"Irksome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... persons, who were afterward to gladly accept his authority, had given up to their studies, Favre had passed in the humble shop of his father, a carpenter at Chene, a small village at a half league from Geneva. It soon becoming somewhat irksome for him in the village, he left the paternal workbench to start on what is called the "tour of France." He was then eighteen years of age. Three years afterward, he was undertaking small works. It was not long ere he was remarked by the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... happiness which one feels when those beloved beings from whom one had been long severed, and who formed the last living ties of affection for an unhappy being who had been severely tried by a capricious destiny. But the want of excitement in which I lived soon became irksome; my life had been too active, so that the sudden transition could not fail to prove injurious to my health, and the idea of submitting during the remainder of my existence to a life sterile and monotonous became intolerable. Not knowing how to employ myself, I resolved to travel through Europe, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... has been clearly proved by the experience of the drill-clubs which sprang into existence in such numbers last year. To say, that, as a general rule, the moral strength of the community is not sufficient to enable a volunteer association to sustain for any great length of time the severe and irksome details which are inseparable from the attainment of thorough military discipline, is no more a reflection upon the class to which the remark is applied than would be the equally true assertion that their physical strength is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... not heard to talk of Catiline and Lentulus. Indeed, he also filled his books and writings with his own praises, to such an excess as to render a style, in itself most pleasant and delightful, nauseous and irksome to his hearers; this ungrateful humor, like a disease, always cleaving to him. Nevertheless, though he was intemperately fond of his own glory, he was very free from envying others, and was, on the contrary, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... lands, he had run away to sea; and by an unlucky accident, through sheer ignorance of her character, had chosen the Pandora in which to make his initiatory voyage. From the cruel treatment he had been subjected to on board the bark, he had reason to see his folly. Irksome had been his existence from the moment he set foot on the deck of the Pandora; and indeed it would have been scarce endurable but for the friendship of the brave sailor Brace, who, after a time, had taken him under his especial protection. Neither of them had any ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... "Remember, however, that thus deciding you give up much. In my counting-house you can neither become a rich man, nor have any experience of life on a large and exciting scale; our business is limited, and the day may come when you will find this irksome. All that tends to your future independence, wealth, connections, and so forth, you will more readily secure ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the Minyo territory—had been reserved by him for his lodge, partly on account of its isolation from the village at its base, and partly for the view it commanded of his territory. Yet his wearying and discontented eyes were more often found on the ocean, as a possible highway of escape from his irksome position, than on the plain and the distant range of mountains, so closely connected with the nearer past and his former detractors. In his vague longing he had no desire to return to them, even in triumph in his present security there still lingered a doubt of his ability ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... of my son," says Petrarch, "he has a tolerable understanding; but I am not certain of this, for I do not sufficiently know him. When he is with me he always keeps silence; whether my presence is irksome and confusing to him, or whether shame for his ignorance closes his lips. I suspect it is the latter, for I perceive too clearly his antipathy to letters. I never saw it stronger in any one; he dreads and detests nothing so much as a book; yet he was brought up at Parma, Verona, and Padua. I sometimes ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... that the teacher should see that these written exercises are not made distasteful to the pupil. They are very valuable if they are not considered irksome. The object is not so much to give skill in composition as to create a taste for wide and excellent reading. It would be better to allow this written reproduction to drop rather than to associate the pleasures ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious, as to bar us continually from innocent, much less from wholesome and useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society; then is it not inconvenient, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... together were still going on; that I was no longer a child had made only the difference that progress must make; and I had no thought that they would not thus go on always. They were never for a moment irksome to me; I might be tired by them, but never of them. We were regularly at work together by seven, and after half an hour for breakfast, resumed work; at half-past eleven our lessons were over. But although the day was then clear of the imperative, ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Tommy went looking for policemen's legs. Doubtless there were some details of the wizardry that he overlooked, as never again could he come out on the Enchanted Street in quite the same fashion. Alice had a different method. She fell down a rabbit-hole and thereby freed herself from some very irksome lessons and besides met several interesting people, including a Duchess. Alice may be considered the very John Cabot of the rabbit-hole. Before her time it was known only to rabbits, wood-chucks, and dogs on holidays, whose noses are muddy with poking. But since her time all this is changed. Now ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... but towards night a cool breeze came in from the sea, which was very refreshing; and Noddy and Mollie were on deck, enjoying its invigorating breath. The boat in which the captain had just returned lay at the accommodation ladder. The confinement of twelve days on board the vessel had been rather irksome, and both of the young people would have been delighted to take a run on shore; but the terrible sickness there rendered such a luxury impossible. They observed with interest everything that could be seen from the deck, especially the verdure-crowned hills, and the valleys green with the rich ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... lonesome. I sympathized with him, and we became close companions. As an operator he had no superiors and very few equals. Most of the time he was monkeying with the batteries and circuits, and devising things to make the work of telegraphy less irksome. He also relieved the monotony of office-work by fitting up the battery circuits to play jokes on his fellow-operators, and to deal with the vermin that infested the premises. He arranged in the cellar what he called his 'rat paralyzer,' a very simple contrivance ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... years the practices of the saints were already familiar to her. She had left off eating meat, eggs, or sweets of any description, and lived on plainly boiled vegetables and bread. The necessity of eating at all seemed irksome to her, and she never drank any thing but pure water. Then also had begun her unwearied study of the lives of holy women, and especially of the virgin martyrs who have shed their blood for the love of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament of Confirmation, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... there were no symptoms in the least degree serious about the malady that had taken her. Her rheumatic knee was painful, of course—acutely painful, if you like—when she moved it; and the confinement to bed was irksome enough, no doubt. But otherwise there was nothing in the lady's condition, before the fatal attack came, to alarm her or anybody about her. She had her books and her writing materials on an invalid table, which worked on a pivot, and could be arranged in any ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... taunting her with the failure of her love, and therewith telling her how fair a man and lovesome was the Black Squire, and what a loss she had of him; and Birdalone was hearkening and weeping for tenderness' sake, while the witch was unto her neither fearful nor irksome, and forsooth nought save a mouthpiece for words that both grieved Birdalone and yet were an eager pleasure unto her. But in the midst thereof, and ere the dream had time to change, Birdalone awoke, and it was an early morning of later spring, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... of wind; blown, puffing and blowing; short-breathed; anhelose^; broken winded, short-winded; dyspnaeal^, dyspnaeic^. ready to drop, all in, more dead than alive, dog-weary, walked off one's legs, tired to death, on one's last legs, played out, hors de combat [Fr.]. fatiguing &c v.; tiresome, irksome, wearisome; weary, trying. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the faint light." And he to me, "The things will be clear to thee, when we shall set our steps on the sad marge of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to him, far as to the river ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the thought had crossed his mind several times since he had quitted Nauplia that, after all, it was a great relief to be quit of Baldassarre, and he would have liked to know who it was that had fallen overboard. But such thoughts spring inevitably out of a relation that is irksome. Baldassarre was exacting, and had got stranger as he got older: he was constantly scrutinising Tito's mind to see whether it answered to his own exaggerated expectations; and age—the age of a thickset, heavy-browed, bald man beyond sixty, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... scholar like his father, who graduated from Middlebury College at the age of fifteen, strong and athletic. He did not seem to care much for his books or his lessons anyway, but was inclined to get along as easily as he could, partly on account of his delicate health, which made close study irksome, and partly because his mind was very juvenile and undeveloped. His health improved gradually, while his interest in his studies increased slowly but steadily. Judge Forbes, of Westboro, for a time his room-mate and a remarkable scholar, remarked ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... direct and frequent communication with Hamburg, Russia, France and Austria, and without the advantage of a sea frontier. Cholera was repeatedly brought into Berlin, but never obtained a footing, and its successful repression was accomplished without any irksome interference with traffic or the ordinary business of life. The general success of Great Britain and Germany in keeping cholera in check by ordinary sanitary means completed the conversion of all enlightened nations to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... you likewise cease to consider irksome any such thing as pertains neither to our physical nor to our spiritual nature, and do not vex yourself at what has happened. For to us belongs no choice as I told you, of living as we please, but it is quite requisite for us to endure what the Divinity ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... the same picture, or each separately paint the same picture twice in two different frames.— With the Slavs and Greeks, faith, like the Church and the rite, is a national thing; creed forms one body with the country, and there is less disposition to dispute it; besides, it is not irksome; it is simply a hereditary relic, a domestic memorial, a family icon, a summary product of an exhausted art no longer well understood and which has ceased to produce. It is rather sketched out than ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... no jealousy of his power on the part of the emperor. The chancellor was a gentleman, and had extraordinary tact. But his labors were prodigious, and gave him no time for pleasure, or even social intercourse, which finally became irksome to him. He was too busy with public affairs to be a great scholar, and was not called upon to make speeches, as there was no deliberative assembly to address. Nor was he a national idol. He lived retired in his office, among ministers and secretaries, and appeared ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... standard of excellence, the mental powers are maintained in a state of useful energy. As soon as health is below par, even when not sufficiently so as to force us to desist from work, the brain loses its elasticity; we are dull, become mere machines instead of intelligent workers, and our duty gets irksome and fails to interest us. And here let us interpose one word. If we wish to spare ourselves that most wearying of all sensations, that fatal sense of boredom and disgust for our daily task which sometimes ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... girls of the neighboring lodges assembled to play at the favorite female game of pappus-e-ko-waun, or the block and string, before the lodge-door, Leelinau would sit vacantly by, or enter so feebly into the spirit of the play as to show that it was irksome to her. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign of law we are the mercenaries of God, bound down to an irksome task, but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... to make your account agree with mine; and circumstances oblige me to require of you, Fairfax, to condescend to get the lad's favour, and not make his stay irksome. You may command me to ten times this ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... suffer. Briefly, it may be said that they seek to increase and to enforce the legal responsibility of employers, and indirectly to crush the small workshop system by turning upon it the wholesome light of publicity, and imposing certain irksome and expensive conditions which will make its survival in its worst and ugliest shapes impossible. The most practical recommendation of the Report of the Lords' Committee is an extension of the sanitary clauses of the Factory Act, so as ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... office almost nauseated him; the endless parade of petty details was almost unbearably irksome; the book-keeping part of it alone was soul-disintegrating; but to Henry, ambition had become a monomania, and to it he was ready to make every conceivable sacrifice, including—if necessary—his health. There were days when he told himself that he would pay ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... the Administration candidates. At night the various companies were sent into the city to take part in the political propaganda; to march in processions or occupy conspicuous places at the party meetings. The private soldiers were almost to a man Democrats, but the chance to escape the long and irksome evenings of the camp and join the frolic and adventure of the street made most of them willing enough to play the part of claque or figurantes. Jack, of course, refused to take part in these scenic rallies, making known his sentiments in vehement disdain. He detested Oswald, who had quit ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... It is the same with partners in business; they should be as much as possible "on their own" or, if partnerships are made, they should not be of a binding or restricting order, and provision should always be made for the partnership to be dissolved when it has become irksome. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... here mentioned cannot be questioned; and it is much to be regretted that it is not strictly enforced in every regiment in the service. Young officers may find it irksome at first; but they soon become sensible of the advantages, and learn to applaud the commandant who has had the firmness to consult their permanent interests more than their present inclinations. [W. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... as to pursue their worldly employments as diligently as they do who take this world for their portion; and often you will hear them breaking out in expressions of great severity against older Christians, because they do not sympathize with them in these feelings. Their daily employments become irksome; and they are tempted even to neglect the interests of their employers, with the plea, that the service of God has the first claim upon them. But they forget that the service of God consists in the faithful performance of every social and relative duty, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... misgivings, stayed on. His promises to his old master, his love of power, his distrust of the capacity of others, all made it hard for him to withdraw when he still might have done so with dignity. We cannot doubt that his presence was irksome to his master; his influence and authority were too great; before them, even the majesty of the Throne was dimmed; the Minister was a greater man ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... air, and many of his comrades were already gone to the frontier where the skirmishing with the irregular volunteers of Garibaldi's guerilla force had now begun in earnest. To be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable, and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... his big carved chair, and touched without removing his cap, to greet the alderman, as he observed, without the accustomed prefix of your worship—"So, you are come about your prentice's fees and dues. By St. Peter of the Fetters, 'tis an irksome matter to have such a troop of idle, mischievous, dainty striplings thrust on one, giving more trouble, and making more call and outcry than twice as ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... appetite is returning;" and to a correspondent he apologized for not sooner replying, and pleaded "debilitated health, occasioned by the fever wch. deprived me of 20 lbs. of the weight I had when you and I were at Troy Mills Scales, and rendered writing irksome." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... entered his father's work-rooms. He had already shown a decided love of drawing. He had a quick perception of beauty, and excellent power of observation. His disposition was serious, and his conscience sensitive; but he had a pleasant vein of humor, and a generous nature. After some years of irksome work, he was sent to Paris to perfect himself in the arts of ornamentation, and his residence there seems to have confirmed his taste for painting, to the practice of which he desired to devote his life. But for the next ten years he was engaged in business, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... indifference, or a sullen insensibility, occasioned by the conviction that, as afflictions could not be avoided, they must be borne; that it is in vain to struggle or resist; and that our weakness renders endurance necessary, however irksome. It consists rather in a pious acquiescence in the will of Heaven, arising from a persuasion that God knows what is really best for us; and that his dispensations, however painful or opposite to our wishes, will prove ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... habit which annoyed him extremely. To Betty, who was to have been her special companion, she showed no desire to attach herself, but to Kitty she clung in a most embarrassing fashion, monopolizing her in a way that Kitty found most irksome, and made Betty furious, for hitherto Kitty had been Betty's whenever Betty needed her. Now she was rarely to be found without Anna. But Kitty, along with the others, never felt that she could trust Anna; and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... two away from Turlock he produced the check which was the apparent cause of his irksome journey, and tearing it into minute fragments, scattered them out ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... of exile, the Decembrists had little to complain of except the prohibition to return to Europe. To men whose youth was passed in brilliant society and amid the gayeties of the capital, this life in Siberia was no doubt irksome. Year after year went by, and on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their banishment they looked for pardon. Little else was talked of among them for some weeks, but they were doomed to disappointment. Nicholas had no forgiving disposition, and those who plotted his overthrow were little ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the costs of the journal. His associates, Massol and du Tillet agreed to this so readily that he really believed them the best fellows in the world. Without this help, however, life would have been simply impossible to Raoul; as it was, it became so irksome that many men, even those of the strongest constitutions, could not have borne it. A violent and successful passion takes a great deal of space in an ordinary life; but when it is connected with a woman ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Ali Khan and Coja Ain ul Din have, from their regularity in the performance of pecuniary engagements, rendered themselves useful to the Vizier. A strict scrutiny into his affairs was at all times irksome to his Excellency, and none of the ministers or officers about his person possessing the active, persevering spirit requisite to conduct the detail of engagements for a number of small farms, it became convenient to receive a large sum from a great farmer without trouble or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... mother and himself had reached a greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became to him to go into the fields and woods without Helene! He could not study; he had no one to talk ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... of those terrific magistrates whose grim decrees gave New England naughty children the nightmare a century after the stern-browed promulgators of them were dust. The early laws against crime in New England were severe, though death was seldom or never inflicted save for murder. But more irksome to one used to the lax habits of to-day would have been the punctilious rigidity with which they guarded the personal bearing, speech, and dress of the members of their community. Yet we may thank them for having done so; it was a wise precaution; they knew the frailties of the flesh, and how ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... monograph on that very interesting fabric. It is impossible to thank Professor Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh, enough, for his unfailing kindness whenever I consulted him in connection with my work. Nor do I forget how much I owe to J. Meade Falkner, Esq., for kindly undertaking the irksome task of revising the proofs of the book while going through ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... cease to view with love, The tender memory of the mournful past; And once when warring clouds grew black above, The shrieking Earth with awful night o'ercast, And long foiled Hatred hoped to glut his fast With English gore, with irksome steps she stole, O'er deep morass, through tangled brake, and cast The boon of life to each devoted soul, Who slept within that Castle's frail and ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... that a man, the breadwinner, should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready; it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate, child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon his pocket had ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... but agreeable; and the coming impressions to which the attention is directed, promise a gratification that few, if any, desire to escape. Hence, when the unlucky sneeze occurs, it cannot be that the laughter of the audience is due simply to the release from an irksome attitude of mind: some ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... you to remain. I beg of you not to refuse; do me this favour. I have assured him that I am incapable of filling your office. It does not suit my habits; and besides, to tell you the truth, the business is too irksome for me." I proceeded to the cabinet without replying to Duroc. The First Consul came up to me smiling, and pulling me by the ear, as he did when he was in the best of humours, said to me, "Are you still in the sulks?" and leading me to my usual seat ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Spain's legs—facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues—for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we longed to ask?—was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... our country, was to take place on the next day. Too often the haste appears indecent, and it may be that in some instances the body has been buried before life deserted it. It would seem that the family felt constrained by the presence of the corpse, and compelled to exercise an irksome self-control, and, therefore, desired to hurry it under ground, as if it would be less likely there to know how soon it ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... chamber work and cooking situations to be had without very much effort on the part of the seeker. Mrs. Sikes, whose work had chiefly been dressmaking and plain sewing, found the new field of labor quite irksome. The money realized from the sale of her property she must not let dwindle away too swiftly; her husband was helpless, and she must work, and the children must work. She found the North a place where a day's work meant a day's work in full; there was no let up; the pound ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the lateness of the hour, and the unpleasant reflections left by the short dialogue with Balthazar, produced a strong and common desire to see the end of a navigation that was beginning to be irksome. Those objects which had lately yielded so much and so pure a delight were now getting to be black and menacing, and the very sublimity of the scale on which Nature had here thrown together her elements was an ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... for which I was glad, as the hard climbs and still more wearying descents of the last three days had made me rather stale. The people along the way were much interested in me and still more in Jack, but it was the naive curiosity of a simple folk, and I did not find it irksome like the hard stare of the townspeople. At one place where we halted for tiffin, a lame man with an interesting face attached himself to us, and presently I found myself and my belongings the subject of an explanatory talk he was giving the bystanders. He told them how I kept my eyeglasses ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... the priest, "we can represent nothing. We are supposed to have no natural inclinations. All work should be welcome, none too difficult, no task irksome." ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... the first general dealers in Copenhagen, and carries on a larger and more extended commerce with Iceland than any other house trading thither. He is already beginning to retire, as the continual journeys are becoming irksome to him; but he still owns a number of great and small vessels, which are partly employed in the fisheries, and partly in bringing all kinds of articles of consumption and luxury to the different harbours ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... not an educator by natural aptitude or inclination, he made himself an educator by choice; and, having once chosen his profession, he gradually developed an interest in it, a pride in it, a love of it which astonished some of his friends. How irksome it was to him at the beginning we saw just now in his address to the Teachers. How irksome in many of its incidents it remained we can see in his ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... there until daybreak. These men were volunteers secured by the corporal, who was responsible to his field-cornet for a certain number of men every night. It was never made compulsory upon any one to go on Brandwacht, but the duty was not considered irksome, and there were always as many volunteers as were ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... same school as that to which she had sent her own daughters. In a word, she was a most charming neighbour; and her presence at Ravensnest had rendered Martha's annual visits to the "old house" (built in 1785) not only less irksome, but actually pleasant. Such had been my sister's account of the Warrens and their qualities, throughout a correspondence of five years. I have even fancied that she loved this Mary Warren better than she loved any of her uncle's wards, herself of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Scott's suggestions stimulated his companions to master subjects which they found rather difficult and irksome, a regular daily routine had begun. About 7 A.M. Clissold began to prepare breakfast, and half an hour later Hooper started to sweep the floor and lay the table. Between 8 and 8.30 the men were out ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... to do faithfully the work she had undertaken of instructing these ignorant children; but at her age the formation of new habits was by no means easy. The constant attention to trifles which the occupation required was at times inexpressibly irksome to her; and the relief which the assistance of Lilias ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... And when the clamour had a little subsided, behold two maidens entered, with a large salver between them, in which was a man's head, surrounded by a profusion of blood. And thereupon the company of the court made so great an outcry, that it was irksome to be in the same hall with them. But at length they were silent. And when time was that they should sleep, Peredur was brought into ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... she shewed gladsome countenance to the people wheresoeuer she came, dooing also what she could to pleasure them, that she might thereby win their good willes to hir, and to hir sonne: but speciallie remembring by hir late experience and tast thereof, what an irksome & most greuous thing imprisonment was, she caused the gailes to be opened, and foorthwith set no small number of prisoners at libertie by the way as she passed through the countries, according to the verse of Virgil, Non ignara mali miseris ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed
... found for Watts a bride in the person of Miss Ellen Terry. The painter and the youthful actress were married in Kensington in February of that year, and Watts took over Little Holland House. The marriage, however, was irksome, both to the middle-aged painter and the vivacious child of sixteen, whose words, taken from her autobiography, are the best comment we possess ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... of speech, and quick comprehension, had won back the fickle hearts of the people, who weighed her words again superstitiously, and made much of her. The workmen, with the indolent, inconsequent Irish temperament which makes it irksome to follow up a task continuously, and easier to do anything than the work in hand, would break off to amuse her at any time. One young carpenter—lean, sallow, and sulky—who was working for her mother, interested her greatly. He was making packing-cases, and ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them together in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom of the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole exception to the geniality of the moment, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foreboding came across Adam that if they began to speak as though they remembered the past—if they looked at each other with full recognition—they must take fire again. So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle flickered low in the socket, the silence all the while becoming more irksome to Adam. Arthur had just poured out some more brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm behind his head and drew up one leg in an attitude of recovered ease, which was an irresistible temptation to Adam to speak what ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... devilish hard that one may never do a service to another without incurring a burden of irksome obligations to the served; that bonds of interest forged in moments of unpremeditated and generous impulse are never readily ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... fulfil his promise, Van argued. So although the call of the springtime was strong and difficult to resist he had been faithful to his work, "plugging away," as he expressed it, with all his strength. To his surprise the task, so irksome at first, became interesting. It was a novel experience to enter a classroom and instead of moving in a mental haze possess a clear idea of what was going on. Twice he was able to furnish the correct answers to Latin questions on which every one else had failed, ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good officer, but when they come to elect, the love of doing as they please, unchecked by the irksome restraints of discipline, is apt to make them vote for the man who will indulge them. But I believe that all those who observed these matters carefully will agree, that there was far less of this sort of feeling among the men who volunteered at the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the struggle; he repaired the injured vessels and ordered a dyke to be constructed, which, by uniting Salamis to the mainland, would enable him to oust the Athenians from their last retreat. But he had never exhibited much zest for the war; the inevitable fatigues and dangers of a campaign were irksome to his indolent nature, and winter was approaching, which he would be obliged to spend far from Susa, in the midst of a country wasted and trampled underfoot by two great armies. Mardonius, guessing what was passing in his sovereign's mind, advised him ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Necker. His wife had very possibly begun by this time her rather austere salon, where free-thinking was strictly tabooed, and Morellet, her right-hand man in the entertainment of the guests, confesses the restraint was really irksome; and if she had, Morellet would probably have brought Smith there. But anyhow Sir James Mackintosh, who had means of hearing about Smith from competent sources, states explicitly that he was upon intimate terms with Necker during his residence in the French capital, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Roger had remained within the Monastery walls in close attendance upon the patient; but the restraint had been terribly irksome to the temper of the young knight, and he was panting to be free to pursue his quest, and to tell his story in the King's ears. He could not but dread that in his absence some harm might befall his Constanza. Suppose those two remorseless men suspected her to be concerned ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to your vessel," said Orlon. "I know that its somewhat cramped quarters have become irksome. Apartments have been prepared here for you. We shall have a meal here together, and then we shall retire, to ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... still in anxious suspense about the non-arrival of our drays—the ground having been so good. With a country so interesting before us, this delay was doubly irksome, and as the cattle could only be watered by coming forward, why they did not come was the question; and this was not solved until evening, when a messenger came forward to ask if they might come, and to inform me that they were nearly exhausted. The fatal alternative of endeavouring ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... should, by going out from the forts, when the Indians were so generally watching around them, expose themselves to captivity or death, may at first appear strange and astonishing. But when the mind reflects on the tedious and irksome confinement, which they were compelled to undergo; the absence of the comforts, and frequently, of the necessaries of life, coupled with an overweening attachment to the enjoyment of forest scenes and forest pastimes, it will perhaps be matter ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... although she now no longer felt herself the daughter of the murderer, there was so much disingenuousness in her position as the most loved and trusted friend of the woman who still regarded her father as the criminal, as to make it in the highest degree irksome to be with her. She now tried to occupy herself as much as possible at home; and while she did so, the calm to which she had forced herself outwardly began to sink into her heart, and she found, almost with surprise, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... fearful sin! Children think they know what is best for themselves. Parental restraint sometimes seems irksome to them; but God has wisely ordained that in our youth we should be under the instruction and control of our parents. Children, instead of feeling that parental control is oppressive to them, should learn to be thankful for it. It is enough ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... have already secured partners at the Retreta and elsewhere, and as at all respectable gatherings in Cuba everybody is supposed to know everybody else, the irksome formalities of introduction ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... weapons, Wyrd inexorable; And the storms strike down on the stony cliffs; The snows descend and seize all the earth In the dread of winter; then darkness comes And dusky night-shade. Down from the north 105 The hated hail-storms beat on heroes with fury. All on earth is irksome to man; Oft changes the work of the fates, the world under the firmament. Here treasure is fleeting; here true friends are fleeting; Here comrades are fleeting; here kinsmen are fleeting. 110 All idle and empty the earth has become.' So says the sage one in mind, ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... in coming to London during the winter was a kind one—namely, to put a temporary end to an imprisonment in the country which was irksome to Lucille. And I make no doubt the two ladies were glad enough to avail themselves of this opportunity of seeing London. God made the country and men the towns, it is said; and I think they ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... from such hectic people, who run quite amuck whenever they open their mouths, there are large numbers of men and women of some intelligence who never make the effort to express conscientiously any ideas or opinions. They find it irksome to think. They are completely indifferent as to whether a play is really good or bad or who is elected mayor of the city. In any event they will have their coffee, rolls and honey served in bed the next morning; and they know that, ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... his fallen condition. His companions were now the small farmers of the neighbourhood and the shopkeepers in the adjoining town of Moate, to whose habits and modes of thought and expression he gradually conformed, till it became positively irksome to himself to keep the company of his equals. Whether, however, it was that age had breached the stronghold of his good spirits, or that conscience rebuked him for having derogated from his station, certain it is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... one of the ministers of his looser pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a more infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own consent from the irksome duty of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... She wanted, in her then state of mind, to walk in the solitude which can only be found in crowded places, and also she wanted some kind of distraction. Her days had lately been so filled with adventure that the placid immobility of the top back room was not only irksome, but maddening, and her mother's hasty and troubled breathing came between her and her thoughts. The poor furniture of the room was hideous to her eyes, the uncarpeted floor and bleak, stained ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... still the father stood, observing the scene with displeasure, Looked on the weeping girl, and said in a tone of vexation: "This then must be the return that I get for all my indulgence, That at the close of the day this most irksome of all things should happen! For there is naught I can tolerate less than womanish weeping, Violent outcries, which only involve in disorder and passion, What with a little of sense had been more smoothly ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... half-educated public, ready to fall an easy prey to all manner of specious sophistries, especially when they are dressed up in the garb of a pseudo-mysticism; we must above all remember that human nature is habitually prone to welcome whatever will serve as an excuse for throwing off the irksome restraints of moral discipline. That is why we repeat that the one real danger religion has to face to-day is the danger arising from the spread of a false philosophy, whose tenets are ultimately incompatible ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... that is essential in the narrative; and thus it may perhaps be safely said that the readers of this volume will obtain from it an adequate knowledge of these time-honoured stories, without having their attention and their patience overtaxed by a multiplicity of superfluous and therefore utterly irksome details.' —Preface, pp. ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... will never suspect that the bulk of the ransom money has gone into my pocket. It is money sorely needed, I can assure you. I shall probably give my consent to her marriage with Cayley; her marriage will make my guardianship less irksome. He will be as unsuspicious of me as Eva. I prevailed upon him not to come to Whiteladies until to-morrow by suggesting that you were foolish enough to suspect him. I think it has all been rather cleverly managed. The only regrettable thing will be the death of two—two brilliant ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... and coercion, to the newer scheme of the ungraded commonwealth, are convinced, to the point of martyrdom, that anything like a return to the old order is morally impossible as well as insufferably shameful and irksome; whereas those people, of the retarded division of the race, who have had no experience of this new order, are equally convinced that it is all quite incompatible with ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... gratified at the assent and modesty—"Dutiful you have always been. We parents have no eyes. The whole matter is left to you. If Jinnosuke can be taken by your person, perchance he will devote his time to home and the farm work, now so irksome to his father. Where he goes in these long absences is not known; they can be for no good purpose." Thus the arrangement was made. The girl now busied herself about and with Jinnosuke. She was the one to attend to all his comforts, to await his often late return. Thus used to her he ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... fearing lest they should be surprised and cut off by an ambuscade of Spaniards, that might chance to lie thereabouts in the neighbouring woods, which appeared so thick as to seem almost impenetrable. Having this morning begun their march, they found the ways so dirty and irksome, that Captain Morgan thought it more convenient to transport some of the men in canoes (though it could not be done without great labour) to a place farther up the river, called Cedro Bueno. Thus they re-embarked, ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... could not say, Si mori contigerit, but si quid humanitas contingat, not if or when I die, but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me. To us that speak daily of the death of Christ (he was crucified, dead, and buried), can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome or bitter? There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough, and the death of God, but in blasphemous oaths and execrations. Miserable men, who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus, because they have named him too often; and therefore hear Jesus ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... had charmed the Queen, had, by saving her life, made England her long debtor; but Leicester had judged rightly in believing that the Queen might find the debt irksome; that her gratitude would be corroded by other destructive emotions. It was true that Angele had saved her life, but Michel had charmed her eye. He had proved himself a more gallant fighter than any in her kingdom; and had done it, as he had said, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... murmured pettishly, turning his head round toward Theos as he spoke—"Was ever a more foolish child than Zoralin? ... Just as I would fain have consoled her for her pricking heartache, she must needs pour out a torrent of tear-drops to change my humor and quench her own delight! 'Tis the most irksome inconsistency!" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... only requires the sanction of some man of quality, to establish it at the head of all our modern amusements. There is a certain sameness in other divertisements, which must become irksome to the spectator. But in the noble exhibitions of the foot-race there will be no danger of satiety, for the art of running may be diversified by such innumerable modifications, that it will appear "ever charming, ever new." ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... which he held, with the exception of two years spent in European travel, until 1877. The duties of his chair called for wide reading and frequent lecturing, and he turned much of his attention toward writing critical essays. The routine work of his professorship often grew irksome and the "Spence negligence" was sometimes in evidence in his failure to meet his classes. As a teacher, he was, however, frequently ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... all purposes, that the filial back was no more ready now than ever before to submit to harness; that rules and regulations were sure to be resented; that dates and duties were fretful affairs at best; that engagements and responsibilities were far too irksome to be endured; and, above all, that anything like "hours" would be most emphatically beyond the pale of a moment's consideration. Truesdale professed to regard himself as having returned once more to the life of ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... blessing we enjoy is health, without it, wealth, honors, and every other consideration, would be insipid, and even irksome; the preservation of this state therefore, naturally concerns us all. In this lecture, I shall not attempt to teach you to become your own physicians, for when the barriers of health are once broken down, and disease has established itself, it requires the deepest attention, and ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... might surely be expected to be at an end at last— here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform. It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was engaged upon some more congenial occupation—discussing, perhaps, the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland—a question in which he was profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself, with a sigh of ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... reproach me for giving way to impulses which I felt it impossible to control? There was a terror of the future, which even recollection of the happy past was powerless to dissipate. Society, even books, became irksome, and I went out into the garden alone, there to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... next morning, Charteris riding out to take up again the nomadic life and open-air work that he loved, while Gerrard remained to begin his irksome task of trying to induce the Regents, the Durbar, the army and the citizens to lay aside their differences and aim at the common good. The Rani's one idea was to safeguard her son's position by securing the loyalty of the army at all costs. The faintest sign of discontent ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... great pains to follow Miss Winstead's instructions. She was always taking great pains now. A wonderful lot of her naughtiness and daringness had left her. She was trying to be good. It was extremely irksome, but when she succeeded she felt a great glow of pleasure, for she believed herself near to ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... been said, a woman is expected to call on her friends once a year at least. The "Day at Home" has rather gone out of fashion. It imposed an obligation on the hostess which often proved irksome, interfering with engagements she might wish to make. If, however, one has "a day," her friends should so ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... own conscience is accusing you, not your mother. Would you have me suppress the truth or tell you a lie? Do you think any mother could listen unmoved to what you have told me just now—that you intend to leave my roof, that my only son finds his home so uncongenial, and his life here so irksome, that he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... however; the project had appealed to him peculiarly, and he had no other in mind to take its place. For lack of other literary work, therefore, he presently engaged to write a monthly article for the New York "Knickerbocker," at a salary of $2000 a year. The arrangement was just not too irksome to continue for ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... in like manner. And so, though most young men would have found the Dunbude tutorship the very acme of their wishes—plenty of amusements and nothing to do for them—Ernest Le Breton found it to the last degree irksome and unsatisfactory. Not that he had ever to complain of any unkindliness on the part of the Exmoor family; they were really in their own way very kind-hearted, friendly sort of people—that is to say, towards all members of their own circle; and as they considered Ernest one ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... stags abounded, Fell sick and was surrounded Forthwith by comrades kind, All pressing to assist, Or see, their friend, at least, And ease his anxious mind— An irksome multitude. "Ah, sirs!" the sick was fain to cry, "Pray leave me here to die, As others do, in solitude. Pray, let your kind attentions cease, Till death my spirit shall release." But comforters are not so sent: On duty sad full long ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... In October, 1768, Chatham resigned office, and Grafton became the recognised head of a Ministry the policy of which he was incapable either of formulating or directing; and when in January, 1770, Grafton resigned office and handed over the Ministry to Lord North, it released him from a trying and irksome position. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... as this was much wanted,—a work giving in clear and intelligible outline the leading facts of the science, without amplification or irksome details. It is admirable in arrangement, and clear, easy, and at the same time forcible, in style. It will lead, we hope, to the introduction of geology into many schools that have neither time nor room for the study ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... at long range, and this thought of life and safety Garrison did not at all relish. They grew more and more irksome to his fearless and earnest spirit. For his was a "pine-and-fagot" Abolitionism that knew not the fear of men or their wrath. But now he must needs have a care for the peace of mind of his young wife, who was, within a few months, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... to run backwards and forwards, and help with the move. When they were thoroughly settled in, lessons began. Lady Isobel had put aside a special room for the schoolroom; and though at first Bobby and True found it a little irksome to get into their regular hours of work again, they soon ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... to him that Federigo's attachment was more to his money than to himself, that he determined to get rid of his irksome attentions. Accordingly, when they arrived at Nieuwediep, he made all his arrangements for leaving the vessel, legally this time, without saying a word to him of his intention; and Federigo only heard of it at the last moment when he met him coming up with his hammock clothes. ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... of our national life the Western backwoodsman found the Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi even more hurtful and irksome than the retention by the British king of the posts on the Great Lakes. After years of tedious public negotiations, under and through which ran a dark woof of private intrigue, the sinewy western ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... dessert and the wine came to an end, and it was chapel time (mercifully)." One story Clark tells of an extraordinary attempt to smoke. Referring to the compulsory "chapels," he says that as a rule everybody behaved with propriety, whether they regarded the attendance as irksome or otherwise. But, he admits, "'Iniquity Corner,' as the space at the east end on each side of the altar was called, may occasionally have effectually sheltered card-playing; but when a young snob went ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... lowering sky for the clear dark-blue starlight, proved enough to renovate their drooping hearts, and to excite them to make the best use they could of their limbs; so that by persevering they at last reached a part of the waste where the travelling became less irksome, the drifting sand having, in this particular part, formed itself into larger hills, which, in course of time, had become coated with short grass, and thus afforded very pleasant ground to walk over. But this relief from fatigue was attended with increased peril to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... example, as a good millionaire; that human life, in short, is a complex of countless different uses, each one of which is as important on its own plane as any of the others. But the intermediate period is undeniably irksome. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... indignant emotion; "they are not lessons at all now!" I certainly do not observe any reluctance on their part to set to work, and I do see a considerable reluctance to stop; yet I don't think there is the least strain about it. But it is true that I save them all the stupid and irksome work that made my own acquisition of knowledge so bitter a thing. We read French together; my own early French lessons were positively disgusting, partly from the abominable little books on dirty paper and in bad type that we read, and partly ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with in Italian women"; and a rhapsody composed by her upon the subject of Uranian Love—"Il Vero Amore"—justifies the belief that she possessed an intellect of more than ordinary elevation. He took Mrs. Shelley to see her; and both did all they could to make her convent prison less irksome by frequent visits, by letters, by presents of flowers and books. It was not long before Shelley's sympathy for this unfortunate lady took the form of love, which, however spiritual and Platonic, was ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... How irksome, to have to entertain a young lady; to be obliged to talk when I did not feel inclined; to listen when I was impatient and weary; to have to thank her, perhaps fifty times a day, for meaningless expressions of condolence or affected pity; to tell her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... men (including 25 scouts), made a raid beyond the lower Lac qui Parle, and captured 23 lodges, in all 67 Indians. On the 18th W. A. Hill rejoined. While at Camp Release the duty performed was chiefly guarding the Indian prisoners, foraging, and serving on camp guard,—a very strict and irksome one. Company drill in the morning and battalion drill in the afternoon ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... bathed in a tranquil beauty. The days flowed by like a river beneath the moon—each ripple caught the brightness and passed it on. She began to take a renewed interest in her familiar round of duties. The tasks which had once seemed colourless and irksome had now a kind of sacrificial sweetness, a symbolic meaning into which she alone was initiated. She had been restless—had longed to travel; now she felt that she should never again care to leave Wentworth. But if her desire to wander had ceased, she travelled in spirit, ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... years of age Maupassant attended the seminary at Yvetot, where he found school life irksome and a most distasteful contrast to his former free life. Later he became a student in the Lycee in Rouen. His experience as a student here was very pleasant, and he easily acquired his degree. In 1870 he was appointed to a clerkship in the Navy, and a little later to a more lucrative position in ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... The somewhat irksome phraseology of Baron Swedenborg has dulled many minds to a sense of his great acumen and philosophical depth, but it maybe convenient to summarize his scientific doctrine of "Correspondences" in this place as it has an important bearing on the subject in hand. He laid down the principle ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... question to which I propose to address myself is whether Indian unrest represents merely, as we are prone to imagine, the human and not unnatural impatience of subject races fretting under an alien rule which, however well intentioned, must often be irksome and must sometimes appear to be harsh and arbitrary; or whether to-day, in its more extreme forms at any rate, it does not represent an irreconcilable reaction against all that not only British rule but ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol |
