"Distressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to his promise; distressing reports were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived in Milford Haven ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... on as an oyster clings to its rock. One shell had split their house in twain, another had flattened out the hayloft. The old woman lay on her bed crippled with rheumatism, her husband a victim of gall stones. Their situation was truly most distressing. ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... taken the 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 his Christ's ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... urged Mme. Verdurin to let the pianist play, not because he supposed her to be malingering when she spoke of the distressing effects that music always had upon her, for he recognised the existence of certain neurasthenic states—but from his habit, common to many doctors, of at once relaxing the strict letter of a prescription as soon as ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... found very distressing sounds issuing from Dolores's room; sobs, not loud, but almost strangled into a perfect agony of choking down by the resolute instinct, for it was ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... book, Olga, can hardly be called the heroine; she appears too briefly for that. But she is admitted to be a fine portrait of the Russian woman as she was about to become, not as she then existed. Gontcharoff's "An Every-day Story" is also celebrated; equally so is his "The Ravine," a very distressing picture of the unprincipled character of an anarchist. As the author changed his mind about the hero in part while writing the ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... child as I ever saw! And then, every other moment, she is restless about that boy—always asking where he is, or what he is doing. I don't see how she is ever to get well, while it goes on in this way! Mr. Kendal told me that Gilbert had been worrying and distressing her; and as to those girls, the eldest of them is intolerable with her airs, and the youngest—I asked her if she liked babies, and she growled, "No." Lucy said Gilbert was waiting in the passage for news of mamma, and she grunted, "All sham!" and that's the whole I have heard ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She brightened up considerably ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... bigger fool than I was, and he pressed me quite earnestly to repeat some foolishness after him, about 'being a gold key,' when he said 'he was a gold lock,' I was very glad to get away from him, it was so distressing." ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... name brazenly announced as author. Suppose it were Passion's Perils! She would surely have to leave town after that! She would be too ashamed to stay. Still she would be proud, also, for by that time they would be calling her to Hollywood itself. Of course nothing so distressing—or so grand—had happened yet, for none of her dramas had been accepted; but she was coming on. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... of mind after the harrowing events of the night was indeed distressing. I did not—could not—return home. I have an indistinct recollection of walking swiftly up and down the deserted streets and far out into the country. Daylight found me several miles from the town; hatless, wild-eyed, a sorry spectacle, at whom one ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... the middle of May!" Meg voiced this distressing thought when she and Bobby were at the Oak Hill school door. "Oh, Bobby, wouldn't it be awful if every one went to Apple ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... is established there is no cure for it. Proper attention paid to the diet will relieve the distressing symptoms to a certain extent, but they will undoubtedly reappear in their intensity the first time the animal overloads the stomach or is allowed food of bad quality. Clover hay or bulky feed which contains but little nutriment have much to do with the cause of the disease, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... 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 ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... then do anything or be of any importance at all; and why should I tr-rouble?" she said, with that rattle of the r's which was about the only sign that English was not her native speech. This was very distressing to Lucy, who wished the girl well, and altogether Lady Randolph was anxious to interfere on Bice's behalf, and put her on ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... when the Arrow was finally clear of the bar, she veered around and made down the coast, passing the little bay where the canoe had landed. So occupied with the distressing problem of Hugh's disappearance had her crew been,—-for not one of the party could believe him drowned,—-and so busy in trying to keep the sloop from being pounded to pieces by the waves while stranded, that no one aboard had noticed the canoe on its return ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... Saturday succeeding his birth, we heard of my dear mother's serious illness, and, when he was about three weeks old, of her death. We were not surprised that his health suffered from the shock it thus received. He began at once to be affected with distressing colic, which gave him no rest day or night. His father used to call him a "little martyr," and such indeed he was for many long, tedious months. On the 16th of February, the doctor came and spent two hours ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... vigorously, were two sturdy, mottled legs that she instantly recognised as belonging to her son, while from the interior came strange muffled sounds that showed the poor little fellow was screaming in dire affright, as well he might in so distressing a situation. Too young to be of any help, Bert's playmates were gathered about him crying lustily, only one of them having had the sense to run off to the carpenter's shop ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... 