"Discontent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing of it till a proper Opportunity. In the mean time, Eginhart knowing that what he had done could not be long a Secret, determined to retire from Court; and in order to it begged the Emperor that he would be pleased to dismiss him, pretending a kind of Discontent at his not having been rewarded for his long Services. The Emperor would not give a direct Answer to his Petition, but told him he would think of it, and [appointed [6]] a certain Day when he would let him know his Pleasure. He then called together the most faithful of his Counsellors, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of promise and glory the boy never replied, but he lay without the least sign of discontent or murmuring until the ninth day, when he ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... the Patriot band, and that much depended on dealing with it wisely. This was not a dependent and starved host wildly urging the terrible demand of "Bread or blood"; nor was it fanaticism in a season of social discontent claiming impossibilities at the hand of power: the craving was moral and intellectual: it was an intelligent public opinion, a people with well-grounded and settled convictions, making a just demand on arbitrary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Dominey replied, "but I am not a politician in any shape or form. All the Germans whom I have met out there seem a most peaceful race of men, and there doesn't seem to be the slightest discontent amongst the Boers or ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... time, the dogs were far from being quiet or satisfied. Their masters, accustomed to being surrounded at night by wolves and foxes, or other beasts, took little heed, however, of the discontent of these creatures, which were in the habit of growling in their lairs. The bee-hunter, as he kept rubbing at his friend's legs, felt now but little apprehension of the dogs, though a new source of alarm presented itself ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... back to winter in very truth, without and within; for there is a sharper winter than any whose story the thermometer records. The winter of my discontent, and of another's blighted heart, and of still another's darkened life, awaited me beyond these turbid waters! My way was dark, and my path obscure before me. Chart and compass were blurred and numb. To remain in New Jedboro, and to remove to ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the discoveries of truth and the creations of art. And he will also find that this purifying interaction of spiritual and mental forces will give the mind an abiding foundation of joy for its starts of rapture and flights of ecstasy;—a joy, in whose light and warmth languor and discontent and depression and despair will be charmed away;—a joy, which will make the mind large, generous, hopeful, aspiring, in order to make life beautiful and sweet;—a joy, in the words of an old divine, "which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... become a teacher of elocution, and that he still regarded it as a less humble aspiration than it might seem. Those who have sat under the spell of Emerson's discourse would certainly never associate anything commonly called rhetoric with him; but I derived, from conversation with him, that his discontent with conventionalisms of thought first took this form of dissatisfaction with the conventional oratory. He thought there might be taught an art of putting things so that they could not be gainsaid. But a man must really hold that which he is to state successfully. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... we have come to recognise clearly our unrest, we have gone but part of the way, we have become conscious of a symptom, not of the disease. Why is it that man is alone among the creatures in that discontent with externals, and that dissatisfaction with himself? 'Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have roosting-places': why is it that amongst all God's happy creatures, and God's shining stars, men stand 'strangers in a strange land,' and are cursed with a restlessness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the merit of some substances is the lack of ductility, so how oft we must lean on unmalleable men, whose back-bone is not supple as a universal joint, who will not "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning," and who, in a noble discontent with all yet undertaken or done, summon to worthier performance towards never-attained perfection in betterment of the common lot. Mr. Rubinstein was displeased with the preacher who said, "Men must be expected to do no more than they can." "No," ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... door Mrs. Whitney paused to scan the outward appearance of her home. The large, Colonial, brick double house, with lights partly showing behind handsomely curtained windows, looked the embodiment of comfort, but Mrs. Whitney heaved a sharp sigh of discontent. The surroundings were not pleasing to her. Again and again she had pleaded with her husband to give up the old house and move into a more fashionable neighborhood. But with the tenacity which easy-going men sometimes exhibit, Winslow ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... with the daylight that recalls them to their labour. Since they were first carried thither, from different parts of Africa and Madagascar, to the present hour, not so much as the rumour of disturbance or discontent has ever been known to proceed from them. They hold the natives of the island in contempt, have a degree of antipathy towards them, and enjoy any mischief they can do them; and these in their turn regard the Caffres ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the sunshine, disregarding it, and in the shade of the big trees on the esplanade without enjoying it. The heat of the tropical East descended through the leafy boughs, enveloping my thinly-clad body, clinging to my rebellious discontent, as if to rob ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... partly in the altered character of the whole world's civilization, partly in the increasing poverty of the city, doomed four hundred years ago to commercial decay, and chiefly (the Venetians would be apt to tell you wholly) in the implacable anger, the inconsolable discontent, with which the people regard their ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... loved his family clannishly, and he was rejoiced that they were all again near to him. He was proud of their success and fame. He was glad that James had prospered so well of late years. There was no canker of envy or discontent ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of blessed ease. They were not temperamentally restless. They both thought, with a practical sense that is as convenient as it is generally accepted, "somebody must do the work: may as well be me." No discontent would be theirs. And Alf was a good worker at the bench, a sober and honest man; and Emmy could make a pound go as far as any other woman in Kennington Park. They had before them a faithful future of work in common, of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... extreme form. Many weeks, even months, had to pass before his discontent over the last child of his imagination would become normal. Particularly was this so with the larger works; though each one was started in a fever of inspiration, a longing to reduce to actual form the impossible. He was always disheartened ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... had displayed in the early part of his life, rendered the indolence and luxury to which he abandoned himself, after the appointment of Theodo'sius, more glaring. The general discontent of the army induced Max'imus, the governor of Britain, to raise the standard of revolt, and, passing over to the continent, he was joined by the greater part of the Gallic legions. When this rebellion broke out Gratian was enjoying the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the English people would bar the way. To the victor of the present the spoils of war are valueless. Japan, victor over the great Russian Empire, staggers under a colossal debt. The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been transformed from a gainful occupation into economic folly, and war will cease because the price ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... had not been long in France, before great discontent was manifested among the citizens at the prospect of his being placed on the throne of his brother. Napoleon and his friends took advantage of this state of things: he left his retreat in the Island of Elba, and returned to Paris. Louis was obliged to ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... that the Island Loyalists said that the pirates and Separationists worked together to bother the admiral and raise discontent. Living in the centre of Separationist discontent with the Macdonalds, I knew it was not true. But nothing was too bad to say against the planters who clamoured for ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... believe that she who cowed others must be frightened herself; that the stinging injustice which led a proud man to expect, only to see how he would behave when refused, deserved to be brought to reason by a counter-buffet as rough as her own insolent caprice. He drifted into discontent, into disaffection, into neglect of duty, into questionable schemings for the future of a reign that must shortly end, into criminal methods of guarding himself, of humbling his rivals and regaining influence. A "fatal impatience," as Bacon calls it, gave his ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... that after all he was a viking only in name. Olaf bade them wait in patience, reminding them that there was no lack of good food and well brewed ale on board, and that they had no need to feel discontent so long as their daily life ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... injurious external interference (as from a wound, a bruise, a harsh word, etc.), or from some lack of what one needs, craves, or cherishes (as, the pain of hunger or bereavement), or from some abnormal action of bodily or mental functions (as, the pains of disease, envy, or discontent). Suffering is one of the severer forms of pain. The prick of a needle causes pain, but we should scarcely speak of it as suffering. Distress is too strong a word for little hurts, too feeble for the intensest suffering, but commonly applied ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... blood. He was requested to "come and take it," but did not make another attempt until the 1st of December, when the American troops embarked merely again to disembark and go into winter quarters. Murmur and discontent filled the American camp, disease and death were now so common, and General Smyth's self-confidence was so inconsiderable that the literary hero, who had spoken of the "eternal infamy" that awaits him who "basely shrinks in the moment of trial," ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Shia political societies participated in 2006 parliamentary and municipal elections. Al Wifaq, the largest Shia political society, won the largest number of seats in the elected chamber of the legislature. However, Shia discontent has resurfaced in recent years with street demonstrations ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... me?" he continued, abruptly. "Austria is ripe to revolt against the tyranny of the emperor. With the discontent in the Netherlands, the dissensions in Spain, Europe is like a ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... is little wonder that under such circumstances discontent arose and that people who by nature are sociable longed to go where life was, in their opinion, more agreeable. Even with all the later conveniences and improvements, the trend cityward still continues and may continue indefinitely in the future. The American people ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... stout, he always conveyed to me the impression of being charged with a vague discontent, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I could not avoid reflecting, how universally this talent was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or, indeed, rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with nature. And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... his cap for a moment, looking at the serene sky. The rising discontent in his brother's heart was stilled by the gesture. Both worked assiduously, till Andy, with an unusual twinkle in his eyes, summoned ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... constitute the gains of their calling. They have also to report the prices of silver every morning at the Magistracy, which, from its daily increasing value, has become an object of especial attention.' Twenty years ago, much discontent was expressed that silver, which had been worth 1000 cash per ounce, rose to 1500; now it is over 2000, owing to the continuous drain of the metal ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... or two of the loyal veterans, who had hotly refused to have anything to do with their ruffianly captors, had been forced to walk the plank as an example to the rest should they prove recalcitrant. Partly through terror, partly through discontent, partly on account of promises of the great reward awaiting them, speciously urged by Morgan himself, for he could talk as well as he could fight, and, most of all, because even at that date it was considered a meritorious act to attack a Spaniard or a Papist under any circumstances or conditions, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... shade of the great trees the fever of discontent left him, and, forgetting all except the happiness of being surrounded by the silent oaks, he penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest. The brushing of a branch against a tree, the thud of a falling nut, the dart of a squirrel, and ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... disappointed, and foreboded the discontent of others, the greatness of what he had done was quickly apparent, and received due recognition from thoughtful men. "Either the distances between the different quarters of the globe are diminished," wrote Mr. Elliot from Naples, "or you ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... new shack was built in the wilderness. There Lincoln's "angel mother" sickened and died—that mother to whom Lincoln said he owed all that he was or hoped to be. Then when the winter of poverty and discontent settled down blacker than ever, the father removed to another State, where the mud was deeper, and the winters colder, where nature was less propitious. Lying on his face, before blazing logs, the boy ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... But the mutterings of discontent continued, and to appease the people, the House of Burgesses passed a law providing that, instead of tobacco being a legal tender, all debts could be paid in money; figuring tobacco at the rate of two cents a pound. As tobacco was worth about ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Why such a Gentleman, Thus hansom and thus yong, commaunds such a quarter; Where theis faire Ladies lye; why the Grave's angry And Mounseiur Barnavelt now discontent,— Do you thinck it's fitt ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... who publishes a book having any reference to Irish affairs may, not unnaturally, be supposed either to possess some special knowledge of Ireland, or else to be the advocate of some new specific for the cure of Irish discontent. Of neither of these suppositions can I claim the benefit. My knowledge of Ireland is merely the knowledge—perhaps it were better to say the ignorance—of an educated Englishman. It is derived from conversation with better ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... 'you lubber, don't you know that's me?' I like to listen to their yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their simple ditties. The odd mixture of manliness and childishness—of boldness and superstitious fears; of preposterous claims for wages and thoughtless extravagance; of obedience and discontent—all goes to make the queer compound called 'Jack.' How often have I laughed over the fun of the forecastle in these small fore and aft packets of ourn! and I think I would back that place for wit against any bar-room in New York or New Orleans, and I believe they take ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Glen Cove all that troubled Jeanne was that her pony had sprained a tendon, and that in the mixed doubles her eye was off the ball. Proctor Maddox suggested other causes for discontent. ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... the country was crushed under its weight of taxes; the finances were in utter disorder; France was successful abroad, but her successes had been dearly bought, and the people groaned under the burden of their victories. Parliament made itself the mouth-piece of the public discontent. It no longer felt upon it the iron hand of Richelieu. Mazarin was able, but he was not a master, and the Parliament began once more to claim that authority in affairs of state from which it had been deposed by the great cardinal. A conflict arose between the members and the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... expected. His men were very much tried, and many of them were exasperated. Adding hunger and needless suffering to their pittance of pay was quite enough to demoralize the rank and file. Washington could not blame them much, in the circumstances, although the discontent added to his trials. He wrote to Governor Dinwiddie ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... hard labour, and perhaps privation, while he sees others rolling in wealth, and feeding their dogs with what would keep his children from starvation. Would it not be well to have helped that man to calm the natural promptings of discontent by showing him, in his youth, the necessary connexion of the moral law which prohibits stealing with the stability of society—by proving to him, once for all, that it is better for his own people, better for himself, better for future generations, that he should ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... almost all power, and provided a feeble, short-term judiciary, throwing the control of affairs into the hands of the legislative body, in accordance with what were then deemed Democratic ideas. The people were entirely unable to realize that, so far as their discontent with the Governor's actions was reasonable, it arose from the fact that he was appointed, not by themselves, but by some body or person not in sympathy with them. They failed to grasp the seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... which to-day stands at the highest point of human achievement, but I freely confess that the African Native has so far shown a lack of that will to think analytically and critically which in the civilised man is the result of a continuous discontent with things as they are, a discontent which has urged him up to his present plane of ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... describing them as the result of some quite trivial incident. In the one case, you appeal to a philosophic taste; in the other, to a popular love of the marvellous. A revolution may be represented as the inevitable outbreak of the discontent and misery of the people; or it may be traced, with all its disasters, to the caprice of a courtier, or perhaps the accidental delay of a messenger. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... to sell the Works, and that increased my discontent. I went through moods of cold unsociability, alternating with sudden flushes of curiosity, when I gloated over stray scraps of talk overheard in railway stations and omnibuses, when strange faces that I passed in the street tantalized me with fugitive promises. I wanted to ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... which was now grown something drier, but exceeding cold, we employed ourselves about the wreck, from which we had, at sundry times, recovered several articles of provision and liquor: these were deposited in the store-tent. Ill humour and discontent, from the difficulties we laboured under in procuring subsistence, and the little prospect there was of any amendment in our condition, was now breaking out apace. In some it shewed itself by a separation of settlement and habitation; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... not two in ten who succeed, insomuch that I know a Man of good Sense who put his Son to a Blacksmith, tho an Offer was made him of his being received as a Page to a Man of Quality.[2] There are not more Cripples come out of the Wars than there are from those great Services; some through Discontent lose their Speech, some their Memories, others their Senses or their Lives; and I seldom see a Man thoroughly discontented, but I conclude he has had the Favour of some great Man. I have known of such as have been for twenty Years together within a Month of a good Employment, but ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of little Titans, which was his first mountain; and afterwards general, which was his second; and after that absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the heaven which he affected; is believed to have died with grief and discontent because he could not attain to the honest name of a king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have compassed that, he would ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... corrective of internal disorders and discontent, neither of the two States "desires" war; but both are bent on dominion, and as the dominion aimed at is not to be had except by fighting for it, both in effect are incorrigibly bent on warlike enterprise. And in neither case will considerations of equity, humanity, decency, veracity, or the common ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... little creature looked as though she needed something to make her look more cheerfully on a world which generally seems so happy a place to the young—something to banish the look of discontent which seemed to ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the discontent grew, and the cry of "No taxation without representation" became the Uitlanders' motto. They perceived that they were deprived of rights, yet expected to serve as milch cows for the fattening of a State that was arming itself at all points against them, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... combined with an agricultural depression and widespread discontent in the agricultural states, caused the defeat of the Republicans in the elections of 1890. The Democratic minority of 21 in the House of Representatives of the Fifty-first Congress was turned into a Democratic majority of 135 in the Fifty-second. Eight other ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... to steal a cask of the precious fluid for their own use. The vessel was quite a small one, and the water was kept in the hold. But the two or three whites who formed the crew forcibly prevented the black-fellows from carrying out their plan. This gave rise to much discontent, and eventually the blacks, in desperation, openly rose and mutinied. Arming themselves with heavy pieces of firewood they proceeded to attack their masters, and some of them succeeded in getting at the water, in spite of the whites, by simply knocking the bungs out of the casks. The ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... form, alas! has long forgot to please; The scene of beauty and delight is chang'd; No roses bloom upon my fading cheek, Nor laughing graces wanton in my eyes; But haggard grief, lean-looking, sallow, care, And pining discontent, a rueful train, Dwell on my brow, all hideous and forlorn. One only shadow of a hope is left me; The noble-minded Hastings, of his goodness, Has kindly underta'en to be my advocate, And move my ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... silence fled the place. The slayer of himself yet saw I there, The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair; With eyes half closed, and gaping mouth he lay, And grim, as when he breathed his sullen soul away. In midst of all the dome, Misfortune sate, 580 And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate, And Madness laughing in his ireful mood; And arm'd complaint on theft; and cries of blood. There was the murder'd corpse in covert laid, And violent death in thousand shapes display'd: The city to the soldiers ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... being a major in one year, a lieutenant-colonel in two. At first his boasts had been laughed at by his brother officers, but when, at the year's end, he actually was made a major, their surprise and discontent were great. Lord Oldborough was blamed for patronizing such a fellow. All this, in course of time, came to his lordship's knowledge. He heard these complaints in silence. It was not his habit suddenly to express his displeasure. He heard, and saw, without speaking or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... bitterly resented. The losses suffered by the nation in the war already amounted to a huge figure, and although at this time the people at large probably held no very pronounced views on the subject of abandoning the contest, there undoubtedly was discontent. Under such circumstances, statesmanship imperatively demanded that mutual confidence should be maintained between the Court and Government on the one side, and the leaders of popular opinion on ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... refer to cases in which there is no doubt that punishment ought to be inflicted, but which officials are apt to punish too indiscriminately without due investigation of circumstances, whereby they infallibly stir up a feeling of discontent and insubordination. As regards those instances where punishment is deserved but should be temporarily suspended, a remission of part or the whole of the sentence may be granted as the magistrate sees fit. The great point ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... weapons forged for her necessity; and as for genuine love-affairs, like Cleopatra, she had but two, and the second ended in disaster to herself. This tale is of the first one that succeeded, although fraught with discontent for ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... means disunion! Clay, Cass, Webster, Benton, even the hottest of the men from Mississippi and South Carolina, are agreed on that. My dear Sir, I say it with solemn conviction, the formation of a new party of discontent to-day, when everything is already strained to breaking, will split this country and plunge the divided ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... tannery, where a bunch of incipient lunatics had gone completely mad and struck against conditions that had previously been satisfactory to them and their fathers before them. Last, but by no means least, was the discontent in the office itself, what with a partner who had been bitten by the bug of ambition—! A much-abused, sorely-tried man raised angry eyes to Heaven and demanded of ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... dwells on the earth are as the day granted him by the father of gods and men. Discontent springs from a constant endeavor to increase the amount of our claims, when we are powerless to increase the amount which ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... When popular discontent and passion are stimulated by the arts of designing partisans to a pitch perilously near to class hatred or sectional anger, I would have our universities and colleges sound the alarm in the name of American ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... sun is soon too hot for the head, or too bright for the eyes, or there is a draught, or the flies disturb one. Man is not capable of as much physical enjoyment as the other animals, though perhaps his enjoyment is keener during the first moments. Then comes thought, restlessness, discontent, change, effort, and progress, and the history of man's superiority is the journal ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... in her chair, as if both voices had been repeating something heard many times before. They seemed to renew her discontent. "Yes, I know; I know all that, father. But it ain't the mahogany I think of. It's the child's gettin' there ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... shine Like rich Madeira, glossy brown, Or garnet red, like old Port wine. Wild grapes are ripening on the hill, Dead leaves curl thickly at my feet, Yet not one falls, it is so still. Crickets are singing in the sun, And aimlessly grasshoppers leap From discontent to discontent, Their days of leaping nearly done. There's a rich quietness of earth That holds no promise any more, And like a cup, Today is filled With the last wine the year ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... rage, And, scorning mercy, spared nor sex, nor age? When, for our interest too mighty grown, Monarchs of warlike bent possessed the throne, What if we strove divisions to foment, And spread the flames of civil discontent, Assisted those who 'gainst their king made head, And gave the traitors refuge when they fled? 510 When restless Glory bade her sons advance, And pitch'd her standard in the fields of France, What if, disdaining oaths,—an empty sound, By which our nation ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... hoping for something, and when it does n't come we fret and worry; when it does, why there's always something else we'd rather have. We deliberately make nearly all of our unhappiness, with our own unreasonable discontent, and nothing will ever make us happy, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... year have made abundance of sharers peevish; the natural effect of peevishness is clamour, and clamour like a tide will work itself a passage, where it has no right of flowing; some gentlemen, misled by false conceptions both of the affair and its direction, have driven their discontent through a mistaken chanel, and inclined abundance who are strangers to the truth, to accuse the patentee of faults, he is not only absolutely free from, but by which he is, of all ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... doubtful whether he was a Roman Catholic; and he had not concealed the dislike which he felt for that Celtic Parliament which had repealed the Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder. [78] The discontent, fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom the cunning and unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most active, soon broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held. Many officers of the army, some ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... River in Circassia.[410] The establishment of American independence in 1783 saw an exodus of loyalists from the United States into the contiguous districts of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Spanish Florida, Five years later discontent with the Federal Government for its dilatory opposition to the occlusion of the Mississippi and the lure of commercial betterment sent many citizens of the early Trans-Allegheny commonwealths to the Spanish side of the Mississippi,[411] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... political power in the United States is so largely exerted from the bottom up. In their comments on the incident after the event, however, English papers missed some of its significance. Most English writers spoke of Mr. Hearst's appeal to the forces of discontent as a new phenomenon and drew therefrom grave inferences as to what would happen next in the United States. The fact is that the phenomenon is not new in any way. Mr. Hearst, in but a slightly different form, appealed to precisely the same passions as Mr. Bryan aroused—the same ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... mounted the first rung of the ladder, and was regularly signed as a member of the crew of the Island Princess, bound for Canton with a cargo of woolen goods and ginseng. There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship—the discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old friends in the ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... their fathers, back and back to the old beginnings, to Plymouth and Roanoke and Rip Van Winkle! It's all gone, all done, all over. You have to be a small, well-knit country for that sort of exquisite personal unitedness. There's nothing united about these States any more, except Standard Oil and discontent. We're no longer a small people living and dying for a great idea; we're a big people living and dying for money. And these ladies of yours—well, they have made me homesick for a national and a social past which I never saw, but which my old people knew. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... discontent. He had never known, felt that perhaps he might never know, that sustained energy of imaginative and sensual longing which ideal passion demands. The respectable make-believe which takes the form of domestic sentiment, that everyday love, which, become the servant of habit, suffices to cement ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... give her comfort; but finding her only satisfaction was to express her discontent, she arose to take leave. But, turning first to Miss Belfield, contrived to make a private enquiry whether she might repeat her offer of assistance. A downcast and dejected look answering in the affirmative, she put into her hand a ten pound bank note, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... farmers were still anxious, and began to show it by holding meetings and discussions on the condition of the labourers. Everybody said that the men had been very properly punished; but at the same time it was admitted that they had some reason for their discontent, that, with bread so dear, it was hardly possible for a man with a family to support himself on seven shillings a week, and it was generally agreed to raise the wages one shilling. But by and by when the anxiety had quite died out, when it was found that the men were more submissive ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... amongst us may be affected for good or for evil. It may possibly happen that, in the indulgences, or means of indulgence, given to you by your friends at home, there may be sometimes, such a difference as to excite discontent or jealousy. It may be, that some are apt to exult over others, by talking of the pleasures, or the liberty, which they enjoy; and which the friends of others, either from necessity or from a sense of duty, are obliged to withhold. If this be ever felt by any of you ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... on account of the Ulpha affair: if that curacy should lapse into your Lordship's hands, I would beg leave rather to decline than embrace it; for the chapels of Seathwaite and Ulpha, annexed together, would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places; by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid.' And in ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... things, and cautioned herself against discontent with the progress of society, because she happened to be left alone behind. She suspected, too, that the hand would not get well. The thing that she was most certain of was, that she must not rack her brain with fears and speculations as to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... came to an anchor in Port Praya, St. Iago, where the Governor received him with much politeness and gave him permission to replenish his ship. While in this port Grant discovered that the second mate had sown seeds of discontent among his crew, so he promptly handed him over to the Governor to be sent back to England. Two boys, however, deserted and ran off with a boat. Several parties were sent out in search of them by the Governor, and the two deserters were ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... some days with Mr. Rogers, and at last have been at the Athenaeum, and purpose to visit the Royal Institution. I have been to Richmond in a steamboat; seen also the picture-galleries and some other exhibitions; but I passed one Sunday in London with discontent, doing no duty myself, nor listening to another; and I hope my uneasiness proceeded not merely from breaking a habit. We had a dinner social and pleasant, if the hours before it had been rightly spent; but I would not willingly pass another Sunday in the same manner. ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... propaganda really successful some seeds of discontent had to be sown in the United States, in South America and Mexico as well as in Spain and other European neutral countries. For this outside propaganda, money and an organisation were needed. The Krupp ammunition interests supplied the money and the ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... anything more amazing than these persistent strides and throbbings so far through our Nineteenth century of perhaps its biggest, sharpest, and most erudite brain, in defiance and discontent with everything; contemptuously ignoring, (either from constitutional inaptitude, ignorance itself, or more likely because he demanded a definite cure-all here and now,) the only solace and solvent ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... see, be productive of disaffection among the remainder, more than the example of such as are every day set free, and sent to the Ohio or elsewhere; and if so large a part should ever be set free as to create discontent among the remainder, (and nothing but the emancipation of a great majority can do this,) yet that remainder must then, from the terms of the proposition, be so much diminished, as to be easily kept down by superior numbers.'—[Idem, vol. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... new-found Indies, touching once the mainland of South America. No need to go into the details of his after life. How can one have the heart to tell of the quick subsiding of his triumph, the malicious envy of courtiers, the unreasonable discontent of subordinates, the selfish ambition of rivals, the wanton wickedness of the West Indian settlers; of his removal from the governorship, and his voyage home in chains, over his Atlantic, of his weakening health, his accumulating anxieties, his troubled old ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... moment as if he had stumbled by chance upon some great conspiracy. Yet that could scarcely be, for the people here collected might have figured as the earliest handsel, or pattern, of a new world, from the very face of which discontent had passed away. Corresponding to the variety of human type there present, was the various expression of every form of human sorrow assuaged. What desire, what fulfilment of desire, had wrought so pathetically on the features of these ranks of aged men and women of humble condition? ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the human race. Yet this common soul of mankind we know largely and even chiefly as something divided against itself. Not only do human ideals contradict each other; but the ideal in any and all of its forms is contradicted by the actual. So it is the discontent of the human world-soul that is mainly borne in upon him who shares in it most fully. A possibility of completed good may glimmer at the far end of the quest; but the quest itself is experienced as a bitter striving. Bitter though it may be, however, ...
— Progress and History • Various
... suggestion, and the subject was discussed in an article on 'Irish Discontent' in the next number of the 'Review.' Lord ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... continued. Large quantities of grain, of camels and other supplies, were requisitioned from the people of the Ghezira (the country lying between the Blue and White Niles) and stored or stabled in the city. The discontent to which this arbitrary taxation gave rise was cured by a more arbitrary remedy. As many of the doubtful and embittered tribesmen as could be caught were collected in Omdurman, where they were compelled to drill regularly, and found it prudent to protest their loyalty. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Queen, with whom she remained nearly the whole afternoon. They danced together, and seemed so happy that neither did the new Queen appear to be jealous or afraid that the other had come to raise the siege, as it was rumoured, nor did the said lady of Cleves show any sign of discontent at seeing her rival in her place. Moreover, Sire, if it please you to hear the end of this farce, that evening, and the next, the two ladies supped at the King's table together, although the lady of Cleves sat a little backward, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Earl of Leicester paid frequent visits to Cumnor, the Countess was reconciled to the solitude to which she was condemned. But when these visits became rarer and more rare, the brief letters of excuse did not keep out discontent and suspicion from the splendid apartments which love had once fitted up for beauty. Her answers to Leicester conveyed these feelings too bluntly, and pressed more naturally than prudently that she might be relieved ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... influence, all the misery and pessimism of the end of the Middle Age, its restlessness and ennui, that find consolation only in the memory of the grotesque frailty of the body which one day Jesus will raise up. All the anarchy and discontent of our own time seems to me to be expressed in such work as this, in which ugliness, as we might say, has as much right as beauty. It is, I think, the mistake of much popular criticism in our time to assert that these ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... must end by admitting that though we have done all we could, the hidden distress that still exists in rich homes is widespread. Families continue to engage in poisonous quarrels, idleness and chronic unemployment remain unabated, and discontent is gradually darkening the minds of its victims, depriving them of true mental vigor and ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... unlimited power. They frequently saw themselves betrayed by a cupidity which impelled the authorities to enrich themselves in every possible way at the expense of general suffering. Added to these sources of discontent was the powerful influence exerted by the spectacle of the rapidly increasing greatness of the United States, where a portion of the Cuban youths were wont to receive their education. No matter in what political faith ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... of roses, surrounded by olive, orange, and citron trees. Here they found many persons sitting in a disconsolate posture, with their heads reclined on their hands, and exhibiting all the signs of sorrow and discontent. The companions of the angel accosted them, and inquired into the cause of their grief. They replied, "This is the seventh day since we came into this paradise: on our first admission we seemed to ourselves to be elevated into heaven, and introduced into a participation ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... destroyed a part of the colony's provisions. Heaven and man seemed his enemies, and, with the giant energy of an indomitable will, having lost his hopes of fortune, his hopes of fame, with his colony diminished to about one hundred, among whom discontent had given birth to plans of crime—with no European nearer than the river Pamuco, and no French nearer than the northern shores of the Mississippi, he resolved to travel on foot to his countrymen in the North, and renew ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the mother. 'At that time they were part of the angelic host, were fine handsome people, went about in glittering robes, and sat at God's right hand. Now, it befell that the chief angel of all got dissatisfied with the old management of affairs in heaven, stirred up discontent, tampered with the half of all the angels, and tried, with their help, to thrust out the old rightful Master of heaven and earth from his bright throne. But it fared with him as it does with most rebels, and rightly should with all. Our Father, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... on Wednesday. I wrote a letter to my mother in which I hoped I made it quite clear that ambition and not discontent was leading me to run away. I also made a will, dividing my things fairly between Rupert, Henrietta, and Baby Cecil, in case I should be drowned at sea. My knife, my prayer-book, the ball of string ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... all those who are behind the scenes know to be on the brink of a revolution. The capital is already filled with newspaper correspondents, the thunder mutters day by day. The army is unpaid and full of discontent. For that reason, it is believed that their spirit is entirely revolutionary. Every morning we who know expect to read in the papers that the royal palace has been stormed and the king become an exile. This was the state of things until about a ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... correlation. And not only were the buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic, but the voices he had heard in the ways, the uneasiness of Howard, the very atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent. What country was he in? Still England it seemed, and yet strangely "un-English." His mind glanced at the rest of the world, and saw only an ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... to the secret of its enterprise. I was not long in discovering, however, that it was found in the spirit of this Commercial Club; a spirit, it is, of hope, of civic pride, of optimism, yet a spirit of almost divine discontent. You have all the time been proud of your city, but yet not satisfied with it; not satisfied, because you saw visions of a finer city into which yours might grow. Your city was not up-to-date—to help make it so you needed a street railway system; what did you do? Worked for it and—got ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... caused the removal of this publishing business from the village arose out of the discontent of some workmen whose services were dispensed with when new power presses were substituted for hand-work in printing. The entire manufactory was burned at night by incendiaries in ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... banished reason. It is possible also that the progress toward perfection we are so proud of is only a pretentious imperfection. Duty seems now to be more negative than positive; it means lessening evil rather than actual good; it is a generous discontent, but not happiness; it is an incessant pursuit of an unattainable goal, a noble madness, but not reason; it is homesickness for the impossible—pathetic and pitiful, but still ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with a vulgar beauty of her own, much damaged by bad temper, discontent, and illness. Oh, those terrible weeks for Letty, hiding her own misery, putting on a brave face with the neighbors, keeping the unwelcome sister-in-law ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on the hill-side, which the lame gentleman had told us belonged to Lord Breadalbane, and were attached to little farms, or 'crofts,' as he called them. Lord Breadalbane had lately laid out a part of his estates in this way as an experiment, in the hope of preventing discontent and emigration. We were sorry we had not an opportunity of seeing into these cottages, and of learning how far the people were happy or otherwise. The dwellings certainly did not look so comfortable when we were near to them as from a distance; but this might be chiefly owing to what ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... complexion, with faces of every possible shade of expression. Defiance, resolute and stern, desperate resolves never to give in, and that very same defiant determination sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. A deep abyss of abdominal discontent, revealing afar the shadow, the penumbra, of the approaching retch. And there were bouleversements, and hoarse confidences to the sea of every degree of misery. The wind was really risen quite to a gale, and the sea ran with fearful power. Two sailors, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... felt, save that once when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memories of her past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, they grew more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as her discontent ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Elijah designated two men to whom a great future was assigned in Paradise. Yet these men were nothing more than clowns! They made it their purpose in life to dispel discontent and sorrow by their jokes and their cheery humor, and they used the opportunities granted by their profession to adjust the difficulties and quarrels that disturb the harmony of people living in close contact with each ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... late at night were incessantly at work. There were at least a dozen petty kings in camp, all of whom had to be kept in a good temper, and this was by no means the smallest of Captain Glover's difficulties, as upon the slightest ground for discontent each of these was ready at once to march away with his followers. The most reliable portion of Captain Glover's force were some 250 Houssas, and as many Yorabas. In addition to all their work with the native allies, the officers of the expedition had succeeded in drilling both these bodies ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... not see anything bright in it. Books tell one that youth is so happy, so gay—and as for me, ever since I was a child, I have had nothing but weariness. All that travelling about, that banishment from one's own country—ill tempers, discontent, narrow ways, hard lessons—straps and backboards because I was not strong—loneliness, not a friend of my own age—and then this horrible Paris—and things that might have happened there, if my father had ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... through the hedge, and caught sight of him. Old he was—bent with years, but tough, wiry, and sound, and it seemed to Cosmo that the sighs and groans, or rather grunts, which he uttered, were more of impatience and discontent than oppression or weakness. As he stood regarding him for a moment, anxious to discover with what sort of man he had to deal, he began to mutter. Presently he ceased digging, drew himself up as straight as he could, and, leaning on his spade, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... became evident that the neighborhood of Isabela was not a healthy one. Fever invaded the colony; Columbus himself was not exempt. Discontent came and an uprising among the soldiers was nipped in the bud. On recovering from his illness Columbus resolved to make an exploration of the interior; and with drums beating and flags flying a brilliant expedition left Isabela. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... for the highest positions in the church, the abbes de Boisgelin, de Perigord, de Barral, de Montesquiou; at each moment, owing to their solicitations with judges and the council, owing to the authority which the discontent of the powerful order felt to be behind them gives to their complaints, some ecclesiastic matter is decided in an ecclesiastical sense; so feudal right is maintained in favor of a chapter or of a bishop; some public demand is thrown out.[1401] In 1781, notwithstanding ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... learned to meet his discontent with a shrug of her shoulders, and to arrange her life in her own way. Ulrich was her comfort, pride and plaything, but sporting with him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... given command of Army of Potomac, see vol. i.; his record prior to 1861; his organizing ability; promoted to succeed Scott; his arrogance and contempt for civilians; causes discontent by inactivity; considers army unfit to move; unwilling from temperament to take any risks; fails to appreciate political situation; overestimates preparations of Confederates; overestimates Confederate numbers; wishes ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... of the present time," cries M. Dunoyer, in a tone of keen discontent, "is the agitation of all classes; their anxiety, their inability to ever stop at anything and be contented; the infernal labor performed upon the less fortunate that they may become more and more discontented in proportion to ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... in her decision to make someone unhappy. She found that possessing a diamond ring did not remove her discontent—and a shamed feeling stole over her, causing her to wonder how loudly she had screamed at Gay and how she must have looked when she started to strike him in her blind rage; how horrible it was to go off on tangents just because ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... filched it! You have it as a thief has another man's purse or another man's wife. You have gained favor by arousing discontent for a Godly home: a home where she is sheltered and where ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... addressed the prince regent, in hopes that he would withhold his assent from a measure so generally disliked by the nation, but it received his sanction. From that day to this the corn-law question has been a source of constant clamour and discontent. The ferment which the bill occasioned was great: the mob attacked the houses of its supporters, and the military were obliged to be called in to the aid of the civil power before the riots could be quelled: two individuals were shot by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Sometimes they have been excessively high, and at other times proportionably low; and even during a peace they must always remain subject to the fluctuations which arise from the caprices of taste and fashion, and the competition of other countries. These fluctuations naturally tend to generate discontent and tumult and the evils which accompany them; and if to this we add, that the situation and employment of a manufacturer and his family are even in their best state unfavourable to health and virtue, it cannot appear desirable that a very large proportion ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus
... province of Matanzas. Other small bands were soon heard of elsewhere in the island. A trifle this seemed, in view of the fact that Cuba was guarded by twenty thousand Spanish troops and had on its military rolls the names of sixty thousand volunteers. But the island was seething with discontent, and trifles grow fast under such circumstances. Twenty years before a great rebellion had been afoot. It was settled by treaty in 1878, but Spain had ignored the promises of the treaty and steadily heaped up fuel for the new flame which had ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... III. Grievous discontent among several classes of the population of Oudh, viz., the nobility of Lucknow and the members and retainers of the Royal Family, the official classes, the old soldiery, and the entire country population, noble and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... no poverty, no want, no taxes—not any sign of dilapidation or squalor anywhere in the principality of Monaco. Yet the "people," so called, have been known to lapse into a state of discontent. They sometimes "yearned for freedom." Too well fed and cared for, too rid of dirt and debt, too flourishing, they "riz." Prosperity grew monotonous. They even had the nerve to ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the government and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed In my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as, in short, the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sterling,) on the lives of his wife and children, which had been purchased for five millions of livres, was forfeited, notwithstanding that a special edict, drawn up for the purpose in the days of his prosperity, had expressly declared that it should never be confiscated for any cause whatever. Great discontent existed among the people that Law had been suffered to escape. The mob and the Parliament would have been pleased to have seen him hanged. The few who had not suffered by the commercial revolution, rejoiced that the quack had left the country; but all those (and they were by far the most ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... passive-obedience Tories.' The author of 'Coriolanus,' one would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not explicitly pronounced upon issues hardly ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have, for the most part, an expression of sullen discontent, they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off, partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be good Christians if they do so. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... The effete Egyptian Empire was hovering upon the verge of collapse. The enormous territories of the Sudan were seething with discontent. Gordon's administration had, by its very vigour, only helped to precipitate the inevitable disaster. His attacks upon the slave-trade, his establishment of a government monopoly in ivory, his ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... geyser should go to a fancy-dress ball as "The Winter of our Discontent," but was again ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... in fits of fury, and tranquillity continued far from being permanently restored. The clubs, those hot-beds of the revolution, still exercised their pestilential influence over the populace of Paris, and stirred the rude masses incessantly to fresh paroxysms of discontent ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... prosperous vocations to combine in the way of protesting against such prevailing usage. The Press was, however, eventually employed, and the Government was approached with respectful petitions praying for redress of the most glaring causes of discontent; but those were invariably either disdainfully rejected or ignored, or, if some matter was relieved, other more exasperating enactments were defiantly substituted. They were cynically told that they had come to their (the Boer's) country unasked, and were at liberty, and in fact invited, to ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... settled in London. Charles himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the late French war; and when in his supposed character of leader of the anti-papal party in Europe he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was fermenting in the population. France, on the other hand, was as cordially hated as Spain was beloved. A state of war with France was the normal condition of England; and the reconquest of ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... that disaffection followed the elevation of Losada to the presidency. This feeling continued to grow. Throughout the entire republic there seemed to be a spirit of silent, sullen discontent. Even the old Liberal party to which Goodwin, Zavalla and other patriots had lent their aid was disappointed. Losada had failed to become a popular idol. Fresh taxes, fresh import duties and, more than all, his tolerance ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... three reigns hold scarcely a higher place in history than the actions of the three kings do. Shortly before the death of Philip the Handsome, his greedy despotism had already excited amongst the people such lively discontent that several leagues were formed in Champagne, Burgundy, Artois, and Beauvaisis, to resist him; and the members of these leagues, "nobles and commoners," say the accounts, engaged to give one another mutual support in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... them, that, in granting their request, he consulted their ease only, and was himself by no means convinced of its propriety. They were accordingly reinstated in their former chambers, and the great room only of madame's apartments was reserved for the marchioness, who expressed her discontent to the marquis in terms of mingled censure and lamentation. The marquis privately reproved his daughters, for what he termed the idle fancies of a weak mind; and desired them no more to disturb the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... archers will not act against them. It maybe but empty boasting, but there may be something in it. The men are almost all enlisted from Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Hertford, and I have heard report that there is sore discontent among them because their pay is greatly in arrear, owing to the extravagance of the Court. It were well, perhaps, that you should mention this to Sir Ralph, and, above all, I pray you to remember, madam, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change; and do not think to steal it. A servant or a favorite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly thought, but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness: it is a needless cause of discontent: severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority, ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility: it is worse than bribery. For bribes come but now and then; but if importunity, or idle respects, lead a man, he shall never ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... the two languages of the country were issued and sold in all the public-houses. Congregations were gathered in all the cities, and even small towns, and everywhere the authorities could see that no spirit of discontent with anything but sin and evil habits was being created, but that the police would find their tasks lightened, and the life of the poorest of the people brightened and bettered, if they ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... this occasion such mild treatment as they had hitherto done, for the King going to the Wood of Vincennes, they were not permitted to set foot out of the palace. This misunderstanding was so far from being mitigated by time, that the mistrust and discontent were continually increasing, owing to the insinuations and bad advice offered to the King by those who wished the ruin and downfall of our house. To such a height had these jealousies risen that the Marechaux de Montmorency and de Cosse were put under a close ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... sympathy and pleasing melancholy, which is familiar to us under distress, be much indulged, it becomes habitual, and takes such a hold of the mind as to absorb all the other affections, and unfit us for the duties and proper enjoyments of life. Resignation sinks into a kind of peevish discontent. I am far, however, from thinking there is the least danger of this in your case, my dear; for you have been on all occasions enabled to look upon the fortunes of this life as under the direction of a higher power, and have always ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... freehold the right of voting for the election of a "knight of the shire," such power could be brought to bear on Parliament, by the extension of the franchise in that direction. The times were out of joint, trade bad, and discontent universal, and the possession of a little bit of the land we live on was to be a panacea for every abuse complained of, and the sure harbinger of a return of the days when every Jack had Jill at his own fireside. The misery and starvation existing in Ireland where small farms had been divided ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... a gravel soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts—namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the thought. But the next moment I was seeing something else clearly, and I guessed at two things which afterwards I found to be correct. Jarette had traded upon Walters' discontent, and won him over with, no doubt, great promises, because he would be useful; and of course I saw it plainly now it had been necessary to fasten the cabin-doors, and shut the officers in. Mr Frewen was, as I had heard, locked in his cabin. Who was there to go quietly at night and fasten their doors? ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... generous impulses and his occasional acts of humanity might endear him to his people were it not that they despise him for being the creature of his favourites. Thus, the gift of Boscofolto to the Belverde has excited the bitterest discontent; for the Countess is notorious for her cruel exactions, and it is certain that at her death this rich fief will revert to the Church. And now," Gamba ended with a smile, "I have made known to your excellency the chief characters in the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Elizabeth's legal title rested on the superior validity of a Parliamentary enactment as compared with the divine right of inheritance. And in the minds of the entire English nation, there was unanimity as to the acceptable doctrine. But the rejected doctrine remained to fall back on if discontent should arise. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Chicago will be! That is the ever-recurring burden of one's cogitations. For Chicago is awake, and intelligently awake, to her destinies; so much one perceives even in the reiterated complaints that she is asleep. Discontent is the condition of progress, and Chicago is not in the slightest danger of relapsing into a condition of inert self-complacency. Her sons love her, but they chasten her. They are never tired of urging her on, sometimes (it must be owned) with most unfilial objurgations; ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Barbecue-Smith's forehead. "I don't exactly know what that means," he said. "It's very gnomic. One could apply it, of course to the Higher Education—illuminating, but provoking the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose that's what it is. But it's gnomic, it's gnomic." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from meditation. ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... deficit, after paying his rent, being, as we have seen, one-tenth, he tries to increase his production by this amount. He sees no way of accomplishing this save by increasing his labor: this also he does. The discontent of the proprietors who have not received the full amount of their rent; the advantageous offers and promises made them by other farmers, whom they suppose more diligent, more industrious, and more reliable; the secret plots and intrigues,—all these give rise to a movement ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... crowd on the street, hot dusty street, exhausted, actually fainting for want of water, just good plain water of life. But there's none to be had; only tin-cups! John was eager to have men get a good drink. He was content as he watched them drink, and their eyes lighten. He was discontent and restless with anything ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon |
