"Asperity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... certain change in Mr. Waife's manner to him: it was much more distant; it was even pettish, if not surly. Lionel could not account for it; thought it mere whim at first: but as he walked part of the way back with them towards the village, this asperity continued, nay increased. Lionel was hurt; he ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with some asperity; "the police think that they have disposed of the whole matter when they say, 'A murder has been committed,' and especially so when they can add, 'And we are on the track of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with frigid asperity as to my meaning; but the very iciness of his manner satisfied me that he understood perfectly, and, believing that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himself all details of his machine—whatever it might ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... asperity referred to, the Apology, as a whole, is written with modesty and moderation. Melanchthon sought to keep the track as clear as possible for a future understanding. In the interest of unity, which he never ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... unseemly to go about on a night like this without a lantern," he said with asperity. "The municipality should forbid it. I shall certainly bring the matter ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in the character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to excuse Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321, No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... mind, in several letters during her imprisonment which I have read, much the contrary. The French editor makes this observation: "Who could believe that these writings are of the same epoch? The first denotes asperity and ostentation; the second indicates simplicity, softness, and nobleness. The one is that of Elizabeth, queen of England; the other that of her cousin, Mary Stuart. The difference of these two handwritings answers most evidently ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... uttered, with a touch of asperity. "Oh, yes. Pish, sir! Friends, I am learning, have their own hides to consider. And those gentlemen of yours are Gentiles with goods for Salt Lake Mormons. Are they going to throw all business to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... being an edged-tool against neutral nations, a curiously narrow, hide-bound politician, whose language was as insolent as his manners were offensive. The Governor's reference, therefore, had not been too severe, nor had his statement overleaped the truth; yet Jonas Platt attacked it with great asperity, arraigning the national administration and charging that the country had more cause for war with France than with Great Britain. This was both unwise and untenable. The Governor had aimed his criticism at France as well as at England. He spoke of one as controlling the destinies of the European ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... will not prove the testament to be a forgery. The signing and witnessing were done in my presence," said my uncle. He rose from his chair, instinctively locked up his bureau; and, if such stern features could assume an aspect of still greater asperity, it was when the interrogator thus continued:—"You were, as you observe, Mr S——, an eye-witness to the due subscription of this deed. If I am to clear myself from the imputation of unjustifiable curiosity, I must beg leave to examine yourself and the surviving witness apart, merely ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... stimulating the palate. Conversation would become dull and vapid, if negligence were not sometimes roused, and sluggishness quickened, by due severity of reprehension. But acids unmixed will distort the face and torture the palate; and he that has no other qualities than penetration and asperity, he whose constant employment is detection and censure, who looks only to find faults, and speaks only to punish them, will soon be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... satiate her desires: afflictions and sufferings turn to their advantage, being undergone for the acquisition of eternal health and joy; death is to be wished and longed for, where it is the passage to so perfect a condition; the asperity of the rules they impose upon themselves is immediately softened by custom, and all their carnal appetites baffled and subdued, by refusing to humour and feed them, these being only supported by use and exercise. This sole end of another happily ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a raised voice, and with a slight asperity; "you know how you jumped up, looking like a ghost, the moment I opened the door, and the first thing you said after I 'd told you that they 'd found a murdered man in the barn, ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... questioned vaguely. There was no asperity in her voice now, only puzzled helplessness. It was the inevitable surrender of the commonplace in the light of a greater understanding—in the realization of an unknown law to the significance of which some never attain. She had come inadvertently to a marriage feast for which she had no wedding ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... distant part of the State, was present to give it his personal supervision. In the course of Mr. D.'s argument, he let fall some profane language, for which he was promptly checked and reprimanded by the Judge. Mr. D., accustomed to unrestrained license of tongue, retorted with great asperity, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... was also distressed by an attack make in The Times upon the memory of her husband by Colonel Grant, who declared that Burton had treated both Speke and their native followers with inhumanity. Lady Burton replied with asperity—giving the facts much as we have given them in Chapter ix. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... to take notice, that where, mentioning the Presbyterian, I have let fall expressions, somewhat relishing of more then usuall asperity; I do by no means intend it to the prejudice of many of that Judgment, who were either men of peaceable spirits from the beginning; or that have of late given testimony of the sense of their errour, whilst they were abused by those specious pretences I have reproved; but I do regard them ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... — N. roughness &c. adj.; tooth, grain, texture, ripple; asperity, rugosity[obs3], salebrosity|, corrugation, nodosity[obs3]; arborescence[obs3] &c. 242; pilosity[obs3]. brush, hair, beard, shag, mane, whisker, moustache, imperial, tress, lock, curl, ringlet; fimbriae, pili, cilia, villi; lovelock; beaucatcher[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be in doubt?' Father O'Grady asked; and then, remembering a certain asperity in Father Oliver's last letter, he thought it prudent to change the conversation. 'Well, here I am and unexpected, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... looking like a coachman in masquerade; and "dinner" was announced, and we all paired off with the utmost ceremony, and I found myself seated between Frank Lovell and dear old Mr. Lumley, and opposite the elder Miss Molasses, who scowled at me with an asperity of which I should have believed her unmeaning face incapable, as if she hated me on this particular evening more than all the other days of the year. I soon discovered the cause. Frank was more attentive to me than I had ever known him, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... rubbed or the ashes of my pipe. I lived in dread of these entrances, but at last I found that they chanced only within certain hours, and I arranged my times of work accordingly. Once or twice, however, being impatient, I scratched the stone with some asperity and noise, and was rewarded by hearing my fellow stumbling in the hall; for he had as uncertain limbs as ever I saw. He stumbled upon nothing, as you have seen a child trip itself up by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stage of Sadler's Wells than the floor of the House of Commons. A mountebank, with but one-half of the honorable gentleman's talent for rant, would undoubtedly make his fortune. However, I am somewhat surprised he should entertain such a particular asperity against me, as I never did him a favor. But, perhaps, the honorable gentleman imagines he may talk himself into consequence; if so, I should be sorry to obstruct his promotion; he is heartily welcome to attack me. Of one thing only I will assure him, that I hold him in so small a degree ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to fathom the reason for the employment of girls as ushers in the London theatres. Perhaps it is to heighten the glamour of a place whose glamour hardly needs heightening, or more probably it is to soften the asperity of the play-goer who finds himself asked sixpence for that necessary evil, the programme. But, now I come to think of it, most of the play-goers in London are Englishmen who have been always used to paying, ancestrally and personally, sixpence for their programmes ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... its way of an impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... and his grandmother, taking the letter from Bertha, and placing it in his hand, accosted him with no little asperity of tone. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... not?" demands the fair Bella, with just a soupcon of asperity in her tone,—as much as she ever allows herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... gentleman, sir, to be Mr. John Christopher Tertius, and my very good and much-esteemed friend," replied Mr. Halfpenny, with asperity. ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... good as a cook, but his true strength, as he frankly admits, consists in eating and drinking. That is as it should be. It befits the tone of a metropolis that outsiders shall do its work. That undercurrent of asperity is less noticeable here than in many towns of the peninsula. There is something of the grande dame in Rome, a flavour of old-world courtesy. The inhabitants are better-mannered than the Parisians; a workday crowd in Rome is as ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... that he had procured my name to be entered on the books of the guard-ship, at Spithead: but, that I might gain time to loiter by the side of Eugenia, I begged his permission to join my ship without returning home, alleging as a reason, that delay would soften down any asperity of feeling occasioned by the late fracas. This in his answer he agreed to, enclosing a handsome remittance; and the same post brought a pressing invitation from Mr Somerville to come to ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... polite, high-pitched voice of Mrs Bowldler (who never could resist fireworks). "Moderately so, but without the accompanyin' igsplosion. That is, so far as we are permitted to guess. . . . And highly creditable to them," it wound up, with sudden asperity, "considering the things they sometimes ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to its rotten roots the social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could not perhaps be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry, which can separate good qualities from ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... The body is angular and generally convex in outline, with sharpness at all angles. This temperament is usually accompanied with great activity of mind and vivaciousness of disposition, and sometimes develops great energy and asperity. It is very likely to exhaust ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... hereditary bitterness against the English has lost much of its asperity, or rather has become merged in a new source of jealousy and apprehension: I allude to the incessant and wide-spreading irruptions from New-England. Word has been continually brought back to Communipaw, by those of the community ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... taken place during the winter, said that since no definite agreement had been reached the Government had decided to reopen the matter in the House. This meant, as Redmond pointed out with some asperity, that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for taking the initiative in making proposals to meet objections whose reasonableness he did not admit. The Opposition, he thought, should have been left to put forward ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... victim of the accident, with some asperity. "I'm just changing the air in these tires. The other air was worn out, ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... St. Lawrence. Under the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, commissioners were again appointed to settle these differences, who maintained the rights of their respective sovereigns with great ability, and laborious research; but their zeal produced a degree of asperity unfavourable to accommodation. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... was silent. Melancholy ideas have many charms when we have not been ourselves deeply wretched, but when grief in all its asperity has seized upon the soul, we no longer hear without shuddering certain words which formerly only excited in us reveries more or ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... growing wild in the fields, are in frequent use; and for distinction sake, are called rural salads. The English, who are not so fond of pungent flavours, are in the habit of substituting sugar instead of pepper and salt, where oil is not used, in order to soften the asperity of the vinegar. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... The blood rushed into his pale face, as he replied with great asperity of look and tone, 'Margaret, you have taken an unfair advantage, and abused the confidence I reposed in you; I did not ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... world full of wild instincts, but she knew how to tame them kindly. My aversion to my brother was the one thing she checked but feebly, for he was a thorn in her side too. I learned this when she, who was so gentle, explained to me, with asperity in her tone, that there was but one God in heaven, and on earth but one emperor, who should govern the world in his name. She also imparted these convictions to others, and this turned to her disadvantage. My mother parted us, and sent her back to her African home. She died soon after." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Strada della Madonna, and having a stouter knife than hers offered to help her. She was most grateful, when, not without difficulty, Jones succeeded in whittling for her a piece about an inch long, and as thick as the wood of a match box. "Per Bacco," she exclaimed, still agitated, and not without asperity, "I never saw such a cross in my life." The old cross, considered to be now past further whittling, was lying by the roadside ready to be taken away. I had wanted to get the lady a chip from this, ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... police surgeon," he said with some asperity; "in fact, I may say I have not seen a dead body since my hospital days. I ... I ... know nothing about these things. This is a matter for the police. They must be summoned at once. ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... exception of Jeanie, may I ask?" There was a touch of asperity in Mr. Lorimer's voice. He had been badly browbeaten, and—for some reason—he had had to submit. But he was ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... were playing nap, and the bagman proposed a game of cards. I remembered in time that I was an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Church and refused with some asperity. After that I shut my eyes again, for I wanted to ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... said, with some return to her old asperity, "I am sorry that I 've made your life so hard that you think that you have been a slave. I am sorry that my home has been so onpleasant that you 're so powerful glad to git away from it, even to go into a strange city full ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... prudent, is more likely to bring back a profligate husband to the service of God, than any other person; and that the solid piety of a husband, with good manners and discreet firmness, may soften the asperity of an ill-tempered woman, or at least render her ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... poured himself another cup of coffee and looked at Kenny with a shade of asperity. Fairies, it would seem, were a little out ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... notion than you how long it is to last," Holmes answered with some asperity. "If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us. As to what it is we—Well, THAT'S what ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Carroll. We had passed so many houses that seemed to me but little more than hovels or barracks that it was a relief to me to see from Mr. Law's and Mr. Carroll's places that there were some gentlemen's residences in the capital. When I said something of the kind to my guide, he replied, with some asperity, that there were many gentlemen's residences at Alexandria and Arlington and Georgetown, only a short gallop away, and that it would not be many years until Washington itself could claim as many ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... because of his life-long relation to its people. He looked a Netherlander rather than a Spaniard, and felt one, so that, so far as he showed favors, he showed them to this opulent people. Charles, with his many faults, had yet a rude geniality, which softened or seemed to soften his asperity toward those ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... have retorted with some asperity upon criticisms in which any approach to such insolent insularism is even remotely ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... fetched in the peats an' the water, as I bade ye?" asked Meg, with great asperity in her voice. "D'ye think that ye'll win aff ony the easier in the hinnerend, by sittin' up there like yin o' his ain bairns, takkin' ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Graythorpe's gloss in her own mind on what he did say. However, her mother never did come round. She cherished her condemnation of her daughter to the end, forgiving her again more suo, if anything with increased asperity, on her death-bed. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... and here another significant look at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides, book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never knowed ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... little touch of asperity,' as Agatha would say, in that," said Nancy Ellen, "but Kate has a good heart. She'll ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Lord Minto said, 'I believe, sir, there was not so much difference between the two cases as your Majesty imagines, for Admiral Sartorius—' Then followed something which I could not catch, but the King did, for he said, with considerable asperity, 'Unless your Lordship is quite sure of that, I must beg leave to say that I differ from you and do not believe it to be so, but since you have expressed your belief that it is so, I desire you will furnish me with proofs of it immediately. The next time I see you you will be prepared ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... wise to get her into things. It might keep some others out if we made her prominent," put in Lila Cary with some asperity. "We must have some social ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... of the situation. The sound of the automobile had died away. Gentleman Jack had passed out of their lives. This fact embittered Miss Trimble. She spoke with asperity. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... invincible charity, generous sympathy, and needed support and guidance. All this was certain to be found in Madame Swetchine. She had no rivalry, no envy, no desire to eclipse any one, no bigotry or asperity; and the aged, the mature, and the youthful, alike came with grateful pleasure under her empire. Women, usually little accessible to the influence of another woman, were full of trust and docility towards her. Loving solitude, plunging into metaphysics as ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... labor. Had words always been used according to their primitive meaning, there would be little danger of being misunderstood. But the fact long known, "Verba mutanter"—words change—has been the prolific source of much of the diversity of opinion, asperity of feeling, and apparent misconstruction of other's sentiments, which has disturbed society, and disgraced mankind. I have, in a former lecture, alluded to this point, and call it up in this place to prepare your minds to understand what is ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... relations with Stein. There was a change for the better, however, as soon as the Emperor of Russia arrived, and at once called upon Stein. Now all hastened to visit him, and overwhelmed him with protestations of devotion, which he rejected frequently with great asperity.] ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the king!" retorted Amelie, with all the asperity her gentle but patriotic spirit was capable of. "Some say ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... complaints from the forts of Terrenate, written by religious and laymen, of the governor there, Lucas de Bergara Gaviria—not only of his asperity and harsh government, but of his lack of balance in other things. Since these complaints were so numerous, I was obliged to get the opinion and resolution of the members of this royal Audiencia; but at the same time came letters from Lucas de Bergara Gaviria, asking permission to resign his ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... sat reading in his own rooms, he was much surprised at hearing a well-known voice at the door, inquiring with some asperity whether Mr. Le Breton was at home. He listened to the voice in intense astonishment. It was ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so near his end," said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the roseate ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Gosford," replied Mrs. Furze, with some dignity and asperity, "I am no judge in such matters. They are best left ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... tempted Gerrard to leave the capital had it not been that he had ascertained from the Nawab that the jaghir which he had granted to Rukn-ud-din as the Rani's representative lay in the direction in which Charteris was now to be found. James Antony had replied with considerable asperity to the letter giving news of her whereabouts, as was only natural, since his agents had for a month been searching for her vainly in the neighbourhood of Benares. He sent the document which had been prepared for her signature, and directed Gerrard to use ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... I have not been entirely deprived of my senses!" Miss Phoebe spoke with some asperity. "Of course we cannot refuse, and of course we must do our utmost for our brother's motherless child; but none the less, it is calamitous, I repeat; and I am positive that Doctor Strong ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... be otherwise?" countered Brentwick with a trace of asperity. "Am I to be denied my adventure? Sir, I refuse without equivocation. Your very bearing breathes of Romance. There must be an adventure forthcoming, Philip; otherwise my disappointment will be so acute that I shall be regretfully obliged seriously to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... excess. The Magdalen has, of course, been the subject of hostile criticism. It gives a shock, it inspires horror: it is an outrage on every well-clothed and prosperous sinner.[178] In point of fact, Donatello's summary method of carving the wood has given a harshness and asperity to features which in themselves are not displeasing. In a dimmed light, or looking with unfocused eyes on the reproduction, it is clear that the structural lines of the face were once well favoured. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... smile softened the asperity of this interruption. "The man has yet to be caught and identified. Till that is done I cannot enjoy any one's congratulations. And you will see that all this may not be so easy. If no one happened to meet the desperate ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... You may as well as think it!" snapped Mollie, with some asperity. "You were going to say you hadn't ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... has carried the ducking-club idea to the limit where it is claimed that it constitutes an abuse. Dr. Palmer says that one or two of the club preserves on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley contain upward of 40 square miles, or 25,000 acres each! With considerable asperity it is now publicly charged (in the columns of The Examiner of San Francisco) that for the unattached sportsmen there is no longer any duck-shooting to be had in California, because all the good ducking-grounds ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... with more asperity than the occasion called for, that I had no thought of changing my residence at present, and if the Hill wanted me, the Hill ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the stairs several times but she did not appear to see Mrs. Sykes. Jane stopped crying and wandered out into the garden. Still Mrs. Sykes waited and presently Aunt Amy came in, looking quite excited and asked eagerly what time it was. Mrs. Sykes told her, adding with asperity that these were fine goings-on, and that they'd all be late for the wedding ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... high-tempered beyond the requisites of manhood," she replied, with something like asperity in her tone. "I cannot endure your meek, mild mannered men, who seem to forget their sex, and almost make me long to change my own with them, that their sweet dispositions may be ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... smile in the least nor reply to her appeal for forgiveness; he only waited until she was quiet, and then went on with increased asperity veiled in his tone. ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... thine heart its whole effect! He ceased, and ranging still along the line, The son of Tydeus, Diomede, perceived, Heroic Chief, by chariots all around 435 Environ'd, and by steeds, at side of whom Stood Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. Him also, Agamemnon, King of men, In accents of asperity reproved. Ah, son of Tydeus, Chief of dauntless heart 440 And of equestrian fame! why standest thou Appall'd, and peering through the walks of war? So did not Tydeus. In the foremost fight His favorite station was, as they ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... texture which comes from commerce with needles, pins, artificial flowers, and stuffs, Sophia's fine hands were seldom innocent of ink. But Sophia was splendidly beautiful. And even her mother and Constance had an instinctive idea that that face was, at any rate, a partial excuse for her asperity. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... debates of the Virginia assembly, then in session, on the election of senator and governor. "On hearing Mr. Madison's observations respecting Mr. Monroe," says Mr. Lear, who wrote a detailed account of Washington's sickness and death, "he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate, as I always did on such occasions. On his retiring, I observed to him that he had better take something to remove his cold. He answered: 'No, you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... returned, not without a touch of asperity; "but you know as well as I do that you will have to deal with a Gloucester-built schooner before you are through ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintances, who call themselves friends, can change, when their interest comes, in the slightest degree, in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hand so much ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that, after this introduction, I made haste to explain every particular. My mother was surprised and grieved. She rebuked me, with some asperity, for my reserves. Had I acquainted her with my brother's demands, she could have apprized me of all that I had since discovered. My brother, she asserted, was involved beyond any one's power to extricate him, and his temper, his credulity, were such that he was forever ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... does express, and does carry into execution, purposes which appear to me so contradictory to all the principles, not only of the constitutional policy of Great Britain, but even of that species of hostile justice which no asperity of war wholly extinguishes in the minds ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the destinies of his country. In a confidential letter to his wife in 1797, he expressed an opinion that the father of his country was not a good-natured and amiable man, but time had mellowed these recollections and softened the asperity of this judgment. Washington had not, he said (in 1843), 'an extraordinary amount of acquired knowledge; he was neither a classical scholar nor a man of science, nor was he endowed with the powers of eloquence, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... suppose so," replied Cynthia indifferently, emptying the coffee-grounds into the kitchen sink. The asperity of her tone was caused by the entrance of Lila, who came in with a basin of corn-meal dough tucked under her bared arm, which showed as round and delicate as a child's beneath her ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... having already written to Mr. Motley that "his answer was satisfactory," the President, on reaching the last paragraph of Mr. Motley's letter, in which he begged respectfully to resign his post, "without waiting to learn what Mr. Seward had done or proposed to do, exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my dispatch.'" Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... on the subject was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold, who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing-room, and ordered Harry off to bed, with some little asperity of tone. The boy rose at once, rang the bell, bade them all good night, and went. A servant met him at the door with a candle, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... in this narrative are confirmed by Lord Clarendon.—'Continuation of his Life', p. 33. It is difficult to speak of the persons concerned in this infamous transaction without some degree of asperity, notwithstanding they are, by a strange perversion of language, styled, all ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... with asperity. "Somebody had a property there once—either one of our family or a friend. Why don't your family become Esthonians? You'd find it much more convenient. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... you see?" Mrs. Sprague continues, with a smile, and in a tone that has none of the asperity the words might imply. "No reverence, no waiting for the elders, as we ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Canada with the official presence, as its ruler, of such an equivocal character as this Mr. What-do-they-call-him—Francis Bond Head." Ever and anon the Tory press retorted on him in a spirit by no means calculated to soften the asperity of his heart. The most contemptuous epithets were freely bestowed upon him, and he was from time to time taunted with his humble origin. It seems almost unnecessary to say that those who indulged in such taunts as these had very little wherewith to reproach ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Melinda with some asperity. "That thing's kept Harry Junior quiet all day. I bought it in good faith, and it's not my fault—say, have you got ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... season of 1878. He had now to state results of measurements of the same trees for the recent favorable season of 1880. The previous autumn was unfavorable for the ripening of young wood, and the trees in an unprepared condition were exposed during a great part of December, 1879, to an asperity of climate unprecedented in this latitude. This might have led one to expect a falling off in the growth of wood, and it appeared, from comparison of measurements, that, with very few exceptions, the growth of wood last year was even more below the average ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... in the last year of his administration. His freedom from sectional asperity, his long life in the public service, and his peace-loving and conciliatory character, were all guarantees against his precipitating a conflict between the Federal Government and any of the States; but the feeble power that he possessed in the closing ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the work of a young newspaper artist who belongs here. A clever fellow. He has caught the expressions of these men wonderfully. His only failure, indeed, is that picture of myself." He regarded it with distaste, and a touch of asperity crept into his manner. "I don't know why the committee lets it stay there," he said, irritably. "It isn't a bit like." He recovered himself. "But all the others are excellent, excellent, though I believe many of the subjects are under the erroneous impression ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... duke,' said Julia; 'surely any fate is preferable to that. But when I consider that in remaining here, I am condemned only to the sufferings which my mother has so long endured, and that this confinement will enable me to soften, by tender sympathy, the asperity of her misfortunes, I ought to submit to my present situation with complacency, even did a marriage with the duke appear less ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... dish of tea. She wanted to force the boy to drink it according to her own receipt. He said he did not like it, and that it absolutely made him ill. After a good deal of sparring she took up the birch-rod and began to whip him with an uncommon degree of asperity. When the poor lad found that he must either drink the nauseous dish of tea or be flogged to death, he turned upon her in self-defence, showed her to the outside of the nursery- door, and never more allowed her to meddle with ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... temper, morals, and propensities are formed, Tom had a mother who watched over his health, his well-being, and every part of education in which a female could be useful. You had lost a mother who would have cherished you, whose talents you inherited, who would have softened the asperity of our father's temper, and probably have prevented his unaccountable partialities. You have always shown a noble independence of spirit, that the pecuniary difficulties you often had to encounter could not induce you to forego. As a public man, you have been, like the motto ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... immediately into the drawing-room. The wife, dressed with a certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... won't!" And as soon as these words were spoken, as if to mitigate something of their asperity, she made her other point. "You must remember that I never said I would—nor anything like it; not one little wee mite. I thought you just wanted me to ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... what you understood." The mother spoke with some asperity of manner. "She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you please; it won't change ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... before him the great Wickliffe, in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1377. The bold reformer was on this occasion attended by his friends John of Gaunt and Lord Percy, who, in supporting his tenets, treated the prelate with such asperity, that a tumult was excited among the citizens of London. Courtney was made chancellor, 1381, and afterwards raised to the see of Canterbury. He was a violent persecutor of the Wickliffites, and condemned their tenets in a synod. He died ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... herself, and, cold and apathetic as he was, Sir Thomas could not help being struck by her surpassing beauty, unimpaired even by the affliction under which she laboured; and he consequently softened in some degree the customary asperity of his tones in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... affairs in 1856 that Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South Carolina, made his cowardly attack upon Charles Sumner. Sumner had delivered a powerful speech upon the crime against Kansas, worded and delivered, naturally but unfortunately, with some asperity. In this speech he animadverted severely upon South Carolina and upon Senator Butler from that State. This gave offence to Brooks, a relative of Butler, and coming into the Senate Chamber while Sumner was busy writing at his desk, he fell upon him with a heavy cane, inflicting ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... not!" replied Hildegarde, with some asperity. "You know I never know anything of that kind; tell ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... with you?" cried Mr. Verner, with asperity. "Do you mean to deny that anything had occurred to put you in a state of agitation, when you were met ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... an arrangement, or want of arrangement, is obvious; and it must have caused much friction in the House. We can imagine the officer in charge of the finances resenting the intrusion of his brother of the library with an asperity not wholly in accordance with fraternal charity. And yet, so strong is the tendency of human nature to put up with whatever exists, rather than be at the trouble of changing it, no effectual steps in the way of remedy were taken until the fifteenth century. In that century, ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark |
