"Intermeddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... judgment, in keeping men from the ordinances in cases of scandal not enumerated. Ans. 1. The presbyters of the Assembly and others, are so far from the domineering humor of Diotrephes, that they could gladly and heartily have quitted all intermeddling in church government, if Jesus Christ had not by office engaged them thereto; only to have dispensed the word and sacraments would have procured them less hatred, and more case. 2. They desired liberty ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... 24. The recent assumption of authority by the military officials seems to have extinguished the Treasury Department in Port Royal. It is a difficult case to reach, for this officious intermeddling bears the semblance of earnest and zealous watchfulness of the public interests. Any representations at Washington will avail nothing, so long as Colonel H. cherishes the idea, or pretends to, that it is not for the public welfare to have us sell bacon and 'lasses ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... his heart upon her as his daughter-in-law that was to be; he was therefore very much disturbed by Scythrop's untoward attachment to Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... the heads of departments are constantly changing in this country. The reformer of to-day may to-morrow be superseded by a retrogressive-minded mediocrity; and there would be no guarantee that the beneficial influence of the one would not be annihilated afterwards by the pernicious intermeddling ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... "Ah, what would please me! Don't put it off on 'me'! Judge absolutely for yourself"—he slightly took himself up—"in the light of my having consented to do for him what I always hate to do: deviate from my normal practice of never intermeddling. If I've deviated now you can judge. But to do so all round, of course, ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... against the danger. Yet the exaggeration in question was hardly without its meaning. Accordingly we find it stated, that an unsymmetrical profile, with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, denoted an idle, inquisitive, and intermeddling busy- body, [Footnote: See Jul. Pollux, in the section of comic masks. Compare Platonius as above, and Quinctilian, 1. xi. c. 3. The supposed wonderful discovery of Voltaire respecting tragic masks, which I mentioned in the fourth Lecture, will hardly be forgotten.] and we may in fact ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... think sometimes of a poetical figure of speech amid the dry technical phrases of English law: you know what is meant by the law of Mortmain; and you like to think that even your dead hand may be felt to be kindly intermeddling yet in the affairs of those who were your dearest: that some little sum, slender, perhaps, but as liberal as you could make it, may come in periodically when it is wanted, and seem like the gift of a thoughtful, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... and the commonalty of the kingdom." He dwells on the peculation and extravagance of the administration, under "the Duumvirate" of the Viceroy and the Primate, which he compares with the league of Strafford and Laud. He denounces more especially Lord George Sackville, son to Dorset, for his intermeddling in every branch of administration. He speaks of Dr. Stone as "a greedy churchman, who affects to be a second Wolsey in the senate." This high-toned memorial struck with astonishment the English ministers, who did not hesitate to hint, that, in a reign less merciful, it would ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... course can have no other effect than to subject to the discretion of the Judges the Law of Parliament and the privileges of the House of Commons, and in a great measure the judicial privileges of the Peers themselves: any intermeddling in which on their part we conceive to be a dangerous and unwarrantable assumption of power. It is contrary to what has been declared by Lord Coke himself, in a passage before quoted, to be the duty of the Judges,—and to what the Judges of former times have confessed to be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... otherwise than through his ministers—sincerely, I believe, desires the good of his subjects, is kind toward the distressed, and moves and speaks "every inch a king."[371] I am sure such a man is fitter for us than one who would long to head armies, or be perpetually intermeddling with la grande politique. A sort of reserve, which creeps on him daily, and prevents his going to places of public resort, is a disadvantage, and prevents his being so generally popular as is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be for any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read "Darby and Joan," in Mrs. Moxon's first album. There you'll see how beautiful in age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... insomnia; pervigilium^, insomnium^; racketing. movement, bustle, stir, fuss, ado, bother, pottering, fidget, fidgetiness; flurry &c (haste) 684. officiousness; dabbling, meddling; interference, interposition, intermeddling; tampering with, intrigue. press of business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. housewife, busy bee; new brooms; sharp fellow, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... disposed," said Shelburne, "to expect everything from Dr. Franklin's comprehensive understanding and character." The like feeling, strengthened by personal confidence and regard, went far to keep de Vergennes from untimely intermeddling and from advancing embarrassing claims of supervision. Altogether, it was again the case that Franklin's prestige in Europe was invaluable to America, and it is certainly true that beneath its protection Jay and Adams were able to do their work to advantage. Had they ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... are so fond of the leavings of popish dregs.'" When the conformist party had triumphed at Frankfort, they "wrote to Mr. Calvin to countenance their proceedings; which that great divine could not do; but after a modest excuse for intermeddling in their affairs, told them, that, 'in his opinion, they were too much addicted to the English ceremonies; nor could he see to what purpose it was to burden the church with such hurtful and offensive things, when there was liberty ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... suffers from the political nonexistence of half the citizens of the republic. Either women are interested in politics or they are not. If the former, the country is distinctly injured, for nothing is more fatal to good government than the intermeddling of a large body of people who have never studied the questions at issue and whose only interest is a personal one. If, on the other hand, women are not interested in politics, what is the condition of that country, half of whose citizens do not care whether it be well or ill governed? ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... upon us their inventions, half of which are worthless,' say they. 'They cheat us with their wares, their manufactures, their patents, and nostrums. They grow rich on our necessities, and take the world's trade from our harbors, so superior to theirs, and they are always busy, and intermeddling in everybody's affairs; and we hate them—ah, how we do hate them!' In short, a certain leading class at the South, that which moulds and leads the hollow, shrinking, scared thing they called public opinion, have come to hate and detest everything distinctively ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Light Woman" is the story of a dramatic situation brought about by the speaker's intermeddling to save his less sophisticated friend from a light woman's toils. He deflects her interest and wins her heart, and this is the ironical outcome: his friendly, dispassionate act makes him seem to his friend ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... lady sent for Mr Scout, whom she attacked most violently for intermeddling with her servants, which he denied, and indeed with truth, for he had only asserted accidentally, and perhaps rightly, that a year's service gained a settlement; and so far he owned he might have formerly informed the parson and believed ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Jonath.), and that "she was not drawn out by the head, lest she should be vain; nor by the eyes, lest she should be wanton; nor from the mouth, lest she should be given to garrulity; nor by the ears, lest she should be an eavesdropper; nor by the hands, lest she should be intermeddling; nor by the feet, lest she be a gadder; nor by the heart, for fear she should be jealous; but she was taken out from the side. Yet, in spite of all these precautions, she had all the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... compiled of those, and all other sorts of men, who either through their careless and neutral on looking, make no help to the troubled and disquieted church of Christ, or through their nocent accession and overthwart intermeddling, work out her greater harm, alas! how few feeling members were there to be found behind who truly lay to heart her estate and condition? Nevertheless, in the worst times, either of raging persecution or prevailing defection, as God Almighty hath ever hitherto, so both now, and to the end, he will ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... and constitution of ecclesiastical polity there are divers ranks and degrees: which I shall consider in their respective order, merely as they are taken notice of by the secular laws of England; without intermeddling with the canons and constitutions, by which they have bound themselves. And under each division I shall consider, 1. The method of their appointment; 2. Their rights and duties; and 3. The manner wherein their character ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... taken a very general part in opposition to his father's Government and wishes, that he was naturally anxious to exonerate himself from blame, and to blame it upon the necessity of his position rather than upon his own restless and intermeddling disposition. But Lord Melbourne agrees with your Majesty that his excuse was neither valid nor justifiable, and Lord Melbourne earnestly hopes that your Majesty and the Prince may be successful in training and instructing the young Prince of ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... somewhat strained relations which had sprung up between us since the time when he took up the cudgels for me on the occasion of the production of Lohengrin. The misunderstanding had been chiefly due to the intermeddling of his brother-in-law Heinrich (who had written a pamphlet about me). We played and sang together; he accompanied me in some of his songs, and my compositions for the Nibelungen seemed to please him. But one day, when the Wesendoncks asked him to dinner to meet me, he begged that he might be ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Councils of State, whose voice, when loudly and firmly raised, was decisive on all questions of foreign and domestic policy. There was no part of the whole system of Government with which they had not power to interfere by advice equivalent to command; and, if they abstained from intermeddling with some departments of the executive administration, they were withheld from doing so only by their own moderation, and by the confidence which they reposed in the Ministers of the Crown. There is perhaps no other instance in history ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... casual looks and words, she could not help gathering of their history. The Lairds of Staneholme had wild moss-trooper blood in their veins, and they had vindicated it to the last generation by unsettled lives, reckless intermeddling with public affairs, and inveterate feuds ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... business all the week besides. That the women should be dutiful and affectionate to their husbands,—looking after nobody's concerns but their own,—eschewing all gossipings and morning gaddings,—and carrying short tongues and long petticoats. That the men should abstain from intermeddling in public concerns, intrusting the cares of government to the officers appointed to support them,—staying at home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, and getting children for the benefit of their country. That the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... resolution denounced Walker's inaugural address, and asked his removal from office. The Democratic State Convention of Mississippi followed suit, and called the inaugural address an unjust discrimination against the rights of the South, and a dictatorial intermeddling with the high public duty ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... said, and then she turned and gave one long, mournful look at the mountains and the sea and the great stretch of moorland. Tallisker knew in his heart she was bidding farewell to them. He had no word to say. There are moods of the soul beyond all human intermeddling. ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the operations of certain medicines upon the system in a state of health or disease, so that our trusty followers may not be left to the tender mercies and physicking propensities of ignorant stablemen, or the officious intermeddling ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... wrong state; for everything is beautiful and perfect in its place. It may be answered, "Yes, in its place; but its place is not yours. You had no business to look at it, and must pay the penalty for intermeddling." I doubt that answer; for surely, if man have liberty to do anything, he has liberty to search out freely his heavenly Father's works; and yet every one seems to have his antipathic animal; and I ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... consideration. I do not touch upon these; I only ask you to remember the grand ideal of my text, which applies to the narrowest circle—the family; and to the wider circles—the city and the nation, as well as to the world. Time was when a bastard piety shrank back from intermeddling with these affairs and gathered up its skirts about it in an ecstasy of unwholesome unworldliness. There is not much danger of that now, when Christian men are in the full swim of the currents of civic, professional, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... rescript of the same emperors settled that a man is entitled to be excused from becoming his own wife's curator, even after intermeddling with her affairs. ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... into my mind, that houses and furniture, scrubbed floors, white curtains, bright tins and brasses were the great, awful, permanent facts of existence,—and that men and women, and particularly children, were the meddlesome intruders upon this divine order, every trace of whose intermeddling must be scrubbed out and obliterated in the quickest way possible. It seemed evident to me that houses would be far more perfect, if nobody lived in them at all; but that, as men had really and absurdly taken to living in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... not compel her to work for him. And if she separate from him for cause, he may be restrained for intermeddling with her earnings. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... seconds in making an impression on Silas's mind, and then he slowly turned his face full upon her. It was a terrible look. The squared jaw, the drawn lips, the dull, distant stare, repulsed her as one might repulse a stranger intermeddling with a bitter private grief. Who was she, to come between him and his brother? He did not seem to think it worth while to say anything to explain so eloquent a glance, but immediately faced about again, as if dismissing the interruption ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the town. A quarrel ensued which ended in the appearance of this personage, together with the commander of the military force on guard in the cathedral, before the banqueting company. The Count, in the rough way habitual with him, gave the culprit a sound rebuke for his intermeddling, and threatened, in case the offence were repeated, to have him instantly bound, gagged, and forwarded to Brussels for further punishment. The matter thus satisfactorily adjusted, the banquet proceeded, the merchants present being all delighted at seeing the said ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... diverted by his testamentary disposition. A married woman can carry on business in her own name, on complying with certain formalities, and her stock, capital and earnings are not liable to her husband's creditors, or his intermeddling. The husband and father, as such, has no rights superior to those of the wife and mother, in regard to the care, custody, education and control of the children of their marriage, while such husband and wife live separate and apart from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... was a gross infringement upon our copyrights. What business had the professional politicians with a great reform movement? The influence and dignity of journalism were at stake. The press was imperilled. We, its custodians, could brook no such deflection, not to say defiance, from intermeddling office seekers, especially from broken-down ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... that misguided sympathy in favor of what was presumed to be a general effort in behalf of popular rights, and which in some instances misled a few of our more inexperienced citizens, has subsided into a rational conviction strongly opposed to all intermeddling with the internal affairs of our neighbors. The people of the United States feel, as it is hoped they always will, a warm solicitude for the success of all who are sincerely endeavoring to improve the political condition of mankind. This generous feeling they cherish toward the most distant ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... facing a straight, soldierly looking man, and listened to the slow dropping of words that scalded your heart like molten metal? Have you forgotten, too, the look on his handsome face when he uttered his protest at the persistent intermeddling of another, and the square of his broad shoulders as he disappeared through the open door never to ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in reading thy book, I doubted at first, and for a long continuance, whether thou couldst have been serious; and whether it were not rather a satire on those busy-bodies who are incessantly intermeddling in other people's affairs. It was only on the protestation of thy intimate friends that I believed thee to have written it in earnest. As for thy question, it is idle to stoop and pick out absurdities from a mass of inconsistency and injustice; but another and another I could throw ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... discovery of this feeling in the girl that the intermeddling sister-in-law founded her charge against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... French politics and philosophical speculation. What was the cause why English deists wrote and taught their creed in vain, were despised while living and consigned to oblivion when dead, refrained almost entirely from political intermeddling, and left the church in England unhurt by the struggle; while on the other hand deism in France became omnipotent, absorbed the intellect of the country, swept away the church, and remodelled the state? The answer to this question must be sought in the antecedent ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... champions of the west of Europe; by those two hands which in the north-west of the world were those that best bestowed bounty, and pay, and reward; those twin loved pillars of valour of the Gael; those two keys of the bravery of the Gaels, brought to fight from afar, owing to the urging and the intermeddling of Ailill and Maev. From the dawn till the middle of the day, each began to shoot at the other with his massive weapons; and when midday had come, the wrath of the two men became more furious, and ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... word was finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... conscience. Is it just? This will is not in my favor. It does not even recognize my existence. It devises property, of large value, in another line; and there may be heirs ready to take possession, the moment its existence is made known to them. Am I not intermeddling, unjustly, in the ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... hands; the urgent need for a system of national education; the mischief of the mere military spirit; the prudence of uniting communities by the multiplication of international interests; the abandonment of the policy of diplomatic and military intermeddling; the advocacy, in short, of the common good in place of a spurious patriotism, of selfish, local, or class aims, formed the subject of Cobden's public utterances. But his intimate friends, and in particular his regular correspondents, were aware that ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... interrupted, 'but if you were possessed of ordinary modesty, you would refrain from intermeddling when you saw what a blasted time I had to keep that great Bear, across there, from breaking his chain and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... agents carry on their operations in secret; who drag every man's most private affairs before the sight of thousands and seek to mangle and destroy his life, trying him without a witness, condemning him without a hearing, nor suffering him to speak for himself, intermeddling in things of which they have no knowledge and cannot on any principle have a jurisdiction * * * I mean the ignorant, unprincipled, unhallowed spirit of criticism, which in this Protestant country is producing as foul effects against truth, and by as dishonest means as ever did the Inquisition of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... conditional on the relaxation of the penal laws against the Catholics. It was suspected, and the suspicion was soon to be changed into certainty, that in spite of this promise such a relaxation had been stipulated, and that a foreign power had again been given the right of intermeddling in the civil affairs of the realm. The general distrust of the new king was intensified by the conduct of the war. In granting its subsidies the Parliament of 1624 had restricted them to the purposes of a naval war, and that a war with Spain. It had ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... of April." Aguado arrived at Isabella about the month of October, when the admiral was absent in the province of Maguana, prosecuting the war against the brothers of Caunabo. He immediately began to carry himself with a high hand, intermeddling in the government, reproving some of the officers of the colony who had been appointed by the admiral, imprisoning others, and paying no respect to Don Bartholomew Columbus, who had been left to govern the town of Isabella. He even resolved to go after the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... good-will of James's business and was now master of Jess and her cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said, rather rudely, "What's YOUR business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put off. "Where's Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, '"Deed, sir, Rab's deid." "Dead! what did he die of?" "Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rackpin; there was nae ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... of our present types of speculative and conjectural science, he seemed to overstep the limits which God has prescribed to us in our present probationary state, and to make the human a measure of the Divine, it was done not presumptuously, from a spirit of conceited and ambitious intermeddling with things forbidden, but unconsciously, from an honest desire for knowledge. When he perceived, as he was not slow to perceive, that many of the objects which now so much allure the learned men of the world, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... us, but if they are too big for us, let us avoid them by every means in our power. If we are in doubt we ought not to vote. The question which we are incapable of settling will be settled better by Time than by the intermeddling of ignorance. ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... succeed; but I know of no reason why my prospects are not as good as those of A, B, and C, to say the least. I am certainly as good a workman, and know as well how to manage, and attend to my own concerns, without intermeddling with those of others. It is true my friends advise me to work as a journeyman a few years longer; but it is a hard way of living. Besides, what shall I learn all this while, that I do not already know? They say I shall be improving in the practical part of my business, if not ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... this evening, which the goatherds could not account for, nor any of their men. Suspecting that they were hidden for a private feast, I told their chief to inquire farther, and report. The upshot was, that the man was thrashed for intermeddling, and came back only with his scars. This was a nice sort of insubordination, which of course could not be endured. The goatherd was pinioned and brought to trial, for the double offence of losing the goats and rough-handling his chief. The tricking scoundrel—on ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... but with all possible efficiency, to take steps which shall preserve order within and on the confines of your kingdom. But I shall repudiate and denounce the expenditure of every shilling, the engagement of every man, the employment of every ship which has no object but intermeddling in the affairs of other countries and endeavouring to extend the boundaries of an Empire which is already large enough to satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for the highest statesmanship to which any man ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... make herself responsible for Tibet's shortcomings would be a questionable policy, against which two wars ought to be a sufficient warning. She was involved with France by her interference in Tongking and with Japan by interference in Korea. Too much intermeddling in Tibet might easily embroil her with ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin |
