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More "Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... against a picture in the National Gallery we cannot possibly see its beauty—see what the picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet. And that is not because a man is not a hero, but because the valet is too close to see the real man. Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable, and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we know him, with all his faults, to have been a great-souled man. Social reformers near at hand are often intolerable bores and religious fanatics ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... confectioner. "As it happens," continued the gallant, "we have lost our heads, and would be much obliged if you would recover them for us. You see, we called here about a hundred years ago and were murdered in our beds, here in this house. It was your great-grandfather's doing; he was a bit peevish that evening. We had arrived with all our trunks, had searched the whole town for lodgings; every place was crowded. Some one advised us to call here. The old gentleman, after a deal of grumbling, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... amid the rows of the marked garden paused, in the enveloping dusk, and leaned on their hoes, and listened—a low, peevish whistle, like the call of a night-jar, on the plain, came to them. Presently the call repeated itself—three wavering notes—and they shouldered their hoes and moved ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... disappointment at each indifferent one. In the progress of the game he did not follow suit, and his partner said, "What! have you not a spade, Mr. Cibber?" The latter, looking at his cards, answered, "Oh yes, a thousand;" which drew a very peevish comment from the general. On which, Cibber, who was shockingly addicted to swearing, replied, "Don't be angry, for—I can play ten times ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... voluble utterance to some startling samples of barrack-room profanity. Its shrill invective would have awakened the dead. The whistling, regular snores of the sleeper suddenly wound up with a gasping gurgle; he opened his eyes and, in a strong cereal accent gave vent to a somnolent peevish protest. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... only necessity that compelled them to cut wood for fuel, in performing which operation Beauparlant's face became so dreadfully swelled that he could scarcely see; I myself lost my temper on the most trivial circumstances, and was become very peevish; the day was fine but cold, with a freezing north-east wind. ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... big man, but for all his large features and bearded face his expression was the expression of a peevish and passionate child. He controlled ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dominating and so unique a personality, although we were bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent revelations, we ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... ails the peevish brat?" snarled the young boatman impatiently. "Rather look this way and tell me whom be these after!" The old man and his other son looked, and saw four men walking along the east bank of the river; at the sight they left rowing awhile, and gathered mysteriously in the stern, whispering ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... seaman to enjoy, he had been quite conscious all the time that neither the sough of the wind in the rigging nor the steady swinging motion of the ship had become intensified. It was, therefore, in a somewhat peevish tone ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... objected to any special exploitation of his name. This always distressed the committee, who saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame. The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently peevish to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her mother that she had always turned for both, and that mother had died but a year before the return of my brother. Mr. Burnett was a quiet student, passionately fond of his books, as innocent of the world as a child, only fretful and peevish when any thing occurred to disturb the quiet monotony of his existence, and apparently unconscious that his little Helen had grown from a child to a woman. His mind was wholly wrapped up in his studies, even ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... can't you wait till I tell you?" Penrod's tone had become peevish. For that matter, so had Sam's; they were developing one of the little differences, or quarrels, that composed the very texture ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Allen, 1895, 213), who studied the habits of the animal in the moonlight, at Willcox, Ariz., says that a low chuckle was uttered at intervals; and Vorhies has had one captive female that would repeatedly utter a similar chuckle in a peevish manner when disturbed by day, and one captive male which, when teased into a state of anger and excitement, would squeal much like a cornered house rat. Vorhies has spent many moonlight hours observing kangaroo rats, but without ever hearing a vocal sound ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill-managery of his bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women, he necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest he made them to better purpose; was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, "abundance of spirit," he equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... was the old dame's hut, and up such a bean stalk Jack climbed, to find a giant and a castle high above. Why not? What may not be up there? You look up into the green cloud, and long for a moment to be a monkey. There may be monkeys up there over your head, burly red Howler, {131a} or tiny peevish Sapajou, {131b} peering down at you, but you cannot peer up at them. The monkeys, and the parrots, and the humming birds, and the flowers, and all the beauty, are upstairs—up above the green cloud. You are in 'the empty ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... but I heard no sound till I put my ear down, and caught the peevish comment: "This is crawling. . ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... captain, and Wainwright well knew how to think up tortures. It was really the only thing in which he was clever. And here again was an instance of practice making perfect, for Wainwright had done little else since his kindergarten days than to think up trials for those who would not bow to his peevish will. He seemed to be gifted in finding out exactly what would be the finest kind of torture for any given soul who happened to be his victim. He had the mind of Nero and the spirit of a mean little beast. The wonder, the great miracle was, that he had not in some way discovered ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... half-length figures against a background of gold leaf, at first laid on solidly, or, at a somewhat later date, studded with cherubs. The Virgin has a meagre, ascetic countenance, large, ill-shaped eyes, and an almost peevish expression; her head is draped in a heavy, dark blue veil, ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... zealot, sometimes very precise and peevish. But I have seen him pleasant enough in his way; much addicted to jealousy, but more to fondness; so that as he is often jealous without a cause, he's as often satisfied ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... proverb. Alice Mangold Diehl tells of meeting Robert and Clara, and finding him peevish and her a model of meekness and patience. Poor Schumann realised his failings and his own danger, and often suggested retirement to an asylum. But the idea was too ghastly ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... you be content?" The speaker was a little man with keen eyes, a supercilious smile, a shrill sharp voice, and peevish manners. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Tho' the peevish tongues upbraid, Tho' the brows of wisdom scowl, Fair ones here on roses laid, Careless ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... not only an unbeliever, but one very froward, peevish, and testy, yea, so froward, &c., that I know not how to speak to him, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... society and the domestic virtues. The other guest, Mrs. Murch by name, proclaimed herself, at a glance, of less prosperous condition, though no less sumptuously arrayed. Her face had a hungry, spiteful, leering expression; she spoke in a shrill, peevish tone, and wriggled nervously on her chair. In eleven years of married life, Mrs. Murch had borne six children, all of whom died before they were six months old. She lived apart from her husband, who had something to do with the ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... uselessness; at the cold hostility visible in every look of the only white man in this barbarous corner of the world. He gnashed his teeth when he thought of the wasted days, of the life thrown away in the unwilling company of that peevish and suspicious fool. He heard the reproach of his idleness in the murmurs of the river, in the unceasing whisper of the great forests. Round him everything stirred, moved, swept by in a rush; the ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, A ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... froward, how hasty, how peevish, and self-resolved are the generality of professors at this day! Alas! how little considering the poor, unless it be to say, Be thou warmed and filled! But to give, is a seldom work! also especially to give ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... it was to find herself unable longer to act, as her leg was stiff and her movements unsuited to the exigencies of the stage. Poor Berlioz was crushed by the weight of the obligations he had assumed, and, as the years went on, the peevish plaints of an invalid wife, who had lost her beauty and power of charming, withered the affection which had once been so fervid and passionate. Berlioz finally separated from his once beautiful and worshiped Harriet ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... get peevish, Hoppy—he's only thirty-six hours late," suggested Red. "An' he might be a week," he added thoughtfully, as his mind ran back over a long list of ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... do you think him mad, sir?' said his master, speaking in a peevish tone. 'Don't use that word too freely. Why do you ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... away, however, the sharp and peevish tinkle of the shop-bell made itself audible. Striking most disagreeably on Clifford's auditory organs and the characteristic sensibility of his nerves, it caused him to start upright ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mightily of my Lady Paulina making a very good end, and being mightily religious in her life-time; and she hath left many good notes of sermons and religion wrote with her own hand, which nobody ever knew of: which I am glad of; but she was always a peevish lady. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... great hearts must be indicated like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "His Grace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he was almost tempted to retort "citizen." He was assailed by a fancy for peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the powerful ones of the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... 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 were not what she wanted—not that, but something so different, poor child!—she was cross, peevish, fractious without intending it, scarcely knowing why; the nuns set her down as a perverse unamiable child: and so it happened, that she had not been many weeks in the convent before she came to be regarded with general disfavour and indifference instead of with the ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... perfection in the two styles of oratory. It is true, that distinguished barristers have sometimes been distinguished in the House of Commons, but they have not been of the race of orators; they have been sharp, shrewd, bitter men, ready on vexatious topics, quick in peevish speech, and willing to plunge themselves into subjects whose labour or license is disdained by higher minds. But Erskine was an orator, vivid, high-toned, and sensitive; shrinking from the common-place ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... in the mould that thou throwest up shall the first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness; and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let it be enough that these have found the feast good, and thanked the giver: ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the Hopkins crusade that called forth his treatise.[32] His little book was in large part a plea for more caution in the use of evidence. Suspicion was too lightly entertained against "every poore and peevish olde Creature." Whenever there was an extraordinary accident, whenever there was a disease that could not be explained, it was imputed to witchcraft. Such "Tokens of Tryall" he deemed "altogether unwarrantable, as proceeding ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... and peevish with me just now, Conrad, without waiting to hear what I had to say. But I overlook it. I am your mother. If you had waited, I should have told you that I have no fault whatever to find with Miss Nightingale's bathing-dress. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but retained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so pregnant with mischief, with France.—This monarch, well-meaning and destined to the severest trials, educated by a peevish valetudinarian and ignorant of affairs, was first taught by bitter experience the utter incapacity of the men at that time at the head of the government, and after, as will be seen, completely reforming the court, the government, and the army, surrounded himself with ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... comes, unless the foolish wench should go and die. She brought it on me, the peevish girl. She is always after me when ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection, to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas! the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over Dick's estrangement—for so he put it to himself, and now with growls, cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched himself in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Chesapeake was in every respect unexampled. It was not—and he knew it was a bold assertion which he made—to be surpassed by any other engagement which graced the naval annals of Great Britain." Admiral Warren was still in a peevish humor at the hard knocks inflicted on the Royal Navy when he wrote, in congratulating Captain Broke: "At this critical moment you could not have restored to the British naval service the preeminence it has always preserved, or contradicted in a more forcible ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... SERIES. and do not reach forth your hand for the food, but ask some one to help you. 5. Do not become peevish and pout, because you do not get a part of everything. Be satisfied with what is given you. 6. Avoid a pouting face, angry looks, and angry words. Do not slam the doors. Go quietly up and down stairs; and never make ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... grew brazen enough to consult the old and peevish Doctor Noxon; and he laughed her hopes away and informed her that she need never trouble herself to ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... shook her head, with the peevish persistence of weak obstinacy, and continued vaguely to weep as one ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... C was crying itself to sleep. Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... first spoke—a sentence of a dozen words, it might be, consenting, no doubt, to come out without being dragged; congratulating, perhaps (as the manner was), the searchers on their success. A murmur of answer came back, and then one sharp, peevish voice by itself. Again Mr. Garlick spoke, and there followed the shuffling of movements for a long while; and then, so far as the little chamber was concerned, empty silence. But from the hall rose up a steady murmur of talk ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... no triumph for La Pologne!" Madame Beavor uttered a little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed countryman. "Are you, too, a great politician, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... very much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off on ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... God's earth, grow old, wear out, lose their first love of what was just and true; and know not the things which belong to their peace, but grow, as the Jews grew in their latter years, more and more fanatical, quarrelsome, peevish, uncharitable; trying to make up by violence for the loss of strength and sincerity: till they come to an end, and die, often by unjust and unfair means, and by men worse than they. Shall we not believe that Christ ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... he declared, "nothing at all. You've got to expect a bachelor to kick every once in a while, you know. They're a peevish lot of ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... the father the exact antithesis of the daughter: a nervous, fretful, irritable individual (gout had him by the heels at the time), who was as full of "yaps" and snarls as any Irish terrier, and as peevish and fussy as a fault-finding old woman. Added to this, he had a way of glancing all round the room, and avoiding the eye of the person to whom he was talking. And if Cleek had been like the generality of people, and hadn't known that some of the best and "straightest" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... opinion," Sarah pronounced, "and I don't want any peevish remarks from you, Roger Kendrick. You're jealous because you let Mr. White get in ahead of you and secure Jimmy. It was only three days ago that we agreed he should go into the City. He was perfectly sweet about it, too. He was playing for the M.C.C. to-morrow, and ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... soft and flabby; the limbs emaciated; the belly, in some cases, large, in others, shrunk; and the evacuations fetid and unnatural; and in a very few weeks, the blooming healthy child will be changed into the pale, sickly, peevish, wasted creature, whose life appears ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... offensare capita," that they all wept, and tore their hair. 'Tis the common practise of affliction. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handfuls pull'd his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?" Who has not seen peevish gamesters worry the cards with their teeth, and swallow whole bales of dice in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipt the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employ'd a whole army several days ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent Machivilian policie that thou hast studied? O peevish follie! what are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to command, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... a peevish outburst, and he hesitated, as if minded to say no more; but the Skipper raised his head, and the dark eyes sent out a compelling glance. The weaker man faltered, gave way, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... she was peevish and discontented; her mind was dark. But so soon as she began to understand, it was as if light shone into her mind, and she became cheerful ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... "shadows of ideas" in men's faces (De Umbris Idearum was the title of his discourse), himself pleasantly animated by them, in turn. There was "heroic gaiety" there; only, as usual with gaiety, the passage of a peevish cloud seemed all the chillier. Lit up, in the agitation of speaking, by many a harsh or scornful beam, yet always sinking, in moments of repose, to an expression of high-bred melancholy, it was a face that ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... has troubled my memory—yet something of it I should remember, canst thou not aid me? I know thou canst.' 'Alas, madam,' replied the lady. 'What,' said Mary, 'wilt thou not help us so far? this is a peevish adherence to thine own graver opinion which holds our talk as folly. But thou art court-bred and wilt well understand me when I say the queen commands Lady Fleming to tell her when she led the last branle.' With a face deadly pale and a mien ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking. Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take orders and to refrain from overmuch thought ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... no legacy, Save that his story teaches:— Content to peevish poverty; Humility to riches. Ye scornful great, ye envious small, Come follow in his track; We all were happier, if we all ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... patience. She knew this very well, and she thought to herself, "if I could get into the habit of hardly caring for it from those very near and dear to me, surely it will be easy enough to meet it with indifference from a poor, cross, peevish, suffering old man, whom I don't care for in the least. The way must be, to get into the habit of it from the first, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... will advance, with spirit and cheerfulness, to any service that falls in his way. But it is the practice of the bad soldier to be complaining and grumbling on all occasions; saucy in time of ease, and peevish in return for kindness; faint-hearted under hardships, and feeble ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... dreaded to enter it after dark. It was so still, so black, so empty, so chilly with a sort of supernatural chill, so silent, that imagination conjured up sounds such as I had never heard before. I had been told of an extremely old woman, a great-great-grandmother, bed-ridden, peevish, and weak-minded, who had occupied that room for nearly a score of years, apparently forgotten by fate, and left to drag out a monotonous, weary existence on not her "mattress grave" (like the poet Heine), but on an immensely ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... There's a hole in that vest pocket. I took that pencil off my chain and slipped it in there in case of a scrap. Put up your gun, Barney, and I'll tell you why I had to shoot Norcross. The old fool started down the hall after me, popping at the buttons on the back of my coat with a peevish little .22 and I had to stop him. The old lady was a darling. She just lay in bed and saw her $12,000 diamond necklace go without a chirp, while she begged like a panhandler to have back a little thin gold ring with a garnet worth about $3. I guess she married old Norcross for ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... on a matter which should have been left to him to arrange. He complained bitterly of the way in which he was reduced to a cypher—'degraded from a general to the "Lord-Lieutenant's head constable."' Broadfoot went from the General to the Envoy, who 'was peevish,' and denounced the General as fidgety. He declared the enemy to be contemptible, and that as for Broadfoot and his sappers, twenty men with pickaxes were enough; all they were wanted for was to pick stones from under ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... And mock of fools, scorn on my worthy head! That have been titled and adored a god, Yea, sacrificed unto, myself, in Rome, No less than Jove: and I be brought to do A peevish giglot, rites! perhaps the thought And shame of that, made fortune turn her face, Knowing herself the lesser deity, And but my servant.-Bashful queen, if so, Sejanus thanks thy modesty.——Who's that? Enter ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... of her weary little feet. It was a look more painful to see than the look of sadness or neglect which motherless children sometimes wear. It was of a wayward temper grown more wayward still for want of a mother's firm and gentle rule. One could not doubt that peevish words and angry retorts fell very naturally from those pale lips. She looked like one who needed to be treated with patience and loving forbearance, and who failed to meet either. And, indeed, the rule to which ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... this affair he will cudgel thee to death. Well, a minute is but a minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent. He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and picked it up again. God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages—'tis all, all bitterness to thee, whatever ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... fluttering about more or less. He said I fluttered, and I told him I certainly did. 'I always flutter, Mr. Monk,' I said. 'When I don't flutter, I shall be dead.' Which was true. He was quite peevish, but I was firm; you know you have to be firm about such things. Only, the next Sunday he happened to come by when one of those great dreadful boys asked me if Solomon's seal was tame, and I said I didn't think it was. Well, I didn't! ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... Looking alone at the great shining God Within thy mind, seest not; but I see And sicken at them. Yet do I not require Thy purpose; whether thy proud heart must have The wound of death from steel that has not toucht The peevish misery these Jews call blood; Whether thy mind is for velvet slavery In the desires of some Assyrian lord— Forgive me, Judith! there my love spoke, made Foolish with injury; and I should be Unwise to stay here, lest it break the hold I have it in. I go, and I ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... introduce you to my partner. Captain Hamilton, D.S.O.—a jolly old comrade-in-arms and all that sort of thing. My lady typewriter you know, and anyway, there's no necessity for your knowing her—— I mean," he said hastily, "she doesn't want to know you, dear old thing. Now, don't be peevish. Ham, you sit there. Becksteine will sit there. You, young miss, will sit near me, ready to take down my notes as they fall from my ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... are deaf to hot and peevish vows; They are polluted off'rings, more abhorr'd Than spotted livers ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... old days before I rose to being the chief glory of Calderside. Conversation was one-sided then, and all on your side instead of mine. 'Here again, Martlow,' you'd say, and then they'd gabble the evidence, and you'd say 'fourteen days' or 'twenty-one days,' if you'd got up peevish and that's all there was to our friendly intercourse. This time, I make no doubt you'll be asking me to stay at the Towers to-night. And," he went on blandly, enjoying every wince that twisted Sir William's face in spite of his efforts to appear unmoved, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... my own family name. These old women, who never had chick or child of their own, but who always know how to bring up other people's children, will tell you with long faces that my enchanting, quieting, soothing volume, my all-sufficient anodyne for cross, peevish, won't-be-comforted little bairns, ought be laid aside for more learned books, such as they could select and publish. Fudge! I tell you that all their batterings can't deface my beauties, nor their wise pratings equal my wiser prattlings; and all ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous
... peevish with me for asking him such a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... the kingdom to oppress the meanest farmer in the parish; and I likewise defy the same clergyman to prevent himself from being cheated by the same farmer, whenever that farmer shall be disposed to be knavish or peevish. For, although the Ulster tithing-teller is more advantageous to the clergy than any other in the kingdom, yet the minister can demand no more than his tenth; and where the corn much exceeds the small tithes, as, except in some districts, I am told it always doth, he is at the mercy ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... for loyalty and tolerance, they have none of either. You never saw industry without other virtues, you never saw laziness without other vices. These everlasting grumblers are a generation of vipers. They are a peevish and perverse set of lazy, skulking swindlers. They can pay. Every man could pay his rent and be comfortably off if he liked. The Protestant farmers pay and get along. And we agree that the landlords favour the other sect. They know that ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' Piozzi Letters, i. 105. His uncle Harrison he described as 'a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but luckily not rich.' Annals, p. 28. In Notes and Queries, 6th S. x. 465, is given the following extract of the marriage of Johnson's parents from the Register of Packwood ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... moreover, that if he could not prevail on the Imperial Government to convert Kingston into the provincial capital, that the seat of government should not be at the London of General Simcoe. He was not favorable to York. A muddy, marshy, unhealthy spot, it was unfitted for a city. Lord Dorchester, peevish from age, was, to some extent, under the influence of the Kingston merchants, and was inclined, by a feeling of gratitude, to grant the wishes of Commodore Bouchette, who resided at Kingston, with his family, and ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Broughton; the other, Murray afterwards Lord Mansfield. He then went into the history of his life; or, at least, into such passages of it as were proper for the public ear. He was interrupted by the Lord High Steward, whose conduct to the unhappy State prisoner is said to have been peevish and overbearing. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... it would depend on the most tender and careful treatment of body and mind. London doctors, when he could be moved thither, confirmed the decision, and he began a helpless invalid life, in which a certain indifference and dulness made him a much less peevish and trying patient than would have been anticipated. Mysie was his willing, but intelligent slave; and his mother was not only thankful to have him brought back to her at any price, but really—though she would not have confessed it even to herself—was ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... seemed to be no more troubled than he would have been by the buzzing of a wasp. "Then you had better change your mind speedily," he answered, in an even voice, "lest being crossed in a peevish whim sour your blood." ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sins under this caption which do not contain much malice but are disturbing to life, and they are especially disturbing to one's spiritual life. There are peevish, complaining people, who do not seem to mean much harm, but keep themselves in a state of dissatisfaction which renders their spiritual growth impossible. They grow old without any of the grace ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... campaigns was of more general use. The trail ended at a muddy hill, a bare sugar-loaf of a hill, as high as the main tent of a circus and as abruptly sloping away. It was swept by a damp, chilling wind; a mean, peevish rain washed its sides, and they were so steep that if we sat upon them we tobogganed slowly downward, ploughing up the mud with our boot heels. Hungry, sleepy, in utter darkness, we clung to this slippery mound in its ocean of whispering millet like sailors wrecked in mid-sea ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... but only to purify and ennoble a gladness which, without them, would be apt to be stained by many a corruption, and to make permanent a joy which, without them, would be sure to die down into the miserable, peevish, and feeble old age of which the grim picture follows, and to be quenched at last in death. So there are three words that I take out of this text of mine, and that I want to bring before my young friends as exhortations which it is wise ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... joyous departure. The sharp sting of jealousy entered his soul, and he rebelled against the evident injustice of Fate. How had he deserved that life should present so dismal and forbidding an aspect to him? He had had none of the joys of infancy; his youth had been spent wearily under the peevish discipline of a cloister; he had entered on his young manhood with all the awkwardness and timidity of a night-bird that is made to fly in the day. Up to the age of twenty-seven years, he had known neither love ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Corral were in the caravel which went before, and gave notice to the colonists at Darien of the threats which Nicuessa had made, of taking away their gold and punishing them; saying that his misfortunes had rendered him peevish and cruel, abusing all who were under his authority. From the little islands which he had stopped to explore, Nicuessa sent one Juan de Cayzedo to acquaint the colony at Darien of his approach; and this man being privately his enemy, still farther exasperated the people against ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... be a mite peevish as soon as the news of the social happenings along the river for the past few days got to him," said Vittum. "It's no surprise to me—been ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... assuredly he could not well have acted otherwise. The three Emperors, of late acting in accord in Balkan questions, had it in their power to crush him by launching the Turks against Philippopolis, or their own troops against Sofia. He had satisfied the claims of honour; he had punished Servia for her peevish and unsisterly jealousy. Under his lead the Bulgarians had covered themselves with glory, and had leaped at a bound from political youth to manhood. Why should he risk their new-found unity merely in order to abase Servia? The Prince never ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... sleepless. After an hour or two I longed to see them side by side, that strange contrast in age and size, to try the difference with my finger as I had with my prick. She brought in the child, sleepy and peevish, I plunged my prick in the little one, took it out, and put it into the woman. It was a delight to feel the difference,—the room in one, the confinement in ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... are little glades of mossy turf, and banks of violets and geraniums, and gentle creatures on ground and branch, and cool shade from the summer sun, and the sound of running water by your side, without being sweetened and comforted. Bitter thoughts and cynical criticisms, as well as vain regrets and peevish complaints, fell away from Carmichael's soul, and gave place to a gentle melancholy. He came to the heart of the wood, where was the lovers' grave, and the place seemed to invite his company. A sense of the tears of things came over him, and he sat down by the river-side to meditate. It was ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... listener. Lord Fontenoy ceased to talk; yet every now and then, as some jolt of the carriage made George open his eyes, he saw the broad-shouldered figure beside him, sitting in the same attitude, erect and tireless, the same half-peevish pugnacity giving expression to mouth ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... churlish, boorish, bearish; brutal, brusque; stern, harsh, austere; cavalier. taint, sour, crabbed, sharp, short, trenchant, sarcastic, biting, doggish, caustic, virulent, bitter, acrimonious, venomous, contumelious; snarling &c v.; surly, surly as a bear; perverse; grim, sullen &c 901.1; peevish &c (irascible) 901. untactful, impolitic, undiplomatic; artless &c 703; Adv. discourteously &c adj.; with discourtesy &c n., ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... knew Mannix didn't know who I was an' didn't have anything on me," said Rathburn quickly. "An' I got peevish at Carlisle an' plumb suspicious when he tried to make things look bad for me right there at the start. I began to wise up to the whole lay when you got me out ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... crimes of the devil who thinks himself of immeasurable value are as nothing to the crimes of the devil who thinks himself of no value. With Browning's knaves we have always this eternal interest, that they are real somewhere, and may at any moment begin to speak poetry. We are talking to a peevish and garrulous sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes, and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that comes forth ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... whereabouts, but on her existence. Neither the small boy nor a big man, nor an old woman standing by, knew anything about it; and I had determined to take the next train to Town, when a flannel-clad young man, with a heavy face and a peevish voice, called out from the bank, "I've been looking for you everywhere." It proved to be KITTY'S husband, but, as we were totally unacquainted with each other's appearances, it was not wonderful that his search for me had been ineffectual. He seemed much annoyed, however, and only vouchsafed ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... was to dance and to flirt, to lose their hearts and to find husbands, to gossip, to listen to the music, to show themselves in the Squares and Circus and on the Parades, or, sometimes, when they were seriously inclined, to drink the waters. Mary's was to cater to the caprices of a cross-grained, peevish woman. There was little sunshine in the morning of her life. She was destined always to see the darkest side of human nature. Mrs. Dawson's temper was bad, and her companions, of whom there seem to have been many, had hitherto fled before its outbreaks, as the leaves wither and fall at the first ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... returned to the subject. Piqued at this conduct, he had more frequent recourse to the bottle, and laughed and talked in a manner that proved him to be laboring under the influence of extraordinary excitement. When he took leave of his brother to retire to rest, he was silent, peevish, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to the rest, Hsiang-yn had, though a young girl, and of delicate physique, nevertheless ever been very fond of talking and discussing; but, on this instance, Chia Cheng was at the feast, so that she also held her tongue and restrained her words. As for Tai-y she was naturally peevish and listless, and not very much inclined to indulge in conversation; while Pao-ch'ai, who had never been reckless in her words or frivolous in her deportment, likewise behaved on the present occasion in her usual dignified manner. Hence it was that this banquet, although a family party, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and good humour. A wife and mother who is perpetually fretful and peevish; who has nothing to utter to her husband when he returns from his daily occupation, whatever it may be, or to her children when they are assembled around her, but complaints of her hard lot and miserable destiny; who is always brooding over past sorrows, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... little peevish about Ladies in Waiting (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), because Miss KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN has often charmed me by her writing in the past, and now she has disappointed me. Her latest book contains five stories, all nicely written and set in charming scenes; but their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... to a suppressed exclamation of impatience as he seized the poker, but I could not but notice the skilful and almost noiseless manner in which he manipulated the coals. Then he looked round for a match, and lighted a candle on the mantelpiece, in spite of a peevish remonstrance ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... chasm gaped between their old life and their new! And yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock and had laughed and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of Nature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheek upon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... Whinney advanced a number of arguments, the difference in our nationalities, our standing in our home communities (which I thought an especially weak point), our lack of a common language, and several other trivial objections, all of which Swank and I demolished until Whinney got peevish and insisted that he ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... of atrocities in which he glories; it is no such tragic impossibility of moral hideousness as this; it is the Giovanni of Ford, the pearl of virtuous and studious youths, the spotless, the brave, who, after a moment's reasoning, tramples on a vulgar prejudice—"Shall a peevish sound, a customary form from man to man, of brother and of sister, be a bar 'twixt my eternal happiness and me?" who sins with a clear conscience, defies the world, and dies, bravely, proudly, the "sacred name" of Annabella on ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... the food upon the table) Now, why are you so peevish to everybody? Why don't you be sociable, and take some supper? (Glances at sideboard.) You seem to have taken everything else. Oh, that reminds me. Would you object to loaning me about—four, six—about six of ...
— Miss Civilization - A Comedy in One Act • Richard Harding Davis
... had two or three twinges of gout in the country-house where he had been staying: the birds were wild and shy, and the walking over the plowed fields had fatigued him deucedly: the young men had laughed at him, and he had been peevish at table once or twice: he had not been able to get his whist of an evening: and, in fine, was glad to come away. In all his dealings with Morgan, his valet, he had been exceedingly sulky and discontented. He ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abridgments;—which if they be fortunately so done as to prove delight to any of the young readers, it is hoped that no worse effect will result than to make them wish themselves a little older, that they may be allowed to read the Plays at full length (such a wish will be neither peevish nor irrational). When time and leave of judicious friends shall put them into their hands, they will discover in such of them as are here abridged (not to mention almost as many more, which are left untouched) many surprising ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... seller, who at leisure moments had studied Blackstone and the statutes at large from mere sympathy with the neighbourhood. E. came next, a rich tradesman, Tory in grain, and an everlasting babbler on the strong side of politics; querulous, dictatorial, and with a peevish whine in his voice like a beaten schoolboy. He was a stout advocate for the Bourbons and the National Debt, and was duly disliked by Hazlitt, we may feel assured. The Bourbons he affirmed to be the choice of the French ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... was impending did not serve to increase Miss Blanche's good-humour, and as it made her peevish and dissatisfied with herself, it probably rendered her even less agreeable to the persons round about her. So there arose, one fatal day, a battle-royal between dearest Blanche and dearest Laura, in which the friendship between ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... need it. Come, you've all betrayed me,— My friend too!—to receive some vile conditions. My wife has bought me, with her prayers and tears; And now I must become her branded slave. In every peevish mood, she will upbraid The life she gave: if I but look awry, She ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... prosperity into symptoms of decay and ruin. And our author, who so loudly disclaims popularity, never fails to lay hold of the most vulgar popular prejudices and humors, in hopes to captivate the crowd. Even those peevish dispositions which grow out of some transitory suffering, those passing clouds which float in our changeable atmosphere, are by him industriously figured into frightful shapes, in order first to terrify, and then ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have been trying to tell Nicholas how he can make some money, and have submitted a brilliant plan to him, but my seed, as usual, has fallen on barren soil. Look what a sight he is now: dull, cross, bored, peevish—— ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... spectacle, a sort of orderly carnival refined to taste. There would, of course, be the big thrill in it—Osborn. It would be wonderful to have him coming home to her successful little dinners every evening. People didn't want a great deal, after all; all the discontented, puling, peevish, wanting people one met must be great fools; they had made their beds and made them wrong; the great thing, the simple secret, was to make them right. A husband and wife must pull together, in everything. Pulling together ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... on hearing these spiteful and silly speeches, born of an envy that now rushed, peevish and drivelling, to avenge the past, would have felt the blood mount to their foreheads; others would have wept; some would have undergone spasms of anger; but Modeste smiled, as we smile at the theatre while watching the actors. Her pride could ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... charge saved. After dinner among my joyners, and with them till dark night, and this night they made an end of all; and so having paid them 40s. for their six days' work, I am glad they have ended and are gone, for I am weary and my wife too of this dirt. My wife growing peevish at night, being weary, and I a little vexed to see that she do not retain things in her memory that belong to the house as she ought and I myself do, I went out in a little seeming discontent to the office, and after being there a while, home to supper ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... offences come, but woe unto him by whom they come. The strife-makers find in themselves, in their barren heart and empty life, their own appropriate curse. The blow they strike comes back upon themselves. Worse than the choleric temperament is the peevish, sullen nature. The one usually finds a speedy repentance for his hot and hasty mood; the other is a constant menace to friendship, and acts like a perpetual irritant. Its root is selfishness, and it grows by what ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... good-nature is consonant with the warm wet woods and comfortable clouds of South England; it never had any place among the harsh and thrifty squires in the plains of East Prussia, the land of the East Wind. They were peevish as well as proud, and everything they created, but especially their army, was made coherent by sheer brutality. Discipline was cruel enough in all the eighteenth-century armies, created long after the decay ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... nurse to the three or four restless children in the car, and even producing from his bag a pair of scissors and a bottle of gum with which to make dolls' paper clothes. Never in my life have I called a stranger "Ed" on such short acquaintance; never have I been called "Poppa" so often by the peevish ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... an explanation that would clear up all the mystery, but none was forthcoming. Instead, when Kate finally replied, there was an almost peevish ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Be evermore these bins replenished. Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground, That lucky fairies here may dance their round; And after that, lay down some silver pence The master's charge and care to recompense. Charm then the chambers, make the beds for ease, More than for peevish, pining sicknesses. Fix the foundation fast, and let the roof Grow old with ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... to dinner (Tasso took his wrapped in a handkerchief) he found his mother very agitated and excited. She was laughing one moment, crying the next. She was passionate and peevish, tender and jocose by turns; there was something forced and feverish about her which the children felt but did not comprehend. She was a woman of not very much intelligence, and she had a secret, and she carried it ill, and knew not what ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... imagination in reference to her origin, and many were the tears shed by her while oppressed with these doubts. But the events of this day, added to the late insolent conduct of her sisters, which provoked the reprimand of her peevish mother guardian, who told her to curb her "Irish temper,"—these cleared up all her doubts; and, filled with a melancholy joy at a revelation she owed to the jealousy and vanity of a proud mother and her daughters, Alia retired ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... went now faster than ever, and seem to have been so urgent about speedy help and rescue as to have appeared somewhat peevish to friends at a distance. The queen's sister wrote from Brussels that she hoped the royal family did not doubt the anxiety of their friends: that the danger appeared indeed as pressing as it could be represented; but that some prudence was necessary on the part of those who were ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... living in the city, soon after removed to the farm, when I was taken out of the field to work in the house as a waiter. Though his wife was very peevish, and hard to please, I much preferred to be under her control than the overseer's. They brought with them Mr. Sloane, a Presbyterian minister; Miss Martha Tulley, a neice of theirs from Kentucky; and their nephew William. The latter had ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... altogether on its back, transporting them safely, while they sang and played musical instruments. If it perceived a Christian when it raised its head it dived under water and refused to obey. This was because it had once been beaten by a peevish young Christian, who threw a sharp dart at this amiable and domesticated fish. The dart did it no harm because of the thickness of its skin, which is all rough and covered with points, but the fish never forgot the attack, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been started,—that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the forwardness of peevish children who, when they cannot get all they would have, are ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... Edward clung to them. By suiting his humour, by winking at his gallantries, by a submissive sweetness of temper, which soothed his own hasty moods, and contrasted with the rough pride of Warwick and the peevish fickleness of Clarence, Elizabeth had completely wound herself into the king's heart. And the charming graces, the elegant accomplishments, of Anthony Woodville were too harmonious with the character of Edward, who in all—except ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his head with a peevish sound; he was in the dreary mood to resent whatever took off attention from him for ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... noted the effect which this announcement had produced upon the peevish pair, divined the malicious words upon the hypocritical lips. He drew the husband aside, and put one ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... best manner he could. Sir John Cochrane took refuge in the house of an uncle, by whom, or by whose wife, it is said, he was betrayed. He was, however, pardoned; and from this circumstance, coupled with the constant and seemingly peevish opposition which he gave to almost all Argyle's plans, a suspicion has arisen that he had been treacherous throughout. But the account given of his pardon by Burnet, who says his father, Lord Dundonald, who was an opulent nobleman, purchased it with a considerable sum of ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... the neatness and clearness of his financial expositions. Here the resemblance ceased. Their characters were altogether dissimilar. Walpole was good-humoured, but would have his way: his spirits were high, and his manners frank even to coarseness. The temper of Pelham was yielding, but peevish: his habits were regular, and his deportment strictly decorous. Walpole was constitutionally fearless, Pelharn constitutionally timid. Walpole had to face a strong opposition; but no man in the Government durst wag a finger against ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... books does be comin' out. They's a publisher in ivry block an' in thousands iv happy homes some wan is plugging away at th' romantic novel or whalin' out a pome on th' typewriter upstairs. A fam'ly without an author is as contemptible as wan without a priest. Is Malachi near-sighted, peevish, averse to th' suds, an' can't tell whether th' three in th' front yard is blue or green? Make an author iv him! Does Miranda prisint no attraction to the young men iv th' neighbourhood, does her over-skirt dhrag an' is she poor with th' gas ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... and 'shrewdness' is applied to men rather in their praise than in their dispraise. And not 'shrewd' and 'shrewdness' only, but a multitude of other words,—I will only instance 'prank' 'flirt', 'luxury', 'luxurious', 'peevish', 'wayward', 'loiterer', 'uncivil',—conveyed once a much more earnest moral disapproval than ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... led in the past. Pythagoras had already forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse; and he, too, did not do this. It would have been repugnant to his genuinely Greek nature. Instead of looking backward with peevish regret, his purpose was to look with blithe confidence toward the future, and to do his best to render it better and more fruitful than the months of revel which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... many reasons for taking life patiently and joyously, Messire Robert d'Estouteville woke up on the morning of the seventh of January, 1482, in a very surly and peevish mood. Whence came this ill temper? He could not have told himself. Was it because the sky was gray? or was the buckle of his old belt of Montlhery badly fastened, so that it confined his provostal portliness ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... his absence, of course; and John Westlock took that opportunity of saying, that he had never had even a peevish word with Tom during the whole term of their residence in Mr Pecksniff's house. This naturally led him to dwell upon Tom's character, and to hint that Mr Pecksniff understood it pretty well. He only hinted ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... ever loved repose: They hate to mingle in the filthy fray, Where the soul sours, and gradual rancor grows, Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day. 1480 THOMSON: Castle of ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. "You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... before aright I knew to read or knew to write, Yet I made shift to live: So must you too—come, hop away— Get what you can—steal what you may, For industry will thrive." "But, bless us!" cried the peevish chits, "Can babes like us live by our wits? With perils compassed round, can we Preserve our lives and liberty? Ah! how escape the fowler's snare, And gard'ner with his gun in air, Who, if we pilfer plums or pears, Will scatter ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... woman now relapsed into her moody silence, or answered only by peevish monosyllables: and, despairing of gaining any further information from her, Bertram contented himself with requesting that she would acquaint him with the first opportunity which might offer for quitting his present abode; upon which his hostess muttered something in no very cordial ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... as {usually} is the case, after she saw that he belonged to another, she immediately became more ill-natured and more peevish. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... with alacrity, and made a shift of unhitching the horses. "I was better off coupling freight cars on the Housatonic," he soon remarked. His voice came shallow, from no deeper than his throat, and a peevish apprehension rattled through it. "That was a good job. And I've had better, too; forty, fifty, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... Makouran, "we cannot pay any new levies. If Rais persists, he must collect our money at the edge of the sword; and this can't last, for we shall all soon die of hunger." These continual complaints make me melancholy, and added to my impatience "to be up and doing," make me very peevish. O Dio! but such is the lot of man, to suffer always, either in mind or body. Much annoyed at my taleb for eating Said's dinner, even before my face. These Moors, at least some of them, have neither honour nor conscience. I suppose the taleb is pinching his belly ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty's vivacious face outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried warmth ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Strange, peevish, exacting! One would think that one pleased him For his money... Day and night I'm on all fours, At the least sign I'm silent; It is just as if I sang! But no, if I sang, His contempt he'd have to modify. I sing ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... choice, after all, is rare. Here and there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and our character. Margaret and ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the humane and equal temper of the man of the house, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate, with such oeconomy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. Thus, respect and love go together; and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... he would be a mite peevish as soon as the news of the social happenings along the river for the past few days got to him," said Vittum. "It's no surprise to me—been ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... and foolish, little and loud, Long and lazy, black and proud; Fat and merry, lean and sad, Pale and peevish, red and bad. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... inclined to blame for it the unfortunate absence of UNIVERSITY FEELING which is so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. Academical interests are so few and far between—students, as students, have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... done as to prove delightful to any of the young readers, it is hoped that no worse effect will result than to make them wish themselves a little older, that they may be allowed to read the Plays at full length (such a wish will be neither peevish nor irrational). When time and leave of judicious friends shall put them into their hands, they will discover in such of them as are here abridged (not to mention almost as many more, which are left untouched) many surprising ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... we repeat our conviction that Arabella has been fortunate in her husband. To be sure, she is fretful, discontented, peevish, irritable, cross; but that is her normal condition. At times Hiram has treated her with severity, but never cruelty. He has borne quietly and with patience what would have set most husbands frantic; and has contented himself ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handsful pulled his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?"—[Cicero, Tusc. Quest., iii. 26.]—Who has not seen peevish gamesters chew and swallow the cards, and swallow the dice, in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipped the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employed a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... eye, and had just taken it out, and was about to put his left fist into the other, when he saw that the tutor was no longer looking at him. So he made up his mind to go on with the raisins, for one can have a peevish cry at any time, but plums are not scattered broadcast every day. Several times he had tried to pocket them, but just at the moment the tutor was sure to look at him, and in his fright he dropped the raisins, and never could find ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... by a terrifying cry that rang shivering across the valley. She started to her feet, and listened. It must have been a dream, she thought. No! There it was again—a cry that started low, like a child's peevish wail, and ended in a piercing scream. She grabbed up her rifle, and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... vaguely resented him. He had no business to have slammed the door like that, no business to have jumped into a moving train, no business to put that huge hand-bag into a rack which was 'for light baggage only,' and no business to be wearing, at this hour and in this place, a top-hat. These four peevish objections floated sleepily together round my brain. It was not till the man turned round, and I met his eye, that I awoke fully—awoke to danger. I had never seen a murderer, but I knew that the man who was so steadfastly peering at me now...I shut my eyes. I tried ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... trouble me again." Thus after having passed through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming—as I hope—an English gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy. I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass without much notice in the narrative of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... to their house safely, and oh! how disappointed that bear was when he returned with the apples and found his pig dinner gone. He was so peevish that he threw all ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... assents. And as to the rest, Hsiang-yuen had, though a young girl, and of delicate physique, nevertheless ever been very fond of talking and discussing; but, on this instance, Chia Cheng was at the feast, so that she also held her tongue and restrained her words. As for Tai-yue she was naturally peevish and listless, and not very much inclined to indulge in conversation; while Pao-ch'ai, who had never been reckless in her words or frivolous in her deportment, likewise behaved on the present occasion in her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to be mine in everything, particularly as she is a girl. I am neither wise nor clever, nor strong now. I fear I am often peevish; but you will excuse me, because I am a weak, ignorant woman. Such defects are not fatal in a mother; hundreds have overcome them for their children. I trust that I will be, if not what a better woman might have been, at least more to my child than any other can be. Her mother!—so holy ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... very good yourself—for a Winner," Brion snapped back. His exhaustion and sudden peevish anger at this man let the insulting words slip out. ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... from her for a moment; she caught at it painfully, and a peevish expression crossed ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Penelope—and the steady, though passive, sullenness of Lady Binks, spread among the company a gloom like that produced by an autumnal mist upon a pleasing landscape. The women were low-spirited, dull, nay, peevish, they did not well know why; and the men could not be joyous, though the ready resource of old hock and champagne made some of them talkative.—Lady Penelope broke up the party by well-feigned apprehension of the difficulties, nay, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "Jimmy's jest a peevish child," he explained. "A drop or two of licker makes him skittish. I hopes ye'll ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... common practise of affliction. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handfuls pull'd his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?" Who has not seen peevish gamesters worry the cards with their teeth, and swallow whole bales of dice in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipt the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employ'd a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... he began presently, "how much further is it to this prospect hole of yours, if, indeed, you have a prospect as you represented to me a week ago?" His tone was fretful, peevish, complaining. One would readily have diagnosed the seat of his trouble. He had come prepared to ride—and he had been forced ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... part to-night very fairly; pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf's tongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty's handiwork might look its best. But inwardly the girl's mood was very tired and flat. She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd's peevish look, and the children to whom she was ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... safe, And craves no other tribute at thy hands, But love, fair looks, and true obedience: Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as one owes a prince, Even such, a woman oweth to her husband: And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am asham'd that women are so simple To offer war, where they should kneel for ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... lost flesh and color; and long indulgence of a fretful, peevish temper had drawn down the corners of her mouth, lined her forehead, and left its ugly pencilings here and there over the once pretty face, so that it already began to look old and care-worn. She was very gayly dressed, ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... not very often cry from pain, thirst, want of food, and attention to its personal comfort; but there is as much difference in the tone and expression of a child's cry as in the notes of an adult's voice; and the mother's ear will not be long in discriminating between the sharp peevish whine of irritation and fever, and the louder intermitting cry that characterizes the want of warmth and sleep. All these shades of expression in the child's inarticulate voice every nurse should understand, and every mother will soon teach herself to interpret them with an accuracy ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... This Thomas—a dry, peevish man, averse from country pursuits, penurious and incurably suspicious of all his fellow-men—now occupied after a fashion and with fair diligence that place in public affairs from which his father had, on approach of age, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... are half-length figures against a background of gold leaf, at first laid on solidly, or, at a somewhat later date, studded with cherubs. The Virgin has a meagre, ascetic countenance, large, ill-shaped eyes, and an almost peevish expression; her head is draped in a heavy, dark blue veil, falling in ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... year. It was only in his office that he maintained anything of the spruce appearance and 'sang froid' which had distinguished the diplomatist and the young adventurer. At home he had fallen into the slovenliness that marks a disappointed old age. Was Mrs. Mavick peevish and unreasonable? Very likely. And had she not reason to be? Was she, as a woman, any more likely to be reconciled to her fate when her mirror told her, with pitiless reflection, that she ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were clumsy,' Moti answered. Moti was peevish that afternoon. The Maharajah had refused him a gun, and he particularly wanted a gun, not to shoot anything, but to frighten the crows with and perhaps the coolie-folk. To console himself Moti had eaten twice as many sweetmeats as were good for him, and was ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Mihul. Even theoretically a stunner-max blast couldn't cause Mihul the slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mihul had stated she would hold no grudges over a successful escape attempt; and even if they caught up with her again before she got to Manon, this attempt certainly ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... who was born in 1709, actually came to Birmingham in his tenth year, on a visit to his uncle Harrison, who in after years, in his usual plain-speaking style, Johnson described as "a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but, luckily, not rich." That our local governors have a due appreciation of the genius of the famed lexicographer is shown by the fact of a passage-way from Bull Street to the Upper Priory being named "Dr. Samuel ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... in garden to smoke. Discovered Private Early lying on it fast asleep. Went to study. Private Merited at table writing long and well-reasoned letter to his tailor. As he said he could never write properly with anybody else in the room, left him and went to bath-room. Door locked. Peevish but familiar voice, with a Scotch accent, asked me what I wanted; also ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... that, to be sure," assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, "but I am determined to be peevish after my long ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... great political and now ruling party in England are the Whigs—a term synonymous with whey, applied, it is said, to this political school, from the sour and peevish temper manifested by its first disciples—though it is now rather popular than otherwise in England. The Whig appears to differ in theory from the Tory in this, that he interprets the constitution, obedience to it, and all measures in regard to its administration, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... than when hid from the world. Few people pleased him in conversation, and it was a proof of his liking them, if his behaviour was tolerably agreeable. He was a great dissembler of his natural temper, which was fallen, morose, and peevish, where he durst shew it; but he was of a timorous disposition and the least slight or neglect offered to him, would throw him into a melancholy despondency. He was apt to say a great many ill-natur'd things, but was never known to do one: He was made up of tenderness, pity, and compassion; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... diminutive red-faced woman, with hair and eyes very much like his own, and a face that wore a peevish, pinched expression. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... who made me feel that we are all too ready with our peevish outcries against the beautiful world in which we have been placed; too ready to complain that all is sadness and sorrow and disappointment, when the gloom exists within ourselves, not without us; it is from ourselves the misty darkness springs; it is ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... beat me up and throwed me in the river, I was some peevish fo' a spell in my feelings fo' him," said Yancy, in a tone of gentle regret. He glanced at his bruised hand. "But I'm right pleased to be able to say that I've got over all them oncharitable ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the servants were too noisy or too obviously quiet; the President's shoes clumped and his slippers squeaked; Mrs. Campbell always pulled the curtains too low or not low enough. The dogs' barking fretted her, the singing of the canary made her peevish, even the cat's purring brought forth a protest; but as soon as the unreasonable patient discovered that all the pets had been banished on her account, she demanded them back. However, the long-suffering members of the family could ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... has the first place. He afterwards presented the collection to Boileau, who from that time "conceived," says Tickell, "an opinion of the English genius for poetry." Nothing is better known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... have written a letter to my lady ——, that I believe she won't like; and, upon cooler reflection, I think I had done better to have let it alone; but I was downright peevish at all her questions, and her ridiculous imagination, that I have certainly seen abundance of wonders which I keep to myself out of mere malice. She is very angry that I won't lie like other travellers. I verily believe she expects I should tell her of the Anthropophagi, men whose heads grow ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... any approach to fawning or sycophancy. As his imbecility increased, he became daily more liable to mental delusions; and, in particular, he fell into many fantastic notions about the conduct of his servants, and, in consequence, into a peevish mode of treating them. Upon these occasions I generally observed a deep silence. But sometimes he would ask me for my opinion; and when this happened, I did not scruple to say, 'Ingenuously, then, Mr. Professor, I think that you are in the wrong.'—'You think so?' he would reply calmly, at ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Thomas Brandwhite (of Brown and Brandwhite), who had a position in the financial world which could not well be ignored, two places in the country, and a yacht. His long, lined face, with very heavy moustaches, wore habitually a peevish look. He had retired from his firm, and now only sat on the Boards of several companies. Next to him was Mrs. Hussell Barter, with that touching look to be seen on the faces of many English ladies, that look of women who are always doing their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for where might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions attested the Arcadian ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... wanted to know everything!" Miles was a little peevish; he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make the cocktails—she said everything was ready on the sideboard. That's the dining room right behind this room," he explained unnecessarily, since the French doors were open. "Well, Nita ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... 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 were not what she wanted—not that, but something so different, poor child!—she was cross, peevish, fractious without intending it, scarcely knowing why; the nuns set her down as a perverse unamiable child: and so it happened, that she had not been many weeks in the convent before she came to be regarded with general disfavour ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... she married Jack Drayton. The afternoon we rehearsed for the wedding I looked at her, before we pranced down the aisle and endured the endless silly giggles of the bridesmaids, and the usher louts who would fall out of step, and grew more peevish by the minute. I looked her over then, and I said to myself: "You feeble paranoiac, imagine that girl tying up with you." Well, I couldn't very well imagine it, although I tried. But I was extremely noisy, and I heard two or three of the bridesmaids, to say nothing of the maid of honor and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... friendly twine: And base desire bade men to delven low, For needless metals, then 'gan mischief grow. Then farewell, fairest age, the world's best days, Thriving in all as it in age decays. Then crept in pride, and peevish covetise, And men grew greedy, discordous, and nice. Now man, that erst hail-fellow was with beast, Wox on to ween himself a god at least. Nor aery fowl can take so high a flight, Though she her daring ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of this country; how comes it that they make me a prisoner upon my parole?" "How comes it?" said the Chevalier de Grammont, "it is because you yourself are far more unaccountable than all their customs; you cannot help disputing with a peevish fellow, whom you ought only to laugh at; some officious footman has no doubt been talking of your last night's dispute; you were seen to go out of town in the morning, and the Marquis soon after; ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... her intently. He saw that Mrs. Allen had been right. Maria Fulton was a dissatisfied, peevish woman. She had the heavy, slightly pendent lower lip that goes with much pouting. There was the constant trace of a frown between her eyebrows, and in the eyes themselves was the look of complaint and protest which the ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... higher grades. It could not be otherwise if they were angels. McClellanism was and is propitious to general disorder, and how Mr. Lincoln improves is exemplified above. Independent men, independent Senators and Representatives who approach Mr. Lincoln, find him peevish, irritable, intractable to all patriots. All these are criteria of a lofty mind and character. Weed, Seward, Harris, Blair, and such ones alone, are agreeable in the ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... same dye. The features of this woman might have been agreeable in her youth; and her florid cheeks, her correct eyebrows, her black eyes, which were still very lively, scarcely accorded with the peevish and austere physiognomy which she tried to assume. This matron, of slow and discreet gait, was Madame Augustine Grivois, first woman to the Princess Saint-Dizier. Not only did the age, the face, and the dress of these two women present a striking ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... and there, indeed, a sceptic Mutters language rather rude; Here and there a wan dyspeptic, Yielding to a peevish mood, Wonders why a winning nation finds itself so short ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... permission and his pleasure that I should immediately return home. We were then in the midst of a war: the resentment of the French at our taking their ships without a declaration, had rendered that polite nation somewhat peevish and difficult. They denied a passage to English travellers, and the road through Germany was circuitous, toilsome, and perhaps in the neighbourhood of the armies, exposed to some danger. In this perplexity, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... of my own family name. These old women, who never had chick nor child of their own, but who always know how to bring up other people's children, will tell you with very long faces, that my enchanting, quieting, soothing volume, my all-sufficient anodyne for cross, peevish, won't-be-comforted little bairns, ought to be laid aside for more learned books, such as THEY could select and publish. Fudge! I tell you that all their batterings can't deface my beauties, nor their wise pratings ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... of a Certain Island, II, 249. "Marama [the Duchess of Marlborough] has been for many Years a Grandmother; but Age is the smallest of her Imperfections:—She is of a Disposition so perverse and peevish, so designing, mercenary, proud, cruel, and revengeful, that it has been a matter of debate, if she were really Woman, or if some Fiend had not assumed that Shape on purpose to affront the Sex, and ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... not need it. Come, you've all betrayed me,— My friend too!—to receive some vile conditions. My wife has bought me, with her prayers and tears; And now I must become her branded slave. In every peevish mood, she will upbraid The life she gave: if I but look awry, She cries—I'll tell ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... will greatly pollute and defile them, and stain and obscure their beauty and glory. Therefore they must not be brawlers and contentious persons, covetous and worldly-minded, vain and frothy. They must not be froward and peevish, nor defraud others of their right. Nor must they neglect the worship of God in their families, nor be careless in governing and educating them in good manners, and in the things of God. They must not be such ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... it. And now that his hopes were dashed, he could not imagine how he was to find any other chance; for, as a rule, he was timid and hesitating with women. As he hung, in his depression, over the river, this man of forty envisaged—suddenly and not so far away—old age and loneliness. A keen and peevish resentment took ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bob's breezy chatter had wrought a change in Dotty. During the two weeks that had just passed she had become peevish and fretful from enforced inactivity and now the thought of getting up and going downstairs had brought the smiles to her face and the light ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Hans Eitelfritz, from Colln on the Spree, asked to be the first one put down on the muster-roll, he distinctly heard the provost oppose the clerk's scruples, saying warmly "write, write; I'd rather have him with one hand, than ten peevish fellows with two. He has fun and life in him. Advance him some money too, he probably lacks many a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the subject. Piqued at this conduct, he had more frequent recourse to the bottle, and laughed and talked in a manner that proved him to be laboring under the influence of extraordinary excitement. When he took leave of his brother to retire to rest, he was silent, peevish, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... answered—answered by a very sour and peevish woman next door, who thrust her head out of the window, and exclaimed in a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... only have been more certain that he was satisfied with me, nothing would have been wanting to my happiness. Everybody waited upon me; and perhaps it was on this account that Ernst, in comparison, seemed somewhat cold; I was the petted child of my too kind parents; I was thankless and peevish, and ah, some little of this still remains! Nevertheless, it was during this very time that, under the influence of my husband, the true beauty and reality of life became more and more perceptible to my soul. Married life and family ties, one's country ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... not reasonably suppose, that those whose speech naturally runs into the notes peculiar to any of these moods, are likewise in nature hereunto congenerous? C Fa ut may show me to be of an ordinary capacity, though good disposition. G Sol re ut, to be peevish and effeminate. Flats, a manly or melancholic sadness. He who hath a voice which will in some measure agree with all cliffs, to be of good parts, and fit for variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Likewise from the TIMES: ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... trees and the hard cold ground weighed heavily upon their hearts, and, worse still, there was less food. The scarcity grew serious, and hunger plunged them into unhappiness and despair. Doggie became melancholy, while Pussie grew peevish, then petulant, and finally developed a ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... the mould that thou throwest up shall the first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness; and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let it be enough that these have found ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... comely personage with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the minister(1235) that is no peer, and consequently applying to the other ministers, in a manner for their orders; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence. I had armed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... three. Another has, indeed, been started,—that of giving up the colonies; but it met so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the frowardness of peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they would have, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a wicked thing and bring to pass much that is good. I shall always be grateful to you in my heart for it; that you can depend upon even if my weather-beaten face looks ill-humored, and my voice is peevish. Remember that I am a fretful old man, who is daily wasting away, approaching that bourne from which no traveller ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... which was driven by a sepoy in bright yellow pyjamas, stopped at the Logans' gate. A peevish voice was heard ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... this, now that—now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... recline on a sofa in listless apathy, or peevish discontent, sometimes half dozing, and, at others, inwardly complaining of the lot of man, which seemed to have ordained that the possession of that wealth which it is said can purchase all which is necessary to human enjoyment, should yet be incapable of conferring happiness. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... whose bark Is toss'd beyond Cimmerian Bosphorus, Where storm and darkness hold their drear domain, And sunbeams never penetrate, might trust To expectation of serener skies, And linger in the very jaws of death, Because some peevish cloud were opening, Or the loud storm had bated in its rage; As we look forward in this vale of tears To permanent delight—from some slight ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... seemed to have laid merely a repressive hand upon her bad qualities, and to have uprooted none but good ones. The brilliance and playfulness of her early days were gone. The coeur leger had turned to careless self-love, the impetuosity had become peevish obstinacy. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... One is peevish, if one can't have one's proper rest. What will you bet the Major has not returned home, and you have ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... hard to mend," she muttered quoting one of the old saws always on her lips. Then without raising her head, she added in the peevish, truculent tone of a thwarted child: "You had better go back in there before they come and get you. I am nothing but a servant, and as such I know my place and keep it. I am less than a servant, for they wouldn't dare do to Lena what they do ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Peter out of the corner of his eye, saw that smile; and he did not like it in the least. In fact, it made him feel quite peevish. ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... surprised many distant cousins of Master Meadow Mouse who never returned home to tell the story of their meetings with the black scamp. Maybe Mr. Crow was getting slow in his old age. He had never come so near to catching a Meadow Mouse before, only to be disappointed. It was no wonder that he felt peevish. ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... when, from the top of the steep hill, she saw Albert ascending towards her. She then felt herself more secure, and went with better spirits forward. It was near Whitsuntide—the father sickly and more peevish than ever, and work bringing in no supply; for provisions had risen fearfully in price in consequence of the previous unusually hard winter. Now, as often as Maud brought the dinner to her father, he complained bitterly, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... by moonlight, amid a baying of dogs so energetic that it roused every living thing in the barnyard to protest in a peevish chorus of clucking and grunting and quacking ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... offends the eye by calling up the most hideous images—who shews the world through a discoloured medium—who warms the heart by no generous feelings—who uniformly turns to us the worst side of men and things—who goes on his way grumbling, and labours hard to make his readers as peevish and wretched as himself. The tendency of the strain of Homer is to transform us for the moment into heroes; of Cowper, into saints; of Milton, into angels: but Lord Byron would almost degrade us into a Thersites or a Caliban; ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... cloudy looks, that labouring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour! Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power, When the blind Gamester ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... generally spoken of as a "stroke of palsy." Sometimes only one extremity, the arm, is affected. Only occasionally is the face involved. In the majority of cases the mind is affected, the memory being poor, the sufferer becoming melancholy, peevish, and fretful. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... I've very much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in search of that charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... duplicate, counterpart, likeness, reproduction, replica, facsimile. Corrupt, depraved, perverted, vitiated. Costly, expensive, dear. Coterie, clique, cabal, circle, set, faction, party. Critical, judicial, impartial, carping, caviling, captious, censorious. Crooked, awry, askew. Cross, fretful, peevish, petulant, pettish, irritable, irascible, angry. Crowd, throng, horde, host, mass, multitude, press, jam, concourse. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... in Rome this brawling fencer die, When Spectacus by Crassus was subdued. Why so? but, sir, I hope you will apply, And say like Spectacus that I shall die. Thus peevish eld, discoursing by a fire, Amidst their cups will prate how men aspire. Is this the greeting, Romans, that you give Unto the patron of your monarchy? Lucretius, shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... therefore, but the gratification of resentment—a mere spirit of retaliation—and even that is impotent. Our retorts are never republished in England; they fall short, therefore, of their aim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent national prejudices. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... my mother left me and I repeated my disturbance, crying, stamping my feet, and calling to mother Catharine and Bastien. (To tell the truth, Jerome and Matthieu were two big lubbers [rougeots] very peevish and coarse-mannered, which I could not endure.) Madame put a book into my hands and wished to have me repeat after her; I threw the book at her head. Then, rightly enough, in despair she placed me where I could see the cottage in the midst ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of pleasures, surrounded with objects of delight, he was not happy. Their uniformity cloyed him. He had received, by supernatural endowment, an activity and a venturousness of spirit, that were little formed for such scenes as these. He was devoured with spleen. He sighed he knew not why; he was peevish and ill-humoured in the midst of the most assiduous attention and the most wakeful service. And the command he possessed over the elements of nature was no ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... been curious about Sally's name. What he had wished was to have the name of the person for whom she was asking repeated. He now perceived that he had had a bit of luck. A wearying period of disappointment in the matter of keeping the paper-weights circulating while balancing the ruler, had left him peevish, and it had been his intention to work off his ill-humour on the young visitor. The discovery that it was the boss's sister who was taking up his time, suggested the advisability of a radical change of tactics. He had stooped ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... commodious, and favorably known. At this time I was in excellent health and weighed one hundred and forty-three pounds. But from the moment of the public announcement of my lecture, my appetite for food, for meat particularly, began to fail me. "How peevish and irritable he is growing!" I heard one member of the family remark to another. Soon the grocer's scales indicated that my weight was diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,—then to one hundred and forty,—then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... me into a more violent passion, which occasioned him to say several bitter reflecting things, that nettled me to the quick. He left me, as much dissatisfied with myself as he could possibly be with me; and in this peevish mood I gave a spring from the bottom of the sea up to the Island ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Socrates, noted for her violent temper and scolding propensities. The name is frequently applied to a shrew, or peevish, turbulent, scolding woman. ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... was crying itself to sleep. Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... feeding her Pets, or rather stuffing the poor monkey. Some people say Miss Gray is kind to animals, but I do not think so, for she keeps her pets prisoners—feeding them too much, and all for her own pleasure, until they become like spoilt children, peevish, and always wanting sweet things. Kind children love animals, and delight to see them free. In the Zoological Gardens animals are not pets; they have there plenty of room, and are nicely kept for our instruction. See, poor Jacko, the monkey, has grown too fat to leap, as in his native woods ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... Walter," said Cecil gravely. "Now, Duke can be ever so snappish and peevish; I'm not half so ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on, from summer into winter, and winter into summer again, for two years and more, and neither Torfrida nor Hereward were the better for them. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: and a sick heart is but too apt to be a peevish one. So there were fits of despondency, jars, mutual recriminations. "If I had not taken your advice, I should not have been here." "If I had not loved you so well, I might have been very differently off,"—and ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
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