"Mortifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possession of Rennes, and we have reason to expect soon to hear of their having a seaport wherein we can land the reinforcement. Four French frigates have been in sight of the island these two days; the more mortifying as we cannot detach after them without leaving the troops embarked unprotected. An expedition of this consequence should have at least the support of two ships ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... and meditation. He who acknowledged a secret tendency to the Epicurean indolence—was he going to live a life of the dilettante and the self-indulgent under cover of holiness? Alone could action save him from selfishness. Others doubtless fulfilled the laws of charity in praying, in mortifying themselves for their brethren. But when, like him, a man has exceptional faculties of persuasion and eloquence, such vigour in dialectics, such widespread culture, such power to bring to naught the wrong—would it not be insulting to God to let such gifts lie idle, and a serious failure in charity ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... at last, with a sigh, "I must make acquaintance with this caricature of my former self. I must accustom myself to the mortifying fact that this is Maria Theresa, or I might some of these days call for a page to drive out that hideous old crone! I must learn, too, to be resigned, for it is the hand of my heavenly Father that has covered my face with this grotesque mask. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... surprised at night by the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a number of his men, and forced him to fall back some distance from the field of action. This mortifying experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he had learned by the skill with which, many years later, he conducted the famous ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... note in their turns; but that, as he should answer to God, he had never, in the whole course of his life, found above three or four whom he could call thoroughly honest: a declaration which was rather mortifying than surprising to me; who have found so few men of worth in the course of my acquaintance, that they serve only as exceptions; which, in the grammarian's phrase, confirm and prove a general canon — I ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... hand out of his, grasped the arm supporting me, and, pushing myself free, fell plump into the sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off in the struggle, and my hair tumbled about my face and shoulders in the most mortifying way. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... What has happened to learned Trismegist? Doth he take it in ill part that his humble friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?—be they abstractions of the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes?? Is the phrase ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... passed like an hour. Towards sunset the rain ceased, and at last the three deputies of the Lozere made their appearance. They looked drier and more cheery than could be expected, although to have shot the rapids of the Tarn in such weather was about as mortifying a circumstance as could ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... There are some who give themselves to castigating their body perfectly, doing very great harsh penance; and that the flesh may not rebel against the reason, they have placed all their desire rather on mortifying their body than on slaying their self-will. These people feed at the table of penitence and are good and perfect; but unless they have a great humility and conform themselves not wholly to judge according to the will of God and not ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... her own way to each individual of the Jacobin levy en masse in her favour, she was taken into keeping by a then rich and married Hamburg merchant, who made her a present of a richly and elegantly furnished house, and expended besides ten thousand louis d'or on her, before he had a mortifying conviction that some other had partaken of those favours for which he had so dearly paid. A countryman of yours then showed himself with more noise than honour upon the scene, and made his debut with a phaeton and four, which he presented to his theatrical goddess, together with his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had the new fashion, and would get the eclat that she so much coveted. The disappointment, to one whose pleasures in life are so circumscribed as those of a real fashionable lady, was severe indeed. She did not sleep more than a few hours on the night after she received the mortifying intelligence. ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... he sufficiently recover himself to renew his visits for two or three days. When he did again visit her father's house, Mary, who thought the joke carried far enough, treated him with more than usual attention, by way of apology for her untimely and mortifying mirth, so that by the expiration of the week he had entirely recovered his spirits, his self-conceit, his vanity, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... we all came to disregard so material a point is inconceivable; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. The picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, as we hoped, leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbours. One compared it to Robinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large to be removed; another thought it more resembled a reel in a bottle; ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained with mortifying comments on his whole career—to have his costume examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... be diamonds, and were consequently thrown away along with the sand and gravel; and it is well remembered that numbers of very large stones, which would have made the fortunes of the possessors, have passed unregarded through the hands of those who now impatiently support the mortifying reflection. However, about twenty years since, [that is, in 1720,] a person acquainted with the appearance of rough diamonds, conceived that these pebbles, as they were then called, were of the same kind; yet it is said there was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... on with the birth of Nina, and from that day to her death she was a raving, disgusting maniac, as her mother and grandmother had been before her. This was exceedingly mortifying to the proud Bernards, negroes and all, and the utmost care was taken of Nina, who, nevertheless, was too much like her mother to hope for escape. There was the same peculiar look in the eye—the same restless, nervous motions, and from her babyhood up he knew his child was doomed to chains, straight ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... whate'er the Fates decree, Shall still be kept with joy by me: This day then let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old; Nor think on our approaching ills, And talk of spectacles and pills; To-morrow will be time enough To hear such mortifying stuff. Yet, since from reason may be brought A better and more pleasing thought, Which can, in spite of all decays, Support a few remaining days; From not the gravest of divines Accept for once some serious lines. Although we now can form ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... villain's words. The whole of that branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their kinsman's hands—they were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly;—Ethel herself no better now than the people who had bred her up. People hate, as they love, unreasonably. Whether is it the more mortifying to us, to feel that we are disliked ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... now that Napoleon is gone, the first general) of the age, but which could not make him a tolerable Minister. Confident, presumptuous, and dictatorial, but frank, open, and good-humoured, he contrived to rule in the Cabinet without mortifying his colleagues, and he has brought it to ruin without forfeiting their regard. Choosing with a very slender stock of knowledge to take upon himself the sole direction of every department of Government, he ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... made all sail in chase of them, but they being so near Brest, and in the wind's eye of us, we only neared them sufficiently to exchange a few shots. In the evening they anchored in Brest roads. On this mortifying occasion there was a grand cockpit meeting, when the middies declared the French were a set of cowardly, sneaking rascals. "Let me," said one of the youngest amongst them, "command a squadron of eight sail of the line against ten of the enemy, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... his hand to get past a rude place; often both hands were needed to swing her over a watercourse or leap her down from a rock. She was agile and light of foot; she did what woman could; it was only by sheer necessity that she yielded the mortifying tacit confession to man's superior strength, and gave so often opportunity to a pair of good eyes to see what she was like near at hand. Wych Hazel's own eyes made few discoveries. She could feel every now and then ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... idea. Some widows even have the cap made of black cr^pe lisse, but it is generally of white. In this country a widow's first mourning dresses are covered almost entirely with crape, a most costly and disagreeable material, easily ruined by the dampness and dust—a sort of penitential and self-mortifying dress, and very ugly and very expensive. There are now, however, other and more agreeable fabrics which also bear the dead black, lustreless look which is alone considered respectful to the dead, and which ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... say that men were not admitted; their festivities were carried on in another house. The —— harim was amongst the invited. As I supposed that they knew nothing of what was going on, I was not desirous of mortifying them by any coldness in public, and accordingly I was as cordial to them as I had always been. On the last day the wife of —— separated herself from her party, and intruded herself into the Consulesses' divan. We were ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... not a fool, and while in the sickbay had thought matters over a good deal. It was of course mortifying to have been thrashed by an antagonist he despised, but he was conscious that he had brought the punishment upon himself. Hitherto he had not, since he first joined the service, met with his match among those of his own age and standing, and had come to think himself an exceptional ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... more honourable." The merit of casting up a high-way in a rugged land, is proportionate not merely to the utility of the achievement, but to the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome. The difficulties encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity which no man will ever imitate for the sake ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... striving will not be carried on to an accompaniment of slaughter and torture. There are keen forms of competition which, so far from being painful, give positive pleasure to those who engage in them; there are triumphs which satisfy the victor without mortifying the vanquished; and, in spite of the indiscreet writers who have called forth this Essay, I hold that such harmless forms of competition will take the place of the brutal strife that adds senselessly to the sum of human woe. Our race has outgrown ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... bards—bards who very probably owed all their talents to native genius, yet have described the exploits of heroes, the pangs of disappointment, and the meltings of love, with such fine strokes of nature—that their very names (O how mortifying to a bard's vanity!) are now "buried among the wreck of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... their lead and use, and a sure method of finding them in the darkest night. This last is absolutely necessary, for if a squall should strike the ship, and the order, "Royal clew-lines, flying-jib down-haul—Smith, let go that royal-sheet" were given, it would be very mortifying, as well as dangerous, if he had to answer, "I don't ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... thought us wrong in taking Belgium from France—he said it was now considered as so intimately united that the loss was very mortifying. Perhaps it would have been better, he said, to divide France—he considered one great advantage to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... from her cousin, trusting that the visit might remain a secret, too mortifying to both parties to be divulged, but she found Horatia in a state of eager anticipation, awakened from the torpor to watch for tidings of a happy conclusion to their difficulties, and preparing jests on the pettish ingratitude ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be supposed that these concealments sometimes occasion mortifying mistakes. On beholding a tall slender figure whose symmetrical contour is discernible even through the unwieldy saya, and a bright dark eye beaming beneath the folds of the manto, one may be induced to imagine that the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... sense that I once possessed in the highest perfection—in a perfection in which few of my colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I cannot! Forgive me, then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly mingle among you. Doubly mortifying is my misfortune to me, as it must tend to cause me to be misconceived. From recreation in the society of my fellow-creatures, from the pleasures of conversation, from the effusions of friendship, I am cut off. Almost alone in the world, I dare not venture into society more than absolute necessity ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... in the American market a citizen of high character and talent was sent to Europe, with no better success; and thus the mortifying spectacle has been presented of the inability of this Government to obtain a loan so small as not in the whole to amount to more than one-fourth of its ordinary annual income, at a time when the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... schism of the public affections, and in the mortifying discovery so abruptly made by Pompey, lay the bitter affront which he could not digest—the injury which he purposed to avenge. What barbed this injury to his feelings, what prepared him for exhausting its bitterness, was ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... promised to do it in a very few days. He told me he had been with the Duke of Marlborough, who was lamenting his former wrong steps in joining with the Whigs, and said he was worn out with age, fatigues, and misfortunes. I swear it pitied me; and I really think they will not do well in too much mortifying that man, although indeed it is his own fault. He is covetous as hell, and ambitious as the Prince of it: he would fain have been General for life, and has broken all endeavours for peace, to keep his greatness and get money. He told the Queen he was neither ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... monarch cannot lend stability to this esteem, when it is not well founded; it is then a ridiculous sentiment: it ought to be considered, it really is "vanity and vexation of spirit," it is not wisdom, but folly in the extreme; it ought to be censured when it displays itself in a mode that is mortifying to its neighbour, in a manner that is troublesome to others; it is then called ARROGANCE; it is called VANITY; but when it cannot be condemned, when it is known for legitimate when it is discovered to have a solid foundation, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... almost beyond her reach, but she had risen on tip-toe, and was stretching out her hand for it, when he, springing behind her on the chair, availed himself of his superior height and strength to shut the door of this Arcanum and turn the key. His mortifying permission to his wife to absent herself arose from pure love of teasing, but the next moment he added, still holding his hand on the key—'As to telling what my father reads, that would be treason. How shouldst ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... captain feels that, and is duly grateful. It is evident, too, that Lulu's lack of gratitude, and her bad behavior, are extremely mortifying ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... matrimonial potters, and that Hebrew strategy would prove triumphant! Accept, my dear mother, my most heartfelt sympathy in your ignominious defeat. You will not doubt the sincerity of my condolence when I confess that it springs from the mortifying consciousness of having found that all women are not so entirely unscrupulous as I prefer to believe them. Permit me to comfort you with the assurance that the campaign has been conducted with distinguished ability on your part. You have displayed topographical accuracy, wariness, and an insight ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... indifferent to the idea of alliance. The real opposition to it is not in England, but in America where Anglophobes abound. There are more haters of England in America than in the countries of Europe—more lovers also. Both are sensitive, and the game of mortifying one ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... later she was known to no one outside her own circle. She was earning her living as book-keeper in a large five-cent store! She led the life of a drudge, and that was not the worst of it. She was a sensitive woman, and there was much that was mortifying in her position. All her Greek and Italian books were packed away. She knew no more of science than when she left school. At odd minutes she read good novels, and that was all she had to do with literature. Those who had expected much of ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... You cannot get at the quick of their mental sensorium. It is not the dull of hearing whom it is hardest to get to hear; it is rather the man who is roaring out himself, and so who cannot attend to anything else. Now this is provoking. It is a mortifying indication of the little importance that is attached to what we are saying; and there is something of the irritation that is produced in the living being by contending with the passive resistance of inert ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... this illustration are far more important than they appear. How many lessons are here combined in one! How many mortifying effects does the first feeling of vanity bring upon us! Young teachers, watch carefully its first manifestation. If you can thus turn it into humiliation and disgrace, be assured that a second lesson will not soon ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... judgement might be suspended till certain notes omitted by Urquhart had been also published, and to-day they appeared; but instead of making the case better, they have made it rather worse. It is altogether a dirty transaction, and mortifying to those who care about the character of public men, and who have some feeling of national pride and vanity in the super-eminence of English statesmen for integrity and high-mindedness. It is not very difficult to extract the truth from the mass of verbiage and contradictory ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the army was transferred from McClellan to the command of General Pope; and the influence of McClellan on his troops can not be correctly estimated without some allusion to this officer, under whose command the Federal Army of the Potomac suffered such mortifying defeat. Of an effrontery while danger was remote equaled by helplessness when it was present, and mendacity after it had passed, the annals of despotism scarce afford an example of the elevation of such a favorite. It has been said ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... faultless in Italian music, he was not sure of himself in playing French scores, and once while performing with Handel (who resented the slightest error), and once again with Scarlatti, leading an orchestra in Naples when the king was present, he made a mortifying mistake. He took the humiliation so much to heart that he brooded over it till he died, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... resident at Slowby in Midlandshire, an inland watering-place of acknowledged fashion? It followed that her pronouncements on social questions were necessarily final. Yet to uphold her judgment, as against that of the wife, was to risk mortifying the latter. And to mortify the wife would be to act as a heartless scoundrel. Hence situations, for George Lovegrove, difficult to the point of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... naturally mortifying for Maurice, but he pretended not to hear, and jumped from the window to the tea-table ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... on the forward march, and things at the royal palace must not be permitted to fall in the rear. I am about to lay a foundation to a measure that will yet shed glory and luster on my reign. What is more mortifying, Ashpenaz, while endeavoring to entertain our own dignitaries, and the visiting nobles of other nations, than to witness the blundering ignorance of our attendants? In this I cast no blame on my worthy and noble officer—by ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... the mist of prejudice, that it cannot be wondered at if Lord Pitsligo, like many a high-spirited man, saw nothing but disgrace in a measure forced on by such corrupt means, and calling in its commencement for such mortifying national sacrifices. The English nation, indeed, with a narrow, yet not unnatural, view of their own interest, took such pains to encumber and restrict the Scottish commercial privileges that it was not till the best part of a century after the event that the inestimable fruits of the ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... the guide to be interested in the attempts the boys had made to discover the claim for which they were searching was somewhat mortifying. Indeed, Fred was inclined to break out in open rebellion. It was Grant, however, who soothed his feelings and prevailed upon his friend not to speak again to Zeke concerning the efforts they ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... any longer for you than for me?" retorted the husband. "Ye know what ye promised if I'd be taking you here, unbeknownst. Don't look his way! Look like ye was a stranger to him. Don't let us be mortifying him wid our country ways. Like as not 'tis the prisidint, himself, he is colloguein' wid, this blessed minute. Shtep back and be a stranger ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... is a most mortifying step to us. It is a reflection upon our hospitality. I would have worked my fingers off ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... ophthalmia. In two days the progress of the disorder was such that my eyes were closed up and incapable of supporting the light, and occasioned me such acute anguish that I could get no sleep but by the effect of laudanum. This misfortune at this crisis was peculiarly vexatious and mortifying for me, as it put it out of my power to accompany the Pasha, who departed with the army for Dongola on the 26th, taking his route on the west bank of the river, and leaving the Divan Effendi and a small party of soldiers to ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... she refused to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly mortifying. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... upon the play-ground, or to speak to any one, nor was any one allowed to speak to him, under the penalty of being himself similarly punished. The punishment was, of course, a severe one in itself, and was very mortifying to a boy of high spirit. It was only resorted to in extreme cases, and was limited to one day. Charlie begged that I would "exile" and "side-table" him for a week, if I pleased; only not ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... time and in all languages, since man commented on man, our poor human nature has not generally been treated with much respect. Putting to one side moralists, and still more pessimists, have not the Holy Scriptures and all the Fathers of the Church, used the most mortifying language concerning the perversity and corruption of our species? As regards complaints and avowals humiliating for our nature, could there be any more eloquent than those of St. Augustine? Did not Pascal almost wish man to understand that he is ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... frontiers of the Colonies, and at the same time the formidable armament gone and going over, made every one here give up the Colonies as subdued. To have tried for a credit under such circumstances would have been worse than useless; it would have been mortifying, as a refusal must have been the consequence. Mr Delap generously offered to advance five or six thousand pounds, but when I considered it was already more than four months since you began to prepare for remitting, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... he saw her, the more he was confirmed in this conjecture; but as he could not be assured of it, never treated her in a manner which should give her room to guess what his thoughts were, for fear of meeting with a rebuff, which would have been too mortifying to his vanity:—but as the belief of being beloved by her, rendered her insensibly more dear to him; the regards he paid her, and the sighs which frequently issued from his breast when he approached her, did not escape the notice of the quick-sighted ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the humane arrangements, the obvious comfort of the patients, and the admirable ventilation and perfect cleanliness of the beds and wards, but the system adopted is one of the most antiquated quackery, and when I think of the unspeakably horrible state of the wounds, the mortifying limbs, and the gangrened feet ready to drop off, I almost question Governor Hennessey's wisdom in stamping the hospital with his approval on his ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... wicked and weary world but in the life of the world to come their hopes and especially their fears were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls. Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was all. Looking at life as merely ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... wrappings of words. A small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential imagination and opulence of soul,—this was the mortifying result to which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... time, the six trusty soldiers who had been selected to participate in the enterprise must have given them up, and returned to the camp with the sad story of their capture. It was mortifying to Somers to have such a report carried to the general of the division; for it seemed to be an imputation upon his skill and tact; but he found some consolation in believing that he should not have been taken if it had not been for ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... drinking coffee and talking of Captain Polyansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his diary: "Where am I, my God? I am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity. Wearisome, insignificant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women. . . . There is nothing more terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. I must escape from here, I must escape today, or I shall go out of ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... large party of guests, for dancing. Most people came and went without seeing it, and it remained shut up, as much a conjecture as the memory of Northwick's wife. She was supposed to have been taken from him early, to save him and his children from the mortifying consequences of one of those romantic love-affairs in which a conscientious man had sacrificed himself to a girl he was certain to outgrow. None of his world knew that his fortunes had been founded upon ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... looked at Lucien while the Marquise was speaking. De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled. The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien through ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... valuable is left in his system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right. ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... limit his authority, behaving toward him sometimes with inattention, and sometimes with haughtiness. That Charles, finding that he must either yield on every occasion to his son, or openly contend with him, in order to avoid either of these, which were both disagreeable and mortifying to a father, he took the resolution of resigning his crowns, and of retiring from the world (vol. i. p. 24, etc.). Don Levesque derived his information concerning these curious facts, which he relates very briefly, from the original papers of Cardinal Granvelle. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... "dissipation" would have changed the whole current of my life, probably much for the better, and it would certainly have spared my poor father the conviction, which he had almost to his death, that I was a sad and mortifying failure or exception which had not paid its investment; for which opinion he was in no wise to blame, it being also that of all his business acquaintances, many of whose sons, it was true, went utterly to the devil, but then it was in the ancient intelligible, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... respectfully handled our dirty petticoats and stockings. "You have gone through it before," he said. "Of course, the Confederates searched it."—"Indeed, they did not touch it!" I exclaimed. "They never think of doing such work."—"Miss, it is more mortifying to me than it can be to you," he answered. And I saw he was actually blushing. He did his work as delicately as possible, and when he returned the keys, asked if we had letters. I opened my box and put them into his hand. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... detect the mouths of the New South Wales rivers without a close scrutiny of the coastline. Those considerations are quite sufficient, when duly weighed, to account for the omissions. It certainly was a rash statement, after so imperfect an examination, that "however mortifying the conviction might be, it was then an ascertained fact that no river of importance intersected the east coast between the 24th and 39th degrees of south latitude." But it is equally certain that he could not have found these rivers with the means at his ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... is that we are thereby fitted to fight against the desires of the flesh. When we have the life of the Spirit within us, it will show itself as Paul has said in another place by the righteousness of the law being fulfilled in us, and by our 'mortifying the deeds of the body.' The gift of the Spirit does not take us out of the ranks of the combatants, but teaches us to fight, and arms us with its own sword for the conflict. There will be abundant opportunities of courage in attacking the sin that doth so easily beset ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... look at the presents, and they were carried away by the attendants, with real or seeming indifference. To be permitted to kiss the hand of the sable monarch could not rationally be expected, as an honour conferred upon them for the presents, which they had delivered, but it was mortifying to them not to receive a word of acknowledgement, not even the tithe of a gracious smile; they accordingly said not a word, but they had seen enough to convince them that all was not right. A reserve, the cause whereof they could not define, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Mrs. Pig most of all was Grunty's behavior whenever Farmer Green came to the pen. It was mortifying to her to have her son actually try to scratch his back against her in the presence of ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... at times, exempted from this mortifying lot, seems to act without any regard to the length of his period. When he thinks intensely, or desires with ardour, pleasures and pains from any other quarter assail him in vain. Even in his dying hour, the muscles ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... This was mortifying enough to a tall lad of eighteen, who already fancied himself a man: who, though meanly dressed, and sufficiently awkward, had enough of vanity in his composition to imagine that his person would create an interest in his behalf ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... trouble in Kansas. The two elements, free and slave, were arrayed against each other, and for several years friends from other States had to come over and help Kansas bury its dead. The condition of things for some time was exceedingly mortifying to the citizen who went out to milk ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... excellent thing for our troops in the field: and, if you ask my opinion, a little mortifying of the spirit would do the working classes of this country a deal of good. I take a glass of ale myself, under medical advice, because cold water disagrees with me, and I've never yet had the aerated drink recommended that wasn't followed ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... discoursing, on the road, of God and his will concerning us, and of the disposition and readiness of our hearts, as we then felt, to bear it whatever it might be, although we foresaw that it would be mortifying enough for us. We arrived at B[olsward] about eight o'clock, where we discovered the reason why there were so few people in the boat and tavern, for by the ringing of the bells we understood that it was a holiday, namely, Ascension ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... whose condition immediately after the peace was somewhat embarrassing, and not so flattering as it might have been to the advocates and promoters of the revolution, the situation of Adams was rather mortifying ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... hand-to-hand conflict between coin and paper,—no longer the melancholy spectacle of wise men doing unwise things, and honorable men doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to brand with dishonor,—it still continues a long, a wearisome, and often a mortifying struggle: men knowing their duty and refusing to do it, knowing consequences and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will give but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... has different effects on different people. Some it puffs up with self-satisfaction. To others it is a source of mortifying regret. I belonged to the latter class. I was continually crying out, 'O God, how little I am, and how little I know! Give me a chance of acquiring information, and of learning how more successfully to conduct this all-important business of saving men to which Thou hast called me, and which ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave his captive associates in comfortable habitations and among a civilized people at Detroit, while he, the single white man of the company, was obliged to accompany his red masters ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... in a pathetic wail: "O Henrietta! do you abandon me thus? Well, I will tell you, heartless girl! I've only kept it back till now because it was so extremely mortifying to my pride as an artist—as a student of oil. ...
— The Register • William D. Howells
... normal, but, as the little girl said of her pet bantam, they only lay about doing nothing. And when guests desired some of my fine fresh eggs boiled for breakfast, I used to go secretly to a neighbor and buy a dozen, but never gave away the mortifying situation. ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... courage of his despair, but, as he says, few unpremeditated enterprises ever succeeded better than this one. "The question indeed was carried by a great majority, but those who were against it were almost entirely of those who till then had implicitly voted with the minister. This was not only mortifying to Mr. Pitt, but highly encouraging to Mr. Hastings ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... still, shifting between two minds. Should he go away and leave his father to the mortifying sense that his sons were setting him at defiance? or should he return and insist on full explanations? He would have done the latter had it not been for the words, "If you knew how painful your presence is to me!" He still heard them. They cut ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... you express yourself with exquisite delicacy. But I am just starting in life, and I shrink from mortifying my father by associating my name with a signal failure. Suppose I were an anonymous contributor, say, to 'The Londoner,' and I had just brought that highly intellectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at a good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment, would that ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of sentiment that she would not swallow, but she knew from mortifying experience that Patty ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Comte inquired what effect the failure of the enterprise had produced upon the Prince's character, with whose gallant bearing and enthusiasm, in the conduct of his desperate enterprise, he evinced the strongest interest and sympathy. I stated briefly the mortifying disappointments to which Charles Edward was exposed in France, the hopelessness of his cause, and the indifference generally shown to him by the continental courts, which so much preyed on his mind as finally to stifle every spark ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... all day very hard and begin to be pleased with what I have done, on showing it to Mr. Allston, with the expectation of praise, and not only of praise but a score of 'excellents,' 'well dones,' and 'admirables'; I say it is mortifying to hear him after a long silence say: 'Very bad, sir; that is not flesh, it is mud, sir; it is painted with brick dust ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... gestures of the players seemed to me to accord with the discourse which I recollected. I listened only when I failed to see the appropriateness of the gestures.. There are few actors capable of sustaining such a test, and the details into which I could enter would be mortifying to most ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Corps and the heads of departments in the most incoherent, and in some instances offensive, manner. The Republican Senators were horror-stricken, and Colonel Forney vainly endeavored to make him conclude his harangue; but he would not be stopped; the brandy had made him crazily drunk, and the mortifying scene was prolonged until he was told that it was necessary to go with the President to the eastern ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... particular day—that devoted to the rivetting of the chaine. A surgeon, however, belonging to the establishment, promised to procure me admission, and on receiving his summons, I started one forenoon for Bicetre. Mortifying news awaited my arrival. The convicts had plotted a general insurrection and escape, which was to have taken place on the preceding night. It had been discovered in time, however, and such precautions taken, as completely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... again ordered to cross the line and take up their winter quarters in their own territory, after repeatedly suffering themselves to be defeated under the most mortifying and humiliating circumstances; with the blame of which the commander-in-chief (General Wilkinson) charged General Hampton, in consequence of his disobedience of orders, but with which the American Secretary of War more properly charged both. However, it had the effect of checking ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... that they had exercised, over the religion and property of the country, the most grievous oppressions. What then remained to protect them but their power?—Right they had none,—and power! it is a mortifying consideration, but I will ask if Bonaparte, (nor do I mean in the question to imply any thing to his honour,) had been in the place of Sir Hew Dalrymple, what would he have thought of their power?—Yet before this shadow the solid substance ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... give Ritchie a jog, when there is some stumbling-block that he sticks fast at. Don't you remember those sums, and those declensions? When he is so clear and sensible about practical matters too—anything but learning—I cannot think why—and it is very mortifying!" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... education at our Universities, as I do now; for I might have gratified his benevolent disposition by the recital. The ignorance of English gentlemen of the people of America, and of their education, is indeed surprising as well as mortifying. By their treatment of us, it is evident they consider us a sort of white savages, with minds as uncultivated, and dispositions as ferocious as their own allies, with their tomahawks and scalping knives. After conversing with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Versailles, that a very important battle would soon take place between the French army commanded by Marshal Villars, and the allied army under Prince Eugene and Marlborough. Louis XIV., who for some years had met with many mortifying repulses, seemed to be very uneasy about the event. Marshal Boufflers, in order to quiet in some degree the perturbation of his sovereign's mind, offered, though a senior officer to Villars, to go and serve under him, sacrificing all personal considerations ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... struck fear into his enemies, and inspired his countrymen with confidence. In this struggle the Argives, Arcadians, Si-cy-o'nians, and Pisa'tans aided Messenia, while the Corinthians assisted Sparta. In alarm the Spartans sought the advice of the Delphic oracle, and received the mortifying response that they must seek a leader from the Athenians, between whose country and Laconia there had been no intercourse for several centuries. Fearing to disobey the oracle, but reluctant to further the cause of the Spartans, the Athenians sent to the latter the poet TYRTAE'US, who had ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... "I grant you it is mortifying—infinitely distressing; and Brecon is the last man I could have wished that it should occur to; but, after all, our daughter must decide for herself in such affairs. She is the person most interested in the event. I never influenced her sisters in their choice, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... without the feet touching the ground, being propelled simply by the effort of the will? And who of us has had not experienced that dreadful—"falling through space" sensation, in dreams, with the sudden awakening just before we actually struck earth? And who has not had the mortifying dream experience of walking along the street, or in some public place, and being suddenly overcome by the consciousness that we were in our night-clothes, or perhaps without any clothing at all? All of these things are more or less distorted ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... pitiful pilgrimage of the prisoners into captivity, captivity in a land desolated, impoverished and embittered. Came wounds wrapped in filthy rags, pain and want of occupation, and a poor little bent and broken Heinrich sitting aloof in a crowded compound nursing a mortifying wound.... ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Oscar and Whistler. They were in the same class at school; but Whistler studied hard, and thus, though much younger than Oscar, he stood far before him as a scholar. This awakened some feeling of resentment in Oscar, and he never let slip any opportunity for annoying or mortifying his more ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... brother's bastard by a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see of your conduct, I judge your mind to be exactly suitable to your exterior. I recommend you these mortifying reflections for your leisure; and, in the meantime, let me beseech you to rid us of your presence. If I were not occupied," added the Dictator, with a terrifying oath, "I should give you the unholiest drubbing ere ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... courted. By a man of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St. Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been mortifying to his ambition, for he had designed that the matrimonial connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then addressed also by St. Aubert, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... contending with the suspicions, the ill-concealed [131] antipathy to him of her hostile brothers, the distress of her flight, half in dread to find the husband she was pursuing with the wildness of some lost child, who seeking its parents begins to suspect treacherous abandonment. That most mortifying view of his actions had doubtless been further enforced on her by others, the worst possible reading, to her own final discomfiture, of a ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... penance of every kind, and used them with an unsparing hand. Ingenious in devising means of crucifying her senses, she mixed wormwood with her food, and between meals, kept the bitter herb a long time in her mouth, until forbidden, through regard for her health, to continue so mortifying a practice. She succeeded however in so completely destroying the sense of taste, as to be finally unable to distinguish one description of food from another. Many years after she went to Canada, this fact was decidedly ascertained by an unmistakable test. Yet she ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... you will, Mr. Goddard," was the quiet response. "I imagine that you would hesitate to bring such a charge against me, since such a course would necessitate explanations that might be to you somewhat distasteful, if not mortifying. You would hardly like to reveal the character of the document, which, however, you have made a mistake in asserting that ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Roman muses, Full of honey and of graces, Learned verses of good Pino; I embrace you, just Camenae, All day long I read you gladly In this mortifying season, Time of tears and time of penance, Harsh and troublesome, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... of the "Caroline" were not delicate in their commentaries on the dulness which had brought them into so awkward and so mortifying a position, the pilot endeavoured to conceal his own vexation, by the number and vociferousness of his orders. From blustering, he soon passed into confusion, until the men themselves stood idle, not knowing which of the uncertain and contradictory mandates ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... plausibility, that at last she began to give bitter and anxious heed to it. What if this constant communication between AEnone and Cleotos were to result in a mutual love? It was no uncommon thing in those days for the high-born lady to cast her eyes upon the slave. How mortifying to herself, then, if, while she had been exerting all her powers of fascination, taxing the utmost resources of her intellect, and making of her whole existence one labored study for the purpose of gaining an undue influence over the lord, Cleotos, without art or disguise or apparent effort, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... judgment is confirmed; but the choice is left to the defendant, either to use the bordure, or bear the arms of their relations, the ancient Earls of Chester, azure, a gerb d'or. He rejected the mortifying distinction, and chose a gerb: which is the family coat to ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... been more mortifying? Most invitations are received politely and graciously. What there was to laugh at about mine I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... an oracle that he was destined to live to a hundred and fifty, and then die by a thunderbolt; he had in fact, before he reached seventy, an end very sad for a son of Podalirius, his leg mortifying from foot to groin and being eaten of worms; it then proved that he was bald, as he was forced by pain to let the doctors make cooling applications to his head, which they could not do without ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... corset-maker. She talked a great deal of what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as "the right thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations. ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... be that the custom of wearing apparel, being derived to us from the fall, and one of the most mortifying products of that unhappy event, a certain seriousness (to say no more of it) may in the order of things have been intended to have been impressed upon the minds of that race of men to whom in all ages the care of contriving the human ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... annoying. By George, that's mortifying. Never had anything of that kind happen to me before. I've left my pocket-book. Hold! Here's a bill, after all. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to have been a panacea provided for all disease," he resumed, after a moment of deep thought. "But there is none to-day—at least materia medica has never found one, and that is a mortifying fact to be obliged to admit after over four thousand years of investigation and experiment. Poor Dorrie! I'd really like to make ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... me play the Fool; With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,— I love thee, and it is my love that speaks; There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle, ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... confined," says the old chief, "to the barracks, and forced to wear the ball and chain! This was extremely mortifying, and altogether useless. Was the White Beaver [Gen. Atkinson] afraid that I would break out of his barracks and run away? Or was he ordered to inflict this punishment upon me? If I had taken him prisoner upon the field of battle, I would not ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... times and thoughts would mix themselves up and interfere. Perhaps she was very weak-minded, and the only way for her would be to give it all up, and wear drab, or whatever else might be most unbecoming, and be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got over that—her young nature reacting—as they all walked up the street together, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the world in Sunday best, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken's shop was reverential with the green shutters before the windows ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... gratefully adore the mercy and the grace of the Godhead in the plan of redemption, effected in the incarnation, the obedience, the sufferings, the death, and the triumphant resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Let it be our great object to be conformed to the likeness of his death, in mortifying all our corrupt affections, and to experience the power of his resurrection in living a new and holy life, that we may enjoy the new and lively hopes of everlasting glory, which his resurrection assures to all ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... great capacity, and in which she seemed to take singular delight, until Mrs. Pickle, on pretence of consulting her ease, told her one day she would take that trouble on herself, and for the future assume the management of her own family. Nothing could be more mortifying to Mrs. Grizzle than such a declaration; to which, after a considerable pause, and strange distortion of look, she replied: "I shall never refuse or repine at any trouble that may conduce to my brother's advantage."—"Dear madam," ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the balustrade, where Johnson's hand and foot must many a time have been, and ascending to the door, I knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. Going round to the shop-entrance, I tried to open it, but found it as fast bolted as the gate of Paradise. It is mortifying to be so balked in one's little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make inquiries of, I was a good deal consoled by the sight of Dr. Johnson himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his case nearly in the middle of St. Mary's Square, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her tired condition the petty conversation was wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the mortifying consciousness that he had not come down with her, chafing her temper almost beyond repression. Considering that Maude did not profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the ancient ruins of the Monastery, and of their history. But, to my great surprise, I found I had met my match with a witness. The stranger not only knew all that I could tell him, but a great deal more; and, what was still more mortifying, he was able, by reference to dates, charters, and other evidence of facts, that, as Burns says, "downa be disputed," to correct many of the vague tales which I had adopted on loose and vulgar tradition, as well as to confute more than one of my favourite theories ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... immediately. She had brought herself into the unpleasant position of being called on to say what she really felt, yet what she knew there were strong reasons for concealing. And to her the consciousness of having exceeded in words was peculiarly mortifying. Besides, Fred had given out unexpected electricity, and he now added, "Mr. Garth seemed pleased that Mary should be attached to me. He could not have known anything ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Llangollen, "A few years after peace was signed between this country and America, an officer introduced himself, commissioned by Washington to call upon me, and to assure me from the general himself, that no circumstance of his life had been so mortifying as to be censured in the "Monody on Andre" as the pitiless author of his ignominions fate; that he had labored to save him; that he requested my attention to papers on the subject, which he had sent by this officer for my perusal. On examining ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... which he had admitted them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
