"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possible—in such a fashion, in fact, as is hardly ever elsewhere found in the larger specimens, and by no means very often in the smaller. Hardly even in As You Like It, certainly not in the Arcadia, do the crook and the pipe get less in the way than they do here. A minor cavil has been urged—that the "shepherds" and the "knights," the "shepherdesses" and the "nymphs" are very little distinguishable from each other; but why should they be? Urfe had sufficient art to throw ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... fashion 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 ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... drawbacks which would have terribly 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 angry at being ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... 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 ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... There is a misconception here I strongly suspect it so He was covered with confusion It was a just rebuke A pleasing instance of this It lends dignity to life She has a desultory liking for music It seems incredible A kind of detached ideal It blunts the finer sensibilities Beyond question or cavil A well-founded suspicion It has elicited great praise They are landmarks in memory Superhuman vigor and activity A venerable and interesting figure It is curious and interesting Gives the impression of aloofness Perfectly void of offence Regard with misgiving A stroke of professional ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... O Zeus most great, And thou, Eternal Fate: What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel That way I'll follow without fret or cavil. {237} Or if I evil be And spurn thy high decree, Even so I still ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... I cavil not with Him: the voice That freedom's blessed gospel tells Is sweet to me as silver bells, Rejoicing!—yea, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... 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 negatived, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her narrative, "you will understand why it is that I cannot, must not, will not, neglect him! As soon as he can bear visitors I must be admitted to his room, to do for him all that a young sister might do for her brother; no one could reasonably cavil at that. Papa, Ishmael believes in me more than anyone else in the world does. He thinks more highly of me than others do. He knows that there is something better in me than this mere outside beauty that others praise ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that, when they got into command, the same lack of sense which led them to glory in their shame would be productive, as its necessary results, of misfortune and disaster. There is a shrewd lesson here to the class who doubt and cavil simply to show their parts. In the second place, infidelity, on the principle of Bacon, is a weak, tottering thing, unbuttressed by that support which gives to poor human nature half its strength and all its dignity. But, above all, in the third and last place, the humble infidel, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... was not so unreasonable. For it was true that he loved her, and that he had access to the house; and if the plan suggested seemed unusual, if it was not the course most obvious or most natural, it was hardly for him to cavil at a scheme which promised to save her, not only from the evil influence which mysteriously swayed her, but from the law, and the danger of an accusation of witchcraft. Apart from his promise he would have chosen this course; as it had been his first impulse to pursue it the evening before. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Naples[181]. He was answered before the same society by Francesco Baldassare Paglia, and in 1700 appeared Giusto Fontanini's elaborate defence[182]. To each chapter of this work is prefixed a passage from Grimaldi's address, which is then laboriously refuted. The Duke's attack is puerile cavil, and in spite of the reputed ability of its author the defence must be admitted to be much ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... 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, was ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... 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 ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... brought in a cigarette, left the door open behind him and stood smiling down at her with the peculiarly complacent look that characterizes a married man of forty when he finds himself dressed beyond cavil in the complete evening harness of civilization, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,) who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in this sublime inscription at the words "repair to Maru," since the reader must already be at Maru before he could peruse ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... place, and took place that evening," I insisted. "The bit of paste shown us at the inquest was never the gem Mrs. Fairbrother wore on entering the alcove. Besides, where all is sensation, why cavil at one more improbability? Mr. Grey may have come over to America for no other reason. He is known as a collector, and when a man ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... inflicted upon the land of Egypt. It was made up of all the attorneys, and pettifoggers, with their clerks, scamps, and runners; every man, or rather every reptile, of them, being profusely fed to bark, to snarl, to cavil, and to bully; and all of them more ravenous and ferocious than sharks or wolves. It is, indeed, almost a libel upon the sharks and wolves to compare them with such creatures. I cannot, perhaps, give ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... say that Mary was beautiful, or even handsome, for she was still a plain little creature, and persons who could not understand her might cavil at the assertion; yet, to aunt Hannah and uncle Nat—yes, and to the Judge also—one might venture to say that Mary was a very interesting girl, and, at times really pretty; but, then, these persons loved her very dearly, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... replied, All cavil then we quickly could decide; Precedence would no doubt with you remain: But this is quite another case 'tis plain; And equity demands that we agree, By lot to settle which the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... scientific principles as matter from which to draw conclusions; but with practice she became an adept in the art of describing the one while at the same time withholding the other, so that her conversation interested Colonel Colquhoun without, however, giving him anything to cavil at. It was like a dish exactly suited to his taste, but delicate to insipidity because his palate was hardened to pepper. When she returned from Switzerland she gave him details of her own doings which were interesting ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Gladstone, of all people in the world, disposed to ignore the founders of Greek philosophy, to say nothing of Indian sages to whom evolution was a familiar notion ages before Paul of Tarsus was born? But it is ungrateful to cavil at even the most oblique admission of the possible value of one of those affirmations of natural science which really may be said to be "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." I note it with pleasure, if only for the purpose of ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I'll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. Are the indentures drawn? ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... 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
... place, achieved by a narrow definition of the purpose of the state. To Locke the State is little more than a negative institution, a kind of gigantic limited liability company; and if we are inclined to cavil at such restraint, we may perhaps remember that even to neo-Hegelians like Green and Bosanquet this negative sense is rarely absent, in the interest of individual exertion. But for Locke the real guarantee of right lies in another direction. What his whole ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... with a wardrobe calculated to last through the first half of the coming London season. Altogether Bangletop Hall is an impressive structure, and at first sight gives rise to various emotions in the aesthetic breast; some cavil, others admire. One leading architect of Berlin travelled all the way from his German home to Bangletop Hall to show that famous structure to his son, a student in the profession which his father adorned; to whom he is said to have observed that, architecturally, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... hours of Irish patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... I was sitting in the deck-house, when I heard a tremendous crash, and, looking out, saw that the fore gig davits had been carried away, taking with them a piece of the rail, stanchion, and cavil. The gig was hanging from the after davits, one might say, by a thread, splashing and dashing in and out of the water, and crashing and splintering against the side of the yacht. All hands were speedily on deck; and in spite ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the chief entrance, and then reported the facts to the Empress. This ended the ceremony. The haughty condescension of the Chinese despatch does not appear to have offended the Japanese, nor did they cavil at the omission of one important ideograph from the title applied to their Empress. China's greatness seems to have been fully recognized. When, a month later, the envoy took his departure, the same Imoko was deputed to accompany him, bearing a despatch* in which, to China's simple "greeting," ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... whistle. It is one of those mannish tricks of hers which give a wrong impression. Her father ought to stop it; but he is so fond of the girl, and thinks her so altogether perfect and beyond cavil, that he lets everything go. She needs to have some one stronger than herself come into her life. I wonder if he ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... formed through the transformation of albuminous matters (meat) is an extremely important corollary, one established beyond cavil by Pettinkofer and Voit, in an indirect way, by first estimating the nitrogen and carbon ingested, and second the amount eliminated. Giving a dog meat that was wholly deprived of fat, they found it impossible to recover more ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... which, owing in great measure to a misprint, has been doubted. It is enough to state here that it was intended by express legislation to reserve all powers to the Imperial Parliament, and had the Bill gone into Committee the question would have been placed beyond the reach of cavil by a slight alteration in the wording of the clause. This summary may be concluded by the statement that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords over actions and suits arising in Ireland (except in respect of constitutional questions reserved for the determination of the Judicial ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... suggestion that these gentlemen are not officers, seems to me the merest cavil. They exercise an authority, and are clothed with a dignity equal to that of the highest and most important diplomatic officer, and far superior to that of most of the civil officers of the country. To say that the President cannot appoint a Senator or Representative postmaster ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... reading the argumentative passages I learned that somehow (I knew not how) children could be produced or not produced as desired; and in this stage of the matter it seemed to me so admirable that it should be so that I wondered why there should be cavil. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of a delightful harmony, but it seemed that the books and the pictures were chosen to match them. The man talking, in the great carved armchair by the fire, fitted the place. His vigorous, pleasant face looked prosperous, and so kindly was his air that one might not cavil at a lack of subtler qualities. He drew a long breath as he brought out the last words of the story he ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... 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 humbled and so punished as to be a warning forever; but Slavery is an evil transient in its cause ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Roast Beef of Old England. It was a right jovial feast, and the most cordial good-fellowship prevailed. He would have been a cynical epicurean who would have criticised the appointments; the banquet itself was above all cavil. Rummaging among some old papers the other day, I found the menu, which deserves to be quoted: 'Soup—Julienne. Fish—Whitebait (from the Cabul River). Entrees—Cotelettes aux Champignons, Poulets a la Mayonaise. Joints—Ham and fowls, roast beef, roast saddle of mutton, boiled brisket ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... sustaining. Such an uninteresting undertaking could not last forever, he told himself over and over again; nothing ever did. And now with ironic conformity to law, his philosophy had turned on him, demonstrating beyond cavil that not only did the things one longed to be free of come to a sure finality but so did those one pined to ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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
... you from this place. I have waited an age, lovely Matilda, that I might not intrude upon your hours of solitude and affliction, and violate the feelings I so greatly respect. You must not now be harsh and scrupulous. You must not cavil at the honest expression of those sentiments you inspire. Can dissimulation ever be a virtue? Can it ever be a duty to conceal those emotions of the soul upon which honour has set her seal, and studiously to turn ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... later years to the overthrow of the spoils system. He did this under no delusion as to the magnitude of the undertaking. Probably no one else comprehended it so well. He had studied the problem profoundly, and had solved every difficulty, and could answer every cavil to his own satisfaction." There can be no question that "his name imparted a strength to the movement no other would have given." Nor can there be much question that "among public men there was none who so won the confidence of sincere and earnest men and women by his own ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... 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 ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... wiser way, usually, is in speech. Letters are seldom expressive of what really passes in the mind of a man; or, if expressive, seem foolish, since deep feelings are liable to exaggeration. Every written word may be the theme of cavil. Study, care, which avail in every other species of composition, are death to the lover's effusion. A few sentences, spoken in earnest, and broken by emotion, are more eloquent than pages of sentiment, both to ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... 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 say, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 Gentiles, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... 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 was still rubbing along the steamer beside ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... dress are not unusually purchased by members of the families of black labourers. Whether the ladies are good judges of the merits of silks and cambrics I do not pretend to decide; but they pay ready money, and it is not for the sellers to cavil at their discrimination. The purchase of land, as you well know, is going on rapidly throughout the island; and the money thus invested must have been chiefly, though not entirely, accumulated by the labouring classes since slavery was abolished. A proprietor told ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... minister of Pumpkinville, where I lived in my youth, was one of the metaphysical divines of the old school, and could cavil upon the ninth part of a hair about entities and quiddities, nominalism and realism, free-will and necessity, with which sort of learning he used to stuff his sermons and astound his learned hearers, the bumpkins. They never doubted that it was ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... for 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 ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... be the cavil, we reply in the affirmative that the Scripture is true; that Jesus did mean all, and even more than he said or deemed it safe to say at that time. His [5] words are unmistakable, for they form propositions of self-evident demonstrable truth. Doctrines that deny the substance ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... men who had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," with a variety of fruit to follow. Verily a supper at which even a gourmand might not cavil; though it was but the debris of a dinner, which seemed to have been partaken of by a goodly array ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... cavil, therefore, at nature's indifference to the sage. It is only because we are not yet wise enough that this indifference seems strange; for the first duty of wisdom is to throw into light the humbleness of the place in the universe ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and for light as instinctively as young plants turn to the sun. But I must not forget that it is not I whom you have come to hear; and all I might say, if I had to vindicate the fame of our guest from disparagement or cavil, would seem but tedious and commonplace when addressed to those who know that his career has passed beyond the ordeal of contemporaneous criticism, and that in the applause of foreign nations it has found a foretaste of the judgment of posterity. I feel as if every word that I have already ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... other than, in the ancient tongue of the Brachmanae, Ahana, which, being interpreted, means the Dawn. "And that the morning light," saith he, "offers the best starting-point for the later growth of Athene has been proved, I believe, beyond the reach of doubt or even cavil." {8} ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... and all eyes were turned on him alone when he appeared; but he was the son of a poor clergyman and Elinor was a rich heiress. Her guardian was not displeased with their mutual affection: the merit of Woodville was too eminent to admit of cavil on account of his inferior wealth; but the dying will of her father did not allow her to marry before she was of age and her fortune depended upon her obeying this injunction. She had just entered her ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... 