"Testiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... untrue is meant as that this is an account of Macaulay's own quality. What is empty pretension in the leading article, was often a warranted self-assertion in Macaulay; what in it is little more than testiness, is in him often a generous indignation. What became and still remain in those who have made him their model, substantive and organic vices, the foundation of literary character and intellectual ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... of Cromer's alleged testiness, I may record a very striking "contraindication." During the year and a half or nearly two years in which he wrote a review every week in The Spectator on some important book, I never had any difficulties with him whatever. He was, with the possible exception of my cousin, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... frightfully, and complaining with all the testiness of a long-humored invalid, was disposed of at last, and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... With returning testiness the seigneur swung round to face him again. "And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea as you appear to have ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... with such blustering Airs, big Looks, and bold Fronts, that to a superficial Observer would bespeak a Courage above those Grecians. I am arrived to that Perfection in Speculation, that I understand the Language of the Eyes, which would be a great misfortune to me, had I not corrected the Testiness of old Age by Philosophy. There is scarce a Man in a red Coat who does not tell me, with a full Stare, he's a bold Man: I see several swear inwardly at me, without any Offence of mine, but the Oddness ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... vow, if I took the Genereux by myself, it was my intention to strike my flag. To which he made no answer." What could he very well say, if a man chose to throw away his chances, especially when that man was a subordinate who a short time before had flatly refused to obey his orders. Soreness and testiness had full swing in Nelson at this time; at some fancied neglect, he wrote Troubridge a letter which reduced that ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan |
