"Spoilt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "It is most tiresome," he thought, "that this priest is leaving Paris before me, for indeed if I have need of spiritual help or counsel, to whom shall I go? It is clearly written that I must end as I have begun, alone, but ... but ... solitude under these conditions is alarming. I am no spoilt child, whatever the abbe ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... without discipline) is not only inconsequential and shallow, but dangerous to honour and to sincere happiness. When life remains lost in sense or reverts to it entirely, humanity itself is atrophied. And humanity is tormented and spoilt when, as more often happens, a man disbelieving in reason and out of humour with his world, abandons his soul to loose whimseys and passions that play a quarrelsome game there, like so many ill-bred children. Nevertheless, compared with the worldling's mental mechanism and rhetoric, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... counters for the purpose, the dealer paying an additional stake. The pool thus formed goes to the player who succeeds in winning three tricks in one hand; but if neither player succeeds in doing so, the game is said to be "spoilt," and the amount remains in the pool, the players contributing for the next round only one coin or [104] counter, and paying that number into the pool each deal until one of the party succeeds in winning three ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... I had nearly spoilt all by an exclamation, but I held myself back. I saw she was dreaming awake and was unconscious ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... anxiety, was that, seeing me spend so long a time upon my statue, the Duke himself might get disgusted; which indeed did afterwards happen. The other was that I had several journeymen who in my absence were up to two kinds of mischief; first, they spoilt my piece, and then they did as little work as possible. These arguments made his Excellency consent that I should only go to ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... energy when it is needed, I grant you, but I have not the absurd pride you imagine, and there (he dips his finger in the paste and carries it to his lips), is the proof, you spoilt child. Are you satisfied? It has no ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... good many years older than he, and he seems never to have had any child companions or real childhood. He must always have been delicate, yet as a child his face was "round, plump, pretty, and of a fresh complexion."* He is said, too, to have been very sweet tempered, but his father and mother spoilt him not a little, and when he grew up he lost that sweetness of temper. Yet, unlike many spoilt children, Pope never forgot the reverence due to father and mother. He repaid their love with love as warm, and in their old age he tended and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... non-entity. This latter tenet is expressly enunciated by the Bauddhas where they say, 'On account of the manifestation (of effects) not without previous destruction (of the cause).' For, they say, from the decomposed seed only the young plant springs, spoilt milk only turns into curds, and the lump of clay has ceased to be a lump when it becomes a jar. If effects did spring from the unchanged causes, all effects would originate from all causes at once, as then no specification would ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... appeared to be considerably impressed by the events of a certain winter, and after the arrival of Maisie and Jack treated them as his own and gave up the idea of a divorce. The pranks and escapades of two irresponsible, spoilt and active children kept him on the look-out a good deal of his time, and before very long he had decided that children after all were occasionally in the way, and like other good things on this earth, best had in moderation. Still, he never failed to treat them with ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... middle classes, as well as in the mansions of the wealthier and more aristocratic; and we take this to be one evidence, that we are on the right road to an improvement in our system of cookery. One great cause of many of the spoilt dishes and badly-cooked meats which are brought to our tables, arises, we think, and most will agree with us, from a non-acquaintance with "common, every-day things." Entertaining this view, we intend to preface the chapters of this work ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a hot flush upon her face. Although she was by nature really obstinate, resolute, and persistent, she often exhibited upon the surface a childish pettishness with which her real self was almost absurdly at variance. She spoke now as a spoilt child might have done. ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... Algernon Hurdlestone, who for eight long years had forgotten the solemn promise given to Elinor, that he would be a friend and guardian to her child. Nor would he now have remembered the circumstance, had not his own spoilt Godfrey been earnestly teasing him for a playmate. "Be a good boy, Godfrey, and I will bring you home a cousin to be a brother and playfellow," he said, as his conscience smote him for this long neglected duty; and ordering his groom to saddle his horse, he rode over to Oak Hall to treat ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... I just won't! Call back those men now, please; now, if you please. Pray, Mr. Beamish! You'll offend me, sir. I'm not going to be a mock. You'll offend my duke, sir. He'd die rather than have my feelings hurt. Here's all my pleasure spoilt. I won't and I sha'n't enter the town as duchess of that stupid name, so call 'em back, call 'em back this instant. I know who I am and what I am, and I know what's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tool-chest, indeed, contained a shot-gun, or the parts of one: but I had never pieced them together, for the simple reason that all the cartridges belonging to it had, through Grimalson's careless stowage, been soaked and spoilt during the night of the gale. . . . Somehow, I could not mentally connect savages with the ownership of this dog. But the day wore on, and still no one hailed us from the cliffs or the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of fourteen or fifteen to look after their children, and these bonnes, as they are called, are paid very little, and are often careless and stupid. The result is that the children are constantly with their parents, and, to keep them quiet, are dreadfully spoilt and petted. It very often happens that, when a Belgian lady has a friend calling on her, young children, who ought to be in a nursery, are playing in the drawing-room. Their mother has no control over them, and if she ventures to tell them to keep quiet, or to ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... Greville, referring to her surroundings before she passed into his hands, "what a charming creature she would have been, if she had been blessed with the advantages of an early education, and had not been spoilt by ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... them; he preferred to yield to the stream, and direct the current, which he could not stop, of science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and to sanctify what God had made very good and man had spoilt. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... notwithstanding, every one has none the less in his heart and home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints, he saw that the vessel itself was in fault, and that all good things which were brought into it from without were spoilt by its own imperfections."—Lucretius, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... home. It was a dramatic moment witnessed by large crowds of gunners, and Lieut. Brodribb on the Colonel's pony, and Lieut. Hawley on the faithful and well-intentioned "Charlie," dashed after the hares. The effect, however, was somewhat spoilt by "Lady Sybil," unused no doubt to audiences, throwing the Adjutant over her head on to the middle of the green. The hares were finally caught after a 9-mile run within a few hundred yards of home. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... sample of native blue (the variety referred to) we did not succeed in effecting this change: no alteration to red or even to purple took place, the only result being that the colour was entirely spoilt, having assumed a leaden slate-gray hue. At our request, the trial was kindly repeated by well-known chemists, who took every precaution to ensure success. Several specimens of ultramarine were acted upon, but in no case was ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... year begins. He still shrinks from the very name being brought before him. Let me know, if you please, whether this arrangement will suit, as I am to write to Blanche. Dear little woman, I hope Hector won't make a spoilt child of her, they are so very young, and their means seem so unlimited to them both, Hector wanting to make her and us presents of whatever we admired, and when she civilly praised Mab, vehemently declaring that she should have just such another if money could purchase, or if not, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... girl's character. Juliana was his only child. Only children generally make bad men and women. They are allowed to have their own way too much. The pretty daughter of a retired sea-captain would be certain to be spoilt. ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the victim of tears, affectation, and improvidence, all his life long. It almost savours of the ridiculous to find Lamartine, in his 'Confidences,' representing himself as a "statue of Adolescence raised as a model for young men." [1117] As he was his mother's spoilt child, so he was the spoilt child of his country to the end, which was bitter and sad. Sainte-Beuve says of him: "He was the continual object of the richest gifts, which he had not the power of managing, scattering and wasting them—all, excepting, the gift of words, which seemed inexhaustible, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... one on 'em, your worship," said Robin, taking the bundle in his hand. "Not a cat said mew when they felt my whittle. Marry, I spoilt their catterwauling: ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... sung in a voice as good as some that have made great fortunes, but with a depth of emotion which occasionally spoilt the notes; and I can say little more than that the singing, in that strange setting, with muttering thunder for an undertone, was a thing I shall ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... feeling of disappointment; it was very odd: but perhaps she should have some another morning. However, she made an exceedingly good breakfast, as it was; but it must be confessed she was a little cross all day. Soon after breakfast, the old countess came in, followed by a lap-dog—a fat, spoilt, disagreeable looking animal, and the cat took a dislike to him at first sight. And as for the dog, he almost growled out aloud when the countess stooped down to stroke the cat. It was evident that the ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... practise the following customs:—whenever any of their tribe falls ill, whether it be a woman or a man, if a man then the men who are his nearest associates put him to death, saying that he is wasting away with the disease and his flesh is being spoilt for them: 89 and meanwhile he denies stoutly and says that he is not ill, but they do not agree with him; and after they have killed him they feast upon his flesh: but if it be a woman who falls ill, the women who are her ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... smit. Sow, sowed, sown, sowed. Speak, spoke, spoken. spake, Speed, sped, sped. Spell, spelt, spelt, spelled, spelled. Spend, spent, spent. Spill, spilt, spilt, spilled, spilled. Spin, spun, spun. span, Spit, spit, spit, spat, spitten. Split, split, split. Spoil, spoilt, spoilt, spoiled, spoiled. Spread, spread, spread. Spring, sprang, sprung. sprung, Stand, stood, stood. Stave, stove, stove, staved, staved. Stay, staid, staid, stayed, stayed. Steal, stole, stolen. Stick, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... good boats, with strong men, plenty of provisions, everything in the best order; today I found myself in a very different position, all the stores we had with us, with the exception of the salt provisions, were spoilt; our ammunition damaged; the chronometers down; and both boats so stoved and strained as to be quite beyond our powers of repairing them effectually. Moreover from want of water we were compelled to make for the main before we could ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Consequently, in spite of all Papa's and Woloda's assurances (the latter glibly affirming that it was nothing, and that he liked his horse to go fast), poor Mamma continued to exclaim that her pleasure would be quite spoilt for her. ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Judith, "do let me stay—couldn't that small boy by the door be coaxed to stay with me for company—I couldn't bear to have Nancy's party spoilt." ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... out before breakfast, I found that Oo-koo-hoo had left camp before daylight; and half the afternoon passed before he returned. That evening he explained that during the previous night, the thought of the wolverine having haunted him and spoilt his rest, he had decided on a certain plan, risen before dawn, and started upon the trail. Now he was full of the subject, and without my asking, described what he had done. Securing a number of fish hooks—trout size—he ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... book-presses, chests, and bags of the noble monasteries to be opened; and, astonished at beholding again the light of day, the volumes came out of their sepulchres and their prolonged sleep.... Some of them, which had ranked among the daintiest, lay for ever spoilt, in all the horror of decay, covered by filth left by the rats; they who had once been robed in purple and fine linen now lay on ashes, covered with a cilice."[239] The worthy bishop looks upon letters with ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... extreme indulgence of his daughter's fancies. You observe, I am speaking to you in the frankest confidence. I treat you as you treat me—" she glanced up and smiled. "Only this year, in Paris, plans of mine have been spoilt ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... 'Albert is a spoilt child, I fear,' said Bill, shoving him into the bag to keep him quiet, and without more ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... ancestors, a public way leads close along the front; while, behind the house, and inaccessible to eyes profane, are drawn terraced gardens, beautifully kept, and blooming with a perpetual succession of the choicest flowers. The woods and shrubberies around, attempted some half a century back to be spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues, clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete with grotto, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to enter into this discussion with another professional man, even though that man were a spurious article; but he was led on to enthusiasm by a sudden pang of regret at finding that the masterly workmanship in this fine castle was likely to be tinkered and spoilt by such a man ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... lets down the bed. She says no more; an effect like this would be spoilt by language. Fortunately he is not ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... another region of superlative difficulty which is narrowly circumscribed for the spoilt dramatist: I mean the whole business of persuading the public that the improbable is probable. Every work of art is and must be crammed with improbabilities and artifice; and the greater portion of the artifice is employed in just this trickery of persuasion. Only, ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... befriend her son on this occasion. Merkut had her own reasons for proving faithless to her spoilt boy, whom on most occasions she favoured. Knowing his character well, the sturdy wife of Grabantak had made up her mind that Koyatuk should wed a young intelligent, and what you may call lumpy girl named Chukkee, who was very fond ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... ultimately convinced the British public that the War Office had spoilt a great opportunity in Ireland. But the fundamental blunder, the deep-seated cause which undermined the force of Redmond's appeal, was the refusal of recognition to the National Volunteers and the failure to fulfil the promise held out ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... injure me, but she could not be content without the approval of the world. The young farmer was worthy of love, but he was not rich enough, nor grand enough, nor was his soiled name fitted for the spoilt child of wealth. She could steal away my treasure without enriching herself—could destroy the peace of two minds, without creating any contentment for herself out of the wreck. "Poor John!" I thought, "your chances of happiness are no better than my own, even though you have paid a ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... forsooth, But half-foundered were the horses, and a sight for all men's ruth Were the thin-ribbed hungry cow-kind; and the thralls both carle and quean Were the wilful, the weak, and the witless, and the old and the ill-beseen; Spoilt was the harness and house-gear, and the raiment ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... like a murderer, but it had to be. Poor girl! I wanted to pick her up like a baby an' kiss her. It wasn't that I loved Lizzie less but Rome more. She wasn't to blame. Every spoilt woman stands for a fool-man. Most o' them need—not a master—but a frank counsellor. I locked the door. She grew calm an' leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands. My clock shouted the seconds in the silence. Not a word was said ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... spoilt everything. He told you not to trust us, not to be so friendly with persons who are natives of this land, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... know, your own self, she ain't the least little bit spoiled." Then she eased her mind with this retort: "Marse Tom, she makes you do anything she wants to, and you can't deny it; so if she could be spoilt, she'd been spoilt long ago, because you are the very WORST! Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a candle-box, just as patient; ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... glad you did not," exclaimed Hans, on hearing Willem's remark. "You would have spoilt all our interest in the pursuit. I want to see the effect of their poisoned arrow, and learn with my own eyes if a lion can be ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... the dressmaker's despair, in her draping her shoulders in a lace scarf and wearing kid gloves to her elbow; but though these pruderies might have spoilt her appearance at Dungemarsh Court, there was no doubt as to its effectiveness at the Woolpack. The whole room held its breath as she sailed in, with a rustle of amber silk skirts. Her hair was piled high against a tortoise-shell comb, making her ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... But, like Rocheouart of the past days, he never thought of her as a possible lover. Nor did it ever occur to him that she was thinking of him as a possible husband. He always wanted, and generally managed to have a splendid time; and he was quite willing to be petted and spoilt and made much of; but he was not, under a mask of carelessness, a cold and persistent egoist. He really was just what he seemed to be, a light-hearted, rather uproarious, and very healthy young man, intent on enjoying himself, and recklessly indifferent to the future. He was ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... distaste for it. Some one present made an allusion to a similar childish dislike in the true tale of "The terrible knitters o' Dent" given in Southey's "Common-place Book:" and she smiled faintly, but said that the mere difference in food was not all: that the food itself was spoilt by the dirty carelessness of the cook, so that she and her sisters disliked their meals exceedingly; and she named her relief and gladness when the doctor condemned the meat, and spoke of having seen him spit it out. These are all the details I ever heard ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her head into the shop, and said 'Do you sell any soap?' So she died, and he very imprudently married the barber; and the powder fell out of the counsellor's wig, and poor Mrs. Mackay's puddings were quite entirely spoilt; and there were present the Garnelies, and the Goblilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Pangendrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they played at the ancient game of 'Catch who catch can,' till ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... useless torment, the greater number had been set free, and only seventeen retained. To be sure, these consisted of the richest and most respectable citizens of Leipsic. And these unfortunate hostages, these spoilt sons of wealth and luxury, were now forced to bear the whole weight of misfortune, the entire anger of the victorious enemy. They, whose whole life had been one of indulgence and effeminacy, had now to undergo the greatest privations, the hardest sufferings. The cold earth was their bed, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... longed-for sand, And lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand: And first Achates smote alive the spark from out the flint, And caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint Of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke; Then Ceres' body spoilt with sea, and Ceres' arms they took, And sped the matter spent with toil, and fruit of furrows found They set about to parch with fire and 'twixt of stones ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... yer while," said Pete, "to ging atower to the T'nowhead an' see. Ye'll mind the closed-in beds i' the kitchen? Ay, weel, they're a fell spoilt crew, T'nowhead's litlins, an' no that aisy to manage. Th' ither lasses Lisbeth's ha'en had a michty trouble wi' them. When they war i' the middle o' their reddin up the bairns wid come tumlin' about ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the knowledge they acquired was not sufficient to satisfy his devouring thirst for information, and therefore much of his seeing was done with the tips of his fingers, or the grasp of his hands. He must touch every thing, and of course spoilt many things. Leave him alone in the room for a moment, and he would open all the letters, peep into every drawer, smell at every unknown substance, displace your china, spoil your musical-box, climb up the piano-forte, and pull over the vases of flowers. If you did not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... have turned in somewhere.' Then she said: 'Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is eaten you will have some peace, why should God's good gifts be spoilt?' So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said: 'What one is, the other should be likewise, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... assembled to see the stock and buy them. After visiting the paddocks, Bloomfield[4] gave a magnificent dinner to the company in a tent near the house; it was the finest feast I ever saw, but the badness of the weather spoilt the entertainment. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... all, they apply themselves with what talent has fallen to their lot to the task of creating a work of art, and, so applying themselves, those of them who lack talent become ridiculous, and the talent of those who possess it is spoilt by their anxiety ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... what Mother would say. It's got to be; if for nothing else, for the sake of the school. A Torch-bearer mustn't shirk and break her pledge. Oh, how I shall loathe it, hate it! Ulyth Stanton, do you realize what you're undertaking? Your whole term's going to be spoilt." ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... flew, Europe went dotty and began to offer big prizes for stunts in the air. Wright took his old 'bus across the pond and won everything. Next year our Glen Curtis went over and brought back all the scalps. Then America got tired. We live in a hurry there. We're the spoilt kids of the earth, always wanting a new toy. When we tired of straight flying, we went in for circus stunts; such as spiral turning, volplaning, upside-down flying and looping the loop. We interested the crowd for a while, as there was ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... think she is EXCLUSIVE?" I asked Hilda as we strolled on towards the stern, out of the spoilt child's hearing. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... have my journey spoilt by her, so I gave my own attention to the scene and told her to go and play, if she wished, or buy oranges and pictures from the train-venders, do anything she liked, in fact, as long as she did not disturb me and prevent my taking a pleasure in the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... there discoursed of several mischiefs they would inflict upon her. At last they pull'd her out, and carried her unto the Sea-side, there to drown, her; but she calling upon God, they left her, tho' not without Expressions of their Fury. From that very time, this poor Whetford was utterly spoilt, and grew a Tempted, Froward, Crazed sort of a Woman; a vexation to her self, and all about her; and many ways unreasonable. In this Distraction she lay, till those women were Apprehended, by the Authority; then she began to mend; ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... hard as she is just, Amelie. I think too she has no love for the Philiberts. Her nephew Varin has all the influence of a spoilt son ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... spoke in a tone of lightness that sounded assumed, "because now I've lived in an atmosphere not of mistrust. And it's spoilt ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... widow, a woman of great ambition and energy, lost not an hour in proclaiming the succession of her son, Feodor. The officers of the army were promptly summoned to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign. Feodor was but fifteen years of age, a thoroughly spoilt boy, proud, domineering, selfish and cruel. There was now a revolt in the army of the late tzar. Several of the officers embraced the cause of Griska, declaring their full conviction that he was the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... all in all, that was about the most florid winter I ever put in, an' it purt' nigh spoilt me for hard work. I did the cookin', the innocents did the chores, an' we got along as bully as a fat bear for a while, livin' in the hotel. The' was a hundred rooms, but we didn't use 'em all. Locals, he wrote most of the time, when he wasn't lookin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... with dignity. Johnny slings him into a chair at the writing table, where he sits, bitterly humiliated, but afraid to speak lest he should burst into tears]. Thats the advantage of having more body than brains, you see: it enables me to teach you manners; and I'm going to do it too. Youre a spoilt young pup; and you need a jolly good licking. And if youre not careful youll get it: I'll see to that next time you call me ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... carne up the back stairs from the river, where she had gone in the last story, you remember, and wasn't she glad that nothing more had happened? "If you had jumped into that other hat box," she said, "you would have spoilt my next year's Easter bonnet, and that would have been too dreadful ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... to be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folks happy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so. She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. 'It's lucky Abby never had any children,' she said, 'for she would have spoilt them.' ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... candles were seized from the altars, and held by some of the party to light the others in executing their task. Everything was done in the most systematic manner. There were no less than seven chapels in the cathedral, every one of which in succession was utterly spoilt. Chests of treasure were broken open, and the gorgeous robes of the priests dragged forth, many of the mob attiring themselves in them. Casks of wine were broached and the liquor poured into the golden chalices, out of which the despoilers quaffed ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... be really dangerous, and to count. He's in love with Daphne, and he has got his mother, who is very weak and foolish and sentimental, round on his side, and Daphne's always going to tea or to lunch there, and they've utterly spoilt her—at least, her taste in hats has gone all wrong, and she told me that Mrs. Foster had pink paper shavings in her drawing-room fireplace, and asked me why I didn't ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... "You've spoilt me, you see, mother, for ever caring for another woman. I would compare her to you, and then where would ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... become both social and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of his constant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying off with him about six francs), the old chevalier remained the spoilt darling of the town. His losses—which, by the bye, he always ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... not surprising that they stole a great many of his fine things while he lay smoking on the green damask sofa which stood on the carrot bed. Those articles which the workmen did not steal the rain and dust spoilt; but that they thought did not much matter, for still more than half the gold was left; so they soon furnished the new house. And now Kitty had a servant, and used to sit every morning on a couch dressed in silks and jewels till dinner-time, when the most delicious hot beefsteaks and sausage ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... its purpose, I conceived. I had given my veiled warning; it never occurred to me that Mrs. Lascelles might be indulging in a veiled retort. I thought she was annoyed at the hint that I had given her. I began to repent of that myself. It had quite spoilt our day, and so many and long were the silences, as we wandered from little shop to little shop, and finally with relief to the train, that I had plenty of time to remember how much we had found to ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... service of Brownie; but he, being better instructed from that book, which was Brownie's eyesore and the object of his wrath, when he brewed, would not suffer any sacrifice to be given to Brownie; whereupon the first and second brewings were spoilt, and for no use; for though the wort wrought well, yet in a little time it left off working, and grew cold; but of the third broust, or brewing, he had ale very good, though he would not give any sacrifice to Brownie, with whom afterwards they were no more troubled." Another ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... tucks in them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now sits so easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us. Nevertheless, it is likely that even we are not without our experience now and then of spoilt children. I do not mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody's own children ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable children of our particular friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down after dinner, and, across the ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... greater zeal than Verus does the merits of this dish," said the Emperor, who had recovered his good humor as soon as he perceived that no artful preparation for his arrival was to be suspected in this matter. "What follies that spoilt child of fortune can commit! Does he still insist on cooking with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... self-command, neither laughed nor was discomposed; and all that the maiden gained by her frolic was a severe rebuke from her companion, taxing her with mal-address and indecorum. Catherine replied not, but sat pouting, something in the humour of a spoilt child, who watches the opportunity of wreaking upon some one or other its ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... showers every epithet of honor, at the other he hurls every epithet of abuse, only because Tamar is pretty, and Beriah the reverse. Tamar excites the love of the angels, Beriah's face makes even the devil fly. This disagreeable pose of Immanuel was not confined to his age; it has spoilt some of the best work of W.S. Gilbert. The following is Dr. Chotzner's rendering of one of ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... will last. It will sometimes last them two or three, or four or five Months, more or less; the Rice therefore they chuse to cast into the Ground, is of that sort that may answer the duration of the Water. For all their Crop would be spoilt if the Water should fail them before their Corn grew ripe. If they foresee their Water will hold out long, then they sow the best and most profitable Rice, viz. that which is longest a ripening; but if it will not, they must ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... have wrong'd Fitzurse. I speak not of myself. We thought to scare this minion of the King Back from her churchless commerce with the King To the fond arms of her first love, Fitzurse, Who swore to marry her. You have spoilt the farce. My savage cry? Why, she—she—when I strove To work against her license for her good, Bark'd out at me such monstrous charges, that The King himself, for love of his own sons, If hearing, would have ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... now, anyhow! And we'll take the liberty of cutting him up, and getting our teeth into his flesh; for, sure, he has spoilt our rest for ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... must always be a little spoilt in the finishing of it. The last touches, which are intended to draw the picture together, take off from its freshness. To appear before the public one must cut out all those happy accidents which are the joy of the artist. ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... Horner, and Dante, Goethe, Byron, and, perhaps, Tennyson, from which to take your choice amongst those whom I call the enthusiastic school; Mrs Hemans, and others of her tearful race, in the second; and, in the third order, the majority of those who have spoilt good ink and paper, from Dryden ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... are of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they may feel inside. Don't you know how Turner spoils his pictures by introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life every landscape is spoilt by men of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... great military dream of his life, the foundation of a National Militia and the extinction of Mercenary Companies. But the fabric he had fancied and thought to have built proved unsubstantial. The spoilt half-mutinous levies whom he had spent years in odious and unwilling training failed him at the crowning moment in strength and spirit: and the fall of the Republic implied the fall of Machiavelli and the close of his official life. He struggled hard to save ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE as Devonian to the tip of his pen-finger, that the Hon. William is not rebuked for so shamelessly deserting his native county. Instead he is almost applauded for his wisdom, and this despite the fact that he quite spoilt the look of the family tree with his exotic graft. For in the course of time his son, insularly known as Willatopy, inherited the title and became twenty-eighth (no less) Baron of Topsham. Mr. COPPLESTONE does not realise the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... Providence, where we cannot penetrate. In his unfinished book on Ecclesiastical Prophecy he enumerates the illusions of mediaeval saints when they spoke of the future, and describes them, as he once described Carlyle and Ruskin, as prophets having nothing to foretell. At Frankfort, where he spoilt his watch by depositing it in unexpected holy water, and it was whispered that he had put it there to mend it, everybody knew that there was hardly a Catholic in the Parliament of whom such a fable could be told ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... what a number of things you can do without when you have no money to buy them. You won't want new gloves and varnished boots, eau de Cologne and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has health and brains, and can't find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and be transported and get out of the country—he is not fit to live ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... turning irritably to his companion, "what shall I do to this intractable old man? You have a voice in this, seeing that he has spoilt four of your ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... would call him so. Afy thought such an Adonis had never been coined, out of fable. He had shiny black hair and whiskers, dark eyes and handsome features. But his vain dandyism spoilt him; would you believe that his handkerchiefs were soaked in scent? They were of the finest cambric, silky as a hair, as fine as the one Barbara bought at Lynneborough and gave a guinea for; only hers had a wreath ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... about a quart of clear soup. The vermicelli must be taken from the boiling water and thrown into the boiling soup at once. If you were to boil the vermicelli, strain it off, and put it by to add to the soup, you would find it would stick together in one lump and be spoilt. ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... younger lads were in more favour with their father than was the elder. Thomas was sometimes preferred to him in a mortifying manner, John's grave, quiet nature prevented him from ever incurring displeasure, and Humfrey was the spoilt pet of the family; but nothing could lessen Harry's large-minded love of his brothers; and he was the idol and hero of the whole young party, who implicitly believed in his mighty destinies as a renovator of the world, the deliverer of Jerusalem, and restorer ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... much better fellow than I am, chevalier," said he—" and that's no lie," he added under his breath. "De Tournay was a fiery, ambitious, youngster with bad companions. De Tournay told me he repented of coming with Rullecour, and he felt he had spoilt his life—that he could never return to France again or to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... womanhood. It is critical in both sexes, not only for the body but also for the mind. It is now that the intellect awakes; it is now that the real formation of character begins. We often talk about spoilt children at three or four, but any kind of making or marring of character at such ages can be undone in a few weeks or less—that is, in so far as it is an effect of training and not of nature that we are dealing with. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... that her overall, which she was growing out of, fitted tightly on her over-thin shoulders and showed how their line was spoilt by the deep dip of the clavicle, and wondered why that imperfection should make her more real to him than she had been when he had thought her wholly beautiful. Again he became aware of her discontent with her surroundings, which had exerted on her personality nothing of the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... - do! It's all MY fault - I don't deny that - but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he's grown up he's a demon - simply. I can see ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... novel or book of poems I write him an admiring letter. You can't lay it on too thick. Ask him some question on a topic that interests him. It always draws. They are unused to praise and you catch them before the public has spoilt them. I card-index all the replies I get. Of course nine out of ten of the people turn out of no account, but some are sure to come off. You just throw out the failures and put the successes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... through the door at the old Seth Thomas dock in the sitting room. "Half after six! Rose-Ellen, you run down to the shop and tell Grandpa supper's spoiling. Why he's got to hang round that shop till supper's spoilt when he could fix up all the shoes he's got in two-three hours, I don't understand. 'Twould be different if he had anything ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... of the Langley aerodrome was made on December 8th, 1903; nine days later, on December 17th, the Wright Brothers made their first flight in a power-propelled machine, and the conquest of the air was thus achieved. But for the two accidents that spoilt his trials, the honour which fell to the Wright Brothers would, beyond doubt, have been secured by ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... in the plural sense, and included both gentlemen, upon both of whom it was rather hard and undeserved, for Gabriel had applied himself to the meal with a very promising appetite, until it was spoilt by Mrs Varden herself, and Joe had as great a liking for the female society of the locksmith's house—or for a part of it at all events—as man could ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... rejoined, laughing; "all husbands are not like you, Laurie, who feel injured if I insist on carrying my own umbrella. Now look at Spira's face—there is something so lovely in that deep-tinted golden hair and those large mournful eyes. Don't look at her hands or ankles, please—hard work has spoilt them." ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... troubles; that I'd send for the little sister he loves so well, and never let him suffer any more; for he is so good, so patient, so generous, and dear to me, I cannot do enough for him. Now it's all spoilt; now I can never tell him this, never comfort him in any way, never be happy again all my life, and you have ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... difficult operation. As long as he believed that he might go where he pleased, we could induce him to take a few steps, forward, but the moment he understood what we were driving at, he took the sulks, like an enormous spoilt child, and refused to move. The koonkies were therefore brought up, and Raj Mungul, going behind, gave him a shove that was irresistible. He lost temper and turned furiously on Raj, but received such an awful ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... exposure to the weather. A hundred cows under shelter will yield the same quantity of milk through the winter as five hundred in the open air, at half the cost. A large portion of the hay we strew about the pastures for the cattle, is trodden underfoot and spoilt instead of being eaten; and if rain falls, the whole is spoilt. Calculate the loss of milk, the cost of cartage over a wide range of land, the damage done to the pastures by the trampling of heavy cattle ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... again Melchior was much troubled by his brothers and sisters. Just at the moment when he was wishing to look most fashionable and elegant, one or other of them would pull away the rug, or drop the glass, or quarrel, or romp, or do something that spoilt the effect. In fact, one and all, they 'just spoilt everything;' and the more he scolded, the worse they became. The 'minx' shook her curls, and flirted through the window with a handsome but ill-tempered ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... between the two. Servants accustomed to European ways are usually a bad lot, and most unreliable; but in all fairness it must be admitted that, to a great extent, these servants have been utterly spoilt by Europeans themselves, who did not know how to deal with them in a suitable manner. I repeatedly noticed in Teheran and other parts of Persia that people who really understood the Persian character, and treated subordinates with consideration, had most excellent servants—to ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... victory is a more severe moral test than the hour of defeat. Many a man can brave the perils of adversity who succumbs to the seductions of prosperity. He can stand the cold better than the heat! He is enriched by failure, but "spoilt by success." To test the real quality of a man, let us regard him just when he has slain Goliath! ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... broke in, in consternation "how can you talk like this? You, the spoilt darling of Fortune herself, you, the cynosure of so many eyes, the possessor of ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... not quite lovely with those dewy cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a friend's property ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... little mess is spoilt enough as it is, Heaven knows. And if things came to the pass that I had to stand up whenever Sancha came into the room, and to sit on a footstool while she lolled back in a chair the way Meregrett does, it would be the ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... the three boys to a little school at Janville, which was as yet but a small expense. But would it not be necessary to send them the following year to a college, and where was the money for this to come from? A grave problem, a worry which grew from hour to hour, and which for Mathieu somewhat spoilt that charming spring whose advent was ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... seen a bird one day, His head pecked more than half away; That hopped about, with but one eye, Ready to fight again, and die— Ofttimes since then their private lives Have spoilt ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... nobility, greeted the foreign nobles cordially and sought to attach them to its standard in foresight of a European war. One thing was certain: Gratian had illimitable resources, and the sharp-witted, who had sharp tongues, did not hesitate to aver that he was one of those spoilt children of politics who are fed from State treasuries—not such a shallow-brain as he pretended. The new type of diplomatist was like him, the Morny's, not the effete Metternich's, gentlemen who settled affairs of the State in the boudoir not in ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Elsie cried, with a little contemptuous laugh. "I don't want any spoilt little namby-pamby cry-babies along with me; but that's no reason why I, a girl, should fetch milk for Robbie to drink while he stays at home. Can't you see ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... like that of the little boy, of which the humour consisted in the dry application of the terms in a sense different from what was intended by the speaker, was sent to me, but has got spoilt by passing through the press. It must be Scotch, or at least, is composed of Scottish materials—the Shorter Catechism and the bagpipes. A piper was plying his trade in the streets, and a strict elder of the kirk, desirous to remind him that it was a somewhat idle and profitless occupation, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... over," she admitted, following the widow's melancholy glance about the room. "But you are a spoilt child to complain. Think of having a house of your own to come to, instead of having to put up at the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... doing great things in forage, but prosperity has not spoilt him. Although he must be aware that I remember him in pre-war days, when he used to strap-hang to the City with his lunch in a satchel, nevertheless he often invites me round on those rare occasions when he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various |