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 vessel ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... gang of English adventurers, who never did the Republic of France and her people any real harm, I have actually been the means of unmasking many a royalist plot before you, and of bringing many persistent conspirators to the guillotine. I am surprised that you should cavil at the price I am asking this time for the very important information with which I am able to furnish you, whilst you have often paid me similar sums for work which was a great deal less difficult to do. In order to serve your government effectually, both in England and in France, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... exceedingly strange that the scope and nature of this reform are so little understood and that so many things not included within its plan are called by its name. When cavil yields more fully to examination, the system will have large additions to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... shepherd, of a star, and above all, as the pearl of great price, seemed revealed to me most beautifully: that he could save every body I at once saw; that he would save me, never even took the form of a question. Those who have received the gospel by man's preaching may doubt and cavil; I took it simply from the Bible, in the words that God's wisdom teacheth, and thus I argued: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners: I am a sinner; I want to be saved: he will save me." There is no presumption in taking God at his word: not to do so ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... 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 coat in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism indeed! ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... figures so largely in a tale, yet it is always important. The author must know his countryside, whether real or imaginary, like his hand; the distances, the points of the compass, the place of the sun's rising, the behaviour of the moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the moon is! I have come to grief over the moon in "Prince Otto," and, so soon as that was pointed out to me, adopted a precaution which I recommend to other men—I never write now without an almanac. With an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who sell antique furniture, old pictures, and objects of vertu. They are now, however, found everywhere in the city, and most of them are on the Grand Canal, where they heap together marvelous collections, and establish authenticities beyond cavil. "Is it an original?" asked a young lady who was visiting one of their shops, as she paused before an attributive Veronese, or—what know I?—perhaps ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... his piece cavil'd at By partial critics, and his adversaries Misrepresenting what we're now to play, Pleads his own cause: and you shall be the judges, Whether he merits praise or condemnation. The Synapothnescontes is a piece By Diphilus, a comedy which Plautus, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had picked out here a lip—and there a chin—out of the collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... but the foolish knave has submitted himself to the mercy of a barber, and is without, ready to make a new vow before your lordship, hereafter to leave cavil. ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 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 gate, and moved ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... prosperity in a mining region—in any region for that matter. Is it not so? A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty. Still, there is one other sign; it comes last, but when it does come it establishes beyond cavil that the "flush times" are at the flood. This is the birth of the "literary" paper. The Weekly Occidental, "devoted to literature," made its appearance in Virginia. All the literary people were engaged to write for it. Mr. F. was to edit it. He was a felicitous skirmisher with a pen, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes extempore, or the making of a satirical simile of everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like (whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and such as by device and practice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder), than I do of the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... in affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I am your servant and will accept your judgment without cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned me by the Constitution would be seriously impaired should your judgment be adverse, and I must frankly tell you so because so many critical issues depend upon your verdict. No scruple of taste ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... of the dyspeptic and the 'autocrat of the breakfast table,' who frowns coldly upon the efforts of his young wife in the culinary line and carries off her biscuits to serve as paper weights. The scoffer at occidental table manners will cease to cavil at the genial westerner who eats vegetables with a knife, pie with a spoon, and drinks his coffee from the saucer, a napkin tucked in graceful folds beneath ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... not completely mastered the art of keeping house, Thaddeus was confident that all would go well with them, for their waitress was a jewel, inherited from Bessie's mother, and the cook, though somewhat advanced in years, was beyond cavil, having been known to the family of Thaddeus for a longer period than Thaddeus himself had been. The only uncertain quantity in the household was Norah, the up-stairs girl, who was not only new, but ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... not cavil about the road. Don't you know that I have days when "don't care" masters me—when I'd ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... before they proceeded; and on trial found a vast difference between their beam and ours, no less than ten or eleven maunds on five pigs of lead, every maund being thirty-three pounds English. Seeing he could not have the lead at any weight he pleased, Khojah Nassan began to cavil, saying he would have half money and half goods for his commodities, railing and storming like a madman, calling for the carmen to drive away his goods, and that he would not have any of our lead or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... clearest of all to the memory, with the picture, too, of our ship sailing over the peaceful Sabbath sea, and our own prayers and services celebrated there. So each, in his fashion, and after his kind, is bowing down, and adoring the Father, who is equally above all. Cavil not, you brother or sister, if your neighbour's voice is not like yours; only hope that his words are honest (as far as they may be), and his heart ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the charms of Dona Carmen Montijo, and still not do them justice. Enough to say, that they are beyond cavil. There are men in San Francisco who would dare death for her sake, if sure of her smile to speak approval of the deed; ay, one who would for as much ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... 