"Painfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grandfather anxiously. Though Clara had passed out of her world since those first days of illness, Jane held her in a memory which knew no motive of retention so strong as gratitude. The thought of harm or sorrow coming upon her protector had a twofold painfulness. Instantly she divined that Clara was in some way the cause of Sidney Kirkwood's inability to go into the country to-day. For a long time the two had been closely linked in her reflections; Mrs. Peckover and Clem used constantly ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... would be wanting an inscription. It was strange and intolerable, for they had not thought somehow, that Forsytes could die. And one and all they had a longing to get away from this painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded them of things they could not bear to think about—to get away quickly and go about their business ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and seeking the ruin of souls with all their skill, industry, and learning, are setting off with forced rhetoric, and the artifice of words of man's wisdom, and with the plausible advantages of a pretended sanctity, and of strong grounds and motives unto diligence and painfulness, to a very denying and renouncing Christian liberty, when once it is observed, how it entrencheth upon, and darkeneth lustre, or diminisheth the glory of free grace, and hath the least tendency to ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... home gaily, a most outrageous posy pinned upon him by way of honor, and whistling a Slavic love song so dismal that one inferred love must be something like toothache for painfulness. He had had such a bully time, he told me. Big Jan had been there with his wife, an old friend of Michael's Katya. Although pale, and still somewhat shaky as to legs, Jan had willingly enough shaken ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... that I was depriving my young friend of a pleasure, and would have gone, but he told me to stay. I passed an hour which interested me in spite of its painfulness. The voice of Menicuccio's sister sent a thrill through me, and I fancied that the blind must fall in love through their sense of hearing. The governess was a woman under thirty. She told me that when the girls attained their twenty-fifth year they were ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... never dissembled, never professed what he did not feel, never hated, never spoke evil of his neighbor, and could and did say that he was never angry at his brother; the faithful man, who was true to his engagements, kept his post, and, in weariness and painfulness, performed his appointed work till he was struck with death; the husband, father, friend, of whom, in these relations, it were impertinent to speak particularly, while wounded spirits are already telling, too much, how great ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... pocket, and where, and whether you might have given it in mistake for sixpence at that pub where you rushed in to have a beer—and then you calculate the chances against getting it back again. The last of these reflections is apt to be painful, and the painfulness is complicated and increased when there happen to have been several pubs and a like number of hurried farewell beers ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... approached the youth and seized him by the collar. What did it matter to him that the culprit was standing beside two corpses covered with a funeral pall? what did he care about the painfulness of the scene? Naturally he only saw before him a deserter, a deserter whom it was his duty ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... him,' says I. 'That is, if it's a mutual case. Does he return the sentiment according to the specifications and painfulness you have described?' ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... legs out of the bunk and sat up. He was feeling very tottery, and the painfulness of his head did not improve his temper. "Look here," he said, "I've had enough of your airs and graces. I've paid for my passage on this rubbishy old water-pusher of yours, and I'll trouble you to keep a civil tongue in ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... it blew not now in their faces, but against their backs, helping them on. Still the snow continued to fall very fast, and already lay thick upon the ground; every half hour increased the heaviness and painfulness of their march; and darkness gathered till the very fences could no longer be seen. It was pitch dark; to hold the middle of the road was impossible; their only way was to keep along by one of the fences; and, for fear of hurting themselves against ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... increasing in beauty and perfection, did, with much painfulness and faithful diligence, labor after a more full establishment of the house of GOD, in all its privileges, until, by perfecting the second book of discipline, they completed the exact model of presbytery, which, though they had enjoyed national assemblies for a considerable ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... her in unspeakable surprise. For an instant a wild hope awoke within him, only to die. She had come but to save her brother, as she had said, and the painfulness of her duty was only ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... true type of knowledge—a sleepless activity, a pervading agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith? A power—a power indeed—a power apart from the aggrandizement of self—a power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness'—but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the man, rushing from him as rays from a sun—borne through the air, and clothing it with light—piercing under earth, and calling forth the harvest! ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... a few words of consolation forced from him by the painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them. The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner had taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of his still unconscious sister. As he did so, these ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... some time shattered with service. It had never occurred to Granger that Pere Antoine, like most other men in the district, had a past which did not belong to Keewatin—memories of a happier time to which he might sometimes look back with the painfulness of regret. Antoine had been there so long that there was no man who remembered the day when first he arrived. He seemed as natural to the landscape as the Last Chance River itself. And now suddenly, in an electric moment of sympathy, his ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... into bondage and exile; or lying like Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, diseased in body, and suing for the crumbs from off his table; or suppose him, as St. Paul himself, in peril of foes, and even doubtful of friends; in weariness and painfulness oft, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. These last were exactly the circumstances under which the very text was indited by the apostle himself: he saw, what you may see, that trials like these, when tempered by the presence of ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... the pleasure! When separation took place, our hearts were melted in tears. And we were frightened at their return, with fears of what might happen to them upon a high sea in so small a boat. Every rising wave gave the greatest pain to our anxiety, and the extreme painfulness of our alarm even increased when we were so far off that we could not ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... fatigue, he will brave every element of heaven, he will hazard the extremities of every clime, he will cross seas, and work his persevering way through the briars and thickets of the wilderness. In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in weariness and painfulness, he seeks after him. The cast and the color are nothing to the comprehensive eye of the missionary. His is the broad principle of good-will to the children of men. His doings are with the species, and, overlooking all the accidents of climate or of country, enough for him if ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... ladylike, and became vigorous and effective; a strand of black hair that had escaped its hairpins came athwart Ramage's eyes, and then the knuckles of a small but very hardly clinched fist had thrust itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness under his ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... sleep like friends; For there's no difference 'twixt the king and clown, The poor and rich, the beauteous and deform'd, Wrapp'd in the veil of night and bonds of sleep; Without whose power and sweet dominion Our life were hell, and pleasure painfulness. The sting of envy and the dart of love, Avarice' talons, and the fire of hate, Would poison, wound, distract, and soon consume The heart, the liver, life, and mind of man. The sturdy mower, that with brawny arms Wieldeth the crooked scythe, in many a swath Cutting ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... not lightly undertake even a companioned isolation in a winter land. To picture what place of torment this well-appointed cabin was to him before he brought to it Joan, as a lonely man brings in a wounded bird to nurse and cherish, stretches the fancy on a rack of varied painfulness. ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... echoed, quietly. He looked now, his mind drawn by hers, at her fine clothes, and at the luxuriant red hair that was arranged with artificial display. The painfulness of his breath and his weakness returned now ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... did," said Deronda, trying by this reference to the past to escape from what to him was the heart-rending piteousness of this mingled suffering and defiance. "I gather that my grandfather opposed your bent to be an artist. Though my own experience has been quite different, I enter into the painfulness of your struggle. I can imagine the hardship ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... civilised, and adapts itself to the feelings of a humaner period. On the other hand there is a tendency to add to the value of the offerings, and to reckon the efficacy of sacrifice by its cost and painfulness. In periods of outward distress sacrifice attains a deeper earnestness, nothing is to be left undone, and no cost to be spared to bring the deity back to his people; darker customs which had become obsolete are revived again,[3] the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... forced to acknowledge the improbability of the story, the clumsiness of the style, the awkwardness of the dialogue, the want of Nature in many of the characters, the absurdity of many of the incidents, and the painfulness of some of the scenes. But with all this, a candid, though critical judgment could not but admit that these grave defects were attended by striking merits, which pleaded in mitigation of literary sentence. It was stamped with a truth, earnestness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Edwards, used to appear "like a horrible doctrine to me. I remember very well when I seemed convinced, and fully satisfied, but never could give an account how, or by what means I was thus convinced." The very painfulness of the idea was doubtless what induced him to accept it. It was not the truth of the doctrine convincing his intellect, but the discipline of the will involved in vanquishing the horror of it, that gave him peace; so that in the end it seemed ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... a book of poems for Timothy Derby, who solemnly loaned her one of his in exchange. This odd pair remained impervious to all criticisms, and certainly many of those voiced were frank to the point of painfulness. ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... family betray the dread that lay at Mrs Asplin's heart. Peggy, running in and out of the vicarage, would always find a smile awaiting, and a cheery word of greeting. At first she felt awkward and constrained, but by degrees the first painfulness of the impression wore away, and with the natural hopefulness of youth it seemed that the doctor must have taken an unnecessarily gloomy view of the case, since a patient in so precarious a condition could surely not be so bright, so cheery, so interested ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... trembling recital of the painfulness, the absolute horror to a young girl of many of the details of the office. But Annie was not shaken in the least. "I should not mind that," she asserted with conviction. "I know there must be strict discipline and hard trying work, with no respite or relaxation to speak of; but I am young ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... nervous system and equalize the electric action. Relief will be afforded soon; but for the sake of cure, the treatment of an old case should be continued as here directed. If the disease be local, use the B D current, with as much force as the patient can bear without irritating painfulness. Treat the affected part, or parts, with P. P., placing N. P., long cord, upon some approximate healthy part, at a point a little lower down than the part in pain. The spine, when convenient, is commonly the best point for it. In treating the painful part, pass the electrode more or less ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... upon a similar case with Sir W. Harcourt, then Home Secretary. Both of them felt painfully the contrast with their old free conversations, and discussed the matter with the punctilious ceremony corresponding to the painfulness of the occasion. There was something, as they were conscious, incongruous in settling a question of life and death in a talk ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... from any one source since the date of its existence. Such sufferings too! Sufferings inconceivable and innumerable—unmingled wretchedness from the ties of nature rudely broken and destroyed, the acutest bodily tortures, groans, tears and blood—lying forever in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and in thirst, in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... although not now from Scripture or the Prayer Book, Fuller, our Church historian, having occasion to speak of some famous divine that was lately dead, exclaims, "Oh the painfulness of his preaching!" If we did not know the former uses of 'painfulness', we might take this for an exclamation wrung out at the recollection of the tediousness which he inflicted on his hearers. Far from it; the words are a record not of the pain which he caused to others, but of the pains which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... you say about Satan and the Sons of God. But I think a certain painfulness about such portions of Holy Writ—does not come from (1) Unwillingness to lay one's hand upon one's mouth and be silent before God. (2) Or difficulty about the Personality of Satan. I fancy it is because in spite of oneself it is painful that one of the rare liftings ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... Mayton, seeing that the painfulness of the meeting was nearly over, "now let us proceed to business. First of all, will you allow me to ring the bell for some dinner, as I can tell my story while it is getting ready, and we must leave immediately after." That matter being arranged, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... constancy, it is said that one Richard Jones, a knight's son, coming to Dr. Farrar a little before his death, seemed to lament the painfulness of the death he had to suffer; to whom the bishop answered, That if he saw him once stir in the pains of his burning, he ought then give no credit to his doctrine; and as he said, so did he maintain his promise, patiently standing without emotion, till one Richard Gravell with a staff ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange points, which they both understand alike. His friends and much painfulness may prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a chambermaid; with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock:—next Sunday ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... she obeyed her own injunction. With slow deliberation she crushed her lips, full and voluptuous, into mine. The warmth of them seemed to catch hold of something deep down in me, and, with exquisite painfulness, draw it out. Blinded with emotion, I clutched close to her. She laughed. I put one hand over her full breast as infants do. She ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... crisis in spiritual experience—the adjustment between the personality and the physical, social, and industrial order in which it must find its place and task—is the measure of its possible painfulness. It is due, perhaps, to the charm which invests youth, as one looks back upon it from maturity or age, that its pain is forgotten and that sympathy withheld which youth craves often without knowing why it craves. A helpful comprehension of the phase ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... verses and with great facility,—a facility fatal to excellence; but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of analysis which distinguishes his "London", and other of his later compositions. In this power of discriminating and distinguishing— carried to a pitch almost of painfulness—Lloyd has scarcely ever been equalled, and his poems, though rugged in point of versification, will be found by those who will read them with the calm attention they require, replete with critical and moral suggestions of the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... often; in perils of waters; in perils of robbers; in perils by mine own countrymen; in perils by the heathen; in perils in the city; in perils in the wilderness; in perils in the sea; in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness; in watchings often; in hunger and thirst; in fastings often; in cold and nakedness; besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... repugnance."[246] I refer to these hysterical phenomena because they present to us, in an extreme form, facts which are common among women whom, under the artificial conditions of civilized life, we are compelled to regard as ordinarily healthy and normal. The frequent painfulness of auto-erotic phenomena is by no means an exclusively hysterical phenomenon, although often seen in a heightened form in hysterical conditions. It is probably to some extent simply the result of a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... only fancied most of this. I knew that a venomous serpent had bitten me; and that knowledge may have excited my imagination to an extreme susceptibility. Whether the symptoms did in reality exist, I suffered them all the same. My fancy had all the painfulness ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... as yet unaffected. Like all the lovely tombs of Venice and Verona, it is a sarcophagus with a recumbent figure above, and this figure is a faithful but tender portrait, wrought as far as it can be without painfulness, of the doge as he lay in death. He wears his ducal robe and bonnet—his head is laid slightly aside upon his pillow—his hands are simply crossed as they fall. The face is emaciated, the features large, but so pure and ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... "looks well." It must not be fast enough to look brisk, or so slow as to be funereal. At one wedding the ushers counted two beats as one and the pace was so slow that they all wabbled in trying to keep their balance. The painfulness to everyone may be imagined. On the other hand it is unsuitable to "trot" up ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... which tells of fresh misery. The sanitary sheds and screens are all some distance out of the camp. Imagine the painfulness of affairs on days like this, when one hardly dares ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... happy life. [Footnote: Cf. "In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness . . . yet always rejoicing!" "Rejoicing in tribulation" even, because to the brave man every obstacle and failure is so much further opportunity for courage and contrivance, for matching himself ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... this question,—it seemed to send his brain reeling on the verge of madness! He made no answer to Sah-luma's remark,—but fixed his gaze wistfully on the tall, melancholy Shape that like a black shadow darkened the whiteness of the Obelisk,—and his sense of hearing became acute almost to painfulness when once more Khosrul's deep vibrating tones peeled solemnly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... more and more. Their sails were patched and rent, Their masts were bent, In peril of their lives they worked and went. For them no feast was spread, No soft luxurious bed Scented and white, No crown or sceptre hung in sight; In weariness and painfulness, In thirst and sore distress, They rowed and steered from left to right With all their might. Their trumpeters and harpers round about Incessantly played out, And sometimes they made answer with a shout; But oftener they groaned or wept, And seldom paused to eat, and seldom ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti |
