"Vexatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Virginia, Nevada.—"I am an enthusiastic student of mathematics, and it is so vexatious to me to find my progress constantly impeded by these mysterious arithmetical technicalities. Now do tell me what the difference is between ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to George and Mary Donner An Alcalde's Negligence Mary Donner's Land Regranted Squatters Jump George Donner's Land A Characteristic Land Law-suit Vexatious Litigation Twice Appealed to Supreme Court, and once to United States Supreme Court A Well-taken Law Point Mutilating Records A Palpable Erasure Relics of the Donner Party Five Hundred Articles Buried Thirty-two Years Knives, Forks, Spoons Pretty Porcelain Identifying Chinaware Beads ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... the 23rd of December, Neb and Top were heard shouting and barking, each apparently trying to see who could make the most noise. The settlers, who were busy at the Chimneys, ran, fearing some vexatious incident. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... been created, was in early times criminally, and at a later period at least pecuniarily, liable for an unjust sentence.[632] We shall elsewhere have occasion to dwell on the value which the equestrian order attached to this immunity, and we shall see that its relief at the freedom from vexatious prosecution is of itself no sign of corruption. One of our authorities does indeed emphatically assert the ultimate prevalence of bribery in the equestrian courts:[633] and circumstances may be easily imagined which would have made this resort natural, if not inevitable. A band of capitalists ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... this is a pettifogging vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin the COMODIANT is not treating him very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the Smoking Parliament.—About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... other money, and really and bona fide not know it, and so may offer it again as innocently as they at first took it ignorantly; and to bring such into trouble for every false shilling which they might offer to pay away without knowing it, would be to make the law be merely vexatious and tormenting to those against whom it was not intended, and at the same time not to meddle with the subtle crafty offender whom it was intended to punish, and ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... pertinent piece of public criticism against a faineant admiral led to imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison, plus a fine of L100. Then came a quarrel with an old friend, Wilkes—not the least vexatious result of that forlorn championship of Bute's government in The Briton. And finally, in part, obviously, as a consequence of all this nervous breakdown, a succession of severe catarrhs, premonitory in his case of consumption, the serious illness of the wife he adored, and the death of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... discharge of the whole battery at once, sounding as the burst of one gun. My horse, exceedingly surprised, lifted his fore feet in the air on the instant; and otherwise testified to his discomposure; and I had some little difficulty to keep him to the spot and bring him back to quietness. It was vexatious to lose such precious minutes; however, we were composed again by the time the smoke of the guns was clearing away. I could hardly believe my eyes. There lay the cannon, on the ground, taken from their carriages; the very carriages themselves were all ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Christians, for was not this an attack on their Christian liberty to use intoxicating wine at the Lord's table, and would not this be awful? Moreover, it forbade a farmer to manufacture hard cider from his own orchard, and would not this be a hard and tyrannical law? This was vexatious, for we were fighting the saloon, and were not seeking to palter with such frivolous and intermeddling legislation. Nevertheless, in spite of these crafty attempts to excite popular odium against the amendment, it was adopted by a majority of more than eight thousand, and ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Your health, my darling, my studious quiet, our little kitchen delicacies, how they would all have suffered, how they would all have been sacrificed! And for what? Children are the last word of human imperfection. Health flees before their face. They cry, my dear; they put vexatious questions; they demand to be fed, to be washed, to be educated, to have their noses blowed; and then, when the time comes, they break our hearts, as I break this piece of sugar. A pair of professed egoists, like you and me, should avoid ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,—always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the side ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the sight of the JANET NICOLL made him sick; and indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of concealed liens and unknown liabilities to lawsuits and vexatious accountings for profits made in good faith. (Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 200 ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... seemed to be a fair prospect that the building would fall of itself, which surely would be a great triumph. And, after all, might it not fairly be hoped that the pleasantness of the Vicarage garden, which Mr. Puddleham must see every time he visited his chapel, might be quite as galling and as vexatious to him as would be the ugliness of the Methodist building ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... A vexatious delay occurred—one of those small but important matters to be attended to at the last minute which are forever turning up ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... the individual; his self-love was bent on maintaining every prerogative and interest belonging to his guild. Established for life in his native town, in the midst of old colleagues, numerous relatives and youthful companions, he esteemed their good opinion. Exempt from vexatious or burdensome taxes, tolerably well off, owning at least his own office, he was above sordid preoccupations and common necessities. Used to old fashioned habits of simplicity, soberness and economy, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... you say to yourselves, is the state of things at present. You recount in detail the numberless impediments, great and small, formidable or only vexatious, which at every step embarrass the attempt to carry out ever so poorly a principle in itself so true and ecclesiastical. You appeal in your defence to wise and sagacious intellects, who are far from enemies to Catholicism, or to the Irish Hierarchy, and you have no hope, or rather you absolutely ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Sandford had bowed the visitor out, he returned to Monroe with an expression of weariness on his handsome face. "So many affairs to think of! so many people to see! Really, it is becoming vexatious. I believe I shall turn hunks, and get ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... wa Mzi," the latter wordvexatious, troublesome. [I notice that in the MS. the name is distinctly and I believe purposely spelt with Hamzah above the Ww and Kasrah beneath the Sn, reading "Muus." It is, therefore, a travesty of the name Ms, and the exact ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the vexatious delays—had been a heavy tax upon us. We needed a vacation. We took it—six pleasant care-free days—hunting and fishing as we drifted through the sixty miles of southern Wyoming. There were ducks and geese on the river to test our skill with the ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... sin is to be found in a perfect man. But sloth is to be found in a perfect man: for Cassian says (De Instit. Caenob. x, l) that "sloth is well known to the solitary, and is a most vexatious and persistent foe to the hermit." Therefore sloth is not always ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... ruinous. This is chiefly due to the almost prohibitive tariff imposed upon everything, from machinery to cigars, by the Canadian Government. During our stay much discontent also prevailed in consequence of the vexatious gold-mining regulations which had lately come into operation and which had already compelled many owners of valuable claims to sell them at a loss and quit the country. An Englishman residing here told me that so long as the present mining laws exist prospectors will do well to avoid Canadian territory, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... handling, the jars, the tension of the heartstrings that sap the foundations of a woman's life and consign her to an early grave; and a Cherokee rose-hedge is not more thickly set with thorns than a literary career with grievous, vexatious, tormenting disappointments. If you succeed after years of labor and anxiety and harassing fears, you will become a target for envy and malice, and, possibly, for slander. Your own sex will be jealous of your eminence, considering your ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... be more ill-timed than this quarrel, or more vexatious to Leicester. The Count—although considering himself excessively injured at being challenged by a simple captain and an untitled gentleman, whom he had attempted to murder—consented to waive his privilege, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... precarious glory of a foreign dignity. But he had not always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution: his vanity and ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his avarice; and he was engaged in an enterprise no less expensive and vexatious than that of his brother, and not attended with much greater probability of success. The immense opulence of Richard having made the German princes cast their eye on him as a candidate for the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Mallaig. I don't just understand why, but they're lookin' for you down that line. It's a vexatious business when your friends, meanin' the polis, are doing their best to upset your plans and you no able to enlighten them. I could send word to the Chief Constable and get ye through to London without a stop like a load of fish from Aiberdeen, but that would be spoilin' the fine character ye've ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... has revolutionized modern surgery, largely as a result of such experiments, wished to discover possibly some still better way of operating by further experiments, HE WAS OBLIGED TO GO TO TOULOUSE TO CARRY THEM OUT, as the vexatious restrictions of the law in England practically made it impossible for him to continue there these ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... right to a certain amount of unpaid labor from his tenants; his land was exempt from the taille, the most burdensome of taxes; and he had many other and diverse seigneurial rights, often, indeed, more vexatious to the tenant than they were profitable to the seigneur. [Footnote: Rambaud, Hist. de la Civilisation Francaise, II., 84-90.] These rights of land-holders were survivals from an earlier period; but they were survivals which still had great ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... me completely disappeared. I was treated by him and the officers and men as badly as ever. My spirit was not broken, and perhaps I may at times have shown too refractory a disposition to please them. I was compelled, however, to submit to and obey their orders, annoying and vexatious as they often were. I did not show my feelings so much by what I said as by my looks, and I often stopped to consider whether or no I would do as I ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... of individualists obey reluctantly, when they obey at all, any laws which they regard as unreasonable or vexatious. Indeed, they are increasingly opposed to any law, which affects their selfish interests. Thus many good women are involuntary smugglers. They deny the authority of the state to impose a tax upon a Paquin gown. The law's delays and laxity in administration breed a spirit of contempt, ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... seduced them into their present bondage. And then the Olynthians, again,—how he cheated them, first giving them Potidaea and several other places, is really beyond description. Now he is enticing the Thebans by giving up to them Boeotia, and delivering them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each of these people did get a certain advantage; but some of them have suffered what all the world knows; others will suffer whatever may hereafter befall them. As for you, I recount not all that has been taken from ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... published discourse. To his guests Luther in those days remarked at the table: "Satan, like a furious harlot, rages in the Antinomians, as Melanchthon writes from Frankfort. The devil will do much harm through them and cause infinite and vexatious evils. If they carry their lawless principles into the State as well as the Church, the magistrate will say: I am a Christian, therefore the law does not pertain to me. Even a Christian hangman would repudiate the law. If they teach only free grace, infinite license will follow, and all ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... rejoice over them, over their slain, their enemies, their tormenting enemies. This joy therefore, is a joy that flows from victory, from victory after a war that has lasted a thousand two hundred and threescore years. They shall rejoice, as they do that have a most potent, vexatious, and tormenting enemy lying dead at their foot, and as those that ride in triumph over them. They shall therefore rejoice as conquerors used to do, who make the slaughters of their spoiled enemies the trophy of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... be in the fashion without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence; and to want a warmth for the public welfare, was a defect so scandalous, that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honor or manhood. What makes the depravity among us, in this behalf, the more vexatious and irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far amongst us, as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us, to be as worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... of it? Now I will not mention her again,—I will refer to her, when I shall have vexatious occasion, as "that woman." And, indeed, "that woman" and Honorius set us up in comprehension of matters progressing. It seems that quite twenty years have passed since Sarah's soul slid through a knife-gash; that Honorius and Andronic, who have come from Smyrna, (why?) ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... habitations, the little the people had there being destroyed this year by the freshets (inondations) which have carried off houses, cattle and grain. There is no probability that any families will desire to expose themselves hereafter to a thing so vexatious and so common on that river. Monsieur De Chauffours, who used to be the mainstay of the inhabitants and the savages, has been forced to abandon it and to withdraw to Port Royal, but he has no way to make a living there for his family, and he will unhappily be forced to ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... passengers or freight. I have myself been detained two or three days at a place after steam was up, the gang planks, all but one, drawn in, and after the time advertised for starting had expired. On this occasion we had no vexatious delays, and in about three days Pittsburg was reached. From Pittsburg I chose passage by the canal to Harrisburg, rather than by the more expeditious stage. This gave a better opportunity of enjoying the fine scenery of Western Pennsylvania, and I had ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... distant from her friends, and their backs, at the present moment, were more than half turned to her. It would be just possible for me to speak to her, without being observed by them, if I were both extraordinarily cautious and lucky. At any moment Wildred, who had perhaps gone to rectify some vexatious mistake about a table, might return. If I meant to take the step at all there was no time to be lost in ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... alive to consequences; it is not the present moment, but the duration of life, that it regards; it seeks to proceed with a sure foot. And at this crisis, in the midst of all this irresolution, that was unspeakably vexatious to a man of his firm nature, Brand demanded of himself his utmost power of self-control. He would not imperil the happiness of his life by a hasty, importunate appeal. When at length he sat down, determined not to rise until he had sent her this message, he forced himself to write—at ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... is just going to be cut off," as a friend once expressed it; then soft and full of content, as if the aforesaid hen had laid an egg ten minutes before, and were still felicitating herself upon the achievement. It was vexatious that here, in the very home of Florida gallinules, I should see and hear less of them than I had more than once done in Massachusetts, where they are esteemed a pretty choice rarity, and where, in spite ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... from convention? No. She was a woman, and a painter of women—a painter of women from the woman's point of view that desires the world only to think of woman in her pose as woman, reticent, careful to screen the impulsive, most of all the vexatious, the violent, and the irregular moods of femininity's temperament from the eyes of the passer-by; always eager to show woman dressed for the part, and well dressed. She was incapable of stating the deeps of character; and had she had the power, she would have looked upon it as something ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met with in this charming season, expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with astonishing ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... towards her and coldly said, "Good evening Miss Mayhew;" then, after a second, added carelessly: "I admit that this worm-eaten bud is rather vexatious. It has—what is left of it—exquisite color, and in form nature had designed it to be perfect; but" (with a slight contemptuous shrug) "you see what it is," and he tossed it ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... launches and fishing boats. The smoke nuisance was a vexatious trouble of the past. Life for the laborer and his family ceased to be a burden. Eight hours were given to conscientious labor, eight hours to physical, mental, and moral improvements, and eight ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... and Puerto Rico with the United States, their nearest and principal market, justifies the expectation that the existing relations may be beneficially expanded. The impediments resulting from varying dues on navigation and from the vexatious treatment of our vessels on merely technical grounds of complaint in West India ports ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the reduction of so strongly fortified a place as Bastia; while Lord Hood, on the other hand, was sanguine of success. This difference of opinion between the heads of the forces led to a protracted and vexatious delay, during which we of the fleet busied ourselves successfully in raising the French thirty-eight-gun frigate, "Minerve," which her crew had sunk in San Fiorenzo harbour. This ship was afterwards added to our navy under the name of the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... he fights the battle, carried along by the devious tide of Paris—that great harlot who takes you up or leaves you stranded, smiles or turns her back on you with equal readiness, wears out the strongest will in vexatious waiting, and makes misfortune wait ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... lived in Rome not by the favour of the king or of any other burgess, but by federal right. Legally unrestricted in the acquiring of property, they gained money and estate in their new home, and bequeathed, like the burgesses, their homesteads to their children and children's children. The vexatious relation of dependence on particular burgess-households became gradually relaxed. If the liberated slave or the immigrant stranger still held an entirely isolated position in the state, such was no longer ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... At first, forbidden by strict quarantine, there was no communication between the sea and the shore, but all day long there were crowds of idlers ready to line the sea-wall and greet every ship that came in close enough with hearty repeated cheers. When the vexatious health-rules were relaxed, and troopships landed some of their passengers, there was endless fraternisation, eager discussion of coming operations, and unlimited denunciation ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... attempt. The next thing was to convey the captured goods to the cutter. This occupied some time, as there were literally several boatloads of goods, to the value, I fancy, of a couple of thousand pounds. It must have been vexatious in the extreme, to any of the smugglers witnessing our proceedings, to see their property thus carried off before their eyes. It must have made them vow vengeance against those who captured it, and against us especially, who, they must have suspected, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... be so,' said Laura; 'and though he is mistaken in imputing such motives, Guy's conduct has certainly been vexatious.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Princess Dowager of Wales, 1772; and the abridgement of the 'Roman History', 1772. But in the former year he had completed a new comedy, 'She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes of a Night', which, after the usual vexatious negotiations, was brought out by Colman at Covent Garden on Monday, the 15th of March, 1773. The manager seems to have acted Goldsmith's own creation of 'Croaker' with regard to this piece, and even to the last moment predicted its failure. But it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... has inquired into most things, but has never had a committee on "the Queen". There is no authentic blue-book to say what she does. Such an investigation cannot take place; but if it could, it would probably save her much vexatious routine, and many ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... a tiresome, proud, vexatious fool, Who never could resolve. For once, however, He hath resolved. Betimes he goeth hence, Where honor ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... I can never say how much I detested these authors, who, taken in small doses, are far, indeed, from being attractive. Horace, to a lazy boy, appears in his Odes to have nothing to say, and to say it in the most frivolous and vexatious manner. Then Cowper's "Task," or "Paradise Lost," as school-books, with notes, seems arid enough to a school-boy. I remember reading ahead, in Cowper, instead of attending to the lesson and the class-work. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... relief she began to laugh. Immediately afterward, however, she sat down on the shingle and began to cry. It was too vexatious: what on ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... evening was fine—I remember it—and she did not live far from me; we were neighbours. You see I knew Gertrude pretty well, and I liked her. There had been some love passages between us, but I had never been her lover; our story had got entangled, and as I went to her I hoped that this vexatious knot was to be picked at last. To be Gertrude's lover would be a pleasure indeed, for though a woman of forty, a natural desire to please, a witty mind, and pretty manners still kept her young; she had all the appearance of youth; and French gowns and underwear ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... been in time repentance and improvement, by fancying he did no harm. Teasing Deborah served her right, he would tell himself, she was so ill-tempered and foolish; Diggory was a clod, and would do nothing without scolding; it was a good joke to tease Charlie; Eleanor was a vexatious little thing, and he would not be ordered by her; so he went his own way, and taught the merry chattering Lucy to be very nearly as bad as himself, neglected his duties, set a bad example, tormented a faithful servant, and seriously distressed his mother. Give him some great cause, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... women who desired to do their duty by the state, and though the wise emperors did everything in their power to encourage it, a very large proportion of the men of the upper classes regarded it as a burden and a vexatious interference with their liberty. It was not necessarily that they had any desire to be vicious, nor indeed would marriage be much of a hindrance to vice; it was that they desired to be free. The cause of their disinclination was the same as it is sometimes alleged to be ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... incumberment of the vessel's deck, the great number of strangers among whom I found myself, the brutal style which the captain and his subalterns used toward our young Canadians; all, in a word, conspired to make me augur a vexatious and disagreeable voyage. The sequel will show that I did not deceive myself ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... in an unfriendly way. Vessels have been seized without notice or warning, in violation of the custom previously prevailing, and have been taken into the colonial ports, their voyages broken up, and the vessels condemned. There is reason to believe that this unfriendly and vexatious treatment was designed to bear harshly upon the hardy fishermen of the United States, with a view to political effect upon this Government. The statutes of the Dominion of Canada assume a still broader and more untenable jurisdiction over the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... all so great that even religion does not impel you to any dangerous excesses. Nevertheless, devotion often causes strange metamorphoses. Unquiet, agitated, miserable within yourself, it is to be feared that your temperament will change, that your disposition will become acrimonious, and that the vexatious ideas over which you have so long brooded will sooner or later produce a disastrous influence upon those who approach you. Does not experience constantly show us that religion effects changes of this kind? What are called conversions, what devotees regard as special acts ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Immediately the proof of four noble descents was demanded. The movement of letters was slow, that of officials even slower, and the delays in securing copies and authentications of the various documents were long and vexatious. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... aggravating in themselves. She is not only a common scold, but a babbling woman, who often hath slandered and scandalized her neighbors, for which her poor husband is often brought into chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... whom she trusted, would relieve her need; that she did not care to live by any means that would offend Him, but in serving Him was well content in her poverty; and that she was confident that our Lord would not abandon her. Another poor woman resisted with equal courage no less vexatious importunities, refusing a quantity of gold worth more than eighty escudos, thus leaving her persecutor in amazement. Another woman, fearing that she would have to defend her body by force from so many and violent ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... and when the bark had reached a part of the lake where the waves were rolling with some force, it was found that the vast weight was too much to be lifted by the feeble and broken efforts of these miniature seas. The consequences were, however, more vexatious than alarming. A few wet feet among the less quiet of the passengers, with an occasional slapping of a sheet of water against the gangways, and a consequent drift of spray across the pile of human heads in the centre of the bark, were ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... sickness, madness, ruin of fruits and grains, and he who is already foolish will without doubt behave himself worst at the time of full moon.... What concern is it of mine what the astronomers have discovered in the moon or what they will yet discover?... It may be ludicrous and vexatious to devote oneself exclusively and unreservedly to this or that, any observation, any favorite object. Upon my earlier wanderings I met a rich Englishman who traveled only to waterfalls and battlefields. Ridiculously ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... own eyes, and to transfer them to the apostle, the only way of reasonably accounting for so strange and outre a proceeding, is to suppose that St. Paul actually labored either under entire deprivation of vision, or under some severely painful and vexatious disease of the eyes: The meaning being, that so keenly did the Galatians sympathize with the apostle in his affliction, that they would willingly have become his substitutes by taking all his suffering upon themselves, if only it were ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... uncomfortable. Our forts gradually extended at the back of the enemy's town, on a ridge of swelling ground; while they kept pace with us on the same side of the river on the low ground. The inactivity of our troops had long become a by-word among us. It was indeed truly vexatious, but it was in vain to urge them on, in vain to offer assistance, in vain to propose a joint attack, or even to seek support at their hands; promises were to be had ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... hope to grasp concerning this lymphatic, unimaginative race. They obey the laws—a criminal requires imagination. They never start a respectable revolution—you cannot revolt without imagination. Among other things they pride themselves on their immunity from vexatious imposts. Yet whisky, the best quality of which is worth tenpence a bottle, is taxed till it costs five shillings; ale, the life-blood of the people, would be dear at three-pence a gallon and yet costs fivepence a pint; tobacco, which could profitably ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... obliged to remain until visited the next morning by the health officer; for the quarantine regulations of Sweden, although not so vexatious and absurd as in many other ports of Europe, were nevertheless very strict. A case of plague or yellow fever was never known in Gottenburg, or in any other port in Sweden, yet it was the universal belief among medical men that both diseases were contagious, and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... well how to subdue all appetites and passions, and to despise both pain and pleasure; and this knowledge affords much delightful contemplation, and is easily acquired; but the practice would be vexatious and troublesome; and, therefore, the same wisdom which teaches them to know this, teaches them to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... trained to the military career, and accustomed to a life of wild adventure, these were a most valuable reinforcement to Aben-Humeya's forces, and enabled him to carry on a guerilla warfare which proved highly vexatious to the troops of Spain. He made forays from the mountains into the plain, penetrating into the vega and boldly venturing even to the walls of Granada. The insurrection spread far and wide through the Sierra Nevada, and the Spanish army, now led by ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... to relieve the Seminoles from vexatious demands on them for their slaves and other property, the United States stipulated to have the matter investigated, and to liquidate such as were satisfactory, provided the amount did not exceed seven thousand dollars. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... bastions were worthless. They were furnished with no stabling for horses. They could not be built near enough to render assistance to each other; the besieger was in danger of being himself besieged in them. In short, from these vexatious methods of warfare the English reaped nothing but disappointment and disgrace. The Sire de Bueil, one of the defenders, perceived this when he was reconnoitring.[843] In fact it was so easy to pass through the enemy's lines that merchants were willing to run the risk of taking ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... scorned to run away, and before they could all be killed, they had torn to pieces half-a-dozen of the Texians, and dreadfully lacerated as many more. The evening was, of course, spent in revelry: the dangers and fatigues, the delays and vexatious of the march were now considered over, and high were their anticipations of the rich plunder in perspective. But this was the only feat accomplished by this Texian expedition: the Mexicans had not been ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... off Circassians is concerned, my adoption of a uniform would most certainly get me into hot water with the military authorities of every town and village, owing to my ignorance of the vernacular, and cause me no end of vexatious delay. To this the quick-witted Frenchman replies by at once offering to go with me to the resident pasha, explain the matter to him, and get a letter permitting me to wear the uniform; which offer I gently but firmly ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... "Vexatious; and yet, I think it is a matter upon which we ought almost to congratulate ourselves. Read those two letters, and give us ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... known to him, to his great delight. He told us that the canoe was close at hand, but that Kalong had become alarmed at hearing the signal of the attack, and, at the risk of his life, had gone back to look for us. Grateful as I was to the faithful creature, the delay was very vexatious. Of course, however, we had no remedy but to wait for him. In the meantime we launched the canoe, and placed Eva and Nutmeg in the centre, with our provisions. Ungka jumped in after them. Blount and I were to ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... act of filling his pockets, for the sum of his demerits amounts to no more than that," is too severely punished; and he adds, "the provocations to which a dramatic genius is exposed from the public are so much the more vexatious as they are removed from any possibility of retaliation, the hope of which sweetens most other injuries; for the public never writes itself." He concludes with an account, written in an Addisonian vein, of a club ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Crabwitz; Lady Mason is no more in danger of losing the property than you are. It is a most vexatious thing, but there can be no doubt as to what the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... for anger; yet she did not shew less kindness to the object of this vexatious circumstance: she held him in her arms while she sat at table, and repeatedly said to him, (though he had not the sense to thank her) "That she would always ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... tendency of the system is to vitiate the best tempers, and to harden the most feeling hearts. "Never be kind, nor speak kindly to a slave," said an accomplished English lady in South Africa to my wife: "I have now," she added, "been for some time a slave-owner, and have found, from vexatious experience in my own household, that nothing but harshness and hauteur will ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... The next three articles deal with sacerdotal celibacy, recommending that priests be allowed to marry, and calling for the suppression of many of the cloisters. It is further urged that foundations for masses and for the support of idle priests be abolished, that various vexatious provisions of the Canon Law be repealed, and that begging on any pretext be prohibited. The twenty-fourth article deals with the Bohemian schism, saying that Huss was wrongly {72} burned, and calling for union with the Hussites who ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... who passed with the dilly-bag along a narrow aisle of the jungle, intent upon ridding herself of a vexatious encumbrance, and at the same time performing ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... enough, but it was also vexatious, that such peaceful people as we were should be considered so terrible. I sent a bullet after the ship, to induce her to stop; she then hoisted the English flag, but never slackened her speed; so that finding we could get no satisfaction, we thought it advisable to take ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... said Dora, pouting. 'I can't think what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don't want a protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,—can't you, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked- ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his denial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's will would be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him one vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even fibs; he often ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... read Humeca, which is the plural form of ahmec, the title will signify, "Gift (Tuhfeh) of fools" and would thus represent a jesting alteration of the girl's real name (Tuhfet el Culoub, Gift of hearts), in allusion to her (from the slave-merchant's point of view) foolish and vexatious behaviour in refusing to be sold to the first comer, as ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... alacrity and zeal as any of his followers. It was often grievous to me to hear some of the party observe, after we had passed over some difficult tract, that a better road might have been found, a little to the right or to the left. Such observations were the most unjust and vexatious, as in all matters of difficulty and of opinion, he would invariably listen to the advice of all, and if he thought it prudent, take it. For my own part, I can safely say, that I was always ready to obey his orders, and conform to his directions, confident ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... eagerly. "Lots of boys would be for climbing and finding that out, and think how vexatious it would be after all that trouble! I just made the eggs and the young ones out of my own mind, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... keep the line in order, and Nelson even went out of his way to have a note of encouragement and kindness sent aboard the Superb (seventy-four guns) for Commander Keats, whose ship had been continuously in commission since 1801, and was in bad condition. Her sailing qualities were vexatious. Keats implored that he should not be disconnected from the main fleet now that the hoped-for battle was so near at hand, and being a great favourite of Nelson's, he was given permission constantly to carry a press of canvas; so the gallant ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... end the trouble. Columbus could not get the vessels ready in time, and so the malefactors became more vexatious than ever. Later another treaty was made, still more humiliating to the Admiral, for he had to promise, first, that those of Roldan's men who were most anxious to return should be sent to Spain immediately; second, that those who chose to remain should receive gifts ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... is vexatious," he said, "and my friend the Prefect shall pay for it, one of these days. But at any rate, the thing is now in our own hands, and there can be no cheating. Report and letter are what they should be—I might have guessed that the old villain ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... that, good woman?" said Aymer de Valence, who was growing every moment more impatient at the loss of time, which was flying fast, in an investigation which had something vexatious in it, and even ridiculous. At the same time, the sight of an armed partisan of the Douglasses, in their own native town, seemed to bode too serious consequences, if it should be suffered to pass without ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... He could guess how the story would be told. "We'll say no more about it, if you please. The young man is sorry. I forgive him. His offense was inadvertent even though vexatious. If he will profit by this experience I will gladly suffer the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... extant a wild story relating to some vexatious events that happened at his funeral, which, at the end of Congreve's Life, by a writer of I know not what credit, are thus related, as I find the account transferred ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... world' it is most probable that one-fourth part of our readers are invalids. Why should they not have their little troubles, whims, and maladies studied and cared for? The disease which gives a title to this short notice is perhaps one of the most mysterious and vexatious to which our nature is liable; both its cause and cure are equally occult, and its modus operandi is scarcely intelligible. A contemporary thus playfully alludes to the subject in terms more funny than ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... according to a ritual differing from his own. *x Sometimes indeed the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same Code which prohibits the use of tobacco. *y It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested, and that the manners of the community were even more austere and more puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... his place was immediately filled by Sir Charles Darling, nephew of Sir Ralph Darling, who, forty years before, had been Governor of New South Wales. Sir Charles was destined to troublous times; for he had not been long in the colony ere a most vexatious hitch took place in the working of constitutional government. It arose out of a straggle with regard to what is called "Protection to ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... the assessments in die beginning was not a lawyer (as the first governors were not lawyers—Madrid MS.), nor acquainted with the mischief that could happen later in the collections, he rendered them very confused and vexatious. Although, in its general understanding, and in the usage of the first years, it is seen that the tribute amounted to the value of eight reals, paid in what the Indian possessed and desired to pay, still in certain words and clauses regarding the assessments and the articles ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the Spaniard who should venture ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... correction were subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long time in arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where the right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck out of the list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions had been long impending, where ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... republic, Solon had laid it down as a principle of his code, that as all men were interested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The common informer became a most harassing and powerful personage, and made one of a fruitful and crowded profession; and in the very capital of liberty there existed the worst species of espionage. But justice was not thereby ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pornographic articles with the mantle of virtue may deceive the artless, and give the less artless excuse for buying them without putting themselves to any inconvenience. In such cases it is extremely difficult to act without injustice and without doing injury to art and science by vexatious measures. This requires much tact and ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of the last search,—which only serves to increase the disappointed gentleman's excitement. The affair has been unnecessarily expensive, for, in addition to the loss of his preacher, the price of whom is no very inconsiderable sum, he finds a vexatious bill running up against him at the bar. The friendship of those who have sympathised with him, and have joined him in the exhilarating sport of man-hunting, must be repaid with swimming drinks. Somewhat celebrated for economy, his friends are surprised to find him, on this ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... however, than to fall into the Enemies Hands. We could not command Success, but we have endeavord to deserve it. Disappointments are to be expected in so arduous a Conflict, and when they come fairly one can bear them with Patience & Fortitude; but when they happen through Misconduct, they are vexatious. I suspect there has been bad Mannagement, but I will not make up my Judgment till I am fully informd. The Moment an authentick & explicit Account arrives, you shall have it from me. I will not yet despair of ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... of Catherine occupied my mind all the week following that vexatious adventure. Her image glittered on the leaves of the folios over which I bent in the library, close to my dear tutor; so much so that Plotinus, Olympiodorus, Fabricius, Vossius spoke of nothing else to me than a tiny damsel in a lace chemise. These visions rendered me lazy. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... more tumultuous emotions subsided, and they could talk again. She leant upon the wall, and he sat upon it so that he could keep an eye open for any returning dogs. Two, at any rate, were up on the hillside and keeping up a vexatious barking. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the barrier of your teeth? Strange words and harsh! Vexatious words to hear! As if this bow must rob our chiefs of life and breath because you cannot bend it! Why, your good mother did not bear you for a brandisher of bows and arrows. But others among the lordly suitors will bend ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... have been but just," I replied politely. "It will be very vexatious if they are not discovered some day," added the Governor, in a tone which indicated that he was ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... status of the Chinese traders who come to the Philippine Islands. Vexatious dues have been levied upon the Chinese in Manila; they have been herded together in one dwelling, apart from the other residents of the city; and a special warden, with arbitrary power, has been placed over them. Besides, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... diaphragm is that of choking off air movement and consequently reducing evaporation. This gives exactly the same results as the use of moisture, but the machine is easier to operate and seemed to do away with the vexatious moisture problem which, together perhaps, with some fancied resemblance of felt diaphragms to hen feathers, has resulted in the widespread use of ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... love. Love, for such a man, doubtless involved objects and ideas: it was love of persons. The same revulsion of feeling may, however, be carried further. Lucretius says that passion is a torment because its pleasures are not pure, that is, because they are mingled with longing and entangled in vexatious things. Pure pleasure would be without ideas. Many a man has found in some moment of his life an unutterable joy which made all the rest of it seem a farce, as if a corpse should play it was living. Mystics habitually look beneath the Life of Reason for the substance and infinity of happiness. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... am ill at ease; and as I walked to-day, far and fast in the sun-warmed lanes, my thoughts came yapping and growling round me like a pack of curs—undignified, troublesome, vexatious thoughts; I chase them away for a moment, and next moment they are snapping at my heels. Experiences of a tragic quality, however depressing they may be, have a vaguely sustaining power about them, when they ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were built for the new proselytes; and linen vestments, Bibles, and liturgies, and vases of gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of Justinian. [86] The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it was celebrated by the Christians. [87] And they might complain with the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... please the eye, and when fairly advanced with their work will call in an expert, to (as they call it) put in their perspective for them, but as it does not form part of their original composition, it involves all sorts of difficulties and vexatious alterings and rubbings out, and even then is not always satisfactory. For the expert may not be an artist, nor in sympathy with the picture, hence there will be a want of unity in it; whereas the whole thing, to be in harmony, should be the conception of one mind, and the perspective as much ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... The proceeding did not prove to be the easy victory that the Administration had evidently expected. The struggle was protracted for three months; and it signalized Mr. Wilson's first serious conflict with the Senate—that same Senate which was destined to play such a vexatious and destructive role in his career. At this time, however, Mr. Wilson had reached the zenith of his control over the law-making bodies. It was early in his Presidential term, and in these early days ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick |
