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More "Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these orphans, he was angry at it, and a suspicion came into his mind as to those sons whom he had put to death, whether that had not been brought about by the false tales of Antipater; so that at that time he made Antipater a long and a peevish answer, and bid him begone. Yet was he afterwards prevailed upon cunningly by his flatteries, and changed the marriages; he married Aristobulus's daughter to him, and his ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill-managery of his bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women, he necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest he made them to better purpose; was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, "abundance of spirit," he equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... when peevish, Bessie had a way of turning up her eyes at him that reduced him to helplessness and adoration. And she was delicate! "I know," he sympathized with her loyally, "it's like trying to work and be jolly with a jumping tooth; or rather, in your case, with a constant buzzing ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... f'rimpudence to a gen'l'm'n," is the peevish return of OLD MORTARITY, who immediately falls asleep as he lies, with ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... When Burton would incline to a quiet evening, I should have a party. When you and he would like to slip off to a movie, you would have to be polite and invite me. Nobody could be crazier about nieces and nephews than I am, but sometimes if I were tired from my work their chatter might make me peevish. And you would punish them when I thought you shouldn't, and wouldn't do it when I thought you should, and think of the arguments there would be. And so we all agree, don't we, that it would be more fun for me to move ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... remembered with a fresh pang the one woman who had a right to share her grief, nay, to call him—in no figurative sense—"enfant"; the wrinkled old Jewess, palsied and deaf and peevish, who lived on in a world despoiled of his splendid fighting strength, of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of them was so formidable that the council gave up the consideration of the menacing message they had been about to send, and instead agreed upon a letter of amnesty, as likely to succeed better with a people of so "peevish and touchy" a humor. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... blind secretary, and his letter is a fine example of the mode of humouring a great man. Be it remembered, as we read, that this letter was not addressed to one of the greatest names in literature, but to a petulant and often peevish scholar, living of necessity in great retirement, whose name is never once mentioned by Clarendon, and about whom the voluminous Thurloe, who must have seen him hundreds of times, has nothing to say except that he was "a blind man who wrote Latin letters." Odder ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... have consoled themselves, but upon an arrogant estimation of his own superior merit. When at home he was attacked by reflections that seldom made their appearance in the bustle of company; his own people scarcely ever saw him otherwise than gloomy, peevish, and unhappy, whilst elsewhere a forced vivacity made him the soul of every circle. With the sincerest sorrow did we behold him treading this dangerous path, but in the vortex in which he was involved the feeble voice of friendship was no longer ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Mihul. Even theoretically a stunner-max blast couldn't cause Mihul the slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mihul had stated she would hold no grudges over a successful escape attempt; and even if they caught up with her again before she got to Manon, this attempt certainly had ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... or two impatient glances at the progress of the minute-hand of the clock, having compared it with his own watch, a huge and antique gold repeater, and having twitched about his features to give due emphasis to one or two peevish pshaws, he hailed the old ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she, but a contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... carrying a baby and—greatly to Mr. Jones's annoyance—took the corner seat opposite him. Being a confirmed bachelor, he had a horror of all babies, but this child in particular struck him with disfavour; seldom, he thought, had he seen such a peevish discontented ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... enough to enjoy a little extra doldrums at what might have made a longshoreman peevish. He mopped sweat and fanned himself with a newspaper till he grew frantic. He flung down the paper ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... will not give him a doit! [In a peevish tone.] You interest yourself very warmly in his behalf. Perhaps you are to be a ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... is her life, she pities her own case and refuses our pity. Man cannot help her. The starved, ignoble country in Childe Roland, one of the finest pieces of description in Browning, wicked, waste and leprous land, makes Nature herself sick with peevish wrath. "I cannot help my case," she cries. "Nothing but the Judgment's ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... give him up as a listener. Lord Fontenoy ceased to talk; yet every now and then, as some jolt of the carriage made George open his eyes, he saw the broad-shouldered figure beside him, sitting in the same attitude, erect and tireless, the same half-peevish pugnacity giving expression to mouth ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lives. They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle. ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again, hesitated again, and at last handed it ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... And yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock and had laughed and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of Nature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheek upon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... noiseless as cats. I had already mentally arranged my method of procedure; so, whispering to Hardy that he was to tackle the chief mate, while I would look after Renouf, I boldly knocked at the cabin door. A command to enter, given in rather a drowsy, peevish tone of voice, was the immediate response, whereupon I flung open the door and passed into the ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... a peevish voice, from amidst the blanket, "'tain't smart, neither, playin' around when a feller's kind o' roundin' up his plug. How'm I goin' to cut that all-fired buckskin out o' the bunch wi' you gawkin' around like a reg'ment o' hoboes? Ef you don't ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Lady Penelope—and the steady, though passive, sullenness of Lady Binks, spread among the company a gloom like that produced by an autumnal mist upon a pleasing landscape. The women were low-spirited, dull, nay, peevish, they did not well know why; and the men could not be joyous, though the ready resource of old hock and champagne made some of them talkative.—Lady Penelope broke up the party by well-feigned apprehension of the difficulties, nay, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... alongside the Arabella, and up the entrance ladder came first a slight, spruce little gentleman in a coat of mulberry satin laced with gold, whose wizened, yellow, rather peevish face was framed in a heavy black periwig. His modish and costly apparel had nowise suffered by the adventure through which he had passed, and he carried himself with the easy assurance of a man of rank. Here, quite clearly, was no buccaneer. He was closely followed by one who in every particular, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... to his full height of six feet three, and, looking at him as he towered above me with his mane of disordered hair and flowing beard, I could not help thinking he rather resembled Samson in one of his peevish moods. The indignation that possessed him seemed sincere enough, but the circumstances of the case utterly bewildered me. I was gazing at him in perplexity when Henry came out ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... doctor, groaning and making peevish remarks; I, oblivious of all this, and careless of my friend's discomfort. My mind was full of visions of the lady—the fair unknown. I was exceeding anxious and troubled at the thought that all this time she had been alone, without any medical ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... proverb. Alice Mangold Diehl tells of meeting Robert and Clara, and finding him peevish and her a model of meekness and patience. Poor Schumann realised his failings and his own danger, and often suggested retirement to an asylum. But the idea was too ghastly ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... never known one so conscientious and self-sacrificing. This is natural to him. His love of right is supreme, and the thing he detests most is bad logic. It makes him peevish and often riles his temper. He defeats, but will never convince an opponent. This is bad. No one loves to break a lance with him, because he cuts such ungentlemanly gashes. He is strong, and he knows it. There is more of the Indian chief than of the Christian knight in his composition. But ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... (not to call it sallow) complexion, which, perhaps, was the effects of her virginity and mortification, she had a cast in her eyes that was not at all engaging; and such an extent of mouth, as no art or affectation could contract into any proportionable dimension; then her piety was rather peevish than resigned, and did not in the least diminish a certain stateliness in her demeanour and conversation, that delighted in communicating the importance and honour of her family, which, by the bye, was not to be traced two generations back by all the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of philanthropist!" broke in Germaine in a peevish tone. "There was a lot of philanthropy about his robbing ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... own family name. These old women, who never had chick nor child of their own, but who always know how to bring up other people's children, will tell you with very long faces, that my enchanting, quieting, soothing volume, my all-sufficient anodyne for cross, peevish, won't-be-comforted little bairns, ought to be laid aside for more learned books, such as THEY could select and publish. Fudge! I tell you that all their batterings can't deface my beauties, nor their wise ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... Stewart scornfully. 'Who dares to bear witness, if I did maintain my father's lawful authority over peevish ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... transformed into its present state without a good deal of hard work on the part of all of them, her husband, their German assistants, and herself—their English shopman had been told that to-night his services would not be required. But Mrs. Hegner, though her pretty face was tired and peevish-looking, yet looked far pleasanter than she had done half an hour ago, for her husband had just presented her with a ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... wife, who was now going up to the house with her two children, "I don't know what is going on in Madame de Mortsauf's mind, but for the last six weeks her disposition has completely changed. She, so gentle, so devoted hitherto, is now extraordinarily peevish." ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... But, when he began in his artful way To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, A better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... to all the admirers of the genius of Albert Durer, that that famous engraver was endowed with a "better half," so peevish in temper, that she was the torment not only of his own life, but also of his pupils and domestics. Some of the former were cunning enough to purchase peace for themselves by conciliating the common tyrant, but woe to those ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bring up the children without swaddling clothes, so as to make their movements free and unconfined, and also to make them easily satisfied, not nice as to food, not afraid in the dark, not frightened at being alone, not peevish and fretful. For this reason, many foreigners used to obtain Lacedaemonian nurses for their children, and it is said that Amykla, the nurse of Alkibiades, was a Lacedaemonian. But Plato tells us that Perikles put him under the care of one ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... wished was to have the name of the person for whom she was asking repeated. He now perceived that he had had a bit of luck. A wearying period of disappointment in the matter of keeping the paper-weights circulating while balancing the ruler, had left him peevish, and it had been his intention to work off his ill-humour on the young visitor. The discovery that it was the boss's sister who was taking up his time, suggested the advisability of a radical change of tactics. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... indignations. The windmiller's wife dared not, for her life, have told him in so many words that she thought it would be for their joint benefit if he would give a little more consideration to her wishes and opinions; but from this suppressed idea came many sharp and peevish words at this time, which, apart from their true source, were quite as unreasonable and perverse as the miller held them to be. Nor is being completely under the control of another, self-control. It may be doubted if it can even do much to teach it. The thread of her passive ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and in her hard, sad face With flashes of the old fun's animation There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation Bred of a past where troubles came apace. She tells me that her husband, ere he died, Saw seven of their children pass away, And never knew the little lass at play Out on the green, in whom he's deified. Her kin dispersed, her friends ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... obstreperous and had eaten most of the paint off his Noah's Ark, and had later burnt his fingers pulling my unbaked loaf-cake out of the oven, after eventually tiring of breaking the teeth out of my comb, one by one. Poppsy and Pee-Wee had been peevish and disdainful of each other's society, and Iroquois Annie had gruntingly intimated that she was about fed up on trekking the floor with wailing infants. But I'd had my week's mending to do, and what was left of the ironing ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... see you de last time. And now, Uncle Caleb, dey wants to hear from your own mouf de precious words, dat you feels prepared to meet your God, and is ready and willin' to go,' Old Caleb opened his eyes suddenly, and in a very peevish, irritable tone, rebuffed the pious functionary in the following unexpected manner: 'Jeff, don't talk your nonsense to me! You jest knows dat I an't ready to go, nor willin' neder; and dat I an't prepared to meet nobody,' Jeff expatiated largely not only on the mercy of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... do sometimes improve! I knew a fine little fellow, much made of by his family and friends, who used to be so peevish about all the little ups and downs of life, and had such a lamentable whine in his voice when he was thwarted in any trifle, that if you had heard without seeing him, you'd have sworn that the most miserable wretch in the world was bewailing the worst of catastrophes with failing breath. ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... dignity of the mother. She believed that too little allowance was made for the heedlessness growing out of pure exuberance of spirits. But when a law was once established it was unalterable, and no child ever thought of resisting it. For instance, no one, large or small, was allowed to exhibit a peevish ill-nature, either by word or manner, in the public rooms of the house. My mother merely said, in a quiet tone: "My child, you are either tired or sick; in either case, it would be better to go to your own room and lie down until ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... much obliged if you would recover them for us. You see, we called here about a hundred years ago and were murdered in our beds, here in this house. It was your great-grandfather's doing; he was a bit peevish that evening. We had arrived with all our trunks, had searched the whole town for lodgings; every place was crowded. Some one advised us to call here. The old gentleman, after a deal of grumbling, showed us into a room, the first floor front. I ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... gait of Henry Denvil as he passed with a certain speculative interest. These eyes belonged to a woman, plain, no longer young, her sole attractions a soft voice and pleasing manner; and a small, meagre man, wiry as a grasshopper, with gray hair, a yellow skin, large nose, and a peevish mouth. In the faces of both husband and wife was a hungry, pinched look. Years of poverty sometimes sets such a seal ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... unless he, like myself, had some disagreeable experiences there, and I remembered that he had usually gone out when I had, and was seldom, if ever, alone in the studio when I returned. His tone was so peevish and impatient that I thought discussion was injudicious, and simply replied, "Oh, you're bilious; I'll be home early," and went away. I have often thought since that it was the one occasion when I could have easily broached the subject of my mental trouble, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... town, often objected to any special exploitation of his name. This always distressed the committee, who saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame. The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently peevish to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she approached the cidevant butler, with the purpose of decoying him out of the garden. But John Gudyill's temper was not improved by his decline in rank and increase in years. Like many peevish people, too, he seemed to have an intuitive perception as to what was most likely to teaze those whom he conversed with; and, on the present occasion, all Jenny's efforts to remove him from the garden served only to root him in it as fast ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... till its supply of quills began to run low, and the creature grew uneasy. "What does this mean?" he seemed to say, his excitement rising. His shield upon his back, too, we trifled with, and when we finally drew him forth with a forked stick, his eyes were ready to burst from his head. In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our unfair tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and scolded, like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was to keep himself as much ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... exemplary spirit of order. His morals were regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, and operative. In his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares and saddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmost counsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; in all the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in his friendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, of treachery, or of vindictiveness. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... some vocal nose, informed by murky visions of the night, brayed out its stertorous tale to the unheeding air. At times a shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror, split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril, punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the bassoon,—a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly poured, in swift ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... noticed that, as she left the florist shop, a man on the other side of the street had stopped and looked at her. He was a haggard young individual with a pale, peevish expression on his face, a man with a chin the unimpressiveness of which was hidden behind a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... "But you can't provoke me to-day. I'm too happy to be peevish. Come, kneel down, you'll never find ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handsful pulled his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?"—[Cicero, Tusc. Quest., iii. 26.]—Who has not seen peevish gamesters chew and swallow the cards, and swallow the dice, in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipped the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employed a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself of the river Gyndas, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... unfortunate struggle, a genuine tragedy. This idea gripped me. And I reviewed all the abuse he had heaped upon me; I counted the blows, the names ... It was not the colonel's fault, that I knew well; it was his affliction that made him so peevish and even wicked. But I pardoned all, everything!... The worst of it was the end of that fatal night ... I also considered that in any case the colonel had not long to live. His days were numbered; did not he himself feel that? Didn't he say every now and then, "How much longer have I to live? ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... this with a frank and artless simplicity of which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself, though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone: ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... walking will not suit spiritual temples: for they will greatly pollute and defile them, and stain and obscure their beauty and glory. Therefore they must not be brawlers and contentious persons, covetous and worldly-minded, vain and frothy. They must not be froward and peevish, nor defraud others of their right. Nor must they neglect the worship of God in their families, nor be careless in governing and educating them in good manners, and in the things of God. They must not be such as are known to omit the duties and ordinances of religion in their proper ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... been stuffing your head with some more of her nonsense." Mr. Travers spoke in a voice which astonished d'Alcacer as much as the smile, a voice that was not irritable nor peevish, but had a distinct note of indulgence. "My dear d'Alcacer, that craze has got such a hold of her that she would tell you any sort of tale. Social impostors, mediums, fortune-tellers, charlatans of all sorts do obtain a strange ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the silly promises of advantages to come which induced Athens to make the infamous Peace, and quotes the famous remark whereby the traitor gang raised a laugh while in the act of selling their country. "Demosthenes is naturally a sour and peevish fellow, for he drinks water." Drawing their attention to this origin of all their trouble, he asks them to remember their names—at the same time remarking that even if a man deserved to die, punishment should be suspended if it meant loss and ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... pored, with a fiery unquiet eye, over a paper which I took to be a commission, and which, at all events, bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as did the first seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables of a foreign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, his voice seemed to reach my ears from ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... mustache, walk out of the German Embassy, which was situated on the Rue de Lille near the Boulevard St. Germain. Along the boulevard and across the Pont de la Concorde he walked in a manner calculated to attract attention. He approached the animated and peevish groups of citizens that had formed a little before for the purpose of discussing the imminent war as if he wanted them to notice him. You would have said that he was trying to be recognized and to take part ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... You will hardly be so foolish as to let the peevish animosity of an ill-conditioned man prejudice your ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... that distinguish old acquaintances from new ones. When it did not transpire in chance words she caught it in their glances or divined it in the mental atmosphere. As autumn passed into early winter she became nervous, peevish, and exacting; she lost much from her pretty ways and something from her looks. In the family the change was ascribed to the fatigue incidental to the sudden round of lunches, dinners, dances, suppers, theatre-parties, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Venetian Chamber wherein the fete was. Ufford closed the door. You saw that he had put away the exterior of mirth that hospitality demanded of him, and perturbation showed in the lean countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so amiably peevish. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... difficult than to bear with patience the apparently unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless, or met with petulant contradiction ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... his wife, so that the King might catch it from her; and he speedily found what he sought, and infected his wife and she the King, who gave it to several other women, whom he kept, and could never get thoroughly cured, for all the rest of his life he remained unhealthy, sad, peevish and inaccessible." ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... ever attained perfection in the two styles of oratory. It is true, that distinguished barristers have sometimes been distinguished in the House of Commons, but they have not been of the race of orators; they have been sharp, shrewd, bitter men, ready on vexatious topics, quick in peevish speech, and willing to plunge themselves into subjects whose labour or license is disdained by higher minds. But Erskine was an orator, vivid, high-toned, and sensitive; shrinking from the common-place subjects which common-place men ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... listen, for his experience teaches him that his hostess will find a way to punish him for his unfeeling conduct. It is of no use to change his quarters, for he may fare worse in this respect at the next place. And so he submits, and grows peevish and fretful, and even bald and gray over the woes of his tormentor. He consoles himself with one thought—in the next world landladies cease from troubling and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the threshold of time, I supposed this proceeding was approved by the best authorities. However, I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject. I saw them, on all sides, ill half the time, pale and peevish, dying early, having no joy in life. I heard parents complaining of weary days and sleepless nights, while each child, in turn, ran the gauntlet of red gum, jaundice, whooping cough, chicken-pox, mumps, measles, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the hint, Master Putnam, like a dutiful husband, who really loved his somewhat peevish and fretful wife, acknowledged by his silence in the future that the Harmons were much superior to any family that could not boast of possessing a minister and an island; the latter for ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... there might finally be full recovery, yet it would depend on the most tender and careful treatment of body and mind. London doctors, when he could be moved thither, confirmed the decision, and he began a helpless invalid life, in which a certain indifference and dulness made him a much less peevish and trying patient than would have been anticipated. Mysie was his willing, but intelligent slave; and his mother was not only thankful to have him brought back to her at any price, but really—though she would not ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... their hearts as naturally as the effects of their saddened lives appear upon their features. Consequently they wither, because the constant expression of happiness which blooms on the faces of other women and gives so soft a grace to their movements has never existed for them. They grow sharp and peevish because all human beings who miss their vocation are unhappy; they suffer, and suffering gives birth to the bitterness of ill-will. In fact, before an old maid blames herself for her isolation ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... have been sound asleep in her bed, and raised herself with a start, and looking upon her with a peevish ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... as heartless as a statue. He found the father the exact antithesis of the daughter, a nervous, fretful, irritable individual (gout had him by the heels at the time), who was as full of "yaps" and snarls as any Irish terrier, and as peevish and fussy as a fault-finding old woman. Added to this, he had a way of glancing all round the room, and avoiding the eye of the person to whom he was talking. And if Cleek had been like the generality of people, and hadn't known that some of the best and "straightest" ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... acutely. He paced his cell from morning to night, peevish and nervous, brooding deeply over what he considered to be an atrocity. He was a well-known man and on intimate terms with many of the foremost members of the Government and of the Services. He wrote to every man whom he thought capable ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... "Peevish peppers, but I'm a tenderfoot," grunted Bud. "Why in Sam Hill didn't I think o' that myself? I reckon I'm gettin' too old fer ther cow business. I ought ter be milkin' cows ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... old man gathers what he dares not spend, While, as for action, do he what he will, 'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes Into the future, grumbles, and complains, Extols his own young years with peevish praise, But rates ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... individual cases is made to the great principle of moral rectitude. We find, accordingly, this principle called into action, when a man has become sensible of important defects in his moral habits. Thus, we may see a man, who has long given way to a peevish or irascible disposition, that is, to selfish acting upon his own feelings, without due regard to the feelings of others, setting himself to contend with this propensity upon the score of moral duty; while ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... for when the boss gets real peevish about anything it's not safe to get your signals mixed! I stands guard on the 'phone booth while Piddie was sendin' the message, and for once we plots away ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I should like to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village lottin' on goin', 'xcept those who would like best to go and can't. I've been ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... was never at all intimate with that peevish old woman," Stepan Trofimovitch went on complaining to me that same evening, shaking with anger; "we were almost boys, and I'd begun to detest him even then... just as he had ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... shrinking form, bent and crippled, shrouded; and he cried out in his disappointment like a peevish boy: "I thought it was she—she! Kaya was young, fair, her face was like a flower; her hair was like gold; her lips were parted, arched and sweet; her eyes—You, you are ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... no doubt, often dreaded her Grace's conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind, for though she was very beautiful, she died without issue: she is said to have been very reserved and peevish, perhaps owing to the circumstance just mentioned, of having never been honoured with the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... never busied myself with the Lord Viscount's [Lord Bindon's] wealth, nor of his extortions, nor poisoning of his wife, as is here avowed, have I spoken. I have foreborne ... but I will not endure wrong at so peevish a fool's hands any longer. I will rather lose my life, and I think that my Lord Puritan Peryam doth think that the Queen shall have more use of rogues and villains than of men, or else he would not, at Bindon's instances, have yielded to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... should be weaned at ten months unless he is unwell at the time or the weaning comes in the heat of the summer, when there is danger of his becoming sickly or peevish. Preparatory to weaning, the baby should be accustomed to the bottle. Provided the bottle holds half a pint or four glasses, the number of bottles may be increased from one a day at four months to two or six at eight months. The ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... humour. A wife and mother who is perpetually fretful and peevish; who has nothing to utter to her husband when he returns from his daily occupation, whatever it may be, or to her children when they are assembled around her, but complaints of her hard lot and miserable destiny; who is always ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... LAND. One is peevish, if one can't have one's proper rest. What will you bet the Major has not returned home, and you have been keeping ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... down for a few hours, they become nervous, panicky, and apprehensive, always listening, expecting something to happen. But we of the windless North, with our sunlit spaces, our quiet days and nights, grow peevish, petulant, and full of grouch when the wind blows. We will stand anything but that. We resent wind; it is not in the bond; we will have none ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... dressing-gown, and with the lower part of his body covered up with a rug. His face, fair and florid, with more than a suggestion of coarseness in the heavy jaw and thick lips, was drawn and wrinkled as though with pain. His lips wore an habitually peevish expression. He did not offer to rise when they came in. Matravers was thankful that Freddy spared him the necessity of immediate speech. He had recognized in a moment the man who had sat alone night after night in the back seats of the New Theatre, whose slow drawn-out ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... library; if he must be disturbed, he must. He does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl in a peevish tone. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... of August, That turns men faint and mad, She quiets the peevish urchins By telling a dream she had— A heaven with marble counters, And ice, and a singing fan; And a God in white, so friendly, Just like ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... how a woman who had a peevish child acted to regain from the Fairies her own offspring. His words are:—"Above this is a spreading oak of great antiquity, size, and extent of branches; it has got the name of Fairy Oak. In this very century (the eighteenth) a poor cottager, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... think him mad, sir?' said his master, speaking in a peevish tone. 'Don't use that word too freely. Why do you think ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... forest was the old dame's hut, and up such a bean stalk Jack climbed, to find a giant and a castle high above. Why not? What may not be up there? You look up into the green cloud, and long for a moment to be a monkey. There may be monkeys up there over your head, burly red Howler, {131a} or tiny peevish Sapajou, {131b} peering down at you, but you cannot peer up at them. The monkeys, and the parrots, and the humming birds, and the flowers, and all the beauty, are upstairs—up above the green cloud. You are in 'the empty ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent revelations, we know now that his failing ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... its power to dazzle her long, long ago. Perhaps the disenchantment was mutual; for the pretty, rose-cheeked, starry-eyed girl who had captivated his idle fancy had become a dream of the past, and his wife was a pale, sickly, peevish invalid, with frowsy hair ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... himself to another little glass of brandy. His mood seemed to absorb the spirit of the liqueur. "Fixed!" he repeated with a peevish snap in his tone. "I'm not 'fixed' at all, as you call it. Good God, sir! They no more care what becomes of me than they do about their old gloves. I gave them name and breeding and position—and everything—and they round on me like—like cuckoos." ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... o'er each departing penny grieves, [xli] And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets, O'er hoards diminished by young Hopeful's debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons—but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; 260 Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... in astrology, and all other occult learning, questioned for his life about 1612. I am sure it was when the present Earl of Manchester's father was Lord Chief Justice of England. He was found guilty by a peevish Jury: but petitioning King James by a Greek petition, as indeed he was an excellent Grecian; 'By my saul,' said King James, 'this man shall not die; I think he is a better Grecian than any of my Bishops:' so his life was spared, &c. ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... Quincey appeared at only one of these dinners. The expression of his face was intelligent, but cramped and somewhat peevish. He was self- involved, and did not add to the cheerfulness of the meeting. I have consulted this gentleman's three essays, of which Charles Lamb is professedly the subject; but I cannot derive from them anything illustrative of my friend Lamb's character. I have been mainly struck therein by ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... tall stone cage that waited for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud plashed under their feet as if in mocking commiseration. Hoarse exclamations of sleepy voices were heard; irritated, peevish, abusive language rent the air with malice; and, to welcome the people, deafening sounds floated about—the heavy whir of machinery, the dissatisfied snort of steam. Stern and somber, the black chimneys stretched their huge, thick sticks ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... This put me into a more violent passion, which occasioned him to say several bitter reflecting things, that nettled me to the quick. He left me, as much dissatisfied with myself as he could possibly be with me; and in this peevish mood I gave a spring from the bottom of the sea up to the Island of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... are ready to take up reports and to judge so rashly as you do, I cannot but conclude you are some peevish or melancholy man, not fit to be discoursed with; and ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... a diminutive red-faced woman, with hair and eyes very much like his own, and a face that wore a peevish, pinched expression. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... aspirations, to a narrow sphere, within which he wandered incurably idealistic, pursuing prosaic or utilitarian objects—the favor of princes, place at Courts, the recovery of his inheritance—in a romantic and unpractical spirit.[82] Vacillating, irresolute, peevish, he roamed through all the towns of Italy, demanding more than sympathy could give, exhausting friendship, changing from place to place, from lord to lord. Yet how touching was the destiny of this laureled exile, this brilliant wayfarer on the highroads ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... one must be using some kind of exercise. Your fellow-servant has a blessed time on't that ever you saw. I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw. Then am I ready to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England. But then to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy that I am well again. I am told 'twill do me good, and am content to believe it; if it ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... think so too, if you were in bed with pneumonia. Since you're all in vigorous health she imagines you can get on without her. But she's not having a very jolly time of it, I should judge. Cheer her up with a lively letter, not a peevish ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... even pagan good-nature is consonant with the warm wet woods and comfortable clouds of South England; it never had any place among the harsh and thrifty squires in the plains of East Prussia, the land of the East Wind. They were peevish as well as proud, and everything they created, but especially their army, was made coherent by sheer brutality. Discipline was cruel enough in all the eighteenth-century armies, created long after the decay of any faith or hope that could hold men together. But the state ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... death result from absorption of toxins. Frequently the prolonged confinement to bed, the continuous pain, and the natural impairment of appetite wear out the strength. In many cases the patient becomes peevish, irritable, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... but when Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the provost oppose the clerk's scruples, saying warmly "write, write; I'd rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two. He has fun and life in him. Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... almost mechanically, as a pastime during that dark period when his thoughts were so heavy upon him. Hardly any collection of note is without one of these circular pictures, into which the attendant angels depress their heads so naively. Perhaps you have sometimes wondered why those peevish-looking Madonnas, conformed to no acknowledged or obvious type of beauty, attract you more and more, and often come back to you when the Sistine Madonna and the Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten. At first, contrasting ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... out and peevish, and disinclined to move, but anything was better than sticking about in this roosting-place, this casual ward and clearing-house of the wild. The keen starlings were already off, swinging away, regiment by regiment, with a fine, bold ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... drive the thoughts of Essex from her mind, or dispel the dejection with which the recollection of her love for him, and of his unhappy fate, oppressed her spirit. A year or two passed away, but time brought no relief. Sometimes she was fretful and peevish, and sometimes hopelessly dejected and sad. She told the French embassador one day that she was weary of her life, and when she attempted to speak of Essex as the cause of her grief, she sighed bitterly ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his nephew. At the same time, in a merry moment, he would load down his table with all that kitchen and cellar could provide, for the reflection of his friends. Thus he oscillated continuously between two extremes; but the power which swung the pendulum was always the aural malady. He grew peevish and capricious towards his best friends, rude, even brutal at times in his treatment of them; only in the next moment to overwhelm them most pathetically with attentions. Till the end of his life he remained ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... She wouldn't be saying it to Robin, but to the contemptible thing that had taken Robin's place. She still saw Robin as a young man, with young, shining eyes, who came rushing to give himself up at once, to make himself known. She had no affection for this selfish invalid, this weak, peevish bully. ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... what a Nation of Projectors must bring their Country to. I shall here make a Digression, without giving any Reason for it; for since I am not bound to the Unities of Time, and Place, as we are in Poetry, I stand in no Awe of the peevish Criticks. ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... Tournan, roused some servants, and made them get us some bread, fruit, and mattresses. The bread and fruit we devoured, together with a lunch-tongue, from that excellent Chateau at La Haute Maison—the mattresses we took into a large airy room and slept on, until we were wakened by the peevish tones of the other motor-cyclists who had ridden with the column. One of them had fallen asleep on his bicycle and disappeared into a ditch, but the other two were so sleepy they did not hear him. We were all weary and bad-tempered, while a hot dusty day, and a rapid succession ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... My wife mighty peevish in the morning about my lying unquietly a-nights, and she will have it that it is a late practice, from my evil thoughts in my dreams,....and mightily she is troubled about it; but all blew over, and I up, and to church, and so home to dinner, where ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... relief to her, when, from the top of the steep hill, she saw Albert ascending towards her. She then felt herself more secure, and went with better spirits forward. It was near Whitsuntide—the father sickly and more peevish than ever, and work bringing in no supply; for provisions had risen fearfully in price in consequence of the previous unusually hard winter. Now, as often as Maud brought the dinner to her father, he complained bitterly, and reproached her harshly for her folly; so that the poor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... been swept from his bearings by popular applause, or intoxicated by his own verbosity. In later years he lost all influence over me, for, in spite of his wonderful style, he became trivial, whimsical, peevish, goody-goody;—talking to grown men and women as a dyspeptic Sunday-school teacher might lay down the law to classes of little girls. As regards this later period, Max Nordau is undoubtedly right in speaking of Ruskin's mind as "turbid and fallacious''; but the time of which I speak was his best, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... little girl whose name she did not know, a child with a big rag doll called Honey-Sweet, might come to spend the afternoon with her children. Her little boy, just recovering from typhoid fever, was peevish at being kept indoors. He begged to see the girl who had entertained him a few days before by telling fairy tales. A visit from her would be a kindness to a sick child and ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... that all traveling just after marriage is a great blunder. Traveling makes the sunniest disposition hasty and peevish, for women don't love changes as men do. Not one in a thousand is seen at her best while traveling, and the majority are seen at their very worst. Then there is the discomfort and desolation of European hotels—their mysterious ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken, and I think I may say even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils. Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... after dark. It was so still, so black, so empty, so chilly with a sort of supernatural chill, so silent, that imagination conjured up sounds such as I had never heard before. I had been told of an extremely old woman, a great-great-grandmother, bed-ridden, peevish, and weak-minded, who had occupied that room for nearly a score of years, apparently forgotten by fate, and left to drag out a monotonous, weary existence on not her "mattress grave" (like the poet Heine), but on an immensely thick feather bed; only ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies, Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries." ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... not of it, excellent young man," said Holdenough; "we have both erred—I in suffering my zeal to outrun my charity, you perhaps in pressing hard on an old and peevish man, who had so lately poured out his sufferings into your friendly bosom. Be it all forgotten. Let your friends, if they are not deterred by what has happened at this manor of Woodstock, resume their habitation as soon as they will. If they can ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... time she was peevish and discontented; her mind was dark. But so soon as she began to understand, it was as if light shone into her mind, and she became cheerful ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... peevish at times we grow: "Just like a man!" Now and then boastful of what we know: "Just like a man!" Whatever our failings from day to day— Stingy, or giving our goods away— With a toss of her head, she is sure to say, ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... are all jarred, your head's in an unwonted state of excitement, and your pulse is going—though I have not felt it—far above its normal rate. You are ill, sir, bodily and mentally, in a regular peevish state of excitement; and as your doctor, speaking perfectly honestly and straightforwardly, I say to you that the medicine you require is mental; that you have only to go to the captain and have a few words based on my advice, and you will be well ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... the candid Lecky, 'though somewhat peevish and very obstinate, was pure, generous, simple, and affectionate; and she displayed, under bereavements far more numerous than fall to the share of most, a touching piety that endeared ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... runs into the notes peculiar to any of these moods, are likewise in nature hereunto congenerous? C Fa ut may show me to be of an ordinary capacity, though good disposition. G Sol re ut, to be peevish and effeminate. Flats, a manly or melancholic sadness. He who hath a voice which will in some measure agree with all cliffs, to be of good parts, and fit for variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Likewise from the TIMES: so semi-briefs may speak a temper ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... want?' demanded Jones, in a peevish tone; 'why do you trouble me? I can't bear it. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... I can see,' he said, 'if we can't find somethin' better than stone-deaf hedgehogs, peevish parrots, and funkin' bandicoots we may as well ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... farmer. "Don't believe there is any mad dog along the way, either. I've reined up and talked with neighbors during the last hour and a half along the way. They didn't mention nothin' 'bout any peevish dogs. Now, it stands to reason that the officers would have stopped and warned folks along the road, don't it? And the neighbors would have passed the gossip ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... sacrifice," said Annunciata, in her peevish voice. "I loathe traveling. And now I am being made to suffer for all I have done. He will die, and the rest of us—what will happen ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... o'clock, they came back again! And Casey neglected to send Juan after the tub to water the goats. Wherefore paw sent Humbolt, and watered the goats himself from Casey's barrel and seemed peevish because he must. Maw Smith came after coffee again, and helped herself with no more formality than a shrill, "I'm borrying some more coffee!" sent ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... lady, which was like being e secretioribus consiliis, I willingly drank cup after cup, as if it had been the Heliconian spring. But as the charm of novelty went off, I grew more fastidious; and besides, I discovered that she was of a peevish temper. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... kind and considerate. One unfortunate little creature differed from the rest in all respects. It was slightly lame, misshapen rather than awkward, and with a face that indicated bad health, bad temper, or both. Its manner was peevish and fractious, its tones sharp and harsh, and its actions rough and hasty. I took it for a mother's sickly favourite, deformed in character to compensate for physical deformity. Watching them for a short time, I saw the little ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... from whatever point of view he was studied. Gnat-brained, cowardly, and feeble natured, he had not a quality that commanded respect from any one who knew him. His cruelty did not seem designed so much as the ebullitions of a peevish, snarling little temper, united to a mind incapable of conceiving the results of his acts, or understanding the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... only compliment is a bribe. Having yet credit with a jeweller, I afterwards procured a ring of thirty guineas, which I humbly presented, and was soon admitted to a treaty with Mr. Squeeze. He appeared peevish and backward, and my old friend whispered me, that he would never make a dry bargain: I therefore invited him to a tavern. Nine times we met on the affair; nine times I paid four pounds for the supper and claret; and nine guineas I gave ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... present we had all agreed splendidly, but now John's irritability seemed to increase hourly; and as regards myself, I often found it necessary to exercise very great self-control to avoid giving very sharp and snappish answers to John's peevish and querulous remarks. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... some weeks past, I have been forced in my own defence, to follow a proceeding that I have so much condemned in others. But several of my acquaintance among the declining party, are grown so insufferably peevish and splenetic, profess such violent apprehensions for the public, and represent the state of things in such formidable ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions, though I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely affected. To offer them comfort ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... his lips then, but I heard no sound till I put my ear down, and caught the peevish comment: "This is crawling. . ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... order to point a moral for mankind!—vainly, because the cigale's short life in the sunlit trees will ever seem to men a more ideal one than that of the earth-burrowing ant, with its possible longevity, its peevish parsimony, and restless anxiety for the future. I could have lain down under a tree like a gipsy in this wild spot, and let the summer dreams come to me from their airy castles amongst the leaves, if I had not made up my mind to reach St. Affrique before night. There was another reason which, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... in the world," he observed, "handed out free of charge, without paying people to bring it into the house when you're peevish." ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... I have been reading—yes, and with great Interest, however little Scholarship—your Fellow-Collegian's new Book of Notes, etc. {238} And just as I had done my best with his Catullus, came to hand the Love-Letters of a kindred Spirit, Keats; whose peevish Jealousy might, two thousand years ago, have made him as bitter and indecent against his friend Armitage Brown, as Catullus against Caesar. But in him too Malice was not stronger than Love, any more than in Catullus; not only of the Lesbia-Brawne, but of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... derramar to spill, waste. derretir to melt. derribar to demolish, raze. derrota rout, defeat. derrotar to rout, defeat. derrumbar to precipitate. derwich dervish. desabrido insipid, tasteless, peevish. desafio challenge, duel. desaforado huge, disorderly. desangrar to bleed. desapacible disagreeable, harsh. desaparecer to disappear. desarrollar to unroll, develop. desatar to untie, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... Daoine shi,' or Men of Peace, of the Scottish Highlanders, rather resemble the Scandinavian Duergar, than the English Fairies. Notwithstanding their name, they are, if not absolutely malevolent, at least peevish, discontented, and apt to do mischief on slight provocation. The belief of their existence is deeply impressed on the Highlanders, who think they are particularly offended at mortals, who talk of them, who wear their favourite colour green, or in any ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... that vest pocket. I took that pencil off my chain and slipped it in there in case of a scrap. Put up your gun, Barney, and I'll tell you why I had to shoot Norcross. The old fool started down the hall after me, popping at the buttons on the back of my coat with a peevish little .22 and I had to stop him. The old lady was a darling. She just lay in bed and saw her $12,000 diamond necklace go without a chirp, while she begged like a panhandler to have back a little thin gold ring with a garnet worth ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... challenge in 1646. It was the Hopkins crusade that called forth his treatise.[32] His little book was in large part a plea for more caution in the use of evidence. Suspicion was too lightly entertained against "every poore and peevish olde Creature." Whenever there was an extraordinary accident, whenever there was a disease that could not be explained, it was imputed to witchcraft. Such "Tokens of Tryall" he deemed "altogether unwarrantable, ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... turmoil of bitter thoughts within. What a chasm gaped between their old life and their new! And yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock and had laughed and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of Nature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheek upon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses and Parisian chiffons. Now she was clinging, half-crazy, ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... the right to take her own pleasure, and to gratify every caprice of her infantile mind, for the remainder of her days. She was supremely selfish in an agreeable unconscious fashion, and considered herself a domestic martyr whenever she spent an hour in her husband's sick-room, listening to his peevish accounts of his maladies, or reading a Times leader on the threatening aspect of things in the City for the solace of ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... hair, brown eyes, and too-strongly-marked eyebrows; their features are neither good nor bad; their whole aspect is uninteresting. They have no winning dimples, no speaking lines about the mouth. All that one can notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why, even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy circles, piping sharp, peevish cries. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... be called. Remain by my side and sustain me, to prevent many a wicked thing and bring to pass much that is good. I shall always be grateful to you in my heart for it; that you can depend upon even if my weather-beaten face looks ill-humored, and my voice is peevish. Remember that I am a fretful old man, who is daily wasting away, approaching that bourne from which no traveller ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... enthusiasm would vanish," said Yolanda, interrupting him almost sharply. "My magic tells me she is a squat little creature, with a wizened face; her eyes are sharp and black, and her nose is a-peak, not unlike mine. That, she is sour and peevish of temper, as I am, there can be no doubt. And, although she be great and rich as the Princess of Burgundy, I warrant you she is not one whit handsomer nor ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... up of Browning's knaves cannot be better expressed than by Chesterton. 'They are real somewhere. We are talking to a garrulous and peevish sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that comes forth is the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... painful to see than the look of sadness or neglect which motherless children sometimes wear. It was of a wayward temper grown more wayward still for want of a mother's firm and gentle rule. One could not doubt that peevish words and angry retorts fell very naturally from those pale lips. She looked like one who needed to be treated with patience and loving forbearance, and who failed to meet either. And, indeed, the rule to which Christie ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the corner of one of these little stones arrested my wandering attention; there was something familiar about it, something that stirred memories in my sluggish brain. What was it? I groped in vain for some clue. The pebble worried me, and I made a peevish gesture to throw it away. No! Whatever it was, I must not do that, rather wash it, wash it. Yes! that was what we used to do. But where was the batea, for now by some strange freak I was back in Brazil, ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... not the wise secret earth; for in the mould that thou throwest up shall the first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness; and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let it be enough that these have found the feast good, and thanked ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... "My dear sir,—-That peevish letter of mine, which was meant to convey an apology for my incapacity to write, seems to have been taken by you in too serious a light,—-it was only my way of telling you I had ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... of paper and a pencil, and she scribbled a letter as best she could in her bed, and lay back fatigued. The nurse said she must not fret, that Father Brennan would be sure to come to her at once if he were at home, and Ellen knew that that was so; and she felt that she was peevish, but she felt that Ned ought not to have written ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears to have only one way of obtaining sexual excitement and gratification. It is his custom to get into a hot bath and there to produce erection ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to dry upon the pen. I could not read with any perseverance, and during the whole month I was locked up, I only completed Carlyle's 'History of Frederick the Great' and Mill's 'Essay on Liberty,' neither of which satisfied my peevish expectations. When at last the sun sank behind the fort upon the hill and twilight marked the end of another wretched day, I used to walk up and down the courtyard looking reflectively at the dirty, unkempt 'zarps' who stood on guard, racking my brains to find some way, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... people who always will hold aloof. They are as irresponsive as a sooty kettle when you strike it. They are like peevish children who say "I won't," or surly old dogs who growl at every one. But HE was so exceedingly genial, a capital fellow with the highest spirits. He had looks as well; he was six feet high; and all those six feet were clothed ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... so that by nine o'clock it was hardly possible to stand in the open. The sky was like iron, and the dull red which had appeared in the West at sundown changed to a cold, neutral dimness. The birds were in great trouble, the gulls especially wailing with a peevish sharpness that made the skin creep. I looked out twice into the roaring darkness, and could see nothing except the flash of the "white horses" as they trampled and reared far out at sea. The fire was better than that wild company, so I sat a little, and then slept. A loud knocking awaked ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... within the dining-room, took the envelope without a word, and passed into the parlor, where, standing beneath the lamp, she tore it open, glanced anxiously at its contents, then threw it with an exclamation of peevish indignation ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... sharp and somewhat discourteous reply, as Mrs. Moggs gives a shake of admonition to her peevish little charge, and turns half back to the riotous assemblage ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is a sort of shadow of despair, and will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... kind that distinguish old acquaintances from new ones. When it did not transpire in chance words she caught it in their glances or divined it in the mental atmosphere. As autumn passed into early winter she became nervous, peevish, and exacting; she lost much from her pretty ways and something from her looks. In the family the change was ascribed to the fatigue incidental to the sudden round of lunches, dinners, dances, suppers, theatre-parties, opera-goings, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... dominating and so unique a personality, although we were bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... refinement and kindness of his nature. But now, as if some inner corrosion were eating its way outward, she found that they had ceased to be anything more than the thinnest veneer, through which often broke, in words, or manner, or look, peevish ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... Small need have you, O mighty Thrym, for hammers, but Thor is naught without it. Yet, since all the world knows that you are his master, let him have his plaything back, that we may cease to be troubled by his peevish outcry." ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... the vehemence of a reserved nature when the flood is loosed. 'Young Madam' had been more than usually peevish and exacting, jealous perhaps at Lucy's being the heroine of the day, and fretful over a cold which confined her to the house, how she worried and harassed all around her with her whims, megrims and complaints ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last one—on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag. No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter for this shebang, and ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... enclose a copy of it. I shall never notice any 'excoriator.' But if you wish to add to the gaiety of nations, give this copy to some newspaper and let it loose in the state—if you care to do so. We must have patience with these puny and peevish brethren. They've been trained to a false view of life. Heaven knows I bear them ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... quarreling, which is opposed to the aforesaid friendship or affability, to which it belongs to behave agreeably towards those among whom we dwell. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 6) that "those who are opposed to everything with the intent of being disagreeable, and care for nobody, are said to be peevish ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... his whiskey, And his good dinner, let what may befall His wife and children. He could take the pittance She got from her hard toil, and spend it on Himself and his companions of the jug. When out of work, as he would often be, Then double toil for her! with peevish words From him, the sole requital of it all! Child after child she bore him; but, compelled Too quickly after childbirth to return To the old wash-tub, all her sufferings Reacted on the children, and ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... choice, after all, is rare. Here and there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... have grown, thought the Major, in contact with the theatrical world when, on its return, it filled the summer night with sound, and made the one-eyed piebald cat who lived at The Retreat foreclose an interview with a peevish friend acrimoniously. Perhaps it was only because the laughter and the jests, the good-nights mixed with echoes of "Charley's Aunt," and reminders of appointments for the morrow, broke in so suddenly on a long seclusion that the Major seemed ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... somebody said—happened to have ruffles to the waist, and ribbons fluttering about more or less. He said I fluttered, and I told him I certainly did. 'I always flutter, Mr. Monk,' I said. 'When I don't flutter, I shall be dead.' Which was true. He was quite peevish, but I was firm; you know you have to be firm about such things. Only, the next Sunday he happened to come by when one of those great dreadful boys asked me if Solomon's seal was tame, and I said I didn't think ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... recurrence to egotism which travesties it in intrigue. But she failed to crown her career by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very much offended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV., she further irritated them by her peevish attitude and marked discontent. The Marquis de Brancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articles of the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. in such wise as the Emperor and his allies wished them to stand; Philip replied that he would not sign them, unless ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... at this point Dormy Jamais had brought the trembling Olivier Delagarde, unrepenting and peevish, but with a craven fear of the Royal Court and a furious populace quickening his footsteps. This hiding-place was entered at low tide by a passage from a larger cave. It was like a little vaulted chapel floored with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... take exception to the accuracy of some of the PRIME MINISTER'S historical allusions in his post-Spa oration he would doubtless reply, "I don't read history; I make it." He was tart with the Turks, gratulatory to the Greeks, peevish with the Poles and gentle to the Germans. The German CHANCELLOR and Herr VON SIMONS were described as "two perfectly honest upright men, doing their best to cope with a gigantic task." Their country was making ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... witness to the popularity of tobacco. He tells us that a man could not heartily welcome his friend without at once proposing a smoke. It had become, he says, a point of good-fellowship, and he that would refuse to take a pipe among his fellows was accounted "peevish and no good company." "Yea," he continues, with rising indignation, "the mistress cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain her servant than by giving him out of her fair hand a pipe ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... day with Mr. Levi; he has got two young men always armed in his tent, and a little peevish dog, and gutta-percha pipes running into all the Jews' tents that are at his back like chicks after the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... a wild cry close at hand, and a curlew rose, and then a flock of lapwings, to flit round and round, uttering their peevish calls; but Max saw nothing but the scene at the castle, heard nothing but The Mackhai's bitter words, and he tramped onward and onward into the wilderness of mountain and moss, ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Government to convert Kingston into the provincial capital, that the seat of government should not be at the London of General Simcoe. He was not favorable to York. A muddy, marshy, unhealthy spot, it was unfitted for a city. Lord Dorchester, peevish from age, was, to some extent, under the influence of the Kingston merchants, and was inclined, by a feeling of gratitude, to grant the wishes of Commodore Bouchette, who resided at Kingston, with his family, and to whom Lord Dorchester ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... know everything!" Miles was a little peevish; he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make the cocktails—she said everything was ready on the sideboard. That's the dining room right behind this room," he explained unnecessarily, since the French doors were open. "Well, Nita blew me ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... man be fortunate if he could flee from a famine? Yes No 37 38 May careful observation be of considerable help in decreasing mistakes? Yes No 38 39 Does speaking with brevity necessarily mean that one is peevish? Yes No 39 40 Are chimes ever played in a ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley
... being recognized as such, presently developed into a most decided wilfulness. She turned impatiently from the nun's well-meant kindness and efforts to console her, which somehow were not what she wanted—not that, but something so different, poor child!—she was cross, peevish, fractious without intending it, scarcely knowing why; the nuns set her down as a perverse unamiable child: and so it happened, that she had not been many weeks in the convent before she came to be regarded with general disfavour and indifference ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... love; Command me, use me; O, you are to blame, That do neglect, my everlasting zeal, My dear, my kind affect;" when (God can tell) A sudden puff of wind, a lightning flash, A bubble on the stream doth longer 'dure, Than doth the purpose of their promise bide. A shame upon this peevish, apish age, These crouching, hypocrite, dissembling times! Well, well, God rid the patrons of these crimes Out of this land: I have an inward fear, This ill, well-seeming sin will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... answer was to keep on south 'to Gamaland'; but when the fog lifted the St Peter was in latitude 46 deg., far below the supposed location of the strait of Juan de Fuca, and there was in sight neither Gamaland nor the sister ship. The scientists with Bering were in such a peevish mood {19} over the utter disproof of their mythical continent that they insisted on the commander wasting a whole month pottering back and forth looking for Chirikoff's ship. By this time the weather had become very warm, the drinking water very rank, and the ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... that may to his home has brought; And were I only young again! But peevish was she, and with malice fraught— To honied words we list ...
— The Return of the Dead - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... name. These old women, who never had chick or child of their own, but who always know how to bring up other people's children, will tell you with long faces that my enchanting, quieting, soothing volume, my all-sufficient anodyne for cross, peevish, won't-be-comforted little bairns, ought be laid aside for more learned books, such as they could select and publish. Fudge! I tell you that all their batterings can't deface my beauties, nor their wise ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... and so was not aware that the truce between them was ended for good and all. He knew that Billy had not at any time been what one might call cordial, but that last stare of displeasure when they met in the creek at the Double-Crank, he had set down to a peevish mood. Under the circumstances, it was natural that he should walk up to the bar with the rest. Under the circumstances, it was also natural that Billy should object to this unexpected and unwelcome guest, and that the vague, unperformed duty ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... been owned by Charles M. Price, a negro trader, of Rockville, Maryland. Mr. P. was given to 'intemperance,' to a very great extent, and gross 'profanity.' He buys and sells many slaves in the course of the year. 'His wife is cross and peevish.' She used to take great pleasure in 'torturing' one 'little slave boy.' He was the son of his master (and was owned by him); this was the chief cause ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... all access. Then as to what she suffers from her father, In all this there is much exaggeration:— Old men are testy and will have their way; A man may stab his enemy, or his vassal, 75 And live a free life as to wine or women, And with a peevish temper may return To a dull home, and rate his wife and children; Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny. I shall be well content if on my conscience 80 There rest no heavier sin than what they suffer From the devices of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... restive, and inclined to be peevish under his illness, the result, no doubt, of a naturally-robust constitution struggling unsuccessfully against the attacks of disease, but when he was completely overcome, his irascibility passed away, and he became patient, sweet-tempered, and ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... leaf indignant, "Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... none of them long to wait, for within a few minutes Rosette's peevish voice was heard ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... miserable, peevish, lazy, conceited, faithless, prayerless wretch that I am, but I know this too, that One is guiding me, and driving me when I would not be guided, who will make me, and has made me, go His way, and do His work, by fair means ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... Mr. Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as most men talk ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... him than of any other bull of their acquaintance; yet they did not love him, for they loved none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused by other bulls during that season lasted well over until the next. They were a morose and peevish band at best, though here and there were those among them in whom germinated the primal seeds of humanity—reversions to type, these, doubtless; reversions to the ancient progenitor who took the first step out of ape-hood toward humanness, when he walked ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the lungs, or, owing to the difficulties of nursing, bed-sores may form and death result from absorption of toxins. Frequently the prolonged confinement to bed, the continuous pain, and the natural impairment of appetite wear out the strength. In many cases the patient becomes peevish, irritable, or ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... no legacy, Save that his story teaches:— Content to peevish poverty; Humility to riches. Ye scornful great, ye envious small, Come follow in his track; We all were happier, if we all Would ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sleep," Garry replied, his voice still peevish, "so I came out for a breath of air. I saw him start this way—saw you following him with that gun in your hand. I just slipped over, too, in case there might be doings. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... loathsome, malevolent, nauseous, obstinate, passionate, quarrelsome, raging, saucy, tantalizing, uncomfortable, vexatious, abominable, bitter, captious, disagreeable, execrable, fierce, grating, gross, hasty, malicious, nefarious, obstreperous, peevish, restless, savage, tart, unpleasant, violent, waspish, worrying, acrimonious, blustering, careless, discontented, fretful, growling, hateful, inattentive, malignant, noisy, odious, perverse, rigid, severe, teasing, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... became most painfully apparent. His more than puerile dependence upon his son, and the more than paternal severity exercised over him by Count Charles, were made manifest to all the world. The son ruled the trembling but peevish old warrior with an iron rod, and endless was their wrangling with Fuentes and all the other Spaniards. Between the querulousness of the one and the ferocity of the other, poor Fuentes became ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... lips that I have charged with lies; Or win the dear embraces I have spurned? O most unhappy, most unworthy wife! No one but he who still has clung to thee,— Proud, and imperious, and impenitent,— No one but he who has in silence borne Thy peevish criminations and complaints Can now forgive thee, when in deepest shame Thou bowest with confession of thy faults. Dear husband! David! Look upon your wife! Behold one kneeling never knelt to you! I have abused you and your faithful love, And, in my great humiliation, pray You ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... evidence from his point of view, he was able to present to himself a case of personal persecution and ill-use. The Hebrews belonged to him, and because he held them their God afflicted Egypt. Egypt complained and would have him sacrifice his private property, his slaves, for its sake. To the peevish king the demand was unreasonable. Yet he was not extraordinary in his behavior. Unselfishness was not ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... quantity of our dinner generally depended on the state of his humour. When the report of the Embassador's making conditions with regard to the ceremony of introduction first reached Yuen-min-yuen, he was more than usually peevish, and conceived, as he thought, a notable piece of revenge. Some pains had been taken to arrange the presents in such a manner in the great hall as to fill the room well, and set them off to the best advantage. The old creature, determined to give ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... your reverence, excep' now and then, when the whole thing comes back to her. In fact, she's less trouble than when she was well. Then nothing could please her. She was always grumblin' about her clothes, an' her food; and she was short and peevish. Now she is pleased with everythin'. 'T is 'whatever you like, mother;' or ''t is too good for me, mother;' or 'thank you kindly, mother,' until sometimes I do be wishing that she had some of the old sperrit, and take me short ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... cares of a family, liable to the control of a man who expected the utmost propriety and order, who looked with a strict eye over every department, and whose opinion did not always coincide with her own, she became constantly peevish, and her former gloom grew ten fold more gloomy. She pined after that connubial affection which their reciprocal conduct was calculated to destroy; and from the hasty decisions of passion convinced herself, that no part of the blame was justly her own. Mr. Elford was no less obstinate in the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Looking alone at the great shining God Within thy mind, seest not; but I see And sicken at them. Yet do I not require Thy purpose; whether thy proud heart must have The wound of death from steel that has not toucht The peevish misery these Jews call blood; Whether thy mind is for velvet slavery In the desires of some Assyrian lord— Forgive me, Judith! there my love spoke, made Foolish with injury; and I should be Unwise to stay here, lest ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... Of sated lust, and dull decrepitude. No law, no art, no faith, no hope, no God. When round the freezing founts of life in peevish ring, Crouched on the bare-worn sod, Babbling about the unreturning spring, And whining for dead creeds, which cannot save, The toothless nations shiver to ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... made me feel the want of an old friend of whose company I could never be tired. How many and many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this Life of Wesley; and how often have I argued with it, questioned, remonstrated, been peevish, and asked pardon; then again listened, and cried, 'Right! Excellent!' and in yet heavier hours entreated it, as it were, to continue talking to me; for that I heard and listened, and was soothed, though I could ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... don't attempt to hang me again or else there'll be trouble. Another banana if you please. Now, don't be frightened, I'm not going to run over you. I'm not that sort of horse. If I were there might have been a beastly mess in this yard any time the last two days. I was beginning to feel quite peevish. I don't know what might happen if I became really vexed. Another banana. Certainly you took great risks for a little man. We are beginning to understand one another. Are there any more ripe bananas handy?" He said all this and more, as he looked round, cheerfully accepting peace-offerings ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... haste begun to find fault before he knew just what move to make. He realized that Smith read that fact in his manner and peevish complaining. He felt the hook in his gills. Smith felt the tug on the line. Perhaps at that interview he thought how like my advice this sarcastic statement from Smith seemed. At times he felt like a coward, and ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... with sighs and groans To ease my limbs, to rest my bones, As if my bed were stuffed with stones, No peevish murmur tips my tongue— Ah no! for every sound upflung Says: "Lad, you're ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... proxies, which he said he would not make use of, such as Lord Strangford's, as he could not hear from him in time, and would not use anybody's proxy for this question who had voted against it before. I told him how peevish the Duke of Rutland, and Beaufort, and others of the High Tories were, but he only laughed. In the evening Fitzgerald told me that the Convocation at Oxford had accepted Peel's resignation of his seat for ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... engaged straight away from now until tea-time. The nurse of those peevish little Mortons is worn out, for the mother is ill, and can't help her at all, so I promised to amuse the children for an hour after lunch while she takes a nap. Then I have to play a game of halma with old Mr Schute, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again—God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't—and many a bitter day's labour,—and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages—'tis ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... his name. This always distressed the committee, who saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame. The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently peevish to abandon a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... shut her lips firmly over protest. At best she might wring from him a reluctant change of mind and an annoyed offer of company which she must from sheer pride decline. At worst she would be treated with a dignified silence—the peevish and exacting ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... grinned and flung an arm across his shoulder. "And had the devil—and many pesos to pay to the local jefe and the naturally peevish gentleman who lost him. But at that I'll have to admit he's the best man on the rancho to-day." He threw a teasing look at Honor, glowing and misty-eyed over Jimsy's championing of the oppressed. "The only trouble is, I suppose Jimsy will ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... their characters unfolded. The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery as applied to me: my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt. The habitual fear of their father's peevish temper, and the dread of the punishments he was wont to inflict when irritated, kept them generally within bounds in his immediate presence. The girls, too, had some fear of their mother's anger; and the boy might occasionally be bribed to do as she bid him by the hope of reward; but I had no ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him—that weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... laughter, let old wrinkles come; And let my liver rather heat with wine, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,— I love thee, and it is my love that speaks; There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... she laid her hand again upon Solita's head. "Take not the speech to heart. 'Tis but the plaint of a woman whose hair is withered from its brightness and who grows peevish in her loneliness. But open your mind to me, for you have twined about my heart even as your curls did but now twine and coil about my wrist, and the more for this pretty vanity of yours. Therefore tell me his name, ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Georgette was gay and showy. It consisted of a brown robe, a black silk mantle, and a hat of the same dye. The features of this woman might have been agreeable in her youth; and her florid cheeks, her correct eyebrows, her black eyes, which were still very lively, scarcely accorded with the peevish and austere physiognomy which she tried to assume. This matron, of slow and discreet gait, was Madame Augustine Grivois, first woman to the Princess Saint-Dizier. Not only did the age, the face, and the dress of these two women present a striking contrast; but the contrast extended itself ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... exceeding him in astrology, and all other occult learning, questioned for his life about 1612. I am sure it was when the present Earl of Manchester's father was Lord Chief Justice of England. He was found guilty by a peevish Jury: but petitioning King James by a Greek petition, as indeed he was an excellent Grecian; 'By my saul,' said King James, 'this man shall not die; I think he is a better Grecian than any of my Bishops:' so ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... distinguished air, and a face that must once have been very handsome, but perhaps, at its best, a little effeminate. The face was careworn now, and the delicate features had a pinched and drawn look, the thin lips a half-cynical, half-peevish expression. It was not a pleasant countenance, in spite of its look of high birth; nor was there any likeness between Marmaduke Lovel and his daughter. His eyes were light blue, large and bright, but with a ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... struggle. True, the Opposition indulged in petty nagging and in ingeniously unpatriotic tactics; but they only served to throw up in bold relief the consistent and courageous conduct of the Prime Minister. It was an easy task to refute the peevish efforts of Fox to justify the French Jacobins alike before the war, throughout its course, and in their rejection of the British overtures for peace. But in every encounter Pitt won more than a personal triumph. He proved that the war was forced upon ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the absence of any particular person attracted but little attention. Madeleine, therefore, soon perceived that no one seemed to miss her very much if she was away. Mrs. Garman was as usual more or less peevish; and Rachel kept to herself, which Fanny maintained was because she had taken up ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... what reason I know not, for such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... you wait till I tell you?" Penrod's tone had become peevish. For that matter, so had Sam's; they were developing one of the little differences, or quarrels, that composed the very texture ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... joined by a diminutive red-faced woman, with hair and eyes very much like his own, and a face that wore a peevish, pinched expression. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... innocuous nature of the prescription. Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure. It addeth confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in hand with himself in the remedy. When the doctor swalloweth his own draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion? In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out in the endeavour to save the lives of others—his pretensions so moderate, that with difficulty I could press a crown ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... dreadfully disappointed at losing the delicacies that his sick appetite hungered for, and which, he fancied, would do more to restore him than all the doctors' stuff in London; and, so far, he was perhaps right. He bitterly reproached Mary for want of sympathy with his sufferings, and was peevish and cross all day. At night, however, his better nature regained the ascendant; and when he saw the poor girl wipe the tears from her eyes, as her nimble needle flew through the seams of a shirt she was making for a cheap warehouse in the Strand, his heart relented, and, holding out ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... in his chair with a peevish air. "Well, if you must, you must. What is this great affair, Count? Let us have it over, and then you can tell me ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... without him. Christophe suspected nothing, and went off in high delight. In his naive egoism he thought only of the pleasure of having Jacqueline all to himself. He was not suffered to rejoice for long. When she heard that Olivier was not coming, Jacqueline at once became peevish, irritable, bored, and dispirited: she lost all desire to please: she did not listen to Christophe, and answered him at random: and he had the humiliation of seeing her stifle a weary yawn. She was near tears. Suddenly she ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Gilbert, my son, that is now a corpulent man, and a Glasgow merchant, when I take up my pen to record the memorables of this Ann. Dom., seems to me yet but a suckling in swaddling clothes, mewing and peevish in the arms of his mother, that has been long laid in the cold kirkyard, beside her predecessor, in Abraham's bosom. It is not, however, my design to speak much anent my own affairs, which would be a very improper and uncomely thing, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... enjoys so wholly and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is just the man to lose a night's rest over some paltry question of his right to fiddle on the leads, or to be "vexed to the blood" by a solecism in his wife's attire; and we find in consequence that he was always peevish when he was hungry, and that his head "aked mightily" after a dispute. But nothing could divert him from his aim in life; his remedy in care was the same as his delight in prosperity; it was with pleasure, and with pleasure only, that he sought ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... little wren Came scolding to his nest of moss; We knew him by his peevish cry, He always sung so very cross. His quiet little mate would lay Her eggs in ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... were calling a person on the second floor and giving her equivocal advices drawn from his imagination of a commercial traveler. At times he assumed a dismal air and sighed:—"Poor girl!"—or he muttered in his teeth, with a peevish air:—"Rascal of a Prussian!"—Several times, when the others did not think of it, he called out repeatedly in a vibrating voice: "Enough! Enough!" and he added as if soliloquizing:—"Provided that we see her again and that the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... after lest it prove dangerous. The picnic was as dull as she had feared it would be. She usually liked children but, that day, the children at first were too riotously happy and then, as they tired themselves out, got cross and peevish. Especially the Smith children. One of the teachers said the oldest little Smith girl seemed to have fever; she was sick—as if that excused her acting like a little imp! She ought to have been kept at home—the whole possessed Smith tribe ought to have been kept ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... was to have the name of the person for whom she was asking repeated. He now perceived that he had had a bit of luck. A wearying period of disappointment in the matter of keeping the paper-weights circulating while balancing the ruler, had left him peevish, and it had been his intention to work off his ill-humour on the young visitor. The discovery that it was the boss's sister who was taking up his time, suggested the advisability of a radical change of tactics. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... Goosefoot, the mother of Charlemagne. The old nurse paid no attention to her critics, but continued to sing her rhymes as before; for, however much grown people might laugh at her, the children seemed to enjoy them very much, and not one of them was too peevish to be quieted and soothed by her verses. At one time Mistress Gooch was nursing a child of Mr. Ronald Barclay, a physician residing in the town, and he noticed the rhymes she sang and became interested in them. In time he wrote them all down and made a book of them, which it is ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Not a paper to be seen that required immediate attention; every item neatly disposed; himself smoking—a fairly strong pipe; scarcely a telephone call to interrupt. He seemed the sculptor's embodiment of strength in reserve; a man who never could be tuckered or peevish or unable to detect either the weakness of an opponent, the penetration of a critic or the need of a man who came to ask him for advice. There was a big instant kindliness about him that would have won the cordiality of the stolidest ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... William. The Lieutenant-Commander coughed apologetically. "He's peevish," he said. "Thought it was us blowing up at first. Wants to know why we wasted a torpedo: thinks he could have captured her and taken the crew prisoners if ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... lower part of his body covered up with a rug. His face, fair and florid, with more than a suggestion of coarseness in the heavy jaw and thick lips, was drawn and wrinkled as though with pain. His lips wore an habitually peevish expression. He did not offer to rise when they came in. Matravers was thankful that Freddy spared him the necessity of immediate speech. He had recognized in a moment the man who had sat alone night after night in the back seats of the New Theatre, whose slow drawn-out cry of agony ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... do not be peevish," he begged. "I tell you that he is the Maraton of whom we have spoken together. I have heard him. I have been to Sheffield and listened. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... home. On Sundays especially the whole family circle, from parents to the remotest cousin, would assemble in a body at the asylum, and, after filling the minds of the children with their idle whims, would either take them home or leave them peevish and unhappy. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... The old man gathers what he dares not spend, While, as for action, do he what he will, 'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes Into the future, grumbles, and complains, Extols his own young years with peevish praise, But rates and censures these ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... all this with a frank and artless simplicity of which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself, though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone: ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... than ever. He seemed unable to forget my having blamed him for his treatment of the dog, and also of my servant, whom I had been obliged to protect against him when she had had a love-affair with a tailor. In spite of receiving payment and promises he remained peevish, and insisted that he would have to move into my part of the house on account of his health in the coming spring. So while I forced him, by paying advance, to leave my household goods untouched until Easter at least, I went about ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, and operative. In his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares and saddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmost counsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; in all the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in his friendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, of treachery, or of vindictiveness. Rising as he did by the strength of his own merits, unaided ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fifteen thousand francs with the lady, who, after two years of marriage, became the ugliest and consequently the most peevish woman on earth. Luckily they had no children. The fair complexion (maintained by a Spartan regimen), the fresh, bright color in her face, which spoke of an engaging modesty, became overspread with blotches and pimples; her figure, which had seemed so straight, grew crooked, the angel ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... you are enough to provoke a saint!" replied a peevish voice from the furthest corner of the room. "You and your providences are more than I can stand. What do you mean this time, I should like to know? the picnic set for to-day, and every soul in the village lottin' on goin', 'xcept ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... self-evident truth that none of us had the courage to brave her surprise by asking an explanation. My mother's air of surprise when any of us went wrong in any way was very terrible to us. One day, when in a fit of peevish temper, I had taken the liberty to cut off the baby's ear, her simple words, "John, you surprise me!" appeared to me so sharp a reproof that after a sleepless night I went to her in tears, and throwing myself at her feet, exclaimed: "Mother, forgive me for surprising you." ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... that at the age when most women begin to think seriously of marriage she had around her a numerous brood, of which I was less the elder sister than the younger mother. She was delicate by nature, and peevish by reason of her burdens, and I think could never have been a self-reliant character; so she fretted and sighed through life, and when death came, unawares, she seemed not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... of giants were got together, very likely one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable superiority of the very tallest of the party; and so I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to listen? ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long, long ago. Perhaps the disenchantment was mutual; for the pretty, rose-cheeked, starry-eyed girl who had captivated his idle fancy had become a dream of the past, and his wife was a pale, sickly, peevish invalid, with frowsy hair and ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... failing which they resigned themselves to the post of usher in some ultra- Protestant school. Sport in all its forms, art and literature, being alike forbidden, the boy's hungry energy had found no reasonable outlet. He had been miserable, peevish, ailing, until at barely eighteen—after a discreditable episode with a scullery-maid—he had been shipped off to New York to learn business in the house of certain brokers and bill-discounters with whom Messrs. Barking Brothers had ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... at this time, and he was also peevish and difficult to please. George could manage him better than any one else, except his wife, for the reason that his confidence in his young brother was unbounded. The latter knew how to encourage the sick man without concealing from him his true condition. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... afternoon Gordon and Fletcher watched the overwhelming defeat of the House in the Two Cock. The score was over thirty points; Mansell played only moderately; Jeffries was off his game. A gloom settled down over the House, everyone became peevish and discontented. It was said that the great days of House footer were over. To lose both the Thirds and the Two Cock was a disgrace. No one expected anything but a rout in the Three Cock. There were bets in the day-room as to whether the score would be under fifty. Interest centred entirely on who ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... has that to do with this Christian's offence against me and mine? Born a Mankesman—bred and nursed in the island—he broke the laws under which he lived, and died for the breach of them, after the fair trial which they allowed.—Methinks, Margaret, we have enough of this peevish and foolish magistrate—I attend you ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... were on the table, and when she returned in the evening, the magician had removed them, and left another nice little meal. Downstairs Miss Minchin was as cruel and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia was as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar. Sara was sent on errands, and scolded, and driven hither and thither, but somehow it seemed as if she could bear it all. The delightful sense of romance and mystery lifted her above the cook's temper ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
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