"Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity of that smoky atmosphere ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... with the exception of yourself, are pacing up and down the pavement to keep themselves warm; they consist of two young men with very long hair, to which the sleet has communicated the appearance of crystallised rats' tails; one thin young woman cold and peevish, one old gentleman ditto ditto, and something in a cloak and cap, intended to represent a military officer; every member of the party, with a large stiff shawl over his chin, looking exactly as if he were playing a set ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... was about his own age and size, apparently, but rather more slender in figure. He had a peevish expression, and Ernest doubted whether ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... your clumsiness, merely because he does not understand what your clumsiness means; and certainly a snake, who feels fourteen or fifteen stone stamping upon his tail, has little time for reflection, and may be allowed to be poisonous and peevish. American tigers generally run away—from which several respectable gentlemen in Parliament inferred, in the American war, that American soldiers would ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... eyebrows; their features are neither good nor bad; their whole aspect is uninteresting. They have no winning dimples, no speaking lines about the mouth. All that one can notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear she should not be listened to; so that though she was not a failure ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... when, from the top of the steep hill, she saw Albert ascending towards her. She then felt herself more secure, and went with better spirits forward. It was near Whitsuntide—the father sickly and more peevish than ever, and work bringing in no supply; for provisions had risen fearfully in price in consequence of the previous unusually hard winter. Now, as often as Maud brought the dinner to her father, he complained bitterly, and reproached her harshly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... so ill how to obey," replied Genvil; "that is what you would say; and, by my faith, I cannot deny but there may be some truth in it. But is it not peevish in thee to let a fair expedition be unwisely conducted, because of a foolish word or a sudden action?—Come, let it be ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... her mamma continued, "in the affair of the cake, endeavoring to fulfil this my duty, but you rebelled against my discretion, and would covet more than was right. You helped yourself, you gorged your stomach. You were cross and peevish, and ill, and when the medicine had relieved you, as it was designed, you, without reflection, sallied forth and suffocated the little birds. You could not feed them as the mother would. You could not find in the air and on the ground the little insects, and small worms and little grains which ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... which they resigned themselves to the post of usher in some ultra- Protestant school. Sport in all its forms, art and literature, being alike forbidden, the boy's hungry energy had found no reasonable outlet. He had been miserable, peevish, ailing, until at barely eighteen—after a discreditable episode with a scullery-maid—he had been shipped off to New York to learn business in the house of certain brokers and bill-discounters with whom Messrs. Barking Brothers ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... for some weeks past, I have been forced in my own defence, to follow a proceeding that I have so much condemned in others. But several of my acquaintance among the declining party, are grown so insufferably peevish and splenetic, profess such violent apprehensions for the public, and represent the state of things in such formidable ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions, though I know ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... a giniral way he is a miserable critter, for nothin' is good enough for him or done right, and his appetite gives itself as many airs, and requires as much waitin' on, as a crotchetty, fanciful, peevish old lady of fashion. If a man's sensibility is all in his palate he can't in course have much in his heart. Makin' oneself miserable, fastin' in sackcloth and ashes, ain't a bit more foolish than makin' ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... an' straining— But truce with peevish, poor complaining! Is fortune's fickle Luna waning? E'n let her gang! Beneath what light she has remaining, Let's ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... girls on hearing these spiteful and silly speeches, born of an envy that now rushed, peevish and drivelling, to avenge the past, would have felt the blood mount to their foreheads; others would have wept; some would have undergone spasms of anger; but Modeste smiled, as we smile at the theatre while watching the actors. Her pride could not descend so low ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... because you were clumsy,' Moti answered. Moti was peevish that afternoon. The Maharajah had refused him a gun, and he particularly wanted a gun, not to shoot anything, but to frighten the crows with and perhaps the coolie-folk. To console himself Moti had eaten twice as many sweetmeats as were good for him, ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... perpetually—now this, now that—now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love any place ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... up with a peevish frown. Then something like a pitying smile warmed her expression. She was a handsome creature, of a large, somewhat bold type, with a passionate glow of strong youth and health in every feature of her well-shaped face. She was taller than her diminutive husband, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... and bracing mirth. Must be so, because Doctor Frank Crane and Ralph Waldo Trine have often said so. Christmas hard on people like that, however: they are bursting with the Christmas spirit all the year round; very trying when the real occasion comes. That's the beauty of having a peevish and surly disposition: when one softens up at Christmas everybody notices it and is pleased. Chaucer, fine old English poet, first English humorist, gave good picture of Christmas cheer more than five hundred years ago. Never quoted on Christmas cards, why not copy it here? Chaucer's ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... not a fair view of the case. A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclus desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of the three occupants of the bed; she was about eight years old; her small face was delicate in its outline, her mouth peevish; she did not look a strong child, and self-control could scarcely be expected ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... ado, his Book before him laid, And Parchment with the smoother side display'd; He takes the Papers, lays 'em down agen, And with unwilling fingers tries his Pen; Some peevish quarrel straight he tries to pick, His Quill writes double, or his Ink's too thick; Infuse more Water; now 'tis grown too thin, It sinks, nor can the characters be ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... travesties it in intrigue. But she failed to crown her career by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very much offended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV., she further irritated them by her peevish attitude and marked discontent. The Marquis de Brancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articles of the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. in such wise as the Emperor and his allies wished them to ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the hands of Mme. Levicq—that was the name of my governess. The next day my mother left me and I repeated my disturbance, crying, stamping my feet, and calling to mother Catharine and Bastien. (To tell the truth, Jerome and Matthieu were two big lubbers [rougeots] very peevish and coarse-mannered, which I could not endure.) Madame put a book into my hands and wished to have me repeat after her; I threw the book at her head. Then, rightly enough, in despair she placed me where ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... with a commonplace tenderness; damps his fire with an insipid, chilling kiss, and measures out her attentions to him with a niggardly economy. Poor husband! Here, a blooming beauty smiles upon him—there he is nauseated by a peevish sensibility. Signora, signora, for God's sake consider, if he have not lost his understanding, which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the Mexicans, filling them with promises and expectations of enjoying gold in abundance. From the negligent coldness of his reception in Tezcuco, and the similar appearances in Mexico, he became vexed, disappointed, and peevish; insomuch, that when the officers of Montezuma came to wait upon him, and expressed the wishes of their master to see him, Cortes exclaimed angrily: "Away with the dog, wherefore does he neglect to supply us." The captains De Leon, De Oli, and De Lugo, happening to be present on this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... suffering from a by no means severe attack of a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the moment by a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... miserable she was, often! How mortified and ashamed of herself! This was all so different from what she had meant to be when Effie went away—a help and a comfort to all. There were times when she strove bravely with herself: she strove to be less peevish, and to join the rest in their efforts to be useful and cheerful; but she almost always failed, and every new failure left her less able and less ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropt it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and pick'd it up again—God help thee, Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't—and many a bitter day's labour,—and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages—'tis ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... growing unpleasantly hot and I longed to get rid of my heavy, sodden great-coat. The strap of my haversack was making my shoulder ache. I became peevish and fretful ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... smile so sweet that she had never seen one like it before. From that moment a wonderful change came over the child. He understood the new affection that had come instead of dislike and loathing in the woman's heart. That touch of human love transformed his peevish, fretful nature into gentle quiet and beauty. The woman had seen a vision of herself in that blotched, repulsive child, and of Christ's wonderful love for her in spite of her sinfulness. Under the inspiration of this vision she had become indeed as Christ ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... was still in his bath. At length he arrived on the scene, beaming, with a sulky chameleon in his pocket, and flew about giving last directions, until he suddenly discovered that there was a violent hurry, whereupon he began to be boyishly peevish with the chauffeur for not getting off an hour ago. No sooner had the car started, however, than he fell into a serious mood, telling Stephen of many things which he had thought out in the night—things which might be helpful in finding Victoria. He had been lying awake, it seemed, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... never more peevish in my life than I have been about this journey of Bridgeman's. I am sure I took true pains that it should have been just as the Duchess wished. I find upon enquiry that he did not go as soon as I expected. He told me of the first letter which ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... falls a-thinking of the old 'un, she an't what you may call good company. Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy—and you, ma'am—wen Mrs. Gummidge takes to wimicking,'—our old country word for crying,—'she's liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like. Now I DID know the old 'un,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and I know'd his merits, so I unnerstan' her; but 'tan't entirely so, you see, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... he left no legacy, Save that his story teaches:— Content to peevish poverty; Humility to riches. Ye scornful great, ye envious small, Come follow in his track; We all were happier, if we all ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with the sensibility of the woman. . . . Alas for him! He, too, might have discovered what Byron did; for were not his errors avenged upon him within, more terribly even than without? His cries are like the wails of a child, inarticulate, peevish, irrational; and yet his pain fills his whole being, blackens the very face of nature to him: but he will not confess himself in the wrong. Once only, if we recollect rightly, the truth flashes across him for a moment, and the clouds ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was not the thought of her neglected opportunities that was making her so peevish this morning. She was cross because she could make nothing out of the number of suspicious facts that she had collected about Margaret. Of what use was it to have a note-book crammed full of well-grounded evidence that Miss Carson was an ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... ask what they are, because I shan't tell you; but they're at least as intelligible as all the reasons you can find in that volume." He caught it out of his friend's hand, and read: "June 12th.—T. to-day refused his biscuit and milk at six in the morning, but took it an hour later. Peevish all night; in part (I think) because not yet recovered of his weaning, and also because his teeth (second pair on lower jaw) are troubling him. Query: If the biscuit should be boiled in the milk, or milk merely poured over the biscuit—" Here he glanced up, and seeing the anguish on the hunchback's ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock and had laughed and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of Nature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheek upon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses and Parisian ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... to see than the look of sadness or neglect which motherless children sometimes wear. It was of a wayward temper grown more wayward still for want of a mother's firm and gentle rule. One could not doubt that peevish words and angry retorts fell very naturally from those pale lips. She looked like one who needed to be treated with patience and loving forbearance, and who failed to meet either. And, indeed, the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... premature derangements, such as have been fully mentioned in the description of the precursory symptoms. The most striking is the confused, staring look, the peevish and surly behavior, and again in other cases the extreme indifference toward otherwise well-liked persons and things. Later on actual delirium sets in, but generally of a ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... amount of sharp dealing, yet implies nothing more; and 'shrewdness' is applied to men rather in their praise than in their dispraise. And not 'shrewd' and 'shrewdness' only, but a multitude of other words,—I will only instance 'prank' 'flirt', 'luxury', 'luxurious', 'peevish', 'wayward', 'loiterer', 'uncivil',—conveyed once a much more earnest moral disapproval ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... one of the faces laid by in his memory in the immense class of the falsely consequential and poor in expression. The abundant hair and very open forehead gave an appearance of consequence to the face, which had only one expression—a petty, childish, peevish expression, concentrated just above the bridge of the narrow nose. Vronsky and Madame Karenina must be, Mihailov supposed, distinguished and wealthy Russians, knowing nothing about art, like all those wealthy Russians, but posing as amateurs and connoisseurs. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... same farce and repeated it often during the evening; he mimicked as if he were calling a person on the second floor and giving her equivocal advices drawn from his imagination of a commercial traveler. At times he assumed a dismal air and sighed:—"Poor girl!"—or he muttered in his teeth, with a peevish air:—"Rascal of a Prussian!"—Several times, when the others did not think of it, he called out repeatedly in a vibrating voice: "Enough! Enough!" and he added as if soliloquizing:—"Provided that we see her again and that the wretch ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... not only an unbeliever, but one very froward, peevish, and testy, yea, so froward, &c., that I know not how to speak to him, or behave myself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... comedy will allow pictures larger than the life, that this strength of the strokes may make a deeper impression upon the mind of the spectators; that is, if a poet may make a covetous man more covetous, and a peevish man more impertinent, and more troublesome than he really is. To which I answer, that this was the practice of Plautus, whose aim was to please the people, but that Terence, who wrote for gentlemen, confined himself within the compass of nature, and represented vice without addition or aggravation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... think him so very—very ugly. When we are married I mean to make him get a Brutus, cork his eyebrows, and have a set of teeth." But just then the smiling eyes, curling hair, and finely formed person of a certain captivating Scotsman rose to view in her mind's eye; and, with a peevish "pshaw!" ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... mighty stupid day; Sir George is civil, attentive, and dull; Emily pensive, thoughtful, and silent; and my little self as peevish as an old maid: nobody comes near us, not even your brother, because we are supposed to be settling preliminaries; for you must know Sir George has graciously condescended to change his mind, and will ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... on the mend, for I was peevish, and complained: "I detest your jingle. Your Azore should be at roost, and would have been were it a respectable bird!" I begged he would tie a rope-yarn on the rest of the song, if there was any more of it. I was still in agony. Great seas were ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... thousand thanks, my dear and Beloved Augusta, for your affectionate Letter, and so ready compliance with the request of a peevish and fretful Brother; it acted as a cordial on my drooping spirits and for a while dispelled the Gloom which envelopes me in this uncomfortable place. You see what power your letters have over me, so I hope you will be ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... to blame for it the unfortunate absence of UNIVERSITY FEELING which is so marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students. Academical interests are so few and far between—students, as students, have so little in common, except a peevish rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reason I know not, for such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some new ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... domestic, "that you should sincerely think what you are now pleased to say: your old servants might well hope, that after so many years' duty, you would do their service more justice than to distrust their gray hairs, because they cannot rule the peevish humour of a green head, which the owner carries, it may be, a brace of inches higher than ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... coveted. Well for him if he had been contented with fretting. But, my friends—and be you rich or poor, take heed to my words—whenever any man gives way to selfishness, and self-seeking, to a proud, covetous, envious, peevish temper, the Devil is sure to glide up and whisper in his ear thoughts which will make him worse—worse, ay, than he ever dreamt of being. First comes the flesh, and then the Devil; and if the flesh opens ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... and he speedily found what he sought, and infected his wife and she the King, who gave it to several other women, whom he kept, and could never get thoroughly cured, for all the rest of his life he remained unhealthy, sad, peevish ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... farmer's life, he knows very much better than to pin his faith to it. To him the farmer's house is too often a place where the mother is overworked, tired, wearied with constant annoyance, and made peevish and fretful. The conversation of hired men and young neighbors and brothers is not marked by refined delicacy and simplicity, as he understands these terms. At the end of all our preaching he will say, at least to himself, that ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... of those shrill, long-drawn whistles without which in Europe no train can start. It had a peevish, infantile sound, like the squeak of a nursery toy. But it was as ominous as though some one ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I could find no pretext for fault-finding. It was impossible to conceive more nerve or spirit, better time or measure, more clearness or richness, than were in this drumming. Ideal desire could go no farther in that direction. I was enchanted and consoled; the perfection of this wretched ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Mihul. Even theoretically a stunner-max blast couldn't cause Mihul the slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mihul had stated she would hold no grudges over a successful escape attempt; and even if they caught up with her again before she got to Manon, this attempt ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... said to me, "Your children seem made for this life." But I know it was God's great goodness. He knew how hard the life was, and how difficult it would have been for me to continue that work had the children been peevish or hard to manage. Time and time again we had to get the little ones up before daybreak to start on a cart journey, but I do not remember that they ever even cried. They would just wake up enough to get dressed and ask sleepily, "Are we going again, Mama?" and then go ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... olympian heads, or men of genius, who can show this utter confidence, this generous devotion to weakness, this constant protection, this love without jealousy, this easy good humor with a woman. Good heavens! I place the science of the countess's management of her husband as far above the peevish, arid virtues as the satin of a causeuse is superior to the Utrecht velvet of a ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... in wondering delight, in timid awe. He who had hated women because they were so weak, so peevish, and insignificant, now saw before him a woman with the energy of a hatred such as he had scarcely known himself, with the enthusiasm of a revengefulness that shrank back from no dangers and no obstacles. Under this delicate, ethereal female ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... devout life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is a sort of shadow of despair, and will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... which should have been left to him to arrange. He complained bitterly of the way in which he was reduced to a cypher—'degraded from a general to the "Lord-Lieutenant's head constable."' Broadfoot went from the General to the Envoy, who 'was peevish,' and denounced the General as fidgety. He declared the enemy to be contemptible, and that as for Broadfoot and his sappers, twenty men with pickaxes were enough; all they were wanted for was to pick stones from under the gun wheels. ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... in a cab, don't you feel that those people are giving themselves absurd airs of importance? If he lives with great people, are you not sure he is a sneak? And if you ever felt envy towards another, and if your heart has ever been black towards your brother, if you have been peevish at his success, pleased to hear his merit depreciated, and eager to believe all that is said in his disfavor—my good sir, as you yourself contritely own that you are unjust, jealous, uncharitable, so, you may be sure, some men are uncharitable, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proceeding was approved by the best authorities. However, I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject. I saw them, on all sides, ill half the time, pale and peevish, dying early, having no joy in life. I heard parents complaining of weary days and sleepless nights, while each child, in turn, ran the gauntlet of red gum, jaundice, whooping cough, chicken-pox, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... speech naturally runs into the notes peculiar to any of these moods, are likewise in nature hereunto congenerous? C Fa ut may show me to be of an ordinary capacity, though good disposition. G Sol re ut, to be peevish and effeminate. Flats, a manly or melancholic sadness. He who hath a voice which will in some measure agree with all cliffs, to be of good parts, and fit for variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Likewise from the TIMES: so semi-briefs may speak a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and wondered if she would have any Christmas evergreens to ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... far when news came of the death of Lord Byron, and put an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective, which was intended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that we were writing his epitaph, we must have done it with a different feeling. As it is, we think it better and more like himself, to ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... will advance, with spirit and cheerfulness, to any service that falls in his way. But it is the practice of the bad soldier to be complaining and grumbling on all occasions; saucy in time of ease, and peevish in return for kindness; faint-hearted under hardships, and feeble in ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... Arfleet [that is, Harfleur]), for he told me that there were pavissors among them—the men with the great shields called pavices which are used only in sieges from the wooden castles that they push against the walls of the town. They were stained with travel, too, and were very silent and peevish. There were all sorts there besides the pavissors—the men-at-arms in their plate and mail-shirts, the archers in their body-armour and aprons, and the glaivemen [Glaives were a kind of pike, but with long carved cutting-blades. Bills had straight blades.] with the ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... rather a peevish and provoking way of finding fault or giving advice. Just now her voice sounded almost as if she was going to cry. But Colin was a sensible boy. He knew what she said was true, so he swallowed down ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... sphere, within which he wandered incurably idealistic, pursuing prosaic or utilitarian objects—the favor of princes, place at Courts, the recovery of his inheritance—in a romantic and unpractical spirit.[82] Vacillating, irresolute, peevish, he roamed through all the towns of Italy, demanding more than sympathy could give, exhausting friendship, changing from place to place, from lord to lord. Yet how touching was the destiny of this ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... impossible temper than ever. He seemed unable to forget my having blamed him for his treatment of the dog, and also of my servant, whom I had been obliged to protect against him when she had had a love-affair with a tailor. In spite of receiving payment and promises he remained peevish, and insisted that he would have to move into my part of the house on account of his health in the coming spring. So while I forced him, by paying advance, to leave my household goods untouched until Easter at least, I went about trying to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... delicacies that his sick appetite hungered for, and which, he fancied, would do more to restore him than all the doctors' stuff in London; and, so far, he was perhaps right. He bitterly reproached Mary for want of sympathy with his sufferings, and was peevish and cross all day. At night, however, his better nature regained the ascendant; and when he saw the poor girl wipe the tears from her eyes, as her nimble needle flew through the seams of a shirt she was making for a cheap warehouse in the Strand, his heart relented, and, holding ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... because he seeks [eagerly] for gain, and abstains from what he has gotten, and is afraid to make use of it; or because he transacts every thing in a timorous and dispassionate manner, dilatory, slow in hope, remiss, and greedy of futurity. Peevish, querulous, a panegyrist of former times when he was a boy, a chastiser and censurer of his juniors. Our advancing years bring many advantages along with them. Many our declining ones take away. That the parts [therefore] belonging to age may not be given to youth, and those of a man ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... urged that holiday-makers do not constitute reliable material for the observation of national peculiarities. I am not so sure. A man on a holiday generally takes his goodwill with him, and endeavours, at least, to restrain his temper and his prejudices. He may fail in the attempt, and be a peevish thing at play, but the attempt will show him at his best. From the hotels below, where the crowds of cosmopolis stayed en pension at reasonable and unreasonable terms, the sound of music and songs visited me in the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... evening, the whole party for Washington was assembled around the tea-table at Locust Hill. The evening passed very cheerily. The commodore, Mrs. Waugh, Marian and Thurston, were all in excellent spirits. And Thurston, out of pure good nature, sought to cheer and enliven the pretty, peevish bride, Jacquelina, who, out of caprice, affected a pleasure in his attentions that she was very far from feeling. This gave so much umbrage to Dr. Grimshaw that Mrs. Waugh really feared some unpleasant demonstration from the grim bridegroom, and ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for, David? why did you come now?" with peevish resistance to the disturbance of ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... peevish, the niggard, the dissatisfied, the passionate, the suspicious, and those who live ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and irritable. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... necessary to return the same polite language; and there has been more Billingsgate stuff uttered from the press within these two months than ever was known before." Swift himself had previously written to his friend Dr. Sheridan a letter in which he declared that "Walpole is peevish and disconcerted, stoops to the vilest offices of hireling scoundrels to write Billingsgate of the lowest and most prostitute kind, and has none but beasts and blockheads for his penmen, whom he pays in ready guineas very liberally." One would have thought that beasts and blockheads ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... the desk sergeant yawned. "Stick him in the cage. We'll call up this Lescott party later on. I guess he's still in the hay, and it might make him peevish to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... of Lord St Vincent's career, we have adverted as little as possible to the opinions which his biographer had introduced from his own view of public affairs. We have no wish to make a peevish return to the writer of a work which has given us both information and pleasure. But it is necessary to caution Mr Tucker against giving trite and trifling opinions on subjects of which he evidently knows so little as of the Romish question, or the state of Ireland. Nothing is easier than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... carved chair beside it; wizened and white-bearded, in a fur-trimmed velvet robe, with a peevish expression ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty's vivacious face outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... another when Carl offered to stand treat. Pearson bought his three quarts of liquor, paid Pete, and departed alone, Carl and Hugh having decided to have another drink or two before they returned to Haydensville. After a second high-ball Hugh did not care how many he drank and was rather peevish when Carl insisted that he stop with a third. Pete charged them eight dollars for their drinks, which they cheerfully paid, and then warily climbed the stairs and stumbled out into the cold ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... essential greatness of the blind secretary, and his letter is a fine example of the mode of humouring a great man. Be it remembered, as we read, that this letter was not addressed to one of the greatest names in literature, but to a petulant and often peevish scholar, living of necessity in great retirement, whose name is never once mentioned by Clarendon, and about whom the voluminous Thurloe, who must have seen him hundreds of times, has nothing to say except that he was "a blind man who wrote Latin ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as most men ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... I have written a letter to my lady ——, that I believe she won't like; and, upon cooler reflection, I think I had done better to have let it alone; but I was downright peevish at all her questions, and her ridiculous imagination, that I have certainly seen abundance of wonders which I keep to myself out of mere malice. She is very angry that I won't lie like other travellers. I verily believe she expects I should tell her of the Anthropophagi, men whose ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... tons more of money, &c. and then sailed for England in the month of June. When we were about the north latitude 42, we had contrary wind for several days, and the ship did not make in that time above six or seven miles straight course. This made the captain exceeding fretful and peevish: and I was very sorry to hear God's most holy name often blasphemed by him. One day, as he was in that impious mood, a young gentleman on board, who was a passenger, reproached him, and said he acted wrong; for we ought to be thankful to God for all things, as we were not in want of any ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... I have been thrust out of active life and forced to make up my mind to perfect passiveness, I have become a bugbear to myself. I cannot endure the thought of ever being the peevish egotist, the exacting tyrant, which men are apt to become when they are thrown upon woman's love and long-suffering, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... appeared to look upon their work as tasks to be executed mechanically, instead of duties to be performed with pleasure. Then again, others who really preferred the work were either kept away from it entirely, or else made dull, peevish and irritable by the great number of hours they were forced to be on duty each day, thus turning what should have been pleasant employment into a drudgery. And like the nurses, so were the orderlies; their daily work ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... little thin an' petered out under the strain, but time an' agin he succeeds in givin' 'em the slip. Sure enough he lines up a month or two later with some more of the real thing. Finally, one of these here friends gets a little peevish over his frequent failures to stack the deck on Burns. He avers that he'll insure that Burns don't spend any more coin until he divvys up, an' accordin'ly he hands him a couple of bullets where he thinks ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... coming home from a dinner and concert at the Crown and Anchor found William, in a very gloomy and peevish humour, poring over the orations of Cicero. Henry asked him several times "how he did," and similar questions, marks of his kind disposition towards his beloved brother: but all his endeavours, he perceived, could not soothe or soften the sullen ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... their pride was centered in a silver crucifix, "that keeps a man from harm"; their conscience committed to a priest; their labors for the rich; their days the same, from the rising of the sun to its going down. They did not love, and their hate was but a peevish dislike. They followed their dull routine and died the death, hopeful that they would get the reward in another world which was denied ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... been getting more and more peevish. To be sure, for two weeks, daily, his shoulders had been washed and rubbed and massaged and lotioned and parboiled and anointed and fomented and capsicon-plastered, till his very soul was sensitive and a suspicion was agrowl within him—a bad, mean feeling ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy, because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... disappointment at every indifferent one. In the progress of the game he did not follow suit, and his partner said, "What! have you not a spade, Mr. Cibber?" The latter, looking at his cards, answered, "Oh, yes, a thousand;" which drew a very peevish comment from the General. On which Cibber, who was shockingly addicted to swearing, replied, "Don't be angry, for —— I can play ten ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... if he must be disturbed, he must; but he does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl, in a peevish tone. She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such an ill-looking fellow into her master's presence. However, she wiped her hands, and bade him follow. Opening the library door, ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... the lovers, or at any rate the bride, having been without any real idea of duty or sacrifice, the match had proved one of those that serve to justify the opinions of people who are "sensible;" the young wife, wearying of the lot she had chosen, had sunk into a state of peevish discontent from which death came to ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... always turned for both, and that mother had died but a year before the return of my brother. Mr. Burnett was a quiet student, passionately fond of his books, as innocent of the world as a child, only fretful and peevish when any thing occurred to disturb the quiet monotony of his existence, and apparently unconscious that his little Helen had grown from a child to a woman. His mind was wholly wrapped up in his studies, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... never had the disease, her father did not like to send for her to come home. The children did not take to their aunt. It had been possible to get on when they were very ill, but when they began to be better they were peevish and fretful, and Aunt Livy could not please them, and nothing would do but Violet must come to them again. It did not seem possible that she could leave home, but David was to be spared as much as possible to help with the little ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... they asked the reason of the hubbub and tumult; and with that every man began to tell his own tale, so that nothing could be heard distinctly. Then was a silence commanded, and the old fox Incredulity began to speak. 'My lord,' quoth he, 'here are a couple of peevish gentlemen, that have, as a fruit of their bad dispositions, and, as I fear, through the advice of one Mr. Discontent, tumultuously gathered this company against me this day, and also attempted to run the town into acts of rebellion ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs. Minchin meant an equally hot quarrel at no very distant date. The squabble with the bride was not slow to come, but Matilda and I fell out first. I think she was tyrannical, and I know I was peevish. My Ayah spoilt me; I spoke very broken English, and by no means understood all that the Bullers said to me; besides which, I was feverishly unhappy at intervals ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a peevish voice, from amidst the blanket, "'tain't smart, neither, playin' around when a feller's kind o' roundin' up his plug. How'm I goin' to cut that all-fired buckskin out o' the bunch wi' you gawkin' around like a reg'ment ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... It was she who made me feel that we are all too ready with our peevish outcries against the beautiful world in which we have been placed; too ready to complain that all is sadness and sorrow and disappointment, when the gloom exists within ourselves, not without us; it is from ourselves the misty darkness springs; it is we ourselves who have lost, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... At luncheon, Anne's peevish mood had not diminished, which, to Sara, would have been a source of joy had she not feared that it was due to the fact that Koltsoff had not been good company all the morning. He was, in truth, quite at his wits' end to account for the behavior of Yeasky, who had been instructed ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... to my happiness. Everybody waited upon me; and perhaps it was on this account that Ernst, in comparison, seemed somewhat cold; I was the petted child of my too kind parents; I was thankless and peevish, and ah, some little of this still remains! Nevertheless, it was during this very time that, under the influence of my husband, the true beauty and reality of life became more and more perceptible to my soul. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... drew up and so, while the others were fighting their way to the van, he, who needed assistance more than any of them, was left to shift for himself. He moved with great difficulty, dragging down from the carriage a worn black bag, and occasionally muttering to himself, not as a peevish invalid would have done, but as if it were a sort of solace ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... a terrifying cry that rang shivering across the valley. She started to her feet, and listened. It must have been a dream, she thought. No! There it was again—a cry that started low, like a child's peevish wail, and ended in a piercing scream. She grabbed up her rifle, and stood ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... lost its power to dazzle her long, long ago. Perhaps the disenchantment was mutual; for the pretty, rose-cheeked, starry-eyed girl who had captivated his idle fancy had become a dream of the past, and his wife was a pale, sickly, peevish invalid, with ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... unpaved street to the tall stone cage that waited for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud plashed under their feet as if in mocking commiseration. Hoarse exclamations of sleepy voices were heard; irritated, peevish, abusive language rent the air with malice; and, to welcome the people, deafening sounds floated about—the heavy whir of machinery, the dissatisfied snort of steam. Stern and somber, the black chimneys stretched their huge, thick ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... upon the memory of that morning, reciting to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in memory the vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the wisdom of those who had determined upon a claustral life for me, admitting that I knew enough Latin to enable me to celebrate as well as another without too ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... in the morning if you jiggers will close yore traps and lemme sleep," growled a peevish voice in the next ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... peevish bull-dog. "Because I don't want it done—that's all the reason you need. I've never made any concessions to reach these damn scientists, and I don't intend to begin now. You are planning to involve us in a whole lot of noise and sensation, and I don't like it. Furthermore, I ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... know who I was an' didn't have anything on me," said Rathburn quickly. "An' I got peevish at Carlisle an' plumb suspicious when he tried to make things look bad for me right there at the start. I began to wise up to the whole lay when you got me ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... death. That time she passed in great poverty in some chambres garnies at Bruges, with her little girl and an old Madame Le Breton, the maid, housekeeper, and general factotum who had served them in the country. This woman, though of a peevish, grumbling temper, was faithful, affectionate, and not without education. She was certainly attached to little Julie, whose nurse she had been during a short period of her infancy. It was natural ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all her cap-setting and spying, had to leave her comfortable nest and go to live in a poor lodging as companion to the most grudging, peevish, tormenting one of her noble relatives, an ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... another three full Moons beguil'd, But that his forward Spouse has prov'd with Child, And now begins the drugery of Life, Lo! the vast Comforts of a Breeding Wife, Now she's grown Squeamish, such ado is kept, She e'en as peevish as an Ape new whipt, She pukes and whines, do's nothing but complain, And vows she'll never know the like again; But 'tis as Children promise to be good, Only remember'd while they feel the Rod. And now the look'd for ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... when Mrs. Breynton was in the room. Gypsy went down one evening with her mother, to help her carry a bundle of fresh bed-clothing, and she was astonished at the gentleness which had crept into the old withered face and peevish voice. Mrs. Littlejohn called her up to the bed, just as she ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... M. Fille looked furtively at the other—out of the corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was impatient, almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest, my punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am over sixty- five, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she married Jack Drayton. The afternoon we rehearsed for the wedding I looked at her, before we pranced down the aisle and endured the endless silly giggles of the bridesmaids, and the usher louts who would fall out of step, and grew more peevish by the minute. I looked her over then, and I said to myself: "You feeble paranoiac, imagine that girl tying up with you." Well, I couldn't very well imagine it, although I tried. But I was extremely noisy, and I heard two or three of the bridesmaids, to say nothing of the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... at Castle Clody, because it was her nature to foster and protect something, a cousin of hers, a peevish, exacting invalid whom we always called Miss Joan, her name ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... be thrust into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman, whereby the work of the Creator should be attributed to the power of a creature. Secondly, that the religion of the Gospel may be seen to stand without such peevish trumpery. Thirdly, that lawful favor and Christian compassion be rather used towards these poor souls than rigor and extremity. Because they which are commonly accused of witchcraft are the least sufficient ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... that I was a tiny grub, And peevish and inclined to blub, Mother, my Queen, My infant grief you would assuage With promise of the ripe greengage And purple sheen Of luscious plums, "When ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... vitiated his constitution, and a slow disease siezed upon him. He refused physick, neglected exercise, and lay down on his couch peevish and restless, rather afraid to die than desirous to live. His domesticks, for a time, redoubled their assiduities; but finding that no officiousness could soothe, nor exactness satisfy, they soon gave way to negligence and sloth; and he that once commanded nations, often languished ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... with her from Cuba. It was a bad sign, Margaret had learned, when the furs came out in warm weather. It meant a headache generally, and at any rate a chilly state of body, which was apt to be accompanied by a peevish state of mind. Still, she looked so pretty, peeping out of the soft gray nest! She was such a child, after all, in spite of her seventeen years,—decidedly, she ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... Olaf always shook his head and asked her if she did not think that there was wealth enough for them both in Norway. But Thyra was not satisfied with this constant delay. Whenever her husband spoke with her she always contrived to bring in some peevish mention of her estates. She wept and prayed and pleaded so often that Olaf's patience was well nigh exhausted. It seemed that if only for the sake of domestic peace an expedition to Wendland must soon be brought about. Nevertheless, all the friends ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... no doubt, often dreaded her Grace's conceptions, which were frequent, but all of the poetical or philosophical kind, for though she was very beautiful, she died without issue: she is said to have been very reserved and peevish, perhaps owing to the circumstance just mentioned, of having never been honoured with the name ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... may, Bonaparte's defiant scorn and habits of solitary study grew stronger together. It is asserted that his humor found vent in a preposterous and peevish memorial addressed to the minister of war on the proper training of the pupils in French military schools! He may have written it, but it is almost impossible that it should ever have passed beyond the walls of the school, even, as is claimed, for revision ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Joseph Hall, a painful preacher and solid divine of Puritan tendencies, declares that he prefers good-nature before grace in the election of a wife; because, saith he, "it will be a hard Task, where the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire Conquest whilst Life lasteth." An opinion apparently entertained by many modern ecclesiastics, and one which may be considered very encouraging to those young ladies of the politer circles ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... personality, although we were bitterly opposed to him politically. The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent revelations, we know now that his failing eyesight was but a pretext. Lord Spencer, then First ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... excels that of any other nation. He seems to have hit upon the true nature of comedy; which is, to exhibit one singular, and unfamiliar character, by such a series of incidents as may best contribute to shew its singularities. All the circumstances in the Misantrope tend to manifest the peevish and captious disgust of the hero; all the circumstances in the Tartuffe are calculated to shew the treachery of an accomplished hypocrite. I am sorry that no English writer of comedy can be produced as a rival to Moliere: although it ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... could easier do without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle. ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would seem so, from the constancy with which he hung over her pillow, doing for her the thousand tender offices, which none but a devoted husband could do, never complaining, never tiring even when she taxed his good nature to its utmost limit, growing sometimes so unreasonable and peevish that even Edith wondered ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... traveling just after marriage is a great blunder. Traveling makes the sunniest disposition hasty and peevish, for women don't love changes as men do. Not one in a thousand is seen at her best while traveling, and the majority are seen at their very worst. Then there is the discomfort and desolation of European hotels—their mysterious methods and hours, and the ways of ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... library; if he must be disturbed, he must. He does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl in a peevish tone. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... have done no good. Most of this rose out of my own crossness and horridness. If I could only be anxious without being peevish!' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. "You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the Imperial Government to convert Kingston into the provincial capital, that the seat of government should not be at the London of General Simcoe. He was not favorable to York. A muddy, marshy, unhealthy spot, it was unfitted for a city. Lord Dorchester, peevish from age, was, to some extent, under the influence of the Kingston merchants, and was inclined, by a feeling of gratitude, to grant the wishes of Commodore Bouchette, who resided at Kingston, with his family, and to whom Lord Dorchester ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... impossible to Isabella, she left the neighbourhood, never to revisit it, and lived near London; and there her son, whom she christened Linton, was born a few months after her escape. He was an ailing, peevish creature. When Linton was twelve, or a little more, and Catherine thirteen, Isabella died, and the boy was brought to Thrushcross Grange. Hindley Earnshaw drank himself to death about the same time, after mortgaging every yard ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... The herring-gulls with peevish cries Rebuke the man who sings vain words; His sheep-dog growls a low complaint, Then turns to chasing butterflies. But when the indifferent singing-birds From midmost down to dimmest shore Innumerably confirm their songs, And ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... not pleasing. The republic of letters is only a market in which one sells books. Not making concession to the publisher is our only virtue; let us keep that and let us live in peace, even with him when he is peevish, and let us recognize, too, that he is not the guilty one. He would have taste ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... peace she brings; wherever she arrives, She builds our quiet as she forms our lives; Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even, And opens in each ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... that?" demanded Mr. Portlethorpe, who was growing more and more nervous and peevish. "I've nothing to do with Sir Gilbert Carstairs' private banking account. I can't go and ask, point blank, of his bankers how much money he ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... you may be avenged in fitting time," said Albany; "but let it not be said that, like a peevish woman, the Great Douglas could choose neither time nor place for his vengeance. Bethink you, all that we have laboured at is like to be upset by an accident. George of Dunbar hath had the advantage of an audience with the old man; and though it lasted but five minutes, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Cranky and peevish at times we grow: "Just like a man!" Now and then boastful of what we know: "Just like a man!" Whatever our failings from day to day— Stingy, or giving our goods away— With a toss of her head, she is sure to ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the prescription. Nothing can be more kind or encouraging than this procedure. It addeth confidence to the patient, to see his medical adviser go hand in hand with himself in the remedy. When the doctor swalloweth his own draught, what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion? In fine, MONOCULUS is a humane, sensible man, who, for a slender pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to wear it out in the endeavour to save the lives of others—his pretensions so moderate, that with difficulty I could press a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... hear what he said. His Face was as little a Blab as most Mens, yet though it could not be called a prattling Face, it would sometimes tell Tales to a good Observer. When he thought fit to be angry, he had a very peevish Memory; there was hardly a Blot that escaped him. At the same time that this shewed the Strength of his Dissimulation, it gave warning too; it fitted his present Purpose, but it made a Discovery that put Men more upon their Guard against him. Only Self-flattery ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... generally inert and negative in spirit, seldom actively loyal. At its best it was willing that leaders should lead and pay the price, and be more admired than upheld. At its worst it was alert to private and blind to public interests, peevish of change, incapable ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... one-sided then, and all on your side instead of mine. 'Here again, Martlow,' you'd say, and then they'd gabble the evidence, and you'd say 'fourteen days' or 'twenty-one days,' if you'd got up peevish and that's all there was to our friendly intercourse. This time, I make no doubt you'll be asking me to stay at the Towers to-night. And," he went on blandly, enjoying every wince that twisted Sir William's face in spite of his efforts to appear unmoved, "I don't know that I'll ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... scene. There was not a dress that he did not copy from some old print, or a passade that he did not indicate to the humblest member of the troop. The marvellous diction that I had noticed during the reading at Sarah’s served him now and gave the key to the entire performance. I have never seen him peevish or discouraged, but always courteous and cheerful through all those weary weeks of repetition, when even the most enthusiastic feel their courage oozing away under the awful grind of afternoon and evening ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicated like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "His Grace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he was almost tempted to retort "citizen." He was assailed by a fancy for peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the powerful ones of the earth; for the first time ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... equal temper of the man of the house, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate, with such oeconomy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. Thus, respect and love go together; and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this family. When a servant is called ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... words came with a peevish outburst, and he hesitated, as if minded to say no more; but the Skipper raised his head, and the dark eyes sent out a compelling glance. The weaker man faltered, gave way, and resumed ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards |
