"Captious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bible may be said to constitute a distinct genus, because it differs from all the rest in two ways—in teaching the holiness of God and the unity of God. The writer has been a careful reader of all these sacred books for twenty years; he has read them with respect; in no captious spirit; wishing to find in them all the truth he could. He has found in them much truth—much in accordance with Christianity. But he sees a wide difference between them all and the Bible. They are all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction; but they are not Holy Scriptures ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... seemed captious and unreasonable for women to complain of injustice in this free land, amidst such universal rejoicings. When the majority of women are seemingly happy, it is natural to suppose that the discontent of the minority is the result of their unfortunate individual idiosyncrasies, and not of adverse ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... his early life. The not unfrequent winding up of his story addressed to the young men about him, was, "Ah! ye young fellows don't know what wark is in these days!" Mr. Swanwick takes pleasure in recalling to mind how seldom, if ever, a cross or captious word, or an angry look, marred the enjoyment of those evenings. The presence of Mrs. Stephenson gave them an additional charm: amiable, kind-hearted, and intelligent, she shared quietly in the pleasure of the party; and the atmosphere of comfort which ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... says he, "Field's inclinations led him to the society of the green-room. Of western critics and reviewers he was the first favorite among dramatic people. Helpful, kind, and enthusiastic, he was rarely severe and never captious. Though in no sense an analyst, he was an amusing reviewer and a great advertiser. Once he conceived an attachment for an actor or actress, his generous mind set about bringing such fortunate person more conspicuously into public notice. Emma Abbott's baby, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of some subtle difference in the spirit of the home. As to Thomas so to his father a change had come. The old man was as silent as ever, indeed more so, but there was no asperity in his silence. His critical, captious manner was gone. His silence was that of a great sorrow, and of a great fear. While there was more cheerful conversation than ever at the table, there was through all a new respect and a certain tender consideration ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great esteem and respect for her cousin ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... that we are fain to forget the fantastic side of the conception and see only the tragic aspect of its meaning. A weightier objection than any which can be brought against the conduct of the play might be suggested to the minds of some readers—and these, perhaps, not too exacting or too captious readers—by the sudden vehemence of transformation which in the great preceding act seems to fall like fire from heaven upon the two chief criminals who figure on the stage of murder. It seems rather a miraculous retribution, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... captious little girl been more docile, more obedient. Dressing Ethel that morning was a pleasure to Celeste. Scarcely had she completed the task and put on her own clothing when there was a ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken bravely: the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he had made a good exit. But already ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... word captieux, according to the Academy, is only applied to language, though we may say un homme captieux to signify a man who has the art of deceiving or leading into error by captious language. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... known to me for years before I succeeded the captious dominie at the school-house in the glen. The dear old soul who originally induced me to enter the Auld Licht kirk by lamenting the "want of Christ" in the minister's discourses was my first landlady. For the last ten years of her life she was bedridden, and only her interest in the kirk ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... How captious it is to prove direct passion and to attach reasonable suspicion thereto, and how necessary it is, first of all, to establish what the concealing material is, is shown in a remark of Kraus,[1] who asserts that the wife never affects to be passionate with her husband; her ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... to overlook this essential distinction of the two platforms. The one is full of the captious complaint of partisanship, intent on power, and oblivious of the highest duty of patriotism in this hour of the country's need; the other recognizes no higher duty now than the union of all parties ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I quoted are too capacious for schools and systems. Without noise, without ostentation, without mystery, not quarrelsome, not captious, not frivolous, their lives were commentaries on their doctrine. Never evaporating into mist, never stagnating into mire, their limpid and broad morality runs parallel with the lofty summits ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Praise"—that has put words into the mouth of the whole Church of God from the days of David to the present time, which is used by every Church (however else divided) in common—and rejected by no sect however captious! ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... as on the day of her arrival, when the painful scene created by Mrs. Selwyn had practically forced him into some sort of explanation, but Sara's quick grasp of the situation had infinitely simplified matters, and by devoting a considerable amount of her own time to the entertainment of the captious invalid, and thus keeping her in a good humour, she contrived to save Selwyn many a bad half-hour ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... her vivacity, her modest reticences, and her delicate tact in addressing the captious spirit of Le Gardeur, filled Pierre with admiration. He could at that moment have knelt at her feet and worshipped in her the realization of every image which his imagination had ever formed of a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the meadows, and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway—a lurid, heavy-looking, ominous sunset, and a deathly stillness in the air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, and left the field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches. Still as the atmosphere was, the leaves rustled with that sinister, shivering motion which proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive shudder of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm. That stupid clock, which knew no middle course, and ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... her opinion compassionately. His uncle would soon be calling to have him home: society panted for him to make much of him and here he was, cursed by one of his notions of duty, in attendance on a captious 'young French beauty, who was the less to be excused for not dismissing him peremptorily, if she cared for him at all. His career, which promised to be so brilliant, was spoiling at the outset. Rosamund thought of Renee almost with detestation, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... appearance at the Boston Opera House—the first since he had sung there as a student a few years before. He was an immediate and an unquestioned success. His portrait adorned the front page of almost every Boston newspaper the next morning, and captious critics vied with each other to do him honor. His full history, from boyhood up, was featured, with special emphasis on his recent triumphs in New York and foreign capitals. He was interviewed as to his opinion on everything from vegetarianism to woman's suffrage; and his preferences as to pies ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... captious. Boots it then To be true-born? Does bastard wound thine ear? The race is not to be despised: but hold, Spare me my pedigree; I'll spare thee thine. Not that I doubt thy genealogic tree. O, God forbid! You may attest it all As far as Abraham back; and backwarder ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... husbandman, a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle AEtius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Junius Anglicanus or Americanus ever published a letter on the subject to my knowledge: I thought the stamp-act a grievance, I think the extension of the vice-admiralty courts a grievance, I think the captious and unprecedented treatment of our legislature a grievance; and above all, I think the alteration of our free and mutually dependent constitution, into a dependent ministerial despotism a grievance so great, so ignominious and intolerable, that ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... because, at the first appearance of my work, its aim and drift were misapprehended by some of the descendants of the Dutch worthies, and because I understand that now and then one may still be found to regard it with a captious eye. The far greater part, however, I have reason to flatter myself, receive my good-humored picturings in the same temper with which they were executed; and when I find, after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... girl listened gravely to this enthusiastic tribute to her captious roommate. "Very good reasons," she agreed. "Still, I wish you would try to do what I just suggested. Miss West is like a great many other clever people, she doesn't appreciate ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... rule, slightly contemptible about ancient criticism. The modern idea of the critic as the interpreter, the expounder of the beauty and excellence of the work he selects, seems quite unknown. Nothing can be more captious or unfair, for instance, than the method by which Aristotle criticised the ideal state of Plato in his ethical works, and the passages quoted by Polybius from Timaeus show that the latter historian fully deserved the punning name given to him. But in Polybius there is, I think, little of that ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... to be sure infinitely removed from all those human weaknesses which we express by the words, captious, apt to take offence, &c. But an unthinking world does not consider what may be absolutely due to Him from all Creatures capable of considering themselves as His Creatures. Recollect the idea, inadequate as it is, which we have of God, and the ...
— Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D. • Joseph Butler
... Catholic orders, and so enforced as, after long and acrimonious controversy, to result in the expulsion of the society from almost every nation of Catholic Europe, in its being stigmatized by Pope Benedict XIV., in 1741, as made up of "disobedient, contumacious, captious, and reprobate persons," and at last in its being suppressed and abolished by Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, as a nuisance to Christendom. We need, indeed, to make allowance for the intense animosity of sectarian strife among the various Catholic orders in which the charges ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... be captious and wanted to find fault," said Meldon, "I might say why did you lag behind and leave me to ride by myself? I don't want to ride by myself. I want ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... prodigious age, his stoop, and his wealth, could still scramble up two pairs for a fee of six livres. More than is the case with most medical patients, however, should we suspect Smollett of being unduly captious. The point as to how far his sketch of the French doctor and his diagnosis was a true one, and how far a mere caricature, due to ill health and prejudice, has always piqued my curiosity. But how to resolve a question involving so many problems not ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Seward bought the Russians and Alaskans, and we have governed them ever since, without their consent. Is it easy, in the face of such facts, to preserve your respect for an objection so obviously captious as that based on the phrase from the ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... on Spider Island, and while there discovers a wreck submerged in the sand, and finds a considerable amount of treasure. The capture of the treasure and the incidents of the voyage serve to make as entertaining a story of sea-life as the most captious boy could desire. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... significance of this saying would be more plainly expressed were the sentence punctuated and pointed as follows: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham, was I AM;" which means the same as had He said—Before Abraham, was I, Jehovah. The captious Jews were so offended at hearing Him use a name which, through an erroneous rendering of an earlier scripture,[90] they held was not to be uttered on pain of death, that they immediately took up stones with the intent of killing Him. The Jews regarded Jehovah as an ineffable ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... great senator is one of the most imposing in American annals. The masculine force of his personality impressed itself upon men of a very different stamp—upon the unworldly Emerson, and upon the captious Carlyle, whose respect was not willingly accorded to any contemporary, much less to a representative of American democracy. Webster's looks and manner were characteristic. His form was massive; his skull and jaw solid, the under-lip projecting, and ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... different hue during war. It becomes more frequent but, on the whole, less zealous with respect to spit-and-polish and less captious about the many little things which promote good order and appearance throughout the general establishment. This condition is accentuated as organizations move closer to the zone of fire. Higher authority becomes more engrossed in ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Bavarian Operations, and whirl him back, double-quick, for another object nearer home!—But, alas, neither the Saxons nor the French would rush on, in the least emulous. The Saxons dragged heavily arear; the French Detachment (a poor 5,000 under Polastron, all that a captious Broglio could be persuaded to grant) would not rush at all, but paused on the very frontier of Moravia, Broglio so ordering, and there hung supine, or indeed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his Persian schools had taught him to revere the memory of Ali and Hosein; and he had imbibed a deep prejudice against the Syrians, as the enemies of the son of the daughter of the apostle of God. To these doctors he proposed a captious question, which the casuists of Bochara, Samarcand, and Herat, were incapable of resolving. "Who are the true martyrs, of those who are slain on my side, or on that of my enemies?" But he was silenced, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... sensibility and susceptibility; between the anxious solicitude not to give offence, and the captious eagerness of vanity to prove that it ought not to have been taken; distinguish between the desire of praise and the horror of blame: can any two things be more different than the wish to improve, and the wish to demonstrate that you ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... of the difficulty," said Blondet, after some thought. "Say that the envy that fastens on all good work, like wasps on ripe fruit, has attempted to set its fangs in this production. The captious critic, trying his best to find fault, has been obliged to invent theories for that purpose, and has drawn a distinction between two kinds of literature—'the literature of ideas and the literature of imagery,' as he calls ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... ask me WHY 'my steps went one by one'? Why? Powers of man! to rhyme with sun, to be sure. Why else could it be? And you yourself have been a poet! G-r-r-r-r-r! I'll never be a poet any more. Men are so d-d ungrateful and captious, I declare ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... improv'd in the business; and, when Keimer paid my second quarter's wages, he let me know that he felt them too heavy, and thought I should make an abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on more of the master, frequently found fault, was captious, and seem'd ready for an outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking that his encumber'd circumstances were partly the cause. At length a trifle snapt our connections; for, a great noise happening near the court-house, I ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Candour. It consists in giving a fair and deliberate hearing to opinions, statements, and arguments, and weighing fairly and honestly their tendency. It is, therefore, opposed to prejudice, blind attachment to preconceived opinions, and that narrow disputatious spirit which delights in captious criticism, and will hear nothing with calmness that is opposed to its own views; which distorts or misrepresents the sentiments of its opponents, ascribing them to unworthy motives, or deducing from them conclusions which ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... ill-suppressed merriment of his confreres, he supposed it was the old sing-song protest, possibly on this occasion because they had recently directed that the boys attending the schools of the Board should come in "Eton" suits, the cost of which naturally fell upon the rates, or some captious objection of that kind, which it really was a waste of breath to discuss. However, whatever it was, he added, he was willing to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... sweet tenor voice delighting his auditors, after which the old quartette of the mountain camp was formed again and sang familiar pieces in such a manner as to win the heartiest of commendation from all—even that captious ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... I little thought to hear. Your meaning in your looks I see; Pray, what's Dame Dobbins, friend, to me? 90 Did I e'er make her poultry thinner? Prove that I owe the Dame a dinner.' 'Friend,' quoth the cur, 'I meant no harm; Then, why so captious? why so warm? My words in common acceptation, Could never give this provocation. No lamb (for ought I ever knew) May be more innocent than you.' At this, galled Reynard winced and swore Such language ne'er was given before: 100 'What's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... so little, has done so much. And yet the time is come when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. Washington's career, as well as of his triumphs, without being thought captious or envious, and without forgetting that it is easier to do ill than well in ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... things all happened in the earliest chapters, I readily foresaw an ultimate end of the happiest nature and a solution of all difficulties worked out in defiance of the probabilities. A disappointed prophet is a captious critic and, the story turning out quite otherwise, I was very much on the alert for latent faults. Of these I found none. True, I did not altogether like Jim Westfield, but then I doubt if I was altogether meant to. Furthermore I give many ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... appeared that Sir Henry Harcourt had already learned how to assume the cross brow of a captious husband; that the sharp word was already spoken on light occasions—spoken without cause and listened to with apparent indifference. Even before Adela such words were spoken, and then Caroline would smile ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... as large a degree of liberty as they thought the slaves could be trusted not to abuse; they refrained from selling slaves except under the stress of circumstances; they avoided cruel, vindictive and captious punishments, and endeavored to inspire effort through affection rather than through fear; and they were content with achieving quite moderate industrial results. In short their despotism, so far as it might properly be so called was benevolent ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... moderately tall, with dark grizzled hair, agreeable features and a moustache. Among his aristocratic relations whom he met in London, the men thought him a little dishevelled and old-fashioned; the women pronounced him interesting and "a dear." His manners were generally admired, except by captious persons who held that such a fact was of itself enough to condemn them; and he was welcome in many English and some foreign circles. For he travelled every spring, and was well acquainted with the famous places of Europe. It need only be added that he ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... care not under what conditions, only get me in the army. Don't speak to the duke or to any of the generals, only get me into some subordinate command. Your name, your kinship to the reigning house will make your recommendation of great value. They will not be captious when Prince Adelsberg solicits a ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... has already been expressed that much of this annoyance was due to the offended pride of Napoleon's attendants, who were at first certainly far more captious than himself. He admitted as much himself on one occasion in a conversation with O'Meara. He said, "Las Cases certainly was greatly irritated against Sir Hudson, and contributed materially towards forming the impressions existing in my mind." He attributed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... effects of a holiday were visible the next morning. The children were all a little tired and out of sorts. It was difficult for the schoolroom party to get into harness again, and even Eric and the nursery children were somewhat captious and discontented. ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... of her spirituality, taking her stand upon a lofty principle. But Anne, sitting on a high-backed chair, uttering tremulous absurdities, Anne, protected by the unconscious humour of her own ill-temper, was adorable. He loved this humanly captious and capricious, childishly unreasonable Anne. And her voice ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... captious, and honesty seldom suspicious; a man capable of comprehending the whole extent of a question, disdains to divert his attention by trifling observations; and he that is above the practice of little arts, or the motions of petty malice, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... some service, and would go to the school-room on the next morning with a feeling of acquaintance with him, and a predisposition to be pleased. And if by chance any family should be thus called upon that had heretofore been captious or complaining, or disposed to be jealous of the higher importance or influence of other families, that spirit would be entirely softened and subdued by such an interview with their new instructor at their own fireside ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... Plate-basket at her Back, a Bird-cage bobbing over her Head, and a Lapfull of Crockery-ware. Providentially, Betty turned squeamish, and could not ride inside, soe she was put upon the Box, to the great Comfort of all within. Father, at the Outset, was chafed and captious, but soon settled down, improved the Circumstances of the Times, made Jokes on Mother, recalled old Journies to Buckinghamshire, and, finally, set himself to silent Self-communion, with a pensive Smile on his Face, which, as Anne said, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... over when the house in London was taken, and so Janet could afford to be kind to Kenminster; and she was like the Janet of old times, without her slough of captious disdain. Even then there was a sense that the girl was not fathomed; she never seemed to pour out her inner self, but only to talk from the surface, and certainly not to have any full confidence with her mother-nay, rather to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken the place of the household gods of the ancients, and whoever does not share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and annoying ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... unbecoming manner, that your management of your household is not what it should be, she takes an unwarrantable liberty. If traced back, the source of these remarks would be found in a large percentage of instances, in a disagreeable temper, captious humors, and a spirit that is anything but Christian. One may be entirely truthful without ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the country people dropping homewards. No Ruth was there. She and her pupils had returned by the field-way, as Mr Bradshaw informed his guests at dinner-time. Mr Donne was very captious all through dinner. He thought it would never be over, and cursed Hickson's interminable stories, which were told on purpose to amuse him. His heart gave a fierce bound when he saw her in the drawing-room with the ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken bravely; the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he had made a good exit. But ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... unpleasantness. Not even Bowers could enlighten us. Now as far as the enemy is concerned, it doesn't matter, but it does matter to the organization. The project was abused beyond all reason—though that is neither here nor there. Whatever the captious may call it, the thing has become an organization measure, and as such a test ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... always captious and controversial, sought to entangle the Savior in a discussion on the subject of divorce. Replying, "He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives." (Matt. xix. 8.) Our Lord here quotes from the Mosaic law (Deut. xxiv. I-4), ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... about women. I tell you there is no such risk for an energetic, clever girl as to place her where the rust of unexercised faculties will eat into her soul. It is just because so many girls have to undergo this risk, and cannot do it safely, that the world is so full of women that are captious or morbid or silly. Boys treated in the same way ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... Claudio has noted Hero as "the sweetest Ladie" that ever he "lookt on." Show how it also comes out in Scene i that a noting of a severer kind has passed between Benedicke and Beatrice. The two kinds of special interest—the openly admiring noting of Claudio, and the captious notice of each other shown by Beatrice and Benedicke, initiate the two channels of action in which the plot will run. The normal sex-agreement of the one pair of characters is varied by contrast with the more unusual sex-warfare that asserts itself humorously both in Beatrice and Benedicke. Bring ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... number of aids. For this is the first obstacle, that men do not sufficiently exert and fix their minds upon those things which are evident, so as to be able to understand how great the light is with which they are surrounded. The second is, that some men, being deluded and deceived by fallacious and captious interrogatories, when they cannot clear them up, abandon the truth. It is right, therefore, for us to have those answers ready which may be given in defence of the evidentness of a thing,—and we have already spoken of them,—and to ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of 1889 a fuller appreciation of the importance of Trade Unionism than they possessed at the earlier date. Working-class organisation has never been so prominent in London as in the industrial counties, and the captious comments on the great Co-operative movement show that the authors of the Essays were still youthful, and in ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... that he visited the "cellar;" he saw a crowd of Indians drinking the beverage, and supposing the great house he was in to be Montezuma's, he expressed his sense of that person's hospitality by saying that "his wine-cellar was open to all." And really, is it not rather a captious criticism which in one breath chides Cortes for calling the beverage "wine," and in the next breath goes on to call it "beer"? The pulque was neither the one nor the other; for want of any other name a German might have called it beer, a Spaniard would be more likely to call it wine. And ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... speech addressed to the Committee on the necessity of united action and incessant petitions. "Had he been present," said the young barrister, "his powers of reasoning would have frightened away the captious objections" to that course, "and the Catholics of Ireland would again have to thank their old and useful servant for the preservation of their honour and the support of their interests." It was a strange anomaly, and one which continued for some years longer, that the statesmen of the Catholic ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... no breakfast yet," said Mr. Winkleman, as he drew out his watch, on completing his own toilet. Mrs. Winkleman was in the act of dressing the last of five children, all of whom had passed under her hands. Each had been captious, cross, or unruly, sorely trying the mother's patience. Twice had she been in the kitchen, to see how breakfast was progressing, and to enjoin the careful preparation of a favourite dish with which she had purposed to ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... had received from the gentlemen of the Esmond family. The worthy prelate came out from the conference with an air of great satisfaction; he was a man full of resources, and of a most assured fidelity, and possessed of genius, and a hundred good qualities; but captious and of a most jealous temper, that could not help exulting at the downfall of any favorite; and he was pleased in spite of himself to hear that the Esmond Ministry was at ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... (principally their daughters) from marrying, in order to retain them around them at home. Certainly matches are now and then projected which it is the duty of a parent to oppose; but there are two kinds of opposition, a conscientious and sorrowful opposition, and an egotistical and captious opposition, and men and women, in their self-deception, may sometimes mistake the one for the other. 'Marry your daughters lest they marry themselves, and run off with the ploughman or the groom' is an axiom of worldly wisdom. Marry your daughters, ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... joy?" Then, after crediting Thoreau with some admirable gifts,—centrality, penetration, strong understanding,—he proceeds to say, "all his resources of wit and invention are lost to me, in every experiment, year after year, that I make to hold intercourse with his mind. Always some weary captious paradox to fight you with, and the time and ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful, and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association, but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... made him certain of it, and from this moment his features wore a calm and contemptuous smile, an unchangeable expression of scorn. With an ironic curiosity he followed his judges through the labyrinth of artfully contrived captious questions by which they hoped to entangle him; occasionally he gave himself, as it were for his own amusement, the appearance of voluntarily being caught in their nets, until he finally by a side spring tore their whole web to pieces and laughingly derided his judges for ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... He was captious with his sisters "whiles," she acknowledged in secret; he was arbitrary with his little brothers when they neglected tasks of his giving; and tried his mother and his grandmother, now and then, as young lads always have, and always will try their ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... disgust from Ellis interrupted the plea. The glare with which that employee favored his boss fairly convicted the seamed and graying editor of willful and captious immaturity. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... picturesque," he thought; for Owen, always captious, was at that moment uncertain whether he should admire or criticise; and the Arabs sat grandly upright in their high-pummelled saddles of red leather or blue velvet their slippered feet thrust into great stirrups. He liked the high-pummelled saddles; they were comfortable to ride ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... A captious friend once suggested to Socrates this: "If you prize the female nature so highly, how does it happen that you do not instruct Xantippe?"—a rather indelicate proposition to put to a married man. And Socrates, quite unruffled, replied: "My friend, if one wants ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... is marked and constant. He was criticised and catechised and calumniated, but His transparency of character was never destroyed. His enemies opposed and threatened, but He never hesitated in the path of duty, or in His devotion to His Father's will. However captious their questions, and whether they related to political or spiritual matters, He invariably turned them against His opponents, and made them minister to the cause of truth and righteousness. Sometimes He stood single-handed against a multitude of foes, they were ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... puns, planted with the most happy effect upon the weak side of his adversary's merriment. There too might be seen the wayward and the talented George Cook, gentlemanly in conduct, and full of anecdote when sober, but ever captious and uproarious in his cups. Then might be heard a strange encounter of expressions between the queen of Covent Garden and the voluptuary, Lord Barrymore,{8} seconded by his brother, the pious Augustus. In one corner might ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... on some certain or well-known page! Really, you are very captious. This great truth is on every page; the whole face of Nature declares it; I can not tell ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... numbers; the Militia, too, looked superb in their picturesque uniforms. And so large was the unofficial attendance, so deafening the music, so brilliant the sunshine, so perfect the general arrangements that even the deceased, captious as she was, could hardly (under other circumstances) have avoided expressing her approval ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... faint, But ever fever-sick, shook not his lyre With epileptic fervours. Sensual taint Of satyr heat, or bacchanal desire, Polluted not the passion of his song; No corybantic clangor clamoured through Its manly harmonies, as sane as strong; So that the captious few Found sickliness in pure Elysian balm, And coldness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... peasants of the West Indies, black vassalage, and patriarchal protection: that is profaning the noble qualities of the mind and the imagination, for the purpose of exculpating by illusory comparisons or captious sophisms excesses which afflict humanity, and which prepare the way for violent convulsions. Do they think that they have acquired the right of putting down commiseration, by comparing* the condition of the negroes with that of the serfs of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... I seem to hear some captious critic exclaim. I do not attribute Scottish birth to the particular sprig of shamrock which is to figure in these pages, dear reader. Like all true shamrock, it was grown in the Emerald Isle. Nevertheless, it was by its means that the subject of this story ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... supposed that Metellus spake well and worthely. "For (said he) a Censor ought to speake like a Censor, a Rhetorician like one that professed Rhetorike: it is giuen to Rhetoricians, to vse false sentences, bolde, subtile and captious: if so be, they be likely, and may by any action moue the hartes of men." Moreouer he sayde, "that it was a shame for a Rhetorician, in an euil matter, to leaue out any thing vntouched." "But truely Metellus (quoth he) is a holy man indued with ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... standing breathless and unmoved on some unknown wharf on the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... seems to have pointed out the exact tree beyond all question, happily the day is not so far distant from us that oral testimony is inadmissible. Of this there is enough to satisfy the most captious critic. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... For the company possesses all the necessary dresses And a course of quiet cramming will supply us with the rest. We've a choir hyporchematic (that is, ballet-operatic) Who respond to the choreut of that cultivated age, And our clever chorus-master, all but captious criticaster Would accept as the choregus of the early Attic stage. This return to classic ages is considered in their wages, Which are always calculated by the day or by the week— And I'll pay 'em (if ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Vsyevolodovitch had said nothing at all.) "Of course, of course. I assure you I'm not here to compromise you by my company, by claiming you as my comrade. But do you know you're horribly captious to-day; I ran in to you with a light and open heart, and you seem to be laying up every word I say against me. I assure you I'm not going to begin about anything shocking to-day, I give you my word, and I agree beforehand to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the grimacing genius there followed a short drama of stage mother-love, in which the angel-child dies strenuously in his little white bed. Nancy dabbled her eyes, and blew her nose with what her captious ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... took note of this system which had been so fruitlessly expended on him. His stubborn, captious and inquisitive character, disposed to controversies, had prevented him from being modelled by their discipline or subdued by their lessons. His scepticism had increased after he left the precincts of the college. His association with a legitimist, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... to which all sweet sounds appeal, was as easily reached in them as in any other people. Their wants in this, as in other things, were very easily satisfied—they were susceptible of pleasure from anything which was in the least commendable: and not feeling obliged, by any captious canon, to condemn nine true notes, because of the tenth false one, they allowed themselves to enjoy the best music they could get, without thinking of the damage done their ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... brilliant future for her. Andreas Doederlein accepted the congratulations in the spirit of a seasoned patron of the arts; Herr Carovius was in the seventh heaven of joy. He who had formerly been so captious never uttered a critical word. He had taken to worshipping the Dorothea cult, and this had made him ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Commons was even more irritable than his own. Under the terms of the new Constitution the members excluded in the preceding year took their places again in the House; and it was soon clear that the Parliament reflected the general mood of the nation. The tone of the Commons became captious and quarrelsome. They still delayed the grant of supplies. Meanwhile a hasty act of the Protector in giving to his nominees in "the other House," as the new second chamber he had devised was called, the title of "Lords," kindled a strife between the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... metaphorical if we choose to be captious. Scratch the simplest expressions, and you will find the metaphor. Written words are handage, inkage and paperage; it is only by metaphor, or substitution and transposition of ideas, that we can call them language. They are indeed potential language, and the symbols employed ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... the most famous, the most widely read and the most authoritative literary historians of the time, such as Gervinus and Vilmar. And in the domain of pure dramatic criticism, or what purported to be such, there was quite too much of that captious dogmatism which had come down from the Romanticists and which had its origin, as we have seen, in the habit of regarding Shakspere, not as the great dramatist of a nation and an epoch, but as the universal modern poet, whose methods and peculiarities must ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... imbibed in part from the Reformers; but, however derived, his distaste and censure knew no bounds. All the early Christian writers, he believed, were brimful of imperfections. Tertullian was fanciful, and Augustine captious. So persistent were his efforts against the traditional authority of the church that they endangered the very foundations of German Protestantism. One would have thought him at times exhausted of strength; but no sooner did the thinking public recover from ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... will reinforce and not invalidate him. Even if he should come to life in a way one can scarcely anticipate, his proceedings will have to be carefully watched. He cannot claim the reticences of a "party truce." He will be all the better for a candid, though I hope not captious, Opposition. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... sarcasm. Ask Mr. Drummond what he thinks of me; but I never could endure a good young man—especially that delicious compound of the worldling and the saint—like the Reverend Archibald. See here, my dear: here I am never captious or ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... is held over the figure of a god carried in procession, and altogether we may, perhaps, consider it decided, beyond dispute, that the Umbrella in its modern shape was used in Egypt. [Footnote: To silence captious critics, who may find fault with the designs of our artist, we may once for all remark that an idealised conception of the figures only is given. The style of the ancient draughtsmen was by no means so perfect that we, who live ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... last remembrance of the smiling, cooing baby, bright eyed and full of health and sweetness, never faded from her mind, and she fancied now she should have the same instinctive impressions that had puzzled Mrs. Barrington. Aunt Kate might be rather captious at first, but she could pardon it and understand it as well, for she had been a most devoted ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fact that I have received many tiresome and even carping letters from the more captious critics of this child of my brain, I feel in justice to myself and Miss Macnaughtan that it is incumbent upon me to protest, in no measured terms, against what is not only an organised opposition ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... He made captious inquiries, and took down the statement of the maidservant, whom he tried to confuse, now looking at her fiercely, now threatening her, now attributing to her things that she had not said, so much ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... merry Frenchman, "I am not sorry for having experienced the effect of this captious gas. Do you know, my friends, that there might be a curious establishment set up with oxygen-rooms, where people whose constitutions are weak might live a more active life during a few hours at least? Suppose we had meetings where ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew, which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition of a foreigner to their mess. He had signed a day or two before sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... Jerusalem which is at unity with itself and therefore meet for the residence of the Holy One, until it shall please 'God to bless the common people with sense to see that there is such a sin as schism, and that they are not judges what schism is.' Peace is not promoted by yielding to captious objections, but by subduing the spirit, which is more prone to dispute than to obey. Those who dissent from us say they only crave liberty, but when the church is overthrown they will find that it is the spirit of domination which they mistook for zeal in the cause of freedom. This will make ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Havilands, for various reasons. She was glad to see her settling down—for the first time in her volatile life—into a friendship with another girl; to hear of her being interested in picture-galleries; to find a uniform gaiety taking the place of the restless, captious moods which made others suffer besides herself. As for the boy, he was a nice clever boy who would make his way in the world; but he was only "the boy." Three months ago, if anybody had told Miss Craven that there ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... Irma was captious and in a tearful humour, bemoaning the fact that she was too poor to pay for her only daughter's ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... have found the same excellent service had I not spoken pleasantly to him I, of course, cannot say, but I have never been so well cared for elsewhere. The captious reader may ask how anything so essentially worldly as a silver dollar ever crept into Olympus. I can only say that one of the magic properties of the garment I wore was that whatever I put my hand into my pocket for, I got. As a travelled American, realizing the potency under similar ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... when some morose and captious person was finding fault with the Visitation Order, and after taking exception to it because of its newness, wound up by saying to Blessed Francis, "And then of what use will it be to the Church?" The holy Prelate answered pleasantly: "To play the part of the Queen of Sheba." "And what part ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... appeal for funds for purposes not clearly specified, and hazarded the experiment of rhyming 'cook's son' with 'Duke's son,' which in less fervent times might have provoked the criticism of the captious. It became the fashion in college to chant this martial ode whenever Hyacinth was seen approaching. It was thundered out by a choir who marched in step up and down his staircase. Bars of it were softly hummed in his ear while he tried to note the important ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... whose lives illustrated the power of the Gospel as held forth by Mr Hume, and there were but a few in the place who went beyond a grumble of dissent or disapproval of him and his doings now. Even the most inveterate of the grumblers, or the most captious of the fault-finders, could not withstand the persistent friendliness which never resented an injury nor forgot a favour, and which was as ready, it seemed, with a good turn for those who wished him ill as for ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... though he had been that she would not say him nay, he was thrilled with joy at the completeness and sweetness of her surrender. Here was surely a heart made for love and steadfastness. Here was no caprice or questionings or captious standards of convention. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of his works which are erotic in the true sense of the word I have given a sufficient account, and one with which I am convinced even the most captious will not find fault. [18] When necessity has obliged me to touch upon the subject to which Sir Richard devoted his last lustrum, I have been as brief as possible, and have written in a way that only scholars could understand. In short I have kept steadily in view the fact that this work is one ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... deeply interesting book is dedicated to four sorts of readers—the godly, the learned, the captious, and to the mother of harlots. To her he says, 'I have nothing here to please your wanton eye, or voluptuous palate; no paint for thy wrinkled face, nor crutch to support thy tottering kingdom.' It is a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would be to make preparations for carrying on war with vigour. She recommended unanimity, and prayed God would direct their consultations. In the house of lords, the earl of Nottingham, who had now associated himself with the whigs, inveighed against the preliminaries as captious and insufficient, and offered a clause to be inserted in the address of thanks, representing to her majesty that, in the opinion of the house, no peace could be safe or honourable to Great Britain or Europe, if Spain and the West Indies should be allotted to any ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Regency, while proving itself unable to govern the country, or reform a single abuse, had shown its ability to harass their allies and embarrass the general charged with the conduct of the war. "A narrow jealousy had long ruled their conduct, and the spirit of captious discontent had now reached the inferior magistracy, who endeavored to excite the people against the military generally. Complaints came in from all quarters, of outrages on the part of the troops, some too true, but ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... architects felt the awkwardness so strongly that they avoided it wherever they could. In the beautiful facade of Laon, one of the chief beauties is the setting of the rose under a deep round arch. The western roses of Mantes and Paris are treated in the same way, although a captious critic might complain that their treatment is not so effective or so logical. Rheims boldly imprisoned the roses within the pointed arch; but Amiens, toward 1240, took refuge in the same square exterior setting that ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... upon office. They daily held meetings in private: then, instructed in their unruly designs, which they concocted apart from others, now no longer dissembling their arrogance, difficult of access, captious to all who conversed with them, they protracted the matter until the ides of May. The ides of May was at that time the usual period for beginning office. Accordingly, at the attainment of their magistracy, they rendered the first ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... knowledge that only a scant quarter-inch of frail wood and canvas stood between him and a watery grave. He regarded a canoe with distrust. Nor could he understand the careless confidence with which his guides embarked in so captious a craft upon the swirling bosom of that wide, swift stream they had followed from Athabasca Landing down to the lake of the same name. To Thompson—if he had been capable of analyzing his sensations and transmuting them into words—the river seemed inexplicably sinister, a turbid ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... drawn from this list of those whom He regarded, and whom we regard, as then constituting the true nucleus of His Church—a list which is headed by the blackest denier and the most obstinate and captious sceptic in the whole company. 'There were together Simon Peter and Thomas, which is called Didymus,' and the little group was glad to have them, and welcomed them, as it becomes us to welcome brethren who have fallen, and who ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... chariot-wheels revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E. E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society than that of her own lawful husband is—well, not to speak harshly, an example that some people ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... notoriously infected with, your reflections, however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought personal and leveled at those people. This consideration points out to you, sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to suppose that things, because they may be, are therefore meant at you. The manners of well-bred people secure one from those indirect and mean attacks; but if, by chance, a flippant woman or a pert coxcomb lets off anything of that kind, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... most laborious investigation. It was necessary to arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply to captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to describe fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent accounts. In order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the authority of custom, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... It is as full of political prejudice and partisan advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of English History as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the bitterest of his Reviews. That upon so serious an undertaking he has lavished uncommon exertion, is not to be doubted; nor can any one during the first reading escape the entrainement of his picturesque, vivid, and pregnant ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to you, then, my looped and windowed sentinel, standing upon the slope of Parnassus,—standing so patiently there, with your straw bowels, doing yeoman-service, spite of the flouts and gibes and cocked thumbs of Zoilus and his sneering, snarling, verjuicy, captious crew,—standing there, as stood the saline helpmate of Lot, to fright our young men and virgins from the primrose-pitfalls of Poesy,—standing there to warn them against the seductions of Phoebus, and to teach them that it is better to hoe than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... mind by an essay of great aesthetic merit, containing many passages of exceeding beauty, and many sentiments which none but the pure in heart could utter as they are uttered here, is vague and unsatisfactory. The author appears at times so brave and liberal, at times so timid and captious, and at times, if I dare say it, so imperfectly informed, regarding ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... unsparing in condemnation, and unrelenting in her demands on those she loves. Many of her letters are in a strain of exhortation that rises into rebuke. The impression at first is unpleasant. We are tempted to feel this unfailing candour captious; to resent the note of authority, equally clear whether she write to Pope or Cardinal; to suspect Catherine, in a word, of assuming that very judicial attitude which she constantly deprecates as unbecoming to us poor mortals. And perhaps the very frequency of her plea for tolerance and forbearance ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... the strength of his weakness. Being of no great value, he may throw himself away if he likes, and never be missed. Charles Francis Adams, the father, felt no love for Europe, which, as he and all the world agreed, unfitted Americans for America. A captious critic might have replied that all the success he or his father or his grandfather achieved was chiefly due to the field that Europe gave them, and it was more than likely that without the help of Europe they would have all remained local politicians or lawyers, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... literary confidence of the public, and in this connection, I have no hesitation in supplying it by that of the Compiler of Bradshaw's Railway Guide. Several now should follow, of varied and even conflicting interests, so as to satisfy any over-captious criticism inclined to question the thoroughly cosmopolitan character of the elective body. And so I next add, Mr. Sheriff AUGUSTUS HARRIS, H.R.H. the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, the Proprietor of PEARS' Soap, and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... civilization is gradually effacing the darker stains from human society, and luring it from the path of violence by the charm of luxurious repose, the necessity of war will gradually disappear—its total decline approach. We would remark in passing that De Quincey is altogether too captious in his criticisms upon French ideas of war. So far as the majority of men are concerned, whether Englishmen or Frenchmen, little pain is taken to search out the philosophy of events. But Cousin, in his 'Course of History,' ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hand striving in vain to disown their affinity to the inferior races, and on the other hand, jealous of their true-born European acquaintances. A morosity of disposition is the natural outcome. Their character generally is evasive and vacillating. They are captious, fond of litigation, and constantly seeking subterfuges. They appear always dissatisfied with their lot in life, and inclined to foster grievances against whoever may be in office over them. Pretentious in the extreme, they are fond of pomp and paltry ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... and in the eighteenth century. And the fact that all his hopes were staked on this case, that all his resources were embarked in it, that it had fallen, as it were, from heaven into his hands—wherefore the greater the pity if things went amiss—rendered him peculiarly captious and impracticable. After this every day, nay, every hour, that passed without bringing him to Lord Chatham's presence augmented his suspense and doubled his anxiety. To be put off, not one day, but two days, three days—what might not happen in three days!—was a thing intolerable, insufferable; ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... seems to have taken no detriment from this foolish and captious bit of chicanery. All the papers and arguments which she had occasion to have presented always found their way to their destination as well as they would have done if Franklin had been acknowledged as the quasi public minister, which he conceived to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... widely different in structure, are yet not unrelated in sentiment, being both devoted to the changing heart. One amateur critic has seen fit to frown upon so skilled an apotheosis of inconsistency, but it seems almost captious thus to analyse an innocuous bit of art so daintily and tastefully arrayed. "To Celia" is perhaps slightly the better of the two, having a very commendable stateliness of cadence, and a gravity of thought greater ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... modifications which he may himself have adopted in his last memoir. In his history he asserts with great confidence, and somewhat broadly, that 'le monotheisme resume et explique tous les caracteres de la race Semitique.' In his later pamphlet he is more captious. As an experienced pleader he is ready to make many concessions in order to gain all the more readily our assent to his general proposition. He points out himself with great candour the weaker points of his argument, though, of course, only in order to return ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... plants by the "fearings" of his turnip-field. He was vain to the last degree; he thought his books were the best books in the world, and that everybody should read them. He was industrious, restless, captious, and, although humane at heart, was the most malignant slanderer of his time. He called a political antagonist a "pimp," and thought a crushing argument lay in the word; he called parsons scoundrels, and bade his boys ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... shown in his reforms of our judicature and our Parliament; but there was something as congenial to his mind in its definiteness, its rigidity, its narrow technicalities. He was never wilfully unjust, but he was too often captious in his justice, fond of legal chicanery, prompt to take advantage of the letter of the law. The high conception of royalty which he borrowed from St. Lewis united with this legal turn of mind in the worst acts of his reign. Of rights or liberties unregistered in charter or roll Edward ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... architects did not attempt to reproduce, either exactly or in greater perfection, any maritime type which its situation on the Mediterranean might have suggested, nor were they inspired by any of the models of the native style; and perhaps, to the captious mind, its most serious defect is that its building has destroyed not only an actual portion of the old Majeure, but an historic interest which might well have been preserved by a wise restoration or an harmonious re-building. And ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... announced. Above all, they avowed their purpose to urge on the country the duty of armed resistance whenever its success appeared probable. The Government heard of these avowals, and the time spent in captious discussions about moral nonentities and legal quibbles, when the stake was a nation's death or life, was diligently employed by the Government in ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as a captious critic—you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving them countenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in their heads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you've got to be careful ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... she rebuked him thoroughly for his variable though severe criticisms, and stated, with some emotion, that the Board should be enlightened as to his unfitness, through his captious temper, for the delicate task of nourishing the tender sensibilities of ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... tosses even with the modern fever of unrest. It has its bourgeoisie, its proletariat, its radicals, but also a city-beautiful association and a rather captious sanitary league. Lately a visiting radical, on the occasion of a certain patriotic celebration, expressed a conventional wish to spit upon the abundantly displayed flag. A knowing friend was quick ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... to Mr. Dixon for what he has done, that we are not disposed to quarrel with him for what he has left undone. He has added such a mass of incontrovertible facts to the materials which must enter into the future biography of Bacon, that his book cannot fail to exact cordial praise from the most captious critics. Bacon, in his aspirations and purposes, was a very much greater man than he appears in Mr. Dixon's biography; but still to Mr. Dixon belongs the credit of rescuing his personal reputation from undeserved ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... scoldings,—even Dinah submitted without a murmur to Tira's wholesome authority, and abandoned all her evil courses. Bildad Royce, a crotchety hired-man, whom the Doctor kept to do the chores and till the garden, albeit at first inclined to be captious, accorded to the new housekeeper the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable with hypocrites. The observances of the cloister inspired him with but little awe; and as a result of once or twice speaking his mind too freely to the monks he was expelled from the school. From that time forth he was ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Reproofe, or a Reproving Censvre of the misintitled Safe Way: declaring it by Discourie of the Authors fraudulent Proceeding, and captious Cauilling, to be a miere By-way, drawing pore Trauellers out of the royalle and common Streete, and leading them deceitfully into a Path of Perdition. With a Postscript of Advertisements, especially touching the Homilie and Epistles attributed to Alfric: and a compendious Retortiue ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... married than the Provost." This was quite enough—no further questions were asked, and the head of the University preferred a merciful course towards the offender, to repudiating his wife and disowning his children. Now for the application. Certain captious and incredulous people have doubted the veracity of the adventures I have recorded in these pages; I do not think it necessary to appeal to concurrent testimony and credible witnesses for their proof, but I pledge myself to the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... which even the favored disciple had been partly blind. Was he not ready to ask with Pilate, though with different spirit and purpose, "Art thou a King then?" The Lord's answer must have meant more to the listening Apostle than to the captious and heedless Governor. It was a declaration of the true kingship of the Messiah-King,—"To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... dedicate it to his Majesty. . . . But till I either see how the Parliament at Westminster is pleased to take it, or till I see them risen, I do not think it advisable for me to go on t'other side of the water. Though I am not apprehensive of any mischief from them, yet God only knows what resentments captious men may take on such occasions." (April ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer |
