"Irritate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... either now loitering, or hereafter returning, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee not.[5] For her I will not set free; sooner shall old age come upon her, at home in Argos, far away from her native land, employed in offices of the loom, and preparing[6] my bed. But away! irritate me not, that ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... sentiments the most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches the Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive him of the crown of glory; and he declares his resolution to provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as the instruments of his death. Some stories are related of the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the executioner ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of Lygia, not wishing to irritate Caesar, went to the Palatine with other Augustians. He wanted to hear what they were saying, and especially to learn if Tigellinus was devising something new to destroy Lygia. Both she and Ursus had passed under ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... who were sent in advance to surround the forest. My troops must not be allowed to disturb this sacred retreat, and irritate its pious inhabitants. Know that within the calm and cold recluse Lurks unperceived a germ of smothered flame, All-potent to destroy; a latent fire That rashly kindled bursts with fury forth:— As in the disc of crystal that remains Cool to the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... desire, here, in the first part of it, he is wrestling with his afflicting circumstances, whatever they were, and he has no hesitation in spreading them all out before God and asking for His delivering help. Wishes that are not turned into prayers irritate, disturb, unsettle. Wishes that are turned into prayers are calmed and made blessed. Stanley and his men lived for weeks upon a poisonous root, which, if eaten crude, brought all manner of diseases, but, steeped in running water, had all the acrid juices washed out of it, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... flour with half a pint of fresh asses milk; when boiling, stir in a table-spoonful of the best honey, and a tea-spoonful of rose water, then mix smoothly, place in small pots, and use a little of it after washing; it is better not to make much at a time, as when stale it is liable to irritate the skin. ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... resisting the heat. Two cloths identical except in color will show a great difference in the comparative amount of heat they let through. Light shades should be chosen, but care should be taken to see that they are not glaring, so as to irritate the eye and increase ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... (Slang) discharge, dismiss; inflame, irritate, arouse, excite, incite; animate, quicken, vitalize, enthuse, inspirit; stoke; bake, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For indeed he had a double purpose to serve—first thoroughly to know if Frank's marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the Squire sufficiently to endanger the son's inheritance, and, secondly, to prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address Frank on the subject, and frustrate the marriage itself. Yet, withal, he must so ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... him, written in the Chinese characters, and according, to their custom. And although I did not think that such appeals should be listened to, and gave my reason therefor, still the auditors persisted in endeavoring to try this case. In order not to irritate them, I have overlooked the matter, as it seemed to me that they could act in this case with less evil consequences than in the others. I advise your Majesty of it, petitioning you that it may be to your royal service to have the Audiencia notified as to what regulations ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... inside and the outside of things—between matter and form—is not in her nature. She does not suffer from ugliness, she scarcely perceives it. As for me, I can only forget what shocks me, I cannot help being shocked. All corporal defects irritate me, and the want of beauty in women, being something which ought not to exist, shocks me like a tear, a solecism, a dissonance, a spot of ink—in a word, like something out of order. On the other hand, beauty restores and fortifies me like some ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... impressed themselves by every external sign on this singular people, they seemed to possess inexhaustible resources of good humor and good spirits within. No impatience or rudeness on our part could irritate them; and even to the wildest and least civilized looking fellow around, there was a kind of native courtesy and kindliness that could not fail ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... tremendously proud, but she has great self-restraint." He recalled the end of the perfect day. "As a general rule," he added, "when nothing happens to irritate her." ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... signed to them to approach, but they suddenly dropped their loads, ran off and disappeared in the bush. They evidently feared we had come to kidnap them, and we decided it was wiser to return to the beach, so as not to irritate the people. Shortly afterwards another crowd of natives came along the beach carrying yam. They approached with extreme care, ready to fight or fly, but they were less afraid of us than of the natives, for whom that part of the beach was reserved, and with whom we had been trading. They ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... not mean to irritate her master, but instantly the man's brutal egotism was aroused. The savage jest became a fearful reality, and he ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... very well have said that he certainly did give such encouragement and opportunity that the result could scarcely have been by any possibility otherwise than that which it actually was. But he knew that to show him in fault would only irritate the Duke ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... no serious consequences; whereas if suffered to empty all its vials of wrath, it may cause great inflammation and severe suffering. After the sting is removed, the utmost possible care should be taken, not to irritate the wound by the very slightest rubbing. However intense the smarting, and of course the disposition to apply friction to the wound, it should never be done, as the poison will at once be carried through ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... reproaches, rebukes, and sneers, were employed to convince the whites that their prejudices were sinful, and without any just cause. They were accused of pride, of selfish indifference, of unchristian neglect. This tended to irritate the whites, and to increase their prejudice against the blacks, who thus were made the causes of rebuke and exasperation. Then, on the other hand, the blacks extensively received the Liberator, and learned to imbibe ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... influence of friends, but when a man has some great trouble—especially if he be a strong man—it is best that he should have an opportunity to make his fight against depressing influences alone. He must have time to think it out. All references to his sorrow are likely to irritate him, and evidence of the pity of others galls his pride. No, no, Inza, there is little that you and I can do, I fear. Let us do our best to surround him with a cheerful ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Antoinette, as the mistress of ceremonies slowly retreated, "that woman's sole delight in life is to irritate and annoy me!" ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... He was himself out of humour; his business was unfinished; and he had just discovered that the neighbouring official with whom he had to deal, was an obstinate and narrow-minded personage. Many things had occurred to irritate him. ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... sensible and controlled young woman takes up a position of superiority, she is apt, unless the young man in her company happens to be in love with her—and sometimes even when he is—to provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is still more apt to do so if her relations to him have once been in the line of ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... endless day. As night approached Pierre stopped frequently, propping himself with legs far apart; sometimes he laughed. Invariably this horrible sound shocked Willard into a keener sense of the surroundings, and it grew to irritate him, for the Frenchman's mental wanderings increased with the darkness. What made him rouse one with his awful laughter? These spells of walking insensibility were pleasanter far. At last the big man fell. To Willard's mechanical endeavours to help he spoke sleepily, but with the ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... interrupted by the officers; and if I don't give you the biggest thrashing you ever had, it's because I am weak from the effects of that accident and being dragged under water for so long. Now then, come on, and—don't irritate me any more by grinning in that absurd way, or I shall strike you before you put up your hands ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... are of a nature to disgust and irritate the ignorant girl of twenty by their callous unreality in her eyes, and to delight the experienced woman of, say, thirty, by their profound truth in hers—so utterly do one's ideas about life change in the course of ten years ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... them confidently—amused, curious eyes, but all friendly and gay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused, and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She was sorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-natured people, and it was so ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... meant by that, for it was Lucien who had negotiated the San Ildefonso treaty which gave Louisiana to France. This speech of his brother's seemed to irritate Joseph still more, and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... spirit goes abroad in spite of watches. Indeed, it is not the purpose of the vigils to prevent these wanderings; only to mollify by polite attention the inveterate malignity of the dead. Neglect (it is supposed) may irritate and thus invite his visits, and the aged and weakly sometimes balance risks and stay at home. Observe, it is the dead man's kindred and next friends who thus deprecate his fury with nocturnal watchings. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I. as we have seen, the memorial of Nicholas Kireeff; in Vol. II. the latter half of the original Preface to Vol. I., cancelled thence at Madame Novikoff's request, though now carefully modified so as to avoid anything which might irritate Russia at a moment when troubles seemed to be clearing away. In his Preface to Vol. VII. he had three objects, to set right the position of Sir E. Hamley, who had been neglected in the despatches; to demolish his friend Lord Bury, who had "questioned my omniscience" ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... sound of horn, and was going to kill all who were in the town, but Kjartan, Gissur, and Hjalte, with the other Icelanders who had become Christians, went to him, and said, "King, thou must not fail from thy word—that however much any man may irritate thee, thou wilt forgive him if he turn from heathenism and become Christian. All the Icelanders here are willing to be baptized; and through them we may find means to bring Christianity into Iceland: ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... that the army was his, and that victory came from his hand, making no mention of God, who, by His great goodness, hath given it us. He thrusts the bargain into my fist (dictates to me). Yet must I give him a civil answer to satisfy him; for I do not want to make trouble in my kingdom, and irritate a captain to whom my late father and I have given so much credit and authority." The king almost apologized for having already disposed of the baton in favor of the Marquis de Vieilleville, and he sent the Duke ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... by the post. It was in Cousin Amelia's hand, and bore the Dangerfield postmark. "What now?" I thought, dreading to open it lest it might contain some fresh object of annoyance, some further inquiries or remarks calculated to irritate my already overdriven temper out of ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... moderate praise, used with opportunity, and not vulgar, is that which doth the good. Solomon saith, He that praiseth his friend aloud, rising early, it shall be to him no better than a curse. Too much magnifying of man or matter, doth irritate contradiction, and procure envy and scorn. To praise a man's self, cannot be decent, except it be in rare cases; but to praise a man's office or profession, he may do it with good grace, and with a kind of magnanimity. The ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... limits. The government of that State, it is understood, has assigned no portion of her territory to the Indians, but as fast as her settlements advance lays it off into counties and proceeds to survey and sell it. This policy manifestly tends not only to alarm and irritate the Indians, but to compel them to resort to plunder for subsistence. It also deprives this Government of that influence and control over them without which no durable peace can ever exist between them and the whites. I trust, therefore, that a due regard for her own ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... allusion was made by either to what had passed. By the next morning Florimel had yet again recovered her temper, and, nothing fresh occurring to irritate her, kept it ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... her, walk with her, laugh with her as he used to do. She acquired now an awkward habit of gazing at him with passionate intensity. He would raise his eyes and find the great moon-faced spectacles fixed upon him with a beseeching, reproachful glare in the light of them. This would irritate him ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... promised to clear up before any other steps should be taken. Cautioning her against any violence of language to her niece, I took my leave. As I went out I spoke a few words to Clara, informing her of the denouement which had taken place, and recommending her by no means to irritate her aunt, but to be very penitent when she was reproved. Clara obeyed my injunctions, and the next day, when I called, I found her sitting by the side of Donna Celia, who was apparently reconciled. I motioned Clara out of the room, when Donna Celia informed me that she had acknowledged ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rejoicings. He was himself then returning from an unsuccessful expedition which he had made, and, as he entered the town, stung with vexation and anger at his defeat, the gladness and joy which the Egyptians manifested in their ceremonies served only to irritate him, and to make him more angry than ever. He killed the priests who were officiating. He then demanded to be taken into the edifice to see the sacred animal, and there, after insulting the feelings of the worshipers in every possible ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... He informed the King of the emotion that had been caused in France by the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince; he dwelt on the value to both countries of the friendly relation between France and Prussia; and, while studiously avoiding language that might wound or irritate the King, he explained to him the requirements of the Government at Paris. The King had learnt beforehand what would be the substance of Benedetti's communication. He had probably been surprised and grieved at the serious consequences which Prince Leopold's action had produced ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... like a voyage at sea, profitable but hazardous: you either get a treasure or perish miserably.—The merchant gains the shore with gold in both his hands, or a wave will one day leave him dead on its beach."—Not deeming it generous any further to irritate a poor man's wound with the asperity of reproach, or to sprinkle his sore with the salt of harsh words, I made a summary conclusion in these two verses, and said:—"Wert thou not aware that thou shouldst find fetters on thy feet when thou wouldst not listen to the generous man's counsel? Thrust ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... offices by degrees associates itself with every idea; a long contest involves so many circumstances, that every place and action will recall it to the mind, and fresh remembrance of vexation must still enkindle rage, and irritate revenge. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... with butter and curd cheese or an egg. The non-yeast bread should be avoided as in the weak state of the stomach it will not be properly digested; besides, the bran may irritate the lining in the present condition of the stomach. As soon as the stomach has regained its power of digesting food, and the ulcers have healed, then fine wholemeal biscuits of the Wallace or Ixion kind can be taken, but the unfermented bread had ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... think you would speak of her like that, Hugh, if you knew all her kindness to me. I couldn't tell you all yesterday. May I now? Or shall I only irritate you?' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... was no such law or principle; only it was there (he thought) working unconsciously, and therefore in a way defencelessly. And so he compares himself at times to a gadfly, whose function it is to sting and irritate people out of their easy indifference, and force them to ask themselves what they were really driving at. Or again, he compares himself to the torpedo-fish, because he tried to give people a shock whenever they attempted ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... that they have never heard of England, or of Ireland either, than to say that their first emotional movement is a desire to come to the rescue of either of them. It is perfectly true that the more monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner might sometimes irritate this innocent and isolated American spirit by being pro-Irish. It is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or Virginian might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference is that large ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... growing old, and all my senses are becoming duller—fear along with the rest. You have tried to cheat me of the money I have demanded, and it has tried my patience. In fact, it has set my nerves quite on edge. Pray do not irritate me again. I know you must have that paper, and I know why. The price I offer is a moderate one compared with the unpleasantness that may occur to you if you do not get it. Never mind what occurrence. I know that you have come here prepared to pay that price. The morning is getting on. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... work there is no cavilling about texts, no disputes about jurisdiction, no sophisms to delude, no imputations to irritate, no contradictions to confound the reader; but in place of all these there is found in it a simple detail of the truths professed, and of the virtues practised by men and women, who were not only the hearers of the law but the doers thereof. Whosoever seeks for wisdom as men seek for gold, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... wanted to know whether it was maintained that the frigates it was proposed to build would "boldly march upon land and break the chains of the prisoners?" He begged Congress not to do what "would irritate the barbarians and furnish additional misery to the unfortunate prisoners." In this closing struggle over the bill Giles fought single-handed. When he had quite finished, the bill was passed by 50 yeas to 39 nays, a result ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... he is independent of us, and he has sense enough to know it. His own people are quite capable of finishing off the schooner now that her framework is complete, so that threats on our part would be useless—nay, worse than useless—since they would only irritate him and lead ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... pique of the Chevalier at the mention of Philibert, but in that spirit of petty torment with which her sex avenges small slights she continued to irritate the vanity of the Chevalier, whom in her heart ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... That that republic is arranged in the best manner which, being composed in due proportions of those three elements, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratic, does not by punishment irritate a fierce and savage mind. * * * [A similar institution prevailed at Carthage], which was sixty-five years more ancient than Rome, since it was founded thirty-nine years before the first Olympiad; and that most ancient law-giver Lycurgus made nearly the same arrangements. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Columbus to hold Guaccanarillo prisoner, to make him expiate in case it was proven that our compatriots had been assassinated by his orders; but the Admiral, deeming it inopportune to irritate the ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to the Tower, to find himself again in the 'Regions mild of pure and serene air,' in which the seven sisters seemed to dwell, like Milton's ethereal spirits 'Before the starry threshold of Jove's court.' Here was everything to soothe, nothing to irritate or disturb him: nothing on the spot: but it was with him, as it is with many, perhaps with all: the two great enemies of tranquillity, Hope and Remembrance, would still intrude: not like a bubble and a spectre, as in the beautiful ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... to irritate yourself in this way!" exclaimed La Cibot, plunging down upon Pons and covering him ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... at a considerable distance from the house. The old man I did not now see; I was dragged along between Kish-kau-ko and a very short thick man. I had probably made some resistance, or done something to irritate this last, for he took me a little to one side, and drawing his tomahawk, motioned to me to look up. This I plainly understood, from the expression of his face, and his manner, to be a direction for me to look up for the last time, as ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... spirit in which Christian men should proclaim the Gospel. The effect of much well-meant Christian effort is simply to irritate. People are very quick to catch delicate intonations which reveal a secret sense, 'how much better, wiser, more devout I am than these people!' and wherever a trace of that appears in our work, the good of it is apt to be marred. We all know how hackneyed the charge of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... establishing your own little corner, where your customs will irritate no one; and as soon as you are settled an ordained minister will be sent you, out of consideration for the scruples of the Salzburgers, although our Brethren in other Colonies are served by laymen, as permitted by ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... against the window, Armine watched and did his utmost to repress the eagerness that seemed to irritate his brother, and at last gave vent to an ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these into a sort of prolonged but subdued growl. But it is a case in which the reader feels that it is eminently proper that the writer should growl. It is the old man of sixty-five telling the tale of his early years. His preferences for the past do not irritate us, they entertain us. It is right that the world about him should seem meaner and more commonplace than it did in the fever-fit of youth and love, when it was joy merely to live. The work, moreover, has another characteristic that gives it a whimsical attractiveness. It ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... can be made to hold out, will have very much to do with their milking qualities as long as they live. Old milk left in the receptacle of the teat soon changes into a curdy state, and the caseous matter not being at once removed by the next milking, is apt to irritate the lining membrane of the teat during the operation, especially when the teat is forcibly rubbed down between the finger and thumb in stripping. The consequence of this repeated irritation is the thickening of the lining membrane, which at length becomes so hardened as to ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... Ah, my nasty foreign temper! Why did I let her irritate me? I, the elder of the two—why did I not set her an example of self-control? Who can tell? When does a woman know why she does anything? Did Eve know—when Mr. Serpent offered her the apple—why ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants began to be taken up by politicians and the States, it grew into a schism, and abundantly showed that laws dealing with religion and seeking to settle its controversies are much more calculated to irritate than to reform, and that they give rise to extreme license. Further, it was seen that schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy. From all these considerations it is clearer ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... it?" Malone said. This particular kid brother was obviously a little nuts, and should have been put away years ago. He ground his teeth silently, but he didn't make any complaints. It was never wise, he knew, to irritate a traffic cop of ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to a lily, an angel, a star, and I don't know what else; though I scarcely listened to what he said on that subject. In vain I pleaded, notwithstanding any risk I might run, to be allowed to return home: he was deaf to all my entreaties. As I was careful, however, not to say anything to irritate him, he continued as ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... might have had it in my power to have taken and secured the person of Tamarie, but I was apprehensive that such an attempt might irritate the natives attached to his interest, and induce them to act hostilely against our party at a time the ship was at too great a distance to afford them timely and necessary assistance in case of such an event, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... strand of beads. To decline an offer of this sort is indeed to disparage the charms of the lady, and therefore gives such offence, that, although we had occasionally to treat the Indians with rigor, nothing seemed to irritate both sexes more than our refusal to accept the favors of the females. On one occasion we were amused by a Clatsop, who, having been cured of some disorder by our medical skill, brought his sister as a reward for our kindness. The young lady was quite anxious to join ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... completing his letter. I leave it to him to tell all the agreeable and amusing things that are occurring around us. My letters to you are nothing but the record of incidents that happen to affect me at the time; trifling things sometimes; sometimes things that irritate; things that pass often and leave no impression, as clouds ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... said, "is himself blameworthy and unfit for his position, in that he has adjudged others to be as weak as himself; in fact, he has committed a wrong against religion. Nevertheless, my dear son, it was not wise of you to go and irritate him." As I had told him my name he shewed me, smilingly, an accusation against me, drawn up by someone who had witnessed the fact. The good bishop gently chid me for having called the friar-confessor of the Duke of Medina an ignoramus. He had refused to admit that a priest might ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the People of France, nor the National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke should commence an ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Scotch and the English that nothing but the soul of Ireland was left for Irishmen to love. He could work and fight for Ireland better in London than in Dublin. And again, the Irishman in England can make havoc in his turn; he can harry the English, he can spite, and irritate and triumph and get his own back in a thousand ways. Living in England he would be ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... was still making the same sprawling movements ahead of me up the street. The sight of this infirm creature constantly in front of me, commenced to irritate me—his journey seemed endless; perhaps he had made up his mind to go to exactly the same place as I had, and I must needs have him before my eyes the whole way. In my irritation it seemed to me that he slackened ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... men were following his lead, buying and selling land and profiting by the improvement work he was doing. But this was to be expected, and the small fortunes they were making at his expense did not irritate him. There was an exception, however. One Simon Dolliver, with money to go in with, and with cunning and courage to back it up, bade fair to become a several times millionaire at Daylight's expense. Dolliver, too, pyramided, playing quickly and accurately, and keeping ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... admonishing of recalcitrant church-goers and rounding up of possible Sunday-school recruits, they crossed to the island at low tide; and in their best district visitor manner—too often a sparkling blend of condescension and familiarity, warranted to irritate—severally demanded entrance to the first two of the black cottages.—The Inn they avoided. Refined gentlewomen can hardly be expected, even in the interests of religion, to risk pollution by visiting a common tavern, more particularly when a company of half-grown lads and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... whole thing as a justifiable spoiling of the Egyptians. By the way '—there was a note of anxiety in his voice—'I hope you won't find it necessary to repeat anything I've said about the lady herself. That might irritate her.' ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... tells her everything, soon or late. I must see her at once. Your father is becoming, as the French say, impossible. The times, and these wrangling Friends, with their stupid testimonies, irritate him daily until he is like a great, strong bull, such as the Spaniards tease to madness with little darts and fireworks. You see, Hugh, events are prickly things. They play the deuce with obstinate people. Your father will be better away from ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... some of her former fears. Finally, the abbe pressed her so hard as to make her reflect that since, after the precautions which she had taken at Avignon, a revocation could have no result, it would be better to seem to yield rather than irritate this man, who inspired her with so great a fear, by constant and obstinate refusals. The next time that he returned to the subject she accordingly replied that she was ready to offer her husband this new proof of her love if it would ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was past; so he contented himself with tending the back kitchen fire and folding up his father's clothes, which had been hanging out to dry since morning—afraid to move about in the room where his mother was, lest he should irritate her further. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... not, I would not hesitate, unhappy boy," replied the princess, tenderly. "God in heaven knows, were there the slenderest chance of saving him, I would kneel at my father's feet till pardon was obtained, but angered as he is now it would irritate him yet more. Alas! alas! poor child, they told thee wrong who bade thee come to Joan for influence with Edward; I have none now, less than any of his court," and the large tears fell from the eyes of the princess on the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... dyspepsia, a course of light reading; And Rhymes by young Ladies, the first, fresh edition (Ere critics have injured their powers of nutrition,) Are he thinks, for weak stomachs, the best sort of feeding. Satires irritate—love-songs are found calorific; But smooth, female sonnets he deems a specific, And, if taken at bedtime, a sure soporific. Among works of this kind, the most pleasing we know, Is a volume just published by Simpkins and Co., Where all ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... would be best if there were no battle; and observed, that refusals and reprisals would only irritate the parties, whose interest and happiness it was to be pacified and to agree. She said, that if Mr. Bolingbroke, instead of opposing his will to that of his wife, which, in fact, was only conquering ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... come, and was careless about the rest. He had a sore finger, which was tied up, and this seemed to trouble him more than anything else. There was some delay about the confessions and the last offices of those who prayed for the condemned, and this seemed to irritate Boone Helm. ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... concerts; but there was something irritating in her assumption that existence yielded no higher pleasures, and that one might get as much interest and excitement out of life in a cramped flat as in the splendours of the Van Osburgh establishment. Today, however, her chirping enthusiasms did not irritate Lily. They seemed only to throw her own exceptionalness into becoming relief, and give a soaring vastness to her scheme ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... note-book insisted on taking the numbers of the notes, to the conductor's annoyance. It was immaterial to me: small things had lost their power to irritate. I was seeing myself in the prisoner's box, going through all the nerve-racking routine of a trial for murder—the challenging of the jury, the endless cross-examinations, the alternate hope and fear. I believe I said before that I had no nerves, but for a few minutes that morning I was as near ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... distinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offend others, because they may retaliate; and besides, it ruffles his own temper. He likes to enjoy a perfect calm, and to live in an interchange of kind offices. He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him. He has a fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths the waves of passion as they rise. He does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others; bears their calamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang of war, the earthquake ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... already speaking eagerly with his kinsman; but it seemed as though his words did only serve to irritate the Governor the more. In my heart I was sure that had he been certain the Maid was an impostor, he would have been in no wise troubled or disturbed, but would have contented himself by sharply ordering her to ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... all do it, they all sell themselves. Love is childish prattle and nonsense. Don't irritate me." ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... thirst; or if they slept, it was but to be tantalized with dreams of cool fountains and running brooks, and to awaken in redoubled torment. The last drop of water had been dealt out to the Indian rowers, but it only served to irritate their sufferings. They scarce could move their paddles; one after another gave up, and it seemed impossible they should live ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Massachusetts charter seemed in danger. But the Puritan magistrates were shrewd, and months were frittered away to no purpose. Presently the Dutch made war upon England, and the king felt it to be unwise to irritate the people of Massachusetts beyond endurance. The turbulent state of English politics which followed still further absorbed his attention, and New England had another respite of several years. [Sidenote: Founding ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... the clock an hour forward. His wife smiled a little superciliously, but took care not to irritate him, for she knew how dangerous it was to do so. Then she gave him ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... my own endeavours, but I have only to turn over a few pages of your volumes to find innumerable and far more illustrious instances. It is lucky that I am of a temper not to be easily turned aside, though by no means difficult to irritate. But I am making a dissertation, instead of writing a letter. I write to you from the Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, with the islands of Elba and Corsica visible from my balcony, and my old friend the Mediterranean rolling blue at my feet. As long as I retain my feeling and my ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... most talkative, but her conversation was a perpetual flow of complaints; the food, the weather, and her ailments were her chief topics, and Betty's round eyes of amazement, as she sat opposite, served to irritate her more. At length she gave a little ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... little in comparison to mine, who had, in reality, never loved me,—whose jests and irony had been levelled no less at myself than at others. He painted your person and your mind, in contrast to my own, in colors so covertly depreciating as to irritate more and more that vanity with which jealousy is so woven, and from which, perhaps (a Titan son of so feeble a parent), it is born. He hung lingeringly over all the treasure that you would enjoy and that I—I, the first discoverer, had so ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perished in the charge. Gettysburg was over, and the tide of invasion from the South was rolled back never to return. Meade had lost about 23,000 men, and Lee about 23,000. Halleck, whose business as general-in-chief seemed to be to annoy successful commanders, and irritate them to the resignation point, blamed Meade for allowing Lee to retire without another battle, but public opinion upheld the victor of Gettysburg, and Congress honored him and Generals Hancock and O. O. Howard with a ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... the possible danger which lay in the proposed move that the President was about to make struck me at once. Frankly I put the whole political situation in the country before him as it would be affected by his attitude in this matter, saying to him that the stand he was about to take would irritate large blocks of Irish, Germans, and other anti-British elements in the country, and that we might expect that the leaders in our own party, the heads of the various committees, like Fitzgerald of Appropriations, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... slender thread of its story, beautiful as many of its isolated passages are. The same objection may be made to "Smoke." Great spaces in that work are devoted to caricatures of certain persons and opinions of note in Russia, but utterly unknown in England—pictures which either delight or irritate the author's countrymen, according to the tendency of their social and political speculations, but which are as meaningless to the untutored English eye as a collection of "H.B."'s drawings would be ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... what you like; but by any other name it will irritate you just as much, because you have such a horrid temper. Your religion may be very orthodox, but I can not say much for its improving qualities; it is the crossest, nastiest, narrowest, disagreeablest sort of religion that ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... takes his mind. Instead of glorying in a universe and being a little proud of it for being such an immeasurable, unspeakable, unknowable success, his whole state of being is one of worry about it. The universe seems to irritate him somehow. Has he not spent years of hard labour in making his mind over, in drilling it into not-thinking, into not-inferring things, into not-knowing anything he does not know all of? And yet here he is and here is his whole life—does it not consist in being ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that she could add nothing to its insolence, let her study it as she might. And, she thought, as she read it for the fifth time, that it sounded as though it had been written before her receipt of the final note from himself, and that it would, therefore, irritate him the more. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... am very glad of it. Do you hear? You talked me over, Cesarino; I have repented it ever since. Count Marescotti is not the man I should have selected for raising up heirs to the Guinigi. Now don't irritate me," she continued, with a disdainful glance at the cavaliere. "Have done with this folly. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... or a dealer in old bronze and cemented porcelain, can cause you so much suffering!" But, of course, I did not tell this to my youthful friend, striving, as any one should under similar circumstances, not to irritate him ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... part of the soldiers of Petrograd. There was no longer any confidence placed in the Bolsheviki. Besides, the agitation was not the only cause of this change. The workers soon came to understand that the Bolshevik tactics could only irritate and disgust the great mass of the population, that the Bolsheviki were not the representatives of the workers, that their promises of land, of peace, and other earthly goods were only a snare. The industrial production diminished more and more; ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... frankness of this declaration irritate you, but rather let it serve to convince you of the sincerity of what follows: various as are the calamities of life which may render me miserable, YOU only, among even its chosen felicities, have power to make me happy. Fame, honours, wealth, ambition, were ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was probably at large, when Knox wrote, with 4000 spears at her back. The Reformer may have rightly thought it an ill moment to irritate Elizabeth, or he may have grown milder than he was in 1559, and come into harmony with Bullinger. In February of the year of this correspondence he had written, "God comfort that dispersed little flock," apparently the Puritans of his ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... should say that is all. However, what I want to say to you is, keep out of the way, if they come. I shall make light of the affair, while you, being pretty hot tempered, might say things that would irritate them, while they could be of no assistance to me. Therefore, I would rather that you were kept out of it, altogether. I shall want you here. In my absence, there must be somebody to look ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... took off his boots and coat as he had done in the park, stretched himself out on the seat, and slept at once the sleep of contentment. For the first time in his life the jarring of the train did not make his head ache nor its perpetual rubble-double irritate and unnerve him. He slept like a child as the train bore him onward, passing into sleep like a child, full of tenderness and love, slept dreamlessly and heavily, undisturbed, with the photo against his heart and the rose in his fingers and about ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... ideals? What do you care for the ideals of that tall earl whom for a fortnight you have held from his proper business? or for the ideals of any man alive? Why, not one thread of that dark hair, not one snap of those white little fingers, except when ideals irritate you by distracting a man's attention from Cynthia Allonby. Otherwise, he is welcome enough to play with his ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... understand 'the passions and desires' of that 'huge and powerful brute, how to approach and handle it, at what times it becomes fiercest and most gentle, on what occasions it utters its several cries, and what sounds made by others soothe or irritate it.'[50] If he resolutely guards himself against the danger of passing from one illusion to another, he may still remember that he is not the only man in the constituency who has reasoned and is reasoning about politics. If he does personal canvassing he may meet sometimes a middle-aged working ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... evidence disposes of so improbable a notion at once and for ever. "I loved the man," says Ben, "this side idolatry, as well as any." Now why in the name of common sense should he have made that qualification unless there had been, not only idolatry, but idolatry fulsome enough to irritate Jonson into an express disavowal of it? Jonson, the bricklayer, must have felt sore sometimes when Shakespear spoke and wrote of bricklayers as his inferiors. He must have felt it a little hard that being a better scholar, and ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... love God, so that we will neither look down on our parents or superiors nor irritate them, but will honor them, serve them, obey them, love them ...
— The Small Catechism of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... bread. It seems probable that a smaller proportion would have remained unassimilated had the bread not formed the sole food. It is advisable that wheatmeal he ground as finely as possible, the coarse is not only to a less extent assimilated but apt to irritate the bowels. Notwithstanding that fine white bread gave only 4.2 per cent. and a coarse white bread 4.9 per cent. of waste, a fine wheatmeal bread is more economical as the same quantity of wheat produces ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... produce a little temporary relief. The same may be said of the use of smelling bottles—containing, as I believe they usually do, ammonia or hartshorn, cologne water, camphor, &c. The manner in which these operate to produce mischief, is, however, very different from that of the former. They irritate the nasal membrane, and dry it, if they do not slowly destroy its sensibility. They also, in some way, affect seriously the tender brain. In any event, they ought seldom to be used by the sick or the well. ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... said he, "Cromwell and his adherents to be guilty of treason and rebellion, aggravated by perfidiousness and hypocrisy. But yet I did not think it my duty to rave against him in the pulpit, or to do this so unseasonably and imprudently as might irritate him to mischief. And the rather, because, as he kept up his approbation of a godly life in general, and of all that was good, except that which the interest of his sinful cause engaged him to be against. So I perceived that it was his design to do good in the main, and to promote the Gospel ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bohun, and nothing is impossible for it. Suppose he were to select some one, some weak and irritable and sentimental and disappointed man, some one whose every foible and weakness he knew, suppose he were to place himself near him and so irritate and confuse and madden him that at last one day, in a fury of rage and despair, that man were to do for him what he is too proud to do for himself! Think of the excitement, the interest, the food for his cynicism, the food for ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... for nothing at all!" said her husband, who, raising his head at the first remark of the Indian, now saw in his fierce, flashing eyes, angry gestures, and awful contortions of visage, that which boded the sudden fulfillment of his threat: "Don't irritate him, and git murdered for your pains, Dorothy! Why ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... evidently disappointed by my submission. I took a chair, and placed myself near her. She tapped the floor impatiently with her foot. I saw that there was not a movement that I could make, not a look, not a tone of voice, which did not irritate her. ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... visitation. Whenever the muscles of the abdomen are in a state of constriction, as described by him, the usual cause is spasm of some part of the intestinal canal, produced by colic, either of an accidental nature, arising from some acrid ingesta, which irritate the bowels without producing diarrhoea, attended with griping pains and distention, and spasmodic contraction of the abdominal muscles, with costiveness; or of a bilious form, closely allied to bilious diarrhoea and cholera (Gregory.) ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... there, and had felt somewhat displeased with the taste—want of taste she called it—shown by Mr. Arabin in paying so much attention to Madame Neroni. It was as infallible that Madeline should displease and irritate the women as that she should charm and captivate the men. The one result followed naturally on the other. It was quite true that Mr. Arabin had been charmed. He thought her a very clever and a very handsome woman; he thought also that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... picked his teeth nonchalantly, so nonchalantly as to irritate the colonel. The colonel's impatience was not lessened by the fact that Fetters waited several ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... want to talk to you, because you are talking such drivel; and I don't want to look at you, because your pink and white and blue and gold irritate me beyond words, so you'd better go and stand in the middle of the room for the benefit of those who delight to gaze; and I'll go in search of a refreshingly ugly person who ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... husks and fibres, however, which will not digest, pass on through the bowels unchanged and stir up the walls of the intestines to contract; hence they are useful in small quantities in helping to keep the bowels regular. But, like any other stimulus, too much of it will irritate and disturb the digestion, and cause diarrhea; so that it is not best to eat more than one-fifth of our total bread in the form of brown bread. Dyspeptics who live on brown bread, or on so-called "health foods," ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... up my corset into a harness for the dog and Jessup's said they hadn't anybody to send up with a new one and John said he couldn't go because his foot's bad, him having stepped on the rake yesterday afternoon and not wanting to irritate it, so's he could go to work tomorrow as usual. And Grandma's up to Billy Evans' trying to keep him from going crazy or I could have borrowed one of hers. So I 'phoned Central to see if she couldn't hunt up somebody to bring me that new corset from Jessup's. Well, who does she get ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... stone and clay. The Moors are here in greater proportion to the negroes than at Jarra. They assembled round the hut of the negro where I lodged, and treated me with the greatest insolence; they hissed, shouted, and abused me; they even spat in my face, with a view to irritate me, and afford them a pretext for seizing my baggage. But finding such insults had not the desired effect, they had recourse to the final and decisive argument, that I was a Christian, and of course that my property was lawful plunder to the followers of ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... no comment. Perhaps it served to stir faintly an atrophied analytic sense. No one of them had yet lost the shudder and the thrill which lay in his own narrative. But the experiences of the others had begun to bore and irritate. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... Lord de Winter her plan of conduct was more easy. She had laid that down the preceding evening. To remain silent and dignified in his presence; from time to time to irritate him by affected disdain, by a contemptuous word; to provoke him to threats and violence which would produce a contrast with her own resignation—such was her plan. Felton would see all; perhaps he would say nothing, but he ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... yourself to any that bear my name, or eat my bread." With the words, he walked to the door and held it open. It was impossible to mistake the unspoken order, and there was something in the concentrated yet controlled passion of Robert Worth which even the haughty priest did not care to irritate ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... education of the soul. But if you are unhappy over petty worries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you are allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the beautiful days for you, take yourself in ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... "I will not irritate him," thought Edmond, and taking the paper, of which half was wanting,—having been burnt, no doubt, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... most worthy, honourable man; and, though he won't defend you, he won't attack you—he will remain neutral out of regard for his niece, whom he loves so dearly, and who protects you. So, when you see him, don't plead your cause; it would be of no avail, and might even irritate him." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... not inclined to lose valuable time in arresting the persons of whose names I have received a list. The execution of such a measure would be useless; it would lead to nothing, or rather it would serve to irritate public feeling. My conviction of this fact has banished from me all idea of keeping under restraint for four or five days persons whose influence, whether real or supposed, is nil, since Bonaparte is at Auxerre. Mere supervision appears to me sufficient, and to that I propose confining myself."—"The ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... had overheard me, and wished to irritate me. Fortunately some one spoke to Miss Courtland at that moment, and she turned away without having heard Morton. For once my anger flamed out. I caught him by the arm, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... ruin to the worthy old stockbroker John Sedley, and the most determined and obstinate of his creditors was his old friend and neighbour John Osborne—whom he had set up in life, and whose son was to marry his daughter, and who consequently had the intolerable sense of former benefit to goad and irritate him. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and made numbers of good resolutions instead—resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... to the position which she had obtained in the Balkan Peninsula under the Treaty of Berlin. This policy also involved keeping Turkey quiet and preventing a league of the Balkan States, lest such a league should irritate Russia and Austria and produce ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... hurt the feelings of Mr. Phillips;* a gentleman to whom I, on my side, had no feelings but those of respect and good will! I pray you smooth him down again, by all wise methods, into at least good-natured indifference to me. He may depend upon it I could not mean to irritate him; there lay no gain for me in that! Nor is there anything of business left now between us. It is doubly and trebly evident those Stereotype Plates are not to him worth their prime cost here, still less, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... letter is only equalled by its stylistic ingenuity. Aretino used every means he could devise to wound and irritate a sensitive nature. The allusion to Raffaello, the comparison of his own pornographic dialogues with the Last Judgment in the Sistine, the covert hint that folk gossiped about Michelangelo's relations to young men, his sneers at the great man's exclusiveness, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... me tended to confirm its accuracy. She added that hernadotte seemed to take the utmost pains to exhibit to the General a flattering picture of the prosperity of France; and she reported to me, as follows, that part of the conversation which was peculiarly calculated to irritate Bonaparte:—"'I do not despair of the safety of the Republic, which I am certain can restrain her enemies both abroad and at home.' As Bernadotte uttered these last words,'" continued Josephine, "his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... like manner, though we know that an event must have taken place at a distance, long before we can hear the result, yet as long as we remain in Ignorance of it, we irritate ourselves about it, and suffer all the agonies of suspense, as if it was still to come; but as soon as our uncertainty is removed, our fretful impatience vanishes, we resign ourselves to fate, and make up our minds to what has happened as ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... for the levying of money is reserved, I presume, for Drusus of Pisaurum or for the gourmand Vatinius: this latter miserable business, which might be very well done by a courier, is given to him, and his tribuneship deferred till it suits them. Irritate the fellow, I beg you, as much as you can. The one hope of safety is their mutual disagreement, the beginning of which I have got scent of from Curio. Moreover, Arrius is fuming at being cheated out of the consulship. Megabocchus and our blood-thirsty young ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... said, smiling. "You must not be alarmed. Do you want the bullet to stay in and irritate the ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... shielded, I would not operate one without wearing tight-fitting clothes. When grinding dry materials, great clouds of dust may be given off. Some of these particles, like the dust from alfalfa or from dried-out spoiled (moldy) hay, can severely irritate lungs, eyes, throat and nasal passages. A face mask, or better, an army surplus gas mask with built-in goggles, may be in order. And you'll probably want to take a shower ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... at their threats and imprecations. The excitement was very great, and would probably have proceeded to violent extremities, had it not been for Lord James's energy and courage. He was a Protestant, but he took his station at the door of the chapel, and, without saying or doing any thing to irritate the crowd without, he kept them at bay, while the service proceeded. It went on to the close, though greatly interrupted by the confusion and uproar. Many of the French people who came with Mary were so terrified by this scene, that they ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... immediately retired. Then John Cavendish established the fact that ten minutes before arriving home he had dropped Celeste La Rue at her apartment. There was no flaw in any of the stories to which the inquisitors could attach suspicion. One thing alone seemed to irritate Willis. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... you; while, at the same time, the incessant tingling of the little silver bells suspended from the corners of scarlet velvet bags, which are handed along the pews (at the end of a stick), during the whole of the sermon, will distract and irritate you. It is thus they collect alms for the poor. Yet even to one ignorant of the language, there is a fullness and vigour in the style and manner of delivery that would almost persuade you that you had understood, and felt convinced of the truth of what you had heard. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... that, if this were done in the vicinity of a hive, such a proceeding would tend to irritate the bees into a highly dangerous, if warrantable, frenzy, and that they would take immediate steps to abate the nuisance in their own simple way. But that, my brothers, is where we are wrong. Where bees are concerned, the 'smoker's' ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... knelt down to study the pale face of her royal master, and then saw the signs of a dreadful weariness and a more consummate melancholy than any she had yet consoled. She repressed her tears and kept silence, that she might not irritate by mistaken words the sorrow which, as yet, she did not understand. In this she did as tender women do under like circumstances. She kissed that forehead, seamed with untimely wrinkles, and those livid cheeks, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... hour," cried his wife passionately; and her husband, seeing that advice would only irritate her more, remained silent. ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... yet, Mister Jack Belllounds," she flashed, her spirit rising. He could irritate her ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... black, with yellow spots on the thorax. Verrill[4] says that "it attacks by preference those parts where the hair is thinnest and the skin softest, especially under the belly and between the hind legs. Its bite causes severe pain, and will irritate the gentlest horses, often rendering them almost unmanageable, and causing them to kick dangerously. When found, they cling so firmly as to be removed with some difficulty, and they are so tough as not to be readily crushed. If one escapes when captured, it will instantly return to the horse, ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... The open Circus.—Ver. 104. We learn from Seneca, that it was the custom in the 'venationes' of the Circus to irritate the bull against his antagonist, by thrusting in his path figures stuffed with straw or hay, and covered with red cloth. Similar means are used to provoke the bull in the Spanish bull-fights of the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... he uttered the threat alarmed Mistress Croale. He might rouse unmerited suspicion, and cause her much trouble by vexatious complaint, even to the peril of her license. She must take heed, and not irritate her enemy. Instantly, therefore, she changed her tone to ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... broke. I took him by the arm, and held him ungently. "Words! Words! Words!" I mocked at him. "What would you have me say? That I love you? In faith, I don't. You irritate me; annoy me. But save you I will, if only for my peace of mind. Look at me. Look at ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... spontaneous, because his heart, while intensely sympathetic, appeared cold and absolutely opposed to any sort of outburst. He was too prudent, too wise, too thoughtful, it seemed, acting only when sure of his ground, turning aside from all obstacles liable to irritate ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... handwriting. Lord Lyons is menaced with passports. Is this man mad? Can Seward for a moment believe that Wikoff knows Europe, or has any influence? He may know the low resorts there. Can Seward be fool enough to irritate England, and entangle this country? Even my anglophobia cannot stand it. Wrote about it warning letters to New York, to Barney, to Opdyke, to ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski |
