"Meddlesome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... survived her glorious son), and from the scattered reflection of her idiosyncrasies the attentive reader constructs a sufficiently vivid portrait. She was the old middle-class Frenchwoman whom he has so often seen—devoted, active, meddlesome, parsimonious, exacting veneration, and expending zeal. Honore ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... know? Because Chaldea was hiding under the studio window this afternoon and overheard all that passed between you and Garvington and that meddlesome Lambert. She knew that I was in danger and came at once to London to tell me since I had given her my address. I lost no time, but motored down here and dropped her at the camp. Now I've come to get you out of ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... we have dangers, From meddlesome strangers, Who spy on our business and are not content To take a smooth answer, Except with a handspike ... And they say they are murdered by ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Spence's voice was going on. "That's the only rag of proof they've got; and they got it by one of those nasty accidents that nobody can guard against. I don't care how conscientiously a man attends to business, he can't always protect himself against meddlesome people. I don't pretend to know how the letter came into their hands; but they've got it; and they mean to use it—and they mean to say that you wrote it for me, and that you knew what it was about when you wrote it. ... They'll ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the loss of his money, he was ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ears to the blessings a grateful nation would shower on us, if our visit had such a result; but I did not expect these things. I expected to be smeared from head to foot with Copperhead slime, to be called a knight-errant, a seeker after notoriety, an abortive negotiator, and a meddlesome volunteer diplomatist; but I expected also, if a good Providence spared our lives, and my pen did not forget the English language, to be able to tell the North the truth; and I knew that the Truth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... do things for other people. The word is now restricted to its bad sense of meddlesome. Cf. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... not know the word of command, and so the wand went on just the same. In his rage, he took a chopper, and cut the wand in two, but instead of stopping it brought twice as much; a double lot of pails appeared, and at last the torrent of water washed away the house of the meddlesome man. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... with quiet decision. "We have seen quite a little of that in the army, and it is my father's rule to get all the facts before passing judgment. My brother thought Mr. Stuyvesant's attendant garrulous and meddlesome." ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... to find some corner of those rocky wilds where no human being had ever set foot and to be the first person to behold it. What boy has not felt that Columbus had several centuries' advantage of him: that Balboa was a meddlesome old chap who might better have stayed in Spain and left American oceans to American boys to discover? Oh! the unutterable regret of youthful hearts that the Golden Fleece and the Holy Grail and other high adventures passed ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... strengthen Fort Cumberland, which was now to become headquarters; thus weakening the most important points and places, to concentrate a force where it was not wanted, and would be out of the way in most cases of alarm. By these meddlesome moves, made by Governor Dinwiddie from a distance, without knowing any thing of the game, all previous arrangements were reversed, every thing was thrown into confusion, and enormous losses and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... in looks. The cutting away of his curls did not make such a difference in him as Mother had supposed. He was as charming to her; he was as much her own little boy as though no meddlesome hands had even been laid upon him. In size he was quite the same, and, as Mother stood peering in at him, she presently heard a small, far-away voice. In it was the whispered awe of a child who feels the bigness of the ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... that she was debating whether or not to speak some thought which she feared Del might regard as meddlesome. "When you finally do have to get out," she said presently, "it'll be like giving up ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Mrs. Lander did not wish to go out, and she sent Clementina and Hinkle together as a proof that they were all on good terms again. She did not spare the girl this explanation in his presence, and when they were in the gondola he felt that he had to say, "I was afraid you might think I was rather meddlesome yesterday." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not approve of her going out or of her having company. The Larches was too far away, and as for Mr. and Mrs. Talcott, they were meddlesome people, whom he had never liked; besides, Mrs. Talcott was delicate, and the night threatened storm. Let her go to bed like a good girl, and think nothing about the money, which he would take care to put away in a very ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... in mentioning how it came about to you, Mr. L., as there undoubtedly was a great deal of 'interference with other men's matters' in the business. In short, the young man fell in the way of one of those meddlesome fellows, who go prowling about, distributing tracts, forming temperance societies, and ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... perceived this," she went on—"out of the abundance of one's affection and one's sympathy." It all blessedly came back to her—when it wasn't all, for the fiftieth time, obscured, in face of the present facts, by anxiety and compunction. "One was no doubt a meddlesome fool; one always IS, to think one sees people's lives for them better than they see them for themselves. But one's excuse here," she insisted, "was that these people clearly DIDN'T see them for themselves—didn't ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... a Popish priest is," he said. "A meddlesome busybody who pokes his nose into other men's secrets. But priest or no priest, I'll have no man coming to my house to make mischief ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... was still filled with rage at the meddlesome giant, because he had lost him the serpent, but he quietly picked up the boat and carried it home, Hymer taking the whales. Once more under his own roof, the giant's courage returned, and he challenged Thor to show his strength by breaking his drinking-cup. Thor sat down and, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... with the disposition of the public lands were clearly exposed by one Robert Gourlay, a somewhat meddlesome Scotchman, who had addressed a circular, soon after his arrival in Canada, to a number of townships with regard to the causes which retarded improvement and the best means of developing the resources of the province. An answer from Sandwich virtually set forth ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... very meekly for Aunt Clara, "I've been thinking it over. I ought to blame you. But I can't. I've had all I could do blaming myself. Are you thinking I am a selfish, meddlesome old fool?" ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... order of events, such a circumstance as a marriage union between the daughter of Mr. Lester, and an individual like Fenwick, was not at all likely to occur. But a meddlesome woman, who, by the accident of circumstances, had found free access to the family of Mr. Lester, set herself seriously at work to interfere with the orderly course of things, and effect a conjunction between two in no way fitted for each other, either in external circumstances ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... not know exactly what she wanted my Father to do with me; perhaps she did not know herself; she was meddlesome, ignorant and fanatical, and she liked to fancy that she was exercising influence. But the wonderful, the inexplicable thing is that my Father,—who, with all his limitations, was so distinguished and high-minded,—should ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... bath, talked continuously, whistled, sang, was markedly erotic towards the physician, careless in exposing herself and often obscene in her talk. Most of her productions were determined by the environment. She was therefore quite distractible, very alert; sometimes she was meddlesome, again irritable, irascible. The following illustrates her productions: "Send for my husband, S.—He had one sister as big as that. She likes candy.... My father is underneath and my mother is on top because she is fat and he is skinny.... Wait till the sun shines, Nellie—we will be happy, ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... Herminia and Laias, Armenia and Giazza; Coulam for the older Coilum; Socotera for Scotra. With these changes may be classed the chapter-headings, which are undisguisedly modern, and probably Ramusio's own. In some other cases this editorial spirit has been over-meddlesome and has gone astray. Thus Malabar is substituted wrongly for Maabar in one place, and by a grosser error for Dalivar in another. The age of young Marco, at the time of his father's first return to Venice, has been arbitrarily altered from 15 to 19, in order to correspond ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" she asked. "I hope Austin is grateful to her now—an' that he'll say so. At first he didn't like her at all, an' he's never taken to her same as the rest of us have—seems to feel she's bossy an' meddlesome. Howard an' I have spoken of it a thousand times. He began by resenting everything she did, an' then got so he didn't even mention ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... failed. All sects and parties sought ascendency rather than the public good; angry and inexperienced, they refused to compromise. Sectarianism was the true hydra that baffled the energy of the courageous combatant. Parliaments were factious, meddlesome, and inexperienced, and sought to block the wheels of government rather than promote wholesome legislation. The people hankered for their old pleasures, and were impatient of restraint; their leaders were demagogues ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... Old Man Coyote can grin. "I don't think any of us will be bothered by that meddlesome Bowser very soon again," said he, as he crept into his house for a nap. "If he had drowned in that river, I shouldn't have cried over it. But even as it is, I don't think he will get back here in a hurry. I must pass the ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... your hand and wade," gritted the Cap'n. "I ain't stoppin' you." He still scorned to explain to the meddlesome landsman. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... be driven into the mud by a set of meddlesome civilians, who knew nothing about war. And to show them that he was not, he kept his army quiet, on the banks of the Potomac, all winter. And in this position he contemplated Mr. Beauregard, and Mr. Beauregard contemplated him, separated by twenty miles of mud. We had not got our war eyes ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... all this. She pressed on, and they gave way for her a little as she approached the table. Three constables stood around it to guard the dead body from the touch of meddlesome hands. On seeing Lady Vincent with the air of one having authority, the constable that guarded the head of the table guessed at her rank, and officiously turned down the white sheet that covered the dead body, and revealed the horrible object beneath—the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the inquiry; and Julia replied to her look as follows: first, she coloured very high; then, she hid her face in both her hands; then rose, and turning her neck swiftly, darted a glance of fiery indignation and bitter reproach on Dr. Meddlesome, and left the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Odin, Loki, and Hoener started on a journey. They had often travelled together before on all sorts of errands, for they had a great many things to look after, and more than once they had fallen into trouble through the prying, meddlesome, malicious spirit of Loke, who was never so happy as when he was doing wrong. When the gods went on a journey they travelled fast and hard, for they were strong, active spirits who loved nothing so much as hard work, hard blows, storm, peril, and struggle. There were no roads through the country ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... sadly liable to bathos, divided, indeed, between sentences ringing with the great words 'genius' and 'fame,' and others devoted to an indignant contemplation of the hassocks in the old pews, 'the touching and well-worn implements of prayer,' to quote his handsome description of them, which a meddlesome parson was about to 'hurl away,' out of mere hatred for intellect and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the veritable product of the mighty sculptor's genius. That Michelangelo meant well to his illustrious ancestor is certain. That he took the greatest pains in executing his ungrateful and disastrous task is no less clear.[8] But the net result of his meddlesome benevolence has been that now for two centuries and a half the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn the ill-fitting disguise prepared for him by a literary 'breeches-maker.' In fact, Michael Angelo the poet suffered no less from his grandnephew than Michael Angelo the ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... of it!" Dolly stood up and angrily grasped the bell-handle. "It's not true. It's a meddlesome lie. They are jealous. People are always like that—it makes them furious to see another person prosper. They are mean, ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... questions imaginable, it seemed as though I were undergoing an examination poorly prepared, and I think I must have answered very stupidly. I was out of sorts, too, for often what looks like sympathy is mere inquisitiveness, and theirs impressed me as the more meddlesome, since I have a long while yet to wait for the happy event. Some time in the summer, early in July, I think. You must come then, or better still, so soon as I am at all able to get about, I'll take a vacation and set out for Hohen-Cremmen to see ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... to him, for Harry and myself were persona grata with the natives, who all knew that Hayes had a great liking for us. But to my astonishment and indignation, "Bully" turned on me furiously, called me a meddlesome young fool, prefixing the "fool" with some very strong adjectives, and then, losing all control of himself, he sprang at one of the members of the deputation—the youngest and strongest—and lifting him up in his ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... White Thunder, and the Hunter going with Washington. The latter understood very well that their object was to have an opportunity to win them over to the French. But Washington insisted upon their going with him, and rebuked Captain Joncaire for his meddlesome disposition. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... rest of us, Christopher Quarles had his weaknesses. Whenever he failed to elucidate a mystery he was always able to show that the fault was not his, but somebody else's; either too long a time had elapsed before he was consulted, or some meddlesome fool had touched things and confused the evidence, or even that something supernatural had been at work. Once, at least, according to the professor, I had played the part of meddlesome fool, and one of my weaknesses being a short temper, it had required all Zena's tact to keep us from quarreling ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the opportunity, I wish you would explain that I gave no opinion as to what might or might not be expedient under present circumstances at Cambridge. I do not want to seem meddlesome. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... made it while he was yet a 'prentice. I remember how I used to sit and watch him at his work. It would be grand, I thought, to be able to do as he did, and handle edge-tools without cutting my fingers, and getting my ears pulled for a meddlesome minx! He used to give me his mallet to keep and his nails to hold; and didn't I fly when he called for them! and wasn't I proud to be ordered about with them! And then, you know, there is the tall cabinet yonder; that it was that proved him the first of Edinburgh joiners, and worthy to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and through this accuser of what the city intended for those in this condition? Do not, members of the Boule, pass this vote. For why should I find you of such a disposition? 24. Because some one in a trial ever lost his property through me? But no one could prove that. Because I am meddlesome, and harsh and quarrelsome? But I do not chance to have such conditions of life for such actions. 25. But that I am violent and disorderly? But not even he would say that if he did not wish to lie about this as the other things. But that being in power in the reign of the Thirty I maltreated many ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... and puttin' in your meddlesome oar?" the Deacon said, turning to Waitstill. "The girl would never 'a' been there if you'd attended to your business. She's nothin' but a fool of a young filly, an' you're an old cart-horse. It was your job to look out for her as your mother told you to. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... be good, but you virtuous and respectable people sometimes show a meddlesome thoughtfulness which degenerates like myself resent. Besides, I suspect your offer ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the swelling of cervical glands is taken up. In his experience expectant treatment of these was best. He advises internal medication with the building up of the general health, or suggests allowing the inflamed glands to empty themselves after pustulation. After much meddlesome surgery we are almost back to his methods again. He did not hesitate to treat goitre surgically, though he considered there were certain internal remedies that would benefit it. In obstinate cases he suggests the complete extirpation of cystic goitre, but if the sac is allowed ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... young fisherman's back was getting very sore by this time, and he began to look about for the white side-streak which he had painted along the water-line of that new boat, to distract the meddlesome gaze of rivals from the peculiar curve below, which even Admiral Darling had not noticed, when he passed her on the beach; but Nelson would have spied it out in half a second, and known all about it in the other half. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... miserable tenantry, whose conditions are far worse than American slaves. If she is really philanthropic, why refuse to do any thing for her own suffering poor throughout her vast dominions? This is proof positive, that John Bull is an old villain; a rotten, two-faced, bigoted, meddlesome old hypocrite. If abolitionists in the United States are really philanthropic, why have they not made some effort to relieve the suffering poor in their own midst; whose conditions in general, are far worse than Southern slaves? They have work enough ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... old duskened features, dark, piercing eyes, and penthouse brows, but the long and pendulous Chinaman moustaches had shrunk till they scarcely covered his mouth. The "devil's jaw" could boast only a small tuft of hair. There were wrinkles in "the angel's forehead." If meddlesome Time had also furrowed his cheeks, nevertheless the most conspicuous mark there was still the scar of that great gash received in the ding-dong fight at Berbera. His hair, which should have been grizzled, he kept dark, Oriental fashion, with ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... hereditary disease. But who knows? Those two lads may grow up to be friends, and kill the old feud. They cannot help respecting each other after such an encounter as that. I'll try and get hold of young Darley, and then of Mark; and perhaps I may be able to—Bah! you weak-minded, meddlesome old driveller!" he cried impetuously. "You would muddle, and spoil all, when perhaps a Higher Hand is at work, as it always is, to make everything tend toward ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, particularly of so delicate a nature, solely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... who was spokesman at the treaty, maintained that hanging ought to be abolished, and the buffalo protected. On the whole, he accepted the conditions of the treaty, but, as his people were not present, he would not sign it, although he did sign it in the following year. Big Bear is a noisy, meddlesome savage, who is never in his glory save when he is the centre of some disturbance. He has always shown much delight in talking about war; and he would go without his meals to listen to a good story about fighting. He has the habit to, when the reciter ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... to him modest and meritorious Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his vast wealth and power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an evidence of happiness; that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and often make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster; and that no man's life can be called happy until the whole of it has been played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach of reverses. Croesus treats ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... such encouragement at home. Whatever she saw or heard in one place, she would be sure to report it in another; so that all the masters and misses who had the mortification to fall into her company, considered themselves as under the malicious inspection of a meddlesome spy; which they had the more reason to do, because she seldom failed to embellish her informations with the recital of several unfavourable circumstances of her own invention." "Indeed, Mr. Wiseman, said Betsey, my youngest ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... take umbrage at some fancied slight to his honour or disregard of his affections and suddenly "amok"? The wise adviser would be the first victim, no doubt, and death would be his reward. And underlying the horror of this situation there was the danger of those meddlesome fools, the white men. A vision of comfortless exile in far-off Madura rose up before Babalatchi. Wouldn't that be worse than death itself? And there was that half-white woman with threatening eyes. How could he tell what an incomprehensible creature of that sort would or would ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... fellows at the club may chaff me all you choose. I'm going to marry her and that's all there is to it. I'm my own master, do you understand? I have no family—no inquisitive, meddlesome relatives, thank God! If this marriage is going to cost me what friends I have—all right—let them keep away! Such friends are not worth having, anyway. My mind is made up and you know me. Once I make up my mind, nothing can alter it." Determinedly he ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Winton to have grown up of a sudden. He had known all day that something was coming, and had been cudgelling his brains finely. From the fervour of his love for her, he felt an anxiety that was almost fear. What could have happened last night—that first night of her entrance into society—meddlesome, gossiping society! She slid down to the floor against his knee. He could not see her face, could not even touch her; for she had settled down on his right side. He mastered his tremors ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... older than you and I am a friend—of many years—of your mother. There's nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right—a sort of privilege. For the rest, my inquiry will speak ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... this furnace came constitutional government in England, and republican government in America. We owe the origins of our political life to the influence of these German tribes, with their love of individual freedom and their stern hatred of meddlesome rulers, or a meddlesome state ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... fine old smoked-herring sort, such as the clown offers them in the circus, warranted never to spoil, if only kept dry enough. Your fresh wit demands a little thought, perhaps, or at least a kind of negative wit, in the recipient. It is an active, meddlesome—quality, forever putting things in unexpected and somewhat startling relations to each other; and such new relations are as unwelcome to the ordinary mind as poor relations to a nouveau riche. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... sympathy on a nation which brings on its fate by preferring monasticism to education; and never during the Spanish War did he or his government, to my knowledge, show the slightest leaning toward our enemies. Certain it is that when sundry hysterical publicists and meddlesome statesmen of the Continent proposed measures against what they thought the dangerous encroachments of our Republic, he quietly, but resolutely and effectually, put his foot ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... left the shed when Miss Grundy herself appeared, fretting about "the meddlesome old widow who had come there stickin' round before Mrs. ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... flagrant, shameless violations of the city ordinances and the state bird laws. In those days I never but once heard of a policeman on his own initiative arresting a birdshooter, even on Sunday; but whenever meddlesome special wardens from the Zoological Park have pointedly called upon the local police force for help, it has always been given with cheerful alacrity. In the fall of 1912 an appeal to the Police Commissioner resulted in a general ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... to believe in an unnatural god who apparently must be ever ready to answer anybody's prayerful cry and act as a general servant to humanity by distributing good things to those who beg for them; a sort of meddlesome god who enters into all the petty quarrels of hunan beings and generally settles them in ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... from the doorway toward the table; she had her hands closed upon what seemed trinkets, some of which glittered and dangled from them. She said, "Will you go to him and tell him that this meddlesome minx, here, had no business to say anything about me to him, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... designs as to the oubliette. He did most sincerely wish Master Gottfried had never let Wildschloss know of the mode in which his life had been saved. Yet, while it would have seemed to him profane to breathe even to Friedel the true secret of his repugnance to this meddlesome kinsman, it was absolutely impossible to avoid his most distasteful ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... being meddlesome,' continued Percy, 'I thought I saw a way of being even with that scoundrel. Your papers had got into my pocket, and, as I had nothing else to do, I looked them over after parting with you, and saw a way out of the difficulty. I was coming in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ingenuous little idiot had naively told her he was going to take her with him. It didn't really matter, of course; he didn't suppose Mrs. Leadbatter could exercise any control over Mary Ann, but it was horrible to be discussed by her and Rosie; and then there was that meddlesome vicar, who might step in ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... was my fault," Jack said, contritely. "I should not have tempted you to go on that unlucky trip last Tuesday. So you were seen near Richmond station by some meddlesome individual—probably when you got out of the trap! But it may turn out for the best; your father could not have been kept in ignorance much ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... murder of Buckingham (1592-1628), in whose hands he had been a mere tool, Charles gradually came to yield himself up to her unwise influence—not wholly indeed, but more than to that of Stafford even, or Laud. Little meddlesome Laud, made archbishop in 1633, proceeded to war against the dominant Puritanism, to preach passive obedience, and uphold the divine right of kings; while great Stafford, from championing the Petition of Right (1628), passed over to the king's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... people, just as he could hardly refrain—in defiance of nautical etiquette—from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a fool in his time. Have another." And "my boy" as a rule took ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... talks there occurred a singular contact of minds. It was very well for me to spin sonorous generalities, but I had never till now dreamed of being so vulgar as to translate them into practice. I had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism. To be thrown with Davies was to receive a shock of enlightenment; for here, at least, was a specimen ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... So called from their habit of going entirely naked. One of them is said by Arrian to have said to Alexander. "You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that you abandon your home like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardships yourself, and inflicting hardships on others." (Arrian, vii, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... his extended career Mr. Wintermuth had been called upon to face many serious and unexpected crises. Conflagrations; rate wars; eruptions of idiotic and ruinous legislation adopted by state senates and assemblies composed of meddlesome agriculturalists, saloon keepers, impractical young lawyers, and intensely practical old politicians;—all these he had lived through not once, but often, and had always piloted the Guardian's bark to port in safety. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... of making on a certain young lady, did not expect him—that is, Holmes—to notice anything beyond the limits of his work, or to recognize in any way his employer's secret intentions. But fortunately for us, this man Holmes is just one of those singularly meddlesome people whose curiosity grows with every attempt at repression; and when, coincident with that disastrous happening at the museum, all these loverlike attentions ceased and no calls were made and no presents sent, and gloom instead of cheer marked his employer's ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... carefully washed hands (for little hands will somehow get dirty, try sedulously though you and their owner may to prevent it), in the small tin, and it is placed in the oven with the other pies. It serves admirably at a doll's tea-party, and the meddlesome fingers have been kept busy, the restless mind contented, while ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... whatever renown he may have as a man of valor, who could offer what my master has offered now?" This outburst of his squire's infuriated Don Quixote. He began to foam at the mouth, and after having scolded the meek and meddlesome Sancho, he told him abruptly to go at once and saddle Rocinante. His hosts were astounded at his remarkable behavior and proposal, and did all they could to stay him from carrying it out, but he was not to be swayed. So they all followed ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... itself so innocently to his, still smitten to the heart by the beauty of it, and by the fear that he saw in it of his own stern aspect. He had never looked upon any woman before. He had been proud of it,—proud of his strength and cleverness, that needed no meddlesome female creature coming in between him and his business, between him and his religion. He had not let his hair and beard grow, knowing nothing of such practices, but in heart he had been a Nazarite from his youth up,—serving God in his harsh, unloving way; loving God, as he thought; certainly ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... "that there will be no occasion for applying to a Court of Chancery. There ought to be none. There is but one child, Mrs Vincent, whom you have seen this evening in the drawing-room. The great essential is to keep prying and meddlesome attorneys from thrusting themselves into the business. You acted as confidential secretary as well as tutor, while you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... about Louisville, preparing for the forward movement, Gov. Morton, of Indiana, was frequently in Louisville, consulting with Gen. Buel, and offering suggestions as to army movements etc., and these, after a time, came to be regarded by Gen. Buel as meddlesome, and uncalled for, so much so, that he finally intimated to Gov. Morton that it would be as well for him to attend to his duties as Governor of Indiana, while he would attend to his as Commanding General of the forces in the field. It is important to mention this circumstance here, as ...
— Personal recollections and experiences concerning the Battle of Stone River • Milo S. Hascall
... existence. This trait of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity—like a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather to keep that "friend" in the dark about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed other company than his own, for there was in him something ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... her contradictions only added to her charm. Isabel's agitation over the affairs of the Congdons led him close to the point of mentioning her name to note its effect upon Mrs. Congdon, but to do this might be an act of betrayal that would only confirm Isabel's opinion of him as a stupid, meddlesome person. Nothing was to be gained by attempting to hasten the culmination of the fate that flung him about like a chip on a turbulent stream. Fiends and angels might be battling for his soul, and Lucifer might take him in ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... prosperous and contented, looked around and saw naught but good, while millions of their fellowmen were bartered and sold like cattle! No doubt, there were comfortable optimists who thought Wilberforce a meddlesome fanatic when he was working with might and main to free the slaves. I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, "Hurrah, we're all right! This is the greatest nation on earth," when there are grievances ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... to you may be death to her, for she has a heart, and a fine, and true, and deep one; may be death to yourself—for you, too, are honorable, and true, and noble; and that is why I love you, George, and why I speak to you thus, at the risk of being held meddlesome or impertinent." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... fact that the conclusion reached by the English statesmen in 1874, was reached in Illinois in 1873; the conclusion that railroad companies ought to have the right to control their own affairs, fix their own rates of transportation, be free from meddlesome legislation, and, as has been said, work out their own destiny in their own way, just so long as they show a reasonable regard for ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... stood up with a cast in his eye, And he said, "Far too many baubles we buy; With all the Gosh factories closing their doors, And importers' warehouses lining our shores." But the Glugs cried, "Down with such meddlesome fools! What did our grandpas lay down in their rules?" And the Knight, Sir Stodge, he opened his Book: "To Cheapness," he said, "was the road they took." Then every Glug who was not too fat Turned seventeen handsprings, and jumped on his hat. They fined ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... silence, during which the Mayor's eyes rested on the culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me and said: 'My memory is not always very good, but this time the cobbler's—who is a meddlesome person—is even more defective. Yes, I think it quite possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can sympathize with the young man as to the size of the rabbit. They are running very small this year. My decision, therefore, is that you can let the ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... heart. She sat on her tossed bed, the sickness of disappointment heavy over her. An hour ago wealth was in her hand, ease was before her, and the future was secure. Now all was torn down and scattered by an old yellow paper which prying, curious, meddlesome old Sol Greening had found. She bent her head upon her hand; tears trickled between ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... magnificence of taste which would have made the houses and manners of modern stock-jobbers intolerable to them. Renaissance millionaires could be vulgar and brutal, but they were great gentlemen. They were neither illiterate cads nor meddlesome puritans, nor even saviours of society. Yet, if we are to understand the amazing popularity of Titian's and of Veronese's women, we must take note of their niceness to kiss and obvious willingness to be ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... no objection to your going in," she said to the policeman, "but I will not give up my keys to her. What right has she in our house any way." And I thought I heard her murmur something about a meddlesome ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... soon. "Meddlesome midwifery is bad" with animals as with women. After labor pains set in, give a reasonable time for the water bags to protrude and burst spontaneously, and only interfere when delay suggests some mechanical obstruction. If there is no mechanical obstruction, let the calf be expelled ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... Katharine, his eldest daughter. He gets it, and gives it to the "poor damsel," who is languishing, as he says, and who dies the next month,—all the sooner, I have little doubt, for this uncertain and violent drug, with which the meddlesome pedant tormented her in that spirit of well-meant but restless quackery, which could touch nothing without making mischief, not even a quotation, and yet proved at length the means of bringing a great blessing to our community, as we shall see by and by; so does Providence use our very ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the tailor's story, he shook his head for delight and showed astonishment, saying, 'This that passed between the young man and the meddlesome barber is indeed more pleasant and more wonderful than the story of that knave of a hunchback.' Then he bade the tailor take one of the chamberlains and fetch the barber out of his duresse, saying, 'Bring him to me, that I may hear his talk, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... character and conduct caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him "a meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as a ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... following quotation from Poetry (9 ['16]: 51) may serve as a starting-point in discussing Mr. Kreymborg's qualities: "An insinuating, meddlesome, quizzical, inquiring spirit; sometimes a clown, oftener a wit, now and then a lyric poet ... trips about cheerfully among life's little incongruities; laughs at you and me and progress and prejudice and dreams; says 'I told you so!' with an air, as if after a double somersault ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... cried Bixiou, "thou hast set thy finger on the weak spot. Meddlesome taxation has lost us more victories here in France than the vexatious chances of war. I once spent seven years in the hulks of a government department, chained with bourgeois to my bench. There was a clerk in the office, a man with a head on ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... not all. He is very meddlesome. He is always telling mamma what ought to be expected from a young lady like me, and getting her to annoy me about lessons and other things; at least, I think so. I know he thinks me quite childish; and sometimes he interferes between Clement and me. What do you think he had ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... generations of practice. Even a government inspector is looked upon with deep disfavor as one result of the demoralization brought about by liberal and other loose ways of viewing public rights. The private, self-constituted one, it may then be judged rightly, is regarded as a meddlesome and pestilent busybody seeking knowledge which nobody should wish to obtain, and another illustration of what the nineteenth century is coming to. Various committees of inquiry, from the Organized Charities and from private bodies of workers, visit manufactories ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... mutilated, altered phrases which seemed to him suspicious. Only one who has examined the manuscripts of the Buonarroti Archives knows what pains he bestowed upon this ungrateful and disastrous task. But the net result of his meddlesome benevolence is that now for nearly three centuries the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn a mask concealing the real nature of his emotion, and that a false legend concerning his relations to Vittoria Colonna has become inextricably ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The great poet has less a mark'd style, and is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution, and is the free channel of himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance, or effect, or originality, to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... with a laugh, "if you really want to know, I understand that every eighth of a mile is marked with a single small white rag; each quarter has a blue one; while the mile shows a plain red one. I hope some meddlesome fellow doesn't go to changing the signals on Brad, and make him think he's doing a record stunt. But I believe he's got some other secret sign of his own to ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... be meddlesome, but 'pears to me if you'd spoke out your feelings to Dick, you'd said, 'Tell Melinda Jones I don't want to see her, neither to-night nor any time.' Mebby I'm mistaken, but honest, do you want to ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... officials of municipalities thoroughly despise their mayors (up their sleeves). A mayor is here today and gone tomorrow, whereas a permanent official is permanent. A mayor knows nothing about anything except his chain and the rules of debate, and he is, further, a tedious and meddlesome person—in the ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... never mind, he's worth waiting for, with his fine house and immense wealth; I shan't care so much about Uncle Nat's money then, though goodness knows I don't want him turning up here some day and exposing me, as I dare say the meddlesome old ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... cleared up. We certainly ought not to usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which intrudes itself into every part of human life, and which thinks that it can do everything for everybody better than anybody can do anything for himself; or a careless, lounging government, which suffers grievances, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Jane Austen's novel Emma, is the somewhat meddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentleman living at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people named are other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being an old ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... and their days of privation, and he did not forget that all they had, they owed to that father. He witnessed his mother's smiles and blushes with some anxiety. One day, as he was going an errand to Neck of Land, he was accosted by a meddlesome ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... have a regular French and Indian war right on her premises. It was here the children came, just as you say, and it's our duty to see 'em settled in good homes, but I shall take a few days more to think 'bout it, and I'll let her know by Saturday night what we've decided to do.—That's the most meddlesome, inteferin', gossipin' woman in this county," she added, as Mrs. Silas Tarbox closed the front gate, "and I wouldn't have her do another day's work at this house if I didn't have to. But it's worse for them ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now raging in America appears to me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, and the courage of them; but at the same time he showed himself fully alive to the fact that no greater calamity could possibly overtake the ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... decorously and clerically walking through the gate when going to call on one of his parishioners. Rev. Joseph Metcalf of the Old Colony was complained of in 1720 for wearing too worldly a wig. He mildly reproved and shamed the meddlesome women of his church by asking them to come to him and each cut off a lock of hair from the obnoxious wig until all the complainers were satisfied that it had been rendered sufficiently unworldly. Some Newbury church-members, in 1742, asserted that their ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... excuse of duty!" said Zenobia, in a whisper so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "I have often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and I know precisely what it signifies. Bigotry; self-conceit; an insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... himself of it, so as to avoid the risk of giving or of receiving serious affront, would be to push that whim of his into more than wonted exaggeration. Thus he could more decidedly and briefly come to the point; and should he, in doing so, appear too meddlesome, rather provoke a laugh than a frown-retiring from the ground with the honours due to a humorist. Accordingly, in his deepest nasal intonation, and withdrawing his eyes from ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... retorted Grace Ferrall hotly, "before they begin to bully you. There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen. No disinterested impulse moved you. It was a sheer perverse, sentimental restlessness—the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race. And if that poison is in you, it's well for you to ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... (2) "Meddlesome Midwifery" is not so much a temptation for the midwife as the doctor, though she also may want to do too much. Patience combined with accurate knowledge when interference is urgently needed, is ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... appeared a new lease of life, that sleep, that "sweet restorer," was a stranger during the night. In the morning, however, a gloom was again cast over the spirits of some of the most superstitious by the remark of a meddlesome old West India captain, that undoubtedly Cochran, like the seers of olden times, made his calculations according to the "old style" of computing time. Thus twelve additional days were allowed to pass before they dared give a full ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... told his wife that old Brattle was the only man in the world before whom he would be afraid to speak his mind openly, and in so saying he had expressed a feeling that was very general throughout all Bullhampton. Mr. Puddleham was a very meddlesome man, and he had once ventured out to the mill to say a word, not indeed about Carry, but touching some youthful iniquity of which Sam was supposed to have been guilty. He never went near the mill again, but would shudder ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... goes on to describe in detail how, governed and possessed by one idea, and by a theory, to oppose which was "moral depravity," he proceeded to establish his intolerable system of discipline, based on dogmatic grounds—meddlesome, inquisitorial, petty, cruel—over the interior of every household in Geneva. What is there fascinating, or even imposing, in such a character? It is the common case of political and religious bigots, whether Jacobin, or Puritan, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... said; "and not only that, but I must refuse it to my guests, and have nothing of the kind in my house; not even those choice wines your uncle bought, Neither wine for myself nor ale for my servants! It was quite out of the question, you know. Mr. Warden was meddlesome to the very verge of impertinence about it, until I was compelled to give up inviting him to my house. He went so far as to doubt my being a Christian! And it was of no use telling him I followed our Lord's example more strictly by drinking ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... I continued, "you must not think me meddlesome—officious. I can no more wait for your permission to help you than if you were drowning. Perhaps for good reasons within me, I know, better than you, that you-and he—are on a slippery incline, and that whether you can ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... forgive me if I seem to you impertinent, meddlesome. I know quite well that this is no business of mine, but—but I know Mrs. Carstairs, and I know she has been made bitterly unhappy by this wretched misunderstanding. And I am sure, as sure as I am that you and I sit here to-day, that she never wrote one word of all those beastly letters—why, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the tide of progress, or the tide of culture. But the forces of reaction, threatened in their mediaeval management of things, have begun a cowardly guerilla warfare, a series of petty, cowardly, miserable, meddlesome tricks." ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the unborn generation, whose parents had not then entered the matrimonial state. Whatever other purpose it subserved, except to show to other communities the "latest novelty" from California, is the unfathomable conundrum. John Crowe was a noisy, blatant, meddlesome fellow, the keeper of a livery stable on Kearny street, and a fierce denouncer of the Committee. There was nothing else to his discredit, so far as I could learn at the time. Reub. Maloney was a compound character—a good deal ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... however, our relative standing was the same here as it had been at the school. I gradually overcame the prejudices of the students, and gained their good will, while he was always giving offence by his meddlesome disposition and overbearing manners: yet his talents and force of character always procured him a few followers, whom he managed as he pleased. Of their aid he made use to gratify his malevolence towards me, for this feeling had grown with his growth, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... my heart hath been heavy, fearing for thee from wild beasts or other mischances. Now praise be to Allah for thy safety!" I thanked him for his friendly solicitude and, retiring to my corner, sat pondering and musing on what had befallen me; and I blamed and chided myself for my meddlesome folly and my frowardness in kicking the alcove. I was calling myself to account when behold, my friend, the Tailor, came to me and said, "O youth, in the shop there is an old man, a Persian,[FN212] who seeketh thee: he hath thy hatchet and thy sandals which he had ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... whipped up Hosea and trotted off. I wondered whether he would come. He had said: "Delighted, I'm sure," but he had not looked delighted. Very possibly he regarded me as a meddlesome, gossiping old tom-cat. Perhaps for that reason he would deem it wise to adopt a propitiatory attitude. Perhaps also he retained a certain affectionate respect for me, seeing that I had known him as a tiny boy in a sailor suit, and had fed him at Harrow (as I did poor Oswald Fenimore at Wellington) ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... comfortably in a low chair by the south window in the music room, stopped his whittling when Berne Webster came in with Judge Wilton. "Meddlesome Mike!" thought the detective. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... fallen out as I expected—I had just arranged to carry them both off to Clairdelune, and leave these usurpers in possession for as long as the Country would endure them—when you blunder in, like the meddlesome idiot you are, Baron, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... streaked with sweat and his flanks were palpitating with fatigue when Lone rode up to the corral and dismounted. Pop Bridgers saw him and came bow-legging eagerly forward with gossip titillating on his meddlesome tongue, but Lone stalked by him with only a surly nod. Bob Warfield he saw at a distance and gave no sign of recognition. He met Hawkins coming down from his house and stopped ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... pleasantly—took off his hat to Judith and said he guessed he'd be going. And the men with whom he had been talking, including all of the milkers and all of the other workmen upon whom Nelson could get his meddlesome hands at short notice, all men whom Trevors had placed here, made known in hesitant speech or awkward silence that they were going with Nelson. There were good jobs open with the lumber company, it seemed. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... remarks made in it. The writer observes:—'It must not be inferred when such remarks are absent from the reports that nothing is done. I have great difficulty sometimes in overcoming the feeling that my questions on these points are a meddlesome interference in private matters.' Bearing that remark in mind, I say here are instances which I am sure reflect as much credit on the individuals as on the interest they represent and the county to which they belong. I am sure ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh |
