"Irritable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more irritable than the feelings of a culinary artist, I was expecting a sharp answer; but just then the advocate came in. He had heard the end of our dialogue, and told me that not only would the man find plenty of witnesses to his skill, but that I should find a very great difficulty in getting anybody at all ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... man stared at him in a dull, heavy way? Dale would reply that there was no harm in that, and he would look weak. But all the same the man's stare worried him and spoiled his breakfast, making him feel irritable and morose all the way back, till they reached Andregg's home in the valley, where Dale announced that they would have a ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... relieving it. All her movements had grown languid; all her usual occupations were pursued with the same weary indifference; she spent hours alone in her own room; she lost her interest in being brightly and prettily dressed; her eyes were heavy, her nerves were irritable, her complexion was altered visibly for the worse—in one word, she had become an oppression and a weariness to herself and to all about her. Stoutly as Miss Garth contended with these growing domestic difficulties, her own spirits suffered in the effort. Her ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... some cases irritable, and great restlessness and involuntary movement, accompanied even with twisting of the neck, shows itself. This will yield to skilful cooling of the spinal nerves with damp cloths. See ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... were showered upon her to her face. The rudeness of these accusations was only equalled by their unexpectedness. The aged General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov, an old friend and comrade of the late General Stavrogin's, known to us all here as an extremely stubborn and irritable, though very estimable, man (in his own way, of course), who ate a great deal, and was dreadfully afraid of atheism, quarrelled at one of Varvara Petrovna's parties with a distinguished young man. The latter ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Nolan still irritable and explosive, and danced once with Natalie, his only dance of the evening. Then, finding that Rodney Page would see her to her car later, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of his party; not because Burke declined in wisdom or energy, but because Fox had more skill as a debater, more popular sympathies, and more influential friends. Burke, like Gladstone, was too stern, too irritable, too imperious, too intellectually proud, perhaps too unyielding, to control such an ignorant, prejudiced, and aristocratic body as the House of Commons, jealous of his ascendency and writhing under his rebukes. It must have been galling to the great philosopher ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... These irritable symptoms had assumed appearances of increased malignity during the session of Congress which had just terminated; and, to Washington, who firmly believed that the Union and the liberty of the States ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... with fair or sandy-coloured hair and blue eyes. He was by no means good-looking, yet with a very pleasant, amiable expression; in conversation he was cheerful and agreeable when quite at ease, but of a timid, nervous, and irritable temperament, often at war with his fellow-philosophers upon disputed subjects, and extremely jealous upon priority of discovery. I was much indebted to Sir David, for he reviewed my book on the "Connexion of the Physical Sciences," in the April number of the "Edinburgh ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... mechanical does one's brain become under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself "Now!" the chime did not ring out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at three o'clock on a sleepless morning the grasshopper is ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Sir Godfrey was evident, for his supper was hardly tasted, and twice over, when Lady Markham spoke to him, and pressed him to eat, he declined in an irritable way. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... planet's crust choose to rage about they cannot affect me! I will not let them. I have power to maintain my own calm, and I will. No earthly being can force me to be false to my principles, or to be blind to the beauty of the universe, or to be gloomy, or to be irritable, or to complain against my lot. For these things depend on the brain; cheerfulness, kindliness, and honest thinking are all within the department of the brain. The disciplined brain can accomplish them. And my brain ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... Newman as a teacher, tell me that he had many eccentricities which perpetually aroused their sense of humour. Sir Edward Fry tells me that his manner, when he himself was at college in 1848, was "somewhat nervous, perhaps even a little irritable, and he was not exactly popular as a professor. But his lectures were very interesting and stimulating." He adds that he was "a very brilliant scholar, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... as ever. Rare times he had at school. One windy day, a little boy, when he entered the school-room, left the door open. "Go back and shut the door," shouted Mr. Cipher, who was very irritable that morning. Another boy entered, and left it open. Mr. Cipher was angry, and spoke to the whole school: "Any one who comes in to-day and does not shut the door will get a flogging. Now remember!" Being very awkward in his manners, ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... a little volume of Shakespeare. "Why, we are the best of friends: we have travelled miles together—all over the world, as a matter of fact. It knows me in all my moods, and responds to each, no matter how irritable I am. Yes, it is pretty badly marked up now, for a fact, isn't it? Black; I never thought of that before that it doesn't make a book look any better to the eye. But it means more to me because of all ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... and smoked. Each of the shabby and poverty-stricken young men had of course fallen hopelessly in love with her at once. This was merely human and inevitable, but realizing in the course of a few weeks that she was too busy taking care of her irritable, boisterous old Manchester father, and everybody else, to have time to be made love to even by young men who could buy new boots when the old ones had ceased to be water-tight, they were obliged to resign themselves to the, after all, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... handsome old man, with thick grey hair, a white military moustache, bushy dark eyebrows, and in his eyes that humorous twinkle that is so often seen in those men of the last generation who are most devoid of a sense of humour. Sir James was liable to the irritable changes of mood that would nowadays be called neurotic or highly strung, but was in his young days merely put down as bad temper. He had a high estimation of his mental powers, and a poor opinion of those who did not share this estimation. ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... excitement played on my nerves. I became restless and irritable, and chafed more and more at my confinement. Whatever was about to happen, I wished it ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... mankind being deprived of the power of reanimating cattle slaughtered for food, the pious abandoned the practice of killing kine altogether. Another story is that Muchiram, the ancestor of the caste, was born from the sweat of Brahma while dancing. He chanced to offend the irritable sage Durvasa, who sent a pretty Brahman widow to allure him into a breach of chastity. Muchiram accosted the widow as mother, and refused to have anything to do with her; but Durvasa used the miraculous power ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... seriously. Books are like individuals; you know at once if they are going to create a sense within the sense, to fever, to madden you in blood and brain, or if they will merely leave you indifferent, or irritable, having unpleasantly disturbed sweet intimate musings as might a draught from an open window. Many are the reasons for love, but I confess I only love woman or book, when it is as a voice of conscience, never heard before, heard suddenly, a voice I am at once ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... is now in the hands of the decorators, is being painted a pale pink outside, a colour which recent experiments have shown to exert a peculiarly humanising and tranquillising influence on persons of an irritable disposition. A sumptuous dormitory is being erected on the top floor, where slow music will be discoursed every afternoon, from three to seven, by a Czecho-Slovak orchestra. A roof-garden is being laid out for the recreation of the staff, and the velocity of the numerous lifts has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... smelled of wood smoke, and tobacco smoke, and dogs; the easy scorn of her old friends on her husband's part that so soon alienated her from them; the drink that she quickly learned to regard with uneasiness and distrust. It was not that Jerry ever got really intoxicated, but he got ugly, excitable, irritable, even though quite in control of his actions ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... more audacious silence, insulted the common sense of all men. Disaffection was secretly, but rapidly, eating into the heart of his power; and yet, as if blinded to all consequences by some angry infliction of heaven, the irritable ambition of Napoleon was already tempting another great ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... which was played for four solid weeks before the crash came, and as many after, and that was Carlo, but, although his feelings found relief in constant growlings and furious barkings, I do believe even his nerves suffered under the constant strain, for he became more and more irritable and restless as time ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... my own, but it gives an idea of the way the conversation was drifting. You can see by his manner that literary people are not alone in being surly, irritable and unreasonable. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... finishing touches to his scheme of flight, the colonel paced his room, whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus" jerkily. He was restless and nervous, and rendered all the more irritable by the disappearance of his servant, a minor member of the gang, who had been a participant in every act of villainy, and who had been in charge of the arrangements for the abduction of Maisie White. Twice in the course of the evening he wandered through the hall, ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... a greater impression at Paris than the Turkish ambassador. He was generous and more gallant, paid his court with more address, and conformed more readily to French customs and manners. The Turk was irascible, austere, and irritable, while the Persian was fond of and well understood a joke. One day, however, he became red with anger, and it must be admitted not ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... irritable, and seemed especially to resent her music lessons, alluding to them with a sort of sneering impatience. She felt that he despised them as amateurish, and secretly resented it. He was often impatient, too, of the time she gave to the baby. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... eager, powerful face,—the eye and beak of an eagle, the jaw of a bull-dog, the face of a born ruler, a man of prey. And yet in the converging lines about the eyes, in the premature gray hair, in the nervous, irritable lips, you can see the promise of early decay, of an age that will be the spoil of superstition and bigotry. It is the face of a man who could make himself emperor and hermit. In his son, Philip II., the soldier dies out and the bigot is intensified. In the fine portrait by Pantoja, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... against her skin, the people in the next flat quarreled more angrily, Judith heard a loud slap, and then the woman began to cry. She was a young married woman, scarcely more than a girl. Her marriage had not been as successful as that of Judith's parents. Both husband and wife had irritable tempers. Through the thin wall Judith could hear the girl sobbing angrily as the man flung himself out of bed, put on his clothes and went out, banging the door ...
— In the Closed Room • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... book Hugo had spoken of the Scottish bagpipes as "bugpipes." This gave some offense to his Scottish admirers. A great many persons told him that the word was "bagpipes," and not "bugpipes." But he replied with irritable obstinacy: ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... time, a word or two of his mental exercise sometimes escaped and mingled with his uttered speech in a manner ludicrous enough, especially as the poor man shrunk himself together after every escape of the kind, from terror of the effect it might produce upon the irritable feelings ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... I see how it is. Miss Eliza is getting on in years; a little irritable, possibly,—though a most excellent person, Doctor,—most excellent! and there being no young people in the house, it's a little dull for Miss Adele, eh, Doctor? Grace, you know, is not with us this winter; so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... ill-behavior of a child cause every association with him in the heart of the parent to be disturbing and painful, how can the result be otherwise than alienating and depressing? Let there be two children in a family, one of whom is invariably obedient, gentle, attentive, ingenuous; the other, irritable, insubordinate, careless, secretive, and untruthful. The former shall be idolized, while the latter is regarded with condemnatory repugnance. The fact that a boy is your son, or that a girl is your daughter, cannot wholly neutralize the repulsiveness of their odious traits. When children uniformly ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... arrive, he is suspicious and irritable, and, of course, soon excommunicated. Then, as he stands in disconsolate anger, looking over the garden fence at the gay group making dandelion chains, and playing baby house under the trees, he wonders why he is not like other children. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... making my acquaintance. Now, I wished the big chief farther off, but, as it seemed rude to refuse the request of one who had been so kind to me, I ordered the oxen to be unyoked but kept at hand, and in an irritable frame of mind walked up to the kraal. This was about half a mile from my place of outspan, for as soon as I was sufficiently recovered I had begun to sleep in my wagon, leaving the big hut to ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... irritable.) "All I've got to say is this, that I don't know which is the worse, she or the play. What is the stage coming to? In my day we used to have something like acting at the old Park. Ah, there was PLACIDE, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... when made from the flowers only, is to be brewed by pouring a pint of boiling water on an ounce of the Hops, and letting it stand until cool. This is an excellent drink in delirium tremens, and will give prompt ease to an irritable bladder. Sherry in which some Hops have been steeped makes a capital stomachic cordial. A pillow, Pulvinar Humuli, stuffed with newly dried Hops was successfully prescribed by Dr. Willis for George the Third, when sedative medicines had failed to give him sleep; and ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... day when we saw Donald and Dorothy perched on the sofa, Mr. Reed had been remarkably changeful, and they had been puzzled and grieved by his manner toward Dorothy. He had been kind and irritable by turns, and finally, for some unaccountable reason, had sharply requested her to leave him, to "go away for mercy's sake," and then she had been recalled on some slight pretext, and treated with extra kindness, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... thought I saw, shapes hideous and indistinct rising before me, but so rapidly that I could not trace their form ere they vanished. I felt convinced it was the mind that was perturbed, acting outwardly upon the senses, rendered more than usually irritable by the alarm and excitation they had undergone—yet I could not shake off the spell. I heard a sharp rustling past my ear; I involuntarily raised my hand; but nothing met my touch save the damp and chilly hair about my temples. I tried to rally myself ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... "Paul Pry," and many other pleasant works, not witty, but full of true humor. He was, when in his prime, a pleasant companion, though nervously sensitive, and, like most professional jokers, exceedingly irritable whenever a joke was made to tell against himself. It is among my memories, that, during the first month of my editorship of the "New Monthly," I took from a mass of submitted manuscripts one written in a small, neat hand, entitled "A New Guide-Book." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... recovered from his wound, was carefully soaping his saddle, and generally preparing his accoutrements for return to full work on the morrow. He had grown particularly sour and irritable with being kept so long out of the saddle. His volcanic temper had become ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... in pursuit of objects which are attainable only by the pleasure of another. The truly independent are those who not only do not solicit favours, but those who do not want them: and there is seen too often, among needy and struggling men of merit, an irritable pride, a "fierte," arising not from a sense of independence, but a consciousness of neglect; and many men boast of the pleasure of an independent life, as many ladies exalt the delights of single blessedness, only because they have never had the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... since the Revolution, the English had been sullen and querulous, unreasonably jealous of the Dutch, and disposed to put the worst construction on every act of the King. Had the fourth of May found our ancestors in such a mood, it can scarcely be doubted that sharp distress, irritating minds already irritable, would have caused an outbreak which must have shaken and might have subverted the throne of William. Happily, at the moment at which the loyalty of the nation was put to the most severe test, the King was more popular than he had ever been since the day on which the Crown was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... evidently wincing under these questions; 'No; there was a man with him, nigh about my size. He went with him. That's all I know about either of them. There, there; get through with your questions. They turn my head,' said he, in an irritable tone. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... the Jewish law had brought the conscience into an extremely irritable state. The same effect, in a less degree, is produced by ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... tired and nervous. Captain Eri and Mrs. Snow were certain that this increasing nervousness on the part of their guest was not due to school troubles alone, but, at any rate, nervous she was, and particularly nervous, and, it must be confessed, somewhat inclined to be irritable, during the supper and ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... worse when her godmother taught her. Concha was coldly cruel, but Amalia became irritable directly; the crying of the child worried her nerves, she flew into a rage like a hungry panther, and finished by striking her frantically until she fell trembling and bleeding ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... pugnacity—secured universal respect. He spent every moment of his spare time in Jimmy's cabin. He tended him, talked to him; was as gentle as a woman, as tenderly gay as an old philanthropist, as sentimentally careful of his nigger as a model slave-owner. But outside he was irritable, explosive as gunpowder, sombre, suspicious, and never more brutal than when most sorrowful. With him it was a tear and a blow: a tear for Jimmy, a blow for any one who did not seem to take a scrupulously orthodox view of Jimmy's ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... an irritable outburst, but to my surprise he turned and preceded me toward the door. We entered the room and found Mr. Bundercombe there alone. Lord Porthoning looked from one to the other of us. His heavy gray eyebrows were drawn together; his face was the ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was not proof against the trials to which it was hourly exposed: perhaps the consciousness that she was not born to the situation in which she now moved, joined to her extreme anxiety to be thought genteel and fashionable, rendered her peculiarly irritable when her person and manners were attacked by ladies of quality. She endeavoured to conciliate her young enemies by every means in her power, and at length she found a method of pleasing them. They were immoderately fond of baubles, and they had not money enough ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... fell over the coop which contained the Shanghai rooster. Irritable as he could be, the bear delayed long enough to strike at this coop. He smashed one end of it flat, but the Shanghai miraculously ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... the child in the way he is counselled to meet others. One must refuse to be in any way a nervous irritant to the child. In that case quite as much instruction is received as given. A child, too, is doubly sensitive; he not only feels the intrusion on his own individuality, but the irritable or self-willed attitude of another in expressing ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... dignified position of a petty officer. But though, in similar cases, I had seen such effects produced upon some of the crew; yet, in the present instance, I knew better than that;—it was solely brought about by his consorting with with those villainous, irritable, ill-tempered cannon; more especially from his being subject to the orders of those deformed blunderbusses, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... acquainted irritable officialdom with details of his find in the Appenines. The sergeant ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... a sufficient living, until he chanced in the spring of 1661 to invade the quiet Wiltshire village of Tedworth. At that time the interests of Tedworth were identical with the interests of a certain Squire Mompesson, and he, being a gouty, irritable individual, was little disposed to have his peace and the peace of Tedworth disturbed by the drummer's loud bawling and louder drumming. At his orders rough hands seized the unhappy wanderer, blows rained upon him, and he was driven from Tedworth minus his drum. In vain he begged the wrathful ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... Chaucer was passing through the Temple with his temper made a little more irritable than usual, it may be by the heat of the sun, it may be by an additional cup of sack, it may be by the thought of an especially stiff piece of reading which was before him—it may be all three together—he met a friar. The priest came along with easy step and shining, rosy ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... went to bed with the squire and arose with him in the morning. The thought that a man whom he had befriended was opposing him rankled deeply. And while in this irritable condition one of the first persons the squire met was David Allison, who had come early ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... who resembles an irritable baboon, I have little to do. The marchioness—a strong woman is also, mercifully, too much engaged upon works of supererogation, which, in a rich bass, she styles "her manifold duties," to observe my existence. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... frank. After this wise determination, I ought to have been philosopher enough to sleep upon the matter, but her ladyship's escapade cost me my night's rest, and took me to her early next morning, in an angry and irritable mood. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and frequently saw his Royal Highness there. The dinners were exquisite; the best Parisian cooks could not beat Labourie. The favourite game played there was macao. Upon one occasion, Jack Bouvrie, brother of Lady Heytesbury, was losing large sums, and became very irritable; Raikes, with bad taste, laughed at Bouverie, and attempted to amuse us with some of his stale jokes; upon which, Bouverie threw his play-bowl, with the few counters it contained, at Raikes's head; unfortunately it struck him, and made the City dandy angry, but no serious results ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... circumstances he would have been a mere social and official automaton had not certain defects of his character saved him. Though timid he was impulsive; he was also a little irritable, rather suspicious, and indomitably fussy in response to the call of duty. Temper, fuss, and curiosity saved him from boredom; he was conscientiously industrious, and though there was much that he did not understand he managed to ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... stayed reasonably in Farewell instead of traipsing off over the range like a tomfool. Might not be back for a week, Swing mightn't. Idiotic caper (with other adjectives) of Swing's, anyway. Why hadn't he used his head? Oh, Racey Dawson was an exceedingly irritable young man as he rode out of Farewell. The aches and pains were still throbbingly alive in his own particular head. The immediate future was not alluring. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate, as I always did on such occasions." How he swore at Randolph and at Freneau is mentioned elsewhere. Jefferson is evidence that "his temper was naturally irritable and high-toned, but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If however it broke its bonds, he was most ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the man's presence she ceased to be the tired, discouraged, irritable woman, and became once more the Evelyn Grant whose vivacity and wit had made her conspicuous ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... round him, no brother or sister elephant with whom he could wave trunks, nod heads, or carry on a conversation in elephant language; he was alone, and preferred to be alone, for his irritable nature and morose disposition made it impossible for ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... came to the sick man as far as Allison could judge, or any one else. Was he getting better? If so, his progress toward health was more slowly made than had been hoped. At times he was restless and irritable, and spared neither nurse, nor doctor, which was taken as a good sign by some who were looking on. But for the most part he was quiet enough, taking little ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... have been because of the dreadfully tired feeling that had come over me since entering the schoolroom: it was really an effort for me to answer him; I felt as if I wanted only to be let alone, and I realised, without being able to control it, that my voice was very irritable as I said briefly, "One has got to be silent ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,—only I like Blackwood for all its Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the gout! Banish Geordie ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... blood. (174) Especially would this seem grievous when provisions were dear. What wonder, then, if in times of peace, when striking miracles had ceased, and no men of paramount authority were forthcoming, the irritable and greedy temper of the people began to wax cold, and at length to fall away from a worship, which, though Divine, was also humiliating, and even hostile, and to seek after something fresh; or can we be surprised that the captains, who always adopt the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... of dysentery which does not seem to affect a whole colony, but confines its ravages to a small number of the bees. In the early stages of this disease, those attacked are excessively irritable, and will attempt to sting any one who comes near the hives. If dissected, their stomachs are found to be already discolored by the disease. In the latter stages of this complaint, they not only lose ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the top button of Mr. Brewster's coat, and was immediately dislodged by an irritable jerk of the other's ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... to God. I said to myself that if Edmee died I should find her again in a better world; that if she survived me and recovered her reason, she would one day succeed in discovering the truth, and that then I should live in her heart as a dear and tender memory. Irritable as I am, and always inclined to violence in the case of anything that is an obstacle or an offence to me, I am astonished at the philosophical resignation and the proud calm I have shown on the momentous occasions of life, and above ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Trail, of Aberdeen, whom I consulted, replied that Coronella laevis or austriaca, is known in Sicily and the adjoining islands; but he can find no evidence of its existence in Malta. It is known to be rather irritable, and to fix its small teeth so firmly into the human skin as to need a little force to pull it off, though the teeth are too short to do any real injury to the skin. Coronella is at a glance very much like a viper; and in the flames it would not be closely ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... school-master, who, though of a gentle disposition, was irritable, taking Andrew for the offender in a certain breach of discipline, gave him a smart box on the ear. Andrew, as readily as if it had been instinctively, turned to him the ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... thought before, of the stoutness of the human composition in the Middle Ages and the tranquillity of nerve of people to whom the groaning captive and the blackness of a "living tomb" were familiar ideas which did not at all interfere with their happiness or their sanity. Our modern nerves, our irritable sympathies, our easy discomforts and fears, make one think (in some relations) less respectfully of human nature. Unless indeed it be true, as I have heard it maintained, that in the Middle Ages every one did go mad—every one was mad. The theory that ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... accepting the post offered her by Mrs. Trevelyan last year, and now she was resolved. The work was really wise, useful work among the poor, which Algitha felt she could do well. At home, there was nothing that she did that the housekeeper could not do better. She felt herself fretting and growing irritable, for mere want of some active employment. This was utterly absurd, in an overworked world. Hadria had her music and her study, at any rate, but Algitha had nothing that seemed worth doing; she did ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he longed to get up and do something, or to go somewhere—would have liked to imitate his white kitten—jump down from the tower and run away, taking the chance of ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... Rand, then bit his lip. He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last. His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage. It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels. Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and flung ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... home late, fagged and irritable, and supplemented their hurried dinner with hastily bought ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... longed to go, for his health had not been of the best, and she felt that they would never have a chance to see him again. Clemens in after years blamed himself harshly for not making the trip, declaring that their whole reason for not going was an irritable reluctance on his part to take the troublesome journey and a perversity of spirit for which there was no real excuse. There is documentary evidence against this harsh conclusion. They were, in fact, delayed here and there by misconnections and the continued terrific weather, barely reaching ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... work or masterly whole. He does not prepare any plan beforehand, nor revise and retouch what he has written with polished accuracy. His only object seems to be to stimulate himself and his readers for the moment—to keep both alive, to drive away ennui, to substitute a feverish and irritable state of excitement for listless indolence or even calm enjoyment. For this purpose he pitches on any subject at random without much thought or delicacy—he is only impatient to begin—and takes care to adorn and enrich it as he proceeds with "thoughts that breathe ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... in her life she felt irritable, and inclined to grumble, and her racked nerves made the lonely hours appear ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... central, modest in point of size, commodious, and favorably known. At this time I was in excellent health and weighed one hundred and forty-three pounds. But from the moment of the public announcement of my lecture, my appetite for food, for meat particularly, began to fail me. "How peevish and irritable he is growing!" I heard one member of the family remark to another. Soon the grocer's scales indicated that my weight was diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,—then to one hundred and forty,—then to one hundred and thirty-eight,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... in these early years he seems to have made L3000 his minimum of needful return—to live in the insane style which his wife and he demanded, an enormous nervous strain was required. Edward Bulwer-Lytton's temper had always been warm and eager; it now grew irritable to the highest degree. His mother continued to exasperate him; his wife suddenly failed to please him; his health waned; and he became the most miserable of men; yet without ceasing for a moment to be the most indefatigable ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... written before to-day, because he had nothing new to lay before your Majesty. Lord Melbourne anxiously hopes she feels some confidence that the present state of the Eastern affairs is such as may lead to a speedy, amicable termination—at the same time, with a nation so irritable as the French, and with the Constitution which they have and which they are unused to exercise, it is impossible to feel secure for a moment. Guizot, when he gave the despatch of Thiers to Lord Palmerston, said that he had nothing to do with the reasonings of that despatch, and would not enter ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... furrows; the laugh of old days was less frequent, and it did not seem to come from the heart. Anxiety, responsibility, care, thought, disasters, defeats, the injustice of friends, wore upon his giant frame, and his nerves of steel became at times irritable. He said one day, with a pathos which language cannot describe, 'I feel as though I ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Pye, but went to my own cabin in an irritable condition. It ought not to have mattered to me that the sister of a millionaire, my employer, should treat me more or less as a lackey; but it did. I threw myself on my bunk and took down a book at random from my little shelf. Out of its pages tumbled an evening news-sheet which I now remembered ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... OF THE SEXES. Generally speaking, how much more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible, and patient is woman than man. The primary matter of which woman is constituted appears to account for this difference. All her organs are tender, yielding, easily wounded, sensible, and receptive; they are made for maternity and affection. ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... naturally of a quick and irritable temper, and he had been a spoilt child all his life. His original education was defective. He lived with the selfish and the self-indulgent, and naturally became selfish and self-indulgent himself. At six years old an old friend of ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Queen proved to be the morbid egotism of an ill-conditioned, ignorant, half-crazy lad; showing that one more danger exists for sovereigns—a peril born entirely of their high and solitary rank with its fascination for envious, irritable, distempered minds. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... weather to be worse than it had been the day before, it was worse this day—wetter, muddier, colder. There were more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and, knowing that Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything matter when one's Magic has just proved itself one's friend. Sara's supper of the night before had given her strength, she knew that she should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in a feverish, irritable mood all that evening, but he made his plans nevertheless with infinite cunning. They must get the bombs away; there must be a couple of atomic hay lorries, the bombs could be hidden under the hay.... Pestovitch went and came, instructing trusty servants, planning and replanning.... ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... in itself that she does not wish for your championship, that in her eyes the trouble in the house is in fact caused by you. You must remember that when a woman loves a man she makes excuses for his faults of temper; his irritable moods, sharp expressions, and what you call snapping and snarling do not seem half so bad to her as they do to a third person, especially when that third person is her partisan. Instead of your adding to her happiness by renouncing your idea of going into the army, and of deciding to remain ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... ground that the mare was his own private property, and that she was essential to the duties he was called on to perform. Failing to gain his ends in this way, the officer continued to worry McGirth in other ways. He no doubt did something to rouse the ire of the scout, who was an irritable man, and who felt the importance of the service he was rendering to the cause. It is not now known how McGirth insulted the officer,—whether in a moment of passion he struck him, or whether he merely used ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... sky beneath which they were nurtured. The great toucan, with a beak nearly as big as his body, flew clumsily from stem to stem. The tiny, delicate humming-birds, scarce larger than bees, fluttered from flower to flower and spray to spray, like points of brilliant green. But they were irritable, passionate little creatures, these lovely things, and quarrelled with each other and fought like very wasps! Enormous butterflies, with wings of deep metallic blue, shot past or hovered in the air like gleams of light; and green paroquets swooped from tree to tree and chattered joyfully ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... considered both pleasant and amiable in the ordinary domestic and social relations, are obnoxious in the school-room, being there habitually sour and fretful. The ever-active children are disqualified for study, and engage in mischief as their only alternative. On the other hand, the irritable teacher, who can hardly look with complaisance upon good behavior, is disposed to magnify the most trifling departure from the rules of propriety. The scholars are continually becoming more ungovernable, and the teacher more unfit to ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... when I succeed to the title and the property. I had thought—and indeed I think still—that if my uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am sure that if you were to speak to ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... fact his own spiritual wrestlings were almost exclusively nocturnal. During his spells of insomnia he led a curiously double existence. In the daytime he was largely the self he had always been, able, assured, ecclesiastical, except that he was a little jaded and irritable or sleepy instead of being quick and bright; he believed in God and the church and the Royal Family and himself securely; in the wakeful night time he experienced a different and novel self, a bare-minded self, bleakly fearless at its best, shamelessly weak ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... at her accustomed time, feeling tired and irritable. She found Delia in the kitchen, preparing a tempting breakfast with ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... Bemmon became increasingly irritable and complaining as the rationing and heat made existence a misery; insisting that Lake and the others were to blame for the food shortage, that their hunting efforts had been bungling and faint-hearted. And he implied, without actually saying ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... his friends came to see him. She brought them up to his bedroom, the air of which was impregnated with a personal odour, and gave them chairs at the fire. Mr. Kernan's tongue, the occasional stinging pain of which had made him somewhat irritable during the day, became more polite. He sat propped up in the bed by pillows and the little colour in his puffy cheeks made them resemble warm cinders. He apologised to his guests for the disorder of the room, but at the same time ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... irritable and sober; he got excited, then he reasoned, approving or blaming his impulses; but in time primitive nature at last proved the stronger; the sensitive man always had the upper hand over the intellectual man. So he tried to discover what had induced this ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... irritable tone, Miss Asenath looked up, startled. It was so decided a contradiction, and not one of the household ever contradicted Miss Eliza. This gentlest one was a trifle the most discerning of the sisters, and she wondered if any other chapters to last ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... made Margaret irritable, and Andy was the most convenient object of wrath in the absence of Dora. Andy started slowly out through the hall; there he turned ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... was bombarded with complaints and bickerings of the officers under him; they seemed to revel in annoying one famed for being of the irritable genus. Once he showed his principal a letter written in answer to a general who had abused him and accused him of favoritism. Lincoln listened with his quizzing air, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... an unreasonable extent. Because of his horrible infirmity, you have let yourselves become his slaves. There are limits to this sort of thing, Esther. I come here as a stranger, and I see nothing more in Mr. Fentolin than a very selfish, irritable, domineering, and capricious old man. Humour him, by all means. I am willing to do the same myself. But when it comes to the great things in life, neither he nor any living person is going to keep from me ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an old folks' home and notice the different spirit shown by the men and women there? The old men are restless and irritable; impatient of their inaction; rebellious against fate. The old women patiently wait, looking out with their dimmed eyes like marooned sailors waiting for a breeze. Poor old patient waiters! you learned the art of waiting in a long hard school, and now you have ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... My father was an officer in the army, and commanded a regiment in the West Indies, where I was born. I was an only child, and very much indulged by both my parents. I lost them while I was a mere child, and was sent to Scotland to be educated by my grandmother. I was an irritable, volatile, spoilt child, and expected that everybody would yield to me, as readily as my slave attendants had done in Jamaica. In this I was disappointed. My grandmother was a proud, ambitious woman, and a strict disciplinarian; and it was a ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... He is in great pain. He may lose the leg. The doctor who has charge of the case is a Major Templeton, an irritable person and, like most of the English, too big a fool to deceive anybody. No, luckily for Mister Jimgrim it is not a trick. Otherwise he would have shared the fate today of Bedreddin Shah the constable. The ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly married a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his unceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov's character had become so soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After living with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and sold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just finished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, Pigasov began a lawsuit with his wife, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... adding in a half compassionate, half irritable tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting very deaf, Davy, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... congested, appearing very much like an inflamed eye. It is this irritating effect of condiments which gives occasion for their extended use. They create an artificial appetite, similar to the incessant craving of the chronic dyspeptic, whose irritable stomach is seldom satisfied. This fact with regard to condiments is a sufficient argument against their use, being one of the greatest causes of gluttony, since they remove the sense of satiety ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... had absolutely declined; and his uncle having found out that he never attended the church service, although he always left the Hall with his father, made this a ground for a quarrel. It at last came to pass that Mr. Prosper, who was jealous and irritable, would hardly speak to his nephew; but the two hundred and fifty pounds went on, with many bickerings on the subject between the parson and the squire. Once, when the squire spoke of discontinuing it, Harry's father reminded him that the young man had been ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... They had a generally demoralizing effect on our household. I was growing irritable, Silvia careworn. Even Huldah showed their influence by acquiring the very latest in slang from them. Once in a while to my amusement I heard Silvia unconsciously ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the truth of what his father had often sought to impress upon his mind,—that the favour of princes was capricious, and that a life of dependence at a court was of all others the most unsatisfactory. Constitutionally disposed to melancholy, irritable and sensitive to the last degree, he brooded over the fancied wrongs and slights which he had received; and at first he was disposed to accept the advice of his father's friend, the well-known Sperone, who strongly dissuaded him from going to the court of Ferrara, painting ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... enjoyment in the conversation was ripped to shreds. She had been irritable and vindictive all day, and it seemed to him that for this moment he hated her hard selfishness. He stared ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... comfortable here. Don't look so sad, you dear, dear girl." Then he crossed the room and kissed her tenderly. "I have a nervous irritable feeling which will not let me remain quiet. Of course, I shall come for your marriage, whenever ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... applied to it. The truth is that, after the torrid days of the hot weather and the humid heat of the rainy season, the European is thoroughly weary of his tropical surroundings, his vitality is at a low ebb, he is languid and irritable, thus he complains bitterly of the climate of September, notwithstanding the fact that it is a distinct improvement on that ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... slowly as the maid came in and carefully closed the door behind her, and her voice was irritable and querulous as she at ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... at the time he was meeting habitually on political affairs—which he had never felt before. He, with his brooding second sight based on a spiritual estimate of the world—he and Lady Lucy—alone saw that Marsham was unhappy. His irritable moodiness might, of course, have nothing to do with his failure to play the man in the case of Miss Mallory. Lankester was inclined to think it had—Alicia Drake or no Alicia Drake. And the grace ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unvarying source from which all our sentiments spring, always exert an influence on the irritability of crowds, their impulsiveness and their mobility, as on all the popular sentiments we shall have to study. All crowds are doubtless always irritable and impulsive, but with great variations of degree. For instance, the difference between a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon crowd is striking. The most recent facts in French history throw a vivid light on this point. The mere publication, twenty-five years ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... almost broken-hearted. I am irritable also for want of food. I have not eaten since early ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Mulatto in a Panama hat and red feather, and decorated with a badge and staff—was more sharp-sighted, and soon perceived, from the irritable tone in which the song at the capstan was sung again as they warped the vessel round to her anchorage in the Ilha das Cobras basin, that there was discontent prevailing on board; and it was no doubt owing to a hint ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... could be wrought upon to a wonderful degree of anguish or delight by the power of music. As I grew older my feelings remained equally acute, and I was easily transported into paroxysms of pleasure or rage. It was the amusement of my relatives and of the domestics to play upon this irritable temperament. I was moved to tears, tickled to laughter, provoked to fury, for the entertainment of company, who were amused by such a tempest of mighty passion in a pigmy frame. They little thought, or perhaps little heeded the dangerous ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... happened when Tony quitted Silverquay to rejoin his uncle. The day following Ann's enforced retirement to bed, a brusque letter had come from the old man, in which he concealed a genuine longing to have his nephew with him again beneath an irritable suggestion that he was probably outstaying his welcome at the Cottage. Robin laughingly reassured Tony upon the latter point, but at the same time he agreed that the young man's return to Lorne might be advisable, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... wouldn't care, though, only it's so dull and monot—dreary!" the boy snapped out, looking sharply from one to the other as if to see whether another remark was about to be made respecting his repetition; but neither of his companions moved a muscle of his face, and he went on murmuring in the same irritable way— ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... drilled one to witness. He would have completely spoiled Jackanapes if Miss Jessamine's conscience would have let him; otherwise he somewhat dragooned his neighbors, and was as positive about parish matters as a rate-payer about the army. A stormy-tempered, tender-hearted soldier, irritable with the suffering of wounds of which he never spoke, whom all the village followed to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... us all together, of whom eighty-four survive, including myself. And yet dear papa sometimes seems a little irritable—I wonder why. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... taken, will often cast away in anger all that is offered in its place; and in like hasty folly many a man and woman, to their eternal regret, have thrown away life itself. Suicide is often the product of passion as well as of despair; the irritable, headlong protest against evils that might have been ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... round, grey eyes were as clear, as innocent, as guilelessly adoring as she had ever seen them. They gazed into her own without a shadow of self-consciousness, and as she met that gaze Betty flushed, and the irritable lines disappeared from her face as if ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... usually could put him in his place. But thus put in his place, Joe could assume all the irritable stick-to-itiveness of a child. "How ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... thick and dark; my second is connected with the sea; my whole is an acid concrete salt, or some one keen and irritable. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Discipline was relaxed; the soldiers did pretty much as they pleased, waiting in inactivity to be dismissed to their homes. He, however, continued to hang around the camp in a semi-dazed condition, moody, nervous, irritable, prompt to take offense on the most trivial provocation. He read with avidity all the revolutionary newspapers he could lay hands on; that three weeks' armistice, concluded solely for the purpose of allowing France ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of the next day. Gerard was no longer lightheaded, but very irritable and full of fancies; and in one of these he begged Denys to get him a lemon to suck. Denys, who from a rough soldier had been turned by tender friendship into a kind of grandfather, got up hastily, and bidding him set his mind at ease, "lemons he should have ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... mother's question with an irritable shake of the head, meant to indicate that Connie was nothing ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... friendship, its birth, its unfolding; and then the sudden leaping of the flame, its writhing and its torture. She writes with a lover's ardour and impatience. "Write to me very soon and dispel my uncertainty, or I shall get impatient, almost irritable." "I read your letter with dismay. Ellen—what shall I do without you? Why are we to be denied each other's society? It is an inscrutable fatality.... Why are we to be divided?" (She is at Roe Head, and Roe Head suggests the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... are a good teacher. I just love to hear you talking over your lessons, but you are irritable! One of my girls was crying the other day. You had given so much homework, and she didn't understand what was to be done, and said she daren't ask. You had been 'so cross!' I made a guess at what ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... chance had Amy to talk with Webb for the next few days. He had seen the cloud on Burt's brow, and had observed that he was suspicious, unhappy, and irritable; that reason and good sense were not in the ascendant; and he understood his brother sufficiently well to believe that his attack must run its natural course, as like fevers had done before. From what he had ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped, and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry's eye. But that old friend's face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to meet the district attorney's eye, instead, and answer the ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Nippers I was well persuaded that whatever might by his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... "Meditations," and throws away the book as soon as he is out of sight of the company. But when Andrew is found by Frank "perched up like a statue by a range of beehives in an attitude of devout contemplation, with one eye watching the motions of the little irritable citizens, and the other fixed on a book of devotion," you will please observe, suspicious reader, that the devout gardener has no expectation whatever of Frank's approach, nor has he any design upon him, nor is he reading or attitudinizing for effect of any kind on any person. He is following his ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... he was sulky, irritable, and gloomy. Then, as he was rising from the table, he said, "I have not forgotten your behavior of yesterday, and shall not let you forget it. You wish for war, let it be war; but I warn you that I shall conquer you, because I am your master." I answered ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... in the ancient days. He laughed—sometimes—not often, and then somewhat sarcastically—but he did not make himself ridiculous. His amour propre was most intense. He appreciated fun, but did not care that it should be at his expense. He was grave, irritable and splenetic; but never comical. A braggart, a rough-rider, an aristocrat; but never a masquerader. That ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... was too stout for dancing, of too restless and irritable a temperament for the role of looker-on. He loved noise, always; above all, noise made by himself. He thought no entertainment really successful at which you could hear yourself speak. He would have preferred a big drum whereby to inspirit the dancers, but failing that, clashed the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... at an oak table near the fire. Two of these were in Highland dress, the first small and dark, with a quick and irritable expression of countenance. He wore the "trews" of tartan, which in itself showed him a man of consideration. The other Highlander was a tall, strong man, with the national freckled face and high cheekbones. ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... more true than false. At last he took up the odd one—that which could come into use but once in a week of years—and this was the sermon Bascombe heard and commented upon. Having read it over, and found nothing to compromise him with his conscience, which was like an irritable man trying to find his way in a windy wood by means of a broken lantern, he laid all the rest aside ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... to be funny in my life. 'Pon my word, I assure you!" asseverates Bingo. "You're simply a bundle of irritable nerves, my dear chap, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... rooms was intended; nor, as he was carried out at its door to a long closed carriage, that it was anything worse than his new keeper's mistaken idea that drives would be good for him. He was a little irritable at the length and shutupness of the drive, though, as his cot had been swung deftly from the ceiling of the carriage, he was not jarred. But when Wallis and Arthur carried the light pallet on which he lay swiftly up a plank ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... the hope that constant as association together would quickly destroy their mutual prejudices, and produce a reconciliation. But the inequalities were too great ever to assimilate. Sir Sampson possessed a large fortune, a deformed person, and a weak, vain, irritable mind. General (then Ensign) Lennox had no other patrimony than his sword—a handsome person, high spirit, and dauntless courage. With these tempers, it may easily be conceived that a thousand trifling events occurred to keep alive the hereditary animosity. Sir Sampson's mind ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier |
