"Toil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a bottle of soft and kindly Burgundy, taken to make a sunshine on one's lunch when four strenuous hours of toil have left one on the further side of appetite. Or ale, a foaming tankard of ale, ten miles of sturdy tramping in the sleet and slush as a prelude, and then good bread and good butter and a ripe hollow Stilton and celery and ale—ale with a certain quantitative freedom. Or, again, where is the sin ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Kaid's elbow. The fate of the Soudan is in the balance. It is all as the shake of a feather. I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills burn down, my treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil of years is swept away in a night. Thee sees it is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vigor of manhood could I find an attraction to lure me from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely find an inducement to commence their career of ambition when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honored and usurpers expiate their crimes. The only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to Him to whom I must soon render an account ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... of romances, I have planned two, one or both of which I could have ready for the press in a few months if I were either in England or America. But I find this Italian atmosphere not favorable to the close toil of composition, although it is a very good air to dream in. I must breathe the fogs of old England or the east-winds of Massachusetts, in order to put me into working trim. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to be busy during the coming winter at Rome, but there will be so much to distract my thoughts ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the pleasures of wine For lovers of soft delight; But this is the song Of a tipple that's strong— For men who must toil and fight. Now the drink of luck For the man full of pluck Is easy to nominate: It's the good old whiskey of old Kentuck, And ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... attic, unused, there they put it away; The old oaken frame has begun to decay; What iron's about it is eaten with rust, And upon and around it are cobwebs and dust; The dear, loving hands that on it have spun, With labor and toil forever are done, And long is the time since I saw them unreel The threads, snowy white, from ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... could only free the farm from that troublesome mortgage I should be proud and happy. It has worn upon father, as I could see, and he has been compelled to toil early and late to pay the ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... meanest subject could be made as romantic as a fairy tale. As dreamers and thinkers they did not compare with the Italians, but as painters they were equal to any. They were the first to introduce the trivialities of daily life into Art—the toil of the field, the gross pleasures of the tavern. "Look at these boors drinking; they are by Ostade. Are they not admirably drawn and painted? "Brick-making in a Landscape, by Teniers the younger." Won't you look at this? How beautiful! How interesting is its ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... displays, and no slight toil did they involve on the part of the immediate train of the Prince, few in number as they were, and destitute of the appliances of the resident court. Richard hurrying hither and thither, and waiting upon every one, had little of the diversion of the affair; ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... caused by the ponderous native saddle, or recado, with its huge surcingle of raw hide drawn up so tightly as to hinder free respiration. The suffering animal remembers how at the last relief invariably came, when the twelve or fifteen hours' torture were over, the toil and the want, and when the great iron bridle and ponderous gear were removed, and he had freedom and food and drink and rest. At the gate or at the door of his master's house, the sudden relief had always come to him; and there does he sometimes go in his sickness, his fear overmastered by his ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... voice, "if what is achieved by all these efforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so extravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by Notting Hill than any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would not have done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the world had been different may ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... which Lady Cecilia, as a customary licence of speech, indulged herself the moment she awoke this morning, though it seemed to answer its purpose exactly at the time, occasioned her ladyship a good deal of superfluous toil and trouble during the course of the day. In reply to the first question her husband had asked, or in evasion of that question, she had answered, "My dear love, don't ask me any questions, for I have such a horrid headache, that I really can ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... her face, so dark, so worn with perpetual grief and toil, softened suddenly as she looked at him, and the farmer from his solemn height ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... of fortune produced its natural effects. It gave birth to new wants, and new desires. Veterans, long accustomed to hardship and toil, acquired of a sudden a taste for profuse and inconsiderate dissipation and indulged in all the excesses of military licentiousness. The riot of low debauchery occupied some; a relish for expensive luxuries spread among others. The meanest soldier in Peru would have thought ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... an hour beside some dull-eyed victim of shell shock, patiently trying to coax or trick him back to some interest in life again, giving him, literally, her own vitality, until, "virtue gone out" of her, she must seek fresh strength for herself in the less exhausting toil of a scullery maid. Thus she pays to man the debt she owes to God for the cross over the grave of one son dead, and the unconquerable spirit of the ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... they got home, very hungry after their toil, Mr. Townsend made another apology for the poorness of his table. "I am almost ashamed," said he, "to ask an English gentleman to sit down to such a dinner as Mrs. Townsend will put ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... less nervous hands Might fit these lighter tasks, which pride demands? Some feel the scorn that poverty attends, Or pine in meek dependance on their friends; Some patient ply the needle day by day, Poor half-paid seamsters, wasting life away; Some drudge in menial, dirty, ceaseless toil, Bear market loads, or grovelling weed the soil; Some walk abroad, a nuisance where they go, And snatch from infamy the bread ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to one who for a long period had regarded his work with more than fraternal interest, and himself with more than fraternal affection, fitly portray the state of President Wheelock's mind and heart in those days of toil and trial and hope: ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... criticks of such authority as might restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... parting with the bauble of a crown; and when the wise world cried out in their surprise, and strained their fancies for the cause of conduct which seemed so strange to them, they forgot that princes who reign to labour, grow weary like the peasant of the burden of daily toil. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... the frontier that my efforts in this direction would not only be appreciated, but requited by personal affection and gratitude; and, further, that such exertions would bring the best results to me. Whenever my authority would permit I saved my command from needless sacrifices and unnecessary toil; therefore, when hard or daring work was to be done I expected the heartiest response, and always got it. Soldiers are averse to seeing their comrades killed without compensating results, and none realize more quickly than they the blundering that ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... edge of the sky; The light streams up, the shadows fall down; 30 There's a clatter of tools deep down. Wakea, in passion, demands, What god this who digs 'neath the ground? It is dame Pele who answers; Hers the toil to dig down to fire, 35 To dig Molokai and ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... time shall be merged into a Song of Love, and upon whom all the sweetest thoughts of imagination shall be brought to bear for the furtherance of mutual joy! Aubrey's strong spirit, set to stern labour for so long, and trained to toil with but scant peace for reward, now sprang up as it were to its full height of capability and resolution,—yet its power was tempered with that tender humility which, in a noble-hearted man, bends before the presence of the woman whose love for him shall make her sacred. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... due, And none was godless or untrue In all that holy band. To Brahmans, as the laws ordain, The Warrior caste were ever fain The reverence due to pay; And these the Vaisyas' peaceful crowd, Who trade and toil for gain, were proud To honor and obey; And all were by the Sudras served, Who never from their duty swerved. Their proper worship all addressed To Brahman, spirits, God, and guest. Pure and unmixt their rites remained, Their race's honor ne'er was stained. Cheered by his grandsons, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... passee. Yet it was the revealing of the inner woman, rather than the withering of the exterior, which betrayed her years. The woman who understands the art of bodily preservation can, with constant toil and care, retain an appearance of youth and charm into middle life; but she who would pass that dreaded meridian, and still remain a goodly sight for the eyes of men, must possess, in addition to all the ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... open noble truths, or aroused noble emotions. It does not matter whether he paint the petal of a rose, or the chasms of a precipice, so that Love and Admiration attend him as he labours, and wait for ever upon his work. It does not matter whether he toil for months upon a few inches of his canvas, or cover a palace front with colour in a day, so only that it be with a solemn purpose that he has filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to haste. And ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... spikes for the railroad he loved so well. To him the work had been something for which he had striven with all his might and for which he had risked his life. Not only had his brain been given to the creation, but his muscles had ached from the actual physical toil attendant upon ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... We see a spider eating a fly, and long to crush the spider, while we shed a tear for the fly. But the spider is much the higher animal of the two. It labours long hours laying out a net, and then waits all day for the fruit of its toil. Insects are caught and escape again, the net gets broken, and when, after many disappointments, the spider secures a fat fly, what advantage does it derive? A meal; just what the fly got by sitting ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... long and tedious climb to the convent, but the picturesque beauty of the spot, the charm of the distant outlook, and above all the historical interest of the site, rewards the visitor's toil abundantly. There is a forestieria here also, within the precincts of the convent, but not within the technical "cloister." It is simply a room in which visitors of either sex may partake of such food as the poor Franciscans ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... know that in the ceaseless whirl of society the heavier timbers—the real men are thrown outward—forced to the very edges of the bowl, where they toil among big things ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... peculiar. Description is quite unnecessary. They were not discovered without toil, and not secured without warfare. Once in possession they had no reason to complain. True, the conveniences of civilized life do not exist there—but who dreams of ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... exegesis was inadequate, and he therefore undertook the works that were to occupy him the rest of his life. His school was, so to speak, the laboratory of which his Biblical and Talmudic commentaries were the products. They involved a vast amount of toil, and though death overtook him before his task was accomplished, he doubtless began the work early in life.[23] A legend goes that he was forbidden to write commentaries on the Bible before he was a hundred years old. Rashi ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to toil out here this hot afternoon," she said, as he took within his the two hands she had instinctively held out to him. For a moment he looked at her without replying, contrasting the grim motive which had brought him hither with this perfect embodiment ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... yards west of the cabin was the mouth of a tunnel into which we had drifted with pick, shovel and giant powder, a distance of 300 feet in five months of hard toil. A trail led from the tunnel to the cabin along the mountain side, which was thickly studded with tall pines. Another trail led down the mountain slopes in a winding way to the valley, almost a mile below. Above, ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... two pennies for every bucket ye take out, so that the capitalists may have their profit? See ye not how by this means the tank must overflow, being filled by that ye lack and made to abound out of your emptiness? See ye not also that the harder ye toil and the more diligently ye seek and bring the water, the worse and not the better it shall be for you by reason of the profit, and ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits, and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years within the subtile influence of an intellect like Emerson's; after those wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... God's own direct appointment to us; and His revelation that He fulfilled the work of creation in six acts or stages, dignifies and exalts the toil of the labouring man, with his six days of effort and one of rest, into an emblem of the creative ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... that I did not share In vigil or toil or ease, One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a bouquet of heartsease, Bengal roses, and clematis, surrounded with leaves of the tenderest green, above which uprose, like a tiny goblet spilling magic influence a Haarlem tulip of gray and violet tints of a pure and beautiful species, which had cost the gardener five years' toil of combinations, and the king five thousand francs. Louis had placed this bouquet in La Valliere's hand as he saluted her. In the room, the door of which Saint-Aignan had just opened, a young man was standing, dressed in a purple velvet jacket, with beautiful black ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... involves many others, many difficulties, many apparent anomalies and contradictions, which should bespeak for such a theory,—the offspring of observation, without the aid afforded by the knowledge of others, and of toil without leisure,—a large share of indulgence. With this we will close these preliminary remarks, and present our theory of the physical cause which disturbs the equilibrium of our atmosphere, and which appears the principal ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... where the seafarer looks up to the stars of heaven, as the ship cleaves through the roaring midnight waters! To-morrow the sun rises upon our common life again, and we commence our daily task of toil and duty. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of day, taking the early tide, the cutter crept up the familiar, winding River; and while yet I pondered on the reason why I should love my own land, with its yellow sky and puffing toil, better than the pure Heaven and kindly ease of foreign strands, the Hospital of Greenwich lay within the cast of a stone. The crimson flag was waving on the western turret, just as it waved in May, and so, with his two wooden legs projecting ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... weather—due as much as anything, perhaps, to the fact that they had been fortunate enough to enter the Arctic circle during the prevalence of a "spell" of fine weather, and that they had accomplished in a very few days a distance which it would occupy an ordinary craft months of weary toil to cover. But, on passing the edge of this gigantic ice barrier, they left all life behind them; even the very gulls—which had followed them in clouds whenever the speed of the Flying Fish was low ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... stationed at West Point, for what purpose the writer could never ascertain. Afterwards he was assigned to the command of the national arsenal at Springfield. After his term of service was out there, he returned again to Worcester, with a frame physically impaired by long hardship, toil and exposure, with blighted worldly prospects, with the remains of private property—considerable at the outset—seriously diminished by the many sacrifices of his ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey
... a name to fill the mind With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, The glory of learning, the joy of art,— A name that tells of a splendid part. In long, long toil and the strenuous fight Of the human race to win its way From the feudal darkness into the day Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right,— A name like a star, a name of light. ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... remarkable men. The father had begun life as a common barber, and partly by capacity and partly by the thrift that follows fawning, had made his way up in the world until he reached the height from which he was suddenly and so ignominiously to fall. It was hardly worth the trouble thus to toil and push and climb, only to tumble down with such shame and ruin. Craggs the father had had great transfers of South Sea stock made to him for which he never paid. Craggs the son, the Secretary of State, had acted as the go-between ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... which England was deserting them, Bolingbroke had their letter formally condemned by a resolution of the House of Commons. He was determined to bring this peace about, and the Dutch might "kick and flounce like wild beasts caught in a toil; yet the cords are too strong for them to break." (Report from the Committee ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... their long, black robes now, and stowed them in the bows of the boat with our gear. They had thick woollen tunics, like those of the fishers, under them, and their arms were bare, and sinewy with long toil with spade and hoe, for these two were the working brothers ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... of life. "No man," says Lowell, "is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work and tools to work withal, for those who will; and blessed are the horny hands of toil." True work, the judicious employment of our powers for the accomplishment of the noblest object in life, is the only thing that will satisfy the waiting capacity of men and women. Neither gold nor scholarship ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... part from the advance of critical science, which teaches us little by little the true value of ancient authors, but also, and more especially, from the new discoveries which the enterprise of travellers and the patient toil of students are continually bringing to light, whereby the stock of our information as to the condition of the ancient world receives constant augmentation. The extremest scepticism cannot deny that recent researches in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries have recovered a series of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... proposal, and, watching their opportunity, they got the boat round head to the seas, and pulled in for the shore. This was very trying after all their labours; but they were not the only people in the world who have to toil in vain, or have to undo all the work they have done and begin again. They now shipped less water, but they made very little way in consequence of the heavy sea. Daylight at last came, but did not exhibit a pleasant prospect. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... when the work for the ex-slave began at Fortress Monroe in the atmosphere of religion. Mary Peake, meeting the advancing multitudes of refugees, gospel in heart and primer in hand, as by divine suggestion, laid the pattern of all our succeeding toil. Side by side of mutual helpfulness God has placed the alphabet and decalogue, the teacher and the preacher, the school-house and the church. "What therefore God hath joined together let not man ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... work, a yoke of oxen and six sheep, which brought me eighty-four dollars. I never spent the sum of one dollar for pleasure, counting every penny from the time I was born till I was twenty-one years of age. I know what it is to travel weary miles and ask my fellow-men to give me leave to toil. * * * In the first month after I was twenty-one years of age, I went into the woods, drove a team, and cut mill-logs. I rose in the morning before daylight and worked hard till after dark, and received the magnificent sum of six dollars for the month's work! Each of these dollars looked as large ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... Hosts, And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone, But every stock and stone Shall help us; but the very soil, And all the generous wealth it gives to toil, And all for which we love our noble land, Shall fight beside, and through us, sea and strand, The heart of woman, and her hand, Tree, fruit, and flower, and every influence, Gentle, or grave, or grand; The winds ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... wisely prefers agriculture of this kind to the raising of large crops of wheat or maize, because it simplifies the task of supervision necessary in any colony, and gives the colonists, whose toil is compulsory, a continual and regular occupation of an almost unvarying character. (This applies equally to the case of a penal colony.) Workmen, foremen, engineers, builders, mechanics, gardeners,—all are patients, with the exception ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... slept the warriors, overpowered with toil; Their glittering arms were near them, fairly ranged In triple rows, and by each suit of arms Two coursers. Rhesus slumbered in the midst. Near him were his fleet horses, which were made Fast to the chariot's ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... obligations as a child and a mother. Whether married or single, only inability excuses a son from the legal support of indigent and infirm parents. The married daughter, in the discharge of her wifely duties, may tenderly care and toil for her husband's infirm parents, or his children and grandchildren by a prior marriage, while her own parents, or children by a prior marriage—legally divested of any claim on her or the husband who absorbs her personal services and earnings—are sent to the poor-house, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... your self-control, your self-possession, self-mastery, march up to your task with efficiency backed up by a dominant will. Realize your Supreme Personality in your work. Put the absolute "I AM," into your purpose of toil. Put dominating decision "I HAVE DECIDED," into your efforts. Put invincible determination, "I WILL," into your complex problem. Put irresistible confidence, "I SHALL ACHIEVE," into your ardent desires. You will then ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... consider, however, that the indications available to-day represent a long, systematic toil, and that they rest upon the still greater labor of finding external material means for ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... gaping caves of storage under the roofs, the red church spire, the clinking of hammers in the forges, the slow stamping of oxen-all spoke of sleepy toil, without ideas or ambition. Harz knew it all too well; like the earth's odour, it belonged to him, as Sarelli ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dreary, inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... That being done, Beckwourth ordered the warriors to throw in all the most costly and highly prized trinkets, or whatever they cherished most dearly. It was soon filled with the band's choicest treasures. Keepsakes, fancy-work, in which months of patient toil had been expended, knick-knacks, jewels, and rings so highly regarded that the costliest gems of emperors seemed poor in comparison. All these were thrown into the kettle willingly, along with a bountiful contribution of fingers[52] ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... life. The animals must be fed and housed for the night, and driven out to pasture in the morning, whether the farmer be well or ill. If ill, the wife has no time to nurse him, or even to be anxious. After a hard day's toil she throws herself on her pallet and sleeps soundly until dawn, while her good man tosses feverishly at her side, longing for morning. Every one worshipped the doctor, who they affirmed would have been very rich, had he not ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... foundations for a fountain, and a deep trench of some hundred yards in length for the pipe bringing water to it. After that they had many similar jobs, receiving always the wages paid to regular workmen, and giving great satisfaction by their steady toil. Sometimes when not otherwise engaged they went out in boats with fishermen, receiving a portion of the catch in payment ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... here and there, to furnish them with many words, which (perhaps) they had not formerly read, or so well observed; but to young children (whom we have chiefly to instruct) as those that are ignorant altogether of things and words, and prove rather a meer toil and burthen, than ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And now, my friends - my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma - my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his native deformity, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... says Stevenson, "is a better thing than to arrive." This would explain the fact that this Book of Discovery has become a record of splendid endurance, of hardships bravely borne, of silent toil, of courage and resolution unequalled in the annals of mankind, of self-sacrifice unrivalled and faithful lives laid ungrudgingly down. Of the many who went forth, the few only attained. It is of these few ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... animals? Come too, bury some choice bullocks {just} slain, it is a thing well ascertained by experience, {that} flower-gathering bees are produced promiscuously from the putrefying entrails. These, after the manner of their producers, inhabit the fields, delight in toil, and labour in hope. The warlike steed,[40] buried in the ground, is the source of the hornet. If you take off the bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore, {and} bury the rest in the earth, a scorpion will come forth from the part {so} buried, and will ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... chill delay, No petty gains disdained by pride, The modest wants of every day The toil of ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of it. Kind must cling to kind, and country to country, if one would find happiness. If, indeed, I could meet with one like you, who would consent to be a hunter's wife, and who would not scorn my ignorance and rudeness, then, indeed, would all the toil of the past appear like the sporting of the young deer, and ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... young and faulty as Hetty. She would try to be warmer, brighter with this girl. And then she reflected sadly on the prospect before Hetty. With a nature like hers, how would she ever become sufficiently disciplined to be fit for the life of toil and ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... fulfilled, and the men of Lander's were, for the most part, shrewdly practical optimists. They made the most of a somewhat grim and frugal present, and staked all they had to give—the few dollars they had brought in with them, and their powers of enduring toil—upon the roseate future. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... of the mines belonged to the crown. The collection of this bullion was at all times a main object with the Spanish government, and more especially so after the discovery of the great silver deposits of Potosi in Bolivia. Forced labour was required to work them and the natives were driven to the toil. The excesses of the earliest Spanish settlers have become a commonplace, largely through the passionate eloquence of Bartolome de Las Casas (see LAS CASAS). The Spanish government made strenuous attempts ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... than any of the gold-seekers have. Burns the poet, in his lament, entitled Man was made to Mourn, complains, with more pathos and sentiment than truth and justice, that the landlords will not 'give him leave to toil.' That is not the leave most men desire, but the leave to be idle. If gold were to be got for the lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be disposed to take healthful exercise, much less ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... at last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen's Hotel. Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... taken out were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home with the chest; reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more just now. We rested until two, and had supper; starting for the hills immediately afterwards, armed with three stout sacks, which by good luck were upon the premises. A little ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... you picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter? If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not his strength to love? Would you still count yourself a blessed woman if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth loving ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbour, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husband^ would not ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blast or slow decline Our social comforts ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... white and pure as was she who so patiently worked on, while each fresh beauty added to the room pierced her heart with a deeper anguish, as she thought what and whom it was for. When her mother remonstrated against such unceasing toil, she would smile a sweet, sad smile and say, "Don't hinder me, dear mother, 'tis all I can do to show my love for Julia, and after I am gone they will perhaps think more kindly of me, when they know how I ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... he took his place by the side of his old friend Mat Morgan, who grew to love him as his own child. But the mother's heart was grieved when at night her boy returned with the fair golden hair rough and tangled, the once delicate hands torn and hardening with toil; yet the child gave no thought to that. True, this was not the life he would have chosen, for he was a studious boy, but still, was he not 'the bread-winner'? and it was a proudly happy day for him when ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... of benevolence, truth, and honor. When we have recovered a little more from the infatuation which invests "public men" with supreme importance, we shall better know how to value those heroes of the apron, who, by a life of conscientious toil, place a new source of happiness, or of force, within the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... woman of the moneyed trading class, she treated as one who was alive to society, and surveyed matters from a station in the world, leading her to think that she tolerated Mr. Goren, as a lady-Christian of the highest rank should tolerate the insects that toil for us. Mrs. Fiske was not so tractable, for Mrs. Fiske was hostile and armed. Mrs. Fiske adored the great Mel, and she had never loved Louisa. Hence, she scorned Louisa on account of her late behaviour toward her dead parent. The Countess saw through her, and laboured ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his hire, and the labour of the brain being the highest, finest, and most exhausting that can be, the man who straight-forwardly and without affectation takes guineas from his publisher, is not honester than he who counts upon an indirect reward for his toil? Fortunately, the question is almost settled by the example of the first writers of the present day; but there are still people who think that one should sit down to a year's—ay, ten years'—hard mental work, and expect no return but fame. Whether such objectors have ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... unprofitable. My father worshipped himself, and nothing was convincing to him but what he said himself. Besides, I knew perfectly well that the disdain with which he talked of physical toil was founded not so much on reverence for the sacred fire as on a secret dread that I should become a workman, and should set the whole town talking about me; what was worse, all my contemporaries had long ago ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... equality to the darker races under her dominion. However, such equality offered by France was not equal in the sum total of advantage to the partial equality which the Negro received in America. The French workman gave more hours of toil for less monetary reward. The Negro wanted to bring the French principle of equality to apply in American industry. But the British in 1914 could not agree to industrial equality for black men. Such agreement would upset the nicely calculated economic ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... family it was the custom to eat the Great Supper in the oven room: because that was the heart, the sanctuary, of the house; the place consecrated by the toil which gave the family its livelihood. On the supper-table there was always a wax figure of the Infant Christ, and this was carried just before midnight to the living-room, off from the shop, in one corner ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... himself with this sad but striking prospect, the young man, with some toil and trouble, crossed the churchyard, and gained Cheapside, where a yet more terrific scene of devastation than that which he had previously witnessed burst upon him. On the right of London Bridge, which he could discern through the chasms of the houses, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... unwilling to remain hidden there until night, Keith led his horse along the slant of the ridge, until he attained a sharp break through the bluff leading down into the valley. It was a rugged gash, nearly impassable, but a half hour of toil won them the lower prairie, the winding path preventing the slightest view of what might be meanwhile transpiring below. Once safely out in the valley the river could no longer be seen, while barely ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... strong interest in his "taking off." However these things might be, it was known for a certainty that Old Hurricane had an only sister, widowed, sick and poor, who, with her son, dragged on a wretched life of ill-requited toil, severe privation and painful infirmity in a distant city, unaided, unsought and uncared ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... lord, do not take all my glory from me; have pity upon me; if thou must needs take the sun, yet leave me the moon.' But he said, 'Suffer them to be taken up to the King above, for He desires them to be with Him.' So he took them away, saying, 'They are removed from toil unto rest, and from darkness unto light.' But their glory he left upon me. Then I awoke." And Isaac ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... of romantic incident: it was one of toil and pain, for the most part; and he may well have compared his wanderings to those of Ulysses, as he seems to have done in the following verses, which accompany the ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... that meeting! Rand, lying still upon his pillows, with his eyes upon the yellow mandarin, passed them in review,—well, they had not been wasted! Usually he saw the approximate truth about himself, and he knew that these years of toil and achievement were honourable to him. He thought of all those years, and then he turned his head upon the pillow and faced through widely opened windows the misty, fragrant morning. His mind turned with suddenness to a morning two summers past. His father, who had lived to take grim pride ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... this, Cuchulain spoke truth. When the young warrior was come up to Cuchulain he bespoke him and condoled with him [2]for the greatness of his toil and the length of time he had passed without sleep.[2] [3]"This is brave of thee, O Cuchulain," quoth he. "It is not much, at all," replied Cuchulain. "But I will bring thee help," said the young warrior. "Who then art thou?" asked ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Gold Road is a dark road— No bird by the wayside sings, No sun shines into the canons deep, No children's laughter rings. They are slaves who delve in the stubborn rocks For the pittance their labor brings. Their bread is bitter who toil for their own, But they ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... them, and bend them to your will—all that is the making of a poem. And last and worst of all, you will hold them in your memory, the long, long surge of them; the torrent of whirling thought—you will hold it in your memory! You are dazed with excitement, exhausted with your toil, trembling with pain; but you have built a tower out of cards, and you have mounted to the clouds upon it, and there you are poised. And anything that happens—anything!—Ah, God, why can the poet not escape from his senses?—a sound, a touch—and ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... and sister, and Agricola's good wife, have divided between them the household cares; and God has blessed this little colony of people, who, alas! have been sorely tried by misfortune, and who now only ask of toil and solitude, a quite, laborious, innocent life, and oblivion of great sorrows. Sometimes, in our winter evenings, you have been able to appreciate the delicate and charming mind of the gentle 'Mother Bunch,' the rare poetical imagination of Agricola, the tenderness of his mother, the good sense ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dollars more a week would "come in handy." His sense of irritated responsibility about her made him long for that twenty-fifth birthday which would bring him his own money. For, in spite of Lily's thriftiness, her expenses, as well as her toil, kept increasing, and Maurice, cursing himself whenever he thought that but for him she would be "on easy street" at Marston's, had begun the inevitable borrowing. The payment of the interest on his note was a tax on his salary; yet not so taxing ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... he obtains a full confession—-not from the serpent, whose speech might not have been edifying, but from Adam and Eve. The sentences which he passes are decisive, not only for the human pair and the serpent, but for their respective races. Painful toil shall be the lot of man; subjection and pangs that of woman.15 The serpent too (whose unique form preoccupied the early men) shall be humiliated, as a perpetual warning to man—who is henceforth his enemy—-of the danger of reasoning ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... progress of the French. Francis, attempting to become master of the town by diverting the course of the Tessino, which is its chief defence on one side, a sudden inundation of the river destroyed, in one day, the labor of many weeks, and swept away all the mounds which his army had raised with infinite toil as well as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... do nothing," said the old man. "It's a woman's place not to do nothing till she's told to. He'd done so well at the smuggling, he'd saved enough by his honest toil to take a little public. So she sets there awaitin' and attendin' to customers—for well she knowed him, as he wasn't the chap to let a bit of a jail stand in the way of his station in life. Well, it was three weeks to a day after the wedding, there comes a dusty ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... attacks of nearly the whole of Reille's corps, and the effective part of D'Erlon's corps was hotly engaged at and near La Haye Sainte. Above all, the advent of the Prussians on the French right now made itself felt. After ceaseless toil, in which the soldiers were cheered on by Bluecher in person, their artillery was got across the valley of the Lasne; and at 4.30 Buelow's vanguard debouched from the wood behind Frischermont. Lobau's corps of 7,800 men, which, according to Janin, was about to support ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... which was the only heritage John Graham had left the daughter for whom, most cheerfully, he would have laid down his life. The village people had been kind after their homely way; but they, working hard all day with their hands, and eating at eventide the substantial bread of their honest toil, were possessed of a great contempt for the worn and haggard man who tramped their meadow-ways with his sketch-books under his arm, his daughter always with him, preserving still the look and manners of the gently born, though they wore the shabbiest of shabby garments, and could scarcely ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... biography—history or science—to the reading world, may dine at home every day with their children, ring the bell at ten o'clock for family prayers, rise early and retire early every day, and with but few deviations throughout the year, regularly toil through, with more or less of the afflatus upon them, their apportioned hours of literary labor; but a large proportion of the literary practitioners of the age are connected, in some capacity or other, with the newspaper press; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... had not been trained to weigh the consequences of a business enterprise. The store would give him leisure for study and New Salem could offer him nothing else save consuming toil with the axe or the saw. He could not think of leaving the little cabin village. There were Ann Rutledge and Jack Kelso and Samson Traylor and Harry Needles. Every ladder climber in the village and on the plain ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... by appealing to the consciences of all who have ever set about the work of religion in good earnest, whoever they may be, whether they have made less, or greater progress in their noble toil, whether they are matured saints, or feeble strugglers against the world and the flesh. They have ever confessed how great efforts were necessary to keep close to the commandments of God; in spite of their knowledge of the truth, and their faith, in spite of the aids and consolations ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... shelter a horse or a chicken is a palace to a Jap, Kay. The furnishings of their houses are few and crude. They rise in the morning, eat, labor, eat, and retire to sleep against another day of toil. They are all growing rich in this valley, but have you seen one of these aliens building a decent home, or laying out a flower garden? Do you see anything inspiring or elevating to our nation due to the influence of ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... and quarreling over nothing. I should have remembered that your father was but just recovering from an attack of nervous prostration, but I did not; we had been months in the mountains prospecting and the unprofitable toil and loneliness must have got on my nerves. At any rate, after some hot, unbrotherly language, ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... fed with farinha, mixed into porridge, were marched down to the ship. They gazed at her with looks of dismay, for they knew that she was to convey them away over the wide ocean they had heard of, but never seen, to an unknown land, where they were to toil, ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... has been set up, to offer, as the Kimberley people do, wages far in excess of anything the Kafirs could possibly gain among their own people, in order to overcome the distaste of the native—a very natural distaste, due to centuries of indolence in a hot climate—to any hard and continuous toil. This is no great compensation to make to those whose land they have taken and whose primitive way of life they have broken up and for ever destroyed. But once the habit of coming to work for wages has been established in these northern regions,—and ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... incomes, thanks to our fathers or great uncles—not large enough to enable us to cut much of a dash, to be sure, but sufficient to give us confidence—and the proceeds of our daily toil, such as it is, go toward the purchase of luxuries merely. Because we are in business we are able to give bigger and more elegant dinner parties, go to Palm Beach in February, and keep saddle-horses; but we should be perfectly secure without working ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... that telegram she wiped her spectacles a second time and read it over to see that she had made no mistake, and then she set her toil-worn hands upon her hips and surveyed the prone but happy Burley ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... and a half miles brought us to the foot of Mount Augustus, where, leaving our horses in charge of Fairburn and Dugel, we commenced the ascent up the only accessible point on this side of the hill; it required two hours' heavy toil to bring us to the summit, the barometer gradually falling until it only registered 26.10, which, compared with the simultaneous observations kept at Champion Bay by Mr. H. Gray, gives an elevation of 3,480 ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... men stood at ease, enjoying the brief rest from severe toil under such a burning sun, our hero heard a low voice at his ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... brow the sweat that had been caused by the toil of his hurried journey, and listened to the bells of the Ave Maria pealing from the different churches of Naples, filling the atmosphere with a soft tremble of solemn dropping sound, as if spirits in the air took up and repeated over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... decks, and get matters secured, and at that I turned to go with the men, having become so used to work with them; but he called to me to come up to him upon the poop, the which I did, and there he spoke respectfully, remonstrating with me, and reminding me that now there was need no longer for me to toil; for that I was come back to my old position of passenger, such as I had been in the Glen Carrig, ere she foundered. But to this talk of his, I made reply that I had as good a right to work my passage home as any other among us; for though I had paid for a passage ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... imaginary realm broken by music and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom turned topsy-turvy with romping, fiddling, and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, a lover of all those innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... at night. Also the members of our party we debated; they must be people of good tempers and travelling habits, not to be put out for a little; people with large tastes for enjoyment, to whom the glory of the morning would make amends for all the toil of the night; and good talkers, to keep up the tone of the whole thing. Meanwhile, Thorold and I heartily enjoyed Number Four; as also I did his explanations of fortifications, which I drew from him and made him apply to all the fortifications in sight or which I knew. And when the ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... millions thus, from age to age, With simplest skill, and toil unweariable, No moment and no movement unimproved, Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, To swell the heightening, brightening, gradual mound, By marvellous structure climbing towards the day. Each wrought alone, yet all together wrought, Unconscious, not unworthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... circle would be modelled according to such restrictions; she loved her kind old father with the clinging fondness of an unweaned infant for its mother; but though again and again she would, to gratify him, toil through a whole pamphlet, its meaning as dark to her perceptions as the close and blurred print to his failing eyes, it may well be imagined that her girlish brain failed to receive any other impression from the contents than of their excessive ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... a word of Welsh. I thought of the beam and mote mentioned in Scripture, and then cast a glance of compassion on the two poor young women. For a moment I fancied myself in the times of Owen Glendower, and that I saw two females, whom his marauders had carried off from Cheshire or Shropshire to toil and slave in the Welshery, walking together after the labours of the day were done, and bemoaning their misfortunes in their own ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... freedom. It is not altogether the ignorance of the masses, therefore, that forms an insuperable barrier to the introduction of more liberal institutions, but the wealth, intelligence, and influence of the higher classes, who neither toil nor spin, but derive their support from the labor of the masses whom they hold in subjection. It is natural enough they should oppose every reform tending to elevate these subordinate classes upon whom they are dependent ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... is to be thanked first," said the pretty Puritan, "who gave thee, lady, the kind and courteous husband whose love has done so much for thee. I, too, have done my poor share. But if you thus run wildly from room to room, the toil of my crisping and my curling pins will vanish like the frost-work on the window when ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... strength, heroic strength, in each of these masterpieces I have named, but the "Dutchman" needs a listener, "Leaves of Grass" requires a reader who has experienced, and the "Sower" demands one who has eyes to see, before its lesson of love and patience and the pathetic truth of endless toil are bodied forth. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... myself a candidate for sheriff; I have been a revolutionary officer; fought many bloody battles, suffered hunger, toil, heat; got honourable scars, but little pay. I will tell you plainly how I shall discharge my duty should I be so happy as to obtain a majority of your suffrages. If writs are put into my hands against any of you, I will take you if I can, and, unless you can get bail, I will deliver you ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... that gave the Doctor courage to look up and meet an unquenched glance; though there was the hollow look round the eyes that Tom had noticed, the face had grown older, the expression more concentrated, the shoulders had rounded; the coarse blue shirt and heavy boots were dusty with the morning's toil, and the heat and labour of the day had left their tokens, but the brow was as open, the mouth as ingenuous as ever, the complexion had regained a hue of health, and the air of alacrity and exhilaration surprised as much as it ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a stone? What shall we say to the man who would wilfully destroy with fire the magnificent temple of God, in which I am now preaching? Far worse is he who ruins the moral edifices of the world, which time and toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of men, have reared; who puts out the light of the times in which he lives, and leaves us to wander amid the darkness of corruption and the desolation of sin. There may be, there probably is, in this church, some young man who may hereafter ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... photographs and old verses had gone, but new pictures and poems took their places in the workers' corners; and new fashion-plates hung where the old ones used to hang. The drawers, and the rovers, the spreaders and the spinners still, like bower-birds, adorned the scenes of their toil. A valentine or two and the portrait of a gamekeeper and his dog hung beside the carding machine; for Sally Groves had retired and a younger woman was in her place. She, too, fed the Card by hand, but not so perfectly as Sally was wont ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... growth, and was taken from the Tyrol and Istria. Its value was, therefore, in advance of Italian wood, but hardly so much as to place it beyond the reach of the Cremonese masters. It is, further, improbable that these masters of the art should have expended such marvellous care and toil over their work, pieced as it frequently was like mosaic, when for a trifling sum they could have avoided such a task to their ingenuity by purchasing fresh wood. We are therefore forced to admit that there must have been ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... had had since, as a youth of seventeen he had quarrelled with John Allan and gone forth to the battle of life. In the long, long battle since then there had been more of joy than they knew who looking on had seen the toil and the defeat and the despair, but from whose eyes the exaltation he had felt in the act of creation or in the contemplation of the works of nature, and the happiness he found in his frugal home, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the weather. One of the soldiers happened to be accompanied by his wife and two young children, and seeing them entirely worn out with fatigue, while he was unable to assist them, he preferred to remain with them and perish, although he might have saved himself. At length, after infinite toil and danger, they found that they had reached the top of the mountain, and began joyfully to descend into the lower grounds of the kingdom of Quito. It is true that in this country they found other high mountains covered likewise with snow, as the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... a better state of things among men or their surroundings. I have never made idyllic pictures of my people; I have taken them at their just worth—as poor peasants, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, whose constant toil never allows them to indulge in emotion, though they can feel acutely at times. Above all things, in fact, I clearly understood that I should do nothing with them except through an appeal to their selfish interests, and by schemes ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... notice of accidents causing loss of life or bodily injury must be sent to the government inspector. Many co-operated to bring about these results, but the chief advocate of all the beneficent reforms which have reinvigorated the English working-classes, saved the women from slavish toil and given them opportunity to make homes for their families, rescued the children from benumbing toil, and given them time for healthful recreation and mental improvement, is, by the common award of all, this simple-hearted Christian, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... had it fared with Mira and her sympathetic friends at Scott during all these weeks of toil and march and scout? Two at a time the officers had been allowed to run in thither for a few days as soon as their men and horses were made fairly comfortable at the cantonments. Cranston and Hay went first, then Truman and Jervis, then came the turn to which ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... lent 680 For gentle usage and soft delicacy? But you invert the covenants of her trust, And harshly deal, like an ill borrower, With that which you received on other terms, Scorning the unexempt condition By which all mortal frailty must subsist, Refreshment after toil, ease after pain, That have been tired all day without repast, And timely rest have wanted. But, fair virgin, This ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... half a dozen smooth-worn steps leading to the loft; and a wide, deep fireplace-the only suggestion of cheer and comfort in the gloomy interior. An open porch connected the single room with the kitchen. Here, too, were suggestions of daily duties. The mother's face told a tale of hardship and toil, and there was the plough in the furrow, and the girl's calloused hands folded in her lap. With a thrill of compassion Clayton turned to her. What a pity! what a pity! Just now her face had the peace of a child's; but when aroused, an electric fire burned from her calm eyes and showed the ardent ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... Mountains on the west separating it from Babylonia, and a great and almost impassable desert on the east, so that it was easily defended. Its population was composed of hardy, warlike, and religious people, condemned to poverty and incessant toil by the difficulty of getting a living on sterile and unproductive hills, except in a few favored localities. The climate was warm in summer and cold in winter, but on the whole more temperate than might be supposed from a region ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... the buoyant spirit rose above hardship, and Scotch pluck smiled at impossibilities. He wrote in his diary: "Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward." Weary months followed, filled with travel, toil, and physical suffering. The last of April, 1873, a year after Stanley left him, he reached the village of Ilala, at the southern end of Lake Bangweolo. He was so ill that his attendants were obliged to carry him as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... seeming difficulties melted away! How has the yoke lost its heaviness, and the cross its bitterness, in the thought of whom thou wert bearing it for! There is a promised rest in the very carrying of the yoke; and a better rest remains for the weary and toil-worn when the appointed work is finished; for thus saith "that ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... humanity, rather than as a friend; an enemy, especially, of the poor sewing-women who earned a pitiful living with the needle. Few had the foresight to perceive that it was these very women whose toil he was doing most ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... toiling through all the hot, dusty day, may extinguish his lantern, or fling down his mattock, and go home to his little hut. 'Lord! Thou dost dismiss me now, and I take the dismission as the end of the long watch, as the end of the long toil.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren |
