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Trying   /trˈaɪɪŋ/  /traɪŋ/   Listen
Trying

adjective
1.
Hard to endure.
2.
Extremely irritating to the nerves.  Synonyms: nerve-racking, nerve-wracking, stressful.  "The stressful days before a war" , "A trying day at the office"



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"Trying" Quotes from Famous Books



... hunting at a distance. The women and children in the fort cried and screamed without ceasing. She ordered them to stop, lest their terror should encourage the Indians. A canoe was presently seen approaching the landing-place. It was a settler named Fontaine, trying to reach the fort with his family. The Iroquois were still near; and Madeleine feared that the new comers would be killed, if something were not done to aid them. She appealed to the soldiers, but their courage was not equal to the attempt; on which, as she declares, after leaving Laviolette ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... and cleaning ourselves, and trying to recover from the effects of the battle, before starting on any more serious work. On the Sunday, at Church Parade, General Thwaites came and spoke to us, congratulating us once more on the 8th, and praising especially "C" Company for their bayonet work. He was very angry indeed ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... those difficulties may cease and be avoided. We also order and command the fiscal of the Audiencia to see to its execution. The senior auditor shall inspect the ships at the time of their sailing, and see if any married woman is aboard, who has no necessity for making the voyage. The trying of any cause shall be before the said president and auditors, who shall provide justice, and this shall be made a clause of their residencias. [Felipe III—San Lorenzo, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... echoed her words in just the tone of voice she had dreaded and expected to hear, half hurt, half angry. She could feel his eyes peering down at her, trying to read her face through the darkness, then he gave a ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... air castles," he replied, "for one thing, and trying to solve a harder problem than algebra contains, for another. The husking dance does not trouble me. I would like to go to one every week. Do you feel any remorse ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... said this she pointed to a partition with windows of ground glass, which extended across the farther end of the store, evidently forming a private department for trying on hats and bonnets. Quincy said nothing, but taking out his cardcase passed one ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... old girl," he informed me in confidence. "Thinks no end of herself, and always trying to hang on to some woman with a title, even if she's only a baronet's wife. Some ill-natured woman has nicknamed her the Chameleon—because she changes her dresses so often and is so fond of bright colours. But she's a good old sort," he ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... her mouth of which I have spoken, grew distinct and rigid, "I would not if I could. What indeed would it, as I have been told and believe, avail, but to cause the death of two deceived innocent persons instead of one? Besides," she continued, trying to speak with firmness, and repress the shudder which crept over and shook her as with ague—"besides, whatever the verdict, the penalty will not, cannot, I am sure, I ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... mine were most uncomfortable. It was when I aided Mr. Lorry in escaping from the tower. I wore a guard's uniform and rode miles with him in a dark carriage before he discovered the truth." She blushed at the remembrance of that trying hour. ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... hand he sent the hat which Harry had been trying to smooth out whirling amongst the throng of boys. There was a shriek of laughter as the hat was caught, and sent whirling in turn to another part of the throng. This was the finishing stroke to Harry. He burst into a flood of passionate tears. The public school boy holds in contempt ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and I found myself looking into the ashy ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... Bishop. "But it has come to this. We have got to trust the one person whom we always show we tacitly distrust by trying to take matters out of His hands. We must trust God. So far we have strained ourselves to keep Hester alive, but she is past our help now. She is in none the worse case for that. We are her two best friends save one. We must leave her to the best Friend of all. God ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial letter to something that would fit it and keep ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... the second day of the battle of Chancellorsville, General Pleasonton was trying to get twenty-two guns into a vital position as Stonewall Jackson made a sudden advance. Time had to be bought; so Pleasanton ordered Major Peter Keenan, commanding the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry (four hundred strong), to charge the advancing ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... similar cases consists in a process of Limitation. The performance of this operation, it must be confessed, requires a most delicate hand. It is an art, moreover, which no one can teach another. And yet, if it is not learned by all who are trying to lead the Christian life, it cannot be for want of practice. For, as we shall see, the Christian is called upon to ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... an understanding at the time existing among men of weight on both sides of the house that the position in which the Reform question was placed was one embarrassing to the crown and not creditable to the house, and that any minister trying his best to deal with it under these circumstances would receive the candid consideration of the house. It was thought, moreover, that a time might possibly arrive when both parties would unite in endeavoring to bring about a solution ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... 2000, but excluded prominent opposition leader Alassane OUATTARA, blatantly rigged the polling results, and declared himself winner. Popular protest forced GUEI to step aside and brought runner-up Laurent GBAGBO into power. GBAGBO spent his first two years in office trying to consolidate power to strengthen his weak mandate, but he was unable to appease his opponents, who launched a failed coup attempt in September 2002. Rebel forces claimed the northern half of the country and in January ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... trouble till they find her," he said accurately, and I could see his hand come up to cut the image. "For my dough they've given up trying to find her and are using you for a stalking horse," ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... sentiments would spread in California. He recalled the fact that there was a strong party among the good people of the State, represented by several ladies who had brought him bouquets and jellies when he was in jail, who were trying to abolish capital punishment. Judging from Doc Mason's experience in murder cases, the efforts of these good people were not called for. And yet the law as it stood had ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... contended that Christians had abandoned the Jewish sense of them. (Id. b. viii.) Next he seems to have continued a similar argument with regard to the Jewish typical system, and the utter dissimilarity of the Christian ideas from its purpose (Id. b. ix.); next to have assailed Christianity, by trying to show that there had been a similar development in Christianity itself, and a departure from its primitive form analogous to that which Christianity bore to Judaism, alleging, incorrectly, that St. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... away if I had such a chance as that!" answered Sam, trying to balance his bat on his chin and getting a smart rap across the nose as he failed to perform ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... disaster had broken down the barriers of formality and we all lent a willing hand each to the other. I secured some spare rope and got up my framework. This was covered to windward with some Indian blankets sewn together by those we were trying to make comfortable. Under that hastily erected rude shelter nineteen people slept on mattresses that night. I did not have the good fortune to sleep. Sleep would not come to "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care," and through the long hours I watched the ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... manners and morals of the higher order is due simply to the more pressing need, in the case of our most serious duties, of a reflective sanction, a "moral sense," to break us in to the common service. It is no easy task to keep legal and religious penalties or rewards out of the reckoning, when trying to frame an estimate of what the notions of right and wrong, prevalent in a given society, amount to in themselves; nevertheless, it is worth doing, and valuable collections of material exist to aid the work. The facts about education, which even amongst rude peoples is often carried ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, when I was just twenty-eight years old, a gentleman of middle age came into the hair dresser's shop, and asked to look at his wigs. I was shown to him with some others. After examining us all, and trying on several, he chose me, because, he said, he thought I was made of ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen

... deception. As Bacon said, "Read not to contradict and to confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."[3] The author you are reading may have made a mistake, or may be trying to mislead you. "When we think of the difficulty of finding the way, when we are most desirous to go right, how easy to mislead those whom we wish to go wrong!" Be, therefore, always suspicious ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain

... years, I should always see the mighty Tartarin solemnly stepping up to the piano, setting his arms akimbo, working up his tragic mien, and, beneath the green reflection from the show-bottles in the window, trying to give his pleasant visage the fierce and satanic expression of Robert the Devil. Hardly would he fall into position before the whole audience would be shuddering with the foreboding that something uncommon was ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... decorations, returned to the psychical domain of his strangely beautiful art. The "Intimists," C. Cottet, Simon, Blanche, Menard, Bussy, Lobre, Le Sidaner, Wery, Prinet, and Ernest Laurent, have proved that they have profited by Impressionism, but have proceeded in quite a different direction in trying to translate their real perceptions. Some isolated artists, like the decorative painter Henri Martin, who has enormous talent, have applied the Impressionist technique to the expression of grand allegories, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... tall tree?' his mother asked anxiously. "'No'm; I found the length of the shadow and measured that.' "'But the length of the shadow changes.' "'Yes'm; but twice a day the shadows are just as long as the things themselves. I've been trying it all summer. I drove a stick into the ground, and when its shadow was just as long as the stick I knew that the shadow of the tree would be just as long as the tree, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... little jostling among the students, several trying to help Jack recover his balance. Then Jack ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... moving, stared at him. "Anyway, it's worth trying," he said meaningly. "You've had your shot; I'll ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... Is it any consolation for you to know that Van Kuyp will be famous? What is his fame or his failure to you? Where do you, Alixe Van Kuyp, come in? Why must your charming woman's soul be sacrificed, warped to this stunted tree of another's talent? You are silent. You say he is trying to make me deny Richard! You were never more mistaken. I am interested in you both; interested in you as a noble woman—stop! I mean it. And interested in Richard—well—because he ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... resisted her cousin's efforts like a block of steel. Sylvie twisted Pierrette's arm, she tried to force the fingers open; unable to do so she stuck her nails into the flesh. At last, in her madness, she set her teeth into the wrist, trying to conquer the girl by pain. Pierrette defied her still, with that same terrible glance of innocence. The anger of the old maid grew to such a pitch that it became blind fury. She seized Pierrette's arm and struck the closed ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... place to refer briefly to one of the most trying features of Washington's career as Commander-in-Chief. From very early in the war jealousy inspired some of his associates with a desire to have him displaced. He was too conspicuously the very head and front of the American cause. Some men, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... the strain of the situation and was trying to decide what next to do, when David Law came riding out of the twilight. He was astride the gray; behind him at the end of a lariat was Bessie Belle, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... the post of the exchequer was filled. Mr. Gladstone in his daily letter to Hawarden writes: 'At headquarters I understand they say, "Mr. G. destroyed the budget, so he ought to make a new one." However we are trying to press Graham into that service.' The next day it was settled. From Osborne a letter had come to Lord Aberdeen: 'The Queen hopes it may be possible to give the chancellorship of the exchequer to Mr. Gladstone, and to secure the continuance of Lord St. Leonards as chancellor.'[279] Notwithstanding ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... of that—she took to tormenting the squirrels instead. She used to find their stores of nuts and carry them away and fill the holes with pebbles; and this, when you are a hard-working squirrel with a large family to support, is very trying to the temper. Then she would tie acorns to their tails; and she would clap her hands to frighten them, and pull the baby-squirrels' ears; till at last they offered a reward to anyone who could catch Fairy Fluffikins and ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless

... the slave-hunter, nor the scantiness of their means should deter him from making his way to freedom. Nathan listened to the proposal, and was suddenly converted to freedom, and the two united during Christmas week, 1854, and set out on the Underground Rail Road. It is needless to say that they had trying difficulties to encounter. These they expected, but all were overcome, and they reached the Vigilance Committee, in Philadelphia safely, and were cordially welcomed. During the interview, a full ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... when Dilipa heard what an awful fate had overtaken his forefathers, he was sorely grieved and thought of the means of raising them. And the ruler of men made every great effort towards the descent of Ganga (to the mortal world). But although trying to the utmost of his power, he could not bring about what he so much wished. And a son was born to him, known by the name of Bhagiratha, beauteous, and devoted to a virtuous life, and truthful, and free from ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... poet reasonable self-satisfaction in what he had done, as well as confidence in what he would be able to do. Nor was Milton in the ordinary sense, or perhaps in any, a humble man. Of that false kind of humility, too often recommended from the pulpit, which consists in a beautiful woman trying to suppose herself plain, or an able man trying to be unaware of his ability, no man ever had less than Milton. Neither from himself nor from others did he ever conceal the fact that he was a man of genius. In his eyes no kind of untruth, however specious, could be a virtue. But of a finer humility, ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... importance. I have only been trying to reconstruct the story of the robbery so that I can reason out a motive and a few details; then when the real clues come along we won't have so much ground to cover. The cracksman was certainly clever. He used an electric ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... centre of active privateering. The Royalist garrison did not limit themselves to attacking Parliamentary vessels; they molested Dutch shipping as well; so that the Admiral, Van Tromp, made an attack on them, but without result. It is said that he parleyed with Grenville, trying to induce that gallant soldier to yield Scilly into Dutch hands; but Grenville was too loyal an Englishman for such treachery—he would rather the Parliament took the isles than that they should become Dutch. It was with no disgrace that he was forced to yield, at last, to such worthy opponents ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... struggled to his feet and stood swaying uncertainly, but trying hard to steady himself. He focussed his eyes with much effort upon the tall figure before him, and then suddenly moved forward like a man crossing a brook on a single, narrow, and dangerously swaying plank. He all but pitched headlong into the waiting man as ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... interview referred to above that the Prophet Joseph unbosomed his heart, and described the trying ordeal he experienced in overcoming the repugnance of his feelings, the natural result of the force of education and social custom, relative to the introduction of plural marriage. He knew the voice of God—he knew the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... not have prevented, was strong enough to have delayed the Roman progress eastwards. This force belonged to Rhodes, which in the years immediately following the close of the second Punic war reached its highest point as a naval power.[23] Far from trying to obstruct the advance of the Romans the Rhodian fleet helped it. Hannibal, in his exile, saw the necessity of being strong on the sea if the East was to be saved from the grasp of his hereditary foe; but the resources of Antiochus, even with the mighty cooperation ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... trying to frighten yourself?" asked Heyst abruptly. "You don't seem to have quite enough pluck for your business. Why don't you do ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... oil revenue into agriculture). A number of aid programs sponsored by the World Bank and the IMF have been cut off since 1993 because of corruption and mismanagement. No longer eligible for concessional financing because of large oil revenues, the government has been unsuccessfully trying to agree on a "shadow" fiscal management program with the World Bank and IMF. Businesses, for the most part, are owned by government officials and their family members. Undeveloped natural resources include titanium, iron ore, manganese, uranium, and ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... fingers and thumb as if he were removing dead and sapless incumbranees in their growth, "that's just what it is—them's ez in it themselves don't pay, and them ez haz left their goods—the goods don't pay. The feller ez stored them iron sugar kettles in the forehold, after trying to get me to make another advance on 'em, sez he believes he'll have to sacrifice 'em to me after all, and only begs I'd give him a chance of buying back the half of 'em ten years from now, at double what I advanced him. The chap ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the fore-sail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizen. The ship lay very broad off, so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling. We reefed the fore-sail and set him, and hauled aft the fore-sheet; the helm was hard a-weather. The ship wore bravely. We belayed the fore down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... only waiting for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if one had not the chance of trying again? ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... a rush behind me. I turned toward the door. Two men were scuffling with a third, who seemed to be trying to break out. There were the sounds of a struggle; then muttered curses; then the quick, sharp report of a pistol. There was an exclamation of pain and more oaths; knives flashed in the air; others ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... also, that some of the cases of compensation which have been advanced, and likewise some other facts, may be merged under a more general principle, namely, that natural selection is continually trying to economise in every part of the organisation. If under changed conditions of life a structure, before useful, becomes less useful, its diminution will be favoured, for it will profit the individual not to have its nutriment wasted in building up a useless structure. I can thus only understand ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... admits of no easy explanation, especially when we consider that remarkable clearness of mental vision which enabled him to see the reason existing in all things; often, too, when a Solomon, or a Socrates, or a Seneca, might have stared his eyes out in trying to see it for himself. But when he took to preaching, he was dwelling in the midst of a Hard-shell community; and, perhaps, like the overwhelming majority of mankind, from enlightened to savage, from Christian to fetich, Burlman Reynolds was but chameleon to his surroundings. Yet, notwithstanding ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... nature of the work of a lawyer which appears to make him cynical and to want to wear a know-it-all look. Most lawyers are little more than sharper crooks than the crooks they have to deal with. They're always trying to get in on some case or other where they have to outwit the law, save some one from getting what he justly deserves, and then they are supposed to be honest and high-minded! Think of it! To judge by some of the specimens I get up here," and then some lawyer in the place ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... Indra, is said to be greater than all: "The gods," it is said, "do not reach thee, Indra, nor men; thou overcomest all creatures in strength." Another god, Soma, is called the king of the world, the king of heaven and earth, the conqueror of all. And what more could human language achieve, in trying to express the idea of a divine and supreme power, than what another poet says of another god, Varuna: "Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth; thou art the king of all, of those who are gods, and of those ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... bull-necked," Harry remarked smiling, "but, except for Raymond Lyle, the stiffest-framed man in the room. Solid and slow from shoulders to ankles; head—shall we say that of a gladiator, or a prize-fighter? Good gracious, Ralph, remember you're in a ball room, not trying ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... body, still singing the comic song. As he approached the corpse he waved his hands over it in blessing. The mother put her head out of the blanket and when she saw the poor simpleton with his strange grimaces trying to do honor to the corpse by his solemn waving, and at the same time keeping up his comic song, she burst out laughing. Then she reached over and handed her ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... trying to decide which car is the one that was at the bottom when we came along. I think it's that one ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... an inch, mate, or he'll soon gain an ell," said old Mat. "He is doing Satan's work, and that's what Satan is always trying to do—trying to make us do a little wrong—just to get in the sharp edge of the wedge; he knows that he shall soon be able to drive ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... stay to the end to hear Don Juste Lopez trying to persuade himself in a grave oration of the clemency and justice, and honesty, and purity of the brothers Montero. I went out abruptly to seek Antonia. I saw her in the gallery. As I opened the door, she extended to ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... I demanded. "You are kind, charitable. Trying to save people from themselves is your life work. I merely bring you a soul to save, a friend in danger. Can you refuse, refuse him? Jerry is drinking. It has not been for long, but he is in trouble. He has gotten beyond his depth—a woman—Oh, don't misunderstand ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... have found, in the proceedings of every age, those topics of blame, from which he is so much disposed to arraign the manners of his own; and our embarrassment on the subject is, perhaps, but a part of that general perplexity which we undergo, in trying to define moral characters by external circumstances, which may, or may not, be attended with faults in the mind and the heart. One man finds a vice in the wearing of linen; another does not, unless the fabric be fine: and if, meantime, it be true, that a person may be ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... Blanche said was the better way—to put every thing bitter from me, and try to think only of the good that was all around me. When we were gloomy or dispirited, she would say, 'I know it is very trying, my children, to be separated from your parents and friends; but you must remember that so long as you are with me, I stand in the same relationship to you all; and that my heart will be cast down and pained if you ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... same forms, as that which simultaneously took place in the bazaar close by between extortionate traders and thrifty housewives. "Listen to me," a priest would say, as an ultimatum, to a lackey who was trying to beat down the price: "if you don't give me seventy-five kopeks without further ado, I'll take a bite of this roll, and that will be an end to it!" And that would have been an end to the bargaining, for, according to the rules of the Church, a priest cannot officiate after ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... circulate in myself. This capacity of trying the truth, whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were born with me; they are natural and entirely my own. I produced them crude ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Winburg. De Wet himself escaped and attempted a junction with Beyers who had fled south from the Transvaal. But he was gradually driven westward into the Kalahari desert and overtaken by Colonel Jordaan's motors a hundred miles west of Mafeking on 1 December, while Beyers was drowned in trying to cross the Vaal on the 8th. De Wet was once more given his life, and the other rebels were treated with a lenience which nothing but its wisdom ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... Sire, I was trying to find a way to pull down the Poet's house. At first, no one would undertake it. Then, at last, all the Pundits of the Royal School of Grammar and Logic came up with their proper ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... a year to purchase liqueurs. As he was stocking his establishment he selected, together with divers beverages, a woman of the sort he wanted—of an engaging aspect and apt to stimulate the trade of the house. It was never known where he had picked her up, but he married her after trying her in the cafe during six months or so. Opinions were divided in Vauchamp as to her merits, some folks declaring that she was superb, while others asserted that she looked like a drum-major. She was a tall woman with large features and coarse hair falling low over her ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... utmost frankness, yet was profoundly depraved and expert in refined vice. In 1821 she transmitted a terrible and fatal disease to Crottat, the notary. At that time she lived on rue Feydeau. Euphrasie pretended that in her early youth she had passed entire days and nights trying to support a lover who had forsaken her for a heritage. With the brunette, Aquilina, Euphrasie took part in a famous orgy, at the home of Frederic Taillefer, on rue Joubert, where were also Emile Blondet, Rastignac, Bixiou and Raphael de Valentin. Later ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... "We were both trying to rob your father," Douglas answered slowly, "but there was a difference. The money I wanted, and took was mine—ay, and more besides. He had no right to withhold it. As ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... his personal hold on life and affairs is relaxing, when he has realized his mistakes, and has attained a mental and moral orientation which could be of inestimable service to his fellow men, and to civilization in general. What you call crankiness in old people, so trying to the younger generations, does not arise from natural hatefulness of disposition and a released congenital selfishness, but from atrophying glands, and, no doubt, a subtle rebellion against nature ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... who takes care of the room. He was caught, an hour earlier, trying to slip off the island without a pass; they were holding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's now being questioned by the Kragans." The girl's face was bleakly remorseless. "I hope they do plenty ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... that, if we once found a common term of communication we should become good friends. But for the moment that modus vivendi seemed unattainable. She had not recovered from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still showing me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me a momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon began. I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell' Acqua and I were fast ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... his view of it from the Icelandic side: A ring of stalwart Norsemen, close ranked, with their steel tools in hand; English Harold's Army, mostly cavalry, prancing and pricking all around; trying to find or make some opening in that ring. For a long time trying in vain, till at length, getting them enticed to burst out somewhere in pursuit, they quickly turned round, and quickly made an end, of that matter. Snorro ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... daily insulted by these weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author would have lost nothing and gained much by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... Constitution, as guaranteed in 1814. His advice was of great weight and was adopted, and thus the Vaudois by their firmness preserved their independence. They met with great support likewise on this trying occasion from General La Harpe, preceptor to the Emperor of Russia, and a relation to the gentleman of the same name who was so instrumental in the emancipation of Vaud. La Harpe, who enjoyed the confidence of his pupil, exerted himself greatly in procuring his good offices in favour ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... immediate vicinity; I jumped abruptly to my feet, and I saw, within five steps of me, on the road, a young lady on horseback. My unexpected apparition had somewhat frightened the horse, who had shied with some violence. The fair equestrian, who had not yet noticed me, was talking to him and trying to quiet him. She appeared to be pretty, slender, elegant. I caught a rapid glimpse of blond hair, eyebrows of a darker shade, keen eyes, a bold expression of countenance, and a felt hat with blue feathers, set over one ear in rather too rakish ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... with you men this morning?" sternly inquired Pobloff. "Did you miss your breakfasts?" Stillness ensued and the rehearsal proceeded. It was very trying. Seven times the first violins, divided, essayed one passage, and after its chromaticism had been conquered it would not go at all when played with the wood-wind. It was nearly eleven o'clock. The heat increased and also the thirst of the men. As the doors were locked there was no relief. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... unconscious that it was Jake's white mill overalls. Close upon her flying footsteps came the orphan-adopting expedition: Mrs. Winters, the bottle of milk leaving a white-sprinkled trail behind her; Jake, dragging the heaps of wraps and the basket of provisions, with which little Miss Arabella was vainly trying to assist him; Ella Anne Long, the basket of pies on her arm, the forgotten one in her other hand; Mrs. Munn, with the crock of butter; poor Hannah herself far behind; and lastly, Isaac and Rebekah, their necks outthrust, their wings wide, streaming ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... troubled," she said, finally. "I am glad to talk with you, for I cannot get him to tell me anything. He is greatly troubled, and I am worried beyond expression. I can't understand it. He has always confided in me so thoroughly, but now he shakes his head and says it is nothing, trying to look brighter even when the tears are almost ready to fall. What can it be, Mr. Roseleaf? He has no companions outside of his office and this house? He sits by himself, and isn't a bit like he used to be and every day I think ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... were alike the same—alike indifferent to him. In the recollections of the scenes he had so lately quitted, and in which his fairer and unruffled boyhood had been passed, he took no pleasure, while the future was so enshrouded in gloom that he shrank from its very contemplation. So far from trying to wring consolation from circumstances, his object was to stupify recollection to the uttermost. He would fain have shut out both the past and the future, contenting himself as he might with the present, but the thing was impossible. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... what you told me to do; preaching the gospel of honesty and fair dealing, and trying my level best to make ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... heart would break. Miss Emmerson saw that something had hurt her feelings excessively, and that it was something she would not reveal. Believing that it was a quarrel with her friend, and hoping at all events that it would interrupt their intercourse, Miss Emmerson, instead of trying to discover her niece's secret, employed herself in persuading her to appear before the family with composure, and to take leave of them with decency and respect. In this she succeeded, and the happy ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... crisis that George Starr committed two blunders which threatened the very doom he was trying to escape. One of those errors, however, did credit to his heart, if not ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... Williams, were often put into execution. Parents were rigorously severed from their families; though one Lalande, who had been sent to watch the elder prisoners, reported that they would persist in trying to see their children, till some of them were killed in the attempt. "Here," writes Williams, "might be a history in itself of the trials and sufferings of many of our children, who, after separation from grown persons, have been ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... swine. My boy, with an unstained youth yet before you to mould as you will, get to yourself the elder son's portion—'Thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine.' And what GOD has for those who abide with Him, even here, who can describe? It's worth trying for, lad; it would be worth trying for, on the chance of GOD fulfilling His promises, if His Word were an open question. How well worth any effort, any struggle, you'll know when you ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... deride me, you accuse me of levity and of yielding easily to temptation; but in upbraiding me and deriding me you insult yourself, for you thus imply that any other woman might have had equal power over me. I do not wish, when I ought to be humble, to fall into the sin of pride, by trying to justify my fault. If God, in chastisement of my pride, has let me fall from his grace, it is possible that any temptation, however slight, might have made me waver and fall. Yet I confess that I do not think so. It may be that I err in my judgment ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... its reference to a base runner having the right to hold a base after touching it, is to be thus defined: Suppose that base runners are on third and second bases, and that the runner on third is trying to steal home, and in doing so vacates third base and runs for home base, the occupant of second base in the meantime running to third base and holding that base; and suppose that in such case the runner from third ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... she is.' He remembered the words and scanned the small sleeping face. Well, perhaps there was a likeness, the eyelashes and the gypsy tint of the complexion; but just then the match went out and the organist remembered there was no time to be wasted in trying to see likenesses in Martin Blake's brat. But just as he was lifting the baby cautiously from his bed, a sudden thought struck him. Zoe was to be her name; well, it should be so, though he had no concern in her name or anything else; so he groped about for pencil and paper, and wrote the name ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... them are of great price, because they are for ever. His Majesty heard me also in this, for in less than two years I was so afflicted myself that the illness which I had, though of a different kind from that of the sister, was, I really believe, not less painful and trying for the three years it lasted, as ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... the home preservation of foods, showing how they can be kept for long periods of time not by sterilization, but with the aid of preservatives. Each one of these methods is treated as to its principles, equipment, and the procedure to be followed. After trying the numerous recipes given, the housewife will be able to show with pride the results of her efforts, for nothing adds more to the attractiveness and palatability of a meal than a choice ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... I'm writing about myself, feel instead that I'm writing about somebody you've cared for, believed in, somebody who has disappointed and hurt you, trying to show you—for your sake—if I don't mind being either egotistical or terrible for the sake of ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... mine made its first shipments of ore and was no longer a paper success. The balance-sheet for the first month after shipments had begun made Wilmot whistle. He couldn't believe the figures, and worked till late into the night, trying to find some dreadful error. Finding none, finding that with the help of others he had really made good at last, the rough life began to lose its savor. If he still owed money it could be but for a short time. He was free as air—free to do ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... being knocked about by a burly brute of a fellow whom I judged to be her husband from the way in which he cherished her. He was one of those red-faced, dark-eyed men who can look peculiarly malignant when they choose. It was clear that he was half mad with drink, and that she had been trying to lure him away from some den. I was just in time to see him take a flying kick at her, amid cries of "Shame!" from the crowd, and then lurch forward again, with the evident intention of having another, the ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... as the existing epistles are: but they would be stepping-stones for the wise. As it is, we have to do without them and perhaps, like most things that are, it is better. For the stumblers are saved the sin of stumbling, and the wise men the nuisance of seeing them do it, and trying to set them right. And there might have been only more painful revelations of the time when, to adjust the words of the famous epitaph "fierce indignation still could lacerate the heart," that had felt so fondly and so bitterly what it had ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... loving humanity with all his heart? Now let us suppose that among all these Jesuits thirsting and hungering but after 'mean material pleasures' there may be one, just one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself fed upon roots in the wilderness, suffered the tortures of damnation while trying to conquer flesh, in order to become free and perfect, but who had never ceased to love humanity, and who one day prophetically beheld the truth; who saw as plain as he could see that the bulk of humanity could never be happy under the old system, that it was not for them that the great Idealist ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... deceive. I don't say the estimate was all gone wrong, but I'd say a man may act so simple as to take in a cleverer man than me. He came to me the next day and took me down below, acting mysterious, and he put on an expression that was like a full moon trying to look like a horse trader, which wasn't a success. Then he jerked his ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... less official and public positions, remember this: the fitness to impart is to possess, and that being taken for granted, the main thing is secured. As long as the electric light is in contact with the battery, so long does it burn. Electricians have been trying during the past few years to make accumulators, things in which they can store the influence and put it away in a corner and use it so that the light need not be in connection with the battery; and they have not succeeded—at least it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... distance we cast anchor in 9 fathom muddy bottom and sent the pinnace ashore in the same fashion as last time, but earnestly charged the subcargo to use great caution, and to treat with kindness any natives that he should meet {Page 24} with, trying if possible to lay hands on some of them, that through them, as soon as they have become somewhat conversant with the Malay tongue, our Lords and Masters may obtain reliable knowledge touching the productions of ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... the lives of Beethoven and Schubert and some articles on Bellini. Across the Channel, Constance Bach has done some successful work in editing the letters of Liszt and Von Buelow. Two English women, Mrs. F. J. Hughes and Mary Maxwell Campbell, have entered the speculative field by trying to draw analogies between harmonies and colours, but this theory can never have any real basis in scientific fact. In America, the work of Helen Tretbar and Fanny Raymond Ritter is well known. Mrs. Mary Jones has devoted her energies to a book on the musical education ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... why Mrs. Wentworth should monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as trying to his feelings as it was ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' Piozzi Letters, i. 105. Malone, in a note to later editions, shews that Johnson shortly before his death was trying to discover some of his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... been trying hard to control her feelings, now broke into sobs, for she had only one farmerette suit and this ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... yet," said Elliott. "It would be altogether too tame. I'd qualify for the booby prize without trying. But the rest of you may race, ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... good business, and his expenses were light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... necessarily be a very imperfect manner, you will see that there is good reason to believe that in the study of science and philosophy the Indian races were much in advance of the Western nations. The age of science amongst them is very great; we fail utterly in trying to find its beginning, unless we accept the tradition which ascribes to Menu, their great lawgiver (who is supposed to have been Noah), the saving of three out of the four divine books or Vedas from the deluge. This would carry us back ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear

... no use trying to git no daiper. Sure we've sounded 'im to the bottom, an' found nothin' at ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... these, Rodgers, was murdered in the presence of his three children. A man named Cramer was savagely butchered while driving a few cattle along the road. Another, named Mahony, with his wife and son-in-law, were intercepted while trying to escape to the military post of Kafir Drift, and Mahony was stretched a corpse at his wife's feet, then the son-in-law was murdered, but Mrs Mahony escaped into the bush with two of her children ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... baby—our first wee kiddie—and the Amah seemed to have an unusual inclination to talk. I had been joking with her and asked her if she did not want to buy Clara Gene. In fun we started the characteristic Chinese haggling over price, she trying to 'jew' me up and I trying to 'jew' ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger

... growing suspense for his answer, suddenly remembered all those things she had forgotten, and her earlier embarrassment returned with a wave of bitter self-reproach. She accused herself of having been too free. She had overstepped her privilege. It was not apparent to her that he was trying to visualize the picture she had drawn, the possibility of his not liking her and sending her away, you know, and that, to his utter consternation, he found it was something he could not in the least ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... answers D'Argenson the War-minister, writing to Valori; 'but,'—And supplies, instead of performance according to the laws of fact, eloquent logic; very superfluous to Friedrich and the said laws!—Valori, and the French Minister at Dresden, had again been trying to stir up the Polish Majesty to stand for Kaiser; but of course that enterprise, eager as the Polish Majesty might be for such a dignity, had now to collapse, and become totally hopeless. A new offer of Friedrich's to co-operate ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... examples are to be met with in the bulk of other nations. Neither men nor women are afraid of death. Yet an uncommon steadfastness in the faith must, at the same time, be requisite to continue in these trying circumstances. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... the bride-elect. "White satin is a bit young, it seems to me; and trying, too, to them as haven't much colour." Then cheering second thoughts inspired her. "Still, white's the proper thing for a bride, I don't deny; and I always say 'Do what's right and proper, and never mind looks.' The ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... the projecting parts are removed.[722] But absorption comes into action, as Virchow remarks, during the normal growth of bones; parts which are solid during youth become hollowed out for the medullary tissue as the bone increases in size. In trying to understand the many well-adapted cases of regrowth when aided by absorption, we should remember that most parts of the organisation, even whilst retaining the same form, undergo constant renewal; so that a part ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... gouging him in the back. "By golly, things is getting pretty raw around this camp," he growled, by way of lifting the safety-valve of his anger. "I'd like to know when that darned grub-spoiler bought into the outfit, anyhow. He's been trying to run it to suit himself all spring—and if he keeps on, by golly, he'll be firing the wagon-boss and giving all ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... for the familles of soldiers. A large part of his time during the war was devoted to this work, and will ever be remembered with gratitude by scores of families for timely assistance rendered during that trying ordeal. In the Fourth ward, where he lives, there never was a man drafted to fill ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... is getting used to despair, so she only shrugs a submissive shoulder and remarks with forbearance:—"It is no use trying to make you understand. Of course, it's because she is in love with him that she is going in for ... what ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... month or two after reaching the Sierras, old Mr. Keene limped about among the mines trying to learn the mystery of finding gold, and the art of digging. But at last, having grown strong enough, he went to work for wages, to get bread for his half-wild little ones, for they ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... dare love the iconoclast would be one if we dared sufficiently, and in this work I surely was an image-breaker, for the old house was more than it seemed. To the careless passer, it was a gray, bald, doddering old structure that seemed trying to shrink into the ground, untenanted, unsightly, and forlorn. I know, having analyzed it, that it was an image of New England village life of the two centuries just gone, a life even the images of which are ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... there not an ORDER OF BRITANNIA for British seamen? In the Merchant and the Royal Navy alike, occur almost daily instances and occasions for the display of science, skill, bravery, fortitude in trying circumstances, resource in danger. In the first number of the Cornhill Magazine, a friend contributed a most touching story of the M'Clintock expedition, in the dangers and dreadful glories of which he shared; and the writer was a merchant captain. How many more are there (and, for the honor of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... an exit. "Yes, we might as well. I don't like this business at all. I wish to get it over with as soon as possible, and——" Peter eyed Mirestone squarely. "I expect to be paid well for my trouble." He was trying to make himself believe that that was his only reason for complying with Mirestone's demands. Actually he ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson

... sword and trying the edge). Is this well set to-day, Britannicus? At Pharsalia it was as blunt ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... support which the confessors at Augsburg, notably Melanchthon, received from Luther, Plitt remarks: "What Luther did during his solitary stay in the Castle at Coburg cannot be rated high enough. His ideal deportment during these days, so trying for the Church, is an example which at all times Evangelical Christians may look up to, in order to learn from him and to emulate him. What he wrote to his followers in order to comfort and encourage them, can and ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... our quarter boats. In this squall the wind seemed to have worn itself out, for before we made the land it suddenly fell, and by daylight a dead calm came on, followed by a dense fog. Our soundings told us that we were within a short distance of the coast, so that our eyes were busily employed in trying to get, through the mist, a sight of it, or of any strange sail which might be in the neighbourhood. At last, for an instant the fog lifted towards the north, like when the curtain of a theatre is drawn ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... was trying to think. She had left the barnyard because it was so noisy there that she could not collect her wits, and had hidden herself between the rows of tall red hollyhocks which border one side of the garden. Here, at least, it ...
— The Wise Mamma Goose • Charlotte B. Herr

... the surface. As I mentioned in commencing this paper (Part I), every part of the success of a trip lies in knowing where to find the minerals sought; and by close observation of these relations much more direction may be obtained than by my trying to describe the exact point in a locality where I have obtained them or seen them. There is much more satisfaction in finding rich pockets independently of direction, and by close observance of indications rather than chance, or by having them pointed out; for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... finding that these experiences can release hitherto unrealized and untapped resources of spiritual strength and power. As expressed by one couple: "For two years we passed through a dark time in our family, trying to find resources to deal with a seemingly insurmountable problem. At our first retreat, with the loving support of the group, we were able as a couple to recover our self-confidence, sense of worth, and well-being, and reaffirm our strengths to ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace



Words linked to "Trying" :   nerve-racking, trying on, nerve-wracking, hard, disagreeable, stressful, difficult



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