"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and man at first were friends; But when a pique began, The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... she could ever think of marrying. He seems to have made her want of vivid religious conviction the excuse for not proposing to her, but it is not easy to put aside the conviction that it was her want of a fortune which actuated him most strongly. Finally, he tries to pique her by telling her that he "knows of parties" in the city of Hanover "who might bring him much honour and comfort" were he "not afraid of losing (Catharine Trotter's) friendship." They write to one another with extreme formality, but that proves nothing. A young woman, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... suggestion of a rival in his affection made her absolutely outrageous. She had so little considered Claribel in that light, that she had not deigned to notice Lionel's attention to her, which indeed her vanity whispered was merely a feint to pique herself, and to give him an opportunity of still hovering near her. The gift of the fairy, which had operated so much to Claribel's disadvantage in the opinion of her lover, secured her from sharing the keen mortification of her cousin at ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... India kept his mind perfectly. Having exchanged glances with the Emperor, he was satisfied an impression was made strong enough to pique curiosity, and at the same time fix him in the royal memory. With a quick sense of the proprieties, he thereupon addressed himself to moving his carriages to the left, that when the conference with the officers ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... indefinitely into the air, like Piranesi's stairways, are called technically peak-ladders; and dear banished T.S.K., who always was puzzled to know why Mount Washington kept up such a pique against the sky, would have found his joke fit these ladders with great precision, so frequent the disappointment they create. But try them, and see what trivial appendages one's legs may become,—since the feet are not intended to touch these polished rounds. Walk up backward ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... plan was given up. But you and I will go down in the barouche, and I'll call for you, and we'll take Mr. Jones with us. And mind you're very civil to him, and only notice the other in a quiet, good-humoured way—for he mustn't think you do it out of pique—and before the whitebait is on the table you'll see he'll be a different man. But now you must go—there's a dear. I'll call for you at five. It's too bad to turn you out; but I'm never at home to any one between three and half-past ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... honest, greatly esteemed by every one. Neither pique nor passion nor petty feelings could ever influence her mind. She is the most angelic, good woman I ever met—she is one to whom one may complain, and be a bore. She has such ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion, John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She simpered and refused to go in front of him. Being still mad with rage, hatred, chagrin and all those ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... and Commons;' and no institutions ever yet flourished, of which the character has been more misrepresented and more misconceived. One fact alone will illustrate the profound ignorance and the perplexed ideas. The present Whig leader of the House of Commons, a member of a family who pique themselves on their constitutional reputation, an author who has even written an elaborate treatise on our polity, in one of his speeches, delivered only so late as the last session of Parliament, declared his desire and determination to uphold the present settlement of the 'three estates of the ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... Strains of music had been heard proceeding from the Hall at most unseemly hours—by the village innkeeper. Orgies were held there. But Jules Thessaly remained silent, unmoved, invisible. So that at the time of Sir Jacques' death Lower Charleswood had passed through three phases: pique, wonder, apathy. One or two folks had met Thessaly—but always by accident; had acclaimed him a wonderful man possessing the reserve of true genius. Finally, Miss Kingsbury had met him—in Lower Charleswood post office, and by noon of the following day, all "the county" knew ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... called for five o'clock in the private grill room at the Pan-American Building. Postcards will have been sent out the day before by the Secretary, saying: "Please try to be present as there are several important matters to be brought up." This will so pique the curiosity of the members that they will hardly be able to wait until five o'clock. One will come at four o'clock by mistake and, after steaming up and down the corridor for half an hour, will go home and ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... But Mr. Gilchrist and the Quarterly Reviewer are not poets, nor pretenders to poetry; therefore they can have no envy nor malice against Mr. Bowles: they have no acquaintance with Mr. Bowles, and can have no personal pique; they do not cross his path of life, nor he theirs. There is no political feud between them. What, then, can be the motive of their discussion of his deserts as an editor?—veneration for the genius of Pope, love for his memory, and regard for the classic glory of their country. Why would ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... comfortable in your position, and yet you—Oh! I suppose the real truth of the matter is, that you have heard of something better, and you are ready to give us the go-by in order to improve your own circumstances?" said Mr. Balderby, with a tone of pique; "though I really don't see how you can very well be better off anywhere than you are ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... challenge you; and, mind you, old Hock wine has charms. If Burgundy is the emperor of wines, Hock is the empress. For youngsters, perhaps, I should except the Hock that gets what they would fancy a trifle pique, turned with age, so as to lose in their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the inadvertent damage Charley's pique had caused. It took ten full minutes, and the heat-deadline was too close for comfort. He finished and breathed more freely as temperatures began to drop. He peeled off the helmet and unzipped the suit which was reaching the thermal ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... Confederate service." This proposal brought about a sharp debate upon the Confederate Government and its military policy. Rhett made a remarkable address, which should of itself quiet forever the old tale that he was animated in his opposition solely by the pique of a disappointed candidate for the presidency. Though as sharp as ever against the Government and though agreeing wholly with the spirit of the state army plan, he took the ground that circumstances ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... sojourn in sugar and molasses till their mortgage's will let them live elsewhere. They call England their home, though many of them have never been there; they talk of writing home and going home, and pique themselves more on knowing the probable result of a contested election in England than on mending their roads, establishing a police, or purifying a prison. The French colonist deliberately expatriates himself; the Englishman never. If our colonies were to throw themselves ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... say, "Well then, stay as you are; you shall have neither the house nor my hand, I will offer both to Fraulein Athalie"—and if he were to marry Athalie! As if cases had not been heard of in which an honest lover was refused by some stuck-up girl, and then out of pique offered his hand to the governess, or proposed to the housemaid on the spot! This hope of Frau Sophie's, however, was not ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Taste as lasting as we could, and by drying them protract their stay beyond its natural Date. We own that thus they have not a Flavour equal to that of their juicy Bloom; but yet, under this Disadvantage, they pique the Palate, and become a Salver better than any other Fruit at its first Appearance. To speak plain, there are a Number of us who have begun your Works afresh, and meet two Nights in the Week in order ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you," he rejoined, with a touch of pique that convinced me of his sincerity. "Of course I want you to stop, though I shan't be here many days; but I feel responsible for you, Cole, and that's the fact. Think you can find your way?" he continued, accompanying me ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... himself as a stoic, quite indifferent about his "carcase." His briefer black moods he might acknowledge had transitory causes. But his general and abiding conceptions of humanity were the result of dispassionate reflections. "You think," he cries in half-sportive pique, "that because I pass my life trying to make harmonious phrases, in avoiding assonances, that I too have not my little judgments on the things of this world? Alas! Yes! and moreover I shall burst, enraged at not expressing them." And later: ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... does not suit you at all; and a public confession "I am a sinner, a sinner, a sinner," is such pride that it made me feel uncomfortable. When the pope took the title "holiness," the head of the Eastern church, in pique, called himself "The servant of God's servants." So you publicly expatiate on your sinfulness from pique of Solovyov, who has the impudence to call himself orthodox. But does a word like orthodoxy, Judaism, or Catholicism contain ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... sacredness. But as an article of faith, I still cultivated my trust in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding doubt with an exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged Lady Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more than that tendency to take strong views which some persons ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... him. There could be no doubt about that. She liked him, and she would not leave him. Also, she was a young woman of exceptional common sense, and, being such, she would not risk the loss of a large fortune merely for the sake of indulging pique engendered by his refusal to gratify a ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... The pique which Eunice had felt at the beginning of the game had vanished by now. She was feeling extremely pleased with her performance on the last few holes, and would have been glad to go into the matter fully. Also, she was conscious of a feeling not ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... season?" Must it come to this—that the mere sight of the youth, and strength, and beauty that have left us far behind shall stir our bile, as though it were an insolent parade—that the choicest delicacies at our neighbor's wedding-breakfast shall not pique our palate like the baked meats at his funeral? Not so; if we must give ground let us retreat in good order, leaving no shield behind us that our enemy may build into his trophy. If we are rash enough to assail Lady Violet Vavasour with petitions ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... pique they had against him was his opposing the law by which the city was to be divided; for the tribunes of the people brought forward a motion that the people and senate should be divided into two parts, one of which should ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... he not say! He boasted of his rise, he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique and jealousy because he had so much. He mentioned names, too, with the most charming freedom, and swore he was as good a man as the Old Country had to show—PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it he pointed ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... little octoroon, who had heard read the letter which I left for my mother, giving the motives for my self-exile, had repeated it to all the neighborhood, so that I not only had failed, but became the butt of the jokes of the boys of the neighborhood, who already held a pique against me for my serious ways and my habit of rebuking certain vices amongst them. I was jeered at as the boy "who left his mother to seek religion," and this made life for a time almost intolerable. But it was in part compensated for by ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... The poet took the ring, and went home excited and wrought up to the resolve that nothing should interfere with the completion of his task. But it was the old story again—whims and postponements on Rachel's part, possibly temper and pique on his—until six months afterward, at the end of an angry conversation, he silently replaced the ring on her hand, and she did not resist. Four years later the compact was renewed, and although by this time De Musset had to all intents and purposes ceased ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... advised by George Thomas, who had instigated them to this violence out of pique against the Begam for her preference of the Frenchman,[29] to set aside their puppet and reseat the Begam in the command, as the only chance of keeping the territory of Sardhana.[30] 'If', said he, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... those in "Lavengro" "the illusion in Borrow's narrative is disturbed by the uncolloquial vocabulary of the speakers." For Borrow's dialogues do produce an effect of some kind of life; those of Hindes Groome instruct us or pique our curiosity, but unless we know Gypsies, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... have gotten over it. This seems to be getting more of a tangle all the time, and a sort of mutual-admiration society. I have no objection to keeping up the conversation, but you pique my curiosity as to how it is all going to come out. As I have already remarked, I can't see any argument that would lead you to let me walk away from here unless I tell you, as you told Petrak ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... wagered; it implies Doubt. If I doubted? Pshaw! I'll walk awhile And let the cool air fan me. 'Twas not wise. 'Tis only Folly with its cap and bells Can jest with sad things. She seemed earnest, too. What if, to pique me, she should overstep The pale of modesty, and give bold eyes (I could not bear that, nay, not even that!) To Marc or Claudian? Why, such things have been And no sin dreamed of. I will watch her close. ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... report, which was held to be campaign material of the first order. Douglas himself paid for one-third of these out of his own pocket.[587] No one could accuse him of sulking in his tent. Whatever personal pique he may have felt at losing the nomination, he was thoroughly loyal to his party. He gave unsparingly of his time and strength to the cause of Democracy, speaking most effectively in the doubtful States. And when Pennsylvania ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... mio," she echoed in ecstasy, "I am yours and you are mine!" So lightly was the first stepping-stone passed on her reckless path of immorality and vice. Her fickle heart soon tired of the debonair Vibrato, and in a fit of satiated pique she had his ears cut off and his tongue removed and tied to his big toe. Thus was her ever-increasing lust for bloodshed apparent even at that early age. Her next affaire occured when she was travelling to Rome with her brother Pizzicato, who was to become a chorister at the Vatican. ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... her back. To him she was, at the worst, only the same wilful and spoiled child she had always been, while he was over twenty years her senior. What he hoped for was that her common sense, her breeding, and her pride would come to the rescue, and that after her pique had spent itself, she would become once more the ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... circumstances, for times and seasons, when they stand in the way of a fling of Hazlitt's! In the character of Scott himself an entire page and a half is devoted to an elaborate peroration in one huge sentence, denouncing him in such terms as "pettifogging," "littleness," "pique," "secret and envenomed blows," "slime of rankling malice and mercenary scorn," "trammels of servility," "lies," "garbage," etc. etc. The Duke of Wellington he always speaks of as a brainless noodle, forgetting apparently that the description ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... heart of his wife. And he had believed that he had. Still, who else, in all that little company, could have had any motive in leaving out Weatherbee? Why had she told the story at all? She was a woman of great self-control, but also she had depths of pride. Had she, in the high tide of her anger or pique, taken this means to retaliate for the disappointment he had ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... son, a very promising youth, who was already contracted in marriage with the daughter of another wealthy farmer. Thus the mother had a prospect of retrieving the affairs of her family, when all her hopes were dashed and destroyed by a ridiculous pique which Mrs. Gobble conceived against the young farmer's sweetheart, Mrs. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... violently, and she had angrily acknowledged that her nervousness was due to the fact that she was about to meet Diego Estenega again. When she discovered that he was not of the party, she turned to me with pique, resentment, and ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... me, Mr. De Gex," I replied with pique. "It would be so much easier if you would be frank and open ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... peculiar case, there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin's love for himself. He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn's offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised that he would come. It did seem natural to him that she should have desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to depart from it. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... painter. One of his celebrated animal pictures is 'Daniel in the Lions' Den,' now at Hamilton Palace, in which each lion is a king of beasts checked in his fiercest have been painted by Rubens in a fit of pique at a false report which had been circulated that he could not paint animals, and that those in his pictures were supplied by the animal-painter, his ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... Noble, who in return observed her not at all, being but semi-conscious. Looked upon thoughtfully, it is a coincidence that we breathe; certainly it is a mighty coincidence that we speak to one another and comprehend; for these are true marvels. But what petty interlacings of human action so pique our sense of the theatrical that we call them coincidences and are astonished! That Julia should arrive during Noble's long process of buying a ticket to go to her was stranger than that she stopped to look at him, though still not comparable in strangeness ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... and a canteen of water round his waist. I had on my coarse Australian hat which serves the double purpose of sunshade and umbrella, Mrs. Thompson's riding costume, my great rusty New Zealand boots, and my blanket strapped behind a very gaily ornamented brass-bossed demi-pique Mexican saddle, which one of the missionary's daughters had lent me. It has a horn in front, a low peak behind, large wooden stirrups with leathern flaps the length of the stirrup-leathers, to prevent the dress from coming in contact with the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... used to be chosen general every other year, when his turn came and he was called to take upon him that charge, he declined it, and Timoxenus was chosen in his stead. The true cause of which was not the pique he was alleged to have taken at the people, but the ill circumstances of the Achaean affairs. For Cleomenes did not now invade them gently and tenderly as hitherto, as one controlled by the civil authorities, but having killed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... one circumstance in Paoli's character which I present to my readers with caution, knowing how much it may be ridiculed in an age when mankind are so fond of incredulity, that they seem to pique themselves in contracting their circle of belief as much as possible. But I consider this infidel rage as but a temporary mode of the human understanding, and am well persuaded that e'er long we shall return to a more ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... brings about artfully, by proposing, after the public healths (which always imply bumpers), such private ones as he knows will pique the interest or inclination of each particular person of the company, whose turn it is to take the lead, to begin it in a brimmer; and he himself being always cheerful, and sometimes saying good things, his guests soon lose their guard, and then—I ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... lieu of my STEEL." Quoth the lady, "Dear sir, no apologies, pray, You will take our 'pot-luck' in the family way; We can give you a dish Of some decentish fish, And our water's thought fairish; but here in the Rhine, I can't say we pique ourselves ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... spread of cholera, and the Allies are thinking that the Greeks want to be endangered by cholera any more than the Italians?... The history of the Balkan politics of the Allies is the record of one crass mistake after another, and now, through pique over the failure of their every Balkan calculation, they try to unload on Greece the results of their own stupidity. We warned them that the Gallipoli expedition would be fruitless and that the Austro-Germans would surely crush Serbia.... At the beginning of the war eighty per cent ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the former resumes, after some silent dipping among his fragments of walnut with an air of pique, 'I see it whenever I go to see Pussy. If I don't find it on her face, I leave it there.—You know I do, Miss Scornful Pert. Booh!' With a twirl of the nut-crackers ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... of the circumstance that she, as well as he, was descended from the old royal house to pique his ambition, and to open to him a view, which even to think of, he would have considered forbidden as a crime, before he became intimate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... how things happen in French stage-coaches. In other countries customs are very different. Englishmen pique themselves on never opening their lips; Germans are melancholy in a vehicle; Italians too wary to talk; Spaniards have no public conveyances; and Russians no roads. There is no amusement except in the lumbering diligences of France, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... and trivial request as that of Josephine Burroughs being wholly out of his mental habit for down town, he forgot it along with everything else having to do with uptown only—along with Josephine herself, to tell a truth which may pique the woman reader and may be wholly misunderstood by the sentimentalists. By merest ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... of Congress, under the temptations of the last few weeks, has been most encouraging, though we must except from our commendation the recent speech of Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania. There is a pride of patriotism that should make all personal pique seem trifling; and Mr. Stevens ought to have remembered that it was not so much the nakedness of an antagonist that he was uncovering as that of ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... opportunity so long sought by the forward party at Berlin and Vienna; and the Austro-German Alliance, which, in its origin, was defensive (as I have shown in this volume), became offensive, Italy parting from her allies when she discovered their designs. Drawn into the Triple Alliance solely by pique against France after the Tunis affair, she now inclines towards the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... cargo at Lundy, and then to burn and scuttle the Nightingale. This was accordingly done, and the crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey was taken, tried, and hanged, and Benson escaped ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... stupida!—I experienced, at last, the sort of pique with which George Sand's hero apostrophises la derniere Aldini. Yet I could not think her stupid. The universal instinct honours beauty. It is so difficult to believe it either dull or base. In virtue of some mysterious harmonies it is 'the image of God,' and must, we ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... her face. Peter could not altogether read it. It was not merely anger, or pique, or disappointment; it certainly was not merely grief. There was all that in it, but there was more. And she said—he only just caught the sentence of any of their words, but there was the world of bitter meaning ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... it, Jones decided. But the course of her true love could not have run very smooth and, knowing that Lennox was otherwise interested, she took up with Paliser out of pique. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... circumstances." Twenty-one years later he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes, for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting pique. ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... She had heard of pique driving persons to make a fresh choice, when a former attachment appeared obliterated by indignation, only to revive too late, and to be the misery of all parties. Percy's late words, harsh when he fancied them indifferent, made her doubtful whether it might not be so in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "And private pique," returned the major. "No matter! The end is the same. Justice shall be satisfied. To your steeds, my merry men all. Hark, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... occasion there were only a few stray locks to be pinned in order, and then the glass reflected a charming picture of happy girlhood. The pique skirt was fresh and neat; the pink shirt belted in by a natty white band, and the dark hair curled softly round the fresh bright face. Nan stared at herself solemnly, contorting her face into the curious, strained expression with which nine women out of ten regard ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not even permitted to suffer any considerable pecuniary loss by reason of their breach of the law. Finding that their conduct led to their being made the subjects of a sort of hero-worship, it is not surprising that they soon came to pique themselves upon what they had done, and, so far from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the papers on the subject, in one of which he avowed ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... as if he were going to be chary with his praise," thought Helen, feeling just the least bit uncomfortable. She thought for a moment, and then said, not without truth, "You pique my curiosity, ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... he has left us to take Ingria almost without a blow, and to gain what Russia has wanted for the last hundred years, a foothold on the Baltic. He may be a great general, but he is no politician. No real statesman would throw away solid advantages in order to gratify personal pique." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... so. Nan, do wait a little. Don't, in a fit of angry pique over Maryon Rooke, go and bind yourself irrevocably ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... detected the spice of pique and jealousy in this charitable speech, and said very little in response—nothing that a mischief-maker could ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... depart like a dream before the stern face of the morrow—or I must depart. Happy, perhaps, for her, whatever it may have been for me, that she herself had taken the first step when she turned her back upon me in pique. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... such an order. He announced his rank and authority, to which the answer was, "We only know the prefect by his clothes." Now it had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat; nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so, when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down with the green coat! We have enough of charlatans like that!" and he was forced to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to those cultivated persons who will read it "to overrule the dicta of judges who would sacrifice truth and justice to professional rule, or personal pique, pride, or prejudice"; meaning, the great mass of those who have studied the subject. But how? Suppose the "cultivated persons" were to side with the author, would those who have conclusions to draw and applications to make consent to be wrong because the "general body of intelligent men," who ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... profession, and it is well known that trained lawyers are far more cautious in condemning, and usually milder in punishing, than laymen. The Home Secretary wavered. He sent for the judge who had presided at the trial, and Sir Daniel Buller, who had had time to recover from his little pique against the prisoner's counsel, infused his own doubt into the Home ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... and to proceed no farther in the affair at present, and yet Mr. Guthrie's declining the king's authority in matters ecclesiastical here, was made the principal article in his indictment some ten years after, to give way to a personal pique Middleton had against this good man, the occasion ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... glass of wine, she became more and more amiable toward Fandor. And since the King paid little attention to her caresses, she began a flirtation with the journalist in order to pique him. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... merry, and I find reason to honour him every day more and more. Thence alone to Broade Street to Sir G. Carteret by his desire to confer with him, who is I find in great pain about the business of the office, and not a little, I believe, in fear of falling there, Sir W. Coventry having so great a pique against him, and herein I first learn an eminent instance how great a man this day, that nobody would think could be shaken, is the next overthrown, dashed out of countenance, and every small thing of irregularity in his business taken notice of, where nobody the other day durst cast ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the pageants at the festivities in her honour at Kenilworth. Although twenty years have passed, memory still loves to linger about those days when she visited her favourite, the fascinating Earl of Leicester, on her royal progress, before state policy and private pique had combined to create strife ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... he said. "It is very well to think of walking back, but it must end in thinking. You have no impetus now to send you over another half-dozen miles of wood-faring, no pique to sting, Io." ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... not spoken in a mere fit or pique when he told Lady Swansdown of his fixed intention of putting a term to his present life. His last interview with his wife had quite decided him to throw up everything and seek forgetfulness in travel. Inclination had pointed toward such countries as Africa, or the northern ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... saw a specimen of Japanese horse-breaking as practised in Yezo. A Japanese brought into the village street a handsome, spirited young horse, equipped with a Japanese demi-pique saddle, and a most cruel gag bit. The man wore very cruel spurs, and was armed with a bit of stout board two feet long by six inches broad. The horse had not been mounted before, and was frightened, but not the least vicious. He was spurred ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Quarterly Review, uncut and unopened, not from disrespect or disregard or pique, but it is a kind of reading which I have some time disused, as I think the periodical style of writing hurtful to the habits of the mind, by presenting the superfices of too many things at once. I do not know that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... we met the Irish Dr. Campbell. Johnson had supped the night before at Mrs. Abington's, with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to pique his MISTRESS a little with jealousy of her housewifery; for he said, (with a smile,) 'Mrs. Abington's jelly, my dear lady, was ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... you, for instance, lost your temper upon a certain occasion down at Crompton—gave a 'piece of your mind' to my father, which, it seems, he took as a sample of the whole of it. There, don't be angry: the provocation, it must be allowed, was in your case greater than mine; but then you pique yourself on your self-control! However, this Fane did hate me, and told the chaplain of his suspicions; the good parson was my friend, however, and all might have gone well, but for this oaf—this idiot Jack—coming down to Carew's in person. He could never get any coin ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... in both respects behave much better than the French did in their country; but they follow the bad example quite close enough for the sake of humanity and of discipline. As for our people, they live in a most orderly and regular manner. All the young men pique themselves on imitating the Duke of Wellington in nonchalance and coolness of manner; so they wander about everywhere, with their hands in the pockets of their long waistcoats, or cantering upon Cossack ponies, staring ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... up again. He studied the postmark over and over. He got up and walked to the window and back again, and then began fumbling in his pockets for his knife. No, he did not want it; yes, he did. He would just cut the envelope and make believe he had read it to pique his wife; but he would not read it. Yes, that was it. He found the knife and slit the paper. His fingers trembled as he touched the sheets that protruded. Why would not Leslie come? Did she not know that he was waiting ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... In London or Rome she may be presented in a few international salons, but as she finds it difficult to make her new acquaintances understand what an exalted position she occupies at home, the chances are that pique at seeing some Daisy Miller attract all the attention will drive my lady back to the city where she is known and appreciated, nothing being more difficult for an American “swell” than explaining to the uninitiated ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... now, here is a chance, a chance most marvellous, of covering her silly escapade. She will be sensible, I think, though she is still a little frightened. She will accept this god's suit, if only to pique Theseus—Theseus, who, for all his long, tedious anecdotes of how he slew Procrustes and the bull of Marathon and the sow of Cromyon, would even now lie slain or starving in her father's labyrinth, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... reception at the court of her husband. He is ashamed of this after he begins to know Clotilde, who is one of Jean Paul's pure and noble women; and he is at one time full of dread lest the Princess had read his watch-paper, and at another full of pique at the suspicion that she had not. Being court-physician and oculist, he has frequent opportunities to visit Agnola, and there is one rather florid occasion which the midnight cry of the street-watch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... when he saw any of those men who pique themselves on their estates, and who believe because they are men of high condition that they are above instruction, or have no need of it, because their riches alone are sufficient to gain them the esteem of the world, ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... with the Cauldstaneslap party; then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that - though I have need here of every manageable attenuation of language - with the first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very likely that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mean time, had been restored to some degree of composure. To this effect, a feeling of pique against Edward Walcott had contributed. She had distinguished his voice in the neighboring apartment, had heard his mirth and wild laughter, without being aware of the state of feeling that produced them. She had supposed that the terms ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... spent wakeful hours as a result of that meeting; but the cloud of apprehension had passed, leaving her sky serene again. And now Harboro had put aside the incident of the Mesquite Club ball as if it did not involve anything more than a question of pique. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... the books; how the men of the Mechanics' Institute (the roof of which she pointed out to him) went crazy over 'Shirley'; how everybody about 'thowt Miss Bronte had bin puttin ov 'em into prent,' and didn't know whether to be pleased or pique; how, as the noise made by 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' grew, a wave of excitement passed through the whole countryside, and people came from Halifax, and Bradford, and Huddersfield—aye, an Lunnon soomtoimes '—to Haworth church on ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... energy that a man throws into his words when he is aware that it is his last time for speaking in favour of a thing which he has much at heart. He told her that he wondered that, as she always had a lofty mind for great things, it should be wanting to her on this occasion. He endeavoured to pique her jealousy as a monarch, by suggesting that the enterprise might fall into the hands of other princes. Then he said something in behalf of Columbus himself, and the queen was not unlikely to know well the bearing of a great man. He intimated ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... you, (I'm sure you have, my friend!) When you have laid the puppy low,— All little pique, and malice, at an end,— Been sorry for the blow? And said, (if witty, so would say your Bard,) "Damn it! I hit that ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... unnoticed by the most casual attendant, sentinel, or lord-in-waiting, and the very fact that special commands had been issued to guard all the doors of entrance to the Royal apartments on either hand, during her visit, only served to pique ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... believe that if I had been ten times more exorbitant in my demands," replied the lady, with pique, "that you would have granted them—for the pleasure of getting ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... place Vasari—who was one of the scholars she offended and put down—gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of license in writing and speaking, ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... slight indication of pique in her tone, hastened to kiss her, and call her her best and dearest friend. But in her heart she mourned over what she considered, for the first time in her life, a great mistake in ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the king were inflamed. His reason was blinded, and artful courtiers, from motives of intrigue or pique, stimulated his anger. There are ever those who stand ready to administer to unholy passions, and who are watching for the fall of such as are high in place or favour. And still under the influence of wine, the rash monarch, by his own act, ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... the second with the other; they agreed, therefore, that the stake should be divided, if the old gentleman won that: which was more than probable, as his score was 90 to 35, and he was elder hand; but a momentous re-pique decided it in favour of his adversary, who seemed to enjoy his victory mingled with regret, for having won too much, while his friend, with great ebullience of passion, many praises of his own good play, and many malediction's on the power of chance, took up the cards, and threw ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... something to write about to her, who had left him, who deserted him when he was the most unhappy, because all that she cared for was to keep her sacred person inviolate, to maintain her obstinate opinion, to gratify her pique—Oh! what long hair!—How fast his mother was held! She had not cut her hair enough then. But now she should have her deserts. Everything from as far back as he could remember should be recalled, for once in ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... rascal suddenly out of pique, perhaps, when Geoffrey left her. I could never quite get at the truth of that story, which, of course, was framed in the conventional way, but even now, though he's nearer of kin than Millicent, I can't quite ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... whimsical delay, to make sure that Mr. Barnes had not come footing it behind the train, Frank whipped up and drove back to Egypt. He felt no pique; he had enjoyed the ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... intelligently, and the silence betokened simply a stupid lack of interest. Moreover, he knew there was no such thing as a learned public. Kant's remark reveals a keen wit, and it also reveals something more—the pique of the unappreciated author who declares he doesn't care what the public thinks of him, and thereby reveals ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... tendency to schism. There seems very little in the movement which makes for peace and unity. Any little pique or difference of views has not only created internal dissension, but also ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... the best game at the cards for two persons, though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms—such as pique—repique—the capot—they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She would argue thus:—Cards are warfare: the ends are gain, with glory. But cards are war, in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... had evidently forgotten him. She might, at least, have been civil. He took refuge again in his reserve. But it was now mixed with a certain pique. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... agitation about coaches implies a fashionable and wealthy patronage of the Blackfriars. An interesting glimpse of high society at the theatre is given in a letter written by Garrard, January 25, 1636: "A little pique happened betwixt the Duke of Lenox and the Lord Chamberlain about a box at a new play in the Blackfriars, of which the Duke had got the key, which, if it had come to be debated betwixt them, as it was once intended, some heat or perhaps other inconvenience ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... looked into the nest of the eagle on the Clints of Craignaw. It was not likely that I would come to any harm so long as there was a foothold or an armhold on the face of the cliff. At least, my idiotic pique had now pledged me to the attempt, as well as my pride, for above all things I desired to stand well in the eyes ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... cost from $1000 to $5000. Nice white Llama jackets can be had for $60; robes princesse, or overskirts of lace, are worth from $60 to $200. Then there are travelling-dresses in black silk, in pongee, velour, in pique, which range in price from $75 to $175. Then there are evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the garden and croquet-playing, dresses for horse-races and for yacht-races, robes de nuit and robes de chambre, dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for receptions ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the sun smile on the bloodless field, 45 And the stern warrior's arm the sickle wield? Not whilst some King, in cold ambition's dreams, Plans for the field of death his plodding schemes; Not whilst for private pique the public fall, And one frail mortal's mandate governs all. 50 Swelled with command and mad with dizzying sway; Who sees unmoved his myriads fade away. Careless who lives or dies—so that he gains Some trivial point for which he took the pains. What then are Kings?—I see the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... vainglorious adventurer, the cause of all the humiliations inflicted on the Austrian monarchy; and the splendor which surrounded the hero of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Wagram, aroused in her a resentment all the keener because she was compelled to hide it. Napoleon in his pique determined to win over the step-mother of ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... soft for unkindness; but he was not the man for me. Besides, I had married him out of pique—there was someone I liked much better. You see, I am telling you all quite frankly. I am in your power, as I said before. If I refused to speak, you would just go to Mat, and he ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... prince," she answered. "Imagine a robe of pique, trimmed all over with lace, a pelisse of quilted satin, a cloak of white velvet, and a little cap; the son of a king could not have more. Everything he had was beautiful. But you can see for yourself, for I have kept them all just as they were. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... possible indignity was offered to the cardinal by private pique and public satire. Several lords, following Count Egmont's example, had a kind of capuchon or fool's-cap embroidered on the liveries of their varlets; and it was generally known that this was meant as a practical parody on the cardinal's ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various |