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. certain ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... more and no other than the craft of a woman and a light o' love. But me-thinks the answer to that is, that the instruments whereby it may please Heaven to work out its purposes are not of our choosing, but of Heaven's; and those that cavil may recall, to their own abashment, how one that was of the same way of life as our Vittoria was permitted by celestial grace to be a minister unto holiness. I will not venture to say that Monna Vittoria did that ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... inquiringly at the little old gentleman. Either the stranger was a relation—and not a popular one—or else the quacking expressions annoyed. For the Man-Who-Makes-Faces was scowling. And, "Cavil, criticism, correction!" he scolded, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... dissatisfaction I may have had with Great-grandfather, let me state it fairly and honestly, he is at least a punctual man. Every time I called he came right away without delay. Let those who are inclined to cavil at the methods of the Spiritualists reflect how impossible it would be to secure such punctuality on anything but a ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... it would be necessary to go on long journeys, and these would entail the expenditure of a good deal of money. Moreover, it was necessary to find a man who would not be afraid of the work attached to the undertaking, and on whose judgment one could rely without doubt or cavil. Owing to the fact that the expenses up to the present had far exceeded the initial calculations, and since it seemed impossible to engage the right sort of man to place in charge of the work, the publisher had become first sceptical and then positive; positive that he would invest ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... night, the doctor told my sister and me that, whatever the greater world might think of the sin at Wayfarer's Tickle, whether innocuous or virulent, Jagger was beyond cavil flagrantly corrupting our poor folk, who were simple-hearted and easy to persuade: that he was, indeed, a nuisance which must ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... because of this that Bishop Sudbury (1370), in order to prevent the scandal of the Dean being excluded when the Chapter were discussing business, attached a prebendal stall to the Deanery, and thereby enabled him to preside, without possibility of cavil, at all meetings ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... entirely at Mount Severn, under the charge of a judicious governess, a very small establishment being kept for them, and the earl paying them impromptu and flying visits. Generous and benevolent she was, timid and sensitive to a degree, gentle, and considerate to all. Do not cavil at her being thus praised—admire and love her whilst you may, she is worthy of it now, in her innocent girlhood; the time will come when such praise would be misplaced. Could the fate that was to overtake his child have been foreseen by the earl, he would have struck ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... then, whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope in every page; Religion, country, genius of his age: Without all these at once before your eyes, Cavil you may, but never criticise, Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still with itself compared, his text peruse; And let your ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... sensitive, and was too satisfied at having gained his object to cavil at Mark's manner of yielding. 'Very well; that's settled,' he said. 'I'm glad you've come to your senses, I'm sure. We'll have you on the Woolsack yet, and we'll say no more ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... alike positivistic could for the time being find it sweet to wash its hands among the innocent, to love the beauty of the Lord's house, and to praise him for ever and ever. It was agreed and settled beyond cavil that God loved his people and continually blessed them, and yet in the world of men tribulation after tribulation did not cease to fall upon them. There was no issue but to assert (what so chastened a spirit could now ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... sweetness of the Devil, When he put on the Cherub to perplex[305] 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 ordered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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 had no soul; but were these gentry to broach ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... next took 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
... and the instincts of a wandering child who has been convinced that all life's motives are egotistical and base. This equality between master and apprentice disappeared the moment Karl took up his position at the mouth of the furnace. At such times Manuel had to obey the German without cavil or delay. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... 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 ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... To the ingenious mind of Fournier an elaborate one occurred. If he could perform it, not only would his hypothesis be established and confirmed beyond all cavil, but a, field of scientific research also be opened such as was yet undreamed of. However, for this experiment subjects were needed. Brutes, beasts of the field? Not so: that were easy to achieve. Human beings, two living, healthy men, one white, one black, were the requirements. Impossible! The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... comports with our best interests, or that is essential for us to know concerning himself and his government of our world, is revealed in this Holy Volume; and if there are some things in the moral government of God, which we cannot comprehend, we have no right to cavil. "The Judge of all the earth ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... 