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More "Peevishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... burthensome to himself, and consequently incapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of her products plays the step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, has endowed some men with that unhappy peevishness of disposition, as to nauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and much admire what belongs to other persons, so as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birth or fortunes have bestowed upon them: for what grace is there in the ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... a pun in the grave and elaborate work of a Lexicon. A story has been raised to account for it, and it has been ascribed to the impatient interjection of the lexicographer to his scribe, who, taking no offence at the peevishness of his master, put it down in the Dictionary. The article alluded to is, "CONCURRO, to run with others; to run together; to come together; to fall foul of one ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... peevishness of our times are chiefly attributable to tea and coffee. The digestive organs of confirmed coffee drinkers are in a state of chronic derangement which reacts on the brain, producing fretful and lachrymose moods. The snappish, petulant humor ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... him through, and nursed him to convalescence. I thought I knew something of the peevishness of convalescents: but Farrell beat anything I had ever seen, or heard, or read of. By this time I was worn weak as a rat with night-watching and day-watching: but of this he made no account whatever. He started by using his greater weakness for strength, and he went on to dissemble his growing ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... judge of the superiority of England, whether in the beauty and elegance of its women, the cleanliness of its towns, the multiplicity and aptness of its comforts, but he who has wandered in other parts of the world. Grumblers are domestic; just the same as spoiled brats cry for the very sake of peevishness, because they know not the pain of denial. As I have not much more time to speak, I would, with my last breath, recommend discontented people to travel; but if they should come back in the same fretful condition, well, let them ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... She rather enjoyed the excitement of keeping a firm hand over the elder ones, and she soon learned to have patience with the noise and heedlessness of the little ones. But the peevishness and wayward fancies of a nervous, excitable child, whom weakness made irritable, and an over-active imagination made dreams, she could neither understand nor endure; and so the first year after the mother's death was a year of great ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... unforeseen disagreeableness of a situation I had chosen entirely led me back to literature, to which unsuspectedly I had recourse as a means of releaving my mind, and thus, in the first works I wrote, I introduced the peevishness and ill-humor which were the cause of my undertaking them. There was another circumstance which contributed not a little to this; thrown into the world despite of myself, without having the manners of it, or being in a situation to adopt ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the pain of disappointment will be much increased by ill-temper, and that to yield to the force of necessity will be found wiser than vainly to oppose it. The contrast between the principal character with the peevishness of her cousins' temper is intended as an incitement to that placid disposition which will form the happiness of social life in every stage, and which, therefore, should not be thought beneath anyone's attention or ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp misery, that he was not affected ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... bed?" she complained with a smiling peevishness. ("Ye've got—ye've got remarkable eyebrows. The way they grow makes me feel all—all desperate.") "I've had a lie-down since four. You woke me up with your knocking. Dear, I've never been woken up so beautifully before. Now I want my supper. I never ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman who disliked the bondage of ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the path in her new rubber boots. Gertrude wondered aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads. Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice, Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where she hid the notions which ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... daughters sitting waiting to be married, I have pitied them from my heart. It is doubtless well—very well—if Fate decrees them a happy marriage; but, if otherwise, give their existence some object, their time some occupation, or the peevishness of disappointment, and the listlessness of idleness will infallibly degrade their nature.... Lonely as I am, how should I be if Providence had never given me courage to adopt a career...? How should I be with youth past, sisters lost, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... fingers, her glance was timidly reproachful. All this gave me great unhappiness, and I discovered, to my further distress, that in my attempt to return to the old familiar footing I was neglecting the committee and losing interest in the affairs of the library. A certain peevishness took possession of me; I was no longer myself, and I lost the gayety and sprightliness which had been always ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... and burly like thyself, Thomas—nearly as thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and carelessness of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all that mass of flesh no bolder animation than is afforded by the peevishness of a wasp and the courage of a wren. Out upon him! He a leader of chivalry to deeds of glory! Give him a flagon of Rhenish to drink with his besmirched ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... place of remembering that compact made between them for an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother; and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a state, always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the order was carried out; then he returned to his room. He felt that though he had conquered in this instance, he had adopted the wrong tone, and that he must offer something else than peevishness and irritation to ward off Westby's humor; already it gave indications of becoming too audacious. Yet on the whole Irving was pleased because he had at least asserted himself—and had rather enjoyed doing it. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... want?" he asked, with a suspicious peevishness which, for once, detracted from his habitual courtesy. The note of distrust jarred Elsie ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... known to be done in ten or twelve. This delay was most unpleasant, and was productive of much discontent and ill humour among our people, of which these only can have an adequate idea who have experienced a similar situation: For, besides the peevishness and despondency, which foul and contrary winds, and a lingering voyage, never fail to produce on all occasions, we in particular had substantial reasons for being greatly alarmed at this unexpected impediment; since, as we departed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... when she found resistance was vain. "I fear," said she, "that I am parting with the most valuable possession on earth—a friend, and that I shall get nothing in return but a lover." Her suspicions were well founded: he had not enjoyed his double capacity long, when he showed a degree of peevishness, of which he had before thought himself incapable; as a friend he demanded her esteem; as a lover he claimed her undivided affection; and as a man of sense and education, he expected rational and pleasing conversation. These complicated claims, however, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... each other, concentrate your hopes in each other, and if peevishness on either side arise, chase it away ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... exerted such a shattering effect upon Master Wacht that a consuming surly peevishness was the consequence of it. This time the stout strong oak was shaken from its topmost branch to its deepest root. Often when his mind was thought to be busy with quite different matters, he was heard to murmur in a low tone, "Sebastian—a ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... a train," reply I, dolorously, "it makes me sick!" Then feeling rather ashamed of my peevishness—"Never mind me!" I say, with a dusty smile; "I am quite happy! ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... but it is only a great king who can be weary gracefully. And Leopold was not a great king; indeed, he was many inches short of the ideal; but he was philosophical, and by the process of reason he escaped the pitfalls which lurk in the path of peevishness. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his little handful of thorns. Such a person is fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow; and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Atlantic, I bore the forgetfulness as well as I could until next morning. Summoning all my resolution, I repaired without my uncle's knowledge to the poet's house at an early hour, and after much difficulty was admitted to his room. He was still in bed. Every body has heard of Byron's peevishness, when disturbed or intruded on. He demanded my business in a petulant and offensive tone. I replied, respectfully, that on the preceding day I loaned him a silver pencil,—strongly emphasizing and repeating the word silver,—which, I was grieved to say, he forgot to return. Byron reflected ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... is a wonderful agency in managing a Negro: I know it tells powerfully upon white folks. The psalmist, addressing his Maker, says, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." It is a mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness, fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will legitimately result in thriftlessness, revolt, departure, and contempt for white people! Many of the young generation have ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... granted, was cantankerous; but how many sons who have never sponged on their mothers have supported them cheerfully, gladly, for long years out of meagre resources, and have borne with a smile the natural peevishness of old age, not ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... of Folly treats of serious Matters, in such a gay, familiar, ingenious and pleasant manner, as makes it a Work proper to be read by intelligent People, to remove out of their Minds all Bigotry contracted by Ignorance and an evil Education, all Peevishness, Hatred, and Ill-nature towards one another, on account of different Sentiments in Religion; and to form in them the natural Principles of Moderation, Humanity, Affection and Friendship. Our learned and ingenious Bishop Kennet could not do a more signal Piece ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... war, and with the avowed design, too, of making us beasts of burden, to support her in riot and debauchery, and to assist her afterwards in distressing those nations who are now our best friends. This ingratitude may suit a Tory, or the unchristian peevishness of a fallen ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... burden of them in a sense of necessity, or of rights or honour invaded; but there is nothing of like importance to alleviate the sufferings caused by fretfulness, impatience, want of temper. The excitable peevishness which kindles at trifles, that roughens the daily experience of a million families, that scatters its little stings at the table and by the hearth-stone, what does this but unmixed harm? What ingredient does it furnish but ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... culpably careless in all things that concerned his health and comfort, he spent his earnings for the welfare of his brothers, in order that an honourable posterity might carry on the name he bore, and which he made illustrious. We may smile at his peevishness in repudiating the title of sculptor after bearing it through so many years of glorious labour; but when he penned the letters I have quoted, he was the supreme artist of Italy, renowned as painter, architect, military engineer; praised as a poet; befriended ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... life. And suddenly, I struck my hands together, and I cried: Ha! what a fool I am! Why, she told me so herself, when I saw her for the second time, and yet I had forgotten it. And all this while, in the peevishness of my own oblivion and presumption, I have been blaming her, expecting things utterly unreasonable, and loading her extraordinary sweetness with miserable suspicions arising from my own imagination, and the blindness of my ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... care and art, too, used by the nurses; they had no swaddling bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid in the dark, or of being left alone; without any peevishness or ill humor or crying. Upon this account, Spartan nurses were often bought up, or hired by people of other countries; and it is recorded that she who suckled Alcibiades was a Spartan; who, however, if fortunate in his nurse, was not so in his ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... that she might be clothed upon, she certainly made a tolerable to-do about the garment she was so soon to lay aside; especially seeing she often spoke of it as an ill-fitting garment—never with peevishness or complaint, only, as it seemed to me, with far more interest than it was worth. She had even, as afterwards appeared, given her husband—good, honest, dog-like man—full instructions as to the ceremonial of its interment. Perhaps I should have been considerably less bewildered with her conduct ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch of peevishness in her voice. "And we've had such a hunt to find you. Do you know what the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... To set aside their unavailing infancy And vest the sov'reign rule in abler hands. This, though of great importance to the public Hastings, for very peevishness, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... constant View of the same Follies; like a Person who is tir'd with seeing the same Tragi-Comedy continually acted. This sowres his Temper; And unless some favorable Incidents happen to mellow him, he resigns himself wholly to Peevishness.—By which Time he perceives that the World is quite tir'd of him.—After which he drags on the Remainder of his Life, in a State of War ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... attention was devoted to its appropriate training. The infants were encouraged from the beginning in the free use of their limbs, unhampered by swaddling-clothes, and were accustomed to endure without fear darkness and solitude, and to cure themselves of peevishness and crying. At the age of seven the boys were taken away from the charge of their parents, and put under the superintendence of a public official. Their education, on the intellectual side, was slight enough, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... too if there were a series of resolutions passed to that effect. The west wind is hopeful; it has promise and adventure in it, and is, except to Atlantic voyagers America-bound, the best wind that ever blew. The east wind is peevishness; it is mental rheumatism and grumbling, and curls one up in the chimney-corner like a cat. And if the chimney ever smokes, it smokes when the wind sits in that quarter. The south wind is full of longing and unrest, of effeminate suggestions of luxurious ease, and perhaps ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from us;" and instructed me to form my pursuits and desires according to the stage of my life; therefore, I have no more to value myself upon, than that, I can converse with young people without peevishness, or wishing myself a moment younger. For which reason, when I am amongst them, I rather moderate than interrupt their diversions. But though I have this complacency, I must not pretend to write to a lady civil things, as Maria desires. Time was, when I could have told her, "I had received ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... no hope for the faithful and earnest historian; he must give himself up to swim as he may on the frothy stream of private letters, anecdotes, and pamphlets, the puppet of the ignorance, credulity, peevishness, spite, of any and every gossip ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... his sleeves rolled up, his waistcoat hanging open. He was still a good-looking man, with black, wavy hair, and a large black moustache. His face was perhaps too much inflamed, and there was about him a look almost of peevishness. But now he was jolly. He went straight to the sink where his wife ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... but that if his people should not cheerfully, according to their duties, meet him in that, especially in this exigent when his kingdom and person are in apparent danger, the world might see he is forced, contrary to his own inclination, to use extraordinary means rather than, by the peevishness of some few factious spirits, to suffer his state and government to ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Every one makes mistakes, and these are often provoking or irritating to one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor of civility and ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Parnel was wearied with his wife's fondness, who not considering that he had married her more out of gratitude than affection, had disgusted him with the continual professions of a love to which his heart would not make an equal return. This fondness teased a temper naturally good into peevishness and was near converting indifference into dislike. Mrs Parnel, distressed beyond measure at an effect so contrary to what she intended, reproached him with ingratitude and tormented him ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us; for of that they are very capable. And it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are some things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... brain exulting in its vivid memories of her time with Toby; and she did not think of Gaga at all. She only hoped that he would not come to the office. She was feeling too tired to deal effectively with any peevishness from Gaga; although, the causes of her hysteria having been removed, she was not likely to repeat the failure of that other restless night. A heaviness hung upon her as the day wore on; a kind of ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... gone out, I threw it with some peevishness into the grate. Judith's expression had changed from mock to real gravity. She sat bolt upright and looked ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... manage two spirits equally proud, resentful) and ungovernable. At Essex House, he had to calm the rage of a young hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations) and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, whose temper, never very gentle, had been rendered morbidly irritable by age, by declining health, and by the long habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit obedience. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his eyes at this unusual peevishness on Patricia's part, but he went on mixing his ingredients without comment, while Elinor, who had been bringing in the rest of the picnic supper, flitted about, straightening the room preparatory to lighting ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... and very peevish wakenings. However, this shall be remedied, and last night I was distinctly better than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguey peevishness; why (say I) what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable - that is no reason for mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and GIRN on the unfortunate Cassandra. - Your ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest in food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from boyhood to middle age. He ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... accent. From such scraps of his conversation as reached me from time to time I gathered that his talk was almost wholly about himself, his doings, his opinions, his likes and dislikes—chiefly the latter. I liked his expression even less than that of his sister. It was a most objectionable mingling of peevishness, insolence, and self-assurance; while his manner, even to his mother, was domineering and dictatorial to a perfectly disgusting degree. There was no doubt in my mind that he had been thoroughly spoiled from the moment of his birth onward, and the process was still going on, if ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... florid, healthy constitution promised long life, and his uninterrupted good fortune as long power; yet the one hastened his end, and the other was enjoyed in its full tranquillity but three poor years! i should not say, enjoyed, for such was his peevishness and suspicions, that the lightest trifles could poison all that stream of happiness! he was careless of his health, most intemperate in eating, and used no exercise. All this had naturally thrown him into a most scorbutic ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Had she been a vicious woman nothing would have troubled her, but she was not vicious. She was not even less than good in her moral instincts. Only she was weak, hopelessly weak, and so all these things drove her to a shrewish discontent and peevishness. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... pessimistic view was due in part to the constant and wearing difficulty of getting Fred Wentworth to be civil to him; yet May Gaston was half-inclined to fall in with it. The attitude of offence which he had at first maintained towards her was marked by peevishness, not by dignity, and when it was relaxed his old excessive politeness revived in full force. He had few 'moments' either; and the one reported to her with enthusiasm by Dick Benyon took place on Duty Hill ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... what is plainly known and seen, and always said less than I could have proved, my Adversaries were obliged to dissemble the Cause of their Anger. What vex'd them the more was, that it was wrote without Rancour or Peevishness; and, if not in a pleasant, at least in an open good-humour'd Manner, free, I dare say, from Pedantry and Sourness. Therefore None of them ever touch'd upon this Point, or spoke one Syllable of the only Thing, which in their Hearts ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... the austere brother, was silent. Amphion is thought to have given way to his brother's humors; so do you yield to the gentle dictates of your friend in power: as often as he leads forth his dogs into the fields and his cattle laden with Aetolian nets, arise and lay aside the peevishness of your unmannerly muse, that you may sup together on the delicious fare purchased by your labor; an exercise habitual to the manly Romans, of service to their fame and life and limbs: especially when you are in health, and are able either to excel the dog in swiftness, or the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... thousand disillusions; and holding fast, in spite of all, to the doctrines of some amazing Pangloss. Such encounters with such invincible derelicts must put us most wholesomely to shame. Our neurotic peevishness, our imaginary grievances, our vanity and our pride, are shown up at such moments ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... listened to this student of heroes and heroism pour forth a savage tirade against all men and things. Never again was the American poet able to associate with Carlyle that fine poise, sanity, and reserve power that belong to the greatest. In his books Carlyle gives his friends, not the peevishness of an evening, but the best moods of all his life, winnowing ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... at liberty and send him to Oxford. There he might have stayed, tortured by his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else to plague with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces and antics in the cathedral, continuing that incomparable diary, which we never see without forgetting the vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, counting the drops ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... outlay. Finding her wish ungratified, she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was called in. At this period the prominent tokens of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform domestic duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except when pearls were mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter, the pupils dilated, and the patient, after various incoherent exclamations, burst into a passion ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... he should have been calm, impulsive where he should have been discreet. But on the other hand he was possessed of an almost Spartan courage; and through sorrow and suffering, through disappointment and failure, he bore himself with a high and stately tenderness, without a touch of acrimony or peevishness. He never questioned the love or justice of God; he never raged against fate, or railed at circumstance. He gathered up the fragments with a quiet hand; he never betrayed envy or jealousy; he never deplored the fact that he had not realised his own possibilities; he suffered ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... not seem to hear him. She leaned back in the corner of the sofa like a wooden figure. The immovable peevishness of the face, framed in the limp, rusty lace, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... parish-house politics drove him from the clubs disgusted, vexed, seeing nothing clearly but that there they were forever borrowing money and gambling heavily. He missed the submissive servants of Manila, who endured all his peevishness, and who now seemed to be far preferable; when a winter kept him between a fireplace and an attack of pneumonia, he sighed for the Manila winter during which a single quilt is sufficient, while in summer he missed ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... man, who had by this time resumed his work, though after a listless fashion, turning over spadeful after spadeful, as if neither he nor the cabbages cared much, and all would be in good time if done by the end of the world. As he came nearer, Cosmo read peevishness and ill-temper in every line of his countryman's countenance, yet he approached him with confidence, for Scotchmen out of their own country are of good report for hospitality ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... his order——' The old man shook his bald head and shrugged his small shoulders with almost French vivacity. He had been handsome once, and delicately featured, but now the left eye drooped, and the face had a strong look of peevishness ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of his peevishness her husband may be trying hard to minimize his defects and be a ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... of course. Personally he thought nothing of poison. The remotest chance. He was—he assured me—considered to be infinitely more useful than dangerous, and so . . . "But the Rajah is afraid of you abominably. Anybody can see that," I argued with, I own, a certain peevishness, and all the time watching anxiously for the first twist of some sort of ghastly colic. I was awfully disgusted. "If I am to do any good here and preserve my position," he said, taking his seat by my side in the boat, "I must ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... or write ever so forcibly and eloquently, and bring out the sublime truths of the Bible in great beauty; but if, in the privacy of your own home, there are little frettings, a little peevishness, a little crossness, a little levity, a little selfishness, a little distrust, your life is not as truly holy as it should be. If you desire God's holy image to be stamped upon your soul, your countenance, ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... repentance, treated her with the utmost tenderness and generosity. They were economical, and therefore could afford to be generous. All the wants of this destitute widow were supplied from the profits of their industry: they nursed her with daily humanity, bore with the peevishness of disease, and did all in their power to soothe the anguish of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Morrison, a woman who had much trouble with herself, having come into the world with the wings of the angel in her well glued down and prevented from spreading by a multitude of little defects, had been helped without her knowing it by his example out of many a pit of peevishness and passion. Who shall measure the influence of one kind and blameless life? His wife, in her gustier moments, thought it sheer weakness, this persistent turning away from evil, this refusal to investigate and dissect, to take sides, to wrestle. The evil was there, and it ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... testy, petulant, and very apt to indulge their impatient dislike of each other's presence, or the spirit of rivalry which it produces, in a sudden bark and snap, which last is generally made as much at advantage as possible. But these ebullitions of peevishness lead to no very serious or prosecuted conflict; the affair begins and ends in a moment. Not so the ire of the male dogs, which, once produced and excited by growls of mutual offence and defiance, leads generally to a fierce and obstinate contest; in which, if ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... which the stranger's return to the borough had been so anxiously expected by his female companion. The disappointment occasioned by his non-arrival was manifested in the convalescent by inquietude, which was at first mingled with peevishness, and afterwards with doubt and fear. When two or three days had passed without message or letter of any kind, Gray himself became anxious, both on his own account and the poor lady's, lest the stranger should ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... of the Muses, sage historic tale, Science severe, or word of Holy Writ Announcing immortality and joy To the assembled spirits of the just From imperfection and decay secure: Thus soothed at home, thus busy in the field, To no perverse suspicion he gave way; No languour, peevishness, nor vain complaint. And they who were about him did not fail In reverence or in courtesy; they prized His gentle manners, and his peaceful smiles; The gleams of his slow-varying countenance Were met with answering sympathy and love. At length when sixty years and five were told A slow disease ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... are full of sound philosophy. Who has not observed, in his circle of acquaintance, and in the recesses of his own heart, the same inconsistency of expectation, the same peevishness ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... comfort under the sun, than sound and invigorating sleep to the weary, nor in our opinion, a greater grievance than the loss of it; because wakefulness at those hours, which nature has destined for repose, is, in nine cases out of ten, sure to be the harbinger of peevishness, discontent, and ill humour, and not unfrequently induces languor, lassitude, and disease. No two individuals in the world have greater reason to complain of disturbed slumbers or nightly watching, than ourselves. Heretofore, this has been occasioned chiefly by exposure to damps, rains, and dews, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire: 'Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you to—ha—concentrate your solicitude on me in that—hum—very ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... seem'd to be rather an inward Dissatisfaction in his own Mind, than any Dislike he had taken at the Company. Upon hearing his Name, I knew him to be a Gentle man of a considerable Fortune in this County, but greatly in Debt. What gives the unhappy Man this Peevishness of Spirit is, that his Estate is dipped, and is eating out with Usury; and yet he has not the Heart to sell any Part of it. His proud Stomach, at the Cost of restless Nights, constant Inquietudes, Danger of Affronts, and a thousand ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... idle peevishness troubled their harmonious intercourse: and, instead of bickerings and discontents among them, nothing was seen but mutual condescension, which delighted all who had the opportunity of being in their company. May this serve as a useful lesson to my youthful readers, how easy ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... high-strung, Southern-gentleman type, hot-tempered, impulsive, one of those apt to believe that "shooting" is the remedy for one's personal ills or injuries. The lines of his mouth betrayed selfishness and peevishness. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... calmly, "You must pay the penalty for loving a parvenu's son. Come, Julia, no peevishness, no more romance, no more vacillation. You have tried Pride and failed pitiably: now I insist on your trying Love! Child, it is the bane of our sex to carry nothing out: from that weakness I will ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Sylvia reminded her; and now that she had neither of them to put it into her mind, she never once thought of her governess as one who ought to be spared and pitied. Yet if she had been sorry for Mrs. Lacy, and tried to spare her trouble and annoyance, how much irritability and peevishness, and sense of constant naughtiness, would have been prevented! And it was that feeling of being always naughty that was what had become the real dreariness of Kate's present home, and was far worse than the music, the battledore, or even ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first unaware of the cause of the mental misery he endures; his temper sours as his spirits sink; every person, and every circumstance, annoys him; it affects even his dreams; sleep itself is not a refuge from querulous peevishness, and every motion ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... peace with your neighbours, through Christ Jesus. When you see God stooping to make peace with sinful men, you will be ashamed to be quarrelling with them. When you see God full of love, you will be ashamed to keep up peevishness, grudging, and spite. When you see God's heaven full of light, you will be ashamed to be dark yourselves; your hearts will go out freely to your fellow- creatures; you will long to be friends with every one you meet; and you will find in that the highest pleasure which you ever ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... hung thicker in the parched air and stung more sharply their bloodshot, aching eyeballs. The dust settled smotheringly upon them, filled nostrils and lungs and roughened their patience into peevishness. A calf bolted from the herd, and a "hold-up" man pursued it vindictively, swearing by several things that he would break its blamed neck—only his wording was more vehement. A cinder got in Slim's eye and one would think, from his language, that such a thing was absolutely beyond the ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... waiting to be married, I have pitied them from my heart. It is doubtless well—very well—if Fate decrees them a happy marriage; but, if otherwise, give their existence some object, their time some occupation, or the peevishness of disappointment and the listlessness of idleness ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... marriage suited her thoroughly well. Being her own mistress and at the same time having a man to take care of her, having an important and comfortable house of her own, ordering about her own servants and spending her husband's money, such things made her life pleasant, and checked the growth of peevishness that had budded ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... to neglect home duties, yet leave this difficulty unfaced, in that they look for all the pleasure of their life outside home, and within that home allow themselves to live in an atmosphere of friction and peevishness. The girl who does that has left the riddle of home life unsolved: she was meant to wrestle with that difficulty till she wrung from it the blessing, the peace which comes only from self-conquest and acceptance of all the circumstances of ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... and if there be any other tormenting passion which can agitate the human mind. Therefore to express jealousy well, requires that one know how to represent justly all these passions by turns, (see Love, Hatred, &c.) and often several of them together. Jealousy shews itself by restlessness, peevishness, thoughtfulness, anxiety, absence of mind. Sometimes it bursts out in piteous complaint and weeping; then a gleam of hope, that all is yet well, lights up the countenance into a momentary smile. Immediately the face, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... William proceeded, with some caution, "what the truth about you is? But I know this sort of thing doesn't interest you," he added hastily, with a touch of peevishness. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... under the burthen. He muttered to himself, in a low broken tone, some words of a language which I could not understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... anger, but a feeling somewhat akin to it, provoked by untoward events and inevitable happenings, such as the weather, accidents, etc. It is void of all spirit of revenge. Peevishness is chronic impatience, due to a disordered nervous system and requires the services of a competent physician, being a physical, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... old, and had learned to submit, but his longing eyes pleaded for more; little Alice was clamorous, and the mother felt tears overflow her eyes to think that there was no possibility of yielding to that childish peevishness, and that the absolute non-existence of water must punish her poor child's wilfulness. When Paulett had set his instruments to work, to renew if possible the supply, and when Ellen had removed the silver cups and dishes which had held their corn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... pleasure, the well-spring of all life fit for a man to live. When the fool finds out his folly; when the wilful man gives up his wilfulness; when the rebel submits himself to law; when the son comes back to his father's house—there is no sternness, no peevishness, no up-braiding, no pride, no revenge; but the everlasting and boundless love of God wells forth again as rich as ever. He has condescended to wait for his creature; because what he wanted was not his creature's fear, but his creature's love; not his lip-obedience, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the slopes of the valley the men and women, and the very children whose voices I can just hear, are living by an outlook in which the values are different from those of easy-going people, and in which, especially, hardships have never been met by peevishness, but ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... speaker tries to enforce his own opinion by peevishness, whining, or complaining, with the result that he uses the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Often wrong, occasionally right, he possessed in perfection the unhappy art of doing the right thing in the wrong way. Restless and irascible, passing from self-confidence to gloom, he would find relief for nerve tension in a peevishness which was the last quality one in his difficult position should have shown. An autocratic official amid little rough, dissatisfied communities of hard-headed pioneers was a king with no divinity to hedge him round. Without pomp, almost without privacy, everything he said or ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... hand upon his arm again; and the old woman's face afforded Stanley Lake no clue to the coming theme. Its expression was quite as usual—not actually discontent or peevishness, but crimped and puckered all over with unchanging lines of anxiety and suffering. Neither was there any flurry in her manner—her bony arm and discoloured hand, once her fingers lay upon his sleeve, did not move—only ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... I cannot yet say the old man is dead; some seeds of peevishness yet remain to be destroyed. Praise God, I hate the garment spotted by the flesh. 'All peace, all love,' is the desire of my heart, and the longing of my soul.—A day of fasting and prayer; but separation ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... high-souled generosity must not be sacrificed.—Hark thee, brave Sir Damian, I have a mighty secret still to impart, and as this Saxon churl understands no French, this is no unfit opportunity to communicate it. Know that thine uncle is a changed man in mind, as he is debilitated and broken down in body. Peevishness and jealousy have possessed themselves of a heart which was once strong and generous; his life is now on the dregs, and I grieve to speak it, these dregs are foul ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all the rest of her face, and projected over ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... often arguing against the text of his own earlier editions. Webster's well-known complaints of Murray's unfairness, had a far better cause than requital; for there was no generosity in ascribing them to peevishness, though the passages in question were not worth copying. On perspicuity and accuracy, about sixty pages were extracted from Blair; and it requires no great critical acumen to discover, that they are miserably deficient in both. On the law of language, there are fifteen pages from Campbell; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... humourous way, gives his friend an account of the Lady's peevishness and dejection, on receiving a letter with her clothes. He regrets that he has lost her confidence; which he attributes to his bringing her into the company of his four companions. Yet he thinks he must excuse them, and censure her for over-niceness; for that he never saw ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... that the beginnings of all Science are difficult to Children (who cannot like grown People fix their Attention) it is justly to befear'd that they should by the ill usage they receive from the impatience and peevishness of such Teachers, as Servants, or Young Tutors, take an Aversion to Learning (and we see in effect, that this very frequently happens). For the Teaching of little Children so as not to disgust them, does require much greater Patience and Address, than common People are ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... still with that suggestion of peevishness, hanging over the rail and peering down at us. "Oh! By gracious!" he exclaimed, abruptly. "I'm glad to see you, Ridgeway. I had a boatman coming out before this, but I guess—well, I guess he'll be along. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... patriotic poems "Al Dos de Mayo" and "A la Patria" deserve especial mention. He attempted satire in "El Pastor Clasiquino," recently reprinted by Le Gentil from "El Artista." In this poem he assails academic poetry like that produced by his old fellow-academicians of the Myrtle. It betrays the peevishness of a Romanticist writing when Romanticism ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... chaplet of asparagus, for as the asparagus gives most excellent fruit from a thorny stalk, so the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the first approaches, will make the married state more agreeable and pleasant. But those husbands who cannot put up with the early peevishness of their brides, are not a whit wiser than those persons who pluck unripe grapes and leave the ripe grapes for others.[156] On the other hand, many brides, being at first disgusted with their husbands, are like those that stand the bee's sting ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... yet—I hardly know why,—I did not feel the appeal to her as hopeless as to Mother Ada. To entreat the latter was like beseeching a stone wall. Mother Gaillarde's very peevishness (if I dare call it so) showed that she was a woman, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... free-thinker. Until two years ago he was never attracted toward a girl; indeed, he disliked girls; but he is now engaged. For about eighteen months, he has relinquished homosexuality, but has suffered from dreams, bad digestion, and peevishness since. He thinks the only remedy is marriage, which he is pushing on. He regards homosexuality as quite natural and normal, though his desires are not strong, and once a fortnight has always satisfied him. He was led to the practice by the reasoning ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... began to fidget about her brother. "He certainly meant to be home for dinner," she said several times, with increasing peevishness. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... benevolent disposition, and formed to promote the happiness of all around him, may sometimes, perhaps, from an ill habit of body, an accidental vexation, or from a commendable openness of heart, above the meanness of disguise, be guilty of little sallies of peevishness, or of ill humor, which, carrying the appearance of ill nature, may be unjustly thought to proceed from it, by persons who are unacquainted with his true character, and who, take ill humor and ill nature to be synonymous terms, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... He saw next day. Wallie woke him out of a sound sleep so that he might see. It was ten-thirty A.M. so that his peevishness was unwarranted. They had seen the play the night before and Hahn had decided that, translated and with interpolations (it was a comic opera), it would captivate New York. Then and there he completed the ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... she cried. "Come, let us walk. It grows cold. I enjoy that, but it is not very safe for you. And, pardon me, dear friend, I spoke harshly just now. I told you I was getting old. Put my words down to the peevishness ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... indeed, impossible not to hear from those who have lived longer, of wrongs and falsehoods, of violence and circumvention; but such narratives are commonly regarded by the young, the heady, and the confident, as nothing more than the murmurs of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and, notwithstanding all the documents of hoary wisdom, we commonly plunge into the world fearless and credulous, without any foresight of danger, or apprehension ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... during the night, to sustain her and to serve as a safeguard against the invasion of disease. She should be treated with kindness and respect, else her disposition may become morose and reflect itself upon the patient, causing peevishness ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... quivering speech and steeling himself against its pitiful appeal. "All that. And then some. And it's generous of you not to blame me for being just the very tiniest least bit riled by it. That helps. I was afraid my peevishness might displease you. My temper isn't what it should be. If it were I should be apologizing to you for getting your nice boat ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... "cold, unmilitary conduct" during the War of Independence, and accused his administration, since the new constitution, of "vanity," "ingratitude," "corruption," "bare-faced treachery," and "the tricks of a sharper." He closed this wretched outbreak of peevishness and wounded self-conceit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... he returned. Then, with a smile of peevishness not unmingled with contempt, he added: "He's getting too uppish for me. I don't think the Latin agrees ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... the absent dog. The audience took up the cry, the dogs barked more excitedly, and five minutes of hilarity delayed the turn which, when at last started, was marked by rustiness and erraticness on the part of the dogs and by great peevishness on the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... with the former. It rests on no ancient testimony: it is refuted by the conduct of the ancient clergy. No instance is to be found of any one of these conspirators as they are represented, who in an unguarded moment, or of any false brother who, in the peevishness of discontent, revealed the secret to the ears of their dupes. On the contrary, we see them in their private correspondence holding to each other the same language which they held to their disciples; requesting from each other those prayers which we are told that they mutually ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... narrative of himself:—"Between friends, I am now convinced that my brain was in some measure affected; for I had a kind of Coma Vigil upon me from April to November, without intermission. In consideration of this circumstance, I know you will forgive all my peevishness and discontent; tell Mrs. Moore that with regard to me, she has as yet seen nothing but the wrong side of the tapestry." Thus it happens in the life of authors, that they whose comic genius diffuses cheerfulness, create a pleasure which ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in with a pleased exclamation, his voice had no longer the thin, worn sound, as if only resolute resignation prevented peevishness; there was a cheerfulness and solidity in the tone, as he came fondly to her side, regretted having missed her first appearance, and feared ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Melrose. But his will silenced it. "She will get used to it," he said to himself again, with dry determination. Then he turned on his heel. The untidiness of his wife's room, her lack of method and charm, and the memory of her peevishness on the journey disgusted him. There was a bed in his dressing-room; and he ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Percival, "perhaps gave the first wrong bias to a mind predisposed to such impressions; and by operating with so much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation of the Dean's subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... sufferer simply lies kicking and screaming after the fashion of a sacrificed pig. The mood of a Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche—and in a less degree one may sometimes say the same of our own sad Carlyle—though often an ennobling sadness, is almost as often only peevishness running away with the bit between its teeth. The sallies of the two German authors remind one, half the time, of the sick shriekings of two dying rats. They lack the purgatorial note ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... never in Nature that purpose to thwart which man in his peevishness is apt to attribute to her. Just because he desired so much that the winter should hold off a few days longer, Bates, on seeing the snow falling from the white opaque sky, took for granted that the downfall would continue and the ice upon the lake increase. Instead ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate.... And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loves all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... whilst cutting their first set of teeth, often suffer severe constitutional disturbance. At first there is restlessness and peevishness, with slight fever, but not unfrequently these are followed by convulsive fits, as they are commonly called, which are caused by the brain becoming irritated; and sometimes under this condition the child is either cut off suddenly, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... breeze, and merrily sung the lark, when Lisardo quitted his bed-chamber at seven in the morning, and rang lustily at my outer gate for admission. So early a visitor put the whole house in commotion; nor was it without betraying some marks of peevishness and irritability that, on being informed of his arrival, I sent word by the servant to know what might be the cause of such an interruption. The reader will readily forgive this trait of harshness and precipitancy, on ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... inexorable in his authority and self-control, endures with a rare patience the proud, commanding bearing of Barbarina. Even yesterday evening when the king did me the honor to sup with me in the society of the Barbarina, in spite of her peevishness and ever-changing mood, he was the most ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Maud, with his clandestine wooing of a girl of sixteen, has this apology, that the match had been, as it were, predestined, and desired by the mother of the lady. Still, the brother did not ill to be angry; and the peevishness of the hero against the brother and the parvenu lord and rival strikes a jarring note. In England, at least, the general sentiment is opposed to this moody, introspective kind of young man, of whom Tennyson is not to be supposed to approve. We do not feel certain that his man and ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Leave me contrary to my orders! Take notice, then: these doors you shall never enter again, if you leave me now," cried Mrs. Crumpe, who, by this unexpected opposition to her orders, was actually worked up to a state unlike her usual peevishness. She started up in her bed, and growing quite red in the face, cried, "Leave me now, and you leave me for ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and the rest of the Spanish kingdoms?—blown up. On the other side, where is the King of Spain's power in Holland?—blown up. Where is that of the Austrian princes in Switzerland?—blown up. This perpetual peevishness and jealousy, under the alternate empire of the prince and of the people, are obnoxious to every spark. Nor shall any man show a reason that will be holding in prudence, why the people of Oceana have blown up their ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... distance; and, furthermore, I did not relish the idea of having him intrude upon me at the hotel. My dislike for him was not because he was a missionary, but because he was a common enough type of bore. He was over suave, and his peevishness jarred ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of that. But you see he has taken him so entirely into his own hands. I don't seem to be allowed a word in the matter of his education any more." Mr. Arnold spoke with the peevishness of weak importance. "I wish you would take care that he does not carry things too ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... that quite justifies the woman. They whine, they rave, and they seem most of all to be astonished at the woman's lack of judgment in not recognising their merits. Instead of a noble sorrow, they exhibit peevishness; they seem to say, "You'll be sorry some day." Browning's rejected lovers never think of themselves and their own defeat; they think only of the woman, who is now more adorable than ever. It never occurs to ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... old man is peevish,—says that my disobedience of his orders has caused us to lose De Wet. That he has washed his hands of me, and that it only remains to report me to a higher authority. To be philosophical, he has some grounds for his peevishness if he really believes that he has ever been nearer to De Wet than the latter gentleman desired. But you get no return in an argument with seniors—they have the whip hand of you every time; so here, ole man Baker, bring out your stilus and tablets and write out ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... watched the restless wanderings of his son from window to stove and from stove back to window, then his voice broke out sharply in dictatorial peevishness. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... was supposed to have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life, and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge; and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure offices which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... I see his countenance distorted by a single bad passion or unworthy feeling. I have seen the expression of suffering, bodily and mental, of grief, pain, sadness, disagreeable surprise and displeasure, but never of anger, impatience, peevishness, discontent, to say nothing of worse or more ignoble emotions. To the contrary, it was impossible to look on his face without being struck with the benevolent, intelligent, cheerful and placid expression. It was at once intellectual, good, kind ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... different from her; and the succeeding lassitude and depression were proportionably greater. Indeed, lassitude and depression were quite too gentle terms to apply to the child's sensations, and her disinclination to occupation sometimes manifested itself in an unmistakable approach to peevishness, unless, indeed, the party of the evening was to be followed by the excursion of the day. Then the evil effects were delayed, not averted. For a time, Graeme made excuses for her to herself and to her brothers; then she did what was ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... utterance of what Sainte-Beuve, I think, called "the discouraged generation of 1850." Now mere discouragement, except as a passing mood, though extremely natural, is also a little contemptible—pessimism-and-water, mere peevishness to the "fierce indignation," mere whining compared with the great ironic despair. As for Consolation, which in form as in matter strongly resembles part of the Strayed Reveller, I must say, at the risk of the charge of Philistinism, that I cannot see why ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... bright and cheerful. So it will be if the eye is clear and steady, and there is the appearance of earnest reflection. Frowning, with some depression of the corners of the mouth, which is a sign of grief, gives an air of peevishness. If a child (see Plate IV., fig. 2)[8] frowns much whilst crying, but does not strongly contract in the usual manner the orbicular muscles, a well-marked expression of anger or even of rage, together with misery, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... conquered for a time—I am pregnant again—and Calyste loves her so that I foresee a total abandonment. When she hears of it she will be furious. Ah! I suffer such tortures that I cannot endure them long. I know when he is going to her, I know it by his joy; and his peevishness tells me as plainly when he leaves her. He no longer troubles himself to conceal his feelings; I have become intolerable to him. She has an influence over him as unhealthy as she is herself in soul and body. You'll see! she will exact from him, as the price of forgiveness, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... but my duty, joined to my particular desire to cultivate a good understanding between our two countries, made me now press him for an explicit answer. He told me that he was convinced that I did not wish to embarrass him, but observed, with some peevishness, —— as Mr Elfried is by the Russian. He cites precedent and you ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... he agreed drily, breaking in on her quivering speech and steeling himself against its pitiful appeal. "All that. And then some. And it's generous of you not to blame me for being just the very tiniest least bit riled by it. That helps. I was afraid my peevishness might displease you. My temper isn't what it should be. If it were I should be apologizing to you for getting your nice ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us; for of that they are very capable. And it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are some things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... the second rash, together with Henry's emphatic and positive statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his relatives to a desperate step—a step involving intrigue and prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning symptom of peevishness—peevishness in ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... duties, meet him in that, especially in this exigent when his kingdom and person are in apparent danger, the world might see he is forced, contrary to his own inclination, to use extraordinary means rather than, by the peevishness of some few factious spirits, to suffer his state ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... chattering up-stairs?' queried the old man, with all the peevishness of a sick person. 'You don't care a penny-piece, either of you, though I died this ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... observed their weaknesses and craft, with the same quiet interest he displayed toward worthier objects. A thoroughly equable nature was his—with little capacity for righteous indignation on the one side, and no small tendencies toward envy or peevishness on the other. There was not a wrinkle on his calm countenance, nor any power of angry flashing in his steadfast, wide-apart, gray eyes. But his tongue could cut ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Sam, with something of peevishness; "losses is losses: there's no use talking about 'em when they're over ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that the pain of disappointment will be much increased by ill-temper, and that to yield to the force of necessity will be found wiser than vainly to oppose it. The contrast between the principal character with the peevishness of her cousins' temper is intended as an incitement to that placid disposition which will form the happiness of social life in every stage, and which, therefore, should not be thought beneath anyone's attention or undeserving ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship. They are all public servants engaged in a common cause, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... incident," writes Percival, "perhaps gave the first wrong bias to a mind predisposed to such impressions; and by operating with so much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation of the Dean's subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... uncertainly, still with that suggestion of peevishness, hanging over the rail and peering down at us. "Oh! By gracious!" he exclaimed, abruptly. "I'm glad to see you, Ridgeway. I had a boatman coming out before this, but I guess—well, I guess he'll be along. By ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... broad-chested frame along the pathway of their little garden, and plucked the roses for her gray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly as to an infant. His mind was palsied with his body; its utmost energy was peevishness. In a few months more she helped him up the staircase with a pause at every step, and a longer one upon the landing-place, and a heavy glance behind as he crossed the threshold of his chamber. He knew, poor man! that the precincts of those four walls would thenceforth be his world—his world, his ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but a feeling somewhat akin to it, provoked by untoward events and inevitable happenings, such as the weather, accidents, etc. It is void of all spirit of revenge. Peevishness is chronic impatience, due to a disordered nervous system and requires the services of a competent physician, being a ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... manner, the unforeseen disagreeableness of a situation I had chosen entirely led me back to literature, to which unsuspectedly I had recourse as a means of releaving my mind, and thus, in the first works I wrote, I introduced the peevishness and ill-humor which were the cause of my undertaking them. There was another circumstance which contributed not a little to this; thrown into the world despite of myself, without having the manners of it, or being in a situation to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... where he could get through, and approached the man, who had by this time resumed his work, though after a listless fashion, turning over spadeful after spadeful, as if neither he nor the cabbages cared much, and all would be in good time if done by the end of the world. As he came nearer, Cosmo read peevishness and ill-temper in every line of his countryman's countenance, yet he approached him with confidence, for Scotchmen out of their own country are of good report for hospitality ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that this bereaved husband was of the high-strung, Southern-gentleman type, hot-tempered, impulsive, one of those apt to believe that "shooting" is the remedy for one's personal ills or injuries. The lines of his mouth betrayed selfishness and peevishness. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... the Beech-Oil-Company this year have made abundance of sharers peevish; the natural effect of peevishness is clamour, and clamour like a tide will work itself a passage, where it has no right of flowing; some gentlemen, misled by false conceptions both of the affair and its direction, have driven their discontent through a mistaken chanel, and inclined abundance who are strangers to the truth, to accuse ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... hours of public worship, he beguiles our hearts with some scheme for doing good; taking care, however, that self be uppermost in it. When we are in a bad frame, he stirs up the unholy tempers of our hearts, and leads us to indulge in peevishness, moroseness, harshness, and anger, or in levity ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... even to introduce a pun in the grave and elaborate work of a Lexicon. A story has been raised to account for it, and it has been ascribed to the impatient interjection of the lexicographer to his scribe, who, taking no offence at the peevishness of his master, put it down in the Dictionary. The article alluded to is, "CONCURRO, to run with others; to run together; to come together; to fall foul of one another; to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the very children whose voices I can just hear, are living by an outlook in which the values are different from those of easy-going people, and in which, especially, hardships have never been met by peevishness, but have been beaten ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... but her features told a tale of lassitude and weariness, at variance with the prime of life, which was then her own. No intellect, no emotion was expressed on her countenance; it never varied, except, perhaps, to denote peevishness or sullenness when domestic affairs annoyed her, which appeared to be the case at present. A volume of the last new novel was in her hand, in which she appeared sufficiently interested as to feel still more annoyed at the interruption she was constantly receiving from ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Chopin which bear the same name. More than to any one of the master's scherzos, the name capriccio would be suitable to his third "Scherzo," Op. 39, with its capricious starts and changes, its rudderless drifting. Peevishness, a fierce scornfulness, and a fretful agitation, may be heard in these sounds, of jest and humour there is nothing perceptible. At any rate, the curled lip, as it were, contradicts the jesting words, and the careless exterior does not altogether conceal the seething rage within. But ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... beau as I am. But my friend Horace has very well said: "Every year takes something from us;" and instructed me to form my pursuits and desires according to the stage of my life; therefore, I have no more to value myself upon, than that, I can converse with young people without peevishness, or wishing myself a moment younger. For which reason, when I am amongst them, I rather moderate than interrupt their diversions. But though I have this complacency, I must not pretend to write to a lady ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... have a mighty secret still to impart, and as this Saxon churl understands no French, this is no unfit opportunity to communicate it. Know that thine uncle is a changed man in mind, as he is debilitated and broken down in body. Peevishness and jealousy have possessed themselves of a heart which was once strong and generous; his life is now on the dregs, and I grieve to speak it, these ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... as long as a man talks so, blaspheming God's world—which, when He made it, behold it was all very good—and laying the blame of their own ignorance and peevishness on God who made them, they must expect nothing but tribulation and sorrow. But the tribulation and the sorrow will be their own fault, and not God's. If religious professors will not take St. Peter's advice and the Psalmist's advice; if they will go on coveting and scheming about money, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... depression, Pen, at that time, composed a number of poems suitable to his misery—over which verses he blushed in after days, wondering how he could have ever invented such rubbish. He had his hot and cold fits, his days of sullenness and peevishness, and occasional mad paroxysms of rage and longing, in which fits his horse would be saddled and galloped fiercely about the country, bringing him back in such a state of despair as brought much worry to his mother and the Major. ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... racy words, the sufferer simply lies kicking and screaming after the fashion of a sacrificed pig. The mood of a Schopenhauer or a Nietzsche—and in a less degree one may sometimes say the same of our own sad Carlyle—though often an ennobling sadness, is almost as often only peevishness running away with the bit between its teeth. The sallies of the two German authors remind one, half the time, of the sick shriekings of two dying rats. They lack the purgatorial note which religious sadness ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... more than exquisite is this whole speech! And that profound nature of noble pride and grief venting themselves in a momentary peevishness of ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... first, have now begun to mix by dint of being beat up together. I was once apt to believe him a complete Cynic; and that nothing but the necessity of his occasions could compel him to get within the pale of society — I am now of another opinion. I think his peevishness arises partly from bodily pain, and partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility; for, I suppose, the mind as well as the body, is in some cases endued with ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Scandinavian form of the same word which appears in our English way. Skeat also tells us that "a little teeny boy," meant at first "a little fractious (peevish) boy," being derived from an old word teen, "anger, peevishness." Analogous to tiny is pettish, which is derived from pet, "mama's pet," "a spoiled child." Endless would the list of words of this class be, if we had at our disposal the projected English ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to give up mine.' Whether this proceeded from a momentary indignation, as if it were an affront to his exalted merit that a player should be rewarded in the same manner with him, or was the sudden effect of a fit of peevishness, it was unluckily said, and, indeed, cannot be justified. Mr. Sheridan's pension was granted to him not as a player, but as a sufferer in the cause of government, when he was manager of the Theatre Royal in Ireland, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... inflicted on him would have been to set him at liberty and send him to Oxford. There he might have stayed, tortured by his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else to plague with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces and antics in the cathedral, continuing that incomparable diary, which we never see without forgetting the vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is big and burly like thyself, Thomas—nearly as thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and carelessness of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all that mass of flesh no bolder animation than is afforded by the peevishness of a wasp and the courage of a wren. Out upon him! He a leader of chivalry to deeds of glory! Give him a flagon of Rhenish to drink with his besmirched baaren-hauters ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the parched air and stung more sharply their bloodshot, aching eyeballs. The dust settled smotheringly upon them, filled nostrils and lungs and roughened their patience into peevishness. A calf bolted from the herd, and a "hold-up" man pursued it vindictively, swearing by several things that he would break its blamed neck—only his wording was more vehement. A cinder got in Slim's eye and one would think, from his ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... she met him, Car'line, of them all, was the most influenced by Mop Ollamoor's heart-stealing melodies, to her discomfort, nay, positive pain and ultimate injury. She was a pretty, invocating, weak-mouthed girl, whose chief defect as a companion with her sex was a tendency to peevishness now and then. At this time she was not a resident in Mellstock parish where Mop lodged, but lived some miles off at Stickleford, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition of many clergymen has sharpened my spirits perhaps too much against them; so I warn my reader to take all that I say on these heads with some grains of allowance.—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... been many. For one who expected to be unclothed that she might be clothed upon, she certainly made a tolerable to-do about the garment she was so soon to lay aside; especially seeing she often spoke of it as an ill-fitting garment—never with peevishness or complaint, only, as it seemed to me, with far more interest than it was worth. She had even, as afterwards appeared, given her husband—good, honest, dog-like man—full instructions as to the ceremonial ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... astonishment; and I turned my eyes on the squalid object [that accompanied her.] She could hardly support herself, her complexion was sallow, and her eyes inflamed, with an indescribable look of cunning, mixed with the wrinkles produced by the peevishness of pain. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... gave not over her attempt, which she considered but as her due while she continued in her house. Her general character, also, for peevishness and haughty ill-breeding, skilfully, from time to time, displayed, and artfully repined at by Mr Monckton, still kept her from suspecting any peculiar animosity to herself, and made her impute all that passed to the mere rancour of ill-humour. She confined ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Rockies. They're so unintentional, you know. Nature is nothing until history has touched her. And as for this geological display outside my windows—you'll kindly permit me to turn my back on it. It's not peevishness." She lifted her hand protestingly. "Only, for weeks, I stared myself blind to see the beauty you talk of. I can't see it. That's honest. I've tried. But there is none that I can see. I am very conventional, you know, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... prerogative; but it is only a great king who can be weary gracefully. And Leopold was not a great king; indeed, he was many inches short of the ideal; but he was philosophical, and by the process of reason he escaped the pitfalls which lurk in the path of peevishness. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... unusually ill-fitted to bear a heavy blow. Then her watchful eyes had seen symptoms of ailing in the child long before the windmiller's good sense would allow a fuss to be made, and expense to be incurred about a little peevishness up or down. And it was some words muttered by the doctor when he did come, about not having been sent for soon enough, which were now doing as much as any thing to drive the poor woman frantic. They struck a blow, too, at her blind belief in the miller's invariable wisdom. If he had but ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... have resolved his temperament to an intense sanguine. He was fitfully impulsive, as all his movements attested, and liable to fluctuations of peevishness, melancholy, and enthusiasm. This was "Meagher of the Sword," the stripling who made issue with the renowned O'Connell, and divided his applauses; the "revolutionist," who had outlived exile to become the darling of the "Young Ireland" populace in his ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... delay was most unpleasant, and was productive of much discontent and ill humour among our people, of which these only can have an adequate idea who have experienced a similar situation: For, besides the peevishness and despondency, which foul and contrary winds, and a lingering voyage, never fail to produce on all occasions, we in particular had substantial reasons for being greatly alarmed at this unexpected impediment; since, as we departed from England much later than we ought to have done, we had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... those of her own sex who are below what is called a "certain age" (what that age is, I cannot tell), think themselves privileged to giggle at the expense of their elder sister. Now, though there may be a degree of peevishness (and it is not to be wondered at) amongst the sisterhood, yet with them you will find the most sensitive tenderness of heart, a delicacy that quivers, like the aspen leaf, at a breath, and a kindliness of soul that a mother might envy—or rather, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... that minister to be an able one. Will he, therefore, invariably pursue the object of that predominant passion? May I be sure that he will do so and so, because he ought? Nothing less. Sickness or low spirits, may damp this predominant passion; humor and peevishness may triumph over it; inferior passions may, at times, surprise it and prevail. Is this ambitious statesman amorous? Indiscreet and unguarded confidences, made in tender moments, to his wife or his mistress, may defeat all his schemes. Is he avaricious? Some great lucrative object, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to this student of heroes and heroism pour forth a savage tirade against all men and things. Never again was the American poet able to associate with Carlyle that fine poise, sanity, and reserve power that belong to the greatest. In his books Carlyle gives his friends, not the peevishness of an evening, but the best moods of all his life, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... engaged, and prosecuted it with vigour; but the most enthusiastic admirer of that poet, upon reading it will not fail to discover a spirit of bitterness, an air of peevishness and resentment to run through the whole. Milton has been charged with interpolating the prayer of Pamela into the King's Meditations, by the assistance of Bradshaw, who laid his commands upon the printer so to do, to blast ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... to fidget about her brother. "He certainly meant to be home for dinner," she said several times, with increasing peevishness. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seemed hardly able to command her attention to listen, and scarcely waited for the end of the letter before her own disclosure was made. Francis was sickening with diphtheria; he had been left behind in the morning on account of some outbreak of peevishness, and Alison, soon becoming convinced that temper was not solely in fault, had kept him apart from his brothers, and at last had sent for the doctor, who had at once pronounced it to be the same deadly complaint which had already declared itself in Rachel Curtis. Alison had of course ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very jealous of having any rival in Edith's regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between them for an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother; and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a state, always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself, in a low broken tone, some words of a language which I could not understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and I saw him ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... wonderful agency in managing a Negro: I know it tells powerfully upon white folks. The psalmist, addressing his Maker, says, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." It is a mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness, fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will legitimately result in thriftlessness, revolt, departure, and contempt ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,—such as made Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love, peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."—But we promised not to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine verse of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... fight for breath, and his crossness and peevishness through the first years of his life were proof of vitality. He must have been a queer toddler when he wore dresses, with his immense head and deep-set ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Then, with a smile of peevishness not unmingled with contempt, he added: "He's getting too uppish for me. I don't think the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... much-battered Candide, "cultivating his garden" after a thousand disillusions; and holding fast, in spite of all, to the doctrines of some amazing Pangloss. Such encounters with such invincible derelicts must put us most wholesomely to shame. Our neurotic peevishness, our imaginary grievances, our vanity and our pride, are shown up at such ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... his talk was almost wholly about himself, his doings, his opinions, his likes and dislikes—chiefly the latter. I liked his expression even less than that of his sister. It was a most objectionable mingling of peevishness, insolence, and self-assurance; while his manner, even to his mother, was domineering and dictatorial to a perfectly disgusting degree. There was no doubt in my mind that he had been thoroughly spoiled from the moment of his birth onward, and the ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... destitute of originality," he is often arguing against the text of his own earlier editions. Webster's well-known complaints of Murray's unfairness, had a far better cause than requital; for there was no generosity in ascribing them to peevishness, though the passages in question were not worth copying. On perspicuity and accuracy, about sixty pages were extracted from Blair; and it requires no great critical acumen to discover, that they are miserably deficient in both. On the law of language, there are fifteen ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... day. Sally worked like a mouse, her brain exulting in its vivid memories of her time with Toby; and she did not think of Gaga at all. She only hoped that he would not come to the office. She was feeling too tired to deal effectively with any peevishness from Gaga; although, the causes of her hysteria having been removed, she was not likely to repeat the failure of that other restless night. A heaviness hung upon her as the day wore on; a kind of thick readiness for sleep. She yawned over her work. The workroom seemed stuffy, the day unusually ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... to hear from those who have lived longer, of wrongs and falsehoods, of violence and circumvention; but such narratives are commonly regarded by the young, the heady, and the confident, as nothing more than the murmurs of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and, notwithstanding all the documents of hoary wisdom, we commonly plunge into the world fearless and credulous, without any foresight of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... kind of suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp misery that he was not affected by paltry vexations; ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... a new oblation to that idol which never darkened with its shadow His Holy heart; pampering their own wishes; "envying and grieving at the good of a neighbor;" unable to brook the praise of a rival; establishing their own reputation on the ruins of another; thus engendering jealousy, discontent, peevishness, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... uproar, and began clamouring for the absent dog. The audience took up the cry, the dogs barked more excitedly, and five minutes of hilarity delayed the turn which, when at last started, was marked by rustiness and erraticness on the part of the dogs and by great peevishness on ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... her fingers, her glance was timidly reproachful. All this gave me great unhappiness, and I discovered, to my further distress, that in my attempt to return to the old familiar footing I was neglecting the committee and losing interest in the affairs of the library. A certain peevishness took possession of me; I was no longer myself, and I lost the gayety and sprightliness which had ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... dexterous an agent. He had to manage two spirits equally proud, resentful) and ungovernable. At Essex House, he had to calm the rage of a young hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations) and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, whose temper, never very gentle, had been rendered morbidly irritable by age, by declining health, and by the long habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit obedience. It is hard ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate.... And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loves all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... passion amongst the others of his soul. She had tried so hard, and could only find a lot, none much bigger or much less than the others. Some vanity, some selfishness, some distrust and weariness, some peevishness, some indolence, and a lapful of omissions. Since she married," continued my aunt, slowly pulling her thick black eyelashes, after a fashion she had, "I believe she has found the long-lost failing. It is impatience with Mr. Rampant, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... remedied, and last night I was distinctly better than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguey peevishness; why (say I) what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable - that is no reason for mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and GIRN on the unfortunate Cassandra. - Your ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fairy food, in which event he can never return. Children in cradles are frequently snatched away by the fairies, who leave, instead, imps of their own called "changelings." A changeling may always be recognized by its peevishness and backwardness in learning to walk and speak. If well treated, the fairies will sometimes show their gratitude by bestowing on their favorites health, wealth, and long life. Lucky the child who can count on ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... petition, when she found resistance was vain. "I fear," said she, "that I am parting with the most valuable possession on earth—a friend, and that I shall get nothing in return but a lover." Her suspicions were well founded: he had not enjoyed his double capacity long, when he showed a degree of peevishness, of which he had before thought himself incapable; as a friend he demanded her esteem; as a lover he claimed her undivided affection; and as a man of sense and education, he expected rational and pleasing conversation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... of seeing screws, denotes that tedious tasks must be performed, and peevishness in companions must be combated. It also denotes that you must be ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Peter's watery stare was abject fright. "Lorelei wouldn't let us suffer," he ventured, tremulously. "I'm sick. I may die any time, so the doctor says." He was indeed a changed man; that easy good humor that had been his most likable trait had been lost in habitual peevishness. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... was a mixture of passion and peevishness, two things that seldom go together; but he would fret himself into a passion, and then through weariness of spirits cool into fretfulness, till he was sufficiently recovered to rise again into rage. This was the common course of his temper, which ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... greatest Object pity hath, is Age, When it returns to Childishness again, As this Old Woman doth; and though we say, That Age is Honourable, we only mean, When Gravity and Wisdom are its marks, And not gray hairs, and froward peevishness, As ten for one, are known by to be Old, And though we see this true, yet we would all Prolong our time to that decrepid state, When nothing but contempt can wait upon us; How strangely sin dastards our very Reason, Making that guide us to desire known ills Rather then Joys, that promis'd we ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... he began with a quick peevishness, then broke off as he realized my teasing and with a pout of his withered lips draped my new sable cloak upon a chair-back. "Eight hundred ducats," he sneered. "A thousand goats and a hundred fat oxen in a coat to keep you warm. A score of farms ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... did not want Casey; he wanted more jam. Casey went back to camp and got another can, this time of strawberry, and in a spirit of peevishness added a small tin of the liver paste that had caused him a night's discomfort. He took them to the tepee, and Injun Jim ate the complete contents of both cans and seemed disgruntled afterwards; so much so that he would not talk at ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... falling below half-a-dozen, and not unfrequently doubling that allowance. They generally appeared upon the stage in rapid succession—one had scarcely time to get out of the way, before another was pushing him from his place. The peevishness thus begotten in the mother—by the constant habit of nursing cross cherubs—though it diminished the amount of family peace, contributed, in another way, to the general welfare: it induced the father to look abroad for enjoyment, and thus gave the country the benefit of his wisdom ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... given by the disliking husband to the displeasing and unquiet wife, upon this ground principally, That marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man: where, therefore, the match proves such as that the wife doth but pull down aside, and, by her innate peevishness and either sullen or pettish and froward disposition, bring rather discontent to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should it not, saith he, be in the husband's power, after some unprevailing means of reclamation attempted, to procure ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... practically his whole existence in tavern life, he forbade others to sell in taverns anything boiled save vegetables and pea-soup. He put Pallas out of the way because the latter had accumulated great wealth that could be counted by the ten thousand myriads. Likewise he was very liable to peevishness that showed in his behavior, and at such times he would not speak a word to his servants or freedmen but write on tablets whatever he wanted as well as any orders that he had to ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... until next morning. Summoning all my resolution, I repaired without my uncle's knowledge to the poet's house at an early hour, and after much difficulty was admitted to his room. He was still in bed. Every body has heard of Byron's peevishness, when disturbed or intruded on. He demanded my business in a petulant and offensive tone. I replied, respectfully, that on the preceding day I loaned him a silver pencil,—strongly emphasizing and repeating the word silver,—which, I was grieved to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest in food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... for Cranmer rendered fruitless all accusations against him, his pride and peevishness, irritated by his declining state of health, impelled him to punish with fresh severity all others who presumed to entertain a different opinion from himself, particularly in the capital point of the real presence. Anne Ascue, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... not to say that thou hast profited both in thy exercises and in thy breeding, and hast shown many sparkles of a gentle and manly spirit. Moreover, it were ungenerous, having bred thee up freakish and fiery, to dismiss thee to want or wandering, for showing that very peevishness and impatience of discipline which arose from thy too delicate nurture. Therefore, and for the credit of my own household, I am determined to retain thee in my train, until I can honourably dispose of thee elsewhere, with a fair prospect of thy going through the world ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... which, as has been seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman who disliked the bondage of question ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... sustained in deep affliction, though long continued trial and sorrow and loss, by this unseen spiritual power. On the other hand, experience and observation show us constantly recurring examples of discontent, peevishness, unhappiness, on the part of those who appear to be specially favored in the possession of the comforts and riches of this life. Lord Chesterfield said that, having seen and experienced all the pomps and pleasures of life, he was disgusted with and hated them all, ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... hair, this indecent and dissembling behavior, as was to be expected, was greatly condemned by the rest of the spectators, as it was principally by the poor woman who was to suffer; for at the first she gave her not a word, nor was discomposed at her peevishness, and only looked at her, yet did she out of a greatness of soul discover her concern for her mother's offense, and especially for her exposing herself in a manner so unbecoming her; but as for herself, she went to her death with an unshaken firmness of mind, and without changing the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Bitterness seem'd to be rather an inward Dissatisfaction in his own Mind, than any Dislike he had taken at the Company. Upon hearing his Name, I knew him to be a Gentle man of a considerable Fortune in this County, but greatly in Debt. What gives the unhappy Man this Peevishness of Spirit is, that his Estate is dipped, and is eating out with Usury; and yet he has not the Heart to sell any Part of it. His proud Stomach, at the Cost of restless Nights, constant Inquietudes, Danger of Affronts, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... fellows—are great friends of Edna's brothers, and often come out to spend Saturday with Frank and Charlie. Louis sometimes comes for a holiday, and shows himself much more manly; he is gradually outgrowing his peevishness and selfishness, so that he bids fair to be ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... whole than even she had anticipated. This pessimistic view was due in part to the constant and wearing difficulty of getting Fred Wentworth to be civil to him; yet May Gaston was half-inclined to fall in with it. The attitude of offence which he had at first maintained towards her was marked by peevishness, not by dignity, and when it was relaxed his old excessive politeness revived in full force. He had few 'moments' either; and the one reported to her with enthusiasm by Dick Benyon took place on Duty Hill while she was gossiping ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... appetite. When the meal was dispatched, Reginald went off to Frank, whom he found in a darkened room, very restless and impatient. He had passed a very bad night, and was suffering considerable pain. Reginald had to endure much ill-nature and peevishness; all of which he endeavored to bear with gentleness, and during the time Frank was ill, he gave up all his play-hours to wait on him and to amuse him as he grew better; and the exercise of patience which this office ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... sentence stood like a mill-post at my back: yet towards the evening of the next day, I felt this word begin to leave me, and to withdraw its supportation from me, and so I returned to my old fears again, but with a great deal of grudging and peevishness, for I feared the sorrow of despair; nor could my faith ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... pride, the peevishness, the jealousy of the elder brother in the close of the parable represent, in its most distinctive features, the character of the Jewish people and their leaders, in the beginning of the Gospel. One of their leading reasons for refusing to own Jesus as the Messiah was ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... lighter, and I had the sensation of treading on air. Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught myself in the act once or twice. I looked into the faces of the women I passed and there saw so much trouble and anxiety, discontent, even to peevishness, that my heart went out to them, and I wished I could impart to them a wee bit of the sunshine I ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... see no hope for the faithful and earnest historian; he must give himself up to swim as he may on the frothy stream of private letters, anecdotes, and pamphlets, the puppet of the ignorance, credulity, peevishness, spite, of any and ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... railing, I will not render, though one of these opposers, Mr. Dan. by name, did tell me, that Mr. Paul's reply when it came out, would sufficiently provoke me to so beastly a work: but what is the reason of his so writing, if not the peevishness of his own spirit, or ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... really enjoy their homes most are remarried after a divorce, or even after two or more. Our society suffers from a plague worse than the pestilence itself, a plague of greed for excitement, eagerness for novelty, of peevishness and fickleness. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Without noticing the peevishness of this remark, her friend continued: "Are you quite sure that you have not been more frequently than you would have been, if you had acted merely in reluctant obedience to the will of Phidias. I am not surprised ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch of peevishness in her voice. "And we've had such a hunt to find you. Do you know ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... ridiculed Washington's "cold, unmilitary conduct" during the War of Independence, and accused his administration, since the new constitution, of "vanity," "ingratitude," "corruption," "bare-faced treachery," and "the tricks of a sharper." He closed this wretched outbreak of peevishness and wounded self-conceit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Folly treats of serious Matters, in such a gay, familiar, ingenious and pleasant manner, as makes it a Work proper to be read by intelligent People, to remove out of their Minds all Bigotry contracted by Ignorance and an evil Education, all Peevishness, Hatred, and Ill-nature towards one another, on account of different Sentiments in Religion; and to form in them the natural Principles of Moderation, Humanity, Affection and Friendship. Our learned and ingenious Bishop Kennet could ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... did not seem to hear him. She leaned back in the corner of the sofa like a wooden figure. The immovable peevishness of the face, framed in the limp, rusty lace, had ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... engrossment of her own ardent and devoted love, had not of late spared much observation to the tokens of her sister's. She was therefore dismayed, if not surprised, as she now perceived the cause of the peevishness Ellinor had just manifested, and by the nature of the love she felt herself, she judged, and perhaps somewhat overrated, the anguish that ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bride. Her husband was a reckless, unsatisfied being, and though he ever loved her with all the affection of which such natures are capable, the warm expressions of his love, varied by fits of peevishness and ill-humor, were so unlike the calm, unchanging devotedness of her nature that she felt a bitter disappointment. Soon after the birth of their daughter his health failed, and he repaired to Italy for the benefit of a more genial climate, and in the hope of perfecting himself in his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... is more whining in it than in any other country on the face of the globe. If we are to die, "Nibbled to Death by Ducks" may well be put on the tombstone. Little things are permitted to bring about paroxysms of peevishness. Even our pleasures have come to be taken sadly. We are irritable at picnics, snarly at clambakes, and ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... voice has no business to be heard outside of her own house; nor there, if her lord decrees otherwise," say they. It is asserted that she has been induced to give publicity to her sorrows—indeed, has occasioned them—by peevishness or imprudence, or by something worse; and thus, by an, unfair, sometimes an altogether false, issue being raised, the unhappy victim not merely of oppression, but of downright brutality, is shut off from justly merited sympathy. And women, ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... worms, which, feeding upon those blossoms, so shared their blessed hue, as to make it unblessed evermore—worms, whose germs had doubtless lurked in the very bulb which, so hopefully, I had planted: in this ingrate peevishness of my weary convalescence, was I sitting there; when, suddenly looking off, I saw the golden mountain-window, dazzling like a deep-sea dolphin. Fairies there, thought I, once more; the queen of fairies at her fairy-window; at any rate, some glad mountain-girl; it will do me ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... life would be so bright for her when the day of her freedom came; that she would reap so rich a harvest of happiness as a reward for the sacrifice which she had made in marrying old Michael Branston, and enduring his peevishness and ill-health with tolerable good-humour during the half-dozen years of their wedded life. She had fancied this; and now her release had come to her, and was worthless in her sight, because the one man she cared for had ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... knew it, and she had to be very careful, fearing for my life. And suddenly, I struck my hands together, and I cried: Ha! what a fool I am! Why, she told me so herself, when I saw her for the second time, and yet I had forgotten it. And all this while, in the peevishness of my own oblivion and presumption, I have been blaming her, expecting things utterly unreasonable, and loading her extraordinary sweetness with miserable suspicions arising from my own imagination, and the blindness of my insatiable ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... Comte Jean entered, and it was agreed between us three that I should say no more to the king of my presentation before the duc d'Aiguillon had spoken to him of it; that I should content myself with complaining without peevishness, and that we should leave the opening measure to the prince de Soubise, and let him break the ice to his majesty. The prince de Soubise behaved exactly as the duke had told me: he came to me the next morning with a mysterious air, which already informed me of all he ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... with his clandestine wooing of a girl of sixteen, has this apology, that the match had been, as it were, predestined, and desired by the mother of the lady. Still, the brother did not ill to be angry; and the peevishness of the hero against the brother and the parvenu lord and rival strikes a jarring note. In England, at least, the general sentiment is opposed to this moody, introspective kind of young man, of whom Tennyson is not to be supposed to approve. We do not feel certain that his man and ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... is forced.' But, to remove that objection, we may consider him, first, to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many are, to whom all sharp sounds are unpleasant: and, secondly, we may attribute much of it to the peevishness of his age, or the wayward authority of an old man in his own house, where he may make himself obeyed; and this the Poet seems to allude to, in his name MOROSE. Besides this, I am assured from divers persons, that BEN. JOHNSON was actually acquainted with such a man, one altogether ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... said Louis, unable to restrain an emotion of peevishness; "I am a dull, blunt man, Sir of Comines. I pray you leave your tropes, and come to plain ground. What does ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... also unceasing efforts at self-control, commit not your destiny to the individual. When the restraints of unfamiliar acquaintance are at length thrown off, what can you anticipate, but captiousness, and peevishness, if not actual violence? "Where surfaces," says one, "are contiguous, every little prominence is mutually felt." How fearful that minds subject to unrestrained anger, should be brought in so near collision, as may be ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... is some preliminary discomfort before the apparent onset. Thus, in children, restlessness, peevishness, languor, nausea, loss of appetite, chilliness, fever, and convulsions may usher in an attack. Mumps begins with pain and swelling below the ear on one side. Within forty-eight hours a large, firm, sensitive lump forms under the ear and extends forward on ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... not very severe. When a gentleman is cudgelling his brain to find any rhyme for sorrow, besides borrow and to-morrow, his woes are nearer at an end than he thinks for. So were Pen's. He had his hot and cold fits, his days of sullenness and peevishness, and of blank resignation and despondency, and occasional mad paroxysms of rage and longing, in which fits Rebecca would be saddled and galloped fiercely about the country, or into Chatteris, her rider gesticulating wildly on her back, and astonishing ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Peevishness, indeed, would perhaps very little disturb the peace of mankind, were it always the consequence of superfluous delicacy; for it is the privilege only of deep reflection, or lively fancy, to destroy happiness by art and refinement. But by continual indulgence ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... look with dislike upon everything around them; yawn with ennui, or fidget with fretfulness, till on the first check which they meet with, their secret discontent bursts forth into a storm. Resistance, caprice, and peevishness, are not borne with patience by a governess, though they are submitted to with smiles by the complaisant visiter. In the same day, the same conduct produces totally different consequences. Experience, it is said, makes fools wise; but such ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... the way when a boy does anything," sez I, with peevishness. "Now you set there an' think up all ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Sometimes his spirits rose to exceeding liveliness, and then he laughed at the young man and joked him about Miss Miller. But a single word, however lightly spoken, served to turn him back to peevishness. One evening Henry remarked that he was compelled to leave town on the day following and that he might ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... . . ." he went on musing, "I wonder what they would say? . . . Come back to the lamp," he cried with sudden peevishness. "Don't look out there . . . this circle of light on the pavement . . . like a map ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... in her new rubber boots. Gertrude wondered aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads. Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice, Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... his portrait, which he refused, having no desire, he said with a shiver, to see his face on cheese and butter wrappers. Some of the criticisms were glowing, others absurd as criticisms occasionally are. Chopin wrote to Titus the same rhapsodical protestations and finally declared in meticulous peevishness, "I will no longer read what people write about me." This has the familiar ring of the true artist who cares nothing for the newspapers but reads them religiously after his ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... most excellent fruit from a thorny stalk, so the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the first approaches, will make the married state more agreeable and pleasant. But those husbands who cannot put up with the early peevishness of their brides, are not a whit wiser than those persons who pluck unripe grapes and leave the ripe grapes for others.[156] On the other hand, many brides, being at first disgusted with their husbands, are like those that stand the bee's sting ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Cornelius even, and amid the solitude which in spite of ardent friendship he had perhaps loved best of all things—some other companion, an unfailing companion, ever at his side throughout; doubling his pleasure in the roses by the way, patient of his peevishness or depression, sympathetic above all with his grateful recognition, onward from his earliest days, of the fact that he was there at all? Must not the whole world around have faded away for him altogether, had he been left for one moment really alone in it?" One can see in this sense of constant ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... depends on her, and I think she can no longer have any reasons for hesitation. . . . At all events," he added, after a moment's silence and with a touch of peevishness, "I cannot see any that she ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... at peace with your neighbours, through Christ Jesus. When you see God stooping to make peace with sinful men, you will be ashamed to be quarrelling with them. When you see God full of love, you will be ashamed to keep up peevishness, grudging, and spite. When you see God's heaven full of light, you will be ashamed to be dark yourselves; your hearts will go out freely to your fellow- creatures; you will long to be friends with every one you meet; and you will find in that the highest pleasure which you ever ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... shelter of my roof, when he prayed me in his agony of fear; or; had I gone with him, I should then have prevented or shared his fate. But I taunted him, ridiculed him, loaded him with maledictions, though the saints know they were uttered in idle peevishness of impatience. I drove him out from my doors, whom I knew so helpless, to take the fate which was perhaps intended for me. I must avenge him, or be dishonoured for ever. See, father, I have been called a man hard as the steel I work ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the people in Arragon, and the rest of the Spanish kingdoms?—blown up. On the other side, where is the King of Spain's power in Holland?—blown up. Where is that of the Austrian princes in Switzerland?—blown up. This perpetual peevishness and jealousy, under the alternate empire of the prince and of the people, are obnoxious to every spark. Nor shall any man show a reason that will be holding in prudence, why the people of Oceana have blown up their King, but that their kings did not first blow up them. The rest ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... that anxiety which generates peevishness. It is a greater fault than any which servants can commit by mere negligence, to allow of those intemperate sallies against their misconduct, which, by degrading their mistresses in their eyes, diminish the good effect a genuine piety might otherwise produce. It ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
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