"Petulance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and evasive hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... fragment of action misapplied. What He does, we do not indeed know at present, but, as far as we shall be permitted to know hereafter, we shall see that his most inscrutable procedure was guided by consummate wisdom; that our choice was often as foolish as our petulance was provoking; that the success of our own wishes would have been our most painful chastisement, would have diminished our happiness, and detracted from His praise. Let us study, therefore, brethren, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... assumption of superiority.] Insolence — N. insolence; haughtiness &c adj.; arrogance, airs; overbearance^; domineering &c v.; tyranny &c 739. impertinence; sauciness &c adj.; flippancy, dicacity^, petulance, procacity^, bluster; swagger, swaggering &c v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. saucebox ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large compensation for what he had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a very different view of his claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favors to him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry with them, and especially angry with Addison. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... once more the interests of Canada had been sacrificed by Britain on the altar of Anglo-American friendship. The outburst was not understood abroad. It was not, as United States opinion imagined, merely childish petulance or the whining of a poor loser. It was against Great Britain, not against the United States, that the criticism was directed. It was not the decision, but the way in which it was made, that roused deep anger. The decision on the main issue, that ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... until she had paid away practically all their money, when he became calm again. She began to think that if she could devise a way of living by barter, without money at all, they might conceivably eliminate these fits of restlessness and petulance. And all the time, as there seemed no chance of getting work, she was racking her brains for some way of getting out of the city before his next intermittent ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... should never meet him in open festival and challenge him. There would not be time.... The music stole about him and quieted his pulse. He stood watching the face as it bent above the keys. It was a noble face. There was a touch of petulance in it, perhaps of pride and impatience in the quick glance that lifted now and then. But it was a grand face, with goodness in it, and strength and power. The boy's heart went from him.... If he might but touch a ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... good taste in the feast of carnival; a kind of universal petulance makes it resemble the bacchanals of the imagination; but in imagination only is this resemblance, for the Romans are in general very sober, and except the last day of carnival, tolerably serious. We often make sudden discoveries of every sort in the character of the Italians, and this is ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... thicket where they had hidden, and with their spades approached the grave. The sound from whose imminence Bobby had shrunk rattled in his ears. The yellow earth cut across the stormy twilight of the cemetery and scattered in the trench. After a time the response lost its metallic petulance. ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... firmness which the counsels of a great people require. We have hundreds of ministers, who press forward into office without having ever learned that art which is necessary for every business: the art of thinking; and mistake the petulance, which could give inspiration to smart sarcasms on an obnoxious measure in a popular assembly, for the ability which is to balance the interest of kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of national superiority. With the administration of such men the people can never be satisfied; ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... Leonard drew near, Stephen sank softly into a seat, doing so with a guilty feeling of acting a part. When he actually came into the grove he found her seemingly lost in a reverie as she gazed out over the wide expanse in front of her. He was hot after his walk, and with something very like petulance threw himself into a cane armchair, exclaiming as he did so with the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... me like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said—I had to let the neighbours think you ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... and they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were clever enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up. The matron must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl must hide the stain in her future husband's family. Why not? Who was injured? What does a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie upstairs, how grateful he would be to them ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... be with the servants at her pleasure, and then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to despair of being able to love or assist; and of Susan's temper she had many doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother, her rash squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were at least so distressing to Fanny that, though admitting they were by no means without provocation, she feared the disposition that could push them to such length must be far from amiable, and from affording any ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the door, and stepped upon a stool to put his gun on its rack above the fireplace. The fire showed his round figure, short but well muscled, and the boyish petulance of his shaven lip. The sun shone hot upon the Sault of an August noon, but morning and night were cool, and a blaze was usually kept in ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had any real design to extort money, because the scheme was very ill calculated for that purpose; and indeed could not possibly take effect without the most imminent risk of detection. Perhaps his aim was nothing more than to gratify a petulance and peculiarity of humour, by alarming the duke, exciting the curiosity of the public, puzzling the multitude, and giving rise to a thousand ridiculous conjectures. If anything more was intended, and the duke earnestly desired to know ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... time to have a few last words with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the public ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... how far that quality was possessed by the Commodore, whom he permitted to wait two hours in a vertical sun. This was too much for the patience of any respectable gentleman, and only resulted in exciting the petulance of the before-named sea-going Ambassador, who just demolished a few out-of-the-way towns, and pocketed the kingdom for his Queen. From this it will be seen (we make no allowance for John's acceptance of ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday's sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her. But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... not knowing why it was so, became cross and querulous, and scolded his daughter. To Belton, also, he was captious, making little difficulties, and answering him with petulance. This the rejected lover took with most extreme patience, as though such a trifling annoyance had no effect in adding anything to his misery. He still held his purpose of going on the Saturday, and was still intent on ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... dazzling white of the tablecloth, the quick, positive tones of Buckingham Smith, who had always to be convincing not only others but himself that he was a strong man whose views were unassailable, the eyes of Buckingham Smith like black holes in his handsome face, the stylish gestures and coarse petulance of Buckingham Smith, the shy assurance of little old Prince. He envied the pair. Their existence had a cloistral quality which appealed to something in him. They were continually in the studio, morning, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... by putting on a pouting face, burst into tears. Her adopted parents had always been more tolerant and indulgent to her than if she had been a child over whom they felt entire rights, and instead of rewarding her petulance with such a blow as would have fallen to the lot of a veritable Talbot, Richard shrugged his shoulders and left the room—the chamber which had been allotted to Dame Susan at the Manor-house, while Susan endeavoured to cheer the girl by telling her not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pile. He was quite lame but could move without a crutch. He talked mainly of his good friends in Boston and elsewhere, and alluded to his enemies without a particle of rancor. The lines on his noble face were as placid as those on the brow of an ox—not one showed petulance or discouragement. He was the optimist in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... green curtain behind the canopy, knocked at a door, and, as it opened, Eustacie was conscious of a dignified presence, that, in spite of her previous petulance, caused her instinctively to bend in such a reverence as had formerly been natural to her; but, at the same moment, a low and magnificent curtsey was made to her, a hand was held out, a stately kiss was on her brow, and a voice of dignified courtesy ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ephemeral criticism, which it darts triumphantly upon; there is a raw thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their grand-daughters, when a new novel is announced? That mail-coach copies of the Edinburgh Review ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... circles, and scribble at every author who has the eminence of being unconnected with them, as they are usually spleen-swoln from a vain idea of increasing their consequence, there will always be found a petulance and illiberality in their remarks, which should place them as far beneath the notice of a gentleman, as their original dulness had sunk them from the level ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... see the sudden look of petulance that crossed the other's face. "Oh, my working-tools!—You see you can't understand. You, of course, only need ink and paper. But we painters must have plenty of implements to work with.—Why, I kept them and starved! Could ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... things which should have gone with the stately title and the magnificent estates; and yet, in the depths of his proud, stubborn old heart, he could not help caring very much for his youngest son. It was in one of his fits of petulance that he sent him off to travel in America; he thought he would send him away for a while, so that he should not be made angry by constantly contrasting him with his brothers, who were at that time giving him a great deal of trouble ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... movement, with anger as its source, disappointment as its companion. Charles had fairly sold himself to Philip, and yet was returning home without his bride. Buckingham, the nobler nature of the two, had by his petulance and arrogance kept himself in hot water with the Spanish court. Altogether, the adventure had not been ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... hands in a gesture of ungovernable petulance. "Oh, what's the use of talking about it?" he growled, and then instantly his voice dropped. "Stella, I'm sorry for your sake. We'll have to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... nobody heeded Kenny's petulance. Caesare was already building a wood-fire in the fireplace, complaining of the chill. Max Kreiling was furiously hunting missing sheets from a ragged stack of music on the piano and grumbling in German about his host's habits. The fire flared. Caesare's dark ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... until he had received such assurance of his unmerited good fortune as might encourage him so to do. To Emma, his reply was in a few words; he thanked her for her continued good opinion of him, the idea of having lost which had made him very miserable, assuring her that he was ashamed of the petulance which he had shown, and that it was for him to have asked pardon, and not one who had behaved so kindly, and protected him for so long a period; that he felt much better already, and hoped to be able to shorten the time of absence which had been demanded ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Lady Garnett with genial petulance; "it was too small. Half the world was crowded into it; and it was precisely ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... moral suffering and disease occasioned by incompetent mothers and nurses! Commit a child to the care of a worthless ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done. Let the mother be idle, vicious, and a slattern; let her home be pervaded by cavilling, petulance, and discontent, and it will become a dwelling of misery—a place to fly from, rather than to fly to; and the children whose misfortune it is to be brought up there, will be morally dwarfed and deformed—the cause of misery to themselves as well ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... with harsh petulance, 'I do not want to go down to Cornwall with Louisa and Olive'—she accentuated the ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... the reasons for which his children regarded him as an old darling that Gaston could suppose him after an instant to embrace it. The old man said nothing, but took up his book, and his son, who had been standing before the fire, went out of the room. His abstention from protest at Gaston's petulance was the more generous as he was capable, for his part, of feeling it to make for a greater amenity in the whole connexion that ces messieurs should like the little girl at the hotel. Gaston didn't care a straw what it made for, and would have seen himself ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... have rued the day. Their capacity for evil is only equalled by their opportunities. If your cousin had not flamed after them like an avenging sword you might have cried loudly enough for the one of whom, in your fit of unseemly petulance, you can speak so slightingly. I advise you to go to your room and thank Heaven for ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... in the playfulness of the social hour he had been reducing to materialism, well knowing all the while that he was arguing for effect and applause from those who only gave him the return of stultified petulance. What if that mother and sister, who loved him, and wept day and night over the wild follies that consumed his energies and demoralized his heart, had seen ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... here nor there," says he with petulance. "Sandy would of been just as happy if he'd lost the whole eighteen dollars him and Buck come in ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... afraid to ask me if there might be another?" she inquired, with a coy glance and just a little petulance in her voice. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... know to-day, from the fact that Shakespeare played the Ghost in Hamlet, that he must have had a voice that was full and resonant and deep. So from reading the plays of Moliere we can imagine the robust figure of Magdeleine Bejart, the grace of La Grange, the pretty petulance of the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... like any lady in a drawing-room; her hair, black at the roots and auburn at the ends, was wreathed, coil on coil, upon the top of her head; her face, which gave away all her secrets, was saucy, expressive of self-satisfaction, petulance, and vanity. And yet it was a handsome face; but it lacked mobility, the chin was too strong, the grey eyes wanted expression, though they were ever on the watch for ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... somewhat puzzled. Petulance and temper were not in her character, and she was annoyed to see any touch ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... she exclaimed in a pleading petulance as she looked into his face, still holding on to the sleeve of his coat to detain him the longer, "just think of this letter of Pencoyd's; nothing has ever been offered you better than this. He has the very best people in Philadelphia on his list, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... long to tell all the ways in which this young man carried on the labour of love he had undertaken. He watched over him, cared for him, denied himself on his account, bore alike with his petulance and his despondency, sheltered him from temptation from without, strengthened him to resist temptation from within—in short, laboured, as in God's sight, to turn this sinner from the error of his way, to lead him in faith to the blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin; knowing that he was ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... the son of the sultan of Moco-moco; and even when satisfied respecting this they manifested so much suspicion that we found it necessary to be constantly on our guard, and were once nearly provoked by their petulance and treachery to proceed to violence. When they found our determination they seemed humble, but were not even then to be trusted; and when we were on our return a friendly chief sent us intelligence that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... or soon will be, morbid in its character. I have known myself cases not a few, where, by the very nicest gradations, and by steps too silent and insensible for daily notice, the utmost harmony and reciprocal love had shaded down into fretfulness and petulance, purely from too easy a life, and because all nobler agitations that might have ruffled the sensations occasionally, and all distresses even on the narrowest scale that might have re-awakened the solicitudes of love, by opening necessities for sympathy, for counsel, or for mutual aid, had been ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... I'm sure I don't care," answered Branwen, with a touch of petulance. "At all events, I suppose you will be glad of ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Margaret's visiting-card had been typical. His had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were enough. Here "that card" had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was untidy, and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, "What's that card, eh?" "Yes, don't you wish you knew what that card was?" "Len, who's Miss Schlegel?" ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... always drawn out to the length of five acts, and in which there is nothing laughable, with the exception of the vivacity displayed in virtue of their situation, by Lisette and her lover Frontin, or Pasquin. He was in no danger, from any excess of frolicsome petulance, of falling from the dignified tone of the supposed high comic into the familiarity of farce, which the French hold in such contempt. With moderate talents, without humour, and almost without vivacity, neither ingenious in invention, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Duryodhana said unto Drona, these words, from petulance and wrath, and in great cheerlessness of heart at the sight of the prosperity of their foe. Skilled in speech, and filled with rage at the success of the foe, the king said these words in the hearing of all the troops, "O foremost of regenerate ones, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... malignity is Attic. Petulance is not wit, although a few grains of wit may be found in petulance: quartz is not gold, although a few grains of gold may be found in quartz. Voltaire is a monkey in mischief, and a spaniel in obsequiousness. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... not answer, unless a slight shrug and a passing his hand across his face with a rather dispirited gesture be an answer. I feel ashamed of my petulance. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... said the boy, with his former petulance. 'It was all very well when we sat before the fire—when we looked into the hollow down by the flare—but we are looking into ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... himself down into his throne with much of the petulance of manner that is observable in the demeanour of a spoilt child when its temper has been ruffled, from which I surmised that the impression produced upon the ladies of his harem by His Majesty's martial garb had fallen short in some respects of what he had anticipated; that in fact, and not to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... with larger eyne, Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing Some little petulance in mine, And loved me all the more, for ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... on the sidewalk, his Derby hat on his head, his corn-cob in his mouth. For a moment he turned, and, looking back, flung out his hand with a gesture expressive of petulance and dismissal towards an invisible person at his door. And then he came towards us sedately, caressing his pipe, eyes on the ground, and seated himself in the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... whole unfavourably. The story of this review is well known: how the editor-reviewer (with the best intentions doubtless) sent the proof with a kind of apology to Scott on the morning of a dinner-party in Castle Street; how Scott showed at least outward indifference, and Mrs. Scott a not unamiable petulance; and how, though the affair caused no open breach of private friendship, it doubtless gave help to the increasing Whiggery of the Review and its pusillanimous policy in regard to the Spanish War in severing Scott's connection with ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... All she said but made the Queen more indignant. She would scarcely bid her husband farewell: she turned her back to the fairy with undignified petulance. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... indifference, unbroken by a single word of kindness. And as days passed by and this indifference continued, until at times seeming ready to give place to openly expressed dislike, and her ears became more and more accustomed to words of hasty petulance, and Sergius grew still deeper absorbed in the infatuation which possessed him, and less careful to conceal its influences from her, and the Greek girl glided hither and thither, ever less anxious, as she believed her triumph more nearly assured, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... looked on Dennet as a kind of needful appendage to the Dragon, a piece of property of his own, about whom he need take no trouble, merely laughed and said, "Want must be thy master then." But Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion. "Look here, pretty mistress," said he, "there dwells by me a poor little maid nigh about thine age, who never goeth further out than to St. Paul's minster, nor plucketh flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bread, nor sugar-stick, nay, and scarce ever saw English ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... reputation for unsociability, Janie, at the end of three days, had completely lost her heart to this wayward, impulsive daughter of Erin. It was true, Honor was apt to be trying at times. Her gusts of hot temper, petulance, or utter unreasonableness were rather disconcerting to anyone unaccustomed to the Celtic disposition; but they never lasted long, and Janie soon found out that her friend rarely meant what she then said, and was generally particularly lovable after an outburst, with ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... from her head with childish petulance, and looked as if she were going to throw it viciously upon the ground. If her face had been clean Dick might have seen how the blood had rushed into her cheeks; as it was, she was safe behind a mask of soot. She placed ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... the factory acts,—the England that wrung pity from thinkers and fired the wrath of Carlyle. The rod of empire that passed from the hands of Southern gentlemen in 1865, partly by force, partly by their own petulance, has never returned to them. Rather it has passed to those men who have come to take charge of the industrial exploitation of the New South,—the sons of poor whites fired with a new thirst for wealth and power, thrifty and avaricious ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... have thought, too, that Leipzig ought to have been too precious in his eyes, for him to smear his drivel and snivel on so honorable and famous a city; but in his own imagination he is no ordinary man. I perceive that if I permit the petulance of all these thick-heads, even the bath-maids will ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... descend the hill. My position as President of the Republic did demand a certain amount of personal dignity; and how was I to uphold that in my present circumstances? "Jack," said I, "it is the sign of a noble mind to bear contumely without petulance. Since our horses have gone before us, and Crasweller and the crowd have gone, we will follow them." Then I put my arm within his, and as I walked down the hill, I almost took joy in thinking that Crasweller ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... sit down," she said with some petulance. "There's nothing up here to hurt you." There was so much meaning in her tone of the things that would hurt me on the floor below that I hastened to show my confidence in her, and drew up ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... Michel Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] confessed that he had thus avenged himself in a fit of passion; and regard having been had to his age and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was already convinced, as indeed, his petulance proved, that Hiram was right, but he had some pride in not ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... a minute, I'll stop with him," said I; and there was some kindness in the offer, for I was really afraid of the boy with his heavy angry eyes and fever petulance. The woman gladly accepted it, and hurried off, despite the child's fretful tears, and his refusing to see in "the young gentleman's" condescension the honour which his mother pointed out. No doubt she only meant to be "a minute," ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a sort of hurried petulance. "Know all about that. Malt's like a lot of these young new physicians—always running off on vacations. Mustn't hold me responsible for his absences. Got no time to think about the other fellow. Own affairs are enough—keep me ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Lyon's housekeeper, who had admitted the visitors and would establish the connection between their presence and the violence wrought. Would the Colonel proffer some apology or some amends, or would any word from him be only a further expression of that destructive petulance which our friend had seen his wife so suddenly and so potently communicate to him? He would have either to declare that he had not touched the picture or to admit that he had, and in either case he would have ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... success in an art for which she was peculiarly gifted, yet the details of which were sincerely repugnant to her. It crackled and sparkled with naive arrogance. It criticized a new world and fresh forms of civilization with the amusing petulance of a spoiled daughter of John Bull. It was flimsy, flippant, laughable, rollicking, vivid. It described scenes and persons, often with airy grace, often with profound and pensive feeling. It was the slightest of diaries, written in public for the public; but it was universally read, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... brave young boy Bearing their double life abroad in one— Beginning new the world, and bringing hopes That in their path fell flower-like. Not at ease They dwelt, though; for a slow discordancy Of temper—weak-willed waste of life in bursts Of petulance—had marred their happiness. And so the boy, young Reuben, as he grew, Was chafed and vexed by this ill-fitting mode Of life forced on him, and rebelled. Too oft Brooding alone, he shaped loose schemes of flight ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... will continue to keep thee from that."—"My ill-temper, you have often told me, is natural to me; so it must become me: but upon such a sweet-tempered young lady as Miss Polly, her late assumed petulance sits but ill!" ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... well inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. — Then there's her brother, 'squire Jery, a pert jackanapes, full of college-petulance and self-conceit; proud as a German count, and as hot and hasty as a Welch mountaineer. As for that fantastical animal, my sister Tabby, you are no stranger to her qualifications — I vow to God, she is sometimes so intolerable, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... to fasten his lever to the base of the adjacent mountain in order to consummate his wish of raising the world; and the circumfluous R—— with his long tackle, that hissed when he cast it with the petulance of an angry switch, appeared an ocean god, who had selected a shorter route to the North Cape by the Toptdal River, and was urging his ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... presentiments and fierce anxieties, and tormented by a hatred of the place and the clime. In June of the next year they went back to Nohant, her chateau. We owe to Sand herself the account of Chopin's manner of life, his petulance, his self-inflicted torments, and the agonies of his art and his disease. We owe to her, also, the picture of her devotion both to his health and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... me, of Resentments never to be got over for my seducing her away, these angry Commands to leave her,—what shall we say, if all were to mean nothing but Matrimony?—And what if my forbearing to enter upon that Subject comes out to be the true Cause of her Petulance and Uneasiness. ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... he could not refuse to contribute to Colonel Fitz Gibbon's list; and it is recorded that when one of his sons called upon him for the amount which he had subscribed, he handed over the sum with justifiable petulance, saying: "There, go and make one great fool of yourself again."[85] Such of the rioters as were possessed of means contributed to the fund according to their respective ability, but the others were not allowed to bear more than a very ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... intention of raising such a storm; he was a weak and good-natured fellow, whose vanity was easily wounded, but who was not otherwise very sensitive, and was certainly not very intelligent. Astrardente had laughed at him and his friends in a way which touched him to the quick, and with childish petulance he had retaliated in the easiest way which presented itself. Indeed there was more foundation for his tale than Astrardente would allow. At least it was true that the story was in the mouths of all the gossips that morning, and Valdarno ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the petulance of weariness. Why did the man ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... mistress of the party, she and her daughter would, in appearance at least, be the mere appendages of the two princesses, wait upon them, give them the foremost place, supply their present needs from what was provided for themselves, and it was quite possible have likewise to control girlish petulance and inexperience in the strange lands where her charges must appear at their very best, to do honour to their birth ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... though part of the failure can be directly attributed to the national jealousies of the various contingents, and to the quarrels of Richard I with the more important of his colleagues, the recovery of Jerusalem remained from first to last the dominants object of the army. There were cases of petulance, of unnecessary meddling in the squalid disputes of the Latin settlers, of readiness to depart on the first honourable excuse. But there was no disposition to make the pilgrimage a commercial undertaking. It was otherwise in 1203 when the soldiers ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... there sounded a petulance in the girl's voice. Her lips closed tightly, and she tapped with her foot on ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... in bringing up her children. They were disciplined to obedience, and a simple word was her command. She was not given to any display of petulance or rage, but was steady, well-balanced, and unvarying in her mood. That she was dignified, even to stateliness, is shown us by the statement made by Lawrence Washington, of Chotauk, a relative and playmate of George in boyhood, who was often a guest at her house. He says—"I ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... other than the man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery—it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good humour, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with real amusement at her petulance. "Is there netting enough in your room?" he inquired. "Would you like more for ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth, reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming man,—he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out); and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering into ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... upon the rug, and frowned a little, with a touch of petulance in her manner that was the most bewitching thing I had yet ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... Welldon's half-defiant petulance disappeared. "What's done can't be undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish, "Oh, get me ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... from Richard, Mr. Fopling found refuge in the chair he had quitted, and maintained himself without sound or motion, bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Mr. Fopling had a vacant expression, and his face was not an advantageous face. It was round, pudgy, weak, with shadows of petulance about the mouth, and the forehead sloped away at an angle which house-builders, speaking of roofs, call a quarter-pitch. His chin, acting on the hint offered by the forehead, was likewise in full retreat. Altogether, one might have said of Mr. Fopling that if he ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... she show anger, and then it was with a quiet dignity of displeasure, far removed from petulance or impatience. They asked of her a sign that she was what she professed ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... involve loss of dignity. The public, which is so jealous for his dignity, does not otherwise use him as if he were a very great and invaluable creature; if he fails, it lets him starve like any one else. I should say that he lost dignity or not as he behaved, in his effort to right himself, with petulance or with principle. If he betrayed a wounded vanity, if he impugned the motives and accused the lives of his critics, I should certainly feel that he was losing dignity; but if he temperately examined their theories, and tried to show where they were mistaken, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... petulance, oppressed With heat has cast his brown young body free: With arms behind his head and heaving breast He lies and gazes at the cool bright sea; So young Leander might when in the noon He panted for the starry eyes of eve And whispered ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... sensible man ever really quarrels with his hobby. A little petulance every now and again variegates the monotony of routine. Mr. Gosse tells us in his book that he cannot resist Restoration comedies. The bulk of them he knows to be as bad as bad can be. He admits they are not literature—whatever that may mean—but he intends to go on collecting ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... to speak; every man is discontented with himself, grows angry with those that give him pain, and resolves that he will contribute nothing to the merriment of such worthless company. Wine inflames the general malignity, and changes sullenness to petulance, till at last none can bear any longer the presence of the rest. They retire to vent their indignation in safer places, where they are heard with attention; their importance is restored, they recover their good humour, and gladden the night with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... confidence nor love; wife and barons alike feared the silence with which he listened unmoved to the bitterest taunts, but kept them treasured and unforgotten for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... absent and reserved that in the legend his wife must concoct a philter to remind him of his love, he is of all the pagans the best companion for our angrier moods. An archaic and elemental serenity is upon his language and thought, rebuking our unprofitable petulance; if emotion gains him he finds utterance in those tremendous periods "where single words seem to gather out of the deep and to reverberate like thunder." As the reverberation dies away and the clouds are pierced by the ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... the dying die. Before either Hugh or Ramsey could come from the cabin the twins had reached the bedside and had been received with a final lighting up of the boy's spent powers, which his mother made no effort to restrain. In a feeble, altered voice, without heat, scorn, or petulance, with a mind stripped of all its puerilities and full of fraternal care and faithfulness, and with a magisterial dignity far beyond his years, he slowly poured out a measured stream of arraignment and appeal which their hardened ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... must have the little kitten to keep her company," she said, "while I go and ask Marthon for a cup of coffee." I remember that speech, and the way it roused me, for I did not like Amante to think I wanted amusing by a kitten. It might be my petulance, but this speech—such as she might have made to a child—annoyed me, and I said that I had reason for my lowness of spirits—meaning that they were not of so imaginary a nature that I could be diverted from them by the gambols of a kitten. So, though I did not choose to tell ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... to look at her, and hastened through his meals that he might be alone with his thoughts. The sun had sunk, and the moon was well over the eastern mountains, before he visited the rose garden. Amy was there, and she greeted him with a pretty petulance because he had not come before. Then, in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... own petulance and sense of tedium at home, which was, as she felt, particularly uncalled for at present; when Dr. Spencer was enlivening them so much. He was never in the way, he was always either busy in the dining-room in the morning with ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... population for a cabin of those dimensions. In the silent watches of the night, with his head on a duck and a pig on his stomach, he had frequently revolved this idea in his young but apt mind, and at last, though not in any spirit of petulance, he formed the resolution which gave shape and ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... openly." "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself my friend?" I replied, in a tone of some pique. "Rather so, and yet you must not feel offended at that. The situation of this sarcastic and talented old man is very peculiar; his unquiet petulance incessantly gives birth to fresh perils. He, of necessity, must make friends in every quarter, left and right, in France and foreign countries. The necessary consequence is, that he cannot follow a straight path. The Choiseuls ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... am not your wife!' she answered; and flashed her eyes on him in sudden petulance; and then, 'Well, perhaps if my lady had her choice—to be wife to a rake can be no bed of roses, Sir George! While to be wife to a ruined rake—perhaps to be wife to a man who, if he were not ruined, would ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... answer. She simply looked at him, while the tears rose softly in her clear eyes. The question seemed to hurt her. Yet there was neither petulance nor evasion. She was Laura, and not Laura—the pale sprite of herself. One might have fancied her clothed already in the heavenly super-sensual body, with the pure heart pulsing visibly through ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I have all men's. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Alison, more steadily. "You ought not to be kind to me without knowing about it. It was an accident of course, but it was a fit of petulance. I threw a match without looking ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... words have unwittingly reminded me of my chief difficulty in refusing. It is the sacred purpose which makes me doubt my own judgment. It would be a painful reflection to think that the temple should suffer by my refusing this gift. Maybe I should be yielding to my own petulance or personal motives if I were to decline. I must not let my pride stand in the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... of the month, at the height of the hunting season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair, as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... made proclamation from the town-house enjoining "modesty upon the mob" and a general abstention from "perverseness and petulance," went his way to Haarlem, where he dismissed the magistrates and appointed new ones, and then proceeded to Rotterdam, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... me at all, when you want a great hulking boatman to be in the boat with us, watching us," said the bride, with pretty childish petulance. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... except Lucie, it was evident his absence would be unregretted; for he could not but remark the cold and altered manner of Mad. de la Tour, which she vainly endeavored to disguise, by an air of studied politeness; nor the reserve and petulance of De Valette, which he did not attempt to conceal. La Tour was too politic to display his dislike towards one, whose services were so useful to him; though his prejudices were, in ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... of the tribuneship, he was seeking an opportunity for creating a disturbance. That he would not afford him the chance of doing so on that day; but in order that he might now know that the concession had been made not to his petulance, but to the absent Verginius, to the name of father and to liberty, that he would not decide the case on that day, nor introduce a decree: that he would request Marcus Claudius to forego somewhat of his right, and to suffer the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... invisible, poured forth a song of universal praise to greet this new-born day. With this joyful clamour in my ears, this fresh, green world before my eyes, I grew joyful too, and hasted towards the brook, my foolish petulance quite forgotten. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... indubitably necessary, I am glad the decision on the case has been complete. On these last three days I have finished my review of Tytler for Lockhart and sent it off by this post. I may have offended Peter by censuring him for a sort of petulance towards his predecessor Lord Hailes. This day visited by Mr. Carr, who is a sensible, clever young man, and by his two sisters[292]—beautiful singer the youngest—and to my taste, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... we can make out a full day's work in Canada, can't we? It is best to take it moderate," said Mr Snow, smiling benignly on Rose. He was tolerant of the young lady's petulance, and not so ready to excite it as he used to be in the old times, and generally listened to her little sallies with a ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... long, then tossed it aside with petulance, parted his hair and peered into his face, passed her hands lightly over his head for the prominences, dashed unexpected tears from her eyes, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... to her room. Again she shut and locked her door. The queer mood which had been on her all day, half repentance, half petulance, had completely changed. It takes a great deal to make some people repent, but Flower Dalrymple was now indeed and in truth facing the consequences of her own actions. The words she had said to Fly were ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... "I know his Grace well. While the rebuke of his aspiring petulance was a matter betwixt your Majesty and him, he might have let it pass by; but a check before a fellow from whom it was likely enough to travel through the Court, was a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to do with you at all," retorted Caesar irritably, shifting his position a little, whereby a cushion fell to the ground. With a gust of petulance he pitched another after it, and then in rather a shamed way, told Christopher to ring for Vespasian to put ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... of a new measure for the furthering his darling pursuit, was a communication of the most reviving kind to the heart of Roderic. The gloom and petulance that had collected upon his countenance were dissipated in a moment. His cheek caught anew the flush of expectation; his eye sparkled anew with the insolence of victory. His gratitude to the propitious Medoro was now as immoderate as his displeasure had lately ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... unworthy of thee and me; because I regarded them as the petulance of a passing feminine curiosity; because I knew not how ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... become furious. When she perceived she had made the impression she desired, she became more moderate in her caresses, but not in her vivacity, and when she thought proper to explain to us the real or false cause of all her petulance, she said I resembled M. de Bremond, director of the customs of Tuscany, to such a degree as to be mistaken for him; that she had turned this M. de Bremond's head, and would do it again; that she had quitted him because he was a fool; that she took me in his place; that she ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... both, as though the deadly bark were to destroy them as it had killed Pascualo. But when prosperity came, and the memory of the tragedy grew dim with the years, sina Tona showed unmistakable fondness for Tonet, a child of feline shrewdness, who treated everybody with imperious petulance, but for his mother always had the speculative ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked child?—of Helena, against the petulance and insult of a careless youth?—of the patience of Hero, the passion of Beatrice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the "unlessoned girl," who appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... ruled by a dominant race, whose number amounts to less than a four-thousandth part of its own, but whose superiority in war and civil government is at present so decided as to reduce any efforts of opposition to the mere outbursts of hopeless petulance. In that golden land, however, even the Anglo-Saxon race can not increase and multiply; the children of English parents degenerate or perish under its fatal sun. No permanent settlement or infusion of blood takes place. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... grief exhausted itself in time, as was only natural, and something of her old energy and spirit began to show itself again; but the change was not much for the better. She did not mope nor pine, that was not her way; but she became possessed with a spirit of restless petulance, which at first, indeed, was only another phase of unhappiness, but which, not being recognized as such, presently developed into a most decided wilfulness. She turned impatiently from the nun's well-meant kindness and efforts to console her, which somehow ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter |
