"Bearable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the flickering shadows of the trees caused by the wavering flames made the steps of the boys uncertain as they fled from the flames that were following so fast. Ned fell headforemost into a thicket of the terrible Spanish bayonet and it was only the excitement of the hour that made the pain bearable. They floundered across the narrow swamp and into the marshy meadow often waist deep in the mud and more than once both of them fell flat in the water of the marsh. The narrow belt of timber which they first crossed checked the fire and although tongues of flame crossed it and a few trees took ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... conquer difficulties; therefore, for the feasting rich, it makes intestinal work after a meal less evident and drives away the deadly ennui; for the student it is a means to keep wide awake and fresh; for the worker it makes the day's fatigue more bearable. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... rising young physicians of the day. His sister keeps house for him in Harley Street; but it is doubtful whether she will long continue to do so. The last time Dick Ruthven was at home on leave he persuaded her that it was her bounden duty to endeavor to make civilian life bearable to him when he should attain captain's rank, and, in accordance with his father's wish, retire from the army, events which are expected to take place in a few ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... held, equipped with everything needed and wanted to turn them into independent giant fortresses, with a population not too dissatisfied with its lot. When Earth government didn't count the expense, life could be made considerably better than bearable ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... detail of their sordid cabin and the rude environment in which they had lived so long. The dismal patches on the bark roof, the wretched makeshifts of each day, the dreary prolongation of discomfort, were all plain to him now, without the sanguine hope that had made them bearable. And when he shut his eyes upon them, it was only to travel in fancy down the steep mountain side that he had trodden so often to the dreary claim on the overflowed river, to the heaps of "tailings" that encumbered it, like ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... get through the world without much of that unhappiness which usually follows ill-assorted marriages. At home she managed to keep the upper hand, but she did so in an easy, good-humoured way that made her rule bearable; and away from home she assisted her lord's political standing, though she laughed more keenly than any one else at his foibles. But the lord of her heart was her brother; and in all his scrapes, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... at least, found it bearable. They were accustomed to the summer heat, and knew themselves much better off than the unfortunate members of their party who had been unable to escape to the British lines. Many of the country Tories were confined to their estates, and forbidden to communicate ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... objects to annoying flies. Only one there was who actively responded to the outrage at Homestead,—Alexander Berkman. Yes, he was an Anarchist. He gloried in that fact, because it was the only force that made the discord between his spiritual longing and the world without at all bearable. Yet not Anarchism, as such, but the brutal slaughter of the eleven steel workers was the urge for Alexander Berkman's act, his attempt on the life of Henry ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... "Grinnell Expedition" in search of Sir John Franklin thus characterises its flesh: "Bear is strong, very strong, and withal most capricious meat; you cannot tell where to find him. One day he is quite beefy and bearable; ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... that Tom felt at having in his pocket the confession of Martel helped to make his imprisonment much more bearable in the week that followed. His heart warmed at the thought of the delight Frank would feel in clearing up the matter that had long laid heavy ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... rabid theorists lies in their supposition that the assertion of superiority by one person necessarily inflicts wrong on another, whereas it is only the mastery obtained by certain men over others that makes the life of the civilized human creature bearable. The very servant who is insolent while performing his duty only dares to exhibit rudeness because he is sure of protection by law. All men are equal before the law. Yes—but how was the recognition of equality enforced? Simply by the power of the strong. No monarch ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... you the true portrait—the true likeness—of the man without religion. Were you given to see a devil and the soul of an infidel at the same time, you would find the sight of the devil more bearable than that of the infidel. For St. James the Apostle tells us, that "the devil believes and trembles."—(Chap. ii. 19.) Now the Public School system was invented and introduced into this country to turn the rising generations into men of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... it makes the life of the misplaced individual a burden to himself and to those by whom he is surrounded. Natural tendencies cannot be wholly suppressed, even by education systems; and the victim's existence is not rendered more bearable by the reflection that, but for circumstances which he is rarely able to analyze, he might have succeeded in some other and more agreeable occupation had he only received the necessary encouragement in ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... on a day like this, when only madmen and the English go abroad, was better than the nervous waiting in his darkened room. Dreadful forces, forces of ruin and murder and disgrace, were abroad in the world of men; the menace of the low black clouds and stifling heat was more bearable. He wanted to get away from his house, which was permeated and soaked in association with the other two actors, who in company with himself, had surely some tragedy for which the curtain was already rung up. Some dreadful ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... heat that you are able to experience the sensation of heat even in the coldest atmosphere. It is possible to train your imagination until you do this, and it can then be turned to practical account in making undesirable conditions bearable. ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... power without responsibility, to England will belong responsibility without power. Nor will the unnatural subjection of a great, a flourishing, a wealthy, and a proud country to a weaker and poorer neighbour be rendered the more bearable by the knowledge that the ill-starred supremacy of Ireland means, in England, the equally unnatural and equally ominous predominance of an English faction, which, since it needs Irish aid, does not command England's ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... Europe still unaware of the Gillem Board Report and its liberalizing provisions, and little being done to encourage within the Army the sensitivity to racial matters that makes life in a biracial society bearable. Until the recommendations of the board were carried out and discrimination stopped, they warned the secretary, the Army must expect ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... alone, with naught of what makes life bearable; you will keep climbing higher by your vanity, your strength, and your deceit. But yet I know however high you climb you will never find peace. You will remember me, and your spirit will seek in vain for rest. You will not exist for me, you will not be even a memory; but even against your will ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his soldier-contemporaries, his children, his power to ride to hounds, his pretty taste in wine, his fencing, dancing, flirting, and all that had made life bearable—everything, as he said, but his gout and his liver (and, it may be added, except his ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... got used to the jolting and felt no more aches. Only the lack of sleep, the continual worry over the luggage, the jolting and the fasting brought on spitting of blood when I coughed, and this depressed my spirits, which were none too grand before. For the first few days it was bearable but then a cold wind began to blow, the windows of heaven were opened, the rivers flooded the meadows and roads, I was continually having to change my chaise for a boat. You'll read of my struggles with the floods and the mud in the ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... There was something unpleasant in the business—not exactly in Fox himself, but the kind of thing. I wish he would cease his explanations—I didn't want to hear them. I have never wanted to know how things are worked; preferring to take the world at its face value. Callan's revelations had been bearable, because of the farcical pompousness of his manner. But this was different, it had the stamp of truth, perhaps because it was a little dirty. I didn't want to hear that the Foreign Minister was ever so remotely mixed up in this business. He was only a ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... discussing idly the various mysteries and terrors that may lie behind this fact or this fable, that no doom or horror conceivable and to be defined in words could ever adequately solve this riddle; that no reality of dreadfulness could seem caught but paltry, bearable, and easy to face in comparison with this vague we know ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... dispersed once more to our various works and duties. If it was bearable outside, the hut would soon be empty save for the cook and a couple of seamen washing up the plates; otherwise every one went out to make the most of any glimmering of daylight which still came to us from the sun below the northern horizon. And here it may be explained that whereas ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... towards the early dusk that a restlessness came on, and an increase of the distress and oppression of breath, which he thought might be more bearable in his chair; and Mr. Audley, who had just come in, began with Felix to dress him, and prepare to move him. But just as they were helping him towards the chair, there was a sort of choke, a gasping struggle, his head fell on Felix's shoulder, the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hundred or so times either way—greater or less. And even their gravitation has modified their structure a lot—suppose it had been fifty times as great as it is? What would they have been like? Also, their atmosphere is very similar to ours in composition, and their temperature is bearable. It is my opinion that atmosphere and temperature have more to do with evolution than anything else, and that the mass of the planet runs ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... other case. If we have hearts full of light, and souls at rest in Christ, and the wealth and blessedness of a tranquil gladness lying there, and filling our being; work will be easy, endurance will be easy, sorrow will be bearable, trials will not be so very hard, and above all temptations we shall be lifted, and set upon a rock. If the soul is full, and full of joy, what side of it will be exposed to the assault of any temptation? If the appeal be to fear, the gladness that is there is an answer. If ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... figure more remote from my Father than Ibsen. Yet when I came, at a far later date, to read The Wild Duck, memories of the embarrassing household of my infancy helped me to realize Gregers Werle, with his determination to pull the veil of illusion away from every compromise that makes life bearable. ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... and very, very tired and his head ached violently. Between the flies, the heat and the uncomfortable bed, it was not a happy home; but the kindness of the sisters and the other wounded men who came to him occasionally, went far towards making it all bearable. There were men worse than he in that marquee, men in agony and near to death, with torn, septic wounds, but sticking it ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... mortification, namely, because the sensorial power is sooner exhausted by any excess of activity. I remember seeing a gentleman who had the preceding day travelled two stages in a chaise with what he termed a bearable pain in his bowels; which when I saw him had ceased rather suddenly, and without a passage through him; his pulse was then weak, though not very quick; but as nothing which he swallowed would continue in his ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... it is certain that sometimes very manifest advances, such as any medical man would perceive at a glance, carry a man through stages of agitation and discomfort. A far worse condition might happen to be less agitated, and so far more bearable. Now, when a man is positively suffering discomfort, when he is below the line of pleasurable feeling, he is no proper judge of his own condition, which he neither will nor can appreciate. Tooth-ache extorts ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... know that Nansen used every available modern invention to help make his voyage successful and bearable. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... somebody could a tould ye it was the mother, forhaps, afther all." "Did you know them?" I asked. "You see, a lanna, I can't say that, without first hearin' their names." "My name is B———." "An' a dacent bearable name it is, darlin'. Is yer father of them da-cent people, the B———s of Newtownlimavady, ahagur!" "Not that I know of." "Oh, well, well, it makes no maxim between you an' me, at all, at all; but the Lord mark you to grace, any how; it's a ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... which were clearly visible and which look fascinatingly like my beloved Sierra del Cristal, I turned my face to the wall of Mungo, and continued the ascent. The sun, which was blazing, was reflected back from the rocks in scorching rays. But it was more bearable now, because its heat was tempered by ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... led her alone beside this resting-place: that was chance, or it was God. But now it seemed that otherwise it would henceforward not have been bearable. For with this first near touch of death, there had come, strangely hand in hand, her first vision of the Internal. The look of this spirit was not toward time, and over the body of this death there had descended the robe of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... morning till twelve at night. Here, with guards set, to give notice of the approach of the children's joy-destroying Siva—otherwise the policeman—they played ball. Here "cat" and "one old cat" render bearable many a wilting hour for the little urchins. Here "Sally in our Alley" and "Skip-rope" made the little girls forget that the temperature was far above blood-heat. Here of an evening, Peter smoked and ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... couldn't bear the reality, so it escaped into a neurosis. Maisie's behaving as though she wasn't married, so that her mind can say to itself that her marriage is incomplete because she's ill, not because Jerry doesn't care for her. It's substituted a bearable ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... clear that the special and thirty-three would meet near his tower, but it would almost certainly be after midnight when Joe would have relieved him. He watched the clock, often pressing his fingers against his temples in an attempt to make bearable the hammering at his brain, unequal ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... them fled from Havre, from Rouen, to parts unknown, where neither Olga's rosily tinted notes nor Olga's rosily tinted person could reach him. She had hoped that Hermia's arrival from Paris would have made existence at Trouville at least bearable, but Hermia's change of mind explained by the belated telegram had made it evident that Fate was conspiring to her discomfort and inconvenience. To make matters the worse the Duchesse had taken upon herself an attack of the gout which made her insupportable, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... emotions and hold by the instincts, clearly manifested in childhood, but clouded and overwhelmed in our later struggles with the world. The essential thing is the cultivation of our 'moral being,' the careful preservation and assimilation of the stern sense of duty, which alone makes life bearable and gives a meaning to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... reproaches, lasted three months. Sylvie's refusal to let her go to her little friends, backed by the necessity of beginning her education, ended the first phase of her life at Provins, the only period when that life was bearable to her. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... "Well, John Calhoun, you have grown very arbitrary and headstrong since your experiences in the World War. I shall acquiesce since most of my time will be taken up on the lecture platform, advocating woman suffrage. I suppose I can find the place bearable during the heated term if you make yourself a little more agreeable. I wish I had married your brother-in-law, John Cornwall, when he asked me; he at least ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... to do that. I told her at the beginning—I mean, she understood—it wouldn't do. But there's lots of things I'd like to do, if mother wasn't afraid. I should like to ride, or at least to have a tricycle. It's about the only thing to make life bearable in this horrible place. Such ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... over, and insane anger shook him. How dared the man speak to him like that? He kept the pose, thinking wild thoughts. Every moment the strain grew less bearable, the consciousness of his degradation more intense. He longed for something to happen, something dramatic, something that would show the vampires what manner of man he was. He was ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the altered conditions. It is an experience similar to that which we have when coming out of a darkened room into sunlight, which blinds us by its brilliancy, until the pupils of our eyes have contracted so that they admit a quantity of light bearable ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... also in the heat, much more indistinct than the railway-station. My real wife's image—Rosey's, here—just takes the place at the altar where the other one should be, and prevents my getting at any recollection of her. It is the only thing that makes the dream bearable." ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... passing through from Florida; and one crown, bald, pink, and shining, encircled by a silken fringe of very white hair: it was the banker who lived in St. Mary street. His wife was opposite. And there was much high-bred grace. There were tall windows thrown wide to make the blaze of gas bearable, and two tall mulattoes in the middle distance bringing in and bearing out viands too sumptuous for any but a ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... since the first month I was with you. You have never taken me to see a patient, you have never given me any instruction or advice whatever. Beside this, you must know that your wife treats me in a manner that is no longer bearable. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... a dog which would not be taught, or broken in, or cured of biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, what would you do to that dog? I suppose that you would kill it; you would say: "It is an ill-conditioned animal, and there is no making it any better; so the only thing is to put it out of the way, and not let it eat food which might be better spent." Now, does ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... to their aid. His brother had supplied him with small sums of money, and from time to time a morsel of good luck had enabled him to gamble, not to his heart's content, but still in some manner so as to make his life bearable. But now he was back in his own country, and he could gamble not at all, and hardly even see those old companions with whom he had lived. It was not only for the card-tables that he sighed, but for the ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... live:—and, if a life With large results so little rife, Tho' bearable, seem scarcely worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth, Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread, The solemn hills around us spread, This stream that falls incessantly, The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... deep shadow of the palms for some one hiding; if intensity of looking might have prevailed, they would have pierced the walls of houses; and there came to them, in these pregnant seconds, a sense of being watched and played with, and of a blow impending, that was hardly bearable. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... direction. Besides, it is certain that sometimes very manifest advances, such as any medical man would perceive at a glance, carry a man through stages of agitation and discomfort. A far worse condition might happen to be less agitated, and so far more bearable. Now when a man is positively suffering discomfort, when he is below the line of pleasurable feeling, he is no proper judge of his own condition, which he neither will nor can appreciate. Toothache extorts ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... given way under his troubles if it had not been for this friendship; but life became bearable when he found some one to whom he could pour out his heart. The first time that he breathed a word of his difficulties, the good German had advised him to live as he himself did, and eat bread and cheese at home sooner than dine abroad at such a cost. Alas! Pons did not ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... therefore a feeling of the lack of justice upon earth; that is the sting which pierces every heart; whether the heart belong to the rich or the poor, it matters not. When you understand life, life becomes bearable; and never till you understand it will it cease to be a burden grievous to be borne; but when you understand it, everything changes. When you realise its meaning, its value, you can put up with the difficulties. And our work with regard to those around us is to bring ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... on a bright undercurrent made bearable the trying monotony of her life. Rachael did not at once recognize the rapid change that began to take place in her own feelings, but she did realize that Warren Gregory's attitude had altered everything in her world. He was flirting, of course, he was only half ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... and far gone In spavin, curb, and half a hundred woes. And Byron's style is "jolter-headed jargon;" His verse is "only bearable in prose." So living poets write of those that ARE gone, And o'er the Eagle thus the Bantam crows; And Swinburne ends where Verisopht began, By owning you "a ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... one do to relieve the monotony of this intolerable place? If the country about were agreeable—nay, if it were bearable! but as it is, I repeat, what is ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... prophet, having surrounded him with a band of disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery. Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be satisfied. There is not any secret ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... natural feelings, and theirs are artificial. A very saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you'll allow. Vulgarity, even innate vulgarity, is bearable—stupidity itself is pardonable—but affectation is never to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the host of little prigs and prudes in story-books of the day, it is delightful to find in Catharine Sedgwick herself an example of a bookish child who was natural. Her reminiscences include an account of the way the task of sweeping out the schoolhouse after hours was made bearable by feasts of Malaga wine and raisins. These she procured from the store where her father kept an open account, until the bill having been rendered dotted over with such charges "per daughter Catharine," these treats to favorite schoolmates ceased. Also a host ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... with huge ledgers, delving and already fretting for Mickey. She stood laughing in his doorway, half piqued to find him so absorbed in his work, and so full of the boy he was missing, that he seemed to take her news that she was too busy to see him that night with quite too bearable calmness; but his earnestness about coming the following night worked his pardon, so Leslie left laughing to herself over the surprise in ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and watching a black wall of cloud covered with fleecy masses, which rests on the bank to our right, and seems half inclined to sweep over us with one of those refreshing pelts of which we had a succession last night. It is this habit of showers which renders the vicinity of the Line more bearable than the summer heat of other parts within the Tropics. However, the cloud sticks to the shore, so I have come down to write this line ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... aunt's sake, and had made up his mind that he would be very attentive to her, no matter how displeasing and uninteresting she might be: it was sure to be a time of trial to his old friend, and he would help all he could to make the visit as bearable as possible. Everybody knew of the niece's existence who had known the Prince family at all, and though Miss Prince had never mentioned the unhappy fact until the day or two before her guest was expected, her young cavalier had behaved with ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... that summer-life in the Jordan Valley was about the limit of discomfort; only those who have been there at that season can have any idea of what it is like. If only our turn had been in the winter, when according to all accounts the weather is bearable! Needless to say that as much work as possible was done in the early morning and evening, but even this was extremely trying for all. Fortunately, water was available from a small stream just outside the camp. Rush-huts and bivouacs provided ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... November came. School was decidedly more bearable now, in the opinion of Genevieve, perhaps because it was a rainy month; but Genevieve preferred to think it was because of Miss Hart. It was strange, really, how much Miss Hart had improved as a teacher!—all the school agreed to that. Even Tilly ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... Blois. He then took refuge at his chateau of Prangins in the canton Vaud in Switzerland, closely watched by the Bourbonists, who dreaded danger from every side except the real point, and who preferred trying to hunt the Bonapartists from place to place, instead of making their life bearable by carrying ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... very well understand," now resumed M. Vigneron, "it by no means amuses me to stay here, kicking my heels, while my wife and my son go back to Paris without me. They have to go, however, for life at the hotel is no longer bearable; and besides, if I kept them with me, and the railway people won't listen to reason, I should have to pay three extra fares. And to make matters worse, my wife hasn't got much brains. I'm afraid she won't be ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... essentially modern in construction and development—full of action, but the action of incident rather than the action of stage situation. It had no "star" parts, but every part was good, and the gloom of the story was made bearable by the beauty of the atmosphere—of the sea, which played a bigger part in it than any of the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... to put his plan into execution, resuming his blackened khaki jacket and belts, and started off, to find a pleasant breeze blowing, and, in spite of the afternoon sunshine, the heat much more bearable than inside his hut. His way led him in the direction of the rough hospital, and as he drew near, to his surprise he heard Captain Roby's voice speaking angrily, and Dickenson checked himself and bore off to his right so as to go close by the ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... while, as the days of waking became less and less bearable from their greyness and sameness, I would often drift in opiate peace through the valley and the shadowy groves, and wonder how I might seize them for my eternal dwelling-place, so that I need no more crawl back to a dull world stript of interest ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... so to speak, this important element of musical utterance has been dragged through the mud; and modern composers, in their efforts to raise it above the commonplace, have gone to the very edge of what is physically bearable in the use of tone colour and combination. While this is but natural, owing to the appropriation of some of the most poetic and suggestive tone colours for ignoble dance tunes and doggerel, it is to my mind a pity, for it is elevating what ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... Arabic water, or mucillage of Slippery Elm thrown into the bowel in quantities of a pint or more at a time, as warm as can possibly be endured. I have often relieved patients immediately with injections of a strong solution of Borax in Rice water, as hot as bearable. Never apply cold water to any inflamed surface, much less a mucous surface. All food should be withheld as far as practicable and not starve, ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... younger brother by half an hour, was always enjoined to respect his senior. All the household was equally instructed to pay him honor; the negroes, of whom there was a large and happy family, and the assigned servants from Europe, whose lot was made as bearable as it might be under the government of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... sister, it is the only burden bearable—the only burden that can be borne of mortal! Under any other, the lightest, he must at last sink outworn, his very soul gray ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... how by lonely ways the traveler rests and thinks of home, and in the blue smoke greets once more the faces of the loved, perhaps forever gone. He sees how the Esquimaux, with his hollow Walrus-tooth, makes bearable the stifling squalor of his den; or, sterner and graver still, some item of historic lore mingles rudely with his dreams, and elbows sharply the airy spirits of his smoke-engendered thoughts. Softly tremble in the delicate ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... representatives of the cities complained grievously that their attendance was reduced to a farce, since they were always out-voted, and hence obliged to accept the decisions of the other estates. They stated that their position was no longer bearable, and for the first time drew up an Act of Protest, which further complained of the delay in the decisions of the Imperial courts; of their sufferings from the right of private war, which was still allowed ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... been one of Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with its coarse cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... how much nicer it is when you can share that sort of news with somebody else, somebody you love. It makes good news so much better, and bad news so much more bearable. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... the friend of my friend Brunow!" he exclaimed. "Sir, I am delighted to meet you. And Brunow is here again? What news! And do you stay long? Oh, once again life will be bearable. In this dull hole, sir, I pledge you my most sacred word of honor, a man has but one contemplation; his thoughts are all towards suicide. Figure for yourself the life we lead here: the commandant a bachelor of sixty, and "—he lowered his voice and bent laughingly to my ear—"a bore ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Poorhouse. Their bedding consisted of dirty straw, in which they were laid in rows on the floor; even as many as six persons being crowded under one rug; and we did not see a blanket at all. The rooms were hardly bearable for filth. The living and the dying were stretched side by side beneath the same miserable covering! No wonder that disease and pestilence were filling the infirmary, and that the pale haggard countenances of the poor boys and ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Eben Hilary. He did not expect everybody else to have them, but his theory of life exacted that they should be held the chief virtues. He was so conscious of their value that he ignored all those minor qualities in himself which rendered him not only bearable but even lovable; he was not aware of having any sort of foibles, so that any error of conduct in himself surprised him even more than it pained him. It was not easy to recognize it; but when he once saw it, he was not only willing but eager to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... does this paper belong? (Henry B. Brown.) 2. What is his character? (Horrid, but bearable.) 3. What kind of hair has he? (Heavy, burnished brown.) 4. What kind of eyes has he? (Heavenly, bright blue.) 5. What books does he prefer? (Handsomely bound biographies.) 6. What animals does he prefer? (Howling big bears.) 7. What is his chief occupation? (Hammering ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... was allowed, namely, cocoa for breakfast. But the chief solace was rum, cheap, new, and fiery, from the West Indies. This and the rope-end formed the nexus of the crew. As for the pay, from which alone the sailor could make his lot bearable, it had not been increased since the reign of Charles II. Thanks to the Duke of York, that of the army had been raised from 8 1/4d. to 1s. a day, though not in proportion to the cost of living, the net gain being only 2d. a day. The sailor alone ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the house of Elliott, Mr. Burleson. If you feel a bit friendly towards that house, you will advise me how I may sell 'The Witch.' I don't mind telling you why. My father has simply got to go to some place where rheumatism can be helped—be made bearable. I know that I could easily dispose of the mare if I were in a civilized region; even Grier offered half her value. If you know of any people who care for that sort of horse, I'll be delighted to enter into ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... blighted, their career irretrievably blasted; take the solace from them which this book breathes into their withered hearts, the solace that suffering innocence will be recompensed, that a God of justice rules, take that solace from them and you have taken all that makes life bearable. There are millions of people pining in bondage, toiling in obscurity, suffering physically and mentally for no crime of their own, sick and hungry, friendless and hopeless; take the book from them that teaches them the lesson of patient endurance, and you may write the word Finis, and close the ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... us drink his health. Do you know Lady Julia Knighton?" asked Vivian of his neighbour. "This Hall is bearable to dine in; but I once breakfasted here, and I never shall forget the ludicrous effect produced by the sun through the oriel window. Such complexions! Every one looked like a prize-fighter ten days after a battle. After ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... tired, and very, very hot. It would have been a great relief to burst into tears, or be disagreeable to some one. I don't know why, but I had the most homesick longing to see Mr. van Buren. It seemed as if, had he come with us, everything would have been right, or at least bearable. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... decided on what day you are both to be rescued from your misery, and when I am to have the exquisite satisfaction of having my house completely turned upside down for your mutual benefit," said Esther. "I trust it will be as soon as possible, as we cannot rationally expect that either of you will be bearable until it is all over, and you find yourselves ordinary mortals again. Come now, out with it. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... no occasion to test the comfort of this bed in its primitive state, for our servants had brought with them everything that could render our quarters bearable if there were any foundation upon which ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... irony - sympathetically. I pat the boy on the shoulder and admonish him kindly: "Quiet, laddie, be not so dismayed. We are a strange mingling of ape and angel. But try, as quickly as possible, to reconcile yourself to this, then everything becomes quite bearable. Do you think this same thing would have caused like consternation to Emmy Tenders, if the knowledge but came to her in the right way, that is to say the way of reverent love, and deep devotion? She is indeed wiser. And had you learned it as a poet and lover ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... his teeth together to make more bearable the pain of those gripping claws; but the hurt was easier to bear when he saw that the girl was more carefully treated. She was close ahead as his captors hustled him from this room into others and yet others, all carved from ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... succeeded in cutting straight across James Ross Strait, but not without difficulty; the crew were obliged to work the saws and use petards, and they were worn out with fatigue. Happily the temperature was bearable, and thirty degrees higher than that experienced by James Ross at the same epoch. The thermometer marked ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... hour a trying one. The mind, refreshed by sleep, turns sorrowfully to the task of surveying the difficulties which lie before it. And yet a hundred times have I discovered that life, which seemed at dawn nothing but a tangle of intolerable problems, has become at noon a very bearable and even interesting affair; and one should thus learn to appreciate the tonic value of occupation, and set oneself to discern some pursuit, if we have no compulsory duties, which may set the holy mill revolving, as Dante says; for it is the homely grumble of the ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... island of Gyarus, but when the Prince pleads for him, and he is backed by the intercession of a Vestal Virgin of sanctity,—corresponding to a Christian nun or abbess of exemplary piety,—Silanus is removed to the more bearable place of exile, the island of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the time and manner of a rant; presently this ill-favoured gleefulness abated, he began to dwell upon the notes more feelingly, and sank at last into a degree of maudlin pathos that was to me scarce bearable. By equal steps, the original briskness of his acts declined; and when he was stripped to his breeches, he sat on the bedside and fell to whimpering. I know nothing less respectable than the tears of drunkenness, and turned my back impatiently ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too hilarious, coming perilously near to farce, but underlying the steady humour of it all is a perfectly consistent, even saddening, criticism of the Hoopdriver type. He has imagination without ability; life is made bearable for him chiefly by the means of his poor little dreams and poses; he sees himself momentarily in the part of a detective, a journalist, a South African millionaire, any assumption to disguise the horrible reality of the draper's assistant; and yet there is fine stuff in him. (Perhaps ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... fellows need to keep you going—faith, love, hope. I consider all that trash. The thing is simply this: humanity lies in its death throes and we're merely trying to make the agony as bearable as we can by ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... in the proportion of one stray sheep to the ninety-nine, and of one lost coin to the nine, contrasted with the sad equality of obedience and disobedience in the two sons. One per cent., ten per cent., are bearable losses, but fifty ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... she passed under the sun from south to north; the sun's declination on that day was 22 degrees 54', and the latitude of the Spray was the same just before noon. Many think it is excessively hot right under the sun. It is not necessarily so. As a matter of fact the thermometer stands at a bearable point whenever there is a breeze and a ripple on the sea, even exactly under the sun. It is often hotter in cities and on sandy shores in ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... minutes 36 seconds. We had travelled about fifteen miles west by north from our last camp. Throughout the day the weather was cloudy and rainy, which rendered the tedious passage through the scrub more bearable. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... facts, and there is nothing obvious about them. The situations to which public opinions refer are known only as opinions. The psychoanalyst, on the other hand, almost always assumes that the environment is knowable, and if not knowable then at least bearable, to any unclouded intelligence. This assumption of his is the problem of public opinion. Instead of taking for granted an environment that is readily known, the social analyst is most concerned in studying how the larger political environment is conceived, and how it can be ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Hanlon left tremendously satisfied with the evening's work. He had done something for the natives that would help make their intolerable situation more bearable until the time came when they could be freed of their slavery ... and he had made a new friend who could prove ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... the youth addressed as Sam, "might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek of the parasite of pleasure; but there are moments in life when History fortifies endurance: and past study renders present deprivation more bearable. If our pecuniary resources be exiguous, let our resolution, Dick, supply the deficiencies of Fortune. The muffin we desire to-day would little benefit us to-morrow. Poor and hungry as we are, are we less happy, Dick, than ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Delia, looking at him with great affection, "I'm glad you didn't go, for my own sake. You and music make Dornton bearable." ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... woman of fifty or thereabouts, well dressed and yet careless of her dress, well bred and quite reckless of her breeding, well mannered and yet appallingly outspoken and indifferent to the opinion of her interlocutory, amiable and yet peremptory, arbitrary, and high-tempered to the last bearable degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding mother, and finally settling down with plenty of practical ability and worldly experience, limited in the oddest way with domestic and class limitations, ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... never could support. There to be a fixture, nailed with one hand on the other, to settle the state of the weather, or watch the flies about one, or, what is worse, to be bandying compliments, this to me is not bearable." He hit on the expedient of making lace-strings, carrying his working cushion in his visits, to keep the peace with ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the reaction. Their voices, usually so harsh and unpleasant, had a more cheerful ring as they cried their wares; and the customary stoical expression of their black faces had actually given place to a bearable smile, by this atmosphere of good humor and ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... formed all the time, and we felt quite like old veterans. We were "fed up" with marching around the city on parade, and we longed to get into the real fighting. For my part, I was heartily sick of the whole thing, and all that made it bearable was the close friendship I had formed with some of the boys in my platoon; about a dozen of them were my close friends. I shall name a few of these, so that you may recognize them when they appear farther ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... apparently, and Almayer looked vainly westward for a ray of light out of the gloom of his shattered hopes. Years passed, and the rare letters from Mrs. Vinck, later on from the girl herself, were the only thing to be looked to to make life bearable amongst the triumphant savagery of the river. Almayer lived now alone, having even ceased to visit his debtors who would not pay, sure of Lakamba's protection. The faithful Sumatrese Ali cooked his rice and made his coffee, for he dared not trust any one else, and least of all his wife. He killed ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... to see that He has a way through all these winding and crossing paths. Faith does more than hold a man's hand in the darkness; it leads him into the light. It is the secret of coherence and harmony. It does not make experience merely bearable, it makes it luminous and instructive. It takes the separate or the tangled strands of human experience and weaves them into one strong cable ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... moment; but I was afoot so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner, that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went over me, and then spasms of shuddering. The stitch in my side was hardly bearable. At last I began to feel that I could trail myself no farther: and with that, there came on me all at once the wish to have it out with Alan, let my anger blaze, and be done with my life in a more sudden manner. He had just called me "Whig." ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moment I had become a changed being, solitary and sometimes morose. I would come and sit staring at the ocean, meditating on tilings in general, but chiefly on things connected with cripples, asking myself, as now, whether life would be bearable ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... am not well—a deadly weight of sorrow lies heavily on my heart. I am again tossed on the troubled billows of life; and obliged to cope with difficulties, without being buoyed up by the hopes that alone render them bearable. "How flat, dull, and unprofitable," appears to me all the bustle into which I see people here so eagerly enter! I long every night to go to bed, to hide my melancholy face in my pillow; but there is a canker-worm in my bosom ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... fourth day upon the desert, and we had not sustained the smallest inconvenience; the heat, even at noon, being very bearable, and the sand not in the least degree troublesome. Doubtless, at a less favourable period of the year, both would prove difficult to bear. The wind, we were told, frequently raised the sand in clouds; and though the danger of being buried beneath the tombs thus made, we had reason ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... and labors were lightened by a friendship which was an inspiration long before it ripened into love, and were rendered bearable both by Balzac's confidence in himself and by his ever nearer view of the goal he had set himself. The task before him was as stupendous as that which Comte had undertaken, and required not merely the planning and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... talk like that when you come home, Mr. Vancouver," said Mrs. Wyndham. "But nevertheless you come back and seem to find Boston bearable. It is not such a bad ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford |
