"Pugnacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the effect upon Helen was peculiar. From the pugnacious attitude of an outraged canary, ready to do battle, she was transformed into the sweetest, meekest love-bird imaginable. A veritable little preening, posing, oh-do-admire-me creature, and at Polly's last words she jumped from the box and clasping ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... by bearing this in mind that we see the force of St. Paul's answer. He does not insist on the word; he does not fight even for this sacred title; he does not take it up as a pugnacious champion might take up the glove which his adversary had thrown down; he does not say, "Iwould that thou wast a Christian." In his answer he bears his testimony to one of the gravest, the most fruitful, of all theological ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... then!" said Fred. "I propose Monty for leader. Those against the motion take their shirts off, and see if they can lick me! Nobody pugnacious? The ayes have it! ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... her at that moment. She would give vent to her hatred. She would turn the disagreeable, pugnacious, upstart ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... frosty weather; Charlie and I used to die of laughing at him. I think cold made him pugnacious; he seemed always ready for a row, and was constantly in one. The January frost came in our Christmas holidays, so Jem had lots of time on his hands; he spent almost all of it out of doors, and he devoted a good deal of it to fighting ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... than once afterwards. Until 1873 he and his rival, Mr. Fox, were considered inevitable members of almost any combination. Native affairs were in the forefront during that period. Mr. Fox, the most impulsive, pugnacious, and controversial of politicians, usually headed the peace party; Sir Edward Stafford, much more easy going in ordinary politics, was usually identified with those who held that peace could only be secured ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... looked at each other in question, and suddenly it struck them all that they were a rather pugnacious-looking crew in their cumbersome suits of armor and formidable helmets. ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... threw down the poker, and casting a glance first at his hopeful son, and then at his hoping wife, replied that Jake was an ignorant, pugnacious, good-for-nothing scamp, and never would come to anything, unless to ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... popular estimate for religious bigotry, yet the offense of Andrew Carnegie to a vast number of people is his liberal attitude of mind in all matters pertaining to religion. Then the Scotch are supposed to be a pugnacious, quarrelsome and fighting people, but here is a man who has made his name known as the symbol of disarmament ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... and old servants were fixtures, but the old faithful and devout ones looked forlorn and unhappy and there had been a great importation of the ruffianly men-at-arms, whom the more pugnacious ecclesiastics, as well as nobles, of Scotland, were apt to maintain. Guards there had been in old times, but kept under strict discipline; whereas, in the rude conduct of these men, there was no sign that they ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his own life, and his pugnacious vivacity, and hardy frankness, would have seasoned a piece of autobiography; an amateur has, however, written it in the style which amateurs like, with all the truth he could discover, enlivened by some secret history, writing the life of Lenglet with the very ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... bad as he used to be, Clinton," Easton laughed; "just the same aggressive, pugnacious beggar that ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... with either were 'tother dear charmer away,'" chuckled Jim, pointing to the two pugnacious disputants on either side of ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... coming into his eyes again, and he paused, feeling that he would once more be overcome if he evoked the memory of that adored and lamented Benedetta. And so it was with a pugnacious bitterness that he resumed: "But what an execrable book it was, my dear son, allow me to tell you so. You told me that you had shown respect for dogma, and I still wonder what aberration can have come ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... can that have place In any soul? Plato affirms ideas; But Aristotle, with his pugnacious race, As idle figments stiffly ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... forced upon them. "Militarism" is not a preponderant spirit in either Great Britain or the United States; their commercial tendencies and their isolation concur to exempt them from its predominance. Pugnacious, and even warlike, when aroused, the idea of war in the abstract is abhorrent to them, because it interferes with their leading occupations, and its demands are alien to their habits of thought. To say that either lacks ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... a military cousin of his, striding along, with his heavy armor clattering against the glass as he walks. A pugnacious fellow is that same soldier; and if he meet an opponent, you may see the tug of war. Should he chance to prefer the other's shield to his own, he will seize him in his burly arms, and shake him from under its protection. Yet he is cautious withal; for though obliged to doff his own ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... another Swede, a steward, who really might have been called a British seaman since he had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather superior person; one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a pugnacious character; one Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, tireless and indomitable under very difficult circumstances; one Hollander, whose placid manner of looking at the ship going to pieces under our feet I shall never forget, and one young, colourless, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... had before him the conflicting orders, one from the President, one from the Secretary of the Navy. He was about to sail under the President's orders for Pensacola; but wishing to make sure of his authority, he had telegraphed to Washington. Gideon Welles was a pugnacious man. His dislike for Seward was deepseated. Imagine his state of mind when it was accidently revealed to him that Seward had gone behind his back and had issued to naval officers orders which were contradictory to his own! The immediate result was an interview that ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... or like a jumping spider; and, as soon as it gets within two or three inches of the insect, by a sudden spring contrives to pop its underset mouth directly over the unlucky victim. He is, moreover, a pugnacious little fellow; and rather prolonged fights may be observed between him and his brethren. One, in fleeing from an apparent danger, jumped into a pool a foot square, which the other evidently regarded as ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of improving the shape of his nose, wanting in symmetry as it was. Notwithstanding his pugnacious looks, however, Jermin had a heart as big as a bullock's; that you ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... man could thole, many a time, in the sessions and oot o' them; but the dominie aye stood between us wi' his word, and we hae managed so far to keep the peace, though a mair pig-headed, provoking, pugnacious auld Dutchman never sat down on the ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... no evening disturbance is to be anticipated from that source. It was found that there are over two thousand pulquerias in the capital. The effect of this special stimulant, however, is not to make those who indulge freely in it pugnacious or noisy. It acts more like a powerful narcotic, and puts those who are overcome with it to sleep, having, in fact, many of the properties of opium. The gilded bar-rooms where the upper classes seek refreshment, who, ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... down by himself to brood over his troubles, Hindenburg from a safe distance eyeing the bear, a dark ruff showing along his pugnacious little back. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... Withington's invention had apparently made his position secure. Indeed, for the next ten years he had everything his own way. Then suddenly an ex-keeper of a drygoods store in Maine crossed his path. This was William Deering, a character quite as energetic, forceful, and pugnacious as was McCormick himself. Though McCormick had made and sold thousands of his selfbinders, farmers were already showing signs of discontent. The wire proved a continual annoyance. It mingled with the straw and killed the cattle—at least so the ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... Tierney had a passage of arms in the House. That pugnacious Irishman had thrust himself to the fore during the secession of Fox and other prominent Whigs from the House, and had to bear many reproaches for his officiousness. He also nagged at Pitt at every opportunity, until, on ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the head. This frontal eye is totally wanting in the other workers, and is not known in any other kind of ant. The apparition of these strange creatures from the cavernous depths of the mine reminded me, when I first observed them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no difficulty in securing a few with my fingers. I never saw them under any other circumstances than those here related, and what their special functions ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... goes in pugnacious surveillance, in furies with difficulty restrained, and masked by a contraction of the face. He invokes Deroulede, and says that faith comes at will, like the rest. He lives in perpetual bewilderment and distress that everybody does not think as he does. He exerts ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... pugnacious—so cheerful as to be almost light-hearted. But as he looked across at his wife his feeling of satisfaction vanished. Ellen's face was pinched and drawn to-day; she looked ill —ill and horribly tired. It was very aggravating of her to go and behave like this—just when they ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... sharp face, with eyes set a trifle too close together, and an undershot jaw, which gave him a somewhat pugnacious appearance. He was a chap who thought very well indeed of himself and his accomplishments, and held a somewhat slighting estimation of others. In connection with baseball, he had always entertained ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Ryan an optimist. The blood of Ireland had made him pugnacious. And Mack Nolan had a way with him. Wherefore, Casey Ryan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon and turned in there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw set stubbornly. History has it that whenever Casey Ryan gets that look in his face, the man underneath ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... and died there July 4th, 1826, the year after his son too was inaugurated President. He was the first conspicuous member of an enduringly powerful and individual family. The Adams race have mostly been vehement, proud, pugnacious, and independent, with hot tempers and strong wills; but with high ideals, dramatic devotion to duty, and the intense democratic sentiment so often found united with personal aristocracy of feeling. They have been men of affairs first, with large practical ability, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... hair was brown and fine, falling in natural ringlets about a face in which energy and sensibility were remarkably mixed. Every feature was delicately cut; the chin was bold; and about the mouth something of a pugnacious expression. His eyes were mellow and glowing, large, dark, and sensitive. At the recital of a noble action or a beautiful thought they would suffuse with tears, and his mouth trembled.[391] Haydon says that his eyes had an inward Delphian look that ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Saracens or ogres or such, and when thus engaged they gave little trouble to the good folk at home. But in between wars, not being educated, they couldn't sit still and be quiet. It was dull in the house. They liked action. So they rode around the streets in a pugnacious, wild-western manner, despising anyone who could read and often knocking him down; and making free with the personal property of merchants and peasants, who they thought had no special right to property or even to life. Knights who felt rough behaved as such, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... nervousness which continued dissipation produces, and perhaps from his poetical temperament. A poet, we are persuaded, is often the bravest, and often the most pusillanimous of men. Byron was unquestionably in general a brave, almost a pugnacious man; and yet he confesses that at certain times, had one proceeded to horsewhip him, he would not have had the hardihood to resist. Shelley, who, in a tremendous storm, behaved with dauntless heroism, and who would at any time have acted on the example of his own character in ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... spoon—a mere spoon." "Am I a spoon, you rascal?" said the squire, tearing the letter into pieces, and throwing it into the fire. "And so, Misther O'Grady, you say I'm a spoon!" and the blood of the Egans rose as the head of that pugnacious family strode up and down the room: "I'll spoon you, my buck!—I'll settle your hash! may be I'm a spoon you'll ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the levee I was going aboard one of the boats and slipped on the gang plank and sprained my knee, which laid me up for about two weeks. About a week ago my pugnacious friend who gave me his mark escaped from the penitentiary at Stillwater, along with all the rest of the prisoners confined at the time. I am sincerely very grateful to you for your generous offer in your letter and fully appreciate your kindness. But notwithstanding my bad ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... outset, 'twas unjust To jest as he had done last eve, A timid, shrinking love to grieve. And ought he not to disregard The poet's madness? for 'tis hard At eighteen not to play the fool! Sincerely loving him, Eugene Assuredly should not have been Conventionality's dull tool— Not a mere hot, pugnacious boy, But man of sense ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... war on France, and was sending an army through Syria for the recovery of Egypt, while another expedition was assembling at Rhodes. Like all great captains, Bonaparte was never content with the defensive: his convictions and his pugnacious instincts alike urged him to give rather than to receive the blow; and he argued that he could attack and destroy the Syrian force before the cessation of the winter's gales would allow the other Turkish expedition to attempt a disembarkation at Aboukir. If he ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... invited me to spend Saturday at Pinkie. She was a very ladylike person, in delicate health, and with cold manners. Sir Archibald was stout, loud, passionate, and devoted to hunting. I amused myself in the grounds, a good deal afraid of a turkey-cock, who was pugnacious and defiant. ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... cannot find that its numbers are increased at any time of year by migration. But on the other hand I should think a good many of the young must be driven off to seek quarters elsewhere by their most pugnacious parents, for of all birds the Robin is by far the most pugnacious with which I am acquainted, and deserves the name of "pugnax" much more than the Ruff, and in a limited space like Jethou and Herm battles between ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... a curious and not very healthy-looking person of about fifty years of age, ill-dressed in seedy black clothes and a flaming red tie, with a fat, pale face, a pugnacious mouth, and a bald head, on the top of which isolated hairs stood up stiffly. I knew him by sight, for once he had argued with me at a lecture I gave on sanitary matters, when I was told that he was a draper by trade, and, although ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... to translate for me. The crowd began to disperse, though many a deep-set black eye still glittered with an unnatural luster, as the warriors slowly withdrew to their lodges. This fortunate suppression of the disturbance was owing to a few of the old men, less pugnacious than Mene-Seela, who boldly ran in between the combatants and aided by some of the "soldiers," or Indian police, succeeded in ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... mixed descendants, by whom it is, or was, inhabited. I say every one advisedly, for although the public which studies such works is usually select, that which will take an interest in them, if the character of a learned and pugnacious personage is concerned, is very wide indeed. Not to mince matters, I may as well explain ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... of this dogmatic dreamer, this erratic man of action, the more she liked him, the more she found really admirable in him. But mixed with her admiration was an alert and pugnacious fear, so big was he, so powerful, so violently hostile to all the principles involved in her belief that the whole wide world of action should in justice lie as much open to woman to choose ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... Captain was the general referee in all those abortive quarrels, which, at a place of this kind, are so apt to occur at night, and to be quietly settled in the morning; and occasionally adopted a quarrel himself, by way of taking down any guest who was unusually pugnacious. This occupation procured Captain MacTurk a good deal of respect at the Well; for he was precisely that sort of person who is ready to fight with any one,—whom no one can find an apology for declining to fight with,—in fighting with whom considerable ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... am greeted with the pensive, almost pathetic note of the wood pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers, and are easily identified. They are very characteristic birds, have strong family traits and pugnacious dispositions. They are the least attractive or elegant birds of our fields or forests. Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, of little elegance in flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt of the tail, always quarreling ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game. This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... much worse traits, and selfishness is as bad. I have known very good men who were cowards; men that I liked and trusted but who, from weakness of nerves or other physical causes—perhaps from prenatal influences—were easily frightened and always constitutionally timid. The Colonel was a very pugnacious man: he professed himself to be a lover of peace—and so did the Kaiser—but really he enjoyed the gaudium certaminis, as ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... rather "flew" or "slid down," as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he satisfied himself just as he ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... to us, eh, Francesca?" laughed my host. "This young fire-eating English sailor-officer would rather be where his brains would be ever in jeopardy than enjoying the dolce far niente up here among the hills. What very pugnacious animals you ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... chord sounding in his speech: it was rather imperious than appealing—had more of conscious power than of the yearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. And usually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of attitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a claim. But here there was something that balanced his resistance and kept it aloof. This strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... in accordance to certain rules laid down for them by certain authorities, and for the delectation of highly critical audiences. But, if this custom prevailed, it would not seem to me stranger than the custom of training and paying pugnacious people to hit one another on the face and breast, with the greatest possible skill and violence, for the delectation of highly critical audiences. I do not say that a glove-fight is in itself a ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... or else crossed over to Holland to keep their hands in there till fortune favoured them once more at home. The old castle, with its rambling towers, and walls, and buttresses was a sort of rallying-point for all the pugnacious spirits of the time, and its bluff walls showed many a scar and many a dint where hostile guns had played upon them, not, you may ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... through the fence the first night, went up into a quaking asp patch where there was nothing eatable, and had a scrap with two bears who thought Senor Ortiz had invested in edible pork. The hogs were wiry and pugnacious, and the circumstantial evidence plainly indicated that the bears had no walk-over. However, the bears managed to get one emaciated porker after a long chase, and they bit several samples out of him. They didn't devour the whole carcass, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... just been said that he was a favorite with all. Not the less beloved was he for having a highly pugnacious spirit, which, when roused, was one of the most picturesque exhibitions—off the stage—I ever saw. One of the transports of that marvelous actor, Edmund Kean—whom, by the way, he idolized—was its nearest resemblance; and the two were not very dissimilar ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Villiers drew a long breath,—his compressed lips parted in a slightly sarcastic smile. Squaring his shoulders with that peculiar pugnacious gesture of his which always indicated to those who knew him well that his mind was made up, and that nothing would induce him to alter it, he said in ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... beaten, then, Wagner?" demanded the pugnacious Bristles, "because we're still as fresh as daisies, and bound to put it over on you, now that you've ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... Demoralizing? Aboriginal Wantonness Lower than Brutes Indifference to Chastity Useless Precautions Survivals of Promiscuity Aboriginal Depravity The Question of Promiscuity Why do Australians Marry? Curiosities of Jealousy Pugnacious Females Wife-Stealing Swapping Girls The Philosophy of Elopements Charming a Woman by Magic Other Obstacles to Love Marriage Taboos and "Incest" Affection for Women and Dogs A Horrible Custom Romantic Affliction A ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... "unanswerable", and in April came to an understanding with him as to Foote's committee and their common desire for prompt consideration of California. The importance of Foote's influence in turning the tide in Mississippi, through his pugnacious election campaign, and the significance of his judgment of the influence of Webster and his speech have been somewhat overlooked, partly perhaps because of ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... unmitigated disapproval and contempt. Kirkpatrick would have given his hopes of the speedy demise of capitalism if Alexina had picked up her periwinkle skirts and fled up the avenue. His big hands clenched, he thrust out his pugnacious jaw, his hard little eyes glowed like poisonous coals. Mortimer, to do him justice, was entirely without physical cowardice, and continued to look like a stage ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... upon honor,—and the most simple mixture for the cure, the radical cure, of blue devils and debt I know of; eh, Doctor? You advise it yourself, to be taken before bed-time; nothing inflammatory in it, nothing pugnacious; a mere circulation of the better juices and more genial spirits of the marly clay, without arousing any of the baser passions; whiskey is the devil ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and religion is not the same thing and cannot be. Each sex has more power for one domain, and must have less power for another. Equality is an incongruous predicate. "Under the influence of the law of battle the male has become more courageous, powerful, and pugnacious than the female.... So, too, the male has, in the struggle, often acquired great beauty, success on his part depending largely, in many cases, upon the choice of the females who are supposed to select the most beautiful mates. This is thought to be ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt myself ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... certain nations, certain habits are inseparably associated as peculiarly characterising them. Thus, in vulgar apprehension, the Frenchman dances, the German smokes, the Spaniard serenades; and on all hands it is agreed that the Irishman fights. Naturally bellicose, his practice is pugnacious: antagonism is his salient and distinctive quality. Born in a squabble, he dies in a shindy: in his cradle he squeals a challenge; his latest groan is a sound of defiance. Pike and pistol are manifest in his well-developed bump of combativeness; his name is FIGHT, there can be no mistake about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... temper, and his readiness to enter a quarrel and to draw his sword must have made him a very singular exponent of the gospel of peace. Olaf saw very soon that he would require further help than this pugnacious priest could give; so he sent Thangbrand over to England, bidding him fare to Canterbury and bring back with him as many holy men as might be willing to serve ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... nicety his chances of escape, and having decided to avoid at all times the haunts of the pugnacious fish, Brighteye was seldom inconvenienced, except that he had to pass further than hitherto along the bank before taking to the water, and thus had to risk attack from weasels and owls. But soon, to his dismay, he discovered that the salmon ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... approximates the human more closely than that of the man; while the child, representing race more than sex, is naturally more akin to her than to him. The male reserves more primitive qualities, the hairiness, the more pugnacious jaw; the female is nearer to the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... pessimistic, brooding eyes—eyes that saw everything except the small modicum of good which is in all human things, and to this they were persistently blind. Taking into consideration the small, set mouth, it was eminently a pugnacious face—a face that might easily degenerate to the coarseness of passion in the trough of a losing fight. But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great waters, and he who fights the sea must learn to conquer, not by passionate effort, but by consistent, cool resolve. Those ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... a nest of blustering, pugnacious hornets which Kirtley poked up on the evening in ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... negligent, pugnacious Regan, by his own sheer neglect, put his property into the hands of the most relentless harpy that ever robbed and fleeced a tenantry. This mode of proceeding was, in fact, one of the many methods ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... a week or so," he answered lightly, "and as to regaining possession of it," he went on, a slightly pugnacious instinct stirring him, "I don't imagine that there'll be any ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... grumble At high and at humble Until he became, in a while, Mordacious, pugnacious, Rapacious. Good gracious! They called him the Yankee Carlyle! But he never took rest On his quarrelsome quest Of the giants, both mighty and small. He slated, distorted them, Hanged them and quartered them, Till ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... types abound. Here we find students of the most various temperaments, and interested in the most diverse questions, in politics, sociology, literature, and the arts. But Lausanne is pugnacious, and is on bad terms with the other sections. It is itself broken up into factions, and it exhibits separatist trends, which led to a crisis early in 1916. After the manner of Vaud, it keeps itself ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... or righting the blankets of the few that were fortunate enough to have such luxuries. He felt as though he should like to enter into confidential relations with them. They seemed, somehow, more of his own kind than the rough, jostling, pugnacious beings passing themselves off as men and brothers within there. He poked about from one to the other of the sturdy, plush-coated little beasts, till he came to a great white plow-horse harnessed to a sulky, and looking like a giant in contrast with the scrubby broncos. The amiability which ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... simply on a point of theological interpretation. I have always had a prejudice against general confessions." Mozley plainly thought Newman's attitude too meek. He would have liked something more spirited and pugnacious. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will say to himself, "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Members of the Cassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is a bird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C. Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... public places of resort, much more crowded with an inflammable material, than if young men were brought up in the staid and frugal habits of those who are constrained to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow? * * * Is not intemperance more social, more inflammatory, more pugnacious where a fancied superiority of gentlemanly character is felt in consequence of exemption from severe manual labor? Is there ever stabbing where there is not idleness ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... not approve of fighting, and thought it would be bad policy. Tim was tolerably tractable now that he was having his own way, and was not very strenuous in support of his own pugnacious views. When their plans were fully digested they left the island to prepare the stakes. Before noon they separated, and the truant returned ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... Dorgs are pugnacious critters. I had one that set on every fellow of its kind he came across, and took such an affectionate grab of his foe, that nothing would divide them till death ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... silent when perching on a conspicuous limb, telegraph wire, dead tree, or fence rail and waiting for insects to fly within range. Sudden, nervous, spasmodic sallies in midair to seize insects on the wing. Usually they return to their identical perch or lookout. Pugnacious and fearless. Excellent nest builders and devoted mates. Kingbird. Phoebe. Wood Pewee. Acadian Flycatcher. Great Crested Flycatcher. Least Flycatcher. Olive-sided Flycatcher. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... for after the paymaster to the forces had settled with the seven coolies who were not in our permanent employ, not being able to take all as we had originally intended, they assembled round us, and complained most dolefully of the smallness of their pay. The sepoy, who appeared a most pugnacious customer, cuffed some of them, and made desperate flourishes at others with a big stick, and seemed altogether so anxious to prevent, as he said, the "cherishers of the poor," from being inconvenienced by the "scum of the ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... all forms of psychic variations are found allying themselves now with the male sex form, and then with the female. In the insect and fish worlds, where the female forms are generally larger and stronger than the male, the female is generally more pugnacious and predatory than the male. Among birds-of-prey, where also the female form is larger and stronger than the male, the psychic differences seem very small. Among eagles and other allied forms, which are strictly monogamous, the affection of the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... is full of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt the clans Sa'ad and Haram and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain to the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale bears some likeness to the accumulative nursery rhymes in "The House that Jack Built," and "The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;" which find their indirect original ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... scampering over the limbs gave exhibitions of acrobatic skill. There were two kinds of squirrels—the fat gray ones, of which there were not many, and the venomous little red ones, of which there seemed an overproduction. They were cute little wretches, but we did not care for them. They were pugnacious pirates; they robbed their unmilitant gray relative and chased him from the premises. Earlier in the season they had thrown down quantities of green nuts to be wasted, and we were told they robbed birds' nests, ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I drove to near the State Agency Office. We entered and were met by Donohue, who was alone (it was early Sunday A.M.) and was pugnacious when he was made aware of his dilemma. I arranged with him, that for friendly appearances, we would walk out arm in arm to our carriage. Then we were whisked away to my office. I left Mr. Kraft, one of my men, in the office to ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... in a saw-pit; or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in the disorders of the times, amid that wanton pampered indolence which made them so petulant and pugnacious. Against this evil his Majesty published a voluminous edict, which exhibits many proofs that it was the labour of his own hand, for the same dignity, the same eloquence, the same felicity of illustration, embellish the state-papers;[B] and to remedy it, James, who rarely consented ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Chief Pharisee, sitting in his high place. The Chief Pharisee—his name I learned was Nash, Mr. J. H. Nash (I did not know then that I was soon to make his acquaintance)—the Chief Pharisee looked as hard as nails, a middle-aged man with stiff chin-whiskers, small round, sharp eyes, and a pugnacious jaw. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... as luck would have it, it hit the wrong mark, and fell just in front of him, smashing to atoms the porcelain inkslab and water bottle, and smudging his whole book with ink, Chia Chn was, of course, much incensed, and hastily gave way to abuse. "You consummate pugnacious criminal rowdies! why, doesn't this amount to all of you taking a share in the fight!" And as he uttered this abuse, he too forthwith seized an inkslab, which he was bent ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... this fellow, notwithstanding his pugnacious manner. He had an honest face, and bright blue eyes, in whose depths lurked a merry twinkle. He took it for granted that this was Jake Jukes ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... and eloquent a god, he easily makes great progress. Venus begins her sway during his twentieth year, and then a man is wholly given up to the love of women. At thirty, Mars comes to the front, and he is now all energy and strength,—daring, pugnacious and arrogant. ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... by force of arms. In short, this is the frequent cause of Aboriginal, as it is of European wars; man, in his natural state, being very much alike in all conditions—jealous of his rights, and exceedingly pugnacious. It is true, the European intruders pay no respect to these Aboriginal divisions of the territory, the black native being often hunted off his own ground, or destroyed by European violence, dissipation, or disease, just as his kangaroos are driven off that ground by the European's ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... cried Hal, laughing at the predicament in which Chester found himself, "what's the matter that you've turned so pugnacious all of a sudden? Getting to be ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... stiff and upright with her eyes bent on the ground. Only Charles and Molly looked up—she with a spot of red on either cheek, he with his bright pugnacious look, his nostrils slightly distended scenting battle with delight. Emilia and Patty were frowning; Kezzy, who hated all family jars, fidgeted with ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was a weak and sickly child. His first years were spent in solitude, and when his elder brother, William, a real boy, came home, the young author followed in humility mingled with terror the diversions of that ingenious and pugnacious "son of eternal racket." De Quincey's mother was a woman of strong character and emotions, as well as excellent mind, but she was excessively formal, and she seems to have inspired more awe than affection in her children, to whom she was for all that deeply devoted. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... of nothing here at meals but this Weltpolitik. I've just been having a dose of it at breakfast. To say that the boarders are interested in it is to speak feebly: they blaze with interest, they explode with it, they scorch and sizzle. And they are so pugnacious! Not to each other, for contrary to the attitude at Kloster's they are knit together by the toughest band of uncritical and obedient admiration for everything German, but they are pugnacious to the Swede girl and myself. Especially ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... priest, and king of autocracy and absolutism. Never has there been a time in history when the higher civilization was not in a savage struggle for existence. It is almost the first time in three centuries that the highest civilizations were in alliance with the lowest; not since the pugnacious Western powers of Europe sued for ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... than that its original purchasing price was four shillings and sixpence. It might also contain passages of love, hate, and other human emotions, but then again, it might not. But one thing it would contain, and that is war. G.K.C. would be pugnacious, even when there was nothing to fight. His characters would wage their wars, even when the bone of contention mattered as little as the handle of an old toothbrush. That, we should say, is the first factor in the formula of the Chestertonian romance—and all the rest are ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... of religious reforms, few men better illustrate this hard moral manliness, as distinguished from the highest moral heroism, than the sturdy Scotch reformer, John Knox. Tenacious, pugnacious, thoroughly honest and thoroughly earnest, superior to all physical and moral fear, destitute equally of fine sentiments and weak emotions, blurting out unwelcome opinions to queens as readily as to peasants, and in words which hit and hurt like knocks with the fist, he is one of those large, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... our conscience, bonny lad, (We've got some, boy), it is too bad So fiercely to show fight; Gadzooks, 'tis time when comes the foe To strip and sport a word and blow, My dear pugnacious wight! ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Nevarro snatched his hat, and hurried down the street. He had not proceeded far, when a hand was laid upon his arm, and turning, with somewhat pugnacious intentions, encountered ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... differences that the utter distinctness of the mimickers and the mimicked was satisfactorily settled. Scarcely less curious is the case of Mr. Wallace's Malayan orioles, two species of which exactly copy two pugnacious honey-suckers in every detail of plumage and coloration. As the honey-suckers are avoided by birds of prey, owing to their surprising strength and pugnacity, the orioles gain immunity from attack by their ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... long after every one else had ceased to wear shawls; and above the shawl a hat, of the large mushroom type and indecipherable age. And in the midst of this antique and generally untidy gear, the youngest and liveliest face imaginable, under snow-white hair: black eyes full of Irish fun, a pugnacious and humorous mouth, and the general look of one so steeped in the rich, earthy stuff of life that she might have stepped out of a novel of Fielding's or a ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... waterlogged and then abandoned. Capt. Liddell had his H.Q. in J.4 at this time. The first night he went with me to this trench with a party of bombers, and we stayed from 2 A.M. till dawn was breaking. Capt. Liddell was a great tower of strength to us in these trenches, one of the most fearless and pugnacious of men, with a taste for wandering about No Man's Land o' nights. It did you good merely ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... district; wouldn't commit a sin if he studied the question of personal visiting; shouldn't think that his scripture reader—a really good, hard-working man—can perform miracles, and do nearly everything; can talk genuine common sense if he likes, and make himself either very agreeable or pugnacious; is an Orangeman, with a holy horror of Popery; can give deliciously passionate lectures about the Reformation; considers money a very important article, and is inclined to believe that all people, particularly parsons, should stick to it very firmly; will have his own ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... intervention of the president of the room; who bawled out, "Silence, gentlemen; do have silence for the Body Snatcher!" which popular song began as Pen left the Back Kitchen. He flattered himself that he had commanded his temper perfectly. He rather wished that Huxter had been pugnacious. He would have liked to fight him or somebody. He went home. The day's work, the dinner, the play, the whisky-and-water, the quarrel,—nothing soothed him. He slept no better than on the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dissimilar, but they've got something like the unifying motive of a monastery, and they're willing to serve and to plod and to be patient. I fight with Saxon because he's a pacifist, but like all pacifists he's a very pugnacious person, and he can get frightfully angry, but it's pitiful to see him when he's been angry, because he's so sorry afterwards. I'm not a pacifist, but I haven't a tenth of his pluck. He'd endure anything, that man. Crews and Jordan are younger than he, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... in a peaked cap drove the gray machine. He looked across at Sophie, scowling. He was young and red-faced, a pugnacious-looking individual. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... kinds of boar in India, the black and the grey. Their dispositions are very different, the grey being fiercer and more pugnacious. He is a vicious and implacable foe when roused, and always shews better fight than the black variety. The great difference, however, is in the shape of the skull; that of the black fellow being high over the frontal ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... of grey lichen, and lined with the fine down plucked from the stalks of the fern and other herbs, and are fixed to the side of a branch or the moss-grown side of a tree so artificially, that they appear, when viewed from below, mere mossy knots, or accidental protuberances. They are bold and pugnacious, two males seldom meeting on the same bush or flower without a battle; and the intrepidity of the female, when defending her young, is not less remarkable. They attack the eyes of the larger birds, when their needle-like bill is truly a formidable weapon; and it ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... Tresslyn, he was going to the dogs as rapidly and as accurately as possible. He took to drink, and drink took him to cards. The efforts of Simmy Dodge and other friends, including the despised Percy Wintermill, were of no avail. He developed a pugnacious capacity for resenting advice. It was easy to see what was behind the big boy's behaviour: simple despair. He counted himself among the failures. In due time he lost his position in Wall Street and became a complaining dependent upon his mother's generosity. He met her arguments with the furious ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... to wear away without a riot, nay, even without a fight; a most extraordinary occurrence for such a place under the existing circumstances; for of late the populace, or, perhaps, the townspeople, were extremely pugnacious, and many were the disputes that were settled by the very satisfactory application of the knuckles to the head of the party holding a ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in my youth, seen a man of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled both in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the most ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been treated withal these many years. And so men proceed; we let the laws and precepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from debauchery of manners, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... opposition to the Crimean War; but Mr. Gladstone, who differed from him on this point, calls it the action of his life most worthy of honor. He was perhaps the most warlike opponent of war ever high in public life; the pugnacious and aggressive agitator, pouring out floods of fiery oratory to the effect that nobody ought to fight anybody, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... not sting, but there was a large red ant, half an inch long, who was most pugnacious; he stood up on his hind legs and fought you with amazing courage, and his jaws were formidable. We made our first acquaintance with white ants while we lived in the court-house. On unpacking a box of books, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... think I know quite well that the little girl of the curly black hair, red ribbons, and blue sailor dress was a very audacious, pugnacious little person, and I wonder that you were willing to help her through the tangle of fractions as you did so cleverly. I well remember thinking you a very wonderful scholar, but you were so much older than I that I admit not thinking about you very much. It was like that small girl ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond |
