"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... words, but cavil at your interpretation of them. His reverence for Beauty embraced not merely physical and material types, but that nobler, grander beauty which centres in pure ethics and ontology; and a religion that seeks ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the Devil, When he put on the Cherub to perplex[305] Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The Sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting, As if she rather ordered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... reasonableness of the books may induce us to consider them as reliable; or, if the latter points be lacking from the supernatural character of the occurrences related, yet the evidence of authenticity may be so overwhelming as to place the accuracy of the accounts beyond cavil. But if external evidence be wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of history, and to place them in the fairy gardens of fancy ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... I was wroth! That one Day I kept silence, but the morrow morn I sought my parents, told that tale of scorn And claimed the truth; and they rose in their pride And smote the mocker.... Aye, they satisfied All my desire; yet still the cavil gnawed My heart, and still the story crept abroad. At last I rose—my father knew not, nor My mother—and went forth to Pytho's floor To ask. And God in that for which I came Rejected me, but round me, like a flame, His voice flashed other answers, things ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... some of them, are not greater monsters than their male analogues, monsters they still remain. If they are not, others of them, greater rogues and cheats than males of like criminal persuasion, cheats and rogues they are beyond cavil. The truth of the matter is that I loathe the use of superlatives in serious works on crime. I will read, I promise you, anything decently written in a fictional way about 'master' crooks, 'master' killers, kings, queens, princes, and a whole peerage of crime, knowing very well that never ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... utility and interest, of which every one partakes; and though this affection and regard be, in reality, gratitude, not self-love, yet a distinction, even of this obvious nature, may not readily be made by superficial reasoners; and there is room, at least, to support the cavil and dispute for a moment. But as qualities, which tend only to the utility of their possessor, without any reference to us, or to the community, are yet esteemed and valued; by what theory or system can we account for this sentiment from self-love, or deduce it ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... Mayor, announcing that the definitive treaty had been finally settled at Amiens, on the 27th of March, by the plenipotentiaries of England, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic. The treaty, as it transpires, is the source of general cavil. It leaves to France all her conquests, while England restores every thing except Ceylon and Trinidad; the one a Dutch colony, and the other a Spanish; both powers having been our Allies at the commencement of the war. The Cape is to be given ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... unbroken concord and a constant fraternal familiarity; the which, at once for your honour and service and for mine own, is, certes, most pleasing to me. Lest, however, for overlong usance aught should grow thereof that might issue in tediousness, and that none may avail to cavil at our overlong tarriance,—each of us, moreover, having had his or her share of the honour that yet resideth in myself,—I hold it meet, an it be your pleasure, that we now return whence we came; more by token that, if you consider ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... not against Heaven," continued the Master, "nor cavil at men; while I stoop to learn and aspire to penetrate into things that are high; yet 'tis Heaven alone knows ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... To the ingenious mind of Fournier an elaborate one occurred. If he could perform it, not only would his hypothesis be established and confirmed beyond all cavil, but a, field of scientific research also be opened such as was yet undreamed of. However, for this experiment subjects were needed. Brutes, beasts of the field? Not so: that were easy to achieve. Human beings, two living, healthy men, one white, one black, were the requirements. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... bread every day. The first night at Argeles was spent without it, but on the evening of the following day a packet was brought into the drawing-room, where we were assembled, and at the magical word "bread" every eye brightened, and every face relaxed into a smile. Let no one cavil. This was one of the episodes that link Argeles to ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... of the Dismal Swamp is to become the great centre of attraction there can be no reasonable doubt. Recent demonstrations in that direction go to prove beyond cavil the fact. The visit of John Boyle O'Reilly, editor of the Boston Herald, Mr. Mosely, of Washington, and several other distinguished persons, go to prove the fact. Contiguous as it is to the celebrated Magnolia Springs, with its vast hunting grounds, will be a sufficient inducement ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... Bill succeeded in purchasing, after much talk, a pair of moccasins that Hazel conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pattern of beads and the ornamentation of colored porcupine quills. Her feminine soul could not cavil when Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her mind was set against accepting any ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... we look into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen and cavil: It is indeed no wonder that men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the world; and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every moment of losing his entire existence, and ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... condition need not be described in detail, but she was very near her death, as the medical evidence, and that of a midwife (who consoled Mrs. Canning on one point), proves beyond possibility of cavil. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... has, at bottom, two sides. It is, in the first place, achieved by a narrow definition of the purpose of the state. To Locke the State is little more than a negative institution, a kind of gigantic limited liability company; and if we are inclined to cavil at such restraint, we may perhaps remember that even to neo-Hegelians like Green and Bosanquet this negative sense is rarely absent, in the interest of individual exertion. But for Locke the real guarantee of right lies in another direction. What ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... of the difference between memory and imagination is less open to cavil than the former, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... ask how you became possessed of the guilty secret which I had kept from every one—even from my wife—but to offer you such explanation and confession as you have a right to demand from me. I do not cavil about that right—I admit that you possess it, without desiring further proof than your actions, your merciless words, and the Bracelet in ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... forefathers, but also of all their relations, friends, and benefactors. The second is, that they tell their patron they place their works under his protection and safeguard, in order that malicious and captious tongues may not presume to cavil and carp at them. For myself, shunning these two faults, I here pass over in silence the grandeur and titles of your excellency's ancient and royal house, and your infinite virtues both natural and acquired, leaving it to some new Phidias ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... object, the troopers wonder at these precautions, though not so much as might be expected. They are accustomed to receive mysterious commands, and obey them without cavil ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... them in a more concrete fashion pervaded the minds of hundreds. The cavil against the Colonel abated not a jot; the epithets hurled at his devoted head were as picturesque as of yore. But side by side with this domestic hostility there had developed a deeper, less noisy feeling of resentment against the dear Boers themselves. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... In none of these exercises did Buonaparte excel. It was the avowed purpose of the institution to make its pupils pious Roman Catholics. The parish priest at Brienne had administered the sacraments to a number of the boys, including the young Corsican, who appears to have submitted without cavil to the severe religious training of the Paris school: chapel with mass at half-past six in the morning, grace before and after all meals, and chapel again a quarter before nine in the evening; on holidays, catechism for new students; Sundays, catechism and high mass, and vespers with ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... I rail at Opportunity, At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night; In vain I cavil with mine infamy, In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite: This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The remedy indeed to do me good Is to let forth my ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... preferring the friendship of Mr. Wharton's son-in-law. Mrs. Leslie came in gorgeous clothes, which, as she was known to be very poor, and to have attached herself lately with almost more than feminine affection to Lady Eustace, were at any rate open to suspicious cavil. In former days Mrs. Leslie had taken upon herself to say bitter things about Mr. Lopez, which Emily could now have repeated, to that lady's discomfiture, had such a mode of revenge suited her disposition. With Mrs. Leslie there was Lady Eustace, pretty as ever, and sharp and witty, with the old ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Challis Wrandall, as the cousin of the Murgatroyds, as the daughter of Colonel Castleton of the Indian Corps, as a person supposed to be possessed of independent means withal, she went, with none to question, none to cavil. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... side by side with its sighted companions, doing the same work as well, if not better, the later success of the young blind seeker after knowledge is practically assured; for, as I have said, in mental attainment, at least, the blind child is the peer of the child with eyesight,—here, beyond cavil, the ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... their profession of infidelity augured a lack of sense; and that, when they got into command, the same lack of sense which led them to glory in their shame would be productive, as its necessary results, of misfortune and disaster. There is a shrewd lesson here to the class who doubt and cavil simply to show their parts. In the second place, infidelity, on the principle of Bacon, is a weak, tottering thing, unbuttressed by that support which gives to poor human nature half its strength and all its dignity. But, above all, in the third and last ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... seen on both sides alike. Her nose was perfect;—not Grecian, nor Roman, nor Egyptian,—but simply English, only just not retrousse. There were those who said her mouth was a thought too wide, and her teeth too perfect,—but they were of that class of critics to whom it is a necessity to cavil rather than to kiss. Added to all this there was a childishness of manner about her of which, though she herself was somewhat ashamed, all others were enamoured. It was not the childishness of very youthful years,—for ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... certainly do something to cover this difficulty; if we omit the subject entirely, we shall leave much opportunity for cavil on this question when the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... certainly stands convicted of critical malice by his poor cavil at the supposed title; and has betrayed his ignorance of the ease and beauty of Epistolary method, as well as the most gross misapprehension, by his ridiculous analysis of the work, resolving it into thirty-six parts. He seems, however, ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... sows the wind to reap the whirlwind, refreshing, but I argue nothing from it; there is nothing real in the freedom of thought at the West,—it is from the position of men's lives, not the state of their minds. So soon as they have time, unless they grow better meanwhile, they will cavil and criticise, and judge other men by their own standard, and outrage the law of love every way, just as they ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the chief entrance, and then reported the facts to the Empress. This ended the ceremony. The haughty condescension of the Chinese despatch does not appear to have offended the Japanese, nor did they cavil at the omission of one important ideograph from the title applied to their Empress. China's greatness seems to have been fully recognized. When, a month later, the envoy took his departure, the same Imoko was deputed to accompany him, bearing ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... doubts of a more important kind, which, it may be hoped, will now no longer perplex the ignorant, or furnish matter of cavil to the ill-intentioned. After the great discovery, or at least the full confirmation of the great discovery, of the vicinity of the two continents of Asia and America, we trust that we shall not, for the future, be ridiculed, for believing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... practice at Chicago. Indeed, no one can fail to wonder at the marvellous skill of architectural engineering which can run up a building of twenty stories, the walls of which are merely a veneer or curtain. Few will cavil at the handsome and comfortable equipment of the best interiors; but, given the necessity of their existence, the wide-minded lover of art will find something to reward his attention even in their ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Edna devoted every moment stolen from Felix, to the completion of her new book. Her first had been a "bounteous promise"—at least so said criticdom—and she felt that the second would determine her literary position, would either place her reputation as an author beyond all cavil, or utterly crush ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... up, and in the direction of the doorway, and though she said nothing, her eyes expressed as much surprise as was compatible with a sluggish temperament, and a disposition to cavil at most things and persons that were presented ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... comprehensible to the extent to which these laws are known. No one disputes this, except in reference to his own religion. This, he is apt to assert, had something "supernatural" about its origin. If this word be correctly used, it may stand without cavil. The "natural" is that of which we know in whole or in part the laws; the "supernatural" means that of which we do not at present know in any degree the laws. The domain of the supernatural diminishes in the ratio of the increase of knowledge; and the inference that it also ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... and collective action has resulted in this particular case in thousands of the children's "Arbor Gardens" round about the city. It is an experience "en gros," one of such dimensions that cavil ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... illegal, it was pretended to be equivalent to a dissolution. The consequence seems by no means just; and besides, a later act, that which repealed the triennial law, had determined, that it was necessary to hold parliaments only once in three years. Such weight, however was put on this cavil, that Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, insisted strenuously in the house of peers on the invalidity of the parliament, and the nullity of all its future acts. For such dangerous positions they were sent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... sum of 1451 millions by eighteen years, it appears that 80 millions a year was raised; and, taking the legitimate expenditure of the country, during those eighteen years, at an average of 45 millions a-year, a sum so high as to preclude all cavil, it appears that the country raised and expended eighteen times the difference between 45 and 80 millions, that is 630 millions; notwithstanding which expenditure, let it be observed, the country got richer and richer every day."—Bradshaw's ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... climate. By the curses, uttered as they were in the morning, when night has yielded to the star of day, and at evening, when day is, in turn, vanquished by night, our theory of the sun Gladstone is confirmed beyond reach of cavil; indeed, the solar theory is no longer a theory, but a generally ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... proportion as he roused the honest, he gave occasion to the dishonest to cavil and condemn. Imagine St. Paul having a prevision of how he would be misunderstood, AND HEEDING IT!—what would then have become of all those his most magnificent outbursts? And would any amount of apostolic carefulness have protected him? I suspect it would ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... condemned and sentenced to death for murdering the man Szczepanik. It turns out that the man Szczepanik was not murdered at all. By the decision of the French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is established beyond cavil or question that the decisions of courts and permanent and cannot be revised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this precedent. It is upon precedents that the enduring edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The prisoner at the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the stile, Mary," or three hours of Irish patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... the Muse's revel, Begad, I wish you at the devil! In vain my verse I plane and bevel, Like Banville's rhyming devotees; In vain by many an artful swivel Lug in my meaning by degrees; I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil; And grovelling prostrate on my knees, Devote his body to the seas, His correspondence ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... articles of dress are not unusually purchased by members of the families of black labourers. Whether the ladies are good judges of the merits of silks and cambrics I do not pretend to decide; but they pay ready money, and it is not for the sellers to cavil at their discrimination. The purchase of land, as you well know, is going on rapidly throughout the island; and the money thus invested must have been chiefly, though not entirely, accumulated by the labouring classes since slavery was abolished. A proprietor ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... was true; yet will not seem Likely to one of sober sense possessed: But Sacripant, who waked from worser dream, In all without a cavil acquiesced: Since love, who sees without one guiding gleam, Spies in broad day but that which likes him best: For one sign of the afflicted man's disease Is to give ready faith ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... resemble very nearly the ornithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. Hitchcock, but with less regularity or apparent design than is displayed by those remarkable geological monuments. These are rather the non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Resolved to leave no door open to cavil, I first of all attempted the elucidation of this remarkable example of lithick literature by the ordinary modes, but with no adequate return for my labour. I then considered myself amply justified in resorting to that heroick treatment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... extremely doubtful, that many cautious and sceptical antiquarians will even now have nothing to say to the suspected impostors. Among the remains of the newer Stone Age, on the other hand, comparatively abundant keramic specimens have been unearthed, without doubt or cavil, from the long barrows—the burial-places of the early Mongoloid race, now represented by the Finns and Lapps, which occupied the whole of Western Europe before the advent of the Aryan vanguard. One of the best bits is a curious wide-mouthed, semi-globular bowl from Norton Bavant, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... three things thrown away beside bowls, to wit, time, money, and curses, and the last ten for one. The best sport in it is the gamesters, and he enjoys it that looks on and bets not. It is the school of wrangling, and worse than the schools, for men will cavil here for a hair's breadth, and make a stir where a straw would end the controversy. No antick screws men's bodies into such strange flexures, and you would think them here senseless, to speak sense ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the brunt, and accomplished the appointed evolutions of progress; and the Republican party has deserved well of the American people, of history and of humanity. And the children and grandchildren of those who to-day cavil, defile and stone the party, they hereafter will bless the Republican party, who, with noble consciousness can say to the spirit of light and of duty: Nunc dimitte in pacem ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... not object in a spirit of cavil. He did so apparently neither to doubt nor to believe, but simply to enquire, for in life he was a business man. His father had left him large lumber interests to preserve, and the responsibility had framed his prudence. He took the same kind of care in examining the joints of Haviland's ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... of successful people, to cavil because his success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the boy by his side? Why had he not bethought ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... fair, slight and small-featured with observant grey eyes and a good deal of detached humour. Since the incubation of his first unsuccessful play, he had argued out every character and situation with her; when feminine psychology was in dispute, her ruling was accepted without cavil. More than once, as they splashed conversationally through the Lashmar woods, he had felt that she gave even a self-sufficient bachelor something that he lacked and would always lack; and, whenever the ubiquitous, dry celibacy of the Thespian smoking-room oppressed ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... they make excellent lawyers, and know how to spin out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of their talent:—An ass had got loose and broken into a field of corn, much of which it destroyed. The proprietor of the corn ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... Jovial and Saturn inhabitants," &c., and those several planets have their several moons about them, as the earth hath hers, as Galileo hath already evinced by his glasses: [3108]four about Jupiter, two about Saturn (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Jul. Caesar le Galla cavil at it) yet Kepler, the emperor's mathematician, confirms out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, and more about Mars, Venus, and the rest they hope to find out, peradventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the diversity thereof may breed and bring forth manyfold inconveniences as when wilful and heady folks shall confer upon the diversity of the said translations";[162] the translators of the version of 1611 have to "answer a third cavil ... against us, for altering and amending our translations so oft";[163] but the conception of progress was generally accepted, and finds fit expression in the preface to the Authorized Version: "Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfected at the ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... majesty's use, and so to yours by her majesty's grant, we thought good for the better assurance thereof to record some of the particular gentlemen and men of account who then were present, as witnesses of the same, that thereby all occasion of cavil to the title of the country, in her majesty's behalf, may be prevented, which otherwise such as like not the action may use and pretend. Whose names are, Master Philip Amidas, Master Arthur Barlow, captains; William Greenville, John Wood, James Bromewich, Henry Greene, Benjamin Wood, Simon Ferdinando, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... himself. The incident did no good to the already bickering relations between Borrow and the Rev. A. Brandram, the Secretary. Evidently Borrow's character jarred upon Brandram, who took revenge by a tone of facetious cavil and several criticisms upon Borrow's ways, upon his confident masculine tone, for example, his "passionate" prayer, and his confession of superstitious obedience to an ominous dream. Brandram even took the trouble to ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... difficulties about settling the Barrier Treaty, as the Queen desired; and in one of the first general conferences, they would not suffer the British secretary to take the minutes, but nominated some Dutch professor for that office, which the Queen refused, and resented their behaviour as an useless cavil, intended only to shew their want of respect. The British plenipotentiaries had great reason to suspect, that the Dutch were, at this time, privately endeavouring to engage in some separate measures with France, by the intervention of one Molo, a busy factious agent at ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... The new word, however, is likely to find considerable extension, and if any provider for the public maw should choose hereafter to call his dining-saloon a Carnivorium, none would have a right to cavil at him on philological ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... with a sufficiency of viands, and savoury enough to satisfy men who had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," with a variety of fruit to follow. Verily a supper at which even a gourmand might not cavil; though it was but the debris of a dinner, which seemed to have been partaken of by a goodly ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of having raised twenty millions of people to a level of thought where they can appreciate this cardinal truth, and can believe no sacrifice too great for its defence and establishment, then democracy will have vindicated itself beyond all chance of future cavil. Here, we think, is a Cause the experience of whose vicissitudes and the grandeur of whose triumph will be able to give us heroes and statesmen. The Slave-Power must be humbled, must be punished,—so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... with the proposition that the bulky products of the West must be carried by water and not by rail, and will state a few facts that in our humble opinion will place this proposition beyond all cavil. So for as figures can be obtained, and correct calculations made, it has been demonstrated that freight cannot be moved on American railroads for less than one cent per ton per mile. This is actually the first cost, even in the coal ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... had promised for his favorite weapon, he did prove beyond cavil the efficiency of Old Sal. Time after time the roar or the double roar of his fusee was heard, audible even over the thunder of the hoofs; and quite usually the hunk of lead, driven into heart or lights, low down, soon brought down the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... today to dispute the German claim. It is to the preparation for war that Prussia has devoted its utmost energy for half a century—in fact, ever since Bismarck began to make ready for the seizing of unwilling Schleswig-Holstein. And so far as the art of music is concerned there is also no need to cavil. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... and such a Truth as we meet with in every Object, in every Occurrence, and in every Thought. If we look into the Characters of this Tribe of Infidels, we generally find they are made up of Pride, Spleen, and Cavil: It is indeed no wonder, that Men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the World; and how is it possible for a Man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every Moment of losing his entire Existence, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... commentator, and the slightest tinge of chemistry should have kept him from suggesting that the conversion of water into wine at Cana was but the acceleration of a natural process. A smattering of optics would have prevented Dr. Williams from repeating the old cavil of Voltaire, that light could not have been made before the sun. A moderate reflection upon the laws of speech and the method of Genesis would have restrained Huxley from sneering at the 'marvelous ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a garment which I might don again at leisure, and I rushed wildly to my boat and my sculls. She was a leaky tub, but what then? Was I, who had cast many a wistful, doubtful glance at my opium bottle, to begin now to weigh chances and to cavil at danger. I dragged her down to the sea with the strength of a maniac and sprang in. For a moment or two it was a question whether she could live among the boiling surge, but a dozen frantic strokes took me through ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cavil at the visible superstition and absurdity of much on which religion is made to rest, for the unknown can never be satisfactorily rendered into the known. To get the known from the unknown is to get something out of nothing, ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... of his day stands out more honourably in the strong light which posterity is already concentrating on the words and actions of the past, than does Prince Albert for undeniable truthfulness and disinterestedness. Men may still cavil at his conclusions, and maintain that he theorised and systematised and was tempted to interfere too much, but they have long ceased to question his perfect integrity and single-heartedness, his rooted aversion to all trickery and to deceit in every form. "He was an honest ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... representing Belgium it is only natural that Edith Cavil should have a prominent place. To be sure King Albert and his queen and others are there. As in Belgium the first casualties occurred it is fitting that here alone is seen a wounded man and the Red Cross workers are caring for him as he lies upon a stretcher. Here too, are seen the broken pieces ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... of this victory, establishing his supremacy beyond cavil, should have satisfied the King, especially as this was not the mating season and there could be no question of rivalry. But his heart was bursting with injury, and his thirst for vengeance was raging to be glutted. As the vanquished bulls struggled ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... me to believe; but I saw the one flaw in the theory, and I refused to be convinced till the actual existence of Willie Hughes, a boy-actor of Elizabethan days, had been placed beyond the reach of doubt or cavil. ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... have terribly militated against the effective employment of the battalion as a first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to individuals. But the case was one where they should not have temporised in any way. As ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... legion, consisting of a swarm of more foul and noxious vermin than Moses inflicted upon the land of Egypt. It was made up of all the attorneys, and pettifoggers, with their clerks, scamps, and runners; every man, or rather every reptile, of them, being profusely fed to bark, to snarl, to cavil, and to bully; and all of them more ravenous and ferocious than sharks or wolves. It is, indeed, almost a libel upon the sharks and wolves to compare them with such creatures. I cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of them than in the forcible, though ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... something too little generous in this. The record shows beyond any cavil that Goodrich was the first and most constant friend of Hawthorne in the way of helping him to get his work before the public; he was also interested in him, thoughtful for him, and gave him hack work to do, which, though it be a lowly ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... heat would have some effect on the level of the surface; but they show us how awfully complicated the phenomenon is. All young geologists have a great turn for speculation; I have burned my fingers pretty sharply in that way, and am now perhaps become over-cautious; and feel inclined to cavil at speculation when the direct and immediate effect of a cause in question cannot be shown. How neatly you draw your diagrams; I wish you would turn your attention to real sections of the earth's crust, and then speculate ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,' or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, — that is, in the middle of winter! — a spring-velvet in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism indeed! and yet, to increase the inconsistence, in another part of your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... for liberty and justice, it was the Cheyennes. If any ever demonstrated their physical and moral courage beyond cavil, it was this race of purely American heroes, among whom Little Wolf ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... science is, beyond cavil, the mark of interrogation; we owe most of our greatest discoveries to a Why? and all the wisdom in the world, perhaps, consists in asking Wherefore? in every connection. But, on the other hand, this acquired prescience is the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... cavil about the road. Don't you know that I have days when "don't care" masters me—when I'd do ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Hornie," or, according to others, in a broader set form of speech, "the devil in hell," that is, the "devil of a devil," or in scriptural phraseology, the "great red dragon," the "Devil or Satan." But we shall not cavil on this mighty potentate's name; much less dispute his identity, notwithstanding the doubt that has been broached, whether the said devil be a real or an imaginary personage, in the shape, form, and with ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... virtue. In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil, if, on a nearer view, they find it less—but let them consider, that if she had more faults than generally belong to others, she ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... he introduces this cavil to combat it, but still maintains that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of the country they ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... sin which is always at hand to enter an objection against this or that promise that by the Spirit of God is brought to our heart to comfort us; and if the poor coming sinner is not aware of it, it will, by some evasion, slight, trick, or cavil, quickly wrest from him the promise again, and he shall have but little benefit ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... even others to quarrel. See in Xenophon's Symposium how many quarrels he settled, how further he endured Thrasymachus and Polus and Callicles; how he tolerated his wife, and how he tolerated his son who attempted to confute him and to cavil with him. For he remembered well that no man has in his power another man's ruling principle. He wished therefore for nothing else than that which was his own. And what is this? Not that this or that man may act ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... for from various reasons the town on the five hundred acre tract was never begun. In short, while the Moravians were risking much personal discomfort, there was nothing in their plan which could possibly injure others, and the cavil and abuse of their opposers was as uncalled for as is many a "private opinion ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... steadily forward to a goal that he knew his father could not cavil at. He knew it instinctively. His grasp steadied to expression with repression, or, as one of his envious, but honest, competitors put it, genius ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... ideas, if I cavil at the injunctions of the monk, I am lost," said he suddenly; and by an effort of will, he stifled the revolt ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... earnestly beg that you will express yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I am your servant and will accept your judgment without cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned me by the Constitution would be seriously impaired should your judgment be adverse, and I must frankly tell you so because so many critical issues depend upon your verdict. ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... she love me, till I know, beyond The cavil of a doubt, that she is mine— Wholly, past question—do you think that I Could so afflict the woman whom ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... better occupied in learning the peculiarities of the life in which her future would be cast. It was possible they would find her an apt pupil. Of this they could not complain, that she was untravelled; for she had ridden a horse, bareback, half across the continent. They could not cavil at her education, for she knew several languages—aboriginal languages—of the North. She had merely to learn the dialect of English society, and how to carry with acceptable form the costumes of the race to which she was going. Her own costume was picturesque, but it might appear unusual ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... will laugh or sneer, yawn or cavil. But as literature it looks back to Sappho and Catullus and the rest, and forward to all great love-poetry since, while as something that is even greater than literature—life—it carries us up to the highest Heaven and down to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Camden, prompting him to rescue and conserve the materials of English history and note the fading traditions,—a purely antiquarian service, which only those can appreciate who seek authentic data of the far past. Such as cavil at the legal tone and crude arrangement of Clarendon are none the less his debtors for specific memoirs, the personal element of history; and while Burnet has been vigorously repudiated by standard historians, he continues, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... landlords demanded, which was about every three months. There were three girls in the family—Mary, Everina and Eliza—all above the average in intelligence. Whether there is any such thing in Nature as justice for the individual is a question, but cosmic justice is beyond cavil. The stupidity of a parent is often a very precious factor in the evolution of his children. He teaches them by antithesis. So if a man can not be useful and strong, all is not lost: he can still serve humanity as a horrible example—like the honest hobo who volunteered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... well complain of the regularity in itself, though she did cavil at the actual arrangements, and they were altered all round to please her, and she showed a certain contempt for her teacher in the studies she resumed with her mother; but after the dictionary, encyclopaedia and other authorities, including Mr. Ogilvie, proved almost uniformly to be against ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delightful harmony, but it seemed that the books and the pictures were chosen to match them. The man talking, in the great carved armchair by the fire, fitted the place. His vigorous, pleasant face looked prosperous, and so kindly was his air that one might not cavil at a lack of subtler qualities. He drew a long breath as he brought out the last words of the story he ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... all took an oath to him, that they would assemble on an order from the consul, and would not depart without an order. We therefore publish our order that all of you, who have sworn, attend to-morrow under arms at the lake Regillus." The tribunes then began to cavil, and wished to absolve the people from their obligation; that Quintius was a private person at the time at which they were bound by the oath. But that disregard of the gods which prevails in the present age had not yet arrived; nor did every one, by his own interpretation, accommodate ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Cause kauxzo. Cause kauxzi. Cause igi. Cauterize kauxterizi. Caution averti. Caution singardemo. Cautious singardema. Cavalcade rajdantaro. Cavalier rajdanto. Cavalry kavalerio. Cave kaverno. Caviare kaviaro. Cavil cxikani. Cavity kavo, kavajxo. Cease cxesi. Cedar cedro. Cede cedi. Ceiling plafono. Celebrate (feast) festi. Celebrate (solemnize) solenigi. Celebrated fama. Celerity rapideco. Celery celerio. Celestial cxiela. Celibacy frauxleco. Cell (of ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... define to be the healthy act of a man's mind. It is a mysterious indescribable process, that of getting to believe;—indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have our mind given us, not that it may cavil and argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief and understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to act. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush out, clutch-up the first thing we find, and straightway believe that! All manner of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... fell in behind him without cavil or question. He was in charge of the outfit, and that settled it. Pink, released from irksome inaction by the permission to shoot, turned and fired back at the first Indian his sights rested upon. He saw a spurt of sand ten jumps in advance of his target, and he ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... (it has been said) would not evade disputation, if a man could find his interest in disputing it: such is the spirit of cavil. But I, upon a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page of prose that could be selected from the best writer in the English language (far less in the German) which, upon a sufficient interest arising, would not furnish matter, simply through its defects in precision, for ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the man in gray; "where is he? Let us at once find him, and refute beyond cavil this ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... to cavil each with each. I might retort. I only say to thee ITS slaves we are: ITS slaves must ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... all Andalusia,—would it not be right to obtain from him his confession, and that of the maiden, within the camp, so that we may have broad and undeniable evidence, whereon to act, and to still all cavil, that may come not only from the godless, but even from the too tender scruples of the righteous? Even the queen—whom the saints ever guard!—hath ever too soft a heart ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... far-reaching faculties we possess; and it may all be worthy of our eulogiums, until we compare ourselves in these, as in other particulars, with Him who produced them. Then, indeed, the utter insignificance of our means becomes too apparent to admit of a cavil. We know that we are born, and that we die; science has been able to grapple with all the phenomena of these two great physical facts, with the exception of the most material of all—those which should tell us what is life, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... took the army list in hand, Where he found a new "Field Marshal;" And when he saw this high command Conferred on his Highness of Cumberland,[47] "Oh! were I prone to cavil—or were I not the Devil, I should say this was somewhat partial; 190 Since the only wounds that this Warrior gat, Were from God knows whom—and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... now an authority which Thorpe, breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman, followed by his valet with the gun and the stool, set meekly off without a word. Balder, with equal docility, vaulted ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... officially proclaimed himself Protector in the year 679 B.C., which is one of the fixed dates in Chinese history about which there is no cavil or doubt, He soon found himself embroiled in war with the Tartars, who were raiding both the state to his north in the Peking plain, and also the minor state, south of the Yellow River, that his predecessor ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... report herewith, that I need add nothing to it. It was a magnificent battle in its conception, in its execution, and in its glorious results; hastened somewhat by the supposed danger of Burnside, at Knoxville, yet so completely successful, that nothing is left for cavil or fault-finding. The first day was lowering and overcast, favoring us greatly, because we wanted to be concealed from Bragg, whose position on the mountain-tops completely overlooked us and our movements. The second day was beautifully clear, and many a time, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... out of the number, and would not have divined that he would pass them all over and appoint another man without consulting him at all.—February 28th.] I have read the pamphlet written against Hampden, and though some of his expressions are perhaps imprudent as giving occasion to malicious cavil, it contains no grave matter, and nothing to support an accusation of heterodoxy. If he had been a Tory instead of a Liberal in politics, we should probably have heard ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... is, beyond any question or cavil, one of the brightest, smartest, bravest and most popular boys who ever went forth into the world as a true son ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... Clinton, by saying it was necessary," said he steadily. "There are other distinguished men here who are further distinguishing themselves by toeing the mark without complaint or cavil. Mr. Landover was appealed to on three distinct occasions by Captain Trigger and the committee. He ignored all private appeals—and commands. The time had come for a show-down. It was either Landover and his little ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will be for our benefit. I believe it is so, lady; or it may be for a punishment; but it is bitter, very bitter, oftentimes to bear. But I am wandering from my story. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... domestic cookery. At an opportune moment, therefore, he sold out his interests in the article which had brought him in colossal wealth at a critical juncture, and placed his financial reputation beyond the reach of cavil. As for Leonore, who was now an heiress on a far greater scale than ever before, he naturally found her something a vast deal higher in the husband market than a two-hundred-a-year poster designer. Mark Spayley, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... countenance of the President, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day, proposed, supported, and finally negatived, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... churchyard ornament, to braid The charnel of putridity, and part The spot where what was mortal had been laid, With all thy native coldness in his heart? Thou sure wert not the stone—let critics cavil!— Of quack M.D. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... think it should not. But really people are very foolish to cavil over such matters. If I might have my way, I would pay no attention to them. I would go my way, do as I please and let such ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... enabled to save the body. A caffree and a Malay who fell in the struggle were afterwards eaten. Thus the experience of later days is found to agree with the uniform testimony of old writers; and although I am aware that each and every of these proofs taken singly may admit of some cavil, yet in the aggregate they will be thought to amount to satisfactory evidence that human flesh is habitually eaten by a certain class of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... considering our rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... with Great Britain, generally known in the annals of history as the War of 1812, though it was in reality the second war for independence. It was the war which established independence beyond the cavil of a doubt and sustained the honor of ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... nothing of which to disapprove. Yes, both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at Tientietnikov's a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent, and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the intervening partition, it was possible always to see one's fellows, and, should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again —in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back—I saw it in your face. O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence. "I would that his hands—Abraham Lincoln's hands—might be laid upon all who complain and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in life: I would that his spirit might possess ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... left it immediately and hurried to the telephone. Whatever later dissatisfaction I may have had with Great-grandfather, let me state it fairly and honestly, he is at least a punctual man. Every time I called he came right away without delay. Let those who are inclined to cavil at the methods of the Spiritualists reflect how impossible it would be to secure such punctuality on anything but a basis ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the quotation, and announced with a shriek of laughter that it was: "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection;" while Katy, much diverted, read extracts casually selected from the work, such as: "A wife should receive her husband's decree without cavil or question, remembering that the husband is the head of the wife, and that in all matters of dispute his opinion naturally and scripturally outweighs ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... necessary to proceed to the investigation of the second point of the discussion, the agents and surveyors of both parties proceeded as a matter of course to the point marked in 1798 as the source of the St. Croix.[44] This point is therefore fixed and established beyond the possibility of cavil, and the faith of both Governments is pledged that it shall not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... triumph, for the time came when Sir John thought it wise to waive his objections and to recognise me professionally. Then I knew that I had won the day, for in that equal field I was his master. Never once that I can remember did he venture to reverse or even to cavil at my treatment, at any rate in my presence, though doubtless he criticised ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... is termed organic dis- ease as certainly as it produces hysteria, and it must re- 177:3 linquish all its errors, sicknesses, and sins. I have demonstrated this beyond all cavil. The evidence of divine Mind's healing power and abso- 177:6 lute control is to me as certain as the evidence ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... among vowels and consonants, and ill-spelt mediaeval legends, when the science, the history, the navigation, the atmospheric phenomena, and the impending volcanic changes of Western Europe fifteen hundred years ago, are all unveiled and detailed, with an accuracy and a minuteness beyond cavil or competition, in the matchless English translation before them. Will our most erudite grammarians never understand? Would they abandon Genesis, shall we say, because Elohim and Jehovah are sometimes ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... in favour of the rightness of what was most pleasant, and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so. I have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much stronger and more real than the Ernest of which he was conscious. The dumb Ernest persuaded with inarticulate ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... and all eyes were turned on him alone when he appeared; but he was the son of a poor clergyman and Elinor was a rich heiress. Her guardian was not displeased with their mutual affection: the merit of Woodville was too eminent to admit of cavil on account of his inferior wealth; but the dying will of her father did not allow her to marry before she was of age and her fortune depended upon her obeying this injunction. She had just entered her twentieth year, and she and her lover were obliged to submit to this delay. But they ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley |
