be relieved from the painful service in which he was engaged. On the 14th of April, 1778, he received the King's permission to resign, but at the same time he was directed, while he continued in command, to embrace every opportunity of putting an end to the war by a due employment ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... were hardly needed, for he was severely wounded, and seemed incapable of rising from his pallet. I never saw so repulsive a countenance; and the flatness of the head was quite remarkable. His eyes were very prominent, and had the restless look of a hunted animal, which was painful in the extreme; but there was absolutely no redeeming expression of human feeling in the dark coarse face. Well, there was something human about him though. I was told he had been photographed that morning, and that he had expressed considerable satisfaction at the idea of his portrait being ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... diamonds, turbans, and cummerbands, had their usual effect in awakening the imaginations of the fair auditors. At the extinction of the faithless lover in a way so horribly new, I had, as indeed I expected, the good fortune to excite that expression of painful interest which is produced by drawing in the breath through the compressed lips; nay, one Miss of fourteen ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... affected by this request, which was spoken in so low and tremulous a voice, so burdened with a painful earnestness, that she appeared to gather from it the final conviction that upon her answer depended the future happiness or misery of our lives. I confess, for my own part, that the pause which ensued, during which she almost unconsciously repeated to herself, "Be the consequences what they may!" ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... been got into the house and up the narrow stairs. Besides an old horsehair armchair, there were two low plush "spring-rockers," against the massive pedestals of which one was always stumbling in the dark. Thea sat in the dark a good deal those first weeks, and sometimes a painful bump against one of those brutally immovable pedestals roused her temper and pulled her out of a heavy hour. The wall-paper was brownish yellow, with blue flowers. When it was put on, the carpet, certainly, had not been consulted. There was only one picture ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... no need to enlarge upon Katie's feelings, as she sat in her lonely chamber, buried in thoughts which were both sweet and painful. We all know perfectly well what they must have been, for we all understand about that sort of thing. We've dreamed love's young dream, you and I, haven't we? and so we'll let this pass. As for Katie, I'm afraid she must, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... convicted villains, Stukely and Mannourie. On these details I shall not enter. First, because one cannot trust a word of them; secondly, because no one will wish to hear them who feels, as I do, how pitiable and painful is the sight of a great heart and mind utterly broken. Neither shall I spend time on Stukely's villanous treatment of Raleigh, for which he had a commission from James in writing; his pretending to help him to escape, his going down the Thames in a boat with him, his trying ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... assurance, looked confidently over the crowd, seeking her husband's mutual glance of pleasure. Her faith had been justified. Her girl was an honourable wife—the wife of a gentleman well known to all. She had no longer any need to hide the wounding look or doubtful word in a protesting attitude, as painful to her as it was ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... abridged the painful solemnity of parting betwixt the Lady Eveline and her dependents, and lessened, at the same time, the formality of her meeting with the Constable, and, as it were, resigning herself to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... character, as it might be termed, and the amount of the author's personal experience which is found in passages. Such are his sketches of Rochester and Chatham life during his boyhood, his recollections of Grimaldi's dissolute son, his own poignant sorrow on the death of Mary Hogarth, and the painful memories of his boyish apprenticeship to an uncongenial trade more than hinted at. The election matters were also particular memories of his own, so was the scene of the ghostly mail coaches. Then there was the hideous recollection of the life in a debtors' ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... hands, with its seals, the royal commission. "You have convened this day," he said, "by his Majesty's orders. Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his kindness, Let your own hearts reply! To my natural make and my temper Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous. Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch; Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province Be transported to other lands. God grant ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Elba, Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel, Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows, "This is Nature," I said: "we are born as it were from her waters, Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncared-for, Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge, Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed." This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer; And as unthinking I sat in the ball of the famed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... 'You are doing nothing to remedy it, because there is nothing you are in a position to do. You are merely "standing by," as sailors say, from sentimental motives. It is laissez-faire, of a sort; only, it's an infernally painful and wearing sort for you. It reduces your life to something like her own, without, so far as I can see, benefiting her in the least. I think the police could do as well. In fact, in your place, I should clear out altogether, and give Mrs. Pelly a ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... Elizabeth, who sent down two commissioners to inquire into the matter. They sat in the castle hall, and examined all the attendants, including Richard and his wife. The investigation was extremely painful and distressing, but it was proved that nothing could have been more correct and guarded than the whole intercourse between the Earl and his prisoner. If he had erred, it had been on the side of caution and severity, though ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... battle-field or on the way to it. The crusader shall pass at once to Paradise. I myself must stand aloof, but, like Moses, I will be fervently and successfully praying while you are slaughtering the Amalekites. I will not seek to dry the tears which images so painful for a Christian and for the father of the faithful draw from you. Let us weep over the sins which have withdrawn the favor of God from us, but let us also weep over the calamities of the Holy City. But if tears be all, we shall leave the heritage of the Lord ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell

... want not only a man, but men, and we must throw, I fear, the bones of their race behind us before the true deliverers can spring up. Still, it is not all over; there will be deliverance presently, but it will not be now. We are full of painful sympathy for poor Venice. There! why write more about politics? It makes us sick enough to think of Austrians in our Florence without writing the thought out into greater expansion. Only don't let the 'Times' newspaper persuade you that there is no stepping ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... of the last king of the seventy-ninth dynasty closed in a series of events with the record of which it is painful to pollute the pages of history. The weak old man wished to divide his kingdom into dowries for his three daughters; but on proposing this arrangement to them, finding it received by the youngest with coldness and reserve, he drove her from his court, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... done for him, Master? I picked from his back the splinters I could see by the light of the lamp, and gave him some wine and water, and laid him on a linen cloth. The old woman muttered that the drawing of the cloth from the wound would be very painful. I dare say it will, Joseph returned, but I knew not what else to do, and it seemed to relieve him. Can you help him, Esora? Yes, I can; and she began telling him of her own famous balsam, the secret of which was imparted to her by her mother, who had it from her mother; and her great-grandmother ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... harsh words. It may safely be asserted that the consequences of these and other ways in which ill-temper may show itself, are entirely evil. The feelings, which accompany them in ourselves, and those which they excite in others, are unprofitable as well as painful. They lessen our own comfort, and tend often rather to prevent than to promote the improvement of those with whom we find fault. If we give even friendly and judicious counsels in a harsh and pettish tone, we excite against them the repugnance naturally felt to our manner. The consequence ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... shoulder and exposed the gaping hole to view. It was still bleeding slightly, but he noted with satisfaction that the bullet had passed completely through the fleshy part of the shoulder without touching the bone, a painful wound, but not a fatal one. He washed it clean with river water and bound it up with strips from his own shirt. "You'll be all right in a few days," he declared cheerfully. "Now just lay quiet. I am going to paddle in to the nearest point and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... reply. For a few moments the young man stood as if expecting some remark; none being made, he turned away, gathered together a few articles that were his own private property, tied them into a bundle and marked his name thereon. Then bowing to the merchant, he retired—oppressed from recent painful excitement, yet glad, in his inmost feelings, that a connection so dangerous as that with Jasper had been dissolved—dissolved even at the cost of ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... and splendidly important. His sense of insignificance fled. His ordinary petty and unvalued self dropped away flake by flake, and he realized something of the essential majesty of his own real Being as part of an eternal and wonderful Whole. The little painful throb of his own limited personality slipped into the giant pulse-beat of ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... it. There is an increase of pay, and this causes a certain unwillingness to work for as many hours as men formerly worked; and there is also a change in the nature of the operations that labor performs, which tends in the direction of more comfort and less painful toil. For the famous statement of J. S. Mill that "It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being" we may safely substitute, "It is the natural tendency of useful inventions to lighten the toil of workers and ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... knobs on the bark of the tree. At Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, there used to be certain oak-trees which were long celebrated for the cure of ague. The transference of the malady to the tree was simple but painful. A lock of the sufferer's hair was pegged into an oak; then by a sudden wrench he left his hair and his ague ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... inserts the wooden plug into the hole, so as to make it larger, and leaves the plug there. Then he takes a blade of grass, which he also inserts through the hole, by the side of the plug, and, holding the grass by the two ends, he makes it rotate round and round the plug. This is a painful process, which frequently causes tears and cries from the patient. He then probably goes through the same process with various other patients, as it is the custom to operate on several persons at the ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... dern and painful perch Of Pericles the careful search, By the four opposing coigns Which the world together joins, Is made with all due diligence That horse and sail and high expense Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre, Fame answering the most strange inquire, To the ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... as steel to his generals, but had frequent occasion to change them, as he found them inadequate. This serious and painful duty rested wholly upon him, and was perhaps his most important function as Commander-in-Chief; but when, at last, he recognized in General Grant the master of the situation, the man who could and would bring the war ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... analogous: some say that the battle of the Alma was won by the "uneducated gentry"; the "uneducated gentry" would be Cavaliers now. The political sentiment is part of the character; the essence of Toryism is enjoyment. Talk of the ways of spreading a wholesome conservatism throughout this country! Give painful lectures, distribute weary tracts (and perhaps this is as well,—you may be able to give an argumentative answer to a few objections, you may diffuse a distinct notion of the dignified dullness of politics); but as far as communicating ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... staring at the mountain behind which lay the thing they were seeking! It was not Joanne herself that set his blood throbbing. Her face had not paled. Its colour was like the hectic flush of a fever. Her eyes alone betrayed her; their strange intensity—the almost painful steadiness with which they hung to the distant mountain, and a dread of what was to come seized upon him. Again he found himself asking himself questions which he could not answer. Why had Joanne not confided more fully in him? What was the deeper significance of this visit ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... for her and had conquered all for her. He recalled the long struggle, the painful, patient waiting, the stern self-denial. He had deliberately chosen between pleasure and success,—between the present and the future. He had denied himself to achieve his fortune, ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page

... to these have held political doctrines not less criminal or absurd—it will be apparent to you how stubborn a phalanx of error blocks the paths of truth; that pure reason is as powerless as custom to solve the problem of free government; that it can only be the fruit of long, manifold, and painful experience; and that the tracing of the methods by which divine wisdom has educated the nations to appreciate and to assume the duties of freedom, is not the least part of that ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... words, the air-castles which had persistently built themselves without volition on his part, crumbled. There was nothing for him to do but to efface himself as quickly and as completely as possible. The sight of him could only be painful to Dora, and he wished to spare her all of that ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... to sell the mare, would anybody be willing to pay much for the twenty-two-year-old Queenie. In truth, Ira Ball was too tender-hearted to think of giving the Queen of Sheba over to a new owner and so sentence her to painful toil. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... nearly real than attempted concepts of large planets relatively near this earth, moving in orbits, but visible only occasionally; which more nearly approximates to reasonableness than does wholesale slaughter of Swift and Watson and Fritsche and Stark and De Cuppis—but our own acceptance is so painful to so many minds that, in another of the charitable moments that we have now and then for the sake of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... sixteenth century, Queen Catherine was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom, an incentive to treasonable hopes. In the nineteenth, she is an outraged and injured wife, the victim of a false husband's fickle appetite. The story is a long and painful one, and on its personal side need not concern us here further than as it illustrates the private character of Henry. Into the public bearing of it I must enter at some length, in order to explain the interest with which the nation threw itself into the question, and to remove the scandal ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... figment, by those who are firmly convinced that their own inspiration is perfect and unfailing. The result of all this is the development of characters as deformed as are the bodies of victims to hydrocephalus or goitre; while, in painful contrast to such victims, these morally distorted patients bear about their deformities in the most conspicuous manner, as if they were rare beauties. So pagan nations, when they embody their ideas of superhuman attributes, often construct figures having several heads ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity merely the well playing of my role,—such a mind is not a sheet of smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions,—no empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting—it is a painful pressure, constraining to write for comfort's sake,—an appetite craving to be satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted,—an impetus that longs to get away, rather than a dormant dynamic—thrice have I (let me confess it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real author, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... not be so much of a 'lark' as you think," said Bob; and Carey afterward recalled the words when he found himself debarred from accompanying other scouting-parties on account of a painful wound in his sword-arm. "We are not out after deserters now, ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... about, and I have none for you, except what concerns friends. My sister, God be thanked, has had a respite. She can now walk a few steps about her room, and has been borne twice into the open air. Southey to whom I sent your Sonnets had, I grieve to say, a severe attack of some unknown and painful complaint, about ten days ago. It weakened him much, but he is now I believe perfectly recovered. Coleridge I have reason to think is confined to his bed; his mind vigorous as ever. Your Sonnets I think are as good as anything you have done in verse. We like the 2d best; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... they all pressed to the door, for at that very instant shrieks, cries of pain, were heard issuing from the entrance below. In an instant the entire outpouring crowd with all possible force pushed back into the room, but it was a long time before the stream was pressed back again. Meanwhile, painful cries were again heard from below, so painful, indeed, that they restored even the most drunken to ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... countenance; but was so weak, notwithstanding he had so exerted himself in the fight, that he could not stand up upon his feet - he tried to do it two or three times, but was really not able, his ankles were so swelled and so painful to him; so I bade him sit still, and caused Friday to rub his ankles, and bathe them with rum, as he ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... in love," finished Mrs. Herne, crossing her hands; "that painful story is well known to me. Emilia was ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... pronounced these words when all was suddenly darkness. The luminous ceiling was gone, and so rapidly that my eyes received a painful impression. ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... "deposit it." The tone of the words seemed to mean, "Let us do this painful thing while the fit ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... purchase—these cunningly drawn-up deeds which have been deciphered by the hundred, reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, litigious, and almost exclusively absorbed in material concerns. The climate, too, variable and oppressive in summer and winter alike, imposed on the Chaldaean painful exactions, and obliged him to work with an energy of which the majority of Egyptians would not have felt themselves capable. And the plague of usury raged with equal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... the action of fire, presented themselves almost at every step. The day was oppressively hot, and as they had been exposed to the sun for a great number of hours, when they reached Engua, their skin was scorched and highly inflamed, which proved very painful to them. Richard Lander was comparatively inured to the climate, but his brother now begun to feel it severely, he was sore, tired, and feverish, and longed to be down in a hut, but they were obliged to remain under a tree for three hours, before they could ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... I; therefore we resolutely resisted Parsons' demands, and insisted that all that was needed was patience and the resolution to take the necessary pains, and in the end we got our own way and the work proceeded. But it proceeded with what, to me, was painful slowness, there being days occasionally on which the embryo ship presented precisely the same appearance when we knocked off work in the evening that she had done when we started in the morning, the whole day having been consumed ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... their departure, there was no change in Sir Beverley's state. He lay propped against Avery's arm and Ronald's knee breathing quickly, with painful effort, through his parted lips. He kept his eyes closed, but they knew that he was conscious by the heavy frown that drew his forehead. Once Avery offered him more brandy, but he refused it impatiently, and ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... Sarah's there was something which made her shrink, and which stung her deeply. She, who was generally so confident about herself and all that she did, felt a painful misgiving. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... or spread a straw litter in a bathing-machine. The level of comfort was, of course, not uniform. How should it be? Probably there is a choice of corners in a workhouse or casual-ward. Some of our party tasted the painful pleasures of the poor in the scant accommodation and naked simplicity of cottage lodgings. It was long after our arrival that we discovered a valued friend still sitting on the corner of his packing-case, and brewing his coffee on a washhand-stand. The fire smoked all day; but this vice in the ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... patronage of the Crown Prince and was one of the very few meeting places of Berlin society. The women were taught to waltz by male instructors and the men by several young women—blonde skaters from East Prussia. I tried to improve my skating and spent many hours making painful "Bogens" or circles under the efficient eyes of a little East Prussia instructress. Afternoon tea was served during the interval of skating and one afternoon a week was specially reserved for ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... prescribed manner. A suggestion on his part at five sharp that it wouldn't be a bad idea to go and have some tea was not favourably received by the enthusiastic three-quarter, who proposed to devote what time remained before lock-up to practising drop-kicking. It was a painful alternative that faced M'Todd. His allegiance to Barry demanded that he should consent to the scheme. On the other hand, his allegiance to afternoon tea—equally strong—called him back to the house, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... the corporation were William Brewster, of Scrooby, and his son Edward. In the fleet of Sir Thomas Gates, May, 1609, were noted Puritans, one of whom, Stephen Hopkins, "who had much knowledge in the Scriptures and could reason well therein," was clerk to that "painful preacher," but not strict conformist, Master Richard Buck. The intimate and sometimes official relations of the Virginia Company not only with leading representatives of the Puritan party, but with the Pilgrims of Leyden, whom they would gladly have received into their own colony, are matter of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... attention to what I said. It became still worse, when I commenced counting my sins, my memory, though very good, became confused: my head grew dizzy: my heart beat with a rapidity which exhausted me, and my brow was covered with perspiration. After a considerable length of time, spent in those painful efforts, I felt bordering on despair from the fear that it was impossible for me to remember exactly every thing, and to confess each sin as it occurred. The night following was almost a sleepless one: and when sleep did come, it could hardly be called sleep, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... worse outside my head than inside. I will even confess, that when I put my hat upon my head, clapping it on my head with that graceful energy which we gentlemen of the sword possess, if my fist was not very gently applied, I experienced the most painful sensations." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... you were there," she quickly replied. "I don't blame you. No, it did not hurt me—I mean, it was all over in half an hour. The contraction is very painful while it lasts. It's just like a cramp. I didn't intend to give the sitting, but Mr. Pratt requested it for a few of his friends and I couldn't well refuse. I didn't know you were there till mamma told me afterwards. There is no value in ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland



Words linked to "Painful" :   sensitive, agonizing, saddle-sore, torturesome, achy, racking, excruciating, torturing, aching, wrenching, inhumane, agonised, bad, unpleasant, biting, chafed, painless, galled, agonising, harrowing, uncomfortable, agonized, traumatic, terrible, tender, unspeakable, itchy, bitter, irritating, torturous, harmful, raw, poignant



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