"Meddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your own business, and leave mother and me to ourselves. It's your meddling puts everything ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... also as if he missed the chance to explain the purity of his motive; but this privation of relief should be precisely his small penance: it was not amiss for Strether that he should find himself to that degree uneasy. If he had been challenged or accused, rebuked for meddling or otherwise pulled up, he would probably have shown, on his own system, all the height of his consistency, all the depth of his good faith. Explicit resentment of his course would have made him take the floor, and the thump of ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... under the loving hands of nourrice Nature, the whole elongated animal economy, steeped in rest divine from the organ of veneration to the point of the great toe, be it on a bed of down, chaff, straw, or heather, in palace, hall, hotel, or hut? If in an inn, nobody interferes with you in meddling officiousness; neither landlord, bagman, waiter, chambermaid, boots;—you are left to yourself without being neglected. Your bell may not be emulously answered by all the menials on the establishment, but ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... that," returned the Winkie. "We have trouble enough in keeping track of our own dishpans, without meddling ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... wonder that you find no answer from your country friends to the curious questions you put. They belong to that middle region between science and poetry which sensible men, as they are called, are very shy of meddling with. Some people think that truth and gold are always to be washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion, that, unless there are so many grains to the peck of sand or nonsense respectively, it does not pay to wash for either, as long ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... some men are professionally bound to attend to the concerns of others. But this is not the case supposed. The bulk of mankind will be happier, and do more for others, by letting them alone; at least by avoiding any of that sort of meddling which may be construed ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Hood's band," he continued. "At least I've been adopted by a new sort of Robin Hood who's travelling round robbing the rich to pay the poor, and otherwise meddling in people's affairs—the old original Robin Hood brought up to date. If it hadn't been for him I might be cooling my heels in jail right now. He's an expert on jails—been in nearly every calaboose in America. He's tucked ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... I had but just cut, and I thought what a good one it would be to knock a man down with. I was going along, in and out among the bushes, when I caught sight of him coming riding slowly in front. I knew he was most likely going to the creek, for it seemed as if he could not keep from meddling with me continually, and I did not want to talk to him, so I slipped into a big bush to wait till he was gone by. I declare I had no thought of harming him, but he always put me in a rage, so I did not mean to speak to him at all. Well, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... enough for food and lodging; the subscriptions did not flow very freely into an untried scheme; and great economy was necessary in all the domestic arrangements. He determined to enforce this by frequent personal inspection; carried perhaps to an unnecessary extent, and leading occasionally to a meddling with little matters, which had sometimes the effect of producing irritation of feeling. Yet, although there was economy in providing for the household, there does not appear to have been any parsimony. The ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... wife of his may feel the consequence of meddling in other folk's concerns. Not that I care for that now, there's metal more attractive; but she has crossed me, and shall suffer for it.' These short sentences met the ear of a broad-shouldered man in a rough coat, as, in elbowing ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... saw Tanner and L—— enter the lobby of the hotel in which he sat. They registered as man and wife and went upstairs together. He followed—to walk the floor of his room all night, struggling against the impulse to break in, and kill Tanner, and damn his own soul by meddling with the man who had been ordained by the Prophets ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... mystical divinity out of the Song of Solomon, much less out of the erotic and bacchanalian songs of Hafiz. Hafiz himself is determined to defy all such hypocritical interpretation, and tears off his turban and throws it at the head of the meddling dervis, and throws his glass after the turban. But the love or the wine of Hafiz is not to be confounded with vulgar debauch. It is the spirit in which the song is written that imports, and not the topics. Hafiz praises ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... what Roderic proposed a shudder of horror ran through the land. Nobles and bishops hastened to the audience chamber and sought to hinder the fateful purpose of the rash monarch. Their hearts were filled with dread of the perils that would follow any meddling with the magic spell, and they earnestly implored him not to bring the foretold ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... polypragmosyne. Liddell and Scott definitions: "poikilia metaph: cunning; pleonexia a disposition to take more than one's share; polupragmosune meddling." ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... particularities, more zealous than discreet, and even more intent to carry his own point, than to consider the good that might flow from a more urbane spirit. Not that the man was devoid of ability—few, indeed, could set forth a more plausible tale; but he was continually meddling, keeking, and poking, and always taking up a suspicious opinion of every body's intents and motives but his own. He was, besides, of a retired and sedentary habit of body; and the vapour of his stomach, as he was sitting by himself, often mounted into his upper story, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... no light affliction to be kin to the Hyndses!—What do you want me to explain? I have already told you it was necessary for Miss Smith and me to attend to a matter that is none of your business. In return, you hold us up like brigands. Would it make a dent in your armor of righteous meddling, if I were to remind you that you are seriously ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... be all that he does, for he's meddling with every thing, and continually making remarks about our society," said Grimshaw, evidently intending to create ill feeling against the consul, and to make the matter ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... more still was that, at last of all, after I had made five or six such voyages as these, and thought I had nothing more to expect from the ship that was worth my meddling with,—I say, after all this, I found a great hogshead of bread, and three large runlets of rum or spirits, and a box of sugar, and a barrel of fine flour; this was surprising to me, because I had given over expecting any more provisions, except what was spoilt ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... he was being called upon to play flowed through him like some elixir; he felt that he was transcending himself, that his inspiration was drawn from the hidden springs of the spirit, and that he could neither falter nor go astray. "You don't know what you are meddling with! This man has plotted to lay the South in ruins—he has been arming the negroes—it—it is incredible that you should all know this—to such I say, go home and thank God for your escape! For the others"—his shaggy brows met in a menacing frown—"if they force our hand we will toss ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... it's a fine dance—I'm with you there—and looks mighty like a hornpipe in a rope's end at Execution Dock by London town, it does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George Merry! And you're the last above board of that same meddling crew; and you have the Davy Jones's insolence to up and stand for cap'n over me—you, that sank the lot of us! By the powers! but this tops ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... glint of anger in the blue-gray of his eyes. He lifted his broad shoulders. "Or wise man enough to do my own work when needs be, and when I'd have no bungling? I'm going to square with you, girl. Square with you for meddling, for a bullet-hole in each shoulder. If there's a fool in our little junketing party, it's a girl who thought she ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... or clapped. He was sent out a sacrifice, and came home a burnt offering; a saying of seamen who have caught the venereal disease abroad. He has burnt his fingers; he has suffered by meddling. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... they will be unceremoniously pushed from their boxes by an inanimate thing of vapour and flywheels—by a meddling fellow in a clean white jacket and a face not ditto to match, who, mounted on the engine platform, has for some weeks been flourishing a red hot poker over their heads, in triumph at their discomfiture and downfall; and the turnpike road, shorn of its glories, is left desolate and ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... or, at least, strain it and interpret it as they please. Always in the general council, in the municipal council, and in the mayoralty, they are tempted to usurp it; the prefect has as much as he can do to keep them within the local bounds, to keep them from meddling with state matters and the general policy; he is often obliged to accept their lack of consideration, to be patient with them, to talk to them mildly; for they talk and want the administration to reckon ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... little comment from me. Who was it that crushed in embryo, the reform which was in progress thirty-five years ago? It was the abolitionists, and every one is aware of it, who is informed on the subject; and intelligent men among the abolitionists know it, as well as any one else. The officious inter-meddling of abolitionists with Southern slavery, never has, and never can effect anything for the slave; it has served but to retard emancipation, and to rivet the chains of slavery. This opinion has been expressed a thousand times, by the wisest and best men, that our nation ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... you will tell her all that has chanced and how you believe in her powers over the powers of Lurgha, and the Mother will be well pleased with you. But you shall say nothing to the men of the village, for this quarrel is between Lurgha and Assha now and not for the meddling of others." ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... clerk, a native, who runs things to suit himself, and in his turn makes his office an occasion for graft. The parish priests who formerly had so great influence in the villages have now been ordered by the governors to cease meddling with secular matters, and some of them even are in collusion with the alcalde, whom they endeavor to aid in order that they may gain their own ends. Notwithstanding the alcaldes are few who are not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... it that Foe removed his papers to the College strong-room. I did suggest it; but when he pointed out that it would involve an afternoon's work at least, and went on to grumble that it would probably cost him a month to re-sort them—that he hated all meddling with his records—" ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... volunteer to unite against, or freely to give his opinions, even in society, against the political system of the country to which he is accredited. Discretion and delicacy both tell him to use a proper reserve on a point that is of so much importance to others, while it is no affair of his, and by meddling with which he may possibly derange high interests that are entrusted to his especial keeping and care. All this is very apparent, and quite beyond discussion. Still circumstances may arise, provocations may be given, which will amply justify such a man in presenting the most ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... country, to the disgrace of religion and the dishonor of God. We are bound to say, however, that none among the priesthood encourage or take a part in them, unless those low and bigoted firebrands who are alike remarkable for vulgarity and ignorance, and who are perpetually inflamed by that meddling spirit which tempts them from the quiet path of duty into scenes of political strife and enmity, in which they seem to be peculiarly at home. Such scenes are repulsive to the educated priest, and to all who, from superior minds and information, are perfectly aware that no earthly or other good, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... commenced between the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, the former had met with considerable assistance from the United Provinces. Barneveldt, who foresaw the embarrassments which the country would have to contend with on the expiration of that truce, had strongly opposed its meddling in the quarrel; but his ruin and death left no restraint on the policy which prompted the republic to aid the Protestant cause. Fifty thousand florins a month to the revolted Protestants, and a like sum to the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... top, she kneaded it gently despite the infant's cries, trying to round it a bit. Madame Lorilleux grabbed the baby from her; that could be enough to give the poor little thing all sorts of vicious tendencies, meddling with it like that while her skull was still soft. She then tried to figure out who the baby resembled. This almost led to a quarrel. Lorilleux, peering over the women's shoulders, insisted that the little girl didn't look the least bit ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... we had both left town, and were taking up the talk again on the veranda of a sea-side hotel. "As for the eternal-womanly, it will be her salvation from herself. When once she is expropriated from her household effects, and forbidden under severe penalties from meddling with those of the Standard Household-Effect Company, she will begin to get back her peace of mind, and be the same blessing she was before ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as you would be ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... doctrine of the Godhead, and compared it with Arian and Socinian, many doubts interfered, and I even began to think that the more nicely the subject was investigated, the more perplexed it would appear, and was on the point of forming a resolution to go to heaven in my own way, without meddling or involving myself in the inextricable labyrinth of controversial dispute, when I received and perused this excellent treatise, which finally cleared up the mists which my ignorance had conjured around me, and clearly pointed out the ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... nervous state, felt worried and annoyed by this persistent gaze; but he bore it till he could bear it no longer, for the man stared as if he were some street beggar he had to watch for fear of his meddling ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... up an egg," was a part of Betsey's daily duty for some weeks. Then came the soap-boiling in great iron kettles over the fire in the wide fireplace. Apparently, this was not always a certain operation. Science had not yet put her meddling but useful finger into the soap-pot, for madam sadly records that on the twenty-first of May she had superintended the soap-boiling, but had not been blessed with "good luck;" and on the third of June we find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... every time we stirred Stood up to us as to a mother-bird Whose coming home has been too long deferred, Made me ask would the mother-bird return And care for them in such a change of scene And might our meddling make her more afraid. That was a thing we could not wait to learn. We saw the risk we took in doing good, But dared not spare to do the best we could Though harm should come of it; so built the screen You had begun, and gave them back their shade. All this to prove we cared. Why is there then ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... was tremendous. "Then I don't mean to be allowed less liberty than Oliver. It's no good continuing this conversation. Why, I declare! some fool has been meddling ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the worst. He's cut me out altogether, eh? That comes of me meddling with the girl's affairs—damnation! When there wasn't the least ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... me more gently? You have seized my fine brown coat in such a manner that it is all torn and full of holes, meddling and interfering rubbish that you are!" With these words he shouldered a bag filled with precious stones, and slipped away to his cave among ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... nearly related to the families of A— and A—, and well acquainted with the particular affairs of each; who, far from treating him as a bastard and impostor, received him with civility and seeming kindness, asked him to eat, presented him with a piece of money, and, excusing himself from meddling in the affair, advised him to go to Ireland, as the most proper place for commencing a suit for the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... do so, if it pleases you? Women must aye be meddling with pins and barbs. If they be not pricking velvets or home-spun, they must be thrusting sharp points into those that love them best. Why shouldst thou differ from others ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the protectorship to Don Luis Arias de Mora; for, in addition to exercising this office, he is the archbishop's counselor. Therefore he despatches and performs what pertains to him in ecclesiastical matters, without meddling with the royal patronage and jurisdiction of your Majesty, as the archbishop has tried to do hitherto. By that means I think that the archbishop will be quiet, and we shall be able to live in peace. Doctor Luis Arias is a person who merits honor from your Majesty by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... and not meddling with things that don't concern me, as seems to be the way out in the Great World you are so fond of talking about," retorted Grandfather Frog. "Wise people know enough to be content with what they have. ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... through the gap in the white fence, and went around the house, past the dripping evergreens and the bare, wet lilac bushes, to the side door, the lock of which Keziah's key fitted. There was a lock on the front door, of course, but no one thought of meddling with that. That door had been opened but once during the late pastor's thirty-year tenantry. On the occasion of his funeral the mourners came and went, as was proper, by that ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... other merchants, I up and down about several businesses, and so home, whither came one Father Fogourdy, an Irish priest, of my wife's and her mother's acquaintance in France, a sober, discreet person, but one that I would not have converse with my wife for fear of meddling with her religion, but I like the man well. Thence with my wife abroad, and left her at Tom's, while I abroad about several businesses and so back to her, myself being vexed to find at my first coming Tom abroad, and all his books, papers, and bills loose ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... it seems, has been meddling with matters in Mississippi, the President states, and has ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... discerned in the ungainly figure of one of the party the same suspicious Welsh gentleman, on whose calling she had divined long ago; and she was so loyal a subject as to hold in extreme horror her husband's meddling with such "Popish skulkers" (as she called the whole party roundly to their face)—unless on consideration of a very handsome sum of money. In vain Parsons thundered, Campian entreated, Mr. Leigh's groom swore, and her husband danced round in an ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... give 'em to my mama," said Jimmy, "'cause I never could had no more fun; they'd be stuck right under my nose all time, and all time put their mouth in everything you want to do, and all time meddling. You can't fool me 'bout twinses. But I wish I could see 'em! They so weakly they got to be hatched in ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... lift the tea-pot lid, To peep at what was in it; Or tilt the kettle, if you did But turn your back a minute. In vain you told her not to touch, Her trick of meddling grew so much. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... me still more, was, that, last of all, after I had made five or six such voyages as these, and thought I had nothing more to expect from the ship that was worth my meddling with; I say, after all this, I found a great hogshead of bread, and three large runlets of rum or spirits, and a box of sugar, and a barrel of fine flour; this was surprising to me, because I had given over expecting ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... An assembly being called some of the Carthaginians counseled maintaining peace with the Romans, but the party attached to Hannibal affirmed that the Saguntines were guilty of wrongdoing and the Romans were meddling with what did not concern them. Finally those who urged them to ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... south, evidently ignorant that the former commander of the Third Force was still alive, had proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Foxx Travis and was forbidding everybody, on pain of court-martial and firing squad, from meddling with Merlin. And an evangelist in the west was declaring that Merlin was really ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... with bold statesman's hand, and with like hand REBUILD, is no darling of your political Repairer. Call the party and the men by their right names: and give me for utility in legislation or administrative action an Old Tory and Obstructive party rather than this middling, meddling, muddling Repairer— ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... I of all mankind fro' meddling wight * Who, seeing others err, self error ne'er can sight: Riches and talents are but loans to creature lent, * Each wears the cloak of that he bears in breast and sprite: If by mistaken door attempt on aught thou make, * Thou shalt go wrong and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Bah! Mrs. Sam Titmarsh is a minor, and can't touch a shilling of it. No, no, no meddling with minors for me! But stop!—your mother has a house and shop in our village. Get me a mortgage ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... boyhood and many Persians account for it by paternal severity. Youths arrived at puberty find none of the facilities with which Europe supplies fornication. Onanism[FN399] is to a certain extent discouraged by circumcision, and meddling with the father's slave-girls and concubines would be risking cruel punishment if not death. Hence they use each other by turns, a "puerile practice" known as Alish-Takish, the Lat. facere vicibus or mutuum facere. Temperament, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... mused. Her duty, she now felt convinced, was to abstain from any sort of meddling. These two people must settle their affairs as they chose. To interfere was to incur an enormous responsibility. For what she had already done in that ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the bitterness and folly of such a man as I am—that you should consider and listen to the sorry wisdom of a homeless mountebank—a wandering fool—a preacher of empty platitudes, who has brought you to this with his cursed meddling!" ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... in, to rule over the island, a Greek prince, Constantine, the son of the king. Eight years later he had become very unpopular through meddling with Cretan politics—on the wrong ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... it, you little fiend, well, you shall get what you deserve for your meddling." He motioned to the frightened boatman. "Get me a rope, I'll make a gag of my handkerchief; hurry man, if you are found you ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... hardworking, energetic Western man. HAYES is a meddling Yankee. Of course HALL is the better man for carrying out ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... overmastered in the presence of Elsa. His swagger and domineering ways had availed him nothing. Andor had threatened him and he had not had the pluck or the presence of mind to stand up to that meddling, interfering peasant. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... discover the powers thereof, how far they reach, to what things they are in any degree proportionate, and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension: to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are proved to be beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then, perhaps, be so forward, out of an affectation ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... And now France is fighting not so much to recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken, Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend ourselves. We might have a navy that would ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Sinzendorf, far enough away and in no want of it just now] are mere hay-mows, bigger than houses: who can object,—in a case of necessity? No man, unless he politically meddle, is meddled with; politically meddling, you are at once picked up; as one or two are,—clapped into gentle arrest, or, like old Schaffgotsch, and even Sinzendorf before long, requested to leave the Country till it get settled. Rigor there is, but not intentional injustice on Munchow's part, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... at a Balaklava. The revenges of history are fearful; and if the end of human experience is not reached in our downfall, other races will be careful never to rivet a chain of caste or color, or so to rivet it that no meddling fingers of fanaticism can ever ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Elizabeth, and then uniting with her lover in a plot to strangle her husband. "I am quite aware," said Voltaire, "that she is reproached with some bagatelles in the matter of her husband, but these are family affairs with which I cannot possibly think of meddling." ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... have happened had things gone on in this way, I am not prepared to say; probably had not a meddling Fate decided to take a hand in the game, Betty would have continued to think she hated Alfred, and I would never have had occasion to write his story; but Fate did interfere, and, one day in the early fall, brought about ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... piece of friendly advice is quite to the taste of the amateur, who, being a non-practical man, is wise in abstaining from meddling in directions for which he has no natural bent, and unlike the numerous tribe of would-be repairers who think that any person who can use glue and cut a piece of wood can engage in the restoration of such a small instrument as ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... There, recovering his courage and presence of mind, he recalled the important responsibilities attached to his office, and resolving to fulfil them whatever might happen, hastened to consult with the other magistrates, but as they all gave him very excellent reasons for not meddling, he soon felt there was no dependence to be placed on such cowards and traitors. He next repaired to the episcopal palace, where he found the bishop surrounded by the principal Catholics of the town, all on their knees offering up earnest ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and Werner would get back at you for meddling with their supplies," remarked Jack sharply. "They have certainly paid ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. Any description in words, or even any inert picture, requires an effort of memory before a picture exists in the mind. But on the screen the whole process ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... venal pens and voices to condemn Mr. Madison, and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies despised them, and ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... of old grandmotherly prejudices about Englishmen being punished by Englishmen, and notions of that sort. He protested, not only in speech, but actually in print. He was soon made to learn the perils of meddling in the high politics of the High Dutch militarists. The fine feelings of the foreign mercenaries were soothed by Cobbett being flung into Newgate for two years and beggared by a fine of L1000. That small incident is a small transparent ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... things he could not possibly be supposed to understand, and which to the Malay himself were matters of an almost special knowledge. There was a twinkle of mischief in his eye as he contemplated the meddling of Murtagh, and waited ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... much of this meddling business—rummaging the mails for the books of a conscientious writer like Tolstoi, suppressing the poems of one of the gentlest and noblest of writers, Whitman, and now taking a gentleman to the Tombs for having on ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... privileged character, and the protection he enjoyed from the sovereign, that any of the courtiers resented his remarks; but Sir Thomas Wyat's feelings being now deeply interested, he turned sharply round, and said, "How now, thou meddling varlet, what business ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that the interference with her method of work is bad. But Nature is mindful of this tendency and if it is not in accordance with the profoundest laws of being, Nature will have her way in spite of man's meddling. Any change that can be brought about by selective mating must come by natural processes aided by the education of each individual through a closer study of the origin and evolution of life. This must leave everyone free to do his own selecting, rather than to trust it to the state. ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... tries a little calomel powder on the sore, and it either "dries up" and secondary symptoms of syphilis appear in due course, or it gets worse or remains unchanged and the patient finally goes to a doctor or a dispensary to find that his meddling has lost him the golden opportunity of aborting the disease. If secondaries appear, a bottle or two of XYZ Specific, again at the suggestion of the all-knowing drug clerk, containing a little mercury and potassium iodid, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... believe one word of it," she said, firmly. "I don't believe it. I wouldn't believe it was anything but your mean meddling ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... ashore; and, secondly, the Deal men had such a reputation as desperate characters that no officer, unless he was pretty sure that a smuggling transaction was being carried on and could rely, too, on being well supported by other Customs men and the soldiers, would think of meddling in the matter. But, lastly, the men who came ashore from the East Indiamen had a smart little dodge of their own for concealing ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... affair. It was received by a yell of laughter, that completely discomfited my meddling antagonist, who, after some little swaggering and loud talk, at length went below to the "bar" to soothe his ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... especially of facts in which they themselves had so large a share. We only relate such things as could not possibly escape our knowledge, and what we actually know to be true. We don't set up for naturalists and men of great learning, therefore have avoided meddling ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... upon Old Mr. Toad!" grumbled Jimmy, as he ambled up the Lone Little Path through the Green Forest on his way to the hill where Prickly Porky lives. "Of course I'm not afraid, but just the same I don't like meddling with things I don't know anything about. I'm not afraid of anybody I know of, because everybody has the greatest respect for me, but it might be different with a creature without legs or head or tail. Whoever heard of such a thing? It gives ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... like a downy young owl. She wasn't sure but she thought that he muttered, "I'm damned if I will." She considered with wholesome fear the perils of meddling with other people's destinies, and she said timidly, "Hadn't ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... try to persuade me to marry him? Was not that a declaration from you? Why do you force yourself upon us in this way? I confess I thought at first that you were anxious to arouse an aversion for him in my heart by your meddling, in order that I might give him up; and it was only afterwards that I guessed the truth. You imagined that you were doing an heroic action! How could you spare any love for him, when you love your own vanity to such an extent? Why could you not simply ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her to wait. "I am convinced that that woman is meddling in our affairs. It is plain enough that we ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... one in their houses; and if any should by chance come to their hands, they were on this penalty to carry them to the Secretary of State; and after the punishment had passed on two or three offenders, it deterred the rest from meddling with those edge tools: I must tell you also, that the title of king, which Cesario had taken so early upon him, was much against his inclinations; and he desired to see himself at the head of a more ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... her daughter and bade her lift the pot off the fire and put the stew into a dish, as it had been cooking quite long enough and she was hungry. But no sooner had she tasted it than she put her spoon down, and declared that her daughter must have been meddling with it, for it was impossible to eat anything that was ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... are," Denham reassured him. "I've got enough to do without meddling in other folks' business. The lady outside the case doesn't exist. But as for 'Churn' being Lorenz Czerny, it doesn't go without saying that we shall spot Chuff and Jake, and the rest of the gang through him. That will depend on himself, and his Moll—Kit. I wouldn't mind offering your young ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... lived with him, day in, day out, and not seen what you saw in an hour or two? No," she said, "I know there's wrong in it; what wrong, I neither know nor want to know. There was never an ill thing made better by meddling, that I could hear of. But, my lad, you must never ask me to leave my father. While the breath is in his body, I'll be with him. And he's not long for here, either: that I can tell you, Charlie—he's not long for here. The mark is on his brow; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... watched her curiously, then stole away with another smile. She liked the spell that was acting now, but knew Annie too well to say much. Miss Eulie was one of those rare women who could let a good work of this kind go on without meddling. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mad him," retorted the cook, "if he comes meddling with my larder when my back's turned. I have a very great mind not to finish cooking those sausage-meat cakes for his tea—behaving like ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... the various attempts to legislate in behalf of women and child workers strikes the average employer as a gross interference with his constitutional rights. Where he can he evades. Where he cannot he is apt to grow purple over the impertinence of meddling reformers who cannot let ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... career, The barrier tops, and o'er the bridge would fly, But sullen Rodomont, with troubled cheer, Afoot, as he that tower is standing nigh, For he disdains to brandish sword or spear, Shouts to him from afar with threatening cry, "Halt! thou intrusive churl and indiscreet, Rash, meddling, saucy villain, stay ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Gordon; "it's quite different with us; we don't want to rob him or Ollypybus, or to annex their land. All we want to do is to improve it, and have the fun of running it for them and meddling in their affairs of state. Well, Stedman," he said, "what shall ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... be, Mr. Franklin! Take my advice, and let the Diamond be! That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near it. Don't waste your money and your temper—in the fine spring time of your life, sir—by meddling with the Moonstone. How can YOU hope to succeed (saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess of it? Sergeant Cuff!" repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at me sternly. "The ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... just the one to do it, and that it is your obvious duty, and all that?" said Mrs. Swan. "Now, just take my advice, and don't burn your fingers meddling with other people's affairs, nor do any such ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the lesson he had received for meddling with Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of provoking further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V was a sleeping dog it was ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... business of her estate, which was ample, with skill and ability, and asked advice from no one. Like my father, she had a liking to control those about her, was restlessly busy, and was never so pleased as when engaged in arranging other people's lives, or meddling with the making ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... much of the story as he would hear. Almost immediately he saw whither it tended, he began to abuse him for meddling with things he had nothing to do with. What right had he to interfere with lord Forgue's pleasures! Things of the sort were to be regarded as non-existent! The linen had to be washed, but it was not done in the great court! Lord Forgue ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... but then the House of Peers seldom interferes in matters that concern the interests of the others. The Lords seem not to think it their province; and, in general, more through diffidence than negligence, they avoid meddling, though, to do that honourable house justice, to it we owe much. Many bills, of a dangerous tendency, have been thrown out by it, after they had passed the other house; and it has been generally done with a wisdom, magnanimity, and moderation, which is only to be accounted for by ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... apprehended from that source than had lately been the case. Thus, the "cup of bitterness," of which Granvelle had already complained; was again commended to his lips, and there was more reason than ever for the government to regret that the national representatives had contracted the habit of meddling with financial matters. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... better managed than the caution which the king gives the meddling Archbishop, not to advise him rashly to engage in the war with France, his scrupulous dread of the consequences of that advice, and his eager desire to hear ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... precipitate attempts to change externals. He let slavery—he let war alone; he let the tyranny of the Roman Empire alone—not because he was a coward, not because he thought that these things were not worth meddling with, but because he, like all wise men, believed in making the tree good and then its fruit good. He believed in the diffusion of the principles which he proclaimed, and the mighty Name which he served, as able to girdle the poison-tree, and to take the bark off it, and the rest, the slow ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... had his mouth all fixed to tell Brother Bill that, in his opinion, he wasn't much better than a faro dealer, for he used to brag that he never let anything turn him from his duty, which meant his meddling in other people's business. I want to say right here that with most men duty means something unpleasant which the other fellow ought to do. As a matter of fact, a man's first duty is to mind his own business. It's been my experience that it takes about all the ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... Grace; "you have a taste in these things, let us have your aid in the selection." Rupert was by no means backward in complying, for he loved to be meddling in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... soon forgotten all about her raid upon Uncle Ewen's affairs. Her thoughts floated to a little cottage on the hills, and its two coming inhabitants. And in her dream she seemed to hear herself say—"I oughtn't to be meddling with other people's lives like this. I don't know enough. I'm too young! I want somebody to ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... impossible for any object to get into the ear itself; the depth of the external passage is only about one inch in an adult. At this point the passage is completely closed by the drum membrane. Most of the harm is done by ignorant meddling, not by the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... that the Bill proposed to throw technical education into the hands of the Science and Art Department. But, in reality, no power of initiation, nor even of meddling with details, was given to that Department—the sole function of which was to decide whether any plan proposed did or did not come within the limits of "technical education." The necessity for such control, somewhere, is obvious. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... man, turning a disgusted shoulder on this display of emotion, "to my mind this business of draining Pontesordo is too much like telling the Almighty what to do. If God made the land wet, what right have we to dry it? Those that begin by meddling with the Creator's works may end by ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... say generally," she went on, "that there are people who are quite indifferent and completely devoid of all feeling of sympathy, yet who do not pass human suffering by, but insist on meddling for fear people should be able to do without them. Nothing is sacred for ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Tullis was not in Edelweiss for the purpose of meddling with state affairs. He was there because he elected to stand mentor to the son of his life-long friend, even though that son was a prince of the blood and controlled by the will of three regents chosen by his own subjects. He was there to watch over the doughty little chap, who one day ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... directing the attention of his companion to the Cove: "'Tis the bark that has so often foiled the efforts of all thy cruisers, and which transports me and my wealth whither I will, without the fetters of arbitrary laws, and the meddling inquiries of venal hirelings. The scud, which floats above the sea, is not freer than that vessel, and scarcely more swift. Well is she named the Water-Witch! for her performances on the wide ocean have been such as seem to exceed all natural means. The froth of the sea does not dance more ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... is, laddie. It's a matter of life and death, I'm thinking!" He smiled grimly, as it entered his head that he might be driven to do violence to that meddling policeman. The yellow gas-light gave his face such a sardonic ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... sometimes spied, Sad sight! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead: Listless, she crawls along in doleful black, Whilst bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, Past falling down her now untasted cheek. Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst busy meddling memory, In barbarous succession, musters up The past endearments of their softer hours, 80 Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and, indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, Nor heeds the passenger who looks ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Empire under the elder Pitt; a man whose like the world had never seen before and may not see again; orator, statesman, founder of empire, champion of freedom, and one of the very few civilians who have ever wielded the united force of fleets and armies without weakening it by meddling with the things that ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the citizen is held quite as sacred as his person. Now, some of these very tenures existed when the State institutions were framed; and, not satisfied with this, we of New York, in common with our sister States, solemnly prohibited ourselves, in the constitution of the United States, from ever meddling with them! Nevertheless, men are found hardy enough to assert that a thing which in fact belongs to the ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper |
