"Task" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is said that it is a harder task to train children's voices properly than to train the voices of adults. Where nature is so shifty in her ways, it requires keen penetration ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... letter, my lord, concern only me, I should not have attempted the task of self-justification: my character is so easy to know, that he who might not be able to comprehend it by himself, would derive little aid in his scrutiny by any explanation that I could give him on the subject. The virtuous reserve of the English women, and the graceful ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... naturally come up when the vote is taken on the secret-service fund. Whenever, in one way or the other, that is settled, and the budget is voted, together with a few bills of secondary interest, Parliament has really completed its task; it will have put an end to a distressing struggle, and the country will know to which of the two parties it can look for ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... task to conduct such funeral services. The pastor may not read the comforting words: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," because before them lies one who did not die in the Lord, and common sense tells the most thoughtless that if those are blessed who die in the Lord there must be a reverse ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... have experienced since my return, in the composition of a considerable number of treatises, for the purpose of making known certain classes of phenomena, insensibly overcame my repugnance to write the narrative of my journey. In undertaking this task, I have been guided by the advice of many estimable persons, who honour me with their friendship. I also perceived that such a preference is given to this sort of composition, that scientific men, after having presented in an isolated ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... frightened her by its implications. Had it been planned in the kitchen between those two? She wanted to accept it; and yet another instinct in her prompted her to decline it absolutely and at once. She saw Rachel flushing as the girl industriously continued her task without looking up. To Mrs. Maldon it seemed that those two, under the impulsion of Fate, were rushing towards each other at a speed far ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... yourselves, get straw wherever you can find it; but your work shall not be made less.'" So the people were scattered over all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. The taskmasters urged them on, saying, "You must finish your daily task just as when there was straw." The overseers of the Israelites, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had put over them, were also beaten and asked, "Why have you not finished to-day as many ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... publisher entrusted me with the task of editing this volume, one sheet was already printed and a considerable portion of the book was in type. Under his agreement with the owners of the copyright, he was bound to reproduce the text and notes, etc., originally prepared by Mr. David Lewis without ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... your trials here below are about to end. If in the presence of such obstinacy I was forced to permit, with deep regret, the use of great severity, my task of fraternal correction has its limits. You are the fig tree which, having failed so many times to bear fruit, at last withered, but God alone can judge your soul. Perhaps Infinite Mercy will shine upon you at the last moment! We must hope ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... LABOUR, which may be called the moving power of civilisation, is being extended to all branches of science, industry, and art... Gentlemen, the Exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting-point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions." [Footnote: Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (ed. 3), iii. p. 247. The speech was delivered at a banquet at the Mansion House on March ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... to establish an International Police Task Force (IPTF) to implement the Dayton Peace Agreement ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... diversity of his interests made his situation the more hopeless, for so cunningly had he interlocked one with another that to separate them promised to be an endless task. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... seven-year term (one-term limit); election last held 13 June 2007 (next to be held in 2014 but can be called earlier); following legislative elections, the president assigns a Knesset member - traditionally the leader of the largest party - the task of forming a governing coalition note: government coalition - Kadima, Labor Party, GIL (Pensioners), and SHAS election results: Shimon PERES elected president; number of votes in first round - Shimon PERES 58, Reuven RIVLIN 37, Colette AVITAL 21; PERES elected president in second round with ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... wrote, not jointly but alternately, Bowman supplying the installment for one week, his friend for the next, and so on, world without end, they hoped. Unfortunately they quarreled, and one Monday morning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his task, he found his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him. His collaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship and sunk them all in the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... No easy task; for, look at them from what point we will, these years must be allowed to cover an anxious and critical time in modern English history; but, above all, in the history of the working classes. In the first of them the Chartist agitation came to a head and burst, and was followed ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... could say nothing, and he said nothing, until Matteo came before him and humbly begged his Majesty to fulfil his promise now that the serpent, his adopted son, had done the task assigned to him. ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... back to you your Diana, but a Diana glorified—a woman, and one who has endeared herself to me by her great-hearted and noble qualities. In her is nothing paltry, education has not stunted or narrowed the soul of her. She has been faithful to her task for your sake and faithful to you for Love's sake. By your unselfishness she has indeed become all that we hoped—and more, one to be proud of. But I grow garrulous in her praise—go to her and see for yourself. She is awaiting you in her ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... command. That was a nice matter. It would have been worse than useless to lead a company of fretful dissenters. The expedition was to be conducted on a military basis; but it was not ordinary field service; it was a mission for picked men. Much would depend upon each man's natural aptitude for his task; much more would depend upon the integrity of the corps as a whole. The consummate wisdom of Lewis's selection of his aids shines from every page of the journals. None of the men seemed to need instruction in the cardinal elements of conduct; each was as sensible of his ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... of showing civility in this part of the country. One of the attendant crowd was a man from Montenegro, who said he was a house-painter. He related that he was employed by Mahmoud Pasha, of Zwornik, to paint one of the rooms in his house; when he had half accomplished his task, the dispute about the domain of Little Zwornik arose, on which he and his companion, a German, were thrown into prison, being accused of being a Servian captain in disguise. They were subsequently liberated, but shot at; the ball going through the leg of the narrator. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... After this task was done she managed to wash the blood up. She became tranquil for a moment, believing she would never be discovered. Somacuel, however, had observed all, and he formed a plan for punishing his wife ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... intermediaries, many of them inevitable. We will assume for the purposes of our analysis that our prophet is already popular. The hearers are waiting eagerly. Here is the manuscript, there are the readers. Problem—to bring them together. This is the task of the publisher. Incidentally, the publisher employs the printer, bookbinder, etc.; but this part of the business, though usually undertaken by the publisher, does not necessarily belong to him. He is essentially only the distributor. In return for this function of distribution, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Dick, he worked hard at his task, and tried to think of nothing else but the waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles; and, consequently, thought of them hardly at all, but of the handsome young officer in scarlet, who came again and again to where the Deanes were seated—the last time just as ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... The task proposed by Henry Grattan to the Irish Parliament may well be taken to heart by the Irish people to-day:—"In the arts that polish life, the manufactures that adorn it, you will for many years be ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... do you see, although you excuse my fault, I will not forget its gravity. My task, for the future, shall be doubled—to atone for the past, and deserve the happiness I owe to you. For that I will do good; for, however poor one may be, the occasion is ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... timber, are much the same as on Lake Huron, until you arrive at Gros Cape, a bold promontory, about three hundred feet high. We ascended this cape, to have a full view of the expanse of water: this was a severe task, as it was nearly perpendicular, and we were forced to cling from tree to tree to make the ascent. In addition to this difficulty, we were unremittingly pursued by the mosquitoes, which blinded us so as to impede our progress, being moreover ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... attractive guise as made them fascinating far beyond romance. His "History of England from the Accession of James II," whereof the first volumes appeared in 1849, remains a colossal fragment; the fulness of detail with which he adorned it, the grand scale on which he worked, rendered its completion a task almost impossible for the longest lifetime; and Macaulay died in his sixtieth year. Despite the defects of partisanship and exaggeration freely and not quite unjustly charged upon his great work, it remains a yet unequalled record of the period dealt ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... that his son John, who had been sent to represent him at the Congress of Westphalia, 1648, wrote home to complain that the task was beyond him, and that he could not cope with the difficulties which he was encountering, and that the Chancellor replied, "Nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia homines regantur."—Biographie Universelle, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... consider his task as fulfilled when he has traced with accuracy the positions of the diverse strata; and has pointed out the analogies traceable between these positions and what has been observed in other countries. But how can he avoid being tempted to go back to the origin of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Lord Chesterfield in the Plan of his Dictionary (Works, v. 19), 'Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged him equal:—Cur me posse negem posse quod ille pufat?' We may compare also a passage in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary (ii. 377):—'THE KING. "I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing but inclination can set it to work. Miss Burney, however, knows ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... have many ancient wells cut into their solid substance. About noon we halted at a rough natural cistern, for the purpose of filling our barrels and kirbehs (goat and camel skins) with water. This task occupied an hour, during which I contrived to find just enough shade for my head under a big stone, but took refuge in the cistern itself while the camels were ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... determine the original nature of the task imposed upon the hero. Versions examined. The Gawain forms—Bleheris, Diu Crone. Perceval versions—Gerbert, prose Perceval, Chretien de Troyes, Perlesvaus, Manessier, Peredur, Parzival. Galahad—Queste. Result, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... 'Consider how a poor youth of excellent proportions came to a flourishing Court before one, a widowed Queen, and she cast eyes of love on him, and gave him rule over her and all that was hers when he had achieved a task, and they were wedded. Oh, the bliss of it! Knit together with bond and a writing; and these were the dominions, I the Queen, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... table in the pleasant sitting-room of her uncle's house. Spread out before her were several open stock books, from which she was endeavoring to estimate the probable number of "beeves" which the early spring would produce. This was a task which she always liked to do herself before the round-up was complete, so as the easier to sort the animals into their various pastures when they should come in. Her visitor was standing with his back to the stove, in typical Canadian fashion. He was, clad in a pair of well-worn ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... eyes,—and fled, For lo! the curtain quick aside is pushed, And Sabitu within upon them rushed. She stately glides across the shining floor, And eyes them both, then turns toward the door. But Izdubar is equal to the task, With grace now smiling, of the maid doth ask: "O Sabitu! wouldst thou tell me the way To Khasisadra? for I go this day. If I the sea may cross, how shall I go? Or through the desert? thou the path mayst know." ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... arranged under five heads. The first relates to the establishment of Courts of Justice in the Reservations and accessible to the Indians; the second to the important need of education, demanding that the Government shall undertake at once the entire task of providing primary and secular education for all Indian children; the third urges that this education shall be compulsory, under proper limitations; the fourth emphasizes the duty of the churches to furnish religious instruction to the Indians, and the immunity of their work from all governmental ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... of our country. All this gloom and doubt, all this arraignment of official statements, this doubt of our sufficient revenues, this doubt of our ability to meet and advance our destiny, always falls upon my ear with painful surprise. Senators, the task we have before us may be a difficult one, as it has always proved to be difficult to resume the specie standard whenever, for any reason, a nation has fallen from it, but it is a duty that must be executed, and it ought to be executed without the spirit of party ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... softening others that had been viewed wholly through false lights. To lessen disapprobation of a person, and so precious to me in the opinion of another, so respectable both in rank and virtue, was to me a most soothing task, &c." ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Akhal Tekke, which is contiguous to Persia. Generals Sourakine and Lazareff attempted this in their expeditions of 1878 and 1879. Their plans failed, and it was to the celebrated Skobeleff, the hero of Plevna, that the czar confided the task of subduing the valiant ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... special skill in thinking. All I'm able to do is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else. If I was able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river. I have transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been nothing but an obstacle on their travels. They travelled to seek money and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... us and sold us for servants To that land of hard gems, where thy life's purchase seemed Little better than mine, and we found to our sorrow Whence came the crown's glitter, thy sign once of glory: Then naked a king toiled in sharp rocky crannies, And thy world's fear was grown but the task-master's whip, And thy world's hope the dream in the short dead of night? And hast thou forgotten how again we fled from it, And that fight of despair in the boat on the river, And the sea-strand again and white bellying sails; And the sore drought and famine that on ship-board fell on us, ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... now passes to The Uncle's competence for the task, which he grossly exaggerates. Mr. Lane had no "intimate acquaintance with Mahommedan life" (p. 174). His "Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians" should have been entitled "Modern Cairenes;" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... him as one of his literary executors, and his family were urgent in their request that he should write their father's Life. With great reluctance he consented, and for eighteen months this task absorbed the whole of his leisure, to the complete exclusion of the work on "The Difficulties of Christianity," with which he had already made some progress. The undertaking was a labour of love, but it cannot be said to have been congenial. Memoir writing was not to his taste, and in this case ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... duties of human love must be made secondary to the work of Christ's kingdom. Another marked instance of like teaching was in the case of the young ruler who wanted to know the way of life. We try to make it easy for inquirers to begin to follow Christ, but Jesus set a hard task for this rich young man. He must give up all his wealth, and come empty-handed with the new Master. Why did he so discourage this earnest seeker? He saw into his heart, and perceived that he could not be a true disciple unless he first won a victory ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the Swift Foot if their hunt should be successful, and as she told them ay or no was their expedition undertaken or abandoned. When she bade the women plant the maize, they might be sure of the fair weather without which the task could not be well accomplished; when she cast her bright eyes on the sheaf of arrows rusting on the wall, the warriors without more ado rose, and prepared the corn and pemmican, and examined the condition of their ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... This simplified Burnamy's task, while it made it more loathsome. He answered not much less brutally, "I want to tell you that I think I used you badly, that I let you betray yourself, that I feel myself to blame." He could have added, "Curse ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ever a woman who looked her best in the uniform of approaching servitude? In any case, Ellaphine's best was not good, and she was at her worst in her ill-fitting white gown, with the veil askew. Her graceless carriage was not improved by the difficulty of keeping step with her escort and the added task of keeping step with ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... getting over the next few weeks? Rent, of course, would be due at Christmas, but that payment might be postponed; it was only a question of buying food and fuel. Amy had offered to ask her mother for a few pounds; it would be cowardly to put this task upon her now that he had promised to meet the difficulty himself. What man in all London could and would lend him money? He reviewed the list of his acquaintances, but there was only one to whom he could appeal with ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... one of the slight annoyances incident to our system; and, moreover, what does it matter to you that the education of women in France is the most pleasant of absurdities, and that your marital obscurantism has brought a doll to your arms? As you have not sufficient courage to undertake a fairer task, would it not be better to lead your wife along the beaten track of married life in safety, than to run the risk of making her scale the steep precipices of love? She is likely to be a mother: you must not exactly expect to have Gracchi for sons, but to ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... me up to this, ye old fraud," I told him, pretending to be wrathful. "Now set me another task, ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... judge something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath—and since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the risk he took—and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his stupendous strength I can not write, but ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... was a horrid stain upon his coat. The other man was kneeling by his side, hate, glaring out of his eyes, guiding all the time the rising and falling of his knife. There was one more shriek—then silence only the sound of the victor's breathing as he rose slowly from his ghastly task. Sir Timothy rose to his feet and waved his hand. The curtain ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no better treated than slaves; but no slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is. Hardly any slave, except one immediately attached to the master's person, is a slave at all hours and all minutes; in general he has, like a soldier, his fixed task, and when it is done, or when he is off duty, he disposes, within certain limits, of his own time, and has a family life into which the master rarely intrudes. "Uncle Tom" under his first master had his own life in his "cabin," almost as much as any man ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... indifferent to her, would not her self-respect be lowered, and would she not, in a spirit of bravado, accept the proposition, in order that he might never guess the sufferings of her spurned affections? There was no doubt, that, later, recognizing that the task was beyond her strength, she had felt ashamed of deceiving Claudet any longer, and, acting on the advice of the Abbe Pernot, had made up her mind to break off a union that ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... was despatched, Johnston called the men together to give them directions about the building of the shanty, which was the first thing of all to be done; and having divided them up into parties, to each of which a different task was assigned, he set them at work ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... a good example of how a legend will rise superior to the ordinary humdrum facts of life, for it strikes us at once that the gloomy spectre went to unnecessary trouble in constructing a ship, even though the task proved so simple to his gifted hands. But the coach was at the door, and surely it would have been less troublesome to ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... quick to turn this arrangement to the lambs' advantage. When she had satisfied the worst of her hunger she started out again. The consciousness that she could find him whenever she wished, and was, virtually, in touch with him all the time, made her task entirely enjoyable. ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... in large establishments, have usually one or more assistants; in this case they are upper and under housemaids. Dividing the work between them, the upper housemaid will probably reserve for herself the task of dusting the ornaments and cleaning the furniture of the principal apartments, but it is her duty to see that every department is properly attended to. The number of assistants depends on the number in the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... good sense to see that it was not in such a life that Edgar was likely to find success, and he wisely abandoned the idea of pressing a task upon him that he saw was unfitted to the boy's nature. The energy with which Edgar worked with his instructors in arms—who had been already twice changed, so as to give him a greater opportunity of ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... out was a task sufficiently desperate; to win out and bring her through alive was the double task that was slowly, visibly killing this man whose burning, sunken eyes gazed into hers. She dared not triple that task; the cry in her heart died unuttered, lest he ever waver in duty to his country ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... me on a warm August day, in 1882, of being out of sorts, upset and altogether depressed. I took her a bit to task, asked her why she was depressed, and elicited that she was troubled by dreaming the preceding night that her son Frank, who was spending his holidays with his uncle near Preston, was drowned. Of course I ridiculed the idea of a dream troubling any one. But she only answered that her ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... and forbearance, satisfied that in the pursuit of duty and in giving happiness to my fellow creatures I should have the reward of an approving conscience. To my nephew, Frederick Grinnell, I gave the task of preparing the plans, and his excellent suggestions were cordially adopted. Much of my spare time—and it is amazing how much spare time one has in a village—was spent at the Eastmann cottage with my new daughter, and in the evening I talked to her of the world outside, quite, I fancy, as ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... and he sendeth thee to reform the Church, which now lieth prostrate in the dust. But if thou be not just and merciful; if thou shouldst fail to respect the city of Florence, its women, its citizens, and its liberty; if thou shouldst forget the task the Lord hath sent thee to perform, then will he choose another to fulfil it; his hand shall smite thee, and chastise thee with terrible scourges. These things say I unto you in the name of the Lord." The King and his generals seemed much impressed by Savonarola's menacing words, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... seldom waited for inspiration before setting about a task to be done. Life is too short for that. Broken health has too often interrupted a regimen of study which ought to have been more continuous; but, so far as I may venture to offer an opinion from personal experience, I should say that the writers who would ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... world's comforter with weary gait His day's hot task hath ended in the West; The owl, night's herald, shrieks 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light, Do summon us ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... meetings by sacred trees or stones were universal in England both before and after its conversion. "He began to admonish them with a brotherly admonition to embrace with him the Catholic faith, and to undertake the common task of evangelising the pagans. For they did not observe Easter at the proper period: moreover, they did many other things contrary to the unity of the Church." But the Welsh were jealous of the intruders, and refused to abandon their old customs. Thereupon, Augustine ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... people you are, for loving me so! What a bad turn you did me, when you brought me away from the scene of battle, brother! How merciless you were Fanny, to watch beside me! What a vain task it was on your part to keep me alive! How angry I am with you: what detestable people you are!—just ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... seemingly we need help only for difficult tasks. Now it was not a difficult task for the angel to turn to God; because there was no obstacle in him to such turning. Therefore the angel had no need of grace in order ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... times to chase her away. I felt that I should never finish my task and that, even if I did, Gale would stay ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... Ramesay, and I think Montcalm had, all told, near to twenty thousand men, about double our force, though 'tis true many of theirs are militia and we have a powerful fleet. I suppose their numbers have not decreased, and it's a great task we've undertaken, though ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Mediterranean. Under the reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer, who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task, implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... by four o'clock, and so to my office; but before I went out, calling, as I have of late done, for my boy's copybook, I found that he had not done his task; so I beat him, and then went up to fetch my rope's end, but before I got down the boy was gone. I searched the cellar with a candle, and from top to bottom could not find him high nor low. So to the office; and after an hour or two, by water ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his personal initiative in taking command of the Battalion when no officers were to be found, and for the able way in which he executed his task; and the D.C.M. was also awarded to ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... his hosts To break our posts and raise our ghosts, Which was their intent; To cut our gates and chain all downe Unto the ground - this trick they found To make him be shent: This plot the Rump did so accord To cast an odium on my lord, But in the task he was hard put untoo't, 'Twas enough to infect both his horse and his ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... do we toil and swelter over the task we hate? What is to keep us fettered to the benches of sullen Fate? There is nothing half so fleeting,—there is nothing half so dear As the unfulfilled desire that comes with ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... father to him, and he found himself sorely encumbered by this new responsibility. Moreover, the attitude of the town toward the innovation of a newspaper was one of frank skepticism, and it proved a delicate and arduous task to create the proper public sentiment. In addition to these troubles, Mr. Opp had a yet graver matter to hinder him: with all his valor and energy he was suffering qualms of uncertainty as to the proper method of starting ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... are to go cheerfully on any service, however laborious or perilous, there is one task which the constabulary of the west coast hold in mortal detestation, and that is, an expedition into the mountains to seize illicit stills and arrest distillers of poteen. Such an enterprise means days and nights of toilsome climbing, watching, waiting, and spying; often without result, ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... said that, had its territory 'corresponded to the importance and singularity of the principles of its early existence, the world would have been filled with wonder at the phenomena of its history,' is a task not to be lightly attempted or ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... hailed with delight, and he found the people both ready and willing to submit to an entire change in their government and institutions. He now set himself to work to carry his long projected reforms into effect; but before he commenced his arduous task he consulted the Delphian oracle, from which he received strong assurances of divine support. Thus encouraged by the god, he suddenly presented himself in the market-place, surrounded by thirty of the most distinguished ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... is the love, O God! and Thine the grace, That folds the sinner in its mild embrace; Thine the forgiveness bridging o'er the space 'Twixt man's works and the task set ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Governor rose from his seat, and announced that, with the sanction of his Grace the Archbishop, the invidious task of determining between the claims of two such highly qualified competitors had been delegated to two gentlemen in the enjoyment of his full confidence, who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates. Should one fail and the other ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... instead of so great a task being assumed by an individual, it be assumed by an entire nation, which shall pledge its honour to carry it ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... and by use of the requisite means is to be disciplined, whether we are thinking of an army or a mind. Discipline is positive. To cow the spirit, to subdue inclination, to compel obedience, to mortify the flesh, to make a subordinate perform an uncongenial task—these things are or are not disciplinary according as they do or do not tend to the development of power to recognize what one is about ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... the task for which it had been striving during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was the task of thralls Who had to rear these inner suburbs, Piling the sad Victorian walls Where each ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... monochloride method was taken up actively and several private firms attempted to develop the small scale manufacture. The work was dangerous. Lack of that highly developed organic chemical technique, which was practically a German monopoly, rendered the task much more dangerous than it would have been if undertaken by ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... pleasing in a maid, but now I pray you, forget it for awhile. Unveil yourself, most beautiful, that I may behold that loveliness for which my heart has ached these many days. Nay, that task shall be my own," and he advanced somewhat ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... mental constitutions not predisposed to it could ever have caught Coleridgism at all. There is indeed no moral theory of life, there are no maxims of conduct, such as youth above all things craves for, in Coleridge's teaching. Apart from the intrinsic difficulties of the task to which he invites his disciples, it labours under a primary and essential disadvantage of postponing moral to intellectual liberation. Contrive somehow or other to attain to just ideas as to the capacities and limitations of the human consciousness, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... was only on commonplace topics, and in an easy, well-bred style. I endeavored to respond in the same manner; but I was strangely incompetent to the task. My ideas were frozen up; even words seemed to fail me. I was excessively vexed at myself, for I wished to be uncommonly elegant. I tried two or three times to turn a pretty thought, or to utter a fine sentiment; but it would ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... or type the affection has taken on, to investigate its complications and modifications, to ferret out its producing or aggravating causes, and above all, to nicely and skillfully adjust remedies to meet the depraved conditions, is by no means an easy task, even for the educated and experienced physician. It should be borne in mind that this is a dangerous malady, and one which should not be trifled with or neglected. Its tendency is to corrode and destroy the bowels, a process which if unchecked, must sooner or latter result in death. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the truce between the two belligerents resulted in peace. But the people of America hailed the news of Yorktown as the end of the war. They had hardly admitted to themselves the gravity of the task while the war lasted, and being now relieved of immediate danger, they gave themselves up to surprising insouciance. A few among them who thought deeply, Washington above all, feared that the British might indulge in some surprise which they would ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... observation, or been so reported to him that he had no doubt of its truthfulness. Many of the incidents in Part II. he would gladly have passed in silence, regretting exceedingly the necessity of bringing them out. But a solemn sense of duty seemed to impel him to this task. He has delayed any move hoping the turn of events would excuse him from penning these truths for the public eye. But his conscience and his God will condemn him, if longer delayed. He has brought forward names with no unkind feeling, or purpose to expose or wound, but ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... brazenness and the threatening attitude of some of the evildoers, but when the stalwart men in scarlet and gold are at the call of these life-saving crews at the ports of entry to this country the harpies who prey on the innocent have to keep out of the way. A right royal task is this, also, for the old corps that has headed off more crime than any similar body in the world. And for all the work in Canada we have sketched, the total strength of the Force is about 1,700 of all ranks. There are some few people who so lack the power to sense nation-wide conditions ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... one who had been vainly essaying to clap a battered hat on to the head of the form that lay unconscious in the mud. A hard task it was presently, when his senses began to return, to get the wounded sailor unsteadily on his legs; a harder to get him home. The captain could give but a poor account of how he came to be lying ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... our Southern boys knew well that, to bring that bunting down, They would meet the angel death in his sternest, maddest frown; But it could not gallant Armstrong, dauntless Vollmer, or brave Lynch, Though ten thousand deaths confronted, from the task ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... he had set himself an ambitious task. The going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... break. Luxuriant weeds and brambles covered the soil which should have been ploughed and made to produce honest grain. Unfortunately, I had no teacher who was competent to understand and direct me. The task was left for myself, and I can only wonder, after all that has occurred, how it has been possible for me to succeed. Certainly, this success has not been due to any vigorous exercise of virtue on my part, but solely to the existence of that cool, reflective reason which lay perdue beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... "... The child, desired to converse with you ..."—which one may or may not believe. If, as I feel sure, she was bidden to the task, I don't see how she could possibly have brought it off better than in those demure phrases. But is she ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... circles a very close minute companion. There are doubtless many binary stars which, if examined with adequate telescopic power, would resolve themselves into triple and multiple systems, but the profound distances of those objects render the detection of their components a most difficult task. ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... deed. Write, then, to our lord the pope and to the Roman Church, and to the kings and princes of the West, and strengthen your written testimony by the authority of your seal. As for me, I shrink not from taking upon me a task for the salvation of my soul; and with the help of the Lord I am ready to go and seek out all of them, solicit them, show unto them the immensity of your troubles, and pray them all to hasten on the day of your relief.'" The patriarch ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... doing this in the proper way. The leaders of society in the broader sense are those who win the faith of the average man. We look up to Lincoln because we know that he was the one man in a million to accomplish the greatest task ever set before a human being. We realize that he was honest—honest in the huge sense so necessary to the accomplishment of big ideals. And we know that in order to win some part of that great trust we must obey the standards of honesty and decency that lie below the surface ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... had set his band of scouts the hardest task of the day. He himself had put on the irons, and was laying the track. He had warned them that it would be a tough test—something to really try them—and so it proved. If they failed to run him down, they were all to meet at a little railway-station about two miles away, from ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... have been ashamed to put between his lips. When he had done smoking he took out pen, ink and paper, and sat down to write with a groan—whether of remorse for having taken the bank-notes, or of disgust at the task before him, I am unable to say. After writing a few lines (too far away from my peep-hole to give me a chance of reading over his shoulder), he leaned back in his chair, and amused himself by humming the tunes of popular songs. I recognized ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the opposite side of the wash. Charlton was in almost to his arm-pits. The horse braced its feet and pulled. Beulah, astride the saddle, urged it to the task again and again. At first by imperceptible gains, then inch by inch, the man was dragged from the mire that fought with a thousand clinging tentacles for ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... days were repetitions of the first, but on the fourth we passed out of the bush-veld into the swamp country that bordered the great river. Here our task was still easy since the Amahagger had followed one of the paths made by the river-dwellers who had their habitations on mounds, though whether these were natural or artificial I am not sure, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... and olives cut down? Could they even hope to maintain themselves in Salamis? Would it not be better to fight in defence of their homes even against desperate odds and meet their fate at once, instead of only deferring the evil day? It was no easy task for the man of the moment to persuade his fellow-countrymen to adopt his own far-sighted plans. Even when most of them had accepted his leadership and were obeying his orders, a handful of desperate men refused to go. They took refuge on the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.[66] While my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... and, when I came, Weakly rejected me. You were a boy In college, and a woman blackmailed you— A low, crude matter. I had settled it Swiftly, if you had let me. We alone, We three, on Harvard Bridge—night—and beneath, A practicable river: ah, it was A child's task! But you faltered.... ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... Aided by higher oil prices in 1999-2000, Yemen worked to maintain tight control over spending and implement additional components of the IMF program. A high population growth rate of nearly 3.4% and internal political dissension complicate the government's task. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the spring come—no easy task for one conscious that time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer the hand, no issue from the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed reported nothing, except that his watch went on—costing a lot of money. Val and his cousin were gone to the war, whence came news more favourable; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... choler gradually subsided, and he was pleased to desire Hatchway, by the familiar and friendly diminutive of Jack, to read a newspaper that lay on the table before him. This task was accordingly undertaken by the lame lieutenant, who, among paragraphs, read that which follows, with an elevation of voice which seemed to prognosticate something extraordinary: "We are informed, that Admiral ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... on another small New Testament, printed in 1640, bound in white satin, measuring 4-1/2 by 2-1/4 inches; now in the British Museum. In this case the artist has not attempted the difficult task of producing a satisfactory figure in needlework, but has very properly limited her skill to the reproduction of flower and animal forms. On the upper cover is a spray of columbine, the petals of which, pink ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... have got through the painful task which she had innocently imposed on me, if I had attempted to perform it, I hardly like to think. To my infinite relief, I was interrupted at my first word by the opening of the door, and the sudden appearance of a family ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... pass. One could not have counted up to four before one would have seen him cast down speedily four knights. Whereupon, those who were with him waxed more brave, for many a man of poor and timid heart, at the sight of some brave man who attacks a dangerous task before his eyes, will be overwhelmed by confusion and shame, which will drive out the poor heart in his body and give him another like to a hero's for courage. So these men grew brave and each stood his ground in the fight and attack. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... crosses a bridge, passing on his right a large metal cow. Beyond, flows the Fen River, and before him is the city gate. To this brazen image is committed the important function of guarding Hwochow from flood, and so successfully does it accomplish its task that dryness and drought are the ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... grudge the little services which had once been the delight of her filial piety,—seemed the result of a capricious nature and a heedless gaiety indulged from childhood. When Modeste went too far, she turned round and openly took herself to task, ascribing her impertinence and levity to a spirit of independence. She acknowledged to the duke and Canalis her distaste for obedience, and professed to regard it as an obstacle to her marriage; thus ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... came in this morning and told me about you; saying that you would most likely come either today or tomorrow. I will have a tent pitched for you, this afternoon; and a soldier told off as your servant. Of course, at first you will have to go through the somewhat unpleasant task of ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... reading rearward and seeing vanward. He has no actual life save in power of imagination. He has to learn this fact, the great lesson of all men. Furthermore there may be a future closed to him if he has thrown too extreme a task of repairing on that bare machine of his. The sight of a broken-down plough is mournful, but the one thing to do with it is to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the town, and the men who accompanied the prince were strangers to the little observer. Prince Ugo was not of the party, nor were Laselli and Sallaconi. On his return to the Bellevue he had a fresh task on his hands. He was obliged to carry a man from Quentin's apartments and put him to bed in the millionaire's room, farther down the hall. The millionaire—for it was he—slept all day and had a headache until the ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... a long way he reached a big town. Here he found a great crowd and much commotion in the streets, and a herald rode about announcing, 'The King's daughter seeks a husband, but whoever would woo her must first execute a difficult task, and if he does not succeed he must be content to forfeit his life.' Many had risked their lives, but in vain. When the youth saw the King's daughter, he was so dazzled by her beauty, that he forgot all idea of danger, and went to the King ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... stretch extending in the same direction, and he concluded to follow it and thus regain the farmhouse. He assisted Dexie through the drifts, and as she held the reins he endeavored to turn the sleigh. But he had not quite accomplished his task when a cry from Dexie ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... into no small perplexity; for while, on the one hand, they secretly leaned to the cause of the Church, they had become on the other so cowed and truckling under the iron despotism of the emperor, that they felt themselves unequal to the task of responding to the pope as their duty prompted; so that they resolved, after some deliberation on the subject, to lay the brief before Frederic, and to square their reply according to his remarks. These were a tissue of the most contemptible ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... one more pleasant task before him. He roused Harrison to tell him the news. He sat smiling on the foot of the bed, his eyes mocking the startled face of ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... a difficult task for the three young Englishmen to compete with men trained as mountaineers from childhood; but the living game of chess had to be played on the Dwats' own ground; and for a short time the party of officers carefully stole ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... horse, and set out. After a time he met the first hermit, who sent him to an older one. He asked the youth where he was going, and said: "It is a difficult task to get the Singing Apple, but hear what you must do: Climb the mountain; beware of the giants, the door, and the lions; then you will find a little door and a pair of shears in it. If the shears are open, enter; ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... his reputation had not been of that kind which can be submitted to the austerest tests without being materially lessened, he would have suffered much in having so frank and truthful a biographer as Dr. Elder. Nobody could have been selected for the task who would have worse performed the business of puffing, or the work of recognizing and celebrating lofty traits of character and vigorous mental endowments better. He is a friendly biographer,—and well he may be; for he declares that his researches into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... if he had not approved himself at once adroit and firm, one would have said he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of pain, even if it were saving pain. You may be sure that some men, even among those who have chosen the task of pruning their fellow-creatures, grow more and more thoughtful and truly compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. They become less nervous, but more sympathetic. They have a truer sensibility for others' pain, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... dissolved the parliament: it was necessary to summon a new one: and Henry, in six days after, called together, without any new election, the same members; and this assembly he denominated a new parliament. They were employed in the usual task of reversing every deed of the opposite party. All the acts oL the last parliament of Richard, which had been confirmed by their oaths, and by a papal bull, were abrogated: all the acts which had passed in the parliament where Glocester prevailed: which had also ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... through the medium of your columns, who is now the possessor of a volume of elaborate Drawings of York Cathedral, which were made by the late John Carter, F. S. A., for Sir Mark M. Sykes, Bart. Mr. Carter was paid a large sum on account of these drawings during the progress of his task, but after the death of the baronet, he demanded such an extravagant price that the executors declined to take the volume. At the sale of the artist's effects it was sold to Sir Gregory Page Turner, Bart., for 315l. It again came to the hammer, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... great political decisions of those days Constantine took not the smallest part. His importance in political history dates only from the moment when the emperor Alexander entrusted him in Poland with a task which enabled him to concentrate all the one-sidedness of his talents and all the doggedness of his nature on a definite object: that of the militarization and outward discipline of Poland. With this ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... you do not understand... you cannot. To you, your honour, the task which you have set yourself, has been your only fetish.... Love in its true sense does not exist for you.... I see it now... you do not know ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... to thwart or irritate her father. She asked the curate if he deemed it wicked to speak falsely to an invalid for the invalid's benefit. The spiritual and bodily doctors agreed that occasion altered and necessity justified certain acts. So far there was comfort. But the task of assisting in this correspondence, and yet more, the contemplation of Adela's growing delight in it (she would now use Irish words, vulgar words, words expressive of physical facts; airing her natural wit in Irish as if she had found a new weapon), ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and drawings with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be patient; and she, with pretended awe of the ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... distasteful to him that, on our return from the church, he took me to task for it, in a tone and with a manner as severe as was possible to his gentle nature. "You were going on so well," he said. "What could have induced you to play these pranks? Do you know that you spoilt your sermon by them? Truly, I am a fine sort of salt, fit only ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... point and major drug money-laundering center; no recent signs of coca cultivation; monitoring of financial transactions is improving; official corruption remains a major problem; Panama was cited by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) an international organization that includes the US Government, for its lack of cooperation in the ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... within herself; venturing hardly her eyes beyond her thick veil, and shutting her ears resolutely as far as possible to all the dissonant rough voices that helped to assure her she was where she ought not to be. Sometimes she felt that it was impossible to go on and finish her task; but a thought or two nerved her again to plunge into another untried quarter, or make good her entrance to some new office through a host of loungers and waiting newsboys collected round the door. Sometimes, in utter discouragement, she went on and walked to ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... breakfast, when Heidi began her self-imposed task, it took her longer than usual, for the weather was too glorious to stay within. Over and over again a bright sunbeam would tempt the busy child outside. How could she stay indoors, when the glistening sunshine was pouring down and all the mountains seemed to ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... peculiar and dreary desolation which results from the total absence of animal existence. The silence was so oppressive that it was with a feeling of relief he listened to the low, distant voices of the men as they paused ever and anon in their busy task to note and remark on the progress of their work. In the intense cold of an Arctic night the sound of voices can be heard at a much greater distance than usual, and although the men were far off, and hummocks of ice intervened ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... was called Hesperus by the Greeks; and hence the Hesperides, daughters of the Western Star, had the task of watching the golden apples planted by the goddess Hera in the garden of the gods, on the other side of the river Oceanus. One of the labors of Hercules was to fetch three of those mystic apples for the king of Mycenae. The poet Euripides thus refers to the Gardens of the West, when the ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson |
