"Tedious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, my dear sir, for your present: it is a book of the utmost importance to me. I have yesterday begun my anecdotes, etc., for your work. I intend drawing it up in the form of a letter to you, which will save me from the tedious dull business of systematic arrangement. Indeed, as all I have to say consists of unconnected remarks, anecdotes, scraps of old songs, etc., it would be impossible to give the work a beginning, a middle, and an end; which the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Church meet and blend in the Byzantine Empire, the later history of which appeared to Gibbon 'a tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery'. Its services to civilization and the greatness of many of its rulers were revealed to the world by Finlay, whose narrative was acclaimed by Freeman as the most considerable work ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... clearness of his style, which, however, is artificial and laboured. Many of the incidents of the romance are highly improbable, and the characters, except the heroine, fail to enlist sympathy. The descriptive passages and digressions, although tedious and introduced without adequate reasons, are the best part of the work. The large number of existing MSS. attests its popularity. (Editio princeps, 1601; first important critical edition by (Jacobs, 1821; litter editions by Hirschig, 1856; Hercher, 1858. There are translations ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... trivial and tedious. Rospo said, very truly, that the procession in Blue Beard was much better got up. All these processions sound very fine in mere description, but in the reality there is always something to disappoint or disgust; something which ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... said with a slight laugh, 'to be frank, people never bore me. The moment they become tedious they are of interest to me as a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... "Lady Dacre! Yes, I have found the air here delightful. My tedious headache is wearing away already. And here comes her ladyship to make us appreciate our blessings still more. Say, Bul," he added in a quick undertone as he was about moving forward to meet the new-comer, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... moon and all the atmospheric effects were the same, the emotions were different. They rode in absolute silence, and slowly after they had cleared the outskirts of Winchester. Both of them were now nearly tired out,—the level was tedious, and even a little hill a burden; and so it came about that in the hamlet of Wallenstock they were beguiled to stop and ask for accommodation in an exceptionally prosperous-looking village inn. A plausible landlady rose to ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... he would live several months. He was still adding little perfecting details to his book, and preface, among other things. He was entirely through a few days later. Since then the lack of any strong interest to employ his mind has enabled the tedious weariness to kill him. I think his book kept him alive several months. He was a very great man and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Lady said, "Oh, dear! Out in the cold we've been These seven tedious years, and have No chance of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... branches, as it were, of some huge tree, of which the vessel's funnel was the stem, were spread overhead, giving the gleaming ice a peculiarly weird look. For the engineer and his two assistants were hard at work trying to get up steam—a long and tedious task under ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... requires much more care in printing than the former method, in order to hit the right tint; so much so, that I have usually printed the stork faintly so as not to show the "tint" at all. The frontispiece is from a paper negative, a method much more troublesome and tedious than either of the others, both in preparation of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... day before yesterday in getting thirteen of the young men on this plantation to come up and drill, but they did not come again yesterday. I don't believe there is sufficient zeal among them to enable them to go through the tedious routine of drill with any regularity, unless held together by some stronger motive than now exists. I find them rather stupid. About half didn't know which their right foot was, and kept facing to the left when I told them to face to the right. They ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... I've sat in the shop watching him try for several beautiful afternoons, while outside the windows all Nature was fragrant with spring and smoke. He hums ragtime to himself as he tries, and I think his mind is wandering to something else less tedious—to some new invention in ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... call luck used to be with me all the time. Of course, since I humbly—but, I trust, helpfully—took to being a worker in the vineyard, I have not touched those devil's picture-books; nor should I have touched them to-night but for my hope that a little game would help to while away your time of tedious waiting. As for playing for money, that would have been quite impossible had it not been for my niece's suggestion that my winnings—in case such came to me—should be added to our meagre parish fund. I trust that I have not done wrong in yielding to my impulse. ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... announced, and I was obliged to break off my account of Terni and resume it here, where I arrived after a tedious journey ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... into tedious matters of theology, and repeated many long prayers and sermons in Irish that he had heard ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... to make the people of India better understood by those of my own countrymen whose destinies are cast among them, and inspire more kindly feelings towards them. Those parts which, to the general reader, will seem dry and tedious, may be considered, by the Indian statesman, as the most useful ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... distant; and they consequently had no alternative but to swim to it; which they accordingly attempted, being extremely apprehensive that the Spaniards would return. The passage across the straits was long and tedious; and their hopes of ultimate success for a long time doubtful. When about half way across, one of their number declared that he was too much exhausted to go any farther, and after a few words of encouragement from his companions, suddenly exclaimed, "good bye," and sunk ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Ex-Brigadier-Attorney-General, but, while we allow it the merit of novelty, we think there are some grave objections to its universal adoption. It would be a great check on hospitality; for, by parity of reason, the invitation should be as tedious as the reply, and a treaty of dinner would take nearly as much time as a treaty of peace. This would be a great damage to the butchers, whose interests (to borrow a bit of political economy from Mr. Cushing's letter) are complementary to those of the dinner-giver and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... lunacy; it produced simple distraction; an uneasy fumbling with the idea; like that of an old superannuated dog who longs to worry, but cannot for want of teeth. In this condition you will judge that he was rather tedious. And in this condition Coleridge took him up. Andrew's other idea, because he had two, related to education. Perhaps six-sevenths of that also came from Madras. No matter, Coleridge took that up; Southey ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... not lived," and ordered something else that could easily be got to be prepared for him. Cato was his friend and connection, but, nevertheless, so hated his life and habits, that when a young man in the senate made a long and tedious speech in praise of frugality and temperance, Cato got up and said, "How long do you mean to go making money like Crassus, living like Lucullus, and ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... in view could be achieved without saddling the war department with any unremunerative or excessive burden. He admitted that the process of raising fruit trees to the stage when they would afford adequate cover would be tedious and somewhat prolonged, but argued that the military advantages, such as enabling troops to move below the welcome shelter with absolute freedom and without physical fatigue, would be ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... which my weary steps I guide In this delightful land of Faery Are so exceeding spacious and wyde, And sprinckled with such sweet variety Of all that pleasant is to eare or eye, That I, nigh ravisht with rare thoughts' delight, My tedious travele doe forget thereby; And when I gin to feele decay of might, It strength to me supplies, and chears my ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... again retired, and one of the men of the submarine, who seemed to be in command, and wore a mask, coolly weighed the glittering metal on the deck, returning each package, after weighing and inspection, to its coffer. The process was long and tedious; at length it ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... therefore tedious business; and things looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable to varnish the facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. Turnbull wrote Mary a letter almost cringing in its tone, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes of his majesty's subjects." The debate lasted two nights; but as the speeches were merely repetitions of former arguments, it would be tedious and useless to give even a sketch, of them. The principal speakers in favour of the motion were Messrs. Brougham, Fitzgerald, North, Grant, and Huskisson, and Sirs J. Newport and J. Mackintosh. It was opposed by the attorney-general, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... did see such tedious bad stuff in all my life." Mr. Parish might here be supplemented by the remark that his definition explains the use of the word by old Walker, as related by Nyren, when bowling to Lord Frederick Beauclerk, "Oh," he said, "that was tedious near you, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... an Austrian Lloyd steamer stopped at this little old-fashioned seaport on its way to Alexandria, I secured a berth and went on board. The voyage was not long, neither was it very tedious; at night, especially, it was glorious. To sit on deck and gaze at the smooth sea, which reflected in its deep waters the bright starry heavens, while the splash of the waters made music on the vessel's side, was to experience something ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... to study this effusion of the Jacobite muse, while the Justice was engaged in the somewhat tedious ceremony of taking leave. That of Mr. Faggot was less ceremonious; but I suspect something besides empty compliment passed betwixt him and Mr. Herries; for I remarked that the latter slipped a piece of paper into the hand of the former, which might perhaps be a little ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... show him how his wonderful dictionary should be used, but he pushed them on one side, neither then nor at any future time would he consent to be taught—the process was too tedious for him, his mind worked more fluently, rapidly, and comprehensively than the mind of the most gifted teacher that could have ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... till death." There was something, remarks Mrs Chisholm, in the character of this honest bushman, during his colonial residence, to admire; he had gained his freedom, sent home money to his parents, and, during a long and tedious illness of twenty months, had attended his sick wife with patient care. Who would not get up an hour earlier to serve such a man?—I did, for I knew that early in the morning is the best time to choose a wife. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... But this fault, if it be a fault, has been caused by an earnest wish to give as much of Shakespeare's own words as possible: and if the "He said" and "She said," the question and the reply, should sometimes seem tedious to their young ears, they must pardon it, because it was the only way in which could be given to them a few hints and little foretastes of the great pleasure which awaits them in their elder years, when they come to the rich treasures from which these small and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... fall out, for ev'ry flaw, They run horn mad to go to law, A hedge awry, a wrong plac'd gate, Will serve to spend a whole estate. Your case the lawyer says is good, And justice cannot he withstood; By tedious process from above, From office they to office move, Thro' pleas, demurrers, the dev'l and all, At length they bring it to the Hall; The dreadful hall by Rufus rais'd, For ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... voices (a tenor and soprano) were clear and sweet, and every one of the company sat up to listen with a look of mingled admiration and relief. Here was something, after all, to make a long journey less tedious. They sang all the four verses and paused. There was no clapping of hands, for a reverential hush had been cast over the audience by the sacred music. Instead of the inevitable applause that follows mere entertainment, a gentle but eager request for ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... country. Gentlemen, I acknowledge myself much their debtor. While yet a youth, unknown, and with little expectation of becoming known beyond a very limited circle, I have passed days and nights, not of tedious, but of happy and gratified labor, in the study of the judicature of the State of New York. I am most happy to have this public opportunity of acknowledging the obligation, and of repaying it, as far as it can be repaid, by the poor tribute of my profound regard, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... The Starry Flag followed the Caribbee; but the voyage would be as tedious to the reader as it was to Bessie Watson. From the summer time, the yacht went into the heat of the torrid zone, and from that to the spring time of the south temperate. A week out from New York she encountered a heavy gale, and lost sight of the chase; but Levi, true to his ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... her home for her long and tedious journey without considerable parade. Her best new black silk dress was packed up in order that due honour might be done to Lord Stapledean's hospitality, and so large a box was needed that Dumpling and the four-wheeled carriage were hardly able to take her to the railway-station. Then there arose ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... gloriously; nor was I in the least disappointed. Indian Canon, through which I climbed, was choked with snow that had been shot down in avalanches from the high cliffs on either side, rendering the ascent difficult; but inspired by the roaring storm, the tedious wallowing brought no fatigue, and in four hours I gained the top of a ridge above the valley, 8000 feet high. And there in bold relief, like a clear painting, appeared a most imposing scene. Innumerable peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... land, while vast numbers of our working men and women possess nothing but the labour of their hands. The designation of labour as "property" by our courts only served to tighten the bonds, by obstructing for a time the movement to decrease the tedious and debilitating hours of contact of the human organism with the machine,—a menace to the future of the race, especially in the case of women and children. If labour is "property," wretches driven by economic necessity have indeed only the choice of a change of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... topmost log is rolled into place and the artistic work commences,—the "riving" of slabs. Short logs of oak are to be split into huge shingles for the roof, and tough and tedious work it is. But it is done; the roof is covered in, and the house is ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... how differently the case stood with her. The last month had been the longest she had ever known,—tedious as to the state captive, serving his noviciate to prison life. She would have been thankful to say that she could give no account of the past month. She inquired how the accident happened; for this was still a mystery to everybody. Mr Hope could not clear up the matter: he remembered ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... burgesses were far from being sufficiently strong to wrest the power out of the hands of the former at one blow. Compromises of this sort are necessarily limited to the smallest measure of mutual concessions obtained by tedious bargaining; and they leave the future to decide which of the constituent elements shall eventually preponderate, and whether they will work harmoniously together or counteract one another. To look therefore merely to the direct innovations, possibly to the mere change in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and supporting the parts by pressure made with a flannel roller, or laced stocking when the ankle is involved, will be useful to restore tone; or strips of adhesive plaster properly applied will be useful for the same purpose. Recovery from severe sprains is always tedious. It is an old saying "that a bad sprain is ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... up to this standard, and I shall be most happy, my dear. My summer may grow somewhat tedious toward the end; I shall count a great deal on good meals to keep ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... more in silent contemplation of the wondrous spectacle, we rose and went down towards the bank on our way to the grotto, which I was not sorry to gain. After a slight repast, I sought refuge in slumber, and at length, after many and tedious struggles, sleep came over my ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... he strikingly resembles in his iron will, his herculean energies, and his enlightened mind. He could not convert his subjects from cattle into men, even had he wished, for civilization is a long and tedious process; but he made them the subjects of a great empire, destined to spread from sea to sea. Certainly he was in advance of his people; he broke away from the ideas which enslaved them. He may have been despotic, and inexorable, and hard-hearted; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... bore ample witness to the truth of his statement; a meal with long intervals of conversation. To Hartley, who usually breakfasted in a quarter of an hour, and was anxious to start for the office, it became tedious in the extreme, and his eyes repeatedly sought the clock. He almost sighed with relief as the visitor took the last piece of toast in the rack, only to be plunged again into depression as his daughter rang the bell ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... many women in manipulating the spinning wheel, and there seems to have been some competitive contests for notoriety among country women, who found a pleasing though perhaps at times tedious occupation in spinning the wool for the local weaver who wove the home-made cloth. It is recorded that in 1745 a woman at East Dereham spun a single pound of wool into a thread of 84,000 yards. She was far outdistanced, ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... you wish," replied Barney, "but I shall never forgive myself for having caused you the long and tedious journey that lies before us. It would be perfectly safe to go to the nearest town and ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... certain letters to represent numbers, and we still employ the Roman numeral characters as the most elegant way of expressing a date in typography or sculpture; but every one must see what a tedious business the calculation of large sums would be according to this cumbrous system of notation: nor is it easy to say whereabouts our commercial status, to say nothing of science, would have been to-day, had it never been superseded. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... situations—such as the death of L'Aiglon or the business of the sentry—are treated at great leisure, it is assumed that all historical allusions, however necessary to an understanding of the situation, will be as tedious to the audience as to the players, and they are rushed through—as in the mirror scene—-at a pace that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... chemists. It has been too much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of interference, polarization, and double refraction,—explanations as enigmatical as the inscriptions ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... role of a working member until committees fought for him. It surprised his colleagues to see this elegant young man, with such fine abilities, so modest and so laborious—to see him ready on the dryest subjects and with the most tedious reports. Ponderous laws of local interest neither frightened nor mystified him. He seldom spoke in the public debates, except as a reporter; but in the committee he spoke often, and there his manner was noted for its grave precision, tinged with irony. No one doubted that he was one of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... prepared for that fight which was to determine the fate of Syria. The particulars are too tedious to be related, for they continued fighting for several days. Abu Obeidah resigned the whole command of the army to Kaled, standing himself in the rear, under the yellow flag which Abu-Bekr had given ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... and hours without end tacking to and fro, now going up the river two or three miles, then dropping down with the tide, and always zig-zagging so as to cover as much ground as possible. The night lengthened as if it would never end; but, like all tedious times of the kind, it dragged its weary course by, till, to my utter astonishment, when it did come, a faint light dawned away over the sea beyond the mouth of the river, just when we were about ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... imagines that a doctor must have an easy, ideal life, and wonders that he himself should have embarked in an occupation so full of disagreeable drudgery and hardships. He does not know of the years of dry, tedious study which the physician has consumed, the months and perhaps years of waiting for patients, the dry detail of anatomy, the endless names of drugs and ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of Hendrik; for it had been agreed on all sides that "the poor dear thing would take on dreadfully, or else fret herself into fits, or perhaps fall into one of them clay-cold, corpsy swoons, like old Miss Dunks has regular every 'revival.'" But when they came, with all their tedious commonplaces of a stupid condolence not wholly innocent of curiosity, Sally thanked them with dry eyes and prudent lips and quiet nerves, and only said she thought she should do very well after she had set the house to rights and slept awhile. The sewing-circle of that week was a coroner's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... this would, however, never have been laid at the door of the managers, however it might invalidate the test; but when the utterly absurd decision announced in the papers, after a tedious delay had led the public to expect an exhaustive statement, gave rise to general disappointment and excited the utmost dissatisfaction, it became manifest that a manly, straightforward course on their part was not to be hoped for, and that any protest against the consummation ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... I fear has been somewhat tedious, it will be seen that I have been guided throughout not by any systematic principles, but by a multitude of minor considerations, some operating more strongly in one case, and some in another. I trust, however, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... money could make it. She had been seen off by many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature, the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so near, but very pleasant—they were New York people—were also making the voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them consisted mainly ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... steady purpose, and regular application, superinduced upon the mind; everything was left to chance and impulse, and native luxuriance, and everything of course ran to waste and wild entanglement. Excuse me if I am tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon you, being an error extremely prevalent in our country and one into which too many of our youth have fallen. I am happy, however, to observe the zeal which still appears to actuate you for the acquisition ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... far to relieve the tedious record of ineffective blockades and bombardments during the war. Two exploits left an imperishable memory in the minds of contemporaries—Lieutenant Stephen Decatur's destruction of the captured frigate Philadelphia, under the guns of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... doled out creme de menthe. There was no conversation—only tedious words. The little party was just commonplace and dull—boring. Yet Sir William, the self-made man, was a study. And the young, Oxford-like Major, with his English diffidence and his one dark, pensive, baffled eye was only waiting to ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... time before starting on this trip and was therefore deprived of blowing a cloud with which to drive dull care away during the tedious days that followed. Like the rest of the party, too, once started I was impatient to reach home again, and for that reason the slow progress that we made the first few days was not greatly to my liking. The weather moderated at the end of forty-eight ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... begins to feel the effects of so-called "female weakness" she is conscious of not feeling "fit." She wonders what the matter is. She may not have actual pain at this time, simply the consciousness that "she is not what she used to be." Her work seems harder and more tedious, she worries without cause, she begins the day with less energy and ambition than she used to, her disposition is more uneven, more irritable and she tires easier and is more willing to retire earlier than formerly. After a time she has more or less undefined pains. It may be an occasional ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... neither good nor useful. The excellent books he has poisoned as though by opiates! The dull books he has made duller! No one has cause to love him unless it be the authors of weak books, who thank their dull critics for exposing them in reviews so tedious that no one discovers what the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... summer of 1635 was preliminary to a much larger exodus in the fall. In October a company of about sixty men, women, and children, driving before them their cows, horses, and swine, set out by land and reached the Connecticut "after a tedious and difficult journey";[49] but the winter set in very early, and the vessels which were to bring their provisions by water not appearing, they were forced to leave their settlement for fear of famine. ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... that I am deceiv'd, But that I should believe thee, after all thy Treachery. But prithee tell me why thou treat'st me thus? Why didst thou with the sacred Vows of Marriage, After a long and tedious Courtship to me, Ravish me from my Parents and my Husband? For so the brave Alonzo ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... or three days before the shooting season begins are invariably very tedious in the country, and I passed my morning chiefly in roaming through the park and pleasure grounds, and I hardly need say that, during those rambles, my thoughts were chiefly occupied with the intimacy which had taken place between my mother and Lord de Versely. On the third morning after my arrival ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... intelligent Iban of the Undup district: Once a year they make a big feast for Singalang Burong and sing for about twelve hours, calling him and Klieng and all the Petara to the feast. (This is the ceremony known as BURONG GAWAI. It is a most tedious and monotonous performance after the first few hours.) In olden days Singalang Burong used to come to these feasts in person as a man just like an Iban in appearance and behaviour. At the end of the feast he would go out, take off his coat, and fly away in the form of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... authorities which have been made use of in each case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the general sources of information which have been almost invariably found useful are:—firstly, the great county histories, the value of which, especially in questions of genealogy and local records, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... my van. Night had fallen, and it must have been about nine o'clock. The guns had suddenly ceased firing. Our lantern had burnt itself out, and the rest of our wait was made more tedious by darkness. An empty train passed us, and then silence fell once more upon the spot where we waited anxiously to be allowed to go forward towards our brothers-in-arms. Oh! how I longed to join them, even if it were only in the middle of a bloody ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... brought the depressing intelligence that, after tedious delays, the Elector had decided that he could not see his way to offering Mozart the engagement which he sought. Nothing remained to be done, therefore, but to relinquish the idea of wintering in Mannheim. But coupled with this announcement of failure, Wolfgang had let ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... it belongs to the same school of fiction as Treasure Island. There may be theological contentions here and there that interrupt the action of the story as they interrupt the interest of Grace Abounding. But the tedious passages are extraordinarily few, considering that the author had the passions of a preacher. No doubt the fact that, when he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, he was not definitely thinking of the edification of his neighbours, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... what the result may be, though we may hope for the best. He has sent in a thoroughly trustworthy trained nurse, but he agrees with me that it would be a good thing if one of your daughters could come to take charge of the household, for even if all goes as well as possible it will be a long and tedious recovery, and the invalid must be kept perfectly quiet and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... under-foremen whom he liked best were on the day shift. The night's work with none of those pleasant little momentary interruptions that used to occur in the daytime was mere unrelieved drudgery, but the afternoons, when he had given up trying to sleep any longer, were tedious enough to make him long ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... me. The Admiralty readily complied with a request that promised such advantage to the republic of letters. They accordingly embarked with me, and participated in all the dangers and sufferings of our tedious and fatiguing navigation. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... outraged her. That fellow possesses the sense of love. Love is a simple and primitive act. It's a struggle, it's hatred. Violence is necessary to it. Love by mutual consent is merely a tedious obligation." ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... The waiting was tedious. But at last, about three in the afternoon, word was received that four tramps, heavily armed, had been captured about ten miles ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... the protection afforded by your brand-new silk umbrella. By-and-by the dull paper gets finished, and somebody who lives in an adjoining house volunteers to provide you with luncheon. Then you adjourn to the parish church, where an old gentleman of feeble eyesight reads a long and tedious account of all the persons whose monuments are or are not to be found upon the walls of that poky little building. Nobody listens to him; but everybody carries away a vague impression that some one or other, temp. Henry the Second, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the hereditary estate of her husband the lady had never visited it, owing to its insulation by this well-nigh impracticable ground. The drive to the base of the hill was tedious and jerky, and on reaching it she alighted, directing that the carriage should be driven back empty over the clods, to wait for her on the nearest edge of the field. She then ascended beneath ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... hours of tedious travelling—in the flaming glow of day, or in the still, cool watches of the night, he had with him a recollection—Lilith Ormskirk's face haunted him. Those eyes seemed to follow him—sweet, serious; or again mirthful, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... give even a short account of the whole family, would be tedious. I shall, therefore, only slightly notice that branch of it from which he was descended. Why, or whence, the first of the Sulpicii who had the cognomen of Galba, was so called, is uncertain. Some are of opinion, that it was because he set fire to a city in Spain, after ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the present position of Grandsir Dolliver, we may let our story pass onward, though at such a pace as suits the feeble ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the weary hours as of things that must be just lived through, and endured, and beguiled, if possible, until the fire again fall. But life is a larger and a nobler business than that; and one learns the lesson sooner, if one takes the suffering home to one's soul, not as a tedious interlude, but as the very melody and march of life itself, even though it crash into discords, or falter in ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... professional matters, and how well she turned the conversation! By the way, she talked about professional matters herself; but then with what fun and humour she told the story of her comrade, Pentweazle, as he was called! There is no humour like Irish humour. Her father is rather tedious, but thoroughly amiable; and how fine of him, giving lessons in fencing after he quitted the army, where he was the pet of the Duke of Kent! Fencing! I should like to continue my fencing, or I shall forget what Angelo taught me. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... process, and consumed considerable time. This, together with the making of the percussion caps, was the tedious part of all the preparations. Every energy was put forth to get the different things required. Harry and Tom had made up the fort, and John suggested the idea of having a drill exercise in setting it up, so that the work ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... dragoons, to march by the way of Brechin; giving orders to the one as well as the other to summon the country people to remove the snow on the roads, which, being then very deep, made their march very heavy and tedious. His Grace having divided the rest of his army into two bodies, for marching with the greater expedition; and the rebel army having marched in two columns, on the 5th, in the morning, General Cadogan with the infantry marched towards Aberbrothick, and at the same time the ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... justice of their cause, we shall examine the principle, on which it subsisted among the ancients. But as this principle was the same among all nations, and as a citation from many of their histories would not be less tedious than unnecessary, we shall select the example of the Romans for ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... that all statistical statements are tedious, and I believe that but few readers believe them. I will, however, venture to give the populations of these States in the order I have named them, seeing that power in America depends almost entirely on population. The census of 1860 ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... conversation from the great novelist. The farmer was employed to drive them two or three times a week. They occasionally visited Tennyson, whose home is only three miles distant, though a rather tedious drive, since it is up hill nearly all the way. George Eliot did not enjoy the ride much, for the farmer told us that, 'withal her being such a mighty clever body,—she were very nervous in a carriage—allays ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... was a very tedious affair to one guest at least. Major Morrell and the officers told good stories and sung doubtful songs, and passed the wine and grew hilarious; but Sir Everard Kingsland chafed horribly under it all, and longed for ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... going to church; they went to please Lull. The service was long and dull, and though each one of them had a private plan to while away the time they found it very tedious. ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... /n./ Imaginary sound that a computer program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task. Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, {grind} ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... inanimate objects. When objects apparently quite untouched become volatile, the mystery is deeper. This apparent animation and frolicsome behaviour of inanimate objects is reported all through history, and attested by immense quantities of evidence of every degree. It would be tedious to give a full account of the antiquity and diffusion of reports about such occurrences. We find them among Neo-Platonists, in the English and Continental Middle Ages, among Eskimo, Hurons, Algonkins, Tartars, Zulus, Malays, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... not always—the very heart of the dramatic; how pantomime may be skillfully used to condense salient parts of the playlet story and illumine character; how business may be employed to break up a clumsy but necessarily long speech—thus sometimes saving a playlet from the failure of the tedious;—and why business is more productive of comedy than is dialogue. We have concluded that the playlet writer must not ape what has already been done, but can win success only in the measure he succeeds in bringing to his playlet new business which makes his ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... Camb., and entered the Church, becoming Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk. He wrote The Purple Island (1633), a poem in 10 books, giving an elaborate allegorical description of the body and mind of man, which, though tedious and fanciful, contains some fine passages, recalling the harmonious sweetness of Spenser, whose disciple the poet was. He was also the author of Piscatory Dialogues. GILES, the younger, was also ed. at Camb., and, like his brother, became a country parson, being ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... thoughts skipped before him like dancing children. The life he was leading was not the noblest; he had no illusions on that score; but he was no longer a loafer waiting in luxurious ease for the curtain to fall upon a dull first act in a tedious drama, but a man of action, quite capable of holding ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... shall not feel perfectly easy till those two provinces are annexed to the United States as Nature seems to have designd, and the unmolested Right to the Fishery is secured to us. I believe my letter is become tedious to you. I will conclude with mentioning that several Persons have hinted to me the Necessity of establishing an American Consul in France. If it should be thought expedient to propose it to Congress & they should judge it proper, Mr Perez Moulton2 (whom you know) desires me to inform the ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... plumpness, would instantly scent the irony (while my companion, I fancy, might even plume himself), "and to beget your wisdom is chiefly why the world was made. You are so good as to propose an acceleration of that tedious multitudinous evolution upon which I am engaged. I gather, a universal tongue would serve you there. While I sit here among these mountains—I have been filing away at them for this last aeon or so, just to attract your hotels, you know—will ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... low feverish affection,' Dr. Maryland hastened to say. 'May be tedious, perhaps, for a while, but shews no dangerous symptoms at present. We must not anticipate evil, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... power, would prevent him from abusing it; but was it to be expected that he, who, while yet an inferior, never spoke, even to his superiors, but in the language of command, now that he was the conqueror and master of them all, could submit to tedious and minute details of ceremony? He, however, displayed moderation, and even tried to make himself agreeable; but it was obviously an effort, and not without allowing the fatigue it gave him to be perceived. Among these princes, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and indistinctly, in the gorge, and after some hesitation, Plattner began to clamber down the precipitous descent towards them. The descent was long and exceedingly tedious, being so not only by the extraordinary steepness, but also by reason of the looseness of the boulders with which the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of his descent—now and then his heels struck fire from the rocks—seemed now the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells |
