"Carping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved;" the negro being in the ark, was not one of those eight souls, and consequently he has no soul to be saved—the Bible and God's inspiration being judge. Carping is vain, against God. His order will stand, whether pleasing or displeasing to any on earth. But God only promised to save eight—Noah and his wife, and his three sons and their wives. These had souls, as the apostle (Peter) testifies, and all that were in ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... came the wedding. Even the most carping one of all the village gossips was ready to agree that it had thrown new lustre over the entire community, and even shed its beams into the next county whence certain of the guests had come. There had been many ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... her chosen bride for him: Edith Averst, with the dowry of a present one thousand pounds per annum, and prospect of six or so, excluding Sir John's estate, Carping, in Leicestershire; a fair estate, likely to fall to Edith; consumption seized her brothers as they ripened. A fair girl too; only Dudley did not love her; he wanted to love. He was learning the trick from this other one, who had become obscured and diminished, tainted, to the thought of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... honours, seeks to vaunt itself as magnanimity; prodigality calls itself liberality, audacity imitates courage, hardhearted sternness imitates patience, bitterness justice, superstition religion, weakness of mind lenity, timidity modesty, captiousness and carping at words wishes to pass for acuteness in arguing, and an empty fluency of language for this oratorical vigour at which we are aiming. And those, too, appear akin to virtuous pursuits, which run to ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... did not interfere with Jan's method of procedure, seeing, as any sensible man would, that the second-mate's plan answered its purpose of getting the most out of the hands without making them grumble unduly at their unwonted task; but, soon his love of carping at others asserted itself, and this feeling, coupled with the desire to assert such petty authority as he still had, overcame his sense of prudence, as well as all recollection of the sharp lesson he had received from Jan not so ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... exasperation had passed. There was a slight softening in her eyes as they surveyed the handsome, elaborately dressed gray head and the careful toilet of her unlovely mother. She understood the bitter carping of this disappointed woman. Her spirit soared far beyond the lot of the wife of a pensioned school-teacher. She knew, too, that somewhere, lost in some dim recess of a coldly calculating nature, there was a tiny, glowing spot which ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... carping critic could have found no fault with Edith's manner. If she felt any superiority, she did not show it. She accorded to Rosemary the same perfect courtesy she showed Madame, and, apparently, failed to notice that the girl had not spoken since the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the fact that I have received many tiresome and even carping letters from the more captious critics of this child of my brain, I feel in justice to myself and Miss Macnaughtan that it is incumbent upon me to protest, in no measured terms, against what is not only an organised opposition and a pusillanimous display of superficial egotism, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... unfolded his arms, laying one clenched fist quietly on the table. "I'll tell you why. Because you drummed nothing but money and knavery into their ears from the time they wore knickerbockers; because you carped away at them as you've been carping here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to them for their models, as our grandfathers held up George Washington and John Adams. But the boys, worse luck, were young and raw at the business you put them to; ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... your carping, Dawn!" I told myself. "You can't expect charming tones, and Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German boarding-house. Anyhow there's running water in the room. For general utility purposes that's better than a ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... all these matters, being brought to a child's attention at the same period in its life, are likely to be regarded in after years as of equal evidential value. I am not much of a hand to argue, myself, but I should like to have one of these carping critics meet my friend, Mrs. Sarah M. Boggs, who has taught the infant-class since 1867, having missed only two Sundays in that time, once, in 1879, when it stormed so that nobody in town was out, and once, last winter a year ago, when she ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... children's children down to our own time, and has affected the opinions held about them by other people. It has had something to do with a certain tacit assumption of superiority on the part of New Englanders, upon which the men and women of other communities have been heard to comment in resentful and carping tones. There has probably never existed, in any age or at any spot on the earth's surface, a group of people that did not take for granted its own preeminent excellence. Upon some such assumption, as upon an incontrovertible axiom, all historical narratives, from the chronicles of a parish to ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... unnecessary work on the part of the author boiled down to its essentials. She was young. One hardly expects an elderly heroine. The "young" might have been dispensed with, especially seeing it is told us that she was a girl. But maybe this is carping. There are young girls and old girls. Perhaps it is as well to have it in black and white; she was young. She was an American young girl. There is but one American young girl in English fiction. We know by heart ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... caught in the conference with Sands and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... perpetually weighed less heavily upon her than usual. The genial atmosphere of Baronmead had warmed her heart. The few words that Lucas had spoken with her hand in his still echoed through her memory. Yes, she knew where to look for friends; no carping critics, but genuine, kindly friends who ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... all my heart I could go the whole length with you. You seem to think that such birds probably select the most beautiful females: I must feel some doubt on this head, for I can find no evidence of it. Though I am writing so carping a note, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... making our boasts that here was an Elysium beyond the storm-belt sound as hollow as Adam's dream of Eden after he was lifted over the garden wall. Still we bore up and presented a bold, if not an unbroken front to a carping world. But the vials of wrath were not yet exhausted. Pandora's box had not yet emptied itself of all its plagues. Our sorrow's crown of sorrow was yet to come. It is here; our humiliation is accomplished, our agony ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Folly, for Folly is my man: Yea, Folly is my fellow, and hath given me a name: Conscience called me Manhood, Folly calleth me Shame. Folly will me lead to London to learn revel; Yea, and Conscience is but a flattering brothel; For ever he is carping of care: The world and Folly counselleth me to all gladness, Yea, and Conscience counselleth me to all sadness; Yea, too much sadness might bring me into madness. And now have good day, sirs, To London to seek Folly will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... cast his valour in the dust, and made his name a scorn and a by-word. But who shall say that the men who belittled his deeds, and followed him with jealousy and carping, were wholly blameless? ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... the theory of art in Germany, we must not overlook the advantages contributed by the study of the ideal of the ancients by such men as Winckelmann, who, by a kind of inspiration, raised art criticism from a carping about petty details to seek the true spirit of great works of art, and their true ideas, by a study of the spirit of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... but the times were bad, and "empty stalls make biting steeds." The very same shareholders who, when returns are satisfactory, are as gentle as cooing doves, should revenue and expenditure alter their relations to the detriment of dividend, become critical, carping and impossible to please, though the directors and management may be as innocent as themselves, and as powerless to stem the tide of adversity. At shareholders' meetings Mr. Burns was splendid. He rose after the critics had expended their force, or if the storm grew too ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... sumptuous, shewed like a Feast, And wonne by rarenesse such Solemnitie. The skipping King hee ambled vp and downe, With shallow Iesters, and rash Bauin Wits, Soone kindled, and soone burnt, carded his state, Mingled his Royaltie with Carping Fooles, Had his great Name prophaned with their Scornes, And gaue his Countenance, against his Name, To laugh at gybing Boyes, and stand the push Of euery Beardlesse vaine Comparatiue; Grew a Companion to the common Streetes, Enfeoff'd himselfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... image of what he would relate, would present his story vividly to the Imagination of the reader, we should have no more complaints of the dulness of History. Who ever found Irving or Prescott dull? and yet they are accurate and faithful as the most stately and oracular. The carping critic may sneer at them because they are not philosophical and profound; but to have been read with delight by thousands who would never have reached a second chapter had they been other than they are, may well satisfy their ambition, and make them careless of the opinion ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... knew him well; he was thoroughly learned in the Scriptures; he delighted in the society of the college-masters, and carried his reverence for Hillel almost to the point of worship. Yet he was in no sense a Separatist; his hospitality took in strangers from every land; the carping Pharisees even accused him of having more than once entertained Samaritans at his table. Had he been a Gentile, and lived, the world might have heard of him as the rival of Herodes Atticus: as it was, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... life had not believed on Him. What a welcome to that room did they receive from John, their adopted brother! May we not indulge the thought that among "the women" were her own daughters; and that we hear her joyfully asking the once carping question of the Jews concerning "the carpenter's son," but with changed meaning, saying, "His sisters, are they not all with us?" If so "His Mother called Mary," "and His brethren," "and His ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... perseverance. The love of lucre may, or may not, have influenced my Parisian translator; but the love of discovery of latent error, and of exposure of venial transgression, has undoubtedly, from beginning to end, excited his zeal and perseverance. That carping spirit, which shuts its eyes upon what is liberal and kind, and withholds its assent to what is honourable and just, it is the distinguished lot—and, perhaps, as the translator may imagine, the distinguished felicity—of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her climate in a carping spirit, nevertheless he accorded due praise to her unsurpassed beauty. "No place so brands a man," he declared; and, in his turn, Stevenson left his brand on the romantic city of his birth, for now no book on Scotland's capital is written without mention of the haunts and homes of that changeling-looking ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... shippes that durst not come for feare. It was nothing besieged by the see: Thus call they it no siege for honestee. Gonnes assailed, but assault was there none, No siege, but fuge: well was he that might be gone: This maner carping haue knights ferre in age, Expert through age ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... kind of gossip in which a girl takes part, made up of snap-shot judgments of the classroom, idle carping about some little unimportant point, expression of wounded vanity and unfair talk, which may mean a tremendous loss of prestige for a really admirable course; it may mean that girls, who would naturally go into it because of their liking or gift for the work, do not go ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... had said, because she was not afraid of her grandmother that that formidable old lady respected her; and as she was one of those who can give affection only where they give respect, she loved Margaret—loved her with jealous and carping tenacity. The girl's words of finality made her erect and unyielding soul shiver in a sudden dreary blast of loneliness, that most tragic of all the storms that sweep the ways of life. It was in the tone of the anger of love ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... he had held firmly to his purpose through good and through evil report. The hostility which he experienced from some of the directors opposed to the adoption of the locomotive was the circumstance that caused him the greatest grief of all; for where he had looked for encouragement, he found only carping and opposition. But his pluck never failed him; and now the "Rocket" was upon the ground to prove, to use his own words, "whether he was a man of his word ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... not good she knew his love, lest she made sport of it." "Why to say truth," said Hero, "I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him." "Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable," said Ursula. "No," replied Hero, "but who dare tell her so? if I should speak, she would mock me into air." "O you wrong your cousin," said Ursula: "she cannot be so much without ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... disposed to nail the hands of such trumpery scribblers to a post, and scourge their bare backs with thorny rods to cure them of their insolence! Nay, even my fool Zabastes hath found place in these narrow columns, to write his carping diatribes against me,— me, the King's Laureate! ... As I live, his cumbersome diction hath caused me infinite mirth, and I have laughed at his crabbed and feeble wit till my sides have ached most potently! ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... nobility of a prompt fulfillment of duty, measure every thing military by the amount of melo-dramatic denouement to which it leads. We trust that after this effectual 'counter' we may hear a little less carping at Governor Andrew, who has shown from the beginning an energy and perseverance, a promptness in emergency, and a patriotism which, when the history of this war comes to be written, will reflect the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... what is done in many (might I not say, in most?) companies, what is it but one telling malicious stories of, or fastening odious characters upon another? What do men commonly please themselves in so much, as in carping and harshly censuring, in defaming and abusing their neighbours? Is it not the sport and divertisement of many, to cast dirt in the faces of all they meet with; to bespatter any man with foul imputations? ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... really a most unfortunate misprint, for it is just this kind of carping statement that leads the Germans to say we are ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... he had that was better than theirs, and he felt very sorry for them. A special servant went about with each of the other boys, to see that he attended his classes, was polite to his teachers, and did his work. But Horace had his own father to look after him, a thousand times better than any carping paedagogus. His father had explained to him that the other fathers were busy men, that they were the ones who carried on the great government, and ruled this splendid Rome; they could not spend hours going to school with their little sons. But Horace thought ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... later poets with our own time. [Footnote: See William Ernest Henley, The Gods are Dead; Edmund Gosse, On Certain Critics; Samuel Waddington, The Death of Song; John Payne, Double Ballad of the Singers of the Time(1906).] Only occasionally a poet rebukes his brethren for this carping attitude. Mrs. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... is the Judge that judges us as we do others? Perhaps it is best to say that both the divine and the human estimates are included in the purposely undefined expression. Certainly both are included in fact. For a carping spirit of eager fault-finding necessarily tinges people's feelings towards its possessor, and he cannot complain if the severe tests which he applied to others are used on his own conduct. A cynical critic cannot expect ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... which speaks for itself in two ways: first, her individuality was strongly marked enough to attract immediate attention, and secondly, there was that about her which provoked criticism. Not that the criticism of a community like ours is worth much, consisting as it does of carping mainly, and the kind of carping which reflects much more upon the low level of intelligence that obtains in such neighbourhoods than upon the character of the person criticised, for what the vulgar do not understand ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... dawn in the United States over a people full of hope and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter with him, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I had a few carping critics that I silenced by this standing offer: If they would deposit a thousand dollars I would cover it on this proposition. I would fasten a 150 pound sack of sand in the rider's seat, make the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... had aroused in Mrs. Zelotes a carping spirit even against Ellen. Presently she turned to her. "I heard something about you," said she. "I want to know if it is true. I heard that you were walking home from school with that Joy boy one day last week." Ellen looked at her grandmother without ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Luther certainly had no thought of revolting against the authority of the Church. In fact, when he visited Rome in 1511, it was as a pious pilgrim rather than as a carping critic. But a significant event in the year 1517 served to make clear a wide discrepancy between what he was teaching and what the Church taught. That year a certain papal agent, Tetzel by name, was disposing of indulgences in the great archbishopric ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... irritated at his companion's persistent carping, began to glow, for he felt that his companion's ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... agree with you that, thanks to your editing and carping and general scurrility, this book is going to be," I meekly stated, "a little better than The Apostates and not just 'pretty much like ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... recognising something a little brisker and more classical—something rather livelier and more popularly relishable. Many clergymen simply select the hymns and leave the music to the choir: the incumbent might try this plan as an experiment. Squabbling about music, carping, and fighting, and biting about it, have in the past done much harm to Trinity Church. There is more peace now than there used to be amongst the singers; but there will never be very much contentment, and never ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... not as a rival, but as a classic. He had left their arena; he never measured his strength with them; and he was always loud in applause of their exertions. They could, therefore, entertain no jealousy of him, and thought no more of detracting from his fame than of carping at the great men who had been lying a hundred years in Poets' Corner. Even the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of the Dunciad, were for once just to living merit. There can be no stronger illustration of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at me, this pair of carping pessimists, rather furtively, like two fags who have allowed their tongues to wag over freely in the presence of a monitor. It was a curious tribute to the power of officialdom, for they were both far bigger men, in every sense, than I. Finally ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Clara had been so queerly engaged, also received from Edwin considerable quantities of Mr Orgreave. But the fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful ass, and quite unable to assimilate Mr Orgreave; Edwin could never comprehend how Clara, so extremely difficult to please, so carping and captious, could mate herself to a fellow like Benbow. She had done so, however; they were recently married. Edwin was glad that that was over; for it had disturbed him in his attentions ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... 'Philosophical Magazine' for this and the succeeding years.] In those days Professor Tait denied to Mayer all originality, and he has since, I regret to say, never missed an opportunity, however small, of carping at Mayer's claims. The action of the Academy of Sciences and of the Royal Society summarily disposes of this detraction, to which its object, during his lifetime, never vouchsafed either remonstrance ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes calls him, throughout his interminable—no, not interminable—his hundred-paged Introduction. He abominates Pope's Homer, and groans to think how it has corrupted the English ear by its long domination in our schools. He takes up, with leathern ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... that this number of well-woolled sheep would be quite beyond one man's power. Sheep are not shorn so neatly as at home. But supposing a man has a mob of 20,000, he must get the wool off their backs as best he can without carping at an occasional snip from a sheep's carcass. If the wool is taken close off, and only now and then a sheep snipped, there will be ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... of your own hands. However, people's wrong-headedness—I don't like to use a harsher word—surpasses belief; they might have secured me by their sympathy in a cause in which they were all equally interested, yet they have alienated me by their jealousy: for by their carping and most malicious criticisms I must tell you that I have been all but driven from that old political standpoint of mine, so long maintained, not, it is true, so far as to forget my position, but far enough ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... more kind and encouraging than Miss Lancaster," said Miss Mitchell. "It isn't the great artists who find fault—they understand the difficulties only too well—it's the carping critics who can't perform themselves and yet think they know all about it! Do your best and no one will expect you to do ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... passed through the sitting room on her way out, her mother would appear in the doorway, dishtowel in hand. Her pride in this slim young thing and her love of her she concealed with a thin layer of carping criticism. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... large folio should have been published by his professional friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have been fierce from the very first, had there been just ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... entirely peculiar to Tennyson, which his critics have, in many cases, ridiculously confused with a fault. This was the fact that Tennyson stood alone among modern poets in the attempt to give a poetic character to the conception of Liberal Conservatism, of splendid compromise. The carping critics who have abused Tennyson for this do not see that it was far more daring and original for a poet to defend conventionality than to defend a cart-load of revolutions. His really sound and essential conception ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Mr. Pattison's Essay. In doing so, I will not waste my time and yours by carping at the many errors of detail into which he has (not inexcusably) fallen. These are the accidents,—not the essence of his paper. The root of bitterness with the Author is, clearly enough, the Theory of Religious Belief in the Church ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... "Axel" (1822), modelled after Byron's narrative poems, rejoiced in a greater popularity, in spite of the carping criticism with which it was received by the Svensk Litteratur-Tidning, the organ of the Phosphorists. Though, to be sure, the merits of the poem are largely ignored in this review, it is undeniable that ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... years the answer lies, Beyond where brood the grieving skies And Night drops tears. Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise And doff its fears, And carping Sorrow pines and dies— ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... of society turns easily and securely as on a perfect axle. There is no room, of course, for doubt or discussion, about conduct, where every one is to follow the law of his being with exact compliance. Whitman hates doubt, deprecates discussion, and discourages to his utmost the craving, carping sensibilities of the conscience. We are to imitate, to use one of his absurd and happy phrases, "the satisfaction and aplomb of animals." If he preaches a sort of ranting Christianity in morals, a fit consequent to the ranting optimism ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... helps to explain the series of events which rendered the autumn of that latter year calamitous for him.[18] There are, indeed, already indications in the letters of those months that his nerves, enfeebled by the quartan fever under which he labored, and exasperated by carping or ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... carping friends I turn aside; At foes defiance frown; Yet time may tame my stubborn pride, And break my spirit down. Still, if to error I incline, Truth whispers comfort strong, That never reckless act of mine E'er worked ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... doings. One ought to employ painters, but not degrade them to paper-stainers; one ought to be satisfied with what they have done, according to their conviction and ability, even if it does not thoroughly please one, and not be perpetually carping at it. In short, in spite of all the count's own generous endeavors, there could, once for all, be no mutual understanding. My father only visited that room when the count was at table; and I can recall but one instance, when, Seekatz having excelled himself, and the wish to see these pictures ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... order—faces rudimentary in their modelling, and uncompromising in their plainness, dressing of the ugliest. Yet, Gott sei Dank! Hans thinks his Gretchen perfection, and it would never enter into innocent Gretchen's head, as it does mine, to bestow upon Hans the carping criticism of Portia upon Monsieur Le Bon: "God made him, and therefore let ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... was well-balanced, with few weak spots in the acting for fault finding, even from a more captious gathering. In the costumes, it is true, the carping observer might have detected some flaws; notably in Adonis, a composite fashion plate, who strutted about in the large boots of the Low Countries, topped with English trunk hose of 1550; his hand upon the long rapier of Charles II, while a periwig and hat of William III crowned ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Homer. He won the name of Homeromastix, "the scourge of Homer," and was also known as kuon rhetorikos, "the dog of rhetoric," on account of his biting sarcasm; and his name (as in the case of the English Dennis) came to be used to signify in general a carping and malicious critic. Suidas mentions two works of his, written with the object of injuring or destroying the fame of Homer—(1) Nine Books against Homer; and ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... enthusiasm when he died. If he had lived, we would have moved to Benham shortly in order to escape from bondage. And one thing is certain, dear Mrs. Earle," she continued with intensity, "we must not permit this carping spirit of hostility to original and spontaneous effort to get a foothold in Benham. We must crush it, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... I heard a carping of a clerk All at yon woodes end, Of good Robin and Gandeleyn, Was there none ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... she knew his love, lest she made sport of it." "Why, to say truth," said Hero, "I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young, or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him." "Sure sure, such carping is not commendable," said Ursula. "No," replied Hero, "but who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air." "O! you wrong your cousin," said Ursula: "she cannot be so much without true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior Benedick." "He hath an excellent ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... at last, 'we could only realise, that in the SPIRIT we are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers there—the rest wouldn't matter, there would be no more of this carping and envy and this struggle for ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the poem that is as significant as it is prosaic, a spirit of carping at poetic custom which reminds the reader of Philodemus' lectures. Philodemus, whether speaking of philosophy or music or poetry, always begins in the negative. He is not happy until he has soundly trounced his predecessors and ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... had no staff officer to assist him, and in this position Capt. Akers might have been of some service, and won more glory than he did in the campaign. As to Lieut.-Col. Booker's conduct on the field at Lime Ridge (which was so unfavorably commented upon by the public press and carping critics who accepted the multitude of erroneous rumors that were prevalent during that period of excitement), it may lie stated that the whole affair was fully investigated by a Military Court of Inquiry, composed of three competent officers of high and ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... the carping critic, if the Negro were less patient, forbearing and more combative, if he risked less for country, and gloried more in deeds of heroism for his personal defense, he would lie truer to his self-preservation. Other races placed in condition quite similar to the Negroes have tried the experiment, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... was "incorrect," "muddy-headed," "he would do little or nothing besides heaping up notes"; "as for MSS. he would not trouble himself about any, but rest wholly upon what had been done to his hands by former editors." This habit of carping, this trick of collecting notes, this inability to put a work through, this dawdling erudition, this horror of manuscripts, every Oxford man knows them, and feels those temptations which seem to be in the air. Oxford is a discouraging place. College drudgery ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... proudly erect in her saddle, while the village hobbledehoys who had instinctively gathered round her, like steel shavings round a magnet, fairly gasped for breath. Oliver Leach dismissed! Oliver Leach, the petty tyrant, the carping, snarling jack-in-office, cast out like a handful of bad rubbish! It was like a thunderbolt fallen from heaven and riving the earth on which they stood! Bainton heard, and could scarcely keep back a chuckle of satisfaction. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... would find them very vulnerable to criticism, which nowadays has become a synonym for fault-finding; at least this carping proclivity characterizes the class who seem desirous only of earning reputation as literary Jeffreys. I am aware, sir, that I am ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... receive it with a passive acquiescence equally amiable, content solely to be amused, and giving all severer criticism—to him who to his other merits may add, if he pleases, that of being the first critic. Most especially let us not be carping and questioning as to the how far, or what precisely, we are to set down for true. It is all true—it is all fiction; the artist cannot choose but see things in an artistical form; what ought not to be there drops from his field of vision. We are not poring through a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... and the prophet; he comes upon us like Shelley, or Whitman, or Ibsen, and plumps down horrid truths that half surprise, half disgust us. He shakes us out of our lethargy. To such give ear, though they say what shocks you. Weigh well their hateful ideas. Avoid the vulgar vice of sneering and carping at them. Learn to examine their nude thought without shrinking, and examine it all the more carefully when it most repels you. Naked verity is an acquired taste; it is never beautiful at first sight to the unaccustomed vision. Remember that no question ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... nails in points, Until they look like claws?' Then patiently Amanda said, 'My loves, just wait a while, The time will come you will not think The nails or victuals vile.' A month has passed, and now we see That prophecy fulfilled; The ardour of those carping maids Is most completely chilled. Matilda was the first to fall, Lured by the dark gossoon, In awful dishes one by one She dipped her timid spoon. She promised for one little week To let her nails grow long, But added in a saving ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... make inquiry in regard to the character and position of his daughter's lover, returned a cordial assent to my proposal for her hand. Thus far every thing had gone on as smoothly as a summer sea. We smiled sometimes together at the carping adage, 'The course of true love never did run smooth,' and referred to our own case as a ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... understand that the above is not written in the spirit of carping criticism or fault-finding. We hold no such mental attitude, and indeed could not if we remain true to our conception of Truth. We are mentioning these matters simply that the student may avoid this "I Am God" ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... you to mince matters in my little room you shall do it. It was Lucius the Praetor that went always accompanied by a carping Stoic to keep him from being puffed up, and it ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... the Cross Wood—one of the most beautiful woods in England. I have spent days there when I was young drawing the trees. And who's the idiot'—he pointed to some marginal notes—'who is always carping and girding? "Good forestry" would have done this and not done that. "Mismanagement"—"neglect"! Upon my word, who made this man a judge ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an objection has been speciously raised, which at first sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further examined, it is found to be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping critic it was alleged that the mere chemical analysis of old-fashioned Herbal Simples makes their medicinal actions no less empirical than before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their constituent ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... failed in war, were specially interested in promptly securing all the conditions of a magnanimous peace. It could not anticipate that quibbles would be made by the defeated and lately suppliant parties, that captious objections would be interposed, that carping criticism would be indulged, that gross outrages would be perpetrated, that absurd conditions would be demanded, and that finally a postponement of the whole procedure would be hazarded, indeed its utter ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Napoleon and survived until 1819. It might have been very easy to exasperate such men. But what the commander-in-chief had to do was done with such smoothness and skill that even they could find no ground for carping; and though at first cold and reticent, before long they yielded to the influences which filled with excitement the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... chance in a carping, critical mood he mentioned this fact, he was greeted by a roar of derision from Monkey Stallings and Alec, who told him to brush up a little on history. He must remember that in those ancient days gunpowder had not been invented, and that consequently all ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... are not about to proceed through a volume such as this in a carping spirit, though food enough for such a spirit may be found; there is too much genuine merit, too much genuine humour, in the work. What, indeed, is the use of selecting from an author who will indulge in all manner of vagaries, whether of thought or expression, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... be ventured to be said in their presence, which in other circumstances would have been absolutely improper. It is certainly to be wished that decency should be observed on all public occasions, and consequently also on the stage. But even in this it is possible to go too far. That carping censoriousness which scents out impurity in every bold sally, is, at best, but an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals; and beneath this hypocritical guise there often lurks the consciousness of an impure imagination. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... sidelight on human nature that the achievement of eminence brings with it the malice and spite of petty minds and no one of prominence can avoid becoming the target of stupid and unscrupulous attack. It would be pointless now to go into those carping and unjust accusations directed at me by irresponsible newspaper columnists. Another man might have ignored these mean assaults, but I am naturally sensitive, and while it was beneath my dignity to reply personally I thought it perhaps one ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... necessary to emphasize this point of view, or to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality of the verse may be readily ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... too nice: for though you may know officers of the cavalry by the turn of their feet, I can't imagine how you should discern their hands from those of other men. But it is always thus with pedants, they will ever be carping; if a gentleman or a man of honour puts pen to paper, I don't doubt, but this author will find this assertion too true, and that obloquy is not repulsed by the force of arms. I will therefore set this excellent piece in a light too glaring for weak eyes, and, in imitation of the critic ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... from an Album', in 'The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine' (Scribner's), for November 1882, pp. 159, 160, where is given a fac-simile of the poet's Ms. of these verses and of the ten verses he afterwards added, in response, it seems, to a carping critic. — ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... has changed from a respectable Radical, with good intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous, wrong-headed hater of Mr. Gladstone and all the proposals which come from a Liberal Government. On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining that there was no care for the agricultural ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... list. animadversion, reflection, stricture, objection, exception, criticism; sardonic grin, sardonic laugh; sarcasm, insinuation, innuendo; bad compliment, poor compliment, left-handed compliment. satire; sneer &c (contempt) 930; taunt &c (disrespect) 929; cavil, carping, censoriousness; hypercriticism &c (fastidiousness) 868. reprehension, remonstrance, expostulation, reproof, reprobation, admonition, increpation^, reproach; rebuke, reprimand, castigation, jobation^, lecture, curtain lecture, blow up, wigging, dressing, rating, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of a carping critic the universal newness might have forced the question, "Where did the family live before they came here? Did all their accumulation of personal belongings burn with an old homestead? Or did they start fresh with their new house, coming ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... not a member of one of the old Longport families, and belonged to a less eminent social level. His straight-forwardness of behavior and excellent business position were his chief claims, besides the fact that he was not only rich, but growing richer every day. His drawbacks were the carping relatives of his late wife, and his four unruly children. Captain Crowe felt himself assured of success in his suit, because he was by no means a poor man, and because he owned the best house in town, over which any woman might be proud to reign as mistress; but he had ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... hummed by husband and wife together. They went over it all again and again, and struck out and added to. It was splendid work—subtle, excruciatingly funny, and possessed a dash and go that would sweep all carping and criticism before it. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... beer were kept ever in readiness for the wayfarer. After a hearty meal and a dip in the trough to wash the dust from them, they strolled forth into the bailey, where the bowman peered about through the darkness at wall and at keep, with the carping eyes of one who has seen something of sieges, and is not likely to be satisfied. To Alleyne and to John, however, it appeared to be as great and as stout a fortress as could be built ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... side only of the double-wielded shield: instead of picking away at a soft stone in constitutional foundations, our feeble wish magnanimously prefers to prop it and plaster it, flinging away that injurious pick-axe. The title of this once-considered lucubration is far too suggestive to carping minds of more than the much that it means, to be without objection: nevertheless, I did begin, and therefore, always under shelter of a domino, and protesting against any who would move ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... ebbed in meditation and chance remarks. The bit of storm had done them both good; and Tom especially—the cynical, carping, grim old gentleman—was much improved by the nearer resemblance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... come to that pass yet among people brought up to their duty. And Dan's free sentiments had not been worked by those who make a trade of such work now. So that he was pleased and respectful, instead of carping and contradictory, when persons of higher position than his own would discuss the condition of the times with him. Carne had discovered this, although as a rule he said little to his neighbours, and for reasons ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... impression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no other condition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing and disgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit; carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true and steadfast; winning and inveigling ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... foolish hardness, often only superficial, which makes one hold back from and repudiate intimacies. If I had known and loved a great and worthy spirit, and had been the recipient of his confidences, I should hold it a solemn duty to tell the world what I knew. I should care nothing for the carping of the cold and unsympathetic, but I should base my decision on the approval of all loving and generous souls. This seems to me the highest service that art can render, and if it be said that no question of art comes in, in the publication of such records as these letters, I would reply that ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Liszt piece "Au bord d'une source," which stood on the programme, Boskowitz had played the "Jagdlied" from Schumann's "Waldscenen," which did not prevent a correspondent (namely, the correspondent of the Deutsche Musikzeitung, as the Neue Zeitschrift of 24th February, 1860, gave out) from loudly carping at the supposed Liszt composition.] Possibly also your correspondent made use of the expression "The Vienna Press" in general, and did not refer specially to the paper Die Presse, [This was actually the case] or was referring to other remarks ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... brave captain and explorer walked with some difficulty; but the speech and action of the sailor were spirited, and the captain's halting step was doubtless owing to temporary fatigue. Moreover, one glance at the boyish face under the great cocked hat was enough to make the most carping critic forget all other defects while, in strangely modern idioms and with a lofty disregard for dates, the old-time hero reminded his comrade of their long and perilous voyage over the sea, of the great ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... obnoxious accident which has yet befallen me, the most wanton blow below the belt which Fate has ever dealt me, is buried beneath the snows of twenty years. But even now I cannot recall it without a shudder. And if a carping critic ventures to point out that blows below the belt are not often buried beneath snow, then all I can say is that when I have made my meaning clear, I see no reason for a servile conformity to academic rules ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... you no good. No man ever touched another with the sweet constraining forces that lie in Christ's Gospel unless the heart of the speaker went out to grapple the hearts of the hearers. And no audience ever listen with any profit to a man when they come in the spirit of carping criticism, or of cold admiration, or of stolid indifference. There must be for this simple relationship which alone binds a Nonconformist preacher to his congregation, as a sine qua non of all higher things and of all spiritual good, a real, though ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... above all, do not let this delicacy show itself in the carping at other people, which only exalts our own opinion of ourselves, and very soon ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... criticizes the "getting up" of a book more than its literary worth; a captious, carping critic. Rene le Bossu was a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... own school days, there are so many things that I would rather not tell, that it will take very little time and space for me to use in telling what I am willing that the carping public should know about my ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... frolics than to the older young ladies, with more social airs and graces. Though Faith had felt somewhat confused, last night, at her father's raillery, her meeting and talk with the modest young fellow was innocent enough, in intention, had there been no one to misconstrue it, but in a carping world we must learn to avoid even ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... that national disputes and grievances can be settled without an appeal to the sword. Hence we have, and what is much better, the world has, Geneva and Alabama and the fish bounty treaty of Canada and the United States. Not all the press did on either side, nor all the carping and blustering of individuals, could prevent the happy consummation of both these treaties. To God be praise, for they are prophetic harbingers of a ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... woman was worth a kingdom, a hundred thousand other women, a world itself. Well might [4881]Sterpsichores be blind for carping at so fair a creature, and a just punishment it was. The same testimony gives Homer of the old men of Troy, that were spectators of that single combat between Paris and Menelaus at the Seian gate, when Helen stood in presence; they said all, the war was worthily prolonged and undertaken ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior |
