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More "Mortifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alliance, as there was a great probability, not only from Mr. Lovelace's descent, but from his fortunes, that his niece Clarissa might one day be a peeress of Great Britain:—and, upon that prospect [here was the mortifying stroke], he should, for his own part, think it not wrong to make such dispositions as should contribute to the better ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... expecting something to happen, of whatever description, and has been preparing one's courage, one's temper, one's fortitude, in anticipatory rehearsals—when one has placed one's self in the attitude of a martyr, and prepared to meet with fiery trials—it is mortifying, to say the least, when one finds all the necessities of the case disappear, and the mildest calm replace that tragical anticipation: the quiet falls blank upon the excited fancy. Of course Dr Rider was relieved; but it was with something mightily ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... despaired of excelling the two great masters of oratory, Cicero and Livy, in their own manner, we took up another, which to many appeared more shining, and gave our compositions a more original air; but it is mortifying to me to say much on this subject. Permit me, therefore, to resume the contemplation of that on which our conversation turned before. What a direful calamity was the eruption of Vesuvius, which you have been describing? Don't ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... shame and mortification, nor did he sufficiently recover himself to renew his visits for two or three days. When he did again visit her father's house, Mary, who thought the joke carried far enough, treated him with more than usual attention, by way of apology for her untimely and mortifying mirth, so that by the expiration of the week he had entirely recovered his spirits, his self-conceit, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... reply. This time there was no mistaking Mr. Sawyer's meaning. It was mortifying to have to give in to the 'mean little sneak,' as Carlo mentally called the new master; still, as next morning he happened to be in particularly good time he went round the proper way. The day after, however, he was late, decidedly late ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... the warehouse from this mortifying interview, I encountered an ancient hag,—a sort of superintendent Cerberus or manager of the Mongo's harem,—who, by signs, intimated that she wanted the key to the "cloth-chest," whence she immediately helped herself to several fathoms of calico. The ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... is mortifying enough to write,—but I think thus much ought to be written,—concerning myself, as 'the author of Modern Painters.' In three months I shall be fifty years old: and I don't at this hour—ten o'clock in the morning of the two hundred and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... writers of travels in Italy. The usages of the convent are familiar to all memories—their lodging of the gentlemen of a party in cells of their own monastic privilege, and giving to the ladies less sacred hospitalities, in a secular building of meaner and unconsecrated architecture. (So, oh, mortifying brotherhood, you shut off your only chance ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... capacity of secretary to the Congress for foreign affairs. The incompetency of the articles of confederation for the management of the affairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every day. Washington, though in retirement, was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by his associates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; over the prostration of the public credit and the faith of the nation, in the neglect to provide for ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Drusilla had cheated him, that there never had been any such wonderful cow, and that she had used this trick in order to become a Princess. Of course, the King felt more comfortable to believe this, for it accounted satisfactorily for his own failure to find her, and it is extremely mortifying for a King to be unable to do ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... went straight to her room and did not come down again. The anxiety was terrible. What was she going to do? How unspeakably mortifying if she still persisted ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... wore the same size, and Elizabeth being the better mistress of her wardrobe, 'tis to be feared she sought often for her own, to find them gadding abroad on Miss Maria's feet and herself left to luck. 'Twas mortifying, and her heavenly blush was as much owing to this circumstance ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... the allowed ultra courtesies of Italian acknowledgment. His compliments to most people are varied with astonishing grace and ingenuity; his accounts of his condition often sufficient to bring the tears into the manliest eyes; and his ceaseless and vain efforts to procure his liberation mortifying when we think of himself, and exasperating when we think of the petty despot who detained him in so long, so degrading, and so ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... would have struck the road to fortune; why Nancy should regard him with condescension, and make him feel at once that his suit was hopeless, puzzled him for many a day. He tried flattery, affecting to regard her as his superior in things of the intellect, but only with the mortifying result that Miss. Lord accepted his humility as quite natural. Then he held apart in dignified reserve, and found no difficulty in maintaining this attitude until after Mr. Lord's death. Of course he did not let his relatives know of the repulse he had suffered, but, when speaking ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... we had no place in the house to fix it. How we all came to disregard so material a point is inconceivable; but certain it is, we had been all greatly remiss. The picture, therefore, instead of gratifying our vanity, as we hoped, leaned, in a most mortifying manner, against the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbours. One compared it to Robinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large to be removed; another thought it more resembled a reel in ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... from prejudice; remained gently indulgent to human weakness on the one hand, rigid in allegiance to his ideal pursuit of "la gloire" on the other. The noble movements of his mind were native, not acquired, and he had not been hardened or exasperated by the pressure of a mortifying theology. He does not take so exalted or so pitiless an attitude as the classic seventeenth-century moralist. Pascal scourges the mass of humanity down a steep place into the sea; Vauvenargues takes each wanderer by the hand, and leads ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... fashionable society, "drag their slow lengths along" among the guardsmen and dowagers who frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter. Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... course, the most popular of all, astronomy, kept his guests politely listening to speculative conjectures on the probable size of the inhabitants of Sirius, that very distant and very gigantic inhabitant of heaven who has led philosophers into mortifying reflections upon the utter insignificance of our own poor little planet, capable of producing nothing greater than Shakspeares and Newtons, Aristotles and Caesars,—mannikins, no doubt, beside intellects proportioned to the size of the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Holland, France, and Italy for the order of November, 1807; yet weeks of smug satisfaction were enjoyed by the Administration before it was bewildered by the tidings that Canning had recalled Erskine and repudiated all his acts. Madison had to submit to "the mortifying necessity" of issuing another proclamation reviving the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... the palm of one white hand—I say, taking all these various matters under consideration, I think I shall decide to remain in New York and continue writing for the scientific periodicals. Besides, the mortifying experience at the Paris Exposition has dampened even my perennially youthful enthusiasm. And as for the late expedition to Florida, Heaven knows I am ready to repeat it—nay, I am already forming a plan for the rescue—but though I am prepared to encounter ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... control. Madeleine said no more, but he thought she looked annoyed, and he felt himself in an intolerably painful situation. He was not certain that she herself might not have had some share in proposing the plan, and that his refusal might not have some mortifying consequences for her. What must ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... a minute or two passed before the true meaning of her words broke on him. He coloured again—a mortifying habit he had not outgrown, and one which seemed to affect him more in the presence of Madeleine ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of this training the children have formed a habit of good behavior and are considered an acquisition to any gathering. They are not embarrassed by the awkward slips and breaks which are so mortifying to those who only wear their company manners ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... an idiot am I, to wait here for a fellow who probably takes a delight in mortifying me. He never intended to be punctual, and I'll wait no longer. What do I see? It is he! and perhaps with ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... How mortifying that one is never lucky enough to meet with any of these 'virtuosissimos', fifteen or twenty years of age. But perhaps they are such rare jewels, that they are always kept in cotton! The Kilcrops! I would not exchange ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that it was to be 'honor bright' between us. I am beginning to hope that my surmises are correct, but I know it is hardly fair to force a confession from you that I shrink from making myself. It may be true that 'open confession is good for the soul,' but I find it is particularly mortifying to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... climate without fault on his side has proved too hard for him: he sails for Madeira again next week! His Doctors tell me there is no intrinsic danger; but they judge the measure safe as one of precaution. It is very mortifying he had nestled himself down at Clifton, thinking he might now hope to continue there; and lo! he has to fly again.—Did you get his letter? The address to him now will be, for three months to come, "Edward Sterling, Esq., South Place, Knightsbridge, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... letters which she never sent? To punish her, had her parents sent her to a convent? And to disgust me, and throw me off the track, had the mother invented this history of another love in which she seemed to make me play so mortifying a part? ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... honour from him, such homage public and private. Arnold Jacks was pricked with uneasiness; Irene had at once a new value in his eyes, and he feared he had foolishly neglected his opportunities. If she married Romaine, it would be mortifying. She refused the great man's offer, and Arnold was at first astonished, then gratified. For such refusal there could be only one ground: Miss Derwent's "heart" was already disposed of. Women have "hearts"; they really do grow fond of the men they ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... of his despair, but, as he says, few unpremeditated enterprises ever succeeded better than this one. "The question indeed was carried by a great majority, but those who were against it were almost entirely of those who till then had implicitly voted with the minister. This was not only mortifying to Mr. Pitt, but highly encouraging to Mr. Hastings and his ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he not give it? More than once it was upon his lips to reveal all; more than once he was about to pour forth all his sorrows, all the entanglements of his painful situation; more than once he was about to make the full and mortifying confession, that, though his heart was hers, there existed another, who even at that moment might claim the hand that Henrietta clasped with so much tenderness. But he checked himself. He would not break the charm that surrounded him; he would ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Alcmaeonidae, which the massacre of Cylon still stigmatized with contamination, Pisistratus conducted himself towards the fair Coesyra with a chastity either unwelcome to her affection, or afflicting to her pride. The unwedded wife communicated the mortifying secret to her mother, from whose lips it soon travelled to the father. He did not view the purity of Pisistratus with charitable eyes. He thought it an affront to his own person that that of his daughter should be so tranquilly regarded. He entered ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a success, the occasion was, after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, such a series of mortifying disappointments and the Duke of Wellington's experience at Manchester had been so very far removed from gratifying that the directors of the company felt moved to exonerate themselves from the load of ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... a pretty muddle! Barney Custer swore at himself inwardly for a boorish fool. What in the world had ever prompted him to speak those ridiculous words! And now how was he to unsay them without mortifying this beautiful girl who had ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... character of poetry, it has been said, and credited almost universally, is to please. That they who have studied the laws of thought and passion should have suffered themselves to be deluded by an unmeaning word is mortifying enough; but it is more than mortifying—it perplexes and confounds—to think that poets themselves, and poets too of the highest order, have declared the same degrading belief of what is the scope and tendency, the end and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... proceed in force. The Admiral, being satisfied that the report was a mistake, of a character similar to others made to him at the same time, did not comply; a decision which, under the circumstances of his fuller knowledge, must be considered proper as well as fortunate. The incident was mortifying at the time, and—considering by how little Escario arrived late—might have been disastrous; but it is one of those in which it is difficult to assign blame, though easy to draw a very ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... which is a mixture of ale, sliced figs, bread, and nutmeg, all boiled together, and eaten hot. This mess is made in North Lancashire, and partaken of on Good Friday, probably by way of mortifying the flesh.] ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... shew. Nothing solid, nothing valuable is left in his system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... men-of-war and their convoy sailed from Spithead on the 25th of March, they did not reach Madeira till the 19th of April. It is always more teasing to be delayed at the outset of a voyage than at any other stage of its course, just as it is mortifying and hurtful to be checked in the commencement of a profession. Upon this occasion we had a fine rattling easterly breeze for eight-and-forty hours after starting, which swept us all, dull sailers and good ones, merrily out of the British Channel. This fair start is always a grand ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... to be assigned to those menial and domestic offices which are never performed by men among the Indians, but constitute the employment of the women. To be compelled to fill such a position in the village was very mortifying to the Indian pride of Do-ran-to, the heir to a chieftainship in his own tribe; but he became somewhat reconciled to it, as it threw him in the company of a beautiful daughter of the principal man in the village, whose ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... The coach was ordered to proceed by the most private ways to the Tower. It had been rumored that a rescue would be attempted. At the Tower the Colonel delivered me to Major Gore, the residing Governor, who, as I was afterwards well informed, had previously concerted a plan for mortifying me. He ordered rooms for me in the most conspicuous part of the Tower (the parade). The people of the house, particularly the mistress, entreated the Governor not to burthen them with a prisoner. He replied, "It is necessary. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... life of the world to come their hopes and especially their fears were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls. Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was all. Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of view was diametrically ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... poor human nature has not generally been treated with much respect. Putting to one side moralists, and still more pessimists, have not the Holy Scriptures and all the Fathers of the Church, used the most mortifying language concerning the perversity and corruption of our species? As regards complaints and avowals humiliating for our nature, could there be any more eloquent than those of St. Augustine? Did not Pascal almost wish man to understand that he is an incomprehensible monster? Lord ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... she was known to no one outside her own circle. She was earning her living as book-keeper in a large five-cent store! She led the life of a drudge, and that was not the worst of it. She was a sensitive woman, and there was much that was mortifying in her position. All her Greek and Italian books were packed away. She knew no more of science than when she left school. At odd minutes she read good novels, and that was all she had to do with literature. Those who had expected much of her thought her life was a ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... to me a source of serious reflection. Far from following their example, I felt myself some degrees better than they were; and in the pride of my heart thanked God that I was not like these publicans. My pharisaical arrogance concealed from me the mortifying fact that I was much worse, and with very slight hopes of amendment. Humility had not yet entered my mind; but it was the only basis on which any religious improvement could be created—the only chance of being saved. I rather became refined in vice, without quitting it. Gross and sensual gratification, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and he happened to have a wife who was musical and altogether worth calling upon. Here was the whole history of the situation in which Diana had descended too unexpectedly on her worshipper. It was mortifying. Will was conscious that he should not have been at Middlemarch but for Dorothea; and yet his position there was threatening to divide him from her with those barriers of habitual sentiment which are more fatal to the persistence ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... gothic was beginning somewhat to subside. The countenance is yet hard and severely marked; but the expression is easy and natural, and the likeness I should conceive to be perfect. As such, the picture is invaluable. [So far in the preceding edition. The sequel is a little mortifying. The above picture, an undoubted original—and by a master (the supposed pupil of John Van Eyk) who introduced the art of oil-painting into Italy—was sold for only 162 francs: whereas the copy of it, in oil, by Laurent, executed expressly for the accompanying plate (and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... this business does most certainly draw to a conclusion. I allow, by this proposal, one week more for them to take their resolution. If they delay it beyond that, it is in effect the most mortifying and the most insulting way of refusing it that they could have adopted; and as such I think you would do right to state it in your letter. But whichever way it terminates, I think we shall derive the greatest advantage from Townshend's having authorized me to promise that on the 21st something ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Street and Broad Street, and passing by Baliol College,—a most satisfactory pile and range of old towered and gabled edifices,—we came to the cross on the pavement, which is supposed to mark the spot where the bishops were martyred. But Mr. Parker told us the mortifying fact, that he had ascertained that this could not possibly have been the genuine spot of martyrdom, which must have taken place at a point within view, but considerably too far off to be moistened by any ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... correspondent for the following comment on a subject which has thus far excited not a little wonder, and which, as the loyal reader may be disposed to add, should excite some degree of vigorous inquiry among the people at large. Like every other practical point involved in this struggle, it suggests the mortifying truth that with all our sacrifices, and all our patriotism, we are as yet in the conduct of the war far too amiable, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... superstition, and the substitution in its stead of spiritual ideals closer to the facts of life, is one of these. All that was good in Puritanism has been retained by the modern spirit, while its narrowing and numbing features, its anti-human, self-mortifying, provincial side have passed or are passing in the regenerating sunlight of what one might call a spiritual paganism, which conceives of natural forces and natural laws as inherently pure and mysteriously sacred. Thus the way of a man with a maid is no longer a shamefaced affair, but it is ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... toper. The people in Pinchbrook said he was a good man, but, they used to add, with a shrug of the shoulders, "pity he drinks." It was a sad pity, but he seemed to have no power over his appetite. The allusion of Ben to his besetting sin was cruel and mortifying, for the old man had certainly tried to reform, and since the regiment left Boston, he had not tasted the intoxicating cup. He had declared before the mess that he had stopped drinking; so his resolution was known to all his companions, ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... to the barracks and forced to wear the ball and chain. This was extremely mortifying and altogether useless. Was the White Beaver afraid I would break out of his barracks and run away? Or was he ordered to inflict this punishment upon me? If I had taken him prisoner on the field of battle ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... Cabinet will have to consider, as soon as they meet after the Recess, what advice they may wish humbly to tender to your Majesty upon these important matters. There is no doubt, however, that much has been accomplished, but it is very mortifying to find that other things which the plenipotentiaries were ordered to obtain, and which the force placed at their command was amply sufficient to enable them to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... practice of Mrs. Brownrigge to fasten the girl's hands to a rope slung from a beam in the kitchen, after which this old wretch beat her four or five times in the same day with a broom or a whip. The moanings and groans of the dying child, whose wounds were mortifying from neglect, aroused the pity of a baker opposite, who sent the overseers of the parish to see the child, who was found hid in a buffet cupboard. She was taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and soon died. Brownrigge was at once arrested; but Mrs. Brownrigge and her son, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Corps and the heads of departments in the most incoherent, and in some instances offensive, manner. The Republican Senators were horror-stricken, and Colonel Forney vainly endeavored to make him conclude his harangue; but he would not be stopped; the brandy had made him crazily drunk, and the mortifying scene was prolonged until he was told that it was necessary to go with the President to the eastern front of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... nations. We read of revolutions, butcheries, and blood. We have flattered ourselves that our beloved country for ages to come, and probably forever, is destined to escape these calamities. But, O God! how mortifying the reflection that there are now, in our midst, religious fanatics and political demagogues, who for a little paltry gain or notoriety would plunge us into all ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... the battle of the Brandywine, when he was set to watch the enemy, he was surprised at night by the British general Grey, a redoubtable fighter, who attacked him with the bayonet, killed a number of his men, and forced him to fall back some distance from the field of action. This mortifying experience had no effect whatever on Wayne's courage or self-reliance, but it did give him a valuable lesson in caution. He showed what he had learned by the skill with which, many years later, he conducted the famous campaign ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... 5:13-6:18) is of a practical character. The apostle affectionately exhorts the Galatians to use their Christian liberty in a worthy manner, mortifying fleshly lusts, restoring fallen brethren in meekness, bearing one another's burdens, and being diligent in every good work. In bringing the epistle to a close he contrasts the vain-glory and hypocrisy of these Judaizing ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... depraved in his faculties; indisposed to good, and disposed to evil; prone to vice, it is natural and easy to him; disinclined to virtue, it is difficult and laborious; that he is tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically and to the very core. These are truths which, however mortifying to our pride, one would think (if this very corruption itself did not warp the judgment) none would be hardy enough to attempt to controvert. I know not any thing which brings them home so forcibly to ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... was at rest with his fore-elders. The subject haunted and worried him; and as worries are never complete worries till they have an individuality, Steve very soon became the personal embodiment of mortifying uncertainty, and wounded amour propre. For if Mrs. Sandal's suspicion were true, or even if it were not true, she was not likely to be the only one in Sandal-Side who would construe Latrigg's singular disposition of his ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Mr. Simpson, it's such a mortifying subject I can't bear to say anything about it, but please give us back our flag! Don't, DON'T take it over to Acreville, Mr. Simpson! We've worked so long to make it, and it was so hard getting the money for the bunting! ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "it was a most mortifying reflexion for any man to consider, what he had done, compared with what he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... should accompany me as one of my three friends. His sudden and severe illness has rendered this impossible; he refuses to part with the documents even for a temporary purpose, and I have thus been compelled to submit for the present to this most mortifying ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... know not to whom or of what you speak. They to whom Heaven declares its purpose must merit its communication by mortifying the senses; they have that within which requires not the superfluity of earthly nutriment, which is necessary to those who are without the sphere of the Vision. To them the watch spent in prayer is a refreshing slumber, and the sense of doing the will of Heaven is a richer banquet than ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... ENOUGH! (Begin to see where my chuckles come in?) However true this report may be, the fact remains that the youth has not been near the house for a month past, nor taken Mellicent anywhere. Of course, it shows him and his family up—for just what they are; but it has been mortifying for poor Mellicent. She's showing her pluck like a little trump, however, and goes serenely on her way with her head just enough in ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... your own efforts with those of some great master, is indeed a severe and mortifying task, to which none will submit, but such as have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. When the student has succeeded in some measure to his own satisfaction, and has felicitated himself on his success, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... sovereign corporations; "M. de Bercy put down his name for a thousand livres," says the journal of Oliver d'Ormesson. "M. de Colbert laughed at him, and said that it could not be for his pocket's sake; and the end of it was, that he put down three thousand livres." Colbert could not get over the mortifying success of the company of the Dutch Indies. "I cannot believe that they pay forty per cent.," said he. It was with the Dutch that he most frequently had commercial difficulties. The United Provinces produced but little, and their merchant ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... hear or did not understand, and Georgina had the mortifying experience of repeating the question. It was harder to give utterance to it the second time than the first. She was relieved when Melindy ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... returned to him; the dreadful day; the marriage; the feast; the parting; the lawsuit; the two glasses of brandy, and their mortifying consequences. All the events of that day lay clearly before him now—that horrible day begun in unutterable sorrow, and ended in ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wife, but such an idea never entered his brain. He was a man of few words, and generally allowed himself to be controlled by circumstances, thinking that the easiest way of getting through the world. He was very proud, and keenly felt how mortifying it would be to present his mother to his fashionable acquaintances; but that was in the future—many miles away—he wouldn't trouble himself about it now; so he passed his time mostly in rambling through the woods and over the hills, while his mother, good ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... began to give bitter and anxious heed to it. What if this constant communication between AEnone and Cleotos were to result in a mutual love? It was no uncommon thing in those days for the high-born lady to cast her eyes upon the slave. How mortifying to herself, then, if, while she had been exerting all her powers of fascination, taxing the utmost resources of her intellect, and making of her whole existence one labored study for the purpose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... ways. Ah, my Hippolito, the great are not always possessed of the most capacious minds. There are innumerable little slights and offences that shrink from description, but which are sufficient to keep alive the most mortifying sense of dependency, and to make a man of sensibility, and proud honour constantly unhappy. And must I, who had hoped to be the ornament and boast of my country, thus become a burden to my acquaintance, and ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... upon the whole, but with frequent retrocessions into descending curves, which, compared with the point of ascent that had been previously gained and so vexatiously interrupted, would sometimes seem deeper than the original point of starting. This mortifying tendency I can report from experience many times repeated with regard to opium; and so unaccountably, as regarded all the previous grounds of expectation, that I am compelled to suppose it a tendency inherent in the very nature of all self-restorations for animal systems. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... not likely to forget it, so long as nothing was allowed me save opportunities for mortifying mine. But one more word did I ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... he had probably looked as to the great mart of genius, but at first he met with mortifying disappointment. He made one influential friend, however, in an officer named Henry Hervey, of whom he said, "He was a vicious man, but very kind to me; were you to call a dog Hervey, I shall love ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... and centre of a man's own soul, in the Reall and Internal impressions of a Godlike nature upon his own spirit; and thus to find the Foundation and Beginning of Heaven and Happiness within himself; it were more desirable to see the crucifying of our own Will, the mortifying of the meer Animal life and to see a Divine life rising up in the room of it, as a sure Pledge and Inchoation of Immortality and Happiness, the very Essence of which consists in a perfect conformity and cheerful compliance of all the Powers of our Souls ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... movement had driven him, his thoughts had turned upon Alec Forbes and his antagonism. Out of school, he could not help feeling that the boy had not been very far wrong, however subversive of authority his behaviour had been; but it was not therefore the less mortifying to think how signally he had been discomfited by him. And he was compelled moreover to acknowledge to himself that it was a mercy that Alec was not the boy to follow up his advantage by heading—not a party against the master, but the whole ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... owned he was in fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained with mortifying comments on his whole career—to have his costume examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a nurse. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... contrary, Moniplies never speaks but in praise of his absent master; but exults in mortifying him in direct colloquy: yet never indulges this amiable disposition except with a really kind purpose, and entirely knowing what he is about. Fairservice, on the other hand, gradually falls into an unconscious fatality ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... his musical talents, his master earnestly deprecated, and violently opposed the cultivation of them. In the contentions between this applause and that opposition—between the charming flattery of the one, and the mortifying severity of the other, the boy took that side which it was natural for him to prefer; and genius, the parent of courage and enterprise, suggested to him from time to time a variety of expedients for baffling all his master's ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... at last, with a sigh, "I must make acquaintance with this caricature of my former self. I must accustom myself to the mortifying fact that this is Maria Theresa, or I might some of these days call for a page to drive out that hideous old crone! I must learn, too, to be resigned, for it is the hand of my heavenly Father that has covered my face with this grotesque mask. Since He has thought fit to deprive me of my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... sir,' he said; 'it's humiliating to an officer of my standing in the force; but I'd better confess it freely. I've been sold, sir—sold by a young woman too, which makes it three times as mortifying, and a kind of insult to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... will not be carried on to an accompaniment of slaughter and torture. There are keen forms of competition which, so far from being painful, give positive pleasure to those who engage in them; there are triumphs which satisfy the victor without mortifying the vanquished; and, in spite of the indiscreet writers who have called forth this Essay, I hold that such harmless forms of competition will take the place of the brutal strife that adds senselessly to the sum of human woe. Our race has outgrown so many forms of brutality, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... terms that would have melted the heart of almost any other Mary; but she continued to back, slowly and with a certain grace that could have come only of confirmed habit. Now Lynde had no desire to return to Rivermouth, above all to back into it in that mortifying fashion and make himself a spectacle for the townsfolk; but if this thing went on forty or fifty minutes longer, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... looked at Lucien while the Marquise was speaking. De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled. The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... from the pursuit of his enemies. The Comte inquired what effect the failure of the enterprise had produced upon the Prince's character, with whose gallant bearing and enthusiasm, in the conduct of his desperate enterprise, he evinced the strongest interest and sympathy. I stated briefly the mortifying disappointments to which Charles Edward was exposed in France, the hopelessness of his cause, and the indifference generally shown to him by the continental courts, which so much preyed on his mind as finally to stifle every spark of his former character, so that he gave himself up to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... British to hold Boston was extremely mortifying to General Howe and the English Government. When the king's regiments first took possession of the city, one ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... menace, but ere he could speak to her she had disappeared. Then was he tottering on the battlements of some old turret, when a storm arose, the maiden crept to his side, but in an instant, with a hideous crash, she was borne away by the rude grasp of the tempest. He awoke, with a mortifying discovery that the crash had been of a somewhat less equivocal nature. A cabinet of costly workmanship lay overturned at his feet, and a rich vase, breathing odours, strewed the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... men. As for Mr. Darcy, the indifference he at first felt to Elizabeth Bennet was gradually converted into a sort of guarded interest. Originally he had scarcely allowed her to be pretty, but now he admired the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Herford [good Protestant refuge for unprovided Females of Quality, which is in our gift], let her be Abbess there;"—and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress," or Heir-Apparent to that Chief-Nunship! Nay what is still more mortifying, my Brother says, "On the whole, I had better, had not I?" The cruel Brother; but indeed the desperate!—for things are mounting to a pitch in ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... look down on the ground again, and now you see he has laid hands on himself. There's no sense in it, your honor, it's not right, and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no doubt about it, but there, you must make up your mind to it. I used to live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I used to keep twenty head of sheep; but the time has come, and I am left with nothing but a wretched bag, and ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... on their own destruction. Think it strange, that thou didst run so long with them, and that all will not run in these pleasant ways with thee. Think it strange that thou runnest so slowly, when so great a prize is to be obtained,—an immortal and never-fading crown. If mortifying and crucifying the lusts of the flesh, if dying to the world, and to thyself, seem very hard and unpleasant to thee, if it be as the plucking out of thine eye, and cutting off thine hand; know then, that corruption is much alive yet, and hath much ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... assembled at the School-house in excellent time; but most of them unfortunately, having lost their satchels, were obliged to carry their books and luncheon, wrapped up in untidy brown paper parcels—which was certainly very mortifying. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... and Captain Peyton, of the dragoons, for their counsel and indefatigability in the previous preparations to the attack. The premature withdrawal of the boats was owing to the non-arrival of my despatches; and, though a most mortifying circumstance, can be called nothing more than unfortunate. Lieutenant Vanderville, who was to have commanded one of the forlorns, but was thrown out by alteration of the disposition of battle, conducted himself perfectly soldier-like. The whole of the officers behaved with the greatest propriety; ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... tell me that—but neither can you ever understand how my pride was wounded, and how mortifying it was, after all my boasts of the glories in store for us, to have to confess what I was subjected to, that I might be fit to ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... among a vast population, with whom they have neither language, nor religion, nor morals, nor manners, nor colour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrow the existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particular acts of the Government—especially acts which are mortifying to the pride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India—are often angrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot, and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfall of the Government would be attended with the destruction of his ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... great notion of mortifying his body, as some atonement for the crimes he had committed. He therefore fasted some time while under sentence, and though the weather was very cold, yet he went to execution with no other covering on him but his shroud. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... in the kingdom," and not a man can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us. 'Tis poor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... a French maid all to himself—a perky little human with a quasi-kinship to the feline race—who combed him and brushed him and slicked him down and gave him endless, mortifying baths. Also, she tied lavender bows about his neck, and fed him from Dresden china on minute particles of flaked fish and raw sirloin, with ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... not thinkable! It would be too mortifying! I could not go back to Edinburgh. I could not ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... were closed up and incapable of supporting the light, and occasioned me such acute anguish that I could get no sleep but by the effect of laudanum. This misfortune at this crisis was peculiarly vexatious and mortifying for me, as it put it out of my power to accompany the Pasha, who departed with the army for Dongola on the 26th, taking his route on the west bank of the river, and leaving the Divan Effendi and a small party of soldiers to expedite the loading and forwarding the boats that had not as yet got ready ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... discovery to be mortifying; and after everyone had said that he, for one, had never given credit to the ghost, the subject was discreetly dropped. There was silence even at the inn, where for years it had been a fruitful source of much conversation and ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... by doing so he should commit his plans of future ambition; plans which, though he felt he should not hesitate to save, if driven to it at the cost of his honor, he yet would prefer to forward, if possible, without so mortifying an alternative. But, when after all his pains he found out that the pope was not to be thrown off his guard, and that the transcendent stake at issue was not to be won, except by confirming his word with an oath, he submitted ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... mortifying," she said, "to marry a district school-mistress, though there was some comfort in knowing that his friends were as ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... its influence for evil; it omits all the benefits to be derived from a living society, and puts forward, in their place, the observance of rites and ceremonies; knowledge and love are no longer looked to as the perfections of a Christian, but ignorance and blind obedience; not the mortifying all our evil passions universally, but the keeping them chained up, as it were under priestly control, to be let loose at the priest's bidding, against those whom he calls the church's enemies; that glorious church which he has destroyed and converted it into ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... went away into the forest near Uruvela, and spent six years in deep meditation, undergoing the severest discipline in mortifying his body. ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... enclosure in a fearful manner. The water had risen so high that we could not get out of our pens; so, climbing into the bath-rooms above, we held on to the bow and stern lines of our boats, endeavoring to keep them from being dashed to pieces against the pilings of the pier. While in this mortifying predicament, expecting each moment to see our faithful little skiffs wrecked most ingloriously in a bath-house, sounds were heard and some men appeared, who, coming to our assistance, proved themselves friends in need. We fished the boats out of the pen with my watch-tackle, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... anything more gratifying to tell you; but he took the opportunity of the height of your illness to run away from his place, and has just been passed home to his parish. After all your pains, it is very mortifying, but—' ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... says Penelope. "But you see, father (though Mr. Franklin isn't to blame), he's been mortifying and disappointing her for weeks and weeks past; and now this comes on the top of it all! She has no right, of course, to expect him to take any interest in her. It's quite monstrous that she should forget herself and her station ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... for so many mortifying things, which nothing but truth could have extorted from me, and which I could easily have multiplied to a greater number, I doubt not but you are so good a Christian as to return good for evil, and to flatter my vanity by telling me that all the godly in ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... for above a month under the unresisted dominion of a few petty 'fly-by-nights' from the blockaded ports of the United States—a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful." The Annual Register thought it a mortifying reflection that, notwithstanding a navy of a thousand ships, "it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... of my empire are on the forward march, and things at the royal palace must not be permitted to fall in the rear. I am about to lay a foundation to a measure that will yet shed glory and luster on my reign. What is more mortifying, Ashpenaz, while endeavoring to entertain our own dignitaries, and the visiting nobles of other nations, than to witness the blundering ignorance of our attendants? In this I cast no blame on my worthy and noble officer—by ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... property, met with a violent opposition; and was finally dropped, as some people imagine, through the influence of those who, perhaps, had particular reasons for countenancing the present mysterious forms of conveyancing. Such a bill must also have been disagreeable and mortifying to the pride of those landholders whose estates were incumbered, because, in consequence of such a register, every mortgage under which they laboured would be exactly known.—The next object to which the house converted its attention, was a bill explaining and amending a late act for establishing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... stay in England. "One of the strongest reasons for my remaining out of town," he writes, "is to escape the frequency of invitations at late hours, which consume so much precious time, and with the perpetually mortifying consciousness of inability to return the civility in the same manner." The republican simplicity, not to say poverty, forced upon American representatives abroad, was a very different matter in the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... let De Vac assume to his mind's eye the person of the hated De Montfort, and it followed that De Vac was nearly surprised into an early and mortifying defeat by the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... melancholy Object than a Man who has his Head turned with Religious Enthusiasm. A Person that is crazed, tho' with Pride or Malice, is a Sight very mortifying to Human Nature; but when the Distemper arises from any indiscreet Fervours of Devotion, or too intense an Application of the Mind to its mistaken Duties, it deserves our Compassion in a more particular Manner. We may however learn this Lesson from it, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... mention of Ham, as the father of Canaan, suggests the thought that the latter was also criminal. Ham is thought to be second, and not the youngest son of Noah; and if so, the words, 'Knew what his younger son had done,' refers to Canaan, his grandson. Ham must have felt it a very mortifying rebuke, when his own father was inspired on this occasion to predict the durable oppression and slavery of his posterity. Canaan was also rebuked, by learning that the curse would especially rest on that branch of the family which should descend from him; for his posterity ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... It even occurred to me that I was turning to the left so much that I might come back to the river again. It grew more dusky, and rained more violently; but there was nothing alarming in the situation, since I knew exactly where I was. It was a little mortifying that I had miscalculated the distance: yet, so far was I from feeling any uneasiness about this that I quickened my pace again, and, before I knew it, was in a full run; that is, as full a run as a person can indulge ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... fully in all their bearings at the time I made my first speech on this subject; and, so far as I was familiar with them, I made as little reference to them as was consistent with my duty; because it was a mortifying reflection to me, as a Northern man, that we had not been able, in consequence of the abolition excitement at the time, to avoid the appearance of bad faith in the observance of legislation, which has been denominated a compromise. There were a few men then, as there are ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... hostile brothers, the distress of her flight, half in dread to find the husband she was pursuing with the wildness of some lost child, who seeking its parents begins to suspect treacherous abandonment. That most mortifying view of his actions had doubtless been further enforced on her by others, the worst possible reading, to her own final discomfiture, of ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... this, during the continuance of the penalty the culprit was not allowed to go upon the play-ground, or to speak to any one, nor was any one allowed to speak to him, under the penalty of being himself similarly punished. The punishment was, of course, a severe one in itself, and was very mortifying to a boy of high spirit. It was only resorted to in extreme cases, and was limited to one day. Charlie begged that I would "exile" and "side-table" him for a week, if I pleased; only not send ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... am glad to add that I have found repentant sequels to the mortifying story, in the form of humble retractions of the husband's allegations. Wives were, on the whole, marvellously well protected by early laws. A husband could not keep his consort on outlying and danger-filled plantations, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... meaning than you suspect in this detailed illustration. How many lessons in one! How mortifying are the results of a first impulse towards vanity! Young tutor, watch this first impulse carefully. If you can use it to bring about shame and disgrace, you may be sure it will not recur for many a day. What a fuss you will say. Just so; and all to provide a compass ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... woven from it. It was no laughing matter for the farm-boy to break in his shirt or trousers, those days. The hair shirts in which the old monks used to mortify the flesh could not have been much before them in this mortifying particular. But after the bits of shives and sticks were subdued, and the knots humbled by use and the washboard, they were good garments. If you lost your hold in a tree and your shirt caught on a knot or limb, it ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... beg your pahdon!" she cried, blushing still more. From the twinkle in his eye she was sure that he had witnessed her mortifying encounter with the musical chair. But his first words made her forget her embarrassment. He spoke in the best of English, but with a slight accent that Lloyd thought very odd ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... practised by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem. The burning of the infidel was a sacrifice acceptable to Heaven, and the conversion of those who survived amply atoned for the foulest offences. It is a melancholy and mortifying consideration, that the most uncompromising spirit of intolerance - the spirit of the Inquisitor at home, and of the Crusader abroad - should have emanated from a religion which preached peace upon earth ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... the "Mitre," and the incident which occurred there, were in a peculiar degree mortifying to the Black Baronet, for so he was generally called. At this precise period he had projected the close of the negotiation with respect to the contemplated marriage between Lucy and Lord Dunroe. Lord Cullamore, whose residence ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the conversation was no longer general; the company divided into small parties; whispered into each other's ears; and I remained alone, without knowing to whom to address myself. I endured for a long time this mortifying neglect; and, perceiving that Madam d'Holbach, who was mild and amiable, still received me well, I bore with the vulgarity of her husband as long as it was possible. But he one day attacked me without reason or pretence, and with such brutality, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... It is mortifying to reflect how the fairest fame may be destroyed, and the best character be travestied in the public estimation, by a jest, a bon mot, or an epigram, which contains any very pointed allusion. The story tells to advantage. It is no diminution of its chance of progress, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... gave you a ghastly pleasure in doing things that hurt you. Oh, if you'd only been born in the Middle Ages, what a fiendish joy you would have taken in mortifying your flesh, and in denying yourself everything that makes life so good to live! You're never thoroughly happy unless you're ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... very mortifying to me to have to confess that I have most awkwardly come to a standstill with the transcription of the Beethoven Quartets. After several attempts the result was either absolutely unplayable—or insipid stuff. Nevertheless I shall not give up my ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... incurring! Count de Gramont had never given his son entire confidence, and the latter was not aware of the exact state of the count's affairs; but Maurice had too much cause to believe that they were in a ruinous condition. He had only recently become acquainted with the mortifying fact that, from the time his father left the Chateau de Gramont, Bertha had been the banker of the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... fair promises, he yet would not pledge his word to them, lest by doing so he should commit his plans of future ambition; plans which, though he felt he should not hesitate to save, if driven to it at the cost of his honor, he yet would prefer to forward, if possible, without so mortifying an alternative. But, when after all his pains he found out that the pope was not to be thrown off his guard, and that the transcendent stake at issue was not to be won, except by confirming his word with an oath, he submitted to take ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... Johnny Russell, Who for his place had many a tussel. Trying one day the corn to cut down, The motion fail'd, and he was put down. The benches which he nearly grew to, The Opposition quickly flew to; The fact it was so mortifying, That little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... causes. The disintegration of religious superstition, and the substitution in its stead of spiritual ideals closer to the facts of life, is one of these. All that was good in Puritanism has been retained by the modern spirit, while its narrowing and numbing features, its anti-human, self-mortifying, provincial side have passed or are passing in the regenerating sunlight of what one might call a spiritual paganism, which conceives of natural forces and natural laws as inherently pure and mysteriously sacred. Thus the way of a ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... screamed homicidally, reason coldly reminded the young man that not to save his life could he assassinate, or even hurt, Mr. Pat, and that the net result of another endeavor to do so would be merely a second mortifying atmospheric journey. Was it not unreasonable for a man, in a hopeless attempt to gratify irrational passion, to take a step the sole and certain consequences of which would be a humiliating soaring and ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... becoming. Maddy had been less than a woman if the last intelligence had failed to affect her unpleasantly. She did not wish Guy to regret his decision; but to be forgotten so soon after so strong protestations of affection, was a little mortifying, and Maddy's heart throbbed painfully as she read the letter, half hoping it might prove the last she should receive from Lucy Atherstone. Guy had left no orders for any changes to be made at Aikenside; but Agnes, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... republic, whose condition immediately after the peace was somewhat embarrassing, and not so flattering as it might have been to the advocates and promoters of the revolution, the situation of Adams was rather mortifying than agreeable. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... people in Pinchbrook said he was a good man, but, they used to add, with a shrug of the shoulders, "pity he drinks." It was a sad pity, but he seemed to have no power over his appetite. The allusion of Ben to his besetting sin was cruel and mortifying, for the old man had certainly tried to reform, and since the regiment left Boston, he had not tasted the intoxicating cup. He had declared before the mess that he had stopped drinking; so his resolution was known to all his companions, ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... the bolt, yielding to the continued pressure of Mrs. Hamilton's body, broke, and out came the termagant, foaming with rage. She dared not molest Margaret, of whose physical powers she had just received such mortifying proof, so she aimed a box at the ears of Lenora. But the lithe little thing dodged it, and with one bound cleared the table which sat in the center of the room, landing safely on the other side; and then, shaking her short, black curls at her ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... but had not met with that preferment which he merited. One day he waited on a nobleman whom he had often solicited in vain, but on whose friendship he had still some reliance. The reception he met with was cool and mortifying; the nobleman turned his back upon the necessitous veteran, and left him to find his way to the street through a suite of apartments magnificently furnished. He passed them lost in thought, till, casting his ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... happy beyond all reasonable expectation, with no violent shock to national independence, with some tolerable compromise between the opinions of the age and reverence due to ancient institutions; with no too signal or mortifying triumph over the legitimate interests or avowable feelings of any numerous body of men, and, above all, without those retaliations against nations or parties, which beget new convulsions, often as horrible as those which they close, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... I," continued the speaker. "Is it just to me for you to hide away here in want that forces you and your wife—I beg your pardon, madam—into mortifying occupations, when one word to me—a trivial obligation, not worthy to be called an obligation, contracted with me—would remove that necessity, and tide you over ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... takes us to a portion of the shadowy perturbation which any who have turned these pages as a fictitious rendering of the grotesque in experience will do well to omit. Only a mortifying, though perchance salutary, sense of human infirmity comes from beholding one set over the people as intercessor and counsellor struggling in the meshes of that snare which the Enemy had spread for the undisciplined and wandering multitude. No, not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... ought not to be neglected, among which is one of such importance that I will not now pass it by; I mean, the mortifying state of the public credit of this country at this time. I cannot help thinking, that if the statesmen of a former age were among us, if Washington were here, if John Adams, and Hamilton, and Madison were here, they ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Though it was a mortifying circumstance for Monsieur de Cleves not to conduct Madam Elizabeth, yet he could not complain of it, by reason of the greatness of the person preferred before him; he regretted the loss of this employment ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of his world that day, had been planning ahead in his mind. His first conceptions were blown away from him with his breath at sight of Vassie glowing on the dingy railway platform; she was far the more self-possessed of the two, which was mortifying to a young man who, all the way down in the train, had been telling himself with what tact and kindliness he was going to behave. John-James had seemed so unaltered that his grip of the hand, as casual as though Ishmael were any acquaintance just back from a day's excursion, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... conversation I found the duchess very charming, high-bred, courteous, sensible, and spirited ; not merely free from pride, but free from affability-its most mortifying deputy. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of a woman of sense, and yet which met with wonderful success. She asked an audience of his Highness, who granted it without guessing what she meant by it; and she told him that as nobody could refuse her the first rank in that place, it was very mortifying to see his Highness not show her any mark of favour; and as no person could be more attached to his person than herself, she begged with tears in her fine eyes that he would alter his behaviour to her. The Elector, very much astonished at this complaint, answered that he did not know ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... no doubt about the matter. The contents of the cauldron were quite undrinkable, and the girls had to fall back on the small quantity of lemonade which the cook had provided. It was a most mortifying experience, especially happening just after the failure of the platform. The Sixth were looking amused and superior, the juniors were grumbling, and Miss Beasley was saying "Never mind, so long as we help the blinded soldiers;" which was kind, but not altogether ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... his blundering courtesy, and it was not till she had left the room that Westray recollected that he had heard that Cullerne was celebrated for its red mullet; he had meant to order red mullet for dinner. Now that he was mortifying the flesh by drinking only water, he was proportionately particular to please his appetite in eating. Yet he was not sorry that he had forgotten the fish; it would surely have been a bathos to discuss the properties and application ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Caravan William Brighty Rands Mr. Coggs Edward Verrall Lucas The Building of the Nest Margaret Sangster "There was a Jolly Miller" Isaac Bickerstaff One and One Mary Mapes Dodge A Nursery Song Laura E. Richards A Mortifying Mistake Anna Maria Pratt The Raggedy Man James Whitcomb Riley The Man in the Moon James Whitcomb Riley Little Orphant Annie James Whitcomb Riley Our Hired Girl James Whitcomb Riley See'n Things Eugene Field The Duel Eugene Field Holy Thursday William ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... Upon this mortifying close of a military career which had opened with so much expectation and even eclat, Patrick Henry returned, early in March, 1776, to his home in the county of Hanover,—a home on which then rested the shadow of a great sorrow. In the midst of the public ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... looked as to the great mart of genius, but at first he met with mortifying disappointment. He made one influential friend, however, in an officer named Henry Hervey, of whom he said, "He was a vicious man, but very kind to me; were you to call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." In summer he came back to Lichfield, where he stayed three months, and finished ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... gorgeous wrappings of words. A small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential imagination and opulence of soul,—this was the mortifying result to which we were conducted by analysis. Still, it was asserted that the luxuriance of the young poet's mind promised much; let a few years pass, and Tennyson and Browning and Elizabeth Barrett would be at his feet. A few years have passed, and here ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... have often thought, the reflection that must naturally arise from such mortifying objects, as the death of one with whom we have been familiar, must afford, when we are obliged to attend it in its slow approaches, and in its face-twisting pangs, that it will one day be our own case, goes a great way to credit the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... two boats full of armed men, soon pulled alongside the strange sail, and the pirate-vessel was brought round with her broadside to bear by means of long oars or sweeps. In a short time the boats returned with the mortifying intelligence that the papers were all right, and that the vessel, being in truth a British merchantman, was not a legitimate prize. The corsair therefore sailed away under the influence of a light breeze ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... the climate without fault on his side has proved too hard for him: he sails for Madeira again next week! His Doctors tell me there is no intrinsic danger; but they judge the measure safe as one of precaution. It is very mortifying he had nestled himself down at Clifton, thinking he might now hope to continue there; and lo! he has to fly again.—Did you get his letter? The address to him now will be, for three months to come, "Edward Sterling, Esq., South ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. He felt the cold and was a poor walker; so it was a real penance to him to face the chilly air and the bleak streets which were full of half-melted snow. He had refused to take his coach by way of mortifying the flesh, having grown very solicitous since his illness about the salvation of his soul. He lived in retirement, aloof from all society and company, and paid no visits save to his niece, Mademoiselle de Doucine, ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... week (nearly the oddest combination of crimes known to the present writer); of a death in climbing of one of the characters which is not in the least required by the story; of the scalding of her arm by a paysanne in a sort of "ragging" flirtation, and the operation on the mortifying member by a cure who knows something of chirurgy; and of the ruin of some greedy peasants who turn their chalet into a hotel with no capital to work it, and are bought out, with just enough to cover ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... own popular tales, many an illustration or explanation of their meaning—a ray of light shot here or there which illumines their dark places, and may enable the explorers of their mystic domains to avoid stumbles which are often somewhat mortifying. It remains only to point out a few of the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... To avenge this mortifying blow, Cornwallis despatched colonel Tarleton with thirteen hundred and fifty picked troops, against Morgan, who had but nine hundred men, and these more than half militia. At the first onset, the militia fled,* leaving Morgan with only four hundred to ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... very quickly upon him, and with a most mortifying neglect, said, "Aye, lieutenant, is that you? Well, never mind it — there is no harm done — ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... been expecting something to happen, of whatever description, and has been preparing one's courage, one's temper, one's fortitude, in anticipatory rehearsals—when one has placed one's self in the attitude of a martyr, and prepared to meet with fiery trials—it is mortifying, to say the least, when one finds all the necessities of the case disappear, and the mildest calm replace that tragical anticipation: the quiet falls blank upon the excited fancy. Of course Dr Rider was relieved; but it was with something mightily like disappointment that he leant back in his chair ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... table the night she comes. You'd better pick your asters and take 'em in for the parlor, then I'll cut the chrysanthemums for you in the middle of the week. The day she comes I'll happen in, and stay to dinner if you find it's going to be mortifying for you; but if everything is as I expect it will be, and the way Susanna always did have things, I'll make for home and leave you to yourselves. Susanna ain't one to nag and hector and triumph over ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ones: that, therefore, he must needs say, he was the more desirous of this alliance, as there was a great probability, not only from Mr. Lovelace's descent, but from his fortunes, that his niece Clarissa might one day be a peeress of Great Britain:—and, upon that prospect [here was the mortifying stroke], he should, for his own part, think it not wrong to make such dispositions as should contribute to the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... not very satisfactory. Mr. Coffin, perhaps, possibly, because he was not a skilled artillerist, had the mortifying experience of seeing the apparatus in front of his cannon blown into fragments, but he made notes of the other reports. After a series of trials, the approximate result was obtained, that in a moderately humid atmosphere the velocity of sound ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... old humour, to date from the year of Hegira, the loss of Eton, or since orders were refused you. Whatever hangs out, either black or green colours is presently your prize: and you would, by your good will, be as mortifying a vexation to the whole tribe, as an unbegetting year, a concatenation of briefs, or a voracious visitor; so that I am of opinion, you had much better ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... sir," said Hector, rather sulkily, for he was not much gratified by his uncle's interference to prevent the Earl's intended generosity, nor particularly inclined to relish either the disparagement which he cast upon his skill as a charioteer, or the mortifying allusion to his bad success in the adventures of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... The woman told it so quaintly, with such perfect good faith in the advent of the white donkey! She did not much like the mirth. As to that infidel Peckaby, he indulged in sundry mocking doubts, which were, to say the least of them, very mortifying ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... an interesting fact, considered in reference to his subsequent splendid career as an advocate, that he did not, at the outset, give promise of distinguished success. His first case was a failure, and perhaps a somewhat marked one. But it is remembered that this defeat, however mortifying at the moment, did but serve to make him aware of the latent resources of his mind, the full command of which he was far from having yet attained. To a friend, an older practitioner, who addressed him with some expression of condolence and encouragement, Pierce ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Cumming discovered how the Mormon leaders had imposed upon him and amused themselves with his credulity, and to the last hour that he was in the Territory he felt annoyed at having been so absurdly deceived, and held Brigham responsible for the mortifying joke."—"Rocky Mountain ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... made him different from other people'—singular' d' altri genti. The great happiness of life is, to be neither better nor worse than the general run of those you meet with, you soon find a mortifying level in their difference to what you particularly pique yourself upon. What is the use of being moral in a night-cellar, or wise in Bedlam? 'To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.' So says Shakespear; and the commentators have not added ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to dress for gentlemen, Miss Kennedy,' said Prim's sister, shaking her head, the fair bandeaux of which were in excellent order. 'They never know what we have on. It is mortifyingbut it's ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... learned Trismegist? Doth he take it in ill part that his humble friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?—be they abstractions of the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes?? Is the phrase classic? I allude to ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... to be surprised," said the girl, coolly. "But are you quite sure that I am valued at so high a figure? It would be mortifying for you to go into the market and find that your currency had depreciated on ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... morals, nor manners, nor colour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrow the existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particular acts of the Government—especially acts which are mortifying to the pride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India—are often angrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot, and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfall of the Government would be attended ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... this harsh judge, continued gently: "Cora isn't strong, Hedrick, and she does have a hard time. Almost every one of the other girls in her set is at the seashore or somewhere having a gay summer. You don't realize, but it's mortifying to have to be the only one to stay at home, with everybody knowing it's because your father can't afford to send her. And this house is so hopeless," Mrs. Madison went on, extending her plea hopefully; "it's impossible to make it attractive, but Cora keeps trying and trying: she ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... experienced. The subject may perhaps be only unpleasant to people at home, but to me personally, who have seen the ruin and dismay brought upon the too credulous loyalists, the recollections it stirs up are more bitterly mortifying than words ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... for his father, in this mortifying trial and disappointment, and he longed to follow him and express his sympathy; but his judgment told him that it would be better to leave him alone for a time; that his wounded pride could ill-brook any reference to his blighted hopes ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Wolverhampton, and hear another speech from you as good as the last." In a minute or two I heard them drive off. Left to myself I began to discuss my dinner. Of the dinner I had nothing to complain, but the ale which accompanied it was very bad. This was the more mortifying, for, remembering the excellent ale I had drunk at Bala some months previously, I had, as I came along the gloomy roads the present evening, been promising myself a delicious ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... the destruction of the Coalition were, in some respects, the most mortifying portion of Burke's troubled career. Pitt was more firmly seated in power than Lord North had ever been, and he used his power to carry out a policy against which it was impossible for the Whigs, ...
— Burke • John Morley
... was unwise." He would look no one in the face; perhaps defeat was particularly mortifying for him. He alone had played skilfully, using the whole of his instinct, while the others had used scraps of their intelligence. He alone had divined what things were, and what he wished them to be. He alone had ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... left in his system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what malice prepense, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right. What a shock to personal vanity is given in the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... in line-drawing and flat laying of colour are irksome; but they are definite, and within certain limits, sure to be successful if practised with moderate care. But the expression of form by shadow requires more subtle patience, and involves the necessity of frequent and mortifying failure, not to speak of the self-denial which I said was needful in persons fond of colour, to draw in mere light and shade. If, indeed, you were going to be artists, or could give any great length ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of Mr. Harris, Cooper replied on the 3d of May, 1832. This closed the discussion, at least so far as he was concerned.[1] But the controversy was followed by circumstances of a mortifying character. After the return to America of the United States minister, William (p. 114) C. Rives, Mr. Harris was nominated by the President, and confirmed by the Senate early in March, 1833, as charge d'affaires; and this office he held until the arrival of Edward ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Egremont, and its mortifying circumstances and consequences, was just that earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think. We have all experienced that disheartening catastrophe, when the illusions first vanish; and our balked imagination, or our mortified vanity, first intimates to us ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... and oaths, was a heinous offence, and we were exhorted always to suppress our doubts, to confess them without reserve, and cheerfully to submit to severe penances on account of them, as the only means of mortifying our evil dispositions, and resisting the temptations of the devil. Thus we learnt in a good degree to resist our minds and consciences, when we felt the first rising of a question about the duty of doing any ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... afford the small risk to our reputation involved in the chase of this same wild-goose. There is enough of strange testimony about things of the sort to justify us in attending to the hint. Besides, if we neglected it, it would be mortifying to find out some day, perhaps a hundred years after this, that it was a true hint. It is altogether different from giving ourselves up to the pursuit of such things. — But this ought to be the house," he ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... corset-maker. She talked a great deal of what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell as a final arbiter on both points. To do or to wear anything inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as "the right thing." Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations. Garnett, if called upon to describe him, would have done so by saying that he ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... and curious family jewels had been nearly all the portion of the lady who had married my father. The sons had claimed them, and they were divided between them, and given to the two wives; and in the time of distress, when far too proud to accept aid from the father, as well as rather pleased at mortifying him by disposing of his family treasures, Alice and Dorothy Alison had gradually sold them off. And, once in the hands of local jewellers, it was easy for the belt to pass into becoming the prize held by ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ill; has been at the point of death several times from his legs mortifying. Canning's speech the night before last was most brilliant; much more cheered by the Opposition than by his own friends. He is thought to have been imprudent, and he gave offence to his colleagues by the concluding sentence ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the future took at times a less dismal but more mortifying turn. The free burghers had their pride as well as the nobles; and these two could not bear that any of their blood should go down in the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... stiff in the morning, and one tooth still snarled threateningly whenever the slightest whisper of a draught came to it. The high-toned, exalted views of life and duty which had held possession of her during the past few weeks seemed suddenly to have deserted her. In short, her body had gained that mortifying ascendency over the soul which it will sometimes accomplish, and all her hopes, and aims, and enthusiasms seemed blotted out. Things in the kitchen were uncomfortable. Maggie had seized on this occasion for having the mumps, and acting upon the advice of her sympathizing mistress, had ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... come, O Roman muses, Full of honey and of graces, Learned verses of good Pino; I embrace you, just Camenae, All day long I read you gladly In this mortifying season, Time of tears and time of penance, ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... his subjects. The exercise and the change soon produced an exhaustion that caused them to remove him to his bed, where he lay for hours, evidently sensible of the change in his comforts, and exhibiting that mortifying picture of human nature, which too plainly shows that the propensities of the animal continue even after the nobler part of the creature appears ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... to have been a panacea provided for all disease," he resumed, after a moment of deep thought. "But there is none to-day—at least materia medica has never found one, and that is a mortifying fact to be obliged to admit after over four thousand years of investigation and experiment. Poor Dorrie! I'd really like to make a test ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... In this country a widow's first mourning dresses are covered almost entirely with crape, a most costly and disagreeable material, easily ruined by the dampness and dust—a sort of penitential and self-mortifying dress, and very ugly and very expensive. There are now, however, other and more agreeable fabrics which also bear the dead black, lustreless look which is alone considered respectful to the dead, and which are not so costly as crape, or so disagreeable to wear. The Henrietta cloth and imperial ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... and went without seeing it, and it remained shut up, as much a conjecture as the memory of Northwick's wife. She was supposed to have been taken from him early, to save him and his children from the mortifying consequences of one of those romantic love-affairs in which a conscientious man had sacrificed himself to a girl he was certain to outgrow. None of his world knew that his fortunes had been founded upon the dowry ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... unlooked-for as scarcely believed to be possible. None of that exposure to the gaze and exultation of a victorious foe, such as we had seen pictured in our school-books, or as practised by conquering nations in all times. We had felt it as not improbable that, after an ordeal of mortifying exposure for the gratification of the military, we would be paraded through Northern cities for the benefit of jeering crowds. So, when we learned that we should be paroled, and go to our homes unmolested, the ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... British sagacity, is the following observation of Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in his first volume on the State of the Poor, p. 146: "It is mortifying to reflect, that whilst so many wise measures were adopted by the great Council of the Nation, neither a Coke, nor a Bacon, should oppose the law suggested by royal superstition, for making it ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... Chronicle complained that a great part of the coast of Ireland had "been for above a month under the unresisted dominion of a few petty 'fly-by-nights' from the blockaded ports of the United States—a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful." The Annual Register thought it a mortifying reflection that, notwithstanding a navy of a thousand ships, "it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or Irish ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... guardsmen and dowagers who frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter. Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... you have been taking more care of your instep than you did of your leg in old times. Don't try mortifying the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... nobles thus maintain their authority against Maximilian for several years. In 1488, the archduke, now King of the Romans, with a small force of cavalry, attempts to take the city of Bruges, but the result is a mortifying one to the Roman king. The citizens of Bruges take him. Maximilian, with several councillors, is kept a prisoner in a house on the market-place. The magistrates are all changed, the affairs of government conducted in the name of the young Philip alone. Meantime, the estates ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... by our passions and what by mortifying them? A. By our passions are meant our sinful desires and inclinations. Mortifying them means restraining them and overcoming them so that they have less power to lead ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... plenipotentiary, Mons. Mesnager and Count Rechteren;[22] wherein the court of France demanded such abject submissions, and with so much haughtiness, as plainly shewed they were pleased with any occasion of mortifying the Dutch. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... to end this attachment. A union between a musician and my daughter would be most mortifying to me. Some plan must be devised to separate them, but she must not know of it, for she is impatient of restraint and will ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... son of mine. You are my brother's bastard by a fishwife, if you want to know. I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion; and from what I now see of your conduct, I judge your mind to be exactly suitable to your exterior. I recommend you these mortifying reflections for your leisure; and, in the meantime, let me beseech you to rid us of your presence. If I were not occupied," added the Dictator, with a terrifying oath, "I should give you the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had held the town and citadel at their mercy if only the miserable Campbell had pushed forward after poor Montgomery fell, and gone on to meet those battling heroes in the Lower Town. But I have not the patience, even at this late day, to write about this melancholy and mortifying failure. ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of her unexpected acquisition, to enable him to engage in such business as he should decide to follow. They then discussed, and soon mutually agreed on, the expediency of leaving the city, where, as they had once there enjoyed wealth and station, they must both ever be subjected to mortifying contrasts,—both constantly doomed ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... converted into a sort of guarded interest. Originally he had scarcely allowed her to be pretty, but now he admired the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... different effects on different people. Some it puffs up with self-satisfaction. To others it is a source of mortifying regret. I belonged to the latter class. I was continually crying out, 'O God, how little I am, and how little I know! Give me a chance of acquiring information, and of learning how more successfully to conduct this all-important business of saving men to which Thou hast called me, and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... that he does not discover the young man. In case his theories are correct it might lead to mortifying incidents. We do not know the young man, and probably it is better that we let him drop from our ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... territories, or sudden attacks upon those carrying on the raids, but they fought repeatedly on level ground, and in pitched battles: and one family of the Roman people oftentimes gained the victory over an entire Etruscan state, and a most powerful one for those times. This at first appeared mortifying and humiliating to the Veientines: then they conceived the design, suggested by the state of affairs, of surprising their daring enemy by an ambuscade; they were even glad that the confidence of the Fabii ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... cried, 'how mortifying! seven minutes too early! The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle clockwork, has once more betrayed me. Alas, can there be no success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be chequered ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Bierstadt translated it to me. And I, who could read and translate French easily, had never found time to learn to chat freely in any language but my own. I could have cried right there; it was so mortifying, and I was losing such a pleasure. I had the same pathetic experience with a Russian artist, Verestchagin, whose immense picture, revealing the horrors of war, was then on exhibition in ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... benefits to be derived from a living society, and puts forward, in their place, the observance of rites and ceremonies; knowledge and love are no longer looked to as the perfections of a Christian, but ignorance and blind obedience; not the mortifying all our evil passions universally, but the keeping them chained up, as it were under priestly control, to be let loose at the priest's bidding, against those whom he calls the church's enemies; that glorious church which he has destroyed and converted it into an idol temple, in that he, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... on Odo the reason of her remoteness and composure. He had come to her as a lover: she received him as a friend. His longing to aid her was inspired by passion: she saw in it only the natural impulse of benevolence. So mortifying was the discovery that he hardly followed her words. All his thoughts were engaged in reviewing the past; and he now saw that if, as she said, their acquaintance scarce warranted her appealing to him as a friend, it still less justified his addressing her as a lover. Only ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... bit! Clear case of psychological reaction. After listening to the Canongate experts I was immediately conscious of an overwhelming and mortifying sense of inadequacy, of amateurishness; hence I quit. Besides, of course, the chief is making rather a point of uplifting ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... state of tremendous excitement. What would become of his much-boasted festival if he could get no music for it? His father's jests, Fred's air of superiority, all the mortifying consequences rankled in his mind. Fani must be found, and if only he would lead, the rest must somehow ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... have been more mortifying? Most invitations are received politely and graciously. What there was to laugh at about ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
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