"Ordeal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been to try the climate of Colorado, but the long overland journey seemed too great an ordeal in his condition, and, hearing of Saranac in the Adirondacks, then just coming into prominence as a resort for consumptives, they decided to make a trial of it. While Louis and his mother paid a visit to the Fairchilds at Newport, his wife and stepson went ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... effect of the jar upon the steam pipes, glands, and feed connections remains a matter of speculation. So far as the consequences of the burst upon the structure of the hull itself is concerned, every care was taken to make the ordeal as complete and instructive as possible. The wing passage, which has a maximum diameter of 3 ft. diminishing to a point, was left empty, although at the former experiments the lower portions were filled with coal. But behind this, and at a distance of 8 ft. from the bulkhead, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... Goodwin with an unblinking and remorseless aloofness. It was not hard to imagine him, when the Etna, with her crew seduced or drugged to man her, should be clear of soundings and the business of the voyage put in shape, when every watch on deck would be a quaking ordeal of fear and pain, and every watch below an interval ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... waste a good hour of the painter's time. I told him of my artistic sympathies, what pictures I had seen of his in London, and how much pleased I was with those then in his studio. He went through the ordeal without flinching. He said he would be glad to ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... cheerfully submits to this ordeal, it seems impossible to devise a mode of verification of their theories which does not rouse resentment in theological minds. Is it that, while the pleasure of the scientific man culminates in the demonstrated harmony ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... busy preparing for the great ordeal. The first task was to break the boom across the river. This boom was placed so as to hold the ships under the fire of the forts; and the four-knot spring current was so strong that the eight-knot ships could not make way enough against it ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... same opinion; but though there were a few attempts at jocularity, the mirth was forced, and all knew that they were trying to hide the deep feelings of thankfulness in their hearts for their safety, after passing through as terrible an ordeal as could fall ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... and ordeal by flame. You promised true. In joy we trembled lest We should be found unworthy when it came; But—oh—we never guessed The ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... have shown, have been severely dealt with by Nature in this respect: she has forced them, at a time of life when their minds are ill compacted, their ideas chaotic, and their wills untrained, to face an ordeal which demands above all things reverence based on knowledge and resolution sustained by high affections. An enormously large proportion flounder blindly into the mire before they know what it is, not necessarily, but very often into the defilement of evil habit, but, still more often, ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... give a great feast if I return to Algiers, in celebration of the miracle. Had it not been for my cousin's wish that I should go with thee, I should not have felt that the hour had come when I might face the ordeal of such a journey to the far south. But the prayer of Si Maieddine, who, after his father, is the last man left of his line, has kindled in my veins a fire which I thought had burnt out forever. Have no fear, daughter. I shall be ready ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... nearer its mother put it to me. The third and youngest wife, who was really very pretty, appeared enchantingly bashful, but what was her bashfulness compared to mine, when compelled for mere form's sake to enfold in my arms a beautiful and naked young woman? It was really a distressing ordeal. She showed her appreciation of our company by the glances of her black and flashing eyes, and the exposure of two rows of beautifully even and ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... as if he were going to the guillotine when he starts for the barber's, but she will not stand for a beard of more than a week's growth. He always stops at my door on his way back to let his wife kiss his clean old face, all wreathed with smiles—the ordeal is over for another week. He never needs a sou except for that shave. He drinks nothing but his own cider: he eats his own vegetables, his own rabbits; he never goes anywhere except to the fields,—does not want to—unless it is to play the violin for a dance or a fete. He just works, eats, ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... to go through such an ordeal, my dearest. I know that we could have all these grand things, and for that reason, if for no better one, I'm perfectly willing to go without them. No, Alice, we will be married here in this room. We will deck it with flowers," continued Quincy. "Leopold will go to Boston to-morrow ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... woman, a girl of seventeen, in whose warm nature passion and imagination so largely predominated over intellect, was but too liable to have her reason shaken from its seat by the ordeal through which ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... who took part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew were under twenty-two years of age. But though Members listened and laughed they refused, for the most part, to vote with him. The Bill came almost unscathed through the first day of its ordeal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... of the team were badly shaken, until C.S.M. Gorse and Corpl. B. Staniforth came along and helped to reorganize the post with a few new men. The trench contained no real cover, and the bombardment lasted for about half an hour; a severe ordeal for men who had already had a stiff fight followed by a night of bombing. Many of the telephone lines were broken, and L.-Corpl. Fisher, who had done such gallant work the previous day, was killed entering our ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... the afternoon, striving desperately to nerve herself for the ordeal. But strive as she might, the fact remained that she was horribly, painfully frightened. There was something about this man which it seemed futile to resist, something that dominated her, something against which it hurt ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not been beforehand with him. The spirit of contradiction and the affectation of superiority, however, led him to reproach his rival with pusillanimity, and he went so far that at length he found himself committed to undergo the ordeal: merely stipulating that, in consideration of his being a foreigner, he should be permitted to elevate the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard, indeed, would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal, requiring active duties, very few, in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... slowly through the great hall and into the library. He knew Dorothy would be waiting for him, and he did not feel equal to the ordeal of meeting ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... the afternoon the husband and wife sallied forth. Letty felt that she was being taken through an ordeal, and that George was rather foolish to wish it. However, she did her best to be cheerful, and to please George she still wore the pretty Paris frock of the morning, though it seemed to her absurd to be trailing it through a village ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him so diabolical a character. Denis walked by his side, with his countenance strained to inflation;—a miserable parody of that sullen effrontery which marked the unshrinking miscreant beside him. He had not heard of the ordeal, owing to the caution of Anthony: but, notwithstanding his effort at indifference, a keen eye might have observed the latent anxiety of a man who was habitually villanous, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles—which indeed it has. And after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort—subdues fear—leans on the staff of a moderate expectation—and mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... three days Sunday will be here;" taking with them at service time this so-called sermon, strong with the smell of books and of midnight oil; speaking it in pain of utterance, and delighted when the ordeal is over, with a delight most certainly shared by many who neither came to scoff nor remained to pray. Heaven help the man whom fate in the shape of foolish friends, or parents, or mistaken church-officials has sentenced to hard labour ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... any faith in it, he consented to the operation, although so certain was he of a fatal ending that he had his house swept and garnished, ready for the funeral. To comfort and cheer him through the ordeal, both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson went to his house and remained with him until all was done. The result was most happy, and the grateful man, now proudly holding up his head among his fellows, composed in honour of the event "The Song of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... soft words, and then said, 'O king, thou hast completely subjugated the five organs of action and the five organs of knowledge with the mind as their sixth. Thou hast for this come out unscathed from the fiery ordeal I had prepared for thee. I have been properly honoured and adored, O son, by thee, O foremost of all persons possessed of speech. Thou hast no sin, not even a minute one, in thee! Give me leave, O king, for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... into that nerve racking ordeal known to the civilian public as "nothing to report"—the type of warfare recognised by all who have any experience of modern active service life as calling for all that is highest in regimental efficiency and ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... moment when Aunt Emma and Mr. Winslow asked him questions about the development of the Touricar. But before he could determine whether he was being deliberately inspected by the family the ordeal ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... at Doctor Dick saw that his handsome face was very pale, his eyes had a haggard look, and his teeth were firmly set. They knew that he had passed through some dread ordeal, and a silence fell upon all, ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... the peculiar suavity of his manners. Mounting a flight of stairs, they found the Baron at one end of a handsome room, more like a drawing-room than an office, with a number of persons seated round it, all waiting to undergo the ordeal of his friendly inquiries. Nearly all civilised nations were there represented,—English, Germans, French, and Spaniards. Among them they recognised some of their fellow-passengers. The simple, round, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... interval of more than ten years, with a trembling hand, with a confused and horrible recollection of certain occurrences and situations, in the ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing; though with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of the main ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... tell her to-night, so I may 's well make up my mind to it," she said firmly; and then, after drawing up a chair by making a hook out of one of her feet, she sat down and sought strength for the ordeal in a more than ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... resolved to hold our Christmas some other day, and in a better place. The women seem ill-regulated here—Kavimba's brother had words with his spouse, and at the end of every burst of vociferation on both sides called out, "Bring the Muavi! bring the Muavi!" or ordeal. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... coming until a week later," she said. "Do you know, I think if I had actually passed my fiftieth birthday, I might feel somehow more solid and fortified. It's really an ordeal for an old-fashioned woman like myself to encounter the modern girl of sixteen. Fifty might pull through, but oh, ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... have somewhat to say. Once you condemned the Queen without judgment, and that was wrong; now you acquit her without judgment, and that is wrong. She is not quit by trial, and the barons of your land blame you both. Counsel her, then, to claim the ordeal in God's judgment, for since she is innocent, she may swear on the relics of the saints and hot iron will not hurt her. For so custom runs, and in this easy ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... and Buchanan. Are we to recognise its counterpart in the middle of the nineteenth century, in a scheme at least three-fourths of whose teachers are paid with yearly salaries of from L10 to L13, 13s. 4d.—about half ploughman's wages—and of whom not a fourth have passed the ordeal of a Government examination, pitched at the scale of the lowest rate of attainment? The scheme of the noble Knox! Say rather a many-ringed film-spinning grub, that has come creeping out of the old crackling parchment, in which the sagacious ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... brought back to the Indian lad with a rush the memory of the recent ordeal he had been through. He gave one glance at the unconscious form on the other couch and his hand darted to the hunting-knife at his hip as he staggered, dizzily, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... very effective to leave the impression of their happiness with the audience, so that they might have strength to get on their rubbers and wraps after the tremendous ordeal ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... descended to us. Of necessity, the dramatist was nerved to keenest endeavor by the knowledge that his play had to withstand a comparison with other plays presenting the same characters in the same situations, and by the certainty that his personal contribution would stand out sharply. A similar ordeal was undergone by the great painters of the Italian Renascence, who tried their hands, almost all of them, on the Madonna with the Holy Child, on the Descent from the Cross, and on every other of the score ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... river was only the beginning. Animal strength carried him through that ordeal. But he emerged from the river as an animal; a wounded animal, crawling through the brush and arroyo outside the ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... The ordeal was ended. No touch of colour, no golden sunbeam or crimson shadow stained the ghastly surface of those snows, they were pallid as ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... if I had him alone, but he must be put with a crew who will make it their object to bully him out of his superiority, and the more I do for him, the worse it will be for him, poor little fellow; and he looks too delicate to stand the ordeal. It is sheer cruelty ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Executive. The treaty which had thus been negotiated had failed to receive the ratification of the Senate. One of the chief objections which was urged against it was found to consist in the fact that the question of annexation had not been submitted to the ordeal of public opinion in the United States. However untenable such an objection was esteemed to be, in view of the unquestionable power of the Executive to negotiate the treaty and the great and lasting ...
— 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
... mothers have their infants laid away under the bushes with only a shawl between them and the cold ground. In their ball plays also each young man, before going into the game, is subjected to an ordeal of dancing, bleeding, and cold plunge baths, without food or sleep, which must unquestionably waste his ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... had he escaped through the awful ordeal of war with only one bad wound, while many of his friends and comrades—the best and bravest, the most happily young, had fallen round him—but he had come back to find himself transformed from a penniless adventurer into a very rich man. An old Brisbane millionaire, into whose ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... depended on the accusation of the husband, the woman could clear herself by swearing her own innocence; if, however, the accusation was not brought by the husband himself, but by others, the woman could clear herself by submitting to the ordeal by water; that is to say, she would plunge into the Euphrates; if the river carried her away and she were drowned, it was regarded as proof that the accusation was well founded; if, on the contrary, she survived and got safely to the bank, she was considered ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from the operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal which had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting, with a piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she heard ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... then an institution of grave importance to the community, as the practice of obligatory inoculation prevailed, and all the young people of the colony had to go up in classes to the hospital and pass the ordeal. Her mother's death left her the matron of the hospital and caretaker of her sister and brothers, and the stories of her life at that time, which she told me now and then, showed that, with the position, she assumed the effective authority, and ruled her brothers ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... boys, he would examine them again publicly, and as extensively as before; when he was convinced they would shew, that the whole was as fresh on their memories as when they at first received it. In short, that they would be able to undergo the most searching ordeal, with equal, if not greater ease, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... the hideous, sticky liquid, till the tablespoon was full and crowning over the brim of it all around. Why, even to this day, as the picture rises in memory, I feel my stomach roll and see the hard, wild grin on the face of Halstead as he watched the ordeal approach me. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... to the other side of the terrace and maliciously watched the embarrassment of the other boys. Joe and Harry Corwin carried things off rather well, but the others were fairly speechless. Perry chuckled as he saw the growing bewilderment on the face of the hostess. But finally the ordeal was over and Perry led the way back to the festivities. Ossie groaned when they were ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... creations of Old Mortality, the Bride of Lammermoor, and others of these narratives. But I, nevertheless, threw the manuscripts into my drawer, resolving not to think of committing them to the Ballantynian ordeal, until I could either obtain the assistance of some capable person to supply deficiencies, and correct errors, so as they might face the public with credit, or perhaps numerous and more serious avocations might permit me to dedicate my own time ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Ella, "and Philistia was always given to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn't seem ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... persuaded that many excellent persons, if they were confronted with the alternatives of reading "Paradise Lost" and going round Trafalgar Square at noonday on their knees in sack-cloth, would choose the ordeal of public ridicule. Still, I will never cease advising my friends and enemies to ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... of the key was regarded as evidence that some unseen dread power was present, and so overpowering occasionally was the impression produced that the young woman who was chief actor in the scene fainted. The parties holding the key and Bible were generally old women, whose faith in the ordeal was perfect, and who, removed by their age from the intenser sympathies of youth, could therefore hold their hands with steadier nerve. It is only when firm hands hold it that the turning takes place, for this phenomenon depends upon the regular and steady pulsations ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... gone the round of the house, bidding dreary farewells to all the servants; an unpleasant ordeal which he would gladly have dispensed with, if possible, and which did not serve to raise ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Wherever he looked there was blackness, lightened once or twice, and for an instant only, by a sudden passing memory of a little child. It would be too much to say that the memory comforted him. Nothing could do that, yet. All he dared hope for was for the strength to go through his ordeal with something approaching manliness and dignity. The visits of his friends were a strain to him, as well as to them, and it was sadly easy to see how the sense of his hopeless case depressed them. He could imagine the long breath they drew as they left his tent and found themselves ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... criticism of George Meredith existed, where in it would The Shaving of Shagpat find its place? There is fear that in competition with the series of analytical studies of modern life that stretches from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel to One of our Conquerors, it might chance to be pushed away with a few lines of praise. Now, I would not seem so paradoxical as to say that when an extravaganza is held up to me in one hand, and a masterpiece ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... been obscured by the size of the offering, but she carried as much of it as her strength permitted, and laid the fragrant bouquet on the piano as she passed it. (A poem had come with it, but Tommy did not dare read it until the ordeal was over, for no one had ever written her a poem before. It had three long verses, and was signed "F.A."—that was all she had ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... understood to be a man of mark. She was all impatience to see him, and had shown it outwardly much more plainly than Elizabeth. How quiet Elizabeth had been these last days! moving about the house so silently, with vaguely smiling eyes, like one husbanding her strength before an ordeal. ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... too ready to retire. The ordeal had strained his patience and had left his brain feeling the stress of unaccustomed exercise. Therefore, allowing Melvina to drive him before her much as she would have driven a docile Jersey ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... to the turn of Aubrey Spencer May. The long waiting, after his nerves had been wound up, had been a severe ordeal, and his delicacy of constitution and home breeding had rendered him peculiarly susceptible. With his resemblance to his father in form and expression, it was like seeing the Doctor denuded of that shell of endurance with which he had contrived to conceal his ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... early period it is scarcely possible to convey any adequate idea. To one of a sensitive nature, the horrors, atrocities, and misery connected with war were a terrible ordeal. The embarrassment also of the times was considerable. With an income of only eighty pounds a year, I was compelled, upon moving into the Settlement, to give one hundred and twenty for rent, and sublet half the house; and though the Committee of the Chinese Evangelisation Society increased ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... ridiculous to look to heredity for an explanation of the fact. Nor would any one venture to suggest the words or example of my masters. Of scientific education, the fruit of college training, I had none whatever. I never set foot in a lecture hall except to undergo the ordeal of examinations. Without masters, without guides, often without books, in spite of poverty, that terrible extinguisher, I went ahead, persisted, facing my difficulties, until the indomitable bump ended by shedding its scanty contents. Yes, they were very scanty, yet possibly of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... test, in modern times, of individual endowment in sculpture, by virtue of her unequalled treasures and select proficients in Art,—Munich affords the second ordeal in Europe, because of the cultivated taste and superior foundries for which that capital is renowned; and it is remarkable that both the great statues there cast from Crawford's models by Mueller inspired those impromptu festivals which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... by voting for it. When the roll was being called, Van Buren, so Benton tells us, was out of the chair, walking behind the colonnade at the rear of the Vice President's seat. Calhoun, fearful lest he might escape the ordeal, eagerly asked where he was, and told the sergeant-at-arms to look for him. But Van Buren was ready, and at once stepped to his chair and voted for the bill. His close friend, Silas Wright of New York, also voted for it. Benton says he deemed both the votes to be political and given from policy. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... perfectly useless. He now proceeded, however, with an interest that began to quicken as circumstances rendered its indulgence less unsuitable, to seek his captive, in order to bring him before the searching ordeal of his ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... knight accused the other of crime or dishonour, the latter might challenge him to fight with swords or lances; and, according to the superstition of the times, the victor was considered to be the one who spoke the truth. But this ordeal combat was far removed ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... them by their employers, and thus diminished in numbers, half-stripped of provisions, and enfeebled by the exhausting atmosphere of the tropics, the survivors were ill prepared to confront the antarctic ordeal which they were approaching. Five months longer the fleet, under command of Admiral de Cordes, who had succeeded to the command, struggled in those straits, where, as if in the home of Eolus, all the winds ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... knife. She finally consented to that terrific method, but was in no condition of strength to bear the operation. It was decided to postpone it till the 22d of June. Twelve doctors were invited to be present. Meanwhile a diet nurse sent from New York, remained with her, to prepare her system for the ordeal. ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... snowfields, and approached it, waving a white handkerchief. Several French officers dashed towards them at full speed, and reached them in time to save them from the clutches of the Indians, whose camps were near at hand. They were kindly treated, recovered from the effects of their frightful ordeal, and were afterwards exchanged. Pringle lived to old age, and died in 1800, senior major-general of the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... energetic, so full of life, so ready for all emergencies, so clever at devices, so able to manage not only for himself but for his friends, he was, as it were, paralysed and unmanned. He sat from morning to night looking at the empty fire-grate, and hardly ventured to speak of the ordeal that he had ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... being dressed in her best, and loaded with gold ornaments, borrowed from many miles around, which had served to deck every bride in the district ever since any one could remember, was left seated on the geta, or raised sleeping platform, in the dimly lighted inner apartments, there to await the ordeal known to Malay cruelty as sanding. The ceremony that bears this name, is the one at which the bride and bridegroom are brought together for the first time. They are officially supposed never to have seen one another before, though no Malay who respects himself ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... his part, was almost silent. This was due to some extent, no doubt, to the reaction from his severe ordeal of the day before, but it may have been caused somewhat by the feeling that he had gone too far in taking them fully into his confidence. His secret was no longer his, and while he was strongly drawn toward these wholesome young fellows who were of his own age, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... which, for all he can tell," said the Professor, genially, "may prove fallacious. On the contrary, if his affection is sincere, he will incur as little expense as possible, put by every penny he can save, rather than subject the girl he professes to love to the ordeal of a long engagement. In other words, the truest lover ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... men had a more cruel ordeal yet in store for them: when the Assyrian army re-entered Nineveh, Assur-bani-pal placed them on the route along which the cortege had to pass, and made them realise to the full the humiliation of their country. Dunanu walked at the head of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... duty that it fell to our lot to perform, was one of humanity. We had scarcely reached Governor Russwurm's house, when, observing a crowd of people about a mile off, on the beach, we learned that a man was undergoing the ordeal of drinking sassy-wood. The Commodore, with most of the officers, hastened immediately to the rescue. On approaching the spot, we saw a woman with an infant on her back, walking to and fro, wailing bitterly, and throwing up her arms in agony. Further on, we met four children, from eight to ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... few minutes afterwards, when her drunken husband came home, he found his miserable family, grouped as they were in their misery, worshipping God in their own simple and touching manner. His entrance disturbed them, for Margaret knew she must go through the usual ordeal to which his nightly return was certain to ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... rose, each found himself gently held by a pair of cadet midshipmen. It was a more or less polite hint that the ordeal was not yet over. Mr. Merriam turned to whisper to one of the cadets, who darted inside the barracks building. He was back, promptly, carrying a folded ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... the presentation was then effected without a scene. This animal, which was a well-bred Australian, was a stranger to me, and had never carried a lady before that day. Nevertheless, she passed successfully through a terribly trying ordeal, and I am certain that she would not have made the great efforts she did in jumping, if I had not soothed and encouraged her with my voice. She was only 14-2 in height, and was competing against big horses, some of which ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... of wattle work is mentioned by Lafitau. He states that the young men, when going through the ordeal of initiation on attaining their majority, ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... two months, usurped the place of the English, and so obstinately maintained its ground, that I still can occasionally detect its lingering remains. I did not spend my time unpleasantly at this school, though, first of all, I had to pass through an ordeal. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... this from you, who've shared With me the ordeal of most trying times, I sometimes feel a hot shame flushing up, To think that there are those among my sex Who are so cursed with small-souled selfishness That they do give to noble wives like you, For love—that first and final flower ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... and to make his claim surer he refused to have any explanation of his composition published in the concert programme, as the other composers in the festival had done; he wished it, therefore, to be judged from a strictly musical point of view. It was a dangerous ordeal ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... company there came a surprised and sympathetic hush. Herrick straightened awkwardly, but never flinched in his loyalty or fondness—what an ordeal for a lover!—while Penelope paused as if ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... scene of horror to complete his task; and what an impression it made on her we know from that sentence uttered in her sleep, 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' She had now, further, gone through the ordeal of the discovery. Is it not quite natural that the reaction should come, and that it should come just when Macbeth's description recalls the scene which had cost her the greatest effort? Is it not likely, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... answered that he guessed he did. There was something in the girl's voice and manner and in her beaming countenance, telling of her happiness in the possession of her new finery—though she had feared the ordeal of wearing it to school, perhaps because of the contrast it made to her usual garment—that he felt a queer feeling in his throat. But relief was at hand for him in his embarrassment, for the path that led down to the camp was in sight, and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was accustomed to dread experiences which came in the inevitable order of nature, she did think of the last day and night in the old house as something of an ordeal. People felt that the human meant very little to Dilly; but that was not true. It was only true that she held herself remote from personal intimacies; but all the fine, invisible bonds of race and family took hold of her like irresistible factors, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... had sent off her letter to the bank she went out for a stroll; she knew it would be no use trying to get rest before dinner. That ordeal, too, had to be gone through. She found herself unconsciously going in the direction of the grove; but when she became aware of it a great revulsion overcame ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... swamp with an eagerness that could not be restrained, struggling as in a race to see who could first reach the log that led into the fiery mouth of the fort. A Salem villager, John Raymond, was the winner. He passed through, survived the ordeal, and came unharmed out of the terrible fight. He was twenty-seven years of age. He signed his name to a petition to the General Court, in 1685, as having gone in the expedition from Salem Village, and as then living there. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... under it is more than I can now tell," said Mrs. Darlington, with an involuntary shudder. "And the toil, and suffering, and danger through which we have come! I cannot be sufficiently thankful that we are safe from the dreadful ordeal, and with so few marks ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... skin, and the length of my hair were the occasion of much comment. By request I would take off my shirt or pull up a leg of my much tattered trousers. Farther than this modesty prevented my going. Sometimes a similar ordeal would have to be gone through several times in the course of ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... the frank and radiant girl who was now preparing again to meet the emperor. She knew not why, and yet her heart was full of trepidation and nervous fright, the cause of which she could not guess, yet which made her task a severe ordeal. She dressed herself in white satin, with no adornment save a wreath of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... money back in her purse, and her colour rose. Filippo, quite at his ease, leisurely, openly observant of her, whistled "Lucia" softly to himself. Roses, roses all the way, and all for him, he thought amusedly. And yet she bore the ordeal well, betraying no restlessness, keeping her eyes unswervingly fixed on the two lions of the advertisement of Chinina Migone pasted on the glass over his head. At the Ripetta bridge she got out. He followed, saw her go into a house farther down the street, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... year when I entered the University fell late in April, so that the examinations were fixed for St. Thomas's Week, [Easter week.] and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and finally getting myself ready for the ordeal. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... "Nothing flash or frivolous, though everything refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian, can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for the ordeal." ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... and verse, Langhorne repaired to London, and obtained, in 1764, the curacy and lectureship of St John's, Clerkenwell. He soon afterwards became assistant-preacher in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, where he had a very intellectual audience to address, and bore a somewhat trying ordeal with complete success. He continued for a number of years in London, maintaining his reputation both as a preacher and writer. His most popular works were the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia,' and a translation of Plutarch's Lives, which Wrangham afterwards ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... gods were once graciously good to me. One wondrous evening before hope died utterly I survived the ordeal of walking home with ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and we have only a few certain facts to go upon. For the first few months of his imprisonment, Kosciuszko was Kept in the fortress as a rebel, not as a vanquished enemy. "Rebel" was the term by which he was officially styled. Before December was out, he was subjected to the usual ordeal of the Russian prison: the inquisition. A paper was handed in to him, with a long string of questions, which he was ordered to answer in his own handwriting, on the relations of the Rising with foreign powers, the sources of its finances, and so on. It ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... this injured husband made another point in his favour. Much pity was felt for Bertrande, as being the victim of an audacious deception; but everybody agreed that thus it beseemed the real Martin Guerre to have spoken. After the ordeal gone through by the wife had been also essayed by the sisters and other relatives, who one and all followed Bertrande's example and accepted the new-comer, the court, having fully deliberated, passed the following sentence, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this ordeal we put up at an excellent khan, the best we had seen in Servia, being a mixture of the German Wirthshaus, and the Italian osteria, kept by a Dalmatian, who had lived twelve years at Scutari in Albania. His upper room was very neatly furnished and ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Courtenay Comber, using almost the identical words Mr. Jacobs had attributed to him, had congratulated Derrick and informed him that he left the Court "without a stain on his character." Notwithstanding its satisfactory conclusion, the ordeal had been a trying one for father and son, and Derrick looked pale and somewhat worn as he grasped the hand of Reggie, who had been in Court, and had hurried ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... shot and shell tore its way through the still advancing ranks. It became an ordeal of fire too great for even the bravest to face. The lines at length wavered, they broke, and the men were scattered in flight. Thousands lay dead and dying on the field, many surrendered and were taken prisoner, and of the fifteen thousand gallant soldiers who had set forth ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... the morning was radiant, he was on one of the finest horses of the country, and he was as light of heart as a boy should be who has received a hint from fortune that he is one of the favorites. He looked forward to the social ordeal without apprehension, for by this time he had all the native American's sense of independence, he had barely heard the word "gentleman" since his arrival in the new country, his education was all that could be desired, he was a landed proprietor, and intended to be a rich and successful ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... of the public, the ceremonial character of the proceedings, and the conviction that the invisible powers were on the side of truth and justice that gave the trial by ordeal and the trial by battle a significance that neither the duello nor any other form of private vengeance ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... arrested in New York. She concluded that the Company had determined on the plan of suddenly confronting him and charging him with the crime, hoping that if guilty he would break down and make a confession. He had passed through the trying ordeal unscathed and most likely would be liberated in the morning. She little thought they had been separated never more to ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... verification, probation, experimentum crucis[Lat], proof, (demonstration) 478; criterion, diagnostic, test, probe, crucial test, acid test, litmus test. crucible, reagent, check, touchstone, pix[obs3]; assay, ordeal; ring; litmus paper, curcuma paper[obs3], turmeric paper; test tube; analytical instruments &c. 633. empiricism, rule of thumb. feeler; trial balloon, pilot balloon, messenger balloon; pilot engine; scout; straw to show the wind. speculation, random shot, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... no trouble with the Custom House officers here," laughed Ishmael, as he gave his arm to Judge Merlin and went on shore, leaving all the passengers who had not been shipwrecked, and lost their luggage, to pass the ordeal he and his ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... himself could not have made of this journey to the embassy a more trying ordeal. A ring was slipped upon the fourth finger of her left hand. A short prayer followed, and an earnest "God bless you, my children," which left her feeling suffocated. She thought Monte would never finish talking with him—would never ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... remain with the surveyor and study in the evening under Mr. Carson's direction; but he knew from former experience what a scene Tabitha usually created before she could be persuaded to begin school each year, and dreaded the ordeal almost as much as ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... more anon—you may not, by Village convention, go home to bed. You must go to breakfast with the rest of the Villagers. And you must be prepared to face the cold, grey dawn of "the morning after" while still in your war paint and draggled finery. It is an awful ordeal. But "it's being done in ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... sat down opposite to him. At that moment she was devoutly thankful that she had never had any other proposal to refuse. It was a dreadful ordeal. If he would only help her out! But he did not speak and every moment of silence made ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... her arm as her feet touched the unprotected path, but the girl, though unnerved by the ordeal, shook off his big claw, and with her hands clasping mine I led her across the short but dangerous ledge of rock that led to the opening in the wall. I felt strong enough to fight a dozen devils like Leith at that moment. The trusting ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... which lasted some days, and that it would prove repugnant to enumerate, the fakir declared himself ready to undergo the ordeal. The Maharajah, the Sikhs chiefs, and Gen. Ventura, assembled near a masonry tomb that had been constructed expressly to receive him. Before their eyes, the fakir closed with wax all the apertures ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... swiftly in Paris, and after one quiet day, during which Judge Hauteville was drawing together the threads of the mystery, Kittredge found himself, on Tuesday morning, facing an ordeal worse than the solitude of a prison cell. The seventh of July! What a date for the American! How little he realized what was before him as he bumped along in a prison van breathing the sweet air of a delicious summer morning! He had been summoned for the double test put upon suspected assassins ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... losing his life, owing to the vindictive jealousy of the Portuguese slave-merchants, who denounced him to the king as a spy sent by the English government. The consequence was, that it was resolved by the chief men to subject him to the ordeal of drinking a fetish. "If you come to do bad," they said, "it will kill you; but if not, it cannot hurt you." There was no alternative or escape. Poor Lander swallowed the contents of the bowl, and then walked hastily out of the hut through the armed men who ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... he secretly despised many of her views and actions, as, indeed, he did those of most women. Her present mission was undertaken for the love she bore Mabel and her sister. It was not kind to send the girl to tell her own story. It was neither kind nor fair to subject their guest to the ordeal of an unheralded disclosure of his sentiments and aspirations, with the puissant lord of Ridgeley ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... thanks when dinner was over. It had been a trying ordeal on top of an agonizing day. Cloistered in her room with only her sad thoughts for company, she had been relieved to find that Miss Kiametia Grey had been prevailed upon by Mrs. Whitney to prolong ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... a similar ordeal, and when I was well enough to go and look for him, I found him scraping away at a beef bone, from which he had just removed the last particle ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... went to a fate more terrible than to have gone down with their stout ship. Adrift on a trackless sea, 1000 miles from land, in open boats, with scant provision of food or water, they faced a frightful ordeal. After twenty-eight days they found an island, but it proved a desert. After leaving it the boats became separated—one being never again heard of. In the others men died fast, and at last the living were driven by hunger actually ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... excitement. He crossed the church, went down the nave, and approached a lateral chapel where a taper was burning with a flickering light. The Count entered the chapel. Those who had seen him amid the brilliant society of Naples, or amid the awful judicial ordeal to which he had just been subjected, and which he had undergone with such coolness and audacity, would not have recognized the humble and trembling man, who knelt before a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted with the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... and she awoke next morning oppressed with the thought of the ordeal that awaited her. She dressed herself even more carefully than usual, despite the trembling of her hands; and when the ringing of the little silver bell summoned her to the dining-room, her heart seemed to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... assault. Yet the direct attack proved a failure, and, on the twentieth of March, the siege was changed to a blockade. Forts were erected in the most advantageous spots, and a wide trench was dug around the entire city.[1296] Sancerre was to be tried by the severe ordeal of hunger; and certainly the most frightful among ancient sieges can scarcely be said to have surpassed in horror that of this ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... came you to forget what I have told you over and over again about a proper reserve?" The energetic whisper reached the gentleman's ear, and he expected to be annihilated with a look when his offence was revealed; but he was spared that ordeal, for the young voice ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... to Joe Newbolt now, like a window-pane with frost upon it, where all had been so clear in his calculations but a day before. In his heart he feared the ordeal for Isom Chase was ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... spacious structure. It was surrounded with two moats, and with double walls, and was strongly fortified. It contained numerous and spacious apartments, and it had especially one large hall which was well adapted to the purposes of this great trial. The preparations for the solemn ordeal through which Mary was now to pass, brought her forth from the obscurity in which she had so long been lost to the eyes of mankind, and made her the universal object of interest and attention in England, Scotland, and ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... with my wife we heard not many comments, a word here and there about Henderson's wonderful success, a remark about Margaret's beauty, some sympathy for her in such a wearisome ordeal—the world is full of kindness—the house duly admired, and the ordinary compliments paid; the people assembled were, as usual, absorbed in their own affairs. From all we could gather, all those present were used to living in a palace, and took all the splendor quite as a matter of course. Was there ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his best blue coat and white waistcoat, and suffering under an attack of gout is going through the ordeal of his public examination before the judge. In front of this functionary is the bankrupt's schedule, on which we read ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the same correspondent, in describing the defensive operations at Kalafat, says: 'I was struck with the admirable conduct at this time of the Roumanian gunners, who never flinched in the slightest degree under the trying ordeal.'[181] After their defeats before Plevna and elsewhere, the Russians, too, began to estimate their allies at something nearer ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... annoyed," he cried; "and shall not submit to this ordeal. Besides, she has relapsed ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... knew his preaching would not please his father or his people, and he shrank from the ordeal. It seemed like setting them all at defiance and attempting to enforce his ideas over their own. Then a perception of his cowardice struck him, and he threw off the feeling that was possessing him. He looked up to find his father watching him keenly, and he remembered that he had ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... considerate, and unlooked-for as scarcely believed to be possible. None of that exposure to the gaze and exultation of a victorious foe, such as we had seen pictured in our school-books, or as practised by conquering nations in all times. We had felt it as not improbable that, after an ordeal of mortifying exposure for the gratification of the military, we would be paraded through Northern cities for the benefit of jeering crowds. So, when we learned that we should be paroled, and go to our homes ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore |
