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Impatience   /ɪmpˈeɪʃəns/   Listen
Impatience

noun
1.
A lack of patience; irritation with anything that causes delay.  Synonym: restlessness.
2.
A restless desire for change and excitement.
3.
A dislike of anything that causes delay.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Impatience" Quotes from Famous Books



... dance was over, the young lady was in a fever of impatience to get away. Qualms of remorse seized her for the way she had treated her one-time escort, and she hinted at the trouble in store for her if the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... impatience to the day of his trip to the trading-station; twelve hours of relief, it would mean, from the worst pressure of his torment—twelve hours of merciful solitude in the old, voiceful friendliness of his forest trail. He started ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt

... fish had just been pitched; unluckily, too, he was not careful to plant his weight amidships. The dory, overbalanced to starboard, careened suddenly, and he fell sprawling on the slimy bottom. Jim could not repress an exclamation of impatience. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... full poet-luxury,—the luxury of silence and solitude. He attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous eagerness,—he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the Dom as he had been to arrive at the Field of Ardath! The same feverish impatience was upon him—impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not account for,—his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories, and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth, came back to him without his wish or will,— songs that he instinctively felt belonged ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the order of Mr. Ambrose, that he should keep his bed, from which, indeed, he could not have raised himself without assistance. He became sensible that his anxiety, and his constant efforts for some days past, had been too much for his health, and that, whatever might be his impatience, he could not proceed in his undertaking ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... the consideration of the house, but were received with impatience, and all further attempts of government to prolong the session by inducing the house to entertain bills, were fruitless; all were bent upon one object,—that of bringing to an issue before the country the question of the re-imposition of a tax ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... lady, petulantly, "I'll have no nerves left me." She turned to the letter again, holding it very near to her eyes, and made a wry face of impatience. Then she held the sheet ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... quite came to a stop at the post her master's hand turned her head into the street again, and his familiar voice bade her, somewhat sharply, to "go on!" In mild surprise she broke into a quick trot. How was the good horse to know that her driver's impatience was all with himself, and was caused by seeing his friend, the minister coming—as he thought—from the Strong mansion? Or how was Dr. Harry to know that Dan had only paused at the gate as if to enter, and had passed on when he saw the physician ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... with provoking deliberation—the impatience of my host had infected me—the clay-eater slowly proceeded to mount the horse of the negro, his dirt-bedraggled wife, and clay-incrusted children, following close at his heels, and the younger ones huddling around for the tokens of paternal affection usual at parting. Whether it was the noise ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... Greece, and of the nervous and emotional phenomena which accompanied it, to realize that his first effort would have been to explain us to ourselves. He would not allow us to acquiesce idly in our vague disillusionment, our impatience of foreigners, our suspicion of the idealisms of the Wilson brand. He would trace our discontent ruthlessly to its sources and hold up to our eyes the strange compound of sorrow and fatigue, impatience ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... My teacher was very patient, correcting my mistakes—mistakes, I must confess, often repeated—without allowing even the slightest surprise to appear in his countenance. He did not smile at blunders at which, when I knew better, I myself heartily laughed. When I showed the slightest impatience at being checked he at once allowed me to go on as I liked, though, as I afterwards knew, I needed to be corrected. He was loud in praise of my progress, declaring that I would soon surpass all my predecessors. In my intercourse with him I had illustrations ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... the Science Monthly, smoking meanwhile a pipe with a huge elaborately carved meerschaum bowl and a long cherry-wood stem. From the ferocious manner in which he glared through his spectacles at the pages of the magazine, from the impatience with which he from time to time dashed his disengaged hand through the masses of his iron-grey hair, and from the frequent ejaculations of "Pish!" "Psha!" "Ach!" and so on which escaped his lips, accompanied ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... a more cruel offence, month by month. Her pride prevented her from talking of it; but the soreness of her grievance invaded their whole relation. And in her moral unrest she showed faults which had been scarcely visible in their early married years—impatience, temper, suspicion, a readiness to magnify small troubles whether of ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 'Lecamus!' I cried; and all the men round took it up, crowding nearer, trembling yet delivered from their terror; some even laughed in the relief. There was but one who had an air of discontent, and that was M. le Cure. As he said 'Lecamus!' like the rest, there was impatience, disappointment, anger in ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant

... criticism of the management and conduct of our war production. Much of this self-criticism has had a healthy effect. It has spurred us on. It has reflected a normal American impatience to get on with the job. We are the kind of people who are never quite satisfied with anything ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... gasped the little man. "I haf eferywhere been searching for you. Madame la Duchesse de Markheim arrived some hours ago and awaits you wit' t'e greates' impatience." ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... With what eager impatience, with what throbbing pulses, did Fredersdorf wait for the evening! At last this sublime mystery would be explained, and rivers of gold would flow at his command. Happily, the king was not in Berlin—he had gone to Charlottenburg. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... now going on. All sorts of suggestions were called back and forth as the ham was sliced and the potatoes put in the pots for boiling; while further along the fires the two coffee-pots began to emit a most delightful and appetizing odor that made the hungry boys wild with impatience. ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... inclined to dreaminess and contemplation, like those who could merely claim mediocrity, accommodated themselves to this life cloistered in the art of the past, on the other hand artists of active bent and personal temperament pined with impatience, their eyes ever turned towards Paris, their souls eager to plunge into the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... an unearthly thing that she should have come there to stand and lean against the gate, as if to shut him into his self-sought trap; and there was no impatience about this woman—she stood quite still in that dark, desolate place, as though she was perfectly contented to wait and wait—for what? how long?—these were the questions he asked himself. Was this dark house the abode of evil spirits with which she was in league? ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... writing, which he proceeded to read out aloud to the Dog. As he read on it turned out to be all about grass and barley and hay—in short, all the kinds of fodder that Asses are fond of. The Dog was a good deal bored with listening to all this, till at last his impatience got the better of him, and he cried, "Just skip a few pages, friend, and see if there isn't something about meat and bones." The Ass glanced all through the packet, but found nothing of the sort, and said so. Then the Dog ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... tedious process for onlookers. The shifting of stretchers, the getting-out of oars, the arrangement of rudder strings, and the delicate trimming of the boat, may be interesting enough to the crews themselves, but only feed the impatience of onlookers. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... by the entrance of the landlord, who brought with him the promised Rhine wine; for, hearing the noise, he supposed it represented impatience of the company at the delay, a mistake which no one thought it worth while to rectify. He promised that the fish would follow in a very few minutes, and went out to see ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... directed, and went straight to the tree; but Jim, in his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the log, which was swept from under him by the raging waters and he soon joined the other victims upon their ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... enriched by seizing upon the immediate and obvious circumstance—there has been so little necessity for sparing materials or men and so little penalty for waste—that we have developed a national impatience with the slow and tedious process ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss

... were nearly all younger by ten, twenty, forty, or fifty years, and even more. They did not look like the country people whom I rather hoped and expected to see, but were apparently my fellow-villagers, in different stages of excitement. They manifested by the usual signs their impatience to have the performance begin, and I confess that I shared this, though I did not take part ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... generally to be had on short notice day or night, but this night it seemed as if there were none in all Versailles; her anxiety and impatience increased, and she paced the room in agony of mind. At last Jude ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... slouenly vnhandsome Coarse Betwixt the Winde, and his Nobility. With many Holiday and Lady tearme He question'd me: Among the rest, demanded My Prisoners, in your Maiesties behalfe. I then, all-smarting, with my wounds being cold, (To be so pestered with a Popingay) Out of my Greefe, and my Impatience, Answer'd (neglectingly) I know not what, He should, or should not: For he made me mad, To see him shine so briske, and smell so sweet, And talke so like a Waiting-Gentlewoman, Of Guns, & Drums, and Wounds: God saue the marke; And telling me, the Soueraign'st ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... acceptable to the natives of this part of the world, and on more than one occasion has been particularly useful to us. An attempt was made to procure a vocabulary of their language, but without success, for we were soon obliged from their impatience to give it up. Not so easily, however, were they diverted from their object, for every article of our dress, and everything we carried, they asked for with the greatest importunity; our refusal disappointed them so much that they could not ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... pleased. But he was disgusted at the intrusion upon his solitude. The diggers worried him from morning to night, demanding to buy, while he required his farm produce for his own family. He sold his land, in his impatience, for a tenth of what he might have got had he cared to wait and bargain, mounted his wife and children into his waggon, and moved off into the wilderness." Froude's sarcastic comment is not less characteristic than the story. "Which was the wisest man, the Dutch farmer ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... apiece to each of several hospitals and other charitable institutions, if Roosevelt would allow himself to be examined by competent alienists and they did not pronounce him to be a "madman"! No! he was not mad, but he had the fervor, the courage, the impatience of a Crusader about to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... from attending religious meetings by a threat of deportation to the West Indies. This looked too much like the good old days of Divine Right. People began to show the old and well-known signs of impatience, and Parliament suddenly experienced difficulty in providing the King ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... bitterness in the tones, but there was the weary impatience of a child that had been too often ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... was soon in possession of her letter, couched cautiously, but more peremptorily than the former one. I need hardly say it did not reach its destination. She passed the next day in a state of feverish impatience; and no answer returning, wrote again, her words this time conveying an evident though indistinct threat. I refrained from visiting her till two days had thus passed, and found her, as I expected, eaten up with fury. She glared at me as I entered ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... the contumely with which he treated me. I felt I had not deserved it—I felt that I was not appreciated—I felt that I had that within me which merited better treatment; my heart swelled against a father's injustice. I broke through my habitual awe of him. I replied to him with impatience; my hot spirit flushed in my cheek and kindled in my eye, but my sensitive heart swelled as quickly, and before I had half vented my passion I felt it suffocated and quenched in my tears. My father was astonished and incensed at this turning of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... failed, I need not mind failing," cried Nelly. "I think that I'll do what he has done, and fling away this horrid Division,—oh, what a relief that would be! But still, would it not be foolish—would it not be wrong—to give way so to impatience? My dear mother bade me obey Mr. Learning for her sake, she wishes my cottage to be properly furnished; I must not be a sluggard or a coward. I must do my best to get over ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... with a sudden outbreak of impatience. "Go!" she said, snatching the key of the staircase door from the window-sill. "You do quite right to distrust me—you do quite right to follow me no further in the dark. Go before the house is shut up. I can do without you." She led ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... inevitable, like that of the magnet for the steel? We had never spoken, we were wholly strangers; and yet an influence, strong as the grasp of a giant, swept us silently together. On my side, it filled me with impatience; and yet I was sure that she was worthy; I had seen her books, read her verses, and thus, in a sense, divined the soul of my mistress. But on her side, it struck me almost cold. Of me, she knew nothing but my bodily favour; she was drawn to me as stones fall to the earth; the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cone whose apex was the helmet, prevented his exit. It was like the barb of a harpoon, and caught him fast in the wood. Such a danger is not sudden in its revelation. There is at first only a feeling of impatience at the embarrassment, a disposition to "tear things." In vain attempts at doubling and other gymnastic feats the diver wasted several hours, until his companions above became alarmed at the delay. They renewed and increased their labors at the force-pump, and the impetuous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... never at a loss to tell, from the style alone of any short passage, who is the imaginary author. Consequently, readers who can bear to have their amusement diluted, who are content with an imperceptibly slow development of plot, and can watch without impatience the approach of a foreseen incident through a couple of volumes, may find the prolixity less intolerable than might be expected. If they will be content to skip when they are bored, even less patient students may be entertained with a series of pictures of character and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... me and the supercargo in the boat with no more than two men; and though he was glad that we were well, yet he was in the same impatience with us to know what was doing; for the noise continued, and the flame increased; in short, it was next to an impossibility for any men in the world to restrain their curiosity to know what had happened, or their ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... suppose you think you could give me lessons, now you've learned to do a little straightaway flying without landing on your tail," Bland fleered, with the impatience of the seasoned flyer for the novice who thinks well of himself and his newly acquired skill. "Say, that was some bump you give yourself on the dome when we lit over there in that sand patch. I tried to tell yuh that ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... leave such a pal!" he thought regretfully. The floating timbers became well-nigh intolerable; he kept asking himself if he could swim to land, but, knowing his weakness from long fasting, he curbed his impatience. His eyes grew tired with staring at the longed-for spot; he suffered the torments of Tantalus, and finally could endure them no longer. So making his clothes into a bundle, he tied them around his neck and ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... vexations, 'Oh, nothing!' Then he took his eye-glass, and stared at the promenaders on the Champs Elysees, for we were to go the rounds of the Champs Elysees, before taking our walk at the Tuileries. Finally, a fit of impatience seized me. I felt a slight attack of fever, and when I got home, I composed myself to smile. 'You haven't said a word about my dress!' I muttered. 'Ah, yes, your gown is somewhat like Madame de Fischtaminel's.' He turned on his ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... themselves nearer. Our Indians were greatly agitated in this state of uncertainty, and urged their fellows to come alongside of the ship, both by their voice and gestures, with the utmost eagerness and impatience. Tupia interpreted what they said, and we were much surprised to find, that, among other arguments, they assured the people in the canoes, we did not eat men. We now began seriously to believe that this horrid custom prevailed among them; for what the boys had said, we considered as a mere ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... told, the young King's face grew ashen pale, and he cried full dolefully "Dieu eit mercie!" The news troubled him sore and sure enough. But the Queen's eyes, that a moment before had been full of terror and untholemodness [impatience], shot out one flash of triumphant gladness: and the next minute she had hidden her face in her sudary, and was greeting as though her heart had broke. I marvelled what tidings they could be, that were tene [grief] to the King, and blisfulhed [happiness] to the Queen. ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... somehow aggrieved that "Ethie should take it so easy," and relieved too, that with her he should have no trouble, as he had anticipated. He was getting used to Nettie, and getting to like her, too, for her manner toward him was far more agreeable than Ethie's brusque way of manifesting her impatience at his lack of manliness. It was inexplicable how Ethie could care for one so greatly her inferior, both mentally and physically, but it would seem that she loved him all the more for the very weakness which made her ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... kill a single savage," broke in the king Ithobal, who had been listening with impatience to Sakon's praises of ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... address of a mob-orator in writing, and fell upon ground prepared. Political reforms had been steadily resisted; and accordingly, when the success of foreign revolution had raised men's spirits to the highest point of impatience, the middle classes, which wanted a moderate reform, were unfortunately thrown on the side of the wild and anarchical spirits that wished for utter revolution. The church, by holding with the state, was partly involved in the same obloquy. Paine's ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... the inevitable emotion it rouses in one's thoughts, stirs in me a kind of joyous impatience, and the pride of doing my duty—which is to fight gladly, and die victorious. To the last breath of our lives, to the last child of our mothers, to the last stone of our dwellings, all is thine, my country! ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... would have preferred that nothing should be said in Heideck's presence about the poisoning attempt. His wife's impatience and excitement, ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... amount of nervous energy is expended unnecessarily while waiting. If we are obliged to wait for any length of time, it does not hurry the minutes or bring that for which we wait to keep nervously strained with impatience; and it does use vital force, and so helps greatly toward "Americanitis." The strain which comes from an hour's nervous waiting, when simply to let yourself alone and keep still would answer much better, is ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... keep close under cover. The Chileans were daily drawing their lines closer to the doomed city of Lima. Boyton dispatched an officer to Don Nicholas with a request to be sent with his torpedo crew down to Pisco where he expected the Chileans would attempt to laud troops. The answer he received was "Impatience is a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... more sight-seeing. I obeyed the hint contained in the letter, and sent no telegram. My friend accompanied me down to the Boston and Albany station, where I waited in feverish impatience for the departure of the train. We talked over the matter until 11.30, in the vain hope of finding some clue to the mystery. Then I started on my journey. Mr. Gridley's curiosity was aroused, and I promised to send ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... I cannot breathe down there!" she cried, brushing away the tears that sprang to her eyes that glittered with fever, sorrow, and impatience.—She had gone up to her son's room, and was looking round it. "He does not come," she said. "Here I can breathe and live. A few minutes more, and he will be here, for he is alive, I am sure that he is alive! my heart tells me so. Do you hear nothing, Brigitte? ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... slowly, and sang out to them to stop when he considered they had received a fair start. Then he rode on himself until he was midway between Wally and Norah, Harry some distance ahead of the former. The ponies had an inkling of what was in the wind, and were dancing with impatience. ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... do you want?' was probably what he said to himself," thought Nekhludoff, who had been observing all this scene. But the strong, handsome Philip at once managed to conceal the signs of his impatience, and went on quietly carrying out the orders of the worn, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... wonder if you ever went anywhere to school!" said Margaret; and she took her book and went away without another word, her heart beating high with anger and impatience. ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... stand ready prepared for an encounter so formidable, seated on their war-saddles like so many pillars of iron, and awaiting the signal of encounter with the same ardor as their generous steeds, which, by neighing and pawing the ground, gave signal of their impatience. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her had not lasted ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... immediately, conclusively proving that Miss Maclaire, fully dressed for the street, had been awaiting the arrival of her gallant with some impatience. Hawley was busily explaining his delay as they came down the stairs, and paid little attention to the seemingly deserted office. Indeed, Miss Christie monopolized all his thoughts. With quick scrutiny the watcher noted the more ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... I had better leave as the crowd prevented them doing business. I did not leave. The reporter said: "You will not be able to speak." I said: "I will speak." I waited until the speaker adjourned for noon, and as quick as a flash I took the stand, and began my address. I saw impatience in the faces of many, but there was a great cheer from visitors and pages. I spoke about as follows: "I am glad to speak to the law-makers of California. I not only believe in making laws, but enforcing them." I called their attention to the most needed legislation on the lines of prohibition ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... age men are most liable to the passion of grief: the impatience of human nature under affliction, and the necessity there is of exerting reason, to restrain the excesses it would ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... lie down till she came back, I put on a little cambric sack and sat by the window waiting till I should hear her foot on the stairs again. "Charles is telling her," I said to Cyrus. He was walking up and down the room, dumb with impatience and disgust, too pained for Peggy, too tried by his own helplessness to rest or even to sit still. In a way it has all been harder for him than for any one else. His impulses are stronger and deeper than my dear girl's, and far less cool. She is very especially ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... our history. Though Jones had shown no design of giving offence, yet Mr Blifil was highly offended at a behaviour which was so inconsistent with the sober and prudent reserve of his own temper. He bore it too with the greater impatience, as it appeared to him very indecent at this season; "When," as he said, "the house was a house of mourning, on the account of his dear mother; and if it had pleased Heaven to give him some prospect of Mr Allworthy's ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... these? How ruthless & unrelenting their hearts, who unmoved by the awful spectacle of so many fellow creatures, preparing for the sudden and violent destruction of life and asking of their God, mercy for themselves and forgiveness for their enemies—could yet thirst for blood, and manifest impatience that its shedding was delayed for an instant? Did not the possibility of that innocence, which has been ever since so universally accorded to their victims, once occur to them; or were their minds so under the influence of exasperation ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... began to wipe away all traces of the storm. His action was so rapid that Madame de Bergenheim stood for a moment motionless and speechless, but when she felt her foot imprisoned in the hand of the man who had just declared war against her, her surprise gave place to a mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from him by a back stroke, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... which Rivers, in his impatience, had not thought to consider. But fruitful in expedient, his fertile mind suggested that ground of suspicion was all that the law required for apprehension at least, and having already arranged that the body of the murdered man should be found under certain circumstances, he contented ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... recondite, and perplexing, the questions or hypotheses are—such, for instance, as those about organic Nature—the more impatient they are of suspense. Sometimes, and evidently in the present case, this impatience grows out of a fear that a new hypothesis may endanger cherished and most important beliefs. Impatience under such circumstances is not unnatural, though perhaps needless, and, if ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... again, either from anything I do or may seem to do." She stopped, released her hand, as her eyes were suddenly fixed on the distance. Then she said with a slight smile, but without the least embarrassment or impatience: "There's Mr. Champney coming here now. I reckon he's looking to see if ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... spasm of impatience: he was a little tired of being identified by his white hair and ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... lost in confusion, fretted by disappointment, and ready to conclude, in our haste, that all things are against our own good and our Master's honor. But "this is our infirmity"; it is the dictate of impatience and indiscretion. We forget the "years of the right hand of the Most High." We are slow of heart in learning a lesson which shall soothe our spirits at the expense of our pride. We turn away from the consolation to be derived from believing that tho we know not the connections ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... and overcast, as it drew towards its close, and the rider's musings seemed to accord with the change in the sky. His face expressed a singular mixture of impatience, determined will, and unsatisfied desire. But where most other men would have sighed, or given way to some involuntary exclamation, he merely set his teeth, and tightened the grasp on ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... Further, the same thing is not contrary to two things. But impatience is contrary to longanimity, whereby one awaits a delay: for one is said to be impatient of delay, as of other evils. Therefore it seems that patience is the same ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... sometimes felt this impatience myself, and longed for a cup of tea of my own growing, but I have never had one. As a husbandman, I must wait some time longer, and let patience have ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... of this member is very remarkable, so importunately unruly in its tumidity and impatience, when we do not require it, and so unseasonably disobedient, when we stand most in need of it: so imperiously contesting in authority with the will, and with so much haughty obstinacy denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind. And yet, though his rebellion is so universally complained ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... strong race principle behind a movement of such magnitude, with such momentous consequences. Elbow room, space, and isolation to give free play to individual preference, characterized pioneer days. The cord that bound the whole was love of home,—one's own home,—even if tinged with impatience of the restraints it imposed, for home and house do imply a certain restraint in individual wishes. And here, perhaps, is the greatest significance of the family house. It cannot perfectly suit all members in its details, but in its great office, that of shelter and privacy—ownership—the ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... growing late, but the proconsul apparently was manifesting no impatience. All the afternoon he had been transacting the routine business of a provincial governor—listening to appeals to his judgment seat, signing requisitions for tax imposts, making out commissions, and giving undivided attention to a multitude of seeming trifles. Only Decimus Mamercus, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... did good service; yet was it not till she had drunk of it many times that her tongue spoke plainly again. And presently, when she was able to wag it, it went on for a long time with no pause nor rest, in sheer impatience ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... still there (even as he had begun to tell Mrs. Halton that afternoon), it had moved away from the immediate foreground, and stood waiting at a further distance. The cats and Jim Crowfoot, he told himself with some impatience, were altogether at fault when they so charmingly said that he had to make up his mind between aunt and niece. It was not that at all; the only question with which the making up of his mind was concerned was whether he was going to ask Daisy now, to-morrow, to be his wife. And ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... fingers. "It is a necessary paper of instructions," he said. "I was retained by the State for the North Garden murder case. It is to be tried next week—and here am I, laid by the heels! My associate must handle it." He made a movement of impatience. "He's skilful enough, but he's not the sort to convince a jury—especially in Albemarle, where they don't like to hang people. If he's left to himself, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... importance which distinctly bears the impress of euphuism. Published in 1590, the ten editions through which it passed during the next fifty years are sufficient evidence of its popularity. It is probably the only work of fiction of Elizabeth's time which could be read through at the present day without impatience, and its story and personages are well known to all through their reproduction in Shakespeare's "As You Like it." The author of "Rosalynde" was a man of very varied talents and experience. The son, it is believed, of a Lord Mayor of London, he graduated ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... should begin with Far From the Madding Crowd. The story of Bathsheba Everdene's relations with her three lovers, Sergeant Troy, Boldwood and Gabriel Oak, moves one at times to some impatience with this charming woman's frequent change of mind, but she would not be so attractive or so natural if she were not so full of caprice. His women all have strong human passion, but they are destitute of religious faith. They adore ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... first strain at the traces his impatience died out. A sixty-foot truck starts with more or less reluctance. Besides, Silver knew that before anything like speed could be made it was necessary either to mount the grade to Broadway or to ease the machine down to Greenwich Street. It was traces or backing-straps for all that was in you, ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... Kitty dressed herself in the fascinating leghorn hat and slipped on the pink muslin dress, and, with a bunch of roses at her belt, sallied forth to the railway station. She soon found the right platform, and paced up and down in a fever of impatience waiting for the train. As she was doing so, flaunting her pretty little person in a somewhat aggressive way and causing some prim-looking ladies to gaze at her with anything but approval, a hand was laid on her arm, and turning she saw, to her amazement, ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... Ragnar Lodbrok's sons had reached home, and were peacefully occupied in playing chess, when a messenger came to announce their father's sad end. In their impatience to avenge him they started out without waiting to collect a large force, and in spite of many inauspicious omens. Ella, who expected them, met them with a great host, composed not only of all his own subjects but also of many allies, among whom was King Alfred. In spite of their valor the Normans ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... absorbed in looking at her in a sort of stupor. In fancy I am there still. At last her large eyes moved; she tried to raise her right hand, but it fell back on the bed, and she uttered these words, which came like a breath, for her voice was no longer a voice: "I have waited for you with the greatest impatience." A bright flush rose to her cheeks. It was a great effort to her ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac

... connoisseur at one. There is a spell in the nectar of the flame-tree as irresistibly attractive to taste of birds as the colour is to the sight of man. Although the tree bursts into bloom with truly tropical ardour, they await the coming banquet with unaffected impatience. Then one of the prettiest frolics of the sun-bird is revealed. Time cannot lag with such gay, saucy creatures, so while they wait half a dozen or more congregate in a circle and with uplifted heads directed towards a common centre sing their ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... happy, and have Chaf-fa-ly-a to wife. The grateful Souk was so overjoyed, that, forgetting his position and the rank of his chief, he fell upon his neck, and, kissing him again and again, actually shed tears. Putting him kindly aside, the father, well knowing the impatience of young lovers, hastily summoned three of his most distinguished chiefs, and said to them, “Mount your swiftest horses! go to the camps of the Brûlé, and when you have come to him, say, Souk, the son of his old friend, loves his only ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... sharp movement of impatience with his free hand. "I've heard nothing else myself since morning. I suppose ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... received a thoroughly good education. I was still prospered, and of late was fast accumulating money. Never before, since leaving the paternal roof, had I felt so strong a desire to rest for a time beneath its shelter, and as the time drew nigh I could hardly control my impatience. At home again! I realized this happiness in its truest meaning, when I found myself again beneath the roof that had sheltered my childhood. Flora too was there, but so much changed that I could hardly recognize ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... castle of Lienke, and methinks no better or more beautiful could be found than yourself. Therefore I obtained your father's permission to open the matter to you in writing, and he inclosed my letter in one of his own; but you have neither answered one nor the other. Whereupon, in my impatience, I saddled my good horse, and rode over here to have an answer at once from ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... importuned Jesus with his admiration of the wonderful, and that the master, wearied of a reputation which weighed upon him, had often said to him, "See thou say nothing to any man." Once this discordance evoked a singular outburst,[4] a fit of impatience, in which the annoyance these perpetual demands of weak minds caused Jesus, breaks forth. One would say, at times, that the character of thaumaturgus was disagreeable to him, and that he sought to give as little publicity as possible to the marvels which, in a manner, grew under his feet. When his ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... might have produced less effect had anything like a corresponding energy been displayed by the Government of the United States. But when men impatiently looked to Washington for counsel and decision they found neither. The conduct of President Buchanan moved men at the time to contemptuous impatience, and history has echoed the contemporary verdict. Just one fact may perhaps be urged in extenuation: if he was a weak man he was also in a weak position. A real and very practical defect, as it seems to me, in the Constitution of the United States is the four months' ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... assault for several hours. But the impatience of his troops at this delay was heightened by the rumor that Guatemotzin and his nobles were preparing to escape with their effects in the periaguas and canoes which were moored on the margin of the lake. Convinced of the fruitlessness and impolicy of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... It would seem that impatience was sometimes expressed at the poetic prologues and lengthy Inductions of the dramatists. The prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's "Woman Hater," 1607, begins: "Gentlemen, Inductions are out of date, and a prologue in verse is as stale as a black velvet cloak and a bay garland; ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... waited with the same impatience, but with very different hopes. The marquise found Desgrais at the appointed spot: he gave her his arm then holding her hand in his own, he gave a sign, the archers appeared, the lover threw off ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... good example by moving Third Reading without additional word of comment or argument. Example thrown away. More last words spoken under embarrassing accompaniment of private conversation and other signs of impatience. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various

... scraping sound, and, with a feeling as though a cold shiver (the precursor of appetite) were running down one's back, one would seize upon one's damp, starched napkin, nibble a morsel or two of bread, and, rubbing one's hands softly under the table, gaze with eager, radiant impatience at the steaming plates of soup which the butler was beginning to dispense in order of ranks and ages or according to the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... with hidden impatience the hour when it should please M. Platzoff to fulfil his promise. He had not long to wait. Three evenings later, as they sat in the smoking-room, said Platzoff: "To-night you shall see the Great Hara Diamond. No eyes save my own have ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... and learned comments upon things scientific, musical, theatrical, literary, and historical, they are as men to school-boys compared to the American press. They have the utter contempt for mere smartness that only comes with severe educational training. They have the scholar's impatience with trivialities. They skate, not to cut their names on the ice, but to get somewhere, and the whole industrial and scientific world knows how ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... increased, he jumped up and thought that he would force his way out and make a run for it: but then the feeling that he would most certainly be killed if he made the attempt, besides recollecting not knowing where he should run to, induced him to sit down again and chew the cud of impatience. Night came again. He was more melancholy than ever. He thought that he was deserted, or that probably his friends fancied he was killed, and would not trouble themselves further about him. He had no inclination ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... curiosity had ceased at his death, for I have observed no subsequent event (except the defection of Dumouriez) make any very serious impression. We hear, therefore, with great composure, the present triumph of the more violent republicans, and suffer without impatience this interregnum of news, which is to continue until the Convention shall have determined in what manner the intelligence of their proceedings shall be ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... I suspend ever wish, I banish every other fear, to take up my pen, to beg of you that you will not think of being guilty of such an act of love as I can never thank you for; but must for ever regret. If I must continue to write to you, I must. I know full well your impatience of control, when you have the least imagination that your generosity or friendship is ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... Casting the glowing landscape at our feet Oft had the Morning Rose with dew been wet, And oft the journeying Sun in glory set, Beyond the willow'd meads of vigorous grass, The steep green hill, and woods they were to pass; When now: the day arriv'd: Impatience reign'd; And GEORGE,—by trifling obstacles detain'd— His bending Blackthorn on the threshold prest, Survey'd the windward clouds, and hop'd the best. PHOEBE, attir'd with every modest grace, While Health ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield

... is a divine impatience, a rising of the waters of love and noble pain till they must overflow, with or without the hope of immediate apparent use, and no matter what swords and revenges impend. History records a few such defeats which are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... complexity of life. Civilization is too promiscuous, too prolonged and monotonous, for these rare spirits. And they have their sure reward; for they ease the tension of effort, supplying a recreative release from its pangs under the flattering guise of higher truth. All the impatience and playfulness in the world conspires with them. But as one of the demos of moral dullards, I get no little comfort from applying to Nietsche and Ibsen, and to certain prophet litterateurs of England, Burke's reproof of ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... impatience, what painful longing, did they look forward to the promised food! How they thanked God, in the gladness of their hearts, that He had had pity on them, and had not allowed ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... daily drug which turned My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught My mind to meditate what then it learned, Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought By the impatience of my early thought, That, with the freshness wearing out before My mind could relish what it might have sought, If free to choose, I cannot now restore Its health; but what ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... barely able to keep his impatience within the bounds of politeness. "Of course, it's out of my line, but the mathematics seems sound." He started to ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper

... study of the Shakespearean Sonnets, for the purpose of ascertaining what information may be derived from them as to the authorship of the Shakespearean plays and poems. I am aware that any question or discussion as to their authorship is regarded with objection or impatience by very many. But to those not friendly to any such inquiry I would say, let us at least proceed so far as to learn precisely what the author of these great dramas says of himself and of his work in the only production in which he in any manner refers to or speaks of himself. Certainly an inquiry ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... money, and they set out on snowshoes with two weeks' supply of provisions, striking south and west. The remainder of that day and the next they traveled with but little rest. Each hour that passed added to Billy's mad impatience to reach McTabb's cabin. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... impatience, almost reproach. It was as if she had said to her brother, "You know how I must feel, and yet ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... should take the other in. Sir John, however, pressed forward the business with an eagerness that surprised every body. Mrs. Beaumont again and again examined the settlements, to try to account prudentially for her lover's impatience; but she saw that all was right there on her part, and her self-love at last acquiesced in the belief that Sir John's was now the ardour of a real lover. To the lady's entire satisfaction, the liveries, the equipages, the diamonds, the wedding-clothes were ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... seems to have formed the turning point of their lives and fortunes. The French Revolution was in full swing, and in the society of Roland, Brissot, and other Republican leaders, the young Irishmen imbibed the love of freedom, and impatience of tyranny and oppression, which they clung to so faithfully, and which distinguished them so remarkably during the remainder of their lives. On returning to Ireland in January, 1793, the brothers joined the ranks of the United Irishmen. John at once became a prominent member of the ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... persons seem to think life will all be gone before they taste any of its sweets. They must have everything at once, and cannot postpone any of its enjoyments or advantages. No quality is more fatal to success and lasting happiness than impatience. ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... a hand, my hearty, and toss that bow-fast clear," cried the captain, whose impatience to be off seemed to increase as the time to do so approached nearer and nearer. "Off with it, at once, and ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... toward intensifying and grinding in the morbid sensitiveness which even to-day is part of the genuine New England woman's character. The grim details of expeditions against them were known to every child. The same impatience of any word in their favor was shown then, as we find it now in the far West, where their treachery and barbarity is still a part of the story of to-day, and Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," gives one or two almost incredible details of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... Elder was compelled to curb his spirit until the time when grass should grow and water run. Yet he was not alone in feeling this impatience for the start. Through all the settlement had thrilled a response to the Lord's word as revealed to his servant Brigham. The God of Israel was to be with them on the march, and old and young were ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... just enough dash of risk at cross roads or in traffic to steal an extra mile or two on the average speed per hour. The night had chilled and Anthony Barraclough, wrapped in his mother's cloak watched the girl beside him with a queer mixture of admiration and impatience. Admiration for her faultless nerve and impatience that the car for all its ancient virtue in no sense could be termed a speed-monger. Flora's attitude amused him too, it was so tremendously intense, so devoted to duty and withal ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... near the store of precious metal took their minds off of the narrow escape from death that Mr. Baxter had just had. Fred recovered his nerve, and waited with impatience the return of Johnson and Holfax ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... deserves special mention. So universal is this physical defect that we take it for granted, especially for teachers. Teachers themselves feel that they need not even apologize for nervousness, in fact they too frequently use it as an excuse for impatience, ugly temper, discourtesy, and unfairness. Children, slates, papers, parents, blackboards "get on their nerves." Nervousness of teacher causes nervousness of pupils and adds to the evil results of mouth breathing, bad teeth, eye strain, and ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... The forty odd hours which lay between the ending of the Grahams' dinner and the promised interview with Winifred Anstice stretched out into an eternity to the impatience of Flint. By turns he tried occupation and diversion; yet his ear caught every tick of the clock, which seemed to his exaggerated fancy to have retarded its movement. He found it so impossible to work at his office that he packed up his ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... of the welcome they had given him when he brought Sophy home as his young wife. His heart felt a new tenderness for her, and a throb of impatience to find her. He bade a hasty good-evening to the station-master, and walked off buoyantly toward the High street, along which his path lay. The station-master and the ticket-clerk watched him, and shook their heads significantly; but he was quite unconscious of their scrutiny. ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton

... in Tobacco-Parliament, has been known, in his irreverent impatience, to call the Grenadier uniform his "shroud (STERBEKITTEL, or death-clothes);" so imprisoning to the young mind and body! Paternal Majesty has heard this blasphemous rumor; hence doubtless, in part, his fury against ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... seen David Brower stop and look at me while I have been digging potatoes, with a sober grin such as came to him always after he had swapped 'hosses' and got the worst of it. Then he would show me again, with a little impatience in his manner, how to hold the handle and straddle the row. He would watch me for a moment, turn to Uncle Eb, laugh hopelessly and say: 'Thet boy'll hev to be a ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... erstwhile Liberal leader. Sandfield Macdonald was a man of talent and integrity. His attitude of mind was rather that of an oppositionist, upon whom the functions of independent critic sat more easily than the compromises and discipline entailed by party leadership. He bore restraint with impatience, and if his affiliations had always been with the Liberals, it was not because his sympathies were radical and progressive.[3] In the Liberal caucus of 1864 he had moved the resolution requesting George Brown to enter the coalition ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun

... exactly as the people hated the wizard who could fetch a flying dragon through the air. It was the same with Mr. Kruger's hat. His hat (that admirable hat) was not merely a joke. It did symbolise, and symbolise extremely well, the exact thing which our people at that moment regarded with impatience and venom; the old-fashioned, dingy, Republican simplicity, the unbeautiful dignity of the bourgeois, and the heavier truisms of political morality. No; the people are sometimes wrong on the practical side of politics; they are never wrong ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... tired. He had been wandering for hours in the street, and was wondering when he should be called before the Grand Jury. Mr. Alibi, that was the dark gentleman's name, knew all about Mr. Bumpkin's case, his condition of mind, and his impatience; and he ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... prove but runaway horses. He who would command others must first learn to obey, and he who would command his own powers must learn to be submissive to the still small voice within. Discipline the passions, curb pride and impatience, restrain all hasty impulses. Deny yourself the gratification of any desire not sanctioned by reason. Shame and its consequent degradation follow the loss of our own good opinion rather than the esteem of others. Too many ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... as shown in all created things. The man once loved a person—now his heart goes out to the universe. The dread of death is gone, and he calmly contemplates his own end and waits the summons without either impatience or fear. He realizes that death itself is a manifestation of life—that it is as natural and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... he made a great effort of the will in order to achieve a conquest over curiosity and impatience. He would not return to the entrance until the oil had only an hour more to burn. Necessity had proved so stern a master that he was able to keep his resolution. Many long, long hours passed and sometimes he dozed or slept, but he did not go to the entrance. The oil ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... were crowded with children and with boys of all ages, who were in a fever of impatience to see the famous little ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi

... misery and sin, will one day cease; we shall not tremble under our Father's eye, or long to hide ourselves from our Father's countenance. Now we must often feel, when trying with our whole hearts to please God, how impure, how sullied we are before Him. Our pride, our vanity, our impatience, our self-love, are all there. God sees them; how can He, then, look on us as we desire He should? And often we almost long to be in those purging flames, even should it be for years and years, that this vileness might be ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... he withdrew, says the story, to the east side of the city.—But for what? not to contemplate in retirement the mercy of his Creator to himself or to others, but to wait, with malignant impatience, the destruction of Nineveh. It came to pass, however, as the story relates, that the Ninevites reformed, and that God, according to the Bible phrase, repented him of the evil he had said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, saith the first verse of the last chapter, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... more, and with it the season for returning to the old Sea Castle, and the children went through their usual round of impatience, and I cannot say that Roderick at all forbore, for his Papa had promised to teach him to climb a ladder like the lamplighter when he got back, and he was by that means to go up one of the very old elm trees, and get on to a great branch ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... oxen. It is impossible for cattle to excite in men such tempests of fury as men excite in each other. Men are often provoked if their horses or hounds refuse to do, or their pigs refuse to go where they wish to drive them, but the feeling is rarely intense and never permanent. It is vexation and impatience, rather than settled rage, malignity, or revenge. If horses and dogs were intelligent beings, and still held as property, their opposition to the wishes of their owners, would exasperate them immeasurably more than it would ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... so," said Miss Hautley. "The music has been bursting out into fresh attempts this last half-hour, and impatience is getting irrepressible. They cannot begin, Edmund, without you. Your ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... inevitably to set him up a confidant or two, to wave away with energy the custom of the seated mass of explanation after the fact, the inserted block of merely referential narrative, which flourishes so, to the shame of the modern impatience, on the serried page of Balzac, but which seems simply to appal our actual, our general weaker, digestion. "Harking back to make up" took at any rate more doing, as the phrase is, not only than the reader of to-day demands, but than he will tolerate at any price any ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes, to the sun, as calling him for a witness: and, being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo (for so they call a great lord, as I afterwards learned) understood me very well. He descended from ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... by a musical wave, murmur a chorus in perfect unison." (37. Winwood Reade, 'The Martyrdom of Man,' 1872, p. 441, and 'African Sketch Book,' 1873, vol. ii. p. 313.) Even monkeys express strong feelings in different tones— anger and impatience by low,—fear and pain by high notes. (38. Rengger, 'Saugethiere von Paraguay,' s. 49.) The sensations and ideas thus excited in us by music, or expressed by the cadences of oratory, appear from their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... then—by some misunderstanding among the quartermasters—back to the other end, the one by which we entered. This oscillation takes up time, and the squad, dragged thus from north to south and from south to north, heavily fatigued and irritated by wasted walking, evinces feverish impatience. For it is supremely important to be installed and set free as early as possible if we are to carry out the plan we have cherished so long—to find a native with some little place to let, and a table where the squad can have ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... nation will plan, and work and fight for ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. It is just by ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... answered with impatience, "this is all hailstones and burnt grass" (meaning that the one would melt and the other blow away, or in our English idiom, stuff and rubbish). "Why are you always trying to scare me with your fancies, Allan? Dingaan is our friend, not our enemy. So let us take ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... do, for he lay there fuming with impatience, and watching the outer room for a chance of escape. That did not come, for the party were more watchful than ever; and at last he sank back, feeling that all was over, and praying that warning might be given to those in danger, in some ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... back was tired, and her head muddled with the confusion and her mistress's fretful fussiness. Biddy could have worked well if any one had told her exactly what to do, but between one order and another—between Mr. Cyril's impatience and Miss Mollie's incapable, youthful zeal—she was just 'moithered,' as ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... meeting with a partner. From their conversation I learned they were both foreigners, and were waiting for a friend to bring the orders to view the palace, so that all the story was as yet in keeping, and I was introduced as a suitor for the same favour. My fellows "in waiting" showed much impatience, complained of cold, and politely asked me to take a glass of liqueur with them, at the same time taking up the mace and beginning to amuse themselves at the billiard-table. I looked on; they asked me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various

... do. Perhaps, he thought, the sense of a necessity her mother instantly and constantly denied when Josephine spoke of it, is now again oppressing her. However occasioned, Paul's face saddened when he looked at her. The maddening impatience he had felt many times—impatience for the strength and efficiency of manhood—once more tormented him; it grew an intolerable thought to him that so many years must pass before he should be prepared to do a man's work, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... had bought for some nominal price at the Government sale in 1837. He bought many other lots thereabout, and towards Collingwood, further east and north; and after the gold discoveries, he told me pathetically, oftener than once, that his impatience to sell had lost him the status and happiness—whatever the latter might be—of a millionaire. Donaldson had let this place, with its house, stores, etc., good as these things went then, to Graham, at 500 pounds a year. This was about 1838-9, when ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... which the Apostle spoke of was of Divine inspiration, and a blessing intended for as many as are in communion with the Spirit through all ages. And I freely confess that my whole heart would turn away with an angry impatience from the cold and captious mortal who, the moment I had been pouring out the love and gladness of my soul—while book after book, law, and truth, and example, oracle, and lovely hymn, and choral song of ten thousand thousands, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the mood; there is a happiness in it, but it is an old and a wise happiness that has learned how to wait and is fully prepared for endurance. There is no fretfulness in it, no chafing over dreams unrealised, no impatience or disappointment. But it does not speak of an untroubled bliss—rather of a deep, sad and loving patience, which expects no fulfilment, no easy satisfaction ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... he rescues an unknown youth from three assailants, but not before the stranger has been seriously wounded. A passing traveller carries them to the castle of a Persian nobleman. There Philidore waits with the utmost impatience for the wounded man to recover strength enough to relate his story, but this, as also the misfortunes, perplexities, and dangers to which the despairing passion of the enamoured Placentia occasioned her to reduce herself, and the catastrophe ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher



Words linked to "Impatience" :   intolerance, ill nature, fidgetiness, annoyance, botheration, impatient, fidget, irritation, patience, vexation



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