"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drove back to Blois by the way of the Chateau de Cheverny. The road took us out of the park of Chambord, but through a region of flat woodland, where the trees were not mighty, and again into the prosy plain of the Sologne—a thankless soil to sow, I believe, but lately much amended by the magic of cheerful French industry and thrift. The light had already begun to fade, and my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural novel of Madame Sand. I passed a ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... the widow—just enough for her to manage—and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name,—only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent—we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Man's burden— Have done with childish days— The lightly proffered laurel The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... though spoken across the great abyss of time and space and thought and custom which separates him from us, warms a true man's heart even now. With touching fidelity he pictured the sad life of the lower orders,—their thankless toil, their constant misery; then, with a sturdiness which awes us, he arraigned, first, royalty for its crushing taxation,—next, the whole upper class for its oppressions,—and then, daring death, he thus launched into popular thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... commendation a kindred spirit, a well-wisher, a man after your own heart, a promoter, if I may be bold to say it, of your pursuits. See to it that you catch not the tone of our latter-day philosophers, and be thankless, petulant, and hard of heart, to him ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... fact, had become so critical, and the bank manager's demeanour so unpropitious, that in the previous year more than once the dawn had found her trying to decide between the Scylla of the thankless post of lady companion to some wealthy parvenu on the Riviera, and the Charybdis of raising money enough to allow her to harbour paying guests in ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... governor was the Lady Alianora La Despenser, who was left in charge of the King's said son. And two days afore Saint Francis [October 2nd] he left the Tower, and set forth toward Wallingford, leaving the Bishop of Exeter to keep the City: truly a thankless business, for never could any man yet keep the citizens of London. Nor could he: for a fortnight was not over ere they rose in insurrection against the King's deputies, invested the Tower, wrenched the keys from the ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... with which a thankless public has long come to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine instruction with amusement. Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor? There was a Car of Juggernaut, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... could desire, but adequacy of preparation for world-conquest never crept into his thought. He was as niggardly in supplying his generals and armies as Queen Elizabeth, and all but as voluble in abuse of his servants in the field or cabinet, and as thankless to those who had wrought his will. Parma, and Requesens, and Don John, and Alva, he drove almost frantic by his excessive demands and expectations, coupled with his entire inadequacy in preparation and supplies. His soldiers were always on the point of ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... I am not thankless of your thought of me. But I cannot go; for even if I had the spirits to sustain the role of a woman of fashion in the gay capital this winter, I feel that in doing so I should still further displease and alienate my husband. No, I must remain ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm getting sick of this family business, I'm ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... Morgana, breaking the talisman and dissolving the enchantment This would be a pity; but it would also be a pity that these two young persons should not come together. But why should I trouble myself with matchmaking? It is always a thankless office. If it turns out well, your good service is forgotten. If it turns out ill, you are abused ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... nominate in April his bastard brother, Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, as Requesens' successor. But Don John, who was then in Italy, had other ambitions, and looked with suspicion upon Philip's motives in assigning him the thankless task of dealing with the troubles in the Low Countries. Instead of hurrying northwards, he first betook himself to Madrid where he met with a cold reception. Delay, however, so far from troubling Philip, was thoroughly in ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... to me to be a thankless as well as a painful task," said Lady Bellamy, hoarsely, "but, if you will not believe me, look here, you know this, I suppose? I took it, as he asked me to do, from his dead hand that it might be ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... strong hand of Charles George Gordon, already famous through his achievements in China, and invested with unlimited power by Ismail; but, that potentate being overthrown, the great Englishman left his thankless post, no longer tenable by him. Then it seemed that chaos had come again; and a bold and keen, though probably hypocritical, dervish, self-styled the Mahdi, or Mohammedan Messiah, was able to kindle new flames of revolt, which burned with the quenchless fury of Oriental ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... Pressure was coming from all sides. More than ten years had elapsed since the enactment of the Dingley bill and the position of many industries had been altered with the course of time. Evidently the day for revision—at best a thankless task—had arrived. Taft accepted the inevitable and called Congress in a special session. Until the midsummer of 1909, Republican Senators and Representatives wrangled over tariff schedules, the President making little effort to influence their decisions. When ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... accompanied by John Cantacuzene, the protostrator Synadenus, and an escort of thirty soldiers, stood before the gate of Gyrolimne to parley with the elder emperor. The domestic was the bearer of the messages exchanged between the imperial relatives on that occasion. It was a thankless task. But what troubled the mind of Maroules most was how to avoid giving offence to both sovereigns and succeed in serving two masters. To salute the grandson as became his rank and pretensions would incur the grandfather's displeasure; to treat rudely the young prince, who had ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... the death of the Prince, the mystery has not yet been removed, and the field is still open to conjecture. It seems a thankless task to grope in the dark after the truth at a variety of sources; when the truth really exists in tangible shape if profane hands could be laid upon it. The secret is buried in the bosom of the Vatican. Philip wrote two letters on the subject to Pius ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Dryden's awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... them to leave Venice, Mr. Orson was even eager to go. The vice-consul would have gone with them in contempt of the official responsibilities which he felt to be such a thankless burden, but there was really no need of his going, and he and Clementina treated the question with the matter-of-fact impartiality which they liked in each other. He saw her off at the station where Maddalena had come to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "No, no, stay here Argantes' wounds to cure, And make him strong to shed thy darling's blood, Of such reward he may himself assure, That doth a thankless woman so much good: Ah, may it be thy patience can endure To see the strength of this Circassian wood, And not with horror and amazement shrink, When on their future ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... independence as well as the struggle of over half a century later for the emancipation of the slave have given to these ideas of inalienable human rights a hold upon the conscience of the nation altogether incommensurate with their actual validity. It would be a thankless task and yet an altogether feasible one to show that the Revolutionary fathers did not break with English traditions in their declarations of rights. They simply stripped these principles of their original religious and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... suffer in silence. All this while The Sewer had been filled with letters lauding every thing about the Bath Hotel; and communications equally disinterested, and couched in the same tone, had found their way into some more respectable prints. Benson undertook the thankless task of undeceiving the public. He sat down one evening and wrote off a spicy epistle to The Blunder and Bluster, setting forth how things really were at Oldport. Two days after, when the New-York mail arrived, great was the wrath of Mr. Grabster. He called into council the old gentleman with the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... gladness fostering evermore A soft content of soul! But ah, I shudder at thine anguish sore— Thy doom thro' years that roll! Thou could'st not cower to Zeus: a love too great Thou unto man hast given— Too high of heart thou wert—ah, thankless fate! What aid, 'gainst wrath of Heaven, Could mortal man afford? in vain thy gift To things so powerless! Could'st thou not see? they are as dreams that drift; Their strength is feebleness A purblind race, in hopeless fetters bound, They have no craft ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... also showed the sort of work to be done in this thankless protection of the metropolis. During one of the sessions there had appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, had become a layman and head of a protectory ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... and would receive a share of Steve's time and attention it would be the thankless, almost bitter portion—such as reserving plates for Mr. and Mrs. O'Valley or O.K.ing Mrs. O'Valley's bills. Still it was hers, awarded to her because of keenness of brain and faithfulness of action. Steve needed her as much as he needed to come home to his miniature ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... auroral light and they had pretended to be fed and fortified? These are mysteries into which I shall not attempt to enter, speculations with which I have no concern; it is sufficient for us to know that all human effort had never seemed to her so barren and thankless as on that fatal afternoon. Her eyes rested on the boats she saw in the distance, and she wondered if in one of them Verena were floating to her fate; but so far from straining forward to beckon her home she almost wished that she might glide away for ever, that she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... sacrificial sector to which they sent, from now on, few men, scant munitions, and only artillery of the older type. Their object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However, the generals in charge of this thankless task, Petain and Nivelle, decided that the best defensive plan consisted in attacking the enemy. To carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed on the battlefields of Central Africa, the Soudan, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... without resorting to sheriffs' fines, no less than sixteen individuals being mulcted for refusing to serve as sheriff in less than two months.(400) It was no difficult task to find men unwilling to serve such a thankless office at so critical ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... sharpened her wits and instincts amazingly. I am sure that she was just as well aware of the nature of Jerry's infatuation as though Jerry had told it himself. If Una cared for him as deeply as I had had the temerity to suppose, then her position was difficult—painful and thankless. But whatever her own wish to help him, I am sure that the nature of the desire was unselfish. After events prove that. All that Una saw in the situation of Jerry and Marcia was a friend who needed helping, who was worth helping ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... to get fighting men to serve his warrants, and he could not always be particular about the social standing of his posses. He had a thankless and dangerous position as the "Murphy sheriff." Most of his posses were recruited from among the small ranchers and cow boys of the lower Pecos. Peppin was sheriff only a few months, and threw up ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... flesh and blood can bear. Pity takes the place of wrath and indignation that she alone should suffer: why not Lethington, Huntly, Athole, and the rest, all those stern peers who counselled with her upon the most effectual way of having Darnley removed, the thankless fool who disturbed every man's peace—why were not they tried along with her, they who took such high ground as her judges? Why should she bear the brunt of all? Even Bothwell had escaped, and Mary stood at the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... of the best land round the cottage to the widow—just enough for her to manage—and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name—only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent—we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the Squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, and so—I wish you would not stand there staring ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... read through all that seemed to concern me the first day. I have doubted whether it would be most considerate to return you thanks for it, making you pay for a letter: or to leave you thankless, with a shilling more in your pocket. You see I have taken the latter [? former], and God forgive me for it. The book is a good one, I think, as any book is, that notes down facts alone, especially about health. I wish we had diaries of the lives of half the unknown ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... Man, to man so oft unjust, Is always so to Women: one sole bond Awaits them—treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal their bursting hearts despond Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage—and what rests beyond? A thankless husband—next, a faithless lover— Then ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... it out, and raked it up, somehow, if I had buried it at the bottom of the deepest well in England. No, no! I knew better than that. I took what I thought his secrets were hid in: and them he couldn't afford to make public, let'em be worth ever so much money. He's an old dog; a sly, old, cunning, thankless dog! He first starved, and then tricked me; and if ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... were punitive measures, unreasonable and unjust, and some men were afraid to be just if the railroad would in any way be benefited. I tried to be discriminating and impartial, judging each measure on its merits. I found it was a thankless task and bred suspicion. An independent man is usually distrusted. At the end of the session a fine old farmer, consistently against the railroad, said to me: "I couldn't make you out for a long time. Some days I gave you a white mark, and some days ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Babhru stood gazing at her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, who only have themselves to blame, since they flock to him, like ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... as bad as a thankless child, and that is a thankless parent—an irate, irascible parent who possesses an underground vocabulary and a disposition ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... no more thankless task than the attempt to assure shying people that we love them, respect them, and are glad to continue their acquaintance. The instances in which old school-mates meet in the journey of life with a sickening coolness, in consequence of changed circumstances and relations, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... read without a shudder—a nightmare of horrors. Fanaticism may brace a man to hurl himself into oblivion, as the Mahdi's hordes did before Khartoum, but one feels that it is at least a higher development of such emotion, where men slowly and in cold blood endure so thankless a life, and welcome so dreadful an end. Every faith can equally boast its martyrs—a painful thought, since it shows how many thousands must have given their blood for error—but in testifying to their faith these brave men have testified to something more important still, to the subjugation ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... quarter of the century, on the hills which stand above the Ohio River, but in different States of the Union, were born two children, destined, to all appearance, to lives of narrow interests and thankless toil. They were the sons of poor parents, without influence or expectations; their native villages, deep in the solitudes of the West, and remote from the promise and possibilities of great cities, offered no road to fortune. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... thankless world the giver Is envied even by the receiver; 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion Rather to hide than own the obligation: Nay, 'tis much worse than so; It now an artifice does grow Wrongs and injuries to do, Lest ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... are a very thankless child, my little Salome, for you are very far from happy," said her father, gravely shaking his head, yet looking so tenderly upon her as to take all rebuke from ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... for a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake. The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house. He was to get twenty-five per cent. on the sales; ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... so as was terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the courage and the steady patriotism of the Boer leaders, and the events of the next two years justified their resolution. Joubert, who had attended the Krijgsraad in feeble health, died a few days after its adjournment, and L. Botha was appointed to the thankless office of Commandant-General. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... fruit of deliberation, if I had had the time or power to deliberate, I know not. My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity. To shut this spectacle from my view was the first impulse; but to desert this man, in a time of so much need, appeared a thankless and dastardly deportment. To remain where I was, to conform implicitly to his direction, required no effort. Some fear was connected with his presence, and with that of the dead; but, in the tremulous confusion of my present thoughts, solitude would ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... difficult matter to interest capital in their projects. Railroad committees were in time formed in all cities of any importance, but, with capital cowardly, as usual, and governments distrustful, their task was often a thankless one. Railroad projects matured very slowly, and, when matured, were often wrecked by jealous and short-sighted governments. After the formation of a company five and even ten years would often pass away ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... go, and I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and seal ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... required more room. Men have been taken into membership since the object for which the society was formed seemed to be feasible, and, as a natural result, whatever of financial and honorary reward may be accorded the self-sacrificing women who performed the arduous and thankless labor of founding the institution, will be shared with the men who now come ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of the contemporary German Protestant historian, Seckendorf, was much harder, for the Thirty Years War had, as he confesses, made many people doubt the benefits of the Reformation, distrust its principles, and reject its doctrines. He discharged the thankless labor of apology in a work of enormous erudition, still valuable to the special student for the documents ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... lordship, bones which probably included those of Lupus's own dam. No creature of that range other than themselves had ever seen the inside of this den and lived. No man had ever set his foot there, for the climbing of Mount Desolation was a thankless task for all save such as Tasman and Lupus, who liked its naked ruggedness and its commanding inaccessibility, high above the loftiest of the caves inhabited by other wild folk ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... and who has done so much for you? If there be any crime which in the sight of God is greater than all others, it appears to me it must be the abuse of parents. If the spirit of a demon dwells in any human breast, it must be in that breast which is thankless for parental favors, and which can requite that love, which watched over our infancy and protected our helpless years, with ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... her sharply, but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... result of this investigation is only to draw the attention of those who are interested in ascertaining the previous history of the country they inhabit and love, be they members of scientific societies or of colonial governments, the task undertaken will not prove a thankless one. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the "turning out" or rising from your berth when the watch was called at night—that I never fancied. It was a sort of acquaintance, which the more I cultivated, the more I shrunk from; a thankless, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... ran up to put on her bonnet; 'but I suppose toothache puts people out of the pale of civilization. And if he is thankless, is not that treating me more ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feasible the control of all the machines from one central station, built at the edge of the Northern Glacier. Here were brought the scant few of the prolats that had been spared, a pitiful four hundred men and women, and they were set to endless, thankless tasks. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... of his discontent was breathed over the cornfield where the plants were growing and growing. They shuddered and murmured: "How thankless to complain! Are we not growing as fast as we can? If we were idle would we bear wheat-ears at all? How thankless ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... another dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a good lad. Now we'll be off to old London again—eh, Lake? ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that he went each month to purchase a stock at a neighbouring ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... that to write for the stage in his day was a thankless and almost degrading occupation. "Avowedly I will never write for the stage; if I do, 'call me horse.'" he said in a letter to Terry.[125] Again in a letter to Southey: "I do not think the character ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... clinging to his neck now, wild-eyed like a Maenad. He felt pitifully ridiculous. The role of Joseph is so thankless and humiliating. A month ago he would have ordered her sternly to get out of the room and behave herself. But the hot month in Tokyo had relaxed his firmness of mind; and familiarity with Reggie's bohemian morality has sapped his fortress ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... duty of replying to that very explicit statement. "There is none here," he said, "that is not grateful for the benevolence he has received at the hands of the Tokugawa. If there be such a thankless and disloyal person, and if he conceive treacherous designs, I, Masamune, will be the first to attack him and strike him down. The shogun need not move so much as one soldier." With this spirited reply all the assembled daimyo expressed their concurrence, and Iemitsu proceeded ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you. I love you, and you would be thankless indeed if you ceased to love me. Let us love each other, but let us not endeavour to give one another proofs of our love. It might be fatal. That accursed widow! She is gone away, and in a fortnight we shall be going also to Bale, where we remain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... on being reappointed for a second term, took up the thankless task at an especially black moment. He was as brave as a lion; and if his red beard gained him the nickname of 'Rufus,' the Red Viceroy was as fearless as though his life were absolutely secure, instead of depending wholly on the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious undertaking! Or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and accident—a sure but distant and thankless consummation; or, shall we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free course to the current which has been artificially impeded, and float upon the mingling waves the ark of our ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... mope in joyless plight, While youth and spring bedeck the scene, And scorn the profer'd gay delight, With thankless heart and frowning mien? See Joy with becks and smiles appear, While roses strew the devious way; The feast of life she bids us share, Where'er our pilgrim ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... missionaries have as yet made no remarkable impression on the religious mind of the Siamese. Devoted, persevering, and patient laborers, the field they have so faithfully tilled has rewarded them with but scanty fruits. Nor will the fact, thankless though it be, appear surprising to those whose privilege it has been to observe the Buddhist and the Roman Catholic side by side in the East, and to note how, even on the score of doctrine, they meet without a jar at many points. The average Siamese citizen, entering ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... been lashed into the rigging by loving and dying hands, but cold and stiff, the little soul beaten out of him by the cruel waves before it had time to show what growth there might have been in it. We will talk no more of such things. It is thankless to be sad when all heaven and earth are keeping holiday under ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... "Well, there 'tis. What am I goin' to do? When they wanted me to take the job in the first place I kind of hesitated. You know I did. 'Twas bound to be one of those thankless sort of jobs that get a feller into trouble, bound to be. And yet—and yet—well, SOMEBODY has to take those kind of jobs. And a man hadn't ought to talk all the time about how he wishes he could do somethin' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ever learned the sonnet's bitter craft But he had put away his sleep, his ease, The wine he loved, the men with whom he laughed, To brood upon such thankless tricks as these? And yet, such joy does in that craft abide He greets the paper as the ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... called upon to rally all his humanity, all his faith in merciful dealing and the reward which goes along with it. For it was hard to give, hard to befriend, so thankless and ungracious a being. Yet, having put his hand to the plough, he refused to look back. He had inherited a strain of fanaticism which took the form of unswerving loyalty to his own word once given. So he spoke gravely and kindly, as one speaks to the sick who are beyond ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... that Carl should become a clergyman, but his distaste for theology did not go unexpressed. So perverse and persistent were his inclinations that they preyed on the mind of his father, who quoted King Lear and said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... how I feel! Teaching before dependence, death before teaching. My soul revolts from the drudgery. I never see a governess that my heart does not ache for her. I think of the nameless, numberless insults and trials she is forced to submit to; of the hopeless, thankless task that is imposed on her, to which she is expected to submit without a murmur; of all her griefs and agony shut up in her heart, and I cry Heaven help a governess. My heart bleeds ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... of Simon's death again are contradictory; if Simon perished so miserably at Rome, it is the reverse of probable that the Romans would have set up a statue in his honour. But, indeed, it is a somewhat thankless task to criticize such manifest inventions; we know the source of their inspiration, and we know the fertility of the religious imagination, especially in matters of controversy, and this is a sufficient sieve wherewith to sift ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that was doomed ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... accounts, after the customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... I love you? You do not ask, Nor waste yourself on the thankless task. I give your kisses at least return, What matter whether they freeze or burn. I feel the strength of your fervent arms, What matter whether ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... a hard eye. "You put the cart before the horse, I think," says he. "That which I had given was a portion of my liking, which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered." He paused a bit. "And I warn you, you do not know yourself," he added. "Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The Persian, and as such I came to know A widow in distress. By virtue of My few remaining jewels which I sold For her, and by the good advice I gave, I rescued her from utter penury. She was not thankless, I disliked her not, And in the end I married her. And she Even to this very day thinks that I am A Persian, and she calls me Hassan, not Barak. And so I live with her, and I Am poor indeed after my former state, But richer than a prince now that I find You who ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... love and gratitude Always please the wise and good, But contempt and hate from all, On the thankless child will fall. ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... he partially immerses: he remains steadfast and unmoved, and we all know that he must be drowned. The multitudes who daily perish in this manner to attest a philosophical truth, and whose bodies the unreasoning wave casts sullenly upon our thankless shores, have a truer claim to be called the martyrs of science than a Galileo or a Kepler. To use Kossuth's eloquent phrase, they are the unnamed demigods ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... answered Doctor Moran bitterly—"to bring up daughters, to love them, to toil and save and deny ourselves for them, and then to see some strange man, of whom we have no certain knowledge, carry them off captive to his destiny and his desires. 'Tis a thankless portion to be a father—a ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... the thankless traitor, whether king or beggar he!" And a dagger gleamed above us with a fierce glare at the light, Then was struck upon my bosom near the place the heart might be, And my false friend, through the people, hastened wildly ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... the tenure, but the manner of making all appointments. There is no duty which so much embarrasses the Executive and heads of Departments as that of appointments, nor is there any such arduous and thankless labor imposed on Senators and Representatives as that of finding places for constituents. The present system does not secure the best men, and often not even fit men, for public place. The elevation and purification of the civil service of the Government will be hailed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... her stings! This essence of all suffering, which is joy! I am not thankless for the spell it brings, Though tears must be told down for ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... Inconnu, though they will no doubt recognize that even in the first two named members of these pairs the Balzacian quality, that of magnifying and rendering grandiose, is present, and that the martyrdom of Eugenie, the avarice of her father, the blind self-devotion of Goriot to his thankless and worthless children, would not be what they are if they were seen through a ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... artist, I would reject the proposal with contempt." This very favorable opinion from one who considered all he said, and was so remarkable for accuracy of judgment, decided the destiny of Fuseli; he forsook for ever the hard and thankless trade of literature—refused a living in the church from some patron who had been struck with his talents—and addressed himself to painting with heart ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... 31: "The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them.... They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... seemed so ridiculously self-evident that he wondered why anybody should bother his brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... It is a thankless task to try to explain a joke, but some of the fun in these jolly old rhymes depends upon facts that are not generally known or that may have been forgotten. A few words here may help to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... rough account of the actual work of diplomacy. It is not a full account. There are many wrong things done which deserve criticism, but which we have not had space to mention. There is also much self-sacrificing and thankless work done by diplomatists and consuls in distant parts of the world—much seeming drudgery which can hope for no reward—many honourable services rendered to the public of which the public never hears. But the above account will suffice to give a rough idea of the organisation with ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... four years at quarterly intervals. Emerson was a constant contributor, and for the last half of its existence he acted as editor. 'I submitted,' he told Carlyle, 'to what seemed a necessity of petty literary patriotism—I know not what else to call it—and took charge of our thankless little Dial here, without subscribers enough to pay even a publisher, much less any labourer; it has no penny for editor or contributor, nothing but abuse in the newspapers, or, at best, silence; but it serves as ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... never really before the footlights as Mr. Bell was, he was an indispensable part of the show,—the power behind the scenes, the man at the other end of the wire, who furnished the lecture hall with such stunts as would not only convince an audience but also entertain them. It was a dull, thankless position, perhaps, to be so far removed from the excitement and glamor, to be always playing or singing into a little wooden box and never catching a glimpse of the fun that was going on at the other end of the line; but since Mr. Watson was a rather ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the use and calling of his life: the duty and service of helping his brethren to know as they had never yet learned to know. That thought never left him; the obligations it imposed were never forgotten in the crush and heat of business; the toils, thankless at the time, which it heaped upon him in addition to the burdens of public life were never refused. Nothing diverted him, nothing made him despair. He was not discouraged because he was not understood. There never was any one in whose life the "Souverainete du but" was more certain and more ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Gordon. This was the main object the Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... "the dear boy did all that for a thankless paymaster; for it is true, Agricola, that his wounds will never change his humble black robe of a priest into the rich ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... since that will come to him in the ordinary course of nature. He is one of the personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery, inasmuch as he must be a peer malgre lui. He served a long apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless, his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have found for him office in other department than that of the Whip. But Mr. Gladstone, very shrewdly from the Leader's point of view, felt that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and respected him and even loved him as a dear friend, but that I could not be faithless to the memory of my adored husband. I was very sorry; for he was very angry. He called me cold, silly and even ungrateful, so to reject his hand. I began to think that it was selfish and thankless in me to disappoint so good a friend, but I could not help it, loving the memory of my sainted husband as I did. I was grieved ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the apprentice, "but for you I should not have been here. I undertook a thankless office, and have been rightly served for my folly. We have both found our way to the Fleet, but I much doubt if either of us will find his way out of it. As for me, I liked the appearance of the place, and the society ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... "Beg pardon," or, "I beg your pardon," or even, "I did not understand," can soon be taught to even childish lips and never be forgotten as they advance to maturity. The use of "Please," and "Thank you," or, "I thank you," (never the thankless "Thanks,") should be early ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... darling wife! I should be a cur, and worse than a cur—a thankless wretch—to wish to restrain you in anything!" he answered, sealing his ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... honourable man. But he has one terrible defect. In his nature, there is the fatal pliability which finds companionable qualities in bad friends. In this aspect of his character, he is a dangerous man—and he may be (forgive me!) a bad husband. It is a thankless task to warn you to any good purpose. A wife—and a loving wife more than another—feels the deteriorating influence of a husband who is not worthy of her. His ways of thinking are apt to become, little ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... sighed. "So touching when a father—no matter how selfish—is wrecked by love of a thankless son. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I warned him six years ago. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... conclusion, they were precluded, by their present relations with France, from entering into any other negotiation; nor could they listen to any such proposals without deserving to be stigmatized as the most lewd, blasphemous, and thankless mortals, that ever cumbered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the spirit sounder, With upright steps, in His errand walk; And, then, not question if you shall founder, Nor care for grateful, or thankless, talk! Fulfill your calling With courage peerless! If even falling, Look upward fearless! Then there shall clasp thee an angel's hand And gently ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... Petroleum ether is the best practical solvent in use for its isolation, as it does not dissolve the majority of the remaining constituents of the hop, especially the hop-resin, which they contain in considerable quantity. Still, the extraction of hop-bitter acid from hops is a troublesome and thankless job, the petroleum ether taking up certain substances which add greatly to the difficulty of purifying the crystals. On the other hand, we can readily and quickly attain our object, if we employ for our original material fresh ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... hospital full, though, don't they?" he added, unconsciously expressing Mr. Winston's view of the situation. "Me an' Mis' Yorke, we foun' out the truth of the Scriptur' sayin', how sharper than an achin' tooth it is to have a thankless child, an' Tom,—I don't min' sayin' it to you,—he was thankless enough, though he's dead an' gone, an' his old father ain't the one to cast stones at him now. But me an' Mis' Yorke, we don't want to make out the truth of that other Scriptur', that the sins of the father shall be ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... experiment is as good an extravagance as another. England was fantastically rich; and some of the very rich allowed some of the very clever to wheedle from them great sums of money, knowing all the time that these would be applied to such unsettling activities as the education of thankless labourers or anti-sweating propaganda. Even towards Art rolled a few coppers; indeed, the best painter in England tells me that about this time he was earning as much as two hundred a year. It was thought odd but not shameful in Mr. Thomas ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... chivalrous by a Parliament that knows him to be malignant, unscrupulous, and merciless. To prevent such a catastrophe it was a painful but necessary duty to bring out the realities of the case; and not only a painful but also a thankless duty in face of what everybody knew would be the attitude of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... to contest the comfort of a tear, Nor check those sighs, that to my heart are dear, Since ease from them alone it hopes to prove. Ye verses, weep!—ye rhymes, your woes renew! For Cino, master of the love-fraught lay, E'en now is from our fond embraces torn! Pistoia, weep, and all your thankless crew! Your sweetest inmate now is reft away— But, heaven, rejoice, and hail ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thankless existence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw me into a profound depression, until I began to cherish the idea of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... personal sacrifice, even of life and reputation, if the interest of his country demands it. We knew the condition upon which we stepped aside from the agreeable and peaceful avocations of life, and entered upon the task so distasteful, so repulsive, and for a time so thankless. We had reason to know that the shafts of fiendish calumny would assail, that friendship would be broken, that envy and jealousy would ply their innuendoes, that the Copperhead elements of a fraternity, claiming ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... of psychology. You will succeed after a while, but precipitation, compulsion, and disputes are useless. The improvement of a soprano voice, ruined by over-screaming, requires prudence, patience, calmness, and modesty, and a character of a high type generally. It is also a very thankless task, and success is rare; while on the piano a fair result ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... manners of the domestic servants are full of attention and courtesy. Mauritius first belonged to the Dutch (for the Portuguese did not attempt to colonize it), who seem to have been bullied out of it by pirates and hurricanes, and who finally gave it up as a thankless task about the year 1700. A few years later the French, having a thriving colony next door at Bourbon, sent over a man-of-war and "annexed," unopposed, the pretty little island. But there were all sorts of difficulties to overcome in those ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... extremely obliged to you for your constant and kind letters, which supply the vacancy of all other information. You will perhaps know before you receive this, that after having employed Pitt, and through him, me, and also General Ross, separately, to press Tom to accept the thankless office of his Secretary, Lord Cornwallis has, without one word of communication to him, written to say that, Pelham declining, he desires to have Lord Castlereagh. It is of a piece with all the rest! Pelham has declined, and so the whole thing will go ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... least, was the greatest power and the visible ruler of the Shore of Refuge. Belarab still lingered at his father's tomb. Whether that man of the embittered and pacific heart had withdrawn there to meditate upon the unruliness of mankind and the thankless nature of his task; or whether he had gone there simply to bathe in a particularly clear pool which was a feature of the place, give himself up to the enjoyment of a certain fruit which grew in profusion there and indulge ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the old proverb is true—Save a drowning man, and beware of an adders sting. But I have power: and can punish the thankless heart. So rise, traitor, and ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... private secretary; and that you may be a master as well as a servant, I present you the estate Czernihon, near Rheinsberg. There you will be lord of your peasants and workmen, and learn if it is not a thankless office to rule. Are ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... went on the Itinerant Tinker after a while, "I tried once to make her stand up—after she had set, you know. It proved a thankless task. She treated me very rudely, indeed. By the by, have you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... sit down and begin a letter to my lady: a very tender letter it was too, though it was never finished. Indeed, all communication with New York was transacted by myself; and it will be judged I had a thankless task of it. What to tell my lady, and in what words, and how far to be false and how far cruel, was a thing that kept ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains and benefits To laughter and contempt; that she may feel How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... radical. Hoover's father was a bishop, and I think Hoover is just a bit narrow from early training. He can't see that lots of people who haven't a vestige of humour are nevertheless worth saving. I admit that saving them will be a thankless task. God won't be able to take very much pleasure in it, but in strict justice he will do it—even if Hoover does regard it as a piece ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Sweden's most gifted women is Elfrida Andree. Born in 1841, she soon devoted herself to musical studies, and took up the career of organist, so often a thankless one. She plays at present in the cathedral at Gothenburg. Her works include many different forms, even the symphonic. Her organ symphony is especially noteworthy, and all her orchestral works show decided talent. Her orchestral cantata, "Siegfried," ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... all peradventure, having borne away one member of the household, the "Last Carrier" from force of habit hastens to perform the same thankless service for the remainder;—thus ere summer sunshine streamed on the husband's grave, another yawned at its side, and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to tell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife of Daniel Grey had been snatched away ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... and blistered, his delicate hands and smooth legs scratched by brambles, his slender neck bowed beneath the weights he carried on shoulders stretched to cracking point—Silvestro worked from dawn to dusk, rejoicing in the thankless office. Thankless it was, since Master Pilade took no sort of notice; yet Silvestro gave thanks. Pilade allowed the other to stoop to his shoe-ties, to wind the swathes about his sturdy calves, to carry his very cloak and staff, while ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... by the confused utterances of the Ministry, and by Mr. Gladstone's elaborate attempts to prove that though General Gordon was "hemmed in" he was not surrounded. Poor Mr. Gladstone! It was sad indeed that he should have to undertake this thankless task, and should be compelled to make out a case for a Cabinet which had practically got out of hand. It was in connection with one of his apologies for the Ministry that Mr. Forster charged him with being able ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... proudly, "I will be a poet." Hereupon Artemisia and Serventius laughed, and informed me that the profession of a poet, if such it might be termed, was the most laborious, thankless, and ill requited of any, and that to be a poet, was in fact little better than being an honourable mendicant. The Church and the Bar were mentioned, but as I expressed a decided antipathy to them, Serventius named ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... vision of the horror she was praying to avert; bearing the fasting and the penance and the weakness, all alone, in the hope that God would be merciful; gathering up her failing strength so bravely for that thankless scene in the Senate. And he, her husband, who had never meant that his love should fail her, could have spared her all this pain by a little comprehension! Could she ever forgive him? And would she understand some day? Might he reason it ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull |