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 ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... disability. All along Jane had been dreading the hour when, instead of this frank disclosure of "hard luck," there should come to her a parcel of money. Not to have any money to send might conjecturally be distressing to Mr. Keene; but Jane felt that he would be able to endure his embarrassment better than she herself any ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... with a visage which had become elongated to a really distressing degree, Sir Asinus was sighing, and casting a last ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... So distressing was this outlook, that her mind refused to be diverted, and after a brief hesitation she returned to the house, intent on a more satisfactory financial arrangement. Now Tootsie was as fond of mystery stories as Skippy himself, and so with due regard to etiquette she dodged down the hedge, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... currency problems so long confronting the Nation and to furnish the facts and data necessary to enable the Congress to take action. The commission was appointed when an impressive and urgent popular demand for legislative relief suddenly arose out of the distressing situation of the people caused by the deplorable panic of 1907. The Congress decided that while it could not give immediately the relief required, it would provide a commission to furnish the means for prompt action at a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... over a counter in exchange for money, he would have held the prophet ripe for Bedlam. Yet here he was, a full-blown tradesman, and as greedy of gain as any tallow-chandler. Extraordinary, aye, and distressing, too, the ease with which the human organism adapted itself; it was just a case of the green caterpillar on the green leaf. Well, he could console himself with the knowledge that his apparent submission was only an affair of the surface. He had struck no ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the Whig writers furnished much more than was enjoyed by Democrats. An effort was made to stay the tide in favor of Harrison by poetry as well as by argument. The effort was fruitless. The contest of 1840 had its origin in the most distressing financial difficulties that ever rested upon the country, and it was conducted on the part of the Whigs by large expenditure of money, for those days, and with a degree of hilarity and good nature that it is difficult now to realize. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... delay and labour. I returned to the fleet and assisted in the tedious work of dragging the vessels over the shallows. In the evening I returned to the diahbeeah, and having dragged the dingy across the sudd, I explored the channel ahead for an hour, for about three miles; passed over distressing shallows for a space of a quarter of a mile ahead of the diahbeeah, after which I entered a deep, narrow ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... along the road near Colnbrook, had his attention attracted to the screams of a child in the care of a tramping woman, who had with her, two other children totally blind. The cries of the child were so distressing, that he insisted on knowing the cause; but; not getting a satisfactory answer, he forcibly removed a bandage from its eyes, when, horrid to relate, he found these encased with two small perforated shells, in which were two live black beetles, for the purpose of destroying the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... unconsciously offended you in any way," Theron went on, "I beg you to tell me how. I liked you from the beginning of my pastorate here, and the thought that latterly we seemed to be drifting apart has given me much pain. But now it is still more distressing to find you actually disposed to quarrel with me. Surely, Brother Gorringe, between a pastor and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... and Lady Monk's parties in London were known to be very great affairs. She usually gave two or three in the season, and spent a large portion of her time and energy in so arranging matters that her parties should be successful. As this was her special line in life, a failure would have been very distressing to her;—and we may also say very disgraceful, taking into consideration, as we should do in forming our judgement on the subject, the very large sums of Sir Cosmo's money which she spent in this way. But she seldom did fail. She knew how to select ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... 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 manhood into that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... singing and dancing, but she had that incalculable advantage for an actress—an appealing life-story. It was known that she had lately lost a dearly loved and loving husband whom she had tenderly nursed through a distressing illness. It was also known that the husband had been a descendant of a proud old family and that the same high spirit which had led his grandfather, General Poe, passionately denouncing British tyranny, to join the Revolutionary Army, had, taking a different turn with the grandson, made ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 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 his reverie was interrupted by a sudden cessation of the buzz of talk. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... 9, 1914, I went to bed at 11.40 o'clock and was soon asleep. About 3.40 in the morning, the young man, F. K. S., roused me and I awoke weak, scared, and with a fluttering heart; he said I had been making a distressing sort of noise, but he could not distinguish any words. Immediately, I judged that the dream was caused by my lying on my back, and in an uncomfortable position. As a rule I do not sleep on my back, but for some reason ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... mortification of witnessing the distressing consequences of the Pope's new edicts. The Jews in Rome were obliged to quit the houses which, under the French Government, they had been permitted to own in all parts of the city, and return to the Ghetto. They had to give up counting-houses ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... ambitions,—he knows he has done his best. No more jealousies, if he were weak enough to feel such ignoble stirrings in his more active season. An octogenarian with a good record, and free from annoying or distressing infirmities, ought to be the happiest of men. Everybody treats him with deference. Everybody wants to help him. He is the ward of the generations that have grown up since he was in the vigor of maturity. Yes, let me live to be fourscore years, and then I will tell you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... strain of a distressing situation, losses from the interruption of business, regard for public opinion and the opinion of friends, combined with their own desire to do the right thing, induced the employers, probably against their best judgment, ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... always large classes of minds to whom anything in the shape of a vigorously compact system is irresistibly fascinating, and to whom the qualification of a proposition, or the limitation of a theoretic principle is distressing or intolerable. Such persons always come to the front for a season in times of distraction, when the party that knows its own aims most definitely is sure to have the best chance of obtaining power. And Rousseau's method charmed their temperament. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... singular chase, which is probably unparalleled in the history of the universe. A prey to anxiety and the most distressing emotions, we did not properly observe the marvellous, the Titanic, I had almost said the diabolical aspect of the country beneath us, and still we could not altogether blind ourselves to it. Colossal jungles, resembling brakes of moss and canes five hundred or a thousand feet in height—creeks ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... new distressing question had been raised, how much she inconvenienced him, Amy sat plump down and leaned ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... endeavours to leave each successive tarrying station, it is not to be denied that my imagination dwelt regretfully upon the true civilisation of our own enlightened country, where, by the considerate intervention of an all-wise government, the possibilities of so distressing an experience are sympathetically removed from one's path. Thus the greater part of the day had faded, and I was conjecturing that by this time we must inevitably be approaching the barren and inhospitable country which forms the northern limit of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... was a rather disappointing affair since Beatrice had to remodel her wedding gown in order to wear it. That fact alone was distressing. And at the eleventh hour Steve was called out of town, which left Beatrice in the hands of her angel-duck brigade, who all felt it their duty to paint ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... point E was half an inch to the left of the point F. For so long as we are neither examining into ourselves, nor called upon to make a choice between two possible proceedings, nor forced to do or suffer something difficult or distressing, in fact so long as we are attending to whatever absorbs our attention and not to our processes of attending, those processes are replaced in our awareness by the very facts—for instance the proportions and relations ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... gathered, so the girls felt it would be proper for them to remain, particularly as the accident was not of a distressing nature. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... Juliet, fat as she was, had the natural frolic of a squirrel; she was everywhere, and knew every thing, and did every thing for every body; her tongue and her feet were constantly busy; and I scarcely knew which was the better emblem of the perpetual motion. My paleness was peculiarly distressing to her; "it hurt her feelings;" it also hurt her honour; for she had been famous for her nursing, and as she told me, with her plump hands upon her still plumper hips, and her head thrown back with an air of conscious merit, "she had saved more than the doctors ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... other; but both were skillful—each inflicted and received so near the same number of wounds, that the wisest men in camp were unable to decide which whipped. Now, to average Californians in the mines this is a most distressing state of affairs; the spectators and friends of the combatants waste a great deal of time, liquor, and blood on the subject, while the combatants themselves feel unspeakably uneasy on the neutral ground between victory and defeat. At Sonora, where Billy and the Judge had their first encounter, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... down and looked the lad straight in the face. Upon Alban's part there was an intense desire to confess everything and to tell his old friend of all those distressing doubts and perplexities which had so harassed him since he went to Hampstead. If he could have done so, much would have been spared him in the time to come. But he found it impossible to open his heart to an alien,—nor did he believe Paul Boriskoff capable of appreciating the emotions ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... had never been able to win many friends in the land of his mother's kin. The other proved to be at once a rudder to guide him over the uncharted future of his life, and an outlet for the pent-up passion within him. His voice was totally untrained, and as yet it broke into all manner of distressing falsetto fragments. Nevertheless, it gave him a cause for living, and it enabled him, the descendant of a taciturn race, to give utterance to the doubts and questionings which accompanied his growth to manhood. Bereft of his ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... conception that her immediate absence would be a blessing, and remained chatting with them till luncheon-time. Mr Arabin could talk about nothing but the Signora Neroni's beauty, would discuss no people but the Stanhopes. This was very distressing to Eleanor, and not very satisfactory to Miss Thorne. But yet there was evidence of innocence in his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... relief took place Brigadier-General Rees had to leave us much to every one's regret. He was taken ill with a distressing internal complaint, which necessitated his return for a while to England. He was succeeded by Brigadier-General E.P.A. ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... resection of the cancerous segment of the gullet, in suitable cases, even if it does not yield a permanent cure, not only prolongs life but relieves the patient of her most distressing symptoms. It is rarely possible to secure an end-to-end anastomosis, but the feeding by means of a tube introduced into the open end of the gullet is more satisfactory and the laryngeal symptoms are more efficiently relieved, than by either of the purely palliative operations. In ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... had been forced to come to my quarters to make known their wants and suffering —should think a winter's campaign and the covering of these States from the invasion of an enemy so easy and practical a business. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to keep a cold, bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... keeping near to help her, and continually singing at his daily toil of providing for his family as charmingly as if he were still a gay bachelor; for Meadowlarks are very affectionate both toward each other and their young. It is really distressing to hear the sadness of the song of one who has lost his mate. He seems to be crying, 'Where are you, dear?' ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... for her to speak. She seemed to be asking herself; Is it after all, worth while to talk to that man? You understand how provoking this was. I looked in my mind for something appallingly stupid to say, with the object of distressing and teasing Mrs. Fyne. It is humiliating to confess a failure. One would think that a man of average intelligence could command stupidity at will. But it isn't so. I suppose it's a special gift or else the difficulty ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... to herself, at least for a time; and now here he was again, and his coming had evidently startled her friend. She wanted, above all things, to have a frank talk with Mrs. Truscott. This keeping a secret from her was distressing, and she could not bear the thought of a possible cloud or misunderstanding between them, but poor Grace had totally forgotten the existence of such a person as Wolf by the time they got home. She was having a little trouble of her own. They were strolling across ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... impossible to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests retired, and I was left ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... lays little emphasis on important points which he considers are sufficiently familiar, in order to give prominent place and emphasis to some more novel point. Herein lies, it would now appear, the explanation of the seeming disharmony between Intuition and Intellect which was gravely distressing to many in his earlier writing on the subject. Later works, however, make a point of restoring this harmony, but, as William James has remarked: "We are so subject to the philosophical tradition which treats logos, or discursive thought generally, as the sole avenue to truth, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... on the 26th of November, and entered the glacial regions which she had already traversed; but the circumstances attending her second voyage were distressing. The crew, though in good health, were overcome by fatigue, and less capable of resisting illness, the more so that they had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... her softness of speech, the delicately-inflexed and expressive tones, while her face lights up in harmony with her speech. Now—to say nothing of the women of the south, whose hard faces and harsh voices are often so distressing—in Dijon, whence I came to Normandy this time, the women are often sweet, even angelic of aspect, looking proper material for nuns and saints, but, to me at all events, not personally so sympathetic as the Norman women, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... James went on after a moment, "this is a distressing story altogether, and the best thing we can do is to hold our tongues about it. My father was generous enough not to divorce your mother when she confessed her fall to him; he only demanded that the man who had led ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... capitulate but to run away. The chief point at issue was, however, not the fate of the monarchy, which was a dead thing, but simply what was going to happen to Chang Hsun's head—a matter which was profoundly distressing Chang Hsun. The Republican army had placed a price of L10,000 on it, and the firebrands were advocating that the man must be captured, dead or alive, and suffer decapitation in front of the Great Dynastic Gate of the Palace as a revenge for his perfidy. Round ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... Thus, the Christians had every now and then a breathing-time during which their hopes were revived and their numbers recruited. It was observed, too, that the princes, of whose cruelty they had reason to complain, generally ended their career under very distressing circumstances. An ecclesiastical writer who is supposed to have flourished towards the commencement of the fourth century has discussed this subject in a special treatise, in which he has left behind him a very striking account ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... written, beautifully worded, admirably folded, and most neatly sealed letter from Miss Eyre. Her eldest nephew had fallen ill of scarlet fever, and there was every probability that the younger children would be attacked by the same complaint. It was distressing enough for poor Miss Eyre—this additional expense, this anxiety—the long detention from home which the illness involved. But she said not a word of any inconvenience to herself; she only apologized with humble sincerity for her inability to return at the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with all the unconcealed distressing grief of a disappointed child. She put her pretty be-ringed little hands in front of her face and recited ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Eleanor ran to her mother, and hid her face in her lap; Charles sat staring, with great round frightened eyes. Very distressing it was to be obliged to leave the poor children in such grief and alarm, when it was plain all the time that Diggory was an arrant coward, who had fancied more deaths and dangers than were real, and was describing ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and cursed himself, and soon passed into delirium. Straightway his visions, animate with shame and confusion of soul, were more distressing than even his ready tongue could have told. Dead babies and ghastly women pursued him everywhere. His fever increased. The cries of terror and dismay that he uttered reached the ears of his wife, and were the first thing that roused her ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... of Martiniques, a sort of wild, untamed creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French which even he did not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly dubbed patois. Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names only at the question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only to those who open wide their ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... of some of the ferocious animals that roamed these vast fastnesses. My thoughts then turned to the loved ones at home. They could never know my fate, and would indulge a thousand conjectures concerning it, not the least distressing of which would be that I had been captured by a band of hostile Sioux, and tortured ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... appear to be broken, all our energies destroyed, all our muscles relaxed, our bones to have become as soft as our flesh, and our blood as liquid as water. I am experiencing that in my moral being in a strange and distressing manner. I have no longer any strength, any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to set my own will in motion. I have no power left to will anything, but some one does it ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... The distressing accidents had suddenly ceased since he began to board his own men at the mine and, while his lawyer stalled and haggled to fight off an injunction, he rushed his ore to the railroad. It was too precious to ship loose, for at eighty-four dollars a unit it ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... distressing things. I think I'll whine and call for help. Perhaps I'd better go to Her, and look in her face for the comfort you refuse me. But She seems asleep now, in that wicker chair, and how can I read my fate in ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... knew. Another matron whom I recognized at once, retained something inescapably girlish in both face and voice. It hurt me to detect in her withered lips the quaint twist which had once been so charming to me—but then she undoubtedly discovered in me equally distressing reminders of decay. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... lingering note, and comes in triplets, on the one unchanging key: hoo-o-o, hoo-o-o, hoo-o-o; then a silence of fifteen seconds, then the triplet again; and so on, all night. At first it is divine; then less so; then trying; then distressing; then excruciating; then agonizing, and at the end of two hours the listener is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her hands are hands; while as for the Gretchens and the Mary Annes, "paws" is the only word one can honestly apply to them. Then, on top of it all comes this trouble about Harold. So distressing, isn't it? You see, at the point which the matter has reached, it's simply impossible to save Harold's reputation without wrecking Southminster's. Pretty position that for a respectable family! The Ashursts hitherto have been quite respectable: a co-respondent or two, perhaps, but ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... 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 navigation, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... the orderly processes of representative government. Those who would propose any other method of reform are enemies of this country. America will not be daunted by threats nor lose her composure or calmness in these distressing times. We can afford, in the midst of this day of passion and unrest, to be self-contained and sure. The instrument of all reform in America is the ballot. The road to economic and social reform in America is the straight ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... objects, and yet not see anything distinctly. And a man born blind may have the film removed from his eyes, and be placed, at noontide, in the midst of a world of interesting objects, and yet, instead of seeing things, as we see them, have nothing but a confounding and distressing sensation. Seeing, as we see, is the result of habit, acquired by long-continued use. The new-born babe must have time to exercise its eyes, and exercise its little mind as well, before it can distinguish face from face, and form from form. The man who has just received ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... impossible to give an adequate description of that night of horror in Cua by enumerating individual instances of suffering. Those that I have given are merely a few out of hundreds of others equally distressing. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... called on Pritchett. Mr. Pritchett told him that his brother was better—considerably better. Sir Lionel was in raptures. He had hurried up from Littlebath in an agony. He had heard most distressing accounts. He would however go down to Hadley and ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... directed Captain Ommanney and the officers to the late winter-station of his tribe, the spot having been abandoned in consequence of some epidemic, probably influenza, which had carried off several persons. On entering the huts, a most distressing sight presented itself. A heap of dead bodies, about seven, in a state of decomposition, lay, one over the other, clad in their skin-clothing, as if suddenly cut off by the hand of death. The survivors, from fear ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... alive, then you must settle what to do with them. But a living dog is better than a dead lion; I would rather have the living child, and let it take its chance, than let it return to God—wasted. O! it is a distressing thing to see children die. God gives the most beautiful and precious thing that earth can have, and we just take it and cast it away; we toss our pearls upon the dunghill and leave them. A dying child is to me one of the most dreadful ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... ebon-faced porter in snowy linen, the clink of ice in long, misted glasses, the cool fragrance of crushed mint. Even the fat man in shirt-sleeves reading the Denver Times, alternately drawing upon his fat cigar and sipping the glass of beer at his elbow, was not distressing to look upon. The four men busy over their daily game of solo might have been at ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... was a man capable of putting a very great restraint upon his feelings, and he so behaved during the long and weary meal as to rouse no suspicions, either in Charlotte's breast or in the far sharper one of the Australian uncle. But, nevertheless, so distressing was the growing sense of coming calamity, that he felt the gay laugh of his betrothed almost distressing, and was truly relieved when he had to change it for the gravity of her father. As he went from the dining-room to Mr. Harman's ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... this point, and, knowing that every moment we remained would be distressing to his sister, I announced that we would start up the trail. I hadn't the heart to offer to help her mount, and after Frederic had put her up we fell into single file behind Hance, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... condition of these victims, perishing unknown and unpitied in the fangs of an ecclesiastical tyranny, is not the most distressing spectacle which Tuscany at this hour presents. Theirs is an enviable state, compared with that of the great body of the people. These occupy but a larger prison, and groan in yet stronger fetters; while their captivity is uncheered by any such hope as that which sustains the Tuscan confessors ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... details that cannot be more than referred to here. But the crowning achievement of the period in this direction was the discovery made by the German, J. L. Schoenlein, in 1839, that a very common and most distressing disease of the scalp, known as favus, is really due to the presence and growth on the scalp of a vegetable organism of microscopic size. Thus it was made clear that not merely animal but also vegetable organisms of obscure, microscopic species have causal relations ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... himself in 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 ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... the editorship of a British periodical only because he could not endure the ordeal of rejecting the thousands of submitted manuscripts. This is a distressing phase of an Art Director's duties and to my mind his most sacred obligation. No matter how hardened by experience, a conscientious editor cannot fail to suffer for and with the unhappy authors and artists whose work goes back with the proverbial ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1922 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... distressing. I am bound to say that we should go into court to try the case with very great distrust. Mr. Flick quite agrees ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... silence which had been imposed on him by a desire to avoid unnecessarily distressing his mother, had been years of thought, perhaps the richer and riper from the fact that he had refrained from active participation in political life. Like all his class at the South, he was, if not a politician by instinct, at least familiar from early boyhood with the subtle ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... tenets, if they were not coupled with their corresponding practice in regard to moral and domestic obligations. There is generally a due proportion kept in 'the music of men's lives.' ... Of many of the facts of this distressing case we are not ignorant; but God knows they are not for a newspaper. Fortunately they fall within very general knowledge, in London at least; if they had not they would never have found their way to us. But there is a respect due to certain wrongs and sufferings that would be outraged by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... excitement is very distressing, but the sufferer is set all right again by some trifling stimulant, such as a glass ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... advancing; the men were exhausting themselves in vain efforts: hunger, cold, and the Cossacks became pressing, and the Viceroy at length found himself necessitated to order his artillery and all his baggage to be left behind. A distressing spectacle ensued. The owners had scarcely time to part from their effects; while they were selecting from them the articles which they most needed, and loading horses with them, a multitude of soldiers hastened up; they fell ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... "Loyal friends indeed! And may I ask what loyal friend allows you to go about in your present distressing condition? You are hardly fit to ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... grant them such and such indulgences, they would tell their bed-ridden father how she went on with Mr. Bronte. He was so beguiled by this mature and wicked woman that he went home for his holiday reluctantly, stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing them all by his extraordinary conduct,—at one time in the highest spirits, at another in deepest depression,—accusing himself of blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and altogether evincing ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... keenly the distressing circumstances surrounding you, I should deeply regret my misplaced confidence in your character; and certainly you must acquit me of the selfishness that could desire to engross ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... invitation to something in the nature of a State dinner, which, to tell you the truth, I had forgotten until my secretary pointed it out to me this afternoon. I have grave fears of being bored or of misbehaving myself. I have, as Ledsam here knows, a distressing habit of truthfulness, especially to new acquaintances. However, we must hope for the best. By-the-bye, Ledsam, in case you should have forgotten, I have spoken to ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so much for me! I am your man, lady, for life or death!" And, before she knew what he was about, the gigantic Schneiderlein had slid down on his knees, seized her hand, and kissed it—the first act of homage to her rank, but most startling and distressing to her. "Nay," she faltered, "prithee do not; thou must rest. Only if—if thou canst only tell me if he, my own dear lord, sent me any greeting, I would wait to hear the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... footing. Whole chapters in his volume were constructed in the conditional mood and packed with hypothetical detail; and in talk, by the very law of the process, hypothesis became affirmation, and he was ready to tell you confidentially the exact circumstances of Pellerin's death, and of the "distressing incident" leading up to it. Bernald himself not only questioned the form under which this incident was shaping itself before posterity, but the mere radical fact of its occurrence: he had never been able to discover any break in the dense cloud enveloping Pellerin's later ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the feelings which were tormenting him, and took care that she should not see his state of unhappiness, and he did not worry her with trying questions, that only end in some violent and distressing scene. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the lightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... determined to do the best I can for myself here, and shall then be heartily glad to return to you. What a delightful life we shall lead! I will work, and work in such a manner that I may never again be placed by unforeseen events in so distressing a position. Were you with me, I should possibly take more pleasure in the kindness of those I meet here, but all seems to me so empty. Adieu, my love! I am ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... and unaffected dignity which have at all times characterized the natives of Biscay. Before he was appointed governor of Portobello and Cumana, Don Vincente Emparan had distinguished himself as captain of a vessel in the navy. His name recalls to mind one of the most extraordinary and distressing events recorded in the history of maritime warfare. At the time of the last rupture between Spain and England, two brothers of Senor Emperan, both of whom commanded ships in the Spanish navy, engaged with each other ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... spite, the one for interfering, the other for having been the innocent cause; and he no sooner saw her in the post-office, than he promised himself revenge, such revenge as only the meanest and most cowardly spirit could have taken pleasure in. His best way of distressing Ellen, he found, was through her horse; he had almost satisfied himself; but very naturally his feeling of spite had grown stronger and blunter with indulgence, and he meant to wind up with such a treatment of her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... lived, for the most part, in wretched cabins, which swarmed with men, women, and children, while every nook and corner not thus occupied was filled with pigs, fowls, sheep, or dogs; and the thick smoke, or, as the people emphatically call it, 'cruel steam,' is most distressing to the eyesight, ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... 