"Last straw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... least. There's no other way to manage it and I fancy you know what would happen if you didn't hand it over. There is such a thing as the last straw." ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... it's your duty. You know it's your duty. You know perfectly well. It's only these rotten, silly, degenerate, decadent fools who've got ideas into you——" The sentence staggered under its load of adjectives like a camel under the last straw and collapsed. "See?" ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... "The last straw was his bringing that ridiculous charge against Buck Green," Mrs. Archer interrupted with unexpected spirit. "That stamped him for what he was; because a nicer, cleaner, better-mannered young man I've seldom seen. He could no more have stolen cattle ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... The last straw upon Carl's breaking back was the arrival of his father, who descended upon him with a bass viol, an enormous basket-bed for his beloved poodles, and a large bundle of debts, as well as an increased luggage of eccentricities. While ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... cried Crass, eagerly clutching at this last straw. 'The thing sounds all right till you comes to look into it, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... really vital portion of their sovereignty. So far from saving itself by this act, the dynasty wrote another sentence in its death-warrant. Economically the Manchus had been for years almost lost; the Boxer indemnities were the last straw. By more than doubling the burden of foreign commitments, and by placing the operation of the indemnities directly in the hands of foreign bankers by the method of monthly quotas, payable in Shanghai, THE PEKING GOVERNMENT AS FAR ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the last straw, and though it was obvious that the warning was intended for the troops now miles away, it sent us ahead ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... the impecunious captain to his peaceful retreat alarmed the lovers, for the appearance of a bailiff in the respectable house in Hart Street would, for Mr. Blandy, have been, as the phrase goes, the last straw. Fortunately, Mary had retained against such a contingency the balance of Mrs. Mounteney's loan; and with another fifteen pounds of that lady's in his pocket, the captain left for London to ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... last straw, the crowning blasphemy. She hardly expected him to endure it, and he did not; she was glad to have it so. But the extreme mildness with which he interrupted her almost unnerved her, so confidently had she braced ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fair!' croaked gran'ther with a last flare of triumph, and fell over sideways against me. Old Peg stopped short, hanging her head as if she, too, were at the limit of her strength. I was frightfully tired myself, and frozen with terror of what father would say. Gran'ther's collapse was the last straw. I began to cry loudly, but father ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. He lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old body into the house without a glance backward at me. But when I crawled down to the ground, sobbing and ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... happened thus: he was going his rounds through the cars with some commodities for sale, and coming to a party who were at Seven-up or Cascino (our two games) upon a bed-board, slung down a cigar-box in the middle of the cards, knocking one man's hand to the floor. It was the last straw. In a moment the whole party were upon their feet, the cigars were upset, and he was ordered to "get out of that directly, or he would get more than he reckoned for." The fellow grumbled and muttered, but ended by making ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to his satisfaction on the pack mare, was standing on one foot on a log jutting over the creek, drawing the fish from their cool resting-place in the water. The bag came up, heavy and dripping—so heavy, indeed, that it proved the last straw for Billy's balance, and, after a wild struggle to remain on the log, he was forced to step off with great decision into the water, a movement accompanied with a decisive "Bust!" amidst wild mirth on the part of the boys. Luckily, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... sure it is reliable?" was Kate's almost feverish question. It seemed that she must hold on to something or the last straw that bound her to the teachings of ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... obstinacy to believe hasn't deserted the state of Alleghenia for good and all. It isn't for my own sake alone, John, that I pray the Union will give in before my people begin to think of violence. You remember '94 in Chicago? Well, we don't want anything like that in Kenton City. It would be the last straw! Alleghenia has a big enough burden of disgrace to carry, as ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... demanded that the municipal treasure should be given up to him. Not content with taking away the privileges of the burghers, he wished to lay his hands on the public purse as well. This was indeed the last straw, and the sluggish blood of the burghers was ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... your opinion—" The speaker halted and hurriedly lit the cigar he had been holding. "To jump into the thick of it, I got a little letter from the president to-day, a little—warning." Armstrong smoked fiercely until the flame lit up his face. "It's the bitterest humiliation of my life, Harry, the last straw!" ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... last straw. Tom's mind had been dark and gloomy enough to begin with, but when during his father's harangue he glanced up and saw De Courcy bending his aquiline face over his paper with a slightly sardonic smile, he could ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... people" having some of that; finally she saw them off at the door, and came running back to Georgie. "I've been a cad," she said, "because I hinted that you were in love with Mrs Weston. My dear, it was simply perfect! I believe it to have been the last straw, and if you don't forgive me you needn't. Wasn't it clever? He simply couldn't stand that, for it came on the top of your ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... be "the last straw." "She might have better put me in the primary grade in the beginning," the ranch girl said, spitefully. "Then I wouldn't have been among those who despise me. I hate them all! I'll ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid on their backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the Assembly adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties, which comprised the settled portion ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... pleases them, and to be the object of simpering tears when they want to play the pathetic in speaking of your mother to people. They are detestable, contemptible. And Jack Holton's turning up at Amzi's was the very last straw." ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... contract, until the Legislature would find themselves in such a labyrinth of contracts, with the United States Constitution over their heads, that not a subject would be left within their jurisdiction"; the argument was an expedient of desperation, he said, a "last straw." The principal contention advanced in behalf of the Act was that the College was "a public corporation," whose "various powers, capacities, and franchises all... were to be exercised for the benefit of the ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the last straw. 'Mysterious?' the doctor cried, his face purple with indignation. 'Leave the room, sir! You are not sane, sir! By God, you ought to be shut up, sir! You ought not to be allowed to go about. Do you ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... The chickens were scurrying about the yard, cackling hysterically as they dodged this and that herder. The two pigs, Sundown reflected consolingly, seemed happy enough. Loring, standing in the doorway, pointed to the stove. "Get busy," he said tersely. That was the last straw. Silently Sundown stalked to the stove, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work. If there were not a score of mighty sick herders that night, it would not be his fault. He had determined on a bloodless but effective victory, wherein soda ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... with the world and its sins, may well be relieved from the weight of one wee error—a sort of last straw that bothers his back. The impression in Vanity Fair that disappoints him is not an etching at all, but a reproduction for that paper ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... It is the last straw which breaks the camel's back; Mrs. Brinkley felt her moral vertebrae give way; she almost heard them crack; but if there was really a detonation, the drowned the noise with a harsh laugh. "Oh, he had other friends ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... complaint, but Harthouse's proposal had been the last straw. Added to all the insults she had suffered at her husband's hands, and her fearful suspicion of Tom's guilt, it had proven too much for her to bear. She had pretended to agree to Harthouse's plan only that she might the more quickly rid herself of ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... Ling was really inclined to use him;—but as his military adviser. It was the last straw; he left, and would not return in Ling's lifetime. He was in Ch'in for awhile; and then for three years at Ts'ae, a new state built of the rebellion of certain subjects or vassals of the great sourthern kingdom of Ts'u. On hearing of his arrival, the Duke of Ts'ae had the idea ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... if you will be patient and accept your punishment, it will come out all right." Alex laid her hand on Charlotte's shoulder, but the girl twitched it away. Rising, she stood stony and silent. Alex's condemnation was the last straw. ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... her that I had been suddenly called away, and asked her to care for her until my return. She readily promised, not once suspecting that a stranger would come for her in my place, and that it was my purpose never to see her again. From the moment of my leaving the woman's house—that last straw of surrendering my baby was more than my heart and brain could bear—everything, with one exception, was a blank to me until I awoke to consciousness, five weeks later, to find myself being tenderly cared for in the home of a young ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... on all women to leave those churches that would not condemn every form of human bondage. This stirred against them many of the clergy who, accustomed to having women sit silent during services, were in no mood to treat such a revolt leniently. Then came the last straw. Women decided that they would preach—out of the pulpit first, and finally ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... anxiety, and often break in health at the time when she develops into a woman, not because of the special demand for strength made at that time, but because the demands on the general system for strength have been, for twelve or fifteen years, greater than the system could supply. It is not the last straw that breaks the camel's back, but it is all the straws. The mother who has educated her daughter into a healthy appetite for food, as to quality and quantity; who has educated her into a healthy appetite for sleep; who has, through constant watchfulness over her clothing, assured ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... faintly, as a sleep-talker speaks. She was not conscious of what she said, but it was the last straw for Francis. He had not slept nor eaten lately, and he had worked double time all day to keep his mind from the state of things, ever since he had brought her back. So perhaps it was not altogether inexcusable that he flung himself on the floor by ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... work; and in so far it will fall short of the full realisation of that rule of business that inculcates charging what the traffic will bear, and also in so far the pressure which the modern system of business management brings to bear on the common man will also fall short of the last straw—perhaps even of the next-to-the-last. Again it turns out to be a question not of the failure of the general proposition as formulated, but rather as to the closeness of approximation to its theoretically perfect work. It may be remarked by the way that vigilant and impartial surveillance ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... It was the last straw! Dam had passed through a most disturbing night; he had kept guard in the lonely Snake-haunted darkness, guard over a mortuary in which lay a corpse; he had had to keep knocking at the corpse's door, his mind ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... the last straw! Both sons gone, and now our horse! Who's going to bring in our crop? ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... last straw. The Cabin-boy reached for Marmaduke's neck, and would surely have choked him then and there, if Freddie had not caught his arm and ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... last straw. What can be more intolerable than the blind struggle in which the obstinacy of a bigot tries to meet the acumen of a lawyer? What more terrible to endure than the acrimonious pin-pricks to which a passionate soul prefers a dagger-thrust? Granville neglected his ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... German-American and Pacificist elements. But his difficulties are great, and his long suffering diplomacy has at least this merit, that if America enters the War it will be as a united people. Germany's decision to resort to unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 is the last straw: now even Mr. Henry Ford has offered to place his works at the disposal of the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... had accumulated a large quantity of middlings in an upper story, when the weight caused some sagging, and a man was sent up with a shovel to "even" the bin. His pressure was the "last straw," and the floor under the man broke through, pouring out a cascade of middlings, which flowed down from story to story, filling the mill with its dust. In a very few minutes it reached the boiler room, and the instant it touched ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... that he was. The Head drummed irritably with his fingers on the arm of his chair. This mystery, coming as it did after the series of worries through which he had been passing for the last few days, annoyed him as much as it is to be supposed the last straw ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... was not to their liking. The hash was burnt; the venison, for one of them had shot a deer, had been hung too long; while the dessert, a great pie of desiccated fruits, had been baked to a flinty hardness. That was the last straw; for in the Mountain Province the lumber and railroad gangs as a rule work hard and live well; and when the cans of green tea had been emptied the growls culminated in a call for ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... strong to be controlled. Perhaps an external problem presses and arouses the old habit of fleeing from disagreeable reality. Any or all these factors may cooperate, but not one of them is anything more than a last straw on an overburdened back. No calamity, deprivation, fatigue, or emotion has been able to bring about a neurosis unless the ground was prepared for it by the earlier reactions ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... circumstances. Too often, I'm afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved burglary and paid the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's a case where we considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are mistaken. It's the last straw." ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... century,' 'The boundaries of the United States,' and 'The comparative greatness of Napoleon and Alexander.' The younger children read storybooks in the same quiet manner. A children's room would relieve the pressure on all three departments of the library." The "last straw" that led to the grant of rooms was a newspaper article illustrated by a photograph of the reference-room on a Sunday afternoon with one man, one woman and fifty-one children ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... work had been a drawn battle, but the President's heart was broken as he watched in anguish the withdrawal of Lee's army in safety across the river. It was the last straw. McClellan had been weighed and found wanting. He registered a solemn promise with God that if the great Confederate Commanders succeeded in making good their retreat from this desperate situation he ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... sister Marian sent a gentle appeal, fully showing her heart was in it; nothing broke down Mrs. Pepper's resolve, until, at last, the old gentleman wrote one day that Jasper, being in such failing health, really depended on Polly to cheer him up. That removed the last straw that made it "putting one's self under an obligation," which to Mrs. Pepper's ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... didn't!" exclaimed Jimmy, in such a tragic tone, that Theo almost laughed outright. His amusement was the last straw to Jimmy. He burst into a storm of scornful blame in the midst of which Theo quietly stepped into his room and shut the door, leaving Jimmy to fume and storm as much as he chose. That brought the boy to himself. He ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... comfortable—and go on feeling so until the worn-out machinery breaks down and lets the old tub run ashore, or knocks a hole in her side, or the side itself rusts through at last and lets the water in, or the last straw in the shape of an extra ton of brine tumbles on board, and the John Smith (Newcastle), goes down with a swoosh before the cook has time to leave off peeling his potatoes and ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the stranger, catching a glimpse of himself in the panel mirror, stopped suddenly. Instantly Clyde's nostrils were assailed by a strong odour of leather and horseflesh. She shuddered in spite of herself. It was the last straw. As a rule she was not overparticular, but just then she was in that state of nerves when little things fretted her. She said to herself that a cattle car was the proper place for this young man. As he spoke to the porter she ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the last straw had been laid on her heavy burden, the last drop in the bitter cup. She went to her room and lay down on her bed, worn out with misery. Should she go home? Was it kind to leave Betty with all this trouble alone, with no one to sympathise? And yet how she dreaded her aunt's tongue ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... last straw. It broke down Warden Atherton. He surrendered to the demonstration that I was unkillable. As I told ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... if her mother's reproach was the last straw, Susie covered her face with the crook of ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... straightened. "That is the last straw," he whispered hoarsely. "I am the Terrestrial Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Magnan has told me that we've been studiedly insulted, repeatedly, since the moment of our arrival. Kept waiting in baggage ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... between the Storthing and the ministry brought on sharp conflicts. Long before Norway deposed King Oscar II (June 7, 1905), disruptions and war would doubtless have occurred had it not been for the wisdom and tact of the king. The last straw that broke the camel's back in this instance was the refusal of separate consular representation for Norway. The basis of this last demand was not mainly the commercial value to Norway of having its distinct consuls, though this ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... opportunity, that would encourage her to hope for safety, when once the attempt should be made. Until, however, she was convinced that her two children were to be sold, she could not quite muster courage to set out on the journey. This threat to sell proved in multitudes of instances, "the last straw on the camel's back." When nothing else would start them this would. Mary and her children were the only slaves owned by this Ennis, consequently her duties were that of "Jack of all trades;" sometimes in the field and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... her aunt, and stopped her words with a kiss. And then one winter afternoon, two years later, came the last straw. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... declined, advantage of availing herself of the gaps made in the next couple of jumps by the other riders; but the stones they had kicked down were almost as agitating to Pilot's ruffled nerves as those that still remained in position. She found it the last straw that she should have to wait for the obsequious runners to tear these out of her way, while the galloping backs in front of her grew smaller and smaller, and the adulatory condolences of her assistants became more and more hard to endure. She literally hurled the shilling at them as she set ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... old man stared at each word as if it had been written in fire. She said she had not gone with Cowperwood. It was possible, just the same, that he had run away from Philadelphia and taken her with him. This was the last straw. This ended it. Aileen lured away from home—to where—to what? Butler could scarcely believe, though, that Cowperwood had tempted her to do this. He had too much at stake; it would involve his own and Butler's families. The ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... turned against him, nor against her destiny. She had been disappointed of her destiny, that was all. It was enough. She must have been fretting for months, poor darling, and just when she could bear it no longer, Mrs. Gardner, he supposed, had come as the last straw. No wonder that she had ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... anyone in the place since that "gentleman" had taken possession of it. He even complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a single customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm was indeed the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an unspeakable scorn for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre fixing their eyes on Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his revolver irritated him, and Robine, who sat silent behind his glass of beer, seemed to him to be the only ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... twitched comically. "Generous as ever! But I'm a rotten villain, Jake. I never could keep it up, and your virtuous presence is the last straw. Good-bye—and many thanks!" ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... been spectators all day was bad enough, that the horses had been waterless for thirty hours and that we ourselves were hungry, thirsty, and very weary, was worse, but that the pernicious fog should have prevented us from loosing off at any rate one round was the last straw. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... a moment. Beatrice and Benedick were alone in the church now; and when Beatrice said, "Kill Claudio," Glory leaped up again and clapped her hands. But Benedick would not kill Claudio, and it was the last straw of all. That wasn't what she called being a great actor, and it was shameful to "sit and listen to such plays. Lots of disgraceful scenes happened in life, but people didn't come to the theatre to see such ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of the horse to get accustomed to strange sights and behave itself This duty has been onerous the last few years; the bicycle, the traction engine, and the trolley have come along in quick succession; the automobile is about the last straw. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... imagine the despair of the intendant when he sees so much of this valuable land taken for the croquet and tennis games; but the last straw is—the corn! ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... man shook his head. "That's all too fur away from home fur me. The women are afraid o' the water, and they'd never let me go alone. I kind o' just drifted into this New York business, but if I undertook to go across the ocean, that would be the last straw. And I'm afraid I couldn't get on to the manners and customs over there. They say everything's different from here. To tell the truth, I'm timid where I don't know the ways. If I was like you—I shouldn't wonder if you'd been to some of the other places where things ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... known it, George V was born to distrust the Germans, being the son of the Danish Princess Alexandra, who had seen all the country round the Kiel Canal torn from the Crown of Denmark within a year of her marriage to King Edward. The Kaiser's lying letter to Lord Tweedmouth in 1908 was the last straw that broke King George's little patience with the German plotters headed by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz. "What," he exclaimed, "would the Kaiser say, if the King wrote a ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... windows at the throng of life in the unquiet streets as they halted for the passing of a camel laden with bricks and stones from a demolished building; the poor thing teetered precariously past under such a back-breaking load that the girl felt it would have been a mercy to add the last straw and be done with it. After it bobbed what was apparently an animated load of hay, so completely were this other camel's legs hidden by ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Dorothy's last straw; she went away and threw herself, dressed, on her bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. And only this morning she thought she was miserable because her new dress ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... "Finally, as the last straw, it must needs be that on a hunting party things happened thus. The two men of the name were standing near each other, and both shot at the same time at the same she-bear. To be sure, immediately after their shots it did fall lifeless, but before that it had been carrying a dozen bullets ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Has he lost his mind? I must hurry to stop him from going out. Ah! Ah! This is the last straw! I see nothing but shame on ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... pleasure in watching the bolt of Nemesis descend when his hands were guiltless of the launching. And as he struggled with himself, hunting in retrospect for some excuse for what his passion railed at as weakness, a last straw fell into the scale, for he thought of the faded portrait ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... That was the last straw, and we began a vigorous war upon those wild and predatory cats. The cats came off second best. We killed every cat that was found hunting in the park, and we certainly got some that were big and bad. We eliminated that pest, and we are keeping it ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... time with news of the Battle of Leipzig came letters from home which informed Gallatin that his nomination as envoy had been rejected by the Senate. This was the last straw. To remain inactive as an envoy was bad enough; to stay on unaccredited seemed impossible. He determined to take advantage of a hint dropped by his friend Baring that the British Ministry, while declining mediation, was not unwilling to treat directly with the American commissioners. He ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... the last straw; Ephie dropped on a chair, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into the tears she had hitherto restrained. Her previous trouble was increased a hundredfold. For she had recognised Louise at once; she felt that she was in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... freedom. During the first month of regained liberty, he hanged himself. He left no message of excuse. In my opinion, none was necessary. For aught any man knows, the memories of the abuse, torture, and injustice which were so long his portion may have proved to be the last straw which overbalanced ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... said Argile, sadly, "and yet, do you know, Iain, you did me a bad turn yonder. You made mention of my family's safety, and it was the last straw that broke the back of my resolution. One word of honest duty from you at that time had kept me in Inner-aora though Abijah's array and Jeroboam's horse and foot were ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... important was the moral effect of the sequestrations in France and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the last straw, coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which had already enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The Prince Consort wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a conception of the maxims of justice and policy which ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the course of less than ten weeks, if they had had three quarrels they had had thirty. He had taken them all more or less good-naturedly—till to-day. To-day was too much. He could hardly say why it was too much, unless it was as the last straw, but he felt it essential to his honor to show her by actual demonstration the ruin she had ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... besieged that Rene was levying troops in Switzerland and would soon be with them. Baschi fell into the duke's hands and was immediately hanged. One story says that Campobasso was among the interceders for his life and received a box on the ear for his pains, an insult that proved the last straw in his allegiance to Charles. Commines, however, declares that the Italian urged the death of the captive, fearful of the premature betrayal of ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... work went on. The poor Negroes in the jail, in a state of morbid desperation, turned upon each other the blistering tongue of accusation. They knew that they were accusing each other innocently,—as many confessed afterwards,—but this was the last straw that these sinking people could see to catch at, and this they did involuntarily. "Victims were required; and those who brought them to the altar of Moloch, purchased their own safety, or, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... really the last straw, and Nealie gurgled and choked as if she were going to have a very bad fit of hysterics, which made the sympathizer—a kind-looking elderly man—still more concerned ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... give us a thrill of pleasure. At last it became too utterly miserable to be borne. The sight of the deck-steward bringing round cups of half-cold beef-tea with grease spots floating on the top proved the last straw, so, with a graceful, wavering flight like a woodcock, we zigzagged to our bunks, where we have ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... by it," said he, "this is the last straw. One break and then freedom. Surgery is better than tinkering. Cut the knot and let who will try to join it then. One pang, and afterwards ease, fresh air, and freedom: fresh air! gulps of it, with the head back and an easy mind. I'm not the man to ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... hear that which maketh the last straw. I plead for justice and demand the law. Not live, when we are deathless? Chaucer, dear, I pray that you that heresy ...
— The Belles of Canterbury - A Chaucer Tale Out of School • Anna Bird Stewart
... One day, when I was a bit late in giving him a massage, he took his cane and struck me with it two or three times. That was the last straw. I told him on the spot that I was through with him and I went to pack my trunk. He came later to my room; he begged me to remain, assured me that there wasn't anything to be angry at, that I must excuse the ill-humoredness of old age ... He insisted so ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... and I dined with the Vice-Admiral who kept a signaller on special watch for my messages from the shore—but nothing came in. He, the Admiral, wants to take all the 600 stokers serving in the Royal Naval Division back to the ships. This will be the last straw to the Division. We had the treat of being taken off the Triad in the Admiral's racing motor boat and when we got ashore found good news which I have ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... no doubt, that I have sailed into his ken, and that he wishes to add me to his collection. I felt myself singularly unrewarding. I am not a talker at the best of times, and to feel that I am expected to be witty and suggestive is the last straw. Lord Wilburton discoursed fluently and agreeably. Lady Harriet said that she envied me my powers of writing, and asked how I came to think of my last brilliant book, which she had so enjoyed. I did not know what to say, and could ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Ottoman administration now weakly encouraged to save itself trouble, now violently dragooned. Already the powers had not only proposed autonomy for it, but begun to control its police and its finance. This was the last straw. The public opinion which had slowly been forming for thirty years gained the army, and Midhat's seed ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... "It's the last straw—that's what it is," Madigan answered grimly, bearing the cradle out to the woodshed. There he chopped it to pieces, as though defying a perverse destiny to send ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... is the last straw! Trying a man's patience like that can but have a fatal ending. I am not to blame if something terrible happens. I allow no one to make a laughing stock of me, and, God knows, when I am furious, I advise ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... last straw. The busy citizens dropped their own affairs for a day and got together in a mass meeting at the Plaza. All work was suspended and all business houses were closed. Probably all the inhabitants in the city with the exception of the Hounds ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... a last straw of hope, she yielded or seemed to yield. "As long as a search must be made," she said with a sort of half-defiant dignity, "I prefer to have you make it, ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... she even went so far as to explain to Mr. Trinder that they would not have to carry parcels, as Phillis meant to hire a boy. She had no idea that this magnanimous speech was in a figurative manner the last straw that broke the camel's back. Mr. Trinder pushed back his chair hastily, made some excuse that his train must be due, and beat a retreat an hour before the time, unable to pursue such a painful subject ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... She thought every one was very unkind, and it seemed the last straw when father took Dick's part ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... Captain Patterson to strap him to a tree until he cooled off somewhat. The Captain failing in his efforts to fasten him securely, I took my saddle girth, backed him up to the tree, buckled him to it, and returned to my quarters. This proved to be the last straw which broke the unfortunate camel's back. It was a high-handed outrage upon the person of a volunteer soldier; the last and worst of the many arbitrary and severe acts of which I had been guilty. The regiment seemed to arise en masse, and led on by a few reckless men who had long disliked me, ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... genteel, whose only friends were my own servants and a few poverty-stricken landward folk. I had found out a good way of trade, but I had set a hornet's nest buzzing about my ears, and was on the fair way to be extinguished. This alliance between my rivals and the Free Companions was the last straw to my burden. If the sea was to be shut to him, then a merchant might as well put ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... only a narrow margin of difference between success and failure. Success is a matter of fractions and decimals, not of big units. A few thousand American soldiers and marines turned the tide of German victory at Chateau Thierry. "It is the last straw that breaks ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Christina handed him his change, and with a graceful salute he fled without counting it. Immediately the door had closed Christina realized that she had given him one and ninepence. A small matter at such a time, yet it may have been the last straw. She had no word for Macgregor as he came to the counter, his uncertainty increased by that delicious smile ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... would be, our troubles were not yet over. Crossing a broken culvert not half a mile from the house, one of the horses fell in, and we all had to get out and walk, an annoyance which we felt to be the "last straw" on ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... of things for Lovey out of his old trousers, only he says that he has to wear them himself until he feels ashamed of his appearance whenever he meets anybody; but my own skirts are what seem the last straw, or rather the bricks that I haven't any straw to make. The last one was made out of some dead Somebody Byrd's black cashmere shawl, I don't know whose, but I can't see the next even ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... long outgrown skirt and too scant little waist failed completely to conceal. And the hillsfolk were given to shaking their heads over her now, just as the generation before had done, for to cap it all—the last straw upon the back of their toleration—Dryad Anderson had "took up" with Denny Bolton, Young Denny, the last of his name. Nothing more was needed to damn her forever in the eyes of the hills people, although they could not have explained just why, ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... "Platitudes—the last straw!" exclaimed Mr. Marston tragically. "There's an old darky preacher up at Richmond who says it does, and I'm sure I think more of his old fog-horn blasts than I do of your parrot tones. Ah! Si, this is the last time that I shall ever fool with good raw ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... score of watching Central Grammar boys. That was the last straw. Ted felt the blood rush to his head and all looked ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... is the truth, and doctor's orders," rapped out Mrs. Ellsworth. "I thought I had been upset enough for one evening, but this last straw had to ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pondered quietly. The episode of the mares was growing in importance. So far she had been able to do nothing of importance on the ranch; if this scheme fell through also it would be the proverbial last straw. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... tries to out-distance, she ran straight into somebody coming from the opposite direction, ran full tilt, was almost knocked off her feet, and looking up with the impatient anguish of him who is asked to endure his last straw her lips fell apart in an utter and boundless amazement; for the person she had run against was that Prince—the last of the series, distinguished from the rest by his having quenched the Grand Duke's irrelevant effervescence ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... to her was her most essential sex-prerogative, she made their lives unendurable. She no longer considered the dogs, and because she was sore and tired, she persisted in riding on the sled. She was pretty and soft, but she weighed one hundred and twenty pounds—a lusty last straw to the load dragged by the weak and starving animals. She rode for days, till they fell in the traces and the sled stood still. Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk, pleaded with her, entreated, the while ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... heard the hall door shut with a great bang. There was no wind to shut it. It was the last straw. I fled precipitately through the baize door and on to the staircase, which was lit by a skylight overhead. Even though I met the person who had shut the door I must make towards the sunlight and ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... resumed the consultation. It was evidently a case of nervous breakdown, to which the cab accident had, no doubt, contributed. As to the other antecedents, they were no concern of mine, though Mr. Bellingham seemed to think otherwise, for he resumed: "That cab business was the last straw, you know, and it finished me off, but I have been going down the hill for a long time. I've had a lot of trouble during the last two years. But I suppose I oughtn't to pester you with the details of ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... was my belief that he merely expressed himself naturally, and with no thought of consequences. The man was so steeped in crime as to be ignorant of all sense of honor, all conception of true manhood. But to me this utterance was the last straw, breaking down every restraint, and leaving me hot, and furious with anger. I forgot the muzzle of the pistol pressed against my side, and the menacing threat in Kirby's low voice. The face of the man was indistinct, a mere outline, but the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... you know. Everything I could do for it has been a satisfaction. And I looked forward to giving this parish-house. In ordinary years a theft of five thousand dollars would not have prevented me, but there have been complications and large expenses of late, to which this loss is the last straw. I shall have to postpone the parish-house,—but it shall be only postponed, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Last Straw—a bewildered Rufus with a Letter of Introduction. That took 40 Minutes. When Rufe walked out, the Busy Man fell with his Face ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... of the pursuit was the last straw. I gave up hope, and my intentions were narrowed to one frantic desire—to hide the jewels. Patriotism, which I had almost forgotten, flickered up in that crisis. At any rate Laputa should not have the Snake. If he drove ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... no!" snarled Philippina. "He'd be the last straw. I feel sick at the stomach when I see ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... be the last straw: a feverish anger laid hold of him. "Here's the ring! You see it! Damnation, Mary! You gave your word and I took it, and God knows what I've been through. Now come! Get your things on and bring your mother if you like—but to Minister Malden's you go with me now! ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that was the last straw," Margaret said. "The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... his shocked and strait-laced Ebersdorfians dubbed the intruder among them. There was also some suggestion, advanced by a gardener, that she had a habit of taking a short cut across the princely flower-beds when she was in a hurry. This was the last straw. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Consequently, a book with a Bell heroine is sure of a hearty welcome. What, therefore, can be said of this book, which contains no less than four types of witching and buoyant femininity? There are four stories of power and dash in this volume: "The Last Straw," "The Surrender of Lapwing," "The Penance of Hedwig," and "Garret Owen's Little Countess." Each one of these tells a tale full of verve and thrill, each one has a ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... were to be pulled down, "unless I can find a man to take care of me. Might get one that drinks? I would hammer him half to death." She did find her "man," only to have him on her hands too. It was the last straw. Before the wreckers came around she was dead. The amazed indignation of the alley at the discovery of her second marriage, which till then had been kept secret, was beyond bounds. The supposed widow's neighbor across the hall, whom we knew in the front generally as "the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... The reason was simple enough; Duane felt himself overcome with emotion. There were tears in his eyes. He sat down on a bench, put his elbows on his knees and his hands to his face. For once he had absolutely no concern for his fate. This ignominy was the last straw. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the men were getting an average of six hours' sleep the remark was hardly fair, but, as I said, the day had been a trying one and this had been the last straw. He strode back again to the dead subaltern, ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years. The election of Lincoln and Hamlin was the last straw on the back of the camel. But it was not the only one. The back was ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... The last straw, however, breaks the camel's back, and this last drink reduced Mr Villiers to that mixed state which is known in colonial phrase as half-cocked. He lurched out of the hotel, and went in the direction of the Pactolus claim. His only difficulty was ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... his teeth and tried to shut out the tantalizing sounds. Snorky began to hum gaily to himself. Then, proceeding across the direct line of his roommate's vision, he took up the latest photograph and contemplated it with a little exaggerated rapture. It was the last straw. Skippy's rage burst forth in a loud and ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... but not before, I might reveal myself; stand by the hopeless and succourless bed of death; shriek out in the dizzy ear a name, which could treble the horrors of remembrance; snatch from the struggling and agonizing conscience the last plank, the last straw, to which, in its madness, it could cling, and blacken the shadows of departing life, by opening to the shuddering sense the threshold of an impatient ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... applause that was given her seemed to have been the last straw to the actors behind the shrubbery, restrained by their young preceptress, for the pageant ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... national insolvency? He proceeded to demonstrate that his predecessors had exhausted every device which their financial ingenuity could suggest, down to their last supposed master-stroke, the addition of 10 per cent to the assessed taxes—thus adding very nearly the last straw which was to break the camel's back—the last peculiarly cruel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... last straw breaks the camel's back, and the young Dominicans had now reached the point ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... last straw, the final piece of humiliation. Code stiffened as a soldier might to rebuke. A deadly, dull anger surged within him and took possession of his whole being—such an anger as can only come to one who, amiable and upright by nature, is ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... There was a day's hard work ahead, and it was already past noon; but the woman was not done yet, and after rummaging about inside the house for a while longer she appeared with another armful of papers, which she emptied on top of the others. This was the last straw; and finding it impossible to examine in detail such a mass of material we contented ourselves with picking out the sacred formulas and the two manuscript books containing the town-house records ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... done it for the sake of sitting with Druro, she knew that the jarring and jolting so unavoidable on African roads would put her nerves on edge for the evening. So there was nothing further to be said, but she felt, as she flung herself into the seat beside Tryon, that this was verily the last straw. For a time she showed her displeasure with and disdain of Tryon by sitting half turned and conversing with Druro, who was obliged to lean forward uncomfortably to answer her remarks. But she soon tired of this, for the strong wind caused by the car cutting ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... though swallowing something distasteful. "He was the last straw! But tell me, Palla, what are you doing these jolly days ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... send that creature away. Now the farmers and the old ladies are afraid to send their animals to you—just as we were beginning to be well off again. Now we shall be ruined entirely. This is the last straw. I will no longer be housekeeper for you if you ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... from the state has doubtless made the condition of many aged persons far more tolerable and even happy in families where, previous to the passage of that Act, the extra expense involved in caring for the grandparents was the last straw that broke the back of independency. In all cases where the addition of a few dollars weekly to the family income is an actual and obvious help to family comfort, state pensions for the aged have worked good results in family feeling and good-will and affection. Where, however, ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... with the greatest anxiety at the opera-house. The bomb at Cesare's had been the last straw. Gennaro had already drawn from his bank ten crisp one-thousand-dollar bills, and already had a copy of Il Progresso in which he had hidden the money between ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... to get my own way. I've been holding on to myself all day, and that was just the last straw that made me let go. Don't call it a loan, for I never want to see it again. Keep it till you find some one who needs it as much as you do just now, and then pass it along. Wouldn't it be interesting to see how far five dollars could travel ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... what the masked robber had done. The pony's stall was vacant. Jack felt a fierce longing to do something desperate. This was the last straw. ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... into a furze bush—they had each had so many stumbles and falls that they had lost count of the number they had had—he dropped his new bicycle lamp, and had been unable to find it again. Their expedition could not therefore be termed a success, and Maud said that the last straw would be if they heard directly they got in that Margaret ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... her chair with a gesture which signified: "This is the last straw!" and remained motionless, apparently overwhelmed, with her face covered by one hand, but furtively watching the face of the ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... master complied with his request; and Bounder turned away, with haughty mien, to do as he was bid. He was consumed with fierce mortification. He would bear it this time, but not again. He was like the proverbial camel, which succumbs beneath the last straw. Very soon the point would be reached at which long-suffering endurance ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... her; I've had my life, and I'm too stupid to work, and I can only cry.... Men must work and women must weep.... I never knew before that that was true.... I mustn't see mother just now, it would be the last straw ... like the skeletons people used to look at to warn themselves what they would come to.... Poor mother ... and poor me.... But mother's getting better now she's being analysed. That wouldn't help me at all. I analyse myself too much already.... And I was so happy a few months ago. What ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... the pencil between his fingers and hurled the pieces across the lab, where they clattered, rolled from the bench to the floor, and were still. For a moment he sat leaning against the desk, his hands trembling. He wasn't sure just when the last straw had been added, but he was sure that he had had enough. The restrictions, red tape, security measures of these government laboratories seemed to close in on his mind in boiling, chaotic waves of frustration. What was ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... princes was placed by the peace of Augsburg [Footnote: See below, p. 136.] on an equal footing with that of the Catholic religion. Protestantism among the German princes proved a disintegrating, rather than a unifying, factor of national life. The rise of Protestantism was the last straw which ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... That was the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful fascination was impelling my friend to hurl himself out! Wildly I threw my arms about him, and Guthrie ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... was of superlative importance to no one was heavy upon me. I wanted somebody to care a great deal what became of me, and evidently nobody did. I was horribly homesick at breakfast, and the Winstons' gaiety in the face of our parting seemed the last straw in my burden. Perhaps Molly saw this straw in my eyes, for she looked at me half wistfully for a moment, and then said, "If we weren't sure this walking trip of yours will do you more good than anything else, we wouldn't let you leave us, for we have loved having you. We'll ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... breath. That's the last straw. He lays down the law then and there to grandmother. If she ever expects him to recognize her again, she must shake this whole ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... of memory and dependence as well as affection. But by degrees he came to see clearly that he had been wilfully blind, that he had always known but would not regard that she was not at all the girl he had enshrined. The end was but a trifle—the proverbial last straw. And though he laughed when she took him to task and felt a barbarous enjoyment in their reversed relations, and in her show of something like consternation, he more than once afterward felt the yearning of the converted ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... accomplished in the presence of this unexpected witness. Then I retrace my steps and walk westward of Serignan. I take the least-frequented paths, I cut across country so as, if possible, to avoid a second meeting. It would be the last straw if I were seen opening my paper bags and letting loose my insects! When half-way, to make my experiment more decisive still, I repeat the rotation, in as complicated a fashion as before. I repeat it for the third time at the spot chosen for ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... the worst and the last straw. Hot tears blinded her, hot blood gushed over her, hot ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... absolutely nothing could be done with a man who was trying to show off his shrewdness to his listening superiors. He said disgustedly: "That's the last straw. Go to hell!" ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
