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More "Petulant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how vain it was to argue with my father. The despair that seized upon me after such an interview was, besides, embittered by remorse; for I was at times petulant, but he invariably gentle; and I was fighting, after all, for my own liberty and pleasure, he singly for what he thought to be my good. And all the time he never despaired. "There is good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with the manner of a petulant child. "I'll annoy them. I tell you I am not going to stand for a lot of people's coming here, sneaking and prying around to see what they can see. If anybody wants to enjoy a place like this let him work for it ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... commercial supremacy of England is in no immediate danger. It is these great permanent geographical factors that make or mar a country, not Eight Hours Bills or petty social reconstructions. Said the Lord Mayor of London to petulant King James, when he proposed to remove the Court to Oxford, "May it please your Majesty not to take ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... the wife of Charles de Chambes, Count of Montsoreau, on whom the Duke had conferred that title a short time before, at the recommendation of Bussy. This letter the King had kept, and as he had long been annoyed by Bussy's insolent arrogance and his petulant temper, he availed himself of this opportunity of avenging the old insults he had received from him. Even while he was at Court, he had been guilty of every sort of insult to nobles and Court ladies, trusting to his prowess as a swordsman, by which he made himself a terror to every one. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... answer sent the blood of healthy anger into her face, made her eyes shine. And it brought from Ina Vandeman a petulant, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six and thirty; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works, can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations. Dang. Very true, egad—though he's my friend. Sneer. Then his affected contempt of all newspaper strictures; though, at the same time, he is the sorest ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... of human faculties, holding a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our self-love, must be the happiest and most durable epoch. The more we reflect on it, the more we find that this state was the least exposed to revolutions and the best for man; and that he can have left it only through ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... practice of law immediately. A spirit of antagonism was developing between brother and sister that greatly distressed Jeff. He had no doubt that he was somewhat to blame, but at the same time Mildred was spoiled and petulant and overbearing. He doubted her kindness of heart, too, since he had witnessed her cruelty in regard to Cousin Ann Peyton and Judith Buck. He also decided to try a hazard of new fortunes in Louisville rather than Ryeville as his ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... laughed, and in idleness talked with the children; Sometimes she turned to him, and then when the thistle was falling, Caught it and twined it again in her hair, and called it her keepsake, Smiled, and made him ashamed of his petulant gift there, before them. But, when the night was grown old and the two by the hearthstone together Sat alone in the flickering red of the flame, and the cricket Carked to the stillness, and ever, with sullen throbs of the pendule Sighed the time-worn ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... established herself as one of the greatest favorites who had ever sung in this country, in spite of the fact that people had hardly recovered from the Lind mania which had swept the country like wildfire, a fact apt to provoke petulant comparisons. Her pecuniary returns from her American tour were very great, and she was enabled to buy a chateau and domain in Germany, a home which she was unfortunately destined ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... perhaps a contemptuous look such as is so often the essence of eloquence. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, as a petulant child locked in a room for disobedience might treat a pillow, he seized me by an arm and jerked me from the bed. It was fortunate that the bones of my ankles and feet, not yet thoroughly knitted, were not again injured. And this was the performance of the very man who had ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... leader, studiously maintaining his Ku-Klux masquerade, parleyed with his underlings and consulted a heavy nickel-cased watch. His gesture showed a petulant impatience. The men in the silent circle stirred uneasily and from time to time low growls broke from their muffled lips. Obviously they were awaiting some development which though overdue ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... sun could one tired-out old man accomplish in a situation that every American knows to be simply impossible?" She looked hard at her husband's thoughtful face and threw herself against him with a petulant gesture. "Now, Neale, don't go and justify him! Don't say ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... seemed that her companion would take her at her word, so puzzled and troubled was his countenance, and he moved slightly, as about to obey the petulant behest; then ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... more! If I try to sleep on this river's brink for the night, the frost and dew and wind will kill me; and if I climb this hill to yonder thicket, I fear a savage beast will eat me while I slumber." It is well to be careful, O Ulysses, in these wild solitudes; now let the petulant outburst just given, be preparatory to an act of will which will settle the problem. "He rose and went to the wood near by; he crept under two bushes that grew from the same place, one the wild and the other the tame olive." There in a heap of leaves—man's first bed—he slept under the intertwined ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... to understand me," replied Harry, flattered but still petulant. "You are like an iceberg, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... when Eric entered the breakfast room with a petulant sort of face and flung himself into a chair. "My! what a head I have on me this morning," he groaned. "Soda water would be worth all the coffee in the world, Mae; I'll take it black, if you please. How cosy you two look. I always take too much of every thing at a party, from ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... hour, they become all at once strong and calm; they stand before the fury of a Jewish mob and the threatenings of the Sanhedrim, unmoved and victorious. And these brave confessors and saintly heroes are the men who, a few weeks before, had been petulant, self-willed, jealous, cowardly. What had lifted them suddenly so far above themselves? Their Master's death? That would more naturally have taken any heart or courage out of them, and left them indeed as sheep in the midst of wolves. Why, then, do they thus strangely ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... beyond anything I ever heard from "April's bird." I even doubted the author till I saw him. The thin and worn looking mother who had him in charge worked without ceasing, while the open-mouthed infant lifted up his voice and wept in a way so petulant and persistent as to completely disguise its sweet bluebird quality. Now this charming youngster, bearing heaven's color on his wings, with speckled bib and shoulder-cape, and honest, innocent eyes, is a special favorite with me; ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... knees, a movement which called out a grunt from her husband, but whether this was an expression of approval or disapproval I cannot say. A silence followed, during which I caught the sound of his steady tramping up and down the room. Then she spoke again in a petulant way. 'It may seem foolish to you' she cried, 'knowing me as you do, and being used to seeing me in all my moods. But to him it will be a surprise, and I will so manage it that it will effect all we want, and more, too, perhaps. I—I have a genius for some things, Howard; and my better ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... the general spirit and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific men are called ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... to remain petulant. "General Jackson is the most dreadful martinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until they're too tired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December, and he won't let officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer meetings ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... and apology the boys felt themselves decidedly aggrieved that they were not at once ushered in to supper. Mr Ashford, however, being a mortal of only limited perception, required a good deal more information; and a painful and somewhat petulant cross-examination ensued, the result of which was that our heroes were informed they were not to be trusted, that both Mr and Mrs Ashford were disappointed in them, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and that they would hear ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... dead; nineteen years of petulant, helpless, hopeless wretchedness were at last over, and all that his daughter cared to live for was gone; she was an orphan, without near relatives, without friends, old, and tired out. Do not despise me that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... happy dream of a certain beautiful red wagon with a real seat that she had seen in a thick catalogue sent her mother by a store in a distant city. So she never moved till late in the afternoon, when the gentle breeze strengthened to a sharp wind that, with a petulant gust, whirled her sailor across the rows and ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and kinsman his character assumes a most revolting aspect. Envious, revengeful, subtle, he was as fickle and petulant as he was suspicious and cruel. His brother, even the offspring of his brother, became to him objects of jealousy, if not of hatred. Their friends must, he thought, be his enemies, and applause bestowed upon them was odious ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... as petulant as the Adelie penguins which we were to meet further South. They surrounded us, pecked at our legs and chattered with an audacity which defies description. It was discovered that they resented any attempt to drive them into ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant touch of her heel, Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate a series of plunges and bucks as to ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... said I in petulant amusement. "I say in jest 'I come, thou comest, he comes,' and the words act on you like abracadabra and the blackest of magic. You don't, I presume, carry a hornbook of French in your case; and if you do, I haven't ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the observances; he professed, also, in company with herself alone, to have had much trouble in drilling her to mark and properly preserve them. She had no desire to speak of her birthplace. But, for some reason or other, she did not share her hero's rather petulant anxiety to keep the curtain nailed down on that part of her life which preceded her entry into the ranks of the Royal Marines. Some might have thought that those fair large blue eyes of hers wandered now and then in pleasant unambitious walks behind the curtain, and toyed with little flowers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... lady in the box opposite, "not a Frenchwoman. Her youth is too girlish, and she has too petulant an air ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... eyes the happy past; She turns from it with petulant disdain, And tries to read the future,—but in vain. Blank are its pages from the first to last. She hears faint music, smiles, and leaves the room Just as one ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... what descents from radiance to consolatory twilight, would have surrounded me for poetry and pride to dwell on! What captivating melody in the minor key would have been mine, though I lost her—the legacy of it all for ever! Say a petulant princess, a star of beauty, mad for me, and the whisper of our passion and sorrows traversing the flushed world! Was she coming? Not she, but a touchstone, a relentless mirror, a piercing eye, a mind severe as the Goddess of the God's head: a princess indeed, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her age. She did, indeed, make use of it very frequently; but Madame Victoire alone permitted her, so long as she continued Dauphiness, to visit her familiarly. Madame Adelaide could not overcome her prejudices against Austrian princesses, and was wearied with the somewhat petulant gaiety of the Dauphiness. Madame Victoire was concerned at this, feeling that their society and counsel would have been highly useful to a young person otherwise likely to meet with none but sycophants. She endeavoured, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... not last—barely saw its round of eight and twenty days. Lionella was a lady born, as it were, in the purple. Command sat lightly on her; she had never been disobeyed. She now grew querulous, exacting, suspicious, moody, sometimes petulant, sometimes beseeching. It gave Angioletto the deuce's own time now and then; but he might yet have weathered the rocks—for his tact was only equalled by his good temper—if the Countess had not precipitated matters. There came ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Lord Constable, to withdraw his noble Lady from the host of petticoated empirics, who, like so many Amazons, break in upon and derange the regular course of physical practice, with their petulant prognostics, their rash recipes, their mithridate, their febrifuges, their amulets, and their charms. Well speaketh the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... jewelled fingers and casting restless glances toward the door until certain emissaries, who had been sent forth, returned with the news that no one had seen Druro since eleven o'clock the night before, when he had gone off in a car with some mining men. The widow hid her annoyance under a pretty, petulant ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... with the petulant persistence that marks a trunk call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to deal with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up, minute voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... in general to interfere in some way and prevent those shameful outrages upon their rights and feelings. Places of amusement ought to be resorts of good-humour and peace—not rendezvous for swaggering petulant bullies. The law ought to be called in to prevent a repetition of such offences. For certainly there are legal provisions to answer the purpose. If not, it were better to shut up the playhouse at once than have it open, a school of riot ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... is no rivalry," says Macaulay. "In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen; Cervantes is never petulant; Demosthenes never comes unseasonably; Dante never stays too long; no difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero; no heresy can excite the horror ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... fainting maiden. "I succor ladies in distress—handsome ones," should be the motto on his shield. "The handsomest woman in the North," Struve had said. She raised her eyes to the glass and made a mouth at the petulant, tired reflection there. She pictured Glenister leaping from floe to floe with the hungry river surging and snapping at his feet, while the cheers of the crowd on shore gave heart to the girl crouching out ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... sweet and clear, a little petulant perhaps, but still very sweet. She is quite small—a little girl—and clad in deep mourning. There is something pathetic about the dense black surrounding such a radiant face, and such a childish ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to call 'dreadful particular'—I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to get cases of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his health, and ate woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the same reason; and was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and clearness ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... in my raven hair jewels the rarest That ever illumined the brow of a queen, I should think the least one that were wanting, the fairest, And pout at their lustre in petulant spleen. Tho' the diamond should lighten there, regal in splendor, The topaz its sunny glow shed o'er the curl, And the emerald's ray tremble, timid and tender— If the pearl were not by, I should ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... stared at the paper. Mr. Blunt threw one of the doors open, but before we passed through it we heard a petulant exclamation accompanied by childlike stamping with both feet and ending in a laugh which had in it a note ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... girl's face was in shape a delicate oval, though the chin was as firm as if a loving thumb and finger had pinched it into prominence. The face on the canvas was fuller, shorter, squarer, and its chin was cleft in the middle. The mouth was smaller and more pouting—a self-conscious, petulant mouth; but Barrie thought it beautiful, with its flowerlike, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... next to an Englishwoman who began a conversation that was resumed presently in the hotel lounge. She was a woman of perhaps thirty-three or thirty-four, slenderly built, with a warm reddish skin and very abundant fair golden hair, the wife of a petulant-looking heavy-faced man of perhaps fifty-three, who smoked a cigar and dozed over his coffee and presently went to bed. "He always goes to bed like that," she confided startlingly. "He sleeps after all his meals. I never knew ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... bar to aid them, had been obliged to go to Delaware, whence they procured Caesar A. Rodney, one of the House managers against Chase. The two impeachments were thus closely connected and their results were similar. In the first place, it was determined that impeachment was likely to be, in the petulant language of Jefferson, "a farce" not soon to be used again for partisan purposes. In the second place, it was probable that henceforth, in the Commonwealths as well as in the National Government, political power would be exercised subject to constitutional ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the elopement that invalidated her words, or whether the sufferer's instinct made her believe Veronique's testimony rather than her cousin's assurances, it was all 'cramming words into her ear against the stomach of her sense,' and she turned away from them with a piteous, petulant hopelessness: 'Could they not even let her alone to die ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... R. W.; not as I do.' With those submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Ireland ever knew—by Walter Hussey Burgh—by Henry Flood, and by the brilliant phalanx of constitutional lawyers who at that time graced the popular cause—men "to whom compared" the most proud and petulant of her present persecutors "are but the insects of a summer's day." These gentlemen had been the long-tried friends of the country—they had been found pure in principle, and in intellect superior to their contemporaries. Where, therefore, was the wonder, that the people ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... caleche! Many a time, assaulted by the blue devils, have we taken refuge in its solacing interior—have pulled down its silken blinds, and unseeing and unseen, the motion, like that of the rocking-cradle to the petulant child of less mature growth, has restored complacency, and lulled us to good humour. The caleche, the real caleche, is, we believe, peculiar to Malta. It is the carriage of the rich and poor—Lady Woodford may be seen employing it, to ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was something up, we felt sure of that. Peter and the Story Girl certainly had a secret between them, which they kept for a whole fortnight. There was no finding it out from the Story Girl. She had a knack of keeping secrets, anyhow; and, moreover, all that fortnight she was strangely cranky and petulant, and we found it was not wise to tease her. She was not well, so Aunt Olivia ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... joy of revelry, and the curved lips might have been those of some wickedly-laughing faun; one almost expected to see embryo horns fretting the smoothness of his sleek dark hair. The chin was firm, but one looked in vain for a redeeming touch of ill-temper in the handsome, half-mocking, half-petulant face. With a strain of sourness in him Comus might have been leavened into something creative and masterful; fate had fashioned him with a certain whimsical charm, and left him all unequipped for the greater purposes ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... days. Miss Verne had not sufficiently recruited from the dissipation attendant upon a large assemblage, given by a lady friend in honor of some relative who had arrived from Ottawa. She was inclined to be resentful and petulant, and found fault with everything, from the delicious hot coffee and tempting rolls to the generous sunbeam that danced in at the opposite window, and it increased her anger so that she could scarcely restrain herself in ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... not going to stay but a minute." She walked over to a post and, leaning against it, turned and looked back at us. She wore a flower in her hair, and in her hand she held a calacanthus bud. She was rather small, with a petulant sort of beauty, but I did not think that she could be compared with Guinea, for all of Alf's raving over her. Her cheeks were dimpled, and well she knew it, for she smiled whenever anything was said, and when no word had been spoken she smiled ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the schoolboy's vain parade, Of books and cases—all his stock in trade— The pert conceits, the cunning tricks and play Of low attorneys, strung in long array, The unseemly jest, the petulant reply, That chatters on, and cares not how, or why, Strictly avoid—unworthy themes to scan, They sink the speaker and disgrace the man, Like the false lights, by flying shadows cast, Scarce seen when present and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... this bullyragging on the part of one of his subordinates seemed indeed a spiritless creature. Meanwhile Lincoln, apparently devoid of sensibility, was seeking during the anxious months of 1862, in one case, merely how to keep his petulant Secretary in harness; in the other, how to quicken his tortoise ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... expression, "The Chosen People," would be an insult to every man outside the pale, were it not such a petulant and childish boast that its serious assumption makes ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... adopting the dangerous doctrine of perfection which was so prominent in the Methodist teaching, was at a still earlier period an ardent preacher of justification by faith of the new birth. It was characteristic of John Wesley that ten days before his conversion he wrote a long, petulant, and dictatorial letter to his old master, William Law, reproaching him with having kept back from him the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and intimating in strong and discourteous language his own ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... ever-gnawing doubt, Were—No, my burning cheeks! We'll say no more. Ah! loved and lost! Though God's chaste grace should fail me, My weak idolatry of thee would give Strength that should keep me true: with mine own hands I'd mar this tear-worn face, till petulant man Should loathe ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... dignified views of humanity, being, in the words of Plato, "the imitation of the most beautiful and most excellent life;" Comedy, on the other hand, by its jocose and depreciatory view of all things, calls forth the most petulant hilarity. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... decided, one who, remembering that her childhood tears and fits of temper had always resulted in her getting what she wanted, had brought the habit into her adult years. He noted, too, that her gorgeous ash-blond hair had been carefully "done," piled in high masses above her petulant face. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... Why name your loss? All that Minna could lose is not Minna. You are still the sweetest, dearest, loveliest, best creature under the sun; all goodness and generosity, innocence and bliss! Now and then a little petulant; at times somewhat wilful—so much the better! So much the better! Minna would otherwise be an angel, whom I should honour with trepidation, but not dare to love. (Takes her hand ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... arms down from the back of his chair where he had clasped his hands behind his head, and finished his own high-ball. Nature in the beginning of things for him had been more kind than to his petulant friend. He was scarcely more than a boy—twenty-five, perhaps, from the looks of him—but physically a big man. He might have weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, and he was maybe an inch over six feet. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... had been petulant and reminiscent. He had seemed perversely bent on committing a righteous suicide by forcing her to make him angry. He had cast into damnation all the "fads" and "isms" of an ungodly present and, since he judged the time ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... furnished her with the oddest of commentaries on his father's mien and mind. He would never, the family sighingly recognized, be nearly as handsome as Mr. Leath; but his rather charmingly unbalanced face, with its brooding forehead and petulant boyish smile, suggested to Anna what his father's countenance might have been could one have pictured its neat features disordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed the analogy farther, and descried in her step-son's mind a quaintly-twisted reflection ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the noise of the hoarse breaking surf had become a familiar sound to our ears; but the longer the men watched the more dispirited did they become; each returning day found them more weak and wan, more gloomy and petulant, than the preceding one; and when the eighth day of constant and fruitless expectation slowly closed upon us I felt a gloomy ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Stormy interviews, with violent threats of instant dismissal of the whole outdoor staff, petulant abuse of people who had nothing whatever to do with the neglect of the park, and a display of energy and mental activity surprising in one of such advanced age. He was in the middle of an altercation with his steward—who resigned ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... change in the people was. What had become of all the fervency of their shout, 'The Lord, He is the God!' if they could leave Jezebel the power to carry out her threat? Solitude and the awful desert increased his gloom. The strong man had become weak, and it was ebb-tide with him. His prayer was petulant, impatient, presumptuous. What right had he to settle what was 'enough'? If he really wished to die, he could have found death at Jezreel, and had no need to travel a hundred miles to seek a grave. He was weary of his work, and profoundly disappointed by what he hastily concluded was its failure, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it seemed as if there was going to be trouble between the two boys; for Thorny was naturally masterful, and illness had left him weak and nervous, so he was often both domineering and petulant. Ben had been taught instant obedience to those older than him self, and if Thorny had been a man Ben would have made no complaint; but it was hard to be "ordered round" by a boy, and an ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... our Sovereign, on his days of grand reviews and grand diplomatic audiences. I never saw him more condescending, more agreeable, or, at least, less offensive, than on the day of his last levee, before he set out to be inaugurated a King of Italy; nor worse tempered, more petulant, agitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had been performed. I am not the only one who has made this remark; he did not disguise either his good or ill-humour; and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to her again for several minutes. She threw herself back against the cushion with an oddly petulant gesture, and ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... him the cost of each new picture he had of her. It was now within a few minutes of midnight—one half of his first day gone before he had more than raised the glass to his lips. He felt for a moment the petulant annoyance of a man imposed upon—as though Time were playing him unfairly; until today the hours had dragged heavily enough; ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... fountain, refreshing all around. Her volubility is like the bird's song; it is the outpouring of a heart filled to overflowing with life, love, and joy, and all sweet and affectionate impulses. She has as much tenderness as mirth, and in her most petulant raillery there is a touch of softness—"By this hand, it will not hurt a fly!" As her vivacity never lessens our impression of her sensibility, so she wears her masculine attire without the slightest impugnment of her delicacy. Shakspeare did not make the modesty of his ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... came in on the squire's arm throwing her greetings right and left to the assembled servants, and certainly there was in her eyes more of the shining happiness of a bride than they had ever held before. Her face was flushed with a pretty eagerness, and the petulant lines about her mouth were far less apparent than of old. Her laugh had a gay spontaneous ring, and though her voice still had a slightly arrogant inflection it was not without softer notes when ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... "Whenever petulant ignorance, pride, malice, malignity, or envy, interposes to cloud or sully his fame, I will take upon me to pronounce that the eclipse will not ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... death. I am standing at Stella's bedside, and the white-capped nurse has gone. There are dim lights about the room, and heavy carts lumber by in the dawn without. A petulant ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... with her checked gingham apron pressed tightly over her face, and several times she sniffed audibly. When she finally returned to the kitchen her nose was pink, her eyelids were pink, and she was extremely petulant when she caught Minnie ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... special delicacies and cold dishes. Right in the middle of the array was one of the largest lobsters I ever saw, reposing on a couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged upon a serviette. He made an impressive sight as he lay there prone upon his stomach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way. ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... was a born flirt; graceful, petulant and coquettish to a degree, and she knew perfectly well from the very first that Mona admired her. She was quite content to be admired, and was, in fact—like all white-nosed monkeys—particularly fond of notice and admiration, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... confirmation of his statement to Aeschines and Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directly contradicts him. "Not long after," says Mr Mitford, "he took blows publicly in the theater" (I preserve the orthography, if it can be so called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, named Meidias." Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it was long after; eight years at the very least, probably much more. In the next place the petulant youth, of whom Mr Mitford speaks, was fifty years old. (Whoever will read the speech of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trifle fretful on occasion, especially with servants, a little petulant and huffy with a sense of her own dignity and importance as a rich woman, was completely happy in her marriage. She had never regretted it for one hour, never swerved from the conviction that she and Michael were a perfect match—he, tall, stalwart, black-haired ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Richard presently returned to the table at which the girl was still playing. He took particular care not to approach her, but he found a place on the opposite side of the room, from which he could watch her unobserved. She was still standing and apparently she was losing her money. Once, with a little petulant frown, she turned away and moved a few yards lower down the room. The first time she staked in her new position, she won, and a smile which it seemed to him was the most brilliant he had ever seen, parted her lips. He stood there looking ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The preacher taught me Latin, Greek, and history: two persons, however, occupied themselves with my religious education—the preacher and my old Rosalie. She is a good soul. How often have I teased her, been petulant, and almost angry with her! She thought so much of me, she was both mother and sister to me, and instructed me in religion as well as the preacher, although she is a Catholic. Since my father's childhood ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... and vice punished, it is at last found that the captain takes his page's place, and lies with his faithless mistress, cuckolds his treacherous friend, thrusts his sword through his body, recovers his casket, and marries his page. You will observe that this play is also larded with a petulant, litigious old woman (a relation of the captain), who is the most comical character that was ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Voltaire who quarreled with a king over candle-ends?" Graham queried, pleasuring in the sight of her graceful abandon. Thirty-eight! It was impossible. She seemed almost a girl, petulant and flushed over some school task. Then he remembered Mrs. Tully's remark that Paula was the most mature child she had ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... and with a sudden little chuckling sigh of contentment, climbed up clumsily into the empty place beside the Young Electrician, rummaged bustlingly around with its hands and feet for an instant, in a petulant effort to make a comfortable nest for itself, and then snuggled down at last, lolling half-way across the Young Electrician's perfectly strange knees, and drowsed off to sleep with all the delicious, friendly, unconcerned sang-froid of a tired puppy. ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... as the history of half a century has shown, it was adequate and sufficient, and Lord Derby at once resigned. He did not take his defeat well. 'Strange to say,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to his wife, 'Lord Derby has been making a most petulant and intemperate speech in the House of Lords on his resignation; such that Newcastle was obliged to rise after him and contradict the charge of combination; while nothing could be better in temper, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... others; and, when the minister retired, he began to rally his Lordship on the subject. But Byron really fancied that he had acquitted himself with grace and dignity, and took the jocularity of his friend amiss—a little banter ensued—the poet became petulant, and Mr Hobhouse walked on; while Byron, on account of his lameness, and the roughness of the pavement, took hold of my arm, appealing to me, if he could have said less, after the kind and hospitable treatment ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... my cousin in a petulant spirit, and sought Eudora. She saw I was troubled, and asked me the cause. I told her. A shadow, a dark, portentous shadow, suddenly clouded her face;—as suddenly it passed away, giving place to a look of sharp, painful agony, which was succeeded by a return of something like her natural ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the languor of her frame was relieved by more frequent sighs; there was more elasticity in her walk, more youthfulness in her attitudes; even in the stillness of her chamber, a pleasant though feverish agitation produced a petulant movement of her feet, and sent the words more hurriedly to her lips. In the evening Julie would undraw the curtains, and frequently lean forth from her window to take in the freshness of the water, the ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was beset with tempers and oddities which exposed him, more perhaps than any man of his time, to the ridicule of contemporary wits and poets. He was, at least in his literary career, jealous, envious, irritable, vain, pedantic and bombastical, petulant and quarrelsome,—ever on the watch for an affront, and always in the attitude of a fretful porcupine with a quill pointed in every direction against real or supposititious enemies. In such a state of mental alarm and physical vaporing did he live, that he seems to have proclaimed a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... as I have pointed out so many times, the race was between maturity and the petulant self-destruction of protracted adolescence. Mankind had either to take thought or to perish, and it has chosen (perhaps sensibly after all) to perish. I am too old now to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Mr Stephens's recommendation of Cook, who was accordingly appointed to the command, and promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the navy, by a commission bearing date 25th of May, 1768. Mr Dalrymple, it may be remarked, took his disappointment very badly. He published a petulant letter to Dr Hawkesworth, complaining, among other things, of the ill treatment he had received. Dr H. replied in the second edition of this work, but the controversy betwixt these two gentlemen is unworthy of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Ford answered the petulant demand as one bears with a spoiled child. They were returning to Saint's Rest for water. Let the president be assured that his orders would be obeyed in ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... would return, like the demon in fair disguise tempting some hermit of the desert, the thought, "What is Aurora doing? If Aurora knew I was ill, she would come." And the imagination of her coming would shed a feverish gladness all along those petulant, ill-treated, starved nerves. "What have I to do with Aurora, or Aurora with me?" he would ask, furiously, the incongruity of what had happened to him calling forth sometimes a desperate laugh. But Nature laughs at man's ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... imagination is active,—generally more so than are his reasoning powers,—and fits him for a ready belief in the powers of any able mediciner. On one occasion, Meldram, a white man in the employ of the American Fur Company, found himself suddenly elevated to high rank as a seer by a foolish or petulant remark. He was engaged in making a rude press for baling furs, and had got a heavy lever in position. A large party of Crow Indians who were near at hand, considering his press a marvel of mechanical ingenuity, were very inquisitive as to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... title did not appear to impress Mr. Culverton Smith. Through the half-open door I heard a high, petulant, ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... penetrating fragrance. In such a moment one could find it in one's heart to believe that some ethereal soulless creature, like Ariel of the "Tempest," was floating at one's side, directing one's attention, like a petulant child, to the things that touched its light-hearted fancy, and constraining one into ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to fall both tart and bitter, when the children take such lavish courses, and get such wild hairs in their nostrils; the sons acting the parts of spendthrifts, and petulant Students, and the Daughters of light Punks; as long as these things remain so, they appear to be but very sober Pleasures of Marriage. But when we perceive, that these thorns being past, the pleasant roses appear, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... liked me to nurse him. He looked at me and smiled sadly. His look was quite human. He, who was usually so quick and petulant, always playing tricks on one of us, was ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... Petulant imps of light, What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes Thrilled through the night And drew you to this hive of ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... than the motions of the stars, and binds the whole universe, high and low, into one system: and we may have arrived at the blessed wish to conform with this law rather than to strive and kick against the pricks and waste our short time in petulant rebellion. So far, so good: but how are we to know the law? How, with the best will in the world, are we to distinguish order from disorder? What assurance have we, after striving to bring ourselves into obedience, that we have succeeded? We may agree, for example, with Wordsworth that Duty is a ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of consciousness also and is able to regard it as being the last of the "me" collections, then it will lose its sense of relativity and separation and the real individuality, the "I AM" consciousness, will have been realized. What do I mean? This "I AM" is not the petulant self-assertion of the relative ego. "I" but really means GOD CONSCIOUSNESS as perfect Existence, perfect Knowledge or perfect Bliss. It means the realization of an Infinite and Eternal Self or Individuality. "He that has lost the self has gained the SELF". ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... in letters ten feet high along each side of her hull, flanked on both sides by the Norwegian flag, also painted. Her crew, leaning over the side, surveyed the quay curiously. So this was war—this petulant horse with its soldier rider, these ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... holiday of both governess and pupil. They loved one another so well that the prospect of six weeks' close companionship was irksome to neither; but Emilie had not a holiday of it altogether. Miss Edith was exacting and petulant at times, even with those she loved, and she loved none better than Emilie. Fred, the tormenting brother of whom Edith had spoken in her list of troubles in our first chapter, was undeniably troublesome; and the three maid-servants set themselves from the very first to resist ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... that the girl whom she loved so thoroughly, should be a creature in her hands, to be dealt with as she pleased. She would have had her daughter accede to the proposed marriage even before she had seen Lord Lovel, and was petulant when her daughter would not be as clay in the sculptor's hand. But still the girl's refusal had been but as the refusal of a girl. She should not have been as are other girls. She should have known better. She should have understood ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... was indolent, but she was sour and petulant, and poor Lily's daily life was not a bed of roses. All day long she had to stand by her exacting young mistress, obey her slightest gesture, and humor all her whims. Though she was highly valued as a piece of property by her owner, she had only one ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... character and the criss-cross of the influence of the different individuals, lies the secret of Turgenev's supremacy. As an example the reader may note how he is made to judge Elena through six pairs of eyes. Her father's contempt for his daughter, her mother's affectionate bewilderment, Shubin's petulant criticism, Bersenyev's half hearted enthralment, Insarov's recognition, and Zoya's indifference, being the facets for converging light on Elena's sincerity and depth of soul. Again one may note Turgenev's method for rehabilitating Shubin in our eyes; Shubin is simply ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... humors and peculiarities of our canine companions, some object provoked their spleen, and produced a sharp and petulant barking from the smaller fry, but it was some time before Maida was sufficiently aroused to ramp forward two or three bounds and join in the chorus, with ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... and to save society as the barbarians had saved it in earlier centuries. Whatever the value of these views, they can scarcely have found favour among those who rallied to the Second Empire and who imagined that the Goncourts were a pair of firebrands: whereas, in fact, they were petulant, impulsive men of ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... art. Mr. Shaw is a mind without a body, a whimsical intelligence without a soul. He is one of those tragic buffoons who play with eternal things, not only for the amusement of the crowd, but because an uneasy devil capers in their own brains. He is a merry preacher, a petulant critic, a great talker. It is partly because he is an Irishman that he has transplanted the art of talking to the soil of the stage: Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw, our only modern comedians, all Irishmen, all talkers. It is by his astonishing skill of saying everything that comes ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... not remember, and he did not believe the story. Irritation at the mad ravishment of his pill-box rendered him incredulous. As he had no means of confuting his nephew, all he could do safely to express his disbelief in him, was to utter petulant remarks on his powerlessness to appear at the dinner-table that day: upon which—Berry just then trumpeting dinner—Algernon seized one arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and the laughing couple bore him into the room where dinner was laid, Ripton sniggering in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that he could not go to Peekskill with her met with a petulant response. She made it plain to him that she realised his preference for the children and that she was no longer of any use to him as a companion or helpmate. For her own part, she'd like to see them all in Jericho—meaning the children, of course. All of which ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... interpretation of those remains. Milton had neither made these acquisitions, nor aimed at them. He even expresses himself, in his vehement way, with contempt of them. "Hollow antiquities sold by the seeming bulk," "marginal stuffings," "horse-loads of citations and fathers," are some of his petulant outbursts against the learning that had been played upon his position by his adversaries. He says expressly that he had "not read the Councils, save here and there" (Smectymnuus). His own practice had been "industrious and select reading." He chose to make himself ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... repaired when Eric entered the breakfast room with a petulant sort of face and flung himself into a chair. "My! what a head I have on me this morning," he groaned. "Soda water would be worth all the coffee in the world, Mae; I'll take it black, if you please. How cosy you two look. I always take too much of every thing at a party, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... opened the door; there was a loud rustling of silks along the corridor; and Jenny appeared in all her glory. She was no longer the fresh and pretty minx whom Hector had known —the provoking large-eyed Parisian demoiselle, with haughty head and petulant grace. A single year had withered her, as a too hot summer does the roses, and had destroyed her fragile beauty beyond recall. She was not twenty, and still it was hard to discern that she had been charming, and was ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... private dining room of the Syrtis Major Club, near the western edge of Mars City, slapping his fist into his hand. His face usually was engaging and boyish, the wave of his dark hair setting it off handsomely, but now it was flushed like that of a petulant child and the lock of hair hung down over his forehead. Maya, the only other person in the room, sat quietly and watched ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... playing. He took particular care not to approach her, but he found a place on the opposite side of the room, from which he could watch her unobserved. She was still standing and apparently she was losing her money. Once, with a little petulant frown, she turned away and moved a few yards lower down the room. The first time she staked in her new position, she won, and a smile which it seemed to him was the most brilliant he had ever seen, parted her ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "I'd like to, just for the sake of doing something. Do you know, Bea,"—knitting the arched brows with a petulant air,—"Sometimes I think I'll do something dreadful; perfectly dreadful, you know, so as to have things different for a little bit. It's horrible to live right along, just so, without ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... the picture gallery, where the portrait of the lady in the 'vi'let velvet,' Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, had often caught his eye and charmed his fancy when the setting sun had illumined its rich colouring and had given life to the face, half-petulant, half-sweet, which pouted forth from the old canvas like a rose with light on its petals. Now all these pleasant rambles were finished. The mistress of Abbot's Manor would certainly object to a wandering parson in her house and grounds. Probably she was a very imperious, disagreeable young ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... petulant exclamation which was rising to her lips. She was conscious of a curious desire to win her queer young ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... excrescences, and mutilations, that students carry with them out of the lecture-room, if once the teeming intellect which nourishes theirs has been scared from its propriety by any misshapen fantasy. Even an impatient or petulant expression, which to a philosopher would be a mere index of the low state of amiability of the speaker at the moment of its utterance, may pass into the young mind as an element of its future constitution, to injure its temper or corrupt ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nought and continued gazing, while only the little smile, tilting the corners of her lips, betrayed that she had heard the petulant speech. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... respect to such a baffler, and too much weight to his fancies; to raise the man too high in his courage and conceit; to make his pretences seem worthy the considering and canvassing. Briefly, perverse obstinacy is more easily quelled, petulant impudence is sooner dashed, sophistical captiousness is more safely eluded, sceptical wantonness is more surely confounded in this than in the simple way ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... his statement to Aeschines and Plutarch. Aeschines by no means bears him out; and Plutarch directly contradicts him. "Not long after," says Mr Mitford, "he took blows publicly in the theater" (I preserve the orthography, if it can be so called, of this historian) "from a petulant youth of rank, named Meidias." Here are two disgraceful mistakes. In the first place, it was long after; eight years at the very least, probably much more. In the next place the petulant youth, of whom Mr ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... clear, a little petulant perhaps, but still very sweet. She is quite small—a little girl—and clad in deep mourning. There is something pathetic about the dense black surrounding such a radiant face, and such a childish figure. Her eyes are fixed on the professor, ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... "You are petulant to-day, Eustace," she said; "or you would not accuse me so wrongfully; nay, you have been very, I must say it, very disagreeable of late, and followed your own selfish amusements, leaving me to wander ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Napoleon, in a petulant voice; "YOUR illumination is magnificent; as to the inhabitants of Dresden, it seems to me, they are the children of the sun that we saw at the theatre—their lights have gone out." And the emperor, coldly bowing to the king, and offering his arm ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... boots—extracting from his bosom his father's portrait and expressing filial sentiments to it. One was less likely to accuse Corinne of peevishness when one beheld the delineation of family worship in the Edgermond household from which she fled. And the faithful eyes remonstrated with the petulant brain for scoffing at excessive sentiment, when they saw how everybody was always at somebody else's feet, or supporting somebody else in a fainting condition, or resting his or her burning brow on a hand, the elbow of which rested, in its turn, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... he, patting my shoulder as I had been a petulant child. "Never miscall Adam that is your friend, for if you have wasted yourself in a vanity, so have I, for here you see me full of honours, Martin, a justice, a member o' Parliament, a power at Court with great lords eager for my friendship ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... 'neath her frown the errant earth in winter seems Prostrate to lie, and petulant of mood; Restrained in icy fetters all the babbling streams, Like naughty babes who're learning ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... flowers, and sing with the birds, to swim in the pool with yonder newt, and lie down to dry in the long meadow grass among the poppies. Because I might not do this and other things as fond and foolish, I was petulant and peevish, like a spoilt child. I look to you, gentlemen, to help me to be a man, and play a man's part ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... me, for a moment, but his mind, I could see, was intent on the page along which Whinnie's stubbled finger was crawling like a plowshare beside each furrow of text. He was in the South Pacific, a thousand miles away from me. In my own house Struthers was putting a petulant-voiced Poppsy to bed, and Gershom, up in his room, was making extraordinary smells at his chemistry experiments. Susie I found curled comfortably up in front of the fire, idling over my first volume of ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... except perhaps a contemptuous look such as is so often the essence of eloquence. Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, as a petulant child locked in a room for disobedience might treat a pillow, he seized me by an arm and jerked me from the bed. It was fortunate that the bones of my ankles and feet, not yet thoroughly knitted, were not again injured. And this was the performance of the very man who had locked my hands in the muff, ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... me and my people without any manifest dolour, which is a great thing to say for so long a period in this world, we had our own trials and tribulations in the one of which I have now to make mention. Mungo Argyle, the exciseman, waxing rich, grew proud and petulant, and would have ruled the country side with a rod of iron. Nothing less would serve him than a fine horse to ride on, and a world of other conveniences and luxuries, as if he had been on an equality with gentlemen. And he bought a grand gun, which was called a fowling-piece; and he had two pointer ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... through his body and his soul it had attacked his brain. It had sent him night-sweats and tears and unfounded dreads. It had split his intense normality into credulity and suspicion. Out of the coarse material of his enthusiasm it had cut dozens of meek but petulant obsessions; his energy was shrunk to the bad temper of a spoiled child, and for his will to power was substituted a fatuous puerile desire for a land of harps and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... perhaps deliberately, that Stanway had still before him the peril of financial embarrassment, that he was mortgaging the house, and that his colloquies with David Dain continued to be frequent and obviously disconcerting. When she saw him nervous, petulant, preoccupied, she attributed his condition solely to his thought of the one danger which she had secretly removed. She had a strange determined impulse to be happy ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... forty years old when he wrote this letter. By some people that is not considered a very great age; but he doubtless felt himself immensely older, as he was infinitely wiser, than his petulant ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... irritated by this petulant insult, resumed with some gentleness, "Stay, I was forgetting that I made you my ambassador to Madame Marie, at Ghent. Yes, gentlemen," added the king turning to the Flemings, "this man hath been an ambassador. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... ideal state; but no torment could be greater than loneliness with thoughts that wound. Jenny's thoughts wounded her. The mood of complacency was gone: that of shame and discontent was upon her. Distress was uppermost in her mind—not the petulant wriggling of a spoilt child, but the sober consciousness of pain in herself and in others. In vain did Jenny give little gasps of annoyance, intended by her humour to disperse the clouds. The gasps and exclamations were unavailing. She was ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... own limited comprehension of it; and that St. James uses no meaningless phrase, but is stating a logical and scientific truth, when he speaks of "The perfect Law of Liberty" (Jas. i, 25). What we have to do is, to follow this up, not by petulant self-assertion, but by quietly considering the why and wherefore of the whole thing. In doing so we can fortify ourselves with another maxim, that "Principle is not limited by Precedent." When we spread the wings of thought and speculate ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... supposed, and diverging from the point of direction of his own party with every step. Time and again had Devers, still fuming with nervous tension and mingled wrath and pain,—hungry and savage, too, it must be borne in mind,—given vent to some petulant expression because of the non-arrival of the young officer whom he saw fit to hold responsible for the loss of his men; and when at last Mr. Davies neared them, riding diagonally towards the troop from the low divide to the east, Devers did not change the direction of his little column so as ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... head nurse; and it was well that she had an energetic spirit, and so sweet a temper, that she was ready to sympathise with all Emily's petulant complaints, and even to find fault with herself for not being in two places at once. Two of the maids were ill, and the whole care of Emily and Jane devolved upon her, with only the ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lovelace: I have said too much. Impatience begins to break in upon me. If you can excuse me to the ladies, it will be better for my mind's sake, and for your credit's sake, that I do not see them. Call me to them over-nice, petulant, prudish—what you please call me to them. Nobody but Miss Howe, to whom, next to the Almighty, and my own mother, I wish to stand acquitted of wilful error, shall know the whole of what has passed. Be happy, as you may!—Deserve to be happy, and happy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... go, then!" cried Mrs. Maynard, in petulant disappointment, letting her wraps fall ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... broad edging of tents and waggons, which showed how suddenly its population had outgrown it. The Royal Standard still fluttered from the tower of St. Mary Magdalene, while close by its beautiful brother-turret of St. James bore aloft the blue flag of Monmouth. As I gazed the quick petulant roll of a drum rose up on the still morning air, with the clear ringing call of the bugles summoning the troops from their slumbers. Beyond the town, and on either side of it, stretched a glorious view of the Somersetshire downs, rolling away to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the heart of Adele, and her tongue is loosened to a little petulant, fiery roulade against the severities of the life around her, which it would have greatly pained poor Rose to listen to in any speech of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... that, as works of young men, they contained, and even nailed to the Academy gates, a kind of Lutheran challenge to the then accepted teachers in all European schools of Art: perhaps a little too shrill and petulant in the tone of it, but yet curiously resolute and steady in its triple Fraternity, as of William of Burglen with his Melchthal and Stauffacher, in the Grutli meadow, not wholly to be scorned by even the knightliest powers of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Ward being torn from him, he was sent to Sheffield to stand his trial as Charles Peace. The leap from the train is already recorded; and at his last appearance in the dock he rolled upon the floor, a petulant and broken man. When once the last doom was pronounced, he forgot both fiddle and crowbar; he surrendered himself to those exercises of piety from which he had never wavered. The foolish have denounced him for a hypocrite, not knowing that the artist may have a ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... thick darkness and stumbling on and on, with a dull light glowing about his head and fading away directly, then more darkness and stumbling on, and once more a dull yellow glow, and this fading away, with the darkness increasing. Then a slight struggle, and a few petulant remonstrances. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... had imitated Gila Dare's petulant childish accent to perfection. At another time the three young men would have shouted over it. Now they looked ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and this time the crowd gaped in good earnest. An indescribable emotion possessed for an instant the face of the young man in evening clothes. Then he fell back upon his first manner, half-petulant, half-mocking. "Six dollars I am bid," he announced, briskly, and looked straight ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... protests, and petulant warnings against her cousin by marriage, who she said was punctual at church, and learned, and knew statistics, but was "not for Conrad, no, no, no!" Lady Caroline lapsed into an attitude of fixed hostility; and shortly after the crash came, and her predictions were realized, vented her wrath ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... Isobel was petulant, and perhaps a little frightened. She had not yet reached that stage of confidence familiar to all who cross the open seas. The first period of a gale is terrifying. Later there comes an indifference born of supreme trust in the ship. The steady onward ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... restless and feverish. He at once remembered what had passed. Bull's words haunted him; he could not forget them; they burnt within him like the flame of a moral fever. He was moody and petulant, and for a time could hardly conceal his aversion to Bull. Ah Eric! moodiness and petulance cannot save you, but prayerfulness would; one word, Eric, at the throne of grace—one prayer before you go down among the boys, that God in his mercy would wash away, in the blood of his dear Son, your ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... but she turned her head away with a petulant gesture of repulsion; and lest her eyes might feel the call of his she covered them with her hands. Her hopelessness, her loathing of him enclosed her like ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... reminding him of the numerous matters that would have to be settled up between them, especially Dan's responsibility in the new adventure, the transport of grain from Moab to Jerusalem. Dan's curiosity was not to be diverted, and seeing him give way to his rage like a petulant child, Joseph decided that he must tell him, and he began with a disparagement of his story, the truth of which he did not vouch for. At Capernaum they were all telling how some two or three weeks ago Jesus heard God speaking within him, and, naming those he wished ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... it seemed that her companion would take her at her word, so puzzled and troubled was his countenance, and he moved slightly, as about to obey the petulant behest; ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... emotions she had experienced, or the scenes in which she had played no feeble part, one sought in vain. Gaiety covered the melancholy, almost sombre depths in her character. And it was the gaiety of her French mother—petulant, reckless, irresistible, giddy, uncertain. As a child, dressed up in ribbons and lace, with flowers in her hair, she had been the chief amusement and plaything of Madame Duboc—to be held on her lap, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... with the oddest of commentaries on his father's mien and mind. He would never, the family sighingly recognized, be nearly as handsome as Mr. Leath; but his rather charmingly unbalanced face, with its brooding forehead and petulant boyish smile, suggested to Anna what his father's countenance might have been could one have pictured its neat features disordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed the analogy farther, and descried in her step-son's mind a quaintly-twisted reflection of her husband's. With his ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... sat in the silence of despair, and the Colonel had been silent also—for what could he say?—but suddenly all four started in their saddles, and Sadie gave a sharp cry of dismay. In the hush of the night there had come from behind them the petulant crack of a rifle, then another, then several together, with a brisk rat-tat-tat, and then after an interval, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... statute laws may honestly inform a just prince how far his prerogative extends, so I may be allowed to tell your lordship, who by an undisputed title are the king of poets, what an extent of power you have, and how lawfully you may exercise it over the petulant scribblers of this age. As Lord Chamberlain, I know, you are absolute by your office in all that belongs to the decency and good manners of the stage. You can banish from thence scurrility and profaneness, and restrain the licentious insolence of poets and their actors in all things ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... door of an inner chamber, and crosses the stage with a quick petulant step, to ring a bell in the saloon: no answer is immediately given, and he repeats the ring ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... confidentially" to state his attitude toward Davis thus "While I do not and never have regarded him as a great man or statesman on a large scale, or a man of any marked genius, yet I have regarded him as a man of good intentions, weak and vacillating, timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate, but not firm. Am now beginning to doubt his good intentions.... His whole policy on the organization and discipline of the army is perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that he is aiming ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... undertake so many great labours. There are others, of little and narrow minds, either always despairing of everything, or else malcontent, envious, ill-tempered, churlish, calumnious, and morose; others devoted to amatory pleasures, others petulant, others audacious, wanton, intemperate, or idle, never continuing in the same opinion; on which account there is never any interruption to the annoyances to which ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... half believable—that there were things which walked about softly at night—things which did not want to be dead. He himself had picked them out from among the pictures in the gallery—pretty, light, petulant women; adventurous-eyed, full-blooded, eager men. His theory was that they hated their stone coffins, and fought their way back through the grey mists to try to talk and make love and to be seen of warm things which were alive. But ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... steadfast eyes the Prioress searched the pretty, flushed face, swollen with weeping, and now gathering a look of petulant defiance, thinly veiled ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Whatever the value of these views, they can scarcely have found favour among those who rallied to the Second Empire and who imagined that the Goncourts were a pair of firebrands: whereas, in fact, they were petulant, impulsive men of talent, smarting ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... bitter pique which the Baron had stirred up within me I transferred to the Baroness. The entire business seemed to me like a foul mystification; and I would now show that I was possessed of alarmingly good common-sense and also of extraordinary sagacity. Like a petulant child, I shunned the Baroness and escaped Adelheid when she pursued me, and found a place where I wished, right at the bottom end of the table between the two officers, with whom I began to carouse ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... as if there was going to be trouble between the two boys, for Thorny was naturally masterful, and illness had left him weak and nervous, so he was often both domineering and petulant. Ben had been taught instant obedience to those older than himself, and if Thorny had been a man Ben would have made no complaint; but it was hard to be "ordered round" by a boy, and an unreasonable one ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... (like mine,) should not be placed with an amiable one, (like the doctor's.) If misery loves company, so does anger; and a petulant man should have an associate who ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... those submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... restless and forlorn. They hearkened yet to every call of the wind, who cared for them no longer but only played freakishly with them and broke their rest. I felt sorry for the leaves as I watched them in that dull, weird twilight, and angry—in a petulant fashion that almost made me laugh—with the wind that would not leave them in peace. Why should they—and I—be vexed with these transient breaths of desire for a life ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Goodwin, usually so accurate, stumbles unaccountably in this matter—which has been so strangely misleading to other competent men—and makes the sadly perverted statement that, "In June, John Turner was sent, and he soon returned with a petulant (sic) letter from Cushman, which, however, announced that the ship MAYFLOWER had been selected and in two weeks would probably leave London for Southampton." He adds, with inexcusable carelessness in the presence of the words "sixty last" (which his dictionary would have told ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... stood watching for the one which took him nearest to his door, that he made the slight reflection with which this story opens. "Could I make a horse-car the hero of my story?" he asked himself, with a petulant tone, as he thought how dismally dull he was. The jingling car came up, and he jumped upon the rear platform, wedged his way through the men and boys who crowded the steps and platform, and so pushed into the interior. He found half a dozen men in various ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... her head in a petulant silence; and a madrigal by the college choir checked any further remarks from Mr. Pryce. After the madrigal came a general move for refreshments, which were set out in the college library and in the garden. The Lord Chancellor must needs offer his arm to his host's sister, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... something so irresistible in this persistent devotion, that no one had the heart to oust her from her post. She slept on the floor, without uttering a complaint; bore jokes somewhat of the rudest; fared scantily, though her basket was daily filled with luxuries for her boy; and tended that petulant personage with a never-failing patience beautiful ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... doubt, at her daughter's defeat. All this seemed hard to endure uncomplainingly; but she was strong and proud, and before quitting her sylvan retreat she resolved to submit quietly and with a good grace to the new position of affairs, though brought about by such unworthy means. She would make no petulant complaints nor be sullen, nor drop any spiteful or scornful words to spoil her mother's satisfaction; nor would she make any overt attempts to supplant her mother in the girl's confidence, or to win even a share of her affection. She would hide her own pain, and faithfully perform the dry, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... speech safe. If he spoke at this moment he must speak in violent passion and bitter denunciation, and so with his hands tautly clutched at his back he held his counsel and paced the floor. Old Tom Burton's unaccustomed hours in the confinement of convalescence had left him petulant. The courtesy of the stranger's argument was lost upon him. All he saw was that it was argument, and he was in a condition to be ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... so," said Mark angrily, as he realised more fully their position; and a sense of confusion made him petulant. "Let's act and find our way. Now, then, which way does ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... louder. This is Mr. Williams. Speak up. I can't understand you." The voice was petulant and so distinct that even Shirley could hear it, as he knelt by the side of the phonograph. Again Van Cleft insisted on his deafness. There was the suggestion of a break in the voice which brought to Shirley's eyes the sparkle of a presentiment of success. At last Van Cleft admitted ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... and keep it will, Though my one lord, Torel of Istria, Live, or——" "Sweet, comfort thee! San Pietro speed! I shall come home: if not, and worthy knees Bend for this hand, whereof none worthy lives, Least he who lays his last kiss thus upon it, Look thee, I free it——" "Nay!" she said, "but I, A petulant slave that hugs her golden chain, Give that gift back, and with it this poor ring: Set it upon thy sword-hand, and in fight Be merciful and win, thinking of me." Then she, with pretty action, drawing on Her ruby, buckled over it his glove— The great steel ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... desperately to burn against the overwhelming odds of rain and wind which came down the chimneys. Mrs. Goddard never remembered to have been so uncomfortable during the two previous winters she had spent in Billingsfield, and even Nellie grew impatient and petulant. The only bright spot in those long days seemed to be made by the regular visits of Mr. Juxon, by the equally regular bi-weekly appearance of the Ambroses when they came to tea, and by the little dinners at the vicarage. The weather had grown so wet and the roads so ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... one glance and dropped my eyes. She and I could not bear each other's looks yet. Meantime Marah stood erect in the center of the hall, her face pale, her lips set, her eyes fixed upon vacancy. Not a word passed our three mouths. At last a petulant murmur broke the dreadful silence, and Marah, tossing her head in disdain, turned away before our eyes and began to ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... being a closer resemblance to him than to Alfonso, or Giovanni Tornabuoni. Mantegna's portrait of Gonzaga, though made later, shows a rather different type, less displeasing than the bronze. In the bust we have what is probably the portrait of a coarse and clumsy person; he is petulant in the mouth, weak in the chin, gross in the thick and heavy jaw. The bronze is extremely rough, and shows no signs of the nervous and individual touches which we find in Donatello's terra-cotta. Both the busts are unfinished; in the absence of chasing and hammering ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... these quotations, if they fail of giving a fair representation of the poet, serve at least to characterise the critic,) could have won upon her only by a seeming air of profundity, by their utter contempt of perspicuous language, and a petulant disregard of even that rhythm, or regulated harmony, which has been supposed to distinguish verse from prose. For very manifest reasons, however, these are not the occasions on which we prefer to test the critical powers of Mrs Margaret Fuller. It is more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... be understood that Colonel Desmit passed a most uneasy night after Nimbus had left his house. He had been summoned before the Bureau! He had expected it. Hardly had he given way to his petulant anger when he recognized the folly of his course. The demeanor of the colored man had been so "sassy" and aggravating, however, that no one could have resisted his wrath, he was sure. Indeed, now that he came to look back at it, he wondered that ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... in his profession than in others. To be humane, generous, and candid is a very high degree of merit in any case, but those qualities deserve still greater praise when they are found in that condition which makes almost every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, selfish, and brutal.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Mrs Gertrude and Mrs Anne shall not be in brown kersey," said Mrs Louvaine, in her usual petulant tone. "And if Aubrey don him not in satin and velvet, my name is ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... thoroughly understands. The preacher taught me Latin, Greek, and history: two persons, however, occupied themselves with my religious education—the preacher and my old Rosalie. She is a good soul. How often have I teased her, been petulant, and almost angry with her! She thought so much of me, she was both mother and sister to me, and instructed me in religion as well as the preacher, although she is a Catholic. Since my father's childhood she has been a sort of governante in the ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... back about five that night. Here was Miss Lydia, cool and negligent on the porch, like she'd never had a care in the world; fresh dressed in something white and blue, with her niftiest hammock stockings, and tinkling the ukulele in a bored and petulant manner. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... in a petulant non sequitur, "is that YOU, my own twin-brother, never lets on about her comin' yer, permiskus like, when I ain't yer, and you and her gallivantin' and promanadin', and ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... example, any tribe or nation among them?—The spacious waste is destitute of the appearance of domestic industry, or respectable character; it exhibits only a tissue of indolence, hypocritical grimace, petulant and assuming manners, and all the consequences of idleness and corrupted morals. To succeed in this beneficent undertaking, and to expunge the inveterate nature of the African, his prejudices, and inherent customs, progressive approaches upon his present condition are ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... the manner of a petulant child. "I'll annoy them. I tell you I am not going to stand for a lot of people's coming here, sneaking and prying around to see what they can see. If anybody wants to enjoy a place like this let him work for ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... of keen cowboy eyes fastened intently upon her pretty, petulant face; and Madeline divined, if Helen did not, that the desired consummation was not ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... village not far from Honfleur, in that rich pastoral part of Lower Normandy called the Pays d'Auge. Annette was the pride and delight of her parents, and was brought up with the fondest indulgence. She was gay, tender, petulant, and susceptible. All her feelings were quick and ardent; and having never experienced contradiction or restraint, she was little practised in self-control: nothing but the native goodness of her heart kept her ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... thereof without being subject to this or any other, for he is a bold man. He asks aid, and it will be sent in due time. In the meanwhile steps are being taken to mollify him so that he will come to reason and not become petulant, on account of the inconveniences which might arise therefrom to the service of your Majesty, and the peace and welfare of this state. Since there is doubt as to what will happen, it will be even more desirable than when Estevan Rodriguez was living that your Majesty now give definite ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... attacked with singular malice and pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more than a century and a quarter in his grave. He is indeed as fair a mark as factious animosity and petulant wit could desire. The faults of his understanding and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed. They were not the faults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to his country. Alone among the many Scotchmen who have raised themselves to distinction and prosperity ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... preparation room, and Penny sighed, as much as to say: "What a pity little boys are so petulant and quarrelsome." But the victory was his, as it always was, and he could think of other things. There was a clock on the wall behind him, but, too comfortable to turn his head, he ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... delight in mischief, excited in the mind of the convalescent almost as much surprise as the other's princely deportment. For hours together he would lie watching those two wonderfully contrasted beings. Petulant and malicious as Cudjo appeared, he was completely under the control of his noble companion, who would often stand looking down at his tricks and deformity, with composedly folded arms and an air of patient indulgence and compassion beautiful ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... of joys. The alluring sea, This morning clear and placid, may, ere night, Toss like a petulant child, and when the light Of a new morning dawns sweep grand and free A mighty power. If fierce, or mild, or bright, With every tide flows in a ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... the finale of the Symphony in C minor, the beginning of the Eighth Symphony in F major, or even a bright bit out of the Rienzi Overture. Peps, our little dog, on the other hand, was a highly sensitive and nervous creature. My friends used to call him 'Peps the petulant,' and there were times when we could not speak to him even in the friendliest way without bringing on paroxysms of howls and sobs. These two pets of course helped very much to increase the mutual understanding between myself and ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... light, though menial. When his mistress went out to walk, he must carry her spaniel in his arms. He must stand behind her at dinner, wielding a fly-brush of peacock's feathers. He must run errands, and be equally ready to serve her whims and satisfy her wants. She was not harsh, but very petulant; and had Paul been hasty or high-tempered, his lot might have been a bitter one. On the contrary, he was quiet, docile, and bashful, and he pleased her marvellously. If he sometimes wept for the happy past, or felt a child's strong yearning for something to love, he hid ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... in mercy to the boasted intelligence of this age, the historian, when writing the history of these times, will ascribe the attempt of the President to enforce the Lecompton resolution upon an unwilling people to the fading intellect, the petulant passion and the trembling dotage of an old man on the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... remarked Zoe, in a half-petulant tone, glancing toward them as she spoke, and apparently addressing Violet, as she was the only other person on the veranda at ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... very scarce in Banbridge this morning," remarked Charlotte, in a sweet, slightly petulant voice. She was both angry and ashamed that she had been forced to apply to Anderson to cash the check. "I have been everywhere, and nobody had as much as twenty-five ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Loveliness whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina supposes, through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys of which through' the poem, or through the music, we attain to but ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hammock and watching the car out of sight down the long vista of the village street. "He hasn't given me one real good look yet. I suppose if I were a patient he would favour me with an all-seeing gaze out of those Irish-Scotch barbarian eyes of his, but as it is"—her voice was slightly petulant—"I believe I shall have to do as Arthur has: make up some symptoms and go over ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... as Miss Miniver. Miss Miniver looked out on the world through large emotional blue eyes that were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and her nose was pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her glasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face. She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for her opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words "Votes for Women." Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the sufferer's bed, while Teddy ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... right," said Wait, with eagerness. "Been sick... better... turn-to now." He sighed.—"Howly Mother!" exclaimed Belfast with a heave of the shoulders, "stand up, Jimmy."—"Keep away from me then," said Wait, giving Belfast a petulant push, and reeling fetched against the doorpost. His cheekbones glistened as though they had been varnished. He snatched off his night-cap, wiped his perspiring face with it, flung it on the deck. "I am coming out," ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... these things, as things which didn't concern her particularly. Less and less each day she had grown to care whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... in fair disguise tempting some hermit of the desert, the thought, "What is Aurora doing? If Aurora knew I was ill, she would come." And the imagination of her coming would shed a feverish gladness all along those petulant, ill-treated, starved nerves. "What have I to do with Aurora, or Aurora with me?" he would ask, furiously, the incongruity of what had happened to him calling forth sometimes a desperate laugh. But Nature laughs at man's ideas of congruity; remembering that, he could only ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... them repeatedly; but he denies the accusation, and she rather believes his denial than the assertion of her best friends. Knowing Hannah as you do, Lucy, you cannot but remember the petulant self-will, the scorn of contradiction and opposition, which used half to vex and half to amuse us in the charming spoilt child. We little dreamt how dangerous that fault, almost diverting in trifles, might become ...
— The Beauty Of The Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Every eye was fixed on those clogs; even the little eyes of Mr Peake quitted the button of his waistcoat and burned like diamond points on those clogs. Florence herself chiefly gazed on those clogs, but occasionally her nonchalant petulant gaze would wander up and down her bare arms and across her bosom. At intervals, with her ringed fingers she would lift the short skirt—a nothing, an imperceptibility, half an inch, with glance downcast; and the effect was profound, recondite, inexplicable. Her style was not ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Button-Bright, and took care not to step on the mound. He went on, whistling merrily, until a petulant voice cried: ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the Ambassador alluded to the other member of the States-General who opposed the decree was still more diverting. It was "Grotius, the Pensioner of Rotterdam, a young petulant brain, not unknown to your ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... there was a general rush from Richards kennel, accompanied with every canine tone from the howl of the wolf-dog to the petulant bark of the terrier. The master received their boisterous salutations with a variety of imitations from his own throat, when the dogs, probably from shame of being outdone, ceased their out- cry. One stately, powerful mastiff, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... girl. Either because his formulated thought was now completely knocked out of his mind by his own emphasis in defending it, or because he detected something of portent in her expression, his manner suddenly changed, and with a petulant glance at his writing he laid down his pen and sank back in his chair to listen. " Well, what is it, my ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... prone to rare, occasional displays of temper. Saxham's white saint had proved her descent from Eve by stamping her slender foot at her hulking Doctor; had, after a sudden outburst of passionate, unreasonable upbraiding, risen from the dinner-table and run out of the room, to hide a petulant, remorseful shower of tears. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive that other old men feel differently. Of course, I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back." The man who thus counseled petulant youth with the experienced calmness of age was thirty-nine years old. A state of society where one could at that age call himself or be called by others an old man, is proved by that fact alone to be one of wearing hardships and early decay of the vital powers. The survivors of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the true one is a surmise that has no place here. I offer you merely this little story of two strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you only the dark patch above the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door of Keetor's old vaudeville theatre made there by the petulant push of gloved hands too impatient to finger the clumsy thumb-latch—and where I last saw Cherry whisking through like a swallow into her nest, on time to the minute, as usual, to dress for ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... protection was not tremendous, but as the history of half a century has shown, it was adequate and sufficient, and Lord Derby at once resigned. He did not take his defeat well. 'Strange to say,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to his wife, 'Lord Derby has been making a most petulant and intemperate speech in the House of Lords on his resignation; such that Newcastle was obliged to rise after him and contradict the charge of combination; while nothing could be better in temper, feeling, and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... probably weep when the hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y——; and lastly the midshipman Z—— with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller than a boot: thirteen years old at the outside and already a regular woman, full of her own importance, a petulant little gossip. In my childhood, I was sometimes taken to the Learned Animals Theater, and I remember a certain Madame de Pompadour, a principal role, filled by a gayly dressed-up old monkey; Touki-San reminds me ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
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