"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Vain cavil! all that is hath come either by Miracle or by Law; Why waste on this your hate and fear, why waste on ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... a time, by retiring and leaving the ceremony to be carried out by a deputy, so the daintier Presidents before the sixteenth one eluded the handshaking when possible. But, on the contrary, "the man out of the West" continued to the last, and the latest visitor had no reason to cavil at the grip being less hearty to him than the first comer. On visiting the army hospital at City Point, where upward of three thousand patients awaited his passing with enrapt respect, he insisted on no one being neglected. A surgeon inquired if he did not feel lamed in the arm ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... may feel inclined to cavil with this association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute," because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... is your surest hold upon her. I shouldn't cavil at it, if I were you. To Anne you are the sum total of human knowledge. Your dictum is the last word to be ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... preparation for war that Prussia has devoted its utmost energy for half a century—in fact, ever since Bismarck began to make ready for the seizing of unwilling Schleswig-Holstein. And so far as the art of music is concerned there is also no need to cavil. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... moment. The intellectual minds, the material scientists, who cavil at the "science of the stars," declaring it to be mere fortune-telling, consequently false, do but air their ignorance of this most profound subject, not knowing that it embraces and contains all sciences, all religions, that have ever ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... mark a greater alienation of the soul from its original nature, than the infidelity which chooses for the bed of the grave spots unhallowed by religious associations. They who deny their God, and cavil at his Word, can have no reverence for places which, like his houses of prayer and the consecrated receptacles of the dead, derive all their sanctity and influence from a belief in his mercies, and a sense of our demerits—hence, having banished themselves from their Father's house, they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... way, the truth, and the life." This doctrine concerning faith, is incessantly inculcated by the Apostle Paul (Ephes. ii), "Ye are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God," not of works, &c. And, lest any one should cavil at our interpretation, and charge it with novelty, we state that this whole matter is supported by the testimony of the fathers. For Augustine devotes many volumes to the defence of grace, and the righteousness of faith, in opposition to the merit of ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... Norwegian periodicals—there is not to this day a book on Shakespeare by a Norwegian—contain not a single contribution to Shakespearean criticism till 1880, when a church paper, Luthersk Ugeskrift[11] published an article which proved beyond cavil that Shakespeare is good and safe reading for Lutheran Christians. The writer admits that Shakespeare probably had several irregular love-affairs both before and after marriage, but as he grew older his heart turned to the ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, Through secret woes the world has never known, When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.— That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain scientifically how any designed result is accomplished ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... is not to ask how you became possessed of the guilty secret which I had kept from every one—even from my wife—but to offer you such explanation and confession as you have a right to demand from me. I do not cavil about that right—I admit that you possess it, without desiring further proof than your actions, your merciless words, and the Bracelet in ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... doctrine is rather of a puzzler; but you seem to think you've got the run on't. I should re'ly like to know what business you have to think you know better than other folks about it;" and, though he would cavil most courageously at all George's explanations, yet you might perceive, through all, that he was inly uplifted to hear ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... we but know The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, Where lie those happier hills and meadows low; Ah! if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil Aught of that country could we surely know, Who ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... indecision—it was not cowardice—is our gain. Chopin put his patriotism, his wrath and his heroism into his Polonaises. That is why we have them now, instead of Chopin having been the target of some black-browed Russian. Chopin was psychically brave; let us not cavil at the almost miraculous delicacy of his organization. He wrote letters to his parents and to Matuszyriski, but they are not despairing— at least not to the former. He pretended gayety and had ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... genius" of the Bible cause and of himself. The incident did no good to the already bickering relations between Borrow and the Rev. A. Brandram, the Secretary. Evidently Borrow's character jarred upon Brandram, who took revenge by a tone of facetious cavil and several criticisms upon Borrow's ways, upon his confident masculine tone, for example, his "passionate" prayer, and his confession of superstitious obedience to an ominous dream. Brandram even took ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... months. There were three girls in the family—Mary, Everina and Eliza—all above the average in intelligence. Whether there is any such thing in Nature as justice for the individual is a question, but cosmic justice is beyond cavil. The stupidity of a parent is often a very precious factor in the evolution of his children. He teaches them by antithesis. So if a man can not be useful and strong, all is not lost: he can still serve humanity as a horrible example—like the honest hobo who volunteered to pay the farmer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... her sex, Her features all the sweetness of the devil, When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting, As if she rather ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... translation, a Parisian critic—I am almost certain it was M. Gustave Kahn in the "Gil Blas"—giving me a short notice, summed up his rapid impression of the writer's quality in the words un puissant reveur. So be it! Who could cavil at the words of a friendly reader? Yet perhaps not such an unconditional dreamer as all that. I will make bold to say that neither at sea nor ashore have I ever lost the sense of responsibility. There is more ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... got it," he said, slowly, "this something which we all want, and for the greater part never find. He has got it. To see and recognize it early is a great thing," he continued, earnestly. "To disbelieve in it in early life, and cavil at all the caricatures and imitations, and only come to find out its reality comparatively later on, is a ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... horrors of Vise and Louvain. These men educated and guided public opinion. Republican or Democrat it mattered not—they set out to determine from the material before them what was Right and what was Wrong. Once convinced that the Hun was a menace they made their readers understand beyond cavil just what that menace meant. So I claim that the editors of the United States are entitled to high rank among the Defenders of Democracy. When the history of the war, or rather a just analysis of its causes and effects, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... only sows the wind to reap the whirlwind, refreshing, but I argue nothing from it; there is nothing real in the freedom of thought at the West,—it is from the position of men's lives, not the state of their minds. So soon as they have time, unless they grow better meanwhile, they will cavil and criticise, and judge other men by their own standard, and outrage the law of love every way, just as they ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... benefit of a school-education, seems to have read a good number of books, his memory is tenacious, and he pretends to speak several different languages; but he is so addicted to wrangling, that he will cavil at the clearest truths, and, in the pride of argumentation, attempt to reconcile contradictions — Whether his address and qualifications are really of that stamp which is agreeable to the taste of our ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... event. To admit that life on the physical and moral frontier was less than they had imagined would be a humiliating confession of failure; and worse than a confession of failure; for God had appointed this refuge for them, and not to abide in it in all contentment would be to cavil at his purpose, to question his decree. With the instinct of true pioneers they therefore idealized the barren wilderness, pronouncing its air most healing, its soil most fertile; and with unfailing ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... the army list in hand, Where he found a new "Field Marshal;" And when he saw this high command Conferred on his Highness of Cumberland,[47] "Oh! were I prone to cavil—or were I not the Devil, I should say this was somewhat partial; 190 Since the only wounds that this Warrior gat, Were from God knows whom—and the Devil ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Justice, and with the daily countenance of the President, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day, proposed, supported, and finally ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,' or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, — that is, in the middle of winter! — a spring-velvet in the middle of winter!!! That would be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? What do I think of the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture! No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea? Yet of solidity much, but of splendor little is extant: "Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!" their Emperor vaunted; "Marble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... brought to a complicated and disheartening task.[16] Lord John Russell was, in fact, in some directions not only in advance of his party but of his times; and, though it has long been the fashion to cavil at his Irish policy, it ought not to be forgotten, in common fairness, that he not only passed the Encumbered Estates Act of 1848, but sought to introduce the principle of compensation to tenants for the improvements ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... gift: for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous." Here we get Twentieth-Century Wisdom. And very many passages as fine and true can be found, which prove for us beyond cavil that Moses was right a part of the time, and to say this of any man, living or dead, is a very ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... such ideas, if I cavil at the injunctions of the monk, I am lost," said he suddenly; and by an effort of will, he stifled the revolt ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... "Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington, energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... virtue of whom James VI. claimed to rule his ancient kingdom, and whose portraits still frown grimly upon the walls of the gallery of Holyrood. Now Oldbuck, a shrewd and suspicious man, and no respecter of divine hereditary right, was apt to cavil at this sacred list, and to affirm, that the procession of the posterity of Fergus through the pages of Scottish history, was as vain and unsubstantial as the gleamy pageant of the descendants of Banquo through the cavern ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... history of a hero of everyday life, whose love of truth, clothing of modesty, and innate pluck, carry him, naturally, from poverty to affluence. George Andrews is an example of character with nothing to cavil at, and stands as a good instance of chivalry in ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... foremost of us all to plague her with communings. Of a certainty she could not at all times satisfy my soul, which thirsted for knowledge, though she never failed to calm it; for I stood firm in the faith, and all she could tell me of God's revelation to man I accepted gladly, without doubt or cavil. She had taught us that faith and knowledge are things apart, and I felt that there could be no more peace for my soul if I suffered ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... poetic idea. To be sure there is a touch of stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... for while the captains and soldiers were in the field, he was in arms in the town, and wherever by him there was a Diabolonian found, they were forced to feel the weight of his heavy hand, and also the edge of his penetrating sword: many therefore of the Diabolonians he wounded, as the Lord Cavil, the Lord Brisk, the Lord Pragmatic, and the Lord Murmur; several also of the meaner sort he did sorely maim; though there cannot at this time an account be given you of any that he slew outright. The cause, or rather the advantage that my ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... fiction basely invented by a baffled enemy with the object of discrediting our enlightened army in the eyes of neutral Powers. Any of these was good enough, but what now appears is better. Exact measurements have since demonstrated beyond all question of cavil that Rheims Cathedral had been built with mathematical accuracy to shield our contemptible enemy's trenches around Chalons from our best gun positions outside Laon. This act of treachery proves that, instead of Germany being the aggressor, France has been ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... almost the only Truth we are sure of, and such a Truth as we meet with in every Object, in every Occurrence, and in every Thought. If we look into the Characters of this Tribe of Infidels, we generally find they are made up of Pride, Spleen, and Cavil: It is indeed no wonder, that Men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the World; and how is it possible for a Man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every Moment of losing his entire Existence, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... beyond cavil or dispute or reversion. One is that God's laws cannot be broken. We are not trying to say that they should not be broken; or that they cannot be broken with impunity; or that if broken we shall be punished. They simply cannot be broken—they ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... directly opposed to the so-called natural sciences. They say that it doesn't even relate historical events accurately. But, after all, the Bible is just the record of the unfoldment in the human consciousness of the concept of God. Why cavil at it when it contains, as we must see, a revelation of the full formula for salvation, which, as you ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Laddie with a flourish, "for speaking to him again, and telling him that my father had visitors from Ohio, and couldn't leave them. We will get all the fun from the day that we can; but before dusk, too early for them to have any cause for cavil, 'the gross country clod' is going to take ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... wrought, in the streets I would straight make known: "When this marvel of mine is heard, without cavil shall men receive Any legend of haloed saint, staring up through the sealed stone!" So I spake in the trodden ways; but ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... helping you to preserve safely that which in the gracious years of youth spring-time and love with exquisite throes bred in your unconscious heart, that you may store and treasure it, and it may not be lost!"—"But who—" Walther asks, inclined to cavil where anything is concerned which relates to the master-singers, "Who created these rules which stand in such high honour?"—"They were sorely-needy masters," Sachs in his moved tones continues the charming lesson, "spirits ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the prolonged controversy re suzerainty forced upon England would be to denote a lack of honour, which is not of unfrequent occurrence when one party to a contract seeks by cavil and legal quibble to evade compliance with some of its conditions, simply because the written terms appear to afford scope for doing so. But the principal reason of the Transvaal contention proceeded from the project of gaining over some strong foreign ally who would see an ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... simpletons that I trust they will not resent my calling them such. If however, they abandon all claim to the comradeship that has been so much prated about, swearing by the Three Kings of Cologne faithfully to follow me, and obey my every word without cavil or argument, I will pardon them, but the first man who rebels will show that my clemency has been misplaced, and I can assure them that it shall not be exercised again. Captain, your sailors are familiar ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... no comfort, That a man must journey home for 't— You have heard that whiskered wheeze, Have you not? 'Tis a commonplace to cavil At the "luxuries of travel," For in travel lack ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... lawyers, and know how to spin out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of their talent:—An ass had got loose and broken into a field of corn, much of which it destroyed. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... I wish to vie with Mr. Allen's unrivalled polemic amiability and be as conciliatory as possible, I will not cavil at his facts or try to magnify the chasm between an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Napoleon and the average level of their respective tribes. Let it be as small as Mr. Allen thinks. All that I object to is that he should think the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... agricultural; but Wiltshire and Suffolk were to be preserved inviolable to the plough,—and the apples of Devonshire were still to have their sway. Every town in the three kingdoms with a certain population was to have two members. But here there was much room for cavil,—as all men knew would be the case. Who shall say what is a town, or where shall be its limits? Bits of counties might be borrowed, so as to lessen the Conservatism of the county without endangering the Liberalism of the borough. And then there were the boroughs with one member,—and then the ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... lesser men are infinitely propagated. Despite a popular delusion that the sons of great men are always dolts, the fact is that intellectual superiority is inheritable, quite as easily as bodily strength; and that fact has been established beyond cavil by the laborious inquiries of Galton, Pearson and the other anthropometricians of the English school. If such men as Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, and Nietzsche had married and begotten ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... possible results of the vast upheaval of home life caused by this war; but of these women sitting for hours on end in a back room of Mlle. Javal's central establishment in Paris it is only necessary to state that they looked as intent upon making cigarettes in a professional manner, beyond cavil by the canny poilu, as if they were counting the family linen or superintending one of the stupendous facts of existence, a daughter's trousseau. Only the one to whom I was introduced raised her eyes, and I should not have been expected to distract ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... article of faith is injured by allowing that there is no such positive proof, when or by whom these and some other books of holy Scripture were written, as to exclude all possibility of doubt and cavil. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... elements, such as the earthquake and rending of the temple-veil when Jesus died? Altogether, I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated "cavil," and overrule each as obviously insufficient, with the same confidence as if it were the only one. Yet, in fact, the objections collectively are very powerful, and cannot be set aside by supercilious airs ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... catholic, and his knowledge of rare and curious things is probably greater than that of any other living man. He is never mistaken. No forgery deceives him, and hence the great prices that he obtains; for a work of art purchased from Isaac Loewe is a work certified as genuine beyond all cavil." ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... no note of cavil in Marion's voice. Her eyes were earnest and serious; and she waited, as one waits in honest perplexity, to have a puzzle solved. But she was known as one who held dangerous, even infidel notions, and Mr. Pembrook, bewildered as to how to answer her, seemed to feel that ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... not been dishonest, frivolous and wholly reprehensible? To all these inexorable accusations he was forced to confess himself guilty. He had undoubtedly, only a few minutes before, looked almost impatiently for something from Rosemary Roselle. Beyond cavil she should have had an unadorned C last month. And these easily ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that lies between conscious life and the sleep that is so close of kin to death. If in full possession of her senses, she might not have caught the drift of the sentence, since it was spoken in a guttural patois. But now she understood beyond cavil that because she had opened her eyes, the girl was giving thanks to the Deity. The first definite though bewildering notion that perplexed her faculties, at once clouded and unnaturally clear, was an astonished acceptance of the fact that she knew what ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... men rings,— That unrelieved, our whole life long, Each hour, in passing, hoarsely sings. In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:— That even each joy's presentiment With wilful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest to me, But some wild dream is sent to fray me. The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the engine; he is a mecanicien and nothing else—in France and elsewhere. We needed a word for the individual who busies himself with, or drives an automobile, and so we have adapted the word chauffeur. Purists may cavil, but nevertheless the word is better than driver, or motor-man (which is the quintessence ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... be disposed to cavil at its bitterness, and to say that for Christians it is too full of threats and vengeance. Perhaps it is; nay, certainly it is. But there are two noble feelings in it, and two vivid pictures of character. The Psalm is inspired by a brave contempt ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... to carry them into practice under such limitations as may be necessary to sustain the basic object, but without any payment to him except for the actual expense incurred. The hypercritical may cavil and say that, as a manufacturer of cement, Edison will be benefited. True, but as ANY good Portland cement can be used, and no restrictions as to source of supply are enforced, he, or rather his company, will be merely one of many ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... cavil in its artistic simplicity, for the girl, knowing the significance that trifles have at times, had laid aside every adornment that might hint at wealth, and the somber draperies alone emphasized the ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... comfortably among the corn; but it was not the plantation that occupied his thoughts, they were with Mitsha; and he pondered over what she had told him the night before, and how he might succeed in making her his beyond cavil. Looking up accidentally he discerned the form of his uncle coming toward him, and his face brightened. He motioned Hayoue to come, and this time Hayoue was eager to ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to cooperative and collective action has resulted in this particular case in thousands of the children's "Arbor Gardens" round about the city. It is an experience "en gros," one of such dimensions that cavil ceases ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... unreasoning tears. He was her youngest. He was so big, so handsome, so like Tom,—yet so different! She did not believe that Tom could really see anything to cavil at in Lance's presence, in his changed personality. Tom, she thought, was secretly as proud of Lance as she was, and only pretended to sneer at him to hide that pride. The constraint would soon wear off, and Lance would be one of ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... country taken in possession by us to her majesty's use, and so to yours by her majesty's grant, we thought good for the better assurance thereof to record some of the particular gentlemen and men of account who then were present, as witnesses of the same, that thereby all occasion of cavil to the title of the country, in her majesty's behalf, may be prevented, which otherwise such as like not the action may use and pretend. Whose names are, Master Philip Amidas, Master Arthur Barlow, captains; William Greenville, John Wood, James Bromewich, Henry Greene, Benjamin ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... outward shew, which if he had, would not prove him a truly visible saint; it would not tell me he had the grace of God in his heart; it is no characteristical note to another of my Sonship with God. But why did you not answer these parts of my argument? Why did you only cavil at words? which if they had been left out, the argument yet stands good. 'He that is not baptized [in water], if yet a true believer, hath the DOCTRINE of baptism; yea, he ought to have it before he be convicted, it is his duty to be baptized, or else he playeth the hypocrite. There ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... enlightened Protestants, as well as by multitudes of even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact, than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... seen on both sides alike. Her nose was perfect;—not Grecian, nor Roman, nor Egyptian,—but simply English, only just not retrousse. There were those who said her mouth was a thought too wide, and her teeth too perfect,—but they were of that class of critics to whom it is a necessity to cavil rather than to kiss. Added to all this there was a childishness of manner about her of which, though she herself was somewhat ashamed, all others were enamoured. It was not the childishness of very youthful years,—for ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... such evident earnestness that I took refuge in silence. I could see just where a man of Parton's temperament—which was cold and eminently judicial even when his affections were concerned—could find that in Barker at which to cavil, but, for all that, I could not sympathize with the extreme view he took of his character. I have known many a man upon whose face nature has set the stamp of the villain much more deeply than it was impressed upon Barker's countenance, who has lived a life most irreproachable, whose every ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... not well complain of the regularity in itself, though she did cavil at the actual arrangements, and they were altered all round to please her, and she showed a certain contempt for her teacher in the studies she resumed with her mother; but after the dictionary, encyclopaedia and other authorities, including Mr. Ogilvie, proved ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of successful people, to cavil because his success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the boy by his side? Why had he not bethought himself of the mill ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... "I never cavil about interest," said M. Clergeot; "only—" He looked slyly at Noel scratching his chin violently, a movement which in him indicated how insensibly his brain was at work. "Only," he continued, "I should very much like to know what you are ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... don't mean to cavil, only other folks will, and he may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears. However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though Milton is in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that the envoy should still draw his two and a-half per cent. on net results. The actual figures had evidently not been conceded without a mental wrench, as the erasion beneath them showed, but there they stood in definite ink, and Kettle was not inclined to cavil at the process ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... he in his own syllogism that he declared, "If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly this Angraecum would become extinct." I am not aware that Darwin's fine argument has yet been clinched by the discovery of that insect. But cavil has ceased. Long before his death a sphinx moth arrived from South Brazil which shows a proboscis between ten and eleven inches long—very nearly equal, therefore, to the task of probing the nectary of Angraecum sesquipidale. And ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... and the Puritan austerity of the moment might be banished from domestic cookery. At an opportune moment, therefore, he sold out his interests in the article which had brought him in colossal wealth at a critical juncture, and placed his financial reputation beyond the reach of cavil. As for Leonore, who was now an heiress on a far greater scale than ever before, he naturally found her something a vast deal higher in the husband market than a two-hundred-a-year poster designer. Mark Spayley, the brainmouse who had helped the financial lion with such untoward effect, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... crack or crevice of the apartment, as spiders often do when assailed, all doubt of its guilty connection with the person accused of witchcraft was removed: it was set down as, beyond question or cavil, her veritable imp; and the evidence of her confederacy with Satan was thenceforward regarded as complete. The books of law and other learned writings, as well as the practice of courts in the old countries, recognized this ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen and cavil: It is indeed no wonder that men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the world; and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every moment of losing his entire existence, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Nobles, knights, gentlemen, submit themselves to the yoke of the Lord. Colonels, captains, officers in the army, soldiers; even these also stand not off from, but close to, and for this work in hand. Those of the Scots nation within this city, by their willingness, do give a check to this cavil raised by some, who have nothing else to say, yet say this, perhaps the kingdom of Scotland will not take it. We can instance in none, none that I know here. The ministers of the Lord, that have refuged themselves to this little sanctuary, both increase and honour the ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... 'Gertrude' on the one side, and it was 'Paul' upon the other, and the lady, being the elder, and a little more the elder than she cared to say, would occasionally venture upon 'Paul dear,' with an air so matronly that the most censorious of observers could have found no cavil with the manner of it. It came about in due time, let Laurent's watch-dogs do what they would, that the contrabandists once more succeeded in running their cargo into the Hotel of the Three Friends. It was a very small one, but ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... "Too long, good brother, art then here detain'd, Impatient for the fight, by my delay; Nor have I timely, as thou bad'st me, come." To whom thus Hector of the glancing helm: "My gallant brother, none who thinks aright Can cavil at thy prowess in the field; For thou art very valiant; but thy will Is weak and sluggish; and it grieves my heart, When from the Trojans, who in thy behalf Such labours undergo, I hear thy name Coupled ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... might have been on this occasion at first, seem now little affected by it. Those who are too much familiarized with scenes of wretchedness, as well as those to whom they are unknown, are not often very susceptible; and I am sometimes disposed to cavil with our natures, that the sufferings which ought to excite our benevolence, and the prosperity that enables us to relieve them, should ever have a contrary effect. Yet this is so true, that I have scarcely ever observed even the poor considerate towards each other—and the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... looked at him but did not perceive that he was in any way put out or moved by its reception. Claims for past services, whether upon the country or upon individuals, are seldom well received; like the payment of a tavern bill, after we have done with the enjoyments, we seem inclined to cavil at each separate item—ainsi ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... occupied in learning the peculiarities of the life in which her future would be cast. It was possible they would find her an apt pupil. Of this they could not complain, that she was untravelled; for she had ridden a horse, bareback, half across the continent. They could not cavil at her education, for she knew several languages—aboriginal languages—of the North. She had merely to learn the dialect of English society, and how to carry with acceptable form the costumes of the race to which she was going. Her own costume was picturesque, but it might appear unusual ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of having raised twenty millions of people to a level of thought where they can appreciate this cardinal truth, and can believe no sacrifice too great for its defence and establishment, then democracy will have vindicated itself beyond all chance of future cavil. Here, we think, is a Cause the experience of whose vicissitudes and the grandeur of whose triumph will be able to give us heroes and statesmen. The Slave-Power must be humbled, must be punished,—so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... sweet temper; he was the father of her children, and that was enough. At least we are allowed to see in Mr. Booth no qualities other than these, and in her no imagination even of any other qualities. To put what I mean out of reach of cavil, compare Imogen and Amelia, and the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... of any caste or shade of nativity, to utter a word to gainsay or cavil with the noble and high public manner in which these proceedings were done. The blood-relatives of the Indian found that the two nations, actuated by a sense of their kindness and real friendship for years, had remembered them in the day ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... us in the War Office were a little inclined to cavil at our Chief's deliberation in the matter of demanding a system of national service, when the country had arrived at the stage where expansion of the fighting forces was no longer hopelessly retarded by lack of war material. But, looking back upon the events of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... against them neither; but because, by the reading of the one, I find myself become better; whereas, I rise from the other, I know not how coldly affected to Virtue, but most violently inclin'd to Cavil and Contention; therefore never fear to ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... with observant grey eyes and a good deal of detached humour. Since the incubation of his first unsuccessful play, he had argued out every character and situation with her; when feminine psychology was in dispute, her ruling was accepted without cavil. More than once, as they splashed conversationally through the Lashmar woods, he had felt that she gave even a self-sufficient bachelor something that he lacked and would always lack; and, whenever the ubiquitous, dry celibacy of the Thespian smoking-room oppressed him, his thoughts ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... scrupled to leave these remarks to cavil or to sarcasm, because this fiction is probably the last with which I shall trespass upon the Public, and I am desirous that it shall contain, at least, my avowal of the principles upon which it and its later predecessors have been composed. You know well, however others may dispute the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of this victory, establishing his supremacy beyond cavil, should have satisfied the King, especially as this was not the mating season and there could be no question of rivalry. But his heart was bursting with injury, and his thirst for vengeance was raging to be glutted. As the vanquished ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... known to be blue to match the upholstery ... an exquisite lady sitting in the victoria. And this lady had recognized his presence, first with a faint frightened "Oh!" and then with a movement of those great hat-plumes which was beyond all doubt or cavil a bow ... a bow of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... with which all our landed property is coloured cannot but impress the innocent reader with the idea of a universal flush of freedom and glory throughout all those acres and latitudes. So that he is scarcely likely to cavil at results so marvellous by inquiring into the nature and completeness of our government at any particular place,—for instance in Ireland, in the Hebrides, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... speak doubtfully, or covertly in answer there unto; I doubt not but God will help me to find you out, and lay open your folly; if I shall live till another cavil by you be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to cavil at the visible superstition and absurdity of much on which religion is made to rest, for the unknown can never be satisfactorily rendered into the known. To get the known from the unknown is to get something out of nothing, a thing which, though it is being done daily in every ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... man no more than kites or hawks; Men, if they note, will flee him.' Thus they buzzed, Self-praised, and knowing not that simpleness Is sacred soil, and sown with royal seed, The heroic seed and saintly. Mitred once Such gibes no more assailed him: one short month Sufficed the petty cavil to confute; One month well chronicled in book which verse Late born, alas, in vain would emulate. At once he called to mind the days that were; His wanderings in Northumbrian glens; the hearths That welcomed him so joyously; at once ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... for all he had bent his back laboriously all summer over a hole in the ground, and had idled in town since Thanksgiving. He was a cowboy (vaquero was the name they used in those pleasant valleys) and so was his friend. And he had found a cowboy's paradise, and a welcome which a king could not cavil at. Would Jack stake himself to a horse and outfit, and come to Palo Alto till the snow was well out of the mountains and they could go ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... ill to cavil each with each. I might retort. I only say to thee ITS slaves we are: ITS slaves must ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Lake of the Dismal Swamp is to become the great centre of attraction there can be no reasonable doubt. Recent demonstrations in that direction go to prove beyond cavil the fact. The visit of John Boyle O'Reilly, editor of the Boston Herald, Mr. Mosely, of Washington, and several other distinguished persons, go to prove the fact. Contiguous as it is to the celebrated Magnolia ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... to the memorandum of the noble duke, which has been so much the subject of cavil, it is the offspring of a manly mind, pouring out its honest opinions with an earnestness characteristic of sincerity, and with a zeal too warm to stand upon nice and scrupulous expression. I am sure that it contains nothing but what the noble duke really ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the well-mannered people; at that day, All was in common, every man bare sway O'er his own family; the jars that rose Were soon appeased by such grave men as those: This mine and thine, that we so cavil for, Was then not heard of; he that was most poor Was rich in his content, and lived as free As they whose flocks were greatest; nor did he Envy his great abundance, nor the other Disdain the low condition of his brother, But lent him from his store to mend his state, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of what was most pleasant, and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so. I have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much stronger and more real than the Ernest of which he ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... right is safe; while he who is wrong must take the consequences of his own acts. Mr. Furlong, your steward-ship ceased with the life of your principal; if you have any keys or papers to deliver, I advise your placing them in the hands of this gentleman, whom, beyond all cavil, I take to be ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... cavil, it is that the topics of religious consolation, however beautiful, are repeated till a sort of triteness attends them. It seems as if you were forever losing Friends' children by death, and reminding their parents of the Resurrection. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... were afterwards eaten. Thus the experience of later days is found to agree with the uniform testimony of old writers; and although I am aware that each and every of these proofs taken singly may admit of some cavil, yet in the aggregate they will be thought to amount to satisfactory evidence that human flesh is habitually eaten by a certain class ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to cavil at this moralizing and didactic temper, which animates a large part of the nation and is responsible for much of the British achievement. But its place is in the world of action not in that of letters, and it does not produce the greatest literature or the truest thought. The Greeks might ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... existed such a barrier, could not have been the same person, it is evident. But who this fair and false Rosalinde was, though known to many of his contemporaries, has become a mystery. That she was a real personage is placed beyond cavil by "E.K.," the ostensible editor of the "Shepherd's Calendar"; and he has given us a clue to her name, if we have but the wit to follow it. Now "E.K." we more than shrewdly suspect to have been either Spenser himself, or his friend Gabriel Harvey, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... friend of Mrs. Challis Wrandall, as the cousin of the Murgatroyds, as the daughter of Colonel Castleton of the Indian Corps, as a person supposed to be possessed of independent means withal, she went, with none to question, none to cavil. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... people ever fought for liberty and justice, it was the Cheyennes. If any ever demonstrated their physical and moral courage beyond cavil, it was this race of purely American heroes, among whom Little Wolf ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the Muse's revel, Begad, I wish you at the devil! In vain my verse I plane and bevel, Like Banville's rhyming devotees; In vain by many an artful swivel Lug in my meaning by degrees; I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil; And grovelling prostrate on my knees, Devote his body to the seas, His ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may draw on me the host of judges and divines. They may cavil, but cannot refute it. Those who read Prisot's opinion with a candid view to understand, and not to chicane it, cannot mistake its meaning. The reports in the Year-books were taken very short. The opinions of the judges ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... glaring halo about the head of two who could claim personal acquaintance with the great war chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail?—who had actually been to ride and hunt with that then just dawning demigod of American boyhood,—Buffalo Bill? Sneer and scoff and cavil as did their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... 1451 millions by eighteen years, it appears that 80 millions a year was raised; and, taking the legitimate expenditure of the country, during those eighteen years, at an average of 45 millions a-year, a sum so high as to preclude all cavil, it appears that the country raised and expended eighteen times the difference between 45 and 80 millions, that is 630 millions; notwithstanding which expenditure, let it be observed, the country got richer and richer ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... factor in effecting that determination," to establish this beyond the possibility of cavil or denial, we have told here once again his inspiring story. The fact that as late as 1913, the Legislature of California appropriated $10,000 to place a bust of Starr King in our National Capitol at Washington would seem to indicate that the people have resolved that this man ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... honourably in the strong light which posterity is already concentrating on the words and actions of the past, than does Prince Albert for undeniable truthfulness and disinterestedness. Men may still cavil at his conclusions, and maintain that he theorised and systematised and was tempted to interfere too much, but they have long ceased to question his perfect integrity and single-heartedness, his rooted aversion to all trickery and to deceit in every form. "He was an honest man and a noble prince ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... think it should not. But really people are very foolish to cavil over such matters. If I might have my way, I would pay no attention to them. I would go my way, do as I please and let such people think ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... disordered but, save for his less delicate garments, uninjured), made a flapping leap for the roof of Fulcher's stables, put her foot through a weak place in the tiles, and descended, so to speak, out of the infinite into the contemplative quiet of Mr. Bumps the paralytic—who, it is now proved beyond all cavil, did, on this one occasion in his life, get down the entire length of his garden and indoors without any assistance whatever, bolt the door after him, and immediately relapse again into Christian resignation and ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... fortune, and is said to have lived comfortably upon her money until it was lost by bad investments. The King having come to his own again, Butler obtained permission in November 1662 to print the first part of 'Hudibras.' The quaint title of this poem has attracted much curious cavil. The name is used by Milton, Spenser, and Robert of Gloucester for an early king of Britain, the grandfather of King Lear; and by Ben Jonson—from whom Butler evidently adopted it—for a swaggering fellow ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Dilmann, Ceriani, Volkmar, and other students of kindred power and spirit. Researches and discussions in this department are still pushed with the greatest zeal; and it is confidently believed that in a few years the views adopted in the present writing will be established beyond all cavil from any fair minded critic. Then all the steps will have been clearly defined in the development of that doctrine of the great Day of the Lord, which, beginning with a poetic picture of a Jewish overthrow of the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Opportunity, At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night; In vain I cavil with mine infamy, In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite: This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The remedy indeed to do me good Is to let forth my ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... his lordship, and I saw he had crossed to the doorway and stood with his back to us. "Diana," he continued after a moment, "in this world of change, of doubt and uncertainty, one thing is very sure and beyond all cavil and dispute: Peregrine loves you far better than he loves himself, since he is strong enough to forego so much of present happiness for your future welfare. He honours me by placing you in my charge, I who love you as a daughter and ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but we have it sealed in the New Testament. "As, it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah." They don't believe in Lot's wife, but He says, "Remember Lot's wife." So there is not a thing that men to-day cavil at but the Son of God indorses. They don't believe, in the swallowing of Jonah. They say it is impossible that a whale could swallow Jonah—its throat is too small. They forget that the whale was prepared for Jonah; as ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... odd stir on shore. A cab whirled up furiously and two more youths, shapely, handsome, and fashionable, twins beyond cavil and noticeably older than their twenty years, visibly rich in fine qualities but as visibly reckless as to what they did with them, sprang out, flushed and imperious, to wave the Votaress. One of her guards ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... sometimes," answered Godolphin, "that seem to indicate that you think the world may cavil at your choice, and that some exertion on my part is necessary to maintain your dignity. Constance, need I say, again and again, that I adore the very dust you tread on? But I have a pride, a self-respect, beneath which I cannot stoop; if ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... militated against the effective employment of the battalion as a first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to individuals. But the case was one where they should not have temporised in any way. As matters turned out, the Royal Irish Fusiliers were very ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... command has beauty if united with sense and virtue. In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil, if, on a nearer view, they find it less—but let them consider, that if she had more faults than generally belong to others, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... of cats throughout all Italy. As often as Milord committed a new assassination, and the attempt was made to extort from us more than two pauls as the price of blood, we drew this document from our pocket, and proved beyond a cavil that two pauls was what we were accustomed to pay on such occasions, and obstinate indeed must have been the man or woman who did not yield to such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at idle forms. It ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... who at once replied. "Never," said Wheatstone, "did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the needles click, and as I spelled the words I felt all the magnitude of the invention pronounced to be practicable without cavil ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... the Seine and Garonne, corresponding with the provinces of Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Poitiers, the Isle of France, and the Orleannois, was Keltic, has never been doubted. The evidence of Caesar is express; and there is neither objection nor cavil to set against it. There it is, where, at the present moment, the Keltic Breton of Brittany continues to be the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will be for our benefit. I believe it is so, lady; or it may be for a punishment; but it is bitter, very bitter, oftentimes to bear. But I am wandering from my story. We could watch the progress of the fated ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... contrived to let her see that he doubted she did not see them right, and somehow contrived also to make her hear his reasons. It was done with the art of a master and the steady aim of a general who has a great field to win. Faith did not want to hear his suggestions of doubt and cavil. She remembered Mr. Linden's advice long ago given; repeated it to herself every day; and sought to meet Dr. Harrison only with the sling stone of truth and let his weapons of artificial warfare ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... allowed the custom-house officers to tumble out the contents of her little valise, and satisfied, without cavil, all their demands, and answered without hesitation all the questions put to her ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... sours the temper and narrows the views. To have produced works of genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn is one of the heaviest trials of human patience. We exaggerate our own merits when they are denied by others, and are apt to grudge and cavil at every particle of praise bestowed on those to whom we feel a conscious superiority. In mere self-defence we turn against the world, when it turns against us; brood over the undeserved slights we receive; and thus the genial current of the soul is ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast; and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter materials would have come more quickly to their maturity, and might have given less occasion not only for cavil but for animadversion. It was yet more creditable to him, than it could be even to the just among his critics, that he should, and while yet young, have applied himself with so resolute a hand to ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... authority which Thorpe, breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman, followed by his valet with the gun and the stool, set meekly off without a word. Balder, with equal docility, vaulted ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... invented by Dr. Geley. Granting that these manifestations are really proved, it is no longer possible to explain them or rather to classify them without having recourse to fresh theories. Now we can entertain doubts on many points, we can cavil and argue; but I defy anyone approaching these facts in a serious and honest spirit to reject them all. It is permissible to neglect the most extraordinary; but there are a multitude of others which ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... to die?' resumed the Bishop. 'He a mortal like to US? Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus: Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at the peculiar character of his employer, and in a way slightly disgusted, but he was not in a position to cavil or feel squeamish over apparent lack of honesty, and resolved ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... well so far as it relates to venomous tales repeated purposely to injure; but how colorless are the people who never have critical opinions on anything or anybody; or people who, having them, never express them! Criticism and cavil are two very different things. Absence of criticism is absence of the power of distinction. This age of science has taught people to look truth straight in the face and learn to discriminate. That ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... (metal) fandi. castle : kastelo. catch : kapti. caterpillar : rauxpo. cathedral : katedralo. cattle : bruto, brutoj. cauliflower : florbrasiko. cause : kauxz'i, -o; -igi; afero. caution : averti; singardemo. cave : kaverno. cavil : cxikani. caw : graki. ceiling : plafono. celebrate : festi, soleni, celery : celerio. cell : cxelo, cxambreto. cellar : kelo. censor : cenzuristo. censure : riprocxi. ceremony : ceremonio, soleno. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... witnessed the power of the Gospel to fashion society afresh, and to build up domestic life on a new and more enduring basis;—at a time when the greatest laxity of morals prevailed, and the enemies of the Gospel were known to be on the look out for grounds of cavil against Christianity and its Author;—what wonder if some were found to remove the pericope de adultera from their copies, lest it should be pleaded in extenuation of breaches of the seventh commandment? The very subject-matter, I say, of St. John viii. ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... it. I am the savant untamed; they the savants civilized. Doctors cavil at the learned. False science is the excrement of the true, and is employed to the destruction of philosophers. Philosophers, as they produce sophists, produce their own scourge. Of the dung of the thrush is born the mistletoe, with ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... believe in the magical or impossible action of the spirit upon the body? As soon as we admit of such a God, there are no longer fables or visions which can not be believed. The theologians treat men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... edited by Edward Arber. On Montague Road, Birmingham, England, 1884. Capt. Smith's account of the settling of Jamestown and the struggle of the colonists there was for many years accepted without cavil by historians. His story of his own heroism and of the wickedness of his colleagues has been embodied in almost every American school history. Mr. Charles Dean, in 1860, was the first to question Smith's veracity, and since that date many historians have taken the ground that ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... perhaps, be received without cavil by most readers; but the reasoning on which it depends is the weakest part of the book, and we shall be surprised if some hard-headed divine, who fears that this doctrine of Intuition will pester his Church, does not find out the flaws in the argument. It will be urged, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of cavil in Marion's voice. Her eyes were earnest and serious; and she waited, as one waits in honest perplexity, to have a puzzle solved. But she was known as one who held dangerous, even infidel notions, and Mr. Pembrook, bewildered as to how to answer her, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden |