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 ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... succeeded in purchasing, after much talk, a pair of moccasins that Hazel conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pattern of beads and the ornamentation of colored porcupine quills. Her feminine soul could not cavil when Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her mind was set against accepting any peace tokens ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... answered 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 will treat you as such. So, Diana, will you give ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... but as the latter fact is doubtful, consequently the etymology founded upon it is shaken. It has been already stated that the Druids were magistrates and philosophers, and very few etymologists will cavil with me if we fix it at once upon the Celtic word ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... 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 Within his breast ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... of the Senate; not brought forward weeks ago, when there was ample time for discussion, but only at this moment, without any reference to the late period of the session. The amendment which I offer proposes to remove one chief occasion of these extraordinary expenses. Beyond all controversy or cavil it is strictly in order. And now, at last, among these final, crowded days of our duties here, but at this earliest opportunity, I am to be heard,—not as a favor, but as a right. The graceful usages of this body may be abandoned, but the established privileges of debate ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... understandings we conceived might most tend to the preservation of Peace and Unity in the Church; the procuring of Reverence, and exciting of Piety and Devotion in the Public Worship of God; and the cutting off occasion from them that seek occasion of cavil or quarrel against the Liturgy of the Church. And as to the several variations from the former Book, whether by Alteration, Addition, or otherwise, it shall suffice to give this general account, That most of the Alterations were made, either first, for the better direction of them that are to ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... some years since to that spirit of depreciation and hostility which it has been his misfortune to excite amongst the general contributors to the periodical press for the consciousness that every endeavor will be made to cavil, to distort, to misrepresent, and, in fine, if possible, to RUN DOWN, will occasionally haunt even the hours of composition, to check the inspiration, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pursued every opportunity for new work, new sensations, fresh emotion. He desired to absorb as much on life's eager forward way as his great nature craved. His range in all things—mental, physical, and spiritual—was so far beyond the ordinary that the gage of average cannot be applied to him. The cavil of the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... was, Mr. Neal was not embittered. There was one thing that he knew now beyond all cavil or doubt: he knew that he should find the man with the good face. He knew that he should eventually meet him somewhere, sometime, and come to know him. How Mr. Neal longed for that time words cannot describe, but his settled faith that his desire ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the women-workers toil bravely on, heartening each other with jests under conditions in which it is extremely likely men would merely cavil and sulk and fill the air with their complainings; dressing themselves daintily through personal effort in spite of meagre purses; throwing themselves with a splendid joyousness into their few precious days of freedom; ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... said Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at idle ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... listen to me, Elsie," he said, with a passionate intensity that stilled the rising storm in her bosom. "Doctor Christobal may have pleaded his own cause already. It is not for me to cavil at him for doing that. But I cannot lose you without a word. Whether you marry him or me, or neither of us, I shall love you for ever. I want you to know that. It is no new discovery to me. I think my heart went ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... there is such pain—such sinning." Yet look again—behold how much is right! And He who formed the world from its beginning Knows how to guide it upward to the light. Your task, O man, is not to carp and cavil At God's achievements, but with purpose strong To cling to good, and turn away from evil. That is the way to help the ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... faithful guides to you, 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 heavily weighted with the weariness of life; in the wilderness of ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... 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 comforts of religion, and in his epitaph he commends his soul to God, ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... 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 ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... of its truth than another, for that all the miracles of the respective founders depended upon tradition. This I denied. He acknowledged that the writer of the Zendavesta was not cotemporary with Zoroaster. After disputing and raising objections he was left without an answer, but continued to cavil. 'Why' said he, 'did the Magi see the star in the East and none else? from what part of the East did they come? and how was it possible that their king should come to Jerusalem in seven days?' The last piece of information he had ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... "Beyond a cavil; as may be seen by divers particulars in his outward conformation, viz: in the shape of the head, the muscles of the arms and of the legs, the air and gait, besides sundry other signs, that are familiar to men who have made the physical peculiarities ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and virgin bride was the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... grace of two men—of your father and of Walter Skirving. And do not think that they keep their mouths sealed by any love for me. Were there only my own life and good name to consider, they would speak instantly, and I should be deposed, without cavil or word spoken in my own defence. Nay, by what I have already spoken, I have put myself in your hands. All that you have to do is simply to rise in your place on the Sabbath morn and tell the congregation what I have told you— that the minister of the Marrow kirk in Dullarg is a man ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Trained side by side with its sighted companions, doing the same work as well, if not better, the later success of the young blind seeker after knowledge is practically assured; for, as I have said, in mental attainment, at least, the blind child is the peer of the child with eyesight,—here, beyond cavil, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... had many wounded and killed. They won the upper hand, however, owing to the arrival of fresh troops by rail, who were fired upon at the station. The truth of the foregoing statements is established beyond all cavil. The City Hall was saved, but further attempts to extinguish ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... possess; and it may all be worthy of our eulogiums, until we compare ourselves in these, as in other particulars, with Him who produced them. Then, indeed, the utter insignificance of our means becomes too apparent to admit of a cavil. We know that we are born, and that we die; science has been able to grapple with all the phenomena of these two great physical facts, with the exception of the most material of all—those which should tell us what is life, and what is death. Something that we cannot ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... shall cause the roof to be forgotten, thrown off like an eschar from the living frame. Nevertheless, we must always admit that it may be forgotten, and that if the Gothic seal be indeed set firmly on the walls, we are not to cavil at the forms reserved for the tiles and leads. For, observe, as our definition at present stands, being understood of large roofs only, it will allow a conical glass-furnace to be a Gothic building, but will not allow so much, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... 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 of the ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... consider them as reliable; or, if the latter points be lacking from the supernatural character of the occurrences related, yet the evidence of authenticity may be so overwhelming as to place the accuracy of the accounts beyond cavil. But if external evidence be wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of history, and to place them in the fairy gardens of fancy and of myth, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... said Maurice, puffing into Johann's face. "When cabinet ministers play spy, small fry like you will not cavil at the occupation. And you are not in their pay?" Johann glared. "I want to know," Maurice went on, "what you know; what you know of Colonel Beauvais, his plans, his messengers to the duchy, what ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... denunciation of war seemed more consistent with the dignity of the Roman people, both before and now, especially when Saguntum was destroyed, than to cavil in words about the obligation of treaties. For if it was a subject for a controversy of words, in what was the treaty of Hasdrubal to be compared with the former treaty of Lutatius, which was altered? ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... assertion. If ever there was a clear record of faithfulness and devotion, of sacrifice, of love of principle, and earnest, unselfish work for unselfish ends, the women toilers of Brook Farm can claim it and secure it without cavil. Morning and evening, in season and out of season, in heat and cold, they were ever at their posts. And the self-imposed toil made them grow great. It opened their hearts as they daily ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... farce, and its favors are follies; but farces and follies are very dear to human hearts.' I could not help saying, 'When its favors are well-earned I think they cease to be follies.' It was, at the best, bad taste to cavil in that way at Henri, who is so brave and enthusiastic, and has come all the way from his own and his father's native France because his mother's land needed brave, true men. And he is going away next week; if he could only send us news ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... Evans, Deputy-Surveyor of Lands, came forward at this stage as the most prominent figure in Australian exploration. To him is due the honour, without dispute or cavil, of being the first discoverer of an Australian river flowing into the interior. For some reason he has never received adequate recognition of his important explorations, and he is well-nigh forgotten by the people of New South Wales, the state that has benefited ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... craving to spike them in a more concrete fashion pervaded the minds of hundreds. The cavil against the Colonel abated not a jot; the epithets hurled at his devoted head were as picturesque as of yore. But side by side with this domestic hostility there had developed a deeper, less noisy feeling of resentment against the dear Boers themselves. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... 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 ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... inspirations of some long-buried Persian, some mute inglorious Hindoo, dead and forgotten ages since. It may be over every game there watches the forgotten forerunners of the players, and that chess is indeed a dead game, a haunted game, played out centuries ago, even, as beyond all cavil, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... knowledge.[163] Devoting all work to me, with (thy) mind directed to self, engage in battle, without desire, without affection and with thy (heart's) weakness dispelled.[164] Those men who always follow this opinion of mine with faith and without cavil attain to final emancipation even by work. But they who cavil at and do not follow this opinion of mine, know, that, bereft of all knowledge and without discrimination, they are ruined. Even a wise man acts according to his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... at last begun to see light ahead. She went again and yet again to see Daisy, and each visit added to her tranquillity of mind. Daisy was wonderfully brisk for an invalid, and her baby was an endless source of interest. Even Lady Bassett could not cavil when her charge spoke of going to nursery tea at Mrs. Musgrave's. She made no attempt to check the ripening friendship, though Muriel was subtly aware that she did not approve ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... revolution which had taken place, and demanding the recognition of the young Almagro as governor of Peru. Where the summons was accompanied by a military force, as at Truxillo and Arequipa, it was obeyed without much cavil. But in other cities a colder assent was given, and in some the requisition was treated with contempt. In Cuzco, the place of most importance next to Lima, a considerable number of the Almagro faction secured the ascendency ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... were-wolfs, than to 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 which ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... (it has been said) would not evade disputation, if a man could find his interest in disputing it: such is the spirit of cavil. But I, upon a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page of prose that could be selected from the best writer in the English language (far less in the German) which, upon a sufficient interest arising, would not furnish matter, simply through its defects in precision, for a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... she 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 ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... 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. The proprietor of the corn ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Ts'i officially proclaimed himself Protector in the year 679 B.C., which is one of the fixed dates in Chinese history about which there is no cavil or doubt, He soon found himself embroiled in war with the Tartars, who were raiding both the state to his north in the Peking plain, and also the minor state, south of the Yellow River, that his predecessor has protected specially ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... is termed organic dis- ease as certainly as it produces hysteria, and it must re- 177:3 linquish all its errors, sicknesses, and sins. I have demonstrated this beyond all cavil. The evidence of divine Mind's healing power and abso- 177:6 lute control is to me as certain as the evidence ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... will disarm any cavil from old quarters on the score of national prejudice. The hero is a blundering fellow whom no English or other gentleman would like to have in his service; but still he has some redeeming natural traits: he is not made either a brute or ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... be up and doing. I threw my cynicism to one side as a garment which I might don again at leisure, and I rushed wildly to my boat and my sculls. She was a leaky tub, but what then? Was I, who had cast many a wistful, doubtful glance at my opium bottle, to begin now to weigh chances and to cavil at danger. I dragged her down to the sea with the strength of a maniac and sprang in. For a moment or two it was a question whether she could live among the boiling surge, but a dozen frantic strokes ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... may, 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
... dozen as good. But he has his faults, and the chief one is mannerism, certain peculiar ways that prevent the spectator from forgetting the actor in the person he represents, trifles, which it may be hypercritical to cavil at, but which nevertheless spoil the illusion, and compel the exclamation, "There is Farren." Take for example his favourite trick of scratching his upper lip with his forefinger. We have seen Bouffe many times—less frequently, certainly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Haply the tale was true; yet will not seem Likely to one of sober sense possessed: But Sacripant, who waked from worser dream, In all without a cavil acquiesced: Since love, who sees without one guiding gleam, Spies in broad day but that which likes him best: For one sign of the afflicted man's disease Is to give ready faith to ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... that the explicit testimony of our Lord should for ever forestall all cavil on this point. "The servant abideth not in the house FOR EVER, but the Son, abideth ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... account illegal, it was pretended to be equivalent to a dissolution. The consequence seems by no means just; and besides, a later act, that which repealed the triennial law, had determined, that it was necessary to hold parliaments only once in three years. Such weight, however was put on this cavil, that Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, insisted strenuously in the house of peers on the invalidity of the parliament, and the nullity of all its future acts. For such dangerous positions they were sent to the Tower, there to remain during the pleasure of his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... with the Sovereign. A paper had indeed been circulated, in which the logic of a small sharp pettifogger was employed to prove that writs, issued in the joint names of William and Mary, ceased to be of force as soon as William reigned alone. But this paltry cavil had completely failed. It had not even been mentioned in the Lower House, and had been mentioned in the Upper only to be contemptuously overruled. The whole Magistracy of the City swelled the procession. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... say, it is nothing? Nay, though I have never been famed as a preacher, I do believe that what I have preached has told upon the hearts of my hearers as deeply, perhaps, as what is commonly called eloquence. But when you speak of my work as "put beyond cavil and beyond forgetfulness," I cover my face with my ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... 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 your ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... infer'rible; transfer', a trans'fer, trans'ferable, or transfer'rible. 3. But letters doubled in Latin, are usually doubled in English, without regard to accent, or to any other principle: as, Britain, Britan'nic, Britannia; appeal, appel'lant; argil, argil'laus, argilla'ceous; cavil, cav'illous, cavilla'tion; excel', ex'cellent, ex'cellence; inflame', inflam'mable, inflamma'tion. See Observations ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown |
