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More "Vex" Quotes from Famous Books



... life who holds my guiding rein, I swear * I'll meet on love ground parlous foe nor care: Good sooth I'll vex revilers, thee obey * And quit my slumbers and all joy forswear: And for thy love I'll dig in vitals mine * A grave, nor shall my vitals ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... the White Hog colour, and also a black one, and vowed they were cocksure of shutting us up. They brought in the Big Hog from his hunting, and he is in the mess, too. At the end they all followed Madame Veto home, shouting everything to vex us patriots. I am a patriot," he added winking. "It is an outrage on the nation. We must go to Versailles. We must bring the Big Hog into our bosoms, away from the Bad ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... "Tush, man! Vex not thy soul as to thy friend's virtues or vices— what are they to thee? And of truth Sah-luma is no worse than the rest of us. All I maintain is that he is certainly no better. I have known many poets in my day, and they are ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... much on the road, but finally reached the retreat of the Inca and entered his presence in company with Friar Marcos. "Although the Inca was not too happy to see a new preacher, he was willing to grant him an entrance because the Inca ... thought Friar Diego would not vex him nor take the trouble to reprove him. So the Inca gave him a license. They selected the town of Huarancalla, which was populous and well located in the midst of a number of other little towns and villages. There was a distance of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... grieve, either of you,' he continued; 'nor vex yourselves that this has happened. Please not to be angry with me, father, for deserting you and the mill, where you want me, for I must go. For these three years we and the rest of the country have been in fear of the enemy; trade has been hindered; poor ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... payment for a box on my benefit night)? I am sorry you were alarmed on Monday. You alarmed us all; you looked so exceedingly ill that I feared something very serious had occurred to distress and vex you. Thank you for your critique upon my Constance; both my mother and myself were much delighted with it; it was every way acceptable to me, for the censure I knew to be deserved, and the praise I hoped was so, and they were blended in the very nicest proportions. We ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... liberty, for the institutions of self-government which had been proved practicable by the British peoples, and turned into the object of a fervent belief by the preachings of the French. These two causes were to plunge Europe into many wars, and to vex and divide the peoples of every European country, throughout the period 1815-78. And to add to the complexity, there was growing in intensity during all these years the problem of Industrialism—the transformation ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... my life thou hadst not ta'en, i. 182. Now, by your love! your love I'll ne'er forget, viii, 315. Now I indeed will hide desire and all repine, v. 267. Now is my dread to incur reproaches which. 59. Now love hast banished all that bred delight, iii. 259. Now with their says and said no more vex me the chiding race, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... your valuable notes is most generous, but it would vex me to take so much from you, as it is certain that you could work up the subject very much better than I could. Therefore I earnestly, and without any reservation, hope that you will proceed with your paper, so that I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... forgive me, the stupid, blundering idiot that I am, to go and vex your tender heart with my silly nonsense. I'm ashamed, and could ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... of their church; her past contendings and sufferings, and present dangers, all endear their church to their heart. But if tribulation and persecution arise, that is to say, if anything arises to vex or thwart or disappoint them with their church, they incontinently pull up their roots and their religion with it, and transplant both to any other church that for the time better pleases them, or to no church at all. Others, again, have all their religiosity rooted in their family life. Their ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... in the light, and winter in the shade. We had out pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... to find him," replied Edward; "and it would vex me to return without seeing him. Has he a wife, or any one that I ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... granted; the Devils are so many, that some Thousands, can sometimes at once apply themselves to vex one Child of Man. It is said, in Mark 5.15. He that was Possessed with the Devil, had the Legion. Dreadful to be spoken! A Legion consisted of Twelve Thousand Five Hundred People: And we see that in one Man or two, so many Devils ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... The king of Athens pities them, But cruel oracles vex him with fear: "Lo, from thy blood, thrice-noble virgin, shall The conquerless new enemy ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... Let no doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... ave would have saved me; for my sister, who was Abbess of St. Mary of Chauchigny, did so prevail, by her prayer and good works, for my lost and wretched soul, that every day I felt the pains of purgatory decrease; the pitchforks which, on my first entry, had never ceased to vex and torment my poor carcass, were now not applied above once a week; the roasting had ceased, the boiling had discontinued; only a certain warmth was kept up, to remind ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... too believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms of faith, half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward steadfastly into the night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of delight alternate vex and soothe the ear of man!—But the time will come, when the soul of man shall return again childlike and trustful to its faith in God; and look God in the face and die; for it is an old saying, full of deep, mysterious ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid." ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... of his meditations, when he recollected and compared the circumstances of every mortification to which he had been lately exposed, he could not help suspecting that some of them must have been contrived to vex him; and, as he was not ignorant of his lieutenant's disposition, nor unacquainted with the talents of Peregrine, he resolved to observe them both for the future with the utmost care and circumspection. This resolution, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... unkind to her sons, particularly in the too much lenity of King James the First, mentioned before. Had he so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early to have done, they had not had the power to vex the Church as since ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... care to," said Sophia Jane; pressing her lips tightly together. "I like to vex 'em sometimes. I'd rather do it than ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton

... The day will vex you, and the night deny Your idle prayer: Shall I, across strange waters, hear your ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... a very strong, wise, and good man to deal rightly with two such different sets of people; but though Charles II. was a very clever man, he was neither wise nor good. He could not bear to vex himself, nor anybody else; and, rather than be teased, would grant almost anything that was asked of him. He was so bright and lively, and made such droll, good-natured answers, that everyone liked him who came near him; but he had no steady principle, only to stand easy with everybody, and keep ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... will vex you sorely, and tempt you to throw them away: if you do not carry them, you will wonder when night comes why you did not take them. If your tent is not large, so that you can use light ash poles, I would at least start with them, ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... underlapp'd brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are, The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves, The limpid liquid within the young man, The vex'd corrosion so pensive and so painful, The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest, The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others, The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... you can use Avice Caro as a retort. But don't vex me about her, and make me do such an unexpected thing ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... wound and vex me with thy questions. Hath he not been gone these five months, and never a word, good or bad, hath been rendered to me? Nay, did he not, ere he went, so deport himself with most cold and supercilious arrogance, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... Mrs. Brown is not used to educating children, you know, that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I told her so, but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth. Well, then we young ones—that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn, and I—drank tea out on the lawn. Mary had to sit up and be company; but we had such fun! There was a ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... could not delude the sagacity of Count Markof, who was, therefore, soon less liked by the Minister than by the First Consul. All kind of low, vulgar, and revolutionary chicanery was made use of to vex or to provoke the Russian Ambassador. Sometimes he was reproached with having emigrants in his service; another time protection was refused to one of his secretaries, under pretence that he was a Sardinian ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... my life been money instead of nature, I have no hesitation in saying that by this time I would have been a rich man. But it is not the things I have done that vex me so much as the things I have not done. I feel that I could have accomplished so much more. I had the will, but ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... They vex'd the people, where'er they rov'd, With pillage and conflagration; Nor them old age's feebleness mov'd, Nor ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... of wildfowl riding out the storm Upon a pitching sea, Beyond grey rollers vex'd that rear and form, When piping winds urge on their destiny, To fall back ruined in white continually. And I at our trysting stone, Whereto I came down alone, Was fain o' the wind's wild moan. O, welcome were ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... you believe so, else you wouldn't say it; but I cannot help thinking that if I really were good I shouldn't vex Aunt Hannah ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... impeachment. Mr. Burgess moved that an account of all the money expended should be laid before the house; and, though opposed by the managing committee, who said they considered the motion as made merely as an attempt by the friends of Hastings to vex and impede the committee in the prosecution, it was carried, and an account of the expenses was laid upon the table. But this account was incomplete; and Mr. Burgess had to make three other motions before the particulars ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... but their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do not mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... legitimately be enjoyed in single great passages, of which there are more in the "Inferno" than in the other sections of the poem. His peculiar quality is a certain blending of mordant realism with a high and penetrating beauty. There is no need in reading him to vex oneself with symbolic interpretations. He is at his best, when from behind his scholastic philosophy, bursts forth, in direct personal betrayal, his pride, his humility, his passion, and ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... had a dove's swift, silver wings, I said, so I might straightway leave behind This strife of tongues, this tramp of feet, and find A world that knows no struggles and no stings, Where all about the soul soft Silence flings Her filmy garment, and the vexd mind Grows quiet as there floats upon the wind The soothing slumber-song of dreamless things. And lo! there answered me a voice and said, Man, thou hast hands and heart, take back thy prayer; ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... told Mrs. Maple anything about our quarrel, Kate," she said, quite coolly; "I am sure you do not mean what you said just now, and it would vex her, I know, if she knew we ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie

... been to the same school,' he says, 'either in theology or in politics, we had some scenes enough to make one die of laughter; still without quarrelling. Her father, who was then alive, was the friend and relative of people that I love with all my heart, and that I would not vex for all the world. So I allowed the emigres who surrounded us to cry out as they would, without ever drawing the sword.' De Maistre thought he never came across a head so completely turned wrong as Madame de Stael's, the infallible consequence, as he took it to be, of modern philosophy ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... Lords have sent it down to the Commons, but they have not yet read it nor taken notice of it, so as I believe they will by design defer it till they rise, that so he by lying under an impeachment may be prevented in his going to sea; which will vex him, and trouble the Duke of York. To Westminster Hall, and there met Mr. G. Montagu, and walked and talked; who tells me that the best fence against the Parliament's present fury is delay, and recommended it to me in my friends' business and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... I vex the shades no more. Their form of valour is no longer known amongst us; but there are some who regret. I find pathetics among them, and quaint humours, in ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray

... fourth son of George the Third. On January 23, 1820, the Duke of Kent died. Six days later the King ceased to exist. He was in the eighty-second year of his age and the sixtieth year of his reign. The most devoted loyalist could not have wished for the unhappy King another hour of life. "Vex not his ghost O! Let {349} him pass; he hates him that would upon the rack of this rough world ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... elf, Is one baffled by toad or by rat? The gravamen's in that! How the lion, who crouches to suit His back to my foot, Would admire that I stand in debate! But the small turns the great If it vexes you, that is the thing! Toad or rat vex the king? 50 Though I waste half my realm to unearth Toad or ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... tiers of shelves, were boxes with barred fronts containing fowls and rabbits. The grating of the storeroom was so coated with dust and cobwebs that it looked as though covered with grey blinds. The woodwork down below was rotting, and covered with filth. Lisa, however, not wishing to vex Marjolin, refrained from any further expression of disgust. She pushed her fingers between the bars of the boxes, and began to lament the fate of the unhappy fowls, which were so closely huddled together and could not even stand upright. Then she stroked ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... only heard From earth, the rumour of those golden hooves Far, far above them. Yes, you know the kind, The fools that scorn Will for his lack of fire Because he quells the storms they never knew, And rides above the thunder; fools of Art That skip and vex, like little vicious fleas, Their only Helicon, some green madam's breast. Art! Art! O, God, that I could send my soul, In one last wave, from that night-hidden wreck, Across the shores of all the years to be; O, God, that like a crowder I might shake Their blind dark casements ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... that pass, and die. How?—shall the face of Nature then be plow'd Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last On the great Parent fix a sterile curse? 10 Shall even she confess old age, and halt And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows? Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought And famine vex the radiant worlds above? Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf The very heav'ns that regulate his flight? And was the Sire of all able to fence His works, and to uphold the circling worlds, But through improvident and heedless haste Let slip th'occasion?—So then—All ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... don't vex yourself I entreat you. I was in clover, luxuriously comfortable. You've allotted me a fascinating room and perfect dream of a bed. I feel an ungrateful wretch for so much as mentioning this matter to you after the way in which you have indulged me. Only something ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... sight so soothing to the brain As England's outlines green and softly curved, Visions of wooded slope and fertile plain Seen by the traveller in a dining-train, No doubts to vex him and no talk to strain, His seat, his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... honour and the opportunity to write you a letter and I am coming to ask you and to pray you perhapse perchance it is possible to found for me employment for translator. I am verry sorry and mutch vex grieve bother pester haras teass consequently accordingly consequtivey I made you acknowledg may petion request and to bid you peradvanture well you occpied me for 6 months with a contract. I beg you verry mutch to anwer respond reply if ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various

... ihn gesuendigt worden.' Liberty is good, but Unity is its only sure foundation. It is the way to the Unity of Government and People that the thoughts both of The Prince and the Discorsi lead, though the incidents be so nakedly presented as to shock the timorous and vex the prurient, the puritan, and the evil thinker. The people must obey the State and fight and die for its salvation, and for the Prince the hatred of the subjects is never good, but their love, and the best way to gain it is by 'not interrupting the subject in the quiet enjoyment of his estate.' ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... Sometimes he complimented us on our exertions. Although I was as much amused with the thing as others, I was more than once obliged to remind him that my occupations left me but little time to learn my parts. Then he would assume his coaxing manner and say, "Come, do not vex me! You have such a memory! You know that it amuses me. You see that these performances render Malmaison gay and animated; Josephine takes much pleasure in them. Rise earlier in the morning.—In fact, I sleep too much; is not that the cafe—Come, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... trifles? especially at a comedy, where every one is expected to be amused. Then sometimes the public applauded too much, or too little, to please him. "They are like wet wood," he would say, looking round to see what sort of people were present, "this evening; nothing fires them." Then he would vex and fret himself because they did not laugh at the right time, or because they laughed in the wrong places; and so he fretted and worried himself till at last the unhappy man fretted himself ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... thought destroys his pleasure. Our courtier thinks that he's preferred, whom every man envies; When love so rumbles in his pate, no sleep comes in his eyes. Our gallant's case is worst of all—he lies so just betwixt them: For he's in love, and he's in debt, and knows not which most vex him!' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sailor's opinion, the expedition projected by the engineer was settled for the next day. Herbert wished to accompany Cyrus Harding, but he would not vex Pencroft by his absence. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... crush between my hands the insolent, seditious authors of this letter!" he murmured, as with a sigh he smoothed the paper and read it over. "I see it plainly," he said then to himself; "with right unworthy motive, these lords of the duchy of Cleves intend to vex and mortify me. To ask me to give them the Electoral Prince for their stadtholder, to fix his residence among them! That were a fine story forsooth, to send our son away, that he, too, may perchance rebel against us. It is an abominable thing, which I shall never suffer, and I shall forwith give ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... looked anxious for a moment, but her brow soon cleared as she made answer: "I shall be sorry if aught comes to grieve or vex your father; but so long as we are careful to give no just cause for offence, we need not trouble our heads overmuch as to the jealous anger of the Lord of Mortimer. I misdoubt me if he can really hurt us, be he never so vindictive. The king is just, and he values the services of your ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... this before," pouted Dulce, when they were left alone. "She drives us away from her as though we had done something purposely to vex her." ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Suppose the miracle to happen. Suppose the weather-beaten board nailed to the old beech tree warning us in faded lettering as we pass beneath it of the penalties awaiting trespassers were to be superseded by a notice headed "Verboten!" What essential difference would there be—that a wise man need vex his soul concerning? We should no longer call it England. That would be all. The sweep of the hills would not be changed; the path would still wind through the woodland. Yet just for a name we are ready ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... being; they explore her nature so far as it is of common quality and powers with the nature of man and of the feminine animals, and would perhaps do more wisely if they stopped dumb before what lies beyond and above these levels. For beyond, man reads but to misread—studies but to vex and confuse himself, and—shall I say it?—learns to sneer at rather than to reverence what baffles his inquiries. Does this statement seem harsh? Is it doubted? See its truth. The only science (so called) which undertakes a study of woman does not inspire its student with an increased respect ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... religion! And how much more ought Christians to tolerate Christians, whenas the Turks do tolerate them! Shall we be less merciful than the Turks? or shall we learn the Turks to persecute Christians? It is not only unmerciful, but unnatural and abominable, yea monstrous, for one Christian to vex and destroy another for difference and questions ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... that," said Vicky. "I wish I hadn't gone in to see mamma if you couldn't, but I didn't like to say so to Elsa. I know you didn't mean ever to vex mamma, and I'm sure you'll never do it again, when she gets better, will you? Would you like me just to run and tell Elsa and Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot how dreadfully you'd like to see her just for a minute? If you just peeped in, you know, and said 'Good night, mamma; ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... garden," was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself "The nasty cross thing wouldn't let me go and play this morning,—said I must finish my lessons first—lessons, indeed! I'll vex her ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... Edgar. I am not in the least afraid. I recognize now the part of the wood we are in and I can find my way back quite easily. I'll tell my father that we have made it up. I wish I had not kept our meetings so private, for it may vex him a little to know I have been seeing you. He is getting old and irritable, that was ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... the larva goes to the end, as far as it can go, and makes no further movement. Does not this placid quiescence point to the absence of a sense of smell? The resinous flavour, so strange to the grub which has always lived in oak, ought to vex it, to trouble it; and the disagreeable impression ought to be revealed by a certain commotion, by certain attempts to get away. Well, nothing of the kind happens: once the larva has found the right position in the groove, it does not stir. I do more: I set before it, at a very short distance, in ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... and vex my soul no more! Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days— Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore Yet ...
— The Hunting of the Snark - an Agony, in Eight Fits • Lewis Carroll

... lad," answered the surgeon, "and, I am very much afraid, will slip through our fingers; but do not let that vex you. He has told me of the gallant way in which you brought him off from the enemy; and his great anxiety seems to be, that your interest should be cared for—that you should ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... had been obtained, that, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of February, 1797, she delivered to him his newspapers and correspondence for the past week. He was less disturbed than had been expected. "This affair does vex me," he said; "but I am not in a state of health at present to be deeply vexed at anything. Had I intended it for the public, I should have been more exact and full. Many temperaments and explanations there would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... worrying thoughts responded to her call.—It was not quite kind, surely, of Julius to have left home just now. It was a little inconsiderate of him. If she dwelt on the thought of that, clearly it would vex her—so it must be banished. Reynolds, the housekeeper, had really been very perverse about the turning of the two larger china-closets into extra dressing-rooms for the week of the wedding, and Clara showed an inclination to back her up in opposition. Of course the maids would give ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... opportunity to ponder over the information and consider what use he could make of it. So the old woman still followed the bishop?—had followed him even into society, and had made herself Mrs Pansey's professional fortune-teller so that she might still continue to vex the eyes of her victim with the sight of her eternal red cloak. Dr Pendle was at that very moment walking amongst the guests, with his youngest son by his side, and appeared to be more cheerful and more like his former self than he had ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... realization one is brought at once en rapport with the universe. He feels the power and the thrill of the life universal. He goes out from his own little garden spot, and mingles with the great universe; and the little perplexities, trials, and difficulties of life that to-day so vex and annoy him, fall away of their own accord by reason of their very insignificance. The intuitions become keener and ever more keen and unerring in their guidance. There comes more and more the power of reading men, so that ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... a young lady of Hexham, Contradicted her friends just to vex 'em; She talked about horses, And rode on racecourses, This ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... roar, Roaring though sea-billows rise, Vex the deep, and break the shore— Stronger art thou, Lord of skies! Firm and true thy promise lies Now and still as heretofore: Holy worship never dies In ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... Then pray'd an answer, and sat down. The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes; When the defendant's counsel rose, And, what no lawyer ever lack'd, With impudence own'd all the fact; But, what the gentlest heart would vex, Laid all the fault on t'other sex. That modern love is no such thing As what those ancient poets sing: A fire celestial, chaste, refined, Conceived and kindled in the mind; Which, having found an equal flame, Unites, and both become the same, In different breasts ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... of gear shall drive him out and hunger arm his hand To wring food from desert nude, his foothold from the sand. His neighbors' smoke shall vex his eyes, their voices break his rest; He shall go forth till south is north, sullen and dispossessed; He shall desire loneliness and his desire shall bring Hard on his heels, a thousand wheels, a people and ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... plants, and with sharp thorns that bosom fills; Breathes noxious poison through her frame; imbues With venom black her heart, and all her limbs. Lest from her eyes escap'd, the maddening scene Should cease to vex her, full in view she plac'd Her sister, and her sister's nuptial rites; And Hermes beauteous in the bridal pomp: In beauty all, and splendor all increas'd. Mad with the imag'd sight, the maid is gnawn With secret pangs;—deep groans the lengthen'd night, And ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... nay, verily, he embraces her because—tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers, soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason? For it does not appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love. By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine macintosh is ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... is he whose hands are cauterized by holy things." She thought of her distant youth. The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more important. For a moment she respected her companion, and determined to vex him ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... in his mercy has seen right to vex us with trials of many kinds. It is a little matter to endure the pangs of the flesh: the smart of wounds, the passion of hunger and thirst, the heaviness of disease; and in this world I have learned to take thought for nothing save the quiet of your soul. It is through our affections ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... after which Abu al-Hasan removed the tray of food and bringing the wine-service, filled a cup and cracked it three times, then gave it to the Caliph, saying, "O boon-companion mine, I am thy slave and let not that which I am about to say offend thee, and be thou not vexed, neither do thou vex me." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... little girl was the heiress of the kingdom, but, being still only a baby, her mother, the widow of Diamantino, was proclaimed regent. The Queen-dowager was wise and good, and tried her best to make her people happy. The only thing she had to vex her was the absence of her daughter; for the fairies, for reasons of their own, determined to bring up the little Princess Serpentine ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... is no need a pang should vex your heart— 'T is many years since fate ordained that she and I should part; To each a true, maturer love came in good time, and yet It brought not with its nobler grace the power to forget. And would you fain begrudge me now the sentimental joy That comes of recollections of my sparkings when ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... take turns in telling a story. To me there is nothing on earth equal to that, although what is nearly equal to it is to go with them for an hour or more, as we like to do on Sunday afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for a while near the heart of nature, where no one can disturb or vex us, surrounded by pure air, the trees, the shrubbery, the flowers, and the sweet fragrance that springs from a hundred plants, enjoying the chirp of the crickets and the songs of the birds. ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... interest to peruse Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... young man soothingly—"don't you vex yourself any more about it. Now you go in, and forget all your trouble awhile, please God, by my fireside, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... in vain I rouse my powers; But I shall wake again, I shall, to better hours. Even in slumber will I vex him; Still perplex him, Still incumber: Know, you that have adored him, And sovereign power afford him, We'll reap the gains Of all your pains, And seem to have restored ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... heart, man,—and do my looks make me more than twice that age? I can sing you, or run you, or dance you. What I thought was that at your age I was dandified too about my clothing. I'll give you the benefit of believing that it's not the small discomfort of a journey in wet tartan you vex yourself over. Have we not—we old campaigners of Lumsden's—soaked our plaids in the running rivers of Low Germanie, and rolled them round us at night to make our hides the warmer, our sleep the snugger? Oh, the old days! ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... shall never go The burdens that are mine to know; The day is done, and here I leave The petty things that vex and grieve; What clings to me of hate and sin To them I will not carry in; Only the good shall go with me For their ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... Yew-lane he wouldn't go near it. If he had believed the stories with which he had alarmed poor Bill, the lad's evening walk would never have been disturbed, as far as he was concerned. Nothing but his spite against Bessy would have made him take so much trouble to vex the peace, and stop the schooling, of her pet brother; and as it was, the standing alone by the churchyard at night was a position so little to his taste, that he had drunk pretty heavily in the public-house for half an hour beforehand, to keep up his spirits. And ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... unhappiness in the world arises rather from disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discontent. The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably understood and attended to; and though we may suffer inconveniences, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... on his knees at the Rectory gate and pretended to pray, he was at once ejected by the Rector with every mark of indignation and contumely. But the weak and suffering always made a special appeal to him. Though it was easy to vex and exasperate him, he could always put away his own troubles in presence of his own children or of any who needed his help. He had that intense power of sympathy which enabled him to understand and reach ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... publick Scorn, On whom our great Redeemer he was Born; But Sir! the Bays, they are so much their due; They'l wear, inspite of impudence and you; You are so hateful cruel and unjust, To Load that Sex, with ugly brand of Lust: Those whome deserved Slights and losses vex, Invent new Sins, and throw 'em on that Sex; Whose thrifty wickedness the Sex forsakes, He on these beauteous Fields a Sodom makes: He ne're assaults but where the Walls are slight, True Bullies will with ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous

... had scarce had an answer, and should, like enough, have fallen back into the coldness of relation, by which she had so long kept me at a distance. I had been foolish and hasty to speak of my cousin at all; it did but vex her. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... here," replied Maniferro, "who has any desire to vex a friend; and since we are all friends, let us give each other the hand like friends." "Your worships have all spoken like good friends," added Monipodio, "and as such friends should do; now finish by giving each other your hands like ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... without the true God, and without a teaching Priest, and without Law: and in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries, and nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city, for God did vex them with all adversity. But [4] when Shishak was dead, and Egypt fell into troubles, Judah had quiet ten years; and in that time Asa built fenced cities in Judah, and got up an army of 580000 men, with which, in the 15th year of his reign, he met and overcame ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... straw). Staik, to stroke. Strak, struck. Strang, strong. Straught, straight. Straught, to stretch. Streekit, stretched. Striddle, to straddle. Stron't, lanted. Strunt, liquor. Strunt, to swagger. Studdie, an anvil. Stumpie, dim. of stump; a worn quill. Sturt, worry, trouble. Sturt, to fret; to vex. Sturtin, frighted, staggered. Styme, the faintest trace. Sucker, sugar. Sud, should. Sugh, sough, sigh, moan, wail, swish. Sumph, churl. Sune, soon. Suthron, southern. Swaird, sward. Swall'd, swelled. Swank, limber. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable, unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,—these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner. He has ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... by one pretty young woman from another. When Madame Fromont gave a grand dinner-party, she took Madame Risler to her bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to vex her: "You have put on too many jewels, my dear. And then, you know, with a high dress one doesn't wear flowers in the hair." Sidonie blushed, and thanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her in the bottom ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... all in vain, because so spiritless and faineant was he that he not only neglected to avenge affronts put upon others, but endured with a reprehensible tameness those which were offered to himself, insomuch that whoso had any ill-humour to vent, took occasion to vex or mortify him. The lady, hearing this report, despaired of redress, and by way of alleviation of her grief determined to make the king sensible of his baseness. So in tears she presented herself before him and said:—"Sire, it is not to seek redress of the wrong done me that ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... then, but he will never rescue her;" and the secretary began to laugh. "I cannot upon my honour vex the Prince again because a gallows-bird has prated ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... frankly," continued my lady, "that the young person has been to see me. We had quite a melodramatic interview. I do not wish to vex you, Lance, but she would make a capital fifth-rate actress for a ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... thee so, Did not unkindly vex thy brain; Indeed she could not be thy foe, To snatch thee thus from grief ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... much the ghosts come through Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me, Touching with curious fingers cold as dew Kissing with unloved kisses fierily That dwell, slow fever, through my veins all day, And fill my senses as the dead their graves. They are builded in my castles and bridges? Yea, Not therefore must my dreams become their ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... song fly to you: Perchance forget it came from me. It shall not vex you, shall not woo you; But in your breast ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... vex'd by the fierce wind, The weary sailor lifts at night his gaze To the twin lights which still our pole displays, So, in the storms unkind Of Love which I sustain, in those bright eyes My guiding light and only solace lies: ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... late in the spring of 1498 that the ships were ready for Columbus. Everything that Fonseca could do to vex and delay him was done. One of the bishop's minions, a converted Moor or Jew named Ximeno Breviesca, behaved with such outrageous insolence that on the day of sailing the Admiral's indignation, so long restrained, at last broke out, and he drove away the fellow with kicks ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... knowing so much. We don't have a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven, if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I will not! I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man, and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and just as rich, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... escape. Above all, be sure and search carefully for the witch-mark. I doubt not we shall find it fairly and legibly writ in the devil's characters on Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox. They shall undergo the stool and the pool, and other trials, if required. These old hags shall no longer vex you, good Master Nicholas. Leave them to me, and doubt not I will bring them to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the grey hermit Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... can give no sanction to slavery by the admission of new slave States. Nowhere under the Constitution can the Nation by legislation or otherwise, support slavery, hunt slaves, or hold property in man.... As slavery is banished from the national jurisdiction, it will cease to vex our national politics. It may linger in the States as a local institution; but it will no longer engender national animosities when it no longer ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy

... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colors to our lives. According to their quality ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... think the weather knows how disagreeable it is? We all know how disagreeable other people can be, but so few of us know how disagreeable we ourselves can be. Do you think the weather knows? Do you think it's behaving in this way purposely to vex me?" ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... Florence," replied Mrs. Aylmer, rising as she spoke and shaking the crumbs from her dress outside the window. "I doubt if it would vex your Aunt Susan very much, and it would vex us a considerable deal, my love. Your Aunt Susan's relations might not even hear of it, and we would be miserable and disgraced for ever. No, we must swallow our pride and take her money; there is no help for ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... it is wrong to be hurt and annoyed so long about anything; and, perhaps, after all, she did not mean to vex us. But I must say, I could not have brought myself to say the things Mrs Jamieson did about our not calling. I really ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... said Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover, Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me goddess, nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... else enter except Rosny. I want to speak to you both and teach you how to be good friends." Then, having closed the door, holding Gabrielle with one hand and Rosny with the other, he said: "Good God, madame! What is the meaning of this? So you would vex me from sheer wantonness of heart in order to try my patience? By God, I swear to you that, if you continue these fashions of going on, you will find yourself very much out in your expectations! I see ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... Darling was taken towards Melbourne but was lost through the carelessness of Jackey. Jackey, on two occasions on the Darling River, left for several days without leave, which led Mr. Landsborough to tell him that he would not take him any farther. This did not appear to vex him much for, without asking to be taken on or promising to behave better in future, he immediately went and hired himself to a settler in the neighbourhood. The rest of the party reached Melbourne in safety. ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough

... for want of clothes to dress myself. I could not but think that such treatment had been ordered by the higher powers on purpose to break my heart; but I resolved not to die that way, and though my guard said all he could to vex me, I affected to ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... and spirit strive, And vex and break my peace; But I shall quit this mortal life, And sin ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... are the dearest little chicks in the world, five and six and seven years old, will be able to laugh pleasantly at their elder brother when they grow up, as they will do, among the other idle young swells of the nation. That their brother and George Roden should be always together will not even vex them. They may probably receive some benefit themselves, may achieve some diminution of the folly natural to their position, by their advantage in knowing him. In looking at it all round, as far as that goes, there is not only satisfaction to me, but a certain pride. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... sweet things,- A wild rose, or a crescent moon,-a book Of little verses, or a dancing child. My heart turns crying from the rose and book, My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon, And weeps with useless sorrow for the child. The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair, And made my heart too wise, that was ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow. That which we read of the fourth Henry's death Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale Of my own future destiny. The king Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife Long ere Ravaillac armed himself therewith. His quiet mind forsook him; the phantasma Started him in his Louvre, chased him forth Into the open air; like funeral knells ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... knit Around me than the ivy clasps the oak, Didst breathe a vow—mocking the gods with it— A vow which, false one, thou hast foully broke; That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, So long wouldst thou be ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... journeyed towards the Divan; but ere we entered, he said unto me. 'Put thy hand forth, and pull me towards thee into the Divan, calling on the name of Mahomet, for the evil spirits are on me and vex me.'" ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... passes out into the North Sea. The haughty and hostile English defy his commands. Their merchant ships go forth as usual. Presuming on their knowledge of international law, they annoy and vex the Russian warships by sailing past them. The blood of the brave Russian officers begins to boil. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... aileth thee, Pharisee? Doth the poor Publican stand to vex thee? Doth he touch thee with his dirty garments? or doth he annoy thee with his stinking breath? Doth his posture of standing so like a man condemned offend thee? True, he now standeth with his hand held up ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... prepared dost stand, To take her by the either hand; Nor car'st which comes the first, the foul or fair: A wise man ev'ry way lies square, And, like a surly oak with storms perplex'd, Grows still the stronger, strongly vex'd. Be so, bold spirit; stand centre-like, unmov'd; And be not only thought, but prov'd To be what I report thee; and inure Thyself, if want comes to endure: And so thou dost, for thy desires are Confin'd to live with private lar: Not ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... her away, if she knew how late Phebe sometimes calls us in the morning,' Jacinth used to say. 'There's nothing that would vex her more than laziness, and it is very tiresome. But then, very likely, she'd get us some prim maid that would be ill-natured and crabbed, and perhaps not really ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... and had been the first to unfold the Samian plot.[45] Perhaps his acquittal has so distressed Philocleon that he is abed with fever—he is quite capable of such a thing.—Friend, arise, do not thus vex your hear, but forget your wrath. Today we have to judge a man made wealthy by treason, one of those who set Thrace free;[46] we have to prepare him a funeral urn ... so march on, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... of the editorial sanctum ever learn how the surges of ambition, in all its varied and fantastic phases from the noblest to the meanest, assail and often vex journalistic duties. The public know not of the many gifted men who must thus at times be saved from themselves, and an editorial retrospect of half a century presents a sad record of the newspaper work of making bricks without straw. Justly excepting ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... "cooler," has a much larger bloom, varies in hue from purest white to deepest red, and flowers in May or June. The most glorious of these things, however, is O. vex. superbum, a plant of the greatest rarity, conspicuous for its blotch of deep purple in the centre of the lip, and its little dot of the same on each wing. Doubtless this is a natural hybrid betwixt the Antioquia form ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... unfortunate companion continued to pour forth his groans, and prayers, and blasphemies, for all that goes together at Naples as at Rome. I could do nothing but compassionate him; but in spite of myself I could not help laughing, which seemed to vex the poor abbe. ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger

... dressed, wearing on her head a cluster of diamonds, which shone like a star. She appeared very young, and was trembling with cold. Much rain had fallen during the night, and her robe, of silver gauze, was dabbled in mud and water; her fair and tender hands were all dirty, which seemed to vex her even more than the dangers she had experienced. She continued, however, to struggle and to make signs for relief, when three enormous wolves appeared at a distance. The brothers looked at each other expressively, like people who feel that all is lost, but who resolve to do their duty ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... which it was impossible for man to avoid. For that withdrawing of our thoughts which he recommends when he calls us off from contemplating our misfortunes, is an imaginary action; for it is not in our power to dissemble or to forget those evils which lie heavy on us; they tear, vex, and sting us—they burn us up, and leave no breathing-time; and do you order us to forget them, (for such forgetfulness is contrary to nature,) and at the same time deprive us of the only assistance ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... well as to teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey and the Hudson river so important? ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... don't cry and talk so. Haven't I got enough to vex me without that? What's th' use o' telling me things as I only think too much on every day? If I didna think on 'em, why should I do as I do, for the sake o' keeping things together here? But I hate to be talking where it's no use: I like to keep ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... he meant it?" asked Clover, confidentially afterward of Mrs. Hope. "Do you think they really wouldn't mind being tidied up a little? I should so like to give that room a good dusting, if it wouldn't vex them." ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... brought troops, many of whom were reckless men; the army then was not up to the standard of today. Besides, there came in the wake of the soldiers a trail of gamblers and other disreputable people to vex and perplex us. In the blockhouses could be seen bullet marks which we knew did not come ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... marquise du Deffant, she justified her acquaintance with me, by saying it was a sacrifice made to the interests of her son, and amused these ladies by censuring my every word and look. The dowager's double-dealing greatly annoyed me; nevertheless, not wishing to vex her son, or her daughter- in-law, I affected to be ignorant of her dishonourable conduct. However, I could not long repress my indignation, and one day that she was praising me most extravagantly, I exclaimed, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... drawing back, "it will do me more harm and vex granny more to see a gentleman walking by my side and talking like that, as if he took an interest in me,—which you don't, all the same," she added, with ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... true; I feel displeased, and at the same time delighted. M. de la Marche seems insipid and prim since I have known Bernard. Bernard alone seems as proud, as passionate, as bold as myself—and as weak as myself; for he cries like a child when I vex him, and here I am crying, too, as I think ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... my design nor my desire to vex them,—poor things! It never harmed me to get a friend's sympathy; though it's little ever I got. I'll not trouble them." And she went and seated herself at a ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... this kind have not been greater or more frequent; but it is conceived that the record of such injustice would neither render mankind wiser nor the author happier. The "crooked" cannot be made "straight," and he who attempts it will often find that his inordinate toils only vex his own soul. He who does the ill in society is alone responsible for it, and if he chances not to be rebuked for it on this imperfect theatre of human action, yet he cannot flatter himself at all that he shall pass through a future state "scot free." The author views ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... seek a comfort sure In trouble and distress, Whatever sorrow vex the mind, Or guilt the soul oppress: Jesus, who gave Himself for you Upon the Cross to die, Opens to you His sacred Heart; Oh, to that Heart ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various

... taken down, and questions proposed by way of letter, on any impenetrable difficulties; whereas in a stream of oral teaching, which ran like the stream of destiny, impassive to all attempts at interruption, difficulties for ever arose to irritate your nervous system at the moment, and to vex you permanently by the recollection that they had prompted a dozen questions, every one of which you had forgotten through the necessity of continuing to run alongside with the speaker, and through the impossibility of saying, 'Halt, Mr. Coleridge! Pull up, I beseech you, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... black'ning all the sky, With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, And every beauty withers at the blast: Where e'er they fly their lover's ghosts pursue, Inflicting all those ills which once they knew; Vexation, Fury, Jealousy, Despair, Vex ev'ry eye, and every bosom tear; Their foul deformities by all descry'd, No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. Then melt, ye fair, while crouds around you sigh, Nor let disdain sit lowring in your eye; With ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... little farther on in the text it is said, 'And the wicked will be no more;' that is to say, 'Let sins cease, and the wicked will cease too.' Pray, therefore, on their behalf that they may be led to repentance, and these wicked will be no more." This he therefore did, and they repented and ceased to vex him. Of this excellent and humane woman it may well be said, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness" (Prov. xxxi. 26). Her end was tragic. She was entrapped by a disciple of her husband, and out of shame she committed suicide. See particulars ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... and drew her black silk hood forward so as to shade it. They were nearly of the same height and complexion, and Edmund pronounced that Walter made a very pretty girl, so like Rose that he should hardly have known them apart, which seemed to vex the boy ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... you here to vex me, after all these years? I always hated you. I left you—Why cannot you leave ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... calculated to vex an editor's soul. Ambrose Philips, as I have said, had published certain pastorals in the same volume with Pope's. Philips, though he seems to have been less rewarded than most of his companions, was certainly accepted as an attached member of Addison's ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... apprehensions of danger on that score. One extreme commonly succeeds another. She tells me that she assiduously cultivates her natural vivacity; that she finds her taste for company and amusements increasing; that she dreads being alone, because past scenes arise to view which vex and ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... terminal moraine once blocked off Billington sea from the ocean, but Town Brook released it. Long before the Pilgrims came it had cut its valley through the great wall of gravel and occupied it in peace till latter day highways and factories came to vex it. In spite of these, unhampered bits of the original brook show in Plymouth itself and you are not far out of town before you see more ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... wailing ghost shall dare appear 5 To vex with shrieks this quiet grove; But shepherd lads assemble here, And melting virgins own ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... guess that mere keeping in durance, with nought more to vex her, were sorest suffering to one ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... Roaring though sea-billows rise, Vex the deep, and break the shore— Stronger art thou, Lord of skies! Firm and true thy promise lies Now and still as heretofore: Holy worship never dies In thy ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... me not, And some strange force, within me or around, Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh, And somewhere there is fever in the halls That troubles me, for no such trouble came To vex the cool far ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang

... "You did vex me. It is the second time to-night that you have put yourself out of the way to say a disagreeable thing. People may think as many disagreeable things as they like, but they have no right to give ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... By Gregory Blunt, Esq." London, 8vo., 1803.[551] This much I can confidently say, that the study of these tracts would prevent orthodox writers from some curious slips, which are slips obvious to all sides of opinion. The lower defenders of orthodoxy frequently vex the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... said I must not tell sister; it would only vex her more to hear how every one pitches into us, right and left,' he ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wind that chanced to blow that day Was easterly, and rather strong, too: It loved to see the galling way That clothes vex those whom they belong to: "Now watch me," cried this spell of weather, "I'll ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... plainly no escape. However, he had made his will, and "Underground England" was in such an advanced stage that it might be published as "a fragment," and would be sufficient to carry his name down to remotest posterity. Whether it were sweeter thus to vex public desire, to give so much and no more, or to satiate the public with the full accomplishment, was a nice question. Josiah was inclined to think that, other things being equal, he would just as soon live to finish his work. But he had no choice, and after all, the voyage might end happily. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... uncertain. Some young priests had actually been among the foremost in sacking the dwellings of the unfortunate foreigners, and Ambrose was quite uncertain whether he might not fall on one of that stamp—or on one who might vex the old man's soul—perhaps deny him the Sacraments altogether. As he saw the pale lighted windows of Saint Paul's, it struck him to see whether any one were within. The light might be only from some of the tapers burning perpetually, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... silly girl is 'too busy' to come! As if I could not see through THAT little game! She'd give her eyes to come!—fine eyes they are, too! She just thinks she'll pay me out for being rough with her the other day—she's got an idea that she'll vex me, and make me want to see her. She's right,—I AM vexed!—and I DO ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... drop into the theatre on his way to the office, and 'do a par.,' as they call it. Will you believe it possible that the things written of me by these persons—with their pretentious airs of criticism, and their gross ignorance cropping up at every point—have the power to vex and annoy me most terribly? I laugh at the time, but the phrase rankles in my memory all the same. One learned young man said of me the other day: 'It is really distressing to mark the want of unity in her artistic characterizations when one regards the natural advantages that ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... do not satisfy the ear of the hearer weary him or vex him, and the symptoms of this you will often see in such hearers in their frequent yawns; you therefore, who speak before men whose good will you desire, when you see such an excess of fatigue, abridge your speech, or change your discourse; and if you do otherwise, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... use of leaving the edges always sharp is that you may not trouble or vex the color, but let it lie as it falls suddenly on the paper: color looks much more lovely when it has been laid on with a dash of the brush, and left to dry in its own way, than when it has been dragged about and disturbed; so that it is always better to ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... the wild Wastes of rich Lands unbuilt and untill'd, I sigh'd for the want of Houses and Tenements, of Welders and Plows; and when after ten Miles riding, I found some lame Attempts after such Things, I was still more vex'd to see our Cabbins, and what we call'd our Corn Grounds, no more resembling the Buildings and Tillage of England, than an Ape does a Man. I really don't expect that Ireland will ever be properly improv'd, till the Millennium makes the whole Earth a Paradise; and then after a long Struggle ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... hair and rubbed it with grated cocoanut, and broke off her toilet to point to this thing and that and tell me its name, laughing at my mistakes or flipping bits of betel at me by way of reward. I had no wife at home to vex my conscience at all. All day we played about Hamid's verandah like two children, and Hamid watched us with a sort of twinkle in his eye, seemingly well content. It was plain he had taken a fancy to me, and I thought, as time ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... consequently some mistake.] and take Mr. Thurland to his chamber, where he told us that Field will have the better of us; and that we must study to make up the business as well as we can, which do much vex and trouble us: but I am glad the Duke is concerned ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... taxes and leave the Frenchman free; we will overvalue their properties, and undervalue our own; we will divide their constituencies; we will proclaim parishes out of townships; we will deprive them of offices, harass their commerce, vex their heretical altars; we will force new privileges from the Federal power; we will colonize the public lands with our own people exclusively, and repatriate our children lost; we will possess ourselves of those ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... concatenating circumstances leading up to the time when these vast fortunes were rolled together. Without this explanation, this work would be deficient in clarity, and would leave unelucidated many important points, the absence of which might puzzle or vex ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... will sulk; sit at dinner without speaking to us; and keep out of our way as much as he can. But you can talk to me: we neednt mind him. It is he who will be out in the cold, biting his nose to vex his face. Such a state of things is new to you; but I have survived weeks of it without a single sympathizer, and been none the worse, except, perhaps, in temper. He will pretend to be inexorable at first: then ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... call thee dear, I've lost that right so long; Yet once again I vex thine ear With memory's idle song. Had time and change not blotted out The love of former days, Thou wert the last that I should doubt Of pleasing with ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... only the fruit of self-will; if some secret, selfish, and perhaps subtle motive were controlling, then indeed hindrances might well be interferences of God, designed to stay his steps. In the latter case, Mr. Muller rightly judged that difficulties in the way would naturally vex and annoy him; that he would not like to look at them, and would seek to remove them by his own efforts. Instead of giving him an inward satisfaction as affording God an opportunity to intervene in his behalf, they would arouse impatience and vexation, as ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... Island, so I'll pull him by that side—for the storm is blowin' right up by Golden Friars, ye mind—and when we get near the point, thinks I, he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him, poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump him wi' a no. So down we three—myself, and Bill there, and Philip Feltram—come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug there, but white enough was all beyont the point; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself, too. I know well how much I vex ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... Vex not, maidens, nor regret Thus to part with Margaret. Charms like yours can never stay Long within doors; and one day ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... it, then, but he will never rescue her;" and the secretary began to laugh. "I cannot upon my honour vex the Prince again because a gallows-bird has prated ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... daresay I might have got him round with a little patience and humbugging. It's always a mistake to lose your temper and make enemies; there's no knowing what harm they may do ye. People like us oughtn't to throw away a chance, even with a chap like Warrigal. Besides, I knew it would vex Starlight, and for his sake I would have given a trifle it hadn't happened. However, I didn't see how Warrigal could do me or Jim any harm without hurting him, and I knew he'd have cut off his hand rather than any harm should come to Starlight that ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... entertain them. He saw a slouching figure in shirt-sleeves and the foundations of evening dress, a disgusting, degraded figure with pink eyes and a white face that needed a shave. And all the doubts that had ever come to vex Mr. Carmyle's mind since his first meeting with Sally became on the instant certainties. So Uncle Donald had been right after all! This was the sort of ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... the greatest, ascends. This creates a vacuum, which the surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex us poor mariners. There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been talking of, so as to see where our scudding has ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... seems a day, Since first I tuned this idle lay; A task so often' thrown aside, When leisure graver cares denied, 30 That now, November's dreary gale, Whose voice inspired my opening tale, That same November gale once more Whirls the dry leaves on Yarrow shore. Their vex'd boughs streaming to the sky, 35 Once more our naked birches sigh, And Blackhouse heights, and Ettrick Pen, Have donn'd their wintry shrouds again: And mountain dark, and flooded mead, Bid us forsake the banks of Tweed. 40 Earlier than wont along the sky, Mix'd ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... says: 'And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.' White friends of the South! Let me beseech you to vex not this social stranger within your borders; the stranger who invades your swamps and drains them into his system for your comfort; who creeps through the slime of your sewers; who wrestles with the heat in your ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... search carefully for the witch-mark. I doubt not we shall find it fairly and legibly writ in the devil's characters on Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox. They shall undergo the stool and the pool, and other trials, if required. These old hags shall no longer vex you, good Master Nicholas. Leave them to me, and doubt not I will bring ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... not do that. We want to ask your permission first. We had no intention of doing otherwise; we intended to ask you for the hay. And we did not mean to vex you, but rather to honour you in this manner. Is it not an honour to be asked to save a ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he—why, beyond the grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave—bliss for his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever—if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the phrase. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... not lest the Cap'en gived orders," he remonstrated. "Why, he'd turn me off if I did it; and, he's that kind to me as I wouldn't like to vex him, ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... thought that she had gone mad. "Vex not thyself," he said kindly. "Methinks thou hast been reading, and thinking, till thou hast fevered thy poor brain. Thou art no Judas, but mine own true friend, in whose house I find safe shelter when I ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... Magdalen. "You're too little to understand, and you're teasing poor mamma. Come with me and we'll play at something in the study till Martin comes for you. Don't be unhappy, dear mamma," she added, turning to kiss her mother. "I am sure Hoodie didn't mean to vex you, only ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... Saw. Still vex'd! still tortured! that curmudgeon Banks Is ground of all my scandal; I am shunn'd And hated like a sickness; made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Talk of familiars in the shape of mice, Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appear'd, and suck'd, ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... happy, Steve," said Mrs. White, mollified by the gentle answer. "You're a good boy, and always was; but it does vex me to see you always so ready to be at everybody's beck and call; and, where it's a woman, it naturally vexes me more. You wouldn't want to run any risk of being misunderstood, or making a woman care about you ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... bitterness, and life becomes like a journey barefooted among thorns and briers and prickles. "Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us; and in prudently cultivating and under-growth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... to suppose that I am hurt when I tell you I am not. Sneer. But why so warm, Sir Fretful? Sir Fret. Gad's life! Mr. Sneer, you are as absurd as Dangle: how often must I repeat it to you, that nothing can vex me but your supposing it possible for me to mind the damned nonsense you have been repeating to me!—let me tell you, if you continue to believe this, you must mean to insult me, gentlemen— and, then, your disrespect will affect me no more than the newspaper criticisms—and I shall ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... for plaguing the younger children. She wants me to punish him, but when the little fellow stands up before me, and looks straight into my eyes with such a look of his mother about him, I cannot bring myself to strike him. Then Marget is vexed and begins to scold, and I do not like to vex her, for she works hard and means all right. I have often thought that perhaps you, Mrs. Stein, would speak a word for me to Marget about punishing the boy; for anything from you would have ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... better not write any more, or I shall say something savage that you won't like. I am in one of my tempers to-night. I want a husband to vex, or a child to beat, or something of that sort. Do you ever like to see the summer insects kill themselves in the candle? I do, sometimes. Good-night, Mrs. Jezebel The longer you can leave me here the better. The air agrees with me, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping as I went along Unheeded on my path, and I was gone— Wandering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... me cease, for why should I prolong My notes, and vex a Singer with a Song? Oh thou with pen perpetual in thy fist! Dubbed for thy sins a stark Miscellanist, So pleased the printer's orders to perform For Messrs. Longman, Hurst and Rees and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... of attempting to arrange a peaceable settlement! The cigarmakers were further enjoined from publishing their grievances, or in any manner making their case known to the public, if the tendency of that should be to vex the plaintiffs or make them uneasy; from trying, even in a peaceful way, in any place in the city, even in the privacy of a man's own home, to persuade a new employee that he ought to sympathize with the union cause sufficiently to refuse to work for unjust employers; and, finally, the ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... Bold; come this way, and we shall not be seen. What has happened to vex you so? What can I do for you? Can Bertie ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Walter as well as to himself it was a great disappointment not to see the Rover floated. He thought over it many a time, and being a kind-hearted boy in general, it did vex him not a little that Walter also should be disappointed. But the idea of his telling Walter to take the Rover down himself to the rocks, and have the delight of seeing it ride proudly on the waves—oh, that was too much for Harry! If the idea ever ...
— The Good Ship Rover • Robina F. Hardy

... must acknowledge another great fault to you. I have grievously offended against you to-day, in that I contradicted you, and withstood your wise and pious words. Ah, my husband, it was not done to spite you, but only to vex and annoy the haughty priest. For I must confess to you, my king, I hate this Bishop of Winchester—ay, yet more—I have a dread of him; for my foreboding heart tells me that he is my enemy, that he is watching each of my looks, each of my words, so that he can make from them ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... to say something which will likely vex you, Miss Hepsy, but I can't help it. I've been wanting to say it ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... against me by Edward, was more than I could bear. Pride and anger struggled for a moment with grief in my breast, but were soon conquered by it. I must have looked intensely unhappy, for Edward took my hand in his, and drawing me kindly to him, said, "My dearest love, I did not mean to vex you." ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... to do things for you," he said, "and I am always afraid I shall only vex you. And I wouldn't vex you for the world," ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... transmigration from hence. Nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance of death bitter; and, O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at rest in his possessions, the man that hath nothing to vex him, yea unto him that is able to receive meat![212] Therefore hast thou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receive meat, my fasting day, my eve to this great festival, my dissolution. And this day of death shall deliver me over to ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... as something strange does attract us. Unconsciously, however, I lost myself in it, and now feel quite at home in it, with the true joy of Valhall. The work strikes me with a power which is of a peculiar kind, and I do not care to vex my spirit with reflections. It is such a fine thing if they do not occur of themselves, although, no doubt, the after-effect of the book will lead to reflections. I do not think that for centuries so truly sublime a piece of poetry has been created, so powerful, so full of simplicity—simple in ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... what he meant: he meant, he would turn Informer, and so either weary out those that she loved, from meeting together to Worship God; or make them pay dearly for their so doing; the which if he did, he knew it would vex every vein of ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... while unweeting that vision could vex or that knowledge could numb, That sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and untoward, Then, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain have lowered, Then might the Voice that is law have said "Cease!" and ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes—ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time. Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep In confidence he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... 'Thanase to do with it? Who was even thinking of 'Thanase? Was he there last night? Ah yes! I just remember now he was. But even he could dance if he chose; while you—you can't learn! You vex me. 'Thanase! What do you always bring him up for? I wish you would have the kindness just not to remind me of him! Why does not some one tell him how he looks, hoisted up with his feet in our faces, scratching his fiddle? Now, the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... had perhaps encouraged the other to additional rudeness. Finding that he had endured trivial insults to himself with an even temper, the deceased now thought proper to turn his brutality upon the young woman that accompanied him. He pursued them; he endeavoured in various manners to harass and vex them; they had sought in vain to shake him off. The young woman was considerably terrified. The accused expostulated with their persecutor, and asked him how he could be so barbarous as to persist in ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... gray-haired counsellor said, 'Be simple,' he said, 'Be bald and vulgar.' For the young men who listened aimed at simplicity, and therefore naturally argued, the simpler the better; in fact, the conversational style is best of all. Where, then, the need for elaborate preparation? We shall only vex and confuse the people, consequently preparation is superfluous. We know the results. 'A few words' on the schools; an obiter dictum on the stations; a good, energetic, Demosthenic philippic against some scandal. But instruction,—oh, no! edification,—oh, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... preferred, whom every man envies; When love so rumbles in his pate, no sleep comes in his eyes. Our gallant's case is worst of all—he lies so just betwixt them: For he's in love, and he's in debt, and knows not which most vex him!' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... out, for it lieth near my heart. Sith thou art no more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt, with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and turn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... warning that announce to us Only the inevitable. As the sun, Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow. That which we read of the fourth Henry's death Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale Of my own future destiny. The king Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife Long ere Ravaillac armed himself therewith. His quiet mind forsook him; the phantasma Started him in his Louvre, chased him forth Into the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... long-settled east, still more in the west, this attitude prevails. To the American politician or business man, that a thing is right or wrong, legal or illegal, seems a pale and irrelevant consideration. The real question is, will it pay? will it please Theophilus P. Polk or vex Harriman Q. Kunz? If it is illegal, will it be detected? If detected, will it be prosecuted? What are our resources for evading or defeating the law? And all this with good temper and good conscience. What stands in the ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added, "I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken to procure the acquaintance. I suppose" (smiling) "I have more pride than any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be so solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may be very sure is a matter of perfect indifference ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... torch lifted in one hand, The dawn in her proud eyes, Silent, for all the shouts that vex her ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... the Pottawatomies meaning "land of plenty." It was the name of a river in Illinois draining "boundless, flowery meadows of unexampled beauty and fertility, belted with timber, blessed with shady groves, covered with game and mostly level, without a stick or a stone to vex the plowman." Thither they were bound to take up a section ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... for the answer that all the time has been reposing in the teacher's mind. What is seven times eleven? What is the capital of Dahomey? When did the Americans beat the British at Lexington? What is the meaning of the universe? We shall never escape the feeling that these questions are put only to vex us by those ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... addressed Dorsain, taking his hand, and looking up into his face, "Uncle," she said, "we wish you to remain, surely you will not vex us by ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin

... would be the case, were not the power of the Devil bridled by God. To the plea that God would not allow his children to be vexed by the Devil, he replied that God permits the godly who are sleeping in sin to be troubled; that He even allows the Evil One to vex the righteous for his own good—a conventional argument that has done service in many a ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... sons heard the news that the emperor had quitted his home and gone to the war, they made an agreement among themselves and sprang on their horses to ride to the palace and vex the monarch by making his three daughters faithless to his trust. The oldest prince, a brave, spirited, handsome fellow, went first to see how matters stood and bring tidings afterward ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space Before ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman

... there in all this story that can change my love for you? That you are not my cousin?—that my uncle is not your own father? What does that matter to me? You are someone else's child, and if we never know who that someone is, why should we vex ourselves about it? You are you!—you are Innocent!—the sweetest, dearest little girl that ever lived, and I adore you! What difference does it make that you are not ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... themselves in their rage. Similarly, as some men cannot bear to see scarlet and purple dresses, and others are put out by cymbals and drums,[183] what harm would it do wives to abstain from these things, and not to vex or provoke husbands, but to live with them quietly ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... forward in his rough endeavours to please; but, though no Scholar, I have yet Sense enough to prefer Mr. Milton's Discourse to his. . . . I wish I were fonder of Studdy; but, since it cannot be, what need to vex? Some are born of one Mind, some of another. Rose was alwaies for her Booke; and, had Rose beene no Scholar, Mr. Agnew woulde, may be, never have given her a second Thoughte: but alle are not of ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... town; Something I must do to procure me grace. The prince's espials have informed me How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd, Wont through a secret grate of iron bars In yonder tower to overpeer the city, And thence discover how with most advantage They may vex us with shot or with assault. To intercept this inconvenience, A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have placed; And even these three days have I watch'd, If I could see them. Now do thou watch, for I can stay no longer. If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word; And thou shalt ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still vex'd Bermoothes, there ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... about this time that a lot of petty outside matters came up, further to vex him. Up to this point Don's wardrobe had held out fairly well; but it was a fact that he needed a new business suit, and a number of tailors were thoughtfully reminding him that, with March approaching, ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven, if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I will not! I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man, and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... go nearer to his heart, and vex him more than any mischief we could devise, to steal out, after the family are in bed, and break all ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... will take care of her, and oh how we ought to try—and I, such a naughty wild thing—if I should hurt the dear little ones by carelessness, or by my bad example! Oh! what shall I do, for want of some one to keep me in order? If I should vex papa by any ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... stain, From numerous friends in recent battle slain, From blazing towns that scorch the purple sky, From houseless hordes their smoking walls that fly, From the black prison ships, those groaning graves, From warring fleets that vex the gory waves, From a storm'd world, long taught thy flight to mourn, I rise, delightful Peace, and greet thy ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... bright and faire: With rich treasures this gay ship fraighted was: But sudden storme did so turmoyle the aire, And tumbled up the sea, that she, alas! Strake on a rock, that under water lay, And perished past all recoverie. O! how great ruth, and sorrow-full assay**, Doth vex my spirite with perplexitie, Thus in a moment to see lost and drown'd So great riches as like cannot be found. [* Heben, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... Baker would not have tried to run off any more if it had not been for Jim Leonard. He was so glad he had not got off with the circus that he did not mind any of the things at home that used to vex him; and it really seemed as if his father and mother were trying to act better. They were a good deal taken up with each other, and sometimes he thought they let him do things they would not have let him do if they had noticed what he asked. His mother was fonder of him than ever, ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... friend here," replied Maniferro, "who has any desire to vex a friend; and since we are all friends, let us give each other the hand like friends." "Your worships have all spoken like good friends," added Monipodio, "and as such friends should do; now finish by giving each other your hands like ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... had known in the morning How wearily all the day The words unkind Would trouble my mind I said when you went away, I had been more careful, darling, Nor given you needless pain; But we vex "our own" With look and tone We may never ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in Juan himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is spreading in the country since the Americans are running up and down everywhere seeking money, like dogs with their noses to the ground! It might vex Juan if he knew that you were waiting only for the Father. What do ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... delicately withdrew, climbed back into bed, and drew the edge of the bedclothes over his ear. Soon he was asleep; but, even as he dropped off, the absurd phrase wove itself into the midnight chime from the church tower and passed on to weave itself into his dreams and vex them. "If I should survive my wife—" In his dreams he was back in Troy, indeed, and yet among foreigners. They spoke in English, too; but they conversed with one another, not with him, as though he might overhear but could not be expected to understand. One dream—merely ludicrous when he ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... noise, and noise is bad for her. She will have neither rest nor case as long as you are in this room. Never heretofore that I remember had she illness of which I heard her complain so much, so very great and grievous is her sickness. Depart, and it vex you not." They speedily go, one and all, as soon as Thessala had commanded it. And Cliges has quickly sent for John to his lodging, and has said to him privily: "John, knowest thou what I will say? Thou art my serf, I am thy lord, and I Can give thee or sell thee and take thy body and thy goods ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... yet. For Gibbie had begun to comprehend the situation. He could not comprehend why or how anyone should be absorbed in a book, for all he knew of books was from his one morning of dame-schooling; but he could comprehend that, if one's attention were so occupied, it must be a great vex to be interrupted continually by the ever-waking desires of his charge after dainties. Therefore, as Donal watched his book, Gibbie for Donal's sake watched the herd, and, as he did so, gently possessed himself of Donal's club. Nor had many minutes passed before Donal, raising his head ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... suppose bundling in clothes Do heaven sorely vex; Then let me know which way to go, To court ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... allow every pitiful patriot thus to insult us with ridiculous accusations, without making him pay forfeit for his temerity, we shall be eternally pestered with the humming and buzzing of these stingless wasps. Though they cannot wound or poison, they will tease and vex. They will divert our attention from the important affairs of State to their own mean antipathies, and passions, and prejudices. Did they not count upon the spirit of the times and imagine that the same latitude which ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... of annoyance that they positively resented Sarah's sufferings, and with a sad absence of logic blamed her in her misfortune, just as though she had wilfully brought the maladies upon herself in order to vex them. Then, further, it was necessary always to minister to Sarah's illusion that Sarah was the mainstay of the house, that she attended to everything and was responsible for everything, and that without ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... indulging feelings that were not encouraged. That, and my uncle's indiscreet permission to you to travel with us, have precipitated our relations in a way that I could neither foresee nor avoid, though of late I have had apprehensions that it might come to this. You vex and disturb me by ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... you, or dance you. What I thought was that at your age I was dandified too about my clothing. I'll give you the benefit of believing that it's not the small discomfort of a journey in wet tartan you vex yourself over. Have we not—we old campaigners of Lumsden's—soaked our plaids in the running rivers of Low Germanie, and rolled them round us at night to make our hides the warmer, our sleep the snugger? Oh, the old days! Oh, the stout days! God's name, but I ken one man who wearies ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... than the shoulders of a young maiden of our nation, but she was very beautiful and very wise. Whether she was good-tempered or cross, I cannot tell, for she had no husband, and so there was nothing to vex her, or to try her patience. She had not, as the women of our nation now have, to pound corn, or to fetch home heavy loads of buffalo flesh, or to make snow-sledges, or to wade into the icy rivers to spear salmon, or basket kepling, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... with Aztec warfare. He is the man full of strong thought backed by civilization: they, the men trying to keep up their faith in idols, trying to scare with war-paint, trying to startle with war-whoop, trying to vex with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... and lights the gloom where shadows creep. —The night will come and with it women weep. Stay, Dear, with me, for dark will come and then, It fills the soul with fear—don't go again— Black clouds will roll, when only children sleep. O Darling storms of midnight vex and threat; The gullies moan and then the goblins see! It is not wise or brave to prattle so; And Dear, if you must go, I will not fret; The sun will shine when you come home to me, Dark night is day and only mild ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede

... it. I hope ere now you are safe arrivd. You are then a Sojourner in one of the most opulent and most luxurious Cities in the World. Musick is your dear Delight—there your taste will be improvd. But I fear that Discord will too often discompose you, and the rude Clamors against your Country will vex you. I rely upon it that your own good Sense will dictate to you that which will sufficiently vindicate your Country against foul Aspersion whenever you may meet with it; and I cannot entertain the least Doubt but you are possessd with all that patriotick Zeal which will for ever warm the Breast ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... was behind, Megara before me; Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."—See Middleton's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... rul'd, And to the house of Tantalus was given A long-withheld repose. A son alone Was wanting to complete my parent's bliss; Scarce was this wish fulfill'd, and young Orestes, The household's darling, with his sisters grew, When new misfortunes vex'd our ancient house. To you hath come the rumour of the war, Which, to avenge the fairest woman's wrongs, The force united of the Grecian kings Round Ilion's walls encamp'd. Whether the town Was humbl'd, and achiev'd their great revenge I have not heard. My father ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... souls, whose querulous wail Disturbs your sacred sleep!—"The withering hail Of battle, hunger, pestilence, despair, Whatever of mortal anguish man may bear, We bore unmurmuring! strengthened by the mail Of a most holy purpose!—then we died!— Vex not our rest by cries of selfish pain, But to the noblest measure of your powers Endure the appointed trial! Griefs defied, But launch their threatening thunderbolts in vain, And angry storms ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... Sweetbine, were very much grieved at the foolish trifling of their daughter, Dewbell—for they were well assured that Dewbell loved the noble knight, Sir Timothy, and that it was only a spirit of mere wantonness that led her to vex and torment him. Long into the night did the royal couple converse, striving to devise some means of bringing their wayward daughter to her senses. They at last hit upon a plan, which they fondly hoped might be the means of securing the happiness ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... first of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory beneath which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the air rather as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But the mere adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and clean tongue of youth. Decency demands that ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... 'Do not vex yourself,' said the horse, when he had heard the story; 'jump up, and we will go and look for the things.' ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... Condition, and under these Mortifications this Party of People liv'd just an Egyptian Servitude, viz. of 40 Years, in which time they were frequently vex'd with Persecution, Harass'd, Plunder'd, Fin'd, Imprisoned, and very hardly Treated, insomuch that they pretend to be able to give an account of vast Sums of their Country-Mony, levy'd upon them on these Occasions, amounting ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... Six summers, in my earlier age:[255] 130 A learned monarch, faith! was he, And most unlike your Majesty; He made no wars, and did not gain New realms to lose them back again; And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) He reigned in most unseemly quiet; Not that he had no cares to vex; He loved the Muses and the Sex;[256] And sometimes these so froward are, They made him wish himself at war; 140 But soon his wrath being o'er, he took Another mistress—or new book: And then he gave prodigious fetes— All Warsaw gathered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... naughty child,' said nurse, 'and chooses to go without his dinner, thinking to vex us; but he hurts no one but ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... induced from experience and incapable of proof, are the bases of all proof. (See Grote's Essay on the Origin of Knowledge, first printed in Bain's Mental and Moral Science, now re-published in Grote's Aristotle.) Zeno's [Greek: ennoiai] were all this and more. Reperiuntur: two things vex the edd. (1) the change from oratio obliqua to recta, which however has repeatedly taken place during Varro's exposition, and for which see M.D.F. I. 30, III. 49; (2) the phrase reperire viam, which seems to me sound enough. Dav., Halm give aperirentur. There is no MSS. variant. Aliena: ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... and wife; but Ingram's blaze of wrath, kindled by what he considered the insufferable insolence of Lavender in thus speaking of Sheila, had swept all notions of prudence before it. Lavender, indeed, was much cooler than he was, and said, with an affectation of carelessness, "I am sorry you should vex yourself so much about Sheila. One would think you had had the ambition yourself, at some time or other, to play the part of husband to her; and doubtless then you would have made sure that all her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... the calmness of despair. From that depth it is often but a single step to the serenity of faith, on which sublime height not the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds hath power to vex or make afraid, much less a few pine shavings and the want of a little paint. Despair is never endless; it's a short-lived emotion at the worst, a selfish one at the best. Moralizing thus, it was by some means revealed to us that people are happy in paying twenty-five dollars a week ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... disease! ah, could it not suffice, Thy old and constant spite to exercise Against the gentlest and the fairest sex, Which still thy depredations most do vex? Where still thy malice, most of all (Thy malice or thy lust) does on the fairest fall, And in them most assault the fairest place, The throne of empress beauty, ev'n the face. There was enough of that here to assuage, (One would have thought) ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... way to the old nursery, now called "the schoolroom," and there waited with curiously mingled feelings for what was to happen next. They did not expect it to be anything very serious; but they hated to vex their father, and they felt that now ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... from wrong unto error: "This is their praying and singing," he said, "that makes you reject me,— You that were kind to me once. But I think my fathers' religion, With a light heart in the breast and a friendly priest to absolve one, Better than all these conversions that only bewilder and vex me, And that have made men so hard and women fickle and cruel. Well, then, pray for my soul, since you would not have spoken to save me,— Yes; for I go from these saints to my brethren and sisters, the sinners." Spoke and went, while her faint lips fashioned ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... time that a lot of petty outside matters came up, further to vex him. Up to this point Don's wardrobe had held out fairly well; but it was a fact that he needed a new business suit, and a number of tailors were thoughtfully reminding him that, with March approaching, it was ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... He was prone to vex And hector me with flings upon my sex. He liked, he said, to have me flash and frown, So he could tease me, and then laugh me down. My storms of wrath amused him very much: He liked to see me go off at a touch; Anger became ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... we study him, but which nobody ever notices in a stage performance. We know well enough what Shakespeare is doing when at the end of Measure for Measure he marries Isabella to the Duke—and a scandalous proceeding it is; but who can ever feel sure that the doubts which vex him as to some not unimportant points in Hamlet are due to his own want of eyesight or to Shakespeare's want ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... of silver cymbals, the organ voices of wind and water bent together—but in vain, in vain. Perhaps in this there is a danger, for the true is realized in being and not in perception. The gods are ourselves beyond the changes of time which harass and vex us here. They do not demand adoration but an equal will to bind us consciously in unity with themselves. The heresy of separateness cuts us asunder in these enraptured moments; but when thrilled by the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... in a voice that easily carried to where the others stood and grinned at my discomfiture, "you boy, what foh you come promulgatin' in on me with 'gimme dis' and 'gimme dat' like Ah wahn't ol' enough to be yo' pa? Ain't you got no manners nohow? You vex me, yass, sah, you vex me. If we gotta have a boy on boa'd ship, why don' dey keep him out of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb or shrouded, Still the waters, lax and languid, chafed and foiled, Keen and thwarted, pale and patient, clothed with fire or clouded, Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents coiled. Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with wrath and weary, Blown for ever back by winds that rock the bird: Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and bid the dreary Waves be weak as hearts made sick with hope deferred. Let ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... was no good to put him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. The words fell on his father like a thunderbolt, and Norris made haste to give way. "It didn't really matter, don't you know?" said he. "And it seemed an awful shame to vex the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Mrs. Meadows," says Mr. Quincey. "You needn't say we called. He wanted to be alone, and it might vex him." ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome

... man, is man, who by the devil's instigation is still ready to do mischief, his own executioner, a wolf, a devil to himself, and others. [864]We are all brethren in Christ, or at least should be, members of one body, servants of one lord, and yet no fiend can so torment, insult over, tyrannise, vex, as one man doth another. Let me not fall therefore (saith David, when wars, plague, famine were offered) into the hands of men, merciless and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... Novella? There is something irritating in pure common sense imported into art, and Ghirlandajo's masterpieces are the apotheosis of that quality. How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, how mathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and we turn away without regret. It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo used to scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill his purse with money. Similar traits of character pain us with a sense of impropriety in Perugino. They harmonise with all we feel about the work of Ghirlandajo. It ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... far behind the world's great tumult dieth, Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar; But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream, Its power to vex ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... in the teacher's mind. What is seven times eleven? What is the capital of Dahomey? When did the Americans beat the British at Lexington? What is the meaning of the universe? We shall never escape the feeling that these questions are put only to vex us by those who ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... Vail shows his solicitude for Morse's peace of mind: "I think I would not be bothered with a directorship in the New York and Buffalo line, nor in any other. I should wish to keep clear of them. It will only tend to harass and vex when you should be left quiet and undisturbed to pursue your improvements and the enjoyment of what is ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... be in a bad humour and say something to vex me but I'll not be vexed. But it will be very hard to help it; but I will not be vexed; I have done wrong, and I'll tell her so, and ask her to forgive me; it will be hard but I'll do it I'll say what I ought to say, and then, however she takes ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... have a care how you vex our neighbours, for your father would take it ill an he heard of it. Nay, I would not myself that you mixed yourself up too much with them. They are honest good folks enow, but scarce such as are fitting ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... grieve or vex for being sent To them I ever loved best? Now, I'll kneel, But with my back toward thee; 'tis the last duty This trunk ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Edward, was more than I could bear. Pride and anger struggled for a moment with grief in my breast, but were soon conquered by it. I must have looked intensely unhappy, for Edward took my hand in his, and drawing me kindly to him, said, "My dearest love, I did not mean to vex you." ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... the Lord in his mercy has seen right to vex us with trials of many kinds. It is a little matter to endure the pangs of the flesh: the smart of wounds, the passion of hunger and thirst, the heaviness of disease; and in this world I have learned to take thought ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn the ills that vex us. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... grieve her father by telling him the secret of the thoughts which had moved her bosom since the morning. He had pleaded for quietude during the unquiet days that were coming. She was resolved he should have it in so far as it depended upon her. At least it was much too early in the day to vex his mind with forebodings. She therefore comforted and calmed him by words of assurance, and, when he crossed his threshold, that evening, the lonely old man felt that he was indeed secure under the ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... way beneath the summit, where the Thal wind does not vex, I sat me down on the sunny eastern side to consult with the Gutwein breakfast. A bottle of cold tea—"Hum," said I; "that may keep till I get farther down. It will be useful in case of emergency—there ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... statute in that case, Against her dignity and crown: Then pray'd an answer, and sat down. The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes; When the defendant's counsel rose, And, what no lawyer ever lack'd, With impudence own'd all the fact; But, what the gentlest heart would vex, Laid all the fault on t'other sex. That modern love is no such thing As what those ancient poets sing: A fire celestial, chaste, refined, Conceived and kindled in the mind; Which, having found an equal ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... of five miles which was before her, and soon the sinking of heart with which she had set out, began to disappear before the necessity of setting one foot before the other in a steady walk. The irritating pain of rheumatism began, too, to vex her and distract her thoughts. It was not a very familiar country to her after she had passed the Ashley high road. There were fewer houses. The farms were larger, and portions of an old forest remained here ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... all the combinations of matter that dissolve, all the phenomena that pass, they affirm the existence of enduring entities, individual spirits, thinkers conscious of their thoughts. In central calm, far within the struggle and vex of the rolling elements, throned in its own serene realm of law, lives the free, conscious soul, and will live eternally, actualizing its potentialities. Nothing can disintegrate it, because it is not an aggregate but a unity, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... lives for ever, and if we measure their duration not by our own few swift years, but by the life of nations and races of men. It is, I imagine, a sense capable of cultivation, and enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would otherwise vex and pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the pleasure of our lives, not exactly as an illusion, as if we were Japanese and had seen a fox in the morning, but at all events in what we ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... me all, Paullus. I thought so while you were yet speaking; but now I am sure of it. I will not vex you at this time with questions, but will devour my anxiety and grief. But to-morrow, to-morrow, Paullus, if you love me indeed, you will tell me all that disturbs you. True love has no concealment from true love. Do not, I pray ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... gave the election to Stuart by a majority of thirty-five, in a total vote of over thirty-six thousand.[95] Possibly Douglas might have successfully contested the election.[96] There were certain discrepancies in the counting of the votes; but he declined to vex Congress with the question, so he said, because similar cases were pending and he could not hope to secure a decision before Congress adjourned. It is doubtful whether this merciful consideration for Congress was uppermost in his mind in the year 1838. The fact is, ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... caught up Rosette and kissed her. "Sweetheart, you must stay here in safety. What? You are 'not afraid to go'? No, but I am afraid to take you, little one. Ah, vex me not by crying; I will soon come to you again!" He took a step towards the farmer. "Jean Paulet, I leave my treasure in your hands. If aught evil happen to her, I think I should go mad with grief," he said slowly. "And ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... with this hour of push and pelf, Where nought unsordid seems to last, Vex not thy miserable self, But search the fallows of ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... state might have been vastly worse. Little more was said between Gabord and myself, but he refused bluntly to carry message or letter to anybody, and bade me not to vex him with petitions. But he left me the torch and a flint and steel, so I had light for a space, and I had my blessed tobacco and pipe. When the doors clanged shut and the bolts were shot, I lay back ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... that! It's like going to your mother, and saying you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any more." ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... Medea cruelly slays Jason's children—her own flesh and blood—not in a frenzied impulse, for she has meditated that from the beginning, but to further glut her revengeful spirit. "I did it," she says to Jason, "to vex thy heart." And when she hears of the effect of the garment she had sent to his bride, she implores the messenger, "Be not so hasty, friend, but tell the manner of her death, for thou wouldst give me double joy, if so they ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart. Sith thou art no more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt, with none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt longer vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and turn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... was my first Care that I might please my Husband in every Respect, that nothing might give him Offence. I diligently observed his Inclinations and Temper, and also observed what were his easiest Moments, what Things pleas'd him, and what vex'd him, as they use to do who tame Elephants and Lions, or such Sort of Creatures, that can't ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... Law perplexed, Take "qualifying periods" next, And at one swoop reduce with glee Twelve months, or more, to only three. Add labour to your motley crew, Subtract (from life) a church or two. Produce, with geometric skill, The lines of many a promised bill. But state—the Unionists to vex— That Home Rule always equals x. Raise, in a rash, disastrous hour, Campaigning Ireland to a power. And thus, to prayers and protests deaf, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... In her haste to vex the Chancellor, she had not stopped to study from every side the question she had raised. So far, she had merely succeeded in irritating him, and she owed him much more than a pin prick. Such infinitesimal wounds she had contrived to give the man in abundance, during ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... system, which requires discussion, is not made for the multitude. What purpose then can it serve to preach Atheism? It may at least serve to convince all those who reason, that nothing is more extravagant than to fret one's self, and nothing more unjust than to vex others, for mere groundless conjectures. As for the vulgar who never reason, the arguments of an Atheist are no more fit for them than the systems of a natural philosopher, the observations of an astronomer, the experiments ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... pearls,' said Berenger, taken aback for a moment, 'the meed of our forefather's valour, to form part of the pageant and mummery? But never mind, sweetheart,' for he could not bear to vex her again: 'you shall have them to-night: only take care of them. My mother would look back on me if she knew I had let them out of my care, but you and I are one ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fault, if I am out of spirits every now and then. It is my own fault. I have offended my father; and I sometimes fear I have not acted justly towards Madame Pratolungo. These things vex me. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... prickly briers the hills, Now, for the Word so spake and it was done, The fir-tree rear'd its stately obelisk, The cedar waved its arms of peaceful shade, The vine embraced the elm, and myrtles flower'd Among the fragrant orange-groves. No storms Vex'd the serene of heaven: but genial mists, Such as in Eden drench'd the willing soil, Nurtured all lands with richer dews than balm. Earth breathed her thanks. Rivers of living waters Broke from a thousand unsuspected springs; And gushing cataracts, like that call'd ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... favourite!' cried the old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. 'She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it—she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide world's riches. See here—these shoes—how worn they are—she kept them to remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and bruised them. She ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... durable weapons than the Comitia and its temporary leaders, that the authority of the senate might yield to a slow process of attrition, but would never be engulfed by any cataclysmic outburst of popular hostility. It was no part of the statesman's task to pry into the future and vex himself with the query whether a new and permanent headship of the State might not be created, to play the all-pervading part which destiny had assigned to the senate. The senate's power had not vanished, it was not ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... you, Miss Effingham, perhaps vex you," he said, "with the history of those early impressions, which have gradually grown upon me, until they have become interwoven with my very existence. We met, as you know, at Vienna, for the first time. An Austrian of rank, to whom I ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... town, and because you are a good lad I will try to keep him for you until to-morrow, when you can go and sell him. If your father saw his tricks he would, himself, dispose of him and pocket the cash. I will shut him in an outhouse until you come again, and I only hope that he will not bark and vex Tommy!" ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... worth while to vex himself about a trifle. Midas now took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on his nose, in order that he might see more distinctly what he was about. In those days, spectacles for common people ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... weary way, And leave you lonely? not to see the world— For pleasure?—nay, but for the wherewithal To give his babes a better bringing-up Than his had been, or yours: that was his wish. And if he come again, vext will he be To find the precious morning hours were lost. And it would vex him even in his grave, If he could know his babes were running wild Like colts about the waste. So Annie, now— Have we not known each other all our lives? I do beseech you by the love you bear Him and his children not to say me nay— For, if you will, ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... is too early," she said. "He wouldn't like it a bit, and why should we vex father because ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... she had gone mad. "Vex not thyself," he said kindly. "Methinks thou hast been reading, and thinking, till thou hast fevered thy poor brain. Thou art no Judas, but mine own true friend, in whose house I find safe shelter when I ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... You've not got to do, you've just got to be, and the doing will follow.'" "Make a bold stand for purity of speech and charity of judgment," she told another, "and let none of the froth that rises to the top of the life around you vex or disturb your peace." Many acknowledged that they had their lives enriched, their faith strengthened, and their work helped by ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... for why should I prolong My notes, and vex a Singer with a Song? Oh thou with pen perpetual in thy fist! Dubbed for thy sins a stark Miscellanist, So pleased the printer's orders to perform For Messrs. Longman, Hurst and Rees and Orme. Go—Get thee hence ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... practical virtues; but neither was it strikingly divorced from them. A few men, I remember, who belonged to the ancient order of hypocrites, but not many. Old Jim Cushman was our favorite representative scamp. He used to vex his righteous soul over the admission of the unregenerate to prayer-meetings, and went off once shaking his head and muttering, "Too much goat shout wid de sheep." But he who objected to this profane admixture used to get our mess-funds far more hopelessly ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... again and again in the Theologia Germanica. "The false light dreameth itself to be God, and taketh to itself what belongeth to God as God is in eternity without the creature. Now, God in eternity is without contradiction, suffering, and grief, and nothing can hurt or vex Him. But with God when He is made man it is otherwise." "Therefore the false light thinketh and declareth itself to be above all works, words, customs, laws, and order, and above that life which Christ ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... predatory cousin, as a matter of fact spent a great part of his time at the palace also, dancing attendance upon his Roman friends. Pratinas, indeed, was on hand, not really to distress them, but to vex by the mere knowledge of his presence. Cornelia met the Greek with a stony haughtiness that chilled all his professions of desire to serve her and to renew the acquaintance formed at Rome. Agias had discovered that Pratinas had advised Pothinus to keep his hands on the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... the farewells that almost rent the gentle Alice's heart in two, she was haunted by the terror that she or her daughter should have red eyes to vex her husband. As to Mr. Dutton, he had only come in with Gerard in a great hurry just after breakfast, said there was much to do to-day at the office, as they were going to take stock, and they should neither of them have time to come ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... appeased the cravings of Barkilphedro's pride. Consolations, palliations at most. To vex is one thing; to torment would be infinitely better. Barkilphedro had a thought which returned to him without ceasing: his success might not go beyond just irritating the epidermis of Josiana. What could he hope for more—he so obscure against her so radiant? A scratch is worth but ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... a poor way to show your friendship, Hodge! You vex me sometimes. Now, look here! The 'flock' can be together but a little while longer. The last of June is approaching fast, and that brings commencement. Diamond, Rattleton, Browning, Gamp, Dismal, Danny, Bink, and a lot more will ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... fallen Mischief-maker was carried. The Asas bound him firmly to the sharp rocks, with his face turned upwards toward the dripping roof; for they said that nevermore, until the last dread twilight, should he be free to vex the world with his wickedness. Skade, the giant daughter of Old Winter, took a hideous snake, and hung it up above Loki, so that its venom would drop into his upturned face. But Sigyn, the loving wife ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... worth while, about that queer little town by the railway station, with its life running, to all outward seeming, as smoothly as the hack-coupes on their sleigh mounting, and within disturbed by the hatreds and troubles and jealousies that vex the minds of all but the gods. For instance—no, it is better to remember the lesson Monadnock, and Emerson has said, 'Zeus hates busy-bodies and people ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... the enjoyment of an income that materially exceeded the revenues of many reigning princes. I had not an ex-pensive nor a vicious habit of any sort. Of houses, horses, hounds, packs, and menials, there were none to vex or perplex me. In every particular save one I was completely my own master. That one was the near, dear, cherished sentiment that rendered Anna in my eyes an angel (and truly she was little short of it in those of other people), and made her the polar star to which every ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... In front of thee, the Future that will swallow up all things that now are! Over what things, then, in this present life, wilt thou, O foolish man, be disquieted or exalted—making thyself wretched; seeing that they can vex thee only for a time—a brief, brief time! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... is that you hesitate to draw the sword in so sacred a strife—a strife which consecrates the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your souls so subdued by servitude; are you so accustomed to bonds and tortures, that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness? Are you so wedded to inaction that you cease to feel? Is it the frequency of the punishment that has made you callous to the ignominy and the pain? Certainly your viceroy gives you frequent occasion to grow reconciled to any degree of hurt and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... into the room. He shrieked once—once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gayly to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... 'Twould vex a saint! Around my pretty, cherished book, The odor vile, the noisome taint Of horrid, stale tobacco-smoke Yet lingers! The hateful man, my book to spoil! Patrick, the tongs—lest I should ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... pay: be theirs the praise: We will not rob them of their due, Nor vex the ghosts of other days By ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll

... "Don't vex yoursel', my Leddy; it's juist the lassie's clavers, for Jean cam' in frae the stable, where she had nae right to be, except to be seein' her lad—they ha'e lads on the brain the lassies noo—and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... word, he was free! He was his own man again, unafraid, able to look into his heart, to open all the windows—no dark corners, no haunting ghosts! He could enter now without the dread of echoing footsteps or wistful, half-heard whisperings. The shade of pretty, childish Molly would vex ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... their success. The present serious discord between capital and labor is fundamentally born of the belief of some that wealth is as socially right in all important matters as it is socially powerful and the faith of others that the social problems that vex men and women would pass with the destruction of wealth's artificial social advantages. Each group confines itself to the territory of experience where everything has to do with matters of human relationship, and each group insists that only one point in that territory can have value as a position ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves

... think you are right. You are more tranquil here, notwithstanding the suspicions with which you are tormenting yourself. Poor Pepillo! We poor rustics of Orbajosa live happy in our ignorance. I am very sorry that you are not contented here. But is it my fault if you vex and worry yourself without a cause? Do I not treat you like a son? Have I not received you as the hope of my house? Can I do more for you? If in spite of all this you do not like us, if you show so much indifference toward us, if you ridicule our piety, if you insult our friends, is it by chance ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... Peggy, good-naturedly. "Come out of the millinery business, and tell us about yourself, and about the other girls. What has become of Vex—of ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... pretty good run of luck here, and here's two hundred and thirty pounds. I have got ten Napoleons in my pocket. That is as much as I shall want; for the General pays everything like a prince; and if I'm hit, why you know I cost nothing. Don't cry, little woman; I may live to vex you yet. Well, I shan't take either of my horses, but shall ride the General's grey charger: it's cheaper, and I told him mine was lame. If I'm done, those two ought to fetch you something. Grigg ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... his troubled doze: The wood, my love, is full of woes. Trees, thorny bushes, intertwined, Their branched ends together bind, And dense with grass the thicket grows: The wood, my dear, is full of woes, With many ills the flesh is tried, When these and countless fears beside Vex those who in the wood remain: The wilds are naught but grief and pain. Hope, anger must be cast aside, To penance every thought applied: No fear must be of things to fear: Hence is the wood for ever drear. Enough, my love: thy purpose quit: ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... my too visible astonishment should vex her, told her that I was amazed at the fact that the beautiful strawberry which bloomed upon her chest had not been withered by the hand of Time. It was a birth-mark which was really very much like a strawberry. "It is that mark," said the old woman, simpering, "which gave me the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... since morning? Outdoors, too, the noise kept up very late. A dog would bark with long-protracted howls; then a drunken man would go by with a racket; then a rattling wagon would seem as if it took for ever to get past the house. But these outdoor noises did not vex me: on the contrary, I was glad to hear them. They would make the people in the house indifferent to sounds. But at last it seems as if everything were quiet. Only the pendulum of an old clock ticks loudly and solemnly in the dining-room: one can hear the heavy, long-drawn, even breathing of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... Applied me with forced interest to peruse Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? Dropping as I went along Unheeded on my path, and I was gone— Wandering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... conceived such a desire to oppose me in everything, that, in order to vex me, she made me perform the most humiliating offices. Her disposition was so extraordinary, having never surmounted it in her youth, that she could hardly live with anybody. Saying none than vocal prayers, she did not see this fault; or seeing it, and not drawing from the forces ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... and cold). My Lord Denovalin, I'll kiss thy hands If thou wilt say my husband's nephew stood And bided you, for sorely would it vex My heart if such a knight should flee from such A man as thou! 'Twould shame me much, for know, My Lord Denovalin, I scorn and hate ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... understood what the extravagance meant, but Marion did not; she only stood still, staring at Gladys, wondering what she could have said or done to vex her kind-hearted room-mate. And it was not until hours afterward, when she was alone with Dorothy, and Dorothy told her they were gifts to her, that she knew how rich in Christmas treasures she ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... Ill befall Such meddling priests, who kindle up confusion, And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples! By heav'n, 'tis done in perfect spite to peace. Did not the king Our royal master, Edward, in concurrence With his estates assembled, well determine What ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... 'Oh, you must not vex yourself about that, for I can help you,' replied the bird. 'I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared, and now it is my turn to save yours.' Then he flew away, and in a few minutes a great flock of wild ducks were swimming all ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... little knew yet. For Gibbie had begun to comprehend the situation. He could not comprehend why or how anyone should be absorbed in a book, for all he knew of books was from his one morning of dame-schooling; but he could comprehend that, if one's attention were so occupied, it must be a great vex to be interrupted continually by the ever-waking desires of his charge after dainties. Therefore, as Donal watched his book, Gibbie for Donal's sake watched the herd, and, as he did so, gently possessed himself of Donal's club. Nor had many ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... punish him, but when the little fellow stands up before me, and looks straight into my eyes with such a look of his mother about him, I cannot bring myself to strike him. Then Marget is vexed and begins to scold, and I do not like to vex her, for she works hard and means all right. I have often thought that perhaps you, Mrs. Stein, would speak a word for me to Marget about punishing the boy; for anything from you would have ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... how can love's eye be true, That is so vex'd with watching and with tears? No marvel then though I mistake my view: The sun itself ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... supplement, each other. Their direct exchange in American vessels is the natural course of trade. The diversity of language is less marked than in any other continent. The sentiment is universal in America that America belongs to Americans, that no European power should vex us with its policy or its wars; that all parts of America have been discovered and are not open to further discovery; each country belongs to the people who occupy it, with the clear and unquestioned right of home rule. Such, at least, is the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... length he surprised her in the act of devouring a bunch of hot-house grapes, for which he had paid almost their weight in gold, and then all came to light, and he sent her off in a hurry. Poor Fred, there were great tears in his eyes when he learned what persecution I had undergone, rather than vex him by complaints." ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... ascends. This creates a vacuum, which the surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex us poor mariners. There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been talking of, so as to see where our ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... insolent, seditious authors of this letter!" he murmured, as with a sigh he smoothed the paper and read it over. "I see it plainly," he said then to himself; "with right unworthy motive, these lords of the duchy of Cleves intend to vex and mortify me. To ask me to give them the Electoral Prince for their stadtholder, to fix his residence among them! That were a fine story forsooth, to send our son away, that he, too, may perchance rebel against us. It is an ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... the delusions of the senses, nor the slave of passion or mortal frailty. He penetrates to the root of whatsoever subject his mind is applied to without following the slow processes of reasoning. His self-conquest is complete; and in place of the emotion and desire which vex and enthral the ordinary man, he is lifted up into a condition which is best expressed in the term "Nirvanic". There is in Ceylon a popular misconception that the attainment of Arhatship is now impossible; ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott

... young, this little elf, With troublesome questions to vex himself; But for many days a thought would rise, And bring a shade to ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... not satisfy the ear of the hearer weary him or vex him, and the symptoms of this you will often see in such hearers in their frequent yawns; you therefore, who speak before men whose good will you desire, when you see such an excess of fatigue, abridge your speech, or change your discourse; and if you do otherwise, then instead of the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... with the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry—you'll owe it to him, to vex him! ha! ha! ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... preceded him by some six years; but she was an appendage, and her husband's deference had always seemed in Carlsruhe a trifle strained. It was only in these last six years that any one had gossiped of remorse, in answer to the sphinx-like question of his marble brow. Such questions vex the curious. Furrows trouble nobody—money matters are enough f them; but white smoothness in old age is a bait, and tickles curiosity. Some said at home he was a devil and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... Thy sad breast doe not vex, nor grieve; Thy rugged brow from cloudes set free, Although with usuall beames 'on thee The Sun not shines; or fortune late Hath throwne the hardest chance of Fate. With th' waves, that South windes tosse to day, The cheerfull Easterne gales will play; The Sun that now hangs downe ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... Wolf," he said, "to make peace between thee and men; therefore vex them no more and they will pardon thee all thy past offenses, and neither dogs nor men will chase ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... have been the most necessary of economies to the old-time housewives. With so many things to do, how did they find time to make those marvels of misplaced industry, the patched bed-quilts? Our diarist, rich as her closets were in blankets and linen, left but few bed-quilts to vex the eyes of her descendants, yet we read that "Betsey and I quilted a bed-quilt this afternoon"—their fingers were surely nimble—"and in the evening"—happy change of employment!—"Betsey finished reading ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... feart it micht vex ye wi' the soomin' o' 't," answered Grannie, and as she spoke she rose, and lighted her little lamp, though she scarcely needed light for her spinning, and sat down to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... said she, "I should have been wrong not to go to the party! My uncle was evidently pleased with my compliance; and it is not wise to vex one's rich uncles, if one can ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... and why should that vex you? A fine pleasure, ma foi! For my part, I don't regret it at all. What I regret is certainly not the more or less amusement we can find at Belle-Isle;—what I regret, Aramis, is Pierrefonds; is Bracieux; is le Valon; is my beautiful France! ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... plains perpetual tempests sigh, And poisonous vapours, blackening all the sky, With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, And every beauty withers at the blast: Where'er they fly, their lovers' ghosts pursue, Inflicting all those ills which once they knew; Vexation, fury, jealousy, despair, Vex every eye, and every bosom tear; Their foul deformities by all descried, 40 No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. Then melt, ye fair, while crowds around you sigh, Nor let disdain sit lowering in your ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... I would not lose that satisfaction, For any blessing I could wish for: As to my fears, already I have lost them: They ne'er shall vex me more, nor ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... I'll not say another word to vex you. What on earth can I want, Tom, except just that you should sit at home with me sometimes on evenings, as you used to do always in the old days? And as for ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory beneath which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the air rather as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But the mere adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and clean tongue of youth. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... we saw none of them. But at certain intervals we met the Austrian patrol, whose duty it was to clear the road of brigands. Peter, it appeared to us, kept strange company about him,—idlers, beggars, vagabonds, and brigands. It must vex the good man much to find his dear children disgracing him so ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... appears indisputable. Dante seems to have had no ground for what his aristocratical pride doubtless considered a hard blow, and what King Francis, indeed, condescended to feel as such. He met with the notion somewhere, and chose to believe it, in order to vex the French and their princes. The spirit of the taunt contradicts his own theories elsewhere; for he has repeatedly said, that the only true nobility is in the mind. But his writings (poetical truth excepted) are ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... with it. Listen, Ana. I kept you here, not to vex the Princess or you, but for a good reason. You know that it is the custom of the royal dynasties of Egypt for kings, or those who will be kings, to wed their near kin in order that the blood may ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... the Bishop, that man without heart or pity at their head, might still tear admissions from her weariness, which a certain sympathetic atmosphere in a large auditory, swept by waves of natural feeling, would strengthen her to keep back. The Bishop made a proclamation that in order not to vex and tire his learned associates he would have the minutes of the previous sittings reduced into form, and submitted to them for judgment, while he himself carried on apart what further interrogatory was necessary. We are told that he was warned by ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... your senate: curs'd your constitution: The curse of growing factions and divisions Still vex your councils, shake your public safety, And make the robes of government you wear Hateful to you, as ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway

... seldom be used one for an other without manifest impropriety. Example of error: "Proper seasons should be allotted for retirement."—Murray's Key, p. 173. We do not say "allotted for," but "allotted to:" hence for is either wrong in itself or misplaced. Such errors always vex an intelligent reader. He sees the terms mismatched, the intended connection doubtful, the sense obscured, and wishes the author could have valued his own meaning enough to have made it intelligible;—that is, (to speak technically,) enough ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... hereditary Empire, vaster than that of Charlemagne. Paris was to be its capital, Rome its second city, and the future Emperors were always to be crowned a second time at Rome. Furthermore, lest the mediaeval dispute as to the supremacy of Emperor or Pope in Rome should again vex mankind, the Papacy was virtually annexed: the status of the pontiff was defined in the most Erastian sense, imperial funds were assigned for his support, and he was bidden to maintain two palaces, "the one necessarily at Paris, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... upon from the heart. And, indeed, many a terrible and shocking calamity would befall us if, by our calling upon His name, God did not preserve us. I have myself tried it, and learned by experience that often sudden great calamity was immediately averted and removed during such invocation. To vex the devil, I say, we should always have this holy name in our mouth, so that he may not be able to injure ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... are always suspicious and fearful of losing their newly-gotten power. If they are envious now, what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels? Heaven knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them. But you will be here, and then nothing can vex me. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... did not know that I was observing him, I discovered a preoccupied look in Philip's eyes. He laughed when I asked if anything had happened to vex him. Was it a natural laugh? He put his arm round me and kissed me. Was it done mechanically? I daresay I am out of humor myself. I think I had a little headache. Morbid, probably. I won't think of ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... grand—they're grand! Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good? Not so! O' that world-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man—the Artifex! That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light—now, mark my word—we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve—not ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... Devil,)—namely, that the most current and authoritative names are apt to be founded on some unclean or debasing association, so that to interpret them is to defile the reader's mind. I will give no instance; too many will at once occur to any {6} learned reader, and the unlearned I need not vex with so much as one: but, in such cases, since I could only take refuge in the untranslated word by leaving other Greek or Latin words also untranslated, and the nomenclature still entirely senseless,—and I do not choose to do this,—there is only one other course open to me, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... no less drastically with hypocrisy. When a professional beggar fell on his knees at the Rectory gate and pretended to pray, he was at once ejected by the Rector with every mark of indignation and contumely. But the weak and suffering always made a special appeal to him. Though it was easy to vex and exasperate him, he could always put away his own troubles in presence of his own children or of any who needed his help. He had that intense power of sympathy which enabled him to ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... is its only sure foundation. It is the way to the Unity of Government and People that the thoughts both of The Prince and the Discorsi lead, though the incidents be so nakedly presented as to shock the timorous and vex the prurient, the puritan, and the evil thinker. The people must obey the State and fight and die for its salvation, and for the Prince the hatred of the subjects is never good, but their love, and the best way to gain it is by 'not interrupting the subject ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... Commons, indeed, look dangerous; but on the whole is not revolt, unknown now for five generations, an impossibility? The Three Estates can, by management, be set against each other; the Third will, as heretofore, join with the King; will, out of mere spite and self-interest, be eager to tax and vex the other two. The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands, that we may fleece them likewise. Whereupon, money being got, and the Three Estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and let the future go as it can! As good Archbishop Lomenie ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... you nor "vex," But I ask you to answer me now; Did the torturing pain Of a love that is vain Ever furrow your ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... The pier and the fish-curin' grounds amongst 'em. Don't you vex yourself, Sissy. If you was to go from one end to the other of this little town you couldn't never get fur from ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... please, Mrs. Petersen," she said, in a tone too low to reach Matty's ear. "It will only make trouble for yourself and us. We cannot give poor Matty back her beautiful hair; and if you vex those dreadful people, it will only put fresh difficulties in the way of persuading them to give up ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... and the incongruity of the word as applied to such a passion as mine did not vex or wound me; it made ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... so, Philip. I thank him for the week—'tis but a short time to wean myself from happiness. I grant you, that were I to tease, to vex, to unman you with my tears, my prayers, or my upbraidings (as some wives would do, Philip), one day would be more than sufficient for such a scene of weakness on my part, and misery on yours. But, no, Philip, your Amine knows her ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... really wish to vex you, Johannes. I esteem you, and you are dear to me. But if you wish our friendship to continue, give up these foolish attempts to teach tortoises to fly. Do all you can for the poor prisoners; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... North, Sing the day, When, their haughty powers to vex, He engaged the Danish decks; And with twenty floating wrecks Crowned ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... he would insist on seeing her; she could not refuse that to him, after what had passed between them, and he would then tell her what he thought of her, and leave her for ever. But no; he would do nothing to vex her, as long as she was grieving for her brother. Poor Harry!—she loved him so dearly! Perhaps, after all, his sudden rejection was, in some manner, occasioned by this sad event, and would be revoked as her sorrow grew less with time. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... Circumstance. I write all this to you, Dear Mamma, at the Inn where I lie this first Night, and as I shall send it immediately, by the Post, it will be in Town a little before me.——Don't let my coming away vex you: For, as my Master will be in Town in a few Days, I shall have an Opportunity of seeing him; and let the worst come to the worst, I shall be sure of my Settlement at last. ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber

... "Well, don't vex yourself—and I was to blame quite as much as you. But, indeed, I should have thought it easier for the Squire to have transplanted one of his tall cedars into his kitchen-garden, than for you to inveigle Dr. Riccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man who could voluntarily ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... help him quick.—To see him there makes wild My heart. Once gone, he will not vex ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... we are talking only about grafting and growing, pray do not vex yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the pippins. It may be desirable for us to have much art, or little—we will examine that by-and-bye; but just now, let us keep to the simple consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps it might be ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... one; verily methinks that many a time thou wilt break into stablished homes, and by night leave many a man bare, silently pilling through his house, such is thy speech to-day! And many herdsmen of the steadings wilt thou vex in the mountain glens, when in lust for flesh thou comest on the herds and sheep thick of fleece. Nay come, lest thou sleep the last and longest slumber, come forth from thy cradle, thou companion of black night! For surely this honour hereafter thou shalt have among the Immortals, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... as a kind of grass; but I will not vex you with any hard words. Rice is the food of about one-third of all the people on the globe. It requires heat and moisture for its growth, and it is raised in considerable quantities on the low lands of Georgia and South Carolina and elsewhere in our country. The plant grows ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... incurred in the impeachment. Mr. Burgess moved that an account of all the money expended should be laid before the house; and, though opposed by the managing committee, who said they considered the motion as made merely as an attempt by the friends of Hastings to vex and impede the committee in the prosecution, it was carried, and an account of the expenses was laid upon the table. But this account was incomplete; and Mr. Burgess had to make three other motions before the particulars of the expenditure were clearly brought before the house. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... me, but attracted me as something strange does attract us. Unconsciously, however, I lost myself in it, and now feel quite at home in it, with the true joy of Valhall. The work strikes me with a power which is of a peculiar kind, and I do not care to vex my spirit with reflections. It is such a fine thing if they do not occur of themselves, although, no doubt, the after-effect of the book will lead to reflections. I do not think that for centuries so truly sublime a piece of poetry has been created, so powerful, so full of simplicity—simple ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... who high in glory reigns, Laughs at their pride, their rage controls; He'll vex their hearts with inward pains, And speak in thunder to ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... and I accompany him. For such an expedition courage is the first requirement, and, as I do not lack any, the count has selected me. Now, you know all and wherefore I came; I did not wish to vex you, and now I depart again. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... glide along in the suppleness of habit, and the ease of conventionalism; we may never trouble ourselves with any pungent scruples; we may never pursue the task of introspection, or bring to bear upon the fibres of motive and desire within us the intense focus of God's moral law; we may never vex our souls with tests of faith, but rest contented with the common or hereditary standard;—but he who will be serious in the work of spiritual discipline, who will act from a vital law of duty, must endure struggles and conflicts than which, I repeat, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These millions are ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... return. It was from mere complaisance that he wrote to the Prince, for he owns to his brother he had very little hopes of success from his letter: he was even desirous that his correspondence with the Prince might be kept a secret, lest its being publicly known should vex his Highness. The enemies of the Remonstrants would, no doubt, have been greatly offended with the Stadtholder, had they discovered that he was favourably inclined to the Arminians: and the Prince's authority was not yet sufficiently established to free him from the necessity ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible; who regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless, and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. One law shall be to him ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... may as well go and do it,' replied his lordship, after thinking the matter over; 'I think you may as well go and do it. Not that he'll be good to take the conceit out of, but you may vex him a bit; and also learn something of the movements of his friend Sponge. If he sarves Puff out as he's sarved me,' continued his lordship, rubbing his ribs with his elbows, 'he'll very soon have ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees









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