|
|
|
More "Irksome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Remember, however, that thus deciding you give up much. In my counting-house you can neither become a rich man, nor have any experience of life on a large and exciting scale; our business is limited, and the day may come when you will find this irksome. All that tends to your future independence, wealth, connections, and so forth, you will more readily secure ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the Minyo territory—had been reserved by him for his lodge, partly on account of its isolation from the village at its base, and partly for the view it commanded of his territory. Yet his wearying and discontented eyes were more often found on the ocean, as a possible highway of escape from his irksome position, than on the plain and the distant range of mountains, so closely connected with the nearer past and his former detractors. In his vague longing he had no desire to return to them, even in triumph in his present security there still lingered a doubt of his ability ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... of my son," says Petrarch, "he has a tolerable understanding; but I am not certain of this, for I do not sufficiently know him. When he is with me he always keeps silence; whether my presence is irksome and confusing to him, or whether shame for his ignorance closes his lips. I suspect it is the latter, for I perceive too clearly his antipathy to letters. I never saw it stronger in any one; he dreads and detests nothing so much as a book; yet he was brought up at Parma, Verona, and Padua. I sometimes ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... that the teacher should see that these written exercises are not made distasteful to the pupil. They are very valuable if they are not considered irksome. The object is not so much to give skill in composition as to create a taste for wide and excellent reading. It would be better to allow this written reproduction to drop rather than to associate the pleasures ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious, as to bar us continually from innocent, much less from wholesome and useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society; then is it not inconvenient, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... together were still going on; that I was no longer a child had made only the difference that progress must make; and I had no thought that they would not thus go on always. They were never for a moment irksome to me; I might be tired by them, but never of them. We were regularly at work together by seven, and after half an hour for breakfast, resumed work; at half-past eleven our lessons were over. But although the day was then clear of the imperative, ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Tommy went looking for policemen's legs. Doubtless there were some details of the wizardry that he overlooked, as never again could he come out on the Enchanted Street in quite the same fashion. Alice had a different method. She fell down a rabbit-hole and thereby freed herself from some very irksome lessons and besides met several interesting people, including a Duchess. Alice may be considered the very John Cabot of the rabbit-hole. Before her time it was known only to rabbits, wood-chucks, and dogs on holidays, whose noses are muddy with poking. But since her time all this is changed. Now ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... but towards night a cool breeze came in from the sea, which was very refreshing; and Noddy and Mollie were on deck, enjoying its invigorating breath. The boat in which the captain had just returned lay at the accommodation ladder. The confinement of twelve days on board the vessel had been rather irksome, and both of the young people would have been delighted to take a run on shore; but the terrible sickness there rendered such a luxury impossible. They observed with interest everything that could be seen from the deck, especially the verdure-crowned hills, and the valleys green with the rich ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... lonesome. I sympathized with him, and we became close companions. As an operator he had no superiors and very few equals. Most of the time he was monkeying with the batteries and circuits, and devising things to make the work of telegraphy less irksome. He also relieved the monotony of office-work by fitting up the battery circuits to play jokes on his fellow-operators, and to deal with the vermin that infested the premises. He arranged in the cellar what he called his 'rat paralyzer,' a very simple contrivance ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... years the practices of the saints were already familiar to her. She had left off eating meat, eggs, or sweets of any description, and lived on plainly boiled vegetables and bread. The necessity of eating at all seemed irksome to her, and she never drank any thing but pure water. Then also had begun her unwearied study of the lives of holy women, and especially of the virgin martyrs who have shed their blood for the love of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament of Confirmation, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... there were no symptoms in the least degree serious about the malady that had taken her. Her rheumatic knee was painful, of course—acutely painful, if you like—when she moved it; and the confinement to bed was irksome enough, no doubt. But otherwise there was nothing in the lady's condition, before the fatal attack came, to alarm her or anybody about her. She had her books and her writing materials on an invalid table, which worked on a pivot, and could be arranged in any ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... taunting her with the failure of her love, and therewith telling her how fair a man and lovesome was the Black Squire, and what a loss she had of him; and Birdalone was hearkening and weeping for tenderness' sake, while the witch was unto her neither fearful nor irksome, and forsooth nought save a mouthpiece for words that both grieved Birdalone and yet were an eager pleasure unto her. But in the midst thereof, and ere the dream had time to change, Birdalone awoke, and it was an early morning of later spring, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... of wind; blown, puffing and blowing; short-breathed; anhelose^; broken winded, short-winded; dyspnaeal^, dyspnaeic^. ready to drop, all in, more dead than alive, dog-weary, walked off one's legs, tired to death, on one's last legs, played out, hors de combat [Fr.]. fatiguing &c v.; tiresome, irksome, wearisome; weary, trying. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the faint light." And he to me, "The things will be clear to thee, when we shall set our steps on the sad marge of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to him, far as to the river ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the thought had crossed his mind several times since he had quitted Nauplia that, after all, it was a great relief to be quit of Baldassarre, and he would have liked to know who it was that had fallen overboard. But such thoughts spring inevitably out of a relation that is irksome. Baldassarre was exacting, and had got stranger as he got older: he was constantly scrutinising Tito's mind to see whether it answered to his own exaggerated expectations; and age—the age of a thickset, heavy-browed, bald man beyond sixty, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... scholar like his father, who graduated from Middlebury College at the age of fifteen, strong and athletic. He did not seem to care much for his books or his lessons anyway, but was inclined to get along as easily as he could, partly on account of his delicate health, which made close study irksome, and partly because his mind was very juvenile and undeveloped. His health improved gradually, while his interest in his studies increased slowly but steadily. Judge Forbes, of Westboro, for a time his room-mate and a remarkable scholar, remarked ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... direct and frequent communication with Hamburg, Russia, France and Austria, and without the advantage of a sea frontier. Cholera was repeatedly brought into Berlin, but never obtained a footing, and its successful repression was accomplished without any irksome interference with traffic or the ordinary business of life. The general success of Great Britain and Germany in keeping cholera in check by ordinary sanitary means completed the conversion of all enlightened nations to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... you likewise cease to consider irksome any such thing as pertains neither to our physical nor to our spiritual nature, and do not vex yourself at what has happened. For to us belongs no choice as I told you, of living as we please, but it is quite requisite for us to endure what the Divinity ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... the same picture, or each separately paint the same picture twice in two different frames.— With the Slavs and Greeks, faith, like the Church and the rite, is a national thing; creed forms one body with the country, and there is less disposition to dispute it; besides, it is not irksome; it is simply a hereditary relic, a domestic memorial, a family icon, a summary product of an exhausted art no longer well understood and which has ceased to produce. It is rather sketched out than ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... no jealousy of his power on the part of the emperor. The chancellor was a gentleman, and had extraordinary tact. But his labors were prodigious, and gave him no time for pleasure, or even social intercourse, which finally became irksome to him. He was too busy with public affairs to be a great scholar, and was not called upon to make speeches, as there was no deliberative assembly to address. Nor was he a national idol. He lived retired in his office, among ministers and secretaries, and appeared ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... standard of excellence, the mental powers are maintained in a state of useful energy. As soon as health is below par, even when not sufficiently so as to force us to desist from work, the brain loses its elasticity; we are dull, become mere machines instead of intelligent workers, and our duty gets irksome and fails to interest us. And here let us interpose one word. If we wish to spare ourselves that most wearying of all sensations, that fatal sense of boredom and disgust for our daily task which sometimes ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... girls of the neighboring lodges assembled to play at the favorite female game of pappus-e-ko-waun, or the block and string, before the lodge-door, Leelinau would sit vacantly by, or enter so feebly into the spirit of the play as to show that it was irksome to her. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign of law we are the mercenaries of God, bound down to an irksome task, but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... to make your account agree with mine; and circumstances oblige me to require of you, Fairfax, to condescend to get the lad's favour, and not make his stay irksome. You may command me to ten times this ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... suffer. Briefly, it may be said that they seek to increase and to enforce the legal responsibility of employers, and indirectly to crush the small workshop system by turning upon it the wholesome light of publicity, and imposing certain irksome and expensive conditions which will make its survival in its worst and ugliest shapes impossible. The most practical recommendation of the Report of the Lords' Committee is an extension of the sanitary clauses of the Factory Act, so as ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... office almost nauseated him; the endless parade of petty details was almost unbearably irksome; the book-keeping part of it alone was soul-disintegrating; but to Henry, ambition had become a monomania, and to it he was ready to make every conceivable sacrifice, including—if necessary—his health. There were days when he told himself that he would pay ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... the Administration candidates. At night the various companies were sent into the city to take part in the political propaganda; to march in processions or occupy conspicuous places at the party meetings. The private soldiers were almost to a man Democrats, but the chance to escape the long and irksome evenings of the camp and join the frolic and adventure of the street made most of them willing enough to play the part of claque or figurantes. Jack, of course, refused to take part in these scenic rallies, making known his sentiments in vehement disdain. He detested Oswald, who had quit ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... It is the same with partners in business; they should be as much as possible "on their own" or, if partnerships are made, they should not be of a binding or restricting order, and provision should always be made for the partnership to be dissolved when it has become irksome. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... here mentioned cannot be questioned; and it is much to be regretted that it is not strictly enforced in every regiment in the service. Young officers may find it irksome at first; but they soon become sensible of the advantages, and learn to applaud the commandant who has had the firmness to consult their permanent interests more than their present inclinations. [W. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... as to pursue their worldly employments as diligently as they do who take this world for their portion; and often you will hear them breaking out in expressions of great severity against older Christians, because they do not sympathize with them in these feelings. Their daily employments become irksome; and they are tempted even to neglect the interests of their employers, with the plea, that the service of God has the first claim upon them. But they forget that the service of God consists in the faithful performance of every social and relative duty, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... misgivings, stayed on. His promises to his old master, his love of power, his distrust of the capacity of others, all made it hard for him to withdraw when he still might have done so with dignity. We cannot doubt that his presence was irksome to his master; his influence and authority were too great; before them, even the majesty of the Throne was dimmed; the Minister was a greater man ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... air, and many of his comrades were already gone to the frontier where the skirmishing with the irregular volunteers of Garibaldi's guerilla force had now begun in earnest. To be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable, and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... his big carved chair, and touched without removing his cap, to greet the alderman, as he observed, without the accustomed prefix of your worship—"So, you are come about your prentice's fees and dues. By St. Peter of the Fetters, 'tis an irksome matter to have such a troop of idle, mischievous, dainty striplings thrust on one, giving more trouble, and making more call and outcry than twice as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... appetite is returning;" and to a correspondent he apologized for not sooner replying, and pleaded "debilitated health, occasioned by the fever wch. deprived me of 20 lbs. of the weight I had when you and I were at Troy Mills Scales, and rendered writing irksome." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... entered his father's work-rooms. He had already shown a decided love of drawing. He had a quick perception of beauty, and excellent power of observation. His disposition was serious, and his conscience sensitive; but he had a pleasant vein of humor, and a generous nature. After some years of irksome work, he was sent to Paris to perfect himself in the arts of ornamentation, and his residence there seems to have confirmed his taste for painting, to the practice of which he desired to devote his life. But for the next ten years he was engaged in business, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... indifference, or a sullen insensibility, occasioned by the conviction that, as afflictions could not be avoided, they must be borne; that it is in vain to struggle or resist; and that our weakness renders endurance necessary, however irksome. It consists rather in a pious acquiescence in the will of Heaven, arising from a persuasion that God knows what is really best for us; and that his dispensations, however painful or opposite to our wishes, will prove ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... habit which annoyed him extremely. To Betty, who was to have been her special companion, she showed no desire to attach herself, but to Kitty she clung in a most embarrassing fashion, monopolizing her in a way that Kitty found most irksome, and made Betty furious, for hitherto Kitty had been Betty's whenever Betty needed her. Now she was rarely to be found without Anna. But Kitty, along with the others, never felt that she could trust Anna; and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... two away from Turlock he produced the check which was the apparent cause of his irksome journey, and tearing it into minute fragments, scattered them out ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of exile, the Decembrists had little to complain of except the prohibition to return to Europe. To men whose youth was passed in brilliant society and amid the gayeties of the capital, this life in Siberia was no doubt irksome. Year after year went by, and on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their banishment they looked for pardon. Little else was talked of among them for some weeks, but they were doomed to disappointment. Nicholas had no forgiving disposition, and those who plotted his overthrow were little ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the costs of the journal. His associates, Massol and du Tillet agreed to this so readily that he really believed them the best fellows in the world. Without this help, however, life would have been simply impossible to Raoul; as it was, it became so irksome that many men, even those of the strongest constitutions, could not have borne it. A violent and successful passion takes a great deal of space in an ordinary life; but when it is connected with a woman ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Ali Khan and Coja Ain ul Din have, from their regularity in the performance of pecuniary engagements, rendered themselves useful to the Vizier. A strict scrutiny into his affairs was at all times irksome to his Excellency, and none of the ministers or officers about his person possessing the active, persevering spirit requisite to conduct the detail of engagements for a number of small farms, it became convenient to receive a large sum from a great farmer without trouble or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... mother and himself had reached a greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became to him to go into the fields and woods without Helene! He could not study; he had no one to talk ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... of those terrific magistrates whose grim decrees gave New England naughty children the nightmare a century after the stern-browed promulgators of them were dust. The early laws against crime in New England were severe, though death was seldom or never inflicted save for murder. But more irksome to one used to the lax habits of to-day would have been the punctilious rigidity with which they guarded the personal bearing, speech, and dress of the members of their community. Yet we may thank them for having done so; it was a wise precaution; they knew the frailties of the flesh, and how ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... monograph on that very interesting fabric. It is impossible to thank Professor Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh, enough, for his unfailing kindness whenever I consulted him in connection with my work. Nor do I forget how much I owe to J. Meade Falkner, Esq., for kindly undertaking the irksome task of revising the proofs of the book while going through ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... cease to view with love, The tender memory of the mournful past; And once when warring clouds grew black above, The shrieking Earth with awful night o'ercast, And long foiled Hatred hoped to glut his fast With English gore, with irksome steps she stole, O'er deep morass, through tangled brake, and cast The boon of life to each devoted soul, Who slept within that Castle's frail and ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... that a man, the breadwinner, should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready; it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate, child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon his pocket had ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... but agreeable; and the coming impressions to which the attention is directed, promise a gratification that few, if any, desire to escape. Hence, when the unlucky sneeze occurs, it cannot be that the laughter of the audience is due simply to the release from an irksome attitude of mind: some ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... you to remain. I beg of you not to refuse; do me this favour. I have assured him that I am incapable of filling your office. It does not suit my habits; and besides, to tell you the truth, the business is too irksome for me." I proceeded to the cabinet without replying to Duroc. The First Consul came up to me smiling, and pulling me by the ear, as he did when he was in the best of humours, said to me, "Are you still in the sulks?" and leading me to my usual seat ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Spain's legs—facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues—for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we longed to ask?—was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... our country, was to take place on the next day. Too often the haste appears indecent, and it may be that in some instances the body has been buried before life deserted it. It would seem that the family felt constrained by the presence of the corpse, and compelled to exercise an irksome self-control, and, therefore, desired to hurry it under ground, as if it would be less likely there to know how soon it ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... chamber work and cooking situations to be had without very much effort on the part of the seeker. Mrs. Sikes, whose work had chiefly been dressmaking and plain sewing, found the new field of labor quite irksome. The money realized from the sale of her property she must not let dwindle away too swiftly; her husband was helpless, and she must work, and the children must work. She found the North a place where a day's work meant a day's work in full; there was no let up; the pound ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the lateness of the hour, and the unpleasant reflections left by the short dialogue with Balthazar, produced a strong and common desire to see the end of a navigation that was beginning to be irksome. Those objects which had lately yielded so much and so pure a delight were now getting to be black and menacing, and the very sublimity of the scale on which Nature had here thrown together her elements was an ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... for which I was glad, as the hard climbs and still more wearying descents of the last three days had made me rather stale. The people along the way were much interested in me and still more in Jack, but it was the naive curiosity of a simple folk, and I did not find it irksome like the hard stare of the townspeople. At one place where we halted for tiffin, a lame man with an interesting face attached himself to us, and presently I found myself and my belongings the subject of an explanatory talk he was giving the bystanders. He told them how I kept my eyeglasses ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... the priest, "we can represent nothing. We are supposed to have no natural inclinations. All work should be welcome, none too difficult, no task irksome." ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... the first general dealers in Copenhagen, and carries on a larger and more extended commerce with Iceland than any other house trading thither. He is already beginning to retire, as the continual journeys are becoming irksome to him; but he still owns a number of great and small vessels, which are partly employed in the fisheries, and partly in bringing all kinds of articles of consumption and luxury to the different harbours ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... not an educator by natural aptitude or inclination, he made himself an educator by choice; and, having once chosen his profession, he gradually developed an interest in it, a pride in it, a love of it which astonished some of his friends. How irksome it was to him at the beginning we saw just now in his address to the Teachers. How irksome in many of its incidents it remained we can see in his ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... there until daybreak. These men were volunteers secured by the corporal, who was responsible to his field-cornet for a certain number of men every night. It was never made compulsory upon any one to go on Brandwacht, but the duty was not considered irksome, and there were always as many volunteers as were ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... same school as that to which she had sent her own daughters. In a word, she was a most charming neighbour; and her presence at Ravensnest had rendered Martha's annual visits to the "old house" (built in 1785) not only less irksome, but actually pleasant. Such had been my sister's account of the Warrens and their qualities, throughout a correspondence of five years. I have even fancied that she loved this Mary Warren better than she loved any of her uncle's wards, herself of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Scott's suggestions stimulated his companions to master subjects which they found rather difficult and irksome, a regular daily routine had begun. About 7 A.M. Clissold began to prepare breakfast, and half an hour later Hooper started to sweep the floor and lay the table. Between 8 and 8.30 the men were out ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... to do faithfully the work she had undertaken of instructing these ignorant children; but at her age the formation of new habits was by no means easy. The constant attention to trifles which the occupation required was at times inexpressibly irksome to her; and the relief which the assistance of Lilias ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... And when the clamour had a little subsided, behold two maidens entered, with a large salver between them, in which was a man's head, surrounded by a profusion of blood. And thereupon the company of the court made so great an outcry, that it was irksome to be in the same hall with them. But at length they were silent. And when time was that they should sleep, Peredur was brought into ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... she shewed gladsome countenance to the people wheresoeuer she came, dooing also what she could to pleasure them, that she might thereby win their good willes to hir, and to hir sonne: but speciallie remembring by hir late experience and tast thereof, what an irksome & most greuous thing imprisonment was, she caused the gailes to be opened, and foorthwith set no small number of prisoners at libertie by the way as she passed through the countries, according to the verse of Virgil, Non ignara mali miseris ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... found for Watts a bride in the person of Miss Ellen Terry. The painter and the youthful actress were married in Kensington in February of that year, and Watts took over Little Holland House. The marriage, however, was irksome, both to the middle-aged painter and the vivacious child of sixteen, whose words, taken from her autobiography, are the best comment we possess ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... of speech, and quick comprehension, had won back the fickle hearts of the people, who weighed her words again superstitiously, and made much of her. The workmen, with the indolent, inconsequent Irish temperament which makes it irksome to follow up a task continuously, and easier to do anything than the work in hand, would break off to amuse her at any time. One young carpenter—lean, sallow, and sulky—who was working for her mother, interested her greatly. He was making packing-cases, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them together in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom of the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole exception to the geniality of the moment, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foreboding came across Adam that if they began to speak as though they remembered the past—if they looked at each other with full recognition—they must take fire again. So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle flickered low in the socket, the silence all the while becoming more irksome to Adam. Arthur had just poured out some more brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm behind his head and drew up one leg in an attitude of recovered ease, which was an irresistible temptation to Adam to speak what ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... devilish hard that one may never do a service to another without incurring a burden of irksome obligations to the served; that bonds of interest forged in moments of unpremeditated and generous impulse are never readily ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... fulfil his promise, Van argued. So although the call of the springtime was strong and difficult to resist he had been faithful to his work, "plugging away," as he expressed it, with all his strength. To his surprise the task, so irksome at first, became interesting. It was a novel experience to enter a classroom and instead of moving in a mental haze possess a clear idea of what was going on. Twice he was able to furnish the correct answers to Latin questions on which every one else had failed, ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good officer, but when they come to elect, the love of doing as they please, unchecked by the irksome restraints of discipline, is apt to make them vote for the man who will indulge them. But I believe that all those who observed these matters carefully will agree, that there was far less of this sort of feeling among the men who volunteered at the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the struggle; he repaired the injured vessels and ordered a dyke to be constructed, which, by uniting Salamis to the mainland, would enable him to oust the Athenians from their last retreat. But he had never exhibited much zest for the war; the inevitable fatigues and dangers of a campaign were irksome to his indolent nature, and winter was approaching, which he would be obliged to spend far from Susa, in the midst of a country wasted and trampled underfoot by two great armies. Mardonius, guessing what was passing in his sovereign's mind, advised him ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Necker. His wife had very possibly begun by this time her rather austere salon, where free-thinking was strictly tabooed, and Morellet, her right-hand man in the entertainment of the guests, confesses the restraint was really irksome; and if she had, Morellet would probably have brought Smith there. But anyhow Sir James Mackintosh, who had means of hearing about Smith from competent sources, states explicitly that he was upon intimate terms with Necker during his residence in the French capital, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Roger had remained within the Monastery walls in close attendance upon the patient; but the restraint had been terribly irksome to the temper of the young knight, and he was panting to be free to pursue his quest, and to tell his story in the King's ears. He could not but dread that in his absence some harm might befall his Constanza. Suppose those two remorseless men suspected her to be concerned ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to your vessel," said Orlon. "I know that its somewhat cramped quarters have become irksome. Apartments have been prepared here for you. We shall have a meal here together, and then we shall retire, to ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... still in anxious suspense about the non-arrival of our drays—the ground having been so good. With a country so interesting before us, this delay was doubly irksome, and as the cattle could only be watered by coming forward, why they did not come was the question; and this was not solved until evening, when a messenger came forward to ask if they might come, and to inform me that they were nearly exhausted. The fatal alternative of endeavouring ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... should, by going out from the forts, when the Indians were so generally watching around them, expose themselves to captivity or death, may at first appear strange and astonishing. But when the mind reflects on the tedious and irksome confinement, which they were compelled to undergo; the absence of the comforts, and frequently, of the necessaries of life, coupled with an overweening attachment to the enjoyment of forest scenes and forest pastimes, it will perhaps be matter ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... although she now no longer felt herself the daughter of the murderer, there was so much disingenuousness in her position as the most loved and trusted friend of the woman who still regarded her father as the criminal, as to make it in the highest degree irksome to be with her. She now tried to occupy herself as much as possible at home; and while she did so, the calm to which she had forced herself outwardly began to sink into her heart, and she found, almost with surprise, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... fearful sin! Children think they know what is best for themselves. Parental restraint sometimes seems irksome to them; but God has wisely ordained that in our youth we should be under the instruction and control of our parents. Children, instead of feeling that parental control is oppressive to them, should learn to be thankful for it. It is enough ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... have already secured partners at the Retreta and elsewhere, and as at all respectable gatherings in Cuba everybody is supposed to know everybody else, the irksome formalities of introduction ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... weapons, Wyrd inexorable; And the storms strike down on the stony cliffs; The snows descend and seize all the earth In the dread of winter; then darkness comes And dusky night-shade. Down from the north 105 The hated hail-storms beat on heroes with fury. All on earth is irksome to man; Oft changes the work of the fates, the world under the firmament. Here treasure is fleeting; here true friends are fleeting; Here comrades are fleeting; here kinsmen are fleeting. 110 All idle and empty the earth has become.' So says the sage one in mind, ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... in coming to London during the winter was a kind one—namely, to put a temporary end to an imprisonment in the country which was irksome to Lucille. And I make no doubt the two ladies were glad enough to avail themselves of this opportunity of seeing London. God made the country and men the towns, it is said; and I think they ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... from such hectic people, who run quite amuck whenever they open their mouths, there are large numbers of men and women of some intelligence who never make the effort to express conscientiously any ideas or opinions. They find it irksome to think. They are completely indifferent as to whether a play is really good or bad or who is elected mayor of the city. In any event they will have their coffee, rolls and honey served in bed the next morning; and they know that, ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... his fallen condition. His companions were now the small farmers of the neighbourhood and the shopkeepers in the adjoining town of Moate, to whose habits and modes of thought and expression he gradually conformed, till it became positively irksome to himself to keep the company of his equals. Whether, however, it was that age had breached the stronghold of his good spirits, or that conscience rebuked him for having derogated from his station, certain it is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... one of the ministers of his looser pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a more infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own consent from the irksome duty of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... She wanted, in her then state of mind, to walk in the solitude which can only be found in crowded places, and also she wanted some kind of distraction. Her days had lately been so filled with adventure that the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome, but maddening, and her mother's hasty and troubled breathing came between her and her thoughts. The poor furniture of the room was hideous to her eyes, the uncarpeted floor and bleak, stained ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... still the father stood, observing the scene with displeasure, Looked on the weeping girl, and said in a tone of vexation: "This then must be the return that I get for all my indulgence, That at the close of the day this most irksome of all things should happen! For there is naught I can tolerate less than womanish weeping, Violent outcries, which only involve in disorder and passion, What with a little of sense had been more smoothly ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... half-educated public, ready to fall an easy prey to all manner of specious sophistries, especially when they are dressed up in the garb of a pseudo-mysticism; we must above all remember that human nature is habitually prone to welcome whatever will serve as an excuse for throwing off the irksome restraints of moral discipline. That is why we repeat that the one real danger religion has to face to-day is the danger arising from the spread of a false philosophy, whose tenets are ultimately incompatible ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... that is essential in the narrative; and thus it may perhaps be safely said that the readers of this volume will obtain from it an adequate knowledge of these time-honoured stories, without having their attention and their patience overtaxed by a multiplicity of superfluous and therefore utterly irksome details.' —Preface, pp. ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... will never suspect that the bulk of the ransom money has gone into my pocket. It is money sorely needed, I can assure you. I shall probably give my consent to her marriage with Cayley; her marriage will make my guardianship less irksome. He will be as unsuspicious of me as Eva. I prevailed upon him not to come to Whiteladies until to-morrow by suggesting that you were foolish enough to suspect him. I think it has all been rather cleverly managed. The only regrettable thing will be the death of two—two brilliant ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... and coercion, to the newer scheme of the ungraded commonwealth, are convinced, to the point of martyrdom, that anything like a return to the old order is morally impossible as well as insufferably shameful and irksome; whereas those people, of the retarded division of the race, who have had no experience of this new order, are equally convinced that it is all quite incompatible with ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... gratified at the assent and modesty—"Dutiful you have always been. We parents have no eyes. The whole matter is left to you. If Jinnosuke can be taken by your person, perchance he will devote his time to home and the farm work, now so irksome to his father. Where he goes in these long absences is not known; they can be for no good purpose." Thus the arrangement was made. The girl now busied herself about and with Jinnosuke. She was the one to attend to all his comforts, to await his often late return. Thus used to her he ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... fearing lest they should be surprised and cut off by an ambuscade of Spaniards, that might chance to lie thereabouts in the neighbouring woods, which appeared so thick as to seem almost impenetrable. Having this morning begun their march, they found the ways so dirty and irksome, that Captain Morgan thought it more convenient to transport some of the men in canoes (though it could not be done without great labour) to a place farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno. Thus they re-embarked, ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... could not say, Si mori contigerit, but si quid humanitas contingat, not if or when I die, but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me. To us that speak daily of the death of Christ (he was crucified, dead, and buried), can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome or bitter? There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough, and the death of God, but in blasphemous oaths and execrations. Miserable men, who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus, because they have named him too often; and therefore hear Jesus ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... had charmed the Queen, had, by saving her life, made England her long debtor; but Leicester had judged rightly in believing that the Queen might find the debt irksome; that her gratitude would be corroded by other destructive emotions. It was true that Angele had saved her life, but Michel had charmed her eye. He had proved himself a more gallant fighter than any in her kingdom; and had done it, as he had said, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... murmured pettishly, turning his head round toward Theos as he spoke—"Was ever a more foolish child than Zoralin? ... Just as I would fain have consoled her for her pricking heartache, she must needs pour out a torrent of tear-drops to change my humor and quench her own delight! 'Tis the most irksome inconsistency!" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... only requires the sanction of some man of quality, to establish it at the head of all our modern amusements. There is a certain sameness in other divertisements, which must become irksome to the spectator. But in the noble exhibitions of the foot-race there will be no danger of satiety, for the art of running may be diversified by such innumerable modifications, that it will appear "ever charming, ever new." ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... which he held, with the exception of two years spent in European travel, until 1877. The duties of his chair called for wide reading and frequent lecturing, and he turned much of his attention toward writing critical essays. The routine work of his professorship often grew irksome and the "Spence negligence" was sometimes in evidence in his failure to meet his classes. As a teacher, he was, however, frequently ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... all purposes, that the filial back was no more ready now than ever before to submit to harness; that rules and regulations were sure to be resented; that dates and duties were fretful affairs at best; that engagements and responsibilities were far too irksome to be endured; and, above all, that anything like "hours" would be most emphatically beyond the pale of a moment's consideration. Truesdale professed to regard himself as having returned once more to the life of ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... blessing we enjoy is health, without it, wealth, honors, and every other consideration, would be insipid, and even irksome; the preservation of this state therefore, naturally concerns us all. In this lecture, I shall not attempt to teach you to become your own physicians, for when the barriers of health are once broken down, and disease has established itself, it requires the deepest attention, and ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... might surely be expected to be at an end at last— here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform. It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was engaged upon some more congenial occupation—discussing, perhaps, the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland—a question in which he was profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself, with a sigh of ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... reproach me for giving way to impulses which I felt it impossible to control? There was a terror of the future, which even recollection of the happy past was powerless to dissipate. Society, even books, became irksome, and I went out into the garden alone, there to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... next morning, Charteris riding out to take up again the nomadic life and open-air work that he loved, while Gerrard remained to begin his irksome task of trying to induce the Regents, the Durbar, the army and the citizens to lay aside their differences and aim at the common good. The Rani's one idea was to safeguard her son's position by securing the loyalty of the army at all costs. The faintest sign of discontent ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... great pains to follow Miss Winstead's instructions. She was always taking great pains now. A wonderful lot of her naughtiness and daringness had left her. She was trying to be good. It was extremely irksome, but when she succeeded she felt a great glow of pleasure, for she believed herself near to ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... been said, a woman is expected to call on her friends once a year at least. The "Day at Home" has rather gone out of fashion. It imposed an obligation on the hostess which often proved irksome, interfering with engagements she might wish to make. If, however, one has "a day," her friends should so ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... own conscience is accusing you, not your mother. Would you have me suppress the truth or tell you a lie? Do you think any mother could listen unmoved to what you have told me just now—that you intend to leave my roof, that my only son finds his home so uncongenial, and his life here so irksome, that he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... however; the project had appealed to him peculiarly, and he had no other in mind to take its place. For lack of other literary work, therefore, he presently engaged to write a monthly article for the New York "Knickerbocker," at a salary of $2000 a year. The arrangement was just not too irksome to continue for ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... in like manner. And so, though most young men would have found the Dunbude tutorship the very acme of their wishes—plenty of amusements and nothing to do for them—Ernest Le Breton found it to the last degree irksome and unsatisfactory. Not that he had ever to complain of any unkindliness on the part of the Exmoor family; they were really in their own way very kind-hearted, friendly sort of people—that is to say, towards all members of their own circle; and as they considered Ernest one ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... stags abounded, Fell sick and was surrounded Forthwith by comrades kind, All pressing to assist, Or see, their friend, at least, And ease his anxious mind— An irksome multitude. "Ah, sirs!" the sick was fain to cry, "Pray leave me here to die, As others do, in solitude. Pray, let your kind attentions cease, Till death my spirit shall release." But comforters are not so sent: On duty sad full long ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... In October, 1768, Chatham resigned office, and Grafton became the recognised head of a Ministry the policy of which he was incapable either of formulating or directing; and when in January, 1770, Grafton resigned office and handed over the Ministry to Lord North, it released him from a trying and irksome position. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... as this was much wanted,—a work giving in clear and intelligible outline the leading facts of the science, without amplification or irksome details. It is admirable in arrangement, and clear, easy, and at the same time forcible, in style. It will lead, we hope, to the introduction of geology into many schools that have neither time nor room for the study ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... at long range, and this thought of life and safety Garrison did not at all relish. They grew more and more irksome to his fearless and earnest spirit. For his was a "pine-and-fagot" Abolitionism that knew not the fear of men or their wrath. But now he must needs have a care for the peace of mind of his young wife, who was, within a few months, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... to run backwards and forwards, and help with the move. When they were thoroughly settled in, lessons began. Lady Isobel had put aside a special room for the schoolroom; and though at first Bobby and True found it a little irksome to get into their regular hours of work again, they soon ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... to him that Federigo's attachment was more to his money than to himself, that he determined to get rid of his irksome attentions. Accordingly, when they arrived at Nieuwediep, he made all his arrangements for leaving the vessel, legally this time, without saying a word to him of his intention; and Federigo only heard of it at the last moment when he met him coming up with his hammock clothes. ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... of our national life the Western backwoodsman found the Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi even more hurtful and irksome than the retention by the British king of the posts on the Great Lakes. After years of tedious public negotiations, under and through which ran a dark woof of private intrigue, the sinewy western ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... dessert and the wine came to an end, and it was chapel time (mercifully)." One story Clark tells of an extraordinary attempt to smoke. Referring to the compulsory "chapels," he says that as a rule everybody behaved with propriety, whether they regarded the attendance as irksome or otherwise. But, he admits, "'Iniquity Corner,' as the space at the east end on each side of the altar was called, may occasionally have effectually sheltered card-playing; but when a young snob went ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... lowering sky for the clear dark-blue starlight, proved enough to renovate their drooping hearts, and to excite them to make the best use they could of their limbs; so that by persevering they at last reached a part of the waste where the travelling became less irksome, the drifting sand having, in this particular part, formed itself into larger hills, which, in course of time, had become coated with short grass, and thus afforded very pleasant ground to walk over. But this relief from fatigue was attended with increased peril to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... example, as a good millionaire; that human life, in short, is a complex of countless different uses, each one of which is as important on its own plane as any of the others. But the intermediate period is undeniably irksome. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... indignant emotion; "they are not lessons at all now!" I certainly do not observe any reluctance on their part to set to work, and I do see a considerable reluctance to stop; yet I don't think there is the least strain about it. But it is true that I save them all the stupid and irksome work that made my own acquisition of knowledge so bitter a thing. We read French together; my own early French lessons were positively disgusting, partly from the abominable little books on dirty paper and in bad type that we read, and partly ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with in Italian women"; and a rhapsody composed by her upon the subject of Uranian Love—"Il Vero Amore"—justifies the belief that she possessed an intellect of more than ordinary elevation. He took Mrs. Shelley to see her; and both did all they could to make her convent prison less irksome by frequent visits, by letters, by presents of flowers and books. It was not long before Shelley's sympathy for this unfortunate lady took the form of love, which, however spiritual and Platonic, was ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... How irksome, to have to entertain a young lady; to be obliged to talk when I did not feel inclined; to listen when I was impatient and weary; to have to thank her, perhaps fifty times a day, for meaningless expressions of condolence or affected pity; to tell her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... men (including 25 scouts), made a raid beyond the lower Lac qui Parle, and captured 23 lodges, in all 67 Indians. On the 18th W. A. Hill rejoined. While at Camp Release the duty performed was chiefly guarding the Indian prisoners, foraging, and serving on camp guard,—a very strict and irksome one. Company drill in the morning and battalion drill in the afternoon ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... bathed in a tranquil beauty. The days flowed by like a river beneath the moon—each ripple caught the brightness and passed it on. She began to take a renewed interest in her familiar round of duties. The tasks which had once seemed colourless and irksome had now a kind of sacrificial sweetness, a symbolic meaning into which she alone was initiated. She had been restless—had longed to travel; now she felt that she should never again care to leave Wentworth. But if her desire to wander had ceased, she travelled in spirit, ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... years of age Maupassant attended the seminary at Yvetot, where he found school life irksome and a most distasteful contrast to his former free life. Later he became a student in the Lycee in Rouen. His experience as a student here was very pleasant, and he easily acquired his degree. In 1870 he was appointed to a clerkship in the Navy, and a little later to a more lucrative position in ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... The somewhat irksome phraseology of Baron Swedenborg has dulled many minds to a sense of his great acumen and philosophical depth, but it maybe convenient to summarize his scientific doctrine of "Correspondences" in this place as it has an important bearing on the subject in hand. He laid down the principle ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... question to which I propose to address myself is whether Indian unrest represents merely, as we are prone to imagine, the human and not unnatural impatience of subject races fretting under an alien rule which, however well intentioned, must often be irksome and must sometimes appear to be harsh and arbitrary; or whether to-day, in its more extreme forms at any rate, it does not represent an irreconcilable reaction against all that not only British rule but ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... suffer under that heavy judgment, and ever since I have continued to serve God with more fervency than before. I am persuaded, dear lady, that he has sent you hither for my comfort, for which I render him infinite thanks; for I must own that this solitary life is extremely irksome." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... apprenticeship was about to expire he amused her with surreptitious notes. To-day, for the first time, Tabea began to think of the possibility of marrying Scheible, chiefly, perhaps, from a vague desire to escape from the convent, which could not but be irksome to one of her spirit. Scheible was ambitious, and it was his plan, as she knew, to go to Philadelphia to make his fortune; and she and he together, what might they not do? Then she laughed at herself for such a day dream, and went out to do her share of household duties, singing mellifluously, ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... the guardianship of this old place was entrusted, but to my mind it is less likely. In the case of the gold valley there was nothing for those in the secret to do but to hold their tongues; but to supply guardians to this place from generation to generation must have been a much more irksome task, and it may have been abandoned, either from the dislike of those who had to spend their lives in such a monotonous business, or by their families dying out. I certainly don't want to have a fight with men who are only following orders passed ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Power, or words to that effect. He thinks his present Ministers do not treat him well, inasmuch as they do not tell him enough. The last, it seems, constantly fed him with scraps of information which he twaddled over, and probably talked nonsense about; but it is difficult to imagine anything more irksome for a Government beset with difficulties like this than to have to discuss the various details of their measures with a silly bustling old fellow, who can by no possibility comprehend the scope ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... that are taught by the Church of Rome, the little Claim which Popes can lay to Infallibility, and the Priestcraft there is in what they say of purgatory and all that belongs to it. But to persuade him likewise, that the Gospel requires no Self-denial, nor any Thing that is irksome to Nature, and that the Generality of the Clergy of England are sincerely endeavouring, in their Lives and Doctrine, to imitate the Apostles, as nearly as Human Frailty will let them, and is consistent with the Difference of the Age and Manners between their Time and ours; ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... me like this any more, then will I turn the key in the lock when I sit down to write," cried I, for verily mine heart was going pitter-patter to come up in my throat, and out at my mouth, for aught I know. "Thou irksome man, I went about to ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... confessed, are just like him. You must resist them both, or they will never flee. But if they do flee after a day's tarry, do not complain. You protest against turning your house into a hotel. Why, the hotelry is the least irksome part of the whole business, when your guests are uninteresting. It is not the supper or the bed that costs, but keeping people going after supper is over and before bed-time is come. Never complain, if you have nothing worse to do than to feed or house your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... close fellowship, the old quack cultivated even the minor and finer virtues. With Hal he was scrupulously tactful. If the boy found his business an irksome subject, he would talk about the boy's business. And he did, sounding the Paean of Policy across the Surtaine mahogany in a hundred variations supported by a thousand instances. But here, also, Hal grew restive. He responded no more willingly to leads on journalism ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... retired from the posts they filled; Bismarck, with growing misgivings, stayed on. His promises to his old master, his love of power, his distrust of the capacity of others, all made it hard for him to withdraw when he still might have done so with dignity. We cannot doubt that his presence was irksome to his master; his influence and authority were too great; before them, even the majesty of the Throne was dimmed; the Minister was a greater man than ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... government had so far succeeded, as to force the English, thus to deprive themselves of such a number of subjects, who, but for the reasons above deduced, might have been very valuable ones, and a great strengthening of their new colony. Hitherto then our neighborhood has made it almost as irksome, and uncomfortable to them, as we could wish; and this fine spot of dominion does not nigh produce to them the advantages that might otherwise naturally be expected from it. Numbers of themselves begin to exclaim ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... husband have begged for a holiday from this morning till Boxing-day, and I could not refuse. I can do without them for so short a time. I might have spent the Christmas with one of my children, but they live far away and travelling is now irksome to me. I was seventy years old a month past. Besides, they are married and have their own friends, of whom I know nothing. I have locked the door of my cottage and ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... to the Torch. The evening when we landed in the lobsterbox, as Jack loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do anything towards refitting that night; and the confusion, and uproar, and numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were irksome to a greater degree than I expected even, after having been accustomed to the strict and orderly discipline of a man—of—war. The following forenoon the Torch was ordered by signal to chase in the south—east quarter, and hauling out ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... confinement, where he remained for days without seeing anybody except the soldier who brought him his food and water, and from whom he could obtain no news at all. But he would make no complaint to this soldier, although the imprisonment was terribly irksome. He had been an entire week within walls. Such a thing had never happened before in his life, and often he felt as if he were choking. It seemed also at times that the great body which made him remarkable was shrinking. He knew that it was only the effect of imagination, but it preyed ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground. The contest then must be, who can arm fastest. And where are our arms? Besides, I am not clear that a discrimination will not render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it. Most of the good and evil things in this life are judged of by comparison; and I fear a comparison in this case will be productive of much discontent in those, who are held in servitude. But, as this is a subject that has never employed much of my thoughts, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... had the chance, would care to strike the bread from the hand of one of these? Ask God that the scales of unconscious selfishness may fall from your eyes. Look about you and see if there is not some duty, however small, the more irksome the better, that you may take from your mother's daily load, some service you can render for father, brother, sister, aunt; some daily household task, so small you may feel contemptuous of it, yet some ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... presently, and with enough distinctness to serve all purposes, that the filial back was no more ready now than ever before to submit to harness; that rules and regulations were sure to be resented; that dates and duties were fretful affairs at best; that engagements and responsibilities were far too irksome to be endured; and, above all, that anything like "hours" would be most emphatically beyond the pale of a moment's consideration. Truesdale professed to regard himself as having returned once more to the life of the frontier; and being thus placed, what could he be but a pioneer? ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... exertion is, at first, irksome; so much so, that the many would fain let others both work and think for them. An observation which I have often made will illustrate my meaning. When in a circle of strangers, or acquaintances, a person of moderate abilities, asserts an opinion with ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... this historic old park, so full of traditions and the lore of centuries, wrought strange fancies and bold inclinations in the head of the audacious visitor. He felt the bonds of restraint; he resented the irksome chains of convention; he murmured against the laws that said he should not step across the granite road into the cool forbidden world beyond—the world of kings. Hobbs knew he was doomed to have rebellion on his hands before long; he could ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... father's shop, he found mere craftsmanship irksome, and he begged to be allowed to enter a studio. This was a great disappointment to the father, even a distress, because he could see no very quick nor large returns in money for an artist, and he sorely needed the help of his son; but being kind and reasonable, he consented Albrecht ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... yes, My bosom's better half, I can.—With thee, I'll gladly seek the coast unknown, and leave The lessening mark of irksome life behind. With thee, my friend, 'tis joy to die!—'tis glory! For who would wait the tardy stroke of time? Or cling like reptiles to the verge of being, When we can bravely leap from life at once, And spring, triumphant, in a ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... celerity of labor. Now, in spite of all my vigilance, how am I to prevent my workmen from wasting the materials? How am I to induce them, each in his own province, to seek for the most simple and least irksome processes?" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... on his way in peace: he shall have his reward. Let me add, however, that if he is a man of ramshackle tendencies, the offices of drill-sergeant, cricket-referee and supervisor of table-etiquette which he has to combine with his ordinary tutorial duties will in time become so irksome—especially if it is his lot to fall upon inferior schools—that he will be disposed to sacrifice all his pecuniary advantages and chances of unlimited promotion for the sake of a little peace of mind ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... it must last forever. He was almost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more than equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasoned with ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... pleasant to every one. You should be pleasant when you are conferring some favor, otherwise the favor will seem irksome. When you want something, do you ask for it arrogantly? If so, it will be easier to say no than yes to you. On the other hand, if you ask politely for something, will it not be difficult to ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... deference, it is proper to look beyond the trouble which will be incurred in adjusting the boundaries and the first cost of increasing the population of this country, and to consider that beginnings are difficult and that sowing would be irksome if the sower were not cheered with the hope of reaping. We trust and so assure ourselves that the very great experience of Their High Mightinesses will dictate better remedies than we are able to suggest. But it may be that Their ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... her position was a little difficult and irksome. The number of servants bewildered her; she wished Mrs. Heron would not interlard her conversation with so many "my ladys," and that, Hugh would ride with her oftener instead ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... counteract its sovereign will. Besides, I cannot consent to venture my armies with a commander whom they despise, nor to trust the welfare of my people to a champion whom they distrust. Retire therefore, my friend, from the irksome toils and cares of public life, with this comforting reflection—that if guilty, you are but enjoying your just reward—and if innocent, you are not the first great and good man who has most wrongfully been slandered and maltreated in this wicked world—doubtless ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the theatre of war, and condemned to irksome inaction, while his rivals gathered laurels on the field of glory, the haughty duke had beheld these changes of fortune with affected composure, and concealed, under a glittering and theatrical pomp, the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... change had come over my uncle's life since my first acquaintance with him at Jeannette Thome's. The home which he, together with his sister Friederike, had found in his friend's house seemed, as time went on, to have brought in its train duties that were irksome. As his literary work assured him a modest income, he eventually deemed it more in accordance with his dignity to make a home of his own. A friend of his, of the same age as himself, the sister of the aesthete Wendt ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... benefit from it. For not only was he stimulated to greater activity of production, but his now more methodical way of life gave him time and inclination for that work of arrangement and preparation for the press which, distasteful to most writers, was no doubt especially irksome to him, and thus insured the publication of many pieces which otherwise might never have seen the light. The appearance of Christabel was, as we have said, received with signal marks of popular favour, three editions being called for and exhausted in the same year. In 1816 ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... de Vitri and Bassompierre, the Comte de Cremail, M. du Fargis, and M. du Coudrai Montpensier were then prisoners in the Bastille upon different counts. But, as length of time makes confinement less irksome, they were treated very civilly, and indulged with a great share of freedom. Their friends came to see them, and sometimes dined with them. By means of M. du Fargis, who had married my aunt, I got acquainted with the rest, and by conversing with them discovered very remarkable emotions ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... whirling up to the hill-tops, long delayed as if in gleeful anticipation of catching her alone and unprotected. The little electric saddle-lamp that she carried gave out a feeble glow, scarce opening the way in the darkness more than ten feet ahead. Rough and irksome was the road, most stubborn the wall of wind. The second threat of the storm was more terrifying than the first; at any instant it was likely to break forth in all its slashing fury—and she knew not whither ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... applied it, knowing remotely what he must do. It was long; it was irksome; he ached all through with the effort but still he persisted. Until at last, from all the stones in the shallows, he had gathered a dozen ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... endeavors to reconcile the conclusions of philosophy with biblical laws and Talmudical traditions. His method is both original and valuable; indeed, this deserves to be considered the most important part of his work. Detailed exposition of his reasoning may prove irksome; we shall, therefore, consider it ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... playing was so much admired that he was at once engaged as a teacher by several ladies present. In a very short time he became the fashionable teacher in aristocratic circles, where his refined manners made him personally liked. As he refused to take any but talented pupils, teaching was not so irksome to him as it might have been. Nevertheless one cannot but marvel at the obtuseness of the Parisians who put into the utilitarian harness an artist who might have enchanted them every evening with a concert, had their taste been more cultivated. He did ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... were to have a trip to Australia now, you would find, probably, the sea voyage, which takes up five weeks as a rule, a little irksome. But fancy that over, and imagine yourself safely into Australia of to-day. Fremantle will be the first place of call. It is the port of Perth, which is the capital of West Australia. That great State occupies nearly a quarter of the ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... season of roses was gone. He had crossed the marshland seawards, only to find a little crowd of holiday-makers in possession of the golf links and the green tufted stretch of sandy shore. The day had been long, almost irksome. A fit of restlessness had driven him from his study. He seemed to have lost all power of concentration. For once his brain had failed him. The shadowy companions who stood ever between him and solitude remained uninvoked. His cigar had burnt out between his fingers. He threw it impatiently ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... very pleasant for a time, especially if one is tired and needs a complete rest. But after a while it becomes irksome, and one longs for a change, even if it should be for the worse. We are floating on a sea of beneficence, in which it is impossible for us to sink. But though one could not easily drown in the Dead Sea, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... guilt. Christ is well named the Redeemer, because He frees the sinful soul from all this. He delivers it from the penalty, by assuming it all upon Himself, and making complete satisfaction to the broken law. He delivers it from the perpetual restraint and the irksome effort, by so renewing and changing the heart that it becomes a delight to keep the law. We observed, in the first part of the discourse, that if man could only bring the inclination of his heart into ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... they disembarked and hid the dugout and the cock-boat in the overhanging bushes where they could be found again in case of a forced retreat. Bill and Jack burdened themselves with the sack of food and the water jug while the old buccaneer set out in the lead as a guide. It was irksome progress for a time, but gradually the ground became drier and the foliage was more open. Dusk found them safely emerged from the great Cherokee swamp and in a pleasant forest of long-leaf pine with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... things lasted for three years, and then the Shechemites, who had shown themselves so pleased at the idea of having "one of their brethren" as sovereign, found it irksome to pay the taxes levied upon them by him, as if they were in no way related to him. The presence among them of a certain Zebul, the officer and representative of Abimelech, restrained them at first from breaking out into rebellion, but they returned soon to their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... are kept under pressure for quality, yet the pressure is not irksome, because the worker understands exactly what quality is desired, and what variations from ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... sometimes wondered, upon what motive the peerage of England were so desirous to determine our controversies; because I have been assured, and partly know, that the frequent appeals from hence, have been very irksome to that illustrious body; and whoever hath frequented the Painted Chamber, and Court of Requests, must have observed, that they are never so nobly filled, as when an Irish appeal ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... certain turn for solitude, being of a thoughtful, serious nature, ceased to find the waiting in the valley irksome. He began to think less of the treasure for which he had come so far and through such dangers. They had found a happy valley, and he did not care how long they stayed in it, all nature being so propitious. He had never ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... most horrid Shapes of Imps and Devils, and so delivered to the executioner.... St. JAGO, or St. James's Day, is the Day for the AUCTO DE FIE." And in chapter v. of the same Letter he states that, when he was at Goa, "all Butcher's Meat was forbidden, except Pork" — a regulation irksome enough even to the European residents, but worse for those Hindus allowed by their caste rules to eat meat, but to whom pork is always especially distasteful. Linschoten, who was in India from 1583 to 1589, mentions the imprisonments and tortures inflicted on the Hindus by the Inquisition ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... the events that really befell me. My temper was inquisitive, but there was nothing in the scene to which I was going from which my curiosity expected to derive gratification. Discords and evil smells, unsavoury food, unwholesome labour, and irksome companions, were, in my opinion, the unavoidable attendants of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... central affection of her own were never hers. In her early days of attractiveness, none who would have sought her could meet the high requirements of her ideality; she never saw her hero,—and so never married. Family cares, the tending of young children, she often confessed, were peculiarly irksome to her. She had the head of a student, a passionate love for the world of books. A Protestant convent, where she might devote herself without interruption to study, was her ideal of happiness. She had, too, the keenest appreciation of poetry, of music, of painting, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling, to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Noll tried sitting down at first. This soon became so irksome that they rose and went to one ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... that sailing on a yacht presents innumerable novelties and advantages not attainable by any other conveyance. Since the parties on board a pleasure-boat concentrate all their thoughts to the expected enjoyments they cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes, delivering themselves up to the free air to live less conventionally than at home. The preferableness of such an existence, freed from all unnecessary ceremonies, is still more perceptible when the trip is of long duration ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... with the storm and astounded at her greeting, Thayer halted just across the threshold and looked at her in silence. The silence grew irksome to her. She changed ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... kindled this funeral fire upon the place where the body was deposited, the spirit had the benefit of its light and warmth in its sojourning; but, if they neglected this rite, the spirit would itself be subjected to the irksome task of building its own fire ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of his thoughts to paper became a less irksome occupation, Hogg began, with commendable prudence, to attempt composition in prose; and in evidence of his success, he had the satisfaction to find short essays which he sent to the Scots Magazine regularly inserted in that periodical. Poetry was cultivated at the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... master, in a state of things then barely remunerative, one fourth of the time and labor required in cultivation, and gave it to the servant, while it compelled the master to supply the same allowances as before. With many irksome restraints, conditions, and responsibilities imposed on the master, it had no equivalent advantages. There appeared no reason, in short, why general emancipation would not do as well in 1834 as in 1840. Finally, a strong conviction existed that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... them the villagers have clung to something which they need and cannot get elsewhere. It is idle to pretend that the "Institute" which was started a few years ago provides a satisfactory alternative. Controlled by people of another class, whose "respectability" is irksome, and open only to members and never to women, the Institute does not lend itself to the easy intercourse which tired men enjoy at the public-house. Its billiard-table is not for their heavy hands, used to the pick-axe and shovel; its card games interrupt their talk; its newspapers remind ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... unfurnished with. Accordingly we soon provided ourselves with some sea-fowl, and found limpets, mussels, and other shellfish in tolerable abundance; but this rummaging of the shore was now becoming extremely irksome to those who had any feeling, by the bodies of our drowned people thrown among the rocks, some of which were hideous spectacles, from the mangled condition they were in by the violent surf that drove in upon the coast. These ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... would live up to the pledge his chum had made for him. Now he must fulfil his promise, Van argued. So although the call of the springtime was strong and difficult to resist he had been faithful to his work, "plugging away," as he expressed it, with all his strength. To his surprise the task, so irksome at first, became interesting. It was a novel experience to enter a classroom and instead of moving in a mental haze possess a clear idea of what was going on. Twice he was able to furnish the correct answers to Latin questions on which every one else ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... some mystery in Elizabeth's life—of that irksome suspicion he could not divest himself. Twenty times each day he went over in his mind every event that had occurred since his return, from the moment when he came upon her wandering so wildly about ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... the purely organic upwards, can only be satisfied by means of labour, nor does bodily labour suffice, without the guidance of intelligence. But labour, especially when prolonged and monotonous, is naturally hateful, and mental labour the most irksome of all; and hence a second antagonism, which must exist in all societies whatever. The character of the society is principally determined by the degree in which the better incentive, in each of these cases, makes head against the worse. In both the points, human nature is capable of great amelioration. ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... ceremony,[11] like some everyday response in church, which one is in a hurry to get over, and which has almost the suggestion of an imperious law, to which one is bound to submit, and of a state of bondage, which will, perhaps, be very irksome, since the whole of existence ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering, honestly, heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie" jhampanies at the back of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... have every one's implicit obedience. I may—nay, I shall— give orders that will be irksome and at the same time hard to understand. I may be unable to give you my reasons for them; or able to give you none beyond the general warning that we are after treasure, and I never yet heard of ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... which Trujano had imposed upon the besieged, they were each day called together to oration. On this morning, however, their reunion was earlier than usual: since it had for its object not only the ordinary prayers, but preparation for the combat that was to decide the issue of a long and irksome siege. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the stock of casts from the antique, and the number of drawings from the old masters, were very small; so much so, indeed, that Runciman was under the necessity of setting the students to copy them again and again. This became rather irksome to the more ardent pupils. My father had completed his sixth copy of a fine chalk drawing of "The Laocoon." It was then set for him to copy again. He begged Mr. Runciman for another subject. The quick-tempered ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... given by the directors had been too low to keep servants long in the place, or to secure a good class of girls who would be above dishonesty or other weaknesses; and this made the duties of their superintendent particularly irksome; while there was a good deal to be done for the patients themselves, though not so much by the second ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... is that, as I have shown you, this method I wish you to follow, is the natural one. All great artist nations have actually learned to work in this way, and I believe it therefore the right, as the hitherto successful one. Secondly, you will find it less irksome than the reverse method, and more definite. When a beginner is set at once to draw details, and make finished studies in light and shade, no master can correct his innumerable errors, or rescue him out of his ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... conclusion of hostilities, peace was declared, the crew of a privateer found it exceedingly irksome to give up the roving life, and were liable to drift into piracy. Often it happened that, after a long naval war, crews were disbanded, ships laid up, and navies reduced, thus flooding the countryside with idle ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... and whistle, the noisy troop of boys and girls came tumbling out of the doorway of the White Oak School, their dinner pails and baskets on their arms, homeward bound from the irksome duties of the day. The young teacher, after standing a few moments in the doorway, watching her charges down the road and out of sight in the timber across the valley, turned wearily back, and seating herself at a rude desk in the rear of ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... the other side of the Atlantic an almost invincible barrier of customs duties impedes the entry of our products into markets naturally hostile to South American productions, our country has only two alternatives: either to continue the very irksome commercial relations with those markets, or to look for others with evident loss of a part of the harmony that ought to exist between nations affiliated by origin and for so many years united by the most intimate links of sympathy and ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... plot Beric found his position more and more irksome in spite of the favour Nero showed him. Do what he would he could not close his ears to what was public talk in Rome. The fabulous extravagances of Nero, the public and unbounded profligacy of himself and his court, ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... promotion from the ranks. Yet the very experience which brought their contempt upon him gave him a sense of superiority that made their manner toward him the harder to bear, and drilling with green boys after having been two years a soldier, he found most irksome. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... papacy. Though Clement's main concern was to fulfil the exacting conditions which, as it was believed, Philip had imposed upon him, he was almost as subservient to Edward as to the King of France. His deference to his natural lord enabled Edward to renounce the most irksome of the obligations which he had incurred to his subjects, to punish Winchelsea, and to restrain Roman authority by laws which anticipate the legislation of the age of ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... remain in prison," said he, "to-night, but depend upon it that to-morrow, if you are disposed, you may quit in triumph." "I am by no means disposed for any such thing," I replied. "They have put me in prison for their pleasure, and I intend to remain here for my own." "If the confinement is not irksome to you," said Mr. Southern, "I think, indeed, it will be your wisest plan; the government have committed themselves sadly with regard to you; and, to speak plainly, we are by no means sorry for it. They have on more than one occasion treated ourselves very cavalierly, and ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... irksome at times. True, it had its interest. He was the liaison between organized labor, which was conservative in the main, and the radical element, both in and out of the organization. He played a double game, and his work was always the same, to fan the discontent latently smoldering in every man's soul ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... drive the French from the continent and the Indian from the frontier. So that now we dwell in peace, and live our lives in quiet and content, save for some disagreements with the king about our taxes, which Lord Grenville has made most irksome. ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... missing the vigilant officers by a hair's breadth, and crashing to the cement with a terrific force. An inspection of the roof from the Bevington house, later, revealed nothing unusual. It is evident, however, that the quarantine is proving irksome to the inhabitants of the sequestered residence, most of whom are typical society folk, without resources in themselves. Their condition, without valets and maids, is certainly pitiable. It has ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... days and two nights the "Flitter" steamed westward into the Atlantic, with her temporary owner locked into his stateroom. The confinement was irksome, but he rather liked the sensation of being interested in something besides money. He frequently laughed to himself over the absurdity of the situation. His enemies were friends, true and devoted; his gaolers were relentless but they were considerate. The original order that he ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... and obsequious she scarcely troubled to answer him, although she understood that he was a doctor. At another point the door opened and Terence came in very gently, smiling too steadily, as she realised, for it to be natural. He sat down and talked to her, stroking her hands until it became irksome to her to lie any more in the same position and she turned round, and when she looked up again Helen was beside her and Terence had gone. It did not matter; she would see him to-morrow when things would be ordinary again. Her chief occupation during the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... by her kind welcome; but he shook his head and spake: "Thou art kind, sister; yet if thou wouldst be kinder thou wilt show me a way whereby I may escape from this land. For abiding here has become irksome to me, and meseemeth that hope is yet ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... those who by a thousand ways have exchanged a painful and irksome life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, to fly, he said, both the future and the past. Granius Silvanus and Statius Proximus, after having been pardoned by Nero, killed themselves; either disdaining to live by the favour of so wicked a man, or that they might ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... do you think it can be a trap that they are laying for us?" suggested Porthos, incessantly thinking how his greatness must be irksome to inferior people. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were many of the features of Franklin's residence in France, and skillfully as he may have evaded some of the more irksome labors imposed upon him, the attraction was not always sufficient to make him reluctant to have done with the place. Its vexations and anxieties wore upon him grievously. He knew that unfriendly representations concerning him were often made in America, and that these induced some men to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... write, and, indeed, did do so; but he did not at first like the tone of the conversation into which he was dragged. It was very painful to him to hear Lady Lufton called an old woman, and hardly less so to discuss the propriety of Lord Lufton's parting with his property. This was irksome to him, till habit made it easy. But by degrees his feelings became less acute, and he accustomed himself to his ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... entered an Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, soon after obtaining his first degree. But the duties and studies of monastic life did not give his troubled soul the repose he sought. He submitted to all the irksome labors which the monks imposed; he studied the fathers and the schoolmen; he practised the most painful austerities, and fastings, and self-lacerations: still he was troubled with religious fears. His brethren encouraged his good works, but his perplexities ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the princess in the Tower had purposely been rendered as irksome and comfortless as possible. It was not till after a month's close imprisonment, by which her health had suffered severely, that she obtained, after many difficulties, permission to walk in the royal apartments; and this ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... command of their father, have still preserved their disguise, at first irksome to their habits and delicacy of maidenhood; but necessity and fear toned down their objection, and they gradually accustomed themselves to the change. In girlish simplicity they were pleased with the novelty of their position. They knew each other as Charles and Henry, and by these names ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the long period of make-believe in England. Discipline. So salutary and so irksome. Now for the battle. I own I long to get into the thick of it soon. We see infantry returning and going up, and we feel sick, ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... all delight in writing themes," jeered Nettie Weyburn, to whom theme writing was an irksome task. "My inner voice of duty is screaming at me this very minute to go and write one, but I'm so deaf ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... reason coolly upon the subject, they disbelieved the assertions of Colonel Hamilton, that Macartney had stabbed the Duke, although it was universally admitted that he had been much too busy and presuming. Hamilton was shunned by all his former companions, and his life rendered so irksome to him, that he sold out of the Guards, and retired to private life, in which he died heart-broken four ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Ames became associated with his father in the already great banking house of Ames and Company. But the animality of his nature soon found the confinement irksome; his father's greater conservatism hampered his now rapidly expanding spirit of commercialism; and after a few years in the banking house he withdrew and set up for himself. The father, while lacking the boy's ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... dutiful son, though staying in the house to-night was a task most irksome to his adventurous spirit, which urged him forth into the busy turmoil where the brave citizens were making ready to fight for ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... boys were herded together. They fought, quarreled, divided into cliques; the big boys bullied the little ones. Fagging was the law; so the upper forms enslaved the lower ones. There was no home life, and the studies were made irksome and severe, purposely, as it was thought that pleasant ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudg, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg) At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print,) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... quite late into the next day, I was left brooding and chafing at my misfortune, self-inflicted I will confess, but not the less irksome to bear. I had almost persuaded myself that I should be left to languish here quite friendless and forgotten, when the luck turned suddenly, and daylight broke in to disperse my gloomy forebodings. Several visitors came, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... that thou thinkest thyself alone Only to lead this irksome life, Thou may'st learn what grief, sorrow and moan, Socrates had with Xantippe his wife[373]; Her husband full oft she taunted and checked, And, as ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... August and at the end of September and beginning of October, this idling was interrupted by serious work, and a kind of work which, at no time to his liking, was particularly irksome in the then state of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... was through with the school that he hated, the boy went down to his father's store and took his turn behind the counter. Irksome as was this work, it was not without a thrilling compensation, because into the shop came many of the theatrical personages of the time to buy their cigars. They included Tony Pastor, whose name was then a household word, McKee Rankin, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... followed her return from Merleville, was rather a dreary one. The restraints and self-denials, which the delicate state of her health necessarily imposed upon her, were very irksome to Fanny; and Graeme's courage and cheerfulness, sometimes during these first months, were hardly sufficient to answer the demands made upon her. But all this changed as the hour of Fanny's trial approached—the hour that was to make her a ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... the crown, Edward's son was vested with its government, and the heir-apparent has ever since been called the Prince of Wales. It is a good position, but becomes irksome after fifty or sixty years, ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... the usual routine of a garrison. Mabel was becoming used to a situation that, at first she had found not only novel, but a little irksome; and the officers and men in their turn, gradually familiarized to the presence of a young and blooming girl, whose attire and carriage had that air of modest gentility about them which she had obtained in the family of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... shadow of his defenceless cot, whilst oppression at a distance gnashes with her teeth, but dares not show her iron rod; and power, like the raging billows, dashes its bounds with indignation, but dares not overpass them. But where thou art not, how changed the scene! how tasteless, how irksome labour! how languid industry! Where are the beauteous rose, the gaudy tulip, the sweet-scented jessamine? where the purple grape, the luscious peach, the glowing nectarine? wherefore smile not the valleys with their beauteous verdure, nor sing for ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... coming from the country to the city affords one of the clearest cases of detachment. Assuming that she comes to the city to earn her living, her work is not only irksome, but so unremunerative that she finds it impossible to obtain those accessories to her personality in the way of finery which would be sufficient to hold her attention and satisfy her if they were to be had in plenty. She is lost from the sight of everyone whose ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... you!" And thrusting hands into pockets, he went on again. So I put up the money and we walked on, but in silence now, while the shadows deepened about us. And thus we went for a great while until with every stride this silence became painfully irksome—at least, to me. All at once his arm was about my shoulders, a long, nervous arm drawing me to him, then he had freed me and we stood facing each other ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... tradition, and minor considerations keep it there. With the steady cheapening and the steady increase in efficiency of postal and telephonic facilities, and of goods transit, it seems only reasonable to anticipate the need for that expensive office and the irksome daily journey will steadily decline. In other words, what will still be economically the "city," as distinguished from the "agricultural" population, will probably be free to extend, in the case of all the prosperous ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... "Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked Zenobia, with a gracious smile. "If so, I am very sorry, for you will certainly hear me singing them ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suspended the execution of his revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of the common ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... as little irksome as I can, sir," said Murray; and then, feeling a certain amount of pity for the wretched man, he added, "Not a very terrible-looking ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... proportionate and connatural to the agent. Now, since human power is finite, operation is proportionate thereto according to a certain measure. Wherefore if it exceed that measure, it will be no longer proportionate or pleasant, but, on the contrary, painful and irksome. And in this sense, leisure and play and other things pertaining to repose, are pleasant, inasmuch as they banish sadness which results from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fell upon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, in which he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being the sole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people even talking of the approaching nomination of Deputy ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... excellence, the mental powers are maintained in a state of useful energy. As soon as health is below par, even when not sufficiently so as to force us to desist from work, the brain loses its elasticity; we are dull, become mere machines instead of intelligent workers, and our duty gets irksome and fails to interest us. And here let us interpose one word. If we wish to spare ourselves that most wearying of all sensations, that fatal sense of boredom and disgust for our daily task which sometimes creeps in upon us, we must try with all ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... Yes, Mafeking, they said, was fighting on still; and Generals Buller and Warren had forded the Tugela, en route to Ladysmith. That their plunge might stimulate Methuen to burn his boots and brave the turgid waters of the Modder, was the fervent wish of Kimberley at the end of fourteen weeks of irksome, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the camel is irksome, and makes your shoulders and loins ache from the peculiar way in which you are obliged to suit yourself to the movements of the beast, but you soon of course become inured to this, and after the first two days this way of travelling became so familiar to me, that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... as you implored me on the occasion of the fete. But pray build no Hope that I, forgiving you, will once more regard you as my Suitor. For that cannot ever be. I decided you should show yourself a Fool before many people. But such Folly does not commend your hand to mine. Therefore desist your irksome attention &, if need be, begone from Bath. I have punished you, & would save my eyes the trouble to turn away from your person. I pray that you regard this epistle as privileged ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Now that they were past Ekaterinburg, Godfrey's guard, a good-tempered-looking young fellow, seemed to consider that it was no longer necessary to preserve an absolute silence, which had no doubt been as irksome to ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... indeed, was perfectly contented. His dearest hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions were satisfied; and for the rest of his life he had only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his throne, his respectability, the table of precedence, and the punctual discharge of his irksome duties. But unfortunately the felicity of those who surrounded him was less complete. His Court, it was murmured, was as gloomy as a conventicle, and the most dismal of all the sufferers was his wife. "Pas de plaisanteries, madame!" ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... me how she made that mistake about the time of the train," said Edwin, chiefly because he found the silence intolerably irksome. "It stops at Lichfield, and in running her eye across the page she must have mixed up the Lichfield figures with the Knype figures—you know how awkward it is in a time-table. As a matter of fact, the train does ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... war at Greenock, and compelled to serve on board. Effecting his escape, after an arduous servitude of five years, he resumed the loom at Kilmarnock. He subsequently taught an adventure school, first in Kilmarnock, and afterwards at Paisley. The irksome labours of sea-faring life he had sought to relieve by the composition of verses; and these in 1816 he published, under the title of "Horae Poeticae; or, the Recreations of a Leisure Hour." In 1817 he emigrated to the United States, where his career has been prosperous. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a level with the first volume. So flexible is the title of my history that the final era might be fixed at my own choice, and I long hesitated whether I should be content with the three volumes, the "Fall of the Western Empire." The tumult of London and attendance at parliament were now grown irksome, and when I had finished the fourth volume, excepting the last chapter, I sought a retreat on the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... behold two maidens entered, with a large salver between them, in which was a man's head, surrounded by a profusion of blood. And thereupon the company of the court made so great an outcry, that it was irksome to be in the same hall with them. But at length they were silent. And when time was that they should sleep, Peredur was brought into ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... sojourn at Castle Blanch was one of the most irksome periods of Honora's life, disappointing, fretting, and tedious. There was a grievous dearth of books and of reasonable conversation, and both she and Owen were exceedingly at a loss for occupation, and used to sit in the boat on the river, and heartily wish themselves ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... storms of the coming winter. So, with caches full of fish, and houses packed with trade goods after a successful season at the southern camps, they must wait until the shifting ice pack settles and the winter hunting begins. Such enforced inaction is irksome to the Eskimo, who does not partake of the stolidity of the Indian, but like a nervous child must be continually employed or amused. So this festival, which is of a purely social character, has ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... of the bath is the pleasantest part of life, Except that the time of our sojourn there is slight. A heaven, wherein 'tis irksome to us to bide: A hell, into which we enter ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... teachers at home, altogether made sufficient work to keep one brain busy, as well as all the hands I could impress into the service. Then, too, the novelty of housekeeping had passed away, and much that was once attractive in domestic life was now irksome. I had so many cares that the company I needed for intellectual stimulus was a trial rather ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... his wife notwithstanding external reverses, were still the centre. Not from any particular pleasure that was expected to be derived from the company of the Minturns, were they invited; for, in going up, they had changed so for the worse, that their society had become irksome, if not offensive. But, for the sake of old friendship, they were included. But they did not come; ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... bodies of the worshipper are attuned to its high vibrations, and he finds himself quieted, soothed, pacified, without effort on his own part. He is thrown into a condition in which prayer and meditation are easy and fruitful instead of difficult and barren, and an irksome exercise becomes insensibly delightful. If the object be a representation of some sacred Person—a Crucifix, a Madonna and Child, an Angel, a Saint—there is a yet further gain. The Being represented, if his magnetism has been thrown into the image by ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... mother's father had served under Washington. His aim was to enter the military service of one of the Central or South American states. Disappointed in his hopes, he returned to Germany and for a number of years was a government official. This task, however, proved too irksome for his restless spirit, and in spite of his continual financial embarrassments, he resigned to live as he pleased. He died in Hamburg, ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... rose from his big carved chair, and touched without removing his cap, to greet the alderman, as he observed, without the accustomed prefix of your worship—"So, you are come about your prentice's fees and dues. By Saint Peter of the Fetters, 'tis an irksome matter to have such a troop of idle, mischievous, dainty striplings thrust on one, giving more trouble, and making more call and outcry than twice as many ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man feels such an attitude is compulsory, it becomes irksome. Learn how to entertain yourself. Cling to your accomplishments and add others. A man admires a progressive woman who keeps step with the age. Study, and think, and read, and cultivate the art of listening. This will make you interesting to men and women ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... parents themselves, as the society of those whom God gives them to train for Him and their country. I might show that not a few of those traits of character which render the company of many old persons rather irksome, especially to the young, have their origin in their neglect of the young, and of keeping up, as long as circumstances will possibly admit, juvenile feelings, actions, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... permanently nobody. But Redclyffe had already sufficiently begun to suspect that he lacked some qualities that a politician ought to have, and without which a political life, whether successful or otherwise, is sure to be a most irksome one: some qualities he lacked, others he had, both almost equally an obstacle. When he communicated the offer, therefore, to his friend, the Warden, it was with the remark that he believed he ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... desires, would have changed the history of the Upper Missouri. As it was, he spent most of his villainous instincts for his own private amusement,—occasionally slaughtering one of his warriors who had given him displeasure, or butchering a couple of his wives whose society had grown irksome; and between times he leered with his solitary evil eye upon the traders, contriving ways for getting whiskey with which to bait his passions. The British traders of the Hudson Bay and Northwest companies ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... very large, but accommodating, I believe, about seventy passengers. We looked at my wife's little stateroom, with its three berths for herself and the two children; and then sat down in the saloon, and afterwards on deck, to spend the irksome and dreary hour or two before parting. Many of the passengers seemed to be Portuguese, undersized, dark, mustachioed people, smoking cigars. John Bull was fairly represented too. . . . . U—— was cheerful, and R——- seemed ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to be distinguished from a stoical indifference, or a sullen insensibility, occasioned by the conviction that, as afflictions could not be avoided, they must be borne; that it is in vain to struggle or resist; and that our weakness renders endurance necessary, however irksome. It consists rather in a pious acquiescence in the will of Heaven, arising from a persuasion that God knows what is really best for us; and that his dispensations, however painful or opposite to our wishes, will prove conducive to our real benefit. He uses the corrective ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... is health, without it, wealth, honors, and every other consideration, would be insipid, and even irksome; the preservation of this state therefore, naturally concerns us all. In this lecture, I shall not attempt to teach you to become your own physicians, for when the barriers of health are once broken down, and disease has established itself, it requires the deepest ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... occupation of that then brilliant capital, at whose head was one so much devoted to duty, that in its fulfilment he acquired the reputation of a martinet. This was the day of the early morning parade, particularly irksome in a cold climate to those who were obliged to turn out before daybreak in the bitter weather of mid-winter. At this day, also, there were frequent troopings of colours, marchings out, sham fights, and all the other martial circumstances of ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... am quite weary of such a situation; though, between you and me, I look upon it as the most natural one in the world. I am not the devil's, because I fear God, and have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the other hand, I am not properly God's, because his law appears hard and irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself to acts of self-denial; so that altogether I am one of those called lukewarm Christians, the great number of which does not in the least surprise me, for I perfectly understand their sentiments, and the reasons that influence them. However, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... became irksome to him. He passed part of them with Count Daru. It was then only that he admitted the danger of his situation. "From Wilna to Moscow, what submission, what point of support, of rest, or of retreat, marked his power? It was a vast, bare, and desert field of battle, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... appeared—a habit which annoyed him extremely. To Betty, who was to have been her special companion, she showed no desire to attach herself, but to Kitty she clung in a most embarrassing fashion, monopolizing her in a way that Kitty found most irksome, and made Betty furious, for hitherto Kitty had been Betty's whenever Betty needed her. Now she was rarely to be found without Anna. But Kitty, along with the others, never felt that she could trust Anna; and they could ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
