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Painful   /pˈeɪnfəl/   Listen
Painful

adjective
1.
Causing physical or psychological pain.
2.
Causing misery or pain or distress.  Synonyms: afflictive, sore.  "The painful process of growing up"
3.
Exceptionally bad or displeasing.  Synonyms: abominable, atrocious, awful, dreadful, terrible, unspeakable.  "Abominable workmanship" , "An awful voice" , "Dreadful manners" , "A painful performance" , "Terrible handwriting" , "An unspeakable odor came sweeping into the room"
4.
Causing physical discomfort.  Synonym: irritating.



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"Painful" Quotes from Famous Books



... course, supposing that Ronald Morton was still with him, she felt sure that he would likewise be engaged, and would be foremost wherever danger was to be encountered. Never had she passed a time of suspense so painful. It was shared, however, in a great degree, by her mother ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... "it is the toothache. It is very painful, while it lasts, but I have something that will stop it. Just shut your mouth and make yourself as comfortable as you can, and I ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... two months after this painful close of her matrimonial life that one rainy February morning the servant brought a card to Mrs. Roger Catron, bearing the ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... perished, or was preserved only in one or two public libraries for the gratification of a few harmless dreamers that were tolerated in their laborious idleness. This pleasant little picture, drawn by M. L. S. Mercier, of the state of things five centuries hence, is in strong contrast to the painful plethora of books of the present day. Dr. Ingleby, the famous Shakespearian scholar, is credited with the idea of establishing a society for the purpose of procuring books which no one else would buy; ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... the ladies and gentlemen of the court to spend the evening in my room," she said, on the second day of this painful expectation; "we will endeavor to imagine that the prince royal is in our midst, and pass the hours in the usual manner; we will first go yachting; afterwards we will all take tea together, and Baron Bielfeld will read us a few chapters from the 'Henriade.' We will then play cards, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... of service, and so on. What arrested my researches was the maiden name of the wife, which, in accordance with the northern custom, had been entered as a part of her legal description. The name awoke in me a recollection of a painful incident within my experience. I saw before me the puffed, degraded face of one to whom I had given chance after chance of redeeming himself from thraldom to the whisky bottle, one who had promised again and again to amend his ways. At last, wearied, I had cast ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income, but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... page of real eloquence on this imposing spectacle: "What a solemn mystery surrounds human life! What a painful surprise it would have been, if beyond this scene of power and greatness, one could have seen the ruin, the blood, the flames of Moscow, the ice of the Beresina and Leipsic, Fontainebleau, Elba, Saint Helena, and finally the death of this prince at the age of twenty, in exile, without one ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... wild, lovely creature of the plains become one of the most sought-after girls of Chicago's North Shore set, and return to the painful prose of the Bar T ranch ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... happens, that in things difficult there is danger from ignorance, and in things easy, from confidence; the mind, afraid of greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... Dysmenorrhea is painful menstruation. The most frequent forms are due to uterine congestion; to mechanical causes, as a narrowing of the cervical canal, particularly at its internal opening, or to a constriction caused by the bending over of the uterus at the ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... head in his hands, and remained for a few moments in what appeared to be deep and painful thought. When he lifted his face it was haggard, lined, cold ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... spring upon me, but on no account to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient. My men as yet had been steady, but they were in a precious stew, their faces having assumed a ghastly paleness; and I had a painful feeling that I could place no reliance on them. Now, then, for it, neck or nothing! She is within sixty yards of us, and she keeps advancing. We turned the horses' tails to her. I knelt on one side, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... such as I am, feel a dash of a barber's razor more than ten blows with a sword in the heat of fight. The painful throes of childbearing, deemed by physicians and the word of God to be very great, some nations make no account of. I omit to speak of the Lacedaemonian women; come we to the Switzers of our infantry. Trudging and ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... The idea of any one being called upon to pay for what one ate and drank at a friend's house, was peculiarly painful to Mr. Emilius. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... fully aware, how much it must have cost him, to overturn the throne of his daughter, and of his grandson; and condemn them to lead a painful life on the face of the earth, without father, without husband, without a country. Though a Frenchman, I do justice to the strength of mind, that the Emperor has shown on this memorable occasion: but if the part he ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... Kaiser, as the title for the new monarch, had behind it a deep, almost religious purpose, in conformity with the sense of nationality and brotherhood to which through long and painful development the German states had at last attained. Bismarck calls the return of the title "a political necessity, ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... Alfonso was full of painful vicissitudes. He was driven from his throne by factious nobles and a rebellious son, and died in exile, leaving behind him the reputation of being the wisest fool in Christendom. Mariana says of him: "He was more ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... presence of mind on such an occasion, but learn fairly to swim, as I wish all men were taught do in their youth; they would on many occasions, be the safer for having that skill; and on many more, the happier, as free from painful apprehensions of danger, to say nothing of the enjoyment in so delightful and wholesome an exercise. Soldiers particularly should, methinks, all be taught to swim; it might be of frequent use, either in surprising ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... and his party crossed the Tyne; and hearing that the earl, now recovered from his illness, was marching down with his army to join his son, they rode to meet him. It was a painful duty that Oswald had to discharge, and the old earl, when he heard of the defeat of the army, the death of the son to whom he was deeply attached, and the capture of his brother, the Earl of Westmoreland, gave way to despair, dismissed his army to their homes at once, and ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... to painful keenness, Ellen sought in Alice's face for the tokens of what she wished and what she feared. It had once or twice lately flitted through her mind that Alice was very thin, and seemed to want her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... together in that room where, in years gone by, Governor Aiken had entertained his northern guests, with Englishmen of noble blood, a room full of reminiscences both pleasant and painful, — my kind host freely told me the story of his busy life, which sounded like a tale of romance. He had tried to stay the wild storm of secession when the war-cloud hung gloomily over his state. It broke, and his unheeded warnings were drowned in the thunders of the political ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... no less paradoxical in regard to his genial reputation. He was certainly the last man to have been the patron saint of young blood, and if he has any cognisance of the frivolities done in his name, the knowledge must be more painful to him than all the clubs of Claudius. Unhappy saint! To have his good name murdered also! To be, through all time, the high-priest of that very 'paganism' which he died to repudiate: the one most potent survival throughout Christian ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... of the tribe would be upset. He was of no use as a hunter, for he had not the hawk-like sight of an Indian or the Indian instinct for following a trail. He could dig out the wild roots they ate, which grew among canes and under water, but this was laborious and painful work, which made his hands bleed. With tools, or even metal with which to make them, he might have made himself the most useful member of the tribe, but as it was, he was even poorer than the wretched people among whom he lived, ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... Sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection of the scene a year ago. She added doubtfully, "Didn't you think their dresses pretty, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... unable, as be had done before, to stand forth the champion of his brother's honor, where all (with a very few exceptions, among whom he had the consolation to find the General) were united in opinion against him, his situation was most painful. Not that he entertained the remotest doubt of his brother bearing himself harmlessly through the ordeal, but that his generous, yet haughty spirit, could ill endure the thought of any human being daring to cherish, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... force, and led 'therefore to destroy, if there is any resistance, both life 'and property to a greater extent than would otherwise 'be necessary.' The prospects of immediate reinforcements from India diminished his fears on this score, and sent him forward with a better hope of bringing the painful situation to a speedy and ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... man brought up by a Christian father and mother to point the door to a long-lost brother is painful, Will. It wounds me deeply. I tell you right now that I'm not going away from here until I get good and ready. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... Rube and of defiance to their antagonists. Clancy stole off first base so far that the Rube, catching somebody's warning too late, made a balk and the umpire sent the runner on to second. The Rube now plainly showed painful evidences ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... he murmured, and then suddenly, as though with painful inspiration: "Say, Slimmy—say, are youse sure youse ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... in a low, but vibrant and penetrating voice, which many years before had helped to make his fame as an orator, "it is my painful duty to inform this honourable House that a state of war exists between His Majesty and a Confederation of European countries, including Germany, Russia, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... his toothless mouth formed itself into a dark oval, his eyes distended with painful expectancy, and he assumed the shrinking attitude of the very small boy who expects the fall of the cane. The situation was absurd, but no one smiled. Ham raised the extended hand a little with the end of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... typography than of readers; and the reading world, from very brevity of life, must rush, at a Bedouin pace, over the illimitable plains of newspaper publication, while the pyramids of dusty folio are left to stand in solitary proud neglect. The cursory railroad spirit is abroad: we abhor that old painful ploughing through axle-deep ruts: the friend who will skate with us, is welcomer than he who holds us freezing by the button; and the teacher, who suggestively bounds in his balloon on the tops of a chain of arguments, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... touch upon Italian tragic story, I have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the movement of his genius. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the Ten Mile Range. Indeed, my little cane was of so much service to me that I came to look upon it as a personal friend that cared almost as much for me as I did for it. It pushed aside thorny bushes and nettlesome weeds when I was looking for nests, thus saving my hands many a painful wound. And more than one serpent, including the rattlesnake, has had his head crushed or his spine broken by sturdy blows from my little wild-cherry cane. I should add that it had a hooked handle, so that I could hang ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... importance. But Devonshire and Portland declared themselves content; their authority prevailed; and the alteration was made. How a rightful and lawful possessor is to be distinguished from a possessor who has the exclusive right by law is a question which a Whig may, without any painful sense of shame, acknowledge to be beyond the reach of his faculties, and leave to be discussed by High Churchmen. Eighty-three peers immediately affixed their names to the amended form of association; and Rochester was among them. Nottingham, not yet quite satisfied, asked ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... loving pair, all, all are frustrated! The great lesson of life imbues the elaborate production; the thinking reader, led by its sublimity to a train of deep reflection, sees at once the uncertainty of earthly projects, and sighing owns the wholesome, though still painful truth, that the brightest sun is ever the first cause of the darkest shadow; and from childhood upwards, the blissful visions of our gayest fancy—forced by the cry of stern reality—call back the mental wanderer from imaginary bliss, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various

... stately mansion where he must dwell alone to the end. He selected their bedrooms, and hovered over them—not through infantile disorders, which were beyond even his imagination,—but through those painful intervals incident upon the enterprising spirit of the boy and the devoted obedience of the girl to fraternal command. He ignored the second Lord Teignmouth; he was himself their father, and he admired ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... and the glad response was heard: "No more long pilgrimages to make; no more painful journeys to holy shrines. I may come to Jesus just as I am, sinful and unholy, and He will not spurn the penitential prayer. 'Thy sins be forgiven thee.' Mine, even mine, may ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... pulled him so violently from the crane that the thong broke. Then with the blade of her dagger she cut the cords which bound him. When the miser was free and on his feet, the first expression of his face was a painful ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... the true food-current is not difficult if one will adopt it The trouble is in making the bold plunge. If anything is eaten that is afterwards deemed to have been imprudent, let it disagree. Take the full consequences and bear them like a man, with whatever remedies are found to lighten the painful result. Having made sure through bitter experience that a particular food disagrees, simply do not take it again, and think nothing about it. It does not exist for you. A nervous resistance to any sort of indigestion prolongs the attack and leaves, a brain-impression ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... action, is, according to this view, very easy. If we confine ourselves to the passage before us, the following [Pg 428] arguments are in favour of our view. 1. The predicates [Hebrew: will] and [Hebrew: ervM] cannot be explained upon the supposition that the prophet describes only his own painful feelings on account of the condition of his people. Even if [Hebrew: ervM] stood alone, the explanation by "naked," in the sense of "deprived of the usual and decent dress, and, on the contrary, clothed in dirt and rags," would be destitute of all ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... our eyes to all doubts of their loyalty! But I am resolved to see and judge of the people for myself. My path will often be beset with thorns, but Fate has not made me a monarch for my own good; I am an emperor for the good of others. That child has revealed some painful truths to me; it would seem as if I were fated ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... of husband whose wife betakes herself early to the feet of God. From him to them had been a short though painful step. It seemed short to her in retrospect, but I had really taken the whole of the first year of their marriage, and every inch of the way had been a struggle, and every inch of it was stained, she felt at the time, with her heart's blood. All that was over now. She had long since ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... a brilliant period known now as the Renaissance—a French word meaning re-birth—which marks the beginning of modern history. It followed a long, painful period known to us as the Dark Ages, or Middle Ages, namely, the period between ancient and modern times. In the Middle Ages humanity was very ignorant, hampered by all sorts of evil superstitions; while the daily life of the people was miserable and without comforts, lacking many ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... shoulders than our own, you will understand my position. We were about the most domestic old couple that ever lived, and when we see the long and varied assortment of crimes that are cropping out everywhere in our descendants it is painful to us to realize what a pair of unconsciously wicked old fogies we must ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... on their parts. Thus, a mongrel semblance to a cooker spaniel of a dog was tried out for several days as a pony-rider who would leap through paper hoops from the pony's back, and return upon the back again. After several falls and painful injuries, it was rejected for the feat and tried out as a plate-balancer. Failing in this, it was made into a see-saw dog who, for the rest of the turn, filled into the background of ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... motion with an almost wolfish glare, that told eloquently of the prolonged sufferings they had endured. Even poor Ailie's gentle face now wore a sharp, anxious expression when food was being served out, and she accepted her small portion with a nervous haste that was deeply painful and touching to witness. She little knew, poor child, that that portion of bread and meat and water, small though it was, was larger than that issued to the men, being increased by a small quantity deducted from ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... far up the Missaguash, so giving Fort Lawrence a wide berth. Once beyond the fort he turned south, skirting the further edge of what had been peaceful Beaubassin. At this point he led his party into the woods, and for perhaps half an hour the journey was most painful and exhausting. Pierre was running against trees and stumbling over branches, and at the same time, in spite of his discomfort and the novelty of the situation, growing more and more sleepy. The journey began to seem to him like a ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... preliminary experiences in that direction having been rather disagreeable as to the physical side. Even now, forty-eight hours after the initial lesson, I am still much bruised about the limbs and elsewhere and, because of a certain corporeal stiffness due to repeated jarrings, I walk with painful difficulty. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... amputating the head, the brain be crushed in its place by a sudden blow of a hammer, the heart ceases its motion at once. And such seemed to be the principle illustrated here. But why the agonized dancing on the sward of the inferior part of the reptile?—why its after painful writhing and wriggling? The young eel scooped from the stream, whose motions it resembled, is impressed by terror, and can feel pain; was it also impressed by terror, or susceptible of suffering? We see in the case of both exactly the same signs,—the dancing, the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... embittered the latter years of his life. But although King William was sometimes weak, sometimes obstinate, and miserably deficient in penetration and judgement, he was manly, sincere, honest, and straightforward. The most painful moment of his life, and the greatest humiliation to which a king ever submitted, must have been when he again received the Whig Ministers in 1835; but it is to the credit of Lord Melbourne, as well as of the King, that their subsequent personal intercourse was not disagreeable to either, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... letter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I must resign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years the partner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion.' With her habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, but goes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come and cheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow with grown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness and ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... safety she had even volunteered to dust her own mantelpiece, and now, alas! she must leave them to the tender mercies of Mary and her assistants! It was a painful reflection, and after a moment's consideration she determined not to risk it, but to store the darlings away in some safe hiding-place ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... domestic losses were but too vividly called to mind with the remembrance of former days of enjoyment, the very grandeur of the scenery around many of the chosen places, and the unchanging features of the "everlasting hills," brought back forcibly sad memories, and these parties became in time so painful that it was with difficulty he could be prevailed upon to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... of joy so keen it was painful to hear, and then she laughed and cried and sank into a chair laughing and crying in strong hysterics, that lasted till the poor girl almost fainted from exhaustion. Her joy was more violent and even terrible than her grief ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... bites or nippings in several parts of our body, and looking round to discover whence arose this unexpected attack, found ourselves under a tree covered with large green ants. Their bites were exceedingly painful, and it was only by beating and tearing off our clothes that we could rid ourselves of these unwelcome visitors. From a distance our appearance must have been sufficiently amusing. One moment soberly intent upon our duties, and the next jumping like madmen, and hastily stripping ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... of Aruna's problem that was linked with matters too intimately painful for discussion with a ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... coals. Entering the range by a small ravine, three hours' scramble over sharp rocks brought us out on the head of a small tributary to the Nickol River, the sufferings of the horses in crossing the range being quite painful to witness; they all, however, succeeded in getting through, and as a little water was found in the bed of the stream, we were enabled to push on late, and cross the marsh at the head of the bay before it was quite ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... Clara hesitatingly, but she followed Heidi's advice and ventured one firm step on the ground and then another; she called out a little as she did it; then she lifted her foot again and went on, "Oh, that was less painful already," she exclaimed joyfully. ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... walked on in silence, her lips set with curious firmness. Booth looked at her and indulged in a queer little smile, to which she responded with a painful flush. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... pushing the wheel slowly, I headed for the most remote ranch in the region, that lay at the foot of Long's Peak. Progress was slow and painful for my body was stiff and sore; the road I followed wound upward, climbing steadily to higher altitude. Frequently I halted to rest, and spent my time of respite searching the mountains with eager, appraising eyes, planning explorations among them. Toward noon I came to the ranch I ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... you soon at the shop? Soon arrange that little matter of business, eh? You understand? Good-by! good-by!" and shaking Titmouse cordially by the hand, Tag-rag took his departure. As he hurried on to his shop, he felt in a most painful perplexity about this loan of five pounds. It was truly like squeezing five drops of blood out of his heart. But what was to be done? Could he offend Titmouse? Where was he to stop, if he once began? Dare he ask ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... off at a trot; and the wounded soldier made sure that now his last friend had deserted him. The night grew dark, the cold was intense, and he had not even the strength to touch his wounds, which every instant grew more and more painful. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... her sketch, Grace looked up. The self-consciousness that had scarcely left her, save these past few moments, now returned with painful suddenness. Her eyes met his, and a vivid flush overspread her face, but she ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... the master walked the deck as if he was stupefied with the impending crisis. No wonder, poor fellow; with a wife and family depending upon him for support, it is not to be expected that a man can look upon immediate dissolution without painful feelings. A sailor should never marry: or if he does, for the benefit of the service, his marriage should prove an unhappy one, and then he would become more reckless than before. As for my own thoughts, they may be given in a few words—they were upon the vanity ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... the suppression of heresy. But more had been done. A regular papal inquisition also existed in the Netherlands. This establishment, like the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth. A word of introduction is here again necessary—nor let the reader deem that too much time is devoted to this painful subject. On the contrary, no definite idea can be formed as to the character of the Netherland revolt without a thorough understanding of this great cause—the religious persecution in which the country had lived, breathed, and had its being, for half a century, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... men did not oblige Ladywell a second time with any attempt at appreciation; but a weird silence ensued, during which the smile upon Ladywell's face became frozen to painful permanence. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... had listened quietly, while her mistress poured forth these reminiscences in rapid words. When the long waiting for the English fleet was mentioned, a kind of shudder passed over her, as if her recollection of that time were painful and distinct enough; but otherwise she stood motionless until the concluding question. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... that time forth, caused Congo and Swartboy to make their journey on foot. With this, Congo seemed quite satisfied. The loss of his "mount" did not trouble him so much as the fear that he should lose Spoor'em, his favourite hound, whose sufferings, as well as those of the other dogs, were now painful to witness. ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... whom this public recognition had been extremely painful, was only too glad to join his companion on a form beneath a tree, where the two genuine Manillas were lit, and for a quarter of an hour the youths smoked on complacently, when just as the exultation of the public singing ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... Maudslay, "I must frankly confess to you that my experience of pupil apprentices has been so unsatisfactory that my partner and myself have determined to discontinue to receive them—no matter at what premium. This was a very painful blow to myself; for it seemed to put an end ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... have come back, out of fear for their cub's safety. Come, we will set it free!" And with these words they untied the string round the cub's neck, and turned its head toward the spot where the old foxes sat; and as the wounded foot was no longer painful, with one bound it dashed to its parents' side and licked them all over for joy, while they seemed to bow their thanks, looking toward the two friends. So, with peace in their hearts, the latter went off to another place, and, choosing a pretty spot, produced the wine bottle and ate their noon-day ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... selectmen followed by the deacons of the church. When they came into view I knew the bell had rung on Sabrina, the souse. They all came in looking like the first act of a funeral, and Homer Jenkins, the head deaconorine, looked real solemn, and said, 'We regret to inform you that we have found it our painful duty to dismiss your daughter from the church.' I spoke up real gay like and said, 'Go as far as you like, I ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... Gideon broke the painful silence: "Whoa! Whoa! Jake, pull the horses up." Jake obeyed. All turned towards Gideon. "No man could keep ahead of the team the rate we have been going. He couldn't keep ahead of us even if he had run, let alone walked. If ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... from his temporary delirium to sink under the most painful reflections. Having become calm, he could view far too clearly the horror of his situation. The notary must be pitiless, since he had gone to such extremity; the bailiffs did but do their duty. The artisan ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... are obstinate. We see one pathway we long to tread even though it is beset with stones and briers. We are determined to take that way, even if we never climb high enough to penetrate the low-lying mists which darken it. We would rather pursue even a little way the painful pathway which leads to the glorious mountain-top than to follow an easier path to some lower summit. If we truly feel that, we do well to take the path, for we have a right to forget ourselves for the sake of our aim. But if we ask for success after all, it is mere ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... interpreter. It learns to see through the hollowness of promises and threats before it knows the words in which they are framed. With the knowledge of words comes the knowledge of their use as means of concealing the truth and gaining its little ends. Then the painful experience of discipline and punishment reveals the same motherly figure in the new light of a protector and comforter, and it learns to contrast her with the stern persons whom she has taught it to call pa-pa ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... the rooms at Montaueto I studiously avoided. The forlorn cavern of a parlor, or ballroom, I remember to have seen only once. There was a painful vacuum where good spirits ought to have been. Along the walls were fixed seats, like those in the apse of some morally fallen cathedral, and they were covered with blue threadbare magnificence that told the secrets of vanity. Heavy tables crowded down the ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... "That's the painful thing about pets," said Mr. Dalloway; "they die. The first sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse. I regret to say that I sat upon it. Still, that didn't make one any the less sorry. Here lies the duck that Samuel Johnson ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... love them, were it only on account of the perpetual miracles wrought by true love in the sublime regions of the spiritual world. The woman who loves is, in relation to the man she loves, in the position of a somnambulist to whom the magnetizer should give the painful power, when she ceases to be the mirror of the world, of being conscious as a woman of what she has seen as a somnambulist. Passion raises the nervous tension of a woman to the ecstatic pitch at which presentiment is as acute as the insight of a clairvoyant. A wife knows she is betrayed; she ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... is not in my power to open out a painful subject in the flowery language of fiction, romance, and imagery, in musical sounds of the highest pitch of refinement, culture, and sentiment, I purpose following out very briefly the same course on the present occasion as I adopted on the three ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... the firewood, and keeping the highway cows out of her cabbage-patch, after her husband died, by darning his socks, filling up a bowl with corn-mush, at the period when it was a feast to have "cheese, bologna, and crackers," in the garret where he pored over law-books. Her news was painful. The baby, whose cradle Lincoln had rocked, was a man now, and was in what the vernacular phrased "pretty considerable of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... honest money—that which will give the creditor an equivalent in commodities for what he could have bought with the money he loaned. Surely no honest man will pretend that gold to-day does that. At this point we must admit the painful truth that, in that sense, there is no perfectly honest money, that is, no money that does not change somewhat in purchasing power; and how to remedy this has been the great problem with the greatest minds among financiers—with ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter

... time and wind-sown with a tender flora of its own, down to the full domes and slender towers of Florence and over to the blue sweep of the wide- mouthed cup of mountains into whose hollow the little treasure city has been dropped. I had proposed, as a diversion from the painful memories evoked by Mrs. Coventry's name, that Theobald should go with me the next evening to the opera, where some rarely-played work was to be given. He declined, as I half expected, for I observed that he regularly kept his ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... across the tide. The ford had been left unguarded, and the whole soon reached the opposite bank in safety. But even there the horse which William rode sank in a bog, and he was forced to alight until the horse was got out. He was helped to remount, for the wound in his shoulder was very painful. So soon as the troops were got into sufficient order, William drew his sword, though his wound made it uneasy for him to wield it. He then ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... important to note, however, that there was not much fluid capital at their disposal. In addition to this, cheaper rice and other foodstuffs were streaming from abroad into China, bringing the prices for Chinese foodstuffs down to the world market prices, another painful business blow to the gentry. Silk had to meet the competition of Japanese silk and especially of rayon; the Chinese silk was of very unequal quality and sold with difficulty. On the other hand, through the influence of the Western capitalistic system, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... of this famous woman was a dangerous experiment, the Pope having secretly placed Urbino on the list of proscribed cities included in the Church fiefs. Caesar already looked upon it as his property. The thought of meeting this Borgia in Rome must have been exceedingly painful to her. How easily might he have found a pretext for keeping her prisoner! Her brother, Francesco Gonzaga, warned her against her decision, but on her way to Rome she wrote him a letter so remarkable and so amiable that we quote it ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... bitter must have largely outweighed the sweet. He grudged no trouble to himself, he spared none to others; he called the servants in the morning, he served out the stores with his own hand, he took soundings of the sherry, he numbered the remainder biscuits; painful scenes took place over the weekly bills, and the cook was frequently impeached, and the tradespeople came and hectored with him in the back parlour upon a question of three farthings. The superficial might have deemed him a miser; in his own eyes he was simply a ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... a scene which reminded him of the soft beauties of his own country. With some men, to remember is to be sad; and unfortunately for Vivian Grey, there were few objects which with him did not give rise to associations of a painful nature. The strange occurrences of the last few days had recalled, if not revived, the feelings of his boyhood. His early career flitted across his mind. He would have stifled the remembrance with a sigh, but man Is the slave of Memory. For a moment he mused over Power; but ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... starting point of the marvellous underground journey imagined in this volume, is invested at the present time with. a painful interest in consequence of the disastrous eruptions last Easter Day, which covered with lava and ashes the poor and scanty vegetation upon which four thousand persons were partly dependent for the means of subsistence. For a long time to come the natives of that interesting island, who ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... acute feelings and painful timidity,' said Helen, 'it is worse for her than it would be for anyone else, yet how gently and simply she bears it all! and old Mrs. Hazleby says that she is often ill after these scoldings, and she would have taken her away to live with her, ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... view of this fact, it is our painful duty to point out some of the real causes of this movement. It is, however, quite impossible to enumerate all or any considerable part of the causes of discontent and utter despair which have finally culminated ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... perfunctorily, a woman of her age and gait being rather out of place in that feverish altercation of opposed principles. But it was more than a stout old lady, it was more than Mrs. Povey. that waddled with such painful deliberation through the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... visible to others, but the Archduke himself could not but sometimes entertain a painful consciousness that he was not altogether fit to maintain and assert the high rank which he had acquired; and to this was joined the strong, and sometimes the just, suspicion that others ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... comforts of domestic life was often a struggle with untoward surroundings, it may seem to show a desire to load the past times with more than their share of trials and misfortunes, to suggest that the most painful of all experiences of the times was reserved for the end of life; that the ordeal of the separation from friends by death was embittered, and intensified, beyond anything in more modern experience, yet it is certain that the revolting business of the "body-snatcher" did, for some years, between ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... poem is the musical expression of mental emotions by language. The essence of musical feeling consists in this, that we endeavour with complacency to dwell on, and even to perpetuate in our souls, a joyful or painful emotion. The feeling must consequently be already so far mitigated as not to impel us by the desire of its pleasure or the dread of its pain, to tear ourselves from it, but such as to allow us, unconcerned at the fluctuations of feeling which time produces, to dwell upon and be absorbed ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... feeling of jealously that would arise from the presence of two leaders, showed plainly throughout in petty and undignified squabbles, which, in after days, led to paper warfare between the two explorers. It is painful, if amusing, to read of the disagreement as to their course in very sight of the lately discovered Australian Alps, and how, on agreeing to separate and divide the outfit, it was proposed to cut the tent in half, and the only frying-pan ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... very small.[128] It is certain, however, that far greater sums, in proportion to population, are spent in England and Scotland than in Ireland. This is little to be wondered at if we consider the painful history of education in Ireland; but we cannot recall the past, and, as I urged in Chapter IX., one of the first duties of a free Ireland will be to improve the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... signalled, it drew near, and two men dragged the body in, as a shark darted forward, just too late, to seize it. The boat drew alongside the 'Fulvia'. I stood at the gangway to receive this castaway. I felt his wrist and heart. As I did so I chanced to glance up at the passengers, who were looking at this painful scene from the upper deck. There, leaning over the railing, stood Mrs. Falchion, her eyes fixed with a shocking wonder at the drooping, weird figure. Her lips parted, but at first they made no sound. Then, she suddenly drew herself up with a shudder. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... There was one painful circumstance in connection with those battles on the beach. Beth was such a tiny girl, they did not think it necessary to give her a bathing dress, and consequently she was marched into the water with nothing on; and the agony of shame she suffered is indescribable. But the worst of it was, the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... anxiety and work of his life at Frankfort, joined to irregular hours and careless habits, had told upon his constitution. He fell seriously ill in St. Petersburg with a gastric and rheumatic affection; an injury to the leg received while shooting in Sweden, became painful; the treatment adopted by the doctor, bleeding and iodine, seems to have made him worse. At the beginning of July, 1860, he returned on leave to Berlin; there he was laid up for ten days; his wife was ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... shrinking Penn! it was painful enough for him to meet even these coarser eyes, friendly though they were. The shock upon his system had been terrible; and now, his strength and resolution giving way, his bewildered senses began to reel, and he swooned ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... I am glad of this," said Val, "it would have been painful to me to have gone to extremities. Still there is the Ejectment to take place, as the leases have expired: but that, my good neighbor, will be merely a form. Of course you will be permitted to go in again as caretakers; but in the meantime we must get the furniture out, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... I had, Emily, and supposing there were any painful subject connected with this past event, you might have sufficient forbearance not to try to make me speak on what I do not wish to ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... with painful regret, that only an interposition of Providence could save him, for his life was hanging on a thread that might snap at any moment. It was an awful moment of suspense, as there, on his knees, far, far away from the land ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... at great length, sordid description by Grumkow, of that initiatory Hotham Dinner, April Third, with fearful details of the blazing favor Hotham is in. Which his Majesty (when Hotham hands it to him, in due time) will read with painful interest; as Reichenbach now does;—but which to us is all mere puddle, omissible in ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... You cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I am charitably disposed to believe" (here he became very pompous) "that they are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all out, every one; else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of cutting your claws, and pulling out your eye-teeth. Quiet! ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... Philip sat staring at the ground as if he were overwhelmed; and what hurt him so deeply was less the painful sense of having been cheated by such coarse cunning, than the annihilation of the treasured hopes which he had founded on the experiences of the past night. He felt as though a brutal foot had trampled down the promise of future joys on which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... are painful to read, as the reality is painful to witness. We will therefore shorten the tale of Mary Erskine's anxiety and distress, by saying, at once that Albert grew worse instead of better, every day for a fortnight, and ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... done nothing unworthy," said Phineas. "I wrote to you instantly when I had resolved,—though it was painful to me to have to tell such a secret to ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... painful speculations with the blithe announcement? What must he think of such utter lack of consideration? He was experiencing the most overwhelming shock of all his life now; he must shortly be exposed to all the whirl of scandal: the silenced gossip, the averted eyes of his world, the weeklies ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... the Goodness of God for me. And pray Him to give me grace that I may give my life for Him, and to take away, if so please Him, the burden of my body. For my life is of very little use to anyone else; rather is it painful and oppressive to every person, far and near, by reason of my sins. May God by His mercy take from me such great faults, and for the little time that I have to live, may He make me live impassioned by the love of virtue! And may I in pain offer before ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... fetters, and conveyed three miles to the Indian camp, where they lay all night exposed to a severe rain; next morning they were brought back to town still manacled, under the scorching beams of a sun intensely hot, and must infallibly have expired, had not nature expelled the fever in large painful boils, that covered almost the whole body. In this piteous condition they were embarked in an open boat for Muxadavad, the capital of Bengal, and underwent such cruel treatment and misery in their passage, as would shock ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... ashes, dust to dust." They glory in this method of disposing of their dead, and they think it far more natural and impressive than the common Hindu method of cremation. We must grant that all methods of disposing of the dead are painful. But faith in a resurrection of the body is surely most in consonance with our time-honored custom of laying our dead away in their kindred earth, "until the day dawns, and the shadows ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... that Fate had dealt very hardly with him. He was interested in the case of the boy Absalom, and he felt that the possibility of clearing it up was well within reach, and then he found himself face to face with an unpleasant and painful duty. ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... emphasis on the word and the Half Man with the Moon Face took his cue from it and threw a pose of almost painful sincerity. ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock

... your motives in the suggestion which you have made, are of opinion that it may be expedient to suspend, for a time, conferring a distinction on you which, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, might occasion a painful, though an unfounded, feeling ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... Elmore, perceiving the unwelcome and painful impression his account had produced on his young guest, now exerted himself to remove, or at least to lessen it; and turning the conversation into a classical channel, which with him was the Lethe to all cares, he soon forgot that Clarke had ever existed, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his face, which had in it a touch of sternness that recalled their painful interview three ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... to those gentlemen," said Lindlay, indicating Haight and Morgan, and with rather a painful ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... which he cannot bear to be confined; and though he may not intend to mount his nag, stiffens his cravat, whistles a sonata, to which his whip applied to the boot forms an accompaniment; while his spurs wage war with the flounces of a fashionably-dressed belle, or come occasionally in painful contact with the full-stretched stockings of a gouty old gentleman; by all which he fancies he is keeping" up the dignity and importance of his character. He does not slip the white kid glove from his hand without convincing the spectator ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... on one hand, to secure their dependence upon the people, on the other to give them that quiet in their minds, and that ease in their fortunes, as to enable them to perform the most arduous and most painful duty in the world with spirit, with efficiency, with independency, and with experience, as real public counsellors, not as the canvassers at a perpetual election. It is wise to compass as many good ends as possibly you can, and seeing there are inconveniences on both ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... I could. It would be so very painful to talk to her now—for her as much as for me. However, she's gone. Did she say she ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... have separated me from the Roselaers. Whole treasures have been thrown away on the lawsuits they have brought against me. Francis and I are both still suffering from such losses. Look here, if you bring any painful news for Francis, or any humiliating tidings for me—I know that even the validity of my Swiss marriage is contested—I beseech you, be generous, spare her as long as possible, for she is ignorant of this fact. Perhaps, old and broken though I be by trials, I can ward off the evil ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... In this painful parturition of French monarchy, one fact deserves to be remarked, and that is, the lasting respect attached, in the minds of the people, to the name and the reminiscences of the Carlovingian rule, notwithstanding ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the glare in the hungry eyes. The figure passes along the long bright space. The same scene in the forest beyond, but intensified. The distance between pursuer and pursued is lessening still. The leaps of the deer are weakening now, its quick panting is painful. And the thing behind is rushing along with its thirst for blood increased by its proximity. But the darkness in the forest is disappearing. In the east there is a faint ruddy tinge. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... yesterday, the servant sent to the study at half-past one to see why Mr. Pettigrew was not coming to lunch, found him lifeless on the floor. The knife clutched in his hand showed that he had done the fatal deed himself; and Dr. Southwick, of Hyde Park, who was on the spot within ten minutes of the painful discovery, is of opinion that life had been extinct for about half an hour. The body was lying among Jubilee odes. On the table were a dozen or more sheets of "copy," which, though only spoiled pages, showed ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... an arm-chair, with a face as white and miserable as if he were ordered for execution. He formed a painful contrast to his ruddy brothers and sisters; and it would seem as if he had begun already to experience the truth of Marie's assertion, that "great men ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing



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