"Toilsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... managed to get the extra twenty knocked off the price. There was still the Grand Duke's private gift, consisting of a gold snuff- box with fifteen louis d'or, for which I, of course, returned my thanks in writing. I next had to face the question whether, after the toilsome fatigue of the past weeks, I would add to my disappointments by attempting to give the proposed concert in Dresden. Many considerations, practically everything indeed that I had to weigh in connection with a visit to Dresden, moved me to have the courage to write and tell Hans von Bronsart ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... mountain path, the crater of the Gedeh may be reached in an hour and a half, and the sight of the gigantic crater of this majestic volcano is said to be overwhelming and ample compensation for the toilsome ascent. It is about two miles distant from the Pangerango, and forms the still active part of the twin volcano. Between 1761 and 1832 no eruptions occurred, but seven took place in the twenty years following, the most terrible and severe being the eruption of 1840. ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... are swallowed up by business, I by society. I have taken a fancy, it is true, for amusement, but in the depth of my heart I am often very gloomy. I feel lonely. My early life, as you know, was modest, poor, toilsome, and often it calls to me reproachfully. You do not know of this, for we have no time to exchange ideas. I am of those women who need to feel guardianship, to have near them an ear which might listen to their hearts, and a mind which would direct their conscience. I am weak. I am ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... creatures must appear, dressed in light and graceful attire, bringing out by all the well-known artifices of theatrical costume the most captivating charms of face and figure. As they crowd upon the stage in tableaux, which without long and toilsome rehearsal would become more confused and aimless groupings of gayly dressed dancers, they take their appointed places, and with a symmetrical unity repeat the graceful combinations of attitude and movement they have so laboriously acquired in private. The crowded house is electrified ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... would feel degraded, and this feeling would prevent their reclamation! The error here consisted in imagining that the criminal class possessed the feelings of gentlemen; whereas the real thing to be thought of, was to give them labour so excessively toilsome and irksome as to be remembered with salutary horror all the days of their life. For example, no kind of punishment, we believe, has proved so sure a terror as that of the shot-drill in the military prisons. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... of the General of the Army. It will be seen that in its course several severe battles were fought, in which a number of gallant officers and men lost their lives. I join with the Secretary of War and the General of the Army in awarding to the officers and men employed in the long and toilsome pursuit and in the final capture of these Indians the honor and praise which are so justly ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... are all on a correspondingly extensive scale. We have here another instance of the love of country life which our successful Canadian merchant likes to indulge in; and we can fancy, judging from our own case, with what zest Mr. Burstall the portly laird of Kirk Ella, after a toilsome day in his St. Peter street counting-house, hurried home to revel in the rustic beauty which surrounds his dwelling." Such was Kirk Ella ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the partisans of emperors, who had been humbled to the dust by the predecessors of Urban, if not by himself, were not vehemently eager to obey it. The bishops of Salzburg, Passau, and Strasburg, the aged duke Guelph of Bavaria, had undertaken the toilsome and perilous journey: not one of them saw their homes again, and their death in the distant East was not regarded by their countrymen as an encouragement to follow their example. In England the English were too much weighed down by the miseries of the Conquest, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... with Sherman. Word came that he was disabled by an accident when on his way back to us, and I was directed to lead the two divisions forward and report to Sherman. After a halt of an hour the men fell into ranks again, and pressing the toilsome march, reached the field at daybreak. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. pp. 303, 311, 320. The official Atlas is again inaccurate in making our line of advance from Sligh's Mill follow the Marietta road instead of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... consciousness; his senses at length returning, he rose hastily and mustering all his strength, essayed to climb the steep and rugged rock, the difficulty of the assent being increased by the slippery sea-grass with which it was covered. After many toilsome efforts he reached the top, where he succeeded in fastening his rope. But as it was impossible for him to be seen from this height by those on the wreck, on account of the thick fog, he was obliged to descend to the shore, where, as he was nearer the ship, he hoped ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... slower than before. It was like a toilsome passage through the workings of an iron mine. Volumes of noisome vapor rolled slowly past them. The air hung close over their heads like an unseen, vaulted roof. Red lights gleamed like vanishing stars down the elastic vista. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... our new friend, and not without many a regret at leaving Uphill commenced our march. We all knew that it would be a toilsome one and not free from danger, but my father had determined, that as he was moving he would move far west, where the curse of slavery ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the shadow of the birch-trees, in the summer stillness of that hour, she told him the story of her love, of her flight, and of the misery of these long, toilsome five ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Jews have the best average brain of any people in the world. The Jews are the only race in the world who work wholly with their brains, and never with their hands. There are no Jew beggars, no Jew tramps, no Jew ditchers, hod-carriers, day-laborers, or followers of toilsome mechanical trade. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!" —Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array:— Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance; "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... experienced toilsome days and many an anxious night. True, Biberli and the carrier's widow, with her children, had been moved to the Beguines' house, where she could pursue her charitable work safe from the rude attacks of the criminal inmates of the hospital; but what heavy cares had burdened her concerning the two ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fine, and sunny the short dry grass seemed to us after our long toilsome stay in the sub-aqueous gloom of the Skeena forests! We seemed about to return to the birds and ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... exercise, to which he was unaccustomed, more fatiguing than he expected. The lingering twilight served to show them through this Serbonian bog, but deserted them almost totally at the bottom of a steep and very stony hill, which it was the travellers' next toilsome task to ascend. The night, however, was pleasant, and not dark; and Waverley, calling up mental energy to support personal fatigue, held on his march gallantly, though envying in his heart his Highland attendants, who continued, without a symptom of abated vigour, the rapid and swinging pace, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... in the course of this volume, to the practical solution [FN: See Appendix A; likewise p. 310.] of that provoking enigma, which seems to perplex all anxious wanderers in an unknown land, namely, that finding themselves, at the end of a day's toilsome march, close to the spot from which they set out in the morning, and that this cruel accident will occur for days in succession. The escape of Captain O'Brien from his French prison at Verdun, detailed with such spirit in his lively autobiography, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... way—But wherefore trace A dunce's faults? which shall be shown at large, When more he writes, unless he cease to rail. Attend impartially! and let me once Without annoyance act an easy part; Lest your old servant be o'er-labor'd still With toilsome characters, the running slave, The eating parasite, enrag'd old man, The bold-fac'd sharper, covetous procurer; Parts, that ask pow'rs of voice, and iron sides. Deign then, for my sake, to accept this plea, And grant me some remission from my labor. For they, who ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... aspect of nature; the poet of the open air, like the landscape painter, is ever on the look out for picturesque "bits" and atmospheric effects as a subject. In Bloomfield we get something altogether different—a simple, consistent, and fairly complete account of the country people's toilsome life in a remote agricultural district in England—a small rustic village set amid green and arable fields, woods and common lands. We have it from the inside by one who had part in it, born and bred to the humble life he described; and, finally, it is not ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... stretches where, despite the current, the dusky boatmen found no special trouble in driving the craft eastward; but, as they progressed, the labor became severer, for the stream narrowed and the velocity of its flow became greater. The portages were long and toilsome, and, as the party advanced, many places were met where these portages became necessary on account of the rapidity of the current alone. All, however, bent resolutely to work, Victor and George taxing their strength to the utmost. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... when you're young; but youth's tur'ble quick agoin'—the years roll slow at first, but gets quicker 'n quicker, till, one day, you wakes to find you 'm an old man; an' when you'm old, the way gets very 'ard, an' toilsome, an' lonely." ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... missionaries of Anglo-Saxon race, or at least English-speaking, penetrated to the darkest recesses of the Continent, even to Bohemia. They started as soon as the war was over and Europe again a safe place to travel in. They took their toilsome way, by train de luxe and at Government expense, to such distant places as Prague and Vienna, even Buda-Pesth. They were of those who were indispensable while men were fighting, whose services could be spared ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... men," he continued, "for the one has resigned honors and emoluments in the army for the sake of serving India; the other has accepted toilsome service under a man who seeks, however mistakenly, to serve the world. If you were not honest you would never have been chosen. If you had made no sacrifices of your own free will, you would not ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... dawn; and, having laden our boat with all our stores, we commenced our toilsome journey. Our purpose was to make the land, and then to travel along over the ice till we should arrive at some valley, or at the mouth of a river, where we might hope to find some clear water and opportunities ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... bounded the valley of the creek we had descended terminated in an abrupt rocky ridge which left no passage between it and the river; we therefore returned about half a mile to the north, and, after a toilsome ascent of nearly an hour, crossed the ridge and halted at a small spring on its eastern side till 2.0 p.m., when we proceeded up the river, crossing two small dry creeks; after a fruitless search for a suitable spot to which ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... the Austrian, that the pomp of his coronation was accomplished with order and harmony: but the superfluous honor was so disgraceful to an independent nation, that his successors have excused themselves from the toilsome pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest their Imperial title on the choice of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... bitterest calamities, by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by that deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to eminence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, he should be "eo immitior, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... imagine a carriage climbing a road any steeper than that one on the slopes of Monte Tofana! If narrow and steep is the way and hard and toilsome the climb this Monte Tofana route most certainly repays one when it reaches the Falzarego Pass (6,945 feet high) which is certainly an earthly Paradise! One can not aptly describe a view like that! It is all a picture; as if every part was purposely ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... mountains, and the way was toilsome and weary enough, for it was naught but a stony maze of the rocks where nothing living dwelt, and nothing grew, save now and again a little dwarf willow. Yet was there naught worse to meet save toil, because they were over strong for the wild men to meddle with them, whereas the kindreds ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the men announced that everything was ready for our ascent, and when I had attended to Joshua with a heart made thankful by Higgs's news, we began that toilsome business, and, as I have already said, at length accomplished it safely. But even then our labours were not ended, since it was necessary to fill up the mouth of the shaft so as to make it impossible that it should ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... that the Spanish bark, the old object of their hopes, had undergone a new metamorphosis, for those we had left on shore began to despair of our return, and conceiving that the lengthening the bark as formerly proposed was both a toilsome and unnecessary measure, considering the small number they consisted of, they had resolved to join her again and to restore her to her first state; and in this scheme they had made some progress for they had brought the two parts together, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... interest for them in its repeated changes. They were in a different world. No one had seen the mountains which they saw. The Rockies, the Bitter Roots—these they had passed; and now they must yet pass through another range, this time not by the toilsome process of foot or horse travel, but on the strong flood of the river. The Columbia had made a trail for them ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... road." "Heathenism, and paganized Christianity," he remarks, "degrade woman to a level with the slave." "In none of the slave States which I have visited," says Professor Stowe, "have I ever seen negro women drudging in such toilsome out of door labors, as fall to the lot of the laboring women in Germany and in France." "Haggish beldames fill all our markets," says Chevalier, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Whether thro' toilsome tho' renowned years 'T is thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze, Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares To high decrees devote thy ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of Dionysius, surnamed Chalcus, whose poems are yet extant, and had led out the colony to Italy, and founded Thurii. This Hiero transacted all his secrets for Nicias with the dinners; and gave out to the people, what a toilsome and miserable life he led, for the sake of the commonwealth. "He," said Hiero, "can never be either at the bath, or at his meat, but some public business interferes. Careless of his own, and zealous for the public good, he scarcely ever ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... toilsome and patient oxen stand; Lifting the yoke encumbered head, With their dilated nostrils spread, They silently inhale The clover-scented gale, And the vapors that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil. For this rest in the furrow after toil Their large ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was asked to go to Ohio and become the president of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, he accepted. Singularly dependent upon his family, Catharine and Harriet must needs go with him to the new home. The journey was a toilsome one, over the corduroy roads and across the mountains by stagecoach. Finally they were settled in a pleasant house on Walnut Hills, one of the suburbs of the city, and the sisters opened ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... she said, had never seen a foreigner, so, though the rain still fell heavily, they were astir in the early morning. They wanted to hear me speak, so I gave my orders to Ito in public. Yesterday was a most toilsome day, mainly spent in stumbling up and sliding down the great passes of Futai, Takanasu, and Yenoiki, all among forest-covered mountains, deeply cleft by forest-choked ravines, with now and then one of the snowy peaks of Aidzu breaking the monotony of the ocean of ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... strange and terrible influence on my present position and future prospects, to interests which concern the living people of this narrative, and to events which were already paving my way for the slow and toilsome journey from the darkness ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the party started, Reuben went into the house. Mr. Barker was going to remain behind. He was past middle life, and the expedition was likely to be a very toilsome one; and Reuben was glad when he said that he thought six days' severe riding would be rather too much for him, and that he should constitute himself the guardian ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... wild animals for their flesh or their fur, and in working the mines; and, from time immemorial, it has been the custom to send criminals there in banishment, and compel them to spend the remainder of their lives in these toilsome and dangerous occupations. Of course, the cold, the exposure, and the fatigue, joined to the mental distress and suffering which the thought of their hard fate and the recollections of home must occasion, soon bring far the greater proportion of ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... throughout a life's work now extending to nearly fifty years, he had hardly ever gone out of the single Vice-Chancellor's Court which was much better known by Mr. Wharton's name than by that of the less eminent judge who now sat there. His had been a very peculiar, a very toilsome, but yet probably a very satisfactory life. He had begun his practice early, and had worked in a stuff gown till he was nearly sixty. At that time he had amassed a large fortune, mainly from his profession, but partly also ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... little difficulty they mounted—sometimes the rock growing too steep and the ice appearing the easier path, then the reverse, till at last they stood well up on the surface of the frozen river and began its toilsome ascent. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... many a secret, toilsome hour and learned this, Atene," he answered. "You are right, the fate of yonder man is intertwined with yours, but between you and him there rises a mighty wall that my vision cannot pierce nor my familiars climb. Yet I am taught that ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... out of this damned mess. The stage, he, had not fallen far; the road was but a few yards above him, but the ascent, with the pain licking through him like a burning tongue, the unaccustomed, disconcerting choking in his throat, was incredibly toilsome, long. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the soul those vague desires and aspirations which ordinarily sleep, and which can never be expressed because they have no names. Blake lived his shy, mystic, spiritual life in the crowded city, and his message is to the few who can understand. Burns lived his sad, toilsome, erring life in the open air, with the sun and the rain, and his songs touch all the world. The latter's poetry, so far as it has a philosophy, rests upon two principles which the classic school never understood,—that common ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Two toilsome days the virtuous Inca strove To social life their savage minds to move; When the third morning glow'd serenely bright, He led their elders to an eastern height; The world unlimited beneath them lay, And not a ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has been enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the principles which Schlegel and Coleridge established, and applied them to the discovery of new truths. By the most patient and toilsome analysis he has fully brought out many things which they simply hinted, and distinctly set forth conclusions which lay dormant in their premises. And in the analysis of individual character, meaning by that the resolving each Shaksperian personage into its original elements, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... on our frontiers (to the number of some hundreds of thousands, although nearly as many more had perished by the extreme fatigue, the hunger, the thirst, and all the other hardships inseparable from a very long and very toilsome march), they were reduced to the last misery, they were in want of everything. The Emperor supplied them with everything. He caused habitations to be prepared for them suitable for their manner of living; he caused food and clothing to be distributed among them; ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... got from that to confidence—through a series of toilsome efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the one subject ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... spent the winter in much needed rest, after the toilsome and exhausting marches and bloody battles which terminated Lee's first invasion of Maryland. The discipline of our army was excellent, and it would have been hard to find a finer body of men, or better fighting material than that assembled on this occasion, in readiness ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... once more for his luncheon and his good advice, Vance started off merrily through the beech-wood, feeling that his toilsome journey was truly drawing to an end at last. The birds sang, the brook babbled cheerfully beside him, and the breeze brought him sweet odors from a thousand flowers. Just at sunset the Prince left the wood, and came into a small open glade where the grass was like ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... strict observe our will: Five days and half shall men and women too Attend their business, and their mirth pursue. But after that, no man without a fine, Shall walk the streets, or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest, From toilsome labor, and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none, on peril of their lives, Attempt a journey, or embrace their wives: No Barber, foreign or domestic bred, Shall e'er presume to dress a lady's head. No shop shall spare (half the preceding day), A ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... token of that ability and earnestness which the "hearing ear" will not fail to recognize in the dialogue now published; where the vehicle of expression, being more purely intellectual, was more within his grasp than was the physical and toilsome embodiment ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... to tell us that it was not a long, weary, toilsome journey which we had to travel to reach the Christ. He was present amongst us now. He was very near to each one of us; His arms were wide open. He was waiting to receive each one who was willing to cross the line; one step would be sufficient, one step into those open arms. Then ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... for a while, his head bowed, his hands resting upon his knees, dreaming of the past with its toilsome years that were yet so full of brave hopes. When he took up his tale it was in a voice that ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... he began, Wrought out in slow and toilsome ways, Yet ever building through the days, A grander ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... not soon concluded, the invaders are dislodged by hunger; for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot easily be carried, and are never to be found. The wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while the men stand in the passes, the women drive away. Such lands at last cannot repay the expence of conquest, and therefore perhaps have not been so often invaded ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... evening in Holborn, his Hermit of Teneriffe.' Gent. Mag. for 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be accounted for in his own words. 'Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgment of his own works.... What has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention.' Johnson's Works, vii. 110. He had said much the same thirty years earlier in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... favourite of a subject, in the world; and infinitely happier than a monarch: that he had all the glory and power of one, and wanted but the care: all the sweets of empire, while all that was disagreeable and toilsome, remained with the title alone. He therefore upbraided him with infinite ingratitude, and want of honour; with all the folly of ambitious youth: and left nothing unsaid that might make the Princess sensible ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the presence of genius, thought, and truth—as one who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other even in an age of great singers—Mme. Pasta must be placed in the very front rank of art. The way by which this gifted woman arrived at her throne was long and toilsome. Nature had denied her the ninety-nine requisites of the singer (according to the old Italian adage). Her voice at the origin was limited, husky, and weak, without charm, without flexibility. Though her countenance spoke, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... more than one affray in which his dagger has "come home richer than it went." A little later, the son of wealthy Don Prudencio has become—not a common laborer—but a comrade of common laborers. He chooses the most toilsome, the most unintellectual, but, at the same time, the most remunerative handicraft,—that of the tapiador, or builder of mud walls. At San Juan, in the orchard of the Godoys,—at Fiambala, in La Rioja, in the city of Mendoza,—they will show you walls which the hands of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... become such as to interrupt the conversation of the travellers, and Lord Menteith, reining back his horse, held a moment's private conversation with his domestics. The Captain, who now led the van of the party, after about a quarter of a mile's slow and toilsome advance up a broken and rugged ascent, emerged into an upland valley, to which a mountain stream acted as a drain, and afforded sufficient room upon its greensward banks for the travellers to pursue their journey ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... crawled over the ground at a bare three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would have travelled half as fast again had I not determined to work them very lightly, in view of the long, toilsome journey that lay ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... everybody seems to have felt about this strong, silent, uneducated man. His neighbors trusted him. They gave him every office in their gift, and finally he was made judge of the local court. In the intervals of his toilsome and adventurous life he had picked up a little book-learning, but the lack of more barred the way to the higher honors which would otherwise have been easily his. There were splendid sources of strength in this man, the outcome of such a race, from which his ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... on the bright, summer morning of Tuesday, July the twelfth, Captain Glazier and his companions, fully equipped, and with a driver celebrated for his knowledge of frontier life, began their long and toilsome wagon journey. A ride of between three and four hours brought them to Gull Lake, where a halt was proposed and made for ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... was finished, he was carried to the field to pull the grass from the young cotton and other growing crops. This work was done by hand because he was still too young to use the farm implements. Now he went to his task daily; from early in the morning until late in the evening. The long toilsome days completely exhausted the youngster. Often he would fall asleep before reaching home and spend a good portion of the night on the bare ground. Awakening, he would find it quite a problem to locate his home in ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... camp, there was plenty of amusement in wandering about among the waggons, watching the various groups engaged at their work as unconcernedly as if they had been still in their little farms among the settlements, instead of on the plains with months of toilsome and dangerous journey before them. Some of the women cooked, while others mended their clothes and those of their husbands and children, while the men attended to the oxen, or made such repairs as were needed to the waggons ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... labour, provided it only be undertaken at their own bidding, although few have the grace to find it when necessity compels to the task. Alec Trenholme found the new form of labour to which he had bidden himself toilsome and delightful; like a true son of Adam, he was more conscious of his toil than of his delight—still both were there; there was physical inspiration in the light of the snow, the keen still air, and the sweet smell of the lumber. So he grew more expert, and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of youth, but of considerable energy, and possessed of keen powers of observation. Whatever was feminine about her was of that plaintive variety which may be depended upon to tell the story of whole generations of narrow, toilsome, and unprofitable lives. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... views! Backward we have seen, in these glimpses of the past, men struggling with difficulties and passing away with the seed-sowing; forward, we see other men enter the promised land and reaping the harvest, for which others had toiled; backward we have seen in our villages, men passing toilsome lives in the circumscribed daily round of their native parish, from which it was almost impossible to break away, or within the few miles of that little world which seemed to end where the earth and sky appeared to meet, and beyond which was a terra incognita; forward we see the children ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... my ankles. It was the road,—running, of course, the wrong way, but still the blessed road. It was a mere canal of liquid mud; but man had made it, and it would take me home. I was at least three miles from the point I supposed I was near at sunset, and I had before me a toilsome walk of six or seven miles, most of the way in a ditch; but it is truth to say that I enjoyed every step of it. I was safe; I knew where I was; and I could have walked till morning. The mind had again got the upper hand of the body, and began to plume itself on its superiority: it was even ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... name; yet the spider spins its own web, and seeks its own nook of refuge from the Reform Broom of Molly the housemaid. And then, the tiny insect, the ant—that living, silent monitor to unregarding men—doth it not make its own galleries, build with toilsome art its own abiding place? Does not the mole scratch its own chamber—the carrion kite build its own nest! Shall cuckoos and Members of Parliament alone be lodged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the personal bearing only of his death that gives him joy. He thinks of it mainly as contributing to the furtherance of the faith of others. For that end he was spending the effort and toil of an effortful and toilsome life, and was equally ready to meet a violent and shameful death. He knew that 'the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' and rejoiced, and called upon his brethren also to 'joy and rejoice' with him in his shedding of his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... nails, the which (the wood being very dry and rotten) I presently broke out and to my nine bullets I added some dozen nails, pocketing them to the same purpose. And now having collected our possessions (of more value to us than all the treasures of Peru), we set forth upon our long and toilsome journey, our gaze bent ever upon the cliffs that frowned upon our right hand, looking for some place easy of ascent whereby we might come to the highlands above (where we judged it easier travelling) and with Pluto stalking on before like the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the toilsome duties of a courier for two years, having been every where with orders and letters. I was tired of this troublesome and unbecoming business. I sent to the king petition after petition, asking for my discharge, and soliciting for a more honorable appointment. But I was repeatedly refused, ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... as usual, a most clear Account, minute to a degree; which, supplemented by Mitchell and a Reimann Map, enables us as it were to accompany, and to witness with our eyes. Hitherto a March toilsome in the extreme, in spite of everything done to help it; starting at 3 or at 2 in the morning; resting to breakfast in some shady place, while the sun is high, frugally cooking under the shady woods,—"BURSCHEN ABZUKOCHEN ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had travelled with me from Milan to Venice. I lay the first night at Pieve, where Titian had the fortune to be born, and the landlord at the inn displayed a set of villainous daubs which he swore were the early works of that master. Thence up a toilsome valley I journeyed to the Ampezzan country, valley where indeed I saw my white mountains, but, alas! no longer Celestial. For it rained like Westmorland for five endless days, while I kicked my heels ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... along in the tumult of earth and sky; the road was more than a mile, and at such a season and in such weather very toilsome and dangerous—but what deeds have not tender women achieved, strung ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago—how great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent spices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The enterprising traversers ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... 30.—My letter has been left unsent. I have just received yours. Let me repeat what I wrote and underlined on the first page. It is a great trial of patience, but be patient, that is, wise. One must never allow the toilsome labor of years of quiet reflection and of utmost exertion for the attainment of one's aim to be destroyed by an unpropitious event. It is most probable, and also the best for you, that the affair should not now be hurried through. Your claims ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... step was palsied now, that had been foremost in the charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the Custom-House steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures that came and went, amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussion ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... are none, and, as it is not contrary to army etiquette to do so, the whole mess professes to be very sorry. Sometimes, however, the foragers returned well laden with good things, and as good comrades should, shared the fruits of their toilsome hunt ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... strength into, strain every nerve; spare no efforts, spare no pains; go all lengths; go through fire and water &c. (resolution) 604; move heaven and earth, leave no stone unturned. Adj. laboring &c. v. laborious, operose[obs3], elaborate; strained; toilsome, troublesome, wearisome; uphill; herculean, gymnastic, palestric[obs3]. hard-working, painstaking; strenuous, energetic. hard at work, on the stretch. Adv. laboriously &c. adj.; lustily; pugnis et calcibus[Lat]; with might and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... communication to the outer world of the tremendous struggles he is called upon to bear would be calculated to stagger the lay imagination. It would take a spacious library to contain all that could be written of his bitter experiences and toilsome pilgrimages throughout ages of storm and stress. The pity is so much of it is lost to us, but this again is owing to the sailor's habitual reticence about his own career. A characteristic instance of this occurred to me about six months ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... beginning; that time is only a periodical step in eternity——that transition is the true meaning of life—and death nothing more than a sign of progress. It may be an upward or a downward progress, but it is not a toilsome march to a mere sleep. Lavish as is the bounty of God, and boundless as are his resources, there is nothing of him that we do know which can justify the idea of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... affectionate remembrance of the old friend lately gone, who had dwelt at their very gates; through which friendly gates one is glad, indeed, to realise what delightful companionship and loving help came to cheer the end of that long and toilsome life; and when Messrs. Macmillan suggested this preface the writer looked for her old autograph-book, and at its suggestion wrote (wondering whether any links existed still) to ask for information concerning Miss Mitford, and so it happened that she found herself also kindly entertained at Swallowfield, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... gleans its vintage in the autumnal equinox; he who sows corn when the Pleiads set, reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses and birds have produce at once fit for use; whereas man's bringing up is toilsome, his growth slow; and as excellence flowers late, most fathers die before their sons attain to fame. Neocles lived not to see Themistocles' victory at Salamis, nor Miltiades Cimon's at the Eurymedon, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... old and weary. And the journey was long; and the retracing of one's steps is more toilsome than the tracing of them. The ascent, with all the vigour and hope of life to help him, had been difficult enough; the descent, with no vigour and no hope to help ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... help of God they will exchange them for the better rules of a good Christian life, and cause them to be practised in another and better fashion than heretofore. Besides, they find that the common people, rich and poor, who support them by their toilsome labor, be it by interest or tithes, have had indeed no pleasure in their prevailing customs and misusages, but felt great discontent at the manifold burdens laid upon them." The improvement consisted in the remission of a considerable sum of dues, which were hitherto drawn for ecclesiastical ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... discovering the sepulchres of the great and nearly forgotten dead, but without success. This, however, tended, in my estimation, to confirm the truth of the tradition; and having enough of time and opportunity, I made many a toilsome effort of a similar nature, with the same result. With hills around, wild and rarely trodden, and the ceaseless yet ever-varying tinkling of its streams, together with the mysterious echoes which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... I might remove the great bulk of these people into the county districts and plant them upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive foundation of Mother Nature, where all nations and races that have ever succeeded have gotten their start,—a start that at first may be slow and toilsome, but one that nevertheless ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... Christians when they were engaged in building a dam across the canal, hindering their work on the southern bank with his throwing-machines, destroying their towers with Greek fire; and when, in spite of all discouragements, their toilsome work was nearly finished, he rendered it useless by digging out a new basin, into which he conducted the water of the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... grateful recollection, that to the friendly affection of my benefactor I owe its possession, yet, I solemnly affirm, in the hearing of hundreds of witnesses, that there is no honest occupation, however humble, no labour, however toilsome, that I would not at this instant cheerfully exchange for it, rather than retain that inheritance one hour from its rightful owner, could I ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... men's shoulders in a covered bed, for he was so ill that he could not go in any other way. I was greatly rejoiced at this, and he was extremely relieved at finding himself in his new home. His illness was increased by the hardships of the toilsome journey from Manila, one hundred and fifty leagues away, in the season of the vendavals and the rains, which in the bay of Manila, and as far as the entrance into the province of Pintados, is the most difficult and dangerous of the whole year. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... bank clerk vanished. Like many another rising genius in art, literature, or science, his zeal for knowledge and investigation in those days of grinding poverty fed the fires of his genius, and this was the light which throughout his long poverty-stricken life shed a golden lustre on his toilsome existence. He did not then know that the great Linne, the father of the science he was to illuminate and so greatly to expand, also began life in extreme poverty, and eked out his scanty livelihood by mending over again for his own use the cast-off ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... position, his intimacies, to a doubt, and he gave them all up without a murmur. He might have been an idol, and he broke his own pedestal to attack the idolatry which he saw all about him. He gave up a comparatively easy life for a toilsome and trying one; he accepted a precarious employment, which hardly kept him above poverty, rather than wear the golden padlock on his lips which has held fast the conscience of so many pulpit Chrysostoms. Instead of a volume or two of sermons, bridled with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... all that fine rich coloring of youth, How could my brush portray aught good or fair Wherein no fatal likeness should intrude Of him my soul had worshiped? But, at last, Setting a watch upon my unwise heart That thus would mix its sorrow with my art, I resolutely shut away the past, And made the toilsome present passing bright With dreams of what was hidden from my sight In the far distant future, when the soil Should yield me golden fruit ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... she herself the grandniece of Jean Tessier? Then, Heaven be thanked! the General's toilsome journey was ended. He had much to tell them—when he should be rested. He removed the silk hat and mopped his shining forehead. He must introduce himself that he might have credit with Madame, else she might hardly listen to his story, for there had never been a tale like it before since the world ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... about her! My proud, self-sufficing temper gradually dissolved into a soft melancholy, which in turn has been swallowed up by those delights of motherhood which have been its reward. If the early hours were toilsome, the evening will be tranquil and clear. My dread is lest the day of your life should take the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... themselves, or the goatherds with their little flocks. He had helped her up a steep bit of climbing. The exertion had brought an unwonted colour to her face. Her hand lay in his, soft and warm. His closed on it and held it. It was the hand of one who had never done anything toilsome in her life, the hand of a petted darling. He remembered another hand, thin, brown, capable. None of Mary's later years of ease had given her the hand of a woman of leisure. It was the hand of a comrade, a helpmate. Nelly's hand fluttered ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... is one task which the constabulary of the west coast hold in mortal detestation, and that is, an expedition into the mountains to seize illicit stills and arrest distillers of poteen. Such an enterprise means days and nights of toilsome climbing, watching, waiting, and spying; often without result, and generally with a strong probability that when the spot where the still has been is surrounded, the police thinking they have the law breakers in a trap, the latter ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... enacted further still That all our people strict observe our will; Five days and a half shall men, and women, too, Attend their bus'ness and their mirth pursue, But after that no man without a fine Shall walk the streets or at a tavern dine. One day and half 'tis requisite to rest From toilsome labor and a tempting feast. Henceforth let none on peril of their lives Attempt a journey or embrace their wives; No barber, foreign or domestic bred, Shall e'er presume to dress a lady's head; No shop shall spare (half the preceding day) A yard ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... man? Can they wrong man? The unapproachable skies? Though these gave strength to the strong man, And wisdom gave to the wise; When strength is turn'd to derision, And wisdom brought to dismay, Shall we wake from a troubled vision, Or rest from a toilsome day? ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... resources, climate and facilities for settlement and civilization as favorable as any within their reach. The limits of this sketch will not permit details of the progress of this migration. The first difficulty it encountered was the toilsome way to the promised land. All roads, such as they were, crossed the Alleghany Mountains, or followed the longer route by the lakes. A voyage now easily made in a day then occupied sixty days on foot or on horseback, and every article of civilized life had to ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... and desire, I held faster the hand of my Lona, and we began to climb; but soon we let each other go, to use hands as well as feet in the toilsome ascent of the huge stones. At length we drew near the cloud, which hung down the steps like the borders of a garment, passed through the fringe, and entered the deep folds. A hand, warm and strong, laid hold of mine, and drew me to a little door with a golden lock. ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... miles' space between O—- and Horton Lodge a long and formidable passage. I sat resigned, with the cold, sharp snow drifting through my veil and filling my lap, seeing nothing, and wondering how the unfortunate horse and driver could make their way even as well as they did; and indeed it was but a toilsome, creeping style of progression, to say the best of it. At length we paused; and, at the call of the driver, someone unlatched and rolled back upon their creaking hinges what appeared to be the park gates. Then we proceeded along a smoother road, whence, occasionally, I perceived ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... flesh is free from danger, it holds faith in contempt, as the claims of the Papists show. It loves showy and toilsome tasks; in these it sweats. But behold Noah, on all sides surrounded by waters, yet not overwhelmed! Surely it is not works that sustain him but faith in God's mercy extended ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... peaks was, however, slow and toilsome. For years he groped in darkness, and light came but gradually. It has already been intimated that his genius was slow in developing. A brief review of his romantic career will bring out this ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... age untoward! Ever spleeny, ever froward! Why these bolts and massy chains, Squint suspicions, jealous pains? Why, thy toilsome journey o'er, Lay'st thou up an useless store? Hope, along with Time is flown; Nor canst thou reap the field thou'st sown. Hast thou a son? In time be wise; He views thy toil with other eyes. Needs must thy kind paternal care, Lock'd ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... privacy of domestic life unless to preside in the councils of the colony or to bear arms in her defense. The latter had from youth been the only employment of Edwards father. Military rank under the crown of Great Britain was attained with much longer probation, and by much more toilsome services, sixty years ago than at the present time. Years were passed without murmuring, in the sub ordinate grades of the service; and those soldiers who were stationed in the colonies felt, when they obtained the command of a company, that they were entitled to receive the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper |
