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More "Thankless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sadly needed some active exertion to relieve him from the weight of eating thought, accepted the thankless enterprise, heedless probably of the result. He at once began to gather ships and soldiers. But he found the Corinthians more ready to select a commander than to provide him with means and men. Little money was forthcoming; few men seemed ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... lift the veil on life behind the lines in time of war is a thankless task. The stay-at-homes will not believe, and particularly they whose smug respectability and conventional religion has been put to no such fiery trial. Moreover they will do more than disbelieve; they will say that the story is ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... old proverb is true—Save a drowning man, and beware of an adders sting. But I have power: and can punish the thankless heart. So rise, traitor, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Miggs, baffled in all her schemes ... and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour ... but the justices of the peace for Middlesex ... selected her from 124 competitors to the office of turnkey for a county Bridewell, which she held till her decease, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Full many a thankless child has been, But never one like mine; Her meat was served on plates of gold, Her drink was rosy wine; But now she'll share the robin's food, And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again To meet her ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... spouse forget, when the evil consequences of his act are upon them. Fricka constitutes something of a living reproach to her husband, though a certain tender regard still exists between them through the introductory Opera. A thankless part is Fricka's, like that of Reason in ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... sword and fire; All white with age and cares, his feeble arm Had now forgot the war; but this alarm Gathers his dying spirits; and as we An aged ox worn out with labour see By his ungrateful master, after all His years of toil, a thankless victim fall: So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny: Yet died a man; but his surviving queen, Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen. I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king let pass, With Lydian Cr[oe]sus, whom in vain—alas!— ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... wealth by being the paid lover of one of the fair and frail favourites of Charles II. His treachery and ingratitude to his patron and benefactor, James II., stand out in dark relief, even in that age of thankless perfidy. He was almost equally disloyal to his new master, King William; and a more un-English act cannot be recorded than Godolphin's and Marlborough's betrayal to the French court in 1694 of the expedition then designed against Brest, an act of treason ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... also showed the sort of work to be done in this thankless protection of the metropolis. During one of the sessions there had appeared in the lobby an excellent man, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, formerly Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, who, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, had become a layman and head of a protectory for Catholic ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... said he, "bid him bear no grudge against the Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give, but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray the cost of the quantity required. Some delay was made, and time spent, when Phocion ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... give them offensive power and direction. Of the air he lacked all control. Fire he utilized only for purposes of cooking food, but not for the development of machinery of warfare. He has no vessel upon all the seven seas. To seize and master and utilize these energies appeared a thankless job, albeit a necessary one. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... with a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. For Deborah was crying thankless tears, according to ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... takes the place of wrath and indignation that she alone should suffer: why not Lethington, Huntly, Athole, and the rest, all those stern peers who counselled with her upon the most effectual way of having Darnley removed, the thankless fool who disturbed every man's peace—why were not they tried along with her, they who took such high ground as her judges? Why should she bear the brunt of all? Even Bothwell had escaped, and Mary stood at the bar of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... day; they carried it to headquarters and it was accepted there. I am not informed that any objection was made to it, or that it was regarded as an offense. It seems late in the day, now, after a good deal of trouble has been taken and a good deal of thankless work done by the committees, to, suddenly tear up the contract and then turn and bowl me down from long range as being ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 'but he has prodigals that trouble him sair, and we maun see til't 'at we binna thankless auld prodigals oorsels!' ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... parents are put down last in the accounts, after the customer's and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it would have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it for this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, no! you see women and children are our bane. They soften our ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Back to his palace, I cannot fall To the level of princes. Now rolls the thunder deep, Down the cloud valley, And the gibbons around me Howl in the long night. The gale through the moaning trees Fitfully rushes. Lonely and sleepless I think of my thankless Master, and vainly would ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... case," he said, "this is one of those rare occasions in a thankless world where goodness is amply and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Vine, Which grew where suns most genial shine, And formed a thick and matted bower Which might have turned a summer shower, Was saved by ruinous assault. The hunters thought their dogs at fault, And called them off. In danger now no more The Stag, a thankless wretch and vile, Began to browse his benefactress o'er. The hunters listening the while, The rustling heard, came back, With all their yelping pack, And seized him in that very place. "This is," said he, "but justice, in my case. Let every black ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... branding iron is laid to the flesh until slave pens smell like cook shops? Why do not the gods hear the cries of humankind fed on pods and roots and skins, beaten with clubs and hung on crosses, for no evil save honest toil for thankless masters? ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... wife's nephew and seized every opportunity of annoying him. Leagued with the arch-enemy were two subordinate clerks, Gyanendra and Lakshminarain by name, who belonged to Debnath Babu's gusti (family). This trio so managed matters that all the hardest and most thankless work fell to Pulin's lot. He bore their pin-pricks with equanimity, secure in the ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... O cold and crafty world: I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise. Wiser than seer or scientist—content To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills, Here let me lie beneath this dear old elm, Among the blossoms of the clover-fields, And listen to the humming ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, the finances of the Equatorial districts were ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... laziness. I'm glad she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, that looked ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... cursed his eldest daughter, Goneril, so as was terrible to hear, praying that she might never have a child, or, if she had, that it might live to return that scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him; that she might feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it was to have a thankless child. And Goneril's husband, the Duke of Albany, beginning to excuse himself for any share which Lear might suppose he had in the unkindness, Lear would not hear him out, but in a rage ordered his horses to be saddled and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... doors of the other houses were closed. Even the forlorn Mrs. Starkey seemed to go back almost as happy as when she had issued forth in the evening with her newly found nephew. The sudden gleam of hope which his unlooked-for coming had let in upon a toilsome and thankless life—for we know more about her position in Mr. Manlius's household than we have been at liberty to disclose—had, indeed, gone out in darkness; but the Christmas merriment, and the kindness which for one evening had flowed around her, had so fertilized one little spot in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... said Hackee the Second, feeling Phil's nose anxiously. "I thought I might have bitten it off just now when you got in my way," he said to Phil with much relief, finding it was still there. "Never come between fighting creatures, boy—it's a thankless task." ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and impressive, that it gave him a status among men, and was altogether the thing to do. It was nobody's business to warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pace that season was too good to inquire; and meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... his fingers with a bitter gesture; then abruptly wheeled and came back to her. "I didn't come here to distress you," he said, looking down at her again. "I know your cup is full already. And it's a thankless task to persuade any woman that her husband is unworthy of her, besides being an impertinence. But what I must say to you is this. There is nothing left to wait for, and it would be sheer madness to stay on any longer. The Rajah has been deeply incriminated and is in hiding. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... possessions in the East Indies. When the peace of 1763 was made, this was counted the most disastrous part of that final record and sealing of misfortune. When we see with what attachment the ordinary Frenchman of to-day regards what is as yet the thankless possession of Algeria, we might easily have guessed, even if the correspondence of the time had set it forth less distinctly than it does, with what deep concern and mortification the French of that day saw the white flag and its lilies driven for ever from the banks of the St. Lawrence in the west, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... martyrs and the basilicas of the apostles received, in the devastation of the city, not their own people only, but every fugitive; and the fury and greed of the invaders were quenched at these holy thresholds. Yet with thankless arrogance and impious frenzy these men, who took refuge under that Name in order that they might enjoy the light of fugitive years, perversely oppose it now, that they ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Jorrocks knows his work, and is generally a most laborious man. Hunting is his profession, but it is one by which he can barely exist. He hopes to sell a horse or two during the season, and in this way adds something of the trade of a dealer to his other trade. But his office is thankless, ill-paid, closely watched, and subject to all manner of indignities. Men suspect him, and the best of those who ride with him will hardly treat him as their equal. He is accepted as a disagreeable necessity, ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... and read through all that seemed to concern me the first day. I have doubted whether it would be most considerate to return you thanks for it, making you pay for a letter: or to leave you thankless, with a shilling more in your pocket. You see I have taken the latter [? former], and God forgive me for it. The book is a good one, I think, as any book is, that notes down facts alone, especially ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... sharply, but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell yo' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the voice. He had talked to the intelligence of the mob. Now his talk had been addressed to—the representatives of the mob; if the demon did not cry so loudly, it was only because he was weary of his thankless task. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... to suffer you, who have caused me, when dead, to be restored from the shades to life— to leave me unrewarded? Oh, you deem me too thankless! But look— I see Bacchis standing before the door; she's waiting for me, I suppose; ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... spake, and these three, being of one mind, In hearing of all men refused to judge Judgment so thankless: they would none of it. Therefore they set the high-born sons of Troy There in the midst, spear-thralls although they were, To give just judgment in the warriors' strife. Then in hot anger Aias rose, ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... thankless ones!" the Old Year cried; "Have I not given you night and day, Over and over, score upon score, Wherein to live, and love, and pray, And suck the ripe world to its rotten core? Yet do you reek if my reign be done? E're I pass ye crown the newer one! At ball and rout ye dance and shout, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... be well to spare your eyes from your invention long enough to look into these matters a little? Pardon the suggestion. The office of a spy, and a secret accuser, is an unpleasant, and, perhaps, a thankless one. I should never have assumed it, but for the fact that your ardent devotion to science may render you the easy dupe—and your daughter the innocent victim—of a designing and heartless man of the world. I do not ask you to believe the writer of an anonymous note, and therefore I make ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... shall gain by any further delay only a dangerous, thankless, and opulent isolation. The Lusitania is the turning point in our history. The time to ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... since that will come to him in the ordinary course of nature. He is one of the personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery, inasmuch as he must be a peer malgre lui. He served a long apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless, his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed, it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have found for him office in other department than that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his lips. After a while he raised his eyes and said: "Insatiable and thankless. They have grain enough, and they have coal on which to bake cakes; ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake. The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house. He was to get twenty-five per cent. on the sales; so he shouldered his kit, with his heart full of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... thy treasure lies, Hidden in chests from human eyes, A fire may come, and it may be Bury'd, my friend, as far from thee. Thy vessel that yon ocean stems, Loaded with golden dust and gems, Purchased with so much pains and cost, Yet in a tempest may be lost. Pimps, and a lot of others,—a thankless crew, Priests, pickpockets, and lawyers too, All help by several ways to drain, Thanking themselves for what they gain. The liberal are secure alone, For what we frankly give, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... 'large hours' toward the longer 'small hours' trend, With smiles that mock the wearer, and with words that half entreat, Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street — Sinking down, sinking down, Battered wreck by tempests beat — A dreadful, thankless trade is hers, that ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... is embodied here, and this turns out to be, as usual, the clearest scientific negative that could be invented. But in the design, and in all the labour of this piece,—in the steadfast purpose that is always working out that definition, with its so exquisite, but thankless, unowned, unrecognised toil, graving it and pointing it with its pen of diamond in the rock for ever, approving itself 'to the Workmaster' only,—in this incessant design,—in this veiled, mysterious authorship,—an historical approximation to the true type ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... vaccination I am aware that it is a thankless task to brave the abuse and antagonism which everyone who attempts to move forward in the work of medical ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... had nearly been forgotten of late, but she might make them of use in time—in time, and here were hives of children growing up in heathenism. Suddenly an idea struck her— Richard, when at home, was a very diligent teacher in the Sunday- school at Stoneborough, though it was a thankless task, and he was the only gentleman so engaged, except the two clergymen—the other male teachers being a formal, grave, little baker, and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... largest sort of change from the heretic. But I was obdurate. I knew from experience that for five kopeks, or less, I should receive thanks, reverences to the waist or even to the ground; but that the gift of more than five kopeks would result in a thankless, suspicious stare, which would make me feel guilty of some enormous undefined crime. This was Count Tolstoy's experience also. We devoted ourselves to cabby ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out, as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... 'tis enough, at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live; for Buckingham commends. Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail. This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves: conferring Phoebus bends; And I, and malice, from this hour ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... April his bastard brother, Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, as Requesens' successor. But Don John, who was then in Italy, had other ambitions, and looked with suspicion upon Philip's motives in assigning him the thankless task of dealing with the troubles in the Low Countries. Instead of hurrying northwards, he first betook himself to Madrid where he met with a cold reception. Delay, however, so far from troubling Philip, was thoroughly in accordance ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... but did it to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a fit of sickness. Afterwards, through my indiscretion it was seen, and in some little time more it was acted; and I, through the remainder of my indiscretion suffered myself to be drawn into the prosecution of a difficult and thankless study, and to be involved in a perpetual war with knaves ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... character, but he possessed qualifications which might have enabled him in less stormy times to fill the office of intendant with tolerable credit. It was his misfortune that circumstances forced him into the thankless position of being a henchman to the bishop and ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... One of my good policemen was there as usual, and saluted me profoundly. He had carried the last baby over the crossing, and guided all the venturesome small boys through the maze of trucks and horse-cars,—a difficult and thankless task, as they absolutely courted decapitation,—it being an unwritten law of conduct that each boy should weave his way through the horses' legs if practicable, and if not, should see how near he could come to grazing the wheels. Exactly at twelve o'clock, and again at two each day, in ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... is he Who basely breaks the promise made To trusting friends who lent him aid. He sins who for a steed has lied, As if a hundred steeds had died: Or if he lie, a cow to win, Tenfold as heavy is the sin. But if the lie a man betray, Both he and his shall all decay.(639) O Vanar King, the thankless man Is worthy of the general ban, Who takes assistance of his friends, And in his turn no service lends. This verse of old by Brahma sung Is echoed now by every tongue. Hear what He cried in angry ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the sake of adding to their own immediate ease. And you have ridiculed, as a survival of barbarous times, the efforts of such men as the brave old Field Marshal who gave his declining years to the thankless task of urging England to make some effort of preparation to fend off just that very crisis which has now come upon her, and found her absolutely unprepared. That is how you have earned your right to live, a citizen of the freest ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... a boy wanted and barrack for myself properly, and she used to help me and see me through to the best of her ability. I'm afraid I didn't always feel as grateful to her as I should have felt. I was a thankless kid at the best of times—most kids are—but otherwise I was a straight enough little chap as nippers go. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't been. My relations would have thought a good deal more of me and treated me better—and, besides, it's a comfort, at times, to ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... "I beg your pardon," or even, "I did not understand," can soon be taught to even childish lips and never be forgotten as they advance to maturity. The use of "Please," and "Thank you," or, "I thank you," (never the thankless "Thanks,") should be ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... only to be convinced that there is neither voice nor hearing, to know that the face from which he most recoils is of a kind essential to his very soul. Space is not room; and when we complain of the over-crowding of our fellows, we are thankless for that which comforts us the most, and desire its absence in ignorance of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... advice and interposition; but he made the same answer to all—referring them at once to the established authority, and declining to use any influence, upon the most trifling occasions, which in his position he might have legitimately exercised. His magnanimity was thrown away upon a thankless soil. The situation he had filled with so much honour and advantage, was now occupied by a nobleman who could neither appreciate nor imitate ...
— 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
... love and gratitude Always please the wise and good, But contempt and hate from all, On the thankless child will fall. ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm getting ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... ruse succeeded; for, when Nebar found A helpless man in sorrow on the ground, He took him up, and on the noble steed Gave him a place; but what a thankless deed! For Daher shouted, laughed, and, giving rein, Said, "You will ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... "Blenkinsop"; and he is equally careless as to the correct Christian names of his cousins and his aunts. In the main, the general reader is wise in his generation. But with the painful biographer, toiling in the immeasurable sand of thankless research, often foot-sore and dry of throat, these trivialities assume exaggerated proportions; and to those who remind him—as in a cynical age he is sure to be reminded—of the infinitesimal value of his hard-gotten grains of information, he can only reply mournfully, if unconvincingly, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Babhru stood gazing at her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, who only have themselves to blame, since they flock ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... of replying to that very explicit statement. "There is none here," he said, "that is not grateful for the benevolence he has received at the hands of the Tokugawa. If there be such a thankless and disloyal person, and if he conceive treacherous designs, I, Masamune, will be the first to attack him and strike him down. The shogun need not move so much as one soldier." With this spirited ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... from morning till night, you thankless chit, you? And don't you begrudge me all the little amusements which turn the tradesman into the man and sweeten the pill ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses: Evil and thankless the desert it blesses; Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses; Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... time, would not the world frown upon it? I owe my daughter an honored mother. Oh! I am condemned to live in an iron circle, from which there is but one shameful way of escape. The round of family duties, a thankless and irksome task, is in store for me. I shall curse life; but my child shall have at least a fair semblance of a mother. I will give her treasures of virtue for the treasures of love of ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... further the adventure on the marshes would be a task at once useless and thankless. In its actual and in its dramatic significance it concluded with our parting from Karamaneh. And in that parting I learned what Shakespeare ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... region with Great Britain—an arrangement terminated not longer than two years before. There must be some sort of law and leadership between the Missouri and the Columbia. Amid much bickering of petty politics, Jesse Wingate had some four days ago been chosen for the thankless task of train captain. Though that office had small authority and less means of enforcing its commands, none the less the train leader must be a man of courage, resource and decision. Those of the earlier arrivals who passed by his well-organized camp of forty-odd wagons ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... thirty letters, of which only twelve are consonants; in the English hexameter there are often sixty letters, of which nearly forty are consonants. And the Homeric hexameter will have six words where the English hexameter has twelve or fourteen.[1] Yet having set himself this utterly hopeless and thankless task, to write English hexameter, Kingsley produced some five hundred lines of Andromeda, which in rhythm, ease, rapidity, and metrical correctness are quite amongst the best in the language. It is very rare to meet with any English hexameter ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... North who is free already, and so has nothing to gain in that way,—whose rights as a man and a citizen are denied,—for such a man to enlist and to fight, without bounty, pay, honor, or promotion,—without the promise of gaining anything whatever for himself,—condemned to a thankless task on the one side,—to a merciless death or even worse fate on the other,—facing all this because he has faith that the great republic will ultimately be redeemed; that some hands will gather in the harvest of this bloody sowing, though he be lying dead under ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... protracted reward, to bear up manfully against injustice, and not to despond because his rewards are slow. It would be very easy for an author to make everybody good, or, if any were bad, to dismiss them, out of hand, to purgatory and places even worse. But it would be a thankless toil to read the writings of such an author. His characters would fail in vraisemblance, and his incidents would lack in interest. The world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which most have sores, either ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... he had left the room and his seat on the Board. It was a matter of doubt, for some moments, whether the noble Chairman would not go too, but, happily, he discovered enough signs of confidence among the proprietors present to encourage him to continue his thankless task. ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... rather than words, I should not be here with the proposition I am going to lay before you. It is this. I can give you no hope of public employment, M. de Marsac, but I can offer you an adventure if adventures be to your taste—as dangerous and as thankless as ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... which at first glance seemed but a rugged rock clothed in straggling brambles. Nothing was finished, only here and there could the slightest resemblance to an architectonic line be traced, so that I often felt tempted to relinquish the thankless task of trying to build from such materials. And yet I was enchained by a wondrous magic. The baldest legend spoke to me of its ancient home, and soon my whole imagination thrilled with images; ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... viewlessly) they rejoice with, they sorrow for, (if angels can sorrow) and they minister unto "the heirs of salvation," as they did in the days of old, and as they will do, to the end of time. Were we not assured of this blessed fact in the book of books, reason would assert, that for a thankless, graceless generation alone, earth should not have been formed so divinely fair; but it is heavenly, that the immortal servitors of man may even here find records of the divinity, and themes for undying thanksgiving. Are we indeed visited, watched, and ministered unto, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... resistance,[565] which once seemed of iron, became as clay. Nevertheless, Richmond's control of the New York delegation remained unbroken. The minority tried new arguments, planned new combinations, and racked their brains for new devices, but when Richmond finally gave up the hopeless and thankless task of harmonising the Douglasites and seceders, a vote of 27 to 43 forced the minority of the delegation into submission by the screw of the Syracuse unit rule, and New York ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... obeyed the laws. He was to stand between the Church and the colony, to see that the Church did not usurp the prerogatives of the Governor and that the people were kept in the path of right living without having their natural liberties curtailed. He was, in a word, to accept the thankless task of taking all the cuffs from the King and the kicks from the colony, all the blame of whatever went amiss and no credit ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the first who dared to brave The unknown dangers of the western wave; Who taught mankind where future empires lay In these confines of descending day; With cares o'erwhelmed, in life's distressing gloom, Wish'd from a thankless world a peaceful tomb, While kings and nations, envious of his name, Enjoyed his toils and triumphed o'er his fame, And gave the chief, from promised empire hurl'd, Chains for a crown, a prison for ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... it seemed as if the fair promise of eloquence and statesmanship had been shown to public life only to be withdrawn from it; but a path was about to be opened, leading to a new field of action, distant, indeed, and often thankless, but giving scope for the exercise of gifts, both of mind and character, which can rarely be exhibited in a Parliamentary career. In March 1842, at the early age of thirty, he was selected by Lord Stanley, who was then Secretary for the Colonies, for the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... to find fault with in them, but we feel that strength is wanting. The clear and silent stream is a beautiful object, but after awhile it becomes monotonous, and we long for the swift and impetuous movement of a mountain torrent. It would be a thankless task, however, to dwell insistently on the deficiencies of a writer who has done so much for literature, and so much, too, for what is better than literature. We may wish that he had more warmth in him, somewhat more of energy and passion, yet such merits would be scarcely ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... independence of spirit, together with her artless confidence in his kindliness of heart, pleased him not a little. He had been forced during these past days to act a stern part towards many of the Welsh nobles who had been brought before him. He was glad enough, this thankless task accomplished, to allow the softer and more kindly side of his nature to assert itself. And perhaps the sympathetic glances of his son Alphonso, who had just entered the room, helped to settle his resolve that Arthyn at least should receive ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... answering may be in it leaps to the lips; to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular weakness, have gilded,—"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... thou not then convicted of baseness by this conduct, who hast received benefits from me such as thou acknowledgest thou hast, and doest us no good in return, but evil, as far as in thee lies? Thankless is your race, as many of you as court honor from oratory before the populace; be ye not known to me, who care not to injure your friends, provided you say what is gratifying to the people. But plotting what dark design have they determined upon a decree of death against my child? Did fate impel ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... victims of the scourge. They did not utter a complaint nor ask for a "soft" detail; they did their duty as they found it. Another battalion was detailed immediately after the surrender to guard the Spanish prisoners. This most thankless duty was performed by them with fidelity and care. The commander of the battalion and half his officers were proficient in the Spanish language as a part of their preparation for the campaign, and they soon established cordial relations with the prisoners they ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... in a measurement, and told him of it, when he swore frightfully. He then took his two-foot rule, and finding himself in the wrong, swore more frightfully than ever. This was my first experience in the thankless business of art-criticism, and it was the beginning of a false position, in which I often found myself in youth, from knowing more about some subjects than is usual ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... him forward. Powders, quoth ye? hah! I am a fool, then, if a little dust, The shaving of a horn, a Bezoar stone,[281] Or any antidote have power to stay The execution of my heart's resolve. Tut, tut! you labour, lovely queen, in vain, And on a thankless groom your toil bestow. Now hath your foe reveng'd you of your foe: Robin shall die, if all the world ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... on life's uncertain main Mishap shall mar thy sail; If faithful, wise, and brave in vain, Woe, want, and exile thou sustain Beneath the fickle gale; Waste not a sigh on fortune changed, On thankless courts, or friends estranged, But come where kindred worth shall smile, To greet thee ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... be a weary life you live," Aunt Elsie was saying, "going about from morning till night, in all weathers, with those books of yours; a weary life and a thankless." ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the dreary garrison life (see on Beyle, sup. p. 149) of French peace time, and, in the way of active service, only what all soldiers hate, the thankless and inglorious police-work which comes on them through civil disturbance. Whether he was exactly the kind of man to have enjoyed the livelier side of martialism may be the subject of considerable doubt. But at any rate he had no chance ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the English sloop-of-war Jaseur is purchasing it at 5 milreis, for bills on England. Indeed, the abuses here of all kinds are too numerous to be detailed by letter, and to endeavour to put a stop to them, unless under the express authority and protection of the Imperial Government, would be a thankless task. ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... borne away one member of the household, the "Last Carrier" from force of habit hastens to perform the same thankless service for the remainder;—thus ere summer sunshine streamed on the husband's grave, another yawned at its side, and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to tell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... burnt and blistered, his delicate hands and smooth legs scratched by brambles, his slender neck bowed beneath the weights he carried on shoulders stretched to cracking point—Silvestro worked from dawn to dusk, rejoicing in the thankless office. Thankless it was, since Master Pilade took no sort of notice; yet Silvestro gave thanks. Pilade allowed the other to stoop to his shoe-ties, to wind the swathes about his sturdy calves, to carry his very cloak and staff, while he ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... of psychology. You will succeed after a while, but precipitation, compulsion, and disputes are useless. The improvement of a soprano voice, ruined by over-screaming, requires prudence, patience, calmness, and modesty, and a character of a high type generally. It is also a very thankless task, and success is rare; while on the piano a fair ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... Abbotsford; the new house was being planned and carried out so as to become, if not exactly a palace, something much more than the cottage which had been first talked of; and the owner's passion for buying, at extravagant prices, every neighbouring patch of mostly thankless soil that he could get hold of was growing by indulgence. He himself, in 1811 and the following years, was extremely happy and extremely busy, planting trees, planning rooms, working away at Rokeby and Triermain in the general sitting-room of the makeshift ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... institutions under the control of the State and local authorities. The members of the board serve without pecuniary compensation. It is simple justice to them to say that they have faithfully performed the thankless task of investigating and reporting the defects in the system and in the administration of our charitable and penal laws, and have furnished in their reports information and suggestions of great value. If it is true that an abuse exposed is half ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... to resist the terrorism of the pro-King komitadjis. If he had been in Montenegro during the years after the War he would possibly agree that komitadji is the proper name for the many lawless elements who have found the traditional fighting life more congenial than the thankless task of tilling their very barren land. The moral effect of opposing to these the Montenegrin Omladina instead of Serbian troops was to destroy all pretence of the movement being a national Montenegrin insurrection against the union, and ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... first to be able to say: 'il mondo e poco'—the world is not so large as men have thought. At the time when Spain gave Alexander VI to the Italians, Italy gave Columbus to the Spaniards. Only a few weeks before the death of that pope Columbus wrote from Jamaica his noble letter (July 7, 1503) to the thankless Catholic kings, which the ages to come can never read without profound emotion. In a codicil to his will, dated Valladolid, May 4, I 506, he bequeathed to 'his beloved home, the Republic of Genoa, the prayer-book which Pope Alexander had given him, and which in prison, in conflict, and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... be with a clean King—a strong King! I've fitted you to bear a burden which only a man could bear—to remind the world that 'King' means the Man Who Can—and I thought you could do it!" He paused only to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. "Yes, your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Princelings as you who must send clean blood down to the thrones of to-morrow.... Is that not enough?... Have I built a King, day by day, year by year, idea ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... my darling wife! I should be a cur, and worse than a cur—a thankless wretch—to wish to restrain you in anything!" he answered, sealing his agreement on her ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... remember it in our spelling-book, among the words of three syllables, we have therefore no doubt of it. But you must have, rejoins the editor; and accordingly, in every third or fourth page, he persists in affirming that "carriage is behaviour." In the same strain of thankless kindness, he assures us that "fond is foolish," "but, except," "content, contentment," and vice versa, "period [Transcriber's note: 'peroid' in original], end," "demur, delay," "ever, always," "sudden, quickly," "quick, suddenly," ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... years of royalty, and the "Imperial Votress." She was only a tyrant within the precincts of the court. There she reigned, it is true, with more than oriental despotism; and she seems to have delighted occasionally in torturing mean spirits by employing them upon such thankless offices as their hearts revolted from, though they had not the courage to refuse them. But beyond the immediate circle of the palace she was the queen and the mother of her people. To the nation at large, too, she was equally ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... interminable droppings of natural or artificial perfume with others of the rankest and most intolerable odour: but a diet of alternate sweetmeats and emetics is for the average of eaters and drinkers no less unpalatable than unwholesome. It is useless and thankless to enlarge on such faults or such defects, as it would be useless and senseless to ignore. But how to enlarge, to expatiate, to insist on the charm of Herrick at his best—a charm so incomparable and so inimitable ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and seal lay it down! To-morrow I will have much ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... he said, moistening his lips. Nobody had shown up except him, he kept thinking over and over to himself: nobody except him. He had the thankless ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... seemed a thankless wretch, my dear Miss Mitford,' etc. etc. 'You, my dear friend, know too well what it is to have to finish a book, to blame my not attempting,' etc. etc. 'This is the thirty-ninth letter I have written since yesterday morning,' says Harriet ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... la Roche-Guyon. It will always be a matter of thankfulness to me that I was not left to sacrifice the fairest woman in the world to the rescue of a thankless coward.' ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... envoys at the Hague exhausted themselves in efforts, both private and public, in favour of the prisoners, but it was a thankless task. Now that the great man and his chief pupils and adherents were out of sight, a war of shameless calumny was began upon him, such as has scarcely a parallel in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... metier cet de president. If he leans a little too much on this side he goes down into the mud, a little too much on the other he rolls in the dust. One must feel some respect for the man who undertakes such a thankless office. And, again, when a man rides in an open landau in pelting rain, when il lui pleut dans le nez, without an umbrella, with his hat off, saluting right and ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... to be disturbed when he was playing the flute. He was a man whose hair had turned gray already in the thankless task of tying up wounds on battlefields where others ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... justice that my father spurn'd, Not for the thousands whom my father slew, Altars unfed and temples overturn'd, Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due; Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie, Stern sentence ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... I am not thankless of your thought of me. But I cannot go; for even if I had the spirits to sustain the role of a woman of fashion in the gay capital this winter, I feel that in doing so I should still further displease and alienate my husband. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... It may be making too light of criticism to say with Gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as Criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of Blenheim or of Waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us why it has triumphed, or still more unprofitably contending that it ought ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... meets him to death. Then the light phantom seeks not yet any further hiding-place, but, flitting aloft, melts in a dark cloud; and a blast comes down meanwhile and sweeps Turnus through the seas. He looks back, witless of his case and thankless for his salvation, and, wailing, stretches both hands to heaven: 'Father omnipotent, was I so guilty in thine eyes, and is this the punishment thou hast ordained? Whither am I borne? whence came I? what flight is this, or in what guise ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... is thus a thankless and difficult one. Nor is it quite certainly of real use to the community. For the prophet is generally too much ahead of his times. He discounts the future at a ruinous rate, and he takes the consequences. If you happen ever to have read the Old Testament you must have noticed that ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... that Dr. Thomas Bray who returned in 1700 to England from his thankless and discouraging work as commissary in Maryland of the Bishop of London, that the Church of England owes a large debt of gratitude for having taken away the reproach of her barrenness. Already his zeal had ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... have their joys and their griefs, their triumphs and their failures, their loves and their hates, their friends and their foes, much as men have them in that maturer life of which the days of youth are an epitome. It would be rather an uninteresting task, and an entirely thankless one, to follow in detail the career of Frederick Brent as he grew from childhood to youth. But in order to understand certain traits that developed in his character, it will be necessary to note some, at least, of the circumstances ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... artist, I would reject the proposal with contempt." This very favorable opinion from one who considered all he said, and was so remarkable for accuracy of judgment, decided the destiny of Fuseli; he forsook for ever the hard and thankless trade of literature—refused a living in the church from some patron who had been struck with his talents—and addressed himself to painting with ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... call this soil creta; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a marl, or marna. It is always washing away into ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still beginning, never ending, which reclaims such wildernesses. Comparing Monte Oliveto with similar districts of cretaceous soil—with ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... thy thankless children, gracious Lord. The good thou dost afford Lightly do we employ, All careless of the one ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... won't have to keep a boarding house all my life. It's a thankless task. An' it ties a body ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... like journalism, a hard, hard life and thankless for every one concerned, from bill-topper to sweeper; yet there is a furious colour about it, and I think no one connected with it would willingly quit. The most hard-worked of all are the electricians. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... who hoped they would not get it. There were the diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, and the sane. Some in real professional beggars' style called down blessings on me; others were morose and glum, while some were impudent and thankless, and said to supply them with food was just what I should do, for the swagmen kept the squatters—as, had the squatters not monopolized the land, the swagmen would have had plenty. A moiety of the last-mentioned—dirty, besotted, ragged creatures—had a glare in their ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... it. Further, he gives us credit for understanding it. He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange density of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimless iconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging a thankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress. He is doing the same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we, when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way, forthwith ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... peasants, our neighbours, they tell me that the effect of the egg-shell is as simple as can be: the Butterflies, attracted by the whiteness, come and lay their eggs upon it. Broiled by the sun and lacking all nourishment on that thankless support, the little caterpillars die; and that makes so ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... been here yesterday,' said Leonard; 'then you would not have found me so. No, not thankless, indeed!' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the breakfast, and spread it temptingly out on the table, a thankless task, for, as before, Le could not be persuaded to choke himself by attempting to swallow a morsel of solid food; but he drank cup after cup full of strong coffee, as fast as the woman could pour ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the moon," went on the Itinerant Tinker after a while, "I tried once to make her stand up—after she had set, you know. It proved a thankless task. She treated me very rudely, indeed. By the by, have you seen ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse? Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days, But the fair guerdon when ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... "Ye're a thankless madam," she said, shaking her white-capped head; "maybe ye think that the fifth commandment says nocht aboot grandmithers; but ye'll be tamed some day, my woman. Mony's the gamesome an' hellicat [madcap] ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... we still do so; for it has come over me recently that any attempt to dodge the demoniac inventions of Hawkins is about as thankless and hopeless a task as seeking to avoid the ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... let us hence, beyond the reach of power, Where fortune's hand shall never part us more! In this calm state of innocence and joy, I'll press thee to my throbbing bosom close. Ambition's voice shall call in vain; the world, The thankless world, shall never claim thee more, And all thy business ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... November 8th.—There ought to be, in the January number, an article on the Organisation of the Liberal Party. I have asked several leading politicians of the party to undertake it, but in vain. The truth is, that it is a very thankless and hopeless subject; and the recent discussion of the county franchise by Lowe and Gladstone renders it still more difficult. I put my own opinions wholly out of the question, and should give carte blanche ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... "Thankless creature! You hesitate—you are not sure! How shameful of you to deny the gods you have once worshiped! But that is the way with you men. If you cease to love, you will not admit that you ever had loved. Tell me, was there ever ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... her Peeping Toms,—"compact of thankless earth," who bored moral auger-holes in fear, and spied. Her nudeness was more complete than hers of Coventry, by as much as ridicule is more ruthless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... penalty such a very great one? Do you think that a man who had been toiling for eighty years at a very thankless task would consider it a very severe punishment to be told, 'Go home and take your wages'? It did not mean the withdrawal of the divine favour. 'Moses and Aaron among his priests. ... Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... would I go, and hang my armour up, And with my great name fence that weak old man, And spend the goodly treasures I have got, 235 And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, And with these slaughterous hands draw ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... "Legend of Saint Elizabeth," which was altogether finished a couple of months ago, must not remain an isolated work, and I must see to it that the society it needs is forthcoming! To other people this anxiety on my part may appear trifling, useless, at all events thankless, and but little profitable; to me it is the one object in art which I have to strive after, and to which I must sacrifice everything else. At my age (51 years!) it is advisable to remain at home; ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... brother, Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, as Requesens' successor. But Don John, who was then in Italy, had other ambitions, and looked with suspicion upon Philip's motives in assigning him the thankless task of dealing with the troubles in the Low Countries. Instead of hurrying northwards, he first betook himself to Madrid where he met with a cold reception. Delay, however, so far from troubling Philip, was thoroughly in accordance with the whole bent of his character and policy. For ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... paper an' puttin' on his specks, an' at the same time as thankless after his nose-paint as if he'd been refoosed the beverage; 'no, it don't put me in mind of nothin' nor nobody. One thing shore, an' you-all hold-ups can rope onto that for a fact, it don't remind me none ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to his neck now, wild-eyed like a Maenad. He felt pitifully ridiculous. The role of Joseph is so thankless and humiliating. A month ago he would have ordered her sternly to get out of the room and behave herself. But the hot month in Tokyo had relaxed his firmness of mind; and familiarity with Reggie's bohemian morality has sapped his fortress ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... great mind's expected pain, Calphurnia, To labour for the thankless.—He who seeks Reward in ruling, makes ambition guilt; And living ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... cold and crafty world: I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise. Wiser than seer or scientist—content To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills, Here let me lie beneath this dear old elm, Among the blossoms of the clover-fields, And listen to the humming ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. For Deborah was crying thankless tears, according ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... perplexing and least successful part of the Bureau's work lay in the exercise of its judicial functions. In a distracted land where slavery had hardly fallen, to keep the strong from wanton abuse of the weak, and the weak from gloating insolently over the half-shorn strength of the strong, was a thankless, hopeless task. The former masters of the land were peremptorily ordered about, seized and imprisoned, and punished over and again, with scant courtesy from army officers. The former slaves were intimidated, beaten, raped, and butchered by angry and revengeful men. Bureau courts ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... be always setting other people right. This is a thankless as well as useless task. They probably do not want your assistance, or they would ask for it. Besides most people are sensitive about their shortcomings, and prefer to get help and counsel ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... great reformers and reconstructors of Capitalism, sweeping onward to their scientific triumphs and caring for none of these things, to murmur at our vain indignation. At least if it is vain it is the less venal; and in so far as it is hopeless it is also thankless. They have their great campaigns and cosmopolitan systems for the regimentation of millions, and the records of science and progress. They need not be angry with us, who plead for those who will never read our words or reward our effort, even with gratitude. They ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... ground to powder, like the golden calf,—word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. Rough work, iconoclasm,—but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with voe vobis, let him looke shortly for ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... waited in vain to see her man return; he would never again make the fire for her in the morning, nor yet keep the bairn when she was sick. Indeed, many of these poor fellows (as the event proved) were upon their last cruise; the deep seas and cannibal fish received them; and it is a thankless business to speak ill ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began suddenly, "ye are a missionary to the Lone Moose Crees. It will be a thankless task; a tougher one nor I'd care to tackle. I ha' seen the job undertaken before by folk who—beggin' your pardon—ha' little conception of the country, the people in it, or the needs of either. Ye'll find the Cree has more concern for meat an' clothes, for traps an' powder, than he has for his ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of China. It is perfectly true that there are certain positions and collocations of words which tend to recur, but when one sits down to formulate a set of hard-and-fast rules governing these positions, it is soon found to be a thankless task, for the number of qualifications and exceptions which will have to be added is so great as to render the rule itself valueless. [Ch][Ch] means "on a horse," [Ch][Ch] "to get on a horse." But it will ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... tear, Nor check those sighs, that to my heart are dear, Since ease from them alone it hopes to prove. Ye verses, weep!—ye rhymes, your woes renew! For Cino, master of the love-fraught lay, E'en now is from our fond embraces torn! Pistoia, weep, and all your thankless crew! Your sweetest inmate now is reft away— But, heaven, rejoice, and hail ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the thankless girl up stairs was fretting and muttering about her grandmother's stinginess, in not having a better carpet "than the old faded thing which looked as if manufactured before ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... word chaperon is at best, and what a thankless vocation the unlisted, active, and very irregular verb 'to chaperon' implies. I quite agree with Johnson, who denounced the term as affected, for certainly its application is, though Lavinia Dorman ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... considerable interest from the light they throw upon the characters and motives of their writers. The position of a go-between is always more or less perilous; his task, however well performed, is generally a thankless one; nor in such matters can the adeptest diplomacy, joined to the most thorough bona fides, always ensure the conduct of the common agent against misapprehension and sore feelings. Of this the particular negotiation of which we are now speaking is a typical instance. Bute's offer (through Shelburne) ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... consolation from overflowing feeling, that burdens me sorely. Weep not, my angel; let your sympathy be strong and full of confidence in God; give him real consolation with encouragement, not with tears, and, if you can, doubly, for yourself and for your thankless friend whose heart is just now filled with you and has room for nothing else. Are you a withered leaf, a faded garment? I will see whether my love can foster the verdure once more, can brighten up the colors. You must put forth fresh leaves, and the old ones I shall lay between the pages of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... contracts which were to help pay for the Expedition, and lastly, our leader, with Drake and Wyatt, the business manager, were to pay bills we had incurred by countless items of equipment, large and small, which went to fill up our lengthy stores lists. Thankless work enough—we in the ship were much better off with no cares now beyond the handling of our toy ship and her safe conduct to Lyttelton. Cecil Meares and Lieut. Bruce were on their way through Siberia ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... moment came my father in, looking more than grave and severe, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the Duke Casimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless and difficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him, for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and the broad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of his calling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... he gives us credit for understanding it. He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange density of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimless iconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging a thankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress. He is doing the same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we, when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way, ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... at last of waiting, patiently, humbly, resigned like the beast of burden which awaits the slaughterhouse. Beasts of burden! Are we not that, all we who with brow bent under humiliation, injustice, thankless toil; with the heart embittered by tedious deception and tedious despair, miseries of heart and miseries of body, wait, wait ever, wait vainly for a more brilliant sun to shine at last, until at the end of the day there rises before us the only guest we have never expected, on whom we counted ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... appointment of Gordon. This was the main object the Khedive and his advisers had in view when they invited Gordon to accept the post of Governor of the Equatorial Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... call thee thankless, king, and perjured both: Thou swor'st by Alha, and hast broke thy oath. But thou dost well; thou tak'st the cheapest way; Not to own ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... that lone valley that was so much their common grief. "And could we not be worse? I'm sure Black Duncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been tossed by the sea, and been wet and dry in all airts of the world, would be a very thankless man if he was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a steady bed at night, and not heeding the wind nor the storm no more than if he was ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... willing necks on which no yoke did pass. He, from his starry throne sublime, looks East and West; and lo! He sees but Rome, and Rome's domain, in all he sways below. Hail happy day, and still return to bless with happier face The sons of Romulus, lords of Earth, not thankless for thy grace! But who art thou, strange biform god, and what thy power? for Greece With all her gods of thee and thine hath bade her Muses cease; This say; and say why thou alone of all celestial kind, Dost forwards still look steadfastly and also gaze behind? Thus with myself I mused, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... sacrifice, tenderness, enthusiasm, all these rays turn against the woman within her inmost self and attack and burn her. All these virtues remain to avenge themselves upon her. When she would have been a wife, she is a slave. Hers is the hopeless, thankless task of lulling a brigand in the blue nebulousness of her illusions and of decking Mandrin with a starry rag. She is the sister of charity of crime. She loves, alas! She endures her inadmissible divinity; she is magnanimous and thrills at so being. She is happy with a horrible ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand, Fear not to touch the best, The truth shall be thy warrant; Go, since I needs must die, And ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... building, which at first glance seemed but a rugged rock clothed in straggling brambles. Nothing was finished, only here and there could the slightest resemblance to an architectonic line be traced, so that I often felt tempted to relinquish the thankless task of trying to build from such materials. And yet I was enchained by a wondrous magic. The baldest legend spoke to me of its ancient home, and soon my whole imagination thrilled with images; long-lost forms ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... slanderous tongue To daunt me, scattering in the people's ear Dark hints, and looked for partners of his wrong: Nor rested, till with Calchas' aid, the seer— But why the thankless story should ye hear? Why stay your hand? If Grecians in your sight Are all alike, ye know enough; take here Your vengeance. Dearly will my death delight Ulysses, well the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... vice can raise? Where such mild arts can no impression make, War, tumult, noise and fury must awake. Fortune one age with three great chiefs supply'd, Who different ways, by the sword that rais'd 'em dy'd; Crassus's blood, Asia; Africk, Pompey's shed; In thankless Rome, the murder'd Caesar bled. Thus as one soil alone too narrow were, Their glorious dust, and great remains to bear, O're all the earth their scatter'd ruin lyes; Such honours to the mighty dead arise. 'Twixt Naples and Puteoli ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... of him of Troy" saw in him a youth "both manful and vertuous." There was little time indeed for mere riot in a life so busy as Henry's, nor were many opportunities for self-indulgence to be found in campaigns against Glyndwr. What fitted the young general of seventeen for the thankless work in Wales was his stern, immoveable will. But fortune as yet had few smiles for the king in this quarter, and his constant ill-success continued to wake fresh troubles within England itself. The repulse of the young prince in a spring campaign in 1405 was at once followed by a revolt ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... power to deliberate, I know not. My thoughts flowed with tumult and rapidity. To shut this spectacle from my view was the first impulse; but to desert this man, in a time of so much need, appeared a thankless and dastardly deportment. To remain where I was, to conform implicitly to his direction, required no effort. Some fear was connected with his presence, and with that of the dead; but, in the tremulous confusion of my present thoughts, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... now upon the snow in thaw A young man motionless he saw, As one who bivouacs afield, And heard a voice cry—Why! He's killed!— And now he views forgotten foes, Poltroons and men of slanderous tongue, Bevies of treacherous maidens young; Of thankless friends the circle rose, A mansion—by the window, see! She sits ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and the death of the Prince, the mystery has not yet been removed, and the field is still open to conjecture. It seems a thankless task to grope in the dark after the truth at a variety of sources; when the truth really exists in tangible shape if profane hands could be laid upon it. The secret is buried in the bosom of the Vatican. Philip wrote two letters on the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips; to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular weakness, have gilded,—"UNANSWERED LETTERS." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... and forest, the dangers of flood and torrent, and perhaps of outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and the heavy fines which occur in the king's rolls for non-attendance show how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the troublesome and thankless business of the court. When they reached the place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English "sac and soc," of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... the situation will exhibit the difficulties of the Khedive in his thankless and Herculean task of cleansing the Augean stables. He incurred the wrath of general discontent; his own officials accused him of deserting the Mahommedan cause for the sake of European Kudos, and while he sacrificed his popularity in Egypt, his policy was misconstrued by the powers he had sought ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... room, whispering comfort and soothing to her; while, as they reached the door, the boy rushed forward, and, clasping Ursula's robe, sobbed out—"Dear dame, not one farewell for your little Angelo! Forgive him all he has cost you! Now, for the first time, I feel how wayward and thankless I have been." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... own house saw both the sword and fire; All white with age and cares, his feeble arm Had now forgot the war; but this alarm Gathers his dying spirits; and as we An aged ox worn out with labour see By his ungrateful master, after all His years of toil, a thankless victim fall: So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny: Yet died a man; but his surviving queen, Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen. I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... ran up to put on her bonnet; 'but I suppose toothache puts people out of the pale of civilization. And if he is thankless, is not that treating me more ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may be making too light of criticism to say with Gray that "even a bad verse is as good a thing or better than the best observation that ever was made upon it;" but there are surely few tasks that appear more thankless and superfluous than that of following, as Criticism sometimes does, in the rear of victorious genius (like the commentators on a field of Blenheim or of Waterloo), and either labouring to point out to us ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Wisting had charge of the whole outfit, and was responsible that nothing was touched without permission. Bjaaland and Stubberud were to look after the pent-house and the passage round the hut. Lindstrom was occupied in the kitchen — the hardest and most thankless work on an expedition like this. No one says anything so long as the food is good; but let the cook be unlucky and burn the soup one day, and he will hear something. Lindstrom had the excellent disposition of a man who is never put out; whatever people might say, it was "all the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... mankind, and far I have wander'd, Have shared all the joys youth so madly pursues; I have been where the bounties of Nature were squander'd Till man became thankless and learn'd to refuse! Yet there I still found that man's innocence perish'd, As the senses might sway or the passions command; That the scenes where alone the soul's treasures were cherish'd, Were the peaceful abodes ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lovely even in death! The pitying destroyer has touched gently on those heavenly features. That sweetness was no mask—the hand of death even has not removed it! (After a pause.) But how is this? why do I feel nothing. Will the vigor of my youth save me? Thankless care! That shall it not. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... or concern of any other person. Of course I was not surprised, for "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," but my step-mother was disappointed with the results of all her anxious solicitude, and began to see when it was vain, how thankless such indulgent efforts prove in the end. Freddy's soul was altogether absorptive, taking in whatever offerings gratified him, but yielding no return, and I ask, is there anything so discouraging to an ardent love as this cold neutrality, which proves, without a scruple, that all affection lavished ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... necessity of the moment, to meet a pressing evil, and not to establish any particular system, or any specific combination of ideas, resolutions, or designs. Its sole policy was at first confined to the support of the Restoration against the reaction: a thankless undertaking, even when most salutary; for it is useless to contend with a headlong counter-current. While you are supporting the power whose flag serves as a cloak to reaction, it is impossible to arrest ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it. His prayers are reproaches. His humility is ingratitude. He calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities. He despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... fruitless and thankless task to work at Abydos after it had been ransacked by Mariette, and had been for the last four years in the hands of the Mission Amelineau. My only reason was that the extreme importance of results from there led to a wish to ascertain everything possible about ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... from all sides. More than ten years had elapsed since the enactment of the Dingley bill and the position of many industries had been altered with the course of time. Evidently the day for revision—at best a thankless task—had arrived. Taft accepted the inevitable and called Congress in a special session. Until the midsummer of 1909, Republican Senators and Representatives wrangled over tariff schedules, the President making ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... reputation, if the interest of his country demands it. We knew the condition upon which we stepped aside from the agreeable and peaceful avocations of life, and entered upon the task so distasteful, so repulsive, and for a time so thankless. We had reason to know that the shafts of fiendish calumny would assail, that friendship would be broken, that envy and jealousy would ply their innuendoes, that the Copperhead elements of a fraternity, claiming one of the offenders ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... Full many a thankless child has been, But never one like mine; Her meat was served on plates of gold, Her drink was rosy wine; But now she 'll share the robin's food, And sup the common rill, Before her feet will turn again ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... of strain and friction in regard to the countless details of an Indian household was, in itself, an unspeakable relief. During the first few months of his marriage he had persevered steadily in the thankless task of instructing his cheerfully incompetent bride in the language and household mysteries of her adopted country. But the more patiently he helped her the more she leaned upon his help; till the futility of his task had threatened to wear his temper threadbare, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a solid in his hand, which he partially immerses: he remains steadfast and unmoved, and we all know that he must be drowned. The multitudes who daily perish in this manner to attest a philosophical truth, and whose bodies the unreasoning wave casts sullenly upon our thankless shores, have a truer claim to be called the martyrs of science than a Galileo or a Kepler. To use Kossuth's eloquent phrase, they are the unnamed demigods of the ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... happen to think, myself, that this colony is enormously important, objectively speaking, I mean. If our race muffs this chance, we may never get another. But you and I wouldn't care about that, not really, unless it was personally important too. Would we? Why did you accept this thankless job, commanding a colonial fleet? It can't be an itch to explore. Rustum's already been visited once, and you'll have precious little time to carry on any further studies. You could have been off to some star where men have never traveled at all. Do you see, captain? You're not ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... job, I'm sure," I said. "If he gives us the slip after giving us such trouble, it would have been a thankless task." ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... the haunts o' the low human pest, Give to the weary, the poor, and distress'd; What if ungrateful and thankless they be, Think of the giver ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... the time I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I should ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... as if the fair promise of eloquence and statesmanship had been shown to public life only to be withdrawn from it; but a path was about to be opened, leading to a new field of action, distant, indeed, and often thankless, but giving scope for the exercise of gifts, both of mind and character, which can rarely be exhibited in a Parliamentary career. In March 1842, at the early age of thirty, he was selected by Lord Stanley, who was then Secretary for the Colonies, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... was the hatred in the heart of Savonarola. He was making war against no trivial human sins, but against godless and thankless quiescence, against getting used to happiness, the mystic sin by which all creation fell. He was preaching that severity which is the sign-manual of youth and hope. He was preaching that alertness, that clean agility and vigilance, which is as necessary to ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But when he entered the palace, the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves. Yet so deep was the impression of his glory on the minds of men, that Justinian, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to advance near forty miles from the capital, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the enormous, amorphous Plum-pudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for his fellow-mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless enterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel of spiritual nourishment have been added ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... that gives it value rather than the hero. You may also wish to trace out the action through a series of episodes with many figures. In the latter case you might have recourse to a bas-relief, which, although durable, is usually a thankless work; there is little in it that might not be conveyed in a drawing with distinctness. As some artists, like Michael Angelo, have carried the sculptor's spirit into painting, many more, when painting is the prevalent and natural art, have produced carved pictures. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... its fertile breast, Dost thou feel a glow for it? Thou of all its charms possest. Living on its first and best, Art thou but a thankless guest Or a traitor foe for it, If thou lovest, where's the test? Wilt thou strike a blow ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... error go by without refuting it, no libel without an answer. He is always on the breach. He might well be compared, in much of his writings, to one of our fighting journalists. He put into this generally thankless business a wonderful vigour and dialectical subtlety. Always and everywhere he had to have the last word. He brought eloquence to it, yet more charity—sometimes even wit. And lastly, he had a patience which nothing could dishearten. He repeats the ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... 'tis enough; at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends; Let crowds of critics now my verse assail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail, This more than pays whole years of thankless pain— Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain. Sheffield approves; consenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise —That last infirmity of noble mind— To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... warning—it is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and uncalled-for task. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... polemical controversy; saw the newspapers which had sparkled with his forceful, high-minded criticism die; and lived miserably upon a daily allowance of thirty sous, earned by copying for the Palais. Marcas lived at that time, 1836, in the garret of a furnished house on rue Corneille. His thankless debtor, become minister again, sought him anew. Had it not been for the hearty attention of his young neighbors, Rabourdin and Juste, who furnished him with some necessary clothing, and aided him at Humann's expense, Marcas would not have taken advantage of the new opportunity that was offered him. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... "A thankless office, my dear. If you could make all the world wise, it would do, but fools are always angry ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Dialogues of Plato, was another martyr; from whose ashes arose the Royal Literary Fund, which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate. Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names which might be mentioned out of the many. What a noble army of martyrs ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... pitch of intensity which it never has reached before. The competent, to whose energies the riches of the world are due, are to put these riches away from them as though they were food offered by the devil. The incompetent, with thankless but perpetually open mouths, are to swallow this same food as though it were the bread from heaven. In other words, according to our Christian socialist, the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is involved in the enjoyment of riches, is not the enjoyment of material superfluities ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... and I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and seal lay it down! To-morrow I will have much to say to you. If ye will come ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... there was no silencing the voice. He had talked to the intelligence of the mob. Now his talk had been addressed to—the representatives of the mob; if the demon did not cry so loudly, it was only because he was weary of his thankless task. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... "As thankless a task as that of Moses," said the other, watching him curiously. "For you will not see the pleasant land,—you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... whose heart is so cold that I shiver only to think of it—for this waif and stray, who has nothing but her ragged pride and the mere scrapings of a lost fortune, which never could compare with ours—for this thankless creature, who can hardly bring herself to bid me, your mother, such a civil good-morning—by Heaven it is the truth—as I can say to a slave—for her that I, that your parents are to be bereft of their son, the only child that a gracious Providence has left to be their joy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had swerved, Athene, hating Troy and loving them Who craved to snatch and make a diadem Of Priam's regal crown for other brows— She, though foredoomed she knew, held to her vows, And duly paid the thankless evening rite— There came to Paris' house late in the night Deiphobus his brother, young and trim, For speech with fair-tressed Helen, for whose slim And budded grace long had he sighed in vain; And found her in full hall, and showed his pain And need of her. To ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... breakfast, and spread it temptingly out on the table, a thankless task, for, as before, Le could not be persuaded to choke himself by attempting to swallow a morsel of solid food; but he drank cup after cup full of strong coffee, as fast as the woman ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... some such a way now, the depth of this pure devotion quite smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out upon him? Not in vain—not in vain has he lived—hard and thankless should he be to think so—that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous? What do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... can bear. Pity takes the place of wrath and indignation that she alone should suffer: why not Lethington, Huntly, Athole, and the rest, all those stern peers who counselled with her upon the most effectual way of having Darnley removed, the thankless fool who disturbed every man's peace—why were not they tried along with her, they who took such high ground as her judges? Why should she bear the brunt of all? Even Bothwell had escaped, and Mary stood at the bar ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... equally careless as to the correct Christian names of his cousins and his aunts. In the main, the general reader is wise in his generation. But with the painful biographer, toiling in the immeasurable sand of thankless research, often foot-sore and dry of throat, these trivialities assume exaggerated proportions; and to those who remind him—as in a cynical age he is sure to be reminded—of the infinitesimal value of his hard-gotten ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... of repetition might be obviated by the publication of the various readings that have been suggested in the text of Shakspeare, but who is there to be found Quixotic enough to undertake so large and thankless a task, one which at best can only be most imperfectly executed: the materials being so scattered, and often so worthless, the compiler would, I imagine, abandon the design before he had made great progress ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... had recently failed in business, in consequence of which he himself was at present supporting a second establishment. He sighed, and reflected that it was a thankless task to rear a family. The infantine troubles of teething, whooping-cough, and scarlatina were trifles as compared with the later annoyance and difficulties of dealing with striplings who had the audacity to imagine themselves grown-up, and competent to have a ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... his advice and interposition; but he made the same answer to all—referring them at once to the established authority, and declining to use any influence, upon the most trifling occasions, which in his position he might have legitimately exercised. His magnanimity was thrown away upon a thankless soil. The situation he had filled with so much honour and advantage, was now occupied by a nobleman who could neither appreciate nor imitate ...
— 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
... Does he not define such a one in the lines, 'As long as you love boys in the glorious flower of their youth for their kisses and embraces.' And add to Solon the lines of AEschylus, 'You did not disdain the honour of the thighs, O thankless one after all my frequent kisses.'[68] For some laugh at them if they bid lovers, like sacrificing priests and seers, to inspect thighs and loins; but I think this a mighty argument in behalf of the love of women. For if the unnatural commerce with males does not take away or mar the amorous ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... wasteful mud upon the scanty cornfields. The people call this soil creta; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a marl, or marna. It is always washing away into ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still beginning, never ending, which ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... living under a constitutional government, where no one really cares for that cold and thankless, blind, deaf Thing called public interest, to imagine the zeal which a mere word of the Emperor was able to inspire in his political or administrative machine. That powerful will seemed to impress itself as much upon things as upon ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... friend for evident faults Is but a thankless office; still 'tis useful, And wholesome for a youth of such an age, And so this day I will reprove my friend, Whose fault is palpable."—Plautus, Frinummus, Act ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... enjoy our being is to be ungrateful to the Author of it, is well expressed in Spenser, F. Q. b. iv. c. viii. st. 15. For he whose daies in wilful woe are worne The grace of his Creator doth despise, That will not use his gifts for thankless nigardise. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord. The good thou dost afford Lightly do we employ, All careless of the one who ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... which is eternally released? That she does so the Snkhyas distinctly assert, 'By manifold means Prakriti, helpful and endowed with the gunas, without any benefit to herself, accomplishes the purpose of the soul, which is thankless and not composed of the gunas' (Snkhya K. 60).—The Snkhyas further teach that Prakriti, on being seen by any soul in her true nature, at once retires from that soul—'As a dancer having exhibited herself ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless, troublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do better in the time to come, and I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that it was Pa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. 'Dear Pa, if you knew how much I think this morning of what you told me once, about the first ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... are little, frank, honest-hearted creatures, and say out what they think, as such plebeian people will, used to tell her roundly she was thankless for the supreme ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... earth or form into various character and temper the different families of man is "rain influences" from the heaven that smiles so benignly on those who had once shrunk, ragged, from the wind, or scowled on the thankless sun. Here, the hard air of the chill Mother Isle,—there, the mild warmth of Italian autumns or the breathless glow of the tropics. And with the beams of every climate, glides subtle Hope. Of her there, it ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been more certain that he was satisfied with me, nothing would have been wanting to my happiness. Everybody waited upon me; and perhaps it was on this account that Ernst, in comparison, seemed somewhat cold; I was the petted child of my too kind parents; I was thankless and peevish, and ah, some little of this still remains! Nevertheless, it was during this very time that, under the influence of my husband, the true beauty and reality of life became more and more perceptible to my soul. Married life and family ties, one's country and the world, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... at her sharply, but with some signs of sympathy on his grave face. 'My woman,' he said 'a could ha' wished as you'd niver seen t' watch. It's poor, thankless work thinking too much on one o' God's creatures. But a'll do thy bidding,' he continued, in a lighter and different tone. 'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be. Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Young Wilkinson was a very handsome lad, and grew up to be a handsome man; but his beauty was of that regular sort which is more pleasing in a boy than in a man. He also was an excellent lad, and no parent could be so thankless as to be other than proud of him. All men said all good things of him, so that Mr. Wilkinson could not but be contented. Nevertheless, one would always wish to see one's own son not less bright than one's ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... And as Babhru stood gazing at her, like one struck by a thunderbolt, Chamu said again: Thou owest me not abuse, but gratitude, O woodman: for see, I have brought her back to thee, all across the sand, where many in my place would have left her in the middle of the way, for it was a thankless task, and she was a cross-grained burden, that was very loath to come at all. So as thou seest, thou wert very wrong, to call even Atirupa robber: for here she is again. And the women are silly creatures, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... that he was four inches out in a measurement, and told him of it, when he swore frightfully. He then took his two-foot rule, and finding himself in the wrong, swore more frightfully than ever. This was my first experience in the thankless business of art-criticism, and it was the beginning of a false position, in which I often found myself in youth, from knowing more about some subjects than ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... in this thankless world the giver Is envied even by the receiver; 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion Rather to hide than own the obligation: Nay, 'tis much worse than so; It now an artifice does grow Wrongs and injuries to do, Lest men should ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... weapon. Is it the desperation of your fear Makes you thus rash and sudden with a friend, Now ruined for your sake? If honest anger Have moved you, know, that what I just proposed 60 Was but to try you. As for me, I think, Thankless affection led me to this point, From which, if my firm temper could repent, I cannot now recede. Even whilst we speak The ministers of justice wait below: 65 They grant me these brief moments. Now if you Have any word of melancholy comfort To speak to your pale wife, 'twere best ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... And formed a thick and matted bower Which might have turned a summer shower, Was saved by ruinous assault. The hunters thought their dogs at fault, And called them off. In danger now no more The Stag, a thankless wretch and vile, Began to browse his benefactress o'er. The hunters listening the while, The rustling heard, came back, With all their yelping pack, And seized him in that very place. "This is," said he, "but justice, in my case. Let every black ingrate Henceforward profit by my fate." The dogs ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... is your duty. But do not let the slandering Devil slander to you that blessed word, Duty, and make you afraid of it, and shrink from it, as if it meant something burdensome, and troublesome, and thankless, which you suppose you must do for fear of punishment, while you have a right to see how little of it you can do, and try to be let off as cheaply as possible. Beware of that evil spirit, my friends, ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... invitation with pleasure," replied Marshall, whose manners were all that his attire was not. "I shall be glad to talk with you on many subjects. To-morrow I shall pay my respects to Mr. Hamilton. His has been a trying but not a thankless task. He has addressed himself to the right class of men all over the country, winning them to his sound and enlightened views, giving them courage, consolidating them against the self-interested advocates of State sovereignty. That he has so often neglected a legal practice ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... believe your mind is care-ridden," bandied Martin, falling in with the other's mood. "It must be a wearisome and thankless task to scatter universal knowledge amidst the brainless. Have you still got your book? That thing you tried to sell ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... then, I must not live. Posterity shall ne'er report, they had Such thankless fathers, or a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... Ah, thankless! canst thou envy him who gains The Stoic's cold and indurate repose? Thou! with thy lively sense of bliss and woes!— From a false balance of life's joys and pains Thou deem'st him happy.—Plac'd 'mid fair domains, Where full the river down the valley flows, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
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