"Nuisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unjailed public nuisance!" said Butch Brewster, affectionately. "We, whom you behold, are going for to enter into that room across the corridor from your boudoir, and hold a football signal quiz and confab. We should request that you permit a thunderous silence to originate in your cozy retreat, for the period of ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... rescued and reared her, so practically I am the only female with whom she has ever been intimate. At any rate her affection for me has grown and grown until, although it seems ungrateful to say so, it has become something of a nuisance. She has told me again and again that she would die to protect me, and that if by chance anything happened to me, she would kill herself and follow me into another world. She is continually making divinations about my future, and as these, in which ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... the Opportunity-hunter to himself—"By-the-bye," (speaking aloud,) "this house must be a great trouble to you in your present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid." ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... of getting rid of the nuisance: there was poison, of course; but we thought it would have an invidious appearance, and even lead to legal difficulties, if each dawn were to discover an assortment of cats expiring in hideous convulsions in various parts ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... in desperation to her husband's bottle for comfort. This comfort, to do him justice, he never grudged her; and sometimes before midday they would both be drunk—a condition expedited by the lack of food. When they began to recover, they would quarrel fiercely; and at last they became a nuisance to the whole street. Little did the whisky-hating old lady know to what god she had really offered up that violin—if the consequences of the holocaust can be admitted as indicating the power ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... a show of examining the articles on the circular table.] Yes, I had a note from her this morning. [Glancing at QUEX.] Confounded nuisance—! ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... upon us when he gathered, from the conversation around the dinner-table, to what the evening was to be devoted, and became quite an overpowering nuisance with his pressing attentions to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... of the things which Barbara had decided to be very strict about in Georgina's training was making her respectful to guests. She was not to thrust herself upon their notice, she was not to interrupt their conversation, or make a nuisance of herself. So, young as she was, Georgina had already learned what was expected of her, when her mother having greeted Mr. Darcy and laid aside her wraps, drew up to the fire to talk to him. But instead of doing the expected thing, Georgina did the forbidden. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... because he never gave us an hour's rest. Our reputation as machine gunners was at stake; we tried various ruses to locate and put this gun out of action, but each one proved to be a failure, and Fritz became a worse nuisance than ever. He was getting fresher and more careless every day, took all kinds of liberties, with ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... of saying that guides are a nuisance I do not tolerate, when the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. "There is my card, sir," he says. "A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." On ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... which necessitated his presence in the interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about for a substitute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little French chansonettes so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming manner, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Palmas was through the port to the Isleta. I went with a Scotchman who talked Spanish like a native and astounded two small boys who volunteered to guide us where no guide was needed. The begging, as in all Spanish places, is a pest, a nuisance, a very desolation. "Give a penny, give a penny," varied by a tremendous rise to "Give a shilling," is the cry of all the children. Among Spaniards it is no disgrace to beg. While in the cathedral one day two of us were surrounded by a gang of acolytes in their church ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... give or not to give, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler on the whole to suffer The old exchange of trinkets, gauds and kickshaws, Or to take arms against this Christmas nuisance, And, by opposing, end it? To buy—to give— No more; and by that gift to say we end The Christmas obligations to our friends We all are heir to! To buy—to give; To give—perchance to get; ay, there's the rub! For in those bundles gay what frights may come ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... and fly away with a young rabbit which it will eventually drop and thus kill before it begins to devour the carcase. Thus animals, like human beings, constantly prey upon each other. So prolific are these rabbits that they will soon prove to be as great a nuisance as they are in New Zealand, unless some active means are taken to prevent their increase. The wonder is that the half-starved natives do not make a business of trapping and eating them; but the poor, ignorant peons ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... a stable, the purchase of a pony, the introduction of a groom and of a servant's horse into the establishment—in short, all the nuisance of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... plant the Plantain can only be regarded as a weed and nuisance, especially on lawns, where it is very difficult to destroy them. Yet there are some curious varieties which may claim a corner where botanical curiosities are grown. The Plantain seems to have a peculiar tendency ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... love you. If it would do any good, I would stay, as you ask it. I should n't mind myself. But I should be a nuisance to you." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... growing on a rock. Putting this history out of the question, the Aztecs had excellent reasons for choosing this peculiar site for their city; but these reasons were not equally valid in the case of the new invaders. For them the surrounding salt-water was not needed as a protection, and was merely a nuisance. Every year, when the lake rose, the place was flooded, with enormous damage to the property of the inhabitants; and sometimes an inundation of greater depth than usual threatened as complete a destruction as Cortes and the Tlascalans had made. At the best of times, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... much," answered Lestrange; "but it would not be enough, and moreover it would be depriving you. No; I must see if I cannot somehow arrange to send in to Port Elizabeth for a supply. The nuisance of it is that I have nobody about my place whom I can trust upon ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... producers have not thought out the philosophy behind it. A picture that is all action is a plague, one that is all elephantine and pachydermatous pageant is a bore, and, most emphatically, a film that is all mechanical legerdemain is a nuisance. The possible charm in a so-called trick picture is in eliminating the tricks, giving them dignity till they are no longer such, but thoughts in motion and made visible. In Moving Day the shoes are the most potent. They go through ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... marvellous consent to give up what she had so cherished. It was as if she had said in so many words: "There have been things between us—between Sir Claude and me—which I needn't go into, you little nuisance, because you wouldn't understand them." It suited her to convey that Maisie had been kept, so far as SHE was concerned or could imagine, in a holy ignorance and that she must take for granted a supreme simplicity. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... draft, the children must do likewise. Sometimes I even think the medicine would lose its effect if taken in any other way. Nobody can estimate the power of a fixed idea upon the body. All the same, it is a confounded nuisance carrying around the aqua. I will confess, although I see the necessity of yielding, that I have less patience with men's stiff-necked stupidity than I ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... insolent and rapacious that high and low became his enemies. The Rev. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman of Houghton, in Huntingdonshire, wrote a pamphlet impugning his pretensions, and accusing him of being a common nuisance. Hopkins replied in an angry letter to the functionaries of Houghton, stating his intention to visit their town; but desiring to know whether it afforded many such sticklers for witchcraft as Mr. Gaul, and whether they were willing to receive and entertain him with the customary ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... so stuck after her that she—well, YOU know how he follows her everywhere, and sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages—all of which is the girl-twin to the front, you see—and he does what he pleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance in the kitchen. Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn't if it ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... cannot believe them, but only struggles and pretends to believe; and yet, being armed with the power of the sword, industriously keeps menacing and slashing all round, to compel every neighbor to do like him: what is to be done with such a man? Human Nature calls him a Social Nuisance; needing to be handcuffed, gagged and abated. Human Nature, if it be in a terrified and imperilled state, with the sword of this fellow swashing round it, calls him "Infamous," and a Monster of Chaos. He is indeed the select ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense. What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness since the beginning—and now if it wasn't for them we could have a glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet you under ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... other reason but to shew in their gesture and behaviour the disregard they have for the company. Though to a truly great and philosophical mind it is not easy to conceive a more ridiculous exhibition than this puppet, yet to others he is little less than a nuisance; for contempt is a murtherous weapon, and there is this difference only between the greatest and weakest man when attacked by it, that, in order to wound the former, it must be just; whereas, without the shields of wisdom and philosophy, which ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... a great nuisance, for, not satisfied with getting on the flat roofs of the houses at nights, and keeping up a species of war-dance there, they invaded the soldiers' quarters, upsetting things in the dark—thus demonstrating the ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... nothing to blame yourself about. It was my own fault being so casual. The nuisance is that if I don't get the suit-case back in time I shan't be able to ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... can raise the funds. The nuisance is the tipping. There's always such a rotten lot of servants; and I'm too much afraid of them ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Opposition that promised more than the Government—that Cecilia's eldest girl—"a pretty little minx"—had been already presented, and was likely to prove as skilful a campaigner for a husband as her mother before her—that "Gerald" had lost heavily at Newmarket, and was now a financial nuisance, borrowing from everybody in the family—and so on, and ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the unreasonable....' I must get back. Give my love to Frances... and when next you see Gerda do try to persuade her that marriage is one of the things that don't matter and that she might just as well put up with to please us all. The child is a little nuisance—as obstinate as ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... composedly, "you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself anywhere—with anything—and then tell me you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance—" ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... nuisance won't it be on strike days," I inquired, "going round and visiting a few thousand pickets on foot in your black coat, with the brain waves working ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... you men—Americans, English, French—you're all alike; glad to see a man die, if he's a nuisance, but afraid to admit you'd a hand in it. But you needn't fear. You can send your hakim uninstructed. He's an Indian, isn't he? Well, Ali Higg is sure to insult him to the very marrow of his bones, and you can safely leave Indian revengefulness ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... him over in her mind yet once again, and find out whether it would be possible that she should do so. She had dismissed him on that former occasion, and had not since given a thought to him, except as to a nuisance of which she had so far ridded herself. Now the nuisance had come again, and she was to endeavor to ascertain how far she could accustom herself to its perpetual presence without incurring perpetual misery. But it has to be acknowledged that she ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... themselves insulted and very little qualified to make themselves agreeable in society. So she resolved to extend a general invitation to all those whom she felt obliged to receive, in order to relieve herself at once of a nuisance for which no pleasure could prove an equivalent. This day was one of her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... frequented, was the usual attitude toward such opportunities. There were too many, they were a nuisance, one had to defend one's self! He even remembered wondering, at the moment, whether to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever become indifferent through habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon dulled that it could be kept alive only by ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... cause, it is quite certain that the Crown Prince and some of the Danish statesmen treated him with studied cordiality. Sir Hyde Parker was a drag, and indeed, an intolerable nuisance to him. When the armistice was sealed and settled for fourteen weeks, he wished to get of to Reval and hammer the Russian squadron there, but the commander-in-chief shirked all responsibility, and his victim was made to say in a letter to Lord St. Vincent "that he would have been in ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... you, and no mistake," cried our generous countryman, standing between the bully and Fred, for fear that the former should do him some harm. "The fellow is a nuisance, and ought to be kicked from the mines, for he makes his ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... d'Arc, was coupe en rond, of a military shortness; and that she wore the shoes of men, with low heels, while she spoke like a grenadier! At first d'Eon had all the social advertisement which was now his one desire, but he became a nuisance, and, by his quarrels with Beaumarchais, a scandal. In drawing-room plays he acted his English adventures with the great play-writer, whose part was highly ridiculous. Now d'Eon pretended to desire to 'take the veil' as a nun, now to join the troops being sent to America. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... other cannot possibly be otherwise. The irritation of the nettling (as you term it), which he has already received [a portion of the letter is torn off and lost].... Whatever part he may take, my conduct towards him will be the same. I consider him a public nuisance, and shall deal ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sitting at my side, and represented forcibly to him the nuisance of having cake-sellers here, cake-sellers there.... Eh? Yes; but he must really admit that.... But the good man smelt a rat, and did not give me time to finish speaking, for he got up and left. I rose, too, and followed ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... say so! (Taking his arm.) Now I will tell you how I have been thinking we ought to arrange things, Torvald. As soon as Christmas is over—(A bell rings in the hall.) There's the bell. (She tidies the room a little.) There's someone at the door. What a nuisance! ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... business. I'd rather not say. Oh, well, we got it from a promoter of sorts. A con man, really. I'll have to admit that we were taken, but we were in a spot and needed a world. He said that the larger bifurcates were too stupid to be a nuisance. We should have known that the stupider a creature, the more of a nuisance ...
— Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas • Raphael Aloysius Lafferty
... Peelites all stand, to be a great evil as tending to prolong and aggravate that parliamentary disorganisation which so much clogs and weakens the working of our government; and I denounced myself as a public nuisance, adding that it would be an advantage if my doctor sent me ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... up the coast and discover the most attractive resorts, and allow him to report on them in the newspapers, write poetry about them, lay the scene of novels and plays in them, and then pursue him and eradicate him from the soil as a burden if not a nuisance. That he makes a resort far more beautiful to the eye than the boarder there is no denying. He covers it with beautiful houses; he converts the scraggy, yellow pastures into smooth, green lawns; he fills the rock crevices with flowers; he ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... a nuisance to have to look for another sure spot," was the only lament. "Just see, there's a whole basket of artichokes gone to waste—and ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... fluent French. Thapoulos muttered comments in modern Greek. And the Turkish refugee from Smyrna quoted again and again the words of praise from Pierre Loti, which had made of him a moral wreck, a nuisance to all who came into contact with him, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... a little less convincing, is in many ways a worthy companion. But Mr. CULLEY'S heroines always strike me as inferior to his men. They have the air of hanging about in corners of the tale, and generally of being rather a nuisance than a delight to their creator. But the heroine of Billy McCoy makes hardly a pretence of being other than a lay figure; without her it would be just as entertaining and exciting, if perhaps less completely furnished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... another plate of dessert, Georgi," he said quietly, as if nothing had happened. "It's a confounded nuisance, that these Indian vagabonds don't ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... swim." In this way I met not long ago with someone who, after talking some little while and not knowing me or who I was, told me that David Garnett was dead, and died of being bitten by a cat after he had tormented it. He had long grown a nuisance to his friends as an exorbitant sponge upon them, and the world ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... streets. Some projected far over the narrow roadway—competition to attract attention and custom is no modern novelty—some were fastened to posts or pillars in front of the houses. By the time of Charles II the overhanging signs had become a nuisance and a danger, and in the seventh year of that King's reign an Act was passed providing that no sign should hang across the street, but that all should be fixed to the balconies or fronts or sides of houses. This ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... because he said he wanted a good solid ground-work to build upon. Perhaps The Bradder asked that he might be left alone, for certainly no one bothered him and he bothered nobody with the exception of me. I admit that I found him a very great nuisance, for I had been compelled to read during the last two terms, and I had not been smitten with any enthusiasm for an examination which was in the far distance. In fact I wanted to slack, and I did not see why Jack should choose my rooms ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... bonga[3] haunted the house of a certain man and became such a nuisance that the man had him exorcised and safely pegged down to the ground; and they fenced in the place where the bonga lay with thorns and put a large stone on the top of him. Just at the place was a clump of "Kite's claws" bushes and ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... nuisance for him," she reflected, "to have a young woman thrust upon him in this fashion. It won't do to upset Fay, but I must tell him at the first opportunity that none of these ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... have laughed at them if your better judgment hadn't been ruined by liquor. Sorry for you, Kane, but you've been drinking just enough to be a nuisance, and must stay where you are for the night. They'll be sorry for what they said in the morning.—Did you lock up the others, Mr. Merton?" he asked, ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... response of any kind; the undershot jaw became more intolerant. The personage made his opinion of the group disconcertingly plain, and the old boys understood that he knew them for a worthless lot of senile loafers, as great a nuisance in his building as was the snow without; and much too evident was his unspoken threat to see that the manager cleared them out of ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... voice this time. We could make out the three figures. "Darned nuisance, them deers is. They'd have been shot long ago if the spring-house girl hadn't objected. She thinks she's ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a nuisance! Turn the whole place upside down and inside out, for a few dollars! Let's get the money by subscription. Everybody would be glad to give something ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... one to me. His speciality is birds, and he must be a frightful nuisance to them. I shouldn't care to be a bird if Brown knew where my nest was. It isn't that he takes their eggs. If he would merely rob them and go away it wouldn't matter so much. They could always begin again after a decent interval. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... with authority and ample competence to repair the palaces there. The city was then infested with bandits, a not unnatural product of the warlike era. Chiba Tsunetane, specially despatched from Kamakura, dealt drastically with this nuisance, and good order ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... a mode of distorting the sense of inferiority into a sense of superiority, or a mimicry of superiority interposed between the laugher and his feeling of inferiority. Two persons in conversation {253} agreed that it was often a nuisance not to be able to lay hands on a bit of paper to mark the place in a book, every bit of paper on the table was sure to contain something not to be spared. I very quietly said that I always had a stock of bookmarkers ready cut, with a proper place for ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... undertaken. As summer came on, the island sent forth multitudes of snakes from their lurking- places, which infested the camp, making their way in some instances into our very beds. This was bad enough, but it was not the only nuisance to which we were subject. The alligators, which during the winter months lie in a dormant state, now began to awaken, and prowling about the margin of the pool, created no little alarm and agitation. Apparently confounded at our invasion of their territories, these monsters at ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... hours," he said. "I have looked you up at the first opportunity. Now am I a nuisance? Be frank! I told the servant that if you were at work you weren't to be disturbed. Don't humbug about it; if I am in the way, ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Nabob, however, Jenkins had another call to make. But it seemed to be a great nuisance to him. However, as he had promised! So he said, with sudden decision, as ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... would be called upon to prove would be the elevation of the machine. If it were reasonably close to the ground there would, of course, be grave risk of damage to fences, shrubbery, and other property, and the court would be justified in holding it to be a nuisance that ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... until he got on the king's head. Here he received recognition from the king by a slap, and when he boasted to a dog of his success, the latter said: "Some get attention by their merit, others by their demerit. In making yourself a nuisance you get recognition before the lords of the realm, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... confounded nuisance!" growled the purser. "He wants to show us he knows Adolph Meyer; wants to put Meyer under an obligation. It means a scene on the wharf, and newspaper talk; and," he added with disgust, "these smoking-room rows never helped ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... popularity had suffered a shock, did not appear to care. He went on with his plans for enlarging his estate and, when he left East Wellmouth for New York, which he did early in October, told those who asked him that he had left the purchase of the "boarding-house nuisance" in the hands of his attorney. "I shall have that property," he announced, emphatically. "I may not get it for some time, but I shall get it. I make it a point to ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cold water seemed to revive the wounded lad. He opened his eyes and attempted to smile, although his lips were twitching with pain. "What a nuisance I am, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... but this also, like other grants already referred to, was based expressly upon grounds clearly distinguishable in principle from any which can be assumed for the bill herewith returned, viz, upon the interest and duty of the proprietor. They were charged, and not without reason, to be a nuisance to the inhabitants of the surrounding country. The measure was predicated not only upon the ground of the disease inflicted upon the people of the States, which the United States could not justify as a just and honest proprietor, but also upon an express ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... the nuisance he took that sachet wrapped in tissue paper, and put it in the round, japanned tin box where he kept his collars, and let his collars run loose about the drawer. He shut the lid down tight on the smell and took the box and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... liquor selling place is not only a declared nuisance, but a constitutional outlaw. And in the case from Pennsylvania where a private individual had abated a nuisance, the court held: "We consider it also well settled, as is claimed by this defendant, that a ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... oil. If you're married, an' you're looking for a son, it's a sure gamble you get a gal. Most everything in life's just about as crazy as they'll allow outside a foolish house, and as for life itself, well, it's a darn nuisance anyway, but one you're mighty glad keeps ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... an accident the other night,' Mr. Thomasson answered. 'A monstrous nuisance for him. He and his noble friend, Lord Almeric Doyley, played a little trick on a—on one of the College servants. The clumsy fellow—it is marvellous how awkward that class of persons is—fell down the stairs ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... then, of being exposed in the papers (as one person present obscurely threatened), I considered the matter, and, at length, said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would, that afternoon, strive my best to rid them of the nuisance ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... described was Kermode's companion, and he could imagine their wandering up and down the province, one as irresponsible as the other; meeting with strange experiences, stubbornly braving the perils of the wilds; making themselves a nuisance to business men in the cities. The matter had, however, a more serious aspect. Prescott had spent some time on the useless search and he could not continue it throughout the winter. It would be futile to speculate on the movements of men so erratic as ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... we to have fastened upon us this nuisance that is spreading itself among all the newspapers,—I mean the abominable smell caused by the sizing or something else in the manufacture? For a long time it was the "Christian Register" alone that had it, and ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... two dogs was very much annoyed by the dogs barking at night. It began to be such a nuisance that the throwing of old shoes and empty bottles did not stop the noise. The only thing that seemed to put a stop to it ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... a nuisance!" for I shared the common antipathy to his country and his creed. Nor was his appearance prepossessing—one of Froude's "tonsured peasants," as I looked down at the square shoulders, the stout, short figure and the broad beardlessness of the ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... the air, flinging down upon the hum and traffic of the city its oft-repeated benediction of peace; but anybody but a Lowlander would get very weary of it. These chimes, to be sure, are better than those in London, which became a nuisance; but there is in all of them a tinkling attempt at a tune, which always ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... merely threw away her handkerchief and put the chemise on the Queen. In her haste she knocked down the Queen's hair. The latter burst out laughing, to hide her annoyance; and only murmured several times between her teeth: "This is odious! What a nuisance!" ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... will tolerate as equably as they can, the devotion of a little space to it in the interest of the majority. Perhaps the objectors may ultimately be able to settle the difficulty as we and our house have settled another unconquerable nuisance—the dandelions on our lawns—: we ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... seabreeze was whipping ashore at Canaveral Space Port; not strong enough to be a nuisance, but strong enough to blow Senator Darius' emerald green tie persistently around behind his neck. He was still puffing a little from his climb up the steps to the balcony on top of the Space Control Center. As soon as he caught his breath he tugged at Jordan's elbow and said, "Mr. Jordan, I have ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... somewhat irritable old gentleman, having been thus disturbed two nights in succession, determined that he would no longer subject himself to the nuisance. He bought a single sash and inserted a second window on the other side of his door; a device which not only saved him from intrusion, but served as a guide to his neighbors in finding their own houses. It was also a very obvious improvement, and we ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced down over the river. There was little air, but the sight of that breadth of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. 'The great thing,' he thought 'is not to make myself a nuisance. I'll think of my little sweet, and go to sleep.' But it was long before the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into the short slumber of the summer morning. And old Jolyon had but ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "What a nuisance, Peter, they'll all be wanting to talk now, and I am just so comfortably off. Well, I suppose it's no use trying to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... mentioned these circumstances, which took a long time to settle, as the Dyaks are very fond of speechifying, which they do sitting, without action or vivacity, but with great fluency, and using often highly metaphysical and elegant language. It was a great nuisance having fifty naked savages in the house all night, extended in the hall and the anterooms. They finished a bottle of gin, and then slept; and I could not avoid remarking that their sleep was light, such as temperance, health, and exercise ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the hacienda offers its hospitality to all travellers, and there was room in our caravanserai for yet more visitors if they had come. Our beds were like those in general use in the tropics, where mattresses would be unendurable, and even the pillows become a nuisance. The frame of the bed has a piece of coarse cloth stretched tightly over it; a sheet is laid upon this, and another sheet covers the sleeper. This compromise between a bed and a hammock answers the purpose better than anything else, and admits of some circulation of air, especially when you ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... from Walter Fletcher. "You are always getting into trouble, and are becoming the terror of other boys. Why do you not play more quietly? The feuds between the boys of different wards are becoming a serious nuisance, and many injuries have been inflicted. I hear that the matter has been mentioned in the Common Council, and that there is a talk of issuing an order that no boy not yet apprenticed to a trade shall be allowed ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... little detached house in the Brompton neighbourhood, do you? Most of my old theatrical friends live about there—a detached house, mind! The fact is, I have taken to the violin lately (I wonder what I shall take to next?); Mrs. Ralph accompanies me on the pianoforte; and we might be an execrable nuisance to very near neighbours—that's all! You don't know of a house? Never mind; I can go to an agent, or something of that sort. Clara shall know to-night that we are moving prosperously, if I can only give the worthiest creature ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... grand in life, that is glorious in thought, depend upon our own exertions. This is as true of women as of men. Then the idler is a leech on himself—his own despoiler. An idle woman is as base a thing as an idle man. She was made for usefulness. A drone in any hive is a base bee—a nuisance, a leech, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... flock was sold and Isaac was left without sheep, and with little to do except to wait from Michaelmas to Candlemas, when there would be sheep again at the farm. It was a long time to Isaac, and he found his enforced holiday so tedious that he made himself a nuisance to his wife in the house. Forty times a day he would throw off his hat and sit down, resolved to be happy at his own fireside, but after a few minutes the desire to be up and doing would return, and up he would get and out he would go again. One dark cloudy evening ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from Macao to Valparaiso. At Valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most probably, as I afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... serve seven years as apprentices (something, I must admit, very like slavery), after which they were free for ever and all. I fear they generally used their freedom in a way that made them a public nuisance wherever they were. However, they were free, and that satisfied ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... and if it had been, this exhibition of bad manners and bad nature on his part would have changed it. Father and I consider him—well, a nuisance. There, I'm giving you a confidence. We've tolerated him because Mr. Menocal senior is a gentleman, and a friend. Now I hope you'll not think me too talkative, but an explanation was necessary; and as far as Charlie Menocal is concerned, ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... is rather a nuisance. His bright, chatty way and deference please the Rajah; and I suppose you are right, for he's always proposing something that amuses the stolid Malay, while my prosing about ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... modest palace on the Linden. German manners, even at Court, were sometimes brutal, and German thoroughness at school was apt to be routine. Bismarck himself was then struggling to begin a career against the inertia of the German system. The condition of Germany was a scandal and nuisance to every earnest German, all whose energies were turned to reforming it from top to bottom; and Adams walked into a great public school to get educated, at precisely the time when the Germans wanted most to get rid of the education they were forced to follow. As an episode in the search ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... a nuisance. And on such a busy day. (changing) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one you should worry about. (answering his look) Why, he got it all ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... to the shelf which constituted Dorothy's prison-house. He was keeping watch and ward with his good friend "Black Bull Pup," who also sat smoking opposite him. Their rifles lay alongside; they had finished a recherche repast of roasted dog, and were both very sleepy. It was a horrible nuisance having to keep awake such a warm afternoon. No one was going to intrude upon their privacy, for they had heard that the British General, Middleton, was in hot pursuit after Poundmaker, and it was unlikely that Jumping ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... the Inspector of Grates will be an infernal nuisance. Nothing makes a man more unpopular than interference in a quarrel between husband and wife, and I imagine that there will be many little suburban ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... my own—and yours." He paused and his black eyes, again glassy, swept over us. "It is a compliment I pay you," he said finally. "You have become too troublesome. You know too much. Sooner or later the time would come when you would combine your forces. That would be a nuisance. So I decided to bring ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... and often, after laboriously giving birth to an article, have concealed it in a drawer rather than run the risk of boring anyone with its perusal. Snaggs, however, will be fashioned of more pachydermatous material and will daily make himself such a nuisance that they'll give him an order, and possibly a long contract, to get rid of him. By a proper system of book-keeping he will also save me from the occasional blunder of sending the same article to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... a "complete turning away from self," common sense revolts. It is not true either in every-day life or in larger matters of conduct. In every-day life the incurably "unselfish" person is an intolerable nuisance. Here the common-sense rule is very simple: you have no right to seek your own "salvation," or, in non-theological terms, your own self-approval, at the cost of other people's; you have no business to offer sacrifices which the other party ought not to ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... was the highest, and that only in gold; for a fiver that Dr. Marsh exchanged he only got $24 instead of $24 30c. Well, we shall see when we get to Montreal and deliver the circular notes. The landing and all the Customs business was a great nuisance, though we got through capitally. I waited quietly till the hoorooche was all over, and then went and collared the most benevolent-looking old chap to come and stir up our baggage. I had them all unstrapped and ready, and he just ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... What are the differences between overthrow, suppress, and subvert? especially between the last two of those words? 6. How does prohibit differ from abolish? 7. What word do we especially use of putting an end to a nuisance? 8. What other words of this class are especially referred to? 9. Give ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... these shells is so exhausting to the youthful crayfish that only a small number ever grow up. In America, where a large freshwater crayfish nearly a foot long is found, its burrowing habits are a serious nuisance, especially in the dykes of the Mississippi. In those streams from which these interesting little creatures have entirely disappeared it might be worth while to introduce the large Continental crayfish. As it is bred artificially, ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... is written special attention ought to be devoted to the many devices which have been employed by the soldier. For example, the Turks opposite to The Kangaroos were always sapping towards the Australasian lines. This was a nuisance. The constant pick! pick! pick! upset everybody. Night after night these Turkish moles had to be bombed away. One evening a sapping party recommenced operations quite near to Claud ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... he, looking at me over his glasses, "I am going to make myself disagreeable. I am going to be that damned nuisance, a candid friend; but somebody's got to speak to you, for you're just letting that girl of yours ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... present system of the officering and personnel of the army and navy of these States, and the spirit and letter of their trebly-aristocratic rules and regulations, is a monstrous exotic, a nuisance and revolt, and belong here just as much as orders of nobility, or the Pope's council of cardinals. I say if the present theory of our army and navy is sensible and true, then the rest of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... skin, and the other a soft, brown, sluggish fly. "This last is the most numerous. In some of the lakes such quantities are forced into the bays when the wind blows hard, that they are pressed together in dead multitudes and remain a great nuisance. I have several times, in my inland voyages from York Fort (Hudson's Bay), found it scarcely possible to land in some of those bays for the intolerable stench of those insects, which in some places were lying in putrid masses to the depth of two or three feet." ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... longer this fiery discussion might have proceeded it is difficult to say. The constable of the night, finding that the two hypocritical vagabonds were a nuisance to the whole place, had them handcuffed together, and both placed in the black hole ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... prairie was hardly the place to enjoy a quiet life, but that, in the present circumstances, the best thing he could do toward securing his wished-for tranquillity, was immediately to put a period to the nuisance that disturbed it. But again the captain's easy good-nature recoiled from the task. The somewhat vigorous measures necessary to gain the desired result were utterly repugnant to him; he preferred to pocket his grievances, still retaining the privilege of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Barque, with a smile and an engaging air, "we're not like those disagreeable people who get drunk and make themselves a nuisance. May we have ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the hat of emerald hue; I have made a lot of fun of things that honestly were none of My blanked business—and I knew that it was true. At the shameless subway smoker I have been a ceaseless joker—— For that nuisance daily gets me in a huff— But the one that makes me maddest is that pestilential faddist Who is carrying his kerchief in ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... a very limited scale. They had a few ironworks, but they were forbidden to erect another furnace, or another mill for manufacturing iron rods or plates, and such industries were declared to be a nuisance. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... real blessings flow; With sight and sound of every kind that lives, And crowning all with joy that freedom gives? Who could from these, in some unhappy day, Bear to be drawn by ruthless arms away, To the vile nuisance of a noisome room, Where only insolence and misery come? (Save that the curious will by chance appear, Or some in pity drop a fruitless tear); To a damp Prison, where the very sight Of the warm sun is favour and not right; Where all we ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... but it was not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my friend, "I think I shall emigrate ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... line, was very sandy, and after the winter rains had knitted it together it began to crumble under the sun's heat, and it soon cut up badly when two or three limbers had passed over it. The sandy earth was also a great nuisance in the region between Khan Yunus and Shellal, but between Deir el Belah and our Gaza front, excepting on the belt near the sea which was composed of hillocks of sand precisely similar to the Sinai Desert, ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... and occupied a dozen graves, for I think you may find a dozen of them here," laughed the doctor. "A resident of this vicinity had what was called the grave of Hamlet in his grounds, which proved to be a nuisance to him, on account of the great number of visitors who came to see it. In order to relieve himself of this injury to his garden, he got up another 'grave of Hamlet,' in another place, which he proved to be the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... and stretched. "He's a little fellow with six legs and a leathery hide. A nuisance on Balera, which is the equivalent of a Terran swamp. He eats every vegetable known, dry or fresh, and, being only two inches long is hard to see. He doesn't bite, just eats things and breeds. There must be millions ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... appears that all the rest of these 'Chapels of Ease' unblushingly gave the lie, so far as in them lay, to the declaration of our Lord that the poor have the Gospel preached unto them. Some time had yet to elapse before improved feeling could do much towards abating the unchristian nuisance. But energetic protests were occasionally heard. 'I would reprobate,' wrote Mrs. Barbauld (1790) 'those little gloomy solitary cells, planned by the spirit of aristocracy, which deform the building no less to the eye of taste than to the eye of benevolence, and insulating each family ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... "We'll soon be gone and you'll be free from the soldier nuisance. And Dick Tillhurst is sure to run up here again soon. Besides, you have all ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... "Ah! what a nuisance people's people are! Try and make him come. By the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before eleven. What did you do afterwards? ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... a nuisance. You can't walk a half mile without having half a dozen of them holding out their hands for pennies. A fellow can't carry his pocket full of pennies ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... taken more than the turkey's egg. The mosquitoes were a little troublesome after sunset and in the early part of the night; but, after that time, it was too cold for them. The flies were a much greater nuisance; at times absolutely intolerable, from the pertinacity with which they clung to the corners of our eyes, to the lips, to the ears, and even to the sores on our fingers. The wind was generally from the eastward ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... nuisance! Put it into your pocket again, or throw it out at the window." But Mr. Richards preferred obeying the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... animated as soon as he had recovered, which he quickly did, from the exhaustion of a long and severe day's work, and his fund of anecdote appeared inexhaustible. Never was any man farther removed from being that insufferable social nuisance, a professed talker. Display of any kind was quite foreign to his nature; and whenever he chanced to encounter a person cursed with that propensity, he would sit in silence for a whole evening: not in the silence of vexation or pique, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... if we cannot well gainsay it, we are at least not obliged to read his works. An architect or a sculptor, however, or a public performer of any sort, that thrusts before us a spectacle justified only in his inner consciousness, makes himself a nuisance. A social standard of taste must assert itself here, or else no efficacious and cumulative art can exist at all. Good taste in such matters cannot abstract from tradition, utility, and the temper of the world. It must make itself an interpreter of humanity and think esoteric ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... seemed like a stage-coach. He paced up and down the narrow corridor till the steward looked at him curiously, and people began to regard him with suspicion as a possible criminal. He made himself a nuisance to the ticket-inspector, and when they waited for ten minutes outside the harbour station he dragged out his watch every few moments, and made scathing comments upon the railway company and every one connected with it. Nevertheless, he found himself in ample ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... bad," Go told Rip. "The base is comfortable and we only work a two hour shift out of each ten. We've had a plague of silly dillies recently. They got into one man's suit while we were working, but mostly they're just a nuisance." ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... skipper; it would feed you up after a while, I think. It's bally lonely in the evening, and we can't always get a car to town. It's a damned nuisance getting out again, too." Then, as the orderly brought glasses and a bottle: "Have a spot. It's Haig and Haig, Mackay, and ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... particulars. What are his tonsils for? They perform no useful function; they have no value. They are but a trap for tonsilitis and quinsy. And what is the appendix for? It has no value. Its sole interest is to lie and wait for stray grape-seeds and breed trouble. What is his beard for? It is just a nuisance. All nations persecute it with the razor. Nature, however, always keeps him supplied with it, instead of putting it on his head, where it ought to be. You seldom see a man bald-headed on his chin, but on his head. A man wants to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Romayne has the floor," said the Reverend Mr. Rhye, who himself was tingling with desire for utterance. Mr. Romayne's appearance and voice suggested the boredom of one who felt the whole thing to be rather a nuisance. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Commissioner as a nuisance unfortunately not to be set aside. What exasperated him, especially in regard to the High Commissioner, was the fact that he knew quite well that Sir Alfred Milner could assume the responsibility for concluding peace when that time ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... July is simply a nuisance in New York. The weather is generally very warm. There is an early parade of the First Division of the National Guard, and at night there are fine displays of fireworks in various parts of the city. The greater part ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... fly papers, poisons, and traps are at best only temporary expedients. The most logical method of abating the fly nuisance is the elimination or treatment of all breeding places. It would appear from what is known of the life history and habits of the common house fly that it is perfectly feasible for cities and towns to reduce the numbers of this annoying and dangerous insect so greatly as to render it of comparatively ...
— The House Fly and How to Suppress It - U. S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 1408 • L. O. Howard and F. C. Bishopp
... could get a couple of you men to do the work on my claims," she went on. "I'm paying four dollars and board, and it would be a great nuisance to make the long trip to town and find a couple of men I would dare trust. In fact, it's going to be pretty hard for me to trust any one, after this experience. If you men can take the ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... will keep out a herd of zebra, and in one rush a field of grain is ruined by these giant herds. Experiments have failed satisfactorily to domesticate the zebra, and so he remains a menace to agriculture and a nuisance in all respects except as adding a picturesque note to ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... make our surroundings more comfortable and inviting. He regretted, perhaps as much as we did, our having to travel so long a time with this great ox so close to us; and yet ere we reached the end of our journey, it seemed almost a certainty, that what we had considered an unmitigated nuisance, had been our salvation. One night, in our anxiety to push on, the Indians decided not to go ashore and camp, but to sail on all night as the wind was favourable. During the small hours the wind increased almost to a gale, while ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... fancy of Pye-Powder? Tell all it does, or does not know, For swearing ex officio? Be forc'd t' impeach a broken hedge, And pigs unring'd at Vis. Franc. Pledge? 310 Discover thieves, and bawds, recusants, Priests, witches, eves-droppers, and nuisance: Tell who did play at games unlawful, And who fill'd pots of ale but half-full And have no pow'r at all, nor shift, 315 To help itself at a dead lift Why should not conscience have vacation As well as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... so eminent a man in the capacity of invalid, a nuisance about the house, was almost too much for Roland's shrinking nature. The kindness of the Windlebirds—and there seemed to be nothing that they were not ready to do for him—distressed him beyond measure. To have a really great man like Geoffrey Windlebird sprawling genially over his bed, chatting ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... pen-men who, possessed of more pretension than foresight, wrote bombastic articles in the Transvaal Press before the war, threatening that "South Africa will cut the painter", and "paddle her own canoe", if men and women in Europe made themselves a nuisance by advocating ideas of justice in favour of the blacks? General Botha confessed last September that the South African Government tried to, but could not, borrow more than 2,000,000 Pounds; that the Imperial Government had come to the rescue and "helped ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... he took command with a firm hand, organised the whole male population into a warlike garrison, built barricades across the streets, planted cannon in commanding positions, cleared the town of flocks and herds, which were breeding a nuisance, sent them to the open country with a cattle guard, and prepared not only to defend the capital, but to carry war into the enemy's country. In short, he breathed into the people much of his own energy, and soon ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... enormous acreage of so-called forest and moor. Mr. Dobbes declared that nothing like it had as yet been produced in Scotland. Everything had been made to give way to deer and grouse. The thing had been managed so well that the tourist nuisance had been considerably abated. There was hardly a potato patch left in the district, nor a head of cattle to be seen. There were no inhabitants remaining, or so few that they could be absorbed in game-preserving or cognate duties. Reginald Dobbes, who was very great at grouse, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... this would generally be, a trial of the candy on the first premonitory symptoms of a cough or influenza. The degree to which this system of advertising has since been carried has rendered it a bore and a nuisance. The usual result of almost any great and original achievement is, the production of a shoal of brainless imitators, who ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the Vale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a nuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the question is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or advantage to that eminently ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... out from an upper window of the Walladmor Arms, and fulminating all sorts of maledictions upon them, their officers, and their profession. Consideration for his age would not allow them to think of any severe vengeance: but, as they had caught the old nuisance, they determined to retort his civilities in a pleasant practical way, and to have a little sport before they parted with him. Placing themselves therefore in a ring they sent round this shining light of politics from hand to ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... poor folk is that they do not know how to commit suicide, and usually have to make two or three attempts before they succeed. This, very naturally, is a horrid nuisance to the constables and magistrates, and gives them no end of trouble. Sometimes, however, the magistrates are frankly outspoken about the matter, and censure the prisoners for the slackness of their attempts. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... tenant of any order or degree known to make such conditions with a landlord as were made by this eccentric stranger. Every household convenience with which the people at the lodgings could offer to accommodate him, Mat considered to be a domestic nuisance which it was particularly desirable to get rid of. He stipulated that nobody should be allowed to clean his room but himself; that the servant-of-all-work should never attempt to make his bed, or offer to put sheets on it, or venture to cook him a morsel of dinner ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... something had really happened. I thought over one or two things a little as well. It was simply foolishness, I told myself to go on playing the stranger here and pretending nobody knew. And a full beard was a nuisance in the hot weather; moreover, it was grey, and made me look ever so old. So I set to and ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... tension of the Commonwealth period had relaxed—men cannot be always at the heroic pitch—and theological disputes had issued in indifference and a skepticism which took the form of deism, or "natural religion." But the deists were felt to be a nuisance. They were unsettling opinions and disturbing that decent conformity with generally received beliefs which it is the part of a good citizen to maintain. Addison instructs his readers that, in the absence of certainty, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... I have been," said Crosbie, with a laugh. "It's an uncommon nuisance to have a black eye, and to go about looking ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... the first time to-day," he gasped, between the paroxysms. "I'm quite well really. It's the cigarette. They often have that effect. Don't look so worried, or I shall think you hate me for being a nuisance." ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... a strident voice and a swaggering walk, and a clattering tongue, she takes her course through the world like a cat-bird through an orchard; the thrushes and the robins are driven right and left before the advance of the noisy nuisance. A coarse-tongued man is bad enough, heaven knows, but when a woman descends to slangy speech, and vulgar jests, and harsh diatribes, there is no language strong enough with which to denounce her. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden |
