"Officious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suspicion, and calculated on our own account how long it would take to get the rest of the cargo aboard, and dragged our mate ashore for a final drink, and found that we had "plenty of time to slip ashore for a parting wet" so often that his immediate relations grew anxious and officious, and the universe began to look good, and kind, and happy, and bully, and jolly, and grand, and glorious to us, and we forgave the world everything wherein it had not acted straight towards us, and were filled full of ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... house. Elinor had never wanted a child, but in the third or fourth year of her marriage she had begun to perceive that it might be wise to give her worldly old husband an heir, much better that, at any cost, than to encourage his fondness for Barbara Oliphant's boy, his namesake nephew, who was an officious, self-satisfied little lad of twelve. But Nature refused to cooperate in Elinor's maternal plans and Peter Junior did not make his appearance at the big house on the Avenue. Elinor grew yearly noisier, more reckless, more shallow; ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... days all is cleared away again, and Bernini's great fountain faces Borromini's big Church of Saint Agnes, in the silence; and the officious guide tells the credulous foreigner how the figure of the Nile in the group is veiling his head to hide the sight of the hideous architecture, and how the face of the Danube expresses the River God's terror ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... cities are so full,—our whole country is so overrun,—with these officious middle-men whom the world does not truly want; chiffonniers of trade, who only pick up a living out of the great press and waste and overflow; and our boys are so eager to slip in to some such easy, ready-made opportunity,—to ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Jack Wonnell, in officious zeal to be useful, gathered flowers, and hung around Teackle Hall to run errands; and, in order not to exasperate Vesta's husband, appeared bareheaded as the party set off, Milburn's hat-box being one of the articles of travel, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... decided answer while the negotiations for the annuity were dragging along. When it became evident that he would not accept the position, the offer was made to Ries. Some officious person informed Beethoven that Ries was trying to get the post away from him in a questionable manner. This was not true, but Beethoven broke off all relations with him and would not see him for three weeks. ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... answered the officious Rat; then I can help you. Take this dough, cook it quickly, and stop their ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... have been regarded. Marriage is the natural means of forming a sphere, of taking root in the earth; it requires more strength to do this without such an opening; very many have failed, and their imperfections have been in every one's way. They have been more partial, more harsh, more officious and impertinent, than those compelled by severer friction to render themselves endurable. Those who have a more full experience of the instincts have a distrust as to whether the unmarried can be thoroughly human and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... slowly. "You know something, Charley?" he said in a deceptively mild voice. "One of these days you're going to get officious with the wrong spaceman, one that isn't as tolerant as I am, and you're going to be ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... was, to the last, little regarded by the great world; from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honor, as from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even among Johnson's friends, and special admirers, seems rather to have been laughed at than envied; his officious, whisking, consequential ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he underwent, could gain from the world no golden, but only leaden, opinions. His devout Discipleship seemed nothing more than a mean Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty "constellation," or sun, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... Captain and the Mayor. Paul did not think much of the incident at the time, being under the impression, that the fellow was one of the Mayor's friends, though he noticed that official did not seem to be particularly pleased. When they reached the hotel, the man made himself obnoxiously officious, entering Boyton's room with an air of proprietorship and taking refreshments as though he was paying for them all. At last Paul made inquiries concerning him and found he was the most desperate character ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... and the more the worse: [5115]Et quae me perdunt, oscula mille dabat, they are the bane of these miserable lovers. There be honest kisses, I deny not, osculum charitatis, friendly kisses, modest kisses, vestal-virgin kisses, officious and ceremonial kisses, &c. Osculi sensus, brachiorum amplexus, kissing and embracing are proper gifts of Nature to a man; but these are too lascivious kisses, [5116]Implicuitque suos circum meet colla lacertos, &c. too continuate ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Some of the Spanish nobility repaired to Burgos, in order to pay court to him, but they were so few in number, and their attendance was so negligent, that Charles observed it, and felt, for the first time, that he was no longer a monarch. Accustomed from his early youth to the dutiful and officious respect with which those who possess sovereign power are attended, he had received it with the credulity common to princes, and was sensibly mortified when he now discovered that he had been indebted to his rank and power for much of that obsequious regard which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... much from her. She had not been either officious or effusive during the voyage, and "song by Mrs. Tresham" did not raise any great expectations. As it was nearly the last item on the programme, many had gone away before Roland took his place at the piano and struck ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... you danced with last,' resumed she, after a pause—'that was so officious in helping you ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... pang for these. Their own bad hearts Impelled them, not the influence of the stars. 'Twas they who strewed the seeds of evil passions 70 In his calm breast, and with officious villainy Watered and nursed the pois'nous plants. May they Receive their earnests to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... back the unthinking and officious School Directors voted to have that fence demolished, simply because it seemed to be out of keeping with the grand new building that had been erected, a storm of angry protest arose from students and parents; while letters arrived from a score and more of eminent men who were ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... agile, energetic, officious, sprightly, alert, expeditious, prompt, spry, brisk, industrious, quick, supple, bustling, lively, ready, vigorous, busy, mobile, restless, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... cheese in Turbot a la creme; just a hint of the flavor, the merest soupcon is all that is admissible in either. I came in to tell you, that I have experienced quite a change of feeling with reference to that poor young lady, whom Mr. Dunbar with such officious haste arrested and threw into gaol. I am now convinced that a great wrong has ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... child, the State to the citizen, and God to man, a doctrine which, away from its application to God, Grotius accepts. Lastly since volenti non fit injuria, the presumed willingness of the listener would license all manner of officious and jocose lies, as the authority of the speaker would sanction official fabrications. Thus, what with official, and what with officious speeches, it would be very ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... rebuked. "Dear Mr. Dalmain," she said, humbly; "I realise how officious I must seem to you, with all these questions, and suggestions. But you must blame the hold these wonderful paintings of yours have taken on my mind. Oh, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... with, and "at home" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which "YOU know nothing"!—this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble: it separates.—One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... words, my lords, but what his verse expresses is no fiction. France has insulted you, she has encouraged and supported America, and, be America right or wrong, the dignity of this nation requires that we should thrust aside with contempt the officious intervention of France; ministers and ambassadors from those whom we call rebels and enemies are received at Paris, there they treat of the mutual interests of France and America, their countrymen are aided, provided with military resources, and our ministers suffer ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... began to feel happy once more. At this time a man passed through the country that was acquainted with Arndt's antecedents, and being a dirty dog he thought it was his duty to inform the farmer that his hired man was an ex-convict, horse-thief and a desperado of the worst type. Some men are so officious and are so anxious to do their duty when it is in their power to injure a fellow-man who is trying to earn an honest living. Gus immediately got the "bounce." He was informed by his employer that he did not want ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... Manila full of high purpose as the self-styled, accredited representative of any quantity of good Americans, actuated by motives, no doubt, of purest patriotism. The nation was full of it,—of men who wanted to be officers, of women who wanted to be officials, many of whom succeeded only in becoming officious. There were not staff or line positions enough to provide for a hundredth part of the men, or societies and "orders" sufficient to cater to the ambitions of a tenth part of the women. The great Red Cross gave abundant employment for thousands ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Dawn, seeking to calm her, lest the excitement would be too much. "After all it mightn't be so bad. Lots of boys take a few paltry oranges out of the gardens and no one makes such a fuss but that old creature. He just wants to be officious." This was an injudicious ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. "He was a good man, but very officious," says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at' [over] 'it. A plain man it ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible business ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two nights, and now utterly broken ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and no more. I sent the younger boys to light a fire and get tea ready, and then stayed with Esquimau to talk to the old man. When he found I was going to speak about religion, he called to his children—two men and a squaw—to come and listen. Another man came up, and in rather an officious manner informed me that it was no use for me to talk to the Indiana about religion; that they would not listen to me, and did not intend to accept Christianity. The Great Spirit, he continued, has made us all, and he has given one religion ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... a poor specimen, that foreman; one of your little, officious, meddling busybodies, as aggravating as the buzzing ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... Clement Courtney had accepted it cheerfully, and had even written to his widowed mother, who lived alone in a Dorsetshire village, asking her advice about the girl. Gladys was disturbed in her solitude by Miss Peck, who came to the door in rather an excited and officious manner. She was a little, wiry spinster, past middle life, eccentric, but kind-hearted. She had bestowed a great deal of gratuitous and genuine kindness on her lodgers, though knowing very well that she would not likely get any return but gratitude for it; but times were ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... her voice, then went on with a swift breathlessness. "But I see, you mean to use when I visit you and Elizabeth. These rooms, from the first, have been my choice. But I am afraid I've been officious. I've been carried away by all this beautiful architecture and the pleasure of imagining harmonious, expensive furnishings. I never have fitted a complete house; it's years since I had a home. Then, too, you've spoiled me by listening to my suggestions. You've made me believe ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... three fingers with a sudden and light dive into his friend's pocket, and effectually repulsed the forwardness of the intrusive lining. The supercilious stranger no sooner felt the touch than he started back, and whispered to his officious companion,— ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they might have held half the congregation, who used to establish himself just on one side of me, and seemed to feel such entire confidence in the soundness and capacity of his pastor that he could sleep very comfortably from one end of the sermon to the other. Occasionally, to be sure, one of your officious blue flies, who, as every body knows, are amazingly particular about such matters, would buzz into his mouth, or flirt into his ears a passing admonition as to the impropriety of sleeping in meeting, when the good old gentleman would start, open his eyes very ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a mingling of amusement, impatience, annoyance, and boyish mischief. He looked like a man who had somehow stumbled into a false position from which it would be difficult to escape with dignity, yet which he half enjoyed. Torn between a desire to laugh, and fly into a rage with the officious landlady, he frowned warningly at Frau Yorvan, smiled at the Princess, and divided his energies between quick, secret gestures intended for the eyes of the Rhaetian woman, and endeavors to unburden himself in his own time and way, of ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... possessed you to send a death's-head to the feast? The letter would have bitten no one in my chambers. A nice scrape I shall be in if you let out that your officious precision forwarded it. Of course at the last moment I could not upset the whole affair and leave Lydia to languish in vain. The whole thing went off magnificently. Keep counsel and no harm is done. You owe me that for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Macumer treated this officious scandal-monger to one of those glances of his which seem to me so eloquent of noble scorn, and replied to the effect that he was "not in love with any little coquette." His whole bearing so delighted me, that directly I caught sight of my ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... want you and Sidney to come over and live at Quien Sabe. I know—you can't make me believe that the reporters and officers and officious busy-faces that pretend to offer help just so as they can satisfy their curiosity aren't nagging you to death. I want you to let me take care of you and the little tad till all this trouble of yours is over with. There's plenty ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. 'He was a good man, but very officious,' says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tempted to resort to bribery, but there was something so officious and aggressively professional in the manner of this "straw-boss"—as The Spider mentally labeled him—that The Spider hesitated to flatter his egotism by admitting that he ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the saddle be," exclaimed Meddy, with her wonted officious-ness, and glibly picking up the bits of her shattered scheme. Seymour fully expected they would not return from the gloom without, whither they had disappeared, but embrace the immediate chance of escape before the inopportune ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... led into another room, where she saw several sumptuous female habiliments, and selecting the least showy of them, was soon arrayed in it by the officious attendant. More than two hours elapsed before Rochester returned, when he entered Amabel's chamber, accompanied by Sir George Etherege and Pillichody. A feeling of misgiving crossed Amabel, as ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his answer until he had made sure that she was not irritating Rabbit with a too-officious guidance. When he saw that she was holding the reins loosely as he had told her to do, and was merely laying the weight of a rein on one side of the neck and then on ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... entering it, partly from fatigue, and partly from dejection of spirits. Mrs. Jewkes seem'd mighty officious to welcome me, and call'd me madam ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... him, now that they were on land? Was he, a prince of the royal blood, to be tossed aside by this purse-proud American as if he were the simplest of simpletons? And what did she mean by stationing an officious hireling before her door to order him away when he undertook to pay her a friendly visit?—to offer his own and Hobbs' services in case they were needed in Paris. Why should she lock her confounded door anyway,—and ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... necks. If driven from the carcass, they seldom return to it. The Gauchos say that the jaguar, when wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes yelping as they follow him. This is a curious coincidence with the fact which is generally affirmed of the jackals accompanying, in a similarly officious manner, the East Indian tiger. The jaguar is a noisy animal, roaring much by night, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... simplicity itself—so easy that the Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had never thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, and officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shut off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked the bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's picture and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the back—written out of ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... what it styles "the officious manner in which some persons raise alarm throughout the church, promulgate their intention to change the Augsburg Confession, and act in such a manner as if their views in regard to the so-called errors of the Augsburg Confession were absolutely above all possibility of error." p. 13. ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... while the Fawn placed herself with mechanical helplessness in the boat. Instantly the unnoticed, but faithful wolf, sprung after her. Arms were stretched to pull him out, but the sachem's voice caused them to fall by the sides of the officious forms ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... ladies he is hardly well equipped, as a rule, to stand the rough horseplay of a boarding-school; and if, in addition, he boasts blue blood, he is sure to come in for blows. And the Count was a delicate aristocrat, with weak legs and a cough. He was proud of his noble birth; he was rather officious in his manner; he had his meals at Franke's private table; he had private lodgings a few minutes' walk from the school; he had plenty of money in his purse; and, therefore, on the whole, he was as well detested as the son of a lord can be. "With a few exceptions," he ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... that the ex-Emperor should be desired, in the name of their country, to remove from the capital. This demand having no effect, recourse was had to other means. Endeavours were made to frighten him. Every day officious advisers warned him, that attempts were making against his life: and to give more probability to this clumsy scheme, his guard was suddenly reinforced. Nay, one night, we were roused out of our beds by a messenger from the commandant ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... tremendously officious in serving out the loaves and fishes of other people; for, under the notion of appearing exquisitely amiable, and killingly agreeable to the guests, they are ever on the watch to distribute themselves the dainties which it is the peculiar part ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... proofs of the good will of the Hanoverian Sovereign. It is true that Lady Mary Wortley augured ill of the match between her sister and Lord Mar, detesting as she did the Jacobite party, and believing that her sister was "drawn in by the persuasion of an officious female friend," Lord Mar's relation. But there is no reason to conclude that the Duke of Kingston in any way objected to a match apparently so dissonant with his ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... of men of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors in their own language. Many had pretensions far above this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in him towards the Powers, for he was fairly high up in the Sixth, and others of his set, Welch, Thomson, and Tony Graham, who were also in the Sixth—the two last below him in form order—had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... I found myself deserted by most of those who had been my intimate friends. Not that any guilt was supposed to attach to my character. My officious countryman, to do him justice, had been candid enough to explain ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... smith had branded with a mark, and he was a child upon whom the hardest and most commonplace among them could not look without a secret joy. Therefore they took him under their protection. The first who came to see Stephen Fausch was the teacher, an enlightened young man, and accordingly more officious. He greeted the smith a little condescendingly, a trifle masterfully. Then he blurted out at once the errand that had brought him. "You must change your boy's name, Fausch. He can't let every one call him by a shameful ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... return of fugitives, the pursuit of deserters, any chance scuffle between soldiers and natives, as well as the punishment inflicted on the rebellious, the appearance of a portent in the heavens, or omens noticed by the augurs. There were plenty of envious or officious tongues among their followers to report to headquarters the slightest failure of duty, and to draw attention to their negligence. Moreover, it seems certain that the object of thus compelling them to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... His two noses were not the most remarkable thing about him, for in course of time hearing of young William's misadventure, he sent him a sum equivalent to all the episode had cost him, together with a handsome diamond stud, which he had with great deftness and cleverness taken from the officious policeman, as he visited the dime museum with two ladies while spending his vacation in Detroit. And this beautiful ornament William delighted to wear, not merely because of its intrinsic worth, which was ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... Seward the waters formerly troubled by the stiff manner and tone of the one statesman and the flamboyance of the other were now unusually calm. Russell was less officious and less eager to protest on minor matters and Seward was less belligerent in language. Seward now radiated supreme confidence in the ultimate victory of the North. He had heard rumours of a movement ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... smiling with an amused tenderness over his confusion, "I haven't been too officious, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... man, I should expect officious and quite gratuitous commiseration over the fate of the late Empire. You, however, will readily perceive it to be possible that I should rather be congratulated. You would not exchange your dignified leisure, your careless toils, for the best of sovereignties. Why, then, should I, who have ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... St. John cottage was alive with the bustle of preparation for departure. Graham made no officious offers of assistance, which, of course, would be futile, but quietly devoted himself to the major. Whenever Grace appeared from the upper regions, she found her father amused or interested, and she smiled her gratitude. In the evening she ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... greatly diminished. "A beggarly account of empty boxes." And yet, Sir, you will remark, that this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors general and surveyors particular, of auditors and deputy-auditors,—not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... had paid anything for me, so here is your money back;" and he tendered the half-crown, which the other did not put his hand out to receive. This exasperated Saurin still more. "Take it," he said; "only I'll thank you not to be so confoundedly officious again." ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... bawled the officious Spartan, never relaxing his grip. "Hark you, friends, it's plain as day. Dexippus of Corinth has a Syrian lad like this. The young scoundrel's robbed his master and is ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... need of an expedition and that for this reason also the men sent by the senate for the administration of the districts had arrived. Failing to persuade him to retire Lucullus turned to abuse, stigmatizing him as officious, a lover of war, a lover of office, and so on. Pompey, paying him but slight attention, forbade every one any longer to obey his commands and pressed on against Mithridates, being in haste to join issue with ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... of his pretended misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout some others who were constantly ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the revenue was fair game. And if a "gauger" lost his life in some one or other of the bloody encounters that frequently took place between the smugglers and the revenue officers, why, so much the worse for the "gauger." He was an unnecessarily officious sort of a person, who had better have kept out of the way. In fact, popular sentiment was entirely with the smugglers, who by the bulk of the population were regarded with the greatest admiration. Smuggling, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... started her feelings really were a little hurt: it happened that in trying to help Eleanor pack, she was close enough to her to notice a thread on her hair; instantly, she put out a friendly and officious thumb and finger to remove it—at which Eleanor ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... legitimate business of selling walking canes. If you unscrewed the head of one and turned it up to your mouth a half pint of good rye whiskey would go trickling down your throat to reward you for your act of intelligence. The deputies was annoying me and Andy some, and when Bill spoke to me about his officious aspirations, I saw how the appointment as Marshall might help along the firm ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... never by a single word or look conveyed the impression that he was aware of her real position in his master's camp. He treated her as if she were indeed what from the bottom of her heart she wished she was. He was solicitous without being officious, familiar with no trace of impertinence, He was Diana's first experience of a class of servant that still lingers in France, a survival of pre-Revolution days, who identify themselves entirely with the family they serve, and in Gaston's ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Jasper Nettlepoint was not quite a young man to lean upon, having (as I at least supposed) a life of his own and tastes and habits which had long since drawn him away from the maternal side. If he did happen just now to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for in his many wanderings—I believed he had roamed all over the globe—he would certainly have learned how to manage. None the less I was very glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my long absence I had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old; she had ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we had stiff and blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... I attended a Miss M., sick of fever. After an illness of a few days, the fever abated, and I directed a simple, unstimulating diet. Business called me from the town two days. During my absence, a sympathizing, officious matron called; found her weak, but improving; and told her she needed food to strengthen her; and that "it would now do her good." Accordingly, eggs and a piece of beefsteak were prepared, and given to the convalescent girl. She ate heartily, and the result was ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... proof. Yet my suspicions are well-grounded. But methinks, madam, I am acting here without authority. Could I have leave to call Mr. Beverley brother, his concerns would be my own. Why will you make my services appear officious? ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... delightful train—just a simple-hearted, chivalrous, weather-beaten old bush-whacker, at the service of the entire Territory. "There's nothing the least bit officious or standoffish about it," I was saying, when the Man-in-Charge came in with the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... indolence. That ever-restless schemer could not appreciate the poet's dreaminess. 'That you may see,' writes Spenser, 'that I am not alwaies ydle as yee think, though not greatly well occupied, nor altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious, I make you present of this simple pastorall, unworthie of your higher conceipt for the meanesse of the stile, but agreeing with the truth in circumstance and matter. The which I humbly beseech ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... from the scenes of his vexations and disappointments, and because he had heard that the metropolis was a place in which a man might conceal his poverty, and suffer and starve at his ease, untroubled by impertinent curiosity or officious benevolence; and, above all, believing it to be the spot where he was least likely to fall in with any of his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... brother's part left him sufficiently surprised. She wasn't at all funny at last—she was really fine; and he felt easily where she was strong—strong for herself. It hadn't yet so come home to him that she was nobly and appointedly officious. She was acting in interests grander and clearer than that of her poor little personal, poor little Parisian equilibrium, and all his consciousness of her mother's moral pressure profited by this proof of its sustaining force. She would be held up; she would be strengthened; he needn't in the least ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... it was inconsiderate, to depart from Port Jackson in the Cumberland, more to give proof of an officious zeal, more for the private interests of Great Britain than for what had induced the French government to give you a passport, which I shall unfold at a proper opportunity, had already given me an idea of your ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... to unworthy use what gain he had made in lawful commerce, and had banished from his house all those gamesters, all those parasites, all those idle flatterers, all those depraved ne'er-do-wells, and had bidden his shop-boys give a sound beating to the officious creature who offers to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... comparatively recent origin; but he held that a gentleman may take his amusement where he finds it, that he is quite at liberty not to find it at home, and that even an adoptive daughter of his house who should hang her head and have red eyes and allow herself to make any other response to officious condolence than that her husband's amusements were his own affair, would have forfeited every claim to having her finger-tips bowed over and kissed. And yet in spite of this definite faith Longmore figured him much inconvenienced by the Countess's ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... I know Sheldon, of Gray's Inn. He is rather—well, say shady. That's hardly an actionable epithet, and it expresses what I mean. Your friend's case seems to me tolerably clear. That little Frenchman is useful, but officious. It is not a speculative affair, I suppose? There is money to meet the current ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... a book was wanted, she sprang up, begging to be told where to find it; but the answer made her fear she had been officious. 'No, my dear, thank you, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things began to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... candlestick with officious haste, brushes angrily past the triumphant HOTHAM and throws a glance of suppressed rage ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... pleased to toss his arms up and down over the pit—not of destruction, but of preservation. He had started early, and, whilst he was setting the teeth on edge of all within hearing, by setting an edge to his saw, some very officious friend ran to him, to tell him that his wife was increasing his family, without even his permission having been asked. Instead, therefore, of making a dust in his own pit, he flung down his file, took ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... took one look and choked. An officious neighbor grabbed away the paper when Ward made a sign as though to tuck it into ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the custom of the officer of the day to make the rounds of the camp to make sure that all lights were out and everything quiet in the company quarters. Sometimes this officer, if he manifested a disposition to be officious in the discharge of his duties, came to grief. There was one who, when detailed as officer of the day, generally had about all the business he cared to attend to, in the vicinity of Company F quarters, after ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... immovable, my wife proposed my lying on shore. I presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very singularly officious in putting that law in execution. My wife, having reconnoitered the house, reported that there was one room in which were two beds. It was concluded, therefore, that she and Harriot should occupy one and myself take possession of the other. She added likewise an ingenious recommendation ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... which was shared by some of Chatham's opponents, that at such a crisis England needed him at the head of affairs. In February, 1778, it was believed that he and Bute were engaged on some scheme of coalition which might again put him in power. The report was merely the outcome of the officious meddling of his physician, Addington, and one of Bute's friends.[136] No one was more anxious than North for a change of ministry. He begged the king in vain to accept his resignation. On the 17th he brought in two bills for a scheme of conciliation to which George had at last given his sanction. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... for power to say, "Father, not my will, but Thine be done!" In an upper room lies Mary Sinclair. Tears are falling fast as summer rain-drops from her closed eyes; but she utters neither sob nor moan, and by the dim light of the shaded lamp she seems to the two women, who, with well-meant but officious kindness, have insisted on watching with her through the night, to sleep. A slight noise in the street causes one of these women to start, and she whispers to the other, "I am 'feard of every thing to-night—the least noise puts me all of a trimble, for I'm thinking of my Jack. ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... And they all told her they thought their plan was best. And bit by bit she told every advocate the proposal of every other advocate "Well, Lawyer Beeby thinks—" and "Well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises—" and so on and so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty benevolent and officious heads. And thirty benevolently-officious wills were striving to plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence. And Alvina, naive and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife, without even knowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain. Some obstinate will in her own ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... book-critic, it would be a preface. But, thank heaven, there is not. In saying this, I refer to a particular critic; for I would not, for the sake of a tenth edition, malign in such a wholesale manner those capital good fellows of the press—those verbal accoucheurs who are so pleasantly officious at the birth of each new ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to rush to the door and thrust the officious rascal out, shutting the door upon him. Then, remembering the length of his servant's tongue, he made haste to follow him to the hall to prevent his gabbling of what he might have seen. Andrew's voice was loud as Frank opened ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... They decreed in tumultuous votes, [462] that his honors should be reversed, his titles erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down, his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some indignation against those officious servants who had already presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate. But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus, who lamented the cruel fate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of Mr. Chester Downes; but she did mention the fact that when she had returned to Darringford House Mr. Hounsditch had been very officious in attending upon her and in showing her that she was a good deal tied down by the provisions of grandfather's will and that the lawyer was to advise her at every turn. Especially did she complain that Mr. Hounsditch had been officious since I ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... the Vice-Admiral to-day, (who is as officious, poor man! as any spaniel can be; but I believe all to no purpose, for I believe he will not hold his place;) so I dined commander at the coach table to-day, and all the officers of the ship with me, and Mr. White of Dover. After a game or two at nine-pins, to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... must not think me meddlesome—officious. I can no more wait for your permission to help you than if you were drowning. Perhaps for good reasons within me, I know, better than you, that you-and he—are on a slippery incline, and that whether you can stop your descent and creep ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... the officer rushed after him with almost equal speed. Lane after lane, alley after alley, fled Philip; dodging, winding, breathless, panting; and lane after lane, and alley after alley, thickened at his heels the crowd that pursued. The idle and the curious, and the officious,—ragged boys, ragged men, from stall and from cellar, from corner and from crossing, joined in that delicious chase, which runs down young Error till it sinks, too often, at the door of the gaol or the foot of the gallows. But ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fortune to be seated at the dinner-table over against one of these respectable persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only kings, court-officers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip him of his gay livery, and present him to me coatless, his trousers thrust into the tops of a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby destroying my relish ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... every detail; even the weighing, thanks to his officious care, was a matter of not more than one minute. The girl's weight was one hundred and ten pounds, the saddle brought it up to one hundred and thirteen. She would have to ride at least two pounds overweight, for the horse's impost was one hundred and eleven. Lauzanne was being led ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Pulling his wits together, he set about to frustrate the attack of the meddlers. Whether it was his shrewdness in placing obstacles in their way or whether he coerced the denizens into blocking the sheriff's investigation does not matter. It is only necessary to say that the officious gentleman from Boggs City finally gave up the quest in disgust and retired into the oblivion usual to county officials who try to be progressive. It was many weeks, however, before Anderson slept soundly. He was once more happy in the consciousness ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... their officious noses in the crevice beneath the door, but immediately withdrew them, evidently in great terror, as they slunk back, trembling and dismayed, to the opposite side of the chamber, where they crouched, as if ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... man to be too officious and volunteer information or advice when it is not asked, for he very often makes enemies and courts a disturbance that he could easily have avoided if he had simply minded his ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... at the place where the voice came from, as he would have stabbed a rat that ran there, till the voice ceasing, he concluded the person to be dead. But when he dragged for the body, it was not the king, but Polonius, the old officious counsellor, that had planted himself as a spy behind the hangings. "Oh me!" exclaimed the queen, "what a rash and bloody deed have you done!" "A bloody deed, mother," replied Hamlet, "but not so bad as yours, who killed a king, and married his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... discovered and betrayed to the skipper by some officious noodle, and Captain Willis was not a ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... the great Achilles' dearer part. Thou from the mighty dead those arms hast torn, Which once the greatest of mankind had worn. Yet live! I give thee one illustrious day, A blaze of glory ere thou fad'st away. For ah! no more Andromache shall come With joyful tears to welcome Hector home; No more officious, with endearing charms, From thy tired limbs unbrace ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... foolish," said Bertalda, well-pleased and surprised, "as to cause the stone cover of the fountain to be taken off this very evening?" That instant they heard the tread of men passing along the court-yard, and could see from the window where the officious maiden was leading them directly up to the fountain, and that they carried levers and ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... our family; Eliza, you remember how our dear father used to feel it." With these words Mistress Yordas led her sister to the dining-room; and they took good care to say nothing more about it before the officious Welldrum. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... been officious," said Torfrida, coldly. "'Tis addressed to your master. Take it to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... another; that his advice to Laertes is very excellent, and his advice to the King and Queen on the subject of Hamlet's madness very ridiculous. But he gives the one as a father, and is sincere in it; he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In short, Shakspeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other characters, only because he has kept up the distinction which there is in nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... officious to suit me," Mable Westervelt retorted, "and she's younger than any of us. One would think, the way she poses as monitor at this second-rate, run-down boarding school, that Mary Louise ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... O Charles! thy death defend? A furious foe unconscious proves a friend. On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know, A weak officious friend becomes a foe. While he but sought his author's fame to further, The murderous critic ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... precious ointment poured on his head and feet, and that spikenard, and those spices that were by her dedicated to embalm and preserve his sacred body from putrefaction, should so far preserve her own memory, that these demonstrations of her sanctified love, and of her officious and generous gratitude, should be recorded and mentioned wheresoever his Gospel should be read; intending thereby, that as his, so her name, should also live to succeeding generations, even till time itself shall be ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... plenipotentiary, considered himself entitled to give direction to the diplomacy of Cettinje, he was furious over the evident favor with which Monson was regarded by the Prince, who often followed his advice. It was a sore point with the Montenegrins, from the Prince down, that Jonine was so officious in his intervention even in military advice, where he had not the least competence; and in general the Montenegrins resented the dictation of the Russian staff, even where it had every reason to urge ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... doat upon the Sex, admire their heav'nly Form, like beauteous Temples built by sacred Hands, where their bright Souls as Deities inhabit; but shou'd Love's Queen, Celestial Citharea, descend in all her elegance of Beauty, the study'd Care of the officious Graces, with Wreaths of Jewels glittering round her Temples, her flowing Locks dispos'd in artful Circles, losely attir'd, and on a Down of Roses, with laughing Cupids ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... work of economic rescue, or for participation in the permanent project of a society of nations. America not only has the right to refuse; it is probably to her immediate interest to refuse. But, at the risk of misinterpretation, as an officious outsider, I will venture to present an appeal to the wider and deeper interests of Americans. The refusal of America not only shuts the gate of hope for millions of war-broken, famine-ridden people in Central and Eastern ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... had come upstairs after me, always officious and eager, manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on beholding the careless reception accorded by Chrysantheme to her lord and master, and advanced ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... pocket-handkerchief—out of his portmanteau, which had been placed by the porter on a very inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the farthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... loved a fire; even on a hot summer's day the kitchen fire had great attractions for him. But when Mrs. Twiss came in, and he, as was his duty and business of course, went to the door to see who it was, that officious Dymock shut him out again, and actually when he whined and scratched in the politest manner to be let in Grandmamma spoke crossly ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... incredibly assiduous and alert; far from neglecting the little particulars of his duty, and embarking in the mischievous amusements of the children belonging to the camp, he was always diligent, sedate, agreeably officious and anticipating; and in the whole of his behaviour seemed to express the most vigilant sense of his patron's goodness and generosity; nay, to such a degree had these sentiments, in all appearance, operated upon his reflection, that one morning, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... that circumstance, and, as it were, to come over me with it, when I am reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the officious ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... sufferings of the helpless brute that drags with pain and difficulty its maimed carcass to Smithfield—what reasonable being that has witnessed all or any of this, will venture to affirm that interference is officious and uncalled for? Yet it is certain that Mr. Martin acted properly and wisely in excluding flies from the operation of his act—well knowing, as he must have done, that the feeling of the majority was decidedly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... Splurge and tell her all? No,—what right had she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer judgment and information. Till then she would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... been giving you, but I have been uncertain what I ought to do. I have been doubting and considering as to what I ought to tell you. There were many things to be taken into the account. One hates to be officious, to be giving bad impressions, making mischief. Even the smooth surface of family-union seems worth preserving, though there may be nothing durable beneath. However, I have determined; I think I am right; I think you ought to be made acquainted ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... backed by the urgent influence of old Lord Hartledon, was a question. One thing was in his favour: the firm had not taken any steps whatever in the matter, and those handbills circulated at Calne were the result of a misapprehension on the part of an officious local police-officer. Things had gone too far for Goldsworthys graciously to condone the offence—and Clerk Gum paid in his savings of years. This was the fact written by Mrs. Gum to her son, which had called forth the line in ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his wife, the ivy-twine, With all the better trees which erst had stood Unmoved, forsook their native wood. The laurel to the poet's hand did bow, Craving the honour of his brow; And every loving arm embraced, and made With their officious leaves a shade. The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be, Forgetting their old tyranny. The fearful hart next to the lion came, And wolf was shepherd to the lamb. Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air, And Muses ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... I could give it to you," said Tackleton. "As I can't, thankee. Between ourselves (as I told you before, eh?) I don't much think I shall have the less joy in my married life because May hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! Take care ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens |