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 person ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... an iron case or collar that was fitted round his neck and drawn closer by means of a screw till it occasioned strangulation. I did not follow the general example and attend the execution, as I did not feel sufficient curiosity about this new instrument of death to tempt me to witness so distressing a sight. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Douglas Bruce were confused, while Leslie was frightened, but she tried turning the distressing ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... distressing causes which kept the towns apart, the strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines increased the trouble. Nor had the pope any desire to see a strong, unified government so near him. In those days popes were usually not honored in their own country, and, moreover, had enough to do to control ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... idea that is well calculated to appeal to almost anybody. It has just occurred to me quite involuntarily while you were speaking. Many of our clients want to know if they cannot send the judge, who is trying the case, a present of some sort, or maybe loan him a little money; and it is always distressing to be obliged to tell them—usually— that it is quite out of the question; that it would only get them into trouble. Of course, occasionally we let them send the judge a box of cigars, but always with the compliments of our adversary —never ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the Spanish army that night was distressing in the highest degree. They were hungry, exhausted, dejected, and seventeen hundred dangerous wounds demanded immediate attention. There was but one surgeon of the expedition who survived, and he was a man ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... insisting on asking you questions in Hungarian and refusing to understand any other tongue. As you have to spend hours with the police in the Magyar capital before you obtain permission to stay there and again before you obtain permission to go away, this is peculiarly distressing. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... the past too fondly wandering, On the hopeless future pondering; Chilly grief my life-blood freezes, Fell despair my fancy seizes. Life, thou soul of every blessing, Load to misery most distressing, Gladly how would I resign thee, And to dark oblivion ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... procuring cause of this distressing disease is involved in considerable mystery. It seems, however, to be largely dependent on the secretion and discharge into the duodenum of an improper quantity of bile, and an irregularity in the peristaltic action of the upper part of the bowels, particularly of the duodenum, in which that action ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... while on the table in the anteroom lay as usual the Prince's walking stick, hat, and gloves, as though he were at home and just going out. But one detail had not been mentioned, and that was the devoted affection and truly maternal care which Madame Astier showed for the 'poor little woman' in these distressing circumstances. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Claire and her father experienced that most distressing of motor experiences—waiting, while the afternoon that would have been so good for driving went by them. Every fifteen minutes they came in from sitting on a dry-goods box in front of the garage, and never did the repair appear to be any farther along. The ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... noticed, the pleasure derived from being noticed. Perhaps it is not merely common, but universal. In its mildest form it doubtless is universal. Every child is pleased at being noticed; many intolerable children put in their whole time in distressing and idiotic effort to attract the attention of visitors; boys are always "showing off"; apparently all men and women are glad and grateful when they find that they have done a thing which has lifted them for a moment out of obscurity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sad and disillusioned have, to things it supposes a stranger would not understand if he were told. He has reason, therefore, to say we are dull. And Dockland, with its life so uniform that it could be an amorphous mass overflowing a reef of brick cells, I think would be distressing to a sensitive stranger, and even a little terrifying, as all that is alive but inexplicable must be. No more conscious purpose shows in our existence than is seen in the coral polyp. We just go on increasing and forming more ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... I have heard of having sailed between New Britain and New Ireland since that passage 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
... esteem myself most fortunate to have met you! Your arrival has already been notified to us by the avant-courier of the fashionable intelligence, so that we are well aware," here laughing lightly, "of the distinctive right you have to a hearty welcome in Naples. I am only sorry that any distressing news should have darkened the occasion of your return here after so long an absence. Permit me to express the hope that it may at least be the only cloud for you ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... and through, the chapter on Healing and Teaching,(8) and was so deeply interested that I began reading that blessed chapter over again,—when I found I was cured of my dyspepsia, that I could use my strength in lifting without feeling the old distressing pain in my side, and also that the pain in the kidneys only came on at night, waking me out of sleep. Then I began my first conscious treatments: of course I followed no formula, and I needed none. A cry for help, knowing ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... and constant repetition of what it knows is safe; but such heavy things as theories, opinions, and arguments must be kept carefully concealed from it, for fear of causing congestion or paralysis, or, worse still, that parlous condition which betrays itself in distressing symptoms such as one sees daily in society, or sits and shudders at in one's own friends, when the victim, swelling with importance, makes confident mis-statements, draws erroneous conclusions, sums up and gives advice so fatuous that you blush to be a biped ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... "Gorky" again, which, as I have explained, means, "Are such distressing situations within the province of ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... in Wales still continue, though the apprehension of some of the rioters who destroyed the Pontardulais gate has had some effect. The following distressing scene is reported ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... from bad to worse, and though the tropical weather was not conducive to heartiness of appetite the dishes on our tables were distressing. To attempt to compute the countless creature comforts missing at this stage of our sorrows would be ridiculous; nor do I propose inflicting on the reader a reiteration of what remained to keep body and soul together. Discussion on the Column ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... with several others, went out and followed the dog, who led them through the darkness of the night, which was very great, to the top of a precipice, nearly fifty feet deep; and standing on the bank, held his head over, and howled in a most distressing manner. They were convinced that the poor man had fallen over; and having gone round to the bottom of the pit, they found him, lying under the spot indicated by the dog, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... sake of my bibi!" said Mrs. Creighton. "It is the prettiest little hat I have had these three years; it would be distressing to have it spoilt before it has ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... ordinary "cow-music" I am a great admirer, and take as much pleasure in it as in the cries and melody of birds and the sound of the wind in trees; but this performance of cattle excited by the smell of blood is most distressing to hear. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... articles there of considerable value; but I will let them all go—it will be taken as a proof that I am dead. My friend Black Bill will hear of this, and fall in with that opinion. I may also arrange a 'distressing casualty' paragraph to insert in the papers for ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... was very gracious, but the little fat Italian with the long hair and the drooping eyelids was atrociously embarrassed to respond to her compliments in English. He struggled so violently that Mrs. Morrow began to smile with a compassionate patronage which turned him a distressing terra-cotta. Elfrida looked on for a few minutes, and then, as one of the group, she said quietly in French, "And Italian opera in England, how do ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... to trouble you, sir," said she; "but a lady has called to see you about a very distressing law case—very distressing indeed, and a very strange case it is too. Only, if you could be so ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... without any effort of their own, until I had gone through the German exegesis. It took me six years of meditation and hard study to discover that my teachers were not infallible. What caused me more grief than anything else when I entered upon this new path was the thought of distressing my revered masters; but I am absolutely certain that I was right, and that the sorrow which they felt was the consequence of their narrow views as to ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... 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
... this distressing dilemma was already becoming plain to the marauder herself. Her mewings grew louder and more frequent. A few more contortions brought the climber nearer his victim. A little judicious urging with the rake and she was within reach. The rake ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... was not very distressing. John and Erasmus Henry were abroad; and each had an office at Rome, in which he was able to support himself. Charles had for some time been entirely dependent on his father, and administered to his effects, as he died ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... right, but wrong too. Hoodie was proud, but also intensely loving. She did grieve in her own wild, unreasonable way, at distressing her mother, but most of all she grieved that she should be the cause of it. It would have made her sorry for mother to be grieved by Maudie or the boys, but still that would have been different. It was the misery of believing herself to be ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... me to silence, I think I can answer, particularly when I give him a gentle hint of the station of Beckendorff, for his preserving the confidence with which it will now be our policy partially to entrust him. It is, to say the least, awkward and distressing to leave you alone; but what is to be done? It does not appear that I can now be of any material service to you. I have assisted you as much as, and more than, we could reasonably have supposed it would have been in my power to have done, by throwing some ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... why architecture, which is pre-eminently the art of space, is of all the arts the most static. Light and color are essentially of space, and therefore an art of mobile colour should never lack a certain serenity and repose. A "tune" played on a color organ is only distressing. If there is a workable correspondence between the musical art and an art of mobile color, it will be found in the domain of harmony which involves the idea of simultaneity, rather than in melody, which is pure succession. This fundamental difference between time ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... ... The affairs of the Peninsula are indeed very distressing,[5] and what you tell me in your letter of the 20th, as also in the former one, is highly interesting and, alas! but too true. I trust, not withstanding what you say, I may yet live to see Spain and Portugal settled. But I greatly fear that the time ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... day: the symptoms were violent headache, and 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
... Rackliff. He lighted a cigarette, but the first whiff threw him into a most distressing fit of coughing and he flung it out through the open door. "Can't seem to get anything out of a smoke," he complained. "Cigarettes don't taste good, and they raise the merry dickens with this old cough of mine. I've got a beastly headache, and I suppose I ought to be in bed, but I've got to ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... such times would sink into moods of the blackest gloom, like those of an old, gouty subject. Hypochondria, baby as he was, seemed already to have fixed his fangs upon him. He had days of profound melancholy, when nothing provoked a smile, and others of bitter, silent fretting, inconceivably distressing; again there were periods of the wildest joy, only restrained by that reticence which had ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield |
