"Distress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tour, by the uncharitable or suspicious, is a preparatory or a preliminary move to assuming all power in his own hands. They say the people are reduced by distress to such an extremity that, if he will only order rations to be served them, they will not quarrel with him if he assumes dictatorial powers. Legislation has failed to furnish remedies for the evils afflicting the community; and, really, if the evils themselves were not ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... away. When the wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to apply leaves and grass...When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden and acute distress." ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... actively in the 1848 uprising, owing to the activity of the Paris police, but he watched the Revolution with the profoundest sympathy. And when it failed and was followed by the terrible reaction his distress was almost unbounded. For a brief period he was the victim of the most appalling pessimism, but after a time his faith returned and he joined with Proudhon in issuing a radical revolutionary paper, L'Ami du Peuple, of which, Kropotkin tells us in his admirable study of Russian literature, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... from having committed gross and deliberate fraud—but nature is absolutely careless of whether what I do is motived by good or bad intentions. If I get a wetting through going out to help some one in distress, the consequences will be exactly the same as though I had got wet going out to commit a burglary or a murder. And when Dr. Martineau talks of the "natural penalties for guilt," and adds that "sin being there, it would be simply monstrous that ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... Atheist, and grew to such an height, as not to be accountable for any thing spoken against her, nor for treason against their own King, if it were but spoken in the pulpit; shewing at last such a disobedience to him, that his mother being in England, and then in distress, and in prison, and in danger of death, the Church denied the King their prayers for her; and at another time, when he had appointed a day of Feasting, the Church declared for a general Fast, in ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... the other agent of the Laurances had lost all trace of me. You were so grieved because I left for Europe without bidding you good-bye! Ah, my sweet child! You never knew that it was the hardest trial of my life to put the ocean between us, and that I was too cowardly to witness your distress at the separation that was so uncertain ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... a look of real distress. What this little queer mixture of a girl might do, if she really chose to be naughty, it was not pleasant ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... Washington, charged by all the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of the regiment to make swift report of the absent darlings. Kate was besieged in the grand house with tearful watchers, waiting in agonizing impatience for the fatal finality. Olympia, to spare her mother the distress of the vague responses her telegrams brought from Washington, spent most of the time at the Boones', where, thanks to the father's high standing with the Administration, the earliest, most accurate information came. Finally he wrote. He had seen Nick Marsh, who gave ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... dull and miserable. I am missing mother and I am so tired, and the children have been so cross all day." And Olivia, whose nerves were on edge with the strain of grief and worry, looked so pallid and woebegone that Marcus had been filled with consternation. Never had he seen his sweetheart in such distress, and then it was that the suggestion came ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "You may imagine my distress, sir, and the condition of my conscience," pursued the lady, "when I tell you that my sister's husband's sister is a very old friend of mine—and, indeed, so was this German. The two are a very attached young couple, and, being childless, are quite wrapped ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... [i.e., the Roman church] there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and janitors, and over fifteen hundred widows and persons in distress, all of whom the grace and kindness of the Master nourished. But not even this great multitude, so necessary in the Church, nor those who through God's providence were rich and full, together with very many, even innumerable, people, could turn him from such desperation and ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... at first, supposing he was still within the cavern; but, as she peered cautiously around the dimly lighted space, she saw only the forms of her two sleeping friends. The fact at once deepened the suspicion, and caused her great distress of mind, for all doubt of the hostility of the man was removed upon making the discovery. Still she supposed it possible that he was close at hand, and waited several minutes to see whether he reappeared; but her condition of mind ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... arts; eager in the pursuit of wealth, yet employing wealth less for ostentation than for developing the resources of their country; seeking happiness in the calm of domestic life; and such lovers of peace, that for generations they had been reputed unwarlike. Now, at the cry of their country in its distress, they rose up with unappeasable patriotism; not hirelings—the purest and of the best blood in the land. Sons of a pious ancestry, with a clear perception of duty, unclouded faith and fixed resolve to succeed, they ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... length the three followed they found highways in ruin, hoof-deep in dust and no longer safe from blue scouts, while their infantry boy proved as innocent of road wisdom as they, and on lonely by-ways led them astray for hours. We may picture their bodily and mental distress to hear, at a plantation house whose hospitality they craved when the day was near its end, that they were still but nine miles from Clinton with eleven yet between ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... agreed to make the second entry in the book; but the heat, the loss of sleep, and the strangeness and excitement added to her distress that "her house" should have been made to seem a disgrace in the eyes of the whole car, all conspired to make her feel so ill that she declared she could not think of writing for ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... although it had started out so beautifully, had not the stamina to endure the strain. No. 3 was pulling out of the boat, while No. 5 showed signs of distress. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... to the capital, having been restored to favor, and resumed his gay life, which on the whole, had a deleterious influence on his talents. In 1831 he married a very beautiful and extravagant woman, after which he was constantly in financial distress, his own social ambitions and lavish expenditure being equally well developed with the same tastes in his wife. His inclination to write poetry was destroyed. He took to historical research, wrote a "History of Pugatcheff's ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... and all the distress of her soul, troubled by an instinctive, inarticulate consciousness of evil, wavered in her eyes. Her reason already accused her of ingratitude and treachery, but every fiber of her had suddenly revolted. She was all for liberty, she must ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... river-bed, but we can see none of them. The valley is heat and emptiness. Even the jackal that slinks across the trail in front of us, droops and drags his tail in visible exhaustion. His lolling, red tongue is a signal of distress. In a climate like this one expects nothing from man or beast. Life degenerates, shrivels, stifles; and in the glaring open spaces a sullen madness ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... by the signs of distress and excitement plainly visible on the girl's face, which Chester, in his pleasure at seeing her again, had not perceived ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... bought the antimacassars for the Towers, and secretly adored them until Ada pronounced them to be vulgar. The number of things which Ada discovered to be vulgar increased every day, and included the greater part of her mother's wardrobe, much to the distress of that poor lady. Mrs. Pratt had reached the size when it is prudent to concentrate a love of bright colors in one's parasol. On this particular afternoon she shed tears over the fact that Ada refused to accompany her ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... settler, attracted by the cries of distress, soon reached the scene of action. Though completely unarmed he did not hesitate to come to close quarters with bruin, and seizing a long heavy stick he commenced to vigorously belabor the hind quarters of the brute, who, however, only responded to these attentions ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... the Hon. H. S, Conway, July 30.-French politics. Distress at court. Vaudevilles against Madame du Barry. Amusements at Paris. Gaillard's "Rivalit'e de la France ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... tears" when they left the Paradise which Milton imagined for them. A heart accessible to pathos, to natural beauty, to religion, was a chief requisite for the protagonist of Victorian literature. Even Becky Sharp was touched—once—by Amelia's moving distress. ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... this profitless reverie she had paused to listen to a singular sound that came from a dense group of willows not far from the spot where she sat, and now it grew louder, swelling into a measured cry, as of a child in great distress. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to, when, in gazing about, I caught sight of the mast-heads of the shipping at the yard, and of the ensign under which I had so long served! These came over me, as a light-house comes over a mariner in distress at sea, and I thought there must be friends for me in that quarter. The sight gave me courage and strength, and I determined no old shipmate should hear of a blue-jacket's hanging himself on a picket, in a fit of the horrors. Casting off the bowlines, I replaced the handkerchief on ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... affairs; but the marvel was that the Prince should have found time amid his multifarious duties and functions to look into its management and influence. May the 5th, saw the Prince attending the sixty-second anniversary of the "Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress" and pointing out in a preliminary speech that the Queen had taken deep interest in this charity ever since her accession in 1837. In proposing the health of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Sir Travers Twiss, the Advocate-General, said ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... hear my plaint, and ask me, why? You ask me when this deep distress Began to rage without redress? ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... had purchased "a genuine Mexican plug," is one of the funniest things in literature. The intense gravity and self-pity of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan feats of his steed, the extreme distress of body thence resulting, make up a passage more moving than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the story told, marks the tale of the agricultural ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... cities have been formed and exist upon commerce. Our agriculture, fisheries, arts, and manufactures are connected with and depend upon it. In short, commerce has made this country what it is, and it can not be destroyed or neglected without involving the people in poverty and distress. Great numbers are directly and solely supported by navigation. The faith of society is pledged for the preservation of the rights of commercial and sea faring no less than of the other citizens. Under this view of our affairs, I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of duty if I forbore to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Fleda wished herself out of it. The house did not look poverty-stricken within, but poverty must have struck to the very heart, Fleda thought, where there was no apparent cherishing of anything. There was no absolute distress visible, neither was there a sign of real comfort or of a happy home. She could ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... custody of the father. He thought the law required it, and perhaps it did; but if mothers had had a voice, either in making or in administering the law, I think the result would have been different. The distress of the mother on being thus separated from her child can be better imagined than described. The separation proved a final one, as in less than a year neither father nor mother had any child on ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... placable character of those princes, and to contrast them with Antipater, who, although he pretended to be only a private citizen, wore shabby clothes, and lived on humble fare, really tyrannized over the Athenians in their distress more grievously than ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... battlefield, then commenced to be celebrated in legend. Two days later, however, when intelligence came of the surprise and defeat at Wissembourg, every mouth was opened to emit a cry of rage and distress. That five thousand men, caught in a trap, had faced thirty-five thousand Prussians all one long summer day, that was not a circumstance to daunt the courage of anyone; it simply called for vengeance. Yes, the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... their own country as they read about it in the Paris Daily Mail, which was first to come into their billets, filled some of these young men with distress and disgust, strengthened into rage when they went home on leave. The deliberate falsification of news (the truth of which they heard from private channels) made them discredit the whole presentation of our ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... balconies of the grand, first and second tiers of boxes. At the top, right on top of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu's copper ceiling, figures grinned and grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin's distress. And yet these figures were usually very serious. Their names were Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne, Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... her, and stealing a rapid glance saw her pallor and distress; and that showed him she was not so ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Lohengrin was finished. The tale is of the simplest. Elsa is in distress. She is the daughter of the late Duke, and her brother, the heir to the title and lands, has been changed into a swan by the enchantments of Ortruda, wife of Frederick, who says that Elsa has murdered him. Ortruda's ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... to intestine wars; slaughter, fire, and rapine spread ruin throughout the land; cries of distress, horror, and woe rose ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heart I beare thee, and unweeting have offended, Unhappilie deceav'd; thy suppliant I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not, Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, Thy counsel in this uttermost distress, 920 My onely strength and stay: forlorn of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? While yet we live, scarse one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace, both joyning, As joyn'd in injuries, one enmitie Against a Foe by doom express assign'd us, That ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... then sent a detail to search the swamp from end to end. The men were under the command of Sandy Lyon, and in less than an hour they returned with the three prisoners, who had been tied to trees and gagged. One of the poor fellows, the captain of an Illinois company, was in distress from a bullet-wound in his arm, and all three were ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... talk like this before. Our mutual distress seemed to have made us friends, and I felt ready to shake hands with him and hold on by ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... finds all got to Klein Kamin, to breakfast there in their Wagenburg refectory,—sharply vigilant, many FLECHES (little arrow-shaped redoubts, so named) and much artillery round them. Nothing considerable to be done upon them, now or afterwards, except pick up stragglers, and distress their rear a little. The King himself, in the first movement, was thought to be in alarming peril, such a blaze of case-shot rose upon him, as he went reconnoitring foremost of all. [Tempelhof, ii. 216-238; Tielcke, ii. 79-154; Archenholtz, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... and after a moment's silence, instead of participating, as he expected, in her father's feeling of distress, burst out a-laughing, while she said: "Why, really, Papa, I do not see why this should put you out much, after all. Aunt may be somewhat of a character, as her note evinces, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... protection and returned to the subject of Aurelia. How, I asked, had she come? Had she been ill—in distress? ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... they fly at one another with renewed energy. They loose their wind more speedily this time, and thereafter they pursue the tactics already described, until time is again called. When some ten rounds have been fought, and both the birds are beginning to show signs of distress, the interest of the contest reaches its height, for the fight is at an end if either bird raises its back feathers, in a peculiar manner, by which cocks declare themselves to be vanquished. Early ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... truth when I aver, that these words of the baron gave me infinite distress, and for a moment deprived me of speech. I hardly knew what to say or do. At first I suspected that I had made some unaccountable mistake, and brought my letter to the wrong individual. H——, who was almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... then, can be the reason of this barrenness, dryness, coldness, this complete inability to feel the influence of true music, and, in its presence, to forget any little vexation, any small jealous distress, or any mistaken personal notion? Could Mozart's astonishing gift for arithmetic serve us for a vague explanation? On the one hand, it seems that with him—whose nervous system was so excessively sensitive ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... normal living and recreations; that each should seek to assist his neighbors who may be less fortunate; that each industry should assist its own employees; that each community and each State should assume its full responsibilities for organization of employment and relief of distress with that sturdiness and independence which built a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Herbert Hoover • Herbert Hoover
... the atheling sat with Thrond and Thorleif, and told and heard all the story of the raid on Weymouth until the stars came out. And I was well content; for no Saxon can ask aught better than to serve his lord, whether in wealth or distress. ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... of his masterpiece Ut mine Stromtid ("From my Roaming Days," 1862), in its strength and beauty, deserve less praise than the character delineation. Four years previous, in Kein Huesung ("Homeless ") the author had raised a bitter cry of distress over the social injustice and the deceit and arrogance of the ruling classes. In spite of a ray of sunshine at the end, the treatment was essentially tragic. Now he has found a harmonious solution of the problem; the true nobility ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... would inherit it, and not he. What could he say to her, sewing so calmly upon her wedding-dress, seemingly in utter acquiescence and content with her fate? Could he take another step without going deeper into the slough of shame and distress where it seemed to him he already stood? ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... dance, going merrily down, With lights in windows and love in eyes, And a constant feeling of sweet surprise; But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs; For the sound of his drums grew less and less, Walking like carelessness off from distress; And Captain Sword went whistling gay, "Over the hills and ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... some of the circumstances to you it may bring back the memory," suggested the lieutenant. "Believe me, I do not do it out of mere idle curiosity, but you seemed in such distress at the time, and so uncertain of where you wanted to go, that I really wished after I had directed you that I had placed you in charge of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... meshes of his fate about him. In his harried mind he had formed one great resolution. He believed that a revelation had come to him. It seemed to press upon him as the culmination of all the days of his distress. He could see now that he had felt it years before, when he first met the wife of Elder Tench, the gaunt, gray woman, toiling along the dusty road; and again when he had found the imbecile boy turning upon his tormentors. A hundred times it had quickened within him. And it had ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... scream of lost souls. It was sunset when I was on a coastal ship once that anchored off Belle Isle, and I realized how natural it must have been for Cartier's superstitious sailors to mistake the moan of the sea for wild cries of distress, and the smoke of the spray for fires of the inferno. To French sailors Belle Isle became Isle of Demons. In the half light of fog or night, as the wave wash rises and falls, you can almost see white arms clutching ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... outer door of the offices had closed upon him, Henry Blaine again called up Anita Lawton. This time her voice came to him sharpened by acute distress. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Uncle George, who was raving wildly, and yet it was necessary to obtain assistance somehow. Suddenly she remembered the distress signal. She must hoist it. How fortunate that Uncle George had once ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tormented him. They excited in him loathsome images, from which he could not free himself either by day or night. He was peculiarly weak in his inability to cast off impressions, or to get rid of mental pictures when once formed, and his distress at being haunted by these hateful, disgusting thoughts was pitiable. They were in fact almost more than thoughts, they were transportations out of himself—real visions. It would have been his salvation if ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... from his labors at the stove, came hastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in great distress of mind. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... as those who had stolen it immediately sailed with their prize to another island. Nevertheless I detained them till sunset, when their uneasiness and impatience increased to such a degree that they began to beat themselves about the face and eyes and some of them cried bitterly. As this distress was more than the grapnel was worth, and I had no reason to imagine that they were privy to or in any manner concerned in the theft, I could not think of detaining them longer and called their canoes alongside. I then told them ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... without—as he did the shining limousine he drove for Mrs. Alexander King, Jordan's mother. She thought of what it must be to him now to know that he was maimed for life. As for King himself, she knew him well enough to understand how his own injuries would count for little beside his distress in having had to deal the blow which had crushed that strong young arm of Aleck's. Her heart ached for them both—and even for poor Franz, weeping at having been the innocent cause ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... 'The King's daughter was long ago promised away to three Trolls, and next Thursday evening one of them is to come to fetch her. Ritter Red has said that he will be able to set her free, but who knows whether he will be able to do it? so you may easily imagine what grief and distress ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the anchors could be got out we were where I tell you. The anchors held, but we could not tell how long they would hold, nor how soon the force of the waves would drag us, cables and all, to the rocks. There we sat and looked at the view and situation. We hoisted a signal and fired guns of distress; but we were in front of a rocky shore that gave us little hope of either being of avail. At last, after three hours of this, the captain and some of the passengers got into the yawl and went off to find help. We, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... a warm, bright country, in a yellow country, without crude and brutal verdure, in one of those Eastern countries in which one falls asleep without concern, is active and has no cares, loves and has no distress, and is scarcely aware that one ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... franchise was moreover withheld from the insurgent communities which had again submitted. A deep indignation also settled in the breast of Marius, on his return from the first campaign, to find himself neglected and forgotten. To these discontents were added the distress of debtors, who, amid the financial troubles of the war, were unable to pay the interest on their debts, and were yet inexorably pressed ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... large letters was the legend "Men Who Speak to Girls," and he had gathered that the accompanying article was a denunciation rather than a eulogy of these individuals. On the other hand, she was obviously in distress. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... HF-high-frequency; any radio frequency in the 3,000- to 30,000-kHz range. Inmarsat-International Mobile Satellite Organization (London); provider of global mobile satellite communications for commercial, distress, and safety applications at sea, in the air, and on land. Intelsat-International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Washington, DC). Intersputnik-International Organization of Space Communications (Moscow); first established in the former Soviet Union and the East European countries, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... I sat within a yard of him, detained by the fascination and grim mockery of the picture no less than by physical weakness and a numbness of my brain. My body refused to act, and my mind hardly urged its indolent servant. I was in sore distress for Marie Delhasse,—my vehement cry witnessed it,—yet I had not the will to move to her aid; will and power both seemed to fail me. I could fear, I could shrink with horror, but I could not act; nor did I move till the increasing pain of ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... perilous ride with a companion on an unmanageable log, when we were both less than seven years old. The older boys had put us on this uncertain bark and pushed us out into the swift current of the river. I cannot speak for my comrade in distress, but I can say now that I would rather ride on a swift bronco any day than try to stay on and steady a short log in a river. I never knew how we managed to prevent a shipwreck on that voyage and to ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... had himself seen carriages plundered and broken to pieces by the mob, and the gates were closely guarded. Seeing our distress, he was about to go with Abbe to the Louvre, to learn whether my sister and her son were there, when one of the servants came up to tell us that M. Clement Darpent requested to see my mother, having brought us tidings ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mighty bone she hath a pinguitude withal which makes the depth of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August she usually renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday, some twenty-five years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... centers in her son. She wants him to do the thing she has never been able to do. She thirsts for honors, applause, publicity, and all those things that bring trouble and distress and make ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... her all, and as she hearkened, A tear-drop fell upon her dress. With grief her flushing brow was darkened; One sob that she could not repress Betrayed the depths of her distress. Upon her grief my sorrow fed, And I was bowed with unlived years, My heart swelled with a sea of tears, The tears my manhood ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... it again, and this time not in vain, for my hand has grown skilful with practice. I take my life because of no wrong done me by man or woman, nor because of any vain love; I take it solely because my days upon this earth being numbered through my distress of the lungs, I have not the courage to see death approach by inches, and prefer to meet him at one bound. I have lived unto myself, with no man accountable, and I die unto myself, with no man accountable; and this is the truth with my ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the covert sense Of all her words, which made one evidence, With her pure voice and candid loveliness, That he had lost much honor, honoring less That message of her passionate distress. He staid beside her for a little while, With gentle looks and speech, until a smile As placid as a ray of early morn On opening flower-cups o'er her lips was borne When he had left her, and the tidings spread Through all the town, ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... by, singing to themselves. They poured peace upon his troubled spirit. Their strong life entered into his, a resistless tide. Feebly he tried to stay it. He wanted to go back to his distress, to dwell upon it, to worry it, as a young dog frets to ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... whole of this was written merely to show the meaning of Turner's picture of the steamer in distress, throwing up signals. It is a good study of wild weather; but, separate from its aim, utterly feeble in comparison to the few words by which any of the great poets will describe sea, when they have got to do it. I am rather proud of the short sentence in the 'Harbours ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... Singapore, distant 522 miles, two steamers were dispatched to look out for the vessel which was supposed to be firing guns as signals of distress. ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... from such unjust orders as those of General Crook. Such acts have caused much distress to my people. I think that General Crook's death[35] was sent by the Almighty as a punishment for the many ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... thus wrought in the German ranks was terrific; especially as General Wood took advantage of the enemy's distress to sweep their lines with fierce artillery fire from his ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... progress, he says, was interrupted by a fever, 'which, by the imprudent use of a small print, left an inflammation in his useful eye[770].' We cannot but admire his spirit when we know, that amidst a complication of bodily and mental distress, he was still animated with the desire of intellectual improvement[771]. Various notes of his studies appear on different days, in his manuscript diary of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... possess unusual power of will. Indeed a strength of purpose such as belongs to few was required to hold him to his present task. Meanwhile his chief misgiving was lest the noise he was compelled to make should distress his dying wife; and it was touching to see how he strove to modify, to the utmost degree which was consistent with efficient workmanship, the tapping of the hammer on the soles of ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... almost nine years since the Digitalis was first prescribed for this lady, and notwithstanding I have tried every preventive method I could devise, the dropsy still continues to recur at times; but is never allowed to increase so as to cause much distress, for she occasionally takes the infusion and relieves herself whenever she chooses. Since the first exhibition of that medicine, very small doses have been always found sufficient to promote ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... her duties in the farm house, she shall possess that cottage on my estate known as Rose Cottage, free of all charges, and be allowed to live there and be suitably and comfortably maintained till the end of her days. And,—er—pray don't distress yourself, Miss Priday!" ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... hammock, philosophises over the perplexing questions of life, he is assisted in his dreary analysis by the gloomy and hair-raising cry of the mother of the moon. When the first four notes strike his ear, he will listen, thinking that some human being in dire distress is somewhere out in the swamps, pitifully calling for help, but in so painful a manner that it seems as if all hope were abandoned. Still listening, he will hear the four succeeding melancholy notes, sounding as if the desolate sufferer were giving up the ghost in a last desperate ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... half-frozen river to rescue a dog, and stopped in a walk with a statesman to put back a bird that had fallen out of its nest. Such a heart was trained to be a leader of men, and to be crucified for a cause. The conscience that runs to the call of an animal in distress is girding itself with power to do manly work in ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... mental images are in her over-intimately linked up with emotional reflex responses; that yielding to such reflex responses gives gratification; that intellectual analysis and suspense of judgment involve an inhibition of reflex responses which is felt as neural distress; that precipitate judgment brings relief from this physiological strain; and that woman looks upon her mind not as an implement for the pursuit of truth, but as an instrument for providing her with creature comforts in the form of ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... moment in distress and astonishment, standing a little apart. Then he saw that she was crying. The colour flooded into his face, and going up to her he took her hand, which was all she would yield him, and, holding ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... would track me out, and I should have no means of escape. I dared not run that risk. The only thing I could do for her was to stay with her, and as far as possible shield her from the privations and distress that threatened us both. I was safe here; no one was likely to come across me, in this remote place, who could by any chance know me. I had at least a roof over my head; I had food to eat. Elsewhere I was not sure of either. There seemed to be no other choice given me ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... for their journey. He whose sword-point is dull should only probe things that are soft and tender. He who has a blunt knife must search out the ways to cut joint by joint. Since, therefore, it is best for a man in distress to delay the evil, and nothing is more fortunate in trouble than to stave off hard necessity, I ask three days' space to get ready, provided that I may obtain from the king the skill of a freshly ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least the good report of the house,—and he had never thought to arrange it. He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to him,—in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... one another without the intervention of stops give a lively impression of one who through distress of mind at once halts and hurries in his speech. And this is what Homer has expressed ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... at bay Ye may kneel down and pray For a year and a day To be spared the distress of dispatching him, But the longer ye kneel The more squeamish ye'll feel 'Cause the louder he'll squeal, And at brotherly talk there's no matching him. Discussion's his aim, And as sure as you're game ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the same committee, Mr. Francis P. Garvan, who explains how, by refusing or neglecting to ship salvarsan, Germany wanted the United States "to starve to death" for lack of it, and he continues: "Think what an extension of disease and that an intensification of suffering and distress Germany was willing to impose upon her best market in order to ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... and therefore a mixed and imperfect being. But if you desire the assurance, I can answer you, and say that I am but a man, and therefore notwithstanding my philosophy subject to infirmity and to assaults from the body, which undoubtedly occasion me some distress. But these seasons are momentary. I can truly affirm, that although there have been and still are conflicts, the soul is ever conqueror, and that too by very great odds. My doubts and fears are mere flitting shadows; my hope, a strong and unchanging beam of light. The body sometimes ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... may be situated—her relations with my father must have been very miserable. I cannot tell who was most to blame—but if she were in distress, and I could help her, I am not forbidden to do that, though Mr. MacFarlane strongly advises me to make ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... policeman, but a gentleman, and that the person who would examine her was a count. Claudia replied rather haughtily, that she was an English lady, and had never been examined by any one. At last we arrived, and proceeded to the apartment of the count; but what was my distress when I was informed that Claudia was to be examined alone! Claudia declared that she was a British subject, and that such a proceeding was an insult. I was almost in hysterics, and with tears entreated to be permitted to accompany my ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... Centralization tends to carry to London all the wealth and all the expenditure of the kingdom, and thus to destroy everywhere the local demand for books or newspapers, or for men capable of producing either. Centralization taxes the poor people of the north of Scotland, and their complaints of distress are answered by an order for their expulsion, that place may be made for sheep and shepherds, neither of whom make much demand for books. Centralization appropriates millions for the improvement of London and ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... and the judge and jury cut them, Mr. Titmouse turns up possessor of Yatton and ten thousand a-year; while Aubrey, quite at the bottom of the pack, is in a state of destitution. To show the depth of distress into which he has fallen, a happy expedient is hit upon: he is described as turning his attention and attainments to literature; and that the unfathomable straits he is put to may be fully understood, he is made a reviewer! Thus the highest degree of sympathy is excited ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... encouragingly. "Nothing remarkable in all this so far—quite an everyday matter, I assure you! Nothing for you to distress yourself about, either—all that ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... thought he was oversensitive, inclined to suspect his neighbors of avoiding him. But one evening Alves came into their room, where he was working at the anatomy plates, her face flushed with an unusual distress. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... all this is over the better. As long as poor Jacob's body remains in the cottage there will be nothing but distress ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... who commanded the detachment, was a man of feeling; he had particularly noticed the poor woman's distress. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... great that the person cuts himself, calls for his mother's breast as if he were returned in idea to his childhood again, or flies from human habitations a raging maniac. The effects on the lion are equally terrible. He is heard moaning in distress, and becomes furious, biting the trees ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the visitor, told a sad story of a working-man, who, in consequence of an accident, had been unable to earn a penny for several weeks. His wife was also in bad health, and she and her seven young children were in great distress. Mrs. Taylor was trying to collect some money to relieve the poor woman till her husband was again able to work, and she asked Mrs. Braham for a subscription. To Teddy's surprise, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... that it is not worth while settling, and as long as they can put on a bit of finery, display themselves out of doors with something of a meteor flash, a semblance of style and appearance of luxury, honour is saved! Encampment does not in any way distress this migratory tribe. Through the half-opened doors, their poverty is betrayed by the four bare walls of an unfurnished chamber, or the litter of an overcrowded room. It is bohemianism in the domestic circle, a life full of improvidence ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... to have forsaken Greene in his last distress, became the defender of his character after his death, and answered this vituperation by still coarser abuse and invective, saying, "Had hee lived, Gabriel, and thou shouldest vnartifically and odiously libel against ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... me a last act of obedience, by acknowledging the great king beyond the waters to be your lord also, and that you will pay him tribute as you have hitherto done to me.' As he spoke the tears fell fast down his cheeks, and his nobles were deeply affected by the sight of his distress. Many of them, coming from a distance, and not having realised what was taking place in the capital, were filled with astonishment on beholding the voluntary abasement of their master, whom they had reverenced as the all-powerful lord of the whole country. His will, they told him, was their ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... lead. His mother had never been very strong, and had had a good deal of anxiety; at last she was taken ill, and soon felt that there was no hope for her recovery. For a long time the thought of leaving her little boy was a great distress to her, and a great trial to her faith. But God strengthened her, and sent his peace into her soul, and before her death she was content to leave her precious child in his hands, who is a Father to the fatherless, and defendeth the cause ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... you that it was he who summoned me to help you in distress, of which I had not heard upon Vraidex, but why should I tell you any more, Dom Manuel? Come, is it not enough that am offering you a province and comparatively tranquil terms of living with your wife, that you must have all my old ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... I must, I must," murmured Frank, with mock distress. "I will see you later, Miss Blossom, and we will do our best to induce that left foot to make ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... were very sweet and grateful. She tried to smile, but there was such distress under the effort that Marco was afraid she must have ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wounded men, the party commenced their march and in four days reached Gaunt's camp where they rested until the wounded men had nearly recovered. This simple fact shows the careful and sympathizing care which the mountaineers of the west ever exhibit towards each other in distress. It speaks more than would volumes of mere praise, concerning their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... where the path dropped away into a dark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either side, I heard the fawn answering her, below me among the big trees, and knew instantly that something had happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry of distress, in the black darkness of the spruces. The mother ran around him in a great circle, calling him to come; while he lay helpless in the same spot, telling her he could not, and that she must come to him. So the cries ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... in terrible distress, Beric," she said. "I have told you about the severe persecution that has set in of the Christians. A terrible thing has happened. You know that our old nurse belonged to that sect. She often talked to me about it, but it did not seem to me that what she said could ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... afterwards told a friend, Seward raised a point which had never struck him before. He said that, if issued at that time of depression, just after the failure in the Peninsula, the Proclamation would seem like "a cry of distress"; and that it would have a much better effect if it were issued after some ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... cannot resist that appeal!" So she rose from the stone and went with them. As they walked he told her that his only son, a little boy, lay very sick, feverish, and sleepless. She stooped and gathered some poppies. As they entered the cottage, they found all in great distress, for the boy seemed past hope of recovery. Metanira, his mother, received her kindly, and the goddess stooped and kissed the lips of the sick child. Instantly the paleness left his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The whole ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... dollars. Every nerve was strained, and the sally succeeded beyond all hope. The enemy was completely taken by surprise and fled in all directions, leaving more than half their men dead and wounded on the field. Mesket was saved, and, delivered out of her deep distress, the brave woman knelt down on the battlefield and thanked God in ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... life. Long ago I made our dear doctor tell me just what would be the signs that preceded the probable culmination of my disease. He knew I would be happier so, for I had some things I wished to accomplish before I went away. I did not tell you, dear son, because I knew it could but distress you and turn your thoughts away from the work to which you belong. I knew when you came home to me for that dear last visit that I had only a little while longer left here, and I need not tell you what those ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... of prudence have charms, And slighted, may lead to distress; But the man whom benevolence warms Is an angel who ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... against you; alone and desolate you stood exposed to every element without and a prey to every want within. The sea in its wild fury roared around you. No living being heard your cries; no heart beat in sympathy with yours. Now, suppose in your distress a good spirit of the island should speak to you, out of a cell or cloud, and ask your wants; and should lead you into a beautiful temple, and tell you it was yours; should feed and clothe you; should surround you with beauty and comfort, furnish you with friends, and make every thing delightful ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... me a little of l'Abuglo—a few verses of "Francouneto;"—"You will be charmed," said he; "but if I were well, and you would give me the pleasure of your company for some time; if you were not merely running through Agen, I would kill you with weeping—I would make you die with distress for my poor ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... lead me that I may Thy sovereign will obey. Make pure my heart to seek Thy truth divine; When burns my wound, be Thou with healing near! Answer me, Lord! for sore distress is mine, And say unto Thy servant, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... "Don't distress yourself, dear Miss Carmichael, please don't," said Gazen tenderly. "Now that we have time to think, perhaps we shall hit ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... deliverance in time of danger. At the end of every message they gave came these words: "Pray for the Christians there. Because of the war, there is no way of getting news from them, and we have heard nothing since we left. Pray that they may be kept true, and that in spite of war and distress, the churches may grow and expand, and that many more souls may ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... a mistake, lady," said Kolbiorn; "I am not King Olaf, but only his servant. Yonder is the king at work among his shipwrights. But if you would speak with him I will take you to him, for I see that you are in distress." ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... knew by report. Ethelberta kept her eye upon Lord Mountclere. Soon, to her amazement, there was that in his face which told her that he knew the story and its heroine quite well. When she delivered the sentence ending with the professedly fictitious words: 'I thus was reduced to great distress, and vainly cast about me for directions what to do,' Lord Mountclere's manner became so excited and anxious that it acted reciprocally upon Ethelberta; her voice trembled, she moved her lips but uttered nothing. To bring the story up to the date of that very evening ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Alarm — N. alarm; alarum, larum^, alarm bell, tocsin, alerts, beat of drum, sound of trumpet, note of alarm, hue and cry, fire cross, signal of distress; blue lights; war-cry, war- whoop; warning &c 668; fogsignal, foghorn; yellow flag; danger signal; red light, red flag; fire bell; police whistle. false alarm, cry of wolf; bug-bear, bugaboo. V. give the alarm, raise the alarm, sound the alarm, turn in the alarm, beat the alarm, give ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... display. Her hands dropped to her side. There was even a visible effort in the manner in which she strove for self-mastery. Her smooth brow puckered in an intense frown, and, to Bud, it almost seemed that she was literally clenching her teeth to hold back the passionate distress which ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum |
