"Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some of his yearlings, who carried the heavy balks, or flooring timbers, on their shoulders. It was hot, hard work—-"thankless," as the young men ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... sea, which should have kindled his imagination and inspired his genius, this thankless bard poetises in a vein such as a London citizen, some half-century back, might have indulged in after a long, tedious, 'squally' voyage in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... any one labor to prove that Christ changed the Sabbath? Whoever does this is performing a thankless task. The pope will not thank him; for if it is proved that Christ wrought this change, then the pope is robbed of his badge of authority and power. And no truly enlightened Protestant will thank him; for if he succeeds, he only shows that the papacy ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... obligations. The profit comes slowly; my debts are inexorable and fixed. Now, it is certain that I will make a great fortune; but I must wait for it, and work for three years. I must go over things, correct them again, put everything en etat monumental; thankless work, not counted, without immediate profit." He speaks of working at this amazing rate for three years longer; in reality he worked for fifteen. But two years after the declaration we have just quoted, it ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Ye thankless ones!" the Old Year cried; "Have I not given you night and day, Over and over, score upon score, Wherein to live, and love, and pray, And suck the ripe world to its rotten core? Yet do you reek if my reign be done? E're I pass ye crown the newer one! At ball and rout ye dance and shout, Shutting ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... enemies who hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing thankless by and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hand and kissed her cheek, but she never shed a tear; she had been wont to weep like a watering pot when I went back to school or college after a visit, and I had always left her, loaded with biscuits and blessings, thankless prodigal that I was! and disposed to laugh at her display of maternal sorrow. How grateful to my wounded and sorrowful spirit, my outraged heart, would such a demonstration of love now have been! but all were alike heartless and cold to-day, and she smiled serenely under ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... world, they have to be fortified by a draught of fresh blood. The subject is summed up by Achilles, when Odysseus felicitates him on the honour which he enjoys, even in Hades: "Tell me not of comfort in death," he says: "I had rather be the thrall of the poorest wight that ever tilled a thankless soil for bread, than rule as king over all ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... with others of the rankest and most intolerable odour: but a diet of alternate sweetmeats and emetics is for the average of eaters and drinkers no less unpalatable than unwholesome. It is useless and thankless to enlarge on such faults or such defects, as it would be useless and senseless to ignore. But how to enlarge, to expatiate, to insist on the charm of Herrick at his best—a charm so incomparable and so ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... of use in time—in time, and here were hives of children growing up in heathenism. Suddenly an idea struck her— Richard, when at home, was a very diligent teacher in the Sunday- school at Stoneborough, though it was a thankless task, and he was the only gentleman so engaged, except the two clergymen—the other male teachers being a formal, grave, little baker, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art (which is the expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God) were shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to sleep alike thankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he met his old companion Warrington on the stairs, and shunned him as one that was doomed ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mouth the words nigh flew - The past, the future, I forgat 'em: "Oh! if you'd kiss me as you do That thankless atom!" ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... the south provided inadequate compensation. The part assigned to the British contingents under General Milne, which had taken over the front from the Vardar eastwards past Doiran and down the Struma to the sea, was the somewhat thankless one of pinning the Bulgars to that sector and preventing them from reinforcing the threatened line in the west. The various British attacks on villages east of the Struma, such as Nevolien, Jenikoi, Prosenik, and Barakli-Djuma, were thus merely raids, and the ground gained was soon ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... when bullets are often thicker than prayers, we are not quite thankless for the prayers of others: in those days they were what "closing quotations" are on the Stock Exchange, ink in Fleet Street, machinery in the Midlands; common but valued; and Rodriguez' thanks ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... which Men have done their Masters in the Extremity of their Fortunes; and shewn to their undone Patrons, that Fortune was all the Difference between them; but as I design this my Speculation only [as a [1]] gentle Admonition to thankless Masters, I shall not go out of the Occurrences of Common Life, but assert it as a general Observation, that I never saw, but in Sir ROGER'S Family, and one or two more, good Servants treated as they ought to be. Sir ROGER'S ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... man and I talked it over. We decided that it would be a thankless task for him to spend the summers in ardent endeavour to educate the countryside by browning his back in public. That did not appeal to us as a fitting life-task; moreover, his project would frequently be interrupted by the town marshal. As a matter ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Brian lay, meanwhile, in all the dignity and solemnity of funeral state, awaiting burial. As Sir Bryan toiled at his thankless task he found himself becoming strangely impressed. There seemed to be a weird and awesome significance in the scene. He did not know why it was, but the beetling crags above him, the consciousness of the marvellous plains below, the rhythmic murmur of the wind in the pine trees near at hand, the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... not done with the theme yet. On returning from the equator, I saw Campbell's funeral. Westminster Abbey was a mob of dukes, statesmen, privy-councillors, and men of countless acres. Poor Tom's whole life had been thankless toil; wasting in meagre industry the powers which ought to have been cherished by his country for purposes of national honour. Such is always the course of things. The very stones of Burns' pillars would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... nights that the lawless blood of the Lorrigans ran swiftly through the veins of Tom, who had set himself to win a million honestly. It was then that he remembered his quiet, law-abiding years regretfully, as time wasted; a thankless struggle toward the regard of his fellow men. Of what avail to plod along the path of uprightness when no man would point to him and say, "There ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... days and oh! wicked the weather— Endless and thankless the round— Grinding God's Grit into rookies together; I was the upper stone, he was the nether, And Gad, sir, they groaned as we ground! Bitter the blame (but he helped me to bear it), Grim the despair that we ate! But hell's loose! The dam's down, and none can ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... moment. It was thirty feet, sheer, to the rocks below. And it would have been poor Dick on top of his foolish mistress. Kate really expected nothing better until with a terrific snort the pony scrambled to safety. What a horse will do for thankless man! ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... venom'd tooth; [xvii] 390 Say, if Remembrance days like these endears, Beyond the rapture of succeeding years? Say, can Ambition's fever'd dream bestow So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe? Can Treasures hoarded for some thankless Son, Can Royal Smiles, or Wreaths by slaughter won, Can Stars or Ermine, Man's maturer Toys, (For glittering baubles are not left to Boys,) Recall one scene so much belov'd to view, As those where Youth her garland ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the trials of the commander, his troops, hastily got together, were most of them impatient of restraint or discipline, and with no knowledge of warfare, while the governor and the House of Burgesses demanded that he undertake impossibilities. It was a dreary, trying, thankless task. ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the main object the Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, the finances of the Equatorial districts were ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... themselves. Forster was filled with indignation and contempt by the confused utterances of the Ministry, and by Mr. Gladstone's elaborate attempts to prove that though General Gordon was "hemmed in" he was not surrounded. Poor Mr. Gladstone! It was sad indeed that he should have to undertake this thankless task, and should be compelled to make out a case for a Cabinet which had practically got out of hand. It was in connection with one of his apologies for the Ministry that Mr. Forster charged him with being able to persuade most people of almost anything, and himself of everything. This chance ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... control of the New York delegation remained unbroken. The minority tried new arguments, planned new combinations, and racked their brains for new devices, but when Richmond finally gave up the hopeless and thankless task of harmonising the Douglasites and seceders, a vote of 27 to 43 forced the minority of the delegation into submission by the screw of the Syracuse unit rule, and New York finally sustained ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... question the peasants, our neighbours, they tell me that the effect of the egg-shell is as simple as can be: the Butterflies, attracted by the whiteness, come and lay their eggs upon it. Broiled by the sun and lacking all nourishment on that thankless support, the little caterpillars die; and that makes so ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... grievance which Fricka remembers, and does not let her spouse forget, when the evil consequences of his act are upon them. Fricka constitutes something of a living reproach to her husband, though a certain tender regard still exists between them through the introductory Opera. A thankless part is Fricka's, like that of Reason in ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the year seasons return, but not to me." It would, however, be most ungrateful to complain. To live at all is a great favor—an undeserved and unspeakable favor; and though it be a life of pain and weariness, and even grief, may it never become a life of thankless ingratitude! We who have tried our heavenly Father's patience so long, dare we complain ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled and set out with his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was not in vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case. It was not in vain that they passed their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless work that barely brought them bread. It was not in vain that they and their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced. Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... said Hackee the Second, feeling Phil's nose anxiously. "I thought I might have bitten it off just now when you got in my way," he said to Phil with much relief, finding it was still there. "Never come between fighting creatures, boy—it's a thankless task." ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... who are little, frank, honest-hearted creatures, and say out what they think, as such plebeian people will, used to tell her roundly she was thankless for the supreme excellence ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... beginning to understand, now, something of what you meant when you used to talk so enthusiastically about your confining, and, as it seemed to me, often thankless work. I never knew what real satisfaction was until I began to get mixed up with this volunteer Red Cross work. Coming from the source that it does, you will probably be surprised and amused at the statement that, when I look back on the old, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... born orator: an unambitious man in a country where ambition is an endemic disease. To find a parallel to his position, one must go back to the days when nations, in need of wise guidance, implored reluctant sages to undertake the task of guiding them. This thankless task M. Zaimis performed several times to everybody's temporary satisfaction. On the present, as on other occasions, he enjoyed the confidence of the Entente Powers, {68} as well as the confidence of the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... and instructing upon American topics, but to what has already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; never was one word of compromise uttered by him throughout all these ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... something very difficult," said the other, after a silence. "I have tried to talk to you frankly. It is the most thankless task in the world to tell ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... easy one and it grew harder as the season progressed and the second team, especially as to its linemen, failed to develop the ability Mr. Boutelle looked for. Don more than once was on the point of resigning his somewhat thankless task, but Tim refused to sanction it, and what Tim said had a good deal of influence ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... for sin? Could I offend, if I had never been, But still increas'd the senseless happy mass, Flow'd in the stream, or shiver'd in the grass? "Father of mercies! why from silent earth Didst thou awake, and curse me into birth? Tear me from quiet, ravish me from night, And make a thankless present of thy light? Push into being a reverse of thee, And animate a clod with misery? "The beasts are happy; they come forth, and keep Short watch on earth, and then lie down to sleep. Pain is for man; and oh! how vast a pain For crimes, which made the Godhead bleed in vain! ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... some bargain to arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after the customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... been sought with importunity, is received with coldness, or enjoyed with ingratitude. No sooner is the blessing bestowed, no sooner is the tear of agony dried up, than every pledge is forgotten, and the mind relapses into thankless indifference. The sun shines, and our impressions pass away with the storm. But Hannah adopted a measure well calculated to excite every member of the family, and his mother in particular, to a perpetual recurrence to the goodness of Providence. She was resolved upon an expedient, by which the flame ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... me not to take much amiss what Mr Milton had said touching that thankless court, which had indeed but poorly requited his own good service. He only said, therefore, "Another rebellion! Alas! alas! Mr Milton! If there be no choice but between despotism and anarchy, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fire may come, and it may be Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee. Thy vessel that yon ocean stems, Loaded with golden dust and gems, Purchased with so much pains and cost, Yet in a tempest may be lost. Pimps, and a lot of others,—a thankless crew, Priests, pickpockets, and lawyers too, All help by several ways to drain, Thanking themselves for what they gain. The liberal are secure alone, For what we frankly give, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... partly, he desired to leave the administration free from his overpowering presence, that it might learn to go alone; partly and chiefly, he wished to spend such time as might remain to him where he could do most service to his country. But he was growing weary of the thankless burden. He was heard often to say that he had lived long enough. Men of high nature do not find the task of governing their ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... she could not help it. She was overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and, rather than let any of that valuable liquid go to waste, she poured some of it, not inappropriately, on the thankless cat. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... chances, you will be a failure; but you will be trusted and loved by children and simple people; they will depend upon you, and you will make the atmosphere in which you live one of peace and joy. You will have selfish employers, tyrannical masters, thankless children perhaps, for whom you will slave lovingly. They will slight you and even despise you, but their hearts will turn to you again and again, and yours will be the face that they will remember when they come to die, as that of the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... prefers, each one makes a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able; for no one is compelled, but gives voluntarily. These gifts are, as it were, piety's deposit fund. For they are taken thence and spent, not on feasts and drinking-bouts, and thankless eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined to the house, likewise the shipwrecked, and if there happen ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... and perhaps of outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and the heavy fines which occur in the king's rolls for non-attendance show how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the troublesome and thankless business of the court. When they reached the place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English "sac and soc," of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with procedure ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... what I have made thee. Bethink thee of all the bounty these hands have lavished on thee. Thou art my own lieutenant, and mayest one day be more. In Algiers there is none above thee save myself. Art, then, so thankless as to deny me the first thing I ask of thee? Truly is it ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... difficult affairs of State. He did, however, actually nominate in April his bastard brother, Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, as Requesens' successor. But Don John, who was then in Italy, had other ambitions, and looked with suspicion upon Philip's motives in assigning him the thankless task of dealing with the troubles in the Low Countries. Instead of hurrying northwards, he first betook himself to Madrid where he met with a cold reception. Delay, however, so far from troubling Philip, was thoroughly in accordance ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... francaise en 1890" (by an anonymous ecclesiastic), p. 72. (On the smaller parishes.) "The task of the cure here is thankless if he is zealous, too easy if he has no zeal. In any event, he is an isolated man, with no resources whatever, tempted by all the demons of solitude and inactivity."—Ibid.,,92. "Our authority among the common classes as well ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... comfort and soothing to her; while, as they reached the door, the boy rushed forward, and, clasping Ursula's robe, sobbed out—"Dear dame, not one farewell for your little Angelo! Forgive him all he has cost you! Now, for the first time, I feel how wayward and thankless ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... out retrenchment is ever an unpleasant and thankless job, and the first six months of our new regime was no exception to the rule. If you remember, the military forces of the colony comprised no less than four separate systems—the Regulars or Permanent Artillery, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... his lecture on sledging diets. He has shown great courage in undertaking the task, great perseverance in unearthing facts from books, and a considerable practical skill in stringing these together. It is a thankless task to search polar literature for dietary facts and still more difficult to attach due weight to varying statements. Some authors omit discussion of this important item altogether, others fail to note alterations made in practice or additions afforded by circumstances, ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Full many a thankless child has been, But never one like mine; Her meat was served on plates of gold, Her drink was rosy wine; But now she 'll share the robin's food, And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again To meet ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... what with waiting on the invalids—for Faith was far from well—and with answering the incessant calls at the door of curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. It was one of ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... lady who had presented them to him. "I began by sending two of them to people to whom I am indifferent. That made me think of the difference there is between a present and a testimony of friendship. The first will never find in me anything but a thankless heart; the second.... Ah, if you had only given me news of yourself without sending me anything else, how rich and how grateful you would have made me; instead of that the pullets are eaten, and the best thing I can do is to forget all about ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... opportunity of annoying him. Leagued with the arch-enemy were two subordinate clerks, Gyanendra and Lakshminarain by name, who belonged to Debnath Babu's gusti (family). This trio so managed matters that all the hardest and most thankless work fell to Pulin's lot. He bore their pin-pricks with equanimity, secure in the ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... his fingers cold. "Why fear?" I thought. "Let me be bold "No Polyphemus he; what harm "In such a child?—Then I'll be calm!" The playful boy drew out a dart, Shook his fair locks, and to my heart His shaft he launch'd.—"Love is my name," He thankless cried, "I hither came "To tame thee. In thine ardent pain "Of Cupid think and young Climene."— "Ah! now I know thee, little scamp, "Ungrateful, cruel boy! Decamp!" Cupid a saucy caper cut, Skipped through the door, and as it shut, "My bow," he taunting ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... questions also showed the sort of work to be done in this thankless protection of the metropolis. During one of the sessions there had appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... what seemed a necessity of petty literary patriotism,—I know not what else to call it,—and took charge of our thankless little Dial, here, without subscribers enough to pay even a publisher, much less any laborer; it has no penny for editor or contributor, nothing but abuse in the newspapers, or, at best, silence; but it serves as a sort of portfolio, to carry about a few poems or sentences which ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... final appeal had in short faded away, and all the first year of her marriage he had dropped out of her books. He was a thankless subject of reference; it was disagreeable to have to think of a person who was sore and sombre about you and whom you could yet do nothing to relieve. It would have been different if she had been able to doubt, even a little, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... Babhru stood gazing at her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, who only ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... moment of strong temptation to everybody, but especially to Mrs. Kilfoyle, who had in her mind that vivid picture of her precious cloak receding from her along the wet road, recklessly wisped up in the grasp of as thankless a thievin' black-hearted slieveen as ever stepped, and not yet, perhaps, utterly out of reach, though every fleeting instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her neighbours stood ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... calling, thankless friend, Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend. Some recognition cannot be denied To the great mercy that has turned aside The sword of death from us and let it fall Upon the people's necks in Montreal; That ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring—she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... forgotten;—a harder lot in part; for thou hadst, at least, in thy stirring and magnificent career, continued excitement and perpetual triumph. But I, a woman, shut out by my sex from contest, from victory, am left only the thankless task to devise the rewards which others are to enjoy; the petty plot, the poor intrigue, the toil without the honour, the humiliation without the revenge;—yet have I worked in thy cause, my father, and thou—thou, couldst thou see my heart, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... visible ruler of the Shore of Refuge. Belarab still lingered at his father's tomb. Whether that man of the embittered and pacific heart had withdrawn there to meditate upon the unruliness of mankind and the thankless nature of his task; or whether he had gone there simply to bathe in a particularly clear pool which was a feature of the place, give himself up to the enjoyment of a certain fruit which grew in profusion there and indulge for a time in ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... sight and hearing even of three or four enlisted men, orderlies, horse-holders, etc., had the post commander spoken words that meant nothing short of discredit, if not disgrace, to the subaltern who was at that very instant riding away on a perilous as well as thankless mission. Deep, embarrassed silence fell on one and all of the major's hearers for a single instant. Cranston reddened with indignation, little Sanders with wrath. Truman looked quickly and curiously about him. All three were eager and ready to speak, yet by common consent the duty devolved ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Dialogues of Plato, was another martyr; from whose ashes arose the Royal Literary Fund, which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate. Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names which might be mentioned out of the many. What a noble army of martyrs Literature ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... made known. The rupture was made, Gordon had decided to serve the Khedive no longer, and at the beginning of the year 1880 he returned home for the rest that he required, mentally and physically, after six years' incessant hard work in the thankless task of ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... own sandals. Silvestro, bathed in sweat, his fair skin burnt and blistered, his delicate hands and smooth legs scratched by brambles, his slender neck bowed beneath the weights he carried on shoulders stretched to cracking point—Silvestro worked from dawn to dusk, rejoicing in the thankless office. Thankless it was, since Master Pilade took no sort of notice; yet Silvestro gave thanks. Pilade allowed the other to stoop to his shoe-ties, to wind the swathes about his sturdy calves, to carry his very cloak and staff, while he slouched along with hands deep in breeches pockets, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... imagination it cannot afford to be foolish. I thought of all this as I drove back to Blois by the way of the Chateau de Cheverny. The road took us out of the park of Chambord, but through a region of flat woodland, where the trees were not mighty, and again into the prosy plain of the Sologne—a thankless soil to sow, I believe, but lately much amended by the magic of cheerful French industry and thrift. The light had already begun to fade, and my drive reminded me of a passage in some rural novel of Madame Sand. I passed a couple ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... fortified? These are mysteries into which I shall not attempt to enter, speculations with which I have no concern; it is sufficient for us to know that all human effort had never seemed to her so barren and thankless as on that fatal afternoon. Her eyes rested on the boats she saw in the distance, and she wondered if in one of them Verena were floating to her fate; but so far from straining forward to beckon her home she almost wished that she might glide away for ever, that she might ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Pelerinage," together with the manuscript of Seroff's arrangement for two pianofortes of Beethoven's C-sharp minor Quartet. Will you be so good as to get Schott to let me know the fate of the C-sharp minor Quartet? Although two-piano arrangements are somewhat thankless articles of sale, yet perhaps Schott may manage to bring out this Quartet, of which I should ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... get it. There were the diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and glum, while some were impudent and thankless, and said to supply them with food was just what I should do, for the swagmen kept the squatters—as, had the squatters not monopolized the land, the swagmen would have had plenty. A moiety of the last-mentioned—dirty, besotted, ragged creatures—had a glare in their ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... assumed the duty of replying to that very explicit statement. "There is none here," he said, "that is not grateful for the benevolence he has received at the hands of the Tokugawa. If there be such a thankless and disloyal person, and if he conceive treacherous designs, I, Masamune, will be the first to attack him and strike him down. The shogun need not move so much as one soldier." With this spirited reply all the assembled daimyo expressed their concurrence, and Iemitsu proceeded to distribute ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... life (see on Beyle, sup. p. 149) of French peace time, and, in the way of active service, only what all soldiers hate, the thankless and inglorious police-work which comes on them through civil disturbance. Whether he was exactly the kind of man to have enjoyed the livelier side of martialism may be the subject of considerable doubt. But at any rate he had no chance of it, and his framework ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... saleswomen less dangerously affected than herself. Some, of feeble organization, quickly broke down, under this unnatural discipline, and abandoned the shop, sometimes rendered temporary invalids, sometimes permanently disabled, while but few returned to fill their thankless places. Reading, while in the shop, whether employed or not, was out of the question, as that also was strictly prohibited. There was therefore no recreation either of body or mind, even when it might have been harmlessly permitted. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... of the same academic sagacity or lucidity of appreciation which found utterance in other contemporary protests of the universities against the universe. In that abyss of dulness "The Return from Parnassus," a reader or a diver who persists in his thankless toil will discover this pearl of a fact—that men of culture had no more hesitation in preferring Watson to Shakespeare than they have in preferring Byron to Shelley. The author of the one deserves ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... change the doom, his justice had decreed, And save the guilty from perdition's storm; Celestial victim in a human form! Whose mediation, soft'ning wrath supreme, Taught nature to revive, in mercy's beam. Gracious Restorer of a race condemn'd, Tho' by the thankless tribes revil'd, contemn'd. Yet gratitude, and truth, who round Thee fly, With all thy menial angels of the sky, Viewing thy gifts with rapturous amaze, Hail thy beneficence with heavenly praise: All bear eternal witness, ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... Ashestiel had been exchanged for Abbotsford; the new house was being planned and carried out so as to become, if not exactly a palace, something much more than the cottage which had been first talked of; and the owner's passion for buying, at extravagant prices, every neighbouring patch of mostly thankless soil that he could get hold of was growing by indulgence. He himself, in 1811 and the following years, was extremely happy and extremely busy, planting trees, planning rooms, working away at Rokeby and Triermain in the general sitting-room of the makeshift house, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... It is a thankless task to labor for the elevation of the degraded, and oftentimes we are stung with the ingratitude of those whom we have desired to aid. But God, who has enjoined this unpleasant duty upon us, has borne our daily ingratitude without casting us off, and ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... opened it herself with the inevitably thankless pianoforte solo, in this case gratuitously meretricious into the bargain, albeit the arbitrary choice of no less a judge than Mrs. Clarkson. It was received with perfunctory applause, through which a dissipated stockman thundered thickly for a song. Miss Bouverie averted ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... repay; So they danced for joy, when at last he rose And silently flew away. Then little Clover bowed her head, While her soft tears fell like dew; For her gentle heart was grieved, to find That her sisters' words were true, And the insect she had watched so long When helpless, poor, and lone, Thankless for all her faithful care, On his golden wings had flown. But as she drooped, in silent grief, She heard little Daisy cry, "O sisters, look! I see him now, Afar in the sunny sky; He is floating back from Cloud-Land now, Borne by the fragrant air. Spread wide your leaves, that he ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... on my present errand, I should have supposed him insane. I enjoyed the mountains, as I rode along. The views are magnificent—the valleys so beautiful, the scenery so peaceful. What a glorious world Almighty God has given us. How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labour to mar his gifts. I hope you received my letters from Richmond. Give love to daughter and Mildred. I did not see Rob as I passed through Charlottesville. He was at the University and I could ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... as if the fair promise of eloquence and statesmanship had been shown to public life only to be withdrawn from it; but a path was about to be opened, leading to a new field of action, distant, indeed, and often thankless, but giving scope for the exercise of gifts, both of mind and character, which can rarely be exhibited in a Parliamentary career. In March 1842, at the early age of thirty, he was selected by Lord Stanley, who was then Secretary for the Colonies, for ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... of the time I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I should at once desire ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... understanding was especially difficult for him without previous acquaintance even with all the details that were known and apprehended by his friends, he yet saw enough to lead him to the belief that the work they wished him to do in Greece would be harder and more thankless than they supposed. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... the thankless task before you, subject to ribald jest, to the cold, heartless sneer, to obloquy and abuse of all sorts from our and even your sex, who are most immediately to be benefited by your labors, will have this great truth to console and stimulate you, that in every step of this grand procession in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the latitude of Naples, the word grazie (thank you) vanishes from the vocabulary of all save the most cultured. But to conclude therefrom that one is among a thankless race is not altogether the right inference. They have a wholly different conception of the affair. Our septentrional "thanks" is a complicated product in which gratefulness for things received and for things to come are unconsciously balanced; while their point ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse? Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days, But the ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around And worship Nature with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry with you for ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise —That last infirmity of noble mind— To scorn delights, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... slay me is to slay one who should rather be selected for commendation a kindred spirit, a well-wisher, a man after your own heart, a promoter, if I may be bold to say it, of your pursuits. See to it that you catch not the tone of our latter-day philosophers, and be thankless, petulant, and hard of heart, to him that ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... working upon land which his father had given him, in the hope that he would marry and settle down. He had become restless. The village was beginning to look small, and he asked himself with wonderment how he had been content in it so long. The work was hard and thankless. Was this life? Was there nothing beyond this? Was there not not a great world outside the forest? What was this? Was it not stagnation? The woods—yes, the woods were beautiful, but why was it they made him sad? Why was ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... in this thankless world the giver Is envied even by the receiver; 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion Rather to hide than own the obligation: Nay, 'tis much worse than so; It now an artifice does grow Wrongs and injuries to do, Lest men should think ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Thou art not bigger Than is the diamond in my ring; Yet, every black, star-gazing nigger Looks at thee, as at some great thing! Yes, gazes at thee, till the lazy And thankless ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... White Man's burden— Have done with childish days— The lightly proffered laurel The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... little shavers, your mothers did for you more than any one else in the world would do. They did things that a father would do about once. Then he would be ready to give up his job. But your mothers went right on day after day, year after year, doing hard, thankless, disagreeable things. I bet you get this preached to you a lot, boys, but I want to say it to you, too. If you are away from them, write a letter, a real letter once each week. It is not much to do. Do it, boys! And don't forget the kisses. If you kiss your mother every ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... Oh, thankless Crimean land! in ruin laid Are now the castles that were once your pride! Here serpents and the owls from daylight hide, And robbers arm them for the nightly raid. Upon the lettered marble boasts are made, Brave words on battered arms in gold descried, And broken splendor years have scattered ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... it soon required more room. Men have been taken into membership since the object for which the society was formed seemed to be feasible, and, as a natural result, whatever of financial and honorary reward may be accorded the self-sacrificing women who performed the arduous and thankless labor of founding the institution, will be shared with the men who now come into ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the Samaritans are Simonians. The accounts of Simon's death again are contradictory; if Simon perished so miserably at Rome, it is the reverse of probable that the Romans would have set up a statue in his honour. But, indeed, it is a somewhat thankless task to criticize such manifest inventions; we know the source of their inspiration, and we know the fertility of the religious imagination, especially in matters of controversy, and this is a sufficient sieve wherewith to sift ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... the basilicas of the apostles received, in the devastation of the city, not their own people only, but every fugitive; and the fury and greed of the invaders were quenched at these holy thresholds. Yet with thankless arrogance and impious frenzy these men, who took refuge under that Name in order that they might enjoy the light of fugitive years, perversely oppose it now, that they may languish in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... for the stage in his day was a thankless and almost degrading occupation. "Avowedly I will never write for the stage; if I do, 'call me horse.'" he said in a letter to Terry.[125] Again in a letter to Southey: "I do not think the character of the audience in London is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them.... ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... he said, "this is one of those rare occasions in a thankless world where goodness is amply ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... "bid him bear no grudge against the Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give, but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray the cost of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "ladies." One of my good policemen was there as usual, and saluted me profoundly. He had carried the last baby over the crossing, and guided all the venturesome small boys through the maze of trucks and horse-cars,—a difficult and thankless task, as they absolutely courted decapitation,—it being an unwritten law of conduct that each boy should weave his way through the horses' legs if practicable, and if not, should see how near he could come to grazing the wheels. Exactly at twelve o'clock, and ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... easily heard by all, and also that by this wondrous word He might shake off from our souls the sleep of sloth, and cause them to wonder and marvel at the immeasurable goodness of God to us. Therefore He saith, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" For the sake of vile sinners, for evil and thankless servants, for sinful and disobedient deceivers, Thou hast forsaken Thy beloved Son and most obedient Child. That Thy enemies, who are vessels of wrath, might be changed into children of adoption, Thou hast slain Thine own Son, and given Him over to death like one guilty. "O my God, ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... It may be making too light of criticism to say with Gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as Criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of Blenheim or of Waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us why it has triumphed, or still more unprofitably contending that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... embodied here, and this turns out to be, as usual, the clearest scientific negative that could be invented. But in the design, and in all the labour of this piece,—in the steadfast purpose that is always working out that definition, with its so exquisite, but thankless, unowned, unrecognised toil, graving it and pointing it with its pen of diamond in the rock for ever, approving itself 'to the Workmaster' only,—in this incessant design,—in this veiled, mysterious authorship,—an historical approximation ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... pre-eminent advantages for the culture of that spiritual union with God required of the Christian? And in sustaining the ordinary trials of our lot, as social beings; in cherishing forbearance toward the unjust, kindness to the thankless, and love toward those who inflict personal injuries, woman is endowed by her ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... control. Fire he utilized only for purposes of cooking food, but not for the development of machinery of warfare. He has no vessel upon all the seven seas. To seize and master and utilize these energies appeared a thankless job, albeit a necessary one. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... thankless, and uninspiring. They were camped on a hill. Day after day they marched down through the streets of the town to the railway station or the quay. They carried the wounded on stretchers from the hospital trains to the ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular weakness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Up to the present I have never had cause to regret my choice, but at the same time I cannot too strongly advise any one who thinks of following my example to hesitate before engaging himself in tasks that entail time, expense, thankless labour, often ridicule, and not seldom great personal danger. To explain, by the application of science, phenomena attributed to spiritual agencies has been the work of my life. I have, naturally, gone through strange difficulties in ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... while the short 'large hours' toward the longer 'small hours' trend, With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat, Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street — Sinking down, sinking down, Battered wreck by tempests beat — A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that Woman of ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... which Congress authorized must have failed but for the timely aid of three men whom Quincy would have contemptuously termed foreigners, for all like Gallatin were foreign-born—Astor, Girard, and Parish. Utterly weary of his thankless job, Gallatin seized upon the opportunity afforded by the Russian offer of mediation to leave the Cabinet and perhaps to end the war by a diplomatic stroke. He asked and received an appointment as one of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... lessening of strain and friction in regard to the countless details of an Indian household was, in itself, an unspeakable relief. During the first few months of his marriage he had persevered steadily in the thankless task of instructing his cheerfully incompetent bride in the language and household mysteries of her adopted country. But the more patiently he helped her the more she leaned upon his help; till the futility of his task had threatened to wear his temper threadbare, and to put a severe strain on a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... taverns and digesting his drink in the sunshine. Then, when he had fasted a whole day, he would once more take up his osier with a low growl and revile the wealthy who lived in idleness. The trade of a basket-maker, when followed in such a manner, is a thankless one. Antoine's work would not have sufficed to pay for his drinking bouts if he had not contrived a means of procuring his osier at low cost. He never bought any at Plassans, but used to say that ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... inclined, and left them undone when she was idle; and she had managed to make life in the schoolroom such a purgatory that it had been difficult to persuade any teacher to stay long at the Castle, and cope with so thankless ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... about the princess, but she showed such continual curiosity about his love affairs, that he would keep her waiting while he made an entry in his diary, or other book of written notes, and then declare solemnly that the only girl he had ever loved was named Patsy, and was a thankless brat, unworthy of the care and affection of the best ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... brain about it. There were other boys who could figure out the demonstrations in advance without looking at the book. Keith tried it once or twice, but failed miserably and gave it up as a worthless and thankless job. Apparently his brain did not work in that way. It had to touch real life to be at its best. History and geography were his favourite subjects, and in those he led the class. This was openly ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... of Titusville is probably the most forlorn and dreary looking place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them as sinuously as the path which foxes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... beneficence— An angel deem'd, her only care To comfort and to please! Whose smiling, whose unconscious air, Bespoke a heart at ease— By her—on whom sweet hopes were built, His cup when fill'd thus rashly spilt! The treasures he had heap'd in vain, Thrown thankless on his hands again! While—father to this being blest, He saw a dagger pierce her breast, In knowledge of his former guilt! And of his projects thus bereft, What had the wretched parent left? Oh! from the wreck of all, he bore A richer, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Copper said as she looked up from the pile of cards she was sorting. He had given her the thankless task of reorganizing the files, and she was barely half through ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... by any further delay only a dangerous, thankless, and opulent isolation. The Lusitania is the turning point in our history. The ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... at her sharply, but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell yo' all ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... spreading wasteful mud upon the scanty cornfields. The people call this soil creta; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a marl, or marna. It is always washing away into ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still beginning, never ending, which ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds |
