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Affliction   Listen
noun
Affliction  n.  
1.
The cause of continued pain of body or mind, as sickness, losses, etc.; an instance of grievous distress; a pain or grief. "To repay that money will be a biting affliction."
2.
The state of being afflicted; a state of pain, distress, or grief. "Some virtues are seen only in affliction."
Synonyms: Calamity; sorrow; distress; grief; pain; adversity; misery; wretchedness; misfortune; trouble; hardship. Affliction, Sorrow, Grief, Distress. Affliction and sorrow are terms of wide and general application; grief and distress have reference to particular cases. Affliction is the stronger term. The suffering lies deeper in the soul, and usually arises from some powerful cause, such as the loss of what is most dear friends, health, etc. We do not speak of mere sickness or pain as "an affliction," though one who suffers from either is said to be afflicted; but deprivations of every kind, such as deafness, blindness, loss of limbs, etc., are called afflictions, showing that term applies particularly to prolonged sources of suffering. Sorrow and grief are much alike in meaning, but grief is the stronger term of the two, usually denoting poignant mental suffering for some definite cause, as, grief for the death of a dear friend; sorrow is more reflective, and is tinged with regret, as, the misconduct of a child is looked upon with sorrow. Grief is often violent and demonstrative; sorrow deep and brooding. Distress implies extreme suffering, either bodily or mental. In its higher stages, it denotes pain of a restless, agitating kind, and almost always supposes some struggle of mind or body. Affliction is allayed, grief subsides, sorrow is soothed, distress is mitigated.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Affliction" Quotes from Famous Books



... vaguely intending to the very end to take lessons from a sound teacher. He had spirit enough to fall in love (so far as stories may be relied on), but not to make the lady promise to marry him, nor yet resolutely to cure himself of his affliction. He had courage to face the truth, as he saw it, and he found life bitter, and not worth enduring; yet he could not renounce it, like Beethoven, nor end it as others have done. As in actual life, so in ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... next evening with her daughter, and condoled with the housekeeper on the affliction which had already been noised about Seabridge. Mrs. Church, who had accepted her as an ally, but with mental reservations, softly applied a handkerchief to ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... remains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, and to think with pleasure that every day brings me nearer a period which naturally cannot be very far off, and at which this as well as every temporal affliction ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... an Empire's statesmen; and our 'cellos and violins wailed with the pity of all mankind. In that vast orchestra I played the horn that sounds the charge, or with its sharp reveille vexes the ear of night before the sun is up. Here is your penny, my brother in affliction. I, too, have once joined in the music of a star, and ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... should amass, but to the sum of human misery he might relieve; and towards the close of his brief career, as the prospect of increasing honors and emoluments opened to his view, he contemplated his good fortune only as the means of diffusing felicity, of drying the tear of affliction. Indeed, so totally devoid was he of every mercenary consideration, that although he enjoyed an ample income from his appointments,[109] by which at least the purchase of his commissions might have been repaid, yet he left literally nothing but his fair name behind him. ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body; and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety; and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Land may returne to you the first fruits of thanks, for the plants of your free gift. And although you were scant of furniture of this kinde your selves, or might apprehend more need then formerly, yet doubtlesse, your bowels of compassion would make your deep povertie even in a great tryal of affliction, abound to the riches of your liberalitie. But now seeing you abound in all things, and have formerly given so ample a proof of your large bestowing on Churches abroad in Germanie and France, knowing that you are not wearied in well-doing, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... impossible to deny that the natives would be better instructed and would live in more orderly ways if the small villages were to be reduced to the capital, making one or two settlements of each benefice, they consider it such an affliction to leave their little houses where they were born and have been reared, their fields, and their other comforts of life, that it could only be attained with difficulty, and little fruit would result therefrom. Thus has the experience of assembling the people ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... is some provision in the make of humanity for overflow grief, some limit impregnable to affliction; for when little Paul was laid beside his brother, there were still David and Christina to walk aimlessly in their empty world. Their scars were deep, and they were crippled with woe, and it seemed ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... the banks of the Niger, as low down to the Western Coast as Noufee and Rabbah. But their resignation to the will of heaven is without a parallel. No murmur escapes them under the severest domestic affliction; whilst prayer is their daily bread. Besides five times a day, they never omit the extraordinary occasions. The aspirations of the older and retired men continue all the live-long day; this incense of the soul, rising before the altar of the Eternal, is a fire which is never extinguished in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... filled by a preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his fame as an orator. He had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by the sermons of her eloquent son. He married a wealthy widow and had everything wealth and refinement could suggest. He saw no wrong in the wine glass and kept a supply in his cellar. Gradually appetite demanded stronger drinks and one morning his wife ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... only the evening before, and, the day of her return having been uncertain, she was welcomed by no one, and had slipped in at her own door unnoticed in the dusk. There was a little stir in the congregation as she passed to her pew, but, being in affliction, she took no notice of friendly glances, and responded with great gravity only to her neighbor in the next pew, with whom she usually exchanged confidential whispers as late as the second ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... cavalryman, in such cases, finds protection in his saddle, but the soldier on foot is defenseless: and thus the very recognition, which, if he has a stout pair of breeches, would be his dearest recompense for all his toils, becomes his most terrible affliction. Many a time, have I seen a gallant infantryman, who would have faced a battery double-shotted with grape and canister with comparative indifference, groan and turn pale in this fearful ordeal. It was a touching sight to see them seek to dispose ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... came upon the beach of the island, near the spot where they had first landed. Red Head entreated him to remain. He pressed him by every motive which he thought might have weight, but they were all rejected. During this conference they had seated themselves upon the ground, and Red Head, in great affliction, reclined his head upon his fancied wife's lap. This was the opportunity ardently sought for, and it was improved to the best advantage. Every means was taken to lull him to sleep, and partly by a soothing manner, and partly by a seeming compliance with his request, the object ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... persuaded, that the right of self-defence extends even to the taking of life for gestures, more or less threatening. So many DAILY instances of outbreaking passion which have thrown whole families into the deepest affliction, teach us ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... was a positive affliction; it necessitated the marshaling of tubs and pails into the little kitchen, and the endurance of Mrs. Maloney's presence in constant contact with the dinner arrangements—on pleasant days Mrs. Maloney betook herself to the ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... Wherever a friend of Jesus is sorrowing, One stands by, unseen, who shares the grief, whose heart feels every pang of the sorrow. There is immeasurable comfort in this thought that the Son of God suffers with us in our suffering, is afflicted in all our affliction. We can endure our trouble more quietly when we know that ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... Manasseh. "Wherefore the Lord brought upon them (the people of Judah) the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom."[542] It was, however, in keeping with the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... every person in this audience. But the ones I should most appreciate knowing are the ones who have known the most of these knocks—who have faced the great crises of life and have been tried in the crucibles of affliction. For I am learning that these lives are the gold tried ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... subject too vast or too sad to measure by hurried words—that "de Carthagine satius est silere, quam parcius dicere." And in this case, where we have left ourselves too narrow a space to turn round in, and where no space would exhaust the infinities of the affliction, it is not our purpose to heighten, or rhetorically to colour, any one feature of the dismal story. Rhetoric, and art of all kids, we forswear in a tragedy so torturing to our national sensibilities. We pass, in sympathy with the burning wrath ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... ordered the door to be shut in his face; but then she cried far more bitterly than she had done to Uncle Barnet, in the same hall where Sam had painted her and jested with her; and somehow her affliction reached Sam's ears, living in a little place like Redwater at the "Rod and Fly" ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... maid so wholly occupies, Room has she none for comfort or for rest. Yet, maugre her affliction, Hope will rise, And form a lodgement in her harassed breast; And to the damsel's memory still supplies Rogero's parting words to her addrest; So makes her, in all seeming facts' despite, Await from hour ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... the factory towns of the North. In competition with consumption stands typhus, to say nothing of scarlet fever, a disease which brings most frightful devastation into the ranks of the working-class. Typhus, that universally diffused affliction, is attributed by the official report on the sanitary condition of the working-class, directly to the bad state of the dwellings in the matters of ventilation, drainage, and cleanliness. This report, compiled, it must not be forgotten, by the leading ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... with the dignified old place than its owner could hardly be imagined, as he stood in his eternal light gray suit (with a badge of affliction lightly borne on his left arm), looking at his heritage, with his cropped head a little ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... with a special and concentrated joy, which the multiplicity of fainter impressions cannot disturb. When in those days we used to read, in Petrarch's one hundred and twenty-third sonnet, that he had once beheld on earth angelic manners and celestial charms, whose very remembrance was a delight and an affliction, since it made all else appear but dream and shadow, we could easily fancy that nature had certain permanent attributes which accompanied the name ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... were given to Israel, but none of them without a special affliction: these three gifts were the law, the land of Israel, and ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... of cruel suffering and affliction—said the historian and humanitarian Professor Granovsky, of the University of Moscow—have at last erased the bloody boundary line separating the Jews from humanity. The honor of this reconciliation, which ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... bound to believe that this direction of my faculties and energies has been ordained by a wise and benevolent Providence, as a source of consolation under an affliction which closes upon me all the delights and charms of the visible world. The constant occupation of the mind, and the continual excitement of mental and bodily action, contribute to diminish, if not to overcome, the sense of deprivation which ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... outraged by the Paladin's selfish conduct as I was—and by his grand luck, too, of course—perhaps, indeed, that was the main hurt. We talked our trouble over together, which was natural, for rivals become brothers when a common affliction assails them and a common ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... this last affliction, Tom roused himself, and his buoyancy of soul began once more ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... keep up your own spirits, and my complacency, bravely. But seriously, Morris," he continued, perceiving that the vulgarity of the present affliction weighed down the good woman's heart; "is it not true that few of our trials—none of those which are most truly trials—seem dignified at the time? If they did, patience would be easier than it is. The death of martyrs to their faith is grand to look back upon; but it did not appear so to the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... you thought it worth while to tell me," said Alice Deringham. "Have I admitted that it was an affliction, or do you suppose I am very frightened of a ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... for himself on earth; man would have found a constant object for worship; one to deliver his conscience up to, and one that should unite all together into one common and harmonious ant-hill; for an innate necessity for universal union constitutes the third and final affliction of mankind. Humanity as a whole has ever aspired to unite itself universally. Many were, the great nations with great histories, but the greater they were, the more unhappy they felt, as they felt the stronger necessity of a universal union among men. Great conquerors, like Timoor ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... being past, Aspasia taking a mourning robe as the King was going to the bath, stood weeping, her eyes cast on the ground. He seeing her, wondered, and demanded the reason of her coming. She said, "I come, 0 King, to comfort your grief and affliction, if you so please; otherwise I shall go back." The Persian pleased with this care, commanded that she should retire to her chamber, and wait his coming. As soon as he returned, he put the vest of the Eunuch upon Aspasia, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... round; then, with a little cry of joy, she hastened to meet the faithful creatures who could find her even in prison, and clasped first the widow, then Pulcheria, then the child in a tender embrace. Joanna put her hands fondly round her face to kiss it, and to see how far fear and affliction had altered her lovely features, and a faint cry of astonishment escaped her, for she was looking, not at a grief and terror-stricken face, but a glad and calm one, and a pair of large eyes looked brightly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of acids proper, or acids unnatural, to the stomach, is a much more annoying affliction than slow digestion. The sufferer from indigestion may be debilitated, anemic, may have a general want of tone; or he may be a more or less vigorous and plethoric person. In some cases flatulence is very troublesome. But the most usual symptoms ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... and the image of the beautiful Circe so rais'd my mind, that I oft, as if my love was in my arms, with a great deal of fruitless ardour, hug'd the bed-cloaths, till out of patience with the lasting affliction I began to reproach my impotence; yet recovering my presence of mind, I flew for comfort to the misfortunes of ancient hero's, and thus ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... said, looking at her wistfully—"she sleeps! Aye! the young sleep easily, even in their affliction. They sleep, and forget their sorrows, and awaken, either to fresh woes, as soon to be obliterated, or to vain joys, yet briefer, and more fleeting. Thoughtlessness to the young—anguish to the old—such is mortality! And what beyond?—aye, what?—what that we should so toil, so suffer, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... scene Kundry tells the youth more than he cares to hear about himself: how his father, Gamuret, was a great knight killed in battle; how his mother, Herzeleide (Heart's Affliction), fearing a like fate for her son, brought him up in the lonely forest; how he left her to follow a troop of knights that he met one day winding through the forest glade, and being led on and on in pursuit of them, never overtook them and never ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... disgrace and ruin which this struggle had brought upon the country, moved, as a last measure, another address to the throne, which repeated at greater length the prayer for the removal of ministers; expressing the surprise and affliction of the house at receiving the answer to its former address, and vindicating the loyalty of the commons, who were said to be incapable of desiring to lessen the prerogative of the crown. Pitt sat silent, and the task of defending the conduct ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Mrs Jo's lively fancy in a ferment, and she imagined every known crime, affliction, and complication which could possibly have befallen Dan. He was too feeble to be worried with questions now, but she promised herself most interesting revelations when she got him safe at home; for the 'firebrand' ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... President-Elect at the recent annual banquet of the North Carolina Society, New York, found a warm response in the hearts of the Northern people, who have not failed to sympathize deeply with their Southern fellow citizens during their long years of affliction. ...
— The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft

... been the cause of much affliction to you," pursued Amabel—"and would gladly see you happy, and there is one person, I think, who would make you so—I mean Nizza Macascree. From what she said to me when we were alone together in the vaults of Saint Faith's, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Chilblains are more commonly suffered in Europe than in America. One young American lady in Paris acquired them one winter, and "knowing no better," as she told the writer, cured herself by "boiling the chilblains"—soaking her feet in the hottest water she could endure. The affliction did not return; and the novel recipe was delightedly followed by all ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... of trouble and affliction that one feels most deeply the strength of the ties of family and nature. We all most affectionately condole with you, and those who are around you, at this melancholy time. The departed was beloved in this house as he deserved to be; but our sorrow, great as it is for our own sakes, is still ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... much affected with Mr Selvyn's approaching dissolution to think of anything else. His care for her in his last moments still more endeared him who through life had made her happiness his principal study. Her affliction was extreme, nor could Lady Emilia by the tenderest care for some time afford ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... Netherlands and in England, which was very fatal, especially to elderly persons of enfeebled health.[179] The Queen, who had been for some time visited by her usual attacks of illness, could not resist this disease, when suffering besides, as she was, from deep affliction at the disappointment of all her hopes, and from heart-rending anticipations of the future: once more she heard mass in her chamber—she died before it was ended, on the 17 November 1558. Cardinal Pole also was suffering: completely crushed by this news he expired the following night. It was calculated ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... said to her: "I will set out and seek my fortune. And when I have found it, I will come back again and fetch you." The princess was willing, and he went away, and was gone for eighteen years. Meanwhile the princess lived in want and affliction, for her father remained hard and merciless. If her mother had not secretly given her food and money, no doubt she would have starved to death ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... occasionally tempted to exclaim, Better had the world never been created than that one so kind, so harmless, and so mild, should have undergone such intolerable woe! But it is over now, for, as there is an end of joy, so has affliction its termination. Doubtless the All-wise did not afflict him without a cause. Who knows but within that unhappy frame lurked vicious seeds which the sunbeams of joy and prosperity might have called into life and vigour? Perhaps the withering blasts of misery nipped ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal—every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open—this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... good use of their wealth. Neither the austerities and mortifications to which their lives are devoted, nor their rigid and terrible self-exclusion from all intercourse with their fellow-beings in the world around them, have diminished their sympathy for affliction, or their readiness in ministering to the wants of the poor. Any assistance of any kind that they can render, is always at the service of those who require it, without distinction of rank or religion. No wandering beggar who rings at the convent bell, ever leaves ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... restrain your grief. Control yourself, Mary, for yesterday each word you uttered pierced the heart of the poor Deodati like a dagger. It would be cruel and guilty in you to cause his tears to flow anew; at his age such affliction wears down the ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... "Affliction sore long time I bore, Physicians were in vain: My children dear and wife, whose care Assuaged my every pain, Are left behind to mourn my fate: Then Christians let them find That pity which their case excites And prove to ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... me but dream of affliction and shame, Of saints that punish and sinners that cower, Of troubles by sickness and sword and flame, And not of ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... and the water of affliction—aye, and the bedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law ought to give to outcasts merely as outcasts." I merely put beside this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of the message which Isaiah was ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... the girls for the red mittens which they had secretly and painfully knit. Bab's was long and thin, with a very pointed thumb, Betty's short and wide, with a stubby thumb, and all their mother's pulling and pressing could not make them look alike, to the great affliction of the little knitters. Ben, however, assured them that he rather preferred odd ones, as then he could always tell which was right and which left. He put them on immediately and went about cracking the new whip with an expression of content ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... dawn," says Hafiz, "God delivered me from all worldly affliction; and amidst the gloom of night presented me with ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... not all; it pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us, for in the beginning of the storm we had received likewise a mighty leak, and the ship in every joint almost having spewed out her Okam, before we were aware (a casualty more desperate than any other that a Voyage by Sea draweth with it) was grown five feet suddenly deep with water above ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... heavy affliction and trial overtook Mrs Sunnyside—Bill's mother. The wherry, with his father and two of his brothers, went off one November morning when it was blowing hard, with a passenger to a ship lying at Spithead. They put their fare all ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... 1846 was a season of unusual sickness, fevers in various forms being the principal ailment. Along the valley of the Rock River, the affliction became so flagrant that scarcely a family escaped. And in some families, so universal were its ravages, that not one member was left in condition to care for the balance. In this state of things hundreds suffered, and not a few even died for want ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... of Jesus Christ in Bohol. They entered the island with much confidence and consolation, on learning that its people, like those in the neighboring island of Sebu, did not practice polygamy—an affliction which to the fathers in Ibabao and Leite was a source of great sorrow, since they found in this evil custom a serious impediment to the conversion of many who were not otherwise hindered from receiving holy baptism. Not only were the Boholans free from this, but ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... things which, seen alone, are despicable and vile, associated with them become almost venerable and divine; and one ray, however dim and feeble, of that intense holiness which, in the INFANT GOD, shed majesty over the manger and the straw, not denied to those who in the depth of affliction cherish His patient image, flings over the meanest localities of earth an emanation ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... whose supreme motive is the carrying on of family and of family traditions. He had just told Lightener the family became extinct with his passing. Now he reaffirmed it, and, reaffirming it, he felt the agony of ultimate affliction. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... myself in longing, not in longing to find death! This longing which cannot die to the distant physician calls out for the peace of death!" Confused images crowd upon him of the beginning of this affliction. The voyage to Ireland, the wound of which he was dying, her healing of his wound—only to open it again; her offering him the poisoned cup which when he drank, hoping to be cured of ills forever, a fiery charm was upon him, dooming him ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... citizen of both countries, proposed sending him to the United States. "To kill Louis," wrote Paine, "is not only inhuman, but a folly. It will increase the number of your enemies. France has but one ally,—the United States of America,—and the execution of the King would spread an universal affliction in that country. If I could speak your language like a Frenchman, I would descend a suppliant to your bar, and in the name of all my brothers in America present to you a petition and prayer to suspend the execution of Louis." The Mountain and the galleries ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... of retribution; but it cannot affirm the impossibility, it can only doubt the certainty of these things; and in their bare possibility there is enough at once to impose an obligation to serious inquiry, and to occasion the deepest anxiety, especially in seasons of affliction or danger, which awaken reflective thought. "Atheism," said the acute but skeptical Bayle, "does not shelter us from the fear of eternal suffering." But, even if it did, what influence would it exert on our present happiness? Would it not limit our enjoyments, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... permitted to escape. "After our arrival," she writes, "we suffered every kind of evil. In about eighteen months our elder brother, unaccustomed to the hard labor we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. Since leaving France, we had experienced every kind of affliction, disease, pestilence, famine, poverty and hard labor! I have been for six months together without tasting bread, working the ground like a slave; and I have even passed three or four years without always having it when I wanted it. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... centre of attraction proved to be a man with a big head. The unfortunate creature seemed to experience very much the same treatment as he would have met with had he been turned loose in the streets of London. Everybody stared, most people laughed, and some jeered at his terrible affliction. He may have numbered some five-and-forty years, stood about five feet four inches high, with a head of about twice the natural size. The idiotic appearance produced by this deformity was increased ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... a man from knowing other people. He hears them, and he feels them, and indeed has generally more kindness from them because of his affliction." ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... her. As she was rich, influential, and very, very kind, most people were content to count their early tea as well lost on her behalf. Still, the necessity for hurriedly dropping the discussion of an enthralling topic, and suppressing all mention of it during her presence on the scene, was an affliction at a moment like the present, when time was slipping away and indecision was the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... the field as but treacherous auxiliaries, co-operate effectually in the battle which they never intended he should gain. Some preached Christ of envy, and strife, and contention, supposing to add affliction to his bonds; but, says he, What then? notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or truth, Christ is preached—the thing itself is done—and I therein rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. When animated by this high principle, this ambition absolutely for the ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... from Lisbon Generall of the whole fleet, and in that degree had returned, if the Vice-rey of Goa embarked for Portugall in the Bon Iesus had not, by reason of his late office, bene preferred. Sir Iohn intending not to adde too much affliction to the afflicted, moued with pity and compassion of humane misery, in the end resolued freely to dismisse this captaine and the most part of his followers, to their owne countrey, and for the same purpose bestowed them in certaine vessels furnished with all kindes of necessary ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... her boy an orphan. When that day comes, I will ask you all to pray for me that I may find words. But now I ask you to give me that ten days' reprieve. Let the poor creature recover a little strength, before the thunderbolt of affliction falls on her ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... the devil, was the cause of death, and the doomer of the disembodied spirits of men to the lower caverns of darkness and rest. They personified Death as king, tyrannizing over mankind; and, unless in severe affliction, they dreaded the hour when they must lie down under his sceptre and sink into his voiceless kingdom of shadows. Christ broke the power of Satan, closed his busy reign, rescued the captive souls, and relieved the timorous hearts of the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... may so call it, did not so totally destroy his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on this melancholy occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved to show he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to threshing at backgammon with the Portuguese friar, ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... their last farthing to reach this place, exhausted with fatigue, perishing from hunger or disease, struggle to reach the water before their breath shall fail. Here and there in the crowd appear all forms of affliction—hideous lepers and other victims of cancerous and ulcerous diseases, with the noses, lips, fingers and feet eaten away; paralytics in all stages of the disease, people whose limbs are twisted with rheumatism, men and women covered with all kinds of sores, fanatical ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... exaggerated notions of their own importance in this new phase of their life, but without the worse vices of the convicts. This rule, even in such well-regulated households, was a very hard one to get observed, even under flogging penalties; and, indeed, formed the staple affliction of poor thoughtless Jim's early life, as this ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... morning, when Koit rose from his couch, Videvik awakened at last from her dream of love. When she saw the evil deed that the wolf had wrought, she began to weep bitterly. But the tears of her innocent affliction were not hidden from the Creator. He descended from his heaven to punish the evil-doer and to bring the criminal to justice. He dealt out severe punishment to the wolf, and yoked him high in heaven with ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... of ground-breaking had gone out to Seattle and Chicago, and thence to London, conservative capitalists, who had suspected Close Brothers and Company and all their associates in this wild scheme of temporary insanity, concluded that the sore affliction had come to stay. But the dauntless builders on the busy field where the grading camp was in action kept grubbing and grading, climbing and staking, blasting and building, undiscouraged and undismayed. Under the eaves of a dripping glacier, Hawkins, Hislop, and Heney ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, once she had ascertained the fact that Mr. Smith belonged to the Campbell's Time, and that therefore she could ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... eye. Though ineffectual pity thine may be, No wealth, no pow'r, to set the captive free; Though only to thy ravish'd sight is given The golden path that HOWARD trod to heaven; Thy slights can make the wretched more forlorn, And deeper drive affliction's barbed thorn. Say not, "I'll come and cheer thy gloomy cell With news of dearest friends; how good, how well: I'll be a joyful herald to thine heart:" Then fail, and play the worthless trifler's part, To sip flat pleasures from thy glass's brim, And waste the precious ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... subjects with the miraculousness of latter day miracles, as she will hold up the bones of some supposed Catholic Saint, and declare to her benighted followers that if they worship these relics, they will work wonders and cure the ailment of any affliction they may be ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... irritable character, nor truly did he appear satisfied if anyone approached him, save Miriam, from whom alone he would accept the scanty viands which he ever appeared disinclined to touch. But his devoted niece, amid all her harrowing affliction, could ever spare to the protector of her youth a placid countenance, a watchful eye, a gentle voice, and a ready hand. Her religion and her virtue, the strength of her faith, and the inspiration of her innocence, ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... oppressed by sorrow and affliction, to lift the heart and mind to things above. Nature of itself tends downward, and unless it has learned to discipline itself and to engage with the enemy in sturdy battle, it is not yet prepared for life. For the world is a battlefield and life a warfare, even from a natural point of ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... and the morning found him still reading in its awful pages, in which so many stricken hearts, in which so many tender and faithful souls, have found comfort under calamity, and refuge and hope in affliction. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?"—And in answer to the unspoken cry of appeal that burst forth as he knelt there by the window—"O Lord, my strength, my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction!"—came the unspoken promise: "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." The ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... in Death's relentless claim We read thy mercy by its sterner name; In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; In the deep lessons that affliction draws, We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, We own the love that ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... deprived me of it, and, as I must think, forever. I have not been able to read these pages, and have been compelled to entrust their revision to other eyes and other hands. I will utter no more complaints, my dear friends; the consciousness of the depth of my affliction admits not of complaints and lamentations. I have lost all; I am a withered branch, that feels and suffers still. You only have I won! Your society, which must compensate me for all my studies, joys, and hopes, would almost outweigh my sorrows, did not my very sickness prevent me from enjoying ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi

... where everything is interpreted to the worst," he said. "My physical weakness continues and is increased by this affliction. I place my trust in God the Lord and in my upright and conscientious determination to serve the country, his Excellency, and the religion in which through God's grace I hope to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and went to Paris, taking Little Kensington along. Notwithstanding our great sympathy with Corinne's parents, Euphemia and myself could not help becoming somewhat resigned to the affliction which had befallen them, and we found ourselves obliged to enjoy the trip very much. Euphemia became greatly excited and exhilarated as we entered Paris. For weeks I knew she had been pining for this city. As ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... poor; she suffered as a child from imaginary terrors which she describes in her Autobiography, and she gradually became deaf. She bore this affliction with the greatest courage and cheerfulness, but misfortunes followed one another in rapid succession. Her elder brother died of consumption, her father lost large sums of money in business, and the grief and anxiety so preyed upon his mind that he died, leaving his family very ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... that I hear and follow of the words, spoken by these pitiful fellows cast upon the field of affliction, the words which spring from their bruises and pains, the words ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... know not your notions of friendship's duties; but for a gentleman like Schuyler, scarcely a mortal illness itself could serve to keep him from paying the last respect to a friend whose death was such an affliction to him." ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... by reason of the cruelty of the beloved lady, but because of the exceeding ardour begotten in my breast of an ill-ordered appetite, for which, for that it suffered me not to stand content at any reasonable bounds, caused me ofttimes feel more chagrin than I had occasion for. In this my affliction the pleasant discourse of a certain friend of mine and his admirable consolations afforded me such refreshment that I firmly believe of these it came that I died not. But, as it pleased Him who, being Himself infinite, hath for immutable law appointed unto all things ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... to the period in which our tale opens, an event occurred which altered the course of Captain Ellice's life, and for a long period plunged him into the deepest affliction. This was the loss of his wife at sea, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... celebration of Pala-an(cf. p. 328). Hence the owners cause some mortal, who has the right to conduct the ceremony, to become ill, and then inform him through the mediums as to the cause of his affliction. The names of the grand-children are as follows: Pensipenondosan, Logosen, Bakoden, Bing-gasan, Bakdangan, Giligen, Idomalo, Agkabkabayo, Ebloyan, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... more than this. He was preparing the reader for the awful presence of death in a private affliction, Amelia's loss of her husband George. To do this he lets his heart go out in sympathy for the French, and by that sympathy he seems to rise above all race, to a supreme height where exist the griefs of the human ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... have me so fussed up I can't light the fire," protested Ned. "I guess Jimmie's affliction is catching. I'm certainly getting an appetite or the appetite ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... citizens by sorcery and her name is Queen Lab, which being interpreted, meaneth in Arabic 'Almanac of the Sun.' "[FN338] When Badr Basim heard what the old man said, he was affrighted with sore affright and trembled like reed in wind saying in himself, "Hardly do I feel me free from the affliction wherein I was by reason of sorcery, when Destiny casteth me into yet sorrier case!" And he fell a-musing over his condition and that which had betided him. When the Shaykh looked at him and saw the violence of his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... water by force, they brought forth to them certain holy men (but they were false priests), who spake unto the people that they should be quiet and trouble not the capitalists because they thirsted. And these holy men, who were false priests, testified to the people that this affliction was sent to them of God for the healing of their souls, and that if they should bear it in patience and lust not after the water, neither trouble the capitalists, it would come to pass that after they had given up the ghost they would come to a country where there should be no capitalists ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... been at once, if they had had their way; but this would mean that they would have to do without any wedding feast, and when they suggested this they came into conflict with the old people. To Teta Elzbieta especially the very suggestion was an affliction. What! she would cry. To be married on the roadside like a parcel of beggars! No! No!—Elzbieta had some traditions behind her; she had been a person of importance in her girlhood—had lived on a big estate and had servants, and might ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... in New Amsterdam but considered Peter Stuyvesant as a tower of strength, and rested satisfied that the public welfare was secure so long as he was in the city. It is not surprising, then, that they looked upon his departure as a sore affliction. With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of his troop, as they marched down to the river-side to embark. The governor, from the stern of his schooner, gave a short but truly patriarchal address to his citizens, wherein he recommended them to comport like loyal ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Suez, and arrived at Cairo on the 1st of December, where they were lodged in the same house that they had formerly occupied. Each of them was allowed half a maidan daily for subsistence, which is equal to about twopence of Venice. They here suffered great affliction and fatigue, as whatever laborious work was to be performed was devolved upon them. Clearing out the water-cisterns, levelling hills, putting gardens in order, new buildings, and such like, all fell to their share. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... by a timely and skilful treatment, but is become too much a part of life to be ever wholly washed away. And the unhappy step-children of nature whose inheritance it is, seldom find a deliverer good at need; for as the world draws no distinction between their grave affliction and that other remediable misery of youth, it will sanction no other treatment than banter or mockery, which does but infuse yet more deeply the mournful dye. When this fails, it leaves its victims to the desolation which according ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... with an indefatigable labour, as he indulged his sense of authority by an intolerable arrogance. Among the multitude of distinguished men whom this legal savage irritated, was Sir William Jones, the Orientalist. He thus writes to Burke, "I heard last night, with surprise and affliction, that the *Therion* (the wild-beast—Thurlow) was to continue in office. Now, I can assure you, from my own positive knowledge, and I know him well, that though he hates our species in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... true occultists teach that the Cause operating on one plane manifests effects upon the same plane. In this connection, we would call your attention to the instance in the New Testament (John IX., 2), in which Jesus was asked regarding the cause of the affliction of the man who was BORN BLIND. "And his disciples asked him, saying, 'Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?'" The question being asked in order that Jesus might determine between the two prevailing theories: ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... there, you shall have white Robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of Eternity. There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower Region upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death, for the former things are passed away. You are now going to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, and to the Prophets, men that God hath taken away from the evil to come, and that are now ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire. But do not think that the baptism of fire comes once for all to a man, in some one terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness and nothingness. No; with many—and those perhaps the best people—it goes on month after month, year after year. By secret trials, chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley

... the yard and locked me up; when to my great consolation in my affliction, I found Simpson, crying and twisting up his pocket-handkerchief, as if he was wringing it; and hoping his friends would not hear of his disgrace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... to comment or narrate a racy story which involves the personal affliction of anybody. Dining with Mr. Evarts one night was also a very distinguished general of our Civil War, who had been an important figure in national politics. He was very curious to know about Mr. Tilden, and especially as to the truth of a report that Mr. Tilden had a stroke of ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... fervent prayers. In my hopeless solitude, I may perhaps feel one glimpse of consolation;—the idea that you may be happy, and that even in the glittering scenes of ambition, you will sometimes revert to the cheerless abode of Theodora. This will afford me some solace in my affliction. And when the hand of death releases me from my odious chains, your tears will tenderly fall on the grave of her, whose greatest crime was that of loving you ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio



Words linked to "Affliction" :   scourge, deformity, curse, tribulation, nemesis, ill health, misshapenness, torment, calvary, hardship, cross, unhealthiness, crown of thorns, health problem, attack, adversity, hard knocks, malformation, bane, trouble, trial, martyrdom, afflict



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