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Difficulty   /dˈɪfəkəlti/  /dˈɪfɪkˌəlti/   Listen
Difficulty

noun
(pl. difficulties)
1.
An effort that is inconvenient.  Synonym: trouble.  "He won without any trouble" , "Had difficulty walking" , "Finished the test only with great difficulty"
2.
A factor causing trouble in achieving a positive result or tending to produce a negative result.
3.
A condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome.
4.
The quality of being difficult.  Synonym: difficultness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Difficulty" Quotes from Famous Books



... author of "Night Thoughts," paid a visit to Potter, son of Archbishop Potter, who lived in a deep and dirty part of Kent, through which Young had scrambled with some difficulty and danger. "Whose field was that I crossed?" asked Young, on reaching his friend. "Mine," said Potter. "True," replied the poet; "Potter's field ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... serving under Colonel Fielding. In August 1710 a difficulty arose through Arbuthnot trying to get his brother George made Captain over Bernage's head; but ultimately Arbuthnot waived the business, because he would not wrong ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... and his whole frame trembled. His hand clutched the wine-glass which he held, and he seemed to breathe with difficulty. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... at first too terribly stung by the words about Captain Wybrow to think of the difficulty which threatened her—to think either of what Sir Christopher would say to her, or of what she could say in reply. Bitter sense of injury, fierce resentment, left no room for fear. With the poisoned garment upon him, the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... northern Spain, where he conquered all before him. Then he marched through Gaul to the Rhone. This he crossed in the face of an army of hostile Gauls, who had gathered to oppose him. He had more difficulty with his elephants, of which he had thirty-seven. Rafts were built to convey these great beasts across the stream, but some of them, frightened, leaped overboard and drowned their drivers. They then swam across themselves, and all ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... artists have sprung from humble life. If they had been born rich, they would probably never have been artists. They have had to work their way from one position to another; and to strengthen their nature by conquering difficulty. Hogarth began his career by engraving shop-bills. William Sharp began by engraving door-plates. Tassie the sculptor and medallist, began life as a stone-cutter. Having accidentally seen a collection of pictures, he aspired to become an artist and entered an academy to learn the elements ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... since they were not only almost unarmed, but were also dispersed along the trans-Siberian line in small detachments which had considerable difficulty in keeping in touch with each other. Nevertheless the fates were favourable to them. They were victorious almost everywhere, thanks to their wonderful spirit ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... darker rapidly, and it was with difficulty that the major kept his man in sight, especially after the bushes near the bridge were reached. There was also a danger of a shot, but ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic

... more stories about the chair. He had no difficulty in relating them; for it really seemed as if every person, noted in our early history, had, on some occasion or other, found repose within its comfortable arms. If Grandfather took pride in any thing, it was in being ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of general alarm, accompanied by a rush of people into the house, arrested his attention, and he hastily inquired into the cause of the commotion. Before he could receive a reply, however, the house was almost crowded; and it was not without considerable difficulty, that, by the exertions of Mrs. Sullivan and Bartley, sufficient order and quiet were obtained to hear distinctly what ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... possible after it is voided. The essential point is that flies be prevented from reaching the manure, and for this reason the pit or bin must be tightly constructed, preferably of concrete, and the lid kept closed except when the manure is being thrown in or removed. The difficulty has been that manure often becomes infested before it is put into the container, and flies frequently breed out before it is emptied and often escape through the cracks. To obviate these difficulties a manure box or pit with a modified tent trap or ...
— The House Fly and How to Suppress It - U. S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 1408 • L. O. Howard and F. C. Bishopp

... which the mind can be enriched and strengthened where it is lifted up, instead of climbing for itself;—no way, therefore, in which life could be at all a worthy achievement, if it were merely a plain of ease, instead of holding every ward of knowledge and of power under the guard of difficulty and the requisition ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... with proper and convenient utensils and materials, the difficulty of preparing cakes will be great, and in most instances a failure; involving disappointment, waste of time, and useless expense. Accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable; and therefore scales and weights, ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... modern times is the mistaking erudition for education. I call it the leading error, for I believe that, with little difficulty, nearly every other might be shown to have root in it; and, most assuredly, the worst that are fallen into on ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... water shortages are a perennial problem; a few desalination plants are now online. The Turkish Cypriot economy has less than one-half the per capita GDP of the south. Because it is recognized only by Turkey, it has had much difficulty arranging foreign financing, and foreign firms have hesitated to invest there. It remains heavily dependent on agriculture and government service, which together employ about half of the work force. To compensate for the economy's weakness, Turkey provides substantial ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... point, have a tendency to send away persons, and property, and trade, from a country, which, if they do, its decline is inevitable. The extent, however, of that effect must depend on a great variety of circumstances, such as the comparative situation of other nations, their distance, the difficulty of ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... thee, Mistress Kate," he answered; for though encouraged to speak on terms of equality with his kinsfolk, he found some difficulty in remembering to do so, and they certainly appeared to him in the light of beings from another and a higher sphere than his own. "I was longing to ask of thee ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... dogmas as propositions handed down in the creed of the Church, shown to exist in the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments, and rationally reproduced and formulated, then the men we have just mentioned were the first to set up dogmas[8]—dogmas but no system of dogmatics. As yet the difficulty of the problem was by no means perceived by these men either. Their peculiar capacity for sympathising with and understanding the traditional and the old still left them in a happy blindness. So far as they had a ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... teasing Mrs Fyne. It is humiliating to confess a failure. One would think that a man of average intelligence could command stupidity at will. But it isn't so. I suppose it's a special gift or else the difficulty consists in being relevant. Discovering that I could find no really telling stupidity, I turned to the next best thing; a platitude. I advanced, in a common sense tone, that, surely, in the matter of marriage a man had only himself ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... interrupted him. "I begin to apprehend the difficulty," said he, laughing. "My musicians are all of high rank, and, as noblemen and artistes, they have a twofold pride. They know perfectly well that I cannot do without them, and they occasionally take advantage of the fact to annoy me. They have some cause of complaint, I confess, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... sent me some silk hose so small that I had all the difficulty in the world putting them on, and already there are two ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere

... With difficulty Mrs. Kinzie composed herself sufficiently to give the information, "That, while she was up at Burns's, a man and a boy were seen running down with all speed on the opposite side of the river; that they had ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... school for colored children, in Mulberry street, in a poor but decent locality. It has two departments, one male and one female; it consists of two stories only, and has two small recitation rooms on each floor, but as primary as well as grammar children attend each department, much difficulty and confusion arises from the want of class room for the respective studies. The building covers only part of the lot, and as it is, the best attended and among the best taught of the colored schools, a new and ample school ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... many years subsisted between the two courts. During these negociations, an officer of distinction, high in favour with the crown prince, coming on board the admiral, with a verbal answer to one of our proposals, and finding some difficulty in expressing, with sufficient accuracy, the sentiments of his court, was requested to communicate them in writing; when, a pen being brought for this purpose, which happened to be ill pointed, he held it up, and remarked, with ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... she replied calmly. "I suppose the work will be no harder for me than for other women; and whereas they do it for some ten or twelve pounds a year I shall do it for a fortune. I see not the slightest difficulty or objection in that part of the business. I shall, of course, let my house at Dover, making arrangements for my son's letters there being forwarded, and for my letters to him being posted in Dover. I shall have the satisfaction that while engaged ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... companions, telling all that happened on the way, and offered big pay if he could find them quickly—especially the little fellow. He held out hopes of spotting them to-night, so don't be desperate, my poor girl. The detective chap seemed really to think he'd not have much difficulty in tracking down our man; and even if he's parted with the treaty, we can find out what he's done with it, no ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... built are tested, first at short flights, then at longer ones, and conductors are trained to manage them. There are no regular lines of cars through or over Labrador, and so there is no risk of collision in the trial trips. Considerable difficulty is experienced at first in taking a car a flight of 100 miles, but by practice flights of over 1,000 miles are ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius

... has an Empire room, admires the lines of her sofa as furniture, but feels it ineffective unless one reclines a la Mme. Recamier. To obviate this difficulty, she has had made a square (one and a half yards), of lovely soft mauve silk damask, lined with satin charmeuse of the same shade, and weighted by long, heavy tassels, at the corners; this she throws over the Empire ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... in doubt he could apply for an explanation to Kiddie himself, but on this particular day Kiddie was absent on duty with the Pony Express, and Rube had to puzzle out the difficulty unhelped. He had one of the elevation plans spread out in front of him on the working bench, and was trying to ascertain the exact position of a window casement, when a moving shadow crossed the sheet ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... last he rose and went to a corner of the workshop in which stood a heavily ironed box. Marzio fumbled in his pocket till he found a key, bright from always being carried about with him, and contrasting oddly with the rusty lock into which he thrust it. It turned with difficulty in his nervous fingers, and he raised the heavy lid. The coffer was full of packages wrapped in brown paper. He removed one after another till he came to a wooden case which filled the whole length ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... Difficulty was thus intentional; in the case of several troubadours it affected the whole of their writing, no matter what the subject matter. They desired not to be understood of the people. Dean Gaisford's reputed address to his divinity ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor

... are queerly shaped but powerful sprites that labor at the furnaces and forges of their king, making gold and silver and other metals which they conceal in the crevices of the rocks, so that those living upon the earth's surface can only find them with great difficulty. Also they make diamonds and rubies and emeralds, which they hide in the ground; so that the kingdom of the Nomes is wonderfully rich, and all we have of precious stones and silver and gold is what we take from the earth and rocks where ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... soil, resting on oolitic limestone, and producing generally a fair crop of red-clover. The clover-field formed the slope of a rather steep hillock, and varied much in depth. At the top of the hill, the soil became very stony at a depth of four inches, so that it could only with difficulty be excavated to a depth of six inches, when the bare limestone-rock made its appearance. At the bottom of the field the soil was much deeper, and the clover stronger, than at the upper part. On the brow of the hill, where the clover appeared to be strong, a square yard was measured out; ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... be impossible to take a real census of the Sakais owing to their distrust of everything they do not understand and the difficulty their ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... little difficulty in getting her scattered brothers and sisters together. She could not get any of them to think seriously of Scorpion's departure. They laughed and lingered over their own pursuits, and told Helen to her face that she made a great fuss about nothing; in short, the best part of an hour had gone ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... perhaps," said Fellowes, "(for I acknowledge some difficulty here,) that Christianity contains these truths of absolute religion alone and pure. As Mr. Parker says, This is ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... family," a correspondent writes, "has been residing in Bavaria over forty years. He is an artist, and married a Bavarian lady. His eldest son is a doctor in London, and two of his daughters are married in London, but the father has no difficulty in getting permits to paint in the Austrian and German mountains, and still finds a sale for his pictures ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... odd as that was the case; but after some little difficulty we got on board, and Langley and myself retired to the state-room which we held ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... would enable him to emigrate to the West at the end c f the "job," which I could do by purchasing the small "bunch" of stock he owned on the mountain. To this I readily assented, and he started on the delicate undertaking. He penetrated the enemy's lines with little difficulty, but while prosecuting his search for information was suspected, and at once arrested and placed under guard. From this critical situation he escaped; however, making his way through the enemy's picket-line in the darkness by crawling on his belly and deceiving the sentinels by ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether this is to be attributed to the difficulty of Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts (with a complete list of which I took care to furnish the proper persons nearly a year beforehand), or whether it had its origin in any more culpable motives, I forbear to consider in this place, the matter being in course of painful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... owed me most? I cannot think it. I rejoice that you wrote—did not urge this suit in person. I should not have been able to control my passion; we might have parted foes. As it is, I restrain myself with difficulty! That woman, that child, associated thus to tear from me the last affection left to my ruined heart. No! You will not be so cruel! Send this, I command you, to Lady Montfort. See again neither her nor the impostor she has ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shall appear undutiful to you, but, believe me, my affection for you is founded on a more firm basis. My mother has lately behaved to me in such an eccentric manner, that so far from feeling the affection of a Son, it is with difficulty I can restrain my dislike. Not that I can complain of want of liberality; no, She always supplies me with as much money as I can spend, and more than most boys hope for or desire. But with all this she is so hasty, so impatient, that I dread the approach of the holidays, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... seemed unpardonable to her: she was not given to weeping and disliked it, but now her chin and lips began to tremble and the tears welled up. Perhaps it was not possible for Lydgate, under the double stress of outward material difficulty and of his own proud resistance to humiliating consequences, to imagine fully what this sudden trial was to a young creature who had known nothing but indulgence, and whose dreams had all been of new indulgence, more exactly to her taste. But he did wish to spare her as much as he could, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... door, they heard the muffled tread and subdued tones of the men, who presently entered, bearing the stretcher on which was laid the huge form of the Iron King, covered, all except his face, with a white bed-spread. Slowly, carefully, and with some difficulty they bore him up the broad staircase head first—preceded by the family physician, Dr. Cummins, and followed by Messrs. Fabian ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Fairfax," he said, "in order to find out whether you could help us concerning the difficulty in which we find ourselves placed. You of course are aware of the serious trouble the bank has experienced, and of the terrible consequences which ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... knew not what had become of her. The deep and heartfelt grief of Clotel was soon perceived by her owners, and fearing that her refusal to take food would cause her death, they resolved to sell her. Mr. French found no difficulty in getting a purchaser for the quadroon woman, for such are usually the most marketable kind of property. Clotel was sold at private sale to a young man for a housekeeper; but even ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... he himself has learnt to doubt his own honesty and steadiness—then, I say, it is uphill work for him to get back to the position from which he has fallen. He gets little sympathy, and still less encouragement. In addition to the natural difficulty of conquering bad habits, he has to contend against prejudices and obstacles raised by his own former conduct; no one gives him credit for his efforts, and no one recognises his reform till all of a sudden, perhaps long after its completion, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... William Harcourt was the last to be admitted—found its mistress wearing a gay face, the gloom deepened over her, and she suffered acutely from insomnia. A child was born in September; she lived to see her son, the present Sir Wentworth Dilke, but she never rallied. Death came to her with difficulty, early in the night of September 20th. Sir Charles, overstrained already by long watching, was completely unstrung by the unlooked-for end of the final and terrible vigil. Having summoned his grandmother, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... of a horse was heard; the rider no doubt had the countersign, for he passed without difficulty the various patrols stationed along the toad to La Roche-Bernard, and entered the village of Muzillac, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... John also had difficulty in getting his brother's consent to go to Sigismund's court, and after he had set out an envoy was sent after him ordering him to return. But in disregard of this he went on, and was favorably received at the Polish court, being a handsome, courteous and cultivated prince. Catharine ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... return to my story. At the end of seven days we were ready to move on; and we soon arrived at the Carratunc Falls, where there was another portage. We got round that, however, without much difficulty. The banks were more level and the road not so long; but the work afterwards was tough. The stream was so rapid that the men were compelled to wade and push the batteaux against the current. There was a little grumbling among us, and quite a number ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... file, I being second, and my shoulders brushed the sides of what was apparently a stonework tube. There was not a glimmer of light, and the foul air threatened suffocation at every yard. I could breathe only with great difficulty, my throat seemed choked, I was bathed in perspiration, while loathsome creatures crawled or scampered ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... here, the boats are below the city, the wind is contrary, they cannot come up hither. Now then, tell me, in God's name, you who are so wise, what that council of yours was thinking about, to invent this foolish difficulty." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... front of her. Now to do this he must either take a long running start and leapfrog clear over the lady's head as she sits there, and land accurately in the saddle, which is scarcely a proper thing to do to any lady, aside from the difficulty of springing ten or fifteen feet into the air and coming down, crotched out, on a given spot, or else he must contribute a feat in contortion the like of which has never ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb

... them. This she at last concluded to do, and she made her escape from Paris, under the escort of Anne Maria, who came to the city for the purpose of conducting her, and who succeeded, though with infinite difficulty, in securing a safe passage for Henrietta through the crowds of creditors and political foes who threatened to prevent her journey. These troubles were all, however, at last settled, and in the autumn (1649) the whole ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join in the time-honored solemnities for propitiating the gods. The mutiny spread so quickly, the emergency became so pressing, that the Emperor Diocletian was compelled to hold a council for the purpose of determining what should be done. The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that the wife and the daughter of Diocletian himself were Christians. He was a man of great capacity and large political views; he recognized in the opposition ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... Regiment whose first battalion was already in France and would require frequent drafts. I did not hesitate about joining a fighting unit. Other units are very necessary, but I wouldn't let another man do my fighting for me. I had some difficulty about a slightly weak heart caused by a severe illness a few years before. However, with the words that 'the life would either make or break me,' I was accepted ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams

... suffered to retain my elevated position, till the musicians composing the orchestras, appropriated to each of the three temples, had taken their stations. Admittance then became general, and the temples were presently so crowded that the dancers had much difficulty to find room to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... were held out to Monsieur, who jumped off the seat to receive the pats and laudations lavished on his curly round pate, and had to be reduced to order before Mr. Dutton could answer the question whether he had any further difficulty or danger. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this exquisite production—bound in two volumes. I examined both volumes thoroughly, and am not sure that I discovered what might be fairly called one discoloured leaf. It is with equal pain and difficulty that one withdraws one's eyes from such a beautiful book-gem. This copy measures fifteen inches and a half, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... of control, his lack of sympathy to all higher ideals, his determination to please himself to the forgetting of all else, his seeming unconsciousness of the debt he owed to his mother, all these became easily apparent. With difficulty Ranald restrained his indignation. He let him talk for some time and then opened out upon him. He read him no long lecture, but his words came forth with such fiery heat that they burned their way clear through all the faults and flimsy selfishness of ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... their old names, the other three to be called provisionally Huxleyday, Marxday, and Tolstoiday. But, for reasons which I have set forth elsewhere,[3] I believe that the nomenclature which I had originally suggested[4]—Aday, Bday, and so on to Jday—would be really the simplest way out of the difficulty. Any fanciful way of naming the days would be bad, as too sharply differentiating one day from another. What we must strive for in the Dawn is that every day shall be as nearly as possible like every other day. We must help the human units—these ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... such as seem found without difficulty, by following the sense; and are, for the most part, as exact, at least, as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... been of much help to us near Merz. But my brother informs me now that a serious difficulty ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... with a gesture of dissent. She began to breathe freely. The room chilled rapidly. Father Honore closed the window and took his stand on the hearth. Aileen raised her eyes to him. It seemed as if she lifted the swollen reddened lids with difficulty. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... the imaginary premises of Mr. Trumbull, are of a kind which have been common on the frontiers of late years. The neighbourhood of two nations having different laws, though united in government, still leads to a multitude of transgressions on the Border, and extreme difficulty in apprehending delinquents. About twenty years since, as far as my recollection serves, there was along the frontier an organized gang of coiners, forgers, smugglers, and other malefactors, whose operations ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... It is, therefore, injustice and cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the character of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of this country to be worked out by them with accumulated difficulty ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... very least enchanted of all his hearers—she was, in fact, an exception, and found the discourse so entirely uninteresting that it was with difficulty she could refrain from yawning in the face of the orator. Mrs. Waugh also, perhaps, was but half mesmerized, for her eyes would cautiously wander from the lecturer's pulpit to the side window on her right hand. At length she stooped and whispered ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... mingle tears with those of this poor fellow, on hearing the tale of his unchangeable fate! I found too that my own utterance sympathized with his—but, shewing him a shilling—and indicating, by signs, the difficulty I felt in putting him in possession of it—"here sir," said he, "and God bless you;" then, stooping with his mouth, I put it between his lips!—Ah, thought I, as I turned from this wretched object, the most hard-hearted of those who were concerned in breaking public ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... wife—which he very much desired, being of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous temper—he must choose her as he had chosen his servants—from among the race of dwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was, he found, a matter of some difficulty; for he would marry none who was not distinguished by beauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish daughter of Lord Bemboro he refused on the ground that besides being a pigmy she was hunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan belonging to a very good family ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... the bunch of violets to her face, and inhaled the perfume. In so doing, the wide sleeve of her evening cloak slipped back over her arm beyond her elbow, thrilling the young man's senses almost beyond control. His lips trembled, and he with difficulty restrained the burning words that ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... same. Only—they don't seem to be proof against—assault. Oh, I'm talking in riddles, I know. I don't want to put any of it into words, it makes it seem more real. And it's only a shadowy sort of difficulty. Maybe that's all ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... tidy people, and though their beds, stuffed with maize chaff, may be hard, they are tolerably clean. The food provided in the auberges is doubtless very different from what one is accustomed to at home; but with the help of cheerfulness and a good digestion that difficulty too may ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... the belief that some one of the "hats" or "tinsel gowns"—i.e., young lords or fellow-commoners, with whom he was on such excellent terms, and who supped with him so often, would do something for him in the way of a living. But it so happened that when Mr. Caleb Price had, with a little difficulty, scrambled through his degree, and found himself a Bachelor of Arts and at the end of his finances, his grand acquaintances parted from him to their various posts in the State Militant of Life. And, with the exception of one, joyous and reckless as ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... this difficulty. They would gladly embrace the Word with a full faith, but the flesh deters them. You see, our reason always thinks it is too easy and cheap to have righteousness, the Holy Spirit, and life everlasting by the mere hearing of ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... difficulty. Indeed, a great many of the pilgrims—the people from Central Asia, for instance—don't speak Arabic at all. But I felt sure that if I went down the Red Sea alone on a pilgrim steamer, landed alone at Jeddah, and went up with a crowd of others to Mecca, living with them, ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... be drawn towards the centre of the river. Even this at times was very difficult, especially when they were passing round curves, for much of the water, instead of following the channel, made its way through the forest to the next bend in the river, and they had the greatest difficulty in preventing themselves from being drawn in among the trees by the current. At such times they were forced to launch the canoe overboard, to roll up the bottom of the raft, and to lay the great bundle of rushes across the poles now supported by the inflated skins. Only then by vigorous ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... force as a whole. That it was blameworthy is clear. "Your lordship," wrote Sir Richard Church in answer to the letter just quoted, "is not aware of all the difficulties I had to encounter in passing our troops who had all struck for pay. Not one would move. However, that difficulty is now nearly over and the greater part are passing to the camp at ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... here undertaken by Mr. Bryant was one of uncommon difficulty; one of the most abstruse and difficult which antiquity presents to us; the information to be obtained concerning it must be collected from a vast number of incidental passages, observations and assertions scattered through antient authors, who ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... I did prepare the letter, ready to be despatched at the first attempt upon our lives or liberty. I wrote also to Mr. Bush, asking him to find without delay the obnoxious circular, and bring it to my house. He came that very evening, the paper in his hand. With infinite difficulty I persuaded the native secretary, whom I had again and again befriended in like extremities, to procure for him an ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... and for some distance, were crowded with solid masses of people, many thousands. The omnibuses and other vehicles had all been turn'd off, leaving an unusual hush in that busy part of the city. Presently two or three shabby hack barouches made their way with some difficulty through the crowd, and drew up at the Astor House entrance. A tall figure stepp'd out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look'd up at the granite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel—then, after a relieving stretch of arms ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... and nervous trembling, this fear and shame to face my fellows, be the just consequence of my envy and pride, how abominable must these sins be." And we are summoned to similar thoughts. If this pursuing evil, this heavy clog that drags me down, this insuperable difficulty, this disease, or this spiritual and moral weakness be the fair natural consequence of my sin, if these things are in the natural world what my sin is in the spiritual, then my sin must be a much greater evil than I was taking it ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... prominent than he afterwards became, he was the one man in Germany whom I desired to see or know. Mr. Joseph A. Wright, late United States minister at Berlin, had recently died, and his son, John C. Wright, who was in charge of the legation, had no difficulty in securing me an audience with Bismarck, accompanying me to the official residence, where I was introduced to him. Bismarck spoke English with a German accent, but was easily understood. When I spoke of recent events ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... effect of Noah's Curse ratify'd by God's, upon Cham; But though I think that even a Naturalist may without disparagement believe all the Miracles attested by the Holy Scriptures, yet in this case to flye to a Supernatural Cause, will, I fear, look like Shifting off the Difficulty, instead of Resolving it; for we enquire not the First and Universal, but the Proper, Immediate, and Physical Cause of the Jetty Colour of Negroes; And not only we do not find expressed in the Scripture, that the Curse meant by Noah to Cham, was the Blackness of his Posterity, ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... Jacques slipped was a combination of all that Allah, Gabriel and the seductive dreams of Moody, Sankey and such could provide. Science founded on truth can never be popular until mankind further evolves, since it offers nothing better than toil and difficulty, and after each achievement increased work as a reward for work. This condition stands no show when compared with a heaven that gives harps that never require tuning, robes that need not be laundered, and mansions ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... else to do this morning when you re-read my letters. I add that you must have been in a bad humor to undertake their criticism. Some brilliant engagement, some flattering rendezvous was wanting. But I do not care to elude the difficulty. So I seem to contradict myself sometimes? If I were to admit that it might very well be; if I were to give you the same answer that Monsieur de la Bruyere gave his critics the other day: "It is not I who contradict myself, it is the heart upon which I reason," could you reasonably conclude from ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... fitting and natural course of descent to the great Dudley property. If it had been a simple question of helping forward a casualty to any one person, there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and living to make that a serious difficulty. He had been so much with lawless people, that a life between his wish and his object seemed only as an obstacle to be removed, provided the object were worth the risk and trouble. But if there were two or three lives in the way, manifestly that ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the Sovereign labours to distinguish the genuine voice and sentiments of his people from the clamour of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and passions utterly ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... Lady Dashfort, who, in fact, was not proud of her family, though she pretended to be so, was herself prevailed on, though with much difficulty, by Lady Killpatrick, to do the very thing she wanted to do, to show her genealogy, which had been beautifully blazoned, and which was to be produced in evidence in the lawsuit that brought her to Ireland. Lord Colambre stood politely looking on and listening, while her ladyship ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... when the trace of the off-hind mule became unhitched. Dismounting, he essayed to adjust the trace; but ere he had fairly commenced the task, the mule, a singularly refractory animal—snorted wildly, and kicked Reginald frightfully in the stomach. He arose with difficulty, and tottered feebly towards his mother's house, which was near by, falling dead in her yard, with the remark, "Dear Mother, I've come home ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... selections from the manuscript to his neighbors with evident pride. The impression that such a production would be likely to make on the author's neighbors in that frontier region and in those early days, when books were scarce and authors almost unknown, can with difficulty be realized now. Barrett Wendell, speaking of the days ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... They had difficulty in riding the trail side by side, for though the roan was somewhat rested by the delay at Eldara it was impossible to keep him up with Bard's prancing piebald, which sidestepped at every shadow. Yet the tenderfoot never allowed his mount to pass entirely ahead of the roan, but kept checking ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... very gradually ideas proceed to the most sublime activities, impelling the child to reason. It is he who, knowing all these things, must build up and enrich the mind. And this is no easy matter, because, in addition to this difficult work, there is always the difficulty of difficulties, that of inducing the child to lend himself to all this endeavor, and to second the master, and not show himself recalcitrant to the efforts made on his behalf. For this reason the moral education ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... difficulty, some unknown inability, because steam is the arbiter of the age, it is the great supreme motor of man's agencies throughout the world, hence we come from the sublime to the ridiculous when we use it to load boats at Buffalo, to be towed 350 miles ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous

... river was eighty feet in breadth, which was awkward to cross, but as Pencroft had taken upon himself to conquer this difficulty, he was compelled to do it. The settlers certainly had reason to be pretty tired. The journey had been long, and the task of getting down the balloon had not rested either their arms or legs. They were anxious to reach Granite House to eat and sleep, and if the bridge had ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... the study of Physiology. It is a fine study. If a girl thoroughly understands how her body ought to work in health, how one organ acts with another, then, in case of any local disturbance, she will probably be capable of seeing how, if the general tone of the system is raised, the particular difficulty will disappear, and she will no longer follow blindly rules she has learned by rote. Yet people learn more by practice than by theory, and it is probable that the fascinating study of Physiology is of more use intellectually than ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... for the princess would have been to fall in love. But how a princess who had no gravity could fall into anything is a difficulty—perhaps the difficulty. As for her own feelings on the subject, she did not even know that there was such a beehive of honey and stings to be fallen into. But now I come to mention another curious fact ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... infinite justice ascribed to Him and the crying wrongs that confront us in His universe, whithersoever we turn.[5] His rule is such a congeries of evils that even the just man often welcomes death as a release, and Job himself with difficulty overcame the temptation to end his sufferings by suicide. All the cut-and-dried explanations of God's conduct offered by His human advocates merely render the problem more complicated. His professional apologists are "weavers of lies," ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... idea of the ball-bearing pen was in the air. The first one to hurry into production gave his pen a tremendous build-up. It had ink enough to last three years, it would make many carbon copies, you could use it under water. And so on and so forth. It cost fifteen dollars, and there was only one difficulty with it. It wouldn't write. Not that that made any difference because it sold like hotcakes what with all the promotion. He wasn't interested in whether or not it would write, but only in whether or not it would sell." Moncure threw up his hands dramatically. ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... see that the light is only just fading from the mountain tops? so it can be but a little past noon. The only difficulty is that the ice may not be in a condition for us to cross the fiord. A warm land-wind has been blowing for three days; and even in the North, where the seal-hunters go, the ice often breaks up under them. But now allow me to get my ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... l'Echelle, across the Glacier des Bossons to the rocks of the Grands Mulets the distance is about a mile and a quarter, and the perpendicular increase of elevation nearly two thousand feet. The passage seldom presents any difficulty, except to inexperienced persons, although at times many crevasses must be crossed, particularly at what is called the Junction, just above the point where the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz are divided by the Montagne de la Cote. Here some underlying ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... examine the defences a shot from an unseen person struck Mr. Nairne in the breast, and he expired immediately. In him was lost a respectable gentleman of great scientific acquirements, and a valuable servant of the Company. It was with much difficulty that the party was enabled to save the body. A caffree and a Malay who fell in the struggle were afterwards eaten. Thus the experience of later days is found to agree with the uniform testimony of old writers; and although I am aware that each and every of these ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... There may be some difficulty in justifying Washington's course by the opinion of Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologics, 1 ma., 2 dae., Quaest. XCVI, Art. 4), who says that an unjust law is not binding in conscience "nisi forte propter vitandum scandalum ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... almost immediately. "Seems to me I heard a call some distance away and along the shore. Yes, there it is again, and I reckon that's our chum giving tongue. He must be in difficulty and he needs help, so come on," at which the three of them started to ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... my argument. "But there is another difficulty," I went on. "My father, who does not lie, told me once that King Theodore returned to the island in the year 'thirty-nine, where he stayed but for a week; and that not until a year later did his queen ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... theatre. Towards this successor I am simply in the position of a debtor; and as I am not able to execute the commission I had accepted, I am bound formally and materially to dissolve a contract which cannot exist any longer. Fortunately I am in a position not to cause you any disagreeable difficulty as to ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... search of a peasant who would take the carriage back to Benassis' house. It was impossible to drive to La Fosseuse's cottage, the pathway was too narrow. The park-keeper happened to appear upon the scene, and helped Genestas out of his difficulty, so that the officer and his adopted son were at liberty to follow the mountain footpath that led to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... on shoes. As she braced herself to lift the bucket her bare foot clung to the mossy stone. It was a strong, sinewy, beautiful foot, instinct with youth. He was curious enough, he thought, but the awakening artist in him made him more so. She dragged at the full bucket and had difficulty in lifting it out of the hole. Shefford strode forward and took the bucket-handle ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... the desire for concealment necessary in all military organization, one must add the difficulty presented by the cross categories peculiar to this calculation. You have to consider not only the distinction between active and reserve, but also between men and munitions, between munitions available according to one theory of war, and munitions available according ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... approach to mercenary dealing; and to behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness as they know I should myself display. The recent death of a much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused them (I have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. Do me the favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... But now another difficulty came upon me which I had never the least reason to expect. Mr. Meredith's father, who was to have paid for our printing-house, according to the expectations given me, was able to advance only one hundred pounds currency, which had been paid; and a hundred more was due to the merchant, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... speaking almost with difficulty, and with the obstinate note in his voice of one telling a secret half against his will and better judgement, "I could not work. The wail of the child was so loud, so alarmed, so full of a fear that seemed to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... a home-provided supper, however simple, should be good of its kind, and abundant in quantity. Dancers are generally hungry people, and feel themselves much aggrieved if the supply of sandwiches proves unequal to the demand. Great inconvenience is often experienced by the difficulty of procuring cabs at the close of an evening party. Gentlemen who have been dancing, and are unprepared for walking, object to go home on foot, or seek vehicles for their wives and daughters. Female servants who have been in attendance upon ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... him the ring, with difficulty suppressing her sobs. The magician brought back the ring with him. At sight of it the emperor's ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... walking the street. No one would imagine, to look at the quietly dressed young Englishman, that he was going through a severe mental struggle. Without any difficulty he found the store for which he was looking. The words on the sign, "J. C. Smeaton & Co., Dry Goods," in black and gold, seemed ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... the city would have become noisome, and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the water access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible; even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps: and the highest tides sometimes enter the court-yards, and overflow ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... sincere enough in contemning for her sake while away from it. Confronted with good society in these ladies, its delegates, he doubtless felt, as never before, the vastness of his self-sacrifice, the difficulty of his enterprise, and it would not have been so strange if just then she should have appeared to him through the hard cold vision of the best people instead of that which love had illumined. She saw whatever purpose toward herself was in his eyes, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... reasoning of the Bishop. As a brief discussion of the point will enable us to see the bearings of an important question, I will here permit a disciple of Lucretius to try the strength of the Bishop's position, and then allow the Bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling back, if he can, the difficulty ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... aggressions were complained of, and mutual concessions made; and though D'Aulney had, in truth, been hitherto faithless to his promises, the Bostonians evidently feared his growing power, and strongly inclined to conciliatory measures. Under these circumstances, an amnesty was, without much difficulty, concluded; and the commissioners soon after returned, well ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... or American, being based on the etymological nature of the language. It is fast coming into use, though as yet not general. The old slow delivery seems little better than spelling to those that have mastered it. The students have usually special abbreviations of their own, and so find no difficulty in taking down all the important points, even when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... intellectual currents of their time. Those whose attention is engrossed by things are in so far shut out from the appeal of ideas. But thought is very penetrating; it will reach by conduction what it can not attain by radiation. An intellectual movement touches the highest and the lowest with difficulty, but it does at length affect in a measure even those whose minds are narcotized by abundance as well as those whose brains are fagged by too much toil and care. When Mrs. Frankland became aware that there was unbelief, latent and developed, among her ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... October he was able to crown his work by accepting a Convention with Russia which dealt primarily with the affairs of Persia, Afghanistan and Thibet, but really made future war between the two Powers a matter of difficulty. The year 1908 saw state visits to Copenhagen, Stockholm and Christiana in April; the King's opening of the Franco-British Exhibition in London on May 26th and reception of President Fallieres of France; ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... to her mother's wish, but the heat and dust, together with her own intense desire to rescue the lost wand, made her tremble so that she had great difficulty in walking. They went among gypsies, fruit-women, peasant girls, children, travelling musicians, common soldiers, and laborers; the heat increased, and the dust and the noise, and at last Hulda ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... any landscape I have seen since, of Gaspar Poussin's or Domenichino's. We had a long day's march—(our feet kept time to the echoes of Coleridge's tongue)—through Minehead and by the Blue Anchor, and on to Linton, which we did not reach till near midnight, and where we had some difficulty in making a lodgment. We however knocked the people of the house up at last, and we were repaid for our apprehensions and fatigue by some excellent rashers of fried bacon and eggs. The view in coming along had been ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... And at last an old crone was found who swore that she had the right remedy. "What is it?" all the wise men asked; but the old woman said, "It is written in this scroll. To-morrow the Princess must start out alone upon a journey. Whatever difficulty she encounters she must open this scroll and read, and the scroll will tell her what ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... me. Forgive me, friend, forgive me. (He bends down with difficulty and picks up the clown) Still laughing? Don't. I'll put you away, out of sight. Don't be angry, I can't bear your smile now. Go and laugh in a place where ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... proved successful in the Gold Coast, Cameroon and other colonies, and in various districts the tea plant is cultivated. Indigo, though not originally an African product, has become naturalized and grows wild in many parts, while it is also cultivated on a small scale. The main difficulty in the way of tropical cultivation is the labour question, which has ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... whose arms would soon dictate laws to Germany. The Syndic did not dissemble his fear of the Emperor's resentment, while at the same time he expressed a hope that the Emperor would take into consideration the extreme difficulty of a small power maintaining neutrality in the extraordinary circumstances in which Hamburg was placed, and that the articles might be said to have been presented almost at the point of the Cossacks' spears. M. Doormann added that a refusal, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... a handsome figure. I don't know whether we wouldn't be satisfied with her for politeness in her manners. We'd like her better for a spice of devotion to alight higher up in politics and religion. But the key of the difficulty's a sparkle of enthusiasm. It's part business, and the greater part sentiment. We want a rousing in the heart of us; or else we'd be pleased with her for sitting so as not to overlap us entirely: we'd feel more at home, and behold her more respectfully. We'd see the policy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... edition of the Poetry of the Irish Melodies, separate from the Music, has long been called for, yet, having, for many reasons, a strong objection to this sort of divorce, I should with difficulty have consented to a disunion of the words from the airs, had it depended solely upon me to keep them quietly and indissolubly together. But, besides the various shapes in which these, as well as my other lyrical writings, have been published throughout America, they are included, of course, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... case, these have been either forced to neglect the Word to labor for their own support, or forced to invent that wretched, accursed worship now prevalent throughout the world and whereby the preachers have attained lordly position. With the revival of the Gospel the financial difficulty mentioned is recurring, and it will continue to recur. One hundred dollars cannot now be raised for the support of a good schoolmaster or preacher where formerly a thousand dollars—yes, incomputible ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... such of the soldiers as were able to help. She had been driven far out of her course; had found herself short of water, and had to put into the island of Cedros to supply herself, and it was with the greatest difficulty she reached the bay of San Diego. The first thing to be done was to find good water and to minister to the sick. For this purpose there landed, on May 1st, Don Pedro Fages, Don Miguel Costanso, and Don Jorge Estorace, with twenty-five men-soldiers, ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge

... them how to take a ruler and straighten the edges,—if the edges were built; and how to crowd a corner down into a corner of the tray, and so keep the pieces in place. So engrossed were the two that Mrs. Spencer had difficulty to persuade them ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... name into the arena. Thatcher men rose and clamored blindly for recognition, without the faintest idea of what they should do if haply the cold eye of the chairman fell upon them. The galleries joined in the uproar; the band began to play "On the Banks of the Wabash" and was with difficulty stopped; a few voices cried "Bassett," but cries of "Thatcher" rose in a mighty roar and drowned them. The chairman hammered monotonously for order; Mr. Daniel Harwood might have been seen to thrust his memorandum into his trousers pocket; he bent forward in his seat with his eye upon ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... seal. What did Sir Victor mean by absenting himself and writing her a note? With an effort she aroused herself at last, and tore it open. It was strangely scrawled, the writing half illegible; slowly and with difficulty she made it out This ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... restraining you with difficulty from going into the garden to eat worms! Nobody——" she broke off abruptly. "What a long time ago that seems!" She laughed quietly and considered him with merriment in her pretty eyes. The Indiarubber Man made ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... enter the cloister, as his father had done some time before. When this visit was over, instead of returning to Paris to lecture on dialectic, he went to Laon to study theology under the then famous Anselm. Here, convinced of the showy superficiality of Anselm, he once more got into difficulty, by undertaking to expound a chapter of Ezekiel without having studied it under any teacher. Though at first derided by his fellow-students, he succeeded so well as to draw a crowd of them to hear him, and so excited the envy of Anselm that the latter forbade him to teach in Laon. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... glance, however, at his countenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not. I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... little hunchbacked figure, in whom I had no difficulty in recognising Imbozwi, although he had painted his scorched scalp white with vermillion spots and adorned his snub nose with a purple tip, his dress of ceremony I presume. Round and behind there ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... threatens the slowly acquired qualities secured in the highest form of the family. It would be unworthy of us to permit a great part of a modern population to descend again to the animal level from which the race has ascended only through aeons of struggle and difficulty. When we remember that very much, perhaps most of the progress has been dearly purchased at the cost of women, by the appeal of her weakness and need and motherhood, we must all the more firmly resolve not to yield the field to a temporary effect ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... MISUNDERSTANDING. How wise our ancestors were that first used that word to mean a quarrel! for, look into twenty quarrels, and you shall detect a score of mis-under-standings. Yet our American cousins must go and substitute the un-ideaed word 'difficulty'; that is wonderful. I had no quarrel with him: delighted to see either of you. But I had called twice on him; so I thought he ought to get over his temper, and call on a tried friend like me. A misunderstanding! Now, my dear, let us have no more of these misunderstandings. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade



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