"Toil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ascend to Him that He would continue to bless our great Republic in time to come as He has blessed it in time past. Since the adjournment of the last Congress our constituents have enjoyed an unusual degree of health. The earth has yielded her fruits abundantly and has bountifully rewarded the toil of the husbandman. Our great staples have commanded high prices, and up till within a brief period our manufacturing, mineral, and mechanical occupations have largely partaken of the general prosperity. We have possessed all the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... They were fain to toil on in their own way. Perhaps, however, the future might show as large results from their work as from the schemes of those who were to begin the humiliation of the Austrian house by converting its ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Dorcas, rushing to the cellar door. Words cannot describe her feeling when she saw that her nice candle-wicks, the fruit of her day's toil, were burnt up. ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what was behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it. Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange aptness a quaint saying of my father's that Kaintuckee was the Garden of Eden, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you never thought of. I cannot even hear of personal vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh resolution. We are emulous of all that man can do. Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, "I know that he can toil terribly," is an electric touch. So are Clarendon's portraits,—of Hampden; "who was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a personal ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of the track" of a lengthening railway, forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen the tents of the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite toil and expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is buzzing away on the neighboring hillside, and the rough pine boards and slabs are growing into houses of all curious sizes and shapes, irregularly lining the main street. Delightfully free from conventionality are matters in these new towns. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... wipe, and I will wash," said Miss Franks. "I don't at all mind being helped. Division of labour lightens toil, does it not? There, take that tea-towel; it is a beauty, is it not? ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... Flanders he discovered the happiest man he had ever seen. At his toil, from morning till night, he was full of song and laughter. Yet this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, and wearing a chain. How well he illustrated that saying which bids us, if there is no bright side, to polish up the dark one! "Mirth is like the flash of lightning that breaks ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... labour in washing has been saved by the introduction of washing machines, by which the toil of washing day, formerly so severe, has been much abridged. Suitable machines for washing, wringing, and mangling may be purchased at comparatively low prices of any of the makers of what is termed "labour-saving machinery," such as Kent, Bradford, Twelvetrees, &c. Preparations for softening ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... for a while I stood as in a trance, On that loved spot, forgetting toil and pain;— Buoyant my limbs, and keen and bright my glance, For that brief space ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... teaches, affection to our kindred, tenderness to our friends, gentleness and forbearance toward our inferiors, pity for the suffering, forgiveness of our enemies; and to wear an affectionate nature and gentle disposition as the garment of our life, investing pain, and toil, and agony, and even death, with a serene and holy beauty. It does not teach us to wrap ourselves in the garments of reserve and pride, to care nothing for the world because it cares nothing for us, to withdraw our thoughts from society because it does ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... I did. What, then! we carry our fates with us from the cradle to the grave, even as the Spinning Women themselves wind that which was appointed them to wind, and ply the shears and make fruitless their toil when they must; and all that we acquire upon our journey does but make that burden more certainly ours. What was I but a predestined wanderer—and fool if you will—burdened with my inheritance of honourable blood, of religion, of candour, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... felicity; he waived these considerations: he burst from all entanglements; proffered his services to his sovereign; exposed himself to the perils of a disagreeable voyage, the rigours of a severe climate, and the hazard of a campaign peculiarly fraught with toil, danger, and difficulty. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Along the bottom of the shelves ran a series of drawers. These he opened without sound, searching for secret bottoms. Drawer after drawer yawned into his face, and his heart sank. What he sought was not to be found. The last drawer would not open. With infinite care and toil he succeeded in prying the lock with the point of his sword, and his spirits rose. The papers in this drawer were of no use to any one but the owner. The man in the grey cloak cursed under his breath and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the depth and beauty And lofty purport of that old true word Deplaced by pleasure—that old good word DUTY. Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred. These men died for it; for it, now, we give, And sacrifice, and serve, and toil, and live. From out our hearts had gone a high devotion For anything. It took a mighty wrath - Against great evil to wake strong emotion, And put us back upon the righteous path. It took a mingled stream of tears and blood To cut the ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... listened to these jolly Africans, thus making gleeful their toil by their cheering songs, I could not help murmuring against that immemorial rule of men-of-war, which forbids the sailors to sing out, as in merchant-vessels, when pulling ropes, or occupied at any other ship's duty. Your only music, at such times, is ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... met this evening perhaps for the last time. We have shared the toil of the march, the peril of the fight, the dismay of the retreat—alike we have endured cold and hunger, the contumely of the internal foe, and outrage of the foreign oppressor. We have sat, night after, night, beside the same camp-fire, shared the same rough soldiers' fare; we have together heard ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... those splendid ones who promptly shed their blood on the spot where my perspiration fell? They eat bread once in a day, but not even enough of that. They toil through hard times by tightening up their bellies. O People, how have you tolerated in the sacred places the carrying off to prison of those holy preceptors, those religious teachers of mine, those saintly Brahmans whom I protected—who, while they devoted themselves to their religious practices ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... length, he said to me, "Suppose now that I, whom argument has not convinced, should yield to ridicule, and should agree that your scheme is eligible; what will you have gained? Nothing. You have other enemies beside myself to encounter. When you have vanquished me, your toil has scarcely begun. There are my sister and wife, with whom it will remain for you to maintain the contest. And trust me, they are adversaries whom all your force and stratagem will never subdue." I insinuated that they would model themselves by his will: that ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... I love to see, Thy whirring sound is dear to me: Oh, swiftly turn by night and day, And toil for him ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... "Wife, we have not yet reached the end of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It is long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But now ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... two sons of his sister and several other pupils who had sought his tutorship. He was contented in his work, pleased and happy with the young friends who sat at his board, and in an hour or two snatched each day from toil, for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... equally inexperienced, and incapable of receiving instruction, but expressing the bold intellect which at once understands the greater part of the information which it receives, and commands the spirit to toil in search of the meaning of that which it has not comprehended, or may fear it has misinterpreted. This look of awakened attention and intelligence gave interest to the young barbarian; and while the bystanders were amazed that a savage from some unknown or remote corner of the universe ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... hours upon hours at your theme. You write and rewrite; and when it is at length complete and out of your hands, you are harassed by a thousand doubts. At times, as you recall your hours of toil, you question if so much has been spent upon any other; you feel almost certain of success. You repeat to yourself some passages of special eloquence at night. You fancy the admiration of the professors at meeting with such a wonderful performance. You have a slight fear that its superior ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... and greaves that were a specialite of Milanese armourers at this period; the wonderful clock of copper and brass worked by wheels and weights, upon which Giovanni Dondi had spent sixteen years of ceaseless thought and toil, and which not only had a peal of bells, but a complete solar system, showing the movement of sun, moon, and planets as set forth by Ptolemy. After Dondi's death, Duke Galeazzo had to send to Paris for a clockmaker who could regulate the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... coursed with dogs in the open plains, the chasseur following in his chariot, and the huntsmen on foot. Sometimes he only drove to cover in his car, and having alighted, shared in the toil of searching for the game, his attendants keeping the dogs in slips, ready to start them as soon as it appeared. The more usual custom when the dogs threw off in a level plain of great extent, was for him to remain in his chariot, and, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to them—then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. So with these poor serfs. And few of them could choose ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... die mad when they are robbed of it; to others, who accept well-paid offices, and then sicken with a melancholy longing for their lost freedom. We read how some died young of a plague or fever, and how the writings which had cost them so much toil were burnt with their bed and clothes; how others lived in terror of the murderous threats of their colleagues; how one was slain by a covetous servant, and another caught by highwaymen on a journey, and left to pine in a dungeon, because unable to pay his ransom. Many ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... over another page of the photograph album. She looked at a faded picture of a middle-aged woman, whose severe and melancholy face seemed to have betrayed all the sadness and toil of her whole life to the camera. She noted deliberately the old-fashioned sweep of the skirt quite across the little card, and the obsolete sleeves, then she spoke as if she were talking to the picture: "I'm a-followin' out my own law an' my own right," said she. "I ain't ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... tables by nine o'clock the next morning, it is really wonderful how it can be accomplished. Saturday night appears to be the only night on which those connected with these immense, undertakings can be said to have any repose from year's end to year's end. What a life of toil what an unnatural life must theirs be, who thus cater during the hours of darkness for the information and amusement of the mass who have slept soundly through the night, and rise to be instructed by the labour of their vigils! It can be effected in no other country in the world. It is ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... him have delighted in testifying to the upright, faithful, and undaunted manner in which he discharged the duties of his trying and responsible station. Never was he known to shrink from any toil, however painful, or quail before any danger, however threatening, or stand back from any privations or sacrifices which might serve his country. After the close of the war he was elected the first Sheriff of Mecklenburg county, and gave great satisfaction by ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honour, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be laboured before it gives its increase, and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use? Manufactures, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... even that portion of it which lives by the profusest sweat of its brow, enjoys an occasional holiday in the course of the year besides Christmas Day. Good Friday brings to most an enforced cessation from toil. Easter and Whitsuntide are recognised seasons of pleasure in most grades of the civilian community. There are few who do not compass somehow an occasional Derby day; and we may safely aver that ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... many years employed the greater part of your waking thoughts, and all this amid the failing powers and flagging hopes of declining years, is both a sad and a perplexing prospect to a thoughtful person. For such a person cannot regard this great change simply in the light of a rest from toil and worry; he will know quite well what a blankness and listlessness and loss of interest in life will come of feeling all at once that you have nothing at all to do. And so it is a great blessing, if your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... afforded her no protection; it spoke rather of cut-throats, footpads, ruffians ready for any outrage. The din of voices, the sounds of brawling reached her from Cheapside. The London 'prentices let loose from toil and routine were out for boisterous enjoyment and may be devilry. She dared not go ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... places to study human nature, for all classes use them. You see here the poor, pale working girl, whom toil and poverty are making prematurely old, and the blooming lady of fashion; the beggar and the millionaire; the honest laborer and the thief; the virtuous mother and her children, and the brazen courtezan and her poodle dog. You can tell them all by their appearance and aspect, for here they enjoy ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... thought that no queen ever went to her grave with a greater ceremony than this young daughter of poverty and toil, committed to the care ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... toil falls on the woman. The man fells the heavy timber once a year, builds the house, hunts, fishes, traps, and fights. Practically all the rest of the daily labor is the woman's share. The man is the master, and as such he attends ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... watched for half a century, it is found to perform small motions which synchronise with the appearance and disappearance of the solar spots? And yet, I doubt not, Sir Edward Sabine would deem a life of intellectual toil amply rewarded by being privileged to solve, at its close, these infinitesimal motions. The inductive principle is founded in man's desire to know—a desire arising from his position among phenomena ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... pageant opened in July 1914. Once again the rulers were feasting and the workers at toil, but the scene was enlivened by the presence of the leaders of the Second International, a group of decrepit professorial old men, who waddled in in solemn procession carrying tomes full of international ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... we hope, will never be an evil; for, as "the same care and toil that raise a dish of peas at Christmas, would give bread to a whole family during six months;" so the expense of a gay volume at this season will furnish a moderate circle with amusive reading for a twelvemonth. We do not draw this comparison ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... his fellow workmen, who were very angry and incoherently slangy. He failed to comprehend the motive behind their action. The action itself was strenuous. When he refused to ease down his pace and bleated about freedom of contract, independent Americanism, and the dignity of toil, they proceeded to spoil his pace-making ability. It was a fierce battle, for Drummond was a large man and an athlete, but the crowd finally jumped on his ribs, walked on his face, and stamped on his fingers, so ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... which his argument was based (Laughter).' That is the finished article that your morning paper offers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram over your tea and toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to make it, and of the crises through which it passed, as you are of those poor sowers and reapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but for whom there would be no fragrant ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... industrious deem; A mighty husband thou wouldst seem; Fond man! like a bought slave, thou, all the while Dost but for others sweat and toil. ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a farmer's or mechanic's house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for health; and without health there is no beauty. Besides, what is the labor in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who idle away the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the stirring ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... The enemy, on his part, sniped at and bombed our patrols at night. The behaviour of his guns and aeroplanes by day suggested no passive retreat in the near future. While BAB[4] code messages, providing mingled toil and excitement, announced the impending departure of the enemy and asserted the necessity for keeping touch, aeroplanes flew a thousand feet overhead and directed the fire of fresh batteries of 5.9s and ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt from them to think of Thee (according to our powers) as of some great One, who, though hidden from our senses, couldest hear and help us. For so I began, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... The toil was stupendous: in one of the steep hollow tracks a number of cannon and wagons stuck fast; but the Emperor, making his rounds at midnight, brought the magic of his presence to aid the weary troops and rebuke the officers whose negligence had caused this block. Lantern in hand, he went ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... place of his banishment changed. He told us that for twenty years he had not tasted bread, nor had been allowed subsistence of any kind whatsoever; but that during this period he had lived among the Kamtschadales on what his own activity and toil in the chase had furnished: That afterward he had a small pension granted; and that, since Major Behm came to the command, his situation had been, infinitely mended. The notice that worthy man had taken of him, and his having ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... of these knights was vast, so was their rapacity enormous; they had been so long accustomed to have crowns and half-crowns rained upon them by their admirers and flatterers that they would look at a shilling, for which many an honest labourer was happy to toil for ten hours under a broiling sun, with the utmost contempt; would blow upon it derisively, or fillip it into the air before they pocketed it; but when nothing was given them, as would occasionally happen—for how could they receive from those ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... lies calmly floating above. The gently sloping hills lend variety to the scene, stretching in undulations of soft and rich verdure; luxuriant meadow and cultivated fields lie in alternate range. The sons of toil are returning from labour; the birds have sought shelter in their nests; the nimble squirrel hides beneath the leafy boughs, or finds refuge in the sheltering grass, until the next day's wants shall urge a repeated attack ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... turkey and plum-pudding, eaten in the midst of loving faces and merry talk and laughter; nothing but coarse salt-junk and hard ship-biscuit, hastily snatched among rough, unsympathetic men, who neither knew nor cared anything about him. And as soon as the meal was over, back again to his weary toil in the coal bunker, which was fated, however, to be cut short in a way ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... immortal crown, I now the Cross sustain: And gladly wander up and down, And smile at toil ...
— The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society • Thomas Aiken Goodwin
... Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day: On other days the man of toil is doom'd To eat his joyless bread—the ground Both seat and board—screen'd from the winter's cold And summer's heat, by neighboring hedge or tree; But on this day, embosom'd in his home, He shares the frugal meal ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the while comes the droning inaudible, out of the violet air, The moaning of sleep-bound beings in travail that toil and are will-less there In the spell-bound north, convulsive now with a dream near morning, strong With violent achings heaving to burst the sleep that is now ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... great, and the chance of the house being left in Trevelyan's possession so small, that it had seemed to him that they had no other alternative; and yet, how would it be if they were killing him by the toil of travelling? From Chambery, they made the journey to Paris in two days, and during that time Trevelyan hardly opened his mouth. He slept much, and ate better than he had done in the hotter climate on the other side of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Ah, I do not wonder you love this morning hour, when beauty reigns supreme, before the toil and moil of the world has begun. It stirs one's heart to worship. And yet we, senseless creatures, dance through starry midnights in hot rooms, and waste such heavenly hours in stupid slumber. Do you wonder that I am tired ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the list of these works seems, it does not represent more than Defoe's average rate of production for thirty years of his life. With grave anxieties added to the strain of such incessant toil, it is no wonder that nature should have raised its protest in an apoplectic fit. Even nature must have owned herself vanquished, when she saw this very protest pressed into the service of the irresistible and triumphant worker. ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... pantisocracy, and heresy still disfigured it; and to conform unreservedly to the exactest requirements of high Toryism in politics and high Churchism in religion. He was in the pay and formed a part of the government; could he do else than toil mightily in his department for the service of a master who had so sagaciously anticipated the verdict of posterity, as to declare him, who was the least popular, the greatest of living poets? He found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... holyday in Rome. Her sevenfold hills Were trembling with the tread of multitudes Who thronged her streets. Hushed was the busy hum Of labor. Silent in the shops reposed The implements of toil. A common love Of country, and a zeal for her renown, Had warmed all hearts, and mingled for a day Plebian ardor with patrician pride. The sire, the son, the matron and the maid, Joined in bestowing on their emperor The joyous benedictions of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... these men of the coast toil in this arduous labour of love. More than a hundred persons had been saved; but nearly a hundred still remained ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... many schemes to shift old Ross Had racked the squatter's brains, But Sandy had the stubborn blood Of Scotland in his veins; He held the land and fenced it in, He cleared and ploughed the soil, And year by year a richer crop Repaid him for his toil. ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... the other a definite praecox with recurrent attacks. Any institutional physician is familiar with the chronically elated patient, who has become a hospital character— a good worker often who seems to be sufficiently repaid for his toil by the privilege of stopping the passerby to expound his ideas. Such a case is usually diagnosed as a chronic manic or a dementia praecox, according to the taste ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... share on the dark soil: Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies: The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil The ploughboy to the morning ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... is this more just than religion. Those blossoms of spiritual perfection, the purified reason, the submissive will, the sanctifying grace of abstract ideas, find no propitious airs amid the violent toil for personal survival, whether that is to be among the mead jugs of Valhalla, the dark-eyed houris of Paradise, or the "solemn troops and sweet society" of Christian dreams. Unmindful of these, the saintly psyche looks to nothing beyond truth; it asks no definite, still less personal, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... frightened heavens, And like to me may rise and fill The elements with terror. I, alas! Am blotted out as though I had not been, And am become as though I was not born. My day is over, and my night is come - A night which brings no rest, nor quiet dreams, Nor calm reflections, nor repose from toil, But pain and sorrow, anguish never ceasing, With dark uncertainty, despair and pain, And death's wide gate before me. Fare ye well! The sky is clear and the world at rest; Thou storm and I have ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... of the socialism which is supposed to have spoiled their manners. I heard it said more intelligently, as I thought, that they are not easily disciplined, and that they cannot be successfully associated in the industries requiring workmen to toil in large bodies together; they will not stand that. Also I heard it said, as I thought again rather intelligently, that where work is given them to do after a certain model, they will conform perfectly ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... the toil of his claim, he always seemed to find leisure and delight in saving his wife from the domestic cares of their home. And though weary to the breaking-point with his toil, and consumed by a hunger that was well-nigh painful, when food was short he never seemed to realize his ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... black buffaloes to the water and eat scraps of sugar-cane, and are as happy as the day is long. They work hard, it is true, from the time they can toddle, but so does everyone else, and all the animals do their share of toil, day in and day out. "I can't understand why they don't find a way of harnessing the turkeys," says the American sarcastically as we pass a lordly camel, stepping, with protest in every movement, alongside a sturdy bullock who helps to drag a primitive plough. The plough merely ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work, furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she was born with us and for us,—that she belonged to us as rightfully as the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered my mind that we could live ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... not for me,—not for me," she said. "I am but a poor faded flower, not worth the gathering, of such a one as you. No, no,—I have been bred to humble toil all my days, and I could not be to you what you ought to ask. I am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and self-dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the world, such as you were born to move in. Leave me to my obscure place and ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... now better than it had been; but it was bad enough. The river was in his rear, and behind the river the inhospitable mountains. His only way of escape, should the day go against him, lay through that terrible pass up which, with no enemy to harass him, he had just climbed with infinite toil. He could hardly hope to make good his retreat down such a road with a victorious army maddening in his rear. In the preliminary game of tactics he had been completely out-manoeuvred ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... toil by which he prepared the solid ground of his subsequent works, and the chill of poverty, were marvellous preservatives. But when ease with his inherited fortune came to him, he formed a vulgar and most incomprehensible connection with a rather handsome ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... be you listenin'? He hurt her, Quintana did. That's it. He misused her. ... God, if you had seen my girlie's little bleeding feet!—— That's the reason. ... 'Tain't the stuff. I can work. I can save for to make my Evie a lady same's them high-steppers on Fifth Avenoo. I can moil and toil and slave an' run hootch — hootch—— They wuz wine 'n' fixin's into the Bible. It ain't you, God, it's them fanatics. ... Nobody in my Dump wanted I should sell 'em more'n a bottle o' beer before this here prohybishun set us all crazy. 'Tain't right. ... O God, don't hold a ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... and toilsome work, but the party were in so lovely a natural garden that the toil was forgotten. For the trees of great growth were farther apart up here, leaving room for the sunshine to penetrate, with the result that the undergrowth was glorious, and the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... them a land fyrd and a ship fyrd or raw levy. But the spirit of the West Saxons was broken, and though the craft were gathered together, yet in the end, as the Chronicle plaintively puts it, "neither ship fyrd nor land fyrd wrought anything save toil for the folk, and the emboldening ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... and queens would have no leisure for speculation) with a turn for ethical philosophy, must needs profess himself an intuitive moralist of the purest water. He would point out, with perfect justice, that the devotion of the workers to a life of ceaseless toil for a mere subsistence wage, cannot be accounted for either by enlightened selfishness, or by any other sort of utilitarian motives; since these bees begin to work, without experience or reflection, as they emerge from the cell ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... hamlet that looked very miserable. The daily toil had scattered the men afield, and only a few women were to be seen. Not one of them wore a stocking, nor even a wooden shoe. Some to whom I spoke did not understand me; those who understood told me that there was no inn in the place—that ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... expression which no words, or work Of cunning artist, can express. In vain, Alas! in vain! Come hither, Painter; come, Take up once more thine instruments—thy brush And palette—if thy haughty art be, as thou say'st, Omnipotent, and if thy hand can dare To wield creative power. Renew thy toil, And let my memory, vivified by love, Which Death's cold separation has but warmed And rendered sacred dictate to thy skill, And guide thy pencil. From the jetty hair Take off that gaudy lustre that but mocks ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... shrinking, From thought of grief like thine At the first summons sinking Into the arms divine. Oh! thou who knowest life, Temptation, trial, toil and strife, Wilt thou not still thine aching breast To bless ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... is childhood—childhood 's over, Kiss and part. Sweet is youth; but youth 's a rover— So 's my heart. Sweet is rest; but by all showing Toil is nigh. We must go. Alas! the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... man. Famed for piety in an age of fanaticism, learned, modest, and brave, by the unremitting toil of thirteen years he raised Harvard from a school to the position which it has since held; and though very poor, and starving on a wretched and ill- paid pittance, he gave his beloved college one hundred acres of land at the moment of its sorest need. [Footnote: Quincy's History of Harvard, i. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... rover's life—how should I, who have so long commanded a band of men, regardless of all laws but those I have framed, and yet obedient to me as children, submit to the dull, plodding business of a country farmer engaged in superintending bumpkins in their daily toil? No, Nina, you must not expect it; I ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... with alfalfa. I wanted to have alfalfa growing in the field next to the road for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of the passers-by. A field of alfalfa is an ornament to any landscape, and I like to have my landscapes ornamental, even if I must pay for it in terms of manual toil. I had never even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know how to proceed in preparing the soil. If I ever expected to have any freedom I must first learn the truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... inferior Priestess, at her altar's side, Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride. Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here The various off'rings of the world appear; 130 From each she nicely culls with curious toil, And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil. This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. The Tortoise here and Elephant unite, 135 Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white. Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, Powders, Patches, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Merovingian kings whose shadow he had allowed to remain on the throne. He divided between his two legitimate sons, Pepin, called the Short, from his small stature, and Carloman, this sole dominion which he had with so much toil reconstituted and defended. Pepin had Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine; Carloman, Austrasia, Thuringia, and Alemannia. They both, at their father's death, took only the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps, of duke. The last but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... large and prophetic outline. The ships of the line and frigates which they had in contemplation will be shortly completed. The time which they had allotted for the accomplishment of the work has more than elapsed. It remains for your consideration how their successors may contribute their portion of toil and of treasure for the benefit of the succeeding age in the gradual increase of our Navy. There is perhaps no part of the exercise of the constitutional powers of the Federal Government which has given more general ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... toil and work at the opening, to smother it up. The angry element leaks through, bursts, gushes—is choked back with a ready turf; and squirts up in their faces. Mother is stunned to see the power of so small a stream when the attempt is made to check it thoroughly; ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... begins. Behold me, wretched man, that serv'd his prince with pain, That in the honour of his praise esteem'd my greatest gain: Behold me, wretched man, that for his public weal Refused not with thousand foes in bloody wars to deal: Behold me, wretched man, whose travail, pain, and toil Was ever prest to save my friends from force of foreign spoil; And see my just reward, look on my recompense: Behold by this for labours past what guerdon cometh thence! Not by my fiercest foes in doubtful fight with us, But by my fawning friend[91] I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... again—thinking of the caravan they were following. But Mitha Baba was not thinking of the caravan. It had happened that the Gul Moti's tones had fallen upon those intonations used in High Himalaya, to send the toilers out to toil wild elephants in. ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... not be human if some belief had not arisen that the insects that fly by night imitate human thieves and rob those which toil by day. There has always been a tradition that the death's-head moth, the largest of all our moths, does this, and that it creeps into the hives and robs the bees, which are said to be terrified by a squeaking noise made by the gigantic ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... does, and after all, she thought, "What's in a name?" Down below in the passeggiata, officers and young men were strolling about, listening to a pot-pourri of Faust. Their cheeks were shaved smooth to show the modelling and their moustaches gave evidence of hours of toil and even suffering; they met their friends and gesticulated with them, smoking cigarettes and being polite to everyone. Mothers and elder sisters in cool white dresses sat under the trees, and little parties ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... breathless toil Sick seizes on his heart—he stands at bay: The big round tears run down his dappled face, He groans in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... digging, Robinson's back, unused to severe toil, ached wretchedly. He decided to make a spade. With his flint he bored four holes in a great, round mussel shell. They formed a rectangle as long as a little finger and as wide. Through these holes he drew cocoanut ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... scored shadows on his forehead. The reckless courage of the battlefield could be read in the lines carved in his hollow cheeks, and gleams of rugged strength in the blue eyes; clearly the bit of red ribbon flaunting at his button-hole had been paid for by hardship and toil. An inexpressible kindliness and frankness shone out of the strong, resolute face which reflected his children's merriment; the gray-haired captain found it not so very hard to become a child again. Is there not always a little ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... above-mentioned, in comparison with the "Elijah at Cherith," may be generally described as "dregs of Tintoret:" they are tired, dead, dragged out upon the canvas apparently in the heavy-hearted state which a man falls into when he is both jaded with toil and sick of the work he is employed upon. They are not hastily painted; on the contrary, finished with considerably more care than several of the works upon the walls; but those, as, for instance, the "Agony in the Garden," are hurried sketches with the man's whole heart ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... me that I would be in New Jedboro before the dusk deepened into dark. Then restored I my sermon notes, reburnished and repaired, to the trusty keeping of my well-worn valise, settling myself for one of those delicious baths of thought to be truly enjoyed only on the farther side of toil. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the service which I rendered. Thou, therefore, who wast present at the dragon's death, canst assure the King of the truth, and prevent his allowing another to gain this reward while I have had all the toil. For it will be the right effect of thy fair royal grace and the merited recompense of this strong hero's fist. In conclusion, I kiss ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... others mingled. I its meaning cannot reach, Howsoe'er my mind I rivet, Though to this, and this alone, Many a day has now been given. But I cannot therefore yield, Must not own myself outwitted:— No; a studious toil so great Should not end in aught so little. O'er this book my whole life long Shall I brood until the riddle Is made plain, or till some sage Simplifies what here is written. For which end I 'll read ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... it will hold dirt. It is the plant they are after, not a pretty pot to hold it. Their "luck" with Chrysanthemums amounts almost to magic sometimes. They can make almost any plant thrive and blossom, though seemingly in their daily round of toil they have but scant time to work over their flowers.—Roe ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... Instead of being wearied out with protracted and incessant calls for watchfulness and care, she feels only a deeper sympathy and love, in proportion to the infirmities which call for them, and thus finds her highest happiness in what we might expect would be a weariness and a toil. ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... vigour of your life in other compartments of the brain than those which have been worn by the demands of the six days. Then, fresh from the Sunday-school class, the worship of the church, and the sermon, you will return to the desk or office, or whatever may be your toil, with ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... the third week the ice became horribly rough, and with moil and toil enough to wear a bear to death, I did only five miles a day. After the day's work I would crawl with a dying sigh into the sleeping-bag, clad still in the load of skins which stuck to me a mere filth of grease, to sleep the sleep of a swine, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... incessant toil, Lamarck's position continued to be most precarious. He lived by his pen, as a publisher's hack, and it was with difficulty that he obtained even the poorly paid post of keeper of the king's cabinet of dried plants. Like ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... myself; nor will I ever spare toil, however great, if from it the smallest portion of happiness can be derived to ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... suddenly, had uttered a sentence of the political claptrap of which he had heard so much. They had spoken from the soul; not bitterly, not passionately, but their words had rung with the determination which had made their forefathers and his leave home, toil, and kindred to fight and die at Bunker Hill and Gettysburg for a principle. It had bean given him to look that eight into the heart of a nation, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of custom, and the vulgar breath, I toil for glory in a path untrod, Or where but few have dared to combat death, And few unstaggering carry virtue's load. Thy muse, O Hill, of living names, My first respect, and chief attendance claims. Sublimely fir'd, thou look'st disdainful down On trifling subjects, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... moved on in a body, and were well rewarded for the toil of the ascent, by a coup d'oeil that was almost Swiss in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... good for her, even if, as she says, she can stay with us only a few weeks. With her we shall have your book, to be disinherited of which so long has been hard on us. Robert's own we have not seen yet. It must be satisfactory to you to have had such a clear triumph after all the dust and toil of the way. And now tell me, won't it be necessary for you to come again to Italy for what remains to be done? Poor Florence is quiet enough under the heel of Austria, and Leopold 'l'intrepido,' as he was happily called by a poet of Viareggio in a welcoming burst ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... befell Adam and Eve on account of their sin? A. Many other evils befell Adam and Eve on account of their sin. They were driven out of Paradise and condemned to toil. God also ordained that henceforth the earth should yield no crops without cultivation, and that the beasts, man's former friends, should become ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... trout is dark and obscure above, but behind this foil there are wondrous tints that reward the believing eye. Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts are quite sure to get the full force of the sombre and uninviting aspects,—the wet, the cold, the toil, the broken rest, and the huge, savage, uncompromising nature,—but the true angler sees farther than these, and is never thwarted of his legitimate ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... if by magic the drawn faces of all his associates would clear, the night editor would laugh and forget to look at the clock, we would resume our toil, momentarily forgetful of the high pressure under which we labored, and working the better for the forgetfulness; and the Penguin Person, the smile still expanding his mouth, would tilt down his chair and work with us, only faster. If he had serious thoughts, he never disclosed them to us—seriously. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... culture, wealth and position, and did not seem to think it was just as disgraceful or more so to drink in excess in magnificently furnished parlors, as it was in low Barrooms or miserable dens where vice and poverty are huddled together. And if the weary children of hunger and hard toil instead of seeking sleep as nature's sweet restorer, sought to stimulate their flagging energies in the enticing cup, they with the advantages of wealth, culture and refinement could not plead the excuses of extreme wretchedness, or hard ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... and the harlot will pass sooner than the rich, the mighty, and the noble; a kingdom in which all men are to be brothers, and their bond of union loyalty to One who spared not His own life for the sheep, who came not to do His own, but the will of the Father who had sent Him, and who showed by His toil among the poor, the outcast, the ignorant, and the brutal, what that same will was like. With His own life-blood He seals this Covenant between God and man. He offers up His own body as the first-fruits of this great kingdom of self-sacrifice. He takes poor fishermen ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... been given, in a manner not often permitted to those who do great things of this kind, to see the ripe fruit of his vast labours. Over a territory large enough to make many realms, he has seen hopeless toil supplanted by compensated industry; and where the bondman dragged his chain, there freedom is established for ever. We now welcome him amongst us as a friend whom some of us have known long; for I have watched his career with ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... pick up a bow and shoot a few shots without a glove or finger protection, he soon will be compelled to cease because of soreness. Doubtless the ancient yeoman, a horny-handed son of toil, needed no glove. But we know that even in those days a tab of leather was held in the hand to prevent the string from hurting. The glove probably is of more modern use and quite in favor among target archers. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... outdoor labor, were folded on her breast. Her face showed that calm with which death stamps the faces of long-suffering, simple-minded peasant folk. The patient resignation through the long years of toil, through years, perhaps, of pain and suffering, suffering more likely than not borne in silence, taken as a matter of course—-all seemed to have culminated in the quiet peace on the seamed ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... the carriage, and drew in deep breaths of the smokeless, pure, scented air. Their surroundings modelled their thoughts. Instead of discussing monetary matters, which had so long been uppermost in their minds, they discoursed on the wonderful economy of happiness in a world full of toil and struggle; the fewer the joys, they argued, the higher the enjoyment, till the last and highest joy of all, true peace of mind, i.e., content, was the one joy found to contain every other joy. Occasionally they paused to remark on the brilliant ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... death; he will face it gladly, in confidence of the life beyond. His Grammarian is content to assume an order of things which will justify in the next life his ceaseless toil in this, merely to learn how to live. Rabbi Ben Ezra's old age is serene in the hope of the continuity of life and the eternal development of character; he finds life good, and the plan of things perfect. In brief, Browning accepts life as it is, and believes it good, piecing out his conception ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... had to toil their hardest at this time. At the manor they were cutting clover and hoeing turnips; in the cottages the women were piling up the potatoes, while the old women were gathering mallows for cooling drinks and lime-blossoms against ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... garments and emaciated limbs tell with sad emphasis the woeful tale of hardship and toil through which the heroic explorers had been passing; another exhibiting the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... none of the shapely hands displayed on the black vests, had ever used other implement of toil than a pistol, bowie-knife or slave-whip; that any other tool would ruin the reputation of the owner of the taper digits; but they did not lose caste by horsewhipping the old mammys from whose bosoms they had ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... and went further. "You can't knock livings out of a tree with a stick like ripe apples," he said. "You've either got to use your wits or begin at the bottom and work up. And it seems to me that I'd rather be a little bit tarnished than toil away the best years of my life the way some men I ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... shipwreck; a night and a day have I spent in the deep; in journeyings often; in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own race, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in toil and weariness, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often; besides anxiety for ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... have given aught for me, Ought not my voice return One little word of graciousness? O, breaking spirits yearn Just for the human touch of love To cheer the aching heart, To brighten all the paths of toil, And take ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... fattening like a beast? Such a life is neither just nor honourable, nor can he who lives it fail of meeting his due; and the due reward of the idle fatted beast is that he should be torn in pieces by some other valiant beast whose fatness is worn down by brave deeds and toil. These regulations, if we duly consider them, will never be exactly carried into execution under present circumstances, nor as long as women and children and houses and all other things are the private property of individuals; but if we can attain the second-best form of polity, we ...
— Laws • Plato
... I went to work, and cutting a fibre close to its root, I extricated that thread from all its windings, just as one does an entangled whipcord. When I had thus disengaged a sufficient length, I cut that off, and repeating the like operation, in about three hours' time, but with no little toil, I made up my load of different lengths just to my liking. Having finished this task, I filled the gourd, brought for that purpose, with water; and having first viewed the whole remaining part of the rock, I returned over ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... the bliss, the pain and loss, came keenly on her. She thought of the days that had gone to buying this thing of prettiness, the strained muscles, the racing blood and thrilling brain, the sweat and toil of it, and something choked her to think that now the pretty thing was almost won. Newell would have it, his heart's desire, and in thirty years perhaps it would look like Alida's mother with that shallow mouth. Yet her simple faithfulness ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... of sympathisers. And the sight did not make him sorry for what he had done, knowing well that George Hewlett, Cox the cobbler, and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small shop, were almost borne down with the rates, and not seeing why they should toil that Billy and Nanny Barton ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... content that it should be so, and, indeed, heartily rejoice at it, when we see works of fiction spun out by indefatigable French manufacturers into interminable series, through which, at twelve hours a-day, the most insatiable devourer of the romantic needs a month to toil. Following the fashion of the times, and encouraged by the example of his successfully diffuse brethren, M. de Bernard, weary of launching trim corvettes and dashing frigates, has taken to build line-of-battle ships. He had better have kept to the small craft, which he found to float ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... of the world. She felt the joy of sunshine and of blue, the joy of love and of sympathy, the joy of health and of activity, the joy of sane passion that fights not against any law of God or man, the joy of liberty in a joyous land where the climate is kindly, and, despite poverty and toil, there are songs upon the lips of men, there are tarantellas in their sun-browned bodies, there are the fires of gayety in their bold, dark eyes. Joy, joy twittered in the reed-flute of Sebastiano, and the ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... arose; the morning gun of the camp responded to the echoes of that from the fleet; the rattling of the marine sentries' muskets, discharged immediately after; the roll of drums, and the blast of trumpets, proclaimed that man had started from his couch, to toil or idle through another day. The smoke soon curled in thin white masses from the cottage chimneys of the numerous villages around, and the complicated machinery of life's business was set in motion by the Great Engineer ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... their attitude on any other occasion. The accepted theory of them was that they did by day as nearly nothing as men could do and live, and that by night their forays on the bordering farms supplied the simple needs of people who desired neither to toil nor to spin, but only to emulate Solomon in his glory with the least possible exertion. The joyful witness of their ease would willingly have sacrificed to them any amount of the facile industrial or agricultural prosperity about them and left them slumberously ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... desire to get along with the least possible expenditure of thinking. To many a hard-headed laborer, five minutes of girded and continuous thinking are more exhaustive than a whole day of muscular toil. No fact is more familiar than that illiterate minds are furnished with an abundance of trite sayings which they readily cite on all occasions. They thus hit, or at least fancy they hit, the principle which applies to the exigency, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... of identical or similar syllables near together was a frequent source of error. Copying has always a tendency to become mechanical: and when the mind of the copyist sank to sleep in his monotonous toil, as well as if it became too active, the sacred Text suffered more or less, and so even a trifling mistake might be the seed of ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... by appealing to the consciences of all who have ever set about the work of religion in good earnest, whoever they may be, whether they have made less, or greater progress in their noble toil, whether they are matured saints, or feeble strugglers against the world and the flesh. They have ever confessed how great efforts were necessary to keep close to the commandments of God; in spite of their knowledge of the truth, and their faith, in spite of the aids and consolations ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be, When we are grown and take our place, As men ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... to Brulart, Jan. 20, 1573, De Noailles, iii. 223. The worthy bishop, who was certainly at any time more at home in the cabinet than in the church, did not intermit his toil or yield to discouragement. If we may believe him, he "had not leisure so much as to say his prayers." The panegyrists of the massacre, and especially Charpentier, had done him good service by their writings, and at one ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... magnificence imaginable, and no dinners but on particular occasions; yet the difference of the prices renders the total expense very near equal.... The people here are very well to be liked, and this little republic has an air of the simplicity of old Rome in its earliest age. The magistrates toil with their own hands, and their wives literally dress their dinners against their return from their little senate. Yet without dress and equipage 'tis as dear living here for a stranger, as in places where one ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... settler, rages the world-old, world-wide war of hereditary land-ownership against those who beg their brother man for leave to live and toil. William Penn disclaimed the right of conquest as a land title, while he himself held an English estate based on that title, and while every acre of land on the globe was held by it. He could not recognize that title in English hands, but did ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... more worthy of his hire than the pick-and-shovel man of those early days. Few could stand it long without resting. They were lean as wolves those men of the dump and drift, and their faces were gouged and grooved with relentless toil. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service |
