"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Richard had taken the cross in conjunction with the King of France. So precipitate were the fears of that monarch, that Richard was hardly crowned when ambassadors were dispatched to England to remind him of his obligation, and to pique his pride by acquainting him that their master was even then in readiness to fulfil his part of their common vow. An enterprise of this sort was extremely agreeable to the genius of Richard, where religion sanctified the thirst of military glory, and where the glory itself seemed but the more ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Brouague noticed the pique of the Chevalier at the mention of Philibert, but in that spirit of petty torment with which her sex avenges small slights she continued to irritate the vanity of the Chevalier, whom in her heart ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... more than an event; the entrance of the lodger, Fred Saltus, is but another event, and even Harry Maxwell's coming in search of his wife is merely an event—for if Harry had sat down and argued Angela out of her pique, even though Fred were present, there would have been no complication, save for the cornerstone motive of her having left him. If this sequence of events forms merely a mildly interesting narrative, what, then, is the complication that ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... put an end to this miserable pique between us," cried Andrew warmly. "It's absurd, and I hate it. I thought we were to be always friends. I can't bear it, Frank, for I ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... before him, her arms crossed and her head slightly thrown back, the weight of her body supported on one leg, and a mischievous, daring look on her face which lent additional grace to her slightly masculine dress. She was wearing a high collar of pique with a cravat of black ribbon, and the revers of her white front turned back over her jacket bodice of cloth. There were pockets on the front ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... at about 5 P.M. yesterday, Russian at anchor, and went towards her, but were afterwards obliged to remove to some distance, as we had not water enough where she is. While we were going to our berth, the 'Pique' came in sight. So here we are—'Pique' 'Furious' and 'Slaney' (gunboat), in an open sea, land not even risible. Captain Osborn started off this morning, in the gunboat, to sound and find out what chance ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... putting too great a respect on the vulgar and their superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. If the thing were worthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him [the young man] that the Pythian oracle with the approbation of Xenophon advised every one to worship the gods—[Greek: nhomo pholeos]. I wish it were still in my power to ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Mr. Graham was the cleverest young man now rising at the bar, and as far as she was concerned, some amount of intimacy might at any rate have been produced; but he, Graham himself, would not put himself forward. "I will pique him into it," said Augustus to himself, and therefore when on this occasion they came into the drawing-room, Staveley immediately took a vacant seat beside Miss Furnival, with the very friendly object which he had proposed ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... have pass'd, since, in thy prime, Plunging from off the shatter'd Blanche, o'erboard Amid the moonlight waves, twas thine to climb La Pique's torn side, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... out for her abhorrence, be the slave of jailers, be loaded with fetters; thus shall you be cleared from every unworthy aspersion, and restored to reputation and honour!' This is the consolation she affords to those whom malignity or folly, private pique or unfounded positiveness, have, without the smallest foundation, loaded with calumny." For myself, I felt my own innocence; and I soon found, upon enquiry, that three fourths of those who are regularly subjected to a similar treatment, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... his mother! It was something to write about to her, who had left him, who deserted him when he was the most unhappy, because all that she cared for was to keep her sacred person inviolate, to maintain her obstinate opinion, to gratify her pique—Oh! what long hair!—How fast his mother was held! She had not cut her hair enough then. But now she should have her deserts. Everything from as far back as he could remember should be recalled, for once in a way he would show ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... which he trampled under foot—who, amiable, frank, friendly, manly in private life, was seized with the dotage of age and the fury of a woman, the instant politics were concerned—who reserved all his candour and comprehensiveness of view for history, and vented his littleness, pique, resentment, bigotry, and intolerance on his contemporaries—who took the wrong side, and defended it by unfair means—who, the moment his own interest or the prejudices of others interfered, seemed to forget all that was due to the pride of intellect, to ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the Rosinante of the circus, roused by the presence of the other horse, appeared to pique himself on a point of honour, and made an effort to keep up with his new companion. Thanks to the courtesy of the moustached cavalier, who continued to restrain the ardour of his fine steed, the two horses kept abreast, and the travellers were left ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... hard and headstrong?" asked she, with as indifferent a tone as she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick ear detected ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... saw the elasticity leave her steps, the color fade from her cheeks, the resolute mouth relax, and the wistful eyes dim once or twice with tears of weariness and vexation, pity got the better of pique, and he relented. His steady tramp came to a halt, and stopping by a wayside spring, he pointed to a mossy stone, saying with no hint of ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... one of those good souls who live by the light of a few small shrewdities (often proverbial), and pique themselves on sticking to them to such a point, as if it were the greater virtue to abide by a narrow rule the less it applied. The kernel of his domestic theory was, "Never yield, and you never will have to," and to this he was proud of having stuck against all temptations from ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... found himself without resources, and restless as a curbed courser. Like many men who are born to be orators, like Curran and like Fox, Cleveland was not blessed, or cursed, with the faculty of composition; and indeed, had his pen been that of a ready writer, pique would have prevented him from delighting or instructing a world whose nature he endeavoured to persuade himself was base, and whose applause ought, consequently, to be valueless. In the second year he endeavoured to while ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... vague, and it required little trouble to weaken or overturn them. Persons were placed in the gallery to applaud him; even the convention itself, who regarded this quarrel as the result of a private pique, and, as Barrere said, did not fear a man of a day, a petty leader of riots, was disposed to close these debates. Accordingly, when Robespierre observed, as he finished: "For my part, I will draw no personal conclusions; I have given ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... of our morals develops in the young girl whom you make your wife a curiosity which is naturally excessive; but as mothers in France pique themselves on exposing their girls every day to the fire which they do not allow to scorch them, this ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... provide him with further facts, he was obliged to rely on would-be philosophical dissertations which it is to be hoped were not obtained from his father's notebooks. Young Forster says that the appointment was first of all given to his father in a spirit of pique on the part of Lord Sandwich, and then the order forbidding him to write was made because the father had refused to give Miss Ray, Lord Sandwich's mistress, who had admired them when on board the ship, some birds brought home from the Cape ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... caressed her after the manner of philosophical soldiers, that is, soldiers partial to that which is good. She was soon comfortably ensconced between the sheets. But to avoid quarrels and strife, my noble warriors drew lots for their turn, arranged themselves in single file, playing well at Pique hardie, saying not a word, but each one taking at least twenty-six sols worth of the girl's society. Although not accustomed to work for so many, the poor girl did her best, and by this means never closed her eyes the whole night. In ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... answered under cover of the great man's name and ultimately found out and, incognito, beheld the lady. She was beautiful and he lost his heart to her. When later the subterfuge was discovered, Canalis, interested now, wanted to marry the lady, she being presumably rich. Through pique, Modeste, for a while, listened to his suit and smiled on him, albeit, in verity, she was touched by La Briere's sincere affection. The circumstances leading to the unmasking of Canalis' selfish character and to Modeste's marriage with La Briere are handled in a less Balzacian ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... of Segovia, whose impregnable citadel had been made the depository of the royal treasure, was intrusted to Andres de Cabrera, an officer of the king's household. This cavalier, influenced in part by personal pique to the grand master of St. James, and still more perhaps by the importunities of his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla, the early friend and companion of Isabella, entered into a correspondence with the princess, and sought to open the way for her permanent reconciliation with her brother. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... contended that there was no reason why they should not coalesce with Canning and Peel. What induced him to alter his opinion so decidedly and to become so bitter an enemy to the present arrangements does not appear, unless it is to be attributed to a feeling of pique and resentment at not having been more consulted, or that overtures were not made to himself. The pretext he took for declaring himself was the appointment of Copley to be Chancellor, when he said that it was impossible to support a Government ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... reluctant for war with England two years before. Hamilton wrote columns for the daily press to prove that the assistance which France gave to us during our struggle for independence was based on purely selfish motives. We were bound by no ties of gratitude to yield to her pique at the Jay Treaty. "Those who can justify displeasure in France on this account," said he, "are not Americans but Frenchmen. They are not fit for being ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... replied he, with great pique, "but on one condition, which is, that you will promise me that you will not mention to Madame d'Albret what ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... the field, and he had a real desire to win her affection. The more indifferent she was to him, the keener was his desire to possess her. His unsuccessful wooing had passed through several stages, first astonishment, then pique, and finally something very like passion, or a fair semblance of devotion, backed, of course, since all natures are more or less mixed, by the fact that this attractive figure of the woman was thrown into high relief by the colossal fortune ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... would leave you here, Dorothy," he said, in his most winning voice—"here, at this strange parsonage? I should say not! If you object to marrying me now, I know it is only through pique; but still I say that I shall await your own good time; and, as the song goes, 'When love has conquered pride and anger, you will call me back again.' Do get in, Dorothy, darling; do not make a scene here. See! they are watching ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... naturally it served only to pique my curiosity. A certain quality of loneliness which had seemed to belong to the village, even in the brightness of the summer evening, now asserted itself potently. Seated there in the quiet little inn parlor, I recalled that many of the old-world cottages ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... o'clock in the private grill room at the Pan-American Building. Postcards will have been sent out the day before by the Secretary, saying: "Please try to be present as there are several important matters to be brought up." This will so pique the curiosity of the members that they will hardly be able to wait until five o'clock. One will come at four o'clock by mistake and, after steaming up and down the corridor for half an hour, will go home ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... rendered worse; for he was so entirely a creature and favourite of the Prince, that they conceived abundance of jealousies of him which they durst not own. Brilliard besides knew a great man, who having a pique to Octavio, might the sooner be brought to receive any ill character of him: to this sullen magistrate he applies himself, and deluding the credulous busy old man with a thousand circumstantial lies, he discovers to him, that Octavio held a correspondence ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... name, as if trying to remember, though she recalled perfectly. It was her tiny fashion to pique, to appear unknowing. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dusty road with its gray windings and vistas of sand-ruts becomes less matter-of-fact at length, and so you leave it to itself, and seek a path that leads to the heart of Nature and far from ways of men. Down grassy slopes and over little hillocks that pique your curiosity by shutting out the view of what is coming next; now skirting the edge of a furrowed potato-patch, and now sauntering down cool lanes of corn, listening to the breezy lisping of the long, green ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... to the sarge," the officer chuckled, his pique forgotten in appreciation of the girl's naive announcement. "I'll take this chap to the station-house. You'll appear against him, miss?" The girl nodded emphatically. He turned on Zeke, frowning. "Come on quiet, young feller, if you know what's good ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... maiden, with an air that strangely blended pique with satisfaction. But the motion of the canoe gave rise to new ideas, and fortunately afforded a good excuse to the young ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... urged; "you was fond o' me once. Come, girl, don't stand in your own light through a hit o' pique." ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had lacked in reverence and technique. He had not perceived that socks may be as sound a symbol of culture as the 'cello or even demountable rims. He had been able to think with respect of ties and damp pique collars secured by gold safety-pins; and to the belted fawn overcoat that the St. Klopstock banker's son had brought back from St. Paul, he had given jealous attention. But now he graduated ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... escape from the light of day, could not have seen less, or have felt less sympathy with the warm beautiful scenes through which they were passing. There is no insulation so perfect as that of small, selfish natures preoccupied with a pique. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... have seventy-two quarterings, and not a farthing; it is now in your power to be wife to the greatest lord in South America, who has very beautiful moustachios. Is it for you to pique yourself upon inviolable fidelity? You have been ravished by Bulgarians; a Jew and an Inquisitor have enjoyed your favours. Misfortune gives sufficient excuse. I own, that if I were in your place, I should have no scruple in marrying ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... an expression of pique; it reawakened quite another suspicion. It was evident that she was hurt at the cessation of Dunham's attentions. He was greatly minded to say that Dunham was a fool, but he ended by saying, with sarcasm, "I suppose he saw ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... girl, and thoughtful woman, I am puzzled how to woo— Shall I praise, or pique her, Lily? Tell me ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... unexpectedly aware of a dash of cruelty in it. The phrase "I hate" does not suit you at all; and a public confession "I am a sinner, a sinner, a sinner," is such pride that it made me feel uncomfortable. When the pope took the title "holiness," the head of the Eastern church, in pique, called himself "The servant of God's servants." So you publicly expatiate on your sinfulness from pique of Solovyov, who has the impudence to call himself orthodox. But does a word like orthodoxy, Judaism, or Catholicism contain any implication of ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... spite against you, Henry. You told her to decline Richard Raby, and so she declined him. Spite, indeed! The gentle pique of a lovely, good girl, who knows her value, though she is too modest to show it openly. Well, Henry, you have lost her a husband, and she has given you one more proof of affection. Don't build the mountain of ingratitude any higher: do pray take the cure that ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... a little the shorter and fuller of shape, the milder and more pathetic; in Virgie the white race had left its leaner lines and greater unrelenting. She said to Samson, with the pique her reflections inspired, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... against the portrait of "Pomposo:" the result had been, as always in such cases, a drawn battle; and damage would have accrued, not to the special literateurs, but to the general literary character. Prejudice or private pique always lurks at the bottom of such reckless assaults, and all men in the long run feel so. In Johnson's case, the causa belli was unquestionably political difference; and in Christopher North's it was the love of Scotland ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... similar disposition to people she liked, it was impossible for her to believe that Verena had had the intention of deceiving her. Mrs. Luna, in a calmer hour, might also have divined that Olive would make her private comments on the strange story of Basil Ransom's having made up to Verena out of pique at Adeline's rebuff; for this was the account of the matter that she now offered to Miss Chancellor. Olive did two things: she listened intently and eagerly, judging there was distinct danger in the air (which, however, she had not wanted Mrs. Luna to tell her, having perceived it for herself the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... his whisper was not characteristic of Raffles, but it was less remarkable than the change in Camilla Belsize as she entered the hall through the drawing-room as we had done before her. For one moment I suspected her of eavesdropping; then I saw that all traces of personal pique had vanished from her face, and that some anxiety for another had taken its place. She came up to Raffles and me as though she had forgiven both of us our trespasses of two ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... serious insect torments of the tropics of America is the Sarcopsylla penetrans, called by the natives the Jigger, Chigoe, Bicho, Chique, or Pique (Fig. 100, enlarged; a, gravid female, natural size). The female, during the dry season, bores into the feet of the natives, the operation requiring but a quarter of an hour, usually penetrating under the nails, and lives there until her body becomes distended with eggs, the hind-body ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... you the Quarterly Review, uncut and unopened, not from disrespect or disregard or pique, but it is a kind of reading which I have some time disused, as I think the periodical style of writing hurtful to the habits of the mind, by presenting the superfices of too many things at once. I do not know that it ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of pique in her tone, hastened to kiss her, and call her her best and dearest friend. But in her heart she mourned over what she considered, for the first time in her life, a great mistake in the ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... conventionality against the flint of womanly defiance. Major King started in his saddle, as if to reach out and restrain her. It was one of those defiantly foolish little things which women and men—especially women—do in moments of pique, and Frances knew it at the time. But she rode away from the major with a hot flush of insubordination in her cheeks, and Alan Macdonald quickened from his pensive pose when ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... superlative health, Blakely started on his career as a subaltern at Sandy with three serious handicaps,—the disfavor of his captain, who knew and loved him little,—the prejudice of Mrs. Bridger, who knew and loved him not at all,—and the jealous pique of Mrs. Plume, who had known and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... than Paris was that morning, at that charming golden hour of the day when the world seems peopled only with good and generous spirits who love one another. Paris does not pique herself on her generosity; but she still takes to herself at this charming hour an air of innocence, cheerfulness, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The second pique they had against him was his opposing the law by which the city was to be divided; for the tribunes of the people brought forward a motion that the people and senate should be divided into two parts, one of which should remain at home, the other, as the lot should decide, remove ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... maintained in respect to the parliamentary debates, is still thought needful in diplomacy; and in virtue of this secret diplomacy, England may any day be unawares betrayed by its ministers into a war costing a, hundred thousand lives, and hundreds of millions of treasure: yet the English pique themselves on being a self-governed people." The two subordinate propositions, ending with the semicolon and colon respectively, almost wholly determine the meaning of the principal proposition with which it concludes; and the effect ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... throughout the country, and especially in Paris, where the Parliament openly espoused the cause of the people against the minister, and was joined by several of the highest nobility, urged by various motives of private interest or personal pique. Among these were the Prince of Conti, the Duc de Longueville, and the Duc de Bouillon. Mazarin, in alarm, endeavored to enlist the ambition of Turenne in his favor, by offering the government of Alsace, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... an epoch when it was possible for a young man just come of age to lead the House of Commons. Lord George Gordon had led a somewhat varied life. He had been in the navy, and had left the service from pique, while the American war was still in its earliest stages, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Sandwich concerning promotion. The restless energy which he could no longer dedicate to active service he resolved most unhappily to devote to political life. He entered Parliament ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... obstinacy and weakness in the Prince's character, the duplicity which lavished promises because it never purposed to be bound by any, the petty pride that subordinated every political consideration to personal vanity or personal pique. Charles had granted demand after demand till the very Spaniards lost faith in his concessions. With rage in his heart at the failure of his efforts, he had renewed his betrothal on the very eve of his ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... and not very frequent; mostly of Helen and what she did; there was almost nothing of himself, and the past, at least as far as a certain night in June was concerned, was never mentioned. At first this was a relief to Lois, but by and by came a feeling too negative to be called pique, or even mortification at having been forgotten; it was rather an intangible soreness in ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white pique waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I didn't care for you when I said I didn't mean ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... retaliation might have suggested itself to her, but there was no fighting instinct in Rachael now. She did not want to pique him, to goad him, to flirt with him. He should be hers honorably and openly, without devices, without intrigue. Stirred to the deeps of her being by wifehood and motherhood, by her passionate love for her husband and children, it was a humiliating thought ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... had made in secret a very diligent pursuit of this ghost, settling in the end to a certain pique with him that he would not show himself to so ardent a daughter of the house. She had sat up waiting for him; she had lingered in the corridor outside, and on the stairs, expecting him. By the help of a favourite carpenter she had made researches into roofs, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they began to be annoyed, and to repent their having rejected the embassy of the Lacedaemonians that had been sent to propose a treaty of peace, which had been done at the importunity of Cleon, who opposed it chiefly out of a pique to Nicias; for, being his enemy, and observing him to be extremely solicitous to support the offers of the Lacedaemonians, he persuaded the people to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... daughter, was almost invisible under a straw hat with feathers waving from its pinnacled crown. Miss Celandine, by no means a bad-looking young lady, wore her best black jersey, buttoned at the throat, over her cambric body, her best pique skirt, trimmed with torchon lace, her white silk mitts, and her blue-and-white bonnet. After settling Mrs. Stiles in a corner with Georgiana, Tecumseh Sherman, and Augustus, Celandine and Mr. Mecutchen disappeared, to go and stand on the door-step. Mrs. Tarbell guessed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... and it was a joy to her to work with one who possessed it. But she knew human nature, and she was very much afraid that Dora's purpose might weaken. It was quite natural that a young person, in a moment of excitement and pique, should figuratively raise her sword in air and vow a vow; but it was also quite natural, when the excitement and pique had cooled down, that the young person should experience what might be called a "vow-fright," and feel unable to go through with her part. In a case such as Dora's, ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... says this critic, "was recognised as Mrs. James by a Prince of the Blood and his companions in the omnibus-box. Her beauty could not save her from insult; and, to avenge themselves on Mr. Lumley, for some pique, these chivalrous English gentlemen of the upper classes hooted a woman ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... about her; how very easy would be the transition to a stronger feeling! There was an eclat, too, about being her accepted lover that had its charm. She was the belle par excellence of Lisbon; and then a sense of pique crossed my mind as I reflected what would Lucy say of him whom she had slighted and insulted, when he became the husband of the beautiful millionnaire ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... had nearly lost the use of their hands, and been incapacited for field labor, by its too frequent repetition. 'My —— drivers,'[L] he added, 'have no discretion, and no humanity; if they have a pique against a nigger, they ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... itself? Miss Daisy liked Mr. Stokes, but he could not give her a title. The duke could—if he would. But would he? She was rich, but there were others richer. People said that he was wary. Yet he admired Miss Daisy, it was true, and if by her flirtation with Mr. Stokes she could pique him into a proposal, she ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... shame, feeling more and more miserable every moment, as I realised that, in spite of his agitation, he was by no means despondent as to the result of his wooing. He seemed more anxious to assure me of his devotion than to question me about mine, as if he imagined that my coldness was caused by pique or jealousy. I drew away my hands, and tried to stop him by vague murmurs of dissent, but it was no use, he only became more eager ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... is natural! I know very well how I must appear to you,' she exclaimed; 'a coquette, with a new pastime—a vulgar coquette, besides, who tries to pique your interest by an air of mystery. Believe me, monsieur, I am forbidden to unmask. Think lightly of me if you must—I have no right to complain—but believe as much as that! I do not give you my name, simply because I ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... that every knight-errant be a lover," said the traveller, "it may well be presumed that you are yourself one, being of the profession; and, if you do not pique yourself upon the same secrecy as Don Galaor, I earnestly entreat you, in the name of all this good company and in my own, to tell us the name, country, quality, and beauty of your mistress, who cannot but account ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... have made her want of vivid religious conviction the excuse for not proposing to her, but it is not easy to put aside the conviction that it was her want of a fortune which actuated him most strongly. Finally, he tries to pique her by telling her that he "knows of parties" in the city of Hanover "who might bring him much honour and comfort" were he "not afraid of losing (Catharine Trotter's) friendship." They write to one another with extreme formality, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... it all, and she thought to herself angrily that she would make him pay for all this some day. She could not reconcile herself to the fact that he no longer cared for her. She would make him. She suffered from pique, and sometimes in a curious fashion she desired Philip. He was so cold now that it exasperated her. She thought of him in that way incessantly. She thought that he was treating her very badly, and she did not know what she had done to deserve it. She kept on saying to herself that ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... man! None knows so well as he how to pique the curiosity of the reader—and how to disappoint it. He raises the hope, here, that he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; but does he? No; he smiles in his sleeve, and turns aside to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... forth; evoke, provoke; raise up, summon up, call up, wake up, blow up, get up, light up; raise; get up the steam, rouse, arouse, stir; fire, kindle, enkindle, apply the torch, set on fire, inflame. stimulate; exsuscitate|; inspirit; spirit up, stir up, work up, pique; infuse life into, give new life to; bring new blood, introduce new blood; quicken; sharpen, whet; work upon &c. (incite) 615; hurry on, give a fillip, put on one's mettle. fan the fire, fan the flame; blow the coals, stir the embers; fan into a flame; foster, heat, warm, foment, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... at first seemed friends, But, when a pique began, The dog, to gain his private ends, Went mad, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... father died carelessly as he had lived—in debt, with all his little affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter, saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child—she loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... clouds: 'If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Crompton—gave a 'piece of your mind' to my father, which, it seems, he took as a sample of the whole of it. There, don't be angry: the provocation, it must be allowed, was in your case greater than mine; but then you pique yourself on your self-control! However, this Fane did hate me, and told the chaplain of his suspicions; the good parson was my friend, however, and all might have gone well, but for this oaf—this idiot Jack—coming down ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... was glad of the interruption. She had said just enough to pique curiosity. To tell more would have been bad policy all around. Betty Wales had arrived just in ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... back at night and land the cargo at Lundy, and then to burn and scuttle the Nightingale. This was accordingly done, and the crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey was taken, tried, and hanged, and ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... rest. Amy was astonished at so indiscreet a step in a man of his calibre. Ah! if only Amy herself were free, with her ten thousand pounds to dispose of! She, he felt sure, did not view him with indifference. Was there not a touch of pique in the elaborate irony with which she had spoken of his choice?—But it was idle to look ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Roddy was acting from pique and in the belief that his father would continue to supply him with funds. This Caldwell knew was not the intention of Mr. Forrester. He had directed Caldwell to inform Roddy that if he deliberately opposed him he must not only seek ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... herself chained up for life, spiteful she knew not why. I had only seen you for a moment, and did not know you. I was mad. I was guilty; but still it is a thing that may be considered as not altogether unnatural under the circumstances. And, after all, it was not sincere—it was pique, it was thoughtlessness—it was not that deep-seated malice which you have laid to my charge. Can you not think of this? Can you not imagine what may have been the feelings of a wild, spoiled, untutored girl, one who was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... novel of still greater interest than 'Pique.' The plot is well conceived, the characters skilfully developed, and the attention is fascinated even to the end. The moral is unexceptionable, the style fresh and pure. We must however enter an earnest protest against ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... words were tainted with the perverse irony, which, at the beginning of their acquaintance, had made his manner so repellent. But now, Maurice was not, at once, frightened away by it; he could not believe Heinrich's pique was serious, and gave himself trouble to win his friend back. He chid, laughed, rallied, was earnest and apologetic, and all this without being conscious of having ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... continued Mrs. Willoughby, "that Maud has forgotten you, or shown pique for any little former misunderstanding, during your last absence, you do her injustice. No one has done as much for you, in the way of memorial; that beautiful sash being all her own work, and made of materials ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... that the act Of eating, with another act or two, Makes us feel our mortality in fact Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout, And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd, Can give us either pain or pleasure, who Would pique himself on intellects, whose use Depends so much ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Christendom, becoming enraged, insisted that he should put her away, which he did for a time, putting a nephew—one Camillo Astalli—in her place, in which, however, he did not continue long; for the Pope, conceiving a pique against him, banished him from his sight, and recalled Donna Olympia, who took care of his food, and plundered ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... to the opposite table, where the two V's sat facing her; but they were chattering away, with no thought of freshmen or their doings. Viola Vincent looked very pretty in a pale blue blouse and white pique skirt; she was evidently in high spirits, and was patting her hair and her ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... Harte's stories lies in their originality of conception, their well-defined local color, and the chaste richness of their literary style. The power to pique one's interest to the last page belongs to Mr. Harte above all other writers of stories of American life. His latest book has all the good qualities of its predecessors. It tells a perfectly natural story of life in California. ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... so gravely put, I laughed outright "Why really, my dear Count, I cannot pretend to answer decidedly for the turn that the affair might take; but my impression—to speak in that idiomatic English, more racy than elegant, which you pique yourself upon understanding—my full impression is, that Helen having for no reason upon earth but her interest in you, ratted from Conservatism to Radicalism, will for the same cause lose no time in ratting back again. ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... made Maud Hinton turn Green with envy and despair. Her's ain't half so nice, you see. Did I write you, Belle, about How she tried for Charley, till I sailed in and cut her out? Now, she's taken Jack McBride, I believe it's all from pique— Threw him over once, you know— Hates me so she'll scarcely speak. Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that— Pa won't mind expense at last I'll be off his hands for good; Cost a fortune two years past. My trousseau shall outdo Maud's, I've carte blanche ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... flint, scuttled off a few feet and turned, waving its antennae in what looked like derision. Jack reached for his hip again, then checked the motion. Pistol cartridges cost like crazy; they weren't to be wasted in fits of childish pique. Then he reflected that no cartridge fired at a target is really wasted, and that he hadn't done any shooting recently. Stooping again, he picked up another stone and tossed it a foot short and to the left of the prawn. As soon as it was out of his fingers, his hand went ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... girl stood there, gazing defiance at him, but although a slight smile hovered about his lips, she realized in some subtle way—woman's intuition, perhaps—that he meant what he said. Her eyes lowered, and an expression of pique came into her pretty face; then she breathed a ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... a gradual change to lighter mourning may be made by discarding the widow's cap and shortening the veil. Dull silks are used in place of crape, according to taste. In warm weather lighter materials can be worn—as, pique, nun's ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... watched, girls," said Kitty. "White linen drawn-work on a camping-trip! Next she'll be slipping in white pique skirts ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... was of some advantage to Richard Waverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of his enormities reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can be no doubt that the new commissioner would have had little reason to pique himself on the success of his politics. The Baronet, although the mildest of human beings, was not without sensitive points in his character; his brother's conduct had wounded these deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the officers were advised by George Thomas, who had instigated them to this violence out of pique against the Begam for her preference of the Frenchman,[29] to set aside their puppet and reseat the Begam in the command, as the only chance of keeping the territory of Sardhana.[30] 'If', said he, 'the Begam should die under ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the end dispelled, came to understand that it was insuperable. To cut short an impossible situation, he tendered his resignation, on which all the ministers resigned; but as the question was one of personal pique, the king commanded them to remain at their posts. Cavour applauded this decision. For the moment it was better that he, not D'Azeglio, should be sacrificed. They parted without ceasing to be private and political ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... stranger had gained one game, and was engaged in the second with the other; they agreed, therefore, that the stake should be divided, if the old gentleman won that: which was more than probable, as his score was 90 to 35, and he was elder hand; but a momentous re-pique decided it in favour of his adversary, who seemed to enjoy his victory mingled with regret, for having won too much, while his friend, with great ebullience of passion, many praises of his own good play, and many malediction's on the ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... assistance of an only son, a very promising youth, who was already contracted in marriage with the daughter of another wealthy farmer. Thus the mother had a prospect of retrieving the affairs of her family, when all her hopes were dashed and destroyed by a ridiculous pique which Mrs. Gobble conceived against the young ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... account for Adrian's decided and almost lover-like attentions to her in the room we visited, that you had had a lovers' quarrel with him some time before, earlier in the day; that, in his fit of pique, he had sought to be revenged upon you, and soothe his slighted feelings by feigning a sudden interest in her. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... individual that is to be pursued and sought. While the church endeavours to remain pure, its aim and object should be mainly to correct and reform the offender, that his spirit may be saved. When discipline is undertaken from any other motive than this; and when it is pursued from private pique, or rivalship, or ambition, or the love of power, it is wrong. The salvation of the offender, and the glory of God, should prompt to all the measures which should be taken in the case. 'Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... just community." ... "The matters there debated (in town meetings) are such as to invite very small consideration. The ill-spelled pages of the town records contain the result. I shall be excused for confessing that I have set a value upon any symptom of meanness and private pique which I have met with in these antique books, as proof that justice was done; that if the results of our history are approved as wise and good, it was yet a free strife; if the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking counsel did not fail to be suggested; freedom and virtue, if they triumphed, triumphed ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... heavenly-affinity sentiment loses its hold and a woman comes to know that if she cares to try hard enough she can love any man who will be thoughtful and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at war with her own. But that kind of love doesn't breed love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while, and then you would know the curse of unsought love and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day. No, David, I have read you to little purpose if these are the things you will ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... vague feeling of pique was struggling for appropriate expression. "I'm sure I don't see why you laugh at him; I think he's very nice," she exclaimed; "and, at any rate, a girl who married him would always have enough ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... fur, lace, and velvet to astonish the inhabitants, who instead of being impressed, so outshone the visitors, by their own and their wives' magnificence of apparel, that Marguerite was reported to have left the banquet hall in pique. The belfry quite dominated the square at the eastern angle, where were the houses forming ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards |
