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Agitating   /ˈædʒətˌeɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Agitating

adjective
1.
Causing or tending to cause anger or resentment.  Synonyms: agitative, provoking.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Agitating" Quotes from Famous Books



... Church censure. These topics involved both the Independent and the Erastian controversies; and till some satisfactory conclusions had been reached on these points, the Assembly abstained from entering upon the less agitating, but not less important work of framing a Confession of Faith. But having completed their task, so far as depended upon themselves, they then turned their attention to their ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... was agitating the Ladies' Aid of one of the Lindsay churches. They had talked about it through the whole of that afternoon session while they sewed for their missionary box—talked about it, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... then?" inquired Ishmael, with forced calmness, for he wished quietly to draw out the woman's story without agitating and confusing her. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... Now that I know the English a little I have been agitating to revisit them. It all seems so damned cheap and petty for a big country to belittle a great nation through the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... part of my purpose in any manner whatever to speak disrespectfully of the large number of intelligent ladies, sometimes called strong-minded, who are constantly going before the public, agitating this question of female suffrage. While some of them may, as is frequently charged, be courting notoriety, I have no doubt they are generally earnestly engaged in a work which, in their opinion, would better their condition and would ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... Father awakened from an agitating dream of setting the barn afire, and beheld Mother sitting up amid the hay—an amazing, a quite incredible situation for Mrs. Seth Appleby. She mildly dabbled at her gray hair, which was still neat, and looked across in bewilderment. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... this; and whatever is inconsistent with this, is inconsistent with the terms of our national birthright. Depend upon it, not the assertion of Liberty, but whatever is opposed to Liberty, is the innovating and agitating element in this country. It interrupts the legitimate current of our destiny. It shocks the popular heart with inconsistency. It becomes mixed with the ashes of the old heroes, and the land keeps heaving with the fermentation. One assumption is too ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... progress of the Turks, complained of this violation of the peace. Orkhan excused his son, saying that it was not force of arms which had opened the gates of the towns of the Greek empire, but the divine will manifested by the earthquake. The Emperor made representations that he was not agitating to know whether it was by the gates or by the breaches that Suleiman had penetrated into the places in question, but whether or not he possessed them legitimately. Orkhan then asked a delay for reflection, and subsequently promised ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... he saw Prudence, and fell into a way of seating himself before the well-endowed spinster, with a large cambric pocket-handkerchief upon his knee, a frequent tear meandering down his florid countenance, and volcanic sighs agitating his capacious waistcoat as he poured his woes into her ear. Prue had been deeply touched by these moist appeals, and was not much surprised when the reverend gentleman went ponderously down upon his knee before her in the good old-fashioned style which frequent use had endeared ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... the Missiquash as the boundary between the two Provinces was eminently satisfactory to New Brunswick, but not so to Nova Scotia, as the latter Province at once vigorously protested against it, and did not seem inclined to give up agitating for a change. In 1792 the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia presented an address to the Lieutenant-Governor, in which they say "there is a very pressing necessity of an alteration in the division line, between this and the neighboring Province of New Brunswick." ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... of the Pentateuch is just now agitating the learned classes in Germany. Bonn is an ancient stronghold of theological learning, and two of the professors of its famous university have recently exhibited a courage in Biblical criticism and interpretation which has further extended the celebrity of the school, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... seven weeks passed in this agitating state, suddenly, on one morning, the earliest and the loveliest of dawning spring, a change was announced to us all as having taken place in Margaret; but it was a change, alas! that ushered in the last great change of all. The ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... I do not know whether, if I aimed at the total overthrow of a kingdom, I should wish to be incumbered with a larger body of partisans. They are more easily disciplined and directed than if the number were greater. These, by their spirit of intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a force far superior to their numbers, and, if times grew the least critical, have the means of debauching or intimidating many of those who are now sound, as well as of adding to their force large bodies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... experience that each furious little head contained bade the owner of it to fly as fast and straight as possible, in squawking company with as many friends as possible, away from those horrible personages in green and silver with the agitating red flags, and up that quiet slope which, at the worst, only emitted sudden noises. A reflective grouse would perhaps (and two out of three did) consider that he could fly faster and be sooner hidden from the green men with red flags, ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... recovered from her invalidism, and the lifelong headache she had experienced disappeared. It remained only to inform Madam Hawthorne of the engagement which had been so long concealed. He felt some trepidation, since, he says, "almost every agitating circumstance of her life had cost her a fit of illness." But his fears were groundless; she came out of her chamber to meet him as soon as he arrived, looking better and more cheerful than usual, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... Thanks to this position there was bestowed on her the abhorred, but not to be declined, advantage of availing herself of the gaps made in the next couple of jumps by the other riders; but the stones they had kicked down were almost as agitating to Pilot's ruffled nerves as those that still remained in position. She found it the last straw that she should have to wait for the obsequious runners to tear these out of her way, while the galloping backs in front of ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... coloured fires lighted up the pale faces of the crowd with a ghastly hue, and I heard the silly and too often obscene remarks bandied between the bystanders and the returning revellers, I could not help agitating the question, whether it would not be possible to devise some innocent recreation, with a certain amount of refinement in it, to take the place of these—to say the best—foolish revelries. In point of fact, they are worse ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place, my constituents, for whom I am acting here, have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now perhaps agitating the public mind of Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners who recently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted (great laughter); and, in the second place, these lands which I am asked to give ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... emancipation and elevation of our enslaved brethren depends in a great measure upon their brethren who are free, remaining in the country; and we will remain to be that 'agitating element' in American politics, which Mr Wise, in a late letter, concludes, has done so much ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... this logic, and did, although late, make an attempt to lessen the effects of their own great blunder. On the 5th of October, the "Labouchere letter" came out, authorizing reproductive works, the very thing the landlords were agitating for; now that their agitation was successful, what did they do? Nothing, or next to nothing, except that they opened a new cause of disagreement with the Government about boundaries. In the Chief Secretary's ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... taken away to prepare lessons. Rose and Deborah came and went. Coffee was served. The parson was again left to Miss Keene, who would not be pumped for confidences, further than to admit that Mary was keeping her room with a headache, in consequence of the agitating visit of Captain Carey, but laboriously talked parish to him, without appearing to know anything of the subject. So the poor man actually became so bored that he changed his mind about staying for the night. He remembered that there ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... thoughts for a Crown-Prince; well affected to his Father, yet suffering much from him which is grievous. To by-standers, one now makes a different figure: "A Crown-Prince, who may be King one of these days,—whom a little adulation were well spent upon!" From within and from without come agitating influences; thoughts which must be rigorously repressed, and which are not wholly repressible. The soldiering Crown-Prince, from about the end of September, for the last week or two of this Campaign, is secretly no longer quite the same to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... upon her seat trembling, and a deep red suffused her countenance. Even Father Guarini showed by the quivering of his lip and his sudden paleness, that the conversation was now taking an agitating turn. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... to know what she had done that another should be preferred before her; reciting in frantic haste such imperfections of the Lady A-Kuei's appearance as she could recall (or invent) in the haste of that agitating moment. ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... punishment of the guilty, was requested. At the same time Austria-Hungary demanded as necessary guarantee for the accomplishment of her desire the participation of some Austrian officials in the preliminary examination on Servian territory and the final dissolution of the pan-Serb societies agitating against Austria-Hungary. The Imperial and Royal Government gave a period of 48 hours for the unconditional ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... prevent him from thinking. Besides, it was too late, he could not recoil at the last moment, and if when he pronounced the last solemn vow he felt a secret terror, an indeterminate but immense regret agitating him, he forgot everything, saving a divine reward for his efforts on the day when he afforded his mother the great and long-expected joy of hearing him ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... "Calm these agitating feelings, my dear George," said Josiah, attempting to sooth him; and forgetting, whilst he did so, his usual precision. "I have long ago forgotten and forgiven our foolish dispute in the meadow; let not the recollection of such trifles discompose thy mind in an hour like this. Remember ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... that the people of Keighley got the by-name of "th' crooked legged 'uns." It was not a mere local name, but became a general stigmatic description of Keighley folks throughout the country. The great agitator, the late Richard Oastler, was agitating for the Ten Hours Bill at this time. Many of the young people of Keighley were then "knock o' kneed" and otherwise deformed. This fact was represented to Mr Oastler by the local poet, Abraham Wildman. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... storms were agitating the upper air, and the thunderous echoes reverberated through the mountains, the work on the plain went rapidly forward. However the scholars and the theologians might decide the questions at issue between them, the working forces were profoundly convinced that the Gospel was ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... great question, over how broad a field it is expedient and right to extend the activities of government, are embraced many of the great topics at present agitating the public mind. Difference upon this point has been one of the underlying causes of the existence of political parties in the United States, and has furnished one of the real springs of our history. Communism, socialism, and anarchy, may be embraced under this question. This ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby

... accompanied by Mrs. Macdonald of Kirkibost, the lady who had apprised Lady Margaret of her visit, but who was not in the secret of the Prince's disguise. This lady's maid and man servant, and Mac Kechan completed the party. Lady Margaret during the whole of this agitating affair never saw the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... tradesman about him. "Oh, rejoined my friend, a man has a right to say all he can in favour of his own goods." Nor is the seller alone culpable. The buyer takes an equal share in the deception. Though neither of them speak their sentiments, they well understand each other. Whilst the treaty is agitating, the profit of the tradesman vanishes, yet the buyer pronounces against the article; but when finished, the seller whispers his friend, "It is well sold," and the buyer ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... uselessness of what he was doing, the arid futility of every bit of the web of small details which, in their sum, were his life, flowed upon his soul like stagnant water forced into movement by some horrible machinery. He was like something agitating in a vast void, something whose incessant movements produced no effect, had no sort of relation to anything. In his loneliness of the cities he had begun to lose that self-respect which belongs to all happy Englishmen of his type. Mrs. Clarke had immediately noticed that certain ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... daughters. Heaven preserve you from all the irksomeness of court ceremony!" And Louis XV sighed. "Did you ever think," he added, "of all the vanities, all the interests I have to manage; all the intrigues that are perpetually agitating, and all the opposition made to me? The court, the city, the people, will rise against me: they will clamor, groan, complain; verse, prose, epigram, and pamphlet will appear in uninterrupted succession. You would be first attacked, and hatred will perhaps ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... was quite disagreeable," she said, "and broke all our windows on that side." During the last raids before the moon disappeared, by a new and ingenious system of barrage fire the Germans were driven off. The question of the ethics of reprisals is agitating London. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Harrisford murders were agitating the Five Towns that November. People read, talked, and dreamt murder; for several weeks they took murder to all ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the closest observation, even under the magnifying glass. At first it is the male which seeks to couple and he pursues the female over her web till she consents. The pursuit may last some hours, the male agitating his abdomen in a peculiar way, while the female simply retreats a short distance without allowing herself to be approached. At last the female holds herself completely motionless, and then the male approaches, seizes her, places her on her side, sometimes carrying her to a more suitable ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... demand political equality also. The first woman, who, as a writer, came out in its favor in Germany was, as far as we know, Frau Hedwig Dohm. More recently, it is mainly the Socialist working-women, who are vigorously agitating for the idea; and ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... Sir Everard's accession to the rebellion, he either would not have ventured thus to brave the existing government, or at least would not have done so with impunity. The feelings which then dictated his proceedings were those of a young man, and at an agitating period. Since that time Sir Everard's Jacobitism had been gradually decaying, like a fire which burns out for want of fuel. His Tory and High-Church principles were kept up by some occasional exercise at elections and quarter-sessions; ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... returned furlough-men, distributing them to their proper companies. Paymasters had come down to pay off our men before their departure to a new sphere of action, and commissioners were also on hand from the several States to take the vote of our men in the presidential election then agitating ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... advantages and political authority that give her a voice in all international controversies. Only twenty years have passed since the organizing genius of America turned its attention from exclusively domestic problems to the problems of financial imperialism that have been agitating Europe for a half a century. The Great War showed that American men make good soldiers, and it also showed that American wealth ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... the Indian National Congress, that has hitherto done nothing for them beyond embodying in its programme vague expressions of sympathy, is agitating for the severance of the British connection, and Extremist orators perambulate the country to preach a boycott of British officials, the Mahars should have sent in petitions imploring the Governor not to abandon them or surrender the power which has alone done something ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... Revolution of September, 1870, to military or political activity. The only form of literature which had power to attract young writers was the novel, which they could fill with the description of all the passions then agitating the public mind. That a man of real intellectual strength should then give his undivided attention to pure literature seemed a most unlikely phenomenon; but all had to acknowledge that the unlikely had happened, soon after Ferdinand Brunetiere had become the regular literary ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... says but feels, "God's will be done" is mailed against every weakness; and the whole historic array of martyrs, missionaries and religious reformers is there to prove the tranquil-mindedness, under naturally agitating or distressing ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... domestic duties effectually from day to day, for them Saturday afternoon was really a holiday; and on this particular afternoon they were sitting in the open, sunning themselves, and talking with the Prodigal of the latest news from Ballarat, where the leaders of the diggers' cause were agitating resolutely for alterations in the mining laws and reform of the Constitution, when a party of about twenty men approached them from the direction of Forest Creek. The party halted at a distance of about fifty yards, and after a short ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... of many and somewhat agitating thoughts. She went upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to condemn, to the room where the others were congregated, when they had laid Mr. May on his bed with no small difficulty, and were now consulting ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... night gazing into the immensity of the heavens, or into the depths of the lake; but in spite of the nature of the thoughts agitating her, she none the less found very great physical alleviation in contact with this pure air and in contemplation of this peaceful and silent night: thus she awoke next day calmer and more resigned. Unfortunately, the sight of Lady Lochleven, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Wentworth was agitating for self-government in New South Wales, and when Canada was in rebellion for the lack of it, thousands of waggons, driven by men smarting under the same sort of grievance, were jolting northward across the South African veld bearing Dutch families from the British Colony of the Cape of Good Hope ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... princes, O monarch, longing for battle, will range the field, each like Yama himself. The five (royal) brothers of Trigarta are, in my judgment, all foremost of Rathas. The sons of Pritha provoked hostilities with them at Virata's city on that (well-known) occasion. Like huge Makaras, O king, agitating the stream of the Ganges crested with high waves, they will agitate the ranks of the Parthas in battle. All the five, O king, are Rathas, having Satyaratha (amongst them) as their first. Remembering the wrongs inflicted on them of old by that son of Pandu who ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Pelle was taken up with his own affairs! That was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to the Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown, and how he had altered, bodily ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... think it exceedingly important that the attention of parliament should be called to the subject, and to the necessity of holding certain points in our constitution as absolutely sacred. If a man or party should go about proclaiming the unlawfulness, in a religious sense, of property, and agitating for that doctrine amongst the lower classes by appropriate arguments—it would soon be found necessary to check them, and the sanctity of property would soon be felt to merit civil support. Possibly it will be replied—"Supposing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... must own, was ignominious to me; but it affects not the question we are agitating now, whether the counsels I gave to the people of Athens, as a statesman and a public minister, were right or wrong. When first I excited them to make war against Philip, the victories gained by Chabrias, in which you, Phocion, ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... are rate-payers may vote at municipal elections. Since 1889 women are eligible as Guardians of the Poor. In 1900 they were made eligible to all municipal offices. An influential Finnish Woman's Association with twenty branches is agitating for suffrage on ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... Churches, sentimentally pious Churches, and professedly liberal Churches, shall be all taken up into something higher and better. The very discontent which prevails everywhere announces it. It is the working of the leaven—mind agitating the mass. In Protestant countries there is a tendency to Rome; but in Roman Catholic countries an equal or greater tendency to Protestantism. Orthodoxy tends to Liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity tends to Orthodoxy. Each longs for its opposite, its supplement, its ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... no small difficulty. It may, however, be resolved by saying that the very violent and rapid motion of the subtle matter which renders water liquid, by agitating the particles of which it is composed, maintains this liquidity in spite of the pressure which hitherto any one has been minded ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens

... on, while these things were agitating his mind, that, curiously enough, something darkened the window just as they finished breakfast. Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted on horseback, and straining his neck forward, as he had been ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... Kappa oration at Cambridge on the 18th of the month. Although I had but little time for preparation, I accepted the invitation upon the understanding, or rather upon his request, that I was to deal with the questions then agitating the country. Among my hearers was the venerable Josiah Quincy, formerly President of the College. My address was so radical that the timid condemned it, and even Republican papers deprecated the violence of my language—they then living in the delusion ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... for all children within its boundaries. Previous to that time, there had been a Freedman's Bureau school and a Presbyterian missionary school, but these had been withdrawn when the need for them became less pressing. The colored people of the town had been for some time agitating their right to teach their own schools, but as yet the claim had not ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... point in the history of the affable Sarah and the dutiful Abraham we come to the Abraham-Hagar case, and find the hired-girl question already agitating society. ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... had graduated at Harvard College in 1812, a man no longer young, of large talents and great attainments in the law. He spoke against discussion, and in behalf of Slavery and Slaveholders: he could see no good, but only unmixed evil "consequent upon agitating ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... if they are let alone. It is idle to say peace when there is no peace; and the concealed imposthume is more dangerous than an open wound. The law in this country has postponed our trial, but cannot save us from it; and the questions which have agitated the Continent are agitating us at last. The student who twenty years ago was contented with the Greek and Latin fathers and the Anglican divines, now reads Ewald and Renan. The Church authorities still refuse to look their difficulties in the face: they ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... the noise of the night-breeze agitating the window curtains," remarked Fanny, at ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... him. She had buried her face in her hands, to hide the flushing of her cheeks, and sat motionless, altogether crushed beneath the shameful revelation; convulsive sobs and tremblings occasionally agitating her frame. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... Christians were sincere and yet mistaken, may not the Socialists also be mistaken in their doctrine of the inevitability of Socialism? The second question is: If Socialism is inevitable—is coming anyhow—why do you Socialists vex your souls agitating for it? ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... Draper MSS., J. Clark to G. R. Clark, Dec. 27, 1792.] He had a right to feel aggrieved at the State's penuriousness and her indifference to her moral obligations; and just at the time when he was most angered came the news that Genet was agitating throughout the United States for a war with England, in open defiance of Washington, and that among his plans he included a Western movement against Louisiana. Clark at once wrote to him expressing intense sympathy with the French objects and offering to undertake an expedition for the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... and doing much less; in order that, by learning to think more clearly, they may come at last to act less confusedly. But how shall we persuade our Barbarian to hold lightly to his feudal usages; how shall we persuade our Nonconformist that his time spent in agitating for the abolition of church-rates would have been better spent in getting worthier ideas than churchmen have of God and the ordering of the world, or his time spent in battling for voluntaryism in education better spent in learning to value and found ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... before the committee, they managed to present their cause to the attention of the public as well. Appearing before the committee to prevent hostile action on the part of the legislature against their movement, they skillfully turned the occasion into the most notable meeting for agitating the subject of slavery in the State ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... Lynch of Westland Row, openly charges the agitating bishops with having forged the signature of many priests to the protest which they have published against the Charitable Bequests Bill. See his letter, an extract from which is published in the Irish correspondence of The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... that—teste Mrs. Pankhurst—"burly policemen in court had tears trickling down their faces" as he described the courage, the flawless private lives, the selfless devotion to a noble cause of these women agitating for the rights of their sex—rich and poor, old and young. Juries flinched from the verdict which some bitter-faced judge enjoined; magistrates swerved from executing the secret orders of the Home Office; policemen—again—for they are most of them decent fellows—resigned their positions ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... have seen it only once, it cannot be my real self," said Mollie quietly. She had grown, not red but white, as she listened to Jack's words, and her heart had begun to beat in an agitating fashion hitherto unknown. She felt as if somebody had suddenly dealt her an unexpected blow, for until this moment she had fondly imagined herself to be good friends with Jack Melland. "You do not know me, because, perhaps, there is nothing to know, beyond the frivolous, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the flames of penance, directed to the wicked-souled son of Dhritarashtra, is consuming this Bharata host. There cometh Partha, having Vasudeva for his protector, checking (as he cometh) this entire Dhartarashtra army. Behold, Kiritin is agitating this host like a large whale agitating the vast sea of crested waves. Hark, cries of distress and woe are heard in the van of the army. Go, encounter the heir of the Panchala king. As for myself, I will proceed against Yudhishthira. The heart of king Yudhishthira's very strong array is difficult ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... forgot her letters—forgot, in her mind-weariness, all the agitating facts about this girl that she had once so vividly remembered. She had not the strength to battle and hold aloof. Who now could talk of marrying or giving in marriage? They met under a shadow of death; the situation between them reduced to bare ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of sleeping in a comfortable bed once more, after nineteen years of life in the galleys, disturbed his sleep. His first weariness had worn off after a few hours of deep sleep. After looking into the darkness 5 about him, he tried to sleep again. When many agitating sensations have filled a man's day, and still preoccupy his mind, he may fall asleep once, but he cannot go to sleep a second time. So sleep had come to Jean Valjean, but would not return to him, and he lay awake ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... them with a superficial eye. Mrs. Ansell's trained gaze was, for example, greatly enlightened by the fact that the tennis-courts were fringed by a group of people indolently watchful of the figures agitating themselves about the nets; and that, as she turned her head toward the entrance avenue, the receding view of a station omnibus, followed by a luggage-cart, announced that more guests were to be added to those who had almost taxed ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... chiefly instrumental in starting, and the stock of which he held largely, had promised well for a time, and would doubtless pay well in the end; but in the meantime, the big men of Fosbrooke, who had been allowed to say less than they wished to say as to the location of the road, were agitating the subject of another road to connect more directly with the Grand Trunk, and with other lines on the south side of the border, and "Hawkshead and Dunn Valley" stock ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... years, Tennyson lived in a retirement which strongly suggests Milton at Horton. He read and studied widely, cultivated an intimate acquaintance with nature, thought deeply on the problems suggested by the Reform Bill which was then agitating England, and during his leisure hours wrote poetry. The first fruits of this retirement appeared, late in 1832, in a wonderful little volume bearing the simple name Poems. As the work of a youth only twenty-three, this book is remarkable ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... reading the present to the past, will be pleased to meet in those two last writers a quaint account of the theological feud agitating the Rock in 1629. Religious controversies were then, as now, the order of the day. But bluff Commander Kirke had a happy way of getting rid of bad theology. His Excellency, whose ancestors hailed from France, was a Huguenot, a staunch believer in John Calvin. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... so as soon as the day of the wedding should have been fixed with the consent of all the parties. The Marquis's lawyer had ventured to express a doubt; but the Marquis had determined to persevere. The reader will, I trust, remember that those dreadful misgivings, which are I trust agitating his own mind, have been borne in upon him by information which had not as yet reached the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... only manner of agitating for anti-parliamentarism that succeeds, and is without danger, is before and after electoral periods—showing constantly to the elite of the proletariat the insufficiency and dangers of parliamentarism in general ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please, by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent, uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers' cries, no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman catching your breakfast lobster. Where, again, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... the High Marriage which one of these finer Metaphysicians{I}—instructed no doubt by his personal experience—prophesies to his kind, between the "intellect of man" and "this goodly universe," we may say that, regularly, this marriage must have its antecedent possessing and agitating Love; that this love must, like all possessing agitated love, have its attendant Reverie. Now, might one venture to surmise that this REVERIE breathes into the creating ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... acquaintance by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub that the old man winks with both ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... the story that they already knew nearly as well as he did himself—in fact, Mollie found herself on the point of correcting him upon one or two points. He told it well, better than he had done on that agitating occasion so many years ago, but—he did ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... There were more agitating questions to be brought forward. Herbert had behaved very fairly well ever since the escapade of the pied rook; the lad kept his promise as to betting faithfully in his uncle's absence, and though it had not been renewed, he had learnt enough ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and do hereby interpose my maternal authority, and forbid all agitating explanations whilst Amelia is in her present state. Dr. Wheeler says she is terribly feverish. Come, Mr. Palmer, I must carry you off by force, and from me you shall have all the explanations and all the satisfaction you ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... The principal question agitating the council was the nomination of a maseua, or head war-chief. The caciques intimated that Hayoue would be their choice, and all concurred in the selection. But Hayoue positively declined, insisting that his clan had virtually ceased to exist on the Rito, and that it was his ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... I would, and sincerely intended to keep my promise. So it was finally settled that I was to go to sea, and few lads were ever sent afloat under better auspices than I enjoyed. I cannot fully describe the agitating sensations which passed through my bosom when I began to reflect on the approaching consummation of my wishes. While my heart beat with anticipated pleasure at the strange sights I was to behold, I could not but contemplate with sorrow the thoughts of leaving so many dear ones behind. Not ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... ideas ceased to be the most powerfully agitating of intellectual forces in Oxford about 1845. A new current came in from Rugby, and the influence of Dr. Arnold and the natural tide of reaction began to run very strong. If we had the apologiae of the men who thought most, about ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... not go forward, for Palikare had no intention of doing so. As soon as he understood that she had given up all hope of getting him into the Market, he got up and followed her docilely, agitating his long ears ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... to-morrow I will see her once again, and know something more about her. The interview may be serviceable to her, or it may not. At any rate, it will give a breath of excitement to the life she has doomed to stagnation, and may calm with certainty some agitating thoughts.' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... because she was intelligent enough to know that my scruples were the surest proof of the quality of my love; that I refused to owe my happiness to an unconsidered impulse; that we must see each other again, in her own house, in less agitating circumstances, when she had had time to reflect on my words, to study her heart and ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... become as absorbed in the drama as my companion. We forgot, or postponed, the blue, and gave the day to study of this case of domestic infelicity. Five long hours we sat there (morning and afternoon) before the stage on which the interesting but agitating play went on; and after tea, just before dark, we came out again. All this time the war between the two still raged, with no abatement ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... aerial navigation seems at present to be agitating as many pseudo-scientific minds as did that of perpetual motion not many years ago, or the philosopher's stone at a more remote period. It possesses perhaps a still stronger attraction in the danger connected with the experiments—the source, we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... were waiting for the alcalde, the people sweated and yawned, agitating the air with fans, hats, and handkerchiefs. Children shouted and cried, which kept the sacristans busy putting them out of the sacred edifice. Such action brought to the dull and conscientious leader of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary this thought: ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... not here alluded to the probabilities of the severing of the Union by the present mode of agitating the question. This may be one of the results, and, if so, what are the probabilities for a Southern republic, that has torn itself off for the purpose of excluding foreign interference, and for the purpose of perpetuating ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher

... broad principles is directing its exclusive exertions against slavery. "Are there not other great interests?" ask all manner of Whig and Democrat editors and politicians. "Consider, for instance," say the Democrats, "the mighty question which is agitating us, whether a 'Northern man with Southern principles' or a Southern man with the principles of a Nero or Caligula shall be President." "Or look at us," say the Whigs, "deprived of our inalienable right to office by this Tyler-Calhoun administration. And bethink you, gentlemen, how ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... of at the base is being perceived by those who have in hand the education of colored youth. A large number of colleges are adding industrial to their other features, and with much success, and a larger number of educators are agitating the wisdom of ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... softer in outline, the long drooping moustache giving place to a close-cut beard. The eyes alone stayed the same, steady, luminous, a living silence in them at once formidable and strangely sad. Finally—and this the poor child found indescribably agitating and even horrible—their silence was broken by a question. For they asked what she, Damaris, meant to say, meant to do, when he—her father, the all-powerful Commissioner Sahib of her babyhood's faith and devotion—came home ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... again. It seemed to be impossible now to talk with George Tressady, to make any real breach in the barrier between them; but how impossible also not to think of him!—of the young fellow, who had given Maxwell his reward, and said to herself such sad, such agitating things! She did think of him. Her heart ached to serve him. The situation made a new and a very troubling appeal to ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... following letter was written are these. The activity of the Home Rulers and the lethargy of Unionists had caused one side only of the great question then agitating English politics to be represented in the American press, with the result that the funds of the Nationalists were swelled by subscriptions from persons who might have acted otherwise if the arguments on the other side had ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... was dug, revealing milky quartz, ochres and clay. The deceptive hue of the yellow earth made the search a long and tantalizing one. At the moment when the colonel, attracted by something glistening in the large frying-pan which he was agitating at the edge of the stream, uttered an exclamation which drew all heads into the cavity of his receptacle, an answering sound from the heavens caused everybody suddenly to look up. An equatorial storm had gathered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... cold stillness of the winter mornings was broken by agitating waves of sound, penetrating the souls of sleepers. Janet would stir, her mind still lingering on some dream, soon to fade into the inexpressible, in which she had been near to the fulfilment of a heart's desire. Each morning, as the clamour grew louder, there was an interval of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... perhaps, she could see him when they could just shake hands, and she could tell him that she remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things he had said to her in the old days, though they could never be friends any more. It was not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again; she retained her childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered his cleverness; and in the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually recalled the image of him among the people who had been kind to her in life, often wishing she ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... is a new trick to secure your re-election. We advise you to show us the respect due to the rank which the crown has been pleased to bestow upon us. The people of Pennsylvania, in ordinary times, are so lightly taxed, that they hardly know that they are taxed. What fools you are to be agitating this dangerous topic of American taxation. It is beneath the dignity of the Assembly to make trouble about such small sums of money. We do not deny that you have been at some expense in pacifying the Indians, but that is no affair of ours. We already give the province a ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... in iron cylinders, provided with an agitating arrangement. This may consist of a steam injector by means of which air is made to bubble through the liquid, which produces both the required agitation and the heating, and at the same time oxidizes at least part of the sulphides; but this method of agitation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... palm off their vessels upon the Government? A highly favorable time it was; the Government, under the imperative necessity of at once raising and transporting a huge army, needed vessels badly. As for the other question momentarily agitating the capitalists as to what new line of activity they could substitute for their own extinguished business, Vanderbilt soon showed how railroads could be made to yield a far greater fortune ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of questions such as these:—Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... darling! You are not serious. The meeting will be very agitating. With a third person, however, it will be less so. I count on you absolutely, as I have said already. Nay, I insist. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... that she drew long breath of relief. She was quite sufficiently well versed in Lady Caroline's tactics to appreciate the force and wisdom of this reserve. "It is so much better, of course," she said to herself, as her maid dressed her hair, "that we should not have any agitating scene just before dinner. I dare say I should cry—if they were all very grave and solemn I am sure I should cry!—and it would be so awkward to come down with red eyes. And, of course, I could not stay upstairs to-night ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Friedrich Wilhelm fell into a gloom of melancholy, and for long weeks "never slept but with a pair of loaded pistols under his pillow:"—of this Clement, an adroit Phenomenon of the kind, and intensely agitating to Friedrich Wilhelm;—whom Friedrich Wilhelm had at last to lay hold of, try, this very year, and ultimately hang, [Had arrived in Berlin, "end of 1717;" stayed about a year, often privately in the King's company, poisoning ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... to her little heaven of home across the river, and by the simplicity and gentleness of her manners dispelled in a measure my feeling of forlornness. When at last I found myself alone, I would have sought the sleep I so much needed, but the strange scenes of the day chased each other in agitating confusion through my brain. Then I quitted the side of my sleeping boy, triumphant in his dreamless innocence, and sat defeated by the window, to crave counsel and help from the ever-present Friend; ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... in connexion with some big railway scheme in Estremadura—a line between Toledo and Merida. It is badly wanted, and has been talked of for years. There is a huge stretch of country south of the Tagus as far as Villa Nueva without any railway communication. The King himself has been agitating for the development of that rich agricultural region for the last ten years. And now it seems as though your great financier, Monsieur De Gex, is here to consult ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... a man could attend to certain outside business than the sisters could do it, and showing how, in a manner, I proposed to become a brother of the House of Martha. Thus only could I defend myself against her irrational and agitating suppositions. ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... would probably prove how their delusions consisted of the ocular spectra of their brain and the accelerated sensations of their nerves. BAYLE has conjured up an amusing theory of apparitions, to show that HOBBES, who was subject to occasional terrors, might fear that a certain combination of atoms agitating his brain might so disorder his mind as to expose him to spectral visions; and so being very timid, and distrusting his own imagination, he was averse at times to be left alone. Apparitions often happen in dreams, but they may happen to a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... Harry had agitating scenes with his mother besides; these two had never been placed against each other before, and the contest between them was neither gracious nor ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... an hour the ship passed by a bank of sand, which was varied by rocks, on which Mont saw all kinds of sea weeds, coral formations, and curious fish agitating their fins in alarm at the ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... I wouldn't have dreamed of before, and a lot of things, too." Sofya lit another cigarette, turning the kind glance of her gray eyes on the mother. "Yes, you speak of arranging an escape. But how will he be able to live as a fugitive?" The mother finally gave expression to the thought that was agitating her. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... the nature of Christian meaning thus embodied to penetrate and pervade the depths of the mind without agitating its surface; and when the effect is greatest, then it is that the mind is least conscious of it: it is a silent efficacy that "sweetly creeps into the study of imagination," and charms its way into "the eye and prospect of the soul" by delicacy of touch and smoothness of operation. Such art ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... me, I thought, as I replied; and I was afraid of blushing, and betraying certain feelings which had long been agitating my bosom. I was soon sufficiently recovered to attend the dinner-table, at which Master Elliot, in his employer's absence, presided. Among the guests, much to my satisfaction, I found Captain Rover, as well as Captain ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... listening," spoke Pendleton. "Also I'm agitating my small portion of gray matter. But inspiration, it seems, is not for me. So I'll have to ask you what ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... to a thing of human mechanism, is impossible, but which are found in vital agencies and in all deep-laid systems of truth—that the same scheme of belief which is the most settling, freezing, tranquillizing for one purpose, is the most unbinding, agitating, revolutionary in another? Christianity is that religion which most of all settles what is perilous in scepticism; and yet, also, it is that which most of all unsettles whatever may invite man's ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... among the very best means of education. I need only remark that the apostles appear to have refrained from discussion of immediate politics, and to have been little concerned in some questions which were agitating the sister University. They have nothing to say about Apostolical Succession and the like; nor are there any symptoms of interest in German philosophy, which Hamilton and Mansel were beginning to introduce. At Cambridge the young gentlemen are ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... been in part deprived of its inflammability, by means of the stronger affinity, which the spirit of nitre had with phlogiston, and therefore I imagined that by letting them stand longer in contact, and especially by agitating them strongly together, I should deprive the air of all its inflammability; but neither of these operations succeeded, for still the air was only exploded ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... valley. I doubt whether the inhabitants themselves could do so. They are either too lazy or too sensible to worry themselves about abstract points of religious belief. While I was among them, they never held any synods or councils to settle the principles of their faith by agitating them. An unbounded liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Those who pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in an ill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat shapeless arms crossed upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having no likeness either ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... indeed, with that agitating state of mind which arises partly from horror, but more from anxious interest and curiosity, that young Graeme found himself actually traversing the scene of those tremendous events, the report of which had disturbed the most distant ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... and from prominent colleges, discussing the prevailing questions that were agitating ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... occasionally his eyes would close, as though scorched by the streak of light, which he kept watching obstinately, fixedly, with idiotic persistence. On two subsequent occasions the shadows flitted about, repeating the same gestures and agitating the silhouette of the same gigantic jug, and twice quiet was re-established, and the night lamp again glowed discreetly out. These shadows only increased his uncertainty. Then, too, a sudden idea soothed his brain while ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... agitating interviews, the doctor's edict entirely closed the door of the patient's chamber against the count, who was forced to admit ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that they seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating impression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that lay close to his deepest interest in the fates of women—"perhaps my mother was like this one." The old thought had come now ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Battle of Torgau. Saturday, 25th October, 1760, George II., poor old gentleman, suddenly died. He was in his 77th year; feeble, but not feebler than usual,—unless, perhaps, the unaccountable news from Kloster Kampen may have been too agitating to the dim old mind? On the Monday of this week he had, "from a tent in Hyde Park," presided at a Review of Dragoons; and on Thursday, as his Coldstream Guards were on march for Portsmouth and foreign service, "was in his Portico ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... amusing incidents. One day Mme. Lemoine, on returning from market where the neighbours had been discussing the plot that was agitating all Paris, said to her tenants, "Goodness me! You don't know about it? Why, they say that that miserable Georges would like to destroy us all; if I knew where he was, I'd soon have ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... Mrs. Gurney still reside in Bayton, and his business is the most prosperous in the town. They have not grown weary in well-doing, but are now actively engaged agitating the public mind for the submission of the Scott Act in King's County, and they ardently hope they will live to see the day when a prohibitory law shall be passed in our Dominion, and the liquor curse ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... of the sensations which were agitating her friends, "I think we'd best begin to get supper. It may take some time. Mary, I see there's a cook book in the kitchen. If you've made biscuits only once, it might be well for you to study up a little. Vivian can set the table, and get some lettuce from the garden. I'll rustle the wood ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... so. However, this is hardly the place and occasion to dwell on such matters; and, indeed, I know your friends—my friends equally—are desirous that your convalescence should not be unnecessarily disturbed by what must be, however delightful, still agitating thoughts; but you touched yourself unexpectedly on the theme, and, at any rate, you will pardon one who has the inconvenient quality ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... have been built and overthrown! There, in the splendid space that had witnessed the games and tournaments of that Arab and African chivalry—there, where for many a lustrum kings had reviewed devoted and conquering armies— assembled those desperate men; the loud winds agitating their tossing torches that struggled ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... creatures that you are; nothing will come right until you drop your insincere chatter, your haggling, your agitating and compromising, and begin to think. Here is a people that has lost the basis of its existence, because, in its blind faith in authority, it staked that existence on prosperity and power; and both are gone. Do you want to ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... In circumstances less agitating Ann had not failed to observe that the thread about the messenger's wing was not of the kind that Master Simon used. But her eyes opened wide as they fell on the handwriting, and still ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... matters worse. In the first place, it encouraged the men in Illinois who favored slavery to attempt to make it a slave state by amending the state constitution, an attempt which failed in 1824 after a long struggle. In the second place, it aroused certain men who had been agitating for freeing the slaves to redoubled energy. Among these were Benjamin Lundy, James Gillespie Birney, and William Lloyd Garrison, who in 1831 established an abolition newspaper called the Liberator, which became very famous. In the third place, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... end of the term of this law was approaching ship-owners began agitating for its renewal with an increase in the subsidy. Since its enactment the production of steam tonnage had been accelerated, and the decline of sail tonnage had been checked; but no marked change in the merchant ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon

... the close of the seventeenth century the subject of the Trinity was agitating the minds of some of the chief divines of the age. It must be observed, however, that so far the controversy between theologians of the first rank had been conducted within the limits of the Catholic Faith. They disputed, not about the doctrine of the Trinity itself, but ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... news of the abduction was already agitating the town of Troyes, it was still unknown at Arcis, where the inhabitants were supping when the messenger arrived to summon the gendarmes. No one, of course, knew it in the village of Cinq-Cygne, the ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... face flushed angrily. 'The wretches, the wicked wretches!' she said quite fiercely, and the thin fingers closed tightly upon his and shook, agitating the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... a sad impression upon the heart of the looker-on. "Here I am, then, at the bottom of the river," again thought Lavretsky. "And here life is always sluggish and still; whoever enters its circle must resign himself to his fate. Here there is no use in agitating oneself, no reason why one should give oneself trouble. He only will succeed here who traces his onward path as patiently as the plougher traces the furrow with his plough. And what strength there is in ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... her. She was unable to keep even a tiny handful steadfast to this position. She became finally the only figure in the nation appealing for the rights of women when the rights of black men were agitating the public mind. Ardent abolitionist as she was, she could not tolerate without indignant protest the exclusion of women in all discussions of emancipation. The suffrage war policy of Miss Anthony ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... not been idle. Despite her ill-health when in London she had been agitating for her husband's promotion, and had built high hopes on the kind interest of Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury. Unfortunately for her Lord Beaconsfield's last Administration collapsed in April with a crash, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... down upon it, and smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother, terrified by the vehemence of her husband's afflictionaffliction still more fearful as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame suppressed her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his coat, implored him to rise and remember, that, though one was removed, he had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... out of town. Liza played alone, and with great precision; Lemm grew animated, excited, rolled a piece of paper into a baton, and beat time. Marya Dmitrievna laughed, at first, as she watched him, and then went off to bed; as she said, Beethoven was too agitating for her nerves. At midnight, Lavretzky escorted Lemm to his lodgings, and sat with him until three o'clock in the morning. Lemm talked a great deal; his bent shoulders straightened up, his eyes opened widely and sparkled; ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... of government, the minority is never idle. Rather, it is constantly watching, waiting, marshaling opinion against the majority, calling public attention to the mistakes of their opponents, and agitating ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk forcibly together; and shrouded-up his tremors and flutterings, of what sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming Stolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... of interest freely amongst themselves, he listening in silence the while, and later on giving them the benefit of his opinion. All the three turned to him now to see what he would say upon a point that was already agitating the country, and was preparing the way for a shaking that should lead to an altogether new state of existence both in Church and State. Even out here in the garden, in the sanctuary of their own home, with only their friend and spiritual pastor to hear them, the boys spoke with bated breath, ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... greater delicacy and difficulty, was the part taken by the Catholic clergy. On my arrival in America, I found a fierce contest agitating, dividing and enfeebling the Irish-American population. It was asserted on one side that the entire failure was attributable to the Catholic priests, and that in opposing the liberation of Ireland they acted ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... from his seat, he approached the rest of the company with a smiling aspect, and addressed them with that dignified courtesy for which Spaniards have ever been celebrated. Few would have guessed the feelings which were even then agitating his bosom; still, the party felt relieved when he and his softly-spoken, keen-eyed attendants took ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... his own complicity was held to be both lame and unhandsome. As for the correspondence with the colonels, his defence was hardly more successful, and rested upon a general recrimination upon the Prince of Orange. As that personage was agitating and turbulent, it was not possible, the Governor urged, that he should himself remain quiet. It was out of his power to execute the treaty and the edict, in the face of a notorious omission on the part of his adversary to enforce the one or to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... require to be as frequently, made with respect to the hyperbole of denunciation as with respect to that of praise. Nor need we doubt that this deduction had in fact been made by all intelligent readers long before that agitating dinner at Mr. Sotheby's, which Coleridge describes with such anxious gravity in his apologetic preface to the republication of the lines. On the whole one may pretty safely accept De Quincey's view of the true character of this ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... merit (though, as statues go, I don't remember that it is bad), but because I learned from it - my ignorance, doubtless, did me little honor - that Bichat had died at thirty years of age, and this revelation was almost agitating. To have done so much in so short a life was to be truly great. This reflection, which looks deplorably trite as I write it here, had the effect of eloquence as I uttered it, for my own benefit, on the bare little mall ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James



Words linked to "Agitating" :   provocative



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