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Fretted   Listen
verb
Fretted  past part., adj.  
1.
Ornamented with fretwork; furnished with frets; variegated; made rough on the surface.
2.
(Her.) Interlaced one with another; said of charges and ordinaries.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fretted" Quotes from Famous Books



... are divinely warned that they will not be permitted to bring the people into the promised land—a warning which was followed soon afterwards by the death of Aaron on Mount Hor. Edom haughtily refused Israel permission to pass through her land (xx.). Sore at heart, they fretted against God and Moses, and deadly serpents were sent among them in chastisement, but the penitent and believing were restored by the power of God and the intercession of Moses. Then Israel turned north, and began her career of conquest by defeating Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... in a voice plainly showing that he had long fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... thrive and got so thin and pale-looking that I thought they were going to be ill. Lizzie's father used to come home, after tramping about for work, looking as tired as my father did after his long day in the fields and her mother fretted and worried and you could see things getting shabbier and shabbier every week. I don't know what I should have done only Lizzie and I now and then got a dress to make for a neighbour or some sewing to do, night-times. Lizzie's ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... addressing himself to the woman, at the same time elevating his voice, he vociferated: "Hillo, come, lady sheriff, bring up the body of your prisoner, I say;" when, as if in obedience to the call of a magician, a door opened, and from an inner room, with face flushed, brow dark and fretted with indignation, lips pouting, breast heaving, and her eyes overflowing with tears, in bounded his sister, Seraphine Duchatel, exclaiming: "And is this the creature that has stood between me and Claude? and brought ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... in him,' 1 John iii. 15. Then I paused, and thought myself the unhappiest man living. Again I was convinced that the Lord was better to me than I deserved, and I was better off in the world than many. After this I began to fear death; I fretted, mourned, and prayed, till I became a burden to others, but more so to myself. At length I concluded to beg my bread on shore rather than go again to sea amongst a people who feared not God, and I ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... some day, get liberty and make amends for every minute of restraint with lusty shouting. Among the continental states which suffered from the Revolutions of 1848, were some in which the people had less of social evil to complain of than we have in England; but they were fretted by political restrictions, by a system of espial which tabooed all conversation upon public matters before any stranger, and they were glad enough to get their tongues at liberty. Adam, the old traditions say, was made of eight pounds: a pound of earth, his flesh; a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... Metropolis—a snorting, sliding, impatient fleet of vehicles perpetually on their way, yet never seeming to get there. Taxi-cabs hugged the pavements, trying to penetrate the gloom with their meagre lights; omnibuses fretted and bullied their way, avoiding collision by inches, but struggling on and on as though their very existence depended on their reaching some place immediately or being interned for failure. Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... Osborns fretted him just now. If their child was a son, he would be more fretted still. He was rather glad of a possibility, just looming, of his being called away from England ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and fretted over the loss of his little companion, but his mother told him, in camel language, that had Camer's mother taught her to close her nostrils in a proper manner during a simoom, she would not have died. As it was, the hot, acrid sand had suffocated ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... knows it is hard—I do not say it is frequently attained, but I do say it is possible—to realise that wonderful ideal of the Apostle's 'As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.' The surface of the ocean may be tossed and fretted by the winds, and churned into foam, but the great central depths 'hear not the loud winds when they call,' and are still in the midst of tempest. And we, dear brethren, ought to have an inner depth of spirit, down to the disturbance ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... men. I asked W. what he thought, and he consolingly observed that his digestion was so bad that death had no terrors for him! I went and looked at the place; at the rafters, walls, pillars, and so forth; and fretted myself into a belief that they really were slight! To crown all, there was an arched iron roof without any brackets or pillars, on a new principle! The only comfort I had was in stumbling at length on the builder, and finding ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... what an apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... none had offered to interrupt or question the queer old man. None dared. One or two of the party had already had a taste of his quality when fretted or interfered with, and no one desired to draw upon himself the sharp "talk" of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... homes, the crimson berried holly tree against the dark background of lofty pines brightened the winter landscape. The opulent Southern spring flung wide the white banners of dogwood, enriched the forest aisles with fretted gold of jessamine and scarlet of coral honeysuckle, and spread the ground with carpet of velvet moss, of rosy azaleas and blue-eyed innocents. The wide rivers that flow in placid beauty by the wooded ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... said the doctor, gravely; "that is what I would wish. Do not let her out of your sight if it is possible. Even if she seems to be fretted by your espionage I hope you will bear with her temper,—which I know to be a royal one,—and persist in your watchfulness. I shall ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... difference of their accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have swilled porter in the Ultima Thule Refreshment Bar and written a most interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint lozenges, consequent ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... here for compassion. The man's love, if it be possible so to call that force which mastered him, had come to be an incessant malady. It poisoned everything, caused him to find his statecraft tedious, his power profitless, and his vices gloomy. But chief of all he fretted over the standards by which the lives of Melicent and Perion were guided. Demetrios thought these criteria comely, he had discovered them to be unshakable, and he despairingly knew that as long as he trusted in the judgment heaven gave him they must always appear to him supremely idiotic. To ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... mysterious emotion held him mute, and he was only aware of a vague irritation that fretted him without any seemingly adequate cause. Dr. Dean meanwhile pursued his investigations with the lighted taper, and presently, turning round on the assembled little group of bystanders, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... journeying over the road to Barnstable, to renew the history of your first adventure in New York, in which you were interrupted by the mischievous boys." And as nothing so much pleased him as to relate his misfortunes at that time, he went straight into a rhapsody of joy, fretted his beard, looked quizzically out of his eyes, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... hilly snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke

... from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... know your worth, avillish. You were too good a wife, an' too good a mother, a'most! God forgive me, Kathleen! I fretted about beginnin', dear; but as my Heavenly Father's above me, I'm now happier to beg wid you by my side, nor if I war in the best house of the province widout you! Hould up, avour-neen, for a while. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... those of animated creatures, with the art of a mocking bird,—and simulating all in a material pure as amber, though more varied in color. One saw about him cliffs, basaltic columns, frozen down, arabesques, fretted traceries, sculptured urns, arches supporting broad tables or sloping roofs, lifted pinnacles, boulders, honey-combs, slanting strata of rock, gigantic birds, mastodons, maned lions, couching or rampant,—a fantasy of forms, and, between all, the shining, shining sea. In sunshine, these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... trail entered a hopeless tangle of underbrush and fallen timber but a short way further on. To go forward then became impossible, and equally so the turning back. The lively blacks resented the scratching of briers and broken branches upon their tender limbs and pranced and fretted wildly. A molly cottontail scurried across the track before them and with a mutual, frenzied impulse they shied and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth-day, were strangely incommoded: many carriages of persons, who got, in their way to town from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers, if they would shovel them a track to London; but the relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the 18th passed over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... freedom, and chafed and fretted under restraint. Insanity returned upon her with redoubled force, soon after. She used blasphemous and indecent language, and cut up her blankets to make pantaloons. She picked the lock of her room, and tried various plans of escape. When Friend Hopper went to see her again, some ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... another, nor did he like to have any nurse save Clarence. His wife at first acquiesced, holding fast to the theory of the periodical autumnal fever, and then that the operation would restore him to health; and as her presence fretted him, and he received her small attentions peevishly, she persisted in her usual habits, and heard with petulance his brothers' assurances of his being in a critical condition, declaring that it was always thus with these fevers—he ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... utmost a long ecstatic tone from a sensitive violin. 'What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light; and then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and saffron trees.' It is very nearly ecstasy with him in that astonishing Christmas night which no one then at the front can ever forget—a solemn night, a blue night, full of stars and of music, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... Simmons went to the box at the foot of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle. Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four clattered into the barrack-room only to find ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... upon the giant parapet of the Admiralty Pier, watching the tireless waves dance to the cappriccio of wind and sun, there was but little evidence to show that the portcullis, recently hoist, had for four years been down. Under the shadow of the Shakespeare Cliff the busy traffic of impatient Peace fretted as heretofore. The bristling sentinels were gone: no craft sang through the empty air: no desperate call for labour wearied tired eyes, clawed at strained nerves, hastened the scurrying feet: no longer from across the Straits came flickering the ceaseless grunt and grumble of the ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... answered, until the desert seemed filled with the calling of the noble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... then when the baby fretted, or lost her nap, and somebody had to hold her nearly all the time; when the door-bell rang as if with a continuous and concerted intent of malice. Stormy Mondays happened when clothes would not dry, entailing Tuesdays and Wednesdays and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... all succeeding ages cursed: For close designs, and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay; A daring pilot in extremity; Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... Roderick. You perhaps expected to hear that he fretted and petted very much after he was first blind, but really it was not so; and though occasionally he may have grumbled a little, it was only when he was slightly peevish, as children will sometimes be, and I believe he would have found something to grumble about then, even if ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... the analysis of which, even the nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived at camp. The familiar objects fretted on his mood. For the moment all the grateful feeling of power over understanding and manipulating this complicated machinery of industry had left him. He saw only the wheel in which these activities turned, and himself bound to it. In this truly Buddhistic ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... Baliol, he had done well," returned the king, calmly. "Nobles, and knights, and gentlemen," he added, the lion spirit of his race kindling in his eye and cheek, "what say ye in accepting the bold challenge of this courtly earl? Do we not read your hearts as well as our own? Ye have chafed and fretted that we have retained ye so long inactive: in very truth your monarch's spirit chafed and fretted too. We will do battle with this knightly foe, and give him, in all chivalric and honorable ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... he lay back on the dusty floor and pillowed his head on his hands. And then while he still fumed and fretted, outraged nature asserted herself and ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... also; but that was nothing by comparison with what stood on the other side. I detested distinctions that were connected with mortification to others; and, even if I could have got over that, the eternal feud fretted and tormented my nature. Love, that once in childhood had been so mere a necessity to me, that had long been a reflected ray from a departed sunset. But peace, and freedom from strife, if love were no longer possible, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... this is the house of Signior Sindbad, the sailor, that famous traveller who has sailed round the world? The porter, who had heard of Sindbad's riches, could not but envy a man whose condition he thought to be as happy as his own was deplorable; and his mind being fretted with these reflections, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and says, loud enough to be heard, Almighty Creator of all things, consider the difference between Sindbad and me. I am every day exposed to fatigues and calamities, and can scarcely get coarse barley bread for myself and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... because one of them had torn (instead of cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless bank-book. Of course, the corresponding pages at the other end came out as well, and this little unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy) chafed him more than all the loss of his money. Envelopes fretted his soul terribly when they first came in. The only way in which he could reconcile himself to such waste of his cherished article was by patiently turning inside out all that were sent to him, and so making them serve ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... comes, for he may need it, and then you will tell the folk you put in to be kind to him, for he will be grieved, poor lad, and to tell him that I was cheerful and happy up to the end. Don't let him know that I ever fretted, or he may ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... great Colbert. It was well for France, it was well for the artistic industry whose history occupies our attention, that these things happened; but we, nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius and energy caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had shown initiative and daring, qualities of which the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... anything of importance happened after grandmother's death till Jack went to sea. We missed him very much, and Mary was always asking after him, wondering when he would come back. Still, if I had gone away, she would, I think, have fretted still more. Perhaps it was because we were twins that we were so fond of each other. We were, however, not much alike. She was a fair, blue-eyed little maiden, with flaxen hair and a rosy blush on her cheeks, and I was a broad-shouldered, strongly-built ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... very unhappy at that. And when Ellie went home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, and did not care to listen to the fairy's stories about good children, though they were prettier than ever. Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he liked to listen, because they were all about ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... prolongation of life, little less absurd than animal magnetism, which have, like every other imposture, "fretted their hour," deserve to be noticed. The French and Germans have long stood pre-eminent in the empirical world, though the merit of ingenious and more plausible emanations of genius may fairly be attributed to the latter. Animal magnetism; physiognomy, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... clung in silent adoration, defiant of the iconoclastic touch of reason and the adverse decree of womanly pride; for natures such as hers will always grovel in the dust, hugging the mutilated fragments of their idol, rather than bow at some new, fretted shrine, where other images hold sway, commanding worship. Looking up almost wolfishly at that tranquil, shining countenance, she said ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... the lake, and under cover of the fog enveloping the shore, had approached much nearer than his orders contemplated. He was at once savagely attacked and all evening the rattle of the guns sounded like many bunches of fire crackers. Repeatedly we heard him sound the charge and we all fretted that we could not descend and join in the battle. Perry's men were desperately afraid that "the Apache boys," as Bernard's men were called, would clean out the Indians and leave them nothing to do on the morrow. ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... more to enable man to scale the very heavens. With his mind thus set upon the exploration of these new fields of knowledge; with the full realization how vast was the treasure lying hid therein; it was only natural that a spirit so curious and greedy of fresh mental food should have fretted at the piteous brevity of the earthly term allowed to man, and have rated as a supreme evil that old age which brought with it decay of the faculties and foreshadowed the speedy and inevitable fall of the curtain. Cicero on the other hand had been nurtured in a creed ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had been saved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic. How I had chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved my life by keeping me awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to the two wretches who had led me into this room, determined, for the sake of my winnings, to kill ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... of the children. Servants in those days were allowed to speak more freely to their masters and mistresses than at present, so that Deborah had more opportunity of making such speeches, and it was Rose's continual work to try to keep her temper from being fretted, or Lady Woodley from being teased with her complaints. Rose was very forbearing, and but for this there would have been ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... late at night. There was no chance of a marriage, he was to leave in the morning. He fretted and fumed at the delay, but Eve dispelled his gloom and he went cheerfully after an affectionate parting. After his departure she sat in a disconsolate mood in the large room, longing for company. She wondered if she ought to make their engagement known. He had said ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... went hard over, the "Bertha Millner" fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again she scooped the nor'wester in the hollow palms of her tense canvases ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... and disappointed with himself. He had flattered himself that he was gifted with greater firmness; and now that he found himself so wanting in strength of character, he fretted and fumed, as men will do, even at their own faults. He swore to himself that he would go to-morrow, and that evening went to bed early, trying to persuade himself that indigestion had weakened him. He did great injustice, however, to as fine a set of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... rapid departure after dinner always discomposed Henry; and the usual vent for his ill-humour was either a murmur against the clergy and all their measures, or the discovery of some of Leonard's transgressions of his code. Fretted and irritable at the destruction of evening comfort, he in his turn teased the fiery temper of his brother. If there were nothing worse, his grumbling remarks interrupted, and too often they were that sort of censure that is expressively called nagging. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the surface of her usually happy life. As a rule, like the butterflies, she saw only the sunshine, and the green things growing, and nothing of the sordidness and neglect of everything about her. If she did, if things jarred or fretted her, she just walked away, far out into the country and the woods where everything was peaceful, and nothing seemed to matter; and out there she would very soon recover again and become her ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... the vast domes inwrought with fretted gold, The sumptuous pavements veins or pearl unfold, Arch piled on arch with columned pride ascend, Grove linked to grove their mingling ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... never comes," said Ben, gloomily, who felt dreadfully fretted to think he couldn't earn money enough to do something nice for her. "We eat it all up as fast as we get paid," he had once ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... unwonted good-humour; and Mr. Holmes, of whom she stood a little in dread, enjoyed it all with such zest, and was so attentive to them all, but Margret. They hardly spoke to each other all day; it quite fretted the old lady; indeed, she gave the girl a good scolding about it out in the pantry, until she was ready to cry. She had looked that way all ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... to Hellebergene without Helene. Everything which he loved there had become consecrated by her presence; every project which he had formed they had planned together; in fact, his whole future—He fretted and pined till he found it impossible to work as seriously as he wished ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... when Maggie awoke next morning, and making a hasty toilet she descended to the dining room, where she found Mr. Carrollton awaiting her. He had been up a long time; but when Anna Jeffrey, blessed with an uncommon appetite, fretted at the delay of breakfast, and suggested calling Margaret, he objected, saying she needed rest, and must not be disturbed. So, in something of a pet, the young lady breakfasted alone with her aunt, Mr. Carrollton preferring ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... tried to be cheerful as the days passed, and they thought more and more of their father and mother going away from them. Flossie and Freddie had fretted a little at first, but, being younger, they ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... of joyous sounds filled the air; the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crowing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a foal running away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots covered with iris. Charles as he passed recognised each courtyard. He remembered mornings like this, when, after visiting some patient, he came out from one ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... his fathers' place, Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand: Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen On fretted pillar and jewelled screen, And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen On the drift of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... scratched the enemy's skin. The painter knew more about fencing than art. He was a champion with various weapons; he could box, and was even skilled in the favorite blows of the prize fighters of the slums. "Useless as a drone, and as dangerous, too," fretted his father. And yet in the back of his troubled mind fluttered an irresistible satisfaction—an animal pride in the thought that this hare-brained ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... he ate greedily till the last prune was gone, when Johnnie had Buckle throw all of the green rinds into the sink. (It was this attention to detail which invested his games with reality.) Then, the repast finished, Grandpa fretted to be away, whirling his chair ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... Caligula's face what the faces of some maniacs are—the bloated ruin of what was once a living witness to the soul within—I could fancy that death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of the self-tormented young man shows. Have we not all seen the anguish of thought-fretted faces smoothed out by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... all struggle from Roger's career. Every barrier had been removed, every thwarting force had been brought into abeyance, and afterward, with an inconsistency typical of human nature, the leveler of the road fretted at his son's lack of aggressiveness, his eyes, ordinarily so hawklike in their vision, blinded to the fact that what his son was he had to a great extent made him, and if the product caused secret disappointment he had no one to thank for it but himself. Instead his reasoning took the bias that ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... bodyguard, who were already mounted and drawn up in a double line for his inspection. So obviously was this expected of him that Harry needed no hint to that effect, but, vaulting lightly into the saddle of the magnificent white stallion that, gorgeously caparisoned, chafed and fretted under the restraint of his bridle, held by two of the nobles, while two more held the heavy gold stirrups for the royal rider's feet, wheeled his steed and cantered gaily off to where Umu, sitting bolt upright in his saddle with drawn ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... all day, and made no fuss about going to bed, though usually she fretted, and wanted to play, and called for water, and plagued poor Nursey in many ways. She got safely into her little nest, and then was in such a hurry to see what was under her pillow that she forgot, and ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... Thessalan youths had eyed with eager inspection Fulfilled, place they began to provide for venerate Godheads, Even as Zephyrus' breath, seas couching placid at dawn-tide, Roughens, then stings and spurs the wavelets slantingly fretted— 270 Rising Aurora the while 'neath Sol the wanderer's threshold— Tardy at first they flow by the clement breathing of breezes Urged, and echo the shores with soft-toned ripples of laughter, But as the winds wax high so waves wax higher and higher, Flashing and ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... the day go on well like, and settled a body's mind, when I fretted for what could not be helped. But I try not to fret after it now, and Mr. Hazlewood said, if I did my best wherever I was, the Lord would ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... false Achitophel was first: A Name to all succeeding Ages curst. For close Designs, and crooked Counsels fit; Sagacious, Bold, and Turbulent of wit: Restless, unfixt in Principles and Place; In Pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of Disgrace. A fiery Soul, which working out its way, Fretted the Pigmy-Body to decay: And o'r inform'd the Tenement of Clay, A daring Pilot in extremity; Pleas'd with the Danger, when the Waves went high He sought the Storms; but for a Calm unfit, Would Steer too nigh the Sands, to boast ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... he ran away, for he was afraid of being beaten; but, instead of playing quietly with his toys, he went and laid under the great table in the hall and sulked and fretted till dinner-time. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... Hyacinth began to realize that he had entered into a home of peace. He felt that these people were neither greatly anxious to be rich nor much afraid of being poor. They seemed in no way fretted that there were others higher in the social scale, cleverer or more brilliant than they were. He understood that they were both of them religious in a way quite different from any he had known. They neither spoke of mysteries, like ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... confined in the yard, a pet lamb was given to one of the children, which the former soon discovered to be sharing a great portion of those caresses which he had been in the habit of receiving. This circumstance produced so great an effect on the poor animal, that he refused to eat, and fretted till he became extremely unwell. Thinking that exercise might be of use to him, he was let loose. No sooner was this done, than the dog watched his opportunity, and seized the lamb in his mouth. He was seen conveying ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... it fretted him worse than anything since we came back, but he filled himself up with the idea that we'd be sure to get the gold all right, and clear out different ways to the coast, and then we'd have something worth while leaving off with. Another thing, we'd been all used ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... of sepulchral vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked like the cages of some feudal Bastille. The eating room and drawing-room, with an interior boudoir, were magnificent apartments, the ceiling was fretted and adorned with stucco-work, which already was broken in many places, and looked in others damp and mouldering; the wood panelling was shrunk and warped, and cracked; the doors, which had not been hung for more than two years, were, nevertheless, already ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... friends; but little availed, on this occasion, the pedigree lineally traced from Caractacus or King Arthur; their two philosophical lovers, neither of whom could have given the least account of his great-great-grandfather, had engaged them many days before. Mr Panscope chafed and fretted like Llugwy in his bed of rocks, when the object of his adoration stood up with his rival: but he consoled himself with a lively damsel from the vale of Edeirnion, having first compelled Miss Cephalis to promise him her hand for ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... earth, or cast upon a fire,— I can be made to feel the pangs of death, And yet be constant to the quest of breath,— Our poor pale trick of living through the lies We name Existence when that 'something' dies Which we call Honor. Many and many a way Can I be struck or fretted night or day In some new fashion,—or condemn'd the while To take for food the semblance of a smile,— The left-off rapture of a ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... break" expanding before it. The abruptness, the sharp transitions, the startling and picturesque contrasts which mark so much of the talk of his persons, reflect not merely his agility of mind but his aesthetic relish for the Gothic richness and fretted intricacy that result. The bishop of St Praxed's monologue, for instance, is a sort of live mosaic,—anxious entreaty to his sons, diapered with gloating triumph over old Gandulph. The larger tracts of soul-life are apt in his hands to break up into shifting phases, or to nodulate ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... social party broke up at a late hour, and the gentlemen crowded into the saloon, where, enlivened by wine and the joyful occasion, they laid aside their swords and handed their impatient partners to the floor. The music already rung from the gallery, along the fretted roof of the ancient state apartment. According to strict etiquette, the bride ought to have opened the ball; but Lady Ashton, making an apology on account of her daughter's health, offered her own hand ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... employest, And in chastest beauty joyest, Forms most delicate, pure, and clear, Frost-caught star-beams, fallen sheer In the night, and woven here In jewel-fretted tapestries. ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... in a dark, dingy ante-room, luxuriously furnished with faded tapestry, and divans which lined the walls; and fretted and fidgeted, while the two girls watched him over their embroidery out of the corners of their eyes, and agreed that he was a very stupid person for showing no inclination to return their ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... other quest of which the same can be said? Are not all paths of human effort strewed with the skeletons of men who have fretted and toiled away their lives in vain attempts to grasp aims that have eluded their grip? Do we not all know the sickness of disappointed effort, or the sadder sickness of successful effort, which has secured the apparent good and found it not so ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... a merry day among the children of her own age in the village; she fretted at coming away, and was frightened at turning into so lonely a path through the hazel stems, trotting after Patience because she was afraid to turn back alone, but making a low, peevish ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... without being prepossessed in her favour. She accosted Amaranthe with the utmost kindness, who very coldly accepted her proffered hand, for she felt an inward acknowledgment of superiority that fretted her beyond endurance. Nor could she at all account for it, having settled in her own mind, quite to her satisfaction, that she had never seen any thing half so ugly or ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown

... poor Silence! thou hast watched and fretted for me preciously, I'll warrant: but the road from Brisac is long, and this rough night half ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... to feel the unrest of their driver, for they fretted and actually executed a clumsy prance as Jim Irwin pulled them up at the end of the turnpike across Bronson's Slew—the said slew being a peat-marsh which annually offered the men of the Woodruff District the opportunity to hold the male equivalent of a sewing circle while working out ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... hard to fix my attention on listening and endeavouring to make out how near I was to the Boer lines; but I could not hear a sound. Again and again I fretted at my miserable position as the time glided away and there was no ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... Ron had worked, fretted, and worried of late, and his health itself might break down under the strain, for his constitution was not strong. During one long, anxious year there had been fear of lung trouble, and mental agitation of any kind told quickly upon him. Margot's thoughts flew longingly to ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... earnest, and in such a hurry to be off that she could hardly stand still to have her hair brushed, and thought there were a great many unnecessary buttons and strings on her clothes that day. Usually she lay late, got up slowly and fretted at every thing as little girls are apt to do when they have had too much sleep. She wasn't a rosy, stout Daisy; but had been ill, and had fallen into a way of thinking she couldn't do anything but lie about, reading fairy-tales, and being petted by ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... them. Aunt Sloman has them all, done up and labeled for you, doubtless. She, it seems—had you talked her over?—thought I ought to have gone with you, and fretted because she was keeping me. Then I couldn't bear it another day. It was just after you had sailed, and I had cut out the ship-list to send you; and I had worked myself up to believe you would go back ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... palm, What ambergris, what sacerdotal wine, What Arab myrrh, what spikenard, would be thine, If I could swathe thy memory in such balm! Oh, for wrecked gold, from depths for ever calm, To fashion for thy name a fretted shrine; Oh, for strange gems, still locked in virgin mine, To stud the pyx, where thought would bring sweet psalm! I have but this small rosary of rhyme,— No rubies but heart's drops, no pearls but tears, To lay upon the altar of thy name, O Mimma Bella;—on the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... Sir Thomas Metcalfe fumed and fretted—in vain he heaped curses upon the bullies for their negligence—in vain he hurled menaces after the fugitive: the former paid little heed to his imprecations, and the latter was beyond his reach. The notion began to gain ground amongst the rest of the troop that the storm was the work of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... we tooke in water at the Island of Flores, and hauing ankered our cable was fretted in sunder with a rocke and so burst, where wee lost that cable and anker also, and so departed ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which their passengers had ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... many lofty Ideas about her own duties and principles,—much such uncompromising fancies as had led his father to get rid of that little Nelchen.... No, there was no putting up with these rigid virtues, day in and day out. These high-flown notions about right and wrong upset your living, they fretted your luckless associates.... These people here at Ingilby, by example, made no pretensions to immaculacy; instead, they kept their gallant compromise with imperfection; and they seemed happy enough.... There might be a moral somewhere: but he could ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... bein' tired out, worried a sight about the rain and the suddenness on't and how it stopped his sight-seein' and brung on his rumatiz, and he complained of his corns and his tight boots, and said that I had ort to seen that he wuz dressed thicker, and fretted and acted. And ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... managed to persuade Trullya to leave her couch. Then the baby, restless and curious as small persons are, crept to the opening and peeped out. The mother followed, and finding the barriers against which she had daily fretted removed, waddled slowly into the passage, followed by her ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... the sea, he sailed some three leagues, sitting up to the waist continually in water, and at every surge of the wave to the arm-pits, for the space of six hours, upon this raft: what with the parching of the sun and what with the beating of the salt water, they had all of them their skins much fretted away. ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... out. We sedulously avoided caucuses and school-meetings, our time was far too precious to be squandered in jury service, we forgot to register for elections, we neglected to vote. We observed a sort of aristocratic contempt for political activity and then fretted and fumed over the low estate to which our government had fallen—and never saw the humour ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... Redgauntlet Castle wi' a heavy purse and a light heart, glad to be out of the laird's danger. Weel, the first thing he learned at the castle was, that Sir Robert had fretted himsell into a fit of the gout, because he did not appear before twelve' o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought; but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... could see that he had never been really homesick. It had been very wretched on the ship going from Havre to New York. That he told me about. And he told me about the gold-mines, the galleries, the valley, the huts in the valley. But he had never really fretted for San Gaudenzio ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... word so far, about his mouth, so that he lisped and sibilated ever and again and the coming and going of a curious expression, triumphant in quality it was, upon his face as he talked. He fingered his glasses, which did not seem to fit his nose, fretted with things in his waistcoat pockets or put his hands behind him, looked over our heads, and ever and again rose to his toes and dropped back on his heels. He had a way of drawing air in at times through his teeth that gave a whispering zest to his ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... morning passed, and she fretted. In the afternoon the Goldite News broke its record. It printed an extra—a single sheet, in glaring type, announcing the capture of the convicts. By a bold and daring coup, it said, the entire herd ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... emerging, found ourselves in the deserted and stony magnificence of the Gare de Lyon, the gate of the South. Here, where we were not out of keeping, where our splendour was of a piece with the splendour of the proudest terminus in France, we rested long, fretted by the inexplicable leisureliness on the part of a train de grand luxe, while gilded officials paced to and fro beneath us on the platforms, guarding in their bureaucratic breasts the secret of the exact instant at which the great express would leave. I slept, and dreamed that the Misses ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... confinement the bitch was released by Colonel Forde's orders. For two days she had taken no food; and as she obviously fretted when Finn was kept away from her, the wolfhound was allowed to come and go at Shaws as he chose, and as he did ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... were always at work on it, stretching out eager hands for the rare stuffs and precious stones devout men brought from overseas, finding a place for the best of every ordered craft; their shame an uncouth line or graceless arch, their glory each completed pinnacle and fretted spire; ever restoring, enlarging, repairing, spendthrift of money and time in the service of the House of ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... changes all has changed This guarded pleasaunce, green and fair, And soldier-ranks therein have ranged And trod its beauty hard and bare, Have tramped and tramped its fretted floor Learning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various

... with which they have been too often mingled. Yet I feel glad that you are soon coming home; and I really must not trust myself to say how much I wish the time were come when, without let or hindrance, I could once more welcome you to Haworth. But oh I don't get on; I feel fretted—incapable—sometimes very low. However, at present, the subject must not be dwelt upon; it presses me too hardly—nearly—and painfully. Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you. Thank you for ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... died the first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believe to be "broken heart,"—certainly without any cause inferable from injury or previous disease.[1] It is observable, that till a captured elephant begins to relish food, and grow fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by work, that it kills him in an incredibly short ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... he was no longer Emperor, nor Consul, nor General, nor even a citizen, but an exile and a prisoner, on a lonely island, in the midst of the wild Atlantic. Discontent attended him there. The wayward man fretted out a few long years of his yet unbroken manhood, looking off at the earliest dawn and in evening's latest twilight, towards that distant world that had only just eluded his grasp. His heart corroded. Death came, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... seemed suddenly to have grown much older. The erect figure stooped a little, her high color had faded and her voice lost some of its energy and determination. She was not able to fulfill all her former public duties, and she fretted greatly at the enforced inaction. She was one of those characters who would rather wear out than rust out, and it required the utmost firmness on the part of her doctor to persuade her from over-exerting herself. Instead of being in ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... as well own the truth; Lucy Eaton was a great trial to me. I have no doubt that I was cross and irritable. I used to reproach myself twenty times each day, for being so captious and unreasonable; but really, that pretty, childish creature fretted me almost beyond all powers ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink, and was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of the panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night after the fighting began. There ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations and emotions, and finally said, with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones. I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews.' ERSKINE. 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... called a sound education. In the limited rooms above the shop there might have been a measure of quiet content and hopefulness, but for Mrs. Humplebee. She, considerably younger than her husband, fretted against their narrow circumstances, and grudged the money that was being spent—wasted, she called it—on the ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... cottage, set amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance away, and we didn't know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not. It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols than of any ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... aspects, to think of declining this invitation. And these little points of business being settled, Coleridge, like some great river, the Orellana, or the St. Lawrence, that had been checked and fretted by rocks or thwarting islands, and suddenly recovers its volume of waters, and its mighty music, swept, at once, as if returning to his natural business, into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly the most novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... only a few inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important than even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch feels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is stimulated by this means it is not easy to learn, but his action in manipulating their seeds is more appreciable. Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... chansons and the songs of the voyageurs, with a far greater sweetness and richness, however, than any in the parish; and the Cure could detect her among all others at mass. She had been taught her notes, but that had only opened up possibilities, and fretted her till she was unhappy. What she felt she could not put into her singing, for the machinery, unknown and tyrannical, was not hers. Twice before she had heard Parpon sing— at mass when the miller's wife was buried, and he, forgetting the world, had poured ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... guitar: the hollow gourd is covered with skin; it has a bridge, and there are two strings; it is played with the finger. Another of the same class is played with a bow; it has but one string, but is fretted with the fingers. All these are called Gourmis. There were, besides, drums made of the hollow trunks of trees, four or five feet long, closed at one end with wood, and covered with skin at the other. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... doctor say de ku'nel 'ud do fus-class ef he only would n't wherrit so, but he do nothin' but toss an' act rambunctious, an' dat keep de wound fretted an' ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... he did n' 'pear ter be as peart ez yushal, en w'en night come he fretted en went on wuss 'n he did de night befo'. De nex' day his little eyes 'mence' ter lose dey shine, en he would n' eat nuffin, en he 'mence' ter look so peaked dat Aun' Nancy tuk 'n kyared 'im up ter de big house, en showed 'im ter her ole missis, en her ole missis gun her some ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... uneasiness implanted in his mind, it was impossible that he should retain a Cabinet in whose original selection he had no part, and whose presence was the symbol of a political subordination which constantly fretted him. A cause of difference was soon found; difference led to irritation, irritation to open quarrel, and quarrel ended in a dissolution of the Cabinet five months after Mr. Tyler's accession to the Executive chair. The dispute was then transferred to his party, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... she sat down at the table without noticing what seemed to Ellen his obvious dejection, and began to talk about this man Milford, telling of the power he had over his beasts and how a prize heifer that they then had, by the name of Susan Caraway, had fretted for three weeks after he had left. She said that he gained this power over animals not by any real love for them, for he was indifferent to them except when he was actually touching them, and would always scamp his ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... mildness of the weather. This impeded movement in all quarters, by preventing the formation of ice and of the usual hard snow surface, which made winter the most favorable season for land transportation. Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor chafed and fretted over the detention of the stores and guns for his new ships then building, upon which he was reckoning for control of the lake. "The roads are dreadful," he wrote on February 24, "and if the present mild weather continues we shall experience ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... to be the burthen of the song on both sides. Carey was pushing back her hair with a fierce, wild sense of impatience with that calm assumption that fretted her beyond all bearing, and made her feel desolate beyond all else. She would have, she thought, done well enough alone with her children, and scrambled into her new home; but the directions, however needful, seemed to be continually insulting her understanding. When she was advised as to the best ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gracious and friendly youth of her: and he deliberated, dizzily, the awe of her spirited and alert eyes; why, the woman was afraid of him! That sunny and vivid glade had become, to him, an island about which past happenings lapped like a fretted sea. "Dear me!" he reflected, "but I am really in a ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... spent. Her mother, having been refused admittance, had fumed and fretted herself to sleep. The house was very still. She opened her window and looked out. Clouds obscured the stars, and it was ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... not the tangled dew, 'Tis not the silver-fretted sand, It is my own dear Lady true With golden hair and lily hand! O noble pilot, steer for Troy, Good sailor, ply the labouring oar, This is the Queen of life and joy Whom we must ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... church itself! Into the cool, dim shadow, with its fretted pillars, and lowering domes, and candles, and incense, and blazing altar, and great pictures looking down from the walls athwart the gorgeous gloom. And right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ, watching ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... to him and his Friends. But the Mischief is, he looks upon the same kind of Errors which he himself was guilty of with an Eye of Scorn, and with that sort of Ill-will which Men entertain against each other for different Opinions: Thus a crasie Constitution, and an uneasie Mind is fretted with vexatious Passions for young Mens doing foolishly what it is Folly to do at all. Dear Sir, this is my present State of Mind; I hate those I should laugh at, and envy those I contemn. The Time of Youth and vigorous ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... I think he has fainted. Here," and lifting the lad with little effort La Mothe leaned across to Hugues and won his heart for ever by the act, "take him, you: he will be less fretted when he comes to himself. The sooner he is in mademoiselle's care the better, and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... had fashioned His eyes, and had lent them Their wonderful brightness. At sight of his first Angel smile, all the anger And bitterness nursed 240 In my bosom was melted; It vanished away Like the snow on the meadows At sight of the smiling Spring sun. And not longer I worried and fretted; I worked, and in silence I let them upbraid. But soon after that A misfortune befell me: 250 The manager by The Pomyeshchick appointed, Called Sitnikov, hotly Began to pursue me. 'My lovely Tsaritsa! 'My rosy-ripe berry!' Said he; and I answered, 'Be off, shameless rascal! ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... are, and what has become of, you? I have received no letters for these two years, and I have fretted myself to death. I received your letter about the rascally court-martial; but perhaps you have not heard that the little scoundrel is dead. Yes, Peter; he brought your letter out in his own ship, and that was his ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... cumbered, or distracted too, if thirteen hungry men dropped in suddenly some day, and they had to entertain them, preparing them a meal. Still, the lesson unmistakably is that Martha should not have been fretted; that she should have kept sweet amid all the pressure of work ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... into the old round of duties and pleasures, as loving and happy a family as one might wish to see; a striking and most pleasant contrast to the one at Roselands, that of Enna and her offspring—where the mother fretted and scolded, and the children, following her example were continually at ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... Some on the lower boughs which crost their way, Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round, With many a ring and wild contortion wound; Some to the passing wind at times, with sway Of gentle motion swung; Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung Like stone-drops from a cavern's fretted height." ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... middle opposite the great temple. The walls are from 30 to 35 feet in height, and the rock immediately below them is steeply, but irregularly, scarped all round the hill. The long line of battlements which crowns the steep scarp on the east is broken only by the lofty towers and fretted domes of the noble palace of Raja Man Singh. On the opposite side, the line of battlements is relieved by the deep recess of the Urwahi valley, and by the zigzag and serrated parapets and loopholed bastions which flank the numerous gates of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... equally futile to explain to him that the man's last act had been in no degree caused by what had been said in Parliament, but had been the result of his continued failures in life and final absolute ruin. He fretted and fumed and was very wretched,—and at last expressed his opinion that legal steps should be taken to punish the "People's Banner." Now it had been already acknowledged, on the dictum of no less a man than Sir Gregory ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... strategic scheme of cutting Saint-Antoine in two halves: he answers what he can: they think it were right to send this strategic National Commandant to the Abbaye Prison, and let a Court of Law decide on him. Alas, a Court of Law, not Book-Law but primeval Club-Law, crowds and jostles out of doors; all fretted to the hysterical pitch; cruel as Fear, blind as the Night: such Court of Law, and no other, clutches poor Mandat from his constables; beats him down, massacres him, on the steps of the Townhall. Look to it, ye new Municipals; ye People, in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... we can more easily bear up against a real evil than against suspense! Let it not be supposed that Amine fretted at the thought of her approaching separation from her husband; she lamented it, but feeling his departure to be an imperious duty, and having it ever in her mind, she bore up against her feelings, and submitted, without repining, to what could not be averted. There was, however, one circumstance, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... Fretted as he was with his absence, Varney received his profligate servant with a rebuke of unusual bitterness. "Drunken villain," he said, "thy idleness and debauched folly will stretch a halter ere it be long, and, for me, I care not ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... The English did not even allow him to land. He was transferred to another vessel and carried to a lonely and rocky island in the south Atlantic called St. Helena. Here, with a few of his followers who remained faithful to him in his misfortune, the great Emperor fretted away the remainder of his life. On May 5, 1821, just as the sunset gun was ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain, perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise Even me, the ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... but over light-headed: a Booby who had fine legs. How these first courted, billed, and cooed, according to nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged and blew one another up.—Boswell's ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... desire of the profit; for after the plundered person had been sufficiently tormented by the loss, haply, of such utilities as a tobacco-box or a handkerchief; after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched every corner of the apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young friend would quietly and suddenly contrive that the article missed should return of its own accord to the pocket ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... besides, because I was born with that. An inheritance, no doubt. And my uncle never complained at all about the bills. I seemed to have become, in some way, a person of considerable importance in the house. Ann Coddle no more fretted at me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook ceased to bully me, and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I remembered the long years of bullying, and put no faith in her assurances. I did not ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris



Words linked to "Fretted" :   reticular, reticulate, fret, latticed, interlaced



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