"Meddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... private letters for the Queen, and his mission was not feigned; he talked to me very rashly even before his admission, and entreated me to do all that lay in my power to dispose the Queen's mind in favour of his sovereign's wishes; I declined, assuring him that it did not become me to meddle with State affairs. He endeavoured, but in vain, to prove to me that the union contemplated by the Queen of Naples ought not to be looked upon in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and fell backwards. Jimmie was at his side, and the gun was shooting—so what more natural than for Jimmie to move into position and look along the sights? It was a fact that he had never aimed any sort of gun in his life before; but he was apt with machinery—and disposed to meddle into ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... of any one having entered the room while I had been talking with Laura. My writing materials (which I had given the servant instructions never to meddle with) were scattered over the table much as usual. The only circumstance in connection with them that at all struck me was that the seal lay tidily in the tray with the pencils and the wax. It was not in my careless habits (I am sorry ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Spain,—the power and the tyranny of the House of Austria. The period of the vast increase of Spanish dominion coincided with that of the meridian glory of Italian art. The conquest of Granada was finished as the divine child Raphael began to meddle with his father's brushes and pallets, and before his short life ended Charles, Burgess of Ghent, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... if that isn't the coolest thing I ever saw!" exclaimed Mr. Ketchum mentally, and, feeling that he had made a great discovery, was at first for sharing it immediately with Parsons's mistress; but on reflection he thought differently. "It is her funeral: I guess I had better not meddle: there would be a great scene," he thought. "At any rate, I'll wait until they are leaving before putting her on her guard." He went back to the dining-room to his newspaper, and sat there until the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... readers, that I could not venture to neglect it; the Latin grammar, however, is a subject on which some of the younger members of the community feel strongly, so I have now written "agricolas". I have also parted with the word "infortuniam" (though not without regret), but have not dared to meddle with other ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... words upon one little point. If George Castlewood had been living, I have such credentials that I would have dragged him back with me in spite of all your bluster. But over his corpse I have no control, in the present condition of treaties. Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were worth while to do so. Keep her and make the best of her, my man. You have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you are up for. A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her father was. If you wish the name of Gundry to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... behind his mother, put my hands round her neck, and clasping them in front, pulled her backward with all my strength. We fell on the floor together, I under of course, but clutching as if all my soul were in my fingers. Neither should she meddle with John, nor should he lay hand on her! I did not mind much what ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... again, as before, my nearness to her seemed for a moment to meddle with my heart and check it; then, as though to gain the beats they lost, every little pulse began to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... rush towards us. Five more fall, some in the water, which is tinged with their blood, others on the land. Our passions are up. Golding urges us to load and fire again. Having thus done, we pull away. Says Golding, "They'll not meddle another time with strangers who peaceably visit their shores to trade." We leave ten or twelve poor heathens dead or wounded on their native strand. My thoughts are sad. The face of that hapless ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... days he became stark blind. His company being astonished at the Divine hand which thus conspicuously and signally appeared, put him ashore at Providence, and left him there. A physician being desired to undertake his cure, hearing how he came to lose his sight, refused to meddle with him. This account I lately received from credible persons, who knew and have often seen the man whom the devil (according to his own wicked wish) made blind, through the dreadful and righteous judgment ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... boy," he replied. "Don't you meddle with such matters as that. So you had a good look round ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... said morosely, and without looking up, 'I am ready to do it. But I do not like priests, and this one least of all. I know him, and I will not meddle with him.' ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Antoinette's behalf, declaring that Counts Larinski are not to be distrusted, and that men of science are incapable of comprehending delicacy of sentiment, he gave full vent to his wrath, telling the worthy demoiselle to meddle with what concerned her. For the first time in his life he was seriously angry. Antoinette caressed him into good-humour, promised that she would put on the best possible face to Maitre Noirot, that she would pay religious attention to his counsels, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... law-courts? Very good. Well, he is cousin and heir to M. Pons, to our old conductor whose funeral you attended this morning. I do not blame you for going to pay the last respects to him, poor man. . . . But if you meddle in M. Schmucke's affairs, you will lose your place. I wish very well to M. Schmucke, but he is in a delicate position with regard to the heirs—and as the German is almost nothing to me, and the President and Count Popinot are a great deal, I recommend you ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... grown stout with advancing years, and in a few minutes we both had wormed through into the sink, and thence to the floor. It was not an absolutely noiseless process, but once in the pantry we were mice, and no longer blind mice. There was a gas-bracket, but we did not meddle with that. Raffles went armed these nights with a better light than gas; if it were not immoral, I might recommend a dark-lantern which was more or less his patent. It was that handy invention, the electric ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... which dwell in Seir, and they shall be afraid of you." [Deuter, c.ii.] The same people who had successfully repelled the approach of the Israelites from the strong western frontier, was alarmed now that they had come round upon the weak side of the country. But Israel was ordered "not to meddle" with the children of Esau, but "to pass through their coast" and to "buy meat and water from them for money," in the same manner as the caravan of Mekka is now supplied by the people of the same mountains, who meet the pilgrims on the Hadj route. After traversing ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... alone, Donnel," said Sullivan; "it's not safe to meddle with one of his name. You don't know what harm he ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... of the sportsmen. We often kill numbers in that way, and thus get rid of most noxious animals. Although their flesh is of no use, their skins are of considerable value, mantles and cloaks being lined with them. A wolf is a dangerous animal to meddle with when wounded. On one occasion I was out hunting, when we had killed some fifty or more wolves. On our return, we passed a remarkably large wolf, which lay apparently dead on the snow. One of our party took it into his head that he would ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... insolent, father. I, in my own true person, would treat no one as these petty dames treat me,' said Eustacie. 'I would not meddle between a peasant woman and her child, nor ask questions that must needs ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I had a light stroke and cain't work in the field. I get $8.00 and commodities. I like to live here very well. I don't meddle with young folks business. Seems like they do mighty foolish things to me. Times been changing ever since I come in this world. It is the people cause the times to change. I wouldn't know how to start ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... You warn me!" She laughed mockingly. "I warn you, dear Seigneur, that you will be more sorry than satisfied, if you meddle in this matter." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... till he stopped opposite the post-house. He told them hastily that he was to be stationed here; and he was glad of it, as it was expected that the party would halt at the post-house. He desired the boys to keep close behind, at his horse's tail, where nobody would meddle with them. They must not notice him till spoken to, and must take care of his horse's tread: all the rest they might leave to him. There was presently an opportunity for him to speak a few words more to them; ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... many of his victims had vowed loud and deep to avenge their quarrel by inflicting corporal chastisement on their foe. He armed himself with a huge bludgeon, however, and stalked abroad and returned home unharmed and unattempted. None cared to meddle with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Vanbrugh's protegee—for she assumed toward the little old maid a most benignant air of superiority. Mr. Vanbrugh she privately christened "the old Ogre," and kept as much out of his way as possible. This was not difficult, for the artist was too much wrapped up in himself to meddle with any domestic affairs. He seemed to be under some mystification that the lively French girl was a guest of Miss Rothesay's, and his sister ventured not to break this delusion. Christal's surname created no suspicions; the very name of his former model, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... night through tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and to you, who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say I am free from the itch of meddling, but God knows this is no tempting job to meddle in; I smile at picturesque circumstances like the Misi Mea (MONSIEUR CHOSE is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the business as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing; and then a day comes, and I say 'this ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stiuir" is a common saying of much meaning and wide application. (He that is idle [a mere spectator] thinks that he could steer the boat better than the man actually in charge.) And we all know how apt we are to meddle, and generally unwisely, with the proper labours of others. Nothing, for instance, is more annoying and dangerous even than to put forth your hand by way of helping a driver in managing his horses, or to interfere with ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... know what may be in the days to come, but here in the Andredsweald some dozen of us will not leave the old gods. It was the bidding of Ethelwalch the king that we should do so, but that is not a matter wherein a king may meddle, as ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave. Ver. If he will not stand when he is bidden he is none of the prince's subjects. Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects.—You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch to babble and talk, is most tolerable, and not to be endured. 2 Watch. We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch. Dog. Why, you speak like an ancient ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... them with the rough surface of their tongues, getting off a fine flour, which they swallow eagerly, together with the oil of the seed. I have nothing further to tell you about them just at present, except to say that these are not comfortable ants to meddle with, for they sting almost as sharply ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... "is the greatest measure which has ever been before Parliament in my time, and the most pregnant with good or evil to the country; and, though I seldom meddle with political meetings, I could not reconcile it to my conscience to be absent from this. Every year for this half century the question of Reform has been pressing upon us, till it has swelled up at last into this great and awful ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... the priest. 'Happiness is a dangerous thing to meddle with. There is so little of it in the world, and it lasts ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... they fall into be not equal to their condition. But one must not be surprised at this, since great mental powers are now exhausted over sausage suppers, and the smallest minds have got to managing Congress, and through Congress the nation, by mere stratagem. You may think, sir, that I meddle with what does not concern me; but you must bear in mind that I am a man of the people; and though I have compassion for those little minds that so flit and flicker about Congress, I am not so well pleased ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... it, which is, that a cleaner spring or better fishing is not to be found in the land. Yes, yes; I had the place to myself once, and a cheerful time I had of it. The game was plenty as heart could wish; and there was none to meddle with the ground unless there might have been a hunting party of the Delawares crossing the hills, or, maybe, a rifling scout of them thieves, the Iroquois. There was one or two Frenchmen that squatted in the flats further west, and married squaws; and some of the Scotch- Irishers, from ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... myself," I said; "but I think it will be the same with Bertric. I have no mind to meddle with the affairs of another man until I am sure that he needs my help. I cannot say that I do not like a fair fight when there is good reason for it; but there is no wisdom or courage in going out of the way to ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... is the business of the Church to command, of princes to obey. The lay feudatory, born into a hereditary caste of soldiers, regards war as the highest vocation for a man of honour, is impatient of priestly arrogance, and believes in his heart that the Church ought not to meddle with politics. It would be a mistake to think of the two privileged classes as always at strife with one another and their social inferiors. But the great wars of Pope and Emperor, the fourteenth-century revolts ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... what business it is of yours, anyhow. If young ladies hain't nothin' better to do than meddle with other folks' children, they'd better let ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... the desk with his fist. "Right!" he said. "If we meddle at all we've got to go the whole distance. Either stay out altogether or go in over our heads.... But how about this girl, Hilda, does ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... a friend would have done this, unless it was a most crafty trap to take us withal; and yet to leave the boats as they were had been surer than to meddle with them, if ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... afraid," he laughed; "I will not try to convert you—pervert, you would call it. I think we are both too broad-minded to meddle with things that do not concern us. Here, I am the guest of the Bishop, but he is absent, and will only return the day before my departure. It is a pity, for he would charm you by many delightful qualities, though he may not be quite so ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... what I think of you. I'm going now.' Miss Whichello rose briskly. 'I've had my say out, and you know what I intend to do if you meddle with my affairs. Good-day, Mrs Pansey, and good-bye, for it's a long time before I'll ever cross words with you again, ma'am,' and the little old lady marched out of the room with all the honours ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... would Maggie resent a certain mulishness in him characteristic of the unfathomable stupid sex. Once a week, for example, when his room was 'done out,' there was invariably a skirmish between them, because Edwin really did hate anybody to 'meddle among his things.' The derangement of even a brush on the dressing-table would rankle in his mind. Also he was very 'crotchety about his meals,' and on the subject of fresh air. Unless he was sitting in a ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... control. The same thing might happen under any other roof, and nobody would thereby acquire a right to interfere in a matter that concerns her alone. You will surely see the propriety of not suffering your curiosity to meddle any further in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... and when Siward went on sketching she had been content. Now she could not tell whether he had deliberately and skillfully taken his conge to follow Sylvia, or whether, in his quest for his cigarettes, chance might meddle, as usual. Even if he returned, she could not know with certainty how much of a part hazard had played on the landing above, where she already heard the distant sounds of Sylvia's voice mingling with Siward's, then a light ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... former province were relatively few in number, and the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated the whole country, was quite content with its own large endowments received from the bounty of the king or private individuals during the days of French occupation, and did not care to meddle in a question which in no sense affected it. On the other hand, in Upper Canada, the arguments used by the Anglican clergy in support of their claims to the exclusive administration of the reserves were constantly answered not only in ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... determined enemy to the French revolution, and seldom rose in the house for several years without volunteering some abuse of it. "Mr. Speaker," said he, in a mood of this kind, "if we once permitted the villanous French masons to meddle with the buttresses and walls of our ancient constitution, they would never stop, nor stay, Sir, till they brought the foundation-stones tumbling down about the ears of the nation! There," continued Sir Boyle, placing his hand earnestly on his heart, his powdered head shaking ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... poor and quiet life, in a corner of the world, without offence to God or man. We came not in this wilderness to seek great things for ourselves; and if any come after us to seek them here, they will be disappointed. We keep ourselves within our line, and meddle not with matters abroad; a just dependence upon and subjection to your Majesty, according to our Charter, it is far from our hearts to disacknowledge. We so highly prize your favourable aspect (though at so great a distance), as we would gladly do anything that is within our power to purchase the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... If mammon be unrighteous, how can a man be righteous and upright in dealing with it? If money be a bad thing in itself, how can a man meddle ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... speak! They'll zay I murdered ye, and if I don't get aboard ship and zail away to foreign abroad, they'll hang me, and the crows'll come and pick out my eyes.—I zay.—I zay lad, don't ye be a vool. It was on'y a drop o' watter ye zwallowed. Do ye come to, and I'll never meddle with the zammon again.—I zay, ye aren't dead now. Don't ye be a vool. It aren't worth dying for, lad. Coom, coom, coom, open your eyes and zit up like a man. You're a gentleman, and ought to know better. ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... with the Troll." Boots, the brother of Cinderella, and the counterpart alike of Jack the Giant-killer, and of Odysseus, is the youngest of three brothers who go into a forest to cut wood. The Troll appears and threatens to kill any one who dares to meddle with his timber. The elder brothers flee, but Boots puts on a bold face. He pulled a cheese out of his scrip and squeezed it till the whey began to spurt out. "Hold your tongue, you dirty Troll," said he, "or I'll squeeze you as I squeeze ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... George Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at his patron, "Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you'll not meddle with what doesn't concern you. You're a peer; better leave the Word of God to me. I'm not a peer, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... behavior; but she privately determined to cut short her visit and get away from this disagreeable old creature. In the meantime Mrs. Parry, smiling like the wicked fairy godmother with many teeth, advanced to meddle with the Christmas tree and set the children by the ears. She ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... an agitated voice. "You could not address a more unfortunate person. I have seen, Prince, too much of politics ever to wish to meddle ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Mamertines from surrendering the citadel to Xanno, the Carthaginian general, who thought himself secure, and came down to treat with the Roman tribune Claudius, haughtily bidding the Romans no more to try to meddle with the sea, for they should not be allowed so much as to wash their hands in it. Claudius, angered at this, treacherously laid hands on Xanno, and he agreed to give up the castle on being set free; but he had better have remained a prisoner, for the ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... our schools. Think of the intemperance and the vagrancy and the immorality that flourish under our very noses. Yes, and the machine-politics that keep them flourishing. Oh, there is so much to be done, and our good men too busy, or—as they claim—too high-minded to meddle with it." ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... there were months of delay, then, when the ransom was settled, the pasha took four-fifths of it for himself, and Ibrahim got far less than he would have done had he sold him as a slave. The pashas here, and the sultans of the Moors, are all alike; if they once meddle in an affair they take all the profit, and think they do well by giving you a tithe of it. There are plenty of wealthy Moors who are ready to pay well for a Christian slave, especially when he is a good looking young fellow such as this. He will fetch as ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... sheds his Feathers; and they are carefully pickt up, by the Proprietors of those Lands where they fall; for none but those Proprietors may meddle with them; and they no sooner pick them up but they are sent to Court, where they obtain a new Name, and are called in a Word equally difficult to pronounce as the other, but Very like our English Word, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... not know which flowers are fragrant and which are scentless. For them every garden is a botanical garden. Then, many persons fully appreciate the beauty and the scent of flowers, and enjoy selecting and arranging them for a room, who can't abide to handle a fork or meddle with mother earth. ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... question. He was a fair-haired, well-made young lad, looking like a sailor, and every inch a gentleman. Had he believed that the Lady Anna was the Lady Anna, no earthly consideration would have induced him to meddle with the money. Since the old Lord's death, he had lived chiefly with his uncle Charles Lovel, having passed some two or three months at Lovel Grange with his uncle and aunt. Charles Lovel was a clergyman, with a good living at Yoxham, in Yorkshire, who had married ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... the greater alarm to those who had a regard for me, that I used to speak without any remission or variation, with the utmost stretch of my voice, and a total agitation of my body. When my friends, therefore, and physicians, advised me to meddle no more with forensic causes, I resolved to run any hazard, rather than quit the hopes of glory, which I had proposed to myself from pleading: but when I considered, that by managing my voice, and changing my way of speaking, I might both ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... stretched where he had been struck back upon the bed, I found the boy who had elected to meddle in the "problems of ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... a kind of hegemony, alike on account of its strategic position and its favourable situation for commerce, but this supremacy was of very precarious character, and brought with it no right whatever to meddle in the internal affairs of other members of the confederacy. Each of the latter had a chief of its own, a Seren,* and the office of this chief was hereditary in one case at least—Gath, for instance, where there existed a larger Canaanite element than elsewhere, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... consolation from the aspect of financial affairs in the provinces. He assured him that "the government was often in such embarrassment as not to know where to look for ten ducats." He complained bitterly that the states would meddle with the administration of money matters, and were slow in the granting of subsidies. The Cardinal felt especially outraged by the interference of these bodies with the disbursement of the sums which they voted. It has ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fled to Italy and subsequently returned of his own free will, which looked like meditating treachery.[16] Having once given up his province and returned to Italy, he was out of the reach of danger, but the passion for revolution had induced him to resume his title and meddle in the civil war. It was Cornelius Fuscus who had persuaded him to this—not that he needed his assistance, but because he felt that, especially at the outset of the rising, the prestige of an ex-consul would be a valuable asset ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... were generally poor and hard-working men. Young men with a little capital had not as yet been attracted here, so there was but little inducement for the escaped convicts to meddle with them. There were, of course, some notorious scoundrels, who seemed to murder for the pure love of the thing. The worst of them, I think, was a fellow who went by the name of Cockeye. What his real ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... sworn with many oaths never more to meddle with anything. But if you both entreat me very much, ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... poor and despised Anglo-Dutch Anabaptists who called John Smyth (Vol. II. 539,540) their leader. In a Confession, or Declaration of Faith, put forth in 1611 by the English Baptists in Amsterdam, just after the death of Smyth, this article occurs: "The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, nor compel men to this or that form of religion; because Christ is the King and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience." It is believed that this is the first expression of the absolute principle of ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... right to attend to business at all, after making it over to me, as you formally did yesterday," said Harry. "If you come here again, sir, and meddle with my department, I shall be compelled to dissolve ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... and victuals.' Later, letters were sent demanding that a large sum should be raised 'to set a fleet at sea ... we having but six or seven days to raise the money, and to return it to London; but our county refused to meddle therein.' John Northcote was Sheriff just at this time, and was most probably held responsible for the intractability ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... since, indeed, he felt, as he said, that it was to the Queen-Regent her thanks were due. All unwitting was it—out of his ignorance of the ways of thought of a sex with which he held the view that it is an ill thing to meddle—that he wounded her by his disclaimer, in which her sensitive maiden fancy imagined a something ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... of Nouember, and accordingly deliuered that inclosed to the king of this place, requiring of him, according as you did command vs in her Maiesties name, that he would vouchsafe to giue order to all his Captaines and Raies that none of them should meddle with our English shippes comming or going to or from these parts, for that they haue order not to passe by the Christian coast, but vpon the coast of Barbary, and shewing him of the charter giuen by the Grand Signior, requiring him in like case that for the better fulfilling of the amity, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... Then there was every man ready with clubs and staves, with halberts, and with other weapons, to go and kill the grasshopper. When they did come to the place where the grasshopper should be, said the one to the other, "Let every man cross himself from the devil, or we will not meddle with him." And so they returned again, and said, "We were all blessed this day that we went no farther." "Ah, cowards," said he that had his scythe in the mead, "help me to fetch my scythe." "No," said they; "it is good to sleep in a ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... husband, who is now under the table.) But mind, I'm going to meddle with strange matters; Prepare yourself to be in no wise shocked. Whatever I may say must pass, because 'Tis only to convince you, as I promised. By wheedling speeches, since I'm forced to do it, I'll ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... gentleman who on this occasion plays the part of "substitute" in a cricket-match, is the most elaborate and confessed example of Dumas' "theorised" men. He is what the seedsmen call an "improved Valmont," with more of lion in him than to meddle with virgins, but absolutely destructive to duchesses and always ready to suggest substitution ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the same place, and take care of their father; as also hereby he provided, that they might be acceptable to the Egyptians, by doing nothing that would be common to them with the Egyptians; for the Egyptians are prohibited to meddle ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the business of the girl's mother, at least as much as of the boy's, to watch over her child from the earliest years and to win her confidence in all the intimate and personal matters of sex. With these aspects the school cannot properly meddle. But in matters of physical sexual hygiene, notably menstruation, in regard to which all girls stand on the same level, it is certainly the duty of the teacher to take an actively watchful part, and, moreover, to direct the general work ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... there should not be much difficulty in running him down," said Holmes, with a yawn. "All right, Watson, I don't intend to meddle." ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... we had some aboard who were somewhat obstreperous when shut up in the hold, he shot them down as if they had been a parcel of rats, and threw some overboard with life still in them. If he does not meddle with us, he'll treat the natives in this place in a way which will make them turn against all white men. For you see they cannot distinguish one from the other; and we shall find it unpleasant, to say the best of it, ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... not interfere. Surely she might safely be trusted to watch over her own granddaughter; and while Clara was so perfectly simple, and Louis such as he was, more evil than good might result from inculcating reserve. At any rate, it was hard to meddle with the poor child's few weeks of happiness, and to this James always agreed; and then he came the next day to relieve himself by fighting the battle over again. So constantly did this occur, that Aunt Kitty, in her love of ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whose variable will they were before ascribed." This process of annexation is, says Spencer, science teaching religion its true function. As a matter of fact, science has given religion no instruction, it has merely issued prohibitions. It has warned religion that there are certain things it must not meddle with, certain departments on which it must not encroach. In this way religion has been forced farther and farther back, until it is left with what? Not with anything that can be known, or is known; it is left supreme in the kingdom of nowhere, ruling over an empire of nothing ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... for I know she wouldn't, God bless her!" said the apple-woman, heartily. "Still, asthore, take heed of what I say. Never meddle with what's trusted to ye, but carry it safe an' whole to the person it's meant for, or the place ye are told to fetch it to. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... know, I hated it most awfully. I wanted to be let alone and to work out my own theory of things. If you'd said a word—if you'd tried to influence me—the spell would have been broken. But just because the actual you kept apart and didn't meddle or pry, the other, the you in my heart, seemed to get a tighter hold on me. I don't know how to tell you,—it's all mixed up in my head—but old things you'd said and done kept coming back to me, crowding between me and what I was trying for, looking at ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... the bellows in the face of the north wind. Oh, lass, why came you here? 'Tis worse than the stones. Talk no more to me, good lass; womenkind should meddle not with men's plans. But promise me you will wed with Paul ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... long,—say to the length of twelve feet,—the alligator is a hideous and terrorizing beast; but, for all that, he knows a thing or two; and a full grown, healthy black bear of active habit is about the last creature on earth that a 'gator would care to meddle with. Pigs and calves, fawns, stray dogs, ducks and mud hens are antagonists more to ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... own affairs are misrepresented, I care nothing about it; but such falsehoods as are bandied about in this article not only hurt my feelings but injure me. Mr. Clark in making these statements must have known that he was giving circulation to lies; and had I been aware of his intentions to meddle in my affairs, I should most assuredly have treated him as a foe in disguise. For enemies I care nothing; from friends I have much to fear, it seems. There never was a more scandalous insult to my feelings than ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... enough to read a boys' book about wild animals. Lions will catch and eat nearly all beasts that come in their way. They will even overpower a giraffe or a buffalo. The elephant and rhinoceros are almost the only quadrupeds a lion dare not meddle with. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wife continued, "to be mixed up with such a man and his family, but I don't believe he'll ever meddle with your management, and, till he does, all you need do is to have as little to do with him as possible, and go quietly on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... can live naturally, and spend their lives helping in the great work of feeding, clothing, and housing their fellow men. I've no desire to leave my job or take them from theirs, to start a lazy, shiftless life of self-indulgence. I don't meddle much with the Bible, but I have a profound BELIEF in it, and a large RESPECT for it, as the greatest book in the world, and it says: 'By the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,' or words to that effect. I was born ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... M. Lupot; "I shall give no more soirees. I begin to think I was foolish in wishing to leave my own sphere. When people of the same class lark and joke each other, it's all very well; but when you meddle with your superiors, and they are uncivil, it hurts your feelings. Their mockery is an insult, and you don't get over it soon. My dear Celanire, I shall decidedly try to marry you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... its robe of yellow barred with black, more like one of the great cats from which she took her name than a human being. "Spare me," she gasped, "spare me, I don't want to die. I swear that I will never meddle with ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... armed, and accompanied by another boat containing provisions for four or six months, and both furnished with grapnels to enable them at night to anchor in the river, might, in my opinion, ascend and return securely: as the tribes on its borders have great dread of fire-arms, and will hardly dare to meddle with those who ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... danger of being attacked by Bruin, unless you first molest him. An old she-bear, with cubs, is the most dangerous customer to meddle with. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... blunders, but I think the most senseless was that promise; the most short-sighted, that belief. What right had I to fetter my tongue, or try to govern love? Shall I ever learn to do my own work aright, and not meddle with the Lord's? Sylvia, take this presumptuous and domineering devil out of me in time, lest I blunder as blindly after you are mine as I have before. Now let me finish before Mark comes to find us. I went away, you ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... spite against you; best leave him alone," said the other. And the two turned away, evidently aware that it would not be safe to meddle with me; and I once more ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... If he had been cheekin' some one or playin' a far-fetched joke, I might be able to forgive him, but there must be reason in everythink, an' to go an' meddle with other's property is carryin' things too far. 'Heed the spark or you may dread the fire,' is a piece of wisdom I've always took to heart in rarin' my family, and I notice them as are inclined to look leniently on evil, no matter how small, never ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... continued to stare out of the window. Somehow I was stirred. There seemed to me something ominous in my own preoccupation with these affairs, affairs in which I could not, even had I the right, to meddle. My friend's laconic exposition only deepened the dramatic quality of the situation. For an author I had been singularly luckless in meeting drama in my life. I had often had my artistic cupidity excited by Mr. Carville, by ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... are not of the right sort, not of their sort, and, since it is dangerous, we had better leave them alone. The officers of the Inquisition are always lurking and spying about; many an honest fellow has already fallen into their clutches. They had not gone so far as to meddle with conscience! If they will not allow me to do what I like, they might at least let me think and ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the cunning Mischief-maker, Loki, was still living with the Asa-folk. And, as you well know, this evil worker was never pleased save when he was plotting trouble for those who were better than himself. He liked to meddle with business which was not his own, and was always trying to mar the pleasures of others. His tricks and jokes were seldom of the harmless kind, and yet great good sometimes grew ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... Morris. Don't go for to meddle with my medicine. Everything's all right at last. I've found the long trace that leads to my little sister. She's waitin' to put her hand in mine, as she used to do ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... were upon tenter-hooks; and you come into a room as you were going to steal away a pint pot. Get you gone in the country, to look after your mother's poultry, to milk the cows, churn the butter, and dress up nosegays for a holiday, and not meddle with matters which you know no more of than the sign-post before your door. It is well known that Hocus has an established reputation; he never swore an oath, nor told a lie, in all his life; he is grateful to his benefactors, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... paper, tenderly, as if it had been the corpse of a beloved hope; and I can hear him saying (it was after the opera cloak and the hysterics), "Walter, you can monkey with a woman's 'eart, and you can ruin her immortal soul, but if you meddle with her clothes it's hell for both of you. Don't you ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Argos, and with their own offended allies of the Peloponnesian League. Alcibiades had a private grudge against the Spartans, to whom he had made overtures of friendship and service at the time when the treaty was under discussion, only to be set aside as a profligate and frivolous youth, unfit to meddle with serious matters of state. He now placed himself at the head of the party hostile to Sparta, and it was not long before he had an opportunity of revenging the insult to his pride. He used all his influence to promote an ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... by dint of pushing and crying, "Make haste! make haste!" they were all got into order, and the prayer was begun. But all those on the inner line, who had to turn their backs on the bowls for the prayer, twisted their heads round so that they could keep an eye on them, lest some one might meddle; and then they said their prayer thus, with hands clasped and their eyes on the ceiling, but with their hearts on their food. Then they set to eating. Ah, what a charming sight it was! One ate with two spoons, another ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... hath been or can be," says Bacon, "hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business, except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle with things that may be better done by others." Thus many great things have been done during such "vacant times of leisure," by men to whom industry had become a second nature, and who found it easier to work ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... work it,' he said, 'is to get hold of a woman farm-owner; some one who hasn't any men folks to advise her or meddle with her property. Ten to one she won't have heard of the oil boom, or if she has, it's easy enough to pose as a government expert and tell her her land is worthless for oil. We'll offer her a good price for it for straight farming, and we'll have the old lady grateful to ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... What do men meddle with religion for? Why do they call themselves by the name of the Lord Jesus, if they have not the grace of God, if they have not the Spirit of Christ? God, therefore, expecteth fruit. What do they do in the vineyard? Let them work, or get them out; the vineyard must have labourers ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he determined to meddle in Rose's concerns, and he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, at his office. There ensued some pretty plain speaking as to the late hero between the two men. Edmund Grosse half drawled out far the worst comments of the two; he liked the lawyer and let himself speak freely. And although ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... source of both. Thus I would guide as I pleased the minds and hearts of my people. I would join morality to my authority by an indissoluble chain, and I would proclaim that one could not exist without the other, so that if any audacious individual attempted to meddle with a tabooed question, society, which cannot exist without morality, would feel the very earth tremble under its feet, and would turn its wrath upon ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... an eye on you, and if you blab about what you have seen, why you will stand a good chance of sharing the same fate as your friends yonder. They have been arrested under the king's lettre de cachet, and if you meddle in the matter you ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... off the mask and springing to her feet. "I can't stand it any longer! I can't see you wreck your life in this way! Can't you see the folly you are committing? Don't think me presumptuous; that I am trying to meddle, interfere in your life. I am merely trying to save you from yourself! It's your last chance, Jack. Go back again and never mind me; I've nothing to do with it! I can easily understand how this life can have a certain fascination for you, but only for a time; it can't last. The more I see ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... supposed he and his farmhouse were left alone because they were out of the fire zone, or perhaps the barbarians did not think it worth while to meddle with him. There was no wine in the house. He procured a little brandy which he gave to Alan and sipped ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... Moreover he sent to apprize the King thereof; to wit, that he would assuredly[FN30] resume all his belongings and provision; and his liege, summoning Nadan, said to him, "So long as Haykar, shall be in life, let none lord it over his household or meddle with his fortune." On this wise the youth's hand was stayed from his uncle and from all his good and he ceased to go in to him and come out from him, and even to accost him with the salam. Presently Haykar repented of the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... reflection in personal unconcern—as well antecedent as subsequent—about the results from his actions to his fortunes. To do his own part to the utmost, within the lines of the profession he knew, was his conception of duty. As he would not meddle with the land officers' decision as to what they should or should not do, so he left to the politicians, in whose hands the gifts lay, to decide what they would, or should, accord to a successful admiral. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... bed-chamber. I am resolved to go through with this matter, let what will come of it: which again I solemnly swear before Almighty God; therefore if you desire to have the continuance of my friendship, meddle no more in this business, except it be to bear down all false and scandalous reports, and to facilitate what, I am sure, my honour is so much concerned in; and whosoever I find to be my Lady Castlemaine's enemy in this matter, I do promise, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... brown thrush keeps singing—"A nest do you see, And five eggs, hid by me in the juniper-tree? Don't meddle! don't touch! little girl, little boy, Or the world will lose some of its joy. Now I'm glad! Now I'm free! And I always shall be, If you never bring ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... that if I had the money to buy it, I would simply walk up to the owner and pour the sum in sovereigns into his hat. I saw this place, unfortunately, to small advantage: I saw it in the rain. But I am rather glad that fine weather did not meddle with the affair, for I think that in this case the irritation of envy would have been really too acute. It was a rainy Sunday, and the rain was serious. I had been in the house all day, for the weather can best be described by my saying that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... occasion to refer to some of these doctrines again later on. It may be well, however, to mention here that the views that no Christian ought to be a magistrate; that magistrates should not meddle with religion; that no man ought to be compelled to faith, or put to death for his religion; that war is unlawful to Christians; that their speech should be yea or nay, without any oath: seem to have been accepted by Anabaptists generally, as they ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... every night came home with him to dinner and took him out for evening walks. But his talk was all of business. It seemed to Ethel that purposely Nourse shut her out of the conversation. His manner to her, though not unkind, was like that of the cook and the nurse. "The less you meddle here," it said, "the better it will be for ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... The ministry of clerics is concerned with better things than corporal slayings, namely with things pertaining to spiritual welfare, and so it is not fitting for them to meddle with minor matters. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Twyne, who bore the reputation of being a lady of wealth, and owned one hundred and twelve slaves. Most of her slave property was kept on her plantation not far from Old Point Comfort. According to William's testimony "of times Mrs. Twyne would meddle too freely with the cup, and when under its influence she was very desperate, and acted as though she wanted to ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... of a type which democracies will always produce, and which those who dislike democracy will always use for its reproach. Yet the reproach is evidently unjust. In all societies, most of those who meddle with the government of men will do so in pursuit of their own interests, and in all societies the professional politician will reveal himself as a somewhat debased type. In a despotism he will become a courtier and ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... in reviewing a German historical work of some pretensions, where this problem emerges, rejected the Portman Square doctor altogether, and traced the term to an old Oxford statute—one of the many which meddle with dress, and which charges it as a point of conscience upon loyal scholastic students that they shall wear cerulean socks. Such socks, therefore, indicated scholasticism: worn by females, they would ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... manipulate and soothe down the Prussian Majesty, as surely would be easy; to continue his galvanic operations on the Double-Match, or produce a rotation in the purposes of the royal breast. Which he diligently strove to do, when once admitted to speech again;—Grumkow steadily declining to meddle, and only Queen Sophie, as we can fancy, auguring joyfully of it. Seckendorf, admitted to speech the third day after that explosive Session, snuffles his softest, his cunningest;—continues to ride diligently, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wait, then, till Blaazer gits quiet. I dussn't meddle with 'im; an' I'm shoeing Mr. 'Utton's graay maare." And with a natural, untrained diplomacy the blacksmith ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... where that renowned conjurer is recorded to have saved a man, that had given himself to the devil on condition of his debts being paid. "The case was referred to the friar. 'Deceiver of mankind, said he (speaking to the devil), it was thy bargain never to meddle with him so long as he was indebted to any; now how canst thou demand of him any thing, when he is indebted for all he hath to thee? When he payeth thee thy money, then take him as thy due; till then thou hast nothing to do with him; and so I charge thee to be gone.' At this the devil ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... as he rises, you give him room to extend himself; and if you stretch your arms as he descends, you have him in hand. But the perfect hunter, as long as he is fresh, does his work perfectly, so the less you meddle with him when he is rising ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... from three till sixe. Thus farre I have advised you, because I pitty your passions, as my selfe being once a lover, but now I charge thee reveale it to none whomsoever, least it doo disparage my credit to meddle in amorous matters. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Union-lover must keep in view. In pushing on the war with heart and soul, we inevitably render slaveholding at any rate a most precarious institution, and one likely to be broken up altogether. Seeing this, many unreflectingly ask, 'Why then meddle with it?' But it must be considered in some way, and provided for as the war advances, or we shall find ourselves in such an imbroglio as history never saw the like of. He who cuts down a tree must take forethought how it may fall, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "of my gratitude and attachment. I know that without his protection I can do nothing. I know what troubles my brother brought on himself by not adhering steadily to France. I will take good care not to let the Houses meddle with foreign affairs. If I see in them any disposition to make mischief, I will send them about their business. Explain this to my good brother. I hope that he will not take it amiss that I have acted without consulting ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is so long I has to keep it wropped[FN: wrapped]. I'se often heard my mammy was redish-lookin' wid long, straight, black hair. Her pa was a full blooded Choctaw an' mighty nigh as young as she was. I'se been tol' dat nobody dast[FN: dared] meddle wid her. She didn' do much talkin', but she sho' was a good worker. My pappy had Injun blood, too, but ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... when she went out of her room during the recess; nearly all the girls took it into their hands to look at it, for it had a number of blades, and was rather curious; some of them tried the knife to see how sharp it was. We had been told not to meddle with her things, and all of us knew it was wrong; as I was one of the small girls, I did not get a chance to look at it till all had seen it; but, when the others ran out to the play ground, and I was left alone, I went to the desk, and took up the knife, and opened and shut all the ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... anyway we all live in the same place, and when it's a place like North Dormer it's enough to make people hate each other just to have to walk down the same street every day. But you don't live here, and you don't know anything about any of us, so what did you have to meddle for? Do you suppose the other girls'd have kept the books any better'n I did? Why, Orma Fry don't hardly know a book from a flat-iron! And what if I don't always sit round here doing nothing till it strikes five ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... no mistaking, and the van as she belonged to waited just outside the village, for I went down along with her and seed it, painted yeller with red wheels. I knowed Zoe was gypsy born, for she'd one of them charms round her neck as I didn't meddle with, for they do say as there's a deal of power in them things, and that gypsies can't be drownded or ketch fevers and things as long as ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... sciolists, and will continue to have them; and in every age literature has also had, and will continue to have its sincere and devoted followers, few in number, but enough to trim the everlasting lamp. It is when sciolists meddle with State affairs that they become the pests of a nation; and this evil, for the reason which you have assigned, is more likely to increase than to be diminished. In your days all extant history lay within compassable ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... the evil side both of nunneries and monkeries, whilst I may fairly admit some good to be found in both. My real protest is for liberty both to mind and body, and against coercion of any kind, material or spiritual. Given perfect freedom, I would not meddle with any one's honest convictions: "to a nunnery go" if thou wilt; only let the resolve be revocable, not ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... you bother yourself about me, Ben. I'm not a-going to turn Methodist any more nor you are—though it's like enough you'll turn to something worse. Mester Irwine's got more sense nor to meddle wi' people's doing as they like in religion. That's between themselves and God, as he's said to me ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Mr. Bragg, with a toss of the head—'that I'll attend to,' repeated he, with an emphasis on the I'll, as much as to say, 'Don't you meddle with what doesn't ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... strong, and Hamlet was generally condemned. "Well, well," said Scott, "it's partly my own fault. I have given up coursing for some time past, and the poor dog has had no chance after game to take the fire edge off of him If he was put after a hare occasionally he never would meddle with sheep." ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... not to see him again. There were bad hearts between us. There were good ones, too, who were at a loss what to do. There were frivolous ones who preferred not to meddle ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... men approve of his sentence because the man made camp here without the word of council," stated Padre Vicente. "It is not well to meddle ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... you are bred for a parson," says my lord, taking Esmond by the hand very kindly: "and it were a great pity that you should meddle in the matter." ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hellenizing, and who, for example, even manufactured Greek verses—when this Albinus in the preface to his historical treatise pleaded in excuse for his defective Greek that he was by birth a Roman—was not the question quite in place, whether he had been doomed by authority of law to meddle with matters which he did not understand? Were the trades of the professional translator of comedies and of the poet celebrating heroes for bread and protection more honourable, perhaps, two thousand years ago than they are ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... name,—that must be owned, Del. All is, you will have to call him 'Mr. Sampson,' or 'My dear,' or 'You'; or, stay, you might abbreviate it into Ame, Ami. Ami and Delphine!—it sounds like a French story for youth. If I were you, I wouldn't meddle with it or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... by an indignant but weak denial. The instrument in question was one, she averred, which the duke had DESIRED her to execute, but which she had declined at all costs to meddle with. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... step off," answered the dame; "but I cannot refuse to fetch for so civil, discreet a lad—and a well-favored one, besides. So bide ye here, and I'll be as quick as I maun. But for any sake take care and don't meddle with the man's pistols there, for they are loaded, the both; and every time I set eyes on them they scare me out ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... mother nation and left it to fight its own fight with savage nature, savage beast, and savage man. And thus she gave the little race strength of heart and body and brain, and taught it to stand together as she taught each man of the race to stand alone, protect his women, mind his own business, and meddle not at all; to think his own thoughts and die for them if need be, though he divided his own house against itself; taught the man to cleave to one woman, with the penalty of death if he strayed elsewhere; to keep her—and even himself—in dark ignorance of the sins against Herself for which ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... that he had tracked Pornic's footprints fourteen miles across the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a couple of punkah- ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... is sufficiently diffused over the whole nation, to render it a country like France; where men, who behave with decency and decorum, may live, or pass through, without the least apprehension or inconvenience on the score of religion; if they do not meddle with politics or fortifications. ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... thought proper to give Catholic Europe a warning not to meddle with Catholic Ireland. In the words of the official report immediately sent home to Walsingham, as soon as the fort was yielded, 'all the Irish men and women were hanged, and 600 and upwards of Italians, Spaniards, Biscayans and others put to the sword. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... said Bogle. "And I'm not any too glad to see you. You have chosen to meddle with an affair that was none of your business. I don't blame Raikes, for he did the best thing possible under the circumstances. You had the drop on him, and ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... "A Greek! Ah, ha! perhaps some relation to Bartja's faithful fair one! What can this stranger know of my family affairs? I know these beggarly Ionians well. They are impudent enough to meddle in everything, and think they can cheat us with their sly tricks. How much have you had to pay for this new witness, uncle? A Greek is as ready with a lie as a Magian with his spells, and I know they'll do anything for gold. I'm ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not meddle with Jean's cook-fire, but he built a second fire where the cheer of it would light up Josephine's tent, and piled dry logs on it until the flame of it lighted up the gloom about them for a hundred feet. And then, with a pan in one hand and a stick ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Mary. "It won't do any harm if it doesn't do much good. If you knew Mrs. Wiley as well as I do you wouldn't think God would want to meddle with her. Anyhow, I won't cry any more about it. This is a big sight better'n last night down in that old barn, with the mice running about. Look at the Four ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... opinion? Again, the value of many people's property may depend on this plan going forward. Have I a right from mere views of amenity to interfere with those serious interests? I something doubt it. Then I have always said that I never meddle in such work, and ought I sotto voce now to begin it? By my faith I won't; there are enough to state ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... immediate purpose on almost any subject. These, of course, are supplemented by geographical, biographical, bibliographical, and other dictionaries, including of course lexicons to all the languages I ever meddle with. Next to these come the works relating to my one or two specialties, and these collections I make as perfect as I can. Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only on the history of pin-heads. I don't mean that I buy all the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that it is a lie, and, if it is true, I hope Mr. Leo won't meddle with no such things, for no good can't come ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... difficulty, which this question presented to a man, with as nice a perception of moral duty as perhaps ever lived, it is said by Bishop Burnet, of Sir Matthew Hale: "If he saw a cause was unjust, he for a great while would not meddle further in it, but to give his advice that it was so; if the parties after that would go on, they were to seek another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice; if he found the cause doubtful or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to agree their business. Yet ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... faint smile. "You know as well as I do how pointless that correction is. You imply by it that as I'm not her brother I've no right to meddle. But I told you in June that I should interfere if it ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... says, [15] "In 1852 we had discovered that wars with the Natives and wars with the Dutch were expensive and useless, that sending troops out and killing thousands of Natives was an odd way of protecting them. We resolved then to keep within our own territories, to meddle no more beyond the Orange River, and to leave the Dutch and the Natives to settle ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... his shoulder]. She says Gladstone was an Irishman, Sir. What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw |
