"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which they might be said to have almost a personal interest. The conversation turned to other matters; but across the way they saw enacted some of the preliminaries and accompaniments of a mysterious complication that finally became as distressing and as disastrous as ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... whole distressing story. It was all a long time ago and the details do not matter now. It was to be expected that a man like the old Doctor should love, love once, and love as few men do. And that is what he did—and the girl left him because he ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... my situation! How distressing for a daughter to find her heart militating with her filial duty! I know my father loves me tenderly; why then do I reluctantly obey him? [Heaven knows! with what reluctance I should oppose the will of a parent, or set an example ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... support of the British Government.' The Ameer arranged that the Vakeel of the Indian Government should visit Simla, carrying with him full explanations, and charged to lay before the Viceroy sundry grievances which were distressing Shere Ali. That functionary took back to Cabul certain minor concessions, but conveyed the message also that those concessions were contingent on the Ameer's acceptance of British officers about his frontiers, and that it would ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... and slightly wounded—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned—or so it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid—afraid not for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was, never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat, fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients; but, here and there, a student of human nature found it ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Ikey said to herself desperately, "what makes me so stupid. I'm afflicted with chronic mental nearsightedness. Most distressing. This is really a tragedy I'm mixed up in—a tragedy. And tragedy's a ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... New York: the whole American navy had not more than seventeen vessels. In moral resources Great Britain was decidedly stronger than America. Parliament was divided, but the king was determined. On Oct 15, 1775, he wrote: "Every means of distressing America must meet with my concurrence." Down to 1778 the war was popular in England, and interfered ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... this most distressing position—when he sat with his mother in shame and retirement in obscure lodgings, which had been taken for them by one of their former servants, and with no immediate means of livelihood—then first the folly of his past career revealed itself to his mind in its full proportions. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... indissolubly connected with it, cannot but regard with pain and abhorrence any cause which tends towards the demolition or destruction of the monuments of the past. To these it is a significant and distressing fact that hardly any modern English buildings or streets possess the qualities which give the value and charm to the old cities, towns, and villages of which we are the grateful inheritors. If any reader is inclined to doubt the truth of this ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... wished you good night, the postman, who had been delayed by the snow, brought me a very distressing letter. The senior vicaire informs me that my book has been a source of grief to Monseigneur, and has already overshadowed the spiritual joy with which he looked forward to the festival of our Lady of Mount Carmel. The work, he adds, is full of foolhardy doctrines and opinions which have ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... gift of the holy bishop and his acolytes even at that time of torment in the hospital cell. The same faint Presence, like a plum tree blossoming in the dark, stole through the young man's senses, luring and distressing him with its infinite suggestions of ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... was one of those good souls who saw no harm in the vilest of creatures; faults were hidden by her veil of sympathy. When distressing reverses or abject despair visited any one, Mrs. Allison's affability and indescribable tenderness smoothed over the troubled situation and brought forth a gleam of gladness. Quiet, kindly, magnanimous, tolerant, she could touch hearts to the depths in a manner both ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... a bed-place was considerately resigned to me. It consisted of a crib in a small room, no larger than a closet; however, as the horizontal position still continued most distressing to me, a bed of down could not have procured me repose, for I do not think I ceased coughing for three consecutive minutes the whole night. And it was no small aggravation to my misery, to know that I was the means of disturbing ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... I called upon Gov. Wise, who occupied lodgings at the same hotel. He was worn out, and prostrated by a distressing cough which threatened pneumonia. But ever and anon his eagle eye assumed its wonted brilliancy. He was surrounded by a number of his devoted friends, who listened with rapt attention to his surpassing eloquence. A test question, indicative of the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... and distrusted the President as the author of the protective policy which had cost their industries so dear; but now, after his declaration favoring reciprocity,—with his full recognition of the brotherhood of nations,—and in view of this calamity, so sudden, so distressing, there had come a ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... if they'—Miss Abingdon again referred to that distressing body of young women of the present day—'I wonder if they have ever kissed a lover's letter, or have slept with his picture underneath their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain sleepless for an hour because of a loved ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... a disordered state of the stomach, caused, the surgeon says, by the oppressive and overpowering heat which we have experienced for the last few days, and the general effects of which seem more distressing to the ship's company than is often experienced under a higher range of the thermometer; the deprivation of all power, or energy, is one of its most unpleasant consequences. I am inclined to think that one reason for its great ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... and power alone Never make a blessing; Seek not e'en a throne By one wretch distressing. Better toil a slave For the blood-earned penny, Than be rich, and have ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... desired to speak to me. This was none other than the tall emaciated-looking negress who, on the day of our arrival, had embraced me and my nurse with such irresistible zeal. She appeared very ill to-day, and presently unfolded to me a most distressing history of bodily afflictions. She was the mother of a very large family, and complained to me that, what with child-bearing and hard field labour, her back was almost broken in two. With an almost savage vehemence of gesticulation she suddenly tore ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... matters which water may contain, are more considerable, and of greater importance, than might at first be imagined. It cannot be denied, that such waters as are hard, or loaded with earthy matter, have a decided effect upon some important functions of the human body. They increase the distressing symptoms under which those persons labour who are afflicted with what is commonly called gravel complaints; and many other ailments might be named, that are always aggravated by the use of waters abounding in ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... beautiful. Her eyes dared him; her lips invited him; all her charms rose up and besought him. For a moment, Kenkenes was startled. If he had believed that Ta-meri loved him never so slightly, his sensations would have been most distressing. But he knew and was glad to know that he awakened nothing deeper than a superficial partiality, which lasted only as long as he was in her sight to please her eye. In spite of his consternation, he could think intelligently enough to ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Thursday, March 23rd.—A distressing report in the papers this morning, that the Galloper had been blown up by the Germans, made the friends of Sir FREDERICK SMITH anxious. Had he, on one of his periodical visits to the trenches to see Friend WINSTON, stumbled across an enemy mine? Happily the report was grossly exaggerated. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... a rapid view of the destroyed ramparts of the town and returned to the hospital, where there were men whose limbs had been amputated, many wounded, many afflicted with ophthalmia, whose lamentations were distressing, and some infected with the plague. The beds of the last description of patients were to the right on entering the first ward. I walked by the General's side, and I assert that I never saw him touch any one of the infected. And why should he have done so? They were ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Equally distressing and pitiable is it, to see females, young or old, losing all presence of mind the moment a horse takes fright, or a gale of wind capsizes the vessel in which they are travelling, and by their erratic ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... particular phase, he felt with gratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows, he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to be a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and even profitable refuge from distressing thoughts, and he threw his ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Hendricks, Vice-President of the United States, died to-day at 5 o'clock p.m. at Indianapolis, and it becomes my mournful duty to announce the distressing ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... enormous proportions.... Are you aware that rumours of war are becoming wide-spread?... Public opinion is in a most unsettled state.... Things are bad on the Bourse, too—going from bad to worse!... Really, it is all most distressing!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... He did not suppose that this young girl, timid to excess, with a sensitiveness almost a disease, would be able to hear without flinching such a terrible revelation. He expected a burst of despair, tears, distressing cries. She might perhaps faint away; and he stood ready to ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... As nothing is more distressing than the sight of human misery when we are unable to silence it, I returned as speedily as possible to Bruxelles with ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... he forwarded a letter to Messrs. Ricardo. "I wrote to you a few days ago," he said, "from Malta, and, as the packet sailed with a fair wind, you will receive that letter very shortly. You will thereby perceive the distressing suspense in which I have been held, and the inconvenience to which I have been exposed, by remaining on board this small vessel for a period of five months, during all the heat of a Mediterranean summer, without exercise or recreation. This situation has ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... limiting factor is not the neighbor but water; and I wonder if this is, perhaps, one of the things which makes this country seem to enjoy a kind of peace one does not find elsewhere. The struggle of living thing against living thing can be distressing in a way that a mere battle with the elements is not. If some great clump of cactus dies this summer it will be because the cactus has grown beyond the capacity of its roots to get water, not because one green fellow creature has bested it in some limb-to-limb struggle. In my more familiar East ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... in any court. But the mere suggestion of a court, of a public inquiry, alarmed her, not for herself but for Sommers, who would suffer grievously. And it did not seem easy to discuss the matter with him as she must now; it would bring up distressing scenes. Her face burned at the thought. The woman's tale was plausible. Had Sommers wondered about the death? Gradually it came over her that Sommers had always suspected this thing. She was sure of it. He had not spoken of it because he wished to protect ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... be revenged upon Genius. Greatness must be punished by itself or another. Joseph Bourgogne was no exception to the laws of the misery of Genius. He had a distressing trait, whose exhibition tickled the dura ilia of the reapers of the forest. Joseph, poet-cook, was sensitive to new ideas. This sensitiveness to the peremptory thought made him the slave of the wags of Damville. Whenever he had anything in his hands, at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... know, that Miss Challoner committed suicide. But the circumstances do not fully bear out this theory, nor can Mr. Challoner be made to accept it. Indeed, he is so convinced of its falsehood, that he stands ready to do anything, pay anything, suffer anything, to have this distressing blight removed from his daughter's good name. Mr. Brotherson was her dearest friend, and as such may have the clew to this mystery, but Mr. Brotherson may not be in a condition to speak for several weeks. Meanwhile, Mr. Challoner must suffer from great suspense ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... mechanism. And thereupon, while he sat, enjoying the sense of well-being that follows a substantial meal, between the lines of that triumphant apology he evoked, by way of contrast, the panorama of his own life, his wretched childhood, his haphazard youth, no less distressing to recall, the days without food, the nights without a place to lay his head. And suddenly, when the reading was at an end, in the midst of a veritable overflow of joy, of one of those outbursts of Southern effusiveness which compel one to think aloud, he cried, protruding his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... impossible for Mrs. Lyndsay to contemplate leaving England without great pain. The subject was so distressing to her feelings, that she endeavoured to forget it as much as she could. The manner in which it had been forced upon her by Mrs. Ready, was like probing a deep wound with a jagged instrument; and after that lady's departure, she covered her ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... step before he repented of it. His letters to his brother George, who with other friends bestirred himself for Coleridge's release as soon as his whereabouts was discovered, are rather distressing in their self-abasement. The efforts of his friends were successful and in April he returned to the University, where a public admonition was the extent of his punishment, and he continued in receipt of ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... hours—and the ground wind was strong. Nevertheless, neither passengers nor instruments were injured, and M. Janssen was fully established by the day of eclipse on his observing ground at Oran, on the Algerian coast. It is distressing to add that the phenomenon was hidden by cloud. In the month that followed this splendid venture no fewer than fifteen balloons escaped from Paris, of which four fell into the hands of the enemy, although for greater security all ascents were now ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... taken away; I know it's there," persisted Amy, who had evidently been distressing herself with the question how a heart, sinful on earth, could be fit for the pure ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Dispatch gives a most distressing account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more rampant week ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... noble sir," sighed Burgsdorf, "would that I did not know, for it is a most sorrowful knowledge to an old soldier and in a most distressing condition is ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... accompanied by frequent thunder-showers, which have not the effect one would expect, that of cooling the heated atmosphere. I experience a degree of languor and oppression that is very distressing, and ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox accomplished once more in his life—to have gotten the matter off his mind—that he was as talkative as his old self. He received Susy very pleasantly, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand, or the ten thousand, with great composure; but after the battle these scenes are distressing, and one is naturally disposed to do as much to alleviate the suffering of an enemy ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of these notes issued a full dollar's worth of silver bullion is at the time deposited in the Treasury as a security for its redemption. Upon this subject, as upon the tariff, my recommendation is that the existing laws be given a full trial and that our business interests be spared the distressing influence which threats of radical changes always impart. Under existing legislation it is in the power of the Treasury Department to maintain that essential condition of national finance as well as of commercial prosperity—the parity in use ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... courage. But her lies did not stand her in much stead with Cuckoo, who had, from the start, no intention whatever of believing any word she might say. So war of a novel kind came about between them. Mrs. Brigg was forced to live and hear herself named thief, a distressing circumstance which she could scarcely surmount with dignity, whatever she might manage in the way of fortitude. Denial only armed forces for the attack. Battles were numerous and violent. Cuckoo, who had in some directions ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give animation to dead things. During the two days various activities brought me distraction, at first distressing, then depressing. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the cab door. She caught it in hers, kissed it, and pushed it away. The cab drove off at the same moment—I started into the road, with some vague idea of stopping it again, I hardly knew why—hesitated from dread of frightening and distressing her—called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract the driver's attention. The sound of the wheels grew fainter in the distance—the cab melted into the black shadows on the road—the woman in white ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... later her experience in war work in France where for three years she had given rare service in hospital work had somehow made her even more inaccessible to her mother. And now the situation had been rendered more distressing by her determination "to find something to do." She was firm in her resolve that she had no intention of patiently waiting in her home, ostensibly busying herself with social duties but in reality "waiting if not actually angling for a man." She bluntly ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... confessed that their art was impotent to alleviate, much less to cure this dreadful disease. Murger's hours were numbered. The doctors insisted upon his being transported to the hospital. To the hospital he went: 'twas not for the first,—'twas for the last time. His agonies were distressing. They wrung from him screams which could be heard from the fifth floor, where he lay, to the street. Death made his approaches like some skilful engineer against some impregnable fortress: fibre by fibre, vein by vein, atom by atom, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... by sudden involuntary twitchings of the different muscles of the body, the disease being sometimes confined to one limb, sometimes to two, and frequently pervades the whole system, giving the dog a distressing and painful appearance. These involuntary motions, it is very true, are generally restricted during sleep, although in old chronic cases of long standing they often continue in full activity without any remission ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... have got rid of everybody," Berrington said. "It has been a most distressing business, and I am afraid that there is worse to come. Dr. Andrews has just telephoned. He has seen Sir Charles's medical man, and they have decided that there must be an inquest. I don't suggest that anything is wrong, but there ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... resourcefulness of Bones more strikingly exemplified. An ordinary man would have leapt overboard in pursuit, but Bones was no ordinary man. He remembered in that moment of crisis, the distressing propensity of his prisoner to the "eradication of garments." With one stride he was in his cabin and had snatched a counterpane from his bed, in two bounds he was over the rail on the bank and running swiftly in the direction ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... filled with teams belonging to Sigel's train, and the dust was very oppressive. At length it became so distressing to our animals that the General permitted us to separate from him and break up into small parties. I made the rest of the journey in company with Colonel Eaton. Our road lay through the most picturesque region we had seen. The Ozark Mountains filled the southern horizon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... used to a world where prisons were scarcely thought of, where things went on smoothly from day to day without any noticeable intrusion of such distressing things as courts, jails, and the like, that these last few months had driven her nearly mad. Cowperwood had so definitely insisted on her keeping in the background—he had told her so very little that she was all at sea anyhow in regard to the whole procedure. Nearly all that she had had ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its painful unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went to and fro; the blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many cross-currents, ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... Fleet Street. We exercised this voluntary deafness on the occasion. But not long afterwards, we were compelled, during an attack of disease which affected the nervous system, to hear the whole discordant performance repeated again and again, with a pertinacity which was really very distressing. Such a case prepares us to give credit to a far more remarkable story, related in one of the works of Macnish. A clergyman, we are told, who was a skilful violinist, and frequently played over some favourite solo or concerto, was obliged to desist from practice on account of the dangerous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... willing but mechanical hostess scraping the white ashes from the embers, parcelling out these into little heaps of fire upon the hearth, throwing salt into the swinging pot with a hand the colour of which may be distressing to the imagination, then tasting the soup: all this, and much more, I leave her to accomplish in the gathering darkness of the kitchen, and, sparing her the pain of lighting lamp or candle while there is still a gleam of day, I wander ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Chesapeake was not yet ready for action. Her crew was undrilled in the use of ordnance, her decks littered, appliances for reloading were wanting, and at the supreme moment neither priming nor match could be found. Under these distressing circumstances, the boarding officer of the Leopard took the deserters and sailed for Halifax. The sight of the dismantled Chesapeake, with its dead and dying, aroused the people irrespective ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... company of Americans who are discussing public affairs the stranger is struck by what seems the lack of logical connection between the statements of facts and the judgments passed upon them. The facts may be most distressing and yet nobody seems much distressed, still less is any one depressed. The city government is in the hands of grafters, the police force is corrupt, the prices of the necessaries of life are extortionate, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... Irish Sabbath, the bell of a neat parish church often summons to church only the parson and an occasionally conforming clerk; while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics are huddled together in a miserable hovel, and pelted by all the storms of heaven. Can anything be more distressing than to see a venerable man pouring forth sublime truths in tattered breeches, and depending for his food upon the little offal he gets from his parishioners? I venerate a human being who starves for his principles, let them be what they may; but ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... that Joe had left for her, the news of Miss Susie's illness caused her temporary distress. But her mind did not dwell for long on the distressing part of it, but got busy with the problem in hand, went into conference with itself over it, analyzed and dissected it to its complete satisfaction, and then put out the resulting dicta on the bulletin board of her consciousness. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... few could blame him for that misstep; I cannot think the distressing necessity will ever arise again. Should Heaven spare his life he will become your staff, upon which you can soon ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... the afternoon in yawning over a novel, and the evening in the excitement of the tea table and the party, and the ball room, to retire, perhaps at midnight, with the mind and body and soul in a feverish state, to toss away the night in vapid or distressing dreams. ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... at the entrance like a bull at a gate, Castro followed, and I toiled after them with the men. Up we went, some cheering, but the majority with closed lips, saving their breath. In our fatigued state the climb was fearfully distressing: men sank to the ground gasping, or fell while trying to grasp the overhanging rocks with ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of. Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris's moods, knew something was afoot, and when ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... any one else should even for a moment attach credence to the monstrous suggestion that capitalists fomented America's entrance into the war because they feared that otherwise the amounts loaned by them to the Allies might be jeopardized or lost, is a truly distressing manifestation of the willingness of some of our people—I trust not many—to believe evil of men simply because they ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... But one distressing incident interrupted the serene progress of that wonderful supper—when the paper cup of ants and bugs and beetles and flies that Sarah had captured before sitting down, upset directly into her saucer of home-made ice cream. Even that catastrophe could ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... springing from the ground where he lay and jerking his pipe from his teeth—was it not enough for a world's pity that to her it seemed so? How it seemed to the Callenders in particular was a point no one dared raise where he was. To them had come conditions so peculiarly distressing and isolating that they were not sharers of the common lot around them, but of one strangely, incalculably worse. Rarely and only in guarded tones were they spoken of now in Kincaid's Battery, lately arrived here, covered with the glory of their part in Bragg's ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... about this time, that was singularly distressing to me, and which I confided to no one, not even that excellent physician who kept a quiet and observant eye fixed upon me during all this ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... civil one, in a manner between parents and children, both being of Trojan stock: for from Troy came Lavinium, from Lavinium, Alba, and the Romans were descended from the stock of the Alban kings. However, the result of the war rendered the quarrel less distressing, for the struggle never came to regular action, and when the buildings only of one of the cities had been demolished, the two states were incorporated into one. The Albans first invaded the Roman territories with a large army. They pitched their camp not more than five miles from the city, and ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... says in his journal, 'at beholding the emaciated countenances of the doctor and Hepburn, as they strongly evidenced their extremely debilitated state. The alteration in our appearance was equally distressing to them, for since the swellings had subsided we were little more than skin and bone. The doctor particularly remarked the sepulchral tone of our voices, which he requested us to make more cheerful if possible, unconscious that his own ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... of Charity clung to his belt in silence for a while. After a mile or two she began to free her mind in regard to the distressing situation of her companion and herself. She informed Berkley that the negro drivers had become frightened and had cut the traces and galloped off; that she and the other Sister were on their way to the new base at Azalea Court House, where thousands of badly wounded were being gathered from the battles ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the morning!" But beneath all this show of gallantry, my heart like that of many another hero on equally desperate occasions—my heart was ill at ease. I have often thought that my feelings, for the whole of that distressing afternoon, must have been very like those of a person about to go, for the first time, up in a balloon. I returned to Reeves' Hotel, College-green, where I was lodging. "I'll pack my portmanteau (the contents ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... epistle which he would send to the Captain. When, however, he had settled himself at his writing-table, and taken up his friend's letter to read it over once more, the sad condition of this excellent man rose again vividly before him. The feelings which had been all day distressing him again awoke, and it appeared impossible to him to leave one whom he called his friend in such ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the Radical papers reported it. I hoped you might have seen it. But when we got down here this afternoon, and there was nothing from you, both Miss Hallin and Edward felt sure you had not heard—and I walked over. It was a most painful, distressing ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... most pressingly urgent, is a more comfortable, decent and healthy housing. Until this is effected, all other efforts to raise them mentally and morally must fail of their expected result. The London Times, and other metropolitan, and many local, journals publish almost daily distressing accounts of the miserable tenements occupied by the men and women whose labor makes England the garden of fertility and beauty that it is. Editors are making the subject the theme of able and stirring articles, and some of the most eloquent members of Parliament are speaking of ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... faith discover in them a greater fulness than ever. My friend R. informs me she has seen J.H., who had sent to request me to visit her. She wished to tell me the Lord had blessed her soul. May she be made fully meet for glory.—My husband still continues very ill. Had a distressing night. The enemy assaulted him. My faith seems to have no wings.—Enabled to rise.—I asked him if Christ was precious? He replied, 'Yes.' He is apparently near death. Hitherto my mind has been graciously supported though sometimes painfully ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... had had a long succession of still-born children. It was a story that Philip was not unaccustomed to: the husband had been a soldier in India; the legislation forced upon that country by the prudery of the English public had given a free run to the most distressing of all diseases; the innocent suffered. Yawning, Philip undressed and took a bath, then shook his clothes over the water and watched the animals that fell out wriggling. He was just going to get into bed when there was a knock at the door, and the hospital ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before the little train had zig-zagged down the seven thousand feet to the foot of the Himalayas ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... the long carry to the 18th green, hardly seemed to further the interests of perfect golf. The warmest acknowledgments are therefore due to a number of ex-open champions, who kindly turned their backs on what proved one of the most distressing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... I," No second misery prompts the sigh. When long I sought, alas, in vain, My husband's love and bliss to gain, In Rama all my hopes I set And dreamed I might be happy yet. I, of the consorts first and best, Must bear my rivals' taunt and jest, And brook, though better far than they, The soul distressing words they say. What woman can be doomed to pine In misery more sore than mine, Whose hopeless days must still be spent In grief that ends not and lament? They scorned me when my son was nigh; When he is banished I must die. Me, whom my husband never prized, Kaikeyi's ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Orville made one; for I naturally concluded him to be some low-bred, uneducated man; and I thought my idea was indubitably confirmed, when I heard him say to Sir Clement Willoughby, in an audible whisper,-which is a mode of speech very distressing and disagreeable to bystanders,-"For Heaven's sake, Willoughby, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... Besides, that would take us too far. Allow me only to remind you of the old saying, "Jupiter, you are angry; therefore you are in the wrong." I meant to say that all those onslaughts upon systems—general propositions—are especially distressing, because together with these systems men repudiate knowledge in general, and all science and faith in it, and consequently also faith in themselves, in their own powers. But this faith is essential to men; they cannot exist by their sensations alone they are wrong to fear ideas ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... thee thus, my son," he cried, "This peerless maiden for your bride, Bids each distressing thought depart, And joy again possess my heart. Fair princess, thine the happy fate, To heal the wounds of mutual hate; No longer shall this bosom know, An Eastern-Saxon as my foe; And she, who bids that passion rest, Doubt not, shall be supremely ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... sleep was profound, but by and by the associations of blows and wounds carried him back to the field of Evesham. The wild melee was renewed, he heard the voice of his father, but always in that strange distressing manner peculiar to dreams of the departed, always far away, and just beyond his reach, ever just about to give him the succour he needed, but ever withheld. The thunderstorm that broke over the contending ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about these distressing controversies was that they seemed to absorb the whole energies of the nation. No period is less productive in modern German history than the age immediately following the triumph of the Reformation. The movement, which had begun so liberally and hopefully, became, temporarily at least, narrower ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... this connection, that the Hylocichlae differ more decidedly in their notes of alarm than in their songs. The wood thrush's call is extremely sharp and brusque, and is usually fired off in a little volley; that of the Wilson is a sort of whine, or snarl, in distressing contrast with his song; the hermit's is a quick, sotto voce, sometimes almost inaudible chuck; the Swainson's is a mellow whistle; while that of the Alice is something between the Swainson's and the Wilson's,—not ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... with your Excellency's letter of the 6th instant, on a subject not more distressing to you, Sir, than to myself. I have at various periods of the war written to Congress and to the States, endeavoring to convince them of the necessity of passing the most vigorous laws, to prevent the inhabitants ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... bred black cattle, and horses as well; he planted trees, cut canals, and raised banks. The house he hardly touched. He gained physically by this new interest, which made him more active and hardy, and his character improved at the same time. The melancholy which had been so distressing to him decreased, and he became more cheerful, his self-confidence increased, as he had more intercourse with people, whilst the fits of anger, rage and despair which used to come over him without any cause, making him seem like an epileptic to the servants, grew rarer and rarer until they ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... be the most delightful period of my life if it were not for that distressing announcement, the two months of purgatory between now and the day of the wedding, and then the—calamity. I know it will be a calamity. I can't get through ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... throng of soldiers that accompanied him, and his actions themselves most of all indicated the existence of one sole ruler. Many robberies, outrages, and murders took place. And not only were the existing conditions most distressing to the Romans, but they dreaded a far greater number of more terrible acts from Caesar. For when the master of the horse never laid aside his sword even at the festivals, who would not have been suspicious of the dictator himself? (At the most of these festivals Antony presided at the orders of Caesar. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... awoke before he could answer her, and for a long time he was full of unspoken answers explaining that in view of her deliberate unfaithfulness the position she took up was absurd. She had spoilt her own fur. But what was more penetrating and distressing in this dream was not so much the case Amanda stated as the atmosphere of unconquerable intimacy between them, as though they still belonged to each other, soul to soul, as though nothing that had happened ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... lungs all night, or in the fouler atmosphere of overcrowded cabins, they were especially subject to miasmatic fevers. Many died, and of those who survived, a great number, after they had outgrown the more immediate manifestations of disease, retained in nervous disorders of all kinds the distressing traces of the maladies which afflicted their childhood. In the early life of Lincoln these unwholesome physical conditions were especially prevalent. The country about Pigeon Creek was literally devastated by the terrible malady called "milk- sickness," which carried ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... spite of bitter trials and distressing times, Washington never lost faith that in the end the American cause would triumph. A beautiful story is told showing the faith of this courageous man while in the midst of these pitiful ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... in my mind because he was so fine and large, and because he summed up in his person and behavior a philosophy which, budding before the war, hibernated during that distressing epoch, and is now again ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... servants of God, Renwick was trained for his life-work in the school of temptation; he experienced painful mental conflicts, and the assaults of the tempter, at a very early period. It is recorded that, at six years of age, he was conscious of distressing doubts, in relation to the Divine existence and perfections. These exercised and agitated his mind for a period of two years. In answer to prayer, and by meditation on the power and goodness of God, as seen in creation, he overcame the temptation, ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... to describe the deep, the distressing sorrow that overwhelmed us all. I will not speak of myself, but of those who loved him less, because they had seen him less. Not only Mavrocordato and his immediate circle, but the whole city and all its ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Many distressing thoughts took possession of Sir Thomas as he lay in bed. He had made up his mind that he would in no way break the law, and he didn't know whether he had not broken it already by giving these people tobacco and wine. And yet it would have been impossible for him to have refused ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... tried to smother that tiresome little yawn, which seemed most distressing, when he desired to be most polite. Then he flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate lace ruffle and buried his long, slender hands in the capacious pockets of his white satin breeches; finally he said with the most ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... breaking in upon him, "that's too curious, because, do you know, I thought you never had rain at all, and I do detest rain so. It's too distressing when one has a new frock or must go to some stupid place to see some one. But I'm too awfully glad that you've come here, Mr. Trojan. We do want waking up a little, you know, and I'm sure you're the very ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... take Ruth with us upon our journey; that was certain; she must stay here with her brother. She would be safer in Norhala's home than where we were going, of course, and yet to leave her was most distressing. After all, I wondered, was there any need of both of us taking the journey; would not ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... youth;—the rogues have generally all the good looks. There was nothing else remarkable about him but his quickness; he was perpetually on the alert; by constant activity, the rust was never allowed to collect on his faculties; his sharpness was distressing,—he appeared subject to a tense strain. Now his quill scratched over the paper unconcernedly, while he could join as easily in his master's conversation; nothing seemed to preoccupy him, or he held a mind open at every point. It is pitiful to remember him ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... unenviable at best and they well deserve the benefit of extenuating circumstances. For not even a genius can efficiently tackle problems with the elements of which he lacks acquaintanceship, and the mass of facts which they had to deal with was sheer unmanageable. It was distressing to watch them during those eventful months groping and floundering through a labyrinth of obstacles with no Ariadne clue to guide their tortuous course, and discovering that their task was more intricate than they had imagined. The ironic domination ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that brought them to disgrace. Some, from their admission, were farmers' daughters, and had been decoyed from their relatives, and brought to London, and subsequently deserted by their seducers. Some were nursery- maids—others, girls seduced from boarding schools. Their tales were truly distressing—some had only been six months in such infamy, others twelve months, and some ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... had been long bedridden, and to whom she had sent some clean bedclothes, had been moved into another room with complete new furnishings, while the occupant of this room had been sent elsewhere, so that the distressing sense of over-crowdedness for sick and well was ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... had rescued from want and woe.' It is not quite clear who were the persons alluded to by Finch. Keats's brother George (then in America) was presumably one: he is, however, regarded as having eventually cleared himself from the distressing imputation. I know of no one else, unless possibly the painter Haydon may be glanced at: as to him also the charge appears to be ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... noon, as I came to the Emperor, he received me in a very friendly way. We first settled about summoning the Reichstag, and then his Majesty said, 'I have received a very distressing letter'—an allusion to the Chancellor's official letter of resignation, which he had placed in the Emperor's hands through Tschirschky, Foreign Minister. 'As I then,' continued Hohenlohe, 'explained the necessity of my resignation on the ground of my health and age the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... in the existing currency, and especially the scarcity of small change, a scarcity so peculiarly distressing to the poorer classes, strongly recommend the carrying into immediate effect the resolution already entered into concerning the establishment of a mint. Measures have been taken pursuant to that resolution for procuring some of the most necessary artists, together ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... manufacturing and domestic trade, the farmers of the grain states found themselves in distressing circumstances. The Ohio Valley was yielding a product far in excess of the demands that existed and each year found a large amount of unmarketable grain left in the fields and granaries. Many foreign nations refused admittance to American food products and though the grain-growing ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre
... pause, during which each member of the Club secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. Roby went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was last year that we took psychology, and this winter we have ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... claim her altogether. Among those who knew best the doctor and his ward there had been an ardent championship of Nan's rights and dignity, and a great curiosity to know the success of the visit. Dr. Leslie had answered all questions with composure, and with a distressing meagreness of details; but at length Mrs. Graham became sure that he was not altogether free from anxiety, and set her own quick wits at work to learn the cause. It seemed a time of great uncertainty, at any rate. The doctor sometimes brought one of Nan's bright, affectionate ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of it, can you lend me a couple of thousand pounds for twelve months?" Would that generally be as efficacious as though the would-be borrower had introduced his request with the general paraphernalia of distressing solemnities? The borrower, at any rate, feels that it would not, and postpones the moment till the fitting solemnities can be produced. But John Gordon could not postpone his moment. He could not go on residing indefinitely ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... buttle, and he liked these amazing freaks who were, it appeared, fellow-inmates with him of this highly desirable residence. He wished that old Mr. Pett could have been present. He had conceived a great affection for Mr. Pett, and registered a mental resolve to lose no time in weaning him from his distressing habit of allowing the office to interfere with his pleasures. He was planning a little trip to the Polo Grounds, in which Mr. Pett, his father, and a number of pop bottles were to be his companions, when ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... distressing to the young man, busy burying his secret sorrow under a mound of silence, to be slapped on the back by commonplace people and asked—"Well, how's 'the hump' this morning?" and to hear his mood of dignified melancholy referred to, by those who should know better, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... for directly to Somerville Villa; and, three days after the distressing scene I have endeavored to describe, Vizard brought his wrecked sister home. Her condition was pitiable; and the moment he reached Vizard Court he mounted his horse and rode to Hillstoke to bring ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... of the Royal Society spared no pains to stamp the accuracy of these observations with their testimony. They seem to have thrust Captain Sabine's name perpetually on their minutes, and in a manner which must have been almost distressing: they recommend him in a letter to the Admiralty, then in another to the Ordnance; and several of the same persons, in their other capacity, as members of the Board of Longitude, after voting him a THOUSAND ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... crowds to the palace. The sultan received and embraced him with great joy; complaining at the same time, with a fatherly tenderness, of the affliction his long absence had occasioned; which, he said, was the more distressing, as fortune having decided in favour of prince Ali his brother, he was afraid he might have committed some ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... brings us to July 23rd. Now, you know, it becomes extremely important to me to know anything you will tell me about the progress of your brother's trouble, if it is possible for you to speak of it.' 'Of course. Well, the sense of being watched whenever he was alone was the most distressing thing to him. After a time I took to sleeping in his room, and he was the better for that: still, he talked a great deal in his sleep. What about? Is it wise to dwell on that, at least before things are straightened out? I think not, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... with, and to contend with it to the utmost. Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of any thing, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... against them; and although they are totally unknown to me, and although I cannot countenance or approve of their foolish and wanton proceedings; yet, as the law of England presumes every man to be innocent till he is convicted of guilt, and as they have appealed to ME in their distressing situation, as the only man to whom they can look up for assistance; shall I, because there appears to be personal danger and difficulty in the undertaking, shall I refuse or neglect to do my best to enable them to obtain a fair trial? shall I abandon them, and refuse ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... the effect he had intended it to have. It set the young lady who was called Belinda asking about ways and means of getting to Salisbury; it brought to light the distressing fact that V.V. had the beginnings of a chafed heel. Once he had set things going they moved much too quickly for the doctor to deflect their course. He found himself called upon to make personal sacrifices to facilitate the painless transport of the two ladies to Salisbury, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... open air. Nay, had it lost a thousand of its best men in the way in which it lost so many at the storming of New Orleans, the blank ere now would have been completely filled up. The calamities of fire or of decimation even, however distressing in themselves, never yet ruined a country: no calamity ruins a country that leaves the surviving inhabitants to develope, in their old circumstances, their old character ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... relied upon, not only as facts, but as far below the whole truth. She had been, for a long time, afflicted with a drunken husband. At length the sheriff came and swept off all their property, not excepting her household furniture, to discharge his grog bills. At this distressing crisis, she retired to an upper room, laid her babe upon the bare floor, kneeled down over it, and offered up the following petition: "O Lord, if thou wilt in any way remove from me this affliction, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... was discovered by Captain Carteret in Her Majesty's sloop Swallow, I was the more desirous to take that route.... We passed through the Straits of Macassar and arrived at Batavia after a tedious and distressing ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... always an effort to restrain her within certain limited bounds. The embargo, passed without limitation of time, (a thing unprecedented,) was fastened upon the bosom of her commerce, until life was extinguished. The ostensible object of this measure, was to force Great Britain to terms, by distressing the West Indies for food. But while England commanded the seas, her colonies were not likely to starve; and for the sake of this doubtful experiment, a certain and incalculable injury was inflicted upon the Northern States. Seamen, and the numerous classes of mechanics connected with ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... it with the facts of history." Again his tongue failed to serve him in prayer; again he yielded to his doubts; again he commenced shrieking at the very top of his voice. And this proved a most fortunate expedient, for an Indian girl, straying that way, overheard these distressing cries, and surmising that they proceeded from the grotto, hastened to the door, and letting down a little trap, a stream of light was admitted into the cave, when she discovered the general, who as suddenly started to his feet, and forgetting his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Ship which I live in. My Nieces are now here; in the town, I mean; and my friend Cowell and his Wife; so I have more company than all the rest of the year. I try to shut my Eyes and Ears against all tidings of this damnable War, seeing that I can do no good to others by distressing myself. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... shore; but so boisterous was the weather, that, for a long time, it was impossible for a boat to approach within speaking distance of the rocks. During this period, the living man found himself in a most awful and distressing situation: he knew not how to dispose of the corpse; for if he threw it into the waves, which was his only means of getting rid of it, he feared that he might be charged with the murder of his companion; and yet ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... resided in her capital. With much dignity the queen replied, "I should, with great pleasure, accede to the invitation of the people of Paris; but time must be allowed me to soften the recollection of the distressing events which have recently occurred, and from which I have suffered so severely. Having come to Paris preceded by the heads of my faithful guards, who perished before the door of their sovereign, I can not think that such an entry into the capital ought to be followed by rejoicings. But the ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... most part the five men remained in complete idleness. Hatteras was pensive and always lying on the bed; Altamont was drinking or sleeping, and the doctor took good care not to rouse him from his slumbers, for he was always afraid of some distressing quarrel. These two men seldom spoke to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... do? I cannot explain myself now." Well, I held my peace, and so did she for a quarter of an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me on the whole debate, and at last asked me directly, which I thought the best speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt. If possible, this was more distressing than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so different: that I believed my father was more a man of business than Mr. Pitt. "Well, but Mr. Pitt's language?" "Madam," said I, "I have always been remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt's language." ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... exemplified in the actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... exhausted, began to cry. A man's sobs are fraught with distressing hoarseness. Miette, quite frightened as she felt the poor fellow shaking in her arms, kissed him on the face, forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... of difficulties as must undoubtedly render it impossible for us to perform the tour. Every thing, however, has succeeded with us far beyond my most sanguine expectations. We have, it is true, met with little disasters occasionally, but far from distressing, and they rather gave us additional resolution and spirits. We have both enjoyed most excellent health; and we have been so inured to walking, that we are become almost insensible to fatigue. We have several times performed a journey of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... little culinary article, alternately in his hand and under his arm, as seemed most convenient to him. Unfortunately the day was warm, the way long, and the minister fat; so that he became heartily tired of his burden before he got half-way home. Under these distressing circumstances, it struck him, that, if, instead of carrying the pot awkwardly at one side of his person, he were to carry it on his head, the burden would be greatly lightened; the principles of natural philosophy, which he had learned at college, informing him, that when a load ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... exchange her for her; what do you say to that? that old brother Hsueeh is also one of those men, who, while eating what there is in the bowl, keeps an eye on what there is in the pan! For the last year or so, as he couldn't get Hsiang Ling to be his, he made ever so many distressing appeals to Mrs. Hsueeh; and Mrs. Hsueeh while esteeming Hsiang Ling's looks, though fine, as after all a small matter, (thought) her deportment and conduct so far unlike those of other girls, so gentle and so demure that almost the very daughters of masters and mistresses couldn't ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... again. Then it flashed across her mind that the disclosure of the relationship of his two Grannies could have no distressing effect on Dave. Time and Change and Death are only names, to a chick not eight years old, and nothing need be told of the means by which the sisters' lives had been cut apart. As for Dolly, she would either weep or laugh at a piece ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Iris said she loved his rival. Very well. To attempt to dissuade her was to throw her more closely into that rival's arms. The right course was to appear resigned, saddened, compelled against his will to reveal the distressing truth. Further, he counted on Anstruther's quick temper as an active agent. Such a man would be the first to rebel against an assumption of pitying tolerance. He would bring bitter charges of conspiracy, of unbelievable compact to secure his ruin. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... meeting-house on the Sabbath and on Lecture days were sometimes painfully varied, though scarcely interrupted, by a very distressing and harrowing custom of public abasement and self-abnegation, which prevailed for many years in the nervously religious colonies. It was not an enforced punishment, but a voluntary one. Men and women who had committed crimes or misdemeanors, and who ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... and he rose from it ailing, suffering, dwarfed and altogether changed. Of all the dark shadows upon life I think that change through illness and organic decay in the thoughts and spirits of those who are dear and close to us is the most evil and distressing and inexplicable. Suddenly he was a changeling, a being querulous and pitiful, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... and his hands full of headless arrows. He was laboring under violent paroxysms; three benevolent individuals essaying to hold him. But repeatedly breaking loose, he burst anew into his delirium; while with an absence of sympathy, distressing to behold, the rest of the assembly seemed wholly engrossed with themselves; nor did they appear to care how soon the unfortunate lunatic might demolish himself by his ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... manner of termination of these cases are variable. If the coffin joint has been invaded, and a septic arthritis exists, the condition is at once grave. An open and infected tendon sheath, while not so serious, constitutes a condition which is distressing, and recovery is slow even under the most favorable conditions. Where a heavy, rigid and sharp nail enters the foot, in such manner that fracture of the third phalanx (os pedis) occurs, this complication makes for a protraction of the condition. Experience teaches that the natural course and ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... though I have been off work and off—as you know very well—letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty letters, and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny has had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only now beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is lying—though she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven—in her big cool, mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shape of blood-shot eyes and swollen eyelids, while I was in the daily habit of visiting the Liverpool literati—these, on my settling at Keswick, were followed by large boils in my neck and shoulders; these, by a violent rheumatic fever; this, by a distressing and tedious hydrocele; and, since then, by irregular gout, which promises at this moment to ripen into a legitimate fit. What uninterrupted rural retirement can have had to do in the production of these outward and visible evils, I cannot guess; what share it has had in ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... given her an opportunity to repent of her evil deeds, but she would not. Now he declares that he will cause his judgments to descend upon her and her followers. By casting her into a bed is doubtless meant that he would bring her down upon a bed of sickness and pain and thus make her a most distressing object. Her partners in sin were to suffer "great tribulation," and "her children," or disciples, he would kill with death, or deadly pestilence. Thus would this whole corrupt party be visited with divine judgments according to their works; while their great pretensions to wisdom ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the 18th of February, 1781, was thirty-three years old and had actively served in the United States navy for five years and five months. He never fought another battle under the United States flag; indeed, with the exception of his distressing experiences in Russia, he never fought again under any flag. But to his dying day he did not cease to plan great naval deeds and to hope for greater opportunity to harass the enemy—any enemy. In view ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... can never know how much, nor how deeply distressing this whole affair has been to me." He managed to put an affecting pathos into words sufficiently banal, for he was an excellent actor. "I find that I am all sentiment. Under the shell of the hard-headed business ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... That in this distressing position of affairs the Regent might be left entirely without an adviser and without support, she was now deserted by the only person who was at the present moment indispensable to her, and who had contributed to plunge her into this embarrassment. "Without ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... in number) had been murdered by the natives of New Guinea. The praus had left this village a few months before, and among the murdered men were the Rajah's son, and the relation or slaves of many of the inhabitants. The cry of lamentation that arose when the news arrived was most distressing. A score of women, who had lost husbands, brothers, sons, or more distant relatives, set up at once the most dismal shrieks and groans and wailings, which continued at intervals till late at night; and as the chief houses in the village were crowded together round that ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... velvet about it; and her white gloves and sunshade, and the white silver chain round her slender waist, were important features in the picture she presented. How could this eager student of character get rid of the distressing trivialities? All night long he had been dreaming of beautiful sentiments and conflicting emotions: now his first thought was that he had never seen any costume so delightfully cool, and clear, and summer-like. To look at her was to think of a mountain spring, icy ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black |
