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More "Vex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generations, an impossibility? The Three Estates can, by management, be set against each other; the Third will, as heretofore, join with the King; will, out of mere spite and self-interest, be eager to tax and vex the other two. The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands, that we may fleece them likewise. Whereupon, money being got, and the Three Estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and let the future go as it can! As good Archbishop ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... she has herself a cough much worse than any she ever had before, subject as she has always been to bad ones. She writes in good humour and cheerful spirits, however. The negotiation between them and Adlestrop so happily over, indeed, what can have power to vex her materially? ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... our welcome Guest shall hear But sounds of peace and joy; No angry echo vex thine ear, Fair Daughter of Savoy Once more! the land of arms and arts, Of glory, grace, romance; Her love lies warm in all our hearts God bless her! VIVE ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... daughter, you vex me. You must listen. If no trouble comes, well! If it does, are you any the worse for knowing that there are many on whom you can rely? Very well; look! This is ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... it was by all confess'd, His character was not the best— To fill the prisoner's box. As judge between these vermin, A monkey graced the ermine; And truly other gifts of Themis[7] Did scarcely seem his; For while each party plead his cause, Appealing boldly to the laws, And much the question vex'd, Our monkey sat perplex'd. Their words and wrath expended, Their strife at length was ended; When, by their malice taught, The judge this judgment brought: 'Your characters, my friends, I long have known, As on this trial clearly shown; ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... "No—no—my dear Damaris, don't vex yourself I entreat you. I was in clover, luxuriously comfortable. You've allotted me a fascinating room and perfect dream of a bed. I feel an ungrateful wretch for so much as mentioning this matter to you after the way in which you have indulged me. Only something rather extraordinary really ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... hypocrisy. When a professional beggar fell on his knees at the Rectory gate and pretended to pray, he was at once ejected by the Rector with every mark of indignation and contumely. But the weak and suffering always made a special appeal to him. Though it was easy to vex and exasperate him, he could always put away his own troubles in presence of his own children or of any who needed his help. He had that intense power of sympathy which enabled him to understand and reach ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... had some scenes enough to make one die of laughter; still without quarrelling. Her father, who was then alive, was the friend and relative of people that I love with all my heart, and that I would not vex for all the world. So I allowed the emigres who surrounded us to cry out as they would, without ever drawing the sword.' De Maistre thought he never came across a head so completely turned wrong as Madame de Stael's, the infallible consequence, as he took it to ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... a mirth beyond all these: This picture has so vex'd me I'me half mad. To spite it therefore I'le sing any song Thy selfe shalt tune: say then, what mirth ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... German affairs. An agreement was signed practically assuring the independence of the Swiss district of Neuchatel, which had revolted from Prussia in 1848. Three days later, on May 8, a protocol was signed concerning the Danish succession. This intricate problem continued to vex the souls of diplomats. Lord Palmerston, when interrogated about it, said that there were only three persons who understood the Danish succession. One was the Queen Dowager of Denmark, the second was God Almighty, and the third was a German professor, but he had gone mad. While attempting to ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Pergamos, where I have more temples to rifle, and then, overflowing with wealth, I'll back to Rome.' And he moved away towards the Temple, muttering to himself: 'What care I for Varro the Proconsul? He cannot stay me in my career, armed as I am with mandate from Nero. He will vex and threaten should he know I have that woman. But it must end there. Acratus is supreme in this expedition, and cannot be interfered ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... life been money instead of nature, I have no hesitation in saying that by this time I would have been a rich man. But it is not the things I have done that vex me so much as the things I have not done. I feel that I could have accomplished so much more. I had the will, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the Soul, Whether discursive or intuitive; [C] 120 Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life, Emotions which best foresight need not fear, Most worthy then of trust when most intense Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush Our hearts—if here the words of Holy Writ 125 May with fit reverence be applied—that peace Which passeth understanding, that repose In moral judgments which from this pure source Must come, or will by man ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... no sanction to slavery by the admission of new slave States. Nowhere under the Constitution can the Nation by legislation or otherwise, support slavery, hunt slaves, or hold property in man.... As slavery is banished from the national jurisdiction, it will cease to vex our national politics. It may linger in the States as a local institution; but it will no longer engender national animosities when it no longer demands ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... have met with. Not leaving England till the 22nd of July 1860, he was too late to take part in the principal action, the taking of the Taku Forts, which were assaulted on the 21st August. He writes to his mother from Hong-Kong, "I am rather late for the amusement, which will not vex you." He arrived at Tientsin on September 26th, and marched with Sir Hope Grant's force to Pekin. The following is his description of the only part he was allowed to take before ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... not that thou shouldst vex my shade With cheek all wan and blighted brow: But, O, to-day be love's full tribute paid, While the swift ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... your tearing from your mother's hands the letter she thought she had a right to see, and burning it, as you own, before her face; your refusal to see the man, who is so willing to obey you for the sake of your unhappy friend, and this purely to vex your mother; can you think, my dear, upon this brief recapitulation of hardly one half of the faulty particulars you give, that these faults are excusable in one who so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... knave," replied the prince, "and in the plot to vex and provoke me." He then gave him a box on the ear, which knocked him down; and after having stamped upon him for some time, he tied the well-rope under his arms, and plunged him several times into ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... for long almost alone among poets in his freedom from Weltschmerz, from regret and desire for worlds lost or impossible. In the later and stupider corruption of the Empire, sadness and anger began to vex even his careless muse. She had piped in her time to much wild dancing, but could not sing to a waltz of mushroom speculators and decorated capitalists. "Le Sang de la Coupe" contains a very powerful ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... for you. You can't think how much mischief your yesterday's visit has done. It's a thousand pities, I declare, that ever you said a word about your marriage to Sir Sampson. But of course I don't mean to blame you, Mary. You know you couldn't help it; so don't vex yourself, for you know that will not make the thing any better now. Only if Sir Sampson should die—to be sure I must always think it was that that killed him; and I'm sure it at will soon kill me too-such a ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... ever seen in the back kitchen, and that if her father loved her he would give the young man some employment. Now the gentleman of the house was exceedingly fond of his gay young daughter, and did not want to vex her; so he went into the back kitchen and questioned Jack as ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... 1805, Mr. Crabbe resumed the charge of his own parish of Muston, he found some changes to vex him, and not the less because he had too much reason to suspect that his long absence from his incumbency had been, partly at least, the cause of them. His cure had been served by respectable and diligent clergymen, but they had been often changed, and some of them had never resided ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... Bacon: "The true atheist is he whose hands are cauterized by holy things." She thought of her distant youth. The world was not so humorous then, but it had been more important. For a moment she respected her companion, and determined to vex him ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... thing in the world for a woman to be single-minded, in the limited sense of concentration, I mean. Focus your wits on Siddle to-day. I don't suggest any plan. I leave that to your own intelligence. Vex ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... his hand, and looking up into his face, "Uncle," she said, "we wish you to remain, surely you will not vex us by a ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... heartless coquette of the pleasure-seeking world. She stood in the shadow of gray walls, a grating over her head, with deep, soulful, girlish eyes lifted in piteous appeal; and in each of these characters an unfathomed depth remained to vex and ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... which there are more in the "Inferno" than in the other sections of the poem. His peculiar quality is a certain blending of mordant realism with a high and penetrating beauty. There is no need in reading him to vex oneself with symbolic interpretations. He is at his best, when from behind his scholastic philosophy, bursts forth, in direct personal betrayal, his pride, his humility, his ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... king of spades He kiss'd the maids, Which vex'd the queen full sore; The queen of spades She beat those maids And turn'd them out of door; The knave of spades Grieved for those jades, And did for them implore; The queen so gent, She did relent, And vow'd she'd ne'er ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... "Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... warmth of accent which had in them much, that, under other circumstances and at other times, would have been sorely offensive to the sturdy woodman; whose spirit, anything in the guise of rebuke would have been calculated to vex. But he was burdened with thoughts at the moment, which, in a sufficiently meritorial character, humbled him with a scourge ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... night, when the silence lies Around me, broad and deep, And dreams of earth, and dreams of heaven, That vex ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... great deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself, too. I know well how much I vex you at every turn." ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... the people's cockade, and put on the White Hog colour, and also a black one, and vowed they were cocksure of shutting us up. They brought in the Big Hog from his hunting, and he is in the mess, too. At the end they all followed Madame Veto home, shouting everything to vex us patriots. I am a patriot," he added winking. "It is an outrage on the nation. We must go to Versailles. We must bring the Big Hog into our bosoms, away from the Bad ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... no boot to follow him now: let him e'en go and hang. Prithee, help to truss me a little: he does so vex me— ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... like that! It's like going to your mother, and saying you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... cease, for why should I prolong My notes, and vex a Singer with a Song? Oh thou with pen perpetual in thy fist! Dubbed for thy sins a stark Miscellanist, So pleased the printer's orders to perform For Messrs. Longman, Hurst and Rees and Orme. Go—Get thee hence to Paternoster ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... think such an issue will ever be forced to the front again. That was a moral question as well as political. Other matters vex the people of today—money matters mostly—in which more diplomacy ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... cried out upon him: Cease, 30 Leave me in peace: Fear not that I should crave Aught thou mayst have. Leave me in peace, yea trouble me no more, Lest I arise and chase thee from my door. What, shall I not be let Alone, that thou dost vex me yet? ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... thou hast thy Will, And will to boot, and will in over-plus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, {420b} Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right gracious, And in my will no fair acceptance shine? The sea, all water, yet receives ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... should you forget me? Joking apart, have you given up all right over this girl? if not, I beg her from you. It is my business to arrange for her. In whatever becomes yours I have the right to share, but in this case I see your sister has entire possession. Still, I shall not vex myself much if ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... the weather-beaten board nailed to the old beech tree warning us in faded lettering as we pass beneath it of the penalties awaiting trespassers were to be superseded by a notice headed "Verboten!" What essential difference would there be—that a wise man need vex his soul concerning? We should no longer call it England. That would be all. The sweep of the hills would not be changed; the path would still wind through the woodland. Yet just for a name we are ready to face ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... 'Do not vex yourself,' said the horse, when he had heard the story; 'jump up, and we will go and look for the things.' And Jose mounted ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... some distance to find him," replied Edward; "and it would vex me to return without seeing him. Has he a wife, or any one that I ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... Golf! Where the "bunkers" vex by the sea; But the days of Tennis and Croquet Will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... slavery.— To this, how small the other! Yet 'twas great. Ah, not in vain those long delays, those groans Wrung from thy patient soul by obstacle, The work of peevish man; these were the checks From that Hand guiding, that led thee all the way. He willed thy soul should vex at tyranny; Thine ear should ring with murdered women's shrieks, That torturing famine should thy footsteps clog; That captive's broken hearts should ache thine own. And Slavery—that villain plausible— That thief Gehazi!—He stripped before thine eyes And showed ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... he concluded. "True. You see, Monsieur, he could vex me in two or three ways, so could I him. But, on the whole, it is better each to mind his business, and to maintain ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sent me (a considerable payment for a box on my benefit night)? I am sorry you were alarmed on Monday. You alarmed us all; you looked so exceedingly ill that I feared something very serious had occurred to distress and vex you. Thank you for your critique upon my Constance; both my mother and myself were much delighted with it; it was every way acceptable to me, for the censure I knew to be deserved, and the praise I hoped was so, and they were blended in ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... began again to be haunted with sprites, by the magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of Richard, Duke of York, second son to King Edward IV., to walk and vex ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... laid in the odoriferous channel, the larva goes to the end, as far as it can go, and makes no further movement. Does not this placid quiescence point to the absence of a sense of smell? The resinous flavour, so strange to the grub which has always lived in oak, ought to vex it, to trouble it; and the disagreeable impression ought to be revealed by a certain commotion, by certain attempts to get away. Well, nothing of the kind happens: once the larva has found the right position in the groove, it does not stir. I do more: I set before ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... answer, and sat down. The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes; When the defendant's counsel rose, And, what no lawyer ever lack'd, With impudence own'd all the fact; But, what the gentlest heart would vex, Laid all the fault on t'other sex. That modern love is no such thing As what those ancient poets sing: A fire celestial, chaste, refined, Conceived and kindled in the mind; Which, having found an equal flame, Unites, and both become the same, In different breasts together ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... said to it in a familiar style, "See, now, as you have been very good to me to-day, you shall be treated well; you shall have candles all night; I will love you; I will pray to you." If on the contrary, any thing happened to vex the lady, she had the candles put out, ordered her servants not to pay any homage to the poor image, and loaded it herself with ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... certainly send her away, if she knew how late Phebe sometimes calls us in the morning,' Jacinth used to say. 'There's nothing that would vex her more than laziness, and it is very tiresome. But then, very likely, she'd get us some prim maid that would be ill-natured and crabbed, and perhaps not really ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Montsou. He pretended not to interest himself in anything, so as not to vex either the workers or the masters. During the strike he took his walks at night, to prevent himself from being compromised by the miners. He obtained promotion, and was replaced ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... resolving to put an end to the conversation, exclaimed, "Troth and I'll have a kiss from your lips, this day, and, if you vex me much more, another this night too;" and as he spoke, with a face of good-humor and affection, he contrived to suit the action to the word, after which Letty sprang beyond his reach, but pausing a moment ere she disappeared. "Jerry, listen," she proceeded, "don't let ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... cost the library a sum out of all proportion to their value; that they accumulate so rapidly (much faster, in fact, than books) as to outrun the means at the disposal of any library to deal with them; in short, that they cost more than they come to, if bound, and if unbound, they vex the soul of the librarian ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... weapons than the Comitia and its temporary leaders, that the authority of the senate might yield to a slow process of attrition, but would never be engulfed by any cataclysmic outburst of popular hostility. It was no part of the statesman's task to pry into the future and vex himself with the query whether a new and permanent headship of the State might not be created, to play the all-pervading part which destiny had assigned to the senate. The senate's power had not vanished, it was not even vanishing. It was a solid fact, fully accepted by the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... road to death is life, the gate of life is death, We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane; Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath, The fall of a ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... while the slow isicle hangs At the stifle thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumme the year, blithe as of old let us Mid noise and war, of peace and mirth discusse. This portion thou wert born for. Why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous miserie? An age that thus hath fooled itself, and will, Spite of thy teeth and mine, persist so still. Let's sit then at this fire; and, while wee steal A revell in the Town, let others seal, Purchase, and cheat, and who can let them pay, Till those black deeds bring ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... have a country-house (who can say how soon?) you may look for grottoes, and cascades, and fountains; nay if you vex me by contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a temple—so provoke me not, for you see of what ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... and life becomes like a journey barefooted among thorns and briers and prickles. "Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us; and in prudently cultivating and under-growth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me Goddess, Nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... are significant, for by 1653 the first generation of native-born New Englanders had indeed come upon the scene to vex the Puritan fathers. How different from that of the first settlers must have been the outlook of those who had never been in England. They had never been oppressed by bishop or king; had never felt the insidious ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... take mine with it. Listen, Ana. I kept you here, not to vex the Princess or you, but for a good reason. You know that it is the custom of the royal dynasties of Egypt for kings, or those who will be kings, to wed their near kin in order that the blood may ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... can see, I can feel that it is true; I feel displeased, and at the same time delighted. M. de la Marche seems insipid and prim since I have known Bernard. Bernard alone seems as proud, as passionate, as bold as myself—and as weak as myself; for he cries like a child when I vex him, and here I am crying, too, as I think ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... the rare faculty, above all other people on earth, of knowing where to place their care, whilst others vex and torture themselves and at length must despair. Such must be the consequence of unbelief, which has no God and would provide for itself. But faith understands this word Peter quotes from the Scriptures: "Because he careth for you." It joyfully meditates thereon and does and suffers faithfully. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... two or three, had appeared from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father's grooms lately dismissed. People ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... for ever, and if we measure their duration not by our own few swift years, but by the life of nations and races of men. It is, I imagine, a sense capable of cultivation, and enables us to look upon many of man's doings that would otherwise vex and pain us, and, as some say, destroy all the pleasure of our lives, not exactly as an illusion, as if we were Japanese and had seen a fox in the morning, but at all events in what we call ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... her ears, nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her to use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, nor make her displeased, For Pussy can't bear to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... discord between capital and labor is fundamentally born of the belief of some that wealth is as socially right in all important matters as it is socially powerful and the faith of others that the social problems that vex men and women would pass with the destruction of wealth's artificial social advantages. Each group confines itself to the territory of experience where everything has to do with matters of human relationship, and each group insists ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... leaving Jack speechless with astonishment. "She hasn't done that for years," he said; "it's just the way she used to do when we were first friends. If she got in a temper about anything she would rush away and hide herself and cry for hours. What could I have said to vex her, about her marrying, or having some one courting her; there couldn't be anything in that to vex her." Jack thought for some time, sitting upon a stile the better to give his mind to it. Finally he gave up the problem ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... been broken for several minutes. Poor little Jean had been trying to keep very brave and quiet, since Grace explained to her how much her noisy grief would vex Geordie. But Elsie, who had returned to her post at Geordie's head, and was seated silently there, now gave a smothered sob, which seemed to fall on Geordie's ear. He opened his blue eyes, and looking wistfully about, said in a faint whisper, ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... Jim was just going to let out when he looked up and saw Miss Falkland looking at him, with her beautiful eyes so full of pity and surprise that he could have had his hand chopped off, so he told me afterwards, rather than vex her for a moment. So he shut up his mouth and ground his teeth together, for it was no joke in the way of pain, and the blood began to run like a ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... she said. "Come, Lole, when a thing's to be done, the best way is to do it and not fuss nor fret. I ought not to have said that; I knew it would vex dear mamma; but papa provokes me so with his solemn directions, as if the whole house did not always hold its breath when he is in the study. Come, Lole, let's do this work as well as we can." Amy's sunshiny disposition matches her quick ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... tractable or open to conviction as I could wish, I must remember perfection is not the lot of humanity. And as long as we can regard those we love, and to whom we are closely allied, with profound and very unshaken esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by, what appear to us, unreasonable and headstrong notions. You, my dear Miss Wooler, know full as well as I do the value of sisters' affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this world, I believe, when they are nearly equal in age, and similar in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... him pass. Vex not his parting spirit, Nor on the rack of this rough world Stretch him ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Vex not, maidens, nor regret Thus to part with Margaret. Charms like yours can never stay Long within doors; and ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... difference, that the Cinghalese are soft, inert, passive cowards: but your Kandyan is a ferocious little bloody coward, full of mischief as a monkey, grinning with desperation, laughing like a hyena, or chattering if you vex him, and never to be trusted for a moment. The reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in his noblest division: for, after all, these dangerous gentlemen in the peach-stone are a more promising ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... of his staff were present. I recall the circumstances very well, for a conversation in which the general asked me confidentially certain questions, was incautiously repeated by some one who was present and returned to vex me after many years. I returned to my own camp about nine or half past nine, much cast down over the doctor's diagnosis of my case. I mention all this to show how secretly the preparations for the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... great Redeemer he was Born; But Sir! the Bays, they are so much their due; They'l wear, inspite of impudence and you; You are so hateful cruel and unjust, To Load that Sex, with ugly brand of Lust: Those whome deserved Slights and losses vex, Invent new Sins, and throw 'em on that Sex; Whose thrifty wickedness the Sex forsakes, He on these beauteous Fields a Sodom makes: He ne're assaults but where the Walls are slight, True Bullies will with none but Cowards fight. A vertuous ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... no doubt he will come round, with you. Do try and not vex him more than you can help, Bob. You know how much we all ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... I care for him particularly, the King, you know; I never knew him, and I daresay he wasn't very much different from other men. But they are bad people. They are cruel to poor girls. They torment and vex and abuse me in every kind of way; they want to stop me following my trade. I have no other trade. You may be sure, if I had, I should not be doing what I do.... What is it they want? They are so hard on poor humble folks, the milkman, the charcoalman, the water carrier, the laundress. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... hour of push and pelf, Where nought unsordid seems to last, Vex not thy miserable self, But search the fallows ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... ghost shall dare appear 5 To vex with shrieks this quiet grove; But shepherd lads assemble here, And melting ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... spake, and Hera took her slender hand and gently smiling, replied: "Perform this task, Cytherea, straightway, as thou sayest; and be not angry or contend with thy boy; he will cease hereafter to vex thee." ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain, Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering taper to ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... bear to hear aught of King of England," was the answer. "If you love me, good Arthur, vex him ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we are of the whole designs of the Deity, we cannot wonder if some things, nay, if many things, are to our faculties inscrutable. But we assuredly have no right to say that those difficulties which try and vex us are incapable of a solution, any more than we have to say, that those cases in which as yet we can see no trace of design, are not equally the result of intelligence, and equally conducive to a fixed and useful purpose with those in which we have been able ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... that something might have occurred to vex you, which you might not like to mention to him,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... three hours to the stream that bore the little Indian fleet. His triumph of the night before increased his boldness, and he resolved to return the following night and annoy further the detachment by the river. It would serve his cause, and it would be a pleasure to vex the dogmatic European colonel. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... chanced to blow that day Was easterly, and rather strong, too: It loved to see the galling way That clothes vex those whom they belong to: "Now watch me," cried this spell of weather, "I'll rid ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... Hussy! you inconsiderate Jade! had you been hang'd, it would not have vex'd me, for that might have been your Misfortune; but to do such a mad thing by Choice; The Wench is ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... not write any more, or I shall say something savage that you won't like. I am in one of my tempers to-night. I want a husband to vex, or a child to beat, or something of that sort. Do you ever like to see the summer insects kill themselves in the candle? I do, sometimes. Good-night, Mrs. Jezebel The longer you can leave me here the better. The air agrees with me, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... suddenness and warmth of her caress had been, I knew, a mere monkeyish trick, designed to vex the religious scruples of Mere Marguerite. I knew not what to say to the stately woman who remained confronting me with downcast eyes and lips that moved dumbly as though in prayer. As the door closed after my wife's retreating figure, the nun looked up; there was a slight ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... that Martha was wrong or unreasonable in thinking that Mary should have helped her. Jesus did not say she was wrong; he only reminded Martha that she ought not to let things fret and vex her. "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things." It was not her serving that he reproved, but the fret that she allowed to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... first be physiological affinity). We shall go through life as comrades go, hand in hand, Hester and I; and great happiness will be ours. And because of all this I say you have no right to challenge my happiness, and vex my days, and feel for me as ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... cured, and it was true, for there's juist ae man in the land fit for 't, and they micht as weel try tae get the mune oot o' heaven. Sae a' said naethin' tae vex Tammas's hert, for it's ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... that Thou shouldst grant grace unto my soul, that my spirit may speed to Thee with peace, O King of angels! to pass into thy keeping. I sue to Thee that Thou suffer not the rebel spirits of hell to vex ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moraine once blocked off Billington sea from the ocean, but Town Brook released it. Long before the Pilgrims came it had cut its valley through the great wall of gravel and occupied it in peace till latter day highways and factories came to vex it. In spite of these, unhampered bits of the original brook show in Plymouth itself and you are not far out of town before ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... what you call ill-natured," said Miss Fosbrook, "unless it is saying the very things most likely to vex another." ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the remains of his chocolate and gulped it down; "for it is Sunday morning, and we must respect the feelings of our padre. You were unkind to him, he tells me, just now, and even said some disrespectful things of me. What have I done to vex you?" ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... paint unscratched, do not worry yourself with visions of the day when it will rattle and creak, and when you will make it wait for you at the corner of back-streets when you drive into town. Do not vex yourself by fancying that you will never have heart to send off the old carriage, nor by wondering where you shall find the money ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... kind were many; and there was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a question I never could solve; but having discovered, he habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... like the sad presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings; Vex'd and tormented, runs poor Barrabas, With fatal curses towards ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go. Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... defence of the good bishops, that I promised him, should my urgent errand in any way permit it, he might count on me to assist him in his righteous hue and cry. For I loathed all that set itself up to vex our gracious Queen and the peaceful order of her kingdom. The man commended my loyalty, and we talked of other matters— he doing the most of it—till we came to Colnbrook, where, finding my nag slow, and his business being very urgent, he left me and rode forward; appointing to meet ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... she cudna be cured, and it was true, for there's juist ae man in the land fit for 't, and they micht as weel try tae get the mune oot o' heaven. Sae a' said naethin' tae vex Tammas's hert, for it's heavy eneuch ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... then, the whole affair is a hoax, perpetrated to vex and annoy you. The old man who employed this chauffeur may not have been old. I have looked upon all sides of the affair, and it begins to look like a practical ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do not mean to vex you; I read as I run, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... "I didn't mean to vex you," said Alice, who was disconcerted at this evident grief. "I dare say I shall get accustomed to you after a bit. I mean I do not really ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... thoughts which had moved her bosom since the morning. He had pleaded for quietude during the unquiet days that were coming. She was resolved he should have it in so far as it depended upon her. At least it was much too early in the day to vex his mind with forebodings. She therefore comforted and calmed him by words of assurance, and, when he crossed his threshold, that evening, the lonely old man felt that he was indeed secure under the protection ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... take away the covering cast over all people (Isa 25:7), and the vail that is spread over all nations (Isa 11:9); 'For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea' (v 13). Then 'Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.' Thus will the God of peace bruise Satan under foot shortly; and one reason why the Lord may suffer all this darkness and differences that have been, and yet are, is, that we might long and look for this blessed promise of the gospel, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake, I listened with heart fit to break. ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... died suddenly of cholera, and two others have had bombs thrown at them. I shall be thankful to find myself safely on board the steamer, but even if I escape I am leaving Boggley in the midst of these perils. Not that he lets the thought of them vex his soul. You learn, he says, to look upon death in a different way in India, but I am sure I never could learn to regard with equanimity the thought of being quite well one day and being hurried ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... cease to consider irksome any such thing as pertains neither to our physical nor to our spiritual nature, and do not vex yourself at what has happened. For to us belongs no choice as I told you, of living as we please, but it is quite requisite for us to endure what the Divinity determines. If we do this voluntarily, we shall not be grieved: if involuntarily, we shall ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... yourself, Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he went ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... date-tree give her for this purpose. Then the servant lighted his lantern, and was so busy picking up all the crown-pieces that he forgot to follow the palfrey; and Zezolla came home quite safely, and had changed her clothes, as the fairy told her, before the wicked sisters arrived, and, to vex her and make her envious, told her of all the fine things they had seen. But the King was very angry with the servant, and warned him not to miss finding out next time who this beautiful maiden was, and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... you nor "vex," But I ask you to answer me now; Did the torturing pain Of a love that is vain Ever furrow ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... there any present here, Whom I can have a cause to fear?— Whom it were wrongful to perplex, Or faulty policy to vex? In what affrights the quiet mind My bitter thoughts employment find! In what torments a common grief Do I alone expect relief! Our aching sorrows to disclose, Our discontents, our wrongs repeat, To hurl defiance at our foes, And let the soul respire, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... female to fret and vex, But if I belonged to the sensitive sex, Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds, I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds. Lord! only think of chucking a copper To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, Who ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... young man soothingly—"don't you vex yourself any more about it. Now you go in, and forget all your trouble awhile, please God, by my ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with apparent cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I shall have to suffer, so today I'll ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... regain the bed, where he was content to lie with closed eyes and analyze his various pains and weaknesses. Maria came in several times to change the cold cloths on his forehead. Otherwise she left him in peace, too wise to vex him with chatter. This moved him to gratitude, and he murmured to himself, "Maria, you getta da milka ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... him to write a letter to his mother, begging that he might see the ambassadors pass. She was obliged to refuse him. When she reproached the tutor with having caused her and her boy this pain, he replied that the Dauphin wished to write, and he could not vex a sick child—the very thing which he compelled the mother to do, after having fixed the subject in the boy's ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Dorsain, taking his hand, and looking up into his face, "Uncle," she said, "we wish you to remain, surely you will not vex us by ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... archers who have gone ahead. And forbid the soldiers to vex the hermitage, or even to approach ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... vulgar.' For the young men who listened aimed at simplicity, and therefore naturally argued, the simpler the better; in fact, the conversational style is best of all. Where, then, the need for elaborate preparation? We shall only vex and confuse the people, consequently preparation is superfluous. We know the results. 'A few words' on the schools; an obiter dictum on the stations; a good, energetic, Demosthenic philippic against some scandal. But instruction,—oh, no! edification,—oh, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... lavish and waste so many blessings upon them except to comfort us thereby, and make us to know how good He is to "such as are of a clean heart"? as it is said in that same Psalm lxxii. If He is so good to the wicked, how good will He not be to the good? [Ps. 73:1] Except that He does not vex the wicked with any evil, yet afflicts the good with many evils, in order that they may acknowledge His goodness to them not only in the present blessings, but even in those that are hidden and yet to come, and that they may say, with ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... is, and if she be not quite so tractable or open to conviction as I could wish, I must remember perfection is not the lot of humanity. And as long as we can regard those we love, and to whom we are closely allied, with profound and very unshaken esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by, what appear to us, unreasonable and headstrong notions. You, my dear Miss Wooler, know full as well as I do the value of sisters' affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this world, I believe, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."—See Middleton's Cicero, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... yonder, Mr. Patrick; feind o' me will mistryst you for a' my mother says. I thought it best to slip out quietly though, in case she should mislippen something of what we're gaun to do—we maunna vex her at nae rate—it was amaist the last word my father said to me ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... retirement was dear, Felt vex'd at beholding the flutterers near; For living in harmony, softness, and quiet, [p 12] She hated all bustle, intrusion, and riot; And tho' a few trips to the gay world she made, Her heart, still unalter'd, remain'd in the shade. However, our fair pensive warbler ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... might, And Commerce chearful Plenty shall invite: But Goodness chief ... in form angelic drest, (Such as she lives in FREDERICK'S royal breast!) Beneath her wings shall bid the worthy find A shelter from the storms that vex mankind; The friend of truth, by fraud or malice hurl'd Through all the mazes of a faithless world. Whom envy persecutes and bigots hate, Shall here enjoy an undisturb'd retreat; With HIM, who scorns the empty pride or blood, But shares his grandeur with the wise and good! What ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... to this shop for the purpose of purchasing a few pipes. The indifferent Italian, in which language he spoke to his Cicerone, and the latter's still more imperfect Turkish, made it difficult for the shopkeeper to understand their wishes, and as this seemed to vex the stranger, I addressed him in English, offering to interpret for him. When his Lordship thus discovered me to be an Englishman, he shook me cordially by the hand, and assured me, with some warmth ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... are their equals in every respect, that we are perhaps better, more accomplished, and talented than all of those haughty Christian women. How often did they neglect and insult us in society! How often did they offensively try to eclipse us! How often did they vex us by their scorn and insolent bearing! We will pay it all back to them; we will scourge them with the scourges with which they have scourged us, and compel them to bow ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... I have seen my father make, when he begged my mother's pardon and took her in his arms to make it up. I know those eyes. A man may make such eyes, and yet find it in his heart to beat a wife who never did a thing to vex him! It made my flesh creep to see ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... it was of you to vex and excite this blockhead by pronouncing him dead! Had you left him alone, he would have gone off, and left the Maticza in possession of the old miser's fortune. Now we may go and hunt for other fools; this one ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... to vex a man, Mr Braithwaite," observed the first lieutenant. "As we could not send on board last night to take possession of our prize, she has managed to slip away during the darkness. She left a light burning astern on a cask to deceive us. If we ever come up with her we'll make ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... and Ghirlandajo's masterpieces are the apotheosis of that quality. How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, how mathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and we turn away without regret. It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo used to scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill his purse with money. Similar traits of character pain us with a sense of impropriety in Perugino. They harmonise ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... various effects, which sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix, from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to be the greatest men ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... know why I stay to vex and trouble you?' she asked Caroline. 'Well, then, it is that I may see your brother united to you all: and then I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is that? I only didn't want a scene. I kept away from Lisa for weeks so as not to vex you. Forget you! I think I have been very considerate of you under the circumstances. You have a dislike to Lisa, ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... increase among Christ's professed friends and followers, may be healed; that being cemented and knitted to one another, they may join heart and hand together in the matters of the Lord, and the concerns of his glory; when Ephraim shall no more envy Judah, and Judah shall no more vex Ephraim, but both shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines, Isa. xi. 13.; with a further accomplishment of these with other gracious promises,—And thine officers shall be peace, and thine exactors righteousness, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... suspicious and fearful of losing their newly-gotten power. If they are envious now, what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels? Heaven knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them. But you will be here, and then nothing can vex me. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... nor my desire to vex them,—poor things! It never harmed me to get a friend's sympathy; though it's little ever I got. I'll not trouble them." And she went and seated herself at a little distance ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... at Hexham, it's risky to vex 'em, They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt, But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past, I lifted my hand, and ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... that we are talking only about grafting and growing, pray do not vex yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the pippins. It may be desirable for us to have much art, or little—we will examine that by-and-bye; but just now, let us keep to the simple consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps it might be just as well that a man ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... alive, heels tied, heads down, throats distended and squalling—until the barnyard became Babel, and still he went about pinching the fowls' breasts, running the corn through his hands, dispensing a word of praise here, a prescription there, and kindness everywhere. Now bad harvests would vex him no more, nor the fate of his familiar fields. In the wreck of all he had lived for, his life had stood up clear for a moment, complete in itself and vindicated. And the moment which had revealed had also ended it; he lay now beneath the chapel pavement at Fort Amitie, indifferently awaiting ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sad young man," good-natured Lady Clavering whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? Nothink, I hope, to vex such a dear Mar as yours? How is your dear Mar? Why don't she come and me? We an't seen her this ever such a time. We're a goin about a gaddin, so that we don't see no neighbours now. Give my love to her and Laurar, and come all to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marker, so much so, that before he is half through he has exhausted the limit of errors. Sachs, who is pleased with the young nobleman, for his own welfare frustrates the desperate attempt to elope with the maiden. In doing this he finds at the same time an opportunity to greatly vex the Marker. The latter, who to humiliate Sachs had upbraided him because of a pair of shoes which were not yet ready, posts himself at night before the window of the maiden and sings his song as a test, for ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... in fine, he cannot wait until he finds a more secluded spot: nay, verily, he embraces her because—tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers, soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason? For it does not appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love. By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine macintosh is well known to be ill ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... point of good-breeding, which can not, in all cases, be understood and applied by children in its widest extent. It is that which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; to be inattentive when addressed in conversation; to contradict ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... time, to take the oath, and to bear my own responsibilities, Mr. Muir. I have neither fellowship nor communication with Rebels, and I deem it a strange insult to be called a spy. 'T is a great pity one should stay here to vex himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... I rage, in vain I rouse my powers; But I shall wake again, I shall, to better hours. Even in slumber will I vex him; Still perplex him, Still incumber: Know, you that have adored him, And sovereign power afford him, We'll reap the gains Of all your pains, And seem to have restored him. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... temporary leaders, that the authority of the senate might yield to a slow process of attrition, but would never be engulfed by any cataclysmic outburst of popular hostility. It was no part of the statesman's task to pry into the future and vex himself with the query whether a new and permanent headship of the State might not be created, to play the all-pervading part which destiny had assigned to the senate. The senate's power had not vanished, it ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... fretful. I perceived, however, that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, 'I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way. But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, as it might vex them.' I suggested, that going to Italy might have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. 'I rather believe not, Sir. While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as opinion meets ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... her first idea. But then there was a stern fixedness of purpose in Bessy's words when she spoke of Mr. Holmes, which had expelled this hope, and Mrs. Garrow had for a while thought it better that the young man should not come. But Bessy would not permit this. It would vex her father, put out of course the arrangements of other people, and display weakness on her own part. He should come, and she would endure without flinching while the fox ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... the sergeant plies Tom with liquor, swearing that he will go back to the regiment, and leave Mary altogether, and advises Tom to do the same. At last, what with the sergeant's persuasions, and Tom's desire to vex Mary, he succeeds in 'listing him, and giving him the shilling before witnesses; that was all the rascal wanted. The next day Tom was sent down to the depot, as they call it, under a guard; and the sergeant remains here to follow up Mary without interruption. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "grumble to yourself if you like, but don't vex my ears with your complaints. Suppose I were to bring back Moneta and the child,—would you give ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... second coming you appear, (For I foretell that millenary year) The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more, But earth unbidden shall produce her store; The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile, And Heaven's indulgence ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... upon them, and while the bitter tears fell fast from her eyes she murmured half aloud, "Oh! why am I always so naughty? always doing something to displease my dear papa? how I wish I could be good, and make him love me! I am afraid he never will if I vex him ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... suppose, is only intended to vex me," cried the warrior king, who always considered himself, and very naturally, a person of such consequence as ever to be uppermost in the thoughts and minds of others. "If thou must tell a tale, then tell one, Vampire! or else be silent, ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... that means, Be a creature whose life swings far out beyond this world and its affairs—swings dangerously between heaven and hell. Eternity is in the heart of every man. The fashionable modern gospel of Pragmatism is telling us to-day that we should not vex ourselves about the ultimate truth of theories, but inquire only as to their value for life here and now, and the practical needs which they serve. But the most practical of all man's needs is his need of some contact with a higher world than that ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... vex, my friend, Your soul and mine with false suspicion, (aside) Oh! I am choked! I'd give full ten years of my life To tell, to laugh—& yet ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... that Anna confided to me a trouble of which she had kept the knowledge secret, fearing it might vex me, to the neglect of my work at Amsterdam. I had become so absorbed in my love for her, that I had given no thought to the question of others paying their court. Yet that such should be the case was but natural. Anna was young, beautiful, and wealthy, the only child of a proud noble, so that when ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... A Forbear to vex the patient Ass, Its heaving sides to goad, And far and safe its useful back Will carry ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... Catholic reaction, and then was disturbed for a century and a half by the war of Puritanism, and of Tory Anglicanism. The latter had scarcely had time to win the victory, and to fall into a doze by her pipe of port, when Evangelical religion came to vex all that was moderate, mature, and fond of repose. The revolutionary enthusiasm of Shelley's time was comparatively feeble, because it had no connection with religion; or, at least, no connection with the religion to which ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... I must ask you to forget it. Of course, I was wrong, but I'll try not to vex you again. What are we going ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... persons that I feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable, unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,—these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner. He has been the author of all these wrongs; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Around me than the ivy clasps the oak, Didst breathe a vow—mocking the gods with it— A vow which, false one, thou hast foully broke; That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, So long wouldst thou be ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... try to keep him for you until to-morrow, when you can go and sell him. If your father saw his tricks he would, himself, dispose of him and pocket the cash. I will shut him in an outhouse until you come again, and I only hope that he will not bark and vex Tommy!" ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... seven-thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord! They're grand—they're grand! Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good? Not so! O' that world-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man—the Artifex! That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light—now, mark my word—we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve—not I. But I ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries, and nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city, for God did vex them with all adversity. But [4] when Shishak was dead, and Egypt fell into troubles, Judah had quiet ten years; and in that time Asa built fenced cities in Judah, and got up an army of 580000 men, with which, in ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... better than this? Tell the king that I shall not vex him longer with my presence here, and accept of my goods and estates ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... barefooted among thorns and briers and prickles. "Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us; and in prudently cultivating and under-growth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... voices pent In mines, and heard from underground, Come murmurs as of discontent, And clamorings of sullen sound The city sends me, as, I guess, To vex me, though they do but bless Me in my ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges an' schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion less ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... the night before diligently getting up the details of their case? He hated patronage and the making of appointments—a feeling rare in Ministers. "As for the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe they die to vex me." But when at last the appointment was made, it was made with keen discrimination. His colleagues observed another symptom—was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom? He went to sleep in ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... the Old Year dieth, And the forests utter a moan, Like the voice of one who crieth In the wilderness alone, "Vex not ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... the fair sex Beats that of friends and relatives: In love, although its tempests vex, Our liberty at least survives: Agreed! but then the whirl of fashion, The natural fickleness of passion, The torrent of opinion, And the fair sex as light as down! Besides the hobbies of a spouse Should be respected throughout life By every proper-minded wife, And this ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... of Captain Sword, But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word, For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs, And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound Now heard in the distance, now gathering round, Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be; But the soul of the cause of it well ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... me, smiling. He was prone to vex And hector me with flings upon my sex. He liked, he said, to have me flash and frown, So he could tease me, and then laugh me down. My storms of wrath amused him very much: He liked to see me go off at a touch; Anger became me—made my color rise, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... edge of the bedclothes over his ear. Soon he was asleep; but, even as he dropped off, the absurd phrase wove itself into the midnight chime from the church tower and passed on to weave itself into his dreams and vex them. "If I should survive my wife—" In his dreams he was back in Troy, indeed, and yet among foreigners. They spoke in English, too; but they conversed with one another, not with him, as though he might overhear but could not be expected ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England; having courage in the face of his countrymen to assert of some suggested policy,—"This is good for your trade; this is necessary for your domination: but it will vex a people hard by; it will hurt a people farther off; it will profit nothing to the general humanity: therefore, away with it!—it is not for you or for me." When a British minister dares speak so, and when a British public ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... gentle Knight, do not vex thus, It will but hurt your health. You cannot grieve more then I do, but to what end? But hark you, Sir Raph, I was about to say something—it makes no matter. But heark you in your ear: the Friar's a knave; but God forgive me, a man cannot tell neither; s'foot, I ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... cease, you vex me with your babblement; I am like to think you dote in your old age. Is it not arrant folly to pretend That gods would have a thought for this dead man? Did they forsooth award him special grace, And as some benefactor ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Brown is not used to educating children, you know, that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I told her so, but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth. Well, then we young ones—that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn, and I—drank tea out on the lawn. Mary had to sit up and be company; but we had such fun! There was a great old laurel tree, and Armyn put Sylvia and me up into the fork; and that was our nest, and ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... goodliness of thy youth and the pleasantness of thy compostition and the sweetness of thy speech;" but Ala al-Din replied, "This talk becometh thee not, neither is it seemly in thee; if I be content with her, how should this vex thee?" So the Kazi was satisfied and they came to an accord and concluded the marriage contract at a dower precedent of five purses[FN264] ready money and a dower contingent of fifteen purses, so it might be hard for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... sorry that the matter should vex you!' was the grave reply; and lifting his hat, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... tough cordage, timber strong, Her moving shape, all these he doth survey, And all admires, but most his easy prey. The seamen search her all within, without; Viewing her strength, they yet their conquest doubt; Then with rude shouts, secure, the air they vex, With gamesome joy insulting on her decks. Such the feared Hebrew captive, blinded, shorn, Was led about in ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... accepted them unwillingly, and under protest; but a day came when it became necessary for her to remonstrate with the sick man once again concerning this matter, sorry as she was to thwart or vex him; she therefore requested, to have a few minutes' talk ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... to the time when these vast fortunes were rolled together. Without this explanation, this work would be deficient in clarity, and would leave unelucidated many important points, the absence of which might puzzle or vex the reader. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... did not. She listened with wonder in her eyes, and something of shamed contrition in her face, and knew so well—so very well that she did not deserve it. She had wanted—really wanted to vex him when she played the cards, when she had danced past, and never let on she saw him looking somberly in at the window the night before. But in the light of morning and with the knowledge of his wounded arm, all her resentment was gone. She could ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... left, to play gaily on his pipes: no doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care. Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but it struck him how indignant she would be if he ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... been capable, as Gulliver in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances, it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... will vex you, and the night deny Your idle prayer: Shall I, across strange waters, hear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... as treacherous as the winds that vex it, pitiless, murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of the certain tides. There's nothing and nobody to fall back upon when the breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilization ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, And I should evermore be vex'd with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament, Or ghostly foot-fall ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... uncle, peace! Cousins of ours, be still! drag not to light from its grave the strife that we buried there. Hope not for honor from us, while ye heap upon us shame, or think that we shall forbear from vexing when ye vex us. Sons of our uncle, peace! lay not our rancor raw; walk now gently awhile, as once ye were wont to go. Ay, God knows that we, we love you not, in sooth! and that we blame ye not that ye have no love for us. Each of us has his ground for the loathing his fellow ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance of death bitter; and, O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at rest in his possessions, the man that hath nothing to vex him, yea unto him that is able to receive meat![212] Therefore hast thou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receive meat, my fasting day, my eve to this great festival, my dissolution. And this day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day, the day of my resurrection; ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... best cypress, remained water-tight, and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye, and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to say, my little son?" he said, smiling. "That hurt you, because you thought it would vex the friend from the Bahamas, the friend who steals. And yet you like him a little, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... reasoning, but Harlson had repeated to him the reasoning of the Hindoo skeptic. Woodell had at least intelligence enough to follow the line of thought, and, in after time, when he was a family man and deacon, the lines would recur to vex ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... receives Madame Adolphe with a smile. He smiles at everything, and he smiles as he takes her round the waist with an agility which leaves Caroline no time to resist, especially as she says to herself, "Adolphe particularly recommended me not to vex ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... sword in so sacred a strife—a strife which consecrates the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your souls so subdued by servitude; are you so accustomed to bonds and tortures, that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness? Are you so wedded to inaction that you cease to feel? Is it the frequency of the punishment that has made you callous to the ignominy and the pain? Certainly your viceroy gives ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... fresh as morning glen, Awakes and lights the gloom where shadows creep. —The night will come and with it women weep. Stay, Dear, with me, for dark will come and then, It fills the soul with fear—don't go again— Black clouds will roll, when only children sleep. O Darling storms of midnight vex and threat; The gullies moan and then the goblins see! It is not wise or brave to prattle so; And Dear, if you must go, I will not fret; The sun will shine when you come home to me, Dark night is day ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede
... graceful; brown the mountain in its shade, Whose circling grandeur, part by mists conceal'd, Part with white rocks resplendant in the sun, Should bound mine eyes; aye and my wishes too, For I would have no hope or fear beyond. The empty turmoil of the worthless world, Its vanities and vices would not vex My quiet heart. The traveller, who beheld The low tower of the little pile, might deem It were the house of GOD: nor would he err So deeming, for that home would be the home Of PEACE and LOVE, and they would hallow it To HIM. Oh life of blessedness! ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... evening meal. Then all this time, too, was he busy carving with his knife, out of the hardest wood he could find, a stock of letters, with which, when an occasion offered, he meant to make trial of imprinting whole sentences with ink. He did this secretly. He feared to vex his mother, and run the risk of his letters being burned as before, and he feared, too, that some one might find out his plan, and make use of it before he was ready prepared to show ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... Emmanuel for help. This I give you to understand, that ye may yet know how to carry it to the wretched town of Mansoul. Wherefore, O my trusty Diabolonians, I command that yet more and more ye distress this town of Mansoul, and vex it with your wiles, ravish their women, deflower their virgins, slay their children, brain their ancients, fire their town, and what other mischief you can; and let this be the reward of the Mansoulians from me, for ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... Present sit down, between an unknown Future and a too believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms of faith, half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward steadfastly into the night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of delight alternate vex and soothe the ear of man!—But the time will come, when the soul of man shall return again childlike and trustful to its faith in God; and look God in the face and die; for it is an old saying, full of deep, mysterious meaning, that he ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... one day with the collective account of antiquity and make up its balance-sheet. If we have this, antiquity will be overcome. All the shortcomings which now vex us have their roots in antiquity, so that we cannot continue to treat this account with the mildness which has been customary up to the present. The atrocious crime of mankind which rendered Christianity possible, as ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... notice the restraint of her manner, and making the rearrangement of the flowers which she held a sort of link between them, so that she could not follow her impulse, and leave the room.—'Tell me,—honestly as I know you will if you speak at all,—have not I done something to vex you since we were so happy ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Crafty Matchers, and base Booty-Players:) Herein we may see the World moralized, or emblematically described, where most are short, over, wide or wrong-Byassed, and few justle in to the Mistress Fortune: On one side we find Heraclitus and his Followers fret, vex, rail, swear and cavil at every thing; on the other side Democritus, and his Company rejoice and laugh, as if they were created for that purpose. On one side you may see the Mimick screwing and twisting his Body ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... and before the man who had so bitterly denounced it; and being above all tender-hearted and gallant where a woman, and a sorrowing one, was concerned, he must give Corinne and the child a fair and square start in the house of Breen, with no overdue accounts to vex her except such petty ones as a small life insurance and a few ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... madam," said the spinster; "but your music—what stuff! Such things are null. They vex the ear a little, but they ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the beating of drums go quite wild, and tear themselves in their rage. Similarly, as some men cannot bear to see scarlet and purple dresses, and others are put out by cymbals and drums,[183] what harm would it do wives to abstain from these things, and not to vex or provoke husbands, but to live with them ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... I vex the shades no more. Their form of valour is no longer known amongst us; but there are some who regret. I find pathetics among them, and quaint ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... This creates a vacuum, which the surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex us poor mariners. There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been talking of, so as to see where our ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... possible that I can aid thee? I have not wings to affix to thy fair shoulder, I have not a voice powerful enough to raise echoes on a shore whence assistance might be sent. Nay, look not so sternly on me, beloved Nisida, I did not intend to vex thee with idle jestings; but thou knowest that I ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... broke up the last two rungs of the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... his nectar, and chattering with his usual gayety, Hannah, who had long owed a grudge both to mistress and man, was tempted to convey the letter from Tom's pocket, where it was but half deposited, into her own. Her only motive was to vex and disappoint those whose chief pleasure it had always been to vex and disappoint her. The tankard being hastily emptied, he hastened away to the post-office. When he arrived there, he felt for the letter. It was gone; dropped, as he supposed, in the street. In ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... of his meditations, when he recollected and compared the circumstances of every mortification to which he had been lately exposed, he could not help suspecting that some of them must have been contrived to vex him; and, as he was not ignorant of his lieutenant's disposition, nor unacquainted with the talents of Peregrine, he resolved to observe them both for the future with the utmost care and circumspection. This resolution, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Lord; your whootings and your clamors, Your private whispers, and your broad fleerings, Can no more vex my soul, than this base carriage; But I have vengeance yet in store for some, Shall in the most contempt you can have of me, Be ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... his epistle he read it over more than once, and was satisfied that it would be vexatious to the Marquis. It was his direct object to vex the Marquis, and he had set about it with all his vigour. "I would skin him if I knew how," he had said to Gilmore. "He has done that to me which no man should forgive. He has spoken ill of me, and calumniated ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... masks!" was the general cry; and the musicians, each after his kind, did pierce and vex the air with such a medley of disquieting sounds that the talkers were fain to cease, and the dancers to fall to in good earnest. Alice and her brother were disguised as the cunning beggar had predicted—to wit, as the virgin ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... they owe: But I disdain to cast my eyes so low, That for my thoughts o'er base a subject seem'd, Which still the vulgar course too beaten deem'd; And loftier things delighted for to know. Though presently this plague me but with pain, And vex the world with wondering at my woes: Yet having gained that long desired repose My mirth may more miraculous remain. That for the which long languishing I pine, It is a show, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achaians should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their ships and not stay to vex us ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... readin ith' paper, abaat a man havin escaped throo a mad haase somwhear or other, an it struck him at Sydney must be th' varry chap, soa he wor in sich a funk 'at he didn't know whativver to do, but he thowt th' best thing wod be to keep as still as he could, an not vex Sydney, soa he sat daan as quiet as ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... but their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do not mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; it ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... "Vex not thyself," said the old dame, as she saw him struggling with his sobs. "Thou art worn-out—Giles here was not half his own man when he came out, nor is he yet. Nay, beset him not, children. He should go to his chamber, change these garments, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the ease of conventionalism; we may never trouble ourselves with any pungent scruples; we may never pursue the task of introspection, or bring to bear upon the fibres of motive and desire within us the intense focus of God's moral law; we may never vex our souls with tests of faith, but rest contented with the common or hereditary standard;—but he who will be serious in the work of spiritual discipline, who will act from a vital law of duty, must endure struggles and conflicts than which, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... shadows creep. —The night will come and with it women weep. Stay, Dear, with me, for dark will come and then, It fills the soul with fear—don't go again— Black clouds will roll, when only children sleep. O Darling storms of midnight vex and threat; The gullies moan and then the goblins see! It is not wise or brave to prattle so; And Dear, if you must go, I will not fret; The sun will shine when you come home to me, Dark night is day and only mild ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede
... dear one, sleep, and sleep, ye winds, That vex the restless brine— When shall these eyes, my babe, be ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... away! I cannot hold the Hall against that foreign Abbot and his hirelings, and an orphaned heiress is but a chattel to be sold. Oh! now I understand what my father meant. Order horses. I'll off to Christopher. Yet, stay, Nurse. What will he do with me? It may seem shameless, and will vex him." ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... her hand on his): "I can't think why you are so excited! If I told you that I had said, 'Give it all up, my dear, and don't vex your aged father,' what would ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... We will not do that. We want to ask your permission first. We had no intention of doing otherwise; we intended to ask you for the hay. And we did not mean to vex you, but rather to honour you in this manner. Is it not an honour to be asked to save ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... The Mercer was carried in Custody to a Tavern, in order to go before a Magistrate, cursing and reviling all the Surgeons as he went along; saying, if those were their Tricks, it was time to give over Trade; and what still vex'd him more, to have his poor innocent Wife call'd pocky B—ch, and himself all the debauch'd Villains into the Bargain. The Surgeon, on the other hand, cries out, A new piece of Villany, a Fellow brings a Whore, and a Bill of Parcels, to rob my House, and has withal the Impudence to boast ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... Helen, "that Mr. Armstrong can take me into his own house, for now you and your dear father will feel satisfied that I am quite comfortable. It has given me the greatest distress that I have been obliged to vex you both as I have done, but you must pardon an old woman, who has not strength now left, either of body or mind, to make the exertion that would have been necessary to have acted otherwise. Had I attempted it, I think it would have brought on you more serious ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... dare not call thee dear, I've lost that right so long; Yet once again I vex thine ear With memory's idle song. Had time and change not blotted out The love of former days, Thou wert the last that I should doubt Of ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... he said; it was no good to put him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. The words fell on his father like a thunderbolt, and Norris made haste to give way. "It didn't really matter, don't you know?" said he. "And it seemed an awful shame to vex the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them support through infancy and childhood; has given them language, literature, liberty. Wise men know that the noblest and strongest have received from society a thousandfold more than they can ever repay, though they vex all the days and nights with ceaseless toil. In this number of non-sufficing persons are to be included the paupers—paupers plebeian, supported in the poorhouse by many citizens; paupers patrician, supported ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... laughing when they learned the nature of his business. When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks askance; one said to another, "Is not this the Brutestant, the son of Yacub? What hand has he in this affair? It were a sin for us to vex a true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the priest cried, "Welcome him, for he accepts the truth," when all gave praise to Allah. One tall fellah forthwith embraced Iskender, and began at once to tell him ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... know me," she interposed quietly. "But even if I were all these things, why should it vex you?" ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... And then the wind of that June night did blend Their varied voices, as of that and this They fell to talk: of those fair islands' bliss They knew in other days, of hope they had To live there long an easy life and glad, With nought to vex them; and the younger men Began to nourish strange dreams even then Of sailing east, as these had once sailed west; Because the story of that luckless quest With hope, not fear, had filled their joyous hearts And made them dream of ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... dismissed. The tomb of Julius empoisoned Michelangelo's manhood, hampered his energy, and brought but small if any profit to his purse. In one way or another it is always cropping up, and may be said to vex his biographers and the students of his life as much as it annoyed himself. We may now return to those early days in Rome, when the project had still a fascination both for ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... of His presence How my soul delights to hide! Oh, how precious are the lessons Which I learn at JESUS' side: Earthly cares can never vex me, Neither trials lay me low; For when Satan comes to vex me, To ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... up which, during all the long and weary day, horses are drawing heavy loads. The majority of them crawl patiently along, with their heads down and with reeking flanks and shoulders, pausing occasionally as the water-bars brace the wheels, and impatient only with the flies that vex their ears, and the insufficiency of their short and stumpy tails to protect their quivering sides. Some of these animals are not so patient, but are nervous and spasmodic and unhappy. I have noticed one among them particularly, that has ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... now; but do you know it really wasn't natural to me. As a child, I used to be idle and get on very badly, and it used to vex my poor father, who was then living, very much. Well, one day, not long before he died, I had been very obstinate, and would learn nothing. He didn't say much, but in the afternoon, when we were ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... keener and more durable weapons than the Comitia and its temporary leaders, that the authority of the senate might yield to a slow process of attrition, but would never be engulfed by any cataclysmic outburst of popular hostility. It was no part of the statesman's task to pry into the future and vex himself with the query whether a new and permanent headship of the State might not be created, to play the all-pervading part which destiny had assigned to the senate. The senate's power had not vanished, it was not even vanishing. It was a solid fact, fully ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... insist on seeing her; she could not refuse that to him, after what had passed between them, and he would then tell her what he thought of her, and leave her for ever. But no; he would do nothing to vex her, as long as she was grieving for her brother. Poor Harry!—she loved him so dearly! Perhaps, after all, his sudden rejection was, in some manner, occasioned by this sad event, and would be revoked ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... Pray Heaven I may get off as honourablie, The hour is past, I wonder Dinant comes not, This is the place, I cannot see him yet; It is his quarel too that brought me hither, And I ne'r knew him yet, but to his honour A firm and worthy Friend, yet I see nothing, Nor Horse nor man, 'twould vex me to be left here, To th' mercy of two swords, and two approv'd ones. I ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... I'm sure you'll say I'm right If ever it has been your wont to train around at night; How sweet is retrospection when one's heart is bathed in wine, And before its balmy breath how do the ills of life decline! How the gracious juices drown what griefs would vex a mortal breast, And float the flattered soul into the ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... unfortunate companion continued to pour forth his groans, and prayers, and blasphemies, for all that goes together at Naples as at Rome. I could do nothing but compassionate him; but in spite of myself I could not help laughing, which seemed to vex the ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger
... be cured, and it wes true, for there's juist ae man in the land fit for't, and they micht as weel try tae get the mune oot o' heaven. Sae a' said naethin' tae vex Tammas's hert, for ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... early," she said. "He wouldn't like it a bit, and why should we vex father because ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... brought troops, many of whom were reckless men; the army then was not up to the standard of today. Besides, there came in the wake of the soldiers a trail of gamblers and other disreputable people to vex and perplex us. In the blockhouses could be seen bullet marks which we knew ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... borders all their capitols and public buildings; and their variety, if not dignity, would valiantly abet her in the rivalry from which one must now recoil on her behalf. She could not, of course, except on such rare days of fog as seem to greet Englishmen in New York on purpose to vex us, have the adventitious aid which the London atmosphere renders; her air is of such a helpless sincerity that nothing in it shows larger than it is; no mist clothes the sky-scraper in gigantic vagueness, the hideous tops soar into the clear heaven distinct ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... make it skip!" Now, somehow, that is our Charley's way: He takes little troubles that vex one so, Not worth a flip, And makes them seem to frolic and play Just by his way of making them go ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... to go a way that you do not like, and to do a thing that will vex you. I have been a great trouble to you since I was a child in the house, and I am a great trouble to you yet. It is not my fault. I have been chosen for what I have to do. [Stands up.] I have to free myself first and those that are near me. The love of ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... say, 'Let sins cease, and the wicked will cease too.' Pray, therefore, on their behalf that they may be led to repentance, and these wicked will be no more." This he therefore did, and they repented and ceased to vex him. Of this excellent and humane woman it may well be said, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness" (Prov. xxxi. 26). Her end was tragic. She was entrapped by a disciple ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... demon will she raise To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways; While gleams of lost delight Raise the dark tempest of the brain, As lightning shines across the main Through ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... that pester and vex my life Have changed to the flowers in June, All sounds, disorders, pain and strife ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... knew that to Walter as well as to himself it was a great disappointment not to see the Rover floated. He thought over it many a time, and being a kind-hearted boy in general, it did vex him not a little that Walter also should be disappointed. But the idea of his telling Walter to take the Rover down himself to the rocks, and have the delight of seeing it ride proudly on the waves—oh, that was too much ...
— The Good Ship Rover • Robina F. Hardy
... there a sight so soothing to the brain As England's outlines green and softly curved, Visions of wooded slope and fertile plain Seen by the traveller in a dining-train, No doubts to vex him and no talk to strain, His seat, his chance companion, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... of marriage came to be disregarded. The ties of family life, and the feeling of parental love were of course destroyed, and the scheme having been found to be a failure, was ultimately given up. Other attempts at finding socialistic solutions of economical problems which still vex us to-day, were tried and ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes; Being vex'd, a sea ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that I feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable, unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,—these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner. He has been ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... have you any means of finding Madame Garschine's address. If you have, communicate with me. I fear my last letter has been too late to catch her at Franzensbad; and so I shall have to go without my visit altogether, which would vex me. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you vex about me," said the old man. "I must bear my punishment like everyone else; 'twill not be so hard as ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression shows that their inmost soul is blushing scarlet. Presently she answered, abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not vex me as you do." ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... would not have tried to run off any more if it had not been for Jim Leonard. He was so glad he had not got off with the circus that he did not mind any of the things at home that used to vex him; and it really seemed as if his father and mother were trying to act better. They were a good deal taken up with each other, and sometimes he thought they let him do things they would not have let ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... voice told how deep was his sorrow for his loss. "He was so sunny, so amiable always. He seemed created for a long, cloudless life. Perhaps you would have been happier by his side, Ada, than with your wild, stormy Hartmut, who will so often vex you with the ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... find some help of, that it is 'neither intolerable, nor eternal;' so thou keep thyself to the true bounds and limits of reason and give not way to opinion. This also thou must consider, that many things there be, which oftentimes unsensibly trouble and vex thee, as not armed against them with patience, because they go not ordinarily under the name of pains, which in very deed are of the same nature as pain; as to slumber unquietly, to suffer heat, to want appetite: when therefore any of these things make thee ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... wrote "Would that thou wast alive!" The assassination in itself was easy, for Caesar would take no precautions. So portentous an intention could not be kept entirely secret; many friends warned him to beware; but he disdained too heartily the worst that his enemies could do to him to vex himself with thinking of them, and he forbade the subject to be mentioned any more in his presence. Portents, prophecies, soothsayings, frightful aspects in the sacrifices, natural growths of alarm and excitement, were equally vain. "Am ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the morning How wearily all the day The words unkind Would trouble my mind I said when you went away, I had been more careful, darling, Nor given you needless pain; But we vex "our own" With look and tone We may ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... son was able to do anything, he sent him to the city of Cork, and there bound him apprentice to a cooper. His behaviour while an apprentice was so bad that his master utterly despaired to do any good with him, and therefore was not sorry that he ran away from him. However, he found a way to vex him sufficiently, for he got into a crew of loose fellows, which so far frightened the old cooper that he was at a considerable expense to hire persons to watch his house for the four years that Angier loitered ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... there are cares enough in the world, and yet many are very industrious to increase them:—One of the readiest ways of doing this is to quarrel with a neighbour. A bad bargain may vex a man for a week, and a bad debt may trouble him for a month; but a quarrel with his neighbours will keep him in hot water all ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... he said, bringing his hand down gently over my smooth hair and touching my cheek. It would have vexed me from anybody else; it did not vex me from him. "Can you ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... then I have done. It has been the same in every twist and turn of my life. In everything that I have striven to do for you, you have thrown yourself over, in order that I might be thrown over too. But I believe you say this merely to vex me." ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... the Auld Light flocks are bleatin'; Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatin': Mysel', I've even seen them greetin' Wi' girnin' spite, To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... it is freezing indoors and the wood seller has cut off credit. I broke up the last two rungs of the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... we call Vipers, there are two sorts. People call these Vipers, because they spread a very flat Head at any time when they are vex'd. One of these is a grayish like the Italian Viper, the other black and short; and is reckon'd amongst the worst ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... readily accepted by one pretty young woman from another. When Madame Fromont gave a grand dinner-party, she took Madame Risler to her bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to vex her: "You have put on too many jewels, my dear. And then, you know, with a high dress one doesn't wear flowers in the hair." Sidonie blushed, and thanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her in ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... severe on the sin of vacillation and yielding to unauthorized interference. The culprit did not attempt to justify herself; she only said, "They both wanted me to go so much, and I did not like to vex Harry." Then she began to coax and pet her monitress in the pretty, childish way which interfered so much with matronly dignity, till the latter was brought to think that she had been cruelly harsh and ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... that if ever the sport of game-shooting is attacked, one powerful argument in its favour may be found in the fact that it produces such men as these, and fosters their staunch virtues. Think well of all this, my young friend, and do not vex the harassed keeper with idle and frivolous remarks. But you may permit yourself to say to him, during the day, "That's a nice dog ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... "Tush, man! Vex not thy soul as to thy friend's virtues or vices— what are they to thee? And of truth Sah-luma is no worse than the rest of us. All I maintain is that he is certainly no better. I have known many poets in my day, and they are all more or less ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... granted; the Devils are so many, that some Thousands, can sometimes at once apply themselves to vex one Child of Man. It is said, in Mark 5.15. He that was Possessed with the Devil, had the Legion. Dreadful to be spoken! A Legion consisted of Twelve Thousand Five Hundred People: And we see that in one Man or two, so many Devils ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... democracy was to bring about, and which was coming no man could say how soon, was to be in fact that age of peace and good-will which men had dreamt of in all times, when the lion should lie down with the kid, and nation should not vex ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... you're a sad young man," good-natured Lady Clavering whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? Nothink, I hope, to vex such a dear Mar as yours? How is your dear Mar? Why don't she come and me? We an't seen her this ever such a time. We're a goin about a gaddin, so that we don't see no neighbours now. Give my love to her and Laurar, and come ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Shadows of mountain-peaks Vex my unshadowed creeks; Dark woods o'erhang my silvery birchen bowers; And islands, bald and high, Break my clear round of sky, And ghostly odors blow from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... until late in the spring of 1498 that the ships were ready for Columbus. Everything that Fonseca could do to vex and delay him was done. One of the bishop's minions, a converted Moor or Jew named Ximeno Breviesca, behaved with such outrageous insolence that on the day of sailing the Admiral's indignation, so long restrained, at last broke out, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Ill befall Such meddling priests, who kindle up confusion, And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples! By heav'n, 'tis done in perfect spite to peace. Did not the king Our royal master, Edward, in concurrence With his estates assembled, well determine What course the sov'reign rule should take henceforward? When ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... not know that I was observing him, I discovered a preoccupied look in Philip's eyes. He laughed when I asked if anything had happened to vex him. Was it a natural laugh? He put his arm round me and kissed me. Was it done mechanically? I daresay I am out of humor myself. I think I had a little headache. Morbid, probably. I won't think of it ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... why should that vex you? A fine pleasure, ma foi! For my part, I don't regret it at all. What I regret is certainly not the more or less amusement we can find at Belle-Isle;—what I regret, Aramis, is Pierrefonds; is Bracieux; is le Valon; is my beautiful France! ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the honour and the opportunity to write you a letter and I am coming to ask you and to pray you perhapse perchance it is possible to found for me employment for translator. I am verry sorry and mutch vex grieve bother pester haras teass consequently accordingly consequtivey I made you acknowledg may petion request and to bid you peradvanture well you occpied me for 6 months with a contract. I beg you verry mutch to anwer respond reply ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... to that promised day, when he shall be completely delivered from the bondage of corruption, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. In the anticipation of that blessed period, and comparing this churlish and turbulent world, where competition, and envy, and anger, and revenge, so vex and agitate the sons of men, with that blissful region where Love shall reign without disturbance, and where all being knit together in bonds of indissoluble friendship, shall unite in one harmonious ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... question was referred to arbitrators, but it was a misfortune that the award was not satisfactory to the United States, and the dispute is reopened with capacity to vex the two governments for ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... moment the butler entered bearing the mail. Mrs. Bishop tore hers open rapidly, dropping the mangled envelopes at her side. The contents of one seemed to vex her. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... fugitive, as others saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix, from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to be the greatest ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... can fret me, you cannot play upon me.] A fret is a stop or key of a musical instrument. Here is, therefore, a play upon the words. Though you cannot fret, stop, or vex, you cannot play or ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he—why, beyond the grave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave—bliss for his own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and 'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever—if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by the phrase. And this he ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... walks to-night By Anio's banks in shaggy plight, And laughs with savage glee; And Sylla from his loathsome death, Scenting red Murder's reeking breath, Doth rise to look on thee. Signs blot the sky; the deep-vex'd earth Breeds portents of a monstrous birth; And augurs pale with fear have noted The dark-vein'd liver strangely bloated, Hinting some dire disaster. To right the wrongs of human kind Behold! the lordly Rome to bind, A Roman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... her charms and her money, did not let Tom, however, lead the quietest life in the world. She liked, with the usual propensity of her sex, occasionally to vex the man she loved, and assert her sway over so good-looking a fellow. He, in his turn, played off the widow very well; and one unfailing source of mirthful reconciliation on Tom's part, whenever the widow was angry, and that he wanted to bring her back to good humour, was to steal behind her chair, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... my song a nobler note assume, And sing th' infusive force of Spring on man, When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie To raise his being, and serene his soul. Can he forbear to join the general smile Of nature? Can fierce passions vex his breast, While every gale is peace, and every grove Is melody? Hence from the bounteous walks Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth, Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe; Or only lavish to yourselves; away! But come, ye generous minds, la whose wide thought, Of all his works, creative ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... passed the Old Lady emerged from her lurking place, flushed with triumph. It did not vex her that Sylvia should think Chris Stewart had given her the flowers; nay, it was all the better, since she would be the less likely to suspect the real donor. The main thing was that Sylvia should have the delight of them. That quite satisfied ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... inconveniences. Ah! 'tis most certain I should have chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband; but marrying and hanging go by destiny, they say. It was not mine, it seems, to have an emperor; the spiteful man, merely to vex me, has gone and married my countrywoman, my Lord Lee's daughter. What a multitude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them into faggots this cold weather, the flame they ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... 'bout her Fathers Will, Could have produc'd so scandalous a Meeting? And yet she still avows it! Oh, Jealousie! Where will these panting fears still hurry me? I hourly seek to find what I wou'd give, A thousand Worlds my heart would ne're believe; And yet for what do I thus vex my self? For that, which if 'twas gone, I cou'd not miss; No, would I could, for then I'de never fear, But when I found her Honour gone astray, I'd send her Life to fetch ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... sun, Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow. That which we read of the fourth Henry's death Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale Of my own future destiny. The king Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife Long ere Ravaillac armed himself therewith. His quiet mind forsook him; the phantasma Started him in his Louvre, chased him forth Into the open air; like funeral knells ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited faculties,' it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leave the ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... observe that there was a vast difference between the Kaffir and his master, but, not wishing to vex the latter any more, he proposed that something should be done ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... hope ere now you are safe arrivd. You are then a Sojourner in one of the most opulent and most luxurious Cities in the World. Musick is your dear Delight—there your taste will be improvd. But I fear that Discord will too often discompose you, and the rude Clamors against your Country will vex you. I rely upon it that your own good Sense will dictate to you that which will sufficiently vindicate your Country against foul Aspersion whenever you may meet with it; and I cannot entertain the least Doubt but you are possessd with all ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... hand, pursued his way through political life unattended, because, in the first place, he neither wished to do wrong in order to please his friends, nor to vex them by refusing to gratify their wishes; and also because he observed that many men when they were supported by a strong party of friends were led into the commission of wrong and illegal acts. He, therefore, conceived that a good ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Unwilling to vex him, I let the subject drop, though not having the slightest intention of joining the Cardinal's enemies. So I hobbled into the courtyard to witness his departure, and echoed his farewell, "Till we meet again," as he passed ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... to this startling matrimonial intelligence. The story, like all other stories, of course got twisted into various strange shapes, and fanciful exaggerations became grafted on the original stem, sufficiently grotesque in itself; and one of the versions set forth how old Jack Dwyer, the more to vex Casey, had given his daughter the greatest fortune that ever had been heard of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... a pretty good cause; but generally, when children are not naughty, they are happy. You would only vex your dear mamma, and make her feel badly, if you were moping and fretting here, where she sent you to be with your auntie. Then you would spoil auntie's pleasure if, instead of laughing and singing, you were crying and sitting in the corner. She would say, 'O dear, what queer ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... wife, there is no need a pang should vex your heart— 'T is many years since fate ordained that she and I should part; To each a true, maturer love came in good time, and yet It brought not with its nobler grace the power to forget. And would you fain begrudge me now ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... of good-breeding, which cannot, in all cases, be understood and applied by children, in its widest extent. It is that, which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings, of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; to be inattentive, when addressed in conversation; to contradict ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... off at once, Expend thy mirth as likes thee best: Thy toil is over for the nonce; Yes, "opus operatum est." When dreary authors vex thee sore, Thy Mentor's old, and would remind thee That if thy griefs are all before, Thy pleasures are not all ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... encouraged. That, and my uncle's indiscreet permission to you to travel with us, have precipitated our relations in a way that I could neither foresee nor avoid, though of late I have had apprehensions that it might come to this. You vex and disturb me by such ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of the men who work for us," she said. "You are just a little tired, aren't you? You come down here to rest, and I dig up all the old problems and ask you to vex yourself with them. We must talk about slighter things. You are going to shoot here ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... de Sigognac! you vex me by such extravagances," said Isabelle, with a little pout that was as charming as her sweetest smile; for in spite of herself her heart beat high with joy at these fervent protestations of a love that no coldness could repel, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... seven years old, will be able to laugh pleasantly at their elder brother when they grow up, as they will do, among the other idle young swells of the nation. That their brother and George Roden should be always together will not even vex them. They may probably receive some benefit themselves, may achieve some diminution of the folly natural to their position, by their advantage in knowing him. In looking at it all round, as far as that goes, there is not only ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... (decadence) /de:do:, de:dere, de:didi:, de:ditus, surrender, give up; with a reflexive pronoun, surrender one's self, submit, with the dative of the indirect object /premo:, premere, pressi:, pressus, press hard, harass /vexo:, vexa:re, vexa:vi:, vexa:tus, annoy, ravage (vex) ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... follows.] May ease my tortur'd breast. [Rings a small bell. Enter a Servant, L.] Ask quickly, how My daughter fares, if she be better— [Servant crosses behind and exit, R.] Lo! If I should lose her. Nay! it cannot be. My thoughts seem driven like the wind-vex'd leaves That eddy round in vain: fy, fy upon me! Was not Saul doom'd? but David slew him not, Yet Heaven led him through the winding cave, Sealing the watchers' lids, and to his hand Gave the bright two-edg'd blade, that in his eyes Looked with cold meaning, bloodless it ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... Mrs. Maple anything about our quarrel, Kate," she said, quite coolly; "I am sure you do not mean what you said just now, and it would vex her, I know, if she knew we had ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... I am dead, cover us with the same cloak." And the nurse entreated and besought her, but she could not move her, and when she saw that she did but vex her mistress, she sat down and wept in silence. Then Pantheia took the scimitar, that had been ready for her so long, and drew it across her throat, and dropped her head upon her husband's breast and died. And the nurse cried bitterly, but she covered the two with ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... officer, without anybody but an old, over-worked and used-up sergeant to help him, and a number of drunken Irishmen in the company to vex and trouble him by day and by night, I had as much to do during the first training as could be expected of a youth in my situation. The last day of the training I committed the blunder of advancing small sums of money to a number of men, who, of course, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... he had met with nothing but kindness and caresses, and the generous nobleness of his character had seemed to claim them as a natural element. "And now, why," he asked impatiently, "should this bulldog sort of fellow have set his whole aim to annoy, vex, and hurt me?" Incapable himself of so mean a spirit of jealousy at superior excellence, he could not make it out; but such was the fact, and the very mysteriousness of it made ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... to it in a familiar style, "See, now, as you have been very good to me to-day, you shall be treated well; you shall have candles all night; I will love you; I will pray to you." If on the contrary, any thing happened to vex the lady, she had the candles put out, ordered her servants not to pay any homage to the poor image, and loaded it herself with ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... 'Then do not vex itself,' said Mr Mantalini; 'he shall be horse-whipped till he cries out demnebly.' With this promise Mr Mantalini kissed Madame Mantalini, and, after that performance, Madame Mantalini pulled Mr Mantalini playfully by the ear: which done, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... you'd thought it just as well not to vex Mary by telling her how—how friendly I ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the first Dauphin came from his preceptor; all that was bad from himself. He never either loved or hated any one much, and yet he was very wicked. His greatest pleasure was to do something to vex a person; and immediately afterwards, if he could do something very pleasing to the same person, he would set about it with great willingness. In every respect he was of the strangest temper possible: when one thought he was good-humoured, he was angry; and when one supposed him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... eight years of the slave-boy's life are about as full of sweet content as those of the most favored and petted white children of the slaveholder. The slave-boy escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother. He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior, or on anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... don't speak like that," said Vicky. "I wish I hadn't gone in to see mamma if you couldn't, but I didn't like to say so to Elsa. I know you didn't mean ever to vex mamma, and I'm sure you'll never do it again, when she gets better, will you? Would you like me just to run and tell Elsa and Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot how dreadfully you'd like to see her just for a minute? If you just peeped ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... Countess, about Lady Byron. "When he was praising her mental and personal qualifications, I asked him how all that he now said agreed with certain sarcasms supposed to be a reference to her in his works. He smiled, shook his head, and said, they were meant to spite and vex her, when he was wounded and irritated at her refusing to receive or answer his letters; that he was sorry he had written them, but might on similar provocations recur to the same vengeance." On another occasion he said, "Lady B.'s first idea is what is due to herself. I wish ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... seeks escape From all the carking cares that vex it, I will not plunge thee into crape By any ordinary exit: So when—in slang—I "take my hook," Detesting all that's mean and skimpy, a Reserved and numbered seat I'll book, And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... For would that I myself had such a son, And not that one slight helpless girl I have— A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal,[181-13] My father, whom the robber Afghans vex, And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, And he has none to guard his weak old age. There would I go, and hang my armor up, And with my great name fence that weak old man, And spend the goodly treasures ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Ah! Leslie cares, with Leslie I am safe: yes, yes, with Leslie I am safe," and once more he turned away, the iron ringing from the pavement as before. Suspicion breeds suspicion, and it would never do to vex Leslie's blunt loyalty with any seeming distrust. Besides, it was true, he could trust Leslie. It was not the same trust as he had in Commines; Leslie would watch over him, would guard him at all costs, but Commines would obey ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I do think you've been cruelly unjust. I told you I never should love any one else, and I never shall. I couldn't help it; upon my soul, I couldn't. Nobody could. Don't let it vex you, my"—He approaches her. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and past away, But left two brawny spearmen, who advanced, Each growling like a dog, when his good bone Seems to be pluck'd at by the village boys Who love to vex him eating, and he fears To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it, Gnawing and growling: so the ruffians growl'd, Fearing to lose, and all for a dead man, Their chance of booty from the morning's raid, Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier, Such as they ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... breed 'em at Hexham, it's risky to vex 'em, They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt, But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past, I lifted my hand, and I ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... a country-house (who can say how soon?) you may look for grottoes, and cascades, and fountains; nay if you vex me by contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a temple—so provoke me not, for you see of what ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... this conflict has continued to vex society. Conflict is one of the characteristics of imperfectly adjusted groups. It seems to be a necessary preliminary to co-operation, as war is. It will continue until human beings are educated to see that the interests of all are paramount to the interests of any group, and that in the long ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex us poor mariners. There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been talking of, so as to see where our scudding has taken ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... contrary, his fears, however fantastic, are sincere at the moment he expresses them, it becomes me to obey punctually commands which, however absurd, are imposed in consequence of the governor's belief that they are rendered necessary by the times, and not inventions designed to vex and domineer over his officers in the indulgence of his official powers. I would I knew which is the true statement of the case, and whether the once famed De Walton is become afraid of his enemies more than fits a knight, or makes imaginary doubts ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... carefully for the witch-mark. I doubt not we shall find it fairly and legibly writ in the devil's characters on Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox. They shall undergo the stool and the pool, and other trials, if required. These old hags shall no longer vex you, good Master Nicholas. Leave them to me, and doubt not I will bring them ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... without danger, so long as it was governed by its native sovereign who was a Gentile, and resided in the city of Catecha[161] six days journey inland. This king loved strangers, especially merchants who traded in his dominions, insomuch that he took no customs from them, neither did he vex them with any grievous impositions, only that each ship that came thither paid some small affair in proportion to her tonnage. Owing to this good treatment twenty-five ships, great and small, used to lade yearly in the port of Orissa, mostly with rice and with different kinds of white cotton cloths, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... human bodies are sic fools, For all their colleges and schools, That, when nae real ills perplex 'em, They make enow themselves to vex 'em. They loiter, lounging lank and lazy, Though nothing ails them, yet uneasy. Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless; Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless, An' e'en their sports, their balls and races, Their gallopin' through public places, There's sic parade, sic pomp, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... of all ages, which stood up against the prophets of God, which resisted Esaias, Jeremy, Christ, and the Apostles, at no time craked of anything so much as they did of the name of the Church. And for no other cause did they so fiercely vex them, and call them runaways and apostates, than for that they forsook their fellowship, and kept not the ordinances of the elders. Wherefore, if we would follow the judgments of those men only who ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... what did I do to displase you, father? (He is obstinately silent; after waiting in vain for an answer, she continues) I that was thinking to make all happy, (aside) but myself, (aloud) by settling to keep out of the way of—all that could vex you—and to go to sarvice, to Mrs. Carver's. I thought that would plase ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... came a rush of stupid expressions to my mind that my rising sense of the supreme importance of the moment saved me from saying. The gap of silence widened until it threatened to become the vast memorable margin of some one among a thousand trivial possibilities of speech that would vex ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... abstraction she watched him rigorously for some sign of his ownership that should tempt her to revolt from her pledge, or at least dream of breaking loose: the dream would have sufficed. He was never intrusive, never pressing. He did not vex, because he absolutely trusted to the noble loyalty which made her admit to herself that she belonged irrevocably to him, while her thoughts were upon Beauchamp. With a respectful gravity he submitted to her perusal a collection of treatises on diet, classed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Tantalus was given A long-withheld repose. A son alone Was wanting to complete my parents' bliss; Scarce was this wish fulfill'd, and young Orestes, The household's darling, with his sisters grew, When new misfortunes vex'd our ancient house. To you hath come the rumor of the war, Which, to avenge the fairest woman's wrongs, The force united of the Grecian kings Round Ilion's walls encamp'd. Whether the town Was humbled, and achieved their great revenge, I have not heard. My father ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
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