"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... replied. "Never," said Wheatstone, "did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the needles click, and as I spelled the words I felt all the magnitude of the invention pronounced to be practicable without cavil ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... a display of his fund of knowledge makes notorious his own stock of ignorance. Philosophers have said:—A prudent man will not obtrude his answer till he has the question stated to him in form. Notwithstanding the proposition may have its right demonstration, the cavil of the fastidious will ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... the Provinces would be ever grateful to their preserver for the result. They had no eyes for the picture which the Spanish party painted of an imaginary triumph of De Thermos and its effects. However the envious might cavil, now that the blow had been struck, the popular heart remained warm as ever, and refused to throw down the idol which had so recently been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Minister is in London—a man honourable by family, as you know, in America, his father and his grandfather having held the office of President of the Republic. You have your own Minister just returned to Washington. Is this hypocrisy? Are you, because you can cavil at certain things which the North, the United States Government, has done or has not done, are you eagerly to throw the influence of your opinion into a movement which is to ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every department of the work, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Vain cavil! all that is hath come either by Miracle or by Law; Why waste on this your hate and fear, why waste on that ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... murmur not against Heaven," continued the Master, "nor cavil at men; while I stoop to learn and aspire to penetrate into things that are high; yet 'tis Heaven alone ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... quietly, as if she failed to understand the half-cynical bitterness, the half-wistfulness in his voice, yet she rose and joined him. All human beings in Heart's Desire that evening fell in with the plans of Dan Anderson without cavil and without possible resistance. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... is far rarer than in civilised countries. I have seen a native workman with his shoulder blade in his arm-pit, his face cut to ribbons, and with pieces of casting sticking to his back through the carrying away of a crane, cavil against the idea of being taken into the township where the doctor was, lest his old woman, unused to a town life, should find the surroundings uncongenial. This in a broken, muttered whisper, twelve ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... rivulets, tributary to the Bitter Root River, that run through the valley, afford excellent and abundant mill-seats; and the land bordering these is fertile and productive, and has been found, beyond cavil or doubt, to be well suited to every branch of agriculture. I have seen oats, grown by Mr. John Owen, that are as heavy and as excellent as any I have ever seen in the States; and the same gentleman informs me that he has grown ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... buzzed, Self-praised, and knowing not that simpleness Is sacred soil, and sown with royal seed, The heroic seed and saintly. Mitred once Such gibes no more assailed him: one short month Sufficed the petty cavil to confute; One month well chronicled in book which verse Late born, alas, in vain would emulate. At once he called to mind the days that were; His wanderings in Northumbrian glens; the hearths That welcomed him so joyously; at once Within his breast ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... Jews and Turks ridicule our doctrine, as if we taught the existence of three brothers in heaven, it does not signify. Might I also cavil were it to serve any purpose here. But they do us wrong and falsify our teaching; for we do not conceive of the Trinity as in the nature of three men or of three angels. We regard it as one divine essence, an intimacy surpassing any earthly unity. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... to vie with Mr. Allen's unrivalled polemic amiability and be as conciliatory as possible, I will not cavil at his facts or try to magnify the chasm between an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Napoleon and the average level of their respective tribes. Let it be as small as Mr. Allen thinks. All that I object to is that he should think the mere ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... brains of the mighty; perhaps she has a cynic soul that finds a savage joy in running down the faults of the seemingly faultless—running them to earth and taking her profit therefrom. Who are you, Marcus Gard, to cavil at the lust of conquest—to sneer at the controlling ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... cavil to combat it, but still maintains that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... deposits formed by some kind of matter ejected from the craters, but whether of ancient or modern date, it is, of course, impossible to determine. Future observers will perhaps be in a better position to decide the question without cavil, if such eruptions should again take place. Like the larger enclosures, these smaller objects frequently encroach upon each other— crater-ring overlapping crater-ring, as in the case of Thebit, where a large crater, which has interfered with the continuity of the east wall, has, in its turn, ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... sides alike. Her nose was perfect;—not Grecian, nor Roman, nor Egyptian,—but simply English, only just not retrousse. There were those who said her mouth was a thought too wide, and her teeth too perfect,—but they were of that class of critics to whom it is a necessity to cavil rather than to kiss. Added to all this there was a childishness of manner about her of which, though she herself was somewhat ashamed, all others were enamoured. It was not the childishness of very youthful years,—for she had ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... farewell, thou Minstrel harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, 855 Through secret woes the world has never known, When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone. That I o'erlived such woes, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Oh, I see. You object to the word, not to the allegation. Well, I won't cavil about that. All my sympathy just now is concentrated on one unfortunate Britisher. My dear, let ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... Republican or Democrat it mattered not—they set out to determine from the material before them what was Right and what was Wrong. Once convinced that the Hun was a menace they made their readers understand beyond cavil just what that menace meant. So I claim that the editors of the United States are entitled to high rank among the Defenders of Democracy. When the history of the war, or rather a just analysis of its causes and effects, comes to be written I shall ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... cavil, we reply in the affirmative that the Scripture is true; that Jesus did mean all, and even more than he said or deemed it safe to say at that time. His [5] words are unmistakable, for they form propositions of self-evident demonstrable truth. Doctrines that ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... business, and we are very fortunate to be out of it so well. Yet it was not treachery: no, no, Mr. Anne, it was not treachery; and if you will do me the favour to listen to me for the inside of a minute, I shall demonstrate the same to you beyond cavil.' He seemed to wake up to his ordinary briskness. 'You see the point?' he began. 'He had not yet read the newspaper, but who could tell when he might? He might have had that damned journal in his pocket, and how should we know? We were—I may say, we are—at the mercy of the merest ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so. I have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much stronger and ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... safe; while he who is wrong must take the consequences of his own acts. Mr. Furlong, your steward-ship ceased with the life of your principal; if you have any keys or papers to deliver, I advise your placing them in the hands of this gentleman, whom, beyond all cavil, I take to be the rightful ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the noble duke, which has been so much the subject of cavil, it is the offspring of a manly mind, pouring out its honest opinions with an earnestness characteristic of sincerity, and with a zeal too warm to stand upon nice and scrupulous expression. I am sure that it contains nothing but what the noble duke really thought. I am sure ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the beam before they proceeded; and on trial found a vast difference between their beam and ours, no less than ten or eleven maunds on five pigs of lead, every maund being thirty-three pounds English. Seeing he could not have the lead at any weight he pleased, Khojah Nassan began to cavil, saying he would have half money and half goods for his commodities, railing and storming like a madman, calling for the carmen to drive away his goods, and that he would not have any of our lead ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... 1860—when the people of the Free States, grown sick unto death of the rule of the Slave-power in the General Government, arose in their political might, and shook off this "Old Man of the Sea," electing, beyond cavil and by the Constitutional mode, to the Presidential office, a man who thoroughly represented in himself their conscience, on the one hand, which instinctively revolted against human Slavery as a wrong committed against the laws of God, and their sense of justice and equity on the other, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... one so much in reality as it is a mere cavil; that "Art never assents to false opinions, because it can not be constituted as such without precepts, which are always true; but rhetoric assents to what is false, therefore it is not an art." I admit that sometimes rhetoric says false things instead ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... feel inclined to cavil with this association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute," because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul; but were these gentry ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... He had put her through the most horrible half-hour of her life. It seemed that no service he had rendered could compensate her for such suffering. On the other hand, he had brought her safely back to New York, as he had promised to do. Surely, it was not for her to cavil at the manner in which he had done it. Something, of course, had happened, probably a racking fight between the two men. Laurie was exhausted, and was showing it; that ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... frontier was less than they had imagined would be a humiliating confession of failure; and worse than a confession of failure; for God had appointed this refuge for them, and not to abide in it in all contentment would be to cavil at his purpose, to question his decree. With the instinct of true pioneers they therefore idealized the barren wilderness, pronouncing its air most healing, its soil most fertile; and with unfailing optimism proving, by the very sufferings they endured, how practicable, how spacious and attractive ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... cooperative and collective action has resulted in this particular case in thousands of the children's "Arbor Gardens" round about the city. It is an experience "en gros," one of such dimensions that cavil ceases ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... and admirably set off the dusky pallor and fine stature of the young student. Every minor detail was in keeping. His linen band and cuffs were fine and white, the fit of his shoes and gloves perfect, the glossy excellence of his hat beyond a cavil. ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen and cavil: It is indeed no wonder that men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the world; and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every moment of losing his entire ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... only truth we are sure of, and such a truth as we meet with in every object, in every occurrence, and in every thought. If we look into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen, and cavil: it is indeed no wonder that men who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the world; and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every moment of losing his entire ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... perceiving his piece cavil'd at By partial critics, and his adversaries Misrepresenting what we're now to play, Pleads his own cause: and you shall be the judges, Whether he merits praise or condemnation. The Synapothnescontes is a piece ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... their faults, your nation, your government, your town and townspeople, else you would not so often scold them! Otherwise, why do you let us call them yours? Because they belong to you? No, because you belong to them. Beyond cavil you are your own, but beyond cavil, too, you are theirs; their purchased possession, paid for long, long in ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... by heat would have some effect on the level of the surface; but they show us how awfully complicated the phenomenon is. All young geologists have a great turn for speculation; I have burned my fingers pretty sharply in that way, and am now perhaps become over-cautious; and feel inclined to cavil at speculation when the direct and immediate effect of a cause in question cannot be shown. How neatly you draw your diagrams; I wish you would turn your attention to real sections of the earth's crust, and then speculate to your heart's content on them; I can have no doubt that speculative ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... who sell antique furniture, old pictures, and objects of vertu. They are now, however, found everywhere in the city, and most of them are on the Grand Canal, where they heap together marvelous collections, and establish authenticities beyond cavil. "Is it an original?" asked a young lady who was visiting one of their shops, as she paused before an attributive Veronese, or—what know I?—perhaps a Titian. "Si, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... semblance of overweight; his saddle was well fitting and well placed, as also was his large and broad-reined snaffle; his own costume of black coat, leathers, and tops was in perfect keeping, and even to his heavy-handled hunting-whip I could find nothing to cavil at. As he rode up he paid his respects to the ladies in his usual free and easy manner, expressed some surprise, but no regret, at hearing that he was late, and never deigning any notice of Matthew or myself, took his place beside Miss Dashwood, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... obliged by other difficulties, also, to recur to the same expedient. The parliament, after its recall, showed that it was now become apprehensive of the States General, and discovered a determination to cavil at their form, so as to have a right to deny their legality, if that body should undertake to abridge their powers. The court, hereupon, very adroitly determined to call the same Notables, who had been approved by the nation the last year, to decide on the form of convoking the Etats ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... devil." Many of them said, "He hath a devil and is mad." Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, thou art beside thyself." And Nordau shouts in a voice more heady than that of Pilate, more throaty than that of Festus, "Mad—Whitman was—mad beyond the cavil of a doubt!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... beauty if united with sense and virtue. In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil, if, on a nearer view, they find it less—but let them consider, that if she had more faults than generally belong to others, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... of them, are not greater monsters than their male analogues, monsters they still remain. If they are not, others of them, greater rogues and cheats than males of like criminal persuasion, cheats and rogues they are beyond cavil. The truth of the matter is that I loathe the use of superlatives in serious works on crime. I will read, I promise you, anything decently written in a fictional way about 'master' crooks, 'master' killers, kings, queens, princes, and a whole peerage of crime, ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Nothing comes out of a sack but what was in it, and, as their bag is empty, they shake nothing but wind out of it. It is very likely that neither ministers nor their sermons are perfect—the best garden may have a few weeds in it, the cleanest corn may have some chaff—but cavilers cavil at any thing or nothing, and find fault for the sake of showing off their deep knowledge; sooner than let their tongues have a holiday, they would complain that the grass is not a nice shade of blue, and say that the sky would have looked neater if ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... can mark a greater alienation of the soul from its original nature, than the infidelity which chooses for the bed of the grave spots unhallowed by religious associations. They who deny their God, and cavil at his Word, can have no reverence for places which, like his houses of prayer and the consecrated receptacles of the dead, derive all their sanctity and influence from a belief in his mercies, and a sense of our demerits—hence, having banished themselves from their Father's house, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... a race whose nature and traditions were alike positivistic could for the time being find it sweet to wash its hands among the innocent, to love the beauty of the Lord's house, and to praise him for ever and ever. It was agreed and settled beyond cavil that God loved his people and continually blessed them, and yet in the world of men tribulation after tribulation did not cease to fall upon them. There was no issue but to assert (what so chastened a spirit could now understand) that ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... was lost by bad investments. The King having come to his own again, Butler obtained permission in November 1662 to print the first part of 'Hudibras.' The quaint title of this poem has attracted much curious cavil. The name is used by Milton, Spenser, and Robert of Gloucester for an early king of Britain, the grandfather of King Lear; and by Ben Jonson—from whom Butler evidently adopted it—for a swaggering fellow in the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... solemn, carol, very, spirit, coral, borough, manor, tenant, minute, honor, punish, clamor, blemish, limit, comet, pumice, chapel, leper, triple, copy, habit, rebel, tribute, probate, heifer, profit, cavil, revel, drivel, novel, hovel, city, pity, british, critic, madam, credit, idiom, body, study, tacit, licit, hazard, ezad, lizard, closet, bosom, vicar, liquor, ...
— A Minniature ov Inglish Orthoggraphy • James Elphinston
... rail at Opportunity, At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night; In vain I cavil with mine infamy, In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite: This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The remedy indeed to do me good Is to ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... a lady in her circumstances cannot without absurdity open a letter that seems to her as surprize, with any more preparation than the most unconcerned person alive should a common letter by the penny-post. I am aware Mr. Pope may reply, his cavil was not against the action itself of addressing to the wax, but of exalting that action in the terms. In this point I may fairly shelter myself under the judgment of a man, whose character in poetry will vie with any rival this age ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... sweet womanly tenderness to make every mood a new and rare delight. Toinette!—never before was woman's name so pleasant to my lips. Ignorant as I was in mysteries of the heart, I knew not clearly whether I loved her, though this I knew beyond cavil,—no savage hand should ever touch her while I lived; and if I had to fight each step of the path from that accursed spot to Wayne, I swore within my heart she should come safe through. Her gentle memory was with me when all the rest yielded to the drowsy god, and in sheer ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... complain of the regularity in itself, though she did cavil at the actual arrangements, and they were altered all round to please her, and she showed a certain contempt for her teacher in the studies she resumed with her mother; but after the dictionary, encyclopaedia and other authorities, including Mr. Ogilvie, proved ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It is ungrateful to cavil at this moralizing and didactic temper, which animates a large part of the nation and is responsible for much of the British achievement. But its place is in the world of action not in that of letters, and it ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... sighted companions, doing the same work as well, if not better, the later success of the young blind seeker after knowledge is practically assured; for, as I have said, in mental attainment, at least, the blind child is the peer of the child with eyesight,—here, beyond cavil, the ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... visit London secretly under Cromwell's rule, in order to keep alive the zeal of the Royalist party. Hertford and Southampton had refused all overtures from the Protector, and their loyalty was beyond cavil. But much as they had suffered and were ready to suffer again, they dreaded, with good reason, the recklessness of the more militant section, and knew the risks that it involved. Repeatedly they had ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... words, but cavil at your interpretation of them. His reverence for Beauty embraced not merely physical and material types, but that nobler, grander beauty which centres in pure ethics and ontology; and a religion that seeks no higher forms than those of clay,—whether Himalayas or 'Greek Slave,'—whether emerald ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Mrs. Challis Wrandall, as the cousin of the Murgatroyds, as the daughter of Colonel Castleton of the Indian Corps, as a person supposed to be possessed of independent means withal, she went, with none to question, none to cavil. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... nothing is so common as to use a part for the whole; yet if you should be out of humour with a bad dinner, a bad lodging, an ill-dressed shirt, or an ill-printed book, you might be disposed to cavil, and object, that in critical precision of language, (supposing a man to walk slow) he could not be said to have dirtied his shoes, no more than a boarding-school girl, who has cut her finger in paring an apple, could be said to have mangled ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... so often conflicting records of that time, or of the incomparable skill with which he has brought them into a clear continuous narrative. To glean after Macaulay is indeed a barren task. So far, then, from affecting to cavil at his work, I must acknowledge that without his help this little book would have been still less. Yet I do think he has been hard upon Claverhouse. Perhaps the scheme of his history did not require, or even allow him, to examine the man's character and circumstances ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... turned for warmth and for light as instinctively as young plants turn to the sun. But I must not forget that it is not I whom you have come to hear; and all I might say, if I had to vindicate the fame of our guest from disparagement or cavil, would seem but tedious and commonplace when addressed to those who know that his career has passed beyond the ordeal of contemporaneous criticism, and that in the applause of foreign nations it has found ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... boy!" answered his lordship, and I saw he had crossed to the doorway and stood with his back to us. "Diana," he continued after a moment, "in this world of change, of doubt and uncertainty, one thing is very sure and beyond all cavil and dispute: Peregrine loves you far better than he loves himself, since he is strong enough to forego so much of present happiness for your future welfare. He honours me by placing you in my charge, I who love you as a daughter ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... wisdom might be traded for the time of youthful pranks," said the Veronese with twinkling eyes, "I doubt if there were wisdom enough left in Venice to cavil at the barter! Yet thou and I, having wisdom thrust upon us by these same beards, if trouble come to thee, or too soon they put thee at the gransiere service, we will remember this ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Milton. The charge appears very plausible and damaging at first sight. We notice it in order to exhibit De Quincey's marvellous sagacity in detecting the true relation of things: he utterly dissipated the force of the cavil by simply stating the actual bearings of the two classes of poetry. Ancient poetry was darkly austere and practical; the imagination was fettered by a grim austerity; the merely passionate—that which proceeds from the sphere of the sensibilities alone—finds no resting place in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... which had taken place, and demanding the recognition of the young Almagro as governor of Peru. Where the summons was accompanied by a military force, as at Truxillo and Arequipa, it was obeyed without much cavil. But in other cities a colder assent was given, and in some the requisition was treated with contempt. In Cuzco, the place of most importance next to Lima, a considerable number of the Almagro faction secured the ascendency of their party; and such of the magistracy as resisted were ejected from ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... accumulate; ever since, to the knowledge of the Chief Justice, and with the daily countenance of the President, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day, proposed, supported, and finally negatived, in a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will be for our benefit. I believe it is so, lady; or it may be for a punishment; but it is bitter, very bitter, oftentimes to bear. But I am wandering from my story. We could watch the progress of the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... said, slowly, "this something which we all want, and for the greater part never find. He has got it. To see and recognize it early is a great thing," he continued, earnestly. "To disbelieve in it in early life, and cavil at all the caricatures and imitations, and only come to find out its reality comparatively later on, is a great misfortune—a ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... speakers, they make excellent lawyers, and know how to spin out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of their talent:—An ass had got loose and broken into a field ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... the destruction that was spread for our feet was no more and no other than the craft of a woman and a light o' love. But me-thinks the answer to that is, that the instruments whereby it may please Heaven to work out its purposes are not of our choosing, but of Heaven's; and those that cavil may recall, to their own abashment, how one that was of the same way of life as our Vittoria was permitted by celestial grace to be a minister unto holiness. I will not venture to say that Monna Vittoria did that ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... tangible grievance against her husband. Blackford's course at the military school he had chosen for himself had been so unsatisfactory that his father had been advised that he would not be received for another year. It was now Mrs. Bassett's turn to cavil at her husband for the sad mess he had made of the boy's education. She would never have sent Blackford to a military school if it had been her affair; she arraigned her husband for having encouraged the boy in his ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... care not; but Think not I am insensible to all 490 Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind, Though oft-reproving sufferance of my follies. If I have spared these men against thy counsel, That is, their lives—it is not that I doubt The advice was sound; but, let them live: we will not Cavil about their lives—so let them mend them. Their banishment will leave me still sound sleep, Which their death ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... us ill to cavil each with each. I might retort. I only say to thee ITS slaves we are: ITS slaves ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... "Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington, energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... in Miss Johnson's nature, but free from sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites," like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But, written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the magical or impossible action of the spirit upon the body? As soon as we admit of such a God, there are no longer fables or visions which can not be believed. The theologians treat men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales which ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... augured a lack of sense; and that, when they got into command, the same lack of sense which led them to glory in their shame would be productive, as its necessary results, of misfortune and disaster. There is a shrewd lesson here to the class who doubt and cavil simply to show their parts. In the second place, infidelity, on the principle of Bacon, is a weak, tottering thing, unbuttressed by that support which gives to poor human nature half its strength and all its dignity. But, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... unsinful—but because he was so wretched, because he was so small, because he had gone so far away from God; therefore, the seeking love came after him, and would draw him to itself.' That, I think, is answer enough to the cavil. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... reason to despair of having an heir, to cut entirely off the claim of so wicked a brother. Having once began to stir in the affair, it was soon brought to a conclusion.—The fact was incontestable, and proved by witnesses, whose credit left no room for cavil; a bill of divorce was granted on very easy terms, and the gallant fined in so large a penalty, that he was obliged to quit the kingdom, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... and it may all be worthy of our eulogiums, until we compare ourselves in these, as in other particulars, with Him who produced them. Then, indeed, the utter insignificance of our means becomes too apparent to admit of a cavil. We know that we are born, and that we die; science has been able to grapple with all the phenomena of these two great physical facts, with the exception of the most material of all—those which should tell us what is life, and what is death. Something that we cannot comprehend ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... from being satisfied with what I had done to vindicate the great Sovereign whose special ambassador I was supposed to be, I soon decided to give yet another demonstration which should impress even those who were inclined to cavil—if any such existed. I pointed out that whilst the Queen, great and powerful and beloved ruler though she was, could not lead her warriors into battle in person, yet she was represented in war time by her eldest son, who was a most redoubtable warrior and spear-thrower, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... much on life's eager forward way as his great nature craved. His range in all things—mental, physical, and spiritual—was so far beyond the ordinary that the gage of average cannot be applied to him. The cavil of the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... other, that they seem rather as the offspring of a single mind, than of many minds. A large majority of them come in the most official and authoritative shape, and their language is explicit beyond cavil. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... discussion, the agents and surveyors of both parties proceeded as a matter of course to the point marked in 1798 as the source of the St. Croix.[44] This point is therefore fixed and established beyond the possibility of cavil, and the faith of both Governments is pledged that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... could claim personal acquaintance with the great war chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail?—who had actually been to ride and hunt with that then just dawning demigod of American boyhood,—Buffalo Bill? Sneer and scoff and cavil as did their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young Westerners, he whom only on ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the troopers wonder at these precautions, though not so much as might be expected. They are accustomed to receive mysterious commands, and obey them without cavil or question. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... matter for capital and infinite space for a theater of action, this mind-evolving force may not have generated beings of almost infinite capacities—even a monarch who sways a scepter over more worlds than one—EVEN A GOD. Why should material philosophy cavil at the creeds which teach a righteous judgment to come? Have not the judicial elements of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen combined to organize on one planet at least courts of equity and judgment seats, and crystalized into prison walls and hand-cuffs the gallows ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... well-nigh stealthy, with something of the movement of other denizens of the forest, unless they were crossed and aroused, and then, like those other denizens, they were fierce almost beyond belief. A small cavil might make a great quarrel, and pistols would flash ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... sport where it, and it alone, will bring pre-eminence, Englishmen will either have to do as Americans do or, sooner or later, consent to be defeated. There is nothing in the practice at which the Englishman can fairly cavil. Americans have still much the fewer sports; and it is the national habit to take up one and concentrate on it with all ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the janitor or the elevator boy we have no cavil, for these gentlemen do actually see a fire and hear bells ring; but the apartment tenant hears naught but the hissing of the steam in the radiator, and counts himself lucky to hear that. Why not be honest and ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... to listen to me, Elsie," he said, with a passionate intensity that stilled the rising storm in her bosom. "Doctor Christobal may have pleaded his own cause already. It is not for me to cavil at him for doing that. But I cannot lose you without a word. Whether you marry him or me, or neither of us, I shall love you for ever. I want you to know that. It is no new discovery to me. I think my heart went out to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... never tasted such soups, such sauce, such delicate and suggestive flavors. My entire existence has been revolutionized by the experience. I am no longer the lonely and unhappy man you discovered at this gate a short month ago. I can not cavil at an America that furnishes me with such food as I get in ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... ornament, to braid The charnel of putridity, and part The spot where what was mortal had been laid, With all thy native coldness in his heart? Thou sure wert not the stone—let critics cavil!— Of quack M.D. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... Talbot was very angry indeed was established beyond cavil. However, Mr. Wilton was apparently quite capable of taking care of himself in ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope in every page; 120 Religion, country, genius of his age; Without all these at once before your eyes, Cavil you may, but never criticise. Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... word of God. Men don't believe in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but we have it sealed in the New Testament. "As, it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah." They don't believe in Lot's wife, but He says, "Remember Lot's wife." So there is not a thing that men to-day cavil at but the Son of God indorses. They don't believe, in the swallowing of Jonah. They say it is impossible that a whale could swallow Jonah—its throat is too small. They forget that the whale was prepared for Jonah; as the colored woman said, "Why, God could ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... where the aplustre cast its shadow in ordinary crafts, there was a pavilion-like structure, high-raised, flat-roofed, and with small round windows in the sides. Quite likely the progressive ship-builders at Palos and Genoa would have termed the new feature a cabin. It was beyond cavil an improvement; and on this occasion the proprietor utilized it as he well might. Since the first gun off St. Stephano, he had held the roof, finding it the best position to get and enjoy a view of the capital, or rather of the walls and crowned eminences they had so long and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... reception. Claims for past services, whether upon the country or upon individuals, are seldom well received; like the payment of a tavern bill, after we have done with the enjoyments, we seem inclined to cavil at each ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... military career was his constant readiness to fight. He wished for no long periods of preparation, lost no opportunity which promptness could turn to advantage. He always accepted, without cavil or question, the position to which he might be assigned. He never troubled the War Department with requests or complaints, and when injustice was inflicted upon him, he submitted silently, and did a soldier's ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... beyond any question or cavil, one of the brightest, smartest, bravest and most popular boys who ever went forth into the world as a ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... now an authority which Thorpe, breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman, followed by his valet with the gun and the stool, set meekly off without ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... may be apparitions, for all I know to the contrary; I only doubt these things, because I think, if they were true, that, as a phenomena of nature, they would have been by this time established by repeated instances without the possibility of doubt or cavil." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... we propose to make: If there be man, who o'er such works can wake, Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy, And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye; To him we grant our amplest powers to sit Judge of all present, past, and future wit; To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong, Full and eternal ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... but malevolence could cavil at the trivial errors which the very best scholars are daily found to commit, but the case is widely different when those errors are so numerous as totally to destroy the value of a work. Iam therefore ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... this rule is the cause of a very common error." Better, "Inattention to this rule," etc. "He abhorred being in debt." Better, "He abhorred debt," "Cavilling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties." Say, "To cavil and object upon any subject is much easier than to ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... as the tapir, the rhinoceros, and the horse, are linked together by fossil progenitors. And, most important of all, Professor Marsh has discovered a series of mammalian remains, occurring in successive geological epochs, which are held to represent beyond cavil the actual line of descent of the modern horse; tracing the lineage of our one-toed species back through two and three toed forms, to an ancestor in the eocene or early tertiary that had four functional toes and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... small-featured with observant grey eyes and a good deal of detached humour. Since the incubation of his first unsuccessful play, he had argued out every character and situation with her; when feminine psychology was in dispute, her ruling was accepted without cavil. More than once, as they splashed conversationally through the Lashmar woods, he had felt that she gave even a self-sufficient bachelor something that he lacked and would always lack; and, whenever ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... sit in a high place. We would acquiesce in that admirable Constitution (pride and envy of, &c.) which made us chiefs and the world our inferiors; we would not cavil particularly at that notion of hereditary superiority which brought many simple people cringing to our knees. May be we would rally round the Corn-Laws; we would make a stand against the Reform Bill; we would die rather than ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... part subject to a fate in his private constitution. There is the difference, and it does not seem to me insignificant. Our way to the cases of crime is now somewhat more clear; for it is already established beyond cavil that the mere fact of an average, to which, without any discriminations, our philosopher appeals with such confidence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... picnic depends for its success to quite a peculiar degree upon the weather. But on the day of the Admiral's merry-making, this was, beyond cavil, kind. Four boats started from the Town Quay; four boats—alas!—could by this time contain the cumeelfo of Troy; for everybody who was anybody had been invited, and nobody (with the exception of the Honourable Frederic, who could not leave ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation—the strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... inquirer as to the existence of the Mahatmas. I know of none who took up this inquiry in right earnest and were not rewarded for their labours with knowledge, certainty. In spite of all this there are plenty of people who carp and cavil but will not take the trouble of proving the thing for themselves. Both by Europeans and a section of our own countrymen—the too Europeanized graduates of Universities—the existence of the Mahatmas is looked upon with incredulity ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself in many ways, in a hundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy, has proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite niceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and beautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better instincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... whole life," she said. And indeed I do believe she was so thoroughly frightened, that if a police-officer had come into the house and asked her to reveal secrets compromising the good name of her own son, she would have done so without cavil or question. "I feel as if I wanted to take my stand out on the common, and, in the face of the whole world, declare what I have done for Mary Leavenworth. But first," she whispered, "tell me, for God's sake, how those girls are situated. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... obey] [T: Nor, to obey.] [W: me. Remord] Of these two emendations, I believe, Theobald's will have the greater number of suffrages; it has at least mine. The objection against the propriety of the declaration in Iago is a cavil; he does not say that he has no principle of remorse, but that it shall not operate against Othello's commands. To obey shall be in me, for I will obey you, is a mode of expression not worth the pains ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... power; he was to be supreme in himself, the champion not of the Faith of any one else, but of his own; and the qualifying clause, "as far as the law of Christ allows," was omitted. His orthodoxy must be above suspicion, or at least beyond the reach of open cavil in England. So new treasons were enacted, and any one who called the King a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper, was rendered liable to the heaviest penalty which the law could inflict. As an earnest of the royal and parliamentary desire ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... not indeed in ease, but in simplicity and antique rigour of language, to the common version used in the Kirk of Scotland. Burns had admitted "Death and Dr. Hornbook" into Creech's edition, and probably desired to balance it with something at which the devout could not cavil.] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... speaking to him again, and telling him that my father had visitors from Ohio, and couldn't leave them. We will get all the fun from the day that we can; but before dusk, too early for them to have any cause for cavil, 'the gross country clod' is going to take ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Hebrew Glossary. In this, to use his own language, "the divinity, antiquity, and perpetuity of the Hebrew tongue, with its letters, accents, and other characters," are established forever and beyond all cavil, by proofs drawn from all peoples, kindreds, and nations under the sun. This superb, thousand-columned folio was issued from the royal press, and is one of the most imposing monuments of human piety and folly—taking rank with the treatises of Fromundus ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the shadows might still lie about her, she had at last begun to see light ahead. She went again and yet again to see Daisy, and each visit added to her tranquillity of mind. Daisy was wonderfully brisk for an invalid, and her baby was an endless source of interest. Even Lady Bassett could not cavil when her charge spoke of going to nursery tea at Mrs. Musgrave's. She made no attempt to check the ripening friendship, though Muriel was subtly aware that she did not ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... now have been well; but Griselda had a pernicious habit of recurring to any slight words of blame which had been used by her friends. Her husband had congratulated her upon having attained the perfection of the art of disputing, since she could cavil about straws. This reproach rankled in her mind. There are certain diseased states of the body, in which the slightest wound festers, and becomes incurable. It is the same with the mind; and our heroine's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... strange that the scope and nature of this reform are so little understood and that so many things not included within its plan are called by its name. When cavil yields more fully to examination, the system will have large additions to the number of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... have choked the original form so completely that it is impossible to determine at first sight whether a Jewish or a Christian legend is under examination. I believe, however, that the pseudepigraphic material made use of by me is Jewish beyond the cavil of a doubt, and therefore it could not have been left out of account in a work like ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... rings,— That unrelieved, our whole life long, Each hour, in passing, hoarsely sings. In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:— That even each joy's presentiment With wilful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest to me, But some wild dream is sent to fray me. The God that in my breast is owned Can ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... of London than those I had hitherto made my appeals to. None of the personal interest that was felt for me there existed elsewhere, and I had to encounter the usual opposition, always prepared to cavil, in the provinces, at the metropolitan verdict of merit, as a mere exhibition of independent judgment; and to make good to the expectations of the country critics the highly laudatory reports of the London press, by which the provincial ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... which vaguely names what no adept In word-use fits and fixes so that still Thing shall not slip word's fetter and remain Innominate as first, yet, free again, Is no less recognized the absolute Fact underlying that same other fact Concerning which no cavil can dispute Our nomenclature when we call it "Mind"— Something not Matter)—"Soul," who seeks shall find Distinct beneath that something. You exact An illustrative image? ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... such evident earnestness that I took refuge in silence. I could see just where a man of Parton's temperament—which was cold and eminently judicial even when his affections were concerned—could find that in Barker at which to cavil, but, for all that, I could not sympathize with the extreme view he took of his character. I have known many a man upon whose face nature has set the stamp of the villain much more deeply than it was ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... said the man in gray; "where is he? Let us at once find him, and refute beyond cavil ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Esther he says: "Indeed, there is little in results to justify further employment of this much vaunted agency. That there have been perplexities I am fully aware. Having given the subject such careful thought, I am not disposed either to minimize obstacles or to cavil at well-meant efforts. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... their appropriate numerical titles, and there are at least five hundred thousand of them—whether imperial or senatorial, all legally binding. What memory could stand such a burden, or what might legal cavil not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the packers had disappeared with the big canvas and the cartoons [Transcriber's note: cartons?], and Hannah Ann and Henry had reduced everything to a state of perfection that even the most critical Symons in the world could not cavil at, and Bruce had said his last farewells and was on the blue rug at the studio door with his hand on the knob to usher them out, that Patricia found utterance ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... establishes two facts beyond cavil or dispute or reversion. One is that God's laws cannot be broken. We are not trying to say that they should not be broken; or that they cannot be broken with impunity; or that if broken we shall be punished. They simply cannot be ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... Haply the tale was true; yet will not seem Likely to one of sober sense possessed: But Sacripant, who waked from worser dream, In all without a cavil acquiesced: Since love, who sees without one guiding gleam, Spies in broad day but that which likes him best: For one sign of the afflicted man's disease Is to give ready faith to things ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... great sacrifice for Guy in hope of doing him good, how great, no one knew, and yet withall she had failed in her object. He looked at her as the world always judges of Christians; not by profession but practise. However, it may sneer and cavil at doctrine, the world is not slow to recognize and respect the character that like pure gold carries with it not only beauty but ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... produce it, but as to the effects most likely to result from it; that determination wears an aspect of scepticism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional in the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil impression on those who are already predisposed to carp and cavil at the evidences of ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... world. For Murdock was the friend of Barry; and Barry was the friend of the strike-ordering walking-delegates. If these three elements, representing the city fathers, the contractors and the laborers, were all satisfied with the way the city's work was being done, who remained to cavil? Certainly not the citizens. St. Etienne's wheels moved ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... dear creature, I will, if you desire it, and if Captain Tomlinson will engage that Mr. Harlowe shall keep them absolutely a secret; that I may not be subjected to the cavil and controul of any others of a family that have used me ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the effective employment of the battalion as a first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to individuals. But the case was one where they should not have temporised in any way. As matters turned out, the Royal Irish Fusiliers were very angry at being passed over at the eleventh ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... was useful on board a vessel, though his want of stature and force rendered him less so than was common with sea-faring men. His proper sphere certainly had been the cabins, where his usefulness was beyond all cavil; but he was now very serviceable to Mulford on the deck of the schooner. The first two days, Mrs. Budd had been left on the islet, to look to the concerns of the kitchen, while Mulford, accompanied by Rose, Biddy and Jack Tier, had gone off to the schooner, and set her pumps in motion ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... certainly have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... effecting that determination," to establish this beyond the possibility of cavil or denial, we have told here once again his inspiring story. The fact that as late as 1913, the Legislature of California appropriated $10,000 to place a bust of Starr King in our National Capitol at Washington would seem to indicate that the people have resolved ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... not whistle. It is one of those mannish tricks of hers which give a wrong impression. Her father ought to stop it; but he is so fond of the girl, and thinks her so altogether perfect and beyond cavil, that he lets everything go. She needs to have some one stronger than herself come into her life. I wonder if ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... other agencies, the Salvation Army is able to prove beyond cavil that it can assist our criminal system to attain this noble end, ought not opportunity to be given it in full measure? Is it too much to hope that when the new Prison Act, of which the substance has recently been outlined by the Home Secretary, comes to be discussed, this object may be kept in ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... who has moral objects in view, and cares for the delight and the improvement of His creatures,[1] and looking to the known effects on the mind of beauty in art and in nature, the existence is at once and beyond all cavil explained. ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... disposed to cavil at this picture, and was laying down her knitting to begin, but St. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... one Cicero or Plutarch. Not that I am wholly against them neither; but because, by the reading of the one, I find myself become better; whereas, I rise from the other, I know not how coldly affected to Virtue, but most violently inclin'd to Cavil and Contention; therefore never fear to propose ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... That the Americans would cavil at portions of the first part of my work, I was fully convinced, and as there are many observations quite new to most of them, they are by them considered to be false; but the United States, as I have before observed, comprehend ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... demonstrable probability. There is no time, in the rush of a dramatic action, for a mathematical calculation of the chances for and against a given event, or for experimental proof that such and such a thing can or cannot be done. If a thing seem plausible, an audience will accept it without cavil; if it, seem incredible on the face of it, no evidence of its credibility will be of much avail. This is merely a corollary from the fundamental principle that the stage is the realm of appearances; not of realities, where paste jewels are at least as effective ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... democracy shall prove itself capable of having raised twenty millions of people to a level of thought where they can appreciate this cardinal truth, and can believe no sacrifice too great for its defence and establishment, then democracy will have vindicated itself beyond all chance of future cavil. Here, we think, is a Cause the experience of whose vicissitudes and the grandeur of whose triumph will be able to give us heroes and statesmen. The Slave-Power must be humbled, must be punished,—so humbled and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... deal to interest him in its practice at Chicago. Indeed, no one can fail to wonder at the marvellous skill of architectural engineering which can run up a building of twenty stories, the walls of which are merely a veneer or curtain. Few will cavil at the handsome and comfortable equipment of the best interiors; but, given the necessity of their existence, the wide-minded lover of art will find something to reward his attention even in their exteriors. In many instances their architects have succeeded admirably in steering a middle course ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead |
