"Bickering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wife were getting their Sunday school lessons with much bickering, when Will drove up the next day to the dilapidated gate and hitched his team to a leaning post under the oaks. Will saw the old man's head at the open window, but no one else, though he looked eagerly for Agnes as he walked ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... however the quarrel seemed likely to end only in legal bickering. Balliol at first gave way, and it was not till 1293 that he alleged himself forced by the resentment both of his Baronage and his people to take up an attitude of resistance. While appearing therefore formally at Westminster ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... while a "moral equivalent" happens to be pale like the stuff of which dreams are made. To the politician whose daily life consists in dodging the thousand and one conflicting prejudices of his constituents, in bickering with committees, intriguing and playing for the vote; to the business man harassed on four sides by the trust, the union, the law, and public opinion,—distrustful of any wide scheme because the stupidity of his shipping clerk is the most vivid item in his ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... these sympathetic moments, and where Wanhope was there would probably be Rulledge, passively willing to listen and agree, and Minver ready to interrupt and dispute. I myself liked to look in and linger for either the reasoning or the bickering, as it happened, and now seeing the three there together, I took a provisional seat behind the painter, who made no sign of knowing I was present. Rulledge was eating a caviar sandwich, which he had brought from the ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... comrade! If thou'rt for a little bickering and disputation with that goodly club o' thine, come thy ways for methinks I ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... harder. Three hundred and seventy Greek triremes rode off Salamis, half from Athens, but the commander-in-chief was Eurybiades of Sparta, the sluggard state that sent only sixteen ships, yet the only state the bickering Peloponnesians would ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and the chairmen the privilege of selecting associates from the two councils. The policy of each department must be ratified by a joint meeting of the councils before it becomes operative. Prevent bickering over minor parliamentary details. Keep in mind first, last and always, the highest welfare of the camp. Let the "voice of the people" be heard, yet see that the legislation introduced is in the interest ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... burden, and so vexatious and disheartening the bickering and ingratitude, that Penn thought seriously of selling his governorship; and it was in the market for several years awaiting a purchaser. Indeed, in 1712, he had so far perfected a bargain to transfer his proprietary rights ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... departure from England, summoned the States to meet him at Dort upon his arrival. Not a soul appeared. Such of the state-councillors as were his creatures came to him, and Count Maurice made a visit of ceremony. Discussions about a plan for relieving the siege became mere scenes of bickering and confusion. The officers within Sluys were desirous that a fleet should force its way into the harbour, while, at the same time, the English army, strengthened by the contingent which Leicester had demanded ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... have had to do it unaided and in isolation. Washington Irving has a delightful sentence somewhere (in Astoria I think) about the frontiersman hewing his way through the back woods and developing his character by "bickering with bears." "The frontiersmen, by their conquest of nature, had come to despise the strength of all enemies," says Dr. Sparks in his History of the United States. It was only to be expected, it was indeed inevitable, that the first of American thinkers—the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... somewhiles he would be in the woodland and somewhiles he would be in the open country. And about noontide he came to a certain cottage of a neatherd that stood all alone in a very pleasant dale. That place a little brook came bickering out from the forest and ran down into the dale and spread out into a small lake, besides which daffadowndillys bloomed in such abundance that it appeared as though all that meadow land was scattered over with an incredible number of yellow stars that had ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... torches, And hoofs of glancing flame, With helm and sword and pennon bright The long procession came. And all the starry spaces, Height above height outshone, And the bickering clang of their armour rang ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. Not to say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a Government in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering a premium for profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... evaporating upon the naked skin. A battalion of tongues began to chatter as the red-faced waiters rushed between the tables, taking orders. It was after eleven o'clock, and through the swinging doors passed a throng of motley people, fanning, gossiping, bickering—all eager and thirsty. Clarence Steyle pointed out the celebrities with conscious delight. Over yonder—that man with the mixed gray hair—was a composer who came every night for inspiration,—musical and otherwise, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... About the early developmental history we have no reliable information. The girl was taken by relatives before her mother died, but was allowed to visit her, and there was evidently real affection between mother and daughter. Long contention over religious affairs in the family led to some bickering ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... were brown, or purple and yellow with heather and gorse. Rocks cropped out everywhere, and the peaty tarps were mostly bleak and frozen. The broad Firth was ever ebbing and flowing with the restless sea, and the burns bickering down the glens. The minister of the little hill kirk had said once that in England the pastures were green and the lakes still and bright; but that was a fey, foreign country to which Auld Jock had no desire to go. He wondered, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... wrought it, and silver nailed its doors; Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors, And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast. ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... breach, rupture, dispute, dissension, bickering, wrangle, broil, squabble, row, rumpus, ruction, spat, tiff, fuss, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... be thinking of ME, you wicked girl," said Mrs. Batch. Katie went across, and laid a gentle hand on her mother's shoulder. This, however, did but evoke a fresh flood of tears. Mrs. Batch had a keen sense of the deportment owed to tragedy. Katie, by bickering with Clarence, had thrown away the advantage she had gained by fainting. Mrs. Batch was not going to let her retrieve it by shining as a consoler. I hasten to add that this resolve was only sub-conscious in the good woman. Her grief was perfectly ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... girls wrote their Scripture exercises, under cover of which Julia often did other lessons, though this was quite contrary to the express orders of her father, who was very anxious that his children should have a "proper regard for the day." There was continual bickering, many disputes and petty quarrels, and when bed-time came every one was weary and cross, and seemed glad the day was over. No wonder that Ruth often longed and sighed for one of the happy old Sundays ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... going into their beds, poor things, the lift cleared up to a sharp freeze, and the well-ordered stars came forth glowing over the blue sky. Between six and seven the moon rose; and I could not get my two prentices in from the door, where they were bickering one another with snow-balls, or maybe carhailling the folk on the street in their idle wantonness; so I was obliged for that night to disappoint Edie Macfarlane of the pair of black spatterdashes he was so anxious to get finished, for dancing in next day, at Souple Jack the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... together halfpence or the darkened souls in Edinburgh; while Balquhidder and Dunrossness bemoans the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each other with evangelists, like schoolboys bickering ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not put you to that inconvenience," he retorted hotly; then his manner changed. "Ah, Kathleen, do not let us waste the precious seconds bickering. Tell me what ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Martin came in from the kitchen with a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon. "I'm glad your father left before he had to hear such bickering. He wouldn't stand for it, and neither will I. Either be civil to each ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... things as they are," she had said; there was a diabolical stubbornness in her manner. She made capital of her own inertia. She was as cool as if dealing with an entire stranger. Finally, after two days of backing and filling, of bickering and contesting, she had named her price. "Fifteen hundred," she had said and there was nothing in the way she said it that gave the slightest hope that it would be any ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... but as the hour proceeds, and these enchantments vanish, you will find yourself upon the farther side in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, with such another long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such another senseless watercourse bickering along the foot. You have had your moment; but you have not changed the scene. The mountains are about you like a trap; you cannot foot it up a hillside and behold the sea as a great plain, but live in holes and corners, and can change only one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He had access to a library which, although not large, held many treasures of book making, and was sufficient for the requirements of the young monk. He could keep the hours of the Church in the little chantry attached to the house, and he was taken out of the atmosphere of jealousy and bickering which, to his own great astonishment and dismay, he had found to be the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... any such bickering as I have indicated, between the soldiers of the two sections; and, fortunately, there has been none between the politicians. Possibly I am the only one who thought of the liability of such a state of things ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... course, did not like her, for as she grew older she was more convinced than ever that the lower orders must be constantly reproved. But poor people are very magnanimous, and they were sure of a good many presents. She was also for ever bickering with her servants, but "poor old lady" as they said, "she's getting on now, it makes her worry," and she found in Annie one who knew how to give at least as good as she got. Horror of being defrauded by servants and tradespeople ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... practically all the men with whom I talked. Various companies were being formed, and militia captains, to make sure of seeing active service, were not punctilious as to where and by what means they secured their men. There was much ill-natured bickering over this rivalry, with several matters assuming such proportions that only Colonel Lewis could ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... carry on the business of the country very successfully, and great reforms have been accomplished in every department of the State, which do not seem liable to any serious objections, and in the midst of many troubles, of much complaining and bickering; the country has been advancing in prosperity, and recovering rapidly from the state of sickly depression in which it lay at the end of last year. It is fair to compare the state of affairs now and then, merely reciting facts, and let the praise rest ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... are judged today, the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is honored and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... our partial successes, drive the enemy out of our country wherever he had a foot-hold, otherwise the South would slowly but surely crumble away. So much had been expected of Longstreet's Corps in East Tennessee, and so little lasting advantage gained, that bickering among the officers began. Brigadier Generals were jealous of Major Generals, and even some became jealous or dissatisfied with General Longstreet himself. Crimination and recrimination were indulged in, censures and charges were made and denied, and on the whole the army began to be in rather a ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... colours of the showery arch. He, in celestial panoply all armed Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought, Ascended; at his right hand Victory Sat eagle-winged; beside him hung his bow And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored; And from about him fierce effusion rolled Of smoke, and bickering flame, and sparkles dire: Attended with ten thousand thousand Saints, He onward came; far off his coming shone; And twenty thousand (I their number heard) Chariots of God, half on each hand, were seen; He on the wings of Cherub rode sublime On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned, Illustrious ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... had already turned to leave the room. Anne, held by the blind woman, looked again round the big room with its clean floor and battered inmates. The uneventful peace broken by the bickering of the old women, the babies bringing a double burden to their mothers, the blind woman, to whom all days were alike, seemed to be imprisoned ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... the States, after much debate and bickering, finally ratified the document known as the Constitution of the United States. While the work of the American Revolution was thus being completed, and a new nation was being formed, events were transpiring on the other side of the Atlantic that were destined to affect gravely ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... him at the Diet at Wollin, nor all the doctors from Stettin, nor even Doctor Pomius, who had been sent from Wolgast by the old Duchess, to attend her dear son; and as the doctor (as I have said) was a formal, priggish little man, he and the fool were always bickering and snarling. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... worst this new social life may become a sort of slavery in barracks; at the best—it might become something very wonderful. My mind's been busy now for days thinking just how wonderful the new life might be. Instead of the old bickering, crowded family home, a new ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... gate of passion, Between the bickering fire Where flames of fierce love tremble On ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... Veteran's Organization." This much everyone swore he would have, one that was neither political nor partisan, one that would perpetuate righteousness, insure "honor, faith, and a sure intent," and despite whatever bickering there might have been, despite whatever differences of opinion arose, when, with a tremendous "Aye," the motion to adjourn was carried, this Paris Caucus had accomplished a body politic and a soul of the type which Bishop Brent ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... rivulet, late unseen, Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, Shines with the image of its golden screen And glimmerings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... arched gate-house which stands on the road; on the other side of the church, and below it, a no less ancient rectory, with a large Perpendicular window, anciently a chapel, in the gable. In the warm, sheltered air the laurels grow luxuriantly; a bickering stream, running in a deep channel, makes a delicate music of its own; a little farther on stands a farm, with barn and byre; in the midst of the buildings is a high, stone-tiled dovecote. The roo-hooing of the pigeons fills the whole place with a slumberous sound. I wind up the hill ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reiterated explanations, I myself learn to recognise some of the gods at sight. The figure seated upon a lotus, holding a sword in its hand, and surrounded by bickering fire, is Fudo- Sama—Buddha as the Unmoved, the Immutable: the Sword signifies Intellect; the Fire, Power. Here is a meditating divinity, holding in one hand a coil of ropes: the divinity is Buddha; those are the ropes which bind the passions and desires. Here also is Buddha slumbering, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... herd guard. There were fires, there was singing at the Mormon camp, there was the heavy sleep beneath blanket and buffalo robe, through the biting chill of a breezeless night, the ground a welcomed bed, the stars vigilant from horizon to horizon, the wolves stalking and bickering like avid ghouls. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... complained to her, that it was very hard the doctors should pass such a censure upon me, for which they had no ground; and that it was still harder, considering the circumstances I was under in the family; that I hoped I had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me, or given any occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters, and I had more need to think of a coffin than of being in love, and begged she would not let me suffer in her opinion for anybody's mistakes ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... wish to be or no, and for six weeks or more on the island we shall see no faces but our own. Are we to be divided from the beginning by quarrels? Are maybe even the men of us to be set by the ears through the bickering of women?" ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... 1608, on the proposal of a certain Alderman Cockayne, to grant Cockayne a patent for the creation of a home-dyeing industry, reserving to the crown a monopoly for the sale of the goods. The Adventurers complained of this as a breach of their charter; and, after much bickering, the king in 1615 settled the dispute by withdrawing the charter. Cockayne now hoped that the company he had formed would be a profitable concern, but he and the king were doomed to disappointment. The Estates of Holland ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... their domestic relations. They would interfere with each other's conversation, contradicting assertions, and disputing conclusions for a whole evening; and then, when all the world and his wife thought that these ceaseless sparks of bickering must blaze up into a flaming quarrel as soon as they were alone, they would bowl amicably home in a cab, criticizing the friends who were commenting upon them, and as little agreed about the events of the evening as about the details of ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... possible, but that was all secondary to the game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus that the Monumental had so triumphantly ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... insufferable militarism of Germany may very probably be the precursor of a much wider alliance against any aggression whatever in the future. Only through some such arrangement is there any reasonable hope of a control and cessation of that constant international bickering and pressure, that rivalry in finance, that competition for influence in weak neutral countries, which has initiated all the struggles of the last century, and which is bound to accumulate tensions for fresh wars so long ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... you—from your viewpoint. What mine is, you can't be expected to know. But believe me when I say that I consider it of vital importance to the investigation of the murder of Mrs. Selim that this particular bridge hand, with all its attending remarks, the usual bickering, and its interruptions of arriving guests for cocktails, be played out, exactly as it was this afternoon. I thought I had made myself clear before. If you don't wish me to believe that you have something to conceal by refusing to take part in ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... to answer, for her reproach was righteous; yet he loved her dearly. He was released from this embarrassment by the return of Mitri, who had been into the town to visit a sick man. He had drawn quite near before the bickering pair perceived him. Nesibeh made as if to fly indoors; but the priest called her ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... manned the gun Armorial. What cheerings did you share, Impulsive in the van, When down upon leagued France and Spain We English ran— The freshet at your bowsprit Like the foam upon the can. Bickering, your colors Licked up the Spanish air, You flapped with flames of battle-flags— Your challenge, Temeraire! The rear ones of our fleet They yearned to share your place, Still vying with the Victory Throughout that earnest race— The Victory, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... boys who crossed Quay Flat and the boys of Skinner's Hole there was a constant feud. At times this bickering took the form of pitched battles fought out with sticks and stones. The boys of Bardon always called these encounters 'slugs,' and, if the truth be told, they were, one and all, very fond of a 'slug.' To carefully search the hedges for a handy stick, and then ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... himself for her scorn in his worst and most unmanly fashion of innuendo; she, on her side, retorted with lampoons and satire as cruel. One feels glad that she finally left England and that further bickering was impossible. The other two persons were the already mentioned Blounts, each of whom seems at first ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... estates." We listened, but all was still, save here and there a low whistle from some of the watchmen. He said that night was a specimen of every night now. But it had not always been so. During slavery these villages were oftentimes a scene of bickering, revelry, and contention. One might hear the inmates reveling and shouting till midnight. Sometimes it would be kept up till morning. Such scenes have much decreased, and instead of the obscene and heathen songs which they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... fellow really likes his brother,—and most fellows do,—there is scant use or grace or common-sense in keeping up, from mere carelessness, or through an irritable habit, a continual bickering, for these germs of evil are possessed of a marvelous faculty for growth, and some day their gigantic deformities will confront you in deeds of which you once believed ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Congratulations here, there prophecies, Here children, not repining at neglect While tumult sweeps them ample room for play, Everywhere questions answered ere begun, Everywhere crowds, for everywhere alarm. Thus winter gone, nor spring (though near) arrived, Urged slanting onward by the bickering breeze That issues from beneath Aurora's car, Shudder the sombrous waves; at every beam More vivid, more by every breath impelled, Higher and higher up the fretted rocks Their turbulent refulgence they display. Madness, which like ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... beasts, yea, of maidens who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the ring. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls." These were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for which they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... pretty as a picture; so that there was no end of those who would have liked to have had her, each man for his own. Even that day there were three princes at the castle, each one wanting the queen to marry him; and the wrangling and bickering and squabbling that was going on was enough to deafen a body. The poor young queen was tired to death with it all, and so she had come out into the garden for a bit of rest; and there she sat under the shade of an apple-tree, fanning herself and ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... a bad moment, Karl chose to be deliberately cruel. "Perhaps!" he said. "But even then if this marriage were purely one of expediency, Olga, I might hesitate. Frankly, I want peace. I am tired of war, tired of bickering, tired of watching and being watched. But it is not one of expediency. Not, at least, only that. You leave out of this discussion the one element that I consider important, Hedwig herself. If the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... which is at its best a wildly beautiful confusion of impressions and at its worst a dingy uproar. It crowds upon us and jostles us, we get our little interludes for thinking and talking between much rough scuffling and laying about us with our fists. And I cannot afford to be continually bickering with Chesterton and Belloc about forms of expression. There are others for whom I want to save my knuckles. One may be wasteful in peace and leisure, but economies are ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the sentimental, were, in their private lives, persons of the most depraved morals. Why this should be the case, it is impossible even to conjecture, the fact only remaining that it is so. Perhaps there are so many different standards of morality, that humanity, weary of the eternal bickering consequent upon the conflicts entered into for their enforcement, have made for themselves a new interpretation which they find less difficult to observe, and find more peace ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... people just like these relatives of hers. She was both ashamed and amused,—ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused by their useless bickering. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... up from Quartes with its church and bickering windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily with her ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... end of this talk, sir," said Sackett. "Get your men to work, Mr. Andrews, and you, Mr. Rolling, get the passengers out of that boat and stand by to try to find the leak. I don't intend to have any more of this eternal bickering." ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... this habit of talking and bickering which should make one very careful in choosing a lodging. Never let it be near a traghetto; for at traghetti there is talk incessant, day and night: argument, abuse, and raillery. The prevailing tone is that of men with a grievance. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... know, Jane, that this cannot be. You never will enjoy peace under your mother's roof. The sighing heart and the saddened features will forever upbraid her, and bickering and repining will mar every domestic scene. Your mother's aversion to me is far from irreconcilable, but that which will hasten reconcilement will be marriage. You cannot forfeit her love as long as you preserve your integrity; and those scruples which no argument will dissipate will ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Friedland, and the country between Oder and Neisse Rivers:—while these preliminary things are being done (September 28th-October 3d), Friedrich in person gradually pushes forward towards Neipperg, reconnoitring, bickering with Croats: October 3d, preliminaries done, Neipperg's rear had better ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on high, But all about and around him goes up a bitter cry From the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steel Sends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reel Behind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo, have ye seen the corn, While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind streak overborne When the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black, And the smitten ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... by his manager, who wanted to speak with him concerning a new production; he told a long story regarding the arrangement of some of the processions. But Kate would not accept any of these excuses, and, convinced he had been after a woman, she stuck to her opinion, and the bickering continued for an hour or more, to end as it had begun. These sudden silences were very welcome, for Dick had many things to think out; and nothing more was said until they got up to their room, and then Dick, as usual, forgetful of even the immediate past, began to speak of his manager's ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... wonder! Some were horned, And like the moon's argentine crescent hung In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed 170 Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire, Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed Bedimmed ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... with a cunning that nearly trapped me. For when I tried to recall, as I thought I could, a specific and convincing instance of his evasion, I realised that to cite a case would only draw us into an irrelevant bickering ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... by a single, guttering candle; the interior was a "combination" wardrobe and sideboard. Around this simple but satisfying piece of furniture the three transient tenants of the dugout had just played a game of dummy bridge, and now sat smoking and bickering as peacefully as if they were in a college club-room in America. The night on the front was what the French call "relativement calme." Sporadic explosions above punctuated but did not interrupt the debate, which eddied about the high theme of Education—with ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... Accomack, but they hoyse up there sayles, and back againe to Yorke River, where with a Marvellous celerity they surprise one Major Cheise-Man, and som others, amongst whom one Capt. Wilford, who (it is saide) in the bickering lost one of his eyes, which he seemed little concern'd at, as knowing that when he came to Accomack, that though he had bin starke blinde, yet the Governour would take care for to afford him a guide, that should show him ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... always caused confusion, either chattering and squealing with fright or bickering at the other animals. Whenever they attempted to make her do anything, she protested indignantly; and if they tried force, her squalls and cries excited all the animals in the arena and set the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... we soon were bickering. The morning sun shone high; the thin, hot dust blew out over the blackened ground of some forest "burn" or through the worm fence of some field where a gang of slave men and women might be ploughing or hoeing between the green rows of young cotton or corn. The level stretches were many, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... Chattelerault, she of Partenay: they would fallen to and miscalled one anothers country, reckning over al that might be said against the place wheir the other was born and what might be sayd for their oune. Whiles we had very great bickering wt good sport. They made me iudge to decide according to the relevancy of what I fand ether alledge. I usually held for Madame as the ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... possibly unorthodox idea; and it is consequently unreasonable to expect from them any genuine freedom or originality of thought. I can forgive them their assumption of superiority, their inability to meet honest scepticism with anything like fairness, their continual bickering among themselves; but I cannot forgive them the harm they are doing to religion, the discredit they are bringing upon it by their bigoted views and obsolete ideas. They busy themselves doing good—that is the worst of it; they mean well, but they do ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa' sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... and Mr. Joe Bullitt met him at the gate and offered him hearty greeting. All bickering and dissension among these three had passed. The lady was so wondrous impartial that, as time went on, the sufferers had come to be drawn together, rather than thrust asunder, by their common feeling. It had grown to be a bond uniting them; they were not so much rivals as ardent novices ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... inflexibly a wholly imaginary interposition on the part of Prince Victor. "You don't know how to thank me—do you? Then why try? I know I'm too good, but I really can't help it, it's my nature—and there you are! So what's the good of bickering about it?... Now where did you leave your coat and hat? On my ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... pays for the drink. Come, none of this bickering; we must agree upon business, and do the thing up brown under the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Oregon, devised as a modus vivendi during the joint occupancy of that vast region with Great Britain—an arrangement terminated not longer than two years before. There must be some sort of law and leadership between the Missouri and the Columbia. Amid much bickering of petty politics, Jesse Wingate had some four days ago been chosen for the thankless task of train captain. Though that office had small authority and less means of enforcing its commands, none the less the train leader must be a man of courage, resource ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... still haunted his imagination. I rejected his proffer somewhat peevishly, trimmed the wood-fire, and placing myself in one of the large leathern chairs which flanked the old Gothic chimney, I watched unconsciously the bickering of the blaze which I had fostered. "And this," said I alone, "is the progress and the issue of human wishes! Nursed by the merest trifles, they are first kindled by fancy—nay, are fed upon the vapour of hope, till they consume the substance which they inflame; and man, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a great meeting was summoned by the workmen leaders to meet in Trafalgar Square (about the right to meet in which place there had for years and years been bickering). The civic bourgeois guard (called the police) attacked the said meeting with bludgeons, according to their custom; many people were hurt in the melee, of whom five in all died, either trampled to death on the spot, or from the effects of their cudgelling; the meeting was scattered, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... will his name ever be carved on stone or raised on bronze. Neither has my hero accomplished startling feats. As a hero he may be a paradox. Inconspicuous, humble in station, modest, hid far away from the maddening, jealous, curious, bickering, taunting, striving, restless crowd of life. Too long already I have held him from you. His name? I do not know. His birthplace? I do not know. His age? I do not know. Is he living now? Here my ignorance is painful. I do not know. My hero, however, is an actual man of ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... we've got this young Sherwood hooked," said Old Jimmie, who had been impatient during this unprofitable bickering. "Seems to me it's time to settle just how we're going to get his dough. How about ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... not much bickering. In the shadow of certain death, these outlaws of the sea seemed to have acquired a spirit of resignation which was akin to dignity. They had lost the game. In their own lingo, it was the black spot for all hands of 'em. With the coolness of night they revived ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the Loggia had been bickering about a debt. "Cinque lire," they had cried, "cinque lire!" They sparred at each other, and one of them was hit lightly upon the chest. He frowned; he bent towards Lucy with a look of interest, as if he had an important message for her. ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... great deal. Most disagreeable and undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace, if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... into the garden an hour or so later to gather roses for the table, Harmony was flooded with the exquisite morning sun, the birds were twittering and bickering among themselves, and Carlo sprang up to meet her, barking an affectionate "good morning," as he playfully capered round ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... sort of armed truce, "so that you could discover what a country morning was like." But before Amy could form a sufficiently withering reply, a tiny bird, perched on the topmost bough of a neighboring tree, had burst into such music that the little party stood silenced, and even playful bickering ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... folk' she was always throwing in her face?" The daughter, too, of whose approaching union the fond father had been so proud, was now, like her cousin whom she had wronged by her mean suspicions, deserted; the match broken off after much bickering; one quarrel having brought on another, until they separated by mutual consent. Her temper and her health were both materially impaired; and her beauty was converted into hardness ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... show him when he recovered. That was a tender forethought of one who knew how unjustly he had suffered the slanders of his enemies. There was much talk about presidential inability, and in the midst of this public bickering Chester A. Arthur became president. He took office, amid severe criticism. I urged the appointment of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to the President's Cabinet, feeling that. Mr. Arthur would have in this distinguished son of New Jersey, a devout, evangelical, Christian adviser. In October ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... which here rose very high, was illuminated by torches made of pine-tree, which emitted a bright and bickering light, attended by a strong though not unpleasant odour. Their light was assisted by the red glare of a large charcoal fire, round which were seated five or six armed Highlanders, while others were indistinctly seen couched on their plaids, in the more remote recesses ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... light can lie on ground, Grass sloping under trees Alive with yellow shine of daffodils! If quicksilver were gold, And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs. And all the miles and miles of meadowland The spring makes golden ways, Lead here, for here the gold Grows brightest for our eyes, And for our hearts lovelier even than love. So here, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... all the circumstances connected with his wealthy uncle's disappearance, as to feel authorized to assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle was 'a murdered man.'" Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred among various members of the crowd, and especially between "Old Charley" and Mr. Pennifeather—although this latter occurrence was, indeed, by no means a novelty, for no good will had subsisted ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... every thing in impenetrable obscurity. Just as I was about to turn to my guide, and demand the explanation of these appearances, the smoke rolled away, and instantaneously, there flashed forth a thousand bickering flames. "What," cried I, "is the meaning of these objects?" "Check, for one moment, your impatience, and your curiosity shall be gratified," replied my guide. I then distinctly viewed thousands of Black Men, who had been groaning under the rod of oppression, starting up in all the transport ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... apparently causes so much perplexity to railroad managers, would soon be solved if railroad abuses were done away with. So long as these abuses exist and rates are maintained by artificial means there will be bickering and strife for business which legitimately belongs to others. Mr. Walker then bewails the proscription of ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... waters flash In awful whiteness o'er the shore, 630 That shines and shakes beneath the roar; Thus—as the stream and Ocean greet, With waves that madden as they meet— Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong, And fate, and fury, drive along. The bickering sabres' shivering jar; And pealing wide or ringing near Its echoes on the throbbing ear, The deathshot hissing from afar; The shock, the shout, the groan of war, 640 Reverberate along that vale, More suited to the shepherd's tale: Though few the numbers—theirs the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... foot of the escalator, a reluctant witness to the bickering. Divining his attitude Philon mentally shrugged it off. The kid might as well learn what married life was like in ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... this task be so great as it might seem at first glance. Trials would probably be much shorter than the endless, senseless bickering in courts, the long time wasted in selecting juries and the many irrelevant issues on which guilt or innocence are often determined, make necessary now. Most of the criminal cases would likewise be prevented if the state would undertake ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... two great successes of the war, had been planned and executed. On the Army of the Potomac the people had looked as the bulwark of the country—the central force that should in good time take Richmond and give the last blow to the rebellion. The miserable bickering and paltry fears which had detached McDowell's division from the grand army, to defend Washington when never threatened, had been comparatively unknown or little understood. Many and disastrous months were yet to elapse, before the letters of the Orleans Princes ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the price, but to-night Maria was too excited over other matters to spend much time in bickering over a few cents. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... some are musical, and others can sing. Concerts, lectures, theatricals, and dances are got up; while, as there is generally a due admixture of the sexes, not a little flirting and downright courting is carried on; and, lastly, if there is any quarrelling and bickering, the differences of those who engage in it afford much amusement to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Saviour; also to induce all earnest thinkers to search not a part, but the whole of the Scriptures, if therein they think they will find eternal life; I, as an advocate of free thought and untrammelled opinion, dispute the authority of those uncharitable, bickering, and ignorant Ecclesiastics who first suppressed these gospels and epistles; and I join issue with their Catholic and Protestant successors who have since excluded them from the New Testament, of which they formed a part; and were venerated ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... eggit on Mr Smeddum into a persuasion that the seating of the kirk was a thing which the magistrates had no legal authority to undertake. At this critical moment, my ancient adversary and seeming friend, the dean of guild, happened to pass the door, and the bickering snuff-man seeing him, cried to him to come in. It was a very unfortunate occurrence; for Mr M'Lucre having a secret interest, as I have intimated, in the Whinstone quarry, when he heard of taking down walls and bigging them up again, he listened with greedy ears to the ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... feel warm, and goes down with him and chattering Cecil. Marcia is snappy. She and Eugene dispute about some trifle, and Floyd speaks to her in a very peremptory manner that startles Violet. He does so hate this little bickering! ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... and indigenous black men from day to day lived life in the Solomons, bickering and trafficking, the whites striving to maintain their heads on their shoulders, the blacks striving, no less single-heartedly, to remove the whites' heads from their shoulders and at the same time to keep ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... carrying out of railways in Asia Minor and the constant friction as to which power has obtained, by fair means or foul, the greatest influence! Or let us remember the recent disputes as to the proper floating of a loan to China and the bickering about the Five-Power Group and the determination on the part of the last named that no one else should share the spoil! Or shall we transfer our attention to Mexico, where the severe struggle between the two rival Oil Companies—the Cowdray group and the American ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... past nine o'clock, and they were ready for bed. The squabbling and bickering among the dogs had long since died down, and the weary animals were curled in the snow, each with his feet and nose bunched together and covered by his wolf's brush of a tail. Kama spread his sleeping-furs and lighted his pipe. Daylight rolled a brown-paper ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... own British climate, and meaning to say that a man could scarcely descry an object somewhat ahead of his own station, he says, [Greek Text: tosson tis t'ep leussel oson t'epi laan iaesi]: so far does man see as lie hurls a stone. Now, in the skirmish of 'bickering,' this would argue no great limitation of eyesight. 'Why, man, how far would you see? Would you see round a corner?' 'A shot of several hundred yards,' says Mr. Mure, 'were no great feat for a country lad ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey |
