"Bitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleasures: for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste, that bitter things may pass for sweet; as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense when corrupted, either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... I'd like it—but you will be insulted. It will be horrid. There will be a row, sure as anything. I can't bear to think of what he may say; and, being an old man, you won't like to answer back, and—you have no idea what bitter words Uncle Brues says when he ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... married to her. This friendship had existed for years, when McGee bought the Juval farm, for which White had also been negotiating, but which he failed to get on account of McGee having out-bid him. From this circumstance ill feeling was engendered between the two men, and they soon became bitter enemies. McGee had decided to build a fence between the farm he had purchased and that of White, and, during the winter, his teamsters were set to hauling the rails; and, in unloading them, they accidentally threw some of them over the line on to White's land. ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... concerned, within the fortifications of a reserve which no one had succeeded in penetrating. Though he held a thousand confidences, he made none. In listening to the experiences of others he never referred to his own, or even hinted whether they had been sweet or bitter. He went on his silent way—and the world was the ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... illness brought upon her. Night after night did her weary little head slumber on a pillow which her tears had wet. Morning after morning did she wake up to the remembrance of her loss, with a burst of bitter weeping, angry at or indifferent to all her aunt's attempts to console her or win her love. No wonder that her aunt lost patience at last, calling the child peevish and wilful, and altogether unlovable, and declaring that she had more trouble and unhappiness with her than ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... was kept nearly two months, till the snow was off the ground—a long time to be among such creatures! I was too far from any plantations or white people to try to escape; besides, the bitter cold made my limbs quite benumbed. But I contrived to defend myself more or less against the weather by building a little wigwam with the bark of the trees, covering it with earth, which made it resemble a cave, and keeping a good ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter, (like that black drink which was in use amongst the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps the same,) which they sip still of, and sup as warm as they can suffer; they spend much time in those coffeehouses, which are somewhat like our alehouses or taverns, and there they sit ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Creek, a stream which flows through very agreeable country. But as they proceeded farther to the north their troubles began again; they came upon a region covered with hill after hill of fiery red sand, amid which lay lagoons of salt and bitter water. They toiled over this weary country in hopes that a change for the better might soon appear; but when they reached the last hill, they had the mortification to see a great plain, barren, monotonous and dreary, stretching ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... divil sweep hell with him and burn the broom afther!" panted the ostler in bitter wrath, as he slewed the filly to a standstill. "I wish himself and his mother was behind her when I went putting the crupper on her! B'leeve me, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of which he is the acknowledged head, is one of no inconsiderable influence in the United States. No man has more bitter enemies or stauncher friends than he. There are those among his friends who would stake their all upon his veracity and integrity; and we are sure that the coloured people throughout America, bond and free, in whose cause he has so long laboured, will, with one accord, assign the highest niche ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... had he drawn the poor justice away from his comrades into a lonely part of the road than he stripped him to his shirt. He did not even leave his worship his flannel drawers, though the weather was as bitter ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the utmost admiration for his talent. He calls his verses "trifles" (poematia). Much is written with great delicacy, much with great elevation of style; many of the poems show great charm, many great tenderness; not a few are honey-sweet, not a few bitter and mordant. It is some time since anything so perfect has been produced.' The next clause, however, betrays the reason, in part at any rate, for Pliny's admiration. In the course of his recitation he had produced a small hendecasyllabic ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... conscious of a bitter taste in his mouth, though he could smell nothing. The lamp suddenly burnt ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... did not once suspect the future greatness of his child: but he was very poor, had several other children to support, and doubtless feared that a thorough classical and scientific education would give to his son aspirations that would be doomed to bitter disappointment. His teacher, however, pleaded on his behalf, offering to remit the usual school-fees, and he was permitted to continue his studies until he was twenty years of age. A proof of the poverty of his parents at ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... and his reputation would suffice for all needs and exorcise all dangers; both of them had found themselves thwarted in their projects, deceived in their hopes, and finally abandoned by a monarch as weak and undecided as he was honest and good. M. de Turgot had lately died (March 20, 1781), in bitter sorrow and anxiety; M. Necker was waiting, in his retirement at St. Ouen, for public opinion, bringing its weight to bear upon the king's will, to recall him to office. M. de Maurepas was laughing in that little closet ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... leader loved a chieftain grand. Proud was fair Anpetu-Sapa, and her eyes were glad with joy; Proud was she and very happy, with her chieftain and her boy. But alas, the fatal honor that her brave Wanata won, Brought a bitter woe upon her,—hid with clouds the summer sun For among the brave Dakotas, wives bring honor to the chief. On the vine-clad Minnesota's banks he met the Scarlet Leaf. Young and fair was Ape-duta [b]—full of ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... years the ass led a hard life, just as the old woman had foretold. But instead of remembering that he had brought all his suffering on himself, and being sorry for his evil ways, he grew harder, and more bitter. At the end of the seven years his ass skin wore out, and he became a man again, and one ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... summer night was now far spent, She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant Down on the cold stone of the window-seat. God knows if there were any vital heat In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone. And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan, With words that issued from a bitter soul,— 'O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal, Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart? Is it for this I live and die apart From all that once I knew? O Holy God, Is ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... purchased, idolatry of Mammon, the Scottish persistence and pride become knit and vested in the spleuchan, and your stiff Covenanter makes his covenant with Death, and your Old Mortality deciphers only the senseless legends of the eternal gravestone,—you get your weed, earth-grown, in bitter verity, and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... of deserted bedrooms, full of bitter recollections, Lucilla again descended first, and at the door met the curate. After a few words, she turned, and said, 'Mr. Prendergast would row us down to the vicarage, if ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were true, since life is short, Let us dream, my soul a little, Once again, remembering now With all forethought and prevision That we must once more awake At the better time not distant; That being known, the undeceiving, When it comes, will be less bitter; For it takes the sting from evil To anticipate its visit. And with this conviction, too, Even its certainty admitting, That all power being only lent Must return unto the Giver, Let us boldly then dare all.— For the loyalty you exhibit, Thanks, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the jaundiced, honey tastes bitter; and to those bitten by mad dogs, water causes fear; and to little children, the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... myself practically dismissed from Nathaniel's I was not thrown on my beam-ends, as most young men in my position would have been; I had time and opportunity for the favourite pastime of looking about me. Of course, had I chosen, I might have fought the case to the bitter end against Sebastian; he could not dismiss me—that lay with the committee. But I hardly cared to fight. In the first place, though I had found him out as a man, I still respected him as a great teacher; and in the second place (which is always more important), ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... brilliant and fiery young man had followed all the movements of the revolution, from the 14th of July to the 31st of May, approving all its exaggerations and all its measures. His heart, however, was gentle and tender, though his opinions were violent, and his humour often bitter. He had praised the revolutionary regime because he believed it indispensable for the establishment of the republic; he had co-operated in the ruin of the Gironde, because he feared the dissensions of the republic. For the republic he had sacrificed even ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... for one possessing the secrets of the confessional to learn the real character of any person in the neighborhood, and it was with a kind of bitter satisfaction which rather surprised himself that the father learned enough ill of the cavalier to justify his using every possible measure to prevent his forming any acquaintance with Agnes. He was captain of a band of brigands, and, of course, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Bitter-Creekish-looking man crossing over to the Winnebago House?" asked Miss Grierson of her seatmate, indicating Broffin with a wave of the whip, and skilfully making the query sound like the voicing of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... pinched and beat his little sister Clara, and took away her playthings, and was not kind and good to her, as a brother should be. "Oh, what a sad boy Charles is!" was his mother's daily bitter exclamation. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... conveniences of life? Take away this opinion, and you remove with it all grief; for no one is afflicted merely on account of a loss sustained by himself. Perhaps we may be sorry, and grieve a little; but that bitter lamentation and those mournful tears have their origin in our apprehensions that he whom we loved is deprived of all the advantages of life, and is sensible of his loss. And we are led to this opinion by nature, without any arguments or ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to apply pressure from without had little influence. Indeed it is possible that the resentment occasioned by the exaggerated stories of conditions really hindered the progress of restrictive legislation, just as the bitter denunciation of the Southern attitude toward the negro has increased conservatism. Every one knew that the pitiful stories of abuse or oppression were untrue. No class of laborers anywhere is more independent than Southern ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... affair came to pass. It was Mrs. Senator Gwin's fancy dress ball, written of, talked of, far and wide. I did not get to attend this. My costume was prepared—a Spanish cavalier, Mrs. Casneau's doing—when I fell ill and had with bitter disappointment to read about it next day in the papers. I was living at Willard's Hotel, and one of my volunteer nurses was Mrs. Daniel E. Sickles, a pretty young thing who was soon to become the victim ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... took the girl into her arms and held her tight. In that strong, tender clasp all the stinging ache went out of Elliott's hurt. She wasn't frightened any longer or bewildered or bitter; she didn't know why she wasn't, but she wasn't. She felt just as if, somehow or other, things were ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... away with a travelling pedlar,' he brought out with a bitter smile. The little girl hung her head; the baby waked up and began crying; the little girl went to the cradle. 'There, give it him,' said Biryuk, thrusting a dirty feeding-bottle into her hand. 'Him, too, she abandoned,' he went on in an undertone, pointing to the baby. He went up to the door, stopped, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... the train, and after walking through the empty car he opened the door of a vestibule and stepped out on the platform. It was unprotected except for a brass rail at the side, which was divided in the middle where the steps went down. The floor jolted and a bitter wind that whistled between the vestibules buffeted him. Although he wore the fur coat, he shivered, and as he stepped across the gap between the platforms the door behind ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... wish it. Why not, indeed, seeing that at least it would have brought comfort to the poor people of this place? Sometimes I feel very sorry for them with their bitter, troublous lives—lives which may be the lives of rogues and villains, yet are lives which have produced amongst us a pravednik," [A "just person," a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... she exclaimed involuntarily, a world of bitter contempt in her cry. Then she added in her ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... agony of tears. The idea of his mother waiting day after day for the letter he had promised her at once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when he had done all in his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as any which he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath, then, was proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby of a fellow, pointed ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... years later, the service of process from the New York courts was interrupted in Columbia County. There was a strip of territory adjoining the Hudson River, title to which was claimed both by New York and Massachusetts. Conflicting claims, awaking much bitter feeling, arose under grants from each government. In 1791, the sheriff of Columbia County was ordered by the courts, in the course of a lawsuit, to sell a tract of this land. Seventeen persons disguised as Indians appeared at the time of sale to resist it, and he was killed by ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... dwell on what my uncle will tell you was a very unpleasant episode, but the Honourable John Haddon is a poor man, and it is quite out of the question for one brought up as I have been to marry into poverty. He was very headstrong and reckless about the matter, and involved my uncle in a bitter quarrel while discussing it, much to my chagrin and disappointment. It is as necessary for him to marry wealth as it is for me to make a good match, but he could not be brought to see that. Oh, he is not at all a sensible young man, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... wouldn't have given his farm to bring that little sleeper back to life. They took his mother's cold hands in theirs, and chafed them, and bathed her temples, and wept (strong men as they were) to think of the bitter waking she would have. But God was merciful;—she never did wake in this world. In Heaven she ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... she's all right herself," said Meldon; "but when she's in the state Miss King was in she's past noticing anybody's complexion. The only emotion Miss King could possibly have felt, the only emotion of a spiritual kind, was a bitter hatred of you and me; and that, of course, would make her feel a strong affection for Simpkins. On the whole, Major, we may congratulate ourselves on our success so far. Just put the luncheon basket into the punt, will you? They'll be as hungry as wolves in another half-hour. Simpkins ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... whatever of the state of her mind in view of death and eternity, or of her wishes concerning her darling babe, whom she loved most intensely. I will not trouble you, my dear mother, with an account of my own private feelings—the bitter, heart-rending anguish, which for some days would not admit of mitigation, and the comfort which the Gospel subsequently afforded, the Gospel of Jesus Christ which brings life and immortality ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... gentleman, Sir John Hotham of Yorkshire, and many others, entered into the same topics, and after several hours spent in bitter invective, when the doors were locked, in order to prevent all discovery of their purpose, it was moved, in consequence of the resolution secretly taken, that Strafford should immediately be impeached of high treason. This motion ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Kate that she demanded the love and loyalty of her betrayed lover to the bitter end, false and heartless though she had been. The coquette in her played with him even now in the midst of the bitter pain she must have known she was inflicting. No word of contrition spoke she, but took her deed as one of her prerogatives, just as she had ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... "Bitter bread for me, maids, and sweet bread for you," said the farmer, passing the loaves through the gap. "Tis plain fare for all these days. May ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Doubleday muttered husky and bitter questions, Bradley and Belle paid continuous attention to their coffee and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... and its regard for animal life. When it spread to Africa and Europe it became more Christian, just as it became more Buddhist in China, but it is exceedingly curious to see how this Asiatic religion, like the widely different religion of Mohammed, was even in its latest phrases the subject of bitter hatred and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... mother was telling her of this misery of the world, this sad reality, in the same way that parents relate the story of the wolf to unreasonable children? She would never forget the shock and the grief of this first experience of a bitter disappointment. Yet, however, she already excused Felicien. He had told no falsehood; he simply had been silent. Were his father to wish him to marry this young girl, no doubt he would refuse to do so. But as yet he had not dared to rebel. As he had not said anything ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... be quenched by applying moist clothes to the skin, or by bathing. It is no uncommon occurrence, during a passage from one continent to the other, for the saliva to become bitter by the absorption of sea water. Medicinal substances, such as mercury, morphine, and Spanish flies, are frequently introduced into the system through ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... was departed. Remembrance frequently gave her his parting look and the tones of his voice, when he had bade her a last farewel; and, some accidental associations now recalling these circumstances to her fancy, with peculiar energy, she shed bitter tears to the recollection. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... she was right. Trust her he might, as in duty bound; but to be as he had been before eating the bitter fruit of knowledge was, for the present at all ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... out into the garden and chanced to look up at Alma's window. She stood there with the yellow cottage in her hand, and was dropping something down the chimney. "There goes my present, I daresay," he thought, and again the bitter mood was uppermost, in spite of his father's kind words and the charming ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... because he carries two tongues in one—one for your presence and one for your absence; one sweet as honey, the other bitter as gall; one with which he oils you, the other with which he stings you. In talking with you he is bland and affable; but in talking about you he detracts or slanders. The other night, when at your hospitable board, he was ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... married," Ronald said, "he should no longer be so bitter against my father, and perhaps after so long an imprisonment the king might be ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... herself seriously (but without showing why exactly she should not take herself seriously if she chose); he pitied her for her disappointment when she should realise where in literature her place would be; and he ended with a bitter diatribe against the works of women generally, as being pretentious, amateur, without originality, and wanting in humour, like the wretched stuff it had been his painful duty to expose. Unfortunately for him, however, the book appeared anonymously, and immediately attracted attention ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... breathing, "Please let me in." She wanted to put her hands on the bowed head and comfort him. Now she knew how Anne felt, Anne, the little mother heart, who dragged up compassion from the earth and brought it down from the sky for unfriended creatures. And yet all the solace Lydia had to offer was a bitter one. She would only ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... good while past; though the bills were paid somehow. But now her resources failed; the war was evidently ending disastrously for the South; her hopes gave way; and she agreed to let Dr. Sandford make arrangements for our going into the country. It was very bitter to her, the whole draught she had to swallow; and the very fact of being under necessity. Dr. Sandford had a deal of trouble, I fancy, to find any house or arrangement that would content her. No board was procurable that could be endured even ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Pansa,[11] at whose expense the exhibition was given, looked particularly annoyed at the defect, and vowed bitter vengeance on the head of the chief officer of the show, who, fretting, puffing, perspiring, busied himself in idle orders and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... mentioned, the Exposition of the True Relation of the Philosophy of Nature to the Improved Doctrine of Fichte, 1806, in which his former friend is charged with plagiarism, and the Memorial of the Treatise on Divine Things by Herr Jacobi, 1812, which answers a bitter attack of Jacobi still more bitterly. From this on our philosopher, once so fond of writing, becomes silent.[4] The often promised issue of the positive philosophy, which had already been twice commenced in print (The Ages of the World, 1815; Mythological Lectures, 1830), was both times ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of Washington was one of bitter vehemence in political thought. In England the good Whig was taught that to deny Whig doctrine was blasphemy, that there was no truth or honesty on the other side, and that no one should trust a Tory; and usually the good Whig was true to the teaching he had received. In America there had hitherto ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... I walked about from door to door like a dejected beggar, till I got the almous deed of a civil reception—and who would have thought it?— from no less a person than the same Thomas Thorl that was so bitter against me in the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... or by his direction. When the Letter from a By-stander was answered by the historian Thomas Carte, an angry pamphlet controversy ensued, with Morris writing under the pseudonym of "A Gentleman of Cambridge." Throughout, Morris showed himself a violent Whig, bitter in his attacks on Charles II and the non-jurors; and it was undoubtedly this fanatical party loyalty which laid the foundation for ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... utilities, and mining have been nationalized, but the new five-year plan—the first since the revolution—passed in January 1990, calls for the transfer of many government-controlled enterprises to the private sector. Disruptions from the bitter war with Iraq, massive corruption, mismanagement, demographic pressures, and ideological rigidities have kept economic growth at depressed levels. Oil accounts for over 90% of export revenues. A combination of war damage and low oil prices ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... bitter," he said. "Happiness was my word. The Good Man was good to you when he made you. That ought to be a source of satisfaction. ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for the one most interested to answer, but in the glow of pleasure that the compliment brought he forgot for the moment his bitter feelings. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... the old woman in a loud whisper. 'Will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? I laid her out; and I must walk, you know. Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind; send some bread—only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some bread, dear?' she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... "why I don't hate you, now that we're here together. I've thought a lot of bitter things about you, more than about any one in the world. I don't know why I don't say them now that I've ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... continued. "I know the men of the sea; I am a sailor's daughter. Many times I saw my mother weeping and pitied her simplicity. There is no use weeping for what men do in distant lands. It is always bitter enough for a woman who loves her husband, but it has no bad consequences and must be pardoned.... But ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... night was bitter and terrible, indeed. Her proud, passionate nature writhed under the truth that she had given her heart, unsought, to a Northern officer,—to one who had from the first made it clear that his love had been bestowed on another. She felt that she could not blame him. His frankness had been almost ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... no abatement of paternal and filial hate. George III. was disgusted with his eldest son's personal conduct and political principles, as well he might be; for while the father was a model of decorum, and a bitter Tory, the son was a profligate, and a Whig,—and the King probably found it harder to forgive the Whig than the profligate. The Prince cared no more for Whig principles than he did for his marriage-vows, but affected them as a means of annoying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... ordered that they should thereafter enjoy this privilege, that they should use covered chariots whensoever they went to public worship or to the games, and other carriages on any day, whether festival or common. Notwithstanding, the tribunes of the Commons were still bitter against Camillus. "Verily," they said, "by his confiscations and consecrations he hath brought the spoil ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... thoughts. Judged by this test your buildings are dreary, empty places." Artists in words, like Lafcadio Hearn and Henry James, are able to make articulate the sadness which our cities inspire, but it is a blight which lies heavy on us all. Theodore Dreiser says, in Sister Carrie—a book with so much bitter truth in it that it was suppressed ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... sad sinking of spirit, to the pitch well-nigh of swounding, and with a sight of bitter tears, which will not be put back nor staid in anywise, as you bear ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... said Middlemas, with a bitter smile—"it would be difficult to most men to keep up their spirits, after gaining and losing father, mother, and a good inheritance, all in the same day. But I had always a ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... sacred songs of the Parsees, composed long before Aristotle wrote, beyond all the dust and noise of the everlasting conflict of good and evil, of Ahura Mazda and Anya-Mainyus, there are glimpses of a deeper power, Zeruana Akerana, Eternal Duration, unmoved by act or thought, in the face of which these bitter opponents are seen to be children, brethren, "twin sons of Time."[166-2] The Alexandrian Gnostics, in their explanations of Christian dogmas, identify Aeon, infinite time, with God the Father, as the source and fount of existence; not merely ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... Mark. The other guests did not intend to stay. The Bishop has never broken bread with me since—but let that pass. Come in and eat. It is bitter bread, my friend, bitter bread; but, alas, ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... to record all that she said on the subject of our village feast. It was not complimentary, and to some extent the bitter general observations on our national amusements into which her disappointment betrayed her were justified by facts. But it was not our fault that, in translating village feast into fete de village, ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... his religion so long as he is in earnest, but in those days it was not so. Well, a certain number of lords and gentlemen who were Roman Catholics tried to get these laws altered; but they could not, and so they were very angry and bitter against the King and his Ministers, and joined together to make a plot to be revenged on them. Guy Fawkes was one of the men in this plot, and it may have been he who suggested the dreadful idea that was at last decided upon. However ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... he will pass the time with other happy souls smoking and eating and enjoying other sensual delights. But if he left little or no money, he is banished the earthly paradise and sent home to roam like a wild beast in the forest, battening on leaves and filth. With bitter sighs and groans he prowls about the villages at night and seeks to avenge himself by scaring or plaguing the survivors. To stay his hunger and appease his wrath relatives or friends will sometimes set forth food for him to devour. Yet even for such an impecunious soul there ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... imitating to a certain extent our William Ptynne, who would from time to time momentarily suspend his interminable scribble to recruit exhausted nature with a moistened crust; only the verbose author of "Histriomastix" used to dip his crusts in Strong ale. And the bitter old pamphleteer, for all that his ears had been cropped and his cheeks branded by the Star Chamber, lived to be nearly seventy. Jules Noriac was never to be seen abroad until noon. His breakfast, like that of most Frenchmen, was inordinately prolonged; and afterwards ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... for whom Christ our Lord deigned to die on the bitter rood, and so is Hilda la Vileyne. Tell me but where she dwelleth, and I will go to see ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... and creepers would comprise the fox grape, three varieties; pigeon, or raccoon grape, chicken grape, a wild bitter grape, sarsaparilla, yellow parilla, poison-vine, or poison-oak, clematis, trumpet-flower, and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... little Maurice, springing to his feet; "stepmother is awake, and we may get to the fire. I am so bitter cold." ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... it, and the bundle contained a little drowned child—a fair waxen babe, beautiful even though it had lain in the salt, bitter waters of the green sea all night. Now comes the horror, Mrs. Fleming. When the man, who saw the scene went after some years to visit the friend whom he loved so dearly, he recognized in that friend's wife the woman who threw the child ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... They brought him some food, consisting of parboiled rice, which, in his displeasure, he allowed to remain untouched. At first, several curious people had collected from among the servants around him; but they soon dispersed, and left him alone to despair and bitter reflection. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... a man fooled to utter heart-burning find a reason for being merry? If I have lost, how can I be as if I had won? Heavens you must be heartless quite! Had I known what a fearfully bitter sweet this was to be, how I would have avoided you, and never seen you, and been deaf of you. I tell you all this, but what do you care! You ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... bitter gloom). I lose my job, you don't hear? No, it is nothings to you, and you go away to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a bitter laugh, and David Rossi heard it and misunderstood it, and his nostrils quivered like the nostrils of a horse, and when he spoke again ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... had been foretold him, that he should have warning of his death, came frequently into his remembrance; and he could not hinder himself one day from asking the saint, at what time, and in what manner, it should be? The saint told him, without pausing, "When you shall find the taste of your wine bitter, then prepare yourself for death, and know that you have but one ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... temperament irritated by months of bitter cold, its constitutional hunger aggravated by a prolonged fast, its appetite tempted by a novel diet in the form of British soldiery well-washed and firm-fleshed after years of Army rations, the North Russian mosquito is likely, in the opinion of experts, to take ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... if possible, a thousandfold; and he would have troops employed to "tread down all before them, and lay on the ground all the stiff-necked people of the land." And this he would have done in winter, with a refinement of cruelty, that the bitter air may freeze up the half-naked peasant, that he may have no shelter from the bare trees, and that he may be deprived of all sustenance by the chasing and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... die, it should be as became one of his race and training. But, oh! it was hard! He was so young, so full of life and hope. Could he hold out to the bitter end? Yes, he must. He had chosen to be a soldier. He was a soldier. Other soldiers had met their death by savage torture and faced it bravely. What they had done, he must do. But was there no help for him, none at all? As he searched the scowling faces of those ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Richard, "achieved to the very uttermost, for he hath carried that enemy out from the shadow of death, hath perilled his own chances of life that I might know the joys of freedom—I that was his bitter enemy." ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... express it; he would hardly have taken himself so seriously. It was natural that he should publish the next year a three volume collection of his miscellany, which contained his second novel, "Mr. Jonathan Wild The Great," distinctly the least liked of his four stories, because of its bitter irony, its almost savage tone, the gloom which surrounds the theme, a powerful, full-length portrayal of a famous thief-taker of the period, from his birth to his bad end on a Newgate gallows. Mr. Wild is a sort of foreglimpse of the Sherlock ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... deprive him of a leg or arm; he may be frost-nipped at the pole, or get a coup de soleil in the tropics, and then be turned upon the world to shape his course amongst its rocks and shallows, with the bitter blast of poverty in his teeth. But Jack is not to be beaten so easily; although run aground, he refuses to strike his flag, and, with a cheerful heart, goes forth into the highways and byeways to sing "the dangers of the sea," and, to collect from the pitying passers-by, the coppers that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... went to Macdonald and gave a deleted version of his talk with Elliot. The Scotchman listened, a bitter, ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... of kings toward their faithful servants!" exclaimed Schill, in a tone of bitter reproach; "such is the manner in which they reward those who have sacrificed for them their property and life! But we do not struggle for kings and princes; we are serving the adored fatherland; we are fighting for liberty, and the death which we find on the field of honor is ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... term there took place at Dunwood House another event. With their private tragedy it seemed to have no connection; but in time Rickie perceived it as a bitter comment. Its developments were unforeseen and lasting. It was perhaps the most terrible thing he ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... of mercy brewed bitter destruction, and the frightened rulers come back; Each comes in state with his train—hangman, priest, tax-gatherer, Soldier, lawyer, lord, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... Establishment, even Cantelupe's way, will be a pill to the real old Tory right to the bitter end. ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... good bed of coals, cover them with hot coals until well done. It will take about forty minutes for them to bake. Then pass a sharpened hard-wood sliver through them from end to end, and let the steam escape and use immediately as a roast potato soon becomes soggy and bitter. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... friends, why these bitter recriminations—this ill-mannered raving? We have no excuses to make, and we are all equally guilty. I am the youngest of all, and not the ugliest, by your leave, ladies, but if I am condemned, at least ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... permitted her on which to enjoy the breezes of heaven. Night was looking down in loveliness, with her countless eyes, upon the injustice and cruelty of men, when the magnificent Youantee, who had little imagined that the brother of the sun and moon would be doomed to swallow the bitter pillau of disappointment, as had been latterly his custom, quitted the palace to walk in the gardens and commune with his own thoughts, unattended. And it pleased destiny, that the pearl beyond price, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... milkiness of resignation he bore the loss of the whole, and saw himself reduced from such affluence to the necessity of depending upon about twenty ducats, and some loose silver, which he carried in his pocket, for his expense upon the road. However bitter this pill might be in swallowing, he so far mastered his mortification, as to digest it with a good grace. His own penetration at once pointed out the canal through which this misfortune had flowed upon him; he forthwith placed the calamity to the account of the Tyrolese, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... articles, reversing Dr. Kenyon's decision, and gave costs against Mr. Macmullen. [Footnote: For this outline of the proceedings in Macmullen v. Hampden, I am indebted to accurate memoranda kindly furnished me by Mr. David Lewis, late Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford.] Mr. Badeley's bitter comment will amuse the reader: 'Mischievous idiots! and so all the conclusive arguments you put before them, are set at nought, and the battle is to be fought again!' [Footnote: Mr. Badeley to Mr. Hope, January 6, 1844] However, there ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... what the guerdon conquest will bestow On him who in the battle shall prevail, If Roland, though he has not struck a blow, Or snapt in fight a single link of mail, To Paris-town conveys the damsel gay, Who has engaged you in this bitter fray. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... happiness has come to her." Then, nestling close to Andras, and resting her dark head upon his shoulder, she continued: "We have a proverb, you remember, which says, Life is a tempest. I have repeated it very often with bitter sadness. But now, that wicked proverb is effaced by the refrain of our old song, Life is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... back to his rooms, in which for economy no fire had been lit, his heart sank. It was horribly cheerless. He began to loathe his lodgings and the long solitary evenings he spent in them. Sometimes he felt so lonely that he could not read, and then he sat looking into the fire hour after hour in bitter wretchedness. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... has been alike the fruitful theme of extravagant praise and bitter censure, merits the more attention, because the first regular and systematic opposition to the principles on which the affairs of the Union were administered, originated in the measures which ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... in the fire and showed all three faces to one another—Mary's face, with its quietly absorbed expression of attentive interest—Reay's strongly moulded features, just now somewhat sternly shadowed by bitter memories—and Helmsley's thin, worn, delicately intellectual countenance, which in the brilliant rosy light flung upon it by the fire-glow, was like a fine waxen mask, impenetrable in its unmoved austerity and calm. Not so much as the faintest flicker of emotion crossed it at the mention ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... diligent to plant and to water, and the Lord blessed their labours with an exceeding great increase; notwithstanding all the opposition made to their blessed progress, by false rumours, calumnies, and bitter persecutions; not only from the powers of the earth, but from every one that listed to injure and abuse them: so that they seemed, indeed, to be as poor sheep appointed to the slaughter, and as a people ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... so disastrous an end. And war, since it is always and by its nature must be a return to savage conditions, now leads to the sacrifice of women and children in much the ancient manner; and faced by its horrors at close touch, the mother-instinct essays the old task to the same bitter defeat. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... Gray Mountains tumbled to the horizon. To the north, beyond that sharply cut, ragged horizon, lay the big cities, the industrial heart of the planet. To the south, at Sime's back, was the narrow agricultural belt, the region of small seas, of bitter lakes, of controlled irrigation. Here the canals, natural fissures long observed by astronomers and at first believed to be artificial, were actually put to the use specified by ancient conjecture, ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... a condition of total dark disgust. He made no remark. But what remarks he could have made—sarcastic, bitter, unanswerable! Why indeed in the name of heaven should she promise her father to be back at a quarter-past nine, or at a quarter-past anything? Was she a servant? Had she no rights? Had he himself, George, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... two friends sat hand in hand a minute or two; and that hard grip of two workingmen's hands, though it was not gently eloquent like beauty's soft, expressive palm, did yet say many things good for the heart in this bitter hour. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Ruthven was very bitter and unjust in many of his judgments during the first part of his residence in C. He changed his opinions of many things afterwards, partly because he became wiser, partly because he became a little blind, and, especially, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson |
