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Bitter   Listen
verb
Bitter  v. t.  To make bitter.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bitter" Quotes from Famous Books



... three days had not been as unhappy as she had expected. She had visited Sibyl Forbes, living in lonely splendor, and listened enthralled to that rebellious young woman (who had received her with passionate gratitude) as she poured out humiliations, bitter resentment, and matrimonial felicity. Madeleine had consoled and rejoiced and promised to talk ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... sternly reminded the two Houses that peace must bring indemnity for the past and security for the future, and that the only indemnity which Mexico could offer would be a cession of territory. Unwittingly, he gave the signal for another bitter controversy, for in the state of public opinion at that moment, every accession of territory was bound to raise the question of the extension of slavery. The country was on the eve of another presidential election. Would the administration which had precipitated the war, prove ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Doth point to utterance in words uncouth Which clothe some folly in a tattered garb. (Quezox to Francos): And yet most noble sire, my bowels of Discernment do fierce gripe me with the fear That in the rambling words this youth hath tongued Much bitter truth may deeply hidden be. Francos: Fear not! Caesar hath wise discerned that all Who long have on these Islands made their home Are blinded by self-interest, which doth, As colored glass speaks lies unto the eye, Befool their ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... Church gives it the stamp of her authority, she does not thus make it authentic, but shows her reverence for it as the truth of God by her unhesitating assent. Scripture bears, on the face of it, as clear evidence of its truth as black and white do of their colour, sweet and bitter of their taste. It is preposterous to attempt, by discussion, to rear up a full faith in Scripture. Those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce in it implicitly, for it carries with it ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... that kind of Rattlesnake root, called star-grass. The leaves shoot out circularly, and grow horizontally and near the ground. The root is in shape not unlike the rattle of that serpent, and is a strong antidote against the bite of it. It is very bitter, and where it meets with any poison, works by violent sweats, but where it meets with none, has no sensible operation but that of putting the spirits into a great hurry, and so of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures: for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste, that bitter things may pass for sweet; as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense when corrupted, either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it change the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... aside, and his word became law. We can well imagine the secret intrigues formed both by mothers and sons to curry favour with the father and bias his choice; we can picture the jealousy with which they mutually watched each other, and the bitter hatred which any preference shown to one would arouse in the breasts of all the others. Often brothers who had been disappointed in their expectations would combine secretly against the chosen or supposed heir; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... to mental vigour in both professors and students. If in moving about Hokkaido one is conscious of a somewhat materialistic view of progress it may be remembered that an absorption in "getting on" is characteristic of colonists and their advisers everywhere. It is not high ideals of life but bitter experience of inability to make a living on the mainland which has brought immigrants to Hokkaido. As time goes on, the rural and industrial development may have a less sordid look.[274] At present the visitor who lacks time to penetrate into the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... pressed, Greenly swallowed his discontent, and departed. The five minutes that succeeded were bitter minutes to Sir Gervaise Oakes. Beside himself there were but five men on the poop; viz., the quarter-master who tended the signals, and three of the Bowlderos. All of these were using muskets as usual, though the vice-admiral never permitted marines to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the wind rising, and the air growing bitter cold, so I said to the Indians we would go down the creek where there was plenty of dry wood, and make a night camp. They readily assented, and we set out, arriving at a fine ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... in that bakery," he has said, "left a bitter impression. Those two years were the hardest of my whole life." He has thus described his recollections in ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... bitter, starlit nights, as we sat around the old stove that fed us and warmed us and kept us cheerful, we could hear the coyotes howling down by the corrals, and their hungry, wintry cry used to remind the boys of wonderful animal stories; about grey wolves ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... of Captain George Popham and Ralegh Gilbert went out, five year ago," said Simons doubtfully. "They said they could not endure the bitter climate." ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... like that which I have just received. Dip your pen in gall; find words more bitter than those which you have already used. Accuse me of want of candour, want of generosity, want of every amiable, every estimable quality. Upbraid me with the loss of all of which you have bereft me. Recollect every sacrifice that I have made, and, if you can, imagine ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the picture of his father's last moments would not let the boy sleep. It seemed to Jim that if he could learn to forget this picture a part of his grief would be lifted. It was the uselessness of Big Jim's death that made the boy unboyishly bitter. He could not believe that any other death ever had been so needless. It was only in the years to come that Jim was to learn how needlessly, how unremittingly, industry ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... which soften and ennoble human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea—that of his greatness; he had but one ambition—that of command; but one enjoyment—that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting selfishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing, which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal which he affected, or felt, showed ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... scum of society should be kept in its place," observed another, scarcely less bitter than young Richmond in his jealousy of the lad who claimed so much of the attention of the little ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis

... forsaken, disgraced captive, sitting amid the sombre ruins of her life, drinking the bitter lees of the fatal cup a mother's hand had forced to her reluctant lips, there seemed nothing strange in the injustice meted out; for had not the second place in maternal love always been hers? As the great gray eyes darkening behind their tears, like deep lakes under ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... industrial but to all classes in England? It certainly has not put an end to strikes, for strikes have never been more frequent anywhere than they have been in Great Britain of late years. It does not seem to have perceptibly diminished poverty, if we may judge from such recent books as "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," and "Through Darkest England." The state of Ireland has not been indicative of a healing and life-giving prosperity. In a word the great problems of labor, of poverty, and of over-population seem as severe in free trade England as in protective countries. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... master," she said, "it is your duty, of course, to keep your son in proper order, but you should also regard the relationship of husband and wife. I'm already a woman of fifty and I've only got this scapegrace. Was there any need for you to give him such a bitter lesson? I wouldn't presume to use any strong dissuasion; but having, on this occasion, gone so far as to harbour the design of killing him, isn't this a fixed purpose on your part to cut short my own existence? But as you are bent upon ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... such troubles assume, but she smiled gently to herself, for she, too, had been young, and the ways of lovers had been her ways, and the paths of love she had trodden, and she had drained love's cup at bitter springs. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... nothing but what I know true. He had had a pleurisy, and was recovered. Last Tuesday was se'nnight he went to attend the King's passing some bills in the House of Lords; from thence to Carlton House, very hot, where he unrobed, put on a light unaired frock and waistcoat, went to Kew, walked in a bitter day, came home tired, and lay down for three hours, upon a couch in a very cold room at Carlton House, that opens into the garden. Lord Egmont told him how dangerous it was, but the Prince did not mind him. My father once said to this King, when ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... of vegetables as of odour, fruit, gum, resin, wax, honey, seem brought about in the same manner as in the glands of animals; the tasteless moisture of the earth is converted by the hop plant into a bitter juice; as by the caterpillar in the nutshell, the sweet powder is converted into a bitter powder. While the power of absorption in the roots and barks of vegetables is excited into action by the fluids applied to their mouths like the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... too true. Seth had grown bitter and even reckless of late. Ever since his quarrel with Ruth about Jim Tumley Seth had been boiling with temper. Old poisons that had spoiled his life in many ways and that he thought he had conquered crept back to tyrannize over him. Poor Seth had had so much discipline ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... coming up the cabin stairs, and began, as soon as he came near him, to complain in very bitter and violent language of the treatment that he had received. Hargo had taken away his bow and arrow, and would ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... designated as Macewans, and to have gained much more recently the name of Cameron, i.e. Wrynose, from a blemish in the physiognomy of some heroic chief of the line of Lochiel. This view of the case is also adopted by Douglas in his Baronage, where he frequently mentions the bitter feuds between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, and identifies the latter sept in reference to the events of 1396, with the Camerons. It is perhaps impossible to clear up thoroughly this controversy, little interesting in itself, at least to readers on this side of Inverness. The names, as ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... ended when the rose water, which falls drop by drop in the tube, ceases to be fragrant. That which is first condensed has very little scent, that which is next obtained is the best, and the third and last portion is generally a little burnt in smell, and bitter in taste. In a very small still, having no worm, the condensation must be produced by linen, wetted in cold water, applied round the capital. A third method consists in plunging the boiler of the still into a larger vessel of boiling ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... Bertha, this is nothing less than a soul's tragedy! When I think what he used to be, what I hoped of him, what he hoped for himself! Is it not dreadful that he should have fallen so low, and in so short a time! A popular success! Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame!" ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... concern Socialism and those, if any, which do not concern it. In the case of the South African war it was mainly the instinct of self-preservation that actuated us; it is certain that any other decision would have destroyed the Society. The passions of that period were extraordinarily bitter. The Pro-Boers were mobbed and howled down, their actions were misrepresented, and their motives disparaged: they retaliated by accusing the British troops of incredible atrocities, by rejoicing ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... and said nothing. What was there that I could say? My heart was big with much that I could not tell, and I was silent. And so the occasion passed away. Mrs. Hollingford went home with a bitter doubt in her heart; and the ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland

... loved the lonely glens on Minchmoor and in the Enterkin, or where Queen Mary's "baby garden" shows its box-row border among the Spanish chestnuts of Lake Monteith, so he loved the Scottish character, "bitter to the taste and sweet to the diaphragm": "Jeemes" the beadle, with his family worship when he himself was all the family; the old Aberdeen Jacobite people; Miss Stirling Graham of Duntrune, who in her day bewitched Edinburgh; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... her unhappy fate so deeply that they were unable to control their grief. They kneeled or lay prostrate on the ground, and offered unceasing petitions to heaven to save the life of their mistress, mingling their prayers with tears, and sobs, and bitter lamentations. ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... was decidedly eccentric. On reaching a village he would tell his coachman where to go next but he never told him more than one stage in advance. Every morning he would consume one of his rolls and wash it down with the lukewarm brackish water of the Maros—and bitter enough he found the taste of it too. He never quitted the carriage for more than two or three minutes at a time, and he presented his pistols point blank at everyone who approached him with ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... persisted in the accusation of his sonne. "Why (quoth the king) canst thou finde in thy harte, that thine owne sonne should be put to death before thy face?" "Yea truly (quoth the father,) for at home in my garden, when the yong Lactuse begin to growe, I cutte of the bitter and sower stalkes from them: for pitie it were the mother Lactuse should sustaine sorow, for those bastard and degenerate shrubbes: which beinge taken awaye, she prospereth and encreaseth to great sweetenesse and bignes. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... was at his height, there came a whirlwind over the plain, driving a great cloud of dust. And when this had passed, we looked, and lo! this maiden whom we have brought hither stood by the dead corpse. And when she saw that it lay bare as before, she sent up an exceeding bitter cry, even as a bird whose young ones have been taken from the nest. Then she cursed them that had done this deed; and brought dust and sprinkled it upon the dead man, and poured water upon him three times. Then we ran and laid hold upon her, and accused her that she had ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... and filched him from her. And whether Dalberg's scorn or Harleston's defection was the more humiliating, she did not know. Together they made a mocking and a desolation of her love and her life. And as she came to hate with a fierce hatred the Princess whom Dalberg loved, so with an even more bitter hatred she hated Mrs. Clephane who had won Harleston from her. For while with Dalberg she never had the slightest chance, and knew it perfectly, with Harleston there was the bitterness of blasted hopes as well ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... seemed to be a force bill, the tariff imposed by New England's enterprise, the duty of the Southern States to resist it. They were insisting that there was no warrant to pass a tariff law, that it was clearly a breach of the Constitution, and that it should be resisted to the death. There was bitter cursing of Yankees, of the greed of New England, of its disregard of the rights of the South.... But out upon the harbor the sea gulls were drifting. I could hear the slapping of the waves against the rocks. And in the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... ordeal for freeing from the imputation of murder, conducted by slaying the heifer, and washing the hands over it, while there was made a protestation of innocence, that embodied an oath:[413] the means of removing ceremonial defilement of various kinds: and the bitter water which, according to the innocence or guilt of the party to whom it was administered, acted innocuously, so as to denote the effects of a lawful oath, or as the oath which, by being sworn falsely, is converted into a curse; were all of the nature of an appeal to God. Oblations ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... planning his work to be done at Rockdale, Garrison reflected there was little apparent hope of clearing young Durgin of suspicion, unless one trifling hint should supply the clew. Dorothy had stated that her Uncle John had long had some particularly bitter and malicious enemy, a man unknown to herself, from whom she believed Mr. Hardy might have been fleeing, from time to time, in the trips which had become the habit of ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... gave a bitter cry, and rushed to the door. Before she could reach it, Basil stepped ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... dump him down in a camp without instruction or advice, without even so much as a small red handbook on field tactics to guide him. There he splutters about, makes an ass of himself in various ways, and either hammers out some plan for getting at his job by many bitter failures, or subsides into the kind of man who sits in the mess-room with his feet on the stove, reading novels and smoking cigarettes—either learns to swim after ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... I am so without a bribe, or without any advantage to my own affairs." My liberty of speaking has also easily cleared me from all suspicion of dissembling by its vehemency, leaving nothing unsaid, how home and bitter soever (so that I could have said no worse behind their backs), and in that it carried along with it a manifest show of simplicity and indifference. I pretend to no other fruit by acting than to act, and add to it no ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... plenty of other things to supply the lack of ham for breakfast. Max even went to the trouble of making some flapjacks, just to take away the bitter disappointment Bandy-legs seemed to feel over the disappearance of the joint. And all of them united in declaring that they did not care how soon he had the same notion again, ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... waiting when he regained the safety of her room. "Safety!" The thought was bitter when linked with the certain ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... They likewise helped to round up the fathers of Nappy Martell and Slugger Brown. Mr. Martell and Mr. Brown were sent to prison on the charge of aiding the enemy, while Nappy and Slugger were marched off to a detention camp in the South. When being taken away Nappy and Slugger were very bitter against the Rovers, and vowed they would square accounts ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... without the expenditure of power; and some of them went mad in the pursuit of this object. The faith in such a consummation, involving, as it did, immense personal profit to the inventor, was extremely exciting, and every attempt to destroy this faith was met by bitter resentment on the part of those who held it. Gradually, however, as men became more and more acquainted with the true functions of machinery, the dream dissolved. The hope of getting work out of mere mechanical combinations disappeared: ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... indeed very bitter; it was one which the luxuries that surrounded her had not the least power to sweeten. Her husband was a man possessing many noble qualities both of head and heart; but the fatal love of gold, like those ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown

... I," Felix said, "have had our periods of bitter enmity. With your marriage to Lucille these, so far as I am concerned, ended for ever. I will even admit that in my younger days I was prejudiced against you. That has passed away. You have been ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... plainly an important harbour and one of the seats of the Saxon Kings—at least, it is mentioned as having a "King's house" there—was the property of Algar, the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. But Harold was the son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, and Kent and Mercia were old and bitter enemies, and it was due to the intrigues of Mercia that Earl Godwin was banished, and Harold went with him to Ireland. Then, fourteen years later, William came to an England weakened by internal strife, and Harold was slain at Hastings and the Saxon lords dispossessed of their lands and goods, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... such as some of our church members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye Bottomless Pit." To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" were despised by a real live Puritan wig-hater one needs only to read the many disparaging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing and wig-wearers in Judge Sewall's diary, which reached a culmination when a widow whom he was courting suggested most warmly that he ought to wear, what his very soul ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... a love that even her own unfaith had failed to sour it. Her childish recollection, blurred by the passage of years, was of a white-faced, rather haggard-looking woman with deep-set, haunted eyes and a bitter mouth, but whose rare smile, when it came, was so enchanting that it wiped out, for the moment, all remembrance of the harsh lines which hardened her ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... me to inquire into its composition; and I learnt, with some degree of surprise, that it was actually made from corn which had been previously malted, much in the same manner as barley is malted in Great Britain. A root yielding a grateful bitter was used in lieu of hops, the name of which I have forgotten; but the corn which yields the wort is ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... lady had frowned a little over this. "Beatrice must and shall have her friends round her when she gives herself to Bertram. Your son is making an excellent match from a money point of view and from all other points of view, and if there is a bitter with the sweet, he must learn to swallow ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... I have been young myself, and I remember well how pleasant revenge was to me, but I soon found that the pleasure of revenge did not last. It soon passed away, yet the deed of revenge did not pass away, and sometimes the deed became to my memory very bitter—insomuch that the pleasantness was entirely swallowed up and forgotten in the bitterness. My young braves will not believe this, I know. They go on feeling; they think on feeling; they reason on feeling; they trust ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... of weeks and months went out in the last bitter cry. Then, as if awakened by his own intensity of feeling, Jeff opened his eyes and was ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave

... best friends that the bitter lesson which Dorothe had learned would prove effective, but it did not. Women of her disposition never learn by experience, and she plunged once more into extravagance and folly. The boy was old ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... often been discredited, but without reason. How shall the bitter injustice which is frequently found on the earth be explained? Some have an abundance of wealth, some have literally nothing. Some enjoy the best of health and strength all their days, while others pass their years ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... days the messenger found him at Bologna. Fox instantly set off in all haste for London, which he reached in nine days. The three months that followed were a time of unsurpassed activity and bitterness, and Burke was at least as active and as bitter as the rest of them. He was the writer of the Prince of Wales's letter to Pitt, sometimes set down to Sheridan, and sometimes to Gilbert Elliot. It makes us feel how naturally the style of ideal kingship, its dignity, calm, and high self-consciousness all came to Burke. Although we read of his ...
— Burke • John Morley

... up two deep on the six-foot way, shivering in the bitter cold, our mess-tins in our hands. The fires by the railway threw a dim light on the scene, officers paraded up and down issuing orders, everybody seemed very excited, and nearly all were grumbling at being awakened from their beds in the horse-trucks. Many of our mates were ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... hitherto held, and that the body into whose hands they would be intrusted would be composed solely of one party in the state, and that this party would be controlled by the fanatical leaders and the ministers of the sects opposed to the Established Church, which were at that time bitter, narrow, and violent to an extent of which we ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... Polsue, the widow-woman, and Miss Cherry (Charity) Oliver, a bitter spinster—spoke to the Wesleyan Minister ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... tenderness, but there was little softness in his nature. As he looked down upon her, his face grew rigid and stern. In her sobs he read his answer,—the unwillingness, probably the inability, of her heart to respond to his,—and he grew bitter as he ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... Again rocky crevices ran through the forest, giving them terribly hard work to get over, perhaps to come at once upon some boiling spring, whose water, where it trickled away and cooled, was of a filthy bitter taste that was most objectionable. Then again there were blistering pools of mud ever rising in a high ebullition, and bursting with ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... the frantic efforts of the locals to head them off. Again was the crowd on its feet, every eye fastened on the struggling mass of players. Hearts beat high with renewed hope among those Chester onlookers. They realized that this was to be the crowning episode in all the long and bitter contest, when Jack Winters would bring every particle of skill and endurance he could command in his fighting eleven to tear off a victory ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... in the cup of my life, and I was thankful that it had ceased to be entirely bitter. I loved Mrs. Bruce's babe. When it laughed and crowed in my face, and twined its little tender arms confidingly about my neck, it made me think of the time when Benny and Ellen were babies, and my wounded heart was ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... upon his own heart as heavy as lead; but he was sorry that the signs of it should be so evident, and wondered what he should say to his friend Anthony when the time came for telling; since Anthony was as ardent for the old Faith as any in the land. It was a bitter time, this, for the old families that served God as their fathers had, and desired to serve their prince too; for, now and again, the rumour would go abroad that another house had fallen, and another name gone from the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... preceding:—And we may observe, by the way, that though there was a due admixture of opposite creeds and conflicting principles, yet even then, and the time is not so far back, such was their cordiality of heart and simplicity of manners when contrasted with the bitter and rancorous spirit of the present day that the very remembrance of the harmony in which they lived is at once pleasing ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... wider at the base than at the tip as shown in Fig. 60. The buds are large, downy and sharp pointed. The acorns are small and have deep, scaly cups the inner margins of which are downy. The kernels are yellow and bitter. ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... Leverage had hoped. Eric Leverage had worked with Carroll before, and he had seen the man's personal charm, his sunny smile, his attitude of camaraderie, perform miracles. People had a way of talking freely to Carroll after he had chatted with them awhile, no matter how bitter the hostility surrounding their first meeting. Carroll was that way—he was a student of practical every-day psychology. He worked to one end—he endeavored to learn the mental reactions of every one of his dramatis persoae toward the fact of the crime he ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... which affect animals and ourselves to a large extent similarly. Sweets are agreeable and bitters are disagreeable, though it is the fact that the snail, which loves sugar, recoils from saccharine, and there are "mites" (Acari) which feed with avidity on bitter strychnine! Excess of heat and of cold is disliked by animals and all men, whilst the sense of touch is pleasurably or painfully affected in much the same way in most men and animals, more than is ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... the non-resident landowner, who, as lord of the domain, through his heartless agent, will exact his tribute to the uttermost farthing. Must the sons and daughters of the farms of this republic come to the bitter heritage of such a life? Surely! We have already seen the beginning of the end! The sad case of my father can be duplicated a hundred times or more in almost every county of our western states. States ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... False, credulous, inconstant Abigail! But let 'em go: and, Ithamore, from hence Ne'er shall she grieve me more with her disgrace; Ne'er shall she live to inherit aught of mine, Be bless'd of me, nor come within my gates, But perish underneath my bitter curse, Like Cain by Adam ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... route the fixed charges must be reduced still more and the creditors must suffer a larger loss. It goes without saying that the prospect of such a calamity means consolidation. It is evident what alternative competitors face in cases in which heroic competition goes on to the bitter end. As a rule this is an unrealized alternative. The mere prospect of the calamity connected with it is bad enough to put an end to the independent action of the different railroads. With the facilities for combination ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... come, when you shall feel as I; And, with seared heart, weep many a bitter tear. But, maiden, grant one farewell courtesy. When you come forth, and see me hanging here, E'en at your door, forget not my hard case; But pause and weep me for ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... English and Shere Ali was Abdurrahman's most cherished thought, his dominant, never-failing passion.' His hatred of Shere Ali, his family, and supporters, was intelligible and natural enough, but why he should have entertained a bitter grudge against the English is not very apparent; and there has been no overt manifestation of its existence since he became Ameer. To Mr Eugene Schuyler, who had an interview with him at Tashkend, he expressed his conviction that with L50,000 wherewith ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... long day through and gaze In the dimness of gloom, all but amazed At the emptiness of life, and wonder What keeps sorrow and death asunder. 'Tis the forced seclusion most galls the mind, And sours all other joy which it may find. 'Tis the sneer, tho' half hid, is bitter still, And wakes dormant anger to passion's will. But oh! 'tis harder yet to bear them all Unangered and unheedful of the thrall, To list the jeer, the snarl, and epithet All too base for knaves, and e'en still forget Such words were spoken, too manly to let Such baseness move a nobler intellect. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... and the boy was in effect both penniless and homeless. The memory of his mother and her teachings was, as he was subsequently accustomed to say, the only capital with which he started life. To a natural waywardness and quarrelsomeness had been added a heritage of bitter memories, and the ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... villain, with another grin, "and many a time it is newly sweetened for them, too, and they take it until they fall asleep; but they forget to waken somehow. Taste that yourself, and you'll find that it is beautifully sweetened; because if it was given to the dog in its natural bitter state he might refuse to take it at all, or, what would be worse and more dangerous still, he might suspect the reason why it was ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... was hushed for ever—and the cold snow was resting on their bosoms in the little churchyard miles away. Truly the contrast between now and then was extremely saddening, and the child bowed his head upon the seat, and sobbed in bitter grief. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... and came to Swallowfield to stay altogether. 'The poor cottage was tumbling around us, and if we had stayed much longer we should have been buried in the ruins,' she says; 'there I had toiled and striven and tasted as bitterly of bitter anxiety, of fear and hope, as often falls to the lot of women.' Then comes a charming description of the three miles of straight and dusty road. 'I walked from one cottage to the other on an autumn evening when the vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling there for their annual departure, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... her, that she has suddenly lost caste. She is "nothing at all" because she is a woman: to be treated with gallantry if she is young and pretty, and as a negligible quantity if she is not. That perhaps is a bitter description of what really takes place, but after reading Herr Riehl, and hearing that his ideas are still widely accepted in Germany, I am not much afraid of being unjust. His own arguments convict the men of the nation in a measure nothing I could ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... contemplated my steed Tetel, who with head lowered, and legs wide apart, was a tolerable example of the effects of pace. The other aggageers shortly arrived, and as the rival Abou Do joined us, Taher Sheriff quietly wiped the blood off his sword without making a remark; this was a bitter moment ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... 6-15. This is purely imaginary and illustrates the bitter hatred of the Romans for H. They alleged that H. was personally responsible for the war, and that he undertook it for selfish and party ends. Also that Carthage, unable to prevent the war, withheld supplies and reinforcements. Ihne says ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... day, and on the next we packed and started back to Dude Creek. It was a cold, raw, bitter day, with a gale from the north, such a day as I could never have endured had I not become hardened. As it was I almost enjoyed wind and cold. What a transformation in the woods! The little lakes were all frozen over; pines, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... my breast the din Of bitter and sweet life in waves of air; And the world's music sounded manifold, A tempest's roar and ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... in the death that severed them during the Reformation. Thereafter religion had entered upon a period of slow desiccation and sterilization wherever the symbol was cast away with the Sacraments and the faith and the philosophy that had made it live. The bitter hostility to the art and the liturgies and the ceremonial of the Catholic faith is due far less to ignorance of the meaning and function of art and to an inherited jealousy of its quality and its power, than it is to the conscious and determined ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... cruel imitation of the wretched Smith's mincing English. The punishment was the more bitter, because all the world knew that Spot could speak the King's English as well as anybody if only he chose. To the poshy alone was Spot unkind. He was a generous, warm-hearted little man, with real wisdom and a fine appreciation of men and things.... There were other ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... such as we lack words to describe. Moses commanded the Jews to take a male lamb for each household, to kill it, and to daub its blood over the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of their houses. The flesh they were to eat in the night, roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the inauguration of the Passover. The Lord meant to pass through the land in the dark, and slay all the firstborn in Egypt; and lest he should make some mistakes he required ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to show even visible displeasure if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." In consequence of these principles he nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence his ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... all things are made up of opposites, whence it comes that the success of our affections, through the mixture that is in things, can afford no pleasure without some bitterness; and more than this, I will say, that were it not for the bitter, there would be no sweet; seeing that it is through fatigue that we find pleasure in repose; separation is the cause of our pleasure in union; and, examining generally, we shall ever find that one opposite is the reason that the other opposite pleases and ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... readiness to hand her in, but fortunately Mrs. Gaffaw's head did not permit of her rising. With much the same hearty laugh that had welcomed their meeting, honest Gawffaw now saluted the departure of his friend; and as he went whistling over his gate, he ruminated sweet and bitter thoughts as to the destinies of the day—whether he should solace himself with a good dinner and the company of Bailie Merry thought at the Cross Keys in G——, or put up with cold mutton, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... cousin, do you think any girl would look at a sickly, ill-tempered fellow like me?' was the somewhat bitter reply; and Mrs. Ross's kind heart was troubled ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... to overhang the night with a thick fog, and lead these quarrelsome lovers so astray in the dark, that they shall not be able to find each other. Counterfeit each of their voices to the other, and with bitter taunts provoke them to follow you, while they think it is their rival's tongue they hear. See you do this, till they are so weary they can go no farther; and when you find they are asleep, drop the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... sir;—nay, dear colonel;—O lord, sir, what are you doing now! I profess this must not be: without this I would have served you to the utter-most; pray command me.—A jealous, foul-mouthed rogue this Gomez is; I saw how he used you, and you marked how he used me too. O he's a bitter man; but we'll join our forces; ah, shall we, colonel? we'll be revenged on him with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... each present hour with zest Hates fretting what may be the rest, Makes bitter sweet with lazy jest; Naught ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... for money, just as the old man had showed him how to ask; but no shower of coins dropped to the floor, for, as you know, it was not the magic purse. Barbara was so enraged, that she stormed at him with all the bitter words that can be imagined, and drove him from the house. Alejo was a tender-hearted, if lazy, husband, and it never occurred to him to beat his wife in turn. In fact, he loved her and his ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... compact; the leaves clean, crisp, and sweet. When it is too young or running to seed the taste is bitter. Pale patches on the leaves are caused by mildew and are a sign ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... to my minde, that I should departe out of this worlde the beste satisfied mayden that euer died. Alas, that the Goddes did not graunte me the benefite, that I might haue come of noble kinde, to the intente I might haue caused that trayterous ruffien, to feele the grieuous paine and bitter tormentes, which my poore harte susteineth. Ah wretched caitife that I am, abandoned and forlorne of all good fortune: nowe I doe see that with the eies of my minde, which with those of my body daseled and deceiued ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... me! that I should fondly part 30 From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid! Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields! To one so friendless the clear freshet yields A bitter coolness; the ripe grape is sour: Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour Of native air—let me but ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... appreciation which it was possible for his countrymen to give. As for the church, which his keen pen had dealt with as severely as with the temporal powers, it could not well forget his incessant and bitter attacks. That he might obtain Christian burial, he confessed and received absolution from the Abbe Gaultier; but, with his views, this was simply a sacrifice to the proprieties; he remained a heathen poet to the end, a born satirist and scoffer at all ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... flood of bitter tears. The father took her into his arms and soothed her with tender words. But something deep and strange had stirred in the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... was tremendous. And Joel Creech was exceedingly sensitive to ridicule. The riders made life unbearable for him. They had fun out of it as long as Joel showed signs of taking the joke manfully, which was not long, and then his resentment won their contempt. That led to sarcasm on their part and bitter anger on his. It came to Lucy's ears that Joel began to act and talk strangely. She found out that the rider Van had knocked Joel down in Brackton's store and had kicked a gun out of his hand. Van laughed off the rumor and Brackton gave ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... forever! We are estranged by circumstance, sundered by that, if you please, weak as those words seem. And yet something takes your soul to mine. Does something take mine to you, across all the wilderness, across all the miles, across all the long and bitter months? ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... free from virus. But since the War began your English readers Have welcomed MARTIN's admirable leaders— Which prove that all that's honest, clean and wise In the United States is pro-Allies— And learned to recognise in Life a friend On whom to reckon to the bitter end. But these good services you now have crowned By something finer, braver, more profound— Your "John Bull Number," where we gladly trace Pride in the common glories of our race, Goodwill, good fellowship, kind words of cheer, So frank, so unmistakably sincere, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... anxious to take vengeance on him, concerted matters with Leotychides the son of Menares, the son of Agis, who was of the same house as Demaratos, under condition that if he should set him up as king instead of Demaratos, he would go with him against the Eginetans. Now Leotychides had become a bitter foe of Demaratos on account of this matter which follows:—Leotychides had betrothed himself to Percalos the daughter of Chilon son of Demarmenos; and Demaratos plotted against him and deprived Leotychides of his marriage, carrying off Percalos himself beforehand, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... mere worldling. He knew he was as brave as any one, and never doubted his personal charm. Nevertheless, neither the bravery nor the charm seemed to work very swiftly. Lieut. Feraud's engaging, careless truculence of a beau sabreur underwent a change. He began to make bitter allusions to "clever fellows who stick at nothing to get on." The army was full of them, he would say; you had only to look round. But all the time he had in view one person only, his adversary, D'Hubert. Once he confided to an appreciative friend: "You see, I don't know how to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... you will see, as I did, that the positions which the French have prepared behind the Meuse and above the town are vastly stronger than those which they have held successfully, in Lorraine or any other place where the attacks have been bitter, for nearly two years. ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds

... government for the first time in twenty-one years; held under a neutral, caretaker administration, the elections were characterized by a peaceful, orderly process and massive voter turnout, ending a bitter two-year impasse between the former BNP and opposition parties that had paralyzed National Parliament and led to ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... grew heavy with the monotony. He rolled a cigarette. The smoke tasted bitter. He flung the cigarette away. The hunting of men had lost its old-time thrill. A clean break and a hard fight; that was well enough. But the bowed figures riding ahead of him: ignorant, superstitious, brutal; numb to any sense of honor. Was the game worth ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... than you surmise. Florimel, you have driven me to it. I would have prepared you a shield against the shock which must come, but you compel me to wound you to the quick. I would have had you receive the bitter truth from lips you loved, but you drove those lips of honour from you, and now there are left to utter it only the lips you hate, yet the truth you shall receive: it may help to save you from weakness, arrogance, and falsehood.—Sister, your mother was ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... person and himself than what existed between him and most other men—or to some perception of an extraordinary mental character in this limping youth, which was then hid from other eyes. After grinning upon him for a moment with a smile less bitter than his wont, the dwarf passed to the door, double-locked it, and then coming up to the stranger, seized him by the wrist with one of his iron hands, and said, 'Man, hae ye ony poo'er?' By this ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... Ostrodumov, but the latter was sitting like a statue, not an eyebrow twitching. Mashurina was also motionless, a bitter smile ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... night she had wept, as in fancy she fondly kissed the face of her dead lover. When morning came her heart was full of hopeless love for Yourii, and of bitter hatred for Sanine. Her accidental liaison with the last-named resembled a hideous dream. All that Sanine had told her, and which at the moment she had believed, was now revolting to her. She had fallen over a precipice; and rescue there was none. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... Yeh Shui-hsin and Ch'en Chen-sun, while rejecting the personality of Sun Wu as he figures in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, are inclined to accept the date traditionally assigned to the work which passes under his name. The author of the HSU LU fails to appreciate this distinction, and consequently his bitter attack on Ch'en Chen-sun really misses its mark. He makes one of two points, however, which certainly tell in favor of the high antiquity of our "13 chapters." "Sun Tzu," he says, "must have lived in the age of Ching Wang [519-476], because he is frequently plagiarized ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... life in London was a stern one. If he had no longer to submit to the open contempt of the Moors, the kicks and insults of the streets, he had to learn how bitter is the bread that one is forced to eat at another's table. When he should have been still at school he was set to some menial occupation in the bank at Holborn Bars, and when he ought to have risen at ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... starting on his mission to meet the escort bringing in the prisoners. And as this idea came to him, Frank sat with his head resting upon his hands, his elbows upon his knees, trying hard to master the bitter sense of disappointment that ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... told me that the day would come when I would feel thankful for the loss of my grandfather, I would have struck him. But for the last week I have been almost thankful that he is dead. The worst that could occur has happened. I am in bitter disgrace, and I am grateful that grandfather died before it came upon me. I have been dismissed from the Academy. The last of the "Fighting" Macklins has been declared unfit to hold the President's commission. I am ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... given him by his Creator, he transforms himself into a hideous monster, or copies upon his own person, the proportions of some disgusting creature, far down in the scale of animal being. Not content with loving one thing and loathing another, he perseveres in his attempts to make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter, till nothing but the shadow is left, of his primitive relishes and aversions. This is strikingly exemplified in the habitual use of the narcotic ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey



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