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More "Officious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... home by leaving us to take care of ourselves; most people would have thought it indifference; but I knew it was manque de savoir faire, merely, and preferred doing as I pleased. If she had been officious, I would have been embarrassed. So we walked in the moonlight, Ginnie and I, while the rest sat in the shade, and all discussed the fun of the evening, those who had been most alarmed laughing loudest. The old ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... am quite at home in it; and I honestly believe that it has never known a more officious busybody, thrusting himself into its ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... position when he finally decided as to Fort Sumter. It is unnecessary to follow the repeated consultations that took place. There were preparations for possible expeditions both to Fort Sumter and to Fort Pickens, and various blunders about them, and Seward made some trouble by officious interference about them. An announcement was sent to the Governor of South Carolina that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter and he was assured that if this was unopposed no further steps would be taken. What chiefly concerns us is that the eventual decision to send provisions ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... other books of those times. The first edition was probably corrected by the author, so that here is very little room for conjecture or emendation; and accordingly none of the editors have much molested this piece with officious criticism. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... Tolman; well, she is a little officious, as Marcus calls her, and I know she often sets Aunt ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... indefinable mistrust of her good offices, and they never talked to her about Catherine's charms. Her ringlets, her buckles and bangles, glistened more brightly with each succeeding year, and she remained quite the same officious and imaginative Mrs. Penniman, and the odd mixture of impetuosity and circumspection, that we have hitherto known. As regards one point, however, her circumspection prevailed, and she must be given due credit for it. For upwards of seventeen years she never mentioned Morris ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... He comes roun' inquirin' 'bout my business so officious I thought sure he was one o' dese Gov'ment folks, and I done had 'nough to ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... proved of great advantage to me that when a boy, I took great delight in standing at a basket-maker's in the same town where my father lived, to view them at work; and like other boys, curious to see the manner of their working these things and very officious to assist, I perfectly learned the method of it, and wanted nothing but the tools. And it coming into my mind that the twigs of that tree of which I made my stakes, might be as tough as a fallow willow, or osiers, growing in England, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... drawn up by two notaries in the presence of two witnesses, so precisely was the instrument worded by Leopold Hannequin. Honest Godeschal said that even if Schmucke's own legal adviser should succeed in deceiving him, he would find out the truth at last, if it were only from some officious barrister, the gentlemen of the robe being wont to perform such acts of generosity and disinterestedness by way of self-advertisement. And the two officials took their leave of the Presidente with a parting caution against Fraisier, concerning ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to withdraw while the Herrschaften ate, a permission that was given with alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... breeding, and, as we learn from Boswell's gossip, was not entirely free from aristocratic tendencies,—nay, is said to have aspired to a royal crown?[27] Or is the coronet on his tomb an unauthorised device of the officious friends who are said to have spent 500l. in giving the exile a ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... tugging a snail-shell (for some reason only known to himself) up a hill, stopping to take breath, and going cheerily to work again till he had nearly accomplished his ascent, and found himself on the very edge of its summit. Here he has been surrounded by friends, officious busy-bodies, who, intending no doubt to help him, have got into the shell, in place of lending him a hand, till their added load was too much, and the unfortunate ant has been obliged to loose its hold and let them go, shell and all! Then off they would send, very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... fray, reduced each other from the waist upwards to nearly a state of nudity. On either side the partisans were numerous, the combatants eager to renew the fight, and the spectators, the majority of whom were of Irish distraction, anxious for the result, when the officious interposition of official authority, terminated the "tug of war," and the honor of the two provinces ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... question was in the handwriting of a fussy officious "bumble" friend of the wealthy man, who dwelt in the town of Covelly. It ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... I have been giving you, but I have been uncertain what I ought to do. I have been doubting and considering as to what I ought to tell you. There were many things to be taken into the account. One hates to be officious, to be giving bad impressions, making mischief. Even the smooth surface of family-union seems worth preserving, though there may be nothing durable beneath. However, I have determined; I think I am right; I think you ought to be made ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... well aware that, her father being no longer alive, a guardian stands in his place. To him (who is not acquainted with me) busybodies and officious gentlemen must have no doubt brought all sorts of reports, such as, that he must beware of me, that I have no fixed income, that I would perhaps leave her in the lurch, etc., etc. The guardian became very uneasy at these insinuations. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... make you. Will you give me leave to say how I would desire to stand in your memory? As one, who was truly sensible of the honour you did him, though he was too proud to be vain upon it; as one, who was neither assuming, officious, nor teasing; who never wilfully misrepresented persons or facts to you, nor consulted his passions when he gave a character; and lastly, as one, whose indiscretions proceeded altogether from a weak head, and not an ill heart. I will add one ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Patrolman leaves his beat for a cup of coffee on a cold morning, or night, or reads a newspaper, or smokes, or stops to converse while on duty. The punishment for these offences is a stoppage of pay for a day or two. First offences are usually forgiven. Many well-meaning but officious citizens enter complaints against the men. They are generally frivolous, but are heard patiently, and are dismissed with a warning to the accused to avoid giving cause for complaint. Thieves and disreputable characters sometimes ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... from you, Mrs. Hseh. I'll, in fact, contribute some on your ladyship's account, and when I get the banquet ready and invite you, venerable ancestor, to come and partake of it, I'll also wrap fifty taels in a piece of paper, and dutifully present them to you, as a penalty for my officious interference in matters that don't concern me. Will this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... part Of what I feel, and suffer in my heart, For you, whom best I love and value most; But to your service I bequeath my ghost; Which, from this mortal body when untied, Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side; Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep offend, But wait officious, and your steps attend. How I have loved, excuse my faltering tongue, My spirit's feeble, and my pains are strong: This I may say, I only grieve to die, Because I lose my charming Emily. To die, when Heaven had put you in my power! Fate could not choose a more malicious hour. ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... over the ropes. He stepped through them languidly, and, rejecting the proffered assistance of a couple of officious friends, drew on a boxing-glove fastidiously, like an exquisite preparing for a fashionable promenade. Having thus muffled his left hand so as to make it useless for the same service to his right, he dipped his fingers into the other glove, gripped it between ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... It went altogether the time I was working for my medical. I got it back again out in India when I was alone, on the edge of the jungle, when there wasn't much cholera about, and I'd nothing to do but think. Then some officious people got me what they called a better berth in Bombay; and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... poor sinner says, "O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us: but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name" (Isa. 26:13), your officious Pickthanks are always ready to bear testimony against him; and a blessed testimony this is; it is well worth living to gain, and dying in the cause of. If we are real disciples of Christ, we shall, as He did, testify of the world that the works thereof are evil, and the world will hate us for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... almost an animal's jealousy lest any one should come between her and her young. Mr Benson saw this jealous suspicion, although he could hardly understand it; but he calmed his sister's wonder and officious kindness, so that the two patiently and quietly provided all that Ruth might want, but did not interfere with her right to nurse Leonard. But when he was recovering, Mr Benson, with the slight tone of authority he knew how to assume ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... take care, however, not to involve himself in such officious troubles for the future. As for the accounts, he was ready at all times, and desirous to have them settled. He had been plagued enough, and had even paid money out of his own pocket, which he was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... as extraordinary as it was inconsiderate, to depart from Port Jackson in the Cumberland, more to give proof of an officious zeal, more for the private interests of Great Britain than for what had induced the French government to give you a passport, which I shall unfold at a proper opportunity, had already given me an idea of your character; but this letter ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... cold water, Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, with the Island of Mackinac in their hydrographical centre, offer a delightful hot-weather asylum to all invalids who need an escape from the crowded cities, paludal exhalations, sultry climates and officious medication. Lake Erie lies too far south, and is bordered by too many swamps to be ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... money back;" and he tendered the half-crown, which the other did not put his hand out to receive. This exasperated Saurin still more. "Take it," he said; "only I'll thank you not to be so confoundedly officious again." ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... the breaking out of the church bells: a loud peal, telling of joy. A misgiving crossed Lionel that the news had got wind, and that some officious person had been setting on the bells to ring for him, in honour of his succession. The exceeding bad taste of the proceeding—should it prove so—called a flush of anger to his brow. His inheritance had cost Mrs. Verner ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Carl had the office for lowering background. The warm trust of Ruth's hand on a Saturday did not make plans for the Touricar any the less pressing on a Monday. The tyranny of nine to five is stronger, more insistent, in every department of life, than the most officious oligarchy. Inspectors can be bribed, judges softened, and recruiting sergeants evaded, but only the grace of God will turn 3.30 into 5.30. And Mr. Ericson of the Touricar Company, a not vastly important employee of the mothering VanZile Corporation, was not entitled to go home at 3.30, as a really ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... quite a young man to lean upon, having (as I at least supposed) a life of his own and tastes and habits which had long since drawn him away from the maternal side. If he did happen just now to be at home my solicitude would of course seem officious; for in his many wanderings—I believed he had roamed all over the globe—he would certainly have learned how to manage. None the less I was very glad to show Mrs. Nettlepoint I thought of her. With my long absence I had lost sight of her; but I had liked her of old; she had been a close friend ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout some others who were constantly ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... was not a little moved by this mark of attention, which indeed is but one among many, as well as by the peculiarity of the youth's manner in delivering the bird. He was fearful, visibly fearful, that his desire to oblige should be thought officious. He attempted to apologize, but knew not what to say. I thanked him very sincerely, and in the kindest manner I could; and, seeing him booted, the thought instantly struck me to request Sir Arthur's permission for ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... was walking pensively up and down the parlour when the officious landlady reentered to take his commands. Having given them in the manner he thought would be most acceptable 'for the good of the house,' he begged to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Bob," said Maggie, a good deal moved by Bob's suggestion. It was a totally new idea to her mind that Tom could have his love troubles. Poor fellow!—and in love with Lucy too! But it was perhaps a mere fancy of Bob's too officious brain. The present of the dog meant nothing more than cousinship and gratitude. But Bob had already said, "Here's Mr. Tom," and the outer ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... O Charles! thy death defend? A furious foe unconscious proves a friend. On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know, A weak officious friend becomes a foe. While he but sought his author's fame to further, The murderous critic has ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... seriously at work to interfere with the orderly course of things, and effect a conjunction between two in no way fitted for each other, either in external circumstances or similarity of character. But let us trace the progress of this artificial passion, fanned into a blaze by the officious Mrs. Martindale. After having agitated the heart of Mary with the idea of being beloved, while she coolly calculated its effects upon her, the match-monger sought an early opportunity for another interview ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... means of forming a sphere, of taking root in the earth; it requires more strength to do this without such an opening; very many have failed, and their imperfections have been in every one's way. They have been more partial, more harsh, more officious and impertinent, than those compelled by severer friction to render themselves endurable. Those who have a more full experience of the instincts have a distrust as to whether the unmarried can be thoroughly human and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... curious manner, which seemed to the painter bold and searching; his smiles were satisfied and almost tender, his gallantry was familiar and officious. In manner and word appeared already something of decision, as if he were about to announce that he ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... next fight you must not wound, but kill, or you will have no peace." I was greatly disturbed at this result of my accidental victory over Bias the Bearded, and did not at all appreciate the kind of greatness my officious friend Claro seemed so determined to thrust upon me. It was certainly flattering to hear that I had already established my reputation as a good fighter in so warlike a department as Paysandu, but then the consequences entailed were disagreeable, to say the least of it; and so, while thanking Eyebrows ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... implored the Cherub, "and help me plan for the Cristobal who is here. If he sits in our box for the processions, Carmona will see him and say to some officious person, very different from Rafael Calmenare, 'who is that young man with the O'Donnels?' And the officious person will answer, 'I never saw him in my life.' 'Ah,' the Duke will exclaim, 'isn't he Cristobal O'Donnel?' 'Not at all,' will come the reply; and Carmona will ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that it was pleasanter to give en masse, in one big sum, than to give in driblets; others thought it more satisfactory to hand one's offering personally to the different servants; but we all, with one voice, voted the officious beadle ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... a little of the chameleon, and takes a different hue with every different companion: he is very attentive and officious, and somewhat sentimental, with Lady Lillycraft; copies out little namby-pamby ditties and love-songs for her, and draws quivers, and doves, and darts, and Cupids, to be worked on the corners of her pocket-handkerchiefs. He indulges, however, in very considerable latitude ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... days all is cleared away again, and Bernini's great fountain faces Borromini's big Church of Saint Agnes, in the silence; and the officious guide tells the credulous foreigner how the figure of the Nile in the group is veiling his head to hide the sight of the hideous architecture, and how the face of the Danube expresses the River God's terror lest the tower should fall ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... towards the river, while the Fawn placed herself with mechanical helplessness in the boat. Instantly the unnoticed, but faithful wolf, sprung after her. Arms were stretched to pull him out, but the sachem's voice caused them to fall by the sides of the officious forms ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... her husband are good friends of mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was said about past disagreements, as much as possible about future agreements, and the end of it was that Gordon agreed to take the field again. At the same time the I.G. took care to suggest the removal of an excuse for future misunderstandings in the person of an officious, inefficient interpreter whom Robert Hart himself described as a "'Talkee talkee, me-no-savey,' the sort of person whose attempt at Mandarin [official Chinese] is ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... if anything, heavier, but there was just a suspicion of bloat over all his frame. Jim was clean built, statuesque—a Jason rather than a Hermes. He was by six inches taller, but the other had just as long a reach. And, as the officious patrons of the "pub" strapped on the gloves and made the usual preparation of wet sponge and towel, it seemed in all respects an even match—in all respects but one; Jim was twenty-odd, ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... as talkative and as officious as I could wish. When I had asked him the news of the day, and had pleaded my ignorance of the recent occurrence that had filled everybody with astonishment, he stepped back two paces, and exclaimed, 'Whence do you come, that the iniquities of that dog the mollah ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... "Establishers," for the Kers would not come within such a tainted building as a parochial school—except to a comic nigger minstrel performance, which in Howpaslet levels and composes all differences. So instead they waited at the windows and listened. One prominent and officious stoop of the Kirk tried to shut a window. But he got a Ker's clicky[9] over his head from without, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... pleasurelessly about with Vick—apparently sharing my depression—trotting subduedly, with tail half-mast high, at my heels, and at length sit down on a bench under a mulberry-tree. The scentless flame of the geraniums and calceolarias fills, without satisfying my eyes; the gnats' officious hum offends my ears; and thoughts in comparison of which the calceolarias are sweet and the gnats melodious, occupy ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... attracted partly by my sympathy with the popular movement, and partly by that simple desire, which gives so much zest to the life of youth, of risking it on all possible occasions, I had taken an active part, chiefly as an officious spectator, in all the principal events of those stirring years. It was in the spring of 1862 that I found matters beginning to settle down to a degree that threatened monotony; and with the termination of the winter gaieties at Naples and the close of the San Carlo, I seriously ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... hurry to disembark. The sampan into which he stepped, in fact, did not creep up to the shore until evening. There, ignoring the rickshaw coolies who awaited him as he passed an obnoxiously officious trio of customs officers, he disappeared up one of the narrow and slippery side streets of the ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... a thousand impertinent inquiries after the health of a man thou wishedest to die—to pray by him—for so once thou wrotest to me!—To read by him—to be forced to join in consultation with a crew of solemn and parading doctors, and their officious zanies, the apothecaries, joined with the butcherly tribe of scarficators; all combined to carry on the physical farce, and to cut out thongs both from his flesh and his estate—to have the superadded apprehension of dividing thy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... and he found to his horror that he had started a fresh fire of his own very difficult to put out, and exceedingly likely to arouse the indignation of the men who were struggling to beat out the existing conflagration, to the point of lynching the too officious stranger. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... acquainted with Arndt's antecedents, and being a dirty dog he thought it was his duty to inform the farmer that his hired man was an ex-convict, horse-thief and a desperado of the worst type. Some men are so officious and are so anxious to do their duty when it is in their power to injure a fellow-man who is trying to earn an honest living. Gus immediately got the "bounce." He was informed by his employer that he did not want to make his home a harbor for horse-thieves. Gus took his wages and clothes and ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... such weapons as country people are usually possessed of. Flammoc and Joseph were chosen their leaders. They soon conducted the Cornish through the county of Devon, and reached that of Somerset. At Taunton, the rebels killed, in their fury, an officious and eager commissioner of the subsidy, whom they called the provost of Perin. When they reached Wells, they were joined by Lord Audley, a nobleman of an ancient family, popular in his deportment, but vain, ambitious and restless in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... the voice came from, as he would have stabbed a rat that ran there, till, the voice ceasing, he concluded the person to be dead. But when he dragged forth the body it was not the king, but Polonius, the old, officious counselor, that had planted himself as a spy ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... officious voice to whisper to Rosalie Sherwood the story of the doubtful position which she occupied in the world. She was an orphan, the adopted child of the lady whom she devoutly loved with all a daughter's tenderness; this she knew, and it was all she ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... rose from her seat—moved the decanters and fruit round the table—stirred the fire—and came back to her seat again, before another word was uttered. Nor had this good woman's officious labours taken the least from the awkwardness of the silence, which, as soon as the bustle she had made was over, returned ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... that of this Province, his food mean, his arms and legs unshaven? Does he carry a sword or wear silk raiment? Frequently have we seen him fatigued with journeying; many times has he arrived destitute of money; nor, on those occasions when a newly-appointed and unnecessarily officious Mandarin has commanded him to betake himself elsewhere and struck him with a rod has Kai Lung caused the stick to turn into a deadly serpent and destroy its master, as did the just and dignified Lu Fei. How, then, can Kai Lung have a story ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Being is so, has surely no need to be trained into such truth by any factitious scheme of education. In all that he thus originates, he is himself a Novum Organon of knowledge, and capable of teaching others, especially those officious men who would help him with their second-hand authorship, and their paltry catechisms of common-places. I allude here to the fundamental principle of what in some books is called "The Productive System ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... had the wings of a dove, that I might fly to you!" Why must I resign the sweetly-painful task of soothing you in the hour of sickness? And shall others with officious zeal, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman's back was turned, as may be taken for granted, "Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull's-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we're aboord the Active, Tom, an', sure, we'll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... would have talked in the same way—blatantly and without knowledge—of the virtues of the dead. In a chair at the side of the coffin the bereaved husband, in new black clothes, wept audibly. The baldheaded, officious undertaker kept moving nervously about, intent upon the ritual of ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... detail; even the weighing, thanks to his officious care, was a matter of not more than one minute. The girl's weight was one hundred and ten pounds, the saddle brought it up to one hundred and thirteen. She would have to ride at least two pounds overweight, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Objectionable Excellency turn his hand to something useful, and clear some of it away? By the way, I tried to catch a karait this morning. I am going to start a menagerie for Peggy's edification. But our khit, who is a very officious person when he isn't wrapt in contemplation of nothing in particular, interfered and killed the little beast before I had time to explain. I told him he was a silly ass, but he seemed to think he had done something praiseworthy. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... cried Redding, who, next to the sheriff and clerk, appeared to be the most violent and officious among the assailants: "talk about being here without arms, and for peace, do ye? when you have stolen a dozen of our guns, and have now got them in there among you. Pretty fellows, to talk about parley? We will give you a parley that will send ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the custom for one guide to conduct a party of four or five persons into the cave. I dislike over-officious guides and the hackneyed comparisons and wordy wonder of gabbling tourists in grand and solemn places like this; therefore, in the morning, before starting, I congratulated myself that I should be alone, with the exception of the guide, who fortunately seemed thoroughly imbued ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... and nephew. The first time we saw him there, he was making some enquiries of a manager of the Theatre de l'Odeon, whom he met in the lobby; and the modesty and embarrassment of his manner were finely contrasted with the confident loquacity and officious courtesy of the Frenchman. He is known to be exceedingly averse to public exhibitions, even in his own country. He had gone through all the hardships and privations of the campaigns, had exposed himself with a gallantry bordering on rashness in every engagement, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... we may have in telling an untruth the power to change its nature; a lie is a lie, no matter what prompted it. Whether it serves the purpose of amusement, as a jocose lie; or helps to gain us an advantage or get us out of trouble, as an officious lie; or injures another in any way, as a pernicious lie: mendacity is the character of our utterances, the guilt of willful falsehood is on our soul. A restriction should, however, be made in favor of the jocose ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious interference with my will. This interference often took the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... trace any record, stating the period or the manner in which the Portuguese and their officious missionaries were expelled from Congo; it is, however, supposed that they at length carried their religious innovations to such a length, as to draw down upon them the vengeance of the people, and that some bold and decisive ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... thoughts of this kind, they went in a body into the room, and taking him amongst them, conducted him towards the sea-side; on his way to which, though everyone was very officious to him, and all made what haste they could, yet a considerable time was likely to be lost. For the grove of Marica, (as she is called,) which the people hold sacred, and make it a point of religion not ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... pale moon, as if in a fickle mood, was smiling and scowling by turns, as the fleecy clouds hurried swiftly past her. The fitful and sudden glances of light appeared doubly bright from the transient shadows made by the officious clouds. They, deeming that the moon took too much credit to herself as queen' of light for the hour, designed apparently to let her know that she reigned only at ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... answered; and with the bundle of letters in my hand, I was glad to get rid of him, for he was rather officious, and often interrupted me in my state-room when there was not the least need ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... in his favour. Against him were the chances that his companion might show fight; that he might check his prisoner's exit until his comrade on the box could come to the rescue; or that some officious bystander might act on the side of the law; or that a shot might drop him as he fled; or, finally, and most probably of all, that he might be drowned in the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... are, generally, tremendously officious in serving out the loaves and fishes of other people; for, under the notion of appearing exquisitely amiable, and killingly agreeable to the guests, they are ever on the watch to distribute themselves the dainties which it is the peculiar part of the master and mistress ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... taking out the letter, and reading it again with much vexation and anger in his countenance; and after a few tears and sobs, that would needs be so officious as to offer their service, unbidden, and undesired, to introduce what I had to say; I rose up, my feet trembling, as well as my knees; which, however, leaning against the seats of the chairs, that made my bar, as my hand held by the back, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Karl Johan, and tied a very white scarf round his neck, and Karna, who wanted to be motherly to him, went over his face with a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, which she moistened with her tongue. She was rather officious, but for that matter it was quite conceivable that the boy might have got dirty again since his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... prudential motives, but rather by the desire to fly as far as possible from the scenes of his vexations and disappointments, and because he had heard that the metropolis was a place in which a man might conceal his poverty, and suffer and starve at his ease, untroubled by impertinent curiosity or officious benevolence; and, above all, believing it to be the spot where he was least likely to fall in with any of his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... and that a thunderbolt from the hand of national authority had been hurled. His flotilla, as it proceeded southward, instead of being hailed and boarded by eager recruits, was bayed by the watch-dogs of the law, civil and martial. Intrusive messengers from the courts and officious colonels of raw militia regiments pestered and threatened; those, with paper warrants from local magistrates, these, with flintlock ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... distinctions—cannot afford to ask whether the helping hand that is extended to him be that of an equal or an inferior. So he swallowed his humiliation and threaded his way through the bewildering turmoil of Broadway, by the side of his officious friend. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... like a faithful English Brownie, performed innumerable services for the farmers and householders in its neighbourhood, more especially that of feeding the cattle, and cleaning their sheds in wet weather; until at length some officious person, considering such practices as unchristian proceedings, laid the kindly spirit for three generations, banishing him to that common receptacle for such beings—the Red Sea. The spot in which he ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... I have proof. Yet my suspicions are well-grounded. But methinks, madam, I am acting here without authority. Could I have leave to call Mr. Beverley brother, his concerns would be my own. Why will you make my services appear officious? ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... remained that to Roger the mere suggestion seemed a piece of impudent effrontery. What was the fellow up to? Roger bitterly resented Arthur Holliday. He resented his dashing back post-haste for the funeral, it was too officious. Therese had said during that memorable interview which Esther had interrupted that her lover was gone, that she had sent him away. Yet here he was back again, walking about as if he owned the place, almost before the old man's body was cold. And now he had taken Esther away, no one could ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... confidence, authority, and responsibility, than we who are strangers and unamenable to them. It is a respect we owe to their authority, to leave to those acting under that the transaction of their affairs, without an intermeddling on our part, which might justly appear officious. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... handkerchief into Mrs. Carroll's lap, with a look of relief that repaid him fourfold for the trials he was about to undergo. They went merrily away together, leaving Aunt Pen to wish that it was according to the laws of etiquette to rap officious gentlemen over the knuckles, when they introduce their fingers into private pies without permission from the chief cook. How the dance went Debby hardly knew, for the conversation fell upon books, and in the interest of her favorite theme she found even the "grand square" an impertinent interruption, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... called an indignation meeting and raised sufficient money to employ Flamen Ball, an attorney, to secure a writ of mandamus. The case was contested by the city officials, even in the Supreme Court, which decided against the officious whites.[48] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing billows drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we had stiff and blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and the confinement of thy else (truth to say) not very savoury, nor ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... anyhow; for who knows how soon his simple idiocy may turn to dangerous insanity? So the least provocation from you would cause me to send him to a pauper asylum for idiots!" she cried, warningly, as she hurried from the room to make sure that none of the officious servants should dare to harbor ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... for that looks like love, though it is only interest. It is that which gains them their advantage over witty men; whose love of liberty and ease makes them willing too often to discharge their burden of attendance on these officious gentlemen. It is true, that the nauseousness of such company is enough to disgust a reasonable man; when he sees, he can hardly approach greatness, but as a moated castle; he must first pass through the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... ignorant of play. But such a sharper is most dangerous, when he hunts in couple with a female. I have known a French count and his wife, who found means to lay the most wary under contribution. He was smooth, supple, officious, and attentive: she was young, handsome, unprincipled, and artful. If the Englishman marked for prey was found upon his guard against the designs of the husband, then madam plied him on the side of gallantry. She displayed all the attractions of her person. She sung, danced, ogled, sighed, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... somewhat restored to herself than she begged, in a feeble voice, to be left alone with Lord Evandale. All retreated,—Jenny with her usual air of officious simplicity, Lady Emily and the chaplain with that of awakened curiosity. No sooner had they left the apartment than Edith beckoned Lord Evandale to sit beside her on the couch; her next motion was to take his hand, in spite ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... amusement where he finds it, that he is quite at liberty not to find it at home, and that even an adoptive daughter of his house who should hang her head and have red eyes and allow herself to make any other response to officious condolence than that her husband's amusements were his own affair, would have forfeited every claim to having her finger-tips bowed over and kissed. And yet in spite of this definite faith Longmore figured him much inconvenienced ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... had driven over there with my friends, we had taken luncheon at the inn and returned in the afternoon. And what did they know of Rock Lake? Who had told them of it? That officious Barker, of course. ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... certain that it was not fear—not fear for himself—but it was, all the same, a sort of apprehension as if for another, for some one he knew without being able to put a name on the personality. But the recollection that the officious Englishman had a train to meet tranquillized him for a time. It was too stupid to suppose that he should be wasting his time in waiting. It was unnecessary to look round ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... what he was writing and he replied, "My publishers have demanded a fresh batch of corpses." The little detective-priest ("I am very fond," said one reader to Chesterton, "of that officious little loafer") became a feature in crime anthologies, and when Anthony Berkeley in 1929 wanted to found the Detective Club he wrote that it "would be quite incomplete without the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... was this pack of officious idiots blundering in upon him. Under ordinary circumstances he would have tried to be polite. As it was, he could hardly bring himself to give them a civil word of welcome. They caught him on his way from the bath to the garden—to ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... they were very officious in going back to assist," observed the Major; "a pretty mess we should be in, if we were in an enemy's country, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... dwells.' "Such is our state: but I resolve to live By rules my reason and my feelings give; No legal guards shall keep enthrall'd my mind, No Slaves command me, and no teachers blind. Tempted by sins, let me their strength defy, But have no second in a surplice by; No bottle-holder, with officious aid, To comfort conscience, weaken'd and afraid: Then if I yield, my frailty is not known; And, if I stand, the glory is my own. "When Truth and Reason are our friends, we seem Alive! awake!—the superstitious dream. Oh! then, fair ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... toss his arms up and down over the pit—not of destruction, but of preservation. He had started early, and, whilst he was setting the teeth on edge of all within hearing, by setting an edge to his saw, some very officious friend ran to him, to tell him that his wife was increasing his family, without even his permission having been asked. Instead, therefore, of making a dust in his own pit, he flung down his file, took up his lanthorn, and hurried along to kick up a dust ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... such good Americans as her friend and herself; but it suited her just then to make this assumption, which was not altogether sincere. It was recommended by the idea that it would get her companion out of the way—out of the way of officious fellow-citizens—till she should be absolutely firm on her feet, and would also give greater intensity to their own long conversation. On that continent of strangers they would cleave more closely still to each other. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... so far as to think it a happy omen to meet or see Philippides at the outset of any enterprise or expedition. And, in general, he was well thought of for his own character, as a plain, uninterfering person, with none of the officious, self-important habits of a court. Once, when Lysimachus was solicitous to show him kindness, and asked what he had that he could make him a present of, "Anything," replied Philippides, "but your state secrets." The stage-player, we thought, deserved ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... back the unthinking and officious School Directors voted to have that fence demolished, simply because it seemed to be out of keeping with the grand new building that had been erected, a storm of angry protest arose from students and parents; while ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... it is done as a punishment and oblique satire on servility and selfishness. It is in that case Diamond cut Diamond—a trial of skill between the legacy-hunter and the legacy-maker, which shall fool the other. The cringing toad-eater, the officious tale-bearer, is perhaps well paid for years of obsequious attendance with a bare mention and a mourning-ring; nor can I think that Gil Blas' library was not quite as much as the coxcombry of his pretensions deserved. There are some admirable scenes in Ben Jonson's Volpone, showing the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... With officious zeal he busied himself in aiding his visitor to emerge from his wrappings, and soon Count Lesle stood before the Stadtholder of the Mark in the beautiful, unique Spanish garb, such as was worn ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... former days, than would the custom I have here cited to the comforters of modern times. If I cannot say that, amongst some bold remedies, I have recommended it, I have, at least, avoided, on all occasions, officious endeavours to counteract the oppressing burden, by wrenching the mind from the engrossing thought—a process generally attended with no other result than making it adhere ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... the Quakers have rejected upon the principle, that it has no connection with true civility. They consider it as officious, troublesome, and even embarrassing, on some occasions. To drink to a man, when he is lifting his victuals to his mouth, and by calling off his attention, to make him drop them, or to interrupt two people, who are eating and talking together, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... them to write their lives in such a fashion, that their earlier experiences should seem to be in harmony with their later fortunes. Lord Macclesfield (the son of a poor and ill-descended country attorney), was traced by officious adulators to Reginald Le Parker, who accompanied Edward I., while Prince of Wales, to the Holy Land. In like manner a manufacturer of genealogies traced Lord Eldon to Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie. When one of this servile school of worshippers approached Lord Thurlow ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... master Minos, I am forfeited to eternal disgrace, if you do not commiserate. Good officer, be not so officious. Enter TUCCA and Pyrgi. Tuc. Why, how now, my good brace of bloodhounds, whither do you drag the gentleman? You mongrels, you curs, you ban-dogs! we are captain Tucca that talk ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... high good-humour. He rejoiced in seeing the pert and officious young clerk of the works put in his proper place; and Sir George had lunched at the Rectory. There was a repetition of the facetious proposal that Sir George should wait for payment of his fees until the tower should fall, which acquired fresh point from the circumstance that all payments ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the ability to see herself as others saw her. At the present moment the vision was anything but pleasing or gratifying. Miss North's argument, clear and logical, spoke straight to her conscience. She realized all at once that she had been meddlesome and officious, and ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... who had no rivals in the love Which to himself he bore, Esteem'd his own dear beauty far above What earth had seen before. More than contented in his error, He lived the foe of every mirror. Officious fate, resolved our lover From such an illness should recover, Presented always to his eyes The mute advisers which the ladies prize;— Mirrors in parlours, inns, and shops,— Mirrors the pocket furniture ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... I thought I remembered your face, but I wasn't certain till I saw your teeth. Ah! yes, to be sure. It was this officious refugee,' said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, 'who came knocking at the door on the night when Arthur and Chatterbox were here, and who asked me a whole Catechism of questions ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... be performed freely and fearlessly, by the author of this work, come weal or come woe. If these two "Knights of the Rueful Countenance" kill and eat a dozen Know Nothings, we know one member of the Order they will not affright into silence. For their cowardly assaults and their officious intermeddlings they may bare their backs to the lash. We will be with them to the bitter end, and will only forsake them in the Gethsemane of ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... emigrants had been so long accustomed to conform to the strict discipline of the ship that they felt like sheep suddenly deprived of a shepherd, or soldiers bereft of their officers when thus left to think for themselves. Then the self-sufficient and officious among them began to give advice, and to dispute noisily as to what they should do, so that in a few minutes their voices, mingling with the gale and the cries of terrified children, caused such a din that the strong spirit of the widow Lynch ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... family; Eliza, you remember how our dear father used to feel it." With these words Mistress Yordas led her sister to the dining-room; and they took good care to say nothing more about it before the officious Welldrum. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Davies was very brief and decidedly grave. Sanders had at first assumed the light air of superiority of the old cadet toward the plebe, and, to head off questioning, plunged into that species of deprecatory and officious advice which is generally prefaced by, "Now, my dear boy, let me as a friend," etc., etc. Like the chaplain's wife, Sanders started with the best intentions, and just as she had excited Mira's resentment so ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... back—packed up, and put my trunks in a neighbor's house, and then came down here with Sarah and Libbie. Thus it is. Mary—God help her—is in prison,—that is, she is guarded. Elder King has consented to just such arrangements as Mrs. King and Hibbard and some of the heartless, officious aristocrats of the village saw fit to propose. It cannot be helped. Mary will doubtless be used well, corporally—but oh, the torment of being confined with such despicable companions. I trust she will be brave; though I did hear yesterday morning that she was somewhat indisposed and ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... how much the cultivated intelligence of a few does to render the society in which we move more enjoyable: how it converts "the random and officious sociabilities of society" into a quickening and enjoyable intercourse and stimulus: everybody can recall instances of such a happy result of education. This can only be done by educated women. How much more might be done if there were more ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... reward and thank the men who had rescued them in his most genial manner, and Erica's happiness would have been complete had not the coast guardsman stepped up in an insolent and officious way, and observed: ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... imposing it on the inhabitants. When he reached Truro one of the Archibalds discovered his mission and presenting a pistol, used its persuasive influence to induce him immediately to return home. So officious did Patterson become that his sons several times were obliged to hide him in the woods, taking him to ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... cases is the condition of the husband upon the death of the wife. There in then no officious intermeddling of the law in his domestic affairs. His house, sad and desolate though it be, is still sacred and secure from the foot of unbidden guests. There is no legal "settlement" to eat up his estate. He is not told that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... called. At last the desired summons was brought: Shelley drew forth some bank notes, hurried to the bar, and returned as hastily, bearing in triumph under his arm a mahogany box, followed by the officious waiter, with whose assistance he placed it upon the bench by his side. He viewed it often with evident satisfaction, and sometimes patted it affectionately in the course of calm conversation. The solar microscope was always a favourite plaything or instrument of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... some of the female attendants that Manfred had despatched all his men various ways in pursuit of Isabella. He had in his hurry given this order in general terms, not meaning to extend it to the guard he had set upon Theodore, but forgetting it. The domestics, officious to obey so peremptory a Prince, and urged by their own curiosity and love of novelty to join in any precipitate chase, had to a man left the castle. Matilda disengaged herself from her women, stole up to the black tower, and ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... a terrible pow-wow with an officious Bavarian who called himself the Officer-of-the-Day. I played all my best German cards, including Count von Bemstorffs letter. At the end of half an hour our pig-headed officer shipped us back to Brussels. We returned ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... return to Vienna, I, by a friendly interference in behalf of a woman whose fears rather than guilt had brought her into danger, became suspected myself; and the very officious officers of the police had me imprisoned as a coiner without the least grounds for any such accusation except their own surmises. I was detained unheard nine days, and when, having been heard, I had entirely justified myself, was again ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... dared to interfere with the immutable decrees of fate. The stories too of its importation into Russia, are exactly the same as have come to us from our own Gibraltar, in the case of the yellow fever, and may be expected to come from every other quarter where a well paid officious quarantine is established to find infection in its own defence, and to trace its course in proof of their own services and utility. Under such circumstances, this well gotten up drama of importation may be rehearsed in every epidemic, adapted in all its ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... to come to him when he was at Westminster; and expressed himself desirous to assist his friend in every way that lay in his power—declaring that he really must be going for he didn't know what would happen if the Judge should find he was away; and was not at all certain it would not lead to some officious member of the House of Commons asking a question of the Prime Minister ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... the breakfast room an officious waiter bows and scrapes, and seats us at a table giving full view of the sunny patio. We have a quiet breakfast, boasting neither special cheer nor appetite, and it is soon finished. We are beginning to wonder how we shall ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... privilege to add my memories of Mrs. Croly to those which have preceded. Mine are not of her club interests, nor of her identification with the woman's club movement. So much has been written, and so well, regarding these public phases of her life that it would seem almost officious for me to add a stone to the already piled up cairn; I write rather of my friend as my family knew her in her home, surrounded ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... honourable name Attribute; wherefore, save that not one gleam 180 Of Truth did e'er discover to themselves Their little hearts, or teach them, by the effects Of that parental love, the love itself To judge, and measure its officious deeds? But man, whose eyelids Truth has fill'd with day, Discerns how skilfully to bounteous ends His wise affections move; with free accord Adopts their guidance; yields himself secure To Nature's prudent impulse; and converts Instinct to duty and to sacred law. 190 Hence Right and Fit on earth; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... recently witnessed a frightful instance of the prompt punishments of the people into whose hands he had fallen to hazard an exposure by any officious boldness. He would greatly have preferred silence and meditation to speech, when a discovery of his real condition might prove so instantly fatal. Unfortunately for this prudent resolution, his entertainers appeared otherwise disposed. He had not long occupied the seat wisely ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... An officious junior, quite unnecessarily, ran for Miss Lodge, magnifying the accident so much in her highly coloured account that the mistress arrived on the scene prepared to find Rona stretched unconscious. Seeing that the girl looked white and tearful, ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... one day quietly reading her Bible. Amazed and half crediting the reports of officious neighbors, she felt it was time to interfere. Here she was, reading and shedding tears over the Bible. She ordered her to put up the book, and go to work, and not be snivelling about the house, ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... Beatrice cursed him for a slow, officious fool. He tested the ladder, to see it was safe, then he cautiously clambered up. At the top he stood leaning sideways, bending over the ladder to peer into the room. He could see all sorts of things, for he ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... her officious friend that the time of her return was altogether uncertain; resolving rather to abide a guest with Mrs. Pritchard than to have Dr. Quackenboss hanging upon her motions every day of her being there. But in the mean time the doctor got upon Capt. Rossitur's subject; then came to Mr. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. 'He was a good man, but very officious,' says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at" [over] ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wasted. I saved you lots of things—if I didn't save you money. Really, I did earn my salary—though you often thought me officious." ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the departure of several copies. Not having had any instructions to address myself to Congress, unless in the absence of Mr Jay, or in case of any event that deprived the public of his services, I know not whether I may not appear officious at present; particularly as I have already communicated to him regularly, all the intelligence I have been able to procure, as also my reflections on that intelligence, which his ability and long experience in affairs, will enable ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... was displeased because we did not give him as much venison as he could eat and in consequence refused to interpret, we took no further notice of him and in the course of a few hours he became very officious and seemed anxious to reinstate himself in our good opinons. the relation of the twisted hair and Neeshneparkkeook gave us a sketch of the principall watercourses West of the Rocky Mountains a copy of which I preserved; they ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... light in the car, M. Max seemed to FEEL him smiling—"but this little device has proved so useful hitherto. In the event of any of those troubles—wretched police interferences—arising, and of officious people obtaining possession of a patron's name, he is spared the necessity of perjuring himself ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... are more or less liable greatly depends on the state of their general health and the natural temper and character of the individual; but it can be greatly aggravated, and may often be excited by circumstances or officious persons. Let me, then, urge upon you the important necessity of keeping the mind as tranquil and cheerful as possible, particularly during the first four months of pregnancy. A judicious course of this kind will produce the most beneficial and well-balanced mind in the child; while, if the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... had been asked, would have suggested—but he was not officious and kept his ideas ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... her father being no longer alive, a guardian stands in his place. To him (who is not acquainted with me) busybodies and officious gentlemen must have no doubt brought all sorts of reports, such as, that he must beware of me, that I have no fixed income, that I would perhaps leave her in the lurch, etc., etc. The guardian became very uneasy ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... pretended misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there were thereabout ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... on his sick bed, is said to have cast a very suspicious look at the good man who stated that he could cure him, but who carried all his medicines and mixtures in a little cask on his shoulder. The knight however, making a sign to the officious servants and attendants to leave the chamber, informed the reverend gentleman of what he was about to do. He then calmly took the plug out of the cask, and gave the sick man a drink of the sparkling wine which ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... remarkable thing about him, for in course of time hearing of young William's misadventure, he sent him a sum equivalent to all the episode had cost him, together with a handsome diamond stud, which he had with great deftness and cleverness taken from the officious policeman, as he visited the dime museum with two ladies while spending his vacation in Detroit. And this beautiful ornament William delighted to wear, not merely because of its intrinsic worth, which was considerable, but through regard for its ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... chuckled. All preachers were alike, officious and on their dignity; liked to deal with women and girls, but not with men. He took up a thin volume from the minister's desk. To his amusement it proved to be a book of "Devotional and Kindred Poems; by Mrs. Aurelia S. Larsen." He looked them over, thinking ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... cabin. In an hour the negro was fed, and he was regularly placed in the starboard-watch. I was rejoiced at this last arrangement, as it put the fellow in a watch different from my own, and prevented his officious efforts to do my work. Rupert, I discovered, however, profited often by his zeal, employing the willing black on every possible occasion. On questioning Neb, I ascertained that he had taken the boat ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... to calm her, lest the excitement would be too much. "After all it mightn't be so bad. Lots of boys take a few paltry oranges out of the gardens and no one makes such a fuss but that old creature. He just wants to be officious." This was an injudicious ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... effected; such as the whole array of the terms of presentation that are made to serve, all systematically, yet without a gap anywhere, for the presentation, throughout, of a Mitchy "subtle" no less than concrete and concrete no less than deprived of that officious explanation which we know as "going behind"; such as, briefly, the general service of co-ordination and vivification rendered, on lines of ferocious, of really quite heroic compression, by the picture of the assembled group at Mrs. Grendon's, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... were being done to a leaking gas-pipe in one of the music rooms. It's an ill wind, however, that blows nobody good, and it gave VA. an opportunity that was denied even to the Sixth. Ingred was at once escorted to the piano, and officious hands piled exercise books on a chair to make her ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... so with regard to women; who, of whatever rank they are, are entitled, in consideration of their sex, not only to an attentive, but an officious good-breeding from men. Their little wants, likings, dislikes, preferences, antipathies, fancies, whims, and even impertinences, must be officiously attended to, flattered, and, if possible, guessed ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... mind of that long tramp along the edge of the sea. But greater matters press, and I may not linger on these. We had many a close shave from officious village busybodies, whose patriotism flew no higher than thought of the reward which hung to an escaped prisoner of war or to any likely subject for ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... thank you; you can send my luggage on to-morrow," she said to the kindly officious man, who followed her to offer his services as driver, and she turned up the street with a heart full of exultant hopes. Here were the last straggling houses that reached up the hilly street, leading to the moor. Her steps were ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... this town, whose life since the beginning of the war, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soldier's lot, and his comfort in the hospitals. She is a young lady, petite in figure, unpretending, but highly cultivated, by no means officious, and so wholly unconscious of her excellencies, and the great work she is achieving, that I fear this public allusion to her may pain her modest nature. Her sweet, young face, full of benevolence, pleasant voice, and winning manner instate her in every one's ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... dimensions and a white bath-room with a fluffy mat which comforted the soles of his feet and tickled his toes. Another recollection was of the day when a lady already faintly familiar to him was introduced by an officious nurse as his new mother, and when he looked up at her, with interest in her relationship and admiration for her prettiness, he saw her making herself look very tall and stern as she said clearly, "I am ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... cold morning, or night, or reads a newspaper, or smokes, or stops to converse while on duty. The punishment for these offences is a stoppage of pay for a day or two. First offences are usually forgiven. Many well-meaning but officious citizens enter complaints against the men. They are generally frivolous, but are heard patiently, and are dismissed with a warning to the accused to avoid giving cause for complaint. Thieves and disreputable characters sometimes enter complaints against the men, with the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... before they started her feelings really were a little hurt: it happened that in trying to help Eleanor pack, she was close enough to her to notice a thread on her hair; instantly, she put out a friendly and officious thumb and finger to remove it—at which ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... to the urging of his friends, officious mediators between himself and the family of the girl, and that morning he was on his way to breakfast at the house in Valldemosa where Valls resided the greater part of the year for relief from the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... be the care of every nurse and every parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... reassured Mrs. Hill or not, I do not know, but anyhow she departed that night for Berlin, leaving us loaded with endless instructions, extra money, and a tiny red German dictionary. I never felt so officious in my life as when I called a cab and ushered Jess and Anne into it after the train had pulled out. I can see now why it is that Thomas Cook and Son have ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... habits were, had high breeding, and, as we learn from Boswell's gossip, was not entirely free from aristocratic tendencies,—nay, is said to have aspired to a royal crown?[27] Or is the coronet on his tomb an unauthorised device of the officious friends who are said to have spent 500l. in giving ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... confidence with you, Herr Carruthers,' he said, speaking low. 'You won't think me officious, I hope. I only speak out of keen regard for your friend. It is about the Dollmanns—you see how the land lies? I wouldn't ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... must not think me meddlesome—officious. I can no more wait for your permission to help you than if you were drowning. Perhaps for good reasons within me, I know, better than you, that you-and he—are on a slippery incline, and that whether you can stop your descent and creep back to higher ground than either of you has slipped from ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... in no hurry to disembark. The sampan into which he stepped, in fact, did not creep up to the shore until evening. There, ignoring the rickshaw coolies who awaited him as he passed an obnoxiously officious trio of customs officers, he disappeared up one of the narrow and slippery side streets of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... right might lie to him; the parent might lie to the child, the State to the citizen, and God to man, a doctrine which, away from its application to God, Grotius accepts. Lastly since volenti non fit injuria, the presumed willingness of the listener would license all manner of officious and jocose lies, as the authority of the speaker would sanction official fabrications. Thus, what with official, and what with officious speeches, it would be very ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... refuse to see us and was quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things began ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the article is rising fast. You are desired by no means to forget Bermuda; if you should, Great Britain will seize it this winter, or France on the first rupture, having been made sensible of its importance, by the officious zeal of that same Mr H. As your navy is increasing, will you commission me to send you duck for twenty or thirty sail? I can procure it for you to the northward on very good terms, and you have on hand the produce wanted to pay for it with. Have you granted commissions ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible business ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... velvet, looped back with twisted cords of silk and silver thread. The driver and footman were clad in livery which corresponded with the elegant style of the equipage. They turned in a broad, aristocratic-looking square, and drew up in front of a handsome and spacious mansion. The officious footman sprung to the pavement, swung back the carriage-door, and held out his gloved hand to assist a lady, who was ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life, WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... were proffered concerning a possible change in the breeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but Grandcourt's manner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and that he ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... death, old Captain Keene, who had once held the appointment himself, and was indebted to Captain Caldwell for much kindly hospitality, went about the countryside telling people that Captain Caldwell had died of drink. Some officious person immediately brought ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... "Oeconomy of Human Life," produced a whole family of oeconomies; it was soon followed by a second part, the gratuitous ingenuity of one of those officious imitators, whom an original author never cares to thank. Other oeconomies trod on the heels ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... do you, Cloudy, dear? You don't think I'm officious or impertinent?" begged Leslie anxiously. "It was Allison's idea to get the hat to match the coat, and it was such a dear we couldn't help taking it; but, if there is anything about them you don't like, we got special permission for you to exchange ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... strength has decayed in his service—or the sufferings of the helpless brute that drags with pain and difficulty its maimed carcass to Smithfield—what reasonable being that has witnessed all or any of this, will venture to affirm that interference is officious and uncalled for? Yet it is certain that Mr. Martin acted properly and wisely in excluding flies from the operation of his act—well knowing, as he must have done, that the feeling of the majority was decidedly averse from affording parliamentary countenance and immunity to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... secured to the great creating poet the right of partiality, of limitation, of setting aside and leaving out, of taking one impression and one emotion as sufficient for the day. Art and Nature are separate, complementary; in relation, not in confusion, with one another. And all this officious cleverness in seeing round the corner, as it were, of a thing presented by literary art in the flat—(the borrowing of similes from other arts is of evil tendency; but let this pass, as it is apt)—is but another sign of the general lack of a sense of the separation between Nature and the sentient ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... much more rapidly, seemed to have forgotten that he had himself borne any part in the disgraceful scene; he looked at his father with kind of a pitying superiority, and began to assist him in the repair of his toilet, with the air of an officious outsider, all of which the crest-fallen father endured with great fortitude. He seemed only anxious to explain the situation to the two women, who were still viewing him ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... come upstairs after me, always officious and eager, manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on beholding the careless reception accorded by Chrysantheme to her lord and master, and advanced ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hope, Lest they should hope no longer! Hope they have; Still say they, 'God will snare us in the end Though wild.'" And Patrick, "Spirits twain are theirs: The stranger, and the poor, at every door They meet, and bid him in. The youngest child Officious is in service; maids prepare The bath; men brim the wine-cup. Then, forth borne, Cities they fire and rich in spoil depart, Greed mixed with rage—an industry of blood!" He spake, and thus the younger made reply: ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... hazard the happiness of their family. They had heard of a house in the country which was likely to suit them, and they determined to go directly to look at it. As they were to be absent all day, they foresaw that their officious neighbour would probably interfere with their children. They did not choose to exact any promise from them which they might be tempted to break, and therefore they only said at parting, "If Mrs. Theresa Tattle should ask you to come to her, do ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... true,—he had grown away from her Been afraid since to like almost anything Cold shower-bath the world furnishes gratis Conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends Don't be in a hurry to choose your friends Dreaded mingling with the brawlers of the market-place Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest Getting married is jumping overboard Grief ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... shape, stature, and the features of his countenance. That the said Timothy Trim being taken into the family, clapped their mistress's livery over his own tattered coat; that the said Timothy was extremely officious about their mistress's person, endeavouring by flattery and tale-bearing to set her against the rest of the servants: nobody was so ready to fetch anything that was wanted, to reach what was dropped. That he used to shove and elbow ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... the propriety of most of the corrections which I shall offer under Rule 6th. But if the inhabitants of any place choose to call their town a creek, a river, a harbour, or a bridge, and to think it officious in other men to pretend to know better, they may do as they please. If between them and their correctors there lie a mutual charge of misnomer, it is for the literary world to determine who is right. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... that all possibility of intraperitoneal rupture rests with the blundering, heavy-handed, trouble-hunting profession; and if nature ever fails to complete the building of this wall of defense it will be because she has been interfered with by officious meddling in the ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... are glowing, No smoke around its white curls throwing; Apply the suet, softly, lightly; The griddle's black face shines more brightly. Now pour the batter on; delicious! Don't, dear James, think me officious, But lift the tender edges lightly; Now turn it over quickly, sprightly. 'Tis done! Now on the white plate lay it: Smoking hot, with butter spread, 'Tis quite enough to turn ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... the better trees which erst had stood Unmoved, forsook their native wood. The laurel to the poet's hand did bow, Craving the honour of his brow; And every loving arm embraced, and made With their officious leaves a shade. The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be, Forgetting their old tyranny. The fearful hart next to the lion came, And wolf was shepherd to the lamb. Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air, And Muses of the place, were there; Who, when their little windpipes they had found ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... And if a "gauger" lost his life in some one or other of the bloody encounters that frequently took place between the smugglers and the revenue officers, why, so much the worse for the "gauger." He was an unnecessarily officious sort of a person, who had better have kept out of the way. In fact, popular sentiment was entirely with the smugglers, who by the bulk of the population were regarded with the greatest admiration. Smuggling, indeed, was so much a recognised trade or profession that ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... was quite rich, had attempted no such thing. She had taken the boy out of charity, and without a thought of being unconstitutional. But in had come this officious "Limpet" and upset the headmaster, and she was scolded, and Mrs. Varden was scolded, and Mr. Jackson was scolded, and the boy was scolded and placed with Mr. Pembroke, whom she revered less than any man in the world. Naturally enough, she considered it a further attempt of the authorities ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... incredibly assiduous and alert; far from neglecting the little particulars of his duty, and embarking in the mischievous amusements of the children belonging to the camp, he was always diligent, sedate, agreeably officious and anticipating; and in the whole of his behaviour seemed to express the most vigilant sense of his patron's goodness and generosity; nay, to such a degree had these sentiments, in all appearance, operated upon his reflection, that ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... opposite to the method which is irrational—regardless of reason, and therefore leading to conclusions erroneous and absurd. Rationalism is opposed to ultraism, to vehement, officious and extreme measures—while it would seek more excellent ways, it holds fast to that which ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... fell upon the obsequious servant of Creusa, who with such officious attention had filled his cup. He violently seized the old man, and accused him of his murderous intentions. Unprepared for this sudden attack he admitted his guilt, but pointed to the wife of Xuthus as the instigator of the crime. Ion was about to avenge himself ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... hanging about waiting for a steamer already on her way up from the Quarantine, presented a peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had not much luggage—I never have. I mingled with the crowd of passengers, porters, and officious individuals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed to spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a moored steamer to obtrude their unnecessary services upon the independent passenger. I have often noticed with a certain interest the spontaneous ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... alacrity; and the better to show their sympathy, a young German traveller was produced, that he might console the injured prince by enabling him to pour out his griefs in the vernacular of his country. This bit of delicate attention, however, was defeated by an officious valet, who declared that ever since his dethronement, his master had taken such an aversion to the German language, that it threw him into fits even to hear it! Of course the traveller had the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... may be made, These cannot: I abhor the tyrant's race,— My parents' murderers, my throne's usurpers. But, at one blow, to cut off all dispute, Know this, thou busy, old, officious man,— I am a Christian; now be wise no more; Or, if thou wouldst be still thought wise, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... but returned to Shawnee Mission and sought the official protection of Sheriff Jones; no warrant, no examination, no commitment followed, and the criminal remained at large. Out of this incident, the officious sheriff managed most ingeniously to create an embroilment with the town of Lawrence, Buckley, who was alleged to have been accessory to the crime, obtained a peace-warrant against Branson, a neighbor of the victim. With ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... perhaps you'd have more belief in me, or less suspicion of me. I wonder if you would do this? Could you bring yourself to stay just long enough to see that I am not trying to do you good? Fancy how I should feel to have you go away looking upon me as an officious philanthropist! Isn't it only square to give me a chance to demonstrate ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... room an officious waiter bows and scrapes, and seats us at a table giving full view of the sunny patio. We have a quiet breakfast, boasting neither special cheer nor appetite, and it is soon finished. We are beginning to wonder how ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... Waverley-Honour without any transfer of his affections, notwithstanding the sighs and languishments of the fair tell-tale, who had revealed, in mere sisterly affection, the secret of Lady Emily's attachment, and in despite of the nods, winks, and innuendoes of the officious lady mother, and the grave eulogiums which the Earl pronounced successively on the prudence, and good sense, and admirable dispositions, of his first, second, third, fourth, and fifth daughters. The memory of his unsuccessful amour was with Sir ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... you condescended to comply with the humour of the company. It is for me, therefore, to apologize for so unseasonable a gravity, which, but for the particular interest that I now take in the affairs of Lord Merton, I should not have been so officious to display." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... common for a Dish of Chocolate, and to give this Dish as if it were ordinary Chocolate. I have had great Experience of this, it is a good Purge without Griping; several have mistaken the Effect for the Benefit of Nature only, being entirely ignorant of the officious Deceit which I made use of for their sakes. What Advantages may not there be drawn from this Method of Purging apply'd to Children, who are so backward to take any thing that ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... work. But of course, in a tale of this kind, the only thing that really matters is the one question of spotting the criminal, or who killed Cock Robin. Naturally I am not going to spoil your fun over this by any officious whisperings. As you probably know, the one safe rule in such matters is to concentrate upon Caesar's wife; and even in repeating this antique maxim I may have betrayed too much. Forget it, and you may find what happened In the Night a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... pack, went forth to hunt him with dogs and guns, it seemed that there was never a wolf in the country. Nevertheless, either that same night or the next, it was long odds that one or more of those same dogs who had been officious in the hunt would disappear. As for traps and poisoned meat, they proved equally futile. They were always visited, to be sure, by the pack, at some unexpected and indeterminable moment, but treated always with a contumelious scorn which was doubtless all that such ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... Abbey Church which is so well known by the name of Poet's Corner, proceeded through the unseemly stockade which the chapter have erected, and took their seats. One only, a female, declined to pass, notwithstanding the officious admonitions of the vergers that she had better move on, but approaching the iron grating that shut her out from the body of the church, looked wistfully down the long dim perspective of the beautiful southern aisle. And thus motionless she remained in contemplation, or it might be prayer, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pendle, and when that prelate took his departure for London by the three o'clock train, Cargrim attended him to the station, full of meekness and irritating attentions. It was with a feeling of relief that the bishop saw his officious chaplain left behind on the platform. He had a secret, and with the uneasiness of a loaded conscience, fancied that everyone saw that he had something to conceal—particularly Cargrim. In the presence ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... or fairy, which, like a faithful English Brownie, performed innumerable services for the farmers and householders in its neighbourhood, more especially that of feeding the cattle, and cleaning their sheds in wet weather; until at length some officious person, considering such practices as unchristian proceedings, laid the kindly spirit for three generations, banishing him to that common receptacle for such beings—the Red Sea. The spot in which he disappeared obtained the name of Trwyn Pwcca (Fairy's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... The officious housewife fetched a joint-stool, first clearing it from dust, whilst her husband added a billet to the heap. She was just preparing breakfast. A wooden porringer, filled to the brim with new milk, in which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... states, more sarcastically, that "the general is said to have manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather than gratify the officious ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to the last, little regarded by the great world; from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honor, as from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even among Johnson's friends, and special admirers, seems rather to have been laughed at than envied; his officious, whisking, consequential ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he underwent, could gain from the world no golden, but only leaden, opinions. His devout Discipleship seemed nothing more than a mean Spanielship, in the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... "She's rather too officious to suit me," Mable Westervelt retorted, "and she's younger than any of us. One would think, the way she poses as monitor at this second-rate, run-down boarding school, that Mary ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... vividly corresponded with his attitude. He was pale, haggard, and unshaven, and his dull and sunken eye gazed at me without a spark of recognition. I had been afraid that he would greet me with fierce reproaches, as the cruelly officious patron who had turned his contentment to bitterness, and I was relieved to find that my appearance awakened no visible resentment. "Don't you know me?" I asked, as I put out my hand. "Have ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... and the pale moon, as if in a fickle mood, was smiling and scowling by turns, as the fleecy clouds hurried swiftly past her. The fitful and sudden glances of light appeared doubly bright from the transient shadows made by the officious clouds. They, deeming that the moon took too much credit to herself as queen' of light for the hour, designed apparently to let her know that she reigned only at their ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... a prince to come into even the empty name of power was to become subject to the evil eye of his fraternal lord and rival, for whose favor officious friends and superserviceable lackeys contended in scandalous and treacherous spyings of the Second King's every action. Yet, meanly beset as he was, he contrived to find means and opportunity to enlarge his understanding and multiply his attainments; and in the end ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... in Germany to see human nature cropping out, even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own. But this is not enough. Physical safety is not enough, the demand is for political freedom, and for a government answerable to the people and the people's representatives. Rich men, powerful men, representative men by the thousands, men whom one meets of all ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... may not actually drive away the male of her own variety." Under ordinary circumstances the males and females of the fowl seem to come to a mutual understanding by means of certain gestures, described to me by Mr. Brent. But hens will often avoid the officious attentions of young males. Old hens, and hens of a pugnacious disposition, as the same writer informs me, dislike strange males, and will not yield until well beaten into compliance. Ferguson, however, describes how a quarrelsome hen was subdued by the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Macumer treated this officious scandal-monger to one of those glances of his which seem to me so eloquent of noble scorn, and replied to the effect that he was "not in love with any little coquette." His whole bearing so delighted me, that directly I caught sight of my father, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... dead and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. "He was a good man, but very officious," says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at' [over] 'it. ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we had entirely forgotten to reckon. As we were proceeding in a body back to the hall, we met all the Maori girls coming out, and a high state of indignation they seemed to be in. Some officious person had carried Miss Cityswell's dictum to their ears, and up went all the brown noses in the air as a consequence. They were not going to stop in the hall to be grossly and gratuitously insulted! No, thank you! If they were not good enough ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... during the last years of the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire in the peninsula. It is hardly likely that the Emperor ordered the death of the pontiff as recorded, and more probable that his over-officious representatives regarded it as a means of ingratiating themselves with their master. The passage is strictly contemporaneous, as the Liber Pontificalis, at least in this part, is composed of brief biographies of Popes written ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... question was evidently new to the work and was exceedingly fussy and officious. He scanned my pink pass for some time and then asked, "Where are you going?" "Wimereux," I replied promptly. He looked at the pass again—"It's got "Wimeroo," here, and not what you said," he answered suspiciously. "Some people pronounce it 'Vimerer,' nevertheless," I could not ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... had again been falsely accused. In his indignation at the treatment to which she had been exposed, Lancelot bore her off to Joyeuse Garde, where he swore he would defend her even against the king. Arthur, whose mind, in the mean while, had been poisoned by officious courtiers, besieged his recreant wife and knight; but although repeatedly challenged, the loyal Lancelot ever refused to bear arms directly against ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... or run a-drift,) So, though he posted e'er so fast, His fear was greater than his haste: For fear, though fleeter than the wind, 65 Believes 'tis always left behind. But when the morn began t' appear, And shift t' another scene his fear, He found his new officious shade, That came so timely to his aid, 70 And forc'd him from the foe t' escape, Had turn'd itself to RALPHO's shape; So like in person, garb, and pitch, 'Twas hard t' interpret which ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... retired, and in a few moments Isabel was surrounded by officious attendants, whom she at length, with some difficulty, dismissed; and refusing to retire to rest, she spent the night in examining the chamber, which she found was secured, and in thoughts of Zicci, in whose power she ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... proper date was A.D. 1905, and whose proper address was London, set down in Egypt in the year 6000 B.C. with no means whatever of getting back into their own time and place. They could not find the East, and the sun was of no use at the moment, because some officious person had once explained to Cyril that the sun did not really set in the West at all—nor rise in the East either, for the matter ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... long accustomed to conform to the strict discipline of the ship that they felt like sheep suddenly deprived of a shepherd, or soldiers bereft of their officers when thus left to think for themselves. Then the self-sufficient and officious among them began to give advice, and to dispute noisily as to what they should do, so that in a few minutes their voices, mingling with the gale and the cries of terrified children, caused such a din that ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... is printed in the quarto of 1611, with exactness equal to that of the other books of those times. The first edition was probably corrected by the author, so that here is very little room for conjecture or emendation; and accordingly none of the editors have much molested this piece with officious criticism. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... composed of men of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honor, both with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors in their own language. Many had pretensions far above ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... women and him on their concern for her. Another letter brought her from Colonel Morden. The substance of it. Belford writes to hasten up the Colonel. Dr. H. has also written to her father; and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter recanting his officious one. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... wish and opinion, I have tolerated my mental load of grievances until the new year; but as it is essential to commence it well in order that measures may prosper to the end, I have resolved to put my intention in execution, regardless of the officious tongues of those of microscopic views who may deem that my time might be well employed in balancing the rivalships of barbarous seamen or protecting the movable stores of the immovable Hellas. In my present state of official insignificance I could render no other service. I have stated ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... answer until he had made sure that she was not irritating Rabbit with a too-officious guidance. When he saw that she was holding the reins loosely as he had told her to do, and was merely laying the weight of a rein on one side of the neck and then on ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Rome also on the occasion, although not in the apartments of the Pope, a British statesman, who was not an ambassador, inasmuch as, whatever may have been his business at Rome, he had no recognized mission, if any mission at all, to the Sovereign of Rome. He was rather officious than official, and whether he had commission or not, he held, as is well known, serious communications with the enemies of the Pope. Lord Minto was enthusiastically received by the secret societies of Rome. The people, forgetting at the time the way to the Quirinal, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... sympathetic powder which had been so assiduously applied to the weapon, whereas it is hardly necessary to observe that the promptness of the cure depended on the total exclusion of air from the wound, and upon the sanative operations of nature not having received any disturbance from the officious interference of art. The result, beyond all doubt, furnished the first hint which led surgeons to the improved practice of healing wounds by what is technically called the first intention."(251) "In all records," adds Dr. Paris, of "extraordinary cures performed ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... be so officious: my brother's interest, without hers, is strong enough; for he has found means to confederate all the family against me. Upon some fresh provocation, or new intelligence concerning Mr. Lovelace, (I know ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the small German potentates, I dictated the phrase,—'officious for equivalents.' This my amanuensis wrote,—'fishing for elephants;'—which, as I observed at the time, was a sort of Noah's angling, that could hardly have occurred, except at the commencement ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Anne du, a learned and upright member of the Parliament of Paris, makes an eloquent plea for religious liberty in the "mercuriale," i. 334; his arrest, i. 335; his trial and successive appeals, i. 368; his officious advocate, i. 369; his message to the Protestants of Paris, ib.; his deportment in the Bastile, i. 370; intercession of the Elector Palatine in his behalf, ib.; his pathetic and eloquent speech i. 371; his death, i. 372; a disastrous blow to the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Russian plenipotentiary, considered himself entitled to give direction to the diplomacy of Cettinje, he was furious over the evident favor with which Monson was regarded by the Prince, who often followed his advice. It was a sore point with the Montenegrins, from the Prince down, that Jonine was so officious in his intervention even in military advice, where he had not the least competence; and in general the Montenegrins resented the dictation of the Russian staff, even where it had every reason to urge its own views of the operations. On the occasion of the next birthday of the Czar, which was as ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... contribute some on your ladyship's account, and when I get the banquet ready and invite you, venerable ancestor, to come and partake of it, I'll also wrap fifty taels in a piece of paper, and dutifully present them to you, as a penalty for my officious interference in matters that don't concern me. Will this be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Redding, who, next to the sheriff and clerk, appeared to be the most violent and officious among the assailants: "talk about being here without arms, and for peace, do ye? when you have stolen a dozen of our guns, and have now got them in there among you. Pretty fellows, to talk about parley? We will give you a parley that will ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... had been living in England—here and on the Continent," I answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous "uncle" business to contend with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth twitched and she ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the drifting smoke. Our reveries were rudely interrupted by the shriek of the English locomotive—like an exaggerated toy whistle—and, with a mere glimpse of town and river, we were brought sharply up to the unattractive station of Stratford-on-Avon. We were hustled by an officious porter into an omnibus, which rattled through the streets until we landed at the Sign of the Red Horse; and the manner of our ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... also reciprocates, but the flatterer runs up, follows, holds out his hand at a distance, and if he is seen and addressed first, frequently protests with oaths, and calls witnesses to prove, that he did not see you. So in business friends neglect many unimportant points, are not too punctilious and officious, and do not thrust themselves upon every service, but the flatterer is persevering and unceasing and indefatigable in it, giving nobody else either room or place to help, but putting himself wholly at your disposal, and if you will not find him ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... close of the last opera season we heard a ludicrous mistake. One of these fellows bawled out "the Duke of Grafton's carriage;" "No," replied the gentleman, smiling, and correcting the officious cadman, who had caught at the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... civilised country. To me the most interesting circumstance was to notice the great delight of the natives, and the pleasure they seemed to take in observing the progress of the various works. All were officious to "lend a hand," and each seemed eager to be employed. This feeling corresponds with my idea of the best method of civilising a savage. Nothing can more completely show the importance of the useful arts than a dockyard. In it are ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... to church again in the afternoon, and then home, Mr. Shepley coming to me about my Lord's accounts, and in the evening parted, and we to supper again to Sir W. Pen. Whatever the matter is, he do much fawn upon me, and I perceive would not fall out with me, and his daughter mighty officious to my wife, but I shall never be deceived again by him, but do hate him and his traitorous tricks with all my heart. It was an invitation in order to his taking leave of us to-day, he being to go for Ireland in a few days. So home and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Heaven, so small, Nor glistering, may of solid good contain More plenty than the Sun that barren shines, Whose virtue on itself works no effect, But in the fruitful Earth; there first received, His beams, inactive else, their vigour find, Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries Officious, but to thee, Earth's habitant. And, for the Heaven's wide circuit, let it speak The Maker's high magnificence, who built So spacious, and his line stretched out so far, That Man may know he dwells not ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... taking root in the earth; it requires more strength to do this without such an opening; very many have failed, and their imperfections have been in every one's way. They have been more partial, more harsh, more officious and impertinent, than those compelled by severer friction to render themselves endurable. Those who have a more full experience of the instincts have a distrust as to whether the unmarried can be thoroughly human and humane, such as is hinted in the saying, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... 'pragmatical', and you now imply not merely that he is busy, but over-busy, officious, self-important, and pompous to boot. But it once meant nothing of the kind, and 'pragmatical' (like {Greek: pragmatikos}) was one engaged in affairs, being an honourable title, given to a man simply and industriously accomplishing the business which properly concerned ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... of their lives. On this occasion they were ready to assist in hoisting the butter on board. The firkins were first deposited upon the deck, and then lowered down the main hatchway. Some of the prisoners, who were the most officious in giving their assistance, contrived to secrete a firkin, by rolling it forward under the forecastle, and afterwards carrying it below ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... with the officious air of one who has been left out of the conversation far too long, "is where we come in. At our word, every coal pit in England would cease work, every furnace fire would go out, every factory would stand empty. The trains would remain on their sidings, or ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "No—batter made easy." "Some cheese, Mr. Foster?" "—Don't like single Glo'ster." Meanwhile, to top table, Like fox in the fable, You see silver dishes, With those little fishes, The whitebait delicious, Borne past you officious; And hear rather plainish A sound that's champagnish, And glimpse certain bottles Made long in the throttles; And sniff—very pleasant! Grouse, partridge, and pheasant. And see mounds of ices For patrons and vices, Pine-apple, and bunches Of grapes for sweet munches, And fruits ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... his pocket and continued to pace up and down in the patch of half-cleared ground at the back of the Ginnells' house. He perfectly understood that Delaine's letter was meant to warn him not to be too officious in Lady Merton's service. "Don't suppose yourself indispensable—and don't at any time forget your undesirable antecedents, and compromising situation. On those ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... serviceable to his companions on all occasions, and was always beforehand with them in the duties of charity; whether it were, that, being naturally officious, and of a warm temper, he was more eager to employ himself for them; or that his health, miraculously restored, rendered him more obliging and charitable towards those by whose ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... smith had branded with a mark, and he was a child upon whom the hardest and most commonplace among them could not look without a secret joy. Therefore they took him under their protection. The first who came to see Stephen Fausch was the teacher, an enlightened young man, and accordingly more officious. He greeted the smith a little condescendingly, a trifle masterfully. Then he blurted out at once the errand that had brought him. "You must change your boy's name, Fausch. He can't let every one call him by a shameful name like Cain. Give him your own name, Stephen, or some name ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... to try your strength. In your next fight you must not wound, but kill, or you will have no peace." I was greatly disturbed at this result of my accidental victory over Bias the Bearded, and did not at all appreciate the kind of greatness my officious friend Claro seemed so determined to thrust upon me. It was certainly flattering to hear that I had already established my reputation as a good fighter in so warlike a department as Paysandu, but then the consequences ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, though two-thirds of the population are Calvinists. Under such conditions, though there are the usual disadvantages of life in a small town, and each one lives under the officious eye which makes private life almost a public concern, on the other hand, the spirit of township—a sort of patriotism, which cannot indeed take the place of a love ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. 'He was a good man, but very officious,' says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at" [over] "it. A plain man it seems he was; I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... mingling of amusement, impatience, annoyance, and boyish mischief. He looked like a man who had somehow stumbled into a false position from which it would be difficult to escape with dignity, yet which he half enjoyed. Torn between a desire to laugh, and fly into a rage with the officious landlady, he frowned warningly at Frau Yorvan, smiled at the Princess, and divided his energies between quick, secret gestures intended for the eyes of the Rhaetian woman, and endeavors to unburden himself in his own time and way, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... worse than anything which had fallen to the lot of its ally now awaited Peru, which first attempted an officious mediation and then declared war on the 4th of April. Since Peru and Bolivia together had a population double that of Chile, and since Peru possessed a much larger army and navy than Chile, the allies counted confidently ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... work of economic rescue, or for participation in the permanent project of a society of nations. America not only has the right to refuse; it is probably to her immediate interest to refuse. But, at the risk of misinterpretation, as an officious outsider, I will venture to present an appeal to the wider and deeper interests of Americans. The refusal of America not only shuts the gate of hope for millions of war-broken, famine-ridden people in Central and Eastern Europe, it removes ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the officious Warden's interference? ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... had liked Beriah Bungel, the Everdoze constable, he would have gone to him with this information. But he disliked Beriah Bungel with true scout thoroughness; he knew him to be officious, and swelling with self-importance and he was not going to put business ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
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