"Acrimonious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... send an apology to lynchers for having negroes where they could be lynched. This called for reproof from the other side, and the discussion grew hot and acrimonious. Gray again got the floor, and surprised his colleagues by the plainness of his utterances. Elkins followed him with a biting speech that brought Aldrich to ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... and occasionally acrimonious, succeeded at last in arranging for a resumption of litigation, but it was a fruitless victory. The Duke, with a touch of his earlier precocity, died of premature decay a fortnight before the date ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... bring a humorous sketch to the close without something a little objectionable. Often inclined to err on the side of severity, he was one of those instances in which we find acrimonious feeling associated with physical infirmity. "The Dunciad" is the principal example of this, but we have ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... abrasion, abrogate, absolution, abstemious, abstention, abstruse, accelerate, accentuate, acceptation, accessary, accession, accessory, acclamation, acclivity, accolade, accomplice, accost, acerbity, acetic, achromatic, acidulous, acme, acolyte, acoustics, acquiescence, acquisitive, acrimonious, acumen, adage, adamantine, addict, adduce, adhesive, adipose, adjudicate, adolescence, adulation, adulterate, advent, adventitious, aerial, affability, affidavit, affiliate, affinity, agglomerate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... stood there as a defaulter, to be punished with ten days' cells and the loss of a hardly-earned good conduct badge, for returning from leave in a state of partial insobriety, and for having indulged in a heated and more than acrimonious discussion with the local constabulary. It had happened several years before, and since then he had turned over a new leaf, but he grew quite nervous ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... was advertized that the authorities forbade any other presentation of the piece; and, on the 16th, the Press, following the Government's lead, were practically unanimous in anathematizing the unhappy dramatist, the Debats being particularly acrimonious, and asserting that Vautrin ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... imagine, you know, that the truth lies between the two extremes. The man done to death would likely not make such a fuss as I make; nor would he depart so quickly as you say he would, without giving the gallery gods a show for their money. But here we are at the theatre, Carlos, and this acrimonious debate is closed—until we ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... in view of the complicated questions which had to be settled, did not regularly begin till November. The meetings at first were harmonious; but ere long they became acrimonious, as the views of the representatives of the four great powers—Russia, Austria, England, and Prussia—were brought to light. They all, except England, claimed enormous territories as a compensation for the sacrifices they had made. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... straw. What can be more intolerable than the blind struggle in which the obstinacy of a bigot tries to meet the acumen of a lawyer? What more terrible to endure than the acrimonious pin-pricks to which a passionate soul prefers a dagger-thrust? Granville neglected his home. Everything there was unendurable. His children, broken by their mother's frigid despotism, dared not go with him to the play; indeed, Granville could never ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... they are all wild for love of a new comedy, written by Mons. de Beaumarchais, and called, "Le Mariage de Figaro," full of such wit as we were fond of in the reign of Charles the Second, indecent merriment, and gross immorality; mixed, however, with much acrimonious satire, as if Sir George Etherege and Johnny Gay had clubbed their powers of ingenuity at once to divert and to corrupt their auditors; who now carry the verses of this favourite piece upon their fans, pocket-handkerchiefs, &c. as our women once did those ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... fighting bear somewhat more on the individual's initiative, discretion, sagacity and self-possession than once would have been true. Doubtless the men who come out of this great war, the common men, will bring home an accentuated and acrimonious patriotism, a venomous hatred of the enemies whom they have missed killing; but it may reasonably be doubted if they come away with a correspondingly heightened admiration and affection for their betters who have failed to make good as foremen ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... good man's concluding conjecture, that "the sort of diet men observe influences their style." I should know an "heavy-wet" man at the third line; and I can tell to a nicety when Theodore Hook writes upon claret, and when he is inspired by the over-heating and acrimonious stimulus of Max. Hayley obviously composed upon tea and bread and butter. Dr. Philpots may be nosed a mile off for priestly port and the fat bulls of Basan; and Southey's Quarterly articles are written on an empty stomach, and before his crudities, like the breath of Sir ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church for ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... done after Dutch artists, together with a few studies of Parisian landscape, done after nature. It shows us the careful, laboured work of a really artistic temperament; it betrays, here and there, the spirit of acrimonious observation which is to count for so much with Huysmans—in the crude malice of 'L'Extase,' for example, in the notation of the 'richness of tone,' the 'superb colouring,' of an old drunkard. And one sees already something of the novelty and the precision of his description, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... what the Committee feared that Graydon MIGHT suffer. There is no doubt that Borrow's impulsive letters had greatly offended everybody at Earl Street, where Lieut. Graydon appears to have been extremely popular; and the few words of sympathy with Borrow that might have saved much acrimonious correspondence were ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... liberality this edition owes its appearance—to be a volume, in itself, of pleasant and profitable perusal; composed perhaps in a quaint and original style, but in accordance with the characters of the Dramatis Personae. Be this as it may, it is a work divested of all acrimonious feeling—is applicable to all classes of society, to whom harmless enthusiasm cannot be offensive—and is based upon a foundation not likely to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the Upper and Lower Provinces were, in 1861, serious, and often acrimonious; for they were religious as well as political. The rapid growth of Upper Canada, overtopping that of the French-speaking and Catholic Lower Province, led to demands to upset the great settlement of 1839, and to substitute for an equal representation, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... plasticity at others, had always exercised a violent attraction over me. And now, when this pride seemed joined with a positive hostility to myself, it failed to repel; it simply raised to its highest pitch a savage and acrimonious determination to ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... A recent and somewhat acrimonious debate in the House of Commons had Precipitated the formation of this committee, and had unduly hastened the selection of its members. Sir Matthew had been called in at short notice as being, in the opinion of the minister who ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... the threshold of a most bitter and acrimonious fight. Great wisdom and foresight are needed at this hour, and the true patriot will forget himself and his own interests in his great yearning for the good of his common country and the success of his ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... and equal temper of mind. Those who best knew him can testify of him what has often been asserted of his great father, that they never heard an acrimonious speech fall from his lips; that his whole temper was so controlled by justice and generosity that he was never known to disparage with an envious breath the fame of another or to withhold ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... animadversion are painted in the strongest colours, and placed in the most conspicuous points of view. Giving loose reins to just and moral indignation, Juvenal is every where animated, vehement, petulant, and incessantly acrimonious. Disdaining the more lenient modes of correction, or despairing of their success, he neither adopts the raillery of Horace, nor the derision of Persius, but prosecutes vice and folly with all the severity of sentiment, passion, and expression. He sometimes exhibits ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Manifesto had been published resolutions were tabled pledging the constituent societies to concentrate their efforts on Socialist candidates accepted as suitable by the Joint Committee. On this point the Fabian Society was in a hopeless minority, and an endless vista of futile and acrimonious discussions was opened out which would lead to unrest in our own society—for there has always been a minority opposed to its dominant policy—and a waste of time and temper to the delegates from our Executive. It was therefore resolved at the end of July that our delegates be withdrawn, and that ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... associations little prepare us for expecting any trace of the evil principle; but here, too, there is a sub-typical division. These," says our naturalist, "are distinguished by their caterpillars being armed with formidable spines or prickles, which in general are possessed of some highly acrimonious or poisonous quality, capable of injuring those who touch them. It is only," continues Mr. Swainson, "when extensive researches bring to light a uniformity of results, that we can venture to believe they are so universal as to deserve being ranked ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... but acquire one from the end they are made to serve, the manner in which they are pursued, or the motive in which they originate. On these arise the most perplexing of all moral questions, the most subtle cases of conscience, and too often, I grieve to say, the most acrimonious discussions. Under this head are included most of those vexed questions as to amusements, dress, meat and drink, and the like. And this text, I am sorry to say, has been made the basis for inculcating some most false and pernicious ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... jurisdictionem. ("It is characteristic of the good judge to extend his jurisdiction.") It would be a good thing if instead of estimates being laid directly before a Committee of the whole House of Commons, where some small item is often the subject of long and acrimonious debate and millions are passed without comment or consideration in a few minutes, the estimates of each department were fully considered as a whole by some small competent Committee of the House, uninfluenced by party feeling, ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... was all American—no alkali-spider about HER, I can tell you; she was of the best blood of Kentucky, the bluest Blue-grass aristocracy, very proud and acrimonious—or maybe it is ceremonious. I don't know which it is. But it is no matter; size is the main thing about a word, and that one's up to standard. She spent her military life as colonel of the Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... whole by one o'clock. His lordship was not so fastidious a critic as I thought Turl had been; he was delighted with my performance. It is true he made some corrections and additions, in places where I had not been so personal and acrimonious, against the minister, as his feelings required; but, as he accompanied them with praise, I readily submitted; and, thus improved, my first political essay ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... became more and more agitated. Entirely against his will and, so far as he could see, without any fault of his own, he suddenly found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred rights of freemen which threatened to disrupt society and extinguish the supremacy of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... prohibited in said State of Missouri, and that all children born in that State after its admission to the Union shall be free at the age of twenty-five years." The discussion which followed was able, excited, and even acrimonious. Mr. Clay took an active part against the amendment, but his great influence was unavailing in the face of the strong anti-slavery sentiment which was so suddenly developed in the North. Both branches of Mr. Tallmadge's amendment ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in the present and disgrace her in history, and wrote on with increasing vigour, hoping to influence the minds of the oppositionists elected to the Convention as well as the people at large. Even he had never written anything which had attracted so wide admiring and acrimonious attention. The papers were read in all the cities of the Confederation, and in such hamlets as boasted a mail-bag. When they reached England and France they were almost as keenly discussed. That they steadily made converts, Hamilton had cause to know, for ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... things—Italian writers, I say, have tried to turn the Fabre episode into something extremely disgraceful to Mme. d'Albany. Massimo d'Azeglio, partly out of hatred to the Countess, who was rather severe and acrimonious upon his youthful free-and-easiness, partly out of a desire to amuse his readers, has introduced into his autobiography an anecdote told him by Mme. de Prie (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin mistress, and the lady ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... original genius, however mistaken its direction might be deemed, arose the whole long-continued controversy. For from the conjunction of perceived power with supposed heresy I explain the inveteracy, and in some instances, I grieve to say, the acrimonious passions, with which the controversy has ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Vellorno, in whom the late discovery had roused resentment, instead of awakening penitence; and exasperated pride without exciting shame—heard the upbraidings of the marquis with impatience, and replied to them with acrimonious violence. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... room where my guests were assembled, I found Mr. Pless and the Baron Umovitch engaged in an acrimonious dispute over a question of bridge etiquette. The former had resented a sharp criticism coming from the latter, and they were waging a verbal battle in what I took to be five or six different tongues, none of which appeared to bear the slightest relationship to the English language. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... summer Rosecrans resisted, with a great deal of spirit and on various grounds, these frequent urgings, and out of this grew up an acrimonious correspondence and strained feeling between him and General Halleck. Early in June, however, stores had been accumulated and other preparations made for a move forward, Resecrans seeming to have decided that he could safely risk an advance, with the prospect of good results. Before finally deciding, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... having expired, it was agreed it should be continued to February 12th. After a long and acrimonious debate the Conference broke up in a clash over the evacuation of the Russian provinces. On January 24th it was announced that the Russian delegates to the peace conference had unanimously decided to reject the German terms. They stated that when they asked Germany's ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... her acrimonious neighbor could never be depended upon to do anything which might be expected of her, and she was not quite so much surprised as she was annoyed. Of course, she had known she must meet Nancy Shott, and she had intended ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... up at his client with surprise. The judge never lost his temper. Even in the most acrimonious wrangles in the courtroom he was always the suave, polished gentleman. There was a shade of reproach in ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... showed little or no disposition to come to an agreement with the Church. They were at this time a declining sect, who held little intercourse with other Dissenters, and were much engaged in petty but very acrimonious controversies among themselves. They had been divided ever since 1633 into two sections, the Particular and General Baptists. The former of the two were Calvinists of the most rigorous and exclusive type, often ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... "New Hampshire grants," affected the Highland settlers; but the more exciting events of the wrangle took place outside the limits of Washington county, and consequently the Highland settlement. This controversy, which was carried on with acrimonious and warlike contention, arose over New York's officials' claim to the possession of all the land north of the Massachusetts line lying west of the Connecticut river. In 1751 both the governors of New York and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... words, rallied his colleagues upon their alarm, which he assured them was altogether disproportioned and uncalled for, and brought them back to the business in hand, with the result that, after a long and acrimonious discussion, a list was drafted, containing some twenty names, for ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... creditable to me or to any President of the Board of Control, to have his nomination the subject of a struggle, which, if it should succeed on the part of the Directors, and he should continue in office, must render all future intercourse acrimonious ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and in due time became chief of the Union River Service. Another pilot named Montgomery (Samuel Clemens had once steered for him) declared for the South, and later commanded the Confederate Mississippi fleet. They were all good friends, and their discussions, though warm, were not always acrimonious; ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the best in the language, easy, unaffected, full of genial, intelligent criticisms upon men, books, and things; and abounding in attractive glimpses of the lives and characters of the eminent literary men who were his contemporaries. The new volume mentions that after Southey's acrimonious letters to Mr. William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, appeared, he was offered the editorship of the London Times, with a salary of L2000, and a share of the paper, but ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... ere we arrived at the place of destination. Of course nothing could be said in my defence. Hanging was my inevitable fate. I resigned myself thereto with a feeling half stupid, half acrimonious. Being little of a cynic, I had all the sentiments of a dog. The hangman, however, adjusted the noose about my neck. The ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... just sent a memorial to Mr. Gladstone, praying that a pension may be at once conferred upon your daughters, and I have every hope that our prayer may be successful. You will see by the papers, now sent to you, that there has been much acrimonious discussion of late on African affairs. I have tried myself in every possible way to throw oil on the troubled waters, and begin to hope now for something like peace. I shall be very glad to hear from you ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... belonging to this class of medicines. Those enumerated in the other four divisions are chiefly such things as tend to remove the stimulating causes, which have induced the inversion of the motions of the part, as acrimonious contents, or inflammation, of the bowels in diarrhoea, diabetes, or in ileus. But it is probable after these remote causes are destroyed, that the fetid gums, musk, castor, and balsams, might be given with advantage in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the parliamentary oath. Sir Stafford Northcote, the Conservative leader in the Lower House, was forced to take a strong line on this difficult question by the energy of the fourth party, who in this case clearly expressed the views of the bulk of the opposition. The long and acrimonious controversy over Mr Bradlaugh's seat, if it added little to the reputation of the English legislature, at least showed that Lord Randolph Churchill was a parliamentary champion who added to his audacity much tactical skill ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... taken away and the money was offered, short of L5. The matter was instantly put into the hands of the Doctor's lawyer, and a suit commenced. The Doctor, of course, got his money, and then there followed an acrimonious correspondence in the "Times" and other newspapers. Mrs. Stantiloup did her best to ruin the school, and many very eloquent passages were written not only by her or by her own special scribe, but by others who took the matter up, to prove that two hundred a-year was a ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... most successful statesmen in history had done before him. But there was an intemperance of character about the man which was more disastrous in its consequences than a few superfluous whiskies could have been. He was easily drawn into acrimonious personal disputes, and when under their influence would push a quarrel to all lengths with men with whom it was most important in the public interest ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... Terry, after some acrimonious correspondence, challenged Broderick. A meeting on the 12th of September was stopped by the Chief of Police of San Francisco. The police magistrate before whom the duellists were arraigned, discharged them on the ground that there had ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and were not well founded. Himself a rich man, it is not likely that Cameron profited personally by government contracts, even though the acrimonious Thad Stevens said of his appointment as Secretary that it would add "another million to his fortune." There seems little doubt, however, that Cameron showered lucrative contracts upon his political retainers. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... it prescribes, while possessing no legal power to enforce a different policy or change the personnel of administration. This is only an object-lesson. I hasten to add that such a paralysis has never taken place, though some acrimonious controversy, natural enough under the anomalous state of things, has arisen over the office of Vice-President. There is now only one means by which Irish opinion can, if it be so disposed, displace the holder of the office, and that is a thoroughly ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... of party pamphlets, Quaker against Presbyterian, which appeared in Philadelphia in 1764, abusively acrimonious on ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... He was, indeed, engaged in an acrimonious discussion on the Wernerian theory, and at that moment he was developing a remarkable scientific passion, which threatened to sweep his adversaries from the face of the earth in the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... ventured to remark that I coincided with him in the belief that Acadia was the romantic ground of early discovery in America; and that even the fluent pen of Hawthorne had failed to lend a charm to the harsh, repulsive, acrimonious features of New ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... "Dade wants me to sneak off to town and hide in Bill Wilson's cellar." There was more resentment in his tone than the note itself had put there; for the argument which Valencia had unwittingly interrupted had been threatening to become acrimonious. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... got hold of him. He was a true Potterite. Possibly I always saw him at his least eloquent and his most cautious, because he didn't like me and knew I didn't like him. Even then there had already been one or two rather acrimonious disputes between my paper and his on points of fact. The Daily Haste hated being pinned down to and quarrelled with about facts; facts didn't seem to the Pinkerton press things worth quarrelling over, like policy, principles, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... the charge of the attempted assassination of Governor Boggs caused great delight among the Mormons, and their organ declared on January 1, 1844, that "throughout the whole region of country around us those bitter and acrimonious feelings, which have so long been engendered by many, are ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... unflinching. At length, at the end of the Session, the whole matter was brought forward in the gravest and most formal way by the moving of a vote of censure. The debate that followed Sir Michael Hicks Beach's motion was long and acrimonious. Mr. Gladstone's speech only increased the disquietude of his followers and the fury of the Opposition. Mr. Forster openly declared his disagreement with his leader; and although Lord Hartington in winding up the debate threw out some hopes of an expedition ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... angry at the rejection of the proposed treaty, put every obstacle possible in the way of American fishermen and used methods which the Americans claimed to be contrary to the treaty terms. After long continued and rather acrimonious discussions, the matter was finally referred in 1909 to the Hague Court. As in the Bering Sea case, the court was asked not only to judge the facts but also to draw up an agreement for the future. Its decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled the thirty miles between the station and their destination. If anything could, this drive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire to a sense of his ransom. They sped upon velvety wheels across an exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanish ponies struck a nimble, tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved by a wild, untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as they absorbed it, with ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance, understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant attitude of the young blades of the town toward ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... synod of the church in Wessex to remonstrate with the Britons of Domnonia (Devon and Cornwall) on their differences from the Roman practice in the shape of the tonsure and the date of Easter. This he did in a long and rather acrimonious letter to their king Geraint (Geruntius), and their ultimate agreement with Rome is referred by William of Malmesbury to his efforts. In 705, or perhaps earlier, Haeddi, bishop of Winchester, died, and the diocese was divided into two parts. Sherborne was the new see, of which Aldhelm ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... been produced, that obliged me to make use of them." This did not satiate his malice: in 1752, he published the first volume of the proposed edition of the Latin poets, and in 1753, a second, accompanied with notes, both Latin and English, in a style of acrimonious scurrility, indicative almost of insanity. In 1754, he brought forward a pamphlet, entitled, King Charles vindicated from the charge of plagiarism, brought against him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... violent antithesis to the work just considered. Here the politician speaks. In passages of satire that becomes so acrimonious at times as to indicate real personages, the wave of speculation that swept Argentina and Brazil is analyzed and held up to scorn. The novel is really a piece of historical muck-raking and was long an object ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... a very violent and acrimonious opposition[842]; but all joys have their abatement: Mrs. Thrale has fallen from her horse, and hurt herself very much. The rest of our friends, I believe, are well. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... resolutions was followed by one of the long, acrimonious debates with which those who read the reports of their conventions are familiar. They resented it bitterly when Mrs. Hoyt, of Wisconsin, said: "The women of the North were invited here to meet in convention, not to hold a Temperance ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... published in 1673, and inscribed, by Dryden, to his much honoured friend Sir Charles Sedley. There are some acrimonious passages in this dedication, referring to the controversies in which the author had been engaged; and, obscure as these have become, it is the biographer's duty to detail and ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the time when the attention of the community was focussed upon the new cause celebre! When the public prints were filled with an acrimonious discussion as to the meaning of the instructions given to the jury. If anyone chose to will his body to a purchaser, said the judge, and then go and commit suicide, there was no law to prevent him; and, of course, the subsequent purposes of the purchaser ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... him to name a friend; that the Right Hon. Gentleman "mentioned" Mr. JESSE COLLINGS; and that the two seconds have arranged a meeting at Boulogne. The idle rumour doubtless arose out of the fact that an acrimonious correspondence between the two former friends has been carried on in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... night a funereal gloom envelops the caverns, the pathways and resting-places are meagre and so constructed as to be devoid of attraction or repose, and by a skilful contrivance the natural atmosphere is secretly withdrawn and a very acrimonious sulphurous haze driven in to replace it. In sudden and unforeseen places eyes of fire open and close with disconcerting rapidity, and even change colour in vindictive significance; wooden hands are outstretched as in unrelenting rigidity against supplication, or, divining the unexpressed thoughts, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Spur, and the fringes of a plateau, 800 yards wide, in front of the Manchester Battalion sangars on Caesar's camp. There the pickets had been surprised, just about the time of relief, half an hour before dawn. There are differences of opinion, and some acrimonious discussions as to the means by which 500 Boers of the Heidelberg Commando, under Greyling, had succeeded in getting to a position which commanded much of that plateau before anybody had the slightest suspicion that enemies were near. At the outset I suggested an ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... No one was angrier than Diderot, and in the first edition of the Essay, published in the year of Rousseau's death (1778), he incongruously placed in the midst of his disquisitions on the philosopher of the first century, a long and acrimonious note upon the perversities of the reactionary philosopher of the eighteenth. He was believed by those who talked to him to be in dread of the appearance of the Confessions, and we may accept this readily enough, without assuming that ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... as a matter of fact, the attempt to deprive them of the distinction led to its ostentatious adoption. The proposal to render null and void gifts or religious endowments acquired by the new prelates was abandoned in the course of the acrimonious debates which followed. Other difficulties arose, and Ireland was declared to be exempt from the operation of the measure. The object of the bill, declared Lord John Russell, was merely to assert the supremacy of the Crown. Nothing was further from his thought than to play the part ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... already 7 spoken in favour of the latter method, but Marcellus' motive was personal vanity, for he was afraid that if others were chosen he would seem slighted. Their exchange of views gradually grew into a formal and acrimonious debate. Helvidius inquired why it was that Marcellus was so afraid of the magistrates' judgement, seeing that he himself had great advantages of wealth and of eloquence over many others. Could it be the memory of his misdeeds that so oppressed him? The fall of the lot could not discern character: ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... Blackbird's deck, snarlingly demanding payment for thirty fish. MacRae looked at him silently. He hated brawling, acrimonious dispute. He was loth to a common row at that moment, because he was acutely conscious of the two girls watching. But he was even more conscious of Gower's stare and the curious expectancy of the fishermen clustered about ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... acrimonious lawsuit was in regard to the form of the sworn relation which the royal officials must give to the auditor of accounts, in order that he may audit the general accounts of each year. Upon this point arose the charge in the visit, the examination of which was the cause of my being ordered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... for, as Lord John had talked the day before with Lord Palmerston, and satisfied him that all his objections should be provided against in the Bill. He thought it was better, however, that the Caffre Debate had not been waited for, which must have been a personal and very acrimonious one. He thought Lord Grey had not been very discreet in his language to the Queen on Lord John. Sir J. Graham had been in a difficulty with his own Party, and therefore had not wished to encourage Lord John's negotiation with the Peelites. He promised that, for his part, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... dazzle with a display of his varied knowledge and experiences. The conversation drifted from a discussion of the rival claims of great cities to the slow, inevitable removal of old landmarks. There had been a slightly acrimonious disagreement between Lowes-Parlby and Mr. Sandeman as to the claims of Budapest and Lisbon, and Mr. Sandeman had scored because he extracted from his rival a confession that, though he had spent two months in Budapest, he had ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Club," which was speedily bankrupt (for we are too far from the centre of town to support a club of our own); it was subsequently hired by the West Diddlesex Railroad; and is now divided into sets of chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, and by a porter in a sham livery: whom, if you don't find him at the door, you may as well seek at the "Grapes" public-house, in the little lane round the corner. He varnishes the japan-boots of the dandy lodgers; reads Mr. Pinkney's Morning Post before he lets him ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... They were apt to choke the approaches to the little buffet Margaret had set up downstairs, and there engage in discussions of Determinism—it always seemed to be Determinism—which became heartier and noisier, but never acrimonious even in the small hours. It seemed impossible to settle about this Determinism of theirs—ever. And there were worldly Socialists also. I particularly recall a large, active, buoyant, lady-killing individual with an eyeglass borne upon a broad black ribbon, who swam about us one evening. He ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a Recollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of Frontenac, his letters, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... When we hear the acrimonious discussions and the threats of violence, it is well to consider the reason for it all. I think the reason is one that is not discreditable to those concerned. These are not ordinary times, and they are not to be judged by ordinary standards. ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... consider an enviable merit. Thus frigidly Petrarch could behold the solitary AEtna before him, in the "Inferno," while he shrunk into himself with the painful consciousness of the existence of another poet, obscuring his own majesty. It is curious to observe Lord SHAFTESBURY treating with the most acrimonious contempt the great writers of his own times—Cowley, Dryden, Addison, and Prior. We cannot imagine that his lordship was so entirely destitute of every feeling of wit and genius as would appear by this ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... requisitions, expressed his opinion of them with frankness, pulling them to pieces mercilessly at their nightly confabs, in much the same way as he might have criticised the cook's kitchen accounts. On only one occasion did their discussion become at all acrimonious, and that was in relation to the impost of a million francs that the Prussian prefet at Rethel had levied on the department of the Ardennes, the alleged pretense of which was to indemnify Germany ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... tyranny on the other. He vindicated his claim to be a reformer in the highest sense by the wise and manly part which he acted in this great social crisis in the history of Germany. In this year also he published his acrimonious reply to Henry VIII. on the seven sacraments. Although he had been at first united in a common cause with Erasmus, estrangement had gradually sprung up between the scholar of Rotterdam and the enthusiastic reformer of Wittenberg. This estrangement came to an open breach in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was, probably, a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation. His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly republican, for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than that "a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth." It is surely very shallow policy that ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... acrimonious, crusty, hateful, ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... superseded Sir Henry Clinton by the appointment of Sir Guy Carleton as commander-in-chief of the British army. The latter commander was in favor of peace, and he appealed to the British Parliament for conciliatory action; nor was his plea in vain. After a long and acrimonious struggle, Parliament adopted a resolution advising reconciliation. From that moment, peace negotiations were commenced, but were not fully consummated until Nov. 30, 1782, at Paris. It was the nineteenth day of April, 1783, when the ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... and anxiety fixed on House of Commons. What an opportunity for PRINGLE-prangling! So at it he went, kept it up not only, through Question Hour but, by interruptions of MINISTER OF MUNITIONS when speaking during successive stages of Amending Bill, by questions in Committee, by acrimonious speeches on Report Stage and Third Reading, he hushed HOGGE, snowed-up SNOWDEN, ousted OUTHWAITE, and dammed the flow of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... feeling among those who looked upon rebellion as the most grievous of crimes. It was, they argued, simply putting a premium on treason. The measure was fiercely resisted by the Opposition, and called forth a lively and acrimonious debate. Among its strongest opponents was Macdonald. According to his custom, he listened patiently to the arguments for and against the measure, and did not make his speech until towards the close of ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... she gets confused. She has not danced for a year and a half, and decides to practice a little. As she is dancing, her mother enters, and bids her to stop—dancing is a sin. Lipotchka refuses, and an acrimonious wrangle ensues between mother and daughter, about things in general. The mother reproaches Lipotchka for her ways, reminds her that her parents have educated her, and so forth. To this Lipotchka retorts that other people ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... intersecting; adverse, baffling, contrary, perverse; petulant, peevish, cynical, surly, unamiable, inaffable, crabbed, crusty, captious, fractious, churlish, vixenish, querulous, fretful, choleric, touchy, waspish, morose, sullen, ill-natured, irascible acrimonious, irritable; inverse, interchanged. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... few months ago it appeared that the Dominican Republic and Haiti were about to enter upon hostilities because of complications growing out of an acrimonious boundary dispute which the efforts of many years had failed to solve. The Government of the United States, by a friendly interposition of good offices, succeeded in prevailing upon the parties to place their reliance upon some form of pacific settlement. Accordingly, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... nothing but reprove." Practical wisdom enough to make the course of any household run smooth! The instincts of a happy, placid temper have taught Olivia that there is as little of Christian virtue as of natural benignity in stinging away the spirit of kindness with a tongue of acid and acrimonious pietism. Her firm and healthy pulse beats in sympathy with the sportiveness in which the proper decorum of her station may not permit her to bear an active part. And she is too considerate, withal, not to look with indulgence on the pleasantries that ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... plunged it into his body, and thus he was the first who made the law, broke it, and suffered its penalty. But I made no law; all I did was to promise that I would bite my tongue, if I chanced to utter an acrimonious word; but things are not so strictly managed in these times as in those of the ancients. To-day a law is made, and to-morrow it is broken, and perhaps it is fit it should be so. To-day a man promises to abandon his fault, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... first a supporter of Washington's Administration, he was gradually thrust into the position of Federalist leader in Virginia. In 1794 he declined the post of Attorney-General, which Washington had offered him. In the following year he became involved in the acrimonious struggle over the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, and both in the Legislature and before meetings of citizens defended the treaty so aggressively that its opponents were finally forced to abandon their contention that it was unconstitutional ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... lectured on Lucian, and is 'very handsome,' Mr. Arthur Balfour, the Lord Rector, who is 'rather handsome,' and delights the listener by his eloquence; Mr. Chamberlain, who pleases him too, though he finds Mr. Chamberlain rather acrimonious in his political reflections. About Lucian, the subject of Mr. Butcher's lecture, Murray says nothing. That brilliant man of letters in general, the Alcibiades of literature, the wittiest, and, rarely, the most ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... pernicious smoke which sullies all her glory, superinducing a sooty crust or furr upon all that it lights, spoiling movables, tarnishing the plate, gildings and furniture, and corroding the very iron bars and hardest stones with those piercing and acrimonious spirits which accompany its sulphur, and executing more in one year than the pure air of the country could effect in some hundreds." The evils here mentioned are those which have grown and have become ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... note for fifty pounds under his plate. Tom Brown seems to have regarded with great contempt his contemporary Tom D'Urfey—best known as a composer of sonnets—words and music. He addresses to him "upon his incomparable ballads, called by him Pindaric Odes," the following acrimonious lines— ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Muse forsook her. Bent on preserving the lines already shaped, she stuffed Alaska's letter into the pocket of her apron, intending to copy them at the first leisure moment. Unfortunately for Alaska, there was a rush of business at the window, including an acrimonious dispute with Mrs. Ryan over the non-arrival of a letter she was expecting from her son, and a lengthy conversation with Miss Flora Grady who dropped in to say that her chilblains always began to bother her in October. In ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... goes forward with his speech, delighting them with surprise to find how much better is their position than they thought when it was recommended or extolled from their own side. JOSEPH not nearly so acrimonious to-night as sometimes. Still, as usual, his speech chiefly directed to his former Brethren who sit attentive, thinking occasionally with regret of the fatal shallowness of the pit, and the absence of arrangement for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... since his visit to Perry's Bend, the rivalry of the two towns had turned to hatred and an alert and eager readiness to increase the inhabitants of each other's graveyard. A state of war existed, which for a time resulted in nothing worse than acrimonious suggestions. But the time came when the score was settled to the satisfaction ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... they had acquired by the very easy method of taking them willy-nilly. The matter of having these bondmen restored to their original owners, of convincing the British that the Americans did not see the joke of the abduction caused one of the most acrimonious discussions in the history of the State. The treaty between the two countries, England and America, was distorted by both sides to read anything they wished. The English took a high stand of altruism, of a desire to free the oppressed; the Louisianians took as high ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... not yet arrived. Perhaps, thought Dr. Price, a happy accident, or some imperative call, had detained him. This would be fortunate indeed. Dr. Burns's square jaw had a very determined look. It would be a pity if any acrimonious discussion should arise on the eve of a delicate operation. If the clock on the mantel would only move faster, the question might ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt |
