Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Meddlesome" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind of wife to Harvey. All my life long I mean to obey him and to look up to him; I don't want to begin now by disobeying him—by going counter to his wishes. And I can understand his position too. To him she's just an unreasonable, meddlesome, officious, contrary old negro woman who would insist on running the household of which he should be the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... and sixty persons had cause to rejoice with them. So be it! There were plans evolved already as to national fetes and wholesale pardons when that impudent and meddlesome Englishman at ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... choleric frankness of his comments on people's character and conduct caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him "a meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face as ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... contemplating the hole—the amateur editor invariably pulls it in after him. But until his first notes fall due he is an iridescent glory. He adores himself with a long-tailed hand-me-down Albert Edward and carries the universe in his arms. He pokes his meddlesome proboscis into everything and gives oodles of advice, unasked. He may not have as much principle as a tomcat in rutting time, but he poses before all men as a "guardian of public morals." When he places the awful seal of his disapproval upon a fellow ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... "You meddlesome bacon!" cackled the ungrateful bird; "if you don't take that orb directly back, I 'll sit on you till I hatch you out ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, and the courage of them; but at the same time he showed himself fully alive to the fact that no greater calamity could possibly overtake the English-speaking ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... that this intelligent, respectable and popular citizen should be considered a worthy candidate. The legislature convened, his prospects of election were more than promising, and he would undoubtedly have been chosen had not some meddlesome fellow recognized him as the long lost La Croix. Of course, he ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... passed on the Revised New Testament, that there are doubtless some few changes for the better, so obvious and so demanded beforehand by all educated opinion that to have neglected them would at once have stamped the revisers as blockheads and dunces; but that the set-off in the way of petty and meddlesome changes for the worse, neglect of really desirable improvements, bad English, failure in the very matter of pure scholarship just where it was least to be expected, and general departure from the terms of the Commission assigned to them (notably by their introduction of confusion instead ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... a meddlesome French commissary, i. 82; energy and activity of, i. 132; escape of, from prison at Williamsburg ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... insisting on cash. No one insisted so loudly as the cousin with the red flower in her wig; and when the other cousins seemed about to weaken and accept the note, Red-Flower stood up and exhorted them to be firm, lest their flesh and blood be cheated under their noses. The meddlesome cousin was silenced at last, the contract was signed, the happiness of the engaged couple was pledged in wine, the guests dispersed. And all this while my mother had not opened her mouth, and my ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... there was a meddlesome coxcomb on this earth!' Such was the exclamation that greeted the ears of Guy as he supported Charles into the breakfast-room; and, at the same time, Mr. Edmonstone tossed a letter into ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gasp. The worst evidence came from Lancashire, Cheshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, East Scotland, and South Wales. In these districts juvenile labour was cheap and plentiful; and this was an irresistible argument for its employment, though the miners themselves disliked it. The meddlesome restrictions on the factories were a contributory cause. Parents, it was said in Lancashire, were pushing their children into colliery employment at an earlier age because of the legal restrictions upon sending them to ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... Thunder, and the Hunter going with Washington. The latter understood very well that their object was to have an opportunity to win them over to the French. But Washington insisted upon their going with him, and rebuked Captain Joncaire for his meddlesome disposition. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Dagonet wanders in the woodland] But whilst Sir Kay and his court thus rested themselves, Sir Dagonet must needs be gadding, for he was of a very restless, meddlesome disposition. So, being at that time clad only in half armor, he wandered hither and thither through the forest as his fancy led him. For somewhiles he would whistle and somewhiles he would gape, and otherwhiles he would cut a caper or two. So, as chance would have it, he came by and ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... to take her with him. It didn't really matter, of course; he didn't suppose Mrs. Leadbatter could exercise any control over Mary Ann, but it was horrible to be discussed by her and Rosie; and then there was that meddlesome vicar, who might step in and make ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... day he found a caddis, and wanted it to peep out of its house: but its house-door was shut. He had never seen a caddis with a house-door before: so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside. What a shame! How should you like to have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see how you looked when you were in bed? So Tom broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, stuck ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... seems, since you had not the sense to box that child's ears for a meddlesome tell-tale. Did the scene equal ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... up Mrs. Harold, and fully decided as the months rolled by that she "weren't no meddlesome busybody, a-trying to run things," she was only too glad to ask her advice in many instances, and Peggy's toilet this evening was one of them. Poor old Harrison had begun to find the intricacies of a young girl's toilet a trifle too complex for her, and had gone to Mrs. Harold ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... a singular contact of minds. It was very well for me to spin sonorous generalities, but I had never till now dreamed of being so vulgar as to translate them into practice. I had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism. To be thrown with Davies was to receive a shock of enlightenment; for here, at least, was a specimen of the breed who ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... commenced my tyranny. And instead of being able to grant favors to my new sister, I am reduced to the necessity of begging them at her hands. In a word, I want to come to Bellair. Not to be a meddlesome adviser; I am too firmly a convert to your method of procedure for that. Besides, I should have to declare war upon Miss Keith if I presumed thus far. But I do desire to further your plans, and to this end would make a suggestion that has occurred to me since hearing of ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... that's worrying me. I shan't breathe freely till they're gone. And such an inquisitive, meddlesome set they are, too! You'd scarcely believe the trouble they give me. Two of them took it into their heads one day to go wandering on the upper landing. I actually found them ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... preach any more. I guess I'm not the only meddlesome person in the world. One half the people I know need nothing more to make them take all possible pains to learn about a thing than to know the person whom it concerns wishes it kept secret. But where have you ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... walk in the fields, bird-nesting and botanizing, and had like to have been taken up as a poacher in Hilly Wood, by a meddlesome, conceited gamekeeper belonging to Sir John Trollope. He swore that he had seen me in the act, more than once, of shooting game, when I never shot even so much as a sparrow in my life. What terrifying rascals these woodkeepers and gamekeepers are! They make a prison ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... and apologetic "I am sure I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, particularly of so delicate a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... father—some meddlesome fellow told my employer that I occasionally played a game of pool, and my tailor came to the store and dunned me; so old Boggs gave me a long lecture and my walking ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... our relative standing was the same here as it had been at the school. I gradually overcame the prejudices of the students, and gained their good will, while he was always giving offence by his meddlesome disposition and overbearing manners: yet his talents and force of character always procured him a few followers, whom he managed as he pleased. Of their aid he made use to gratify his malevolence towards me, for this feeling ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... and through this accuser of what the city intended for those in this condition? Do not, members of the Boule, pass this vote. For why should I find you of such a disposition? 24. Because some one in a trial ever lost his property through me? But no one could prove that. Because I am meddlesome, and harsh and quarrelsome? But I do not chance to have such conditions of life for such actions. 25. But that I am violent and disorderly? But not even he would say that if he did not wish to lie about this as the other things. But that being in power in ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... find that you can play your meddlesome games too often," remarked Reuben sternly, his eyes upon the red cross and the half-completed words above. "I would that all the city were of the same spirit as Lady Scrope. She always keeps a quantity of hot pitch or tar beside her ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... from their habit of going entirely naked. One of them is said by Arrian to have said to Alexander. "You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that you abandon your home like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardships yourself, and inflicting hardships on others." (Arrian, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... continuously, whistled, sang, was markedly erotic towards the physician, careless in exposing herself and often obscene in her talk. Most of her productions were determined by the environment. She was therefore quite distractible, very alert; sometimes she was meddlesome, again irritable, irascible. The following illustrates her productions: "Send for my husband, S.—He had one sister as big as that. She likes candy.... My father is underneath and my mother is on top because she is fat and he is skinny.... ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... property which at present belonged to an alien race. War might have its drawbacks and its clouds, but war would be seen to have its advantages and its silver linings, if out of it there came this legacy of Armenian wealth. And by the same stroke Turkey could get rid of those thousands of meddlesome missionaries, American and French, who spread religion and learning and other undesirable things among the cursed race. Once remove the cursed race, and there would be an end of their instructors also, for there would be none to instruct. 'Thanks to their schools,' so we read ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... was my fault," Jack said, contritely. "I should not have tempted you to go on that unlucky trip last Tuesday. So you were seen near Richmond station by some meddlesome individual—probably when you got out of the trap! But it may turn out for the best; your father could not have been kept in ignorance much longer. ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass, and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam Crawford; and by the time Sam was good and mad, he'd be off onto the alto or the soprano. He was one o' these meddlesome old creeturs that thinks the world never moved till they got into it, and they've got to help everybody out with whatever they happen to be doin'. You've heard o' children bein' born kickin'. Well, ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... her under the form I made him assume. All had fallen out as I expected—I had just arranged to carry them both off to Clairdelune, and leave these usurpers in possession for as long as the Country would endure them—when you blunder in, like the meddlesome idiot you are, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... troublesome boy. Generous and jolly,—his playmates called him a firstrate good fellow, but older people complained that he was curious, meddlesome, and ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... episode was ended—ended, moreover, with a good deal of cavalierness. She had treated me like a meddlesome, pertinacious idiot who had insisted on calling and had to be taught his place. This was a Christian country where the formalities of life prevailed; I could not—unless escorted and countenanced by gendarmes—seize upon a club ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... honesty are brought into the highest possible relief by the restoration to the feebly guileful Polonius of the speeches of which he has long been deprived. Among the reinstated scenes is that in which the meddlesome dotard teaches his servant Reynaldo modes of espionage that shall detect the moral lapses of his son Laertes in Paris. The recovered episode is not only admirable comedy, but it gives new vividness to Polonius's maudlin egotism which is responsible ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... reached shore Thor was still filled with rage at the meddlesome giant, because he had lost him the serpent, but he quietly picked up the boat and carried it home, Hymer taking the whales. Once more under his own roof, the giant's courage returned, and he challenged Thor to show his strength by breaking his drinking-cup. Thor sat down and, taking the cup, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... unsatisfactory Revolution, and his fatherly protection of Markovitch had inspired apparently nothing more fruitful than distrust. I would like to emphasise that it was in no way from any desire to interfere in other people's affairs that young Bohun undertook these Quests. He had none of my own meddlesome quality. He had, I think, very little curiosity and no psychological self-satisfaction, but he had a kind heart, an adventurous spirit, and a hatred for the wrong and injustice which seemed just now to be creeping about the world; but all ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... Mayor's eyes rested on the culprit. Fiddles returned the look, head up, a smile on his lips that would have fooled the devil himself. Then his Honor turned to me and said: 'My memory is not always very good, but this time the cobbler's—who is a meddlesome person—is even more defective. Yes, I think it quite possible I was hunting on last Wednesday. I can sympathize with the young man as to the size of the rabbit. They are running very small this year. My decision, therefore, is that you can let ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the Continent, in remote little duchies, without trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever heard of imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been spoken. In such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of spare time on hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring to England as a sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, moral, religious, or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as a kind of Rhadamanthus, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... last place in which to indulge in idle talk. Such indulgence is against all the idealism of student life. Idle or meddlesome talk never helps any one, either the one who talks or the one who is discussed. If you have anything to say about other people, and if going to them will help you, the only friendly thing to do—it is not an easy thing—is to speak ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks

... the long line of alliances, triple and quadruple, the endless negotiations, the interminable congresses, the innumerable treaties, which make up the history of Europe during the earlier half of the eighteenth century; nor is it easy to follow with patience the meddlesome activity of English diplomacy during that period, its protests and interventions, its subsidies and guarantees, its intrigues and finessings, its bluster and its lies. But wearisome as it all is, it succeeded in its end, and its end was a noble one. Of the twenty-five years between ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... driving us to, you mean!" Cicily fairly snapped. It was difficult enough to manage her husband, without having her position jeopardized by the interference of this meddlesome old man, who stood for that exclusion of her sex against which she was fighting. She went to the chair in which Ferguson had been sitting, and reclined there in a posture of graceful ease that was ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... the doorway toward the table; she had her hands closed upon what seemed trinkets, some of which glittered and dangled from them. She said, "Will you go to him and tell him that this meddlesome minx, here, had no business to say anything about me to him, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... said Aunt Madge, kissing his forehead. "And he won't toss his head,—just this way,—like a young lord of creation, when meddlesome aunties venture ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)

... of it!" Dolly stood up and angrily grasped the bell-handle. "It's not true. It's a meddlesome lie. They are jealous. People are always like that—it makes them furious to see another person prosper. They ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... Neither Emile nor Sophie is made in the least a live person; the catastrophe of their at first ideal union might be shown, by an advocate of very moderate skill, to be largely if not wholly due to the meddlesome, muddle-headed, and almost inevitably mischievous advice given to them just after their marriage by their foolish Mentor; and one neither finds nor foresees any real novel interest whatever. Anilities in the very worst style of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... stemming the tide of time, or the tide of progress, or the tide of culture. But the forces of reaction, threatened in their mediaeval management of things, have begun a cowardly guerilla warfare, a series of petty, cowardly, miserable, meddlesome tricks." ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... parlour—that she had had an interview with Morris Townsend; and on receiving this news the girl started with a sense of pain. She felt angry for the moment; it was almost the first time she had ever felt angry. It seemed to her that her aunt was meddlesome; and from this came a vague apprehension that she ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... him, was the only one who dared to tell him the truth. The truth? No, it was a lie, a lie; he was not dying, he was going to be well and strong again as soon as he could shake this cold that had settled upon him. Nancy was a meddlesome old woman. He had told her so not more than an hour ago and had sent her off about her business. He had been harsh to her and rude, and after all she was old and had probably meant to do him a kindness. But, then, he was not sorry; she'd not come bothering him any more now ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams

... been up to the 'Blade' office and has put an advertisement in," muttered Dexter. "Now, she's talking to those two meddlesome boys. About me, I wonder? Blazes! There she is, turning about again. I wonder if she's going back ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock

... every morning, that before night you will meet with some meddlesome, ungrateful and abusive fellow, with some envious or unsociable churl. Remember that their perversity proceeds from ignorance of good and evil; and that since it has fallen to my share to understand the natural beauty of a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... there either has not done, or cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had invested Atlee in Brammell's eyes with the character of one of those semi-accredited inscrutable people whose function it would seem to be to make us out the most meddlesome people ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... people, just as he could hardly refrain—in defiance of nautical etiquette—from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a fool in his time. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... the evils and miseries of our existence were entailed upon us by the meddlesome and altogether gratuitous perverseness of one weak-headed woman. Although faith in the personal influence of Eve upon the ages is visibly waning in these incredulous, iconoclastic times, there still remains ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... for any calculations in life in a state of things in expectation of a revolution any moment? Compared with the freedom of action in such a government as ours, any form of communism is an iniquitous and meddlesome despotism. In a less degree an association to which a man surrenders the right to say when, where, and for how much he shall work, is a despotism, and when it goes further and attempts to put a pressure ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... as a subordinate officer, and left the handling of the crew entirely to him. His aloofness forestalled any of that familiarity which, with such a gang, would have led to contempt. On the other hand, his avoidance of any assumption of meddlesome authority prevented the irritation and dislike which free men inevitably feel for the self-important type of leader. Thus he cannily steered himself and his mates between the two rocks which might have wrecked the expedition before it was well ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... meddlesome, impertinent young scamp!" says Aunt Tillie, growin' red under the layers of rice powder. "Haven't I a right to marry without consulting him, I'd ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... their pride in an imposing army into puzzled rage at its inactivity has left a deeper impression on Northern memories than the shock of disappointment at Bull Run. Public men of weight had been pressing for an advance in November, and when the Joint Committee of Congress, an arbitrary and meddlesome, but able and perhaps on the whole useful body, was set up in December, it brought its full influence to bear on the President. Lincoln was already anxious enough; he wished to rouse McClellan himself to activity, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... dreams of good. How many good men, prosperous and contented, looked around and saw naught but good, while millions of their fellowmen were bartered and sold like cattle! No doubt, there were comfortable optimists who thought Wilberforce a meddlesome fanatic when he was working with might and main to free the slaves. I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, "Hurrah, we're all right! This is the greatest nation on earth," when there are grievances ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller

... her Maker couldn't anticipate her behavior, and when she wills to torment a man she has seemingly neither soul not sense. In your wise and worldly advice to John you forgot Mary's possibilities of denseness, and your meddlesome medicine has had ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... supposed to reflect on this meddlesome ecclesiastic in Part II, chap, xxxi, of Don Quixote, where there is a passage against those of the religious profession who "govern the houses of princes," written with a bitterness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... All sects and parties sought ascendency rather than the public good; angry and inexperienced, they refused to compromise. Sectarianism was the true hydra that baffled the energy of the courageous combatant. Parliaments were factious, meddlesome, and inexperienced, and sought to block the wheels of government rather than promote wholesome legislation. The people hankered for their old pleasures, and were impatient of restraint; their leaders were demagogues or fanatics; they could not be coerced by mild measures or appeals to enlightened ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... the commune and department cease to be private companies in order to become administrative compartments.—According to the opportunity and the temptation, it glides downhill, now toward the surrender of its duty, and now toward the meddlesome interference ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... such encouragement at home. Whatever she saw or heard in one place, she would be sure to report it in another; so that all the masters and misses who had the mortification to fall into her company, considered themselves as under the malicious inspection of a meddlesome spy; which they had the more reason to do, because she seldom failed to embellish her informations with the recital of several unfavourable circumstances of her own invention." "Indeed, Mr. Wiseman, said Betsey, my youngest daughter, what you have told ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... to arrest us as rogues and vagabonds," Kosinski explained to me as we made our way towards a neighbouring coffee-shop for breakfast. "A pretty fix that would have been just now! We had scarcely settled down for a quiet sleep on the box when the meddlesome fool came up and asked our names and addresses, what we had there, what we were doing at that hour, and threatened to take us in charge unless we moved on. When I explained that we were simply waiting for our ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... over her shoulder, he almost bumps against the duchess. Horror! She speaks to him quite eagerly. She puts a question. He replies. She bends her head near to him. They walk slowly out of the room, talking, talking. All is up with Lys d'Angely! The next thing that Meddlesome Matty of a duchess will do, is to wire Cousin Catherine Milvaine. Crash! thunder—lightning—hail!—Monsieur Charretier on my ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... Wodgate had advantages of its own, and of a kind which touch the fancy of the lawless. It was land without an owner; no one claimed any manorial right over it; they could build cottages without paying rent. It was a district recognized by no parish; so there were no tithes, and no meddlesome supervision. It abounded in fuel which cost nothing, for though the veins were not worth working as a source of mining profit, the soil of Wodgate was similar in its superficial character to that of the country around. So a population gathered, and rapidly increased, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... my bonnet, and went in one direction, and sent Rose in another, and Mis' Swan found herself in a pretty mess, with her name on everybody's lips. But, will you believe in the ingratitude of human nature, the woman's own husband called me a meddlesome old busy-body, after I had solemnly warned him of his wife's unfaithfulness, and I was made the laughing stock of the town where I was born, and have lived a long and useful life. Nobody can tell me anything to convince me that my suspicions wasn't ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... before her, his shoulder against the mantelpiece, his hands in his pockets; his attitude was careless, but his face was alert and hard; she no longer seemed a meddlesome good child; she was his mother, interfering in what was not her business. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... Herald and to Captain Beardsley's expressed wish that the act might lead to an open rupture between the United States and England, and he was glad to learn that there was to be no trouble on that score. But England could not long keep her meddlesome fingers out of our pie. She did all she dared to aid the Confederacy, and when the war was ended, had the fun of handing over a good many millions of dollars to pay for the American vessels that British built and British armed steamers had destroyed ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... advice when it was not needed, in her good-natured way; she had always interfered with everything and everybody. "Meddlesome Mattie" they had ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... of his extended career Mr. Wintermuth had been called upon to face many serious and unexpected crises. Conflagrations; rate wars; eruptions of idiotic and ruinous legislation adopted by state senates and assemblies composed of meddlesome agriculturalists, saloon keepers, impractical young lawyers, and intensely practical old politicians;—all these he had lived through not once, but often, and had always piloted the Guardian's bark to port in safety. In fact, he had done this with such aplomb that long ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... is going to leave us," announced Trotter, with a smile. "He goes north to-night. Here is the slip of paper, my boy, that will take you past any meddlesome inquiry. But it is good only until midnight, so I advise you to be ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... in spite of carefully washed hands (for little hands will somehow get dirty, try sedulously though you and their owner may to prevent it), in the small tin, and it is placed in the oven with the other pies. It serves admirably at a doll's tea-party, and the meddlesome fingers have been kept busy, the restless mind contented, while the housewife's work ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... way, we felt sorry for Miss Emily. She was Mr. Leith's old-maid sister and she was not of much importance in the household. But, though we felt sorry for her, we couldn't like her. She really was fussy and meddlesome; she liked to poke a finger into every one's pie, and she was not at all tactful. Then, too, she had a sarcastic tongue, and seemed to feel bitter towards all the young folks and their love affairs. Diana ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... good deal older than you and I am a friend—of many years—of your mother. There's nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right—a sort of privilege. For the rest, my inquiry will ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... government inspector is looked upon with deep disfavor as one result of the demoralization brought about by liberal and other loose ways of viewing public rights. The private, self-constituted one, it may then be judged rightly, is regarded as a meddlesome and pestilent busybody seeking knowledge which nobody should wish to obtain, and another illustration of what the nineteenth century is coming to. Various committees of inquiry, from the Organized Charities and from private bodies of workers, visit manufactories and industries ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... windshields formed a perfect draught to carry the smoke up through the permanently open flue in the apex of the structure, and one soon realized that of all tents or dwellings, no healthier abode was ever contrived by man. Indeed, if the stupid, meddlesome agents of civilization had been wise enough to have left the Indians in their tepees, instead of forcing them to live in houses—the ventilation of which was never understood—they would have been spared at least one ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... Indiana, where, under the magic of their industry, the beautiful village of New Harmony arose in one year, and where many of their sturdy buildings still remain a testimony to their honest craftsmanship. Unfortunately, however, two pests appeared which they had not foreseen. Harassed by malaria and meddlesome neighbors, Father Rapp a third time sought a new Canaan. In 1825 he sold the entire site to Robert Owen, the British philanthropic socialist, and the Harmonists moved back to Pennsylvania. They built their third and last home on the Ohio, about twenty miles from Pittsburgh, and called it Economy ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... has to hide everything when one has little meddlesome good-for-nothings like you.... But come, out with it, confess that you took it.... I would rather it was that.... I sha'n't tell daddy.... I ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck

... pardon for being meddlesome,' continued Percy, 'I thought I saw a way of being even with that scoundrel. Your papers had got into my pocket, and, as I had nothing else to do, I looked them over after parting with you, and saw ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... put her anywhere where a lady ought to be, in New Orleans, she would be—well, don't you see she would be about as far away as if she were in Milwaukee? Richling, I don't know how it looks to you for me to be so meddlesome, and I believe you think I'm making a very poor argument; but you see this is only one point ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... soon after his arrival, asked several prominent men why the town had no society or even person to visit the very poor and the persons who might be in prison, he ran some risk of being considered meddlesome. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... must not think me meddlesome—officious. I can no more wait for your permission to help you than if you were drowning. Perhaps for good reasons within me, I know, better than you, that you-and he—are on a slippery incline, and that whether you can stop your descent and creep back to higher ground than either ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable

... long my heart hath been heavy, fearing for thee from wild beasts or other mischances. Now praise be to Allah for thy safety!" I thanked him for his friendly solicitude and, retiring to my corner, sat pondering and musing on what had befallen me; and I blamed and chided myself for my meddlesome folly and my frowardness in kicking the alcove. I was calling myself to account when behold, my friend, the Tailor, came to me and said, "O youth, in the shop there is an old man, a Persian,[FN212] who seeketh thee: he hath thy hatchet and thy sandals which he had taken to the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and Lally, O well, Six lines in an article written in English are plenty To weigh what you did, put it by with a generous gesture, Give the minds of the student your measure, impress them Forever that all of this sacrifice, service was noble, But done with mixed motives, the fruits of your meddlesome nature, Your hatred of churches and priests. Six lines are the record Of all of these years of hard plowing in quack-grass, while batting At poisonous flies and stepping ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... in your nice frock. Do let the furniture alone, child. Ring for Bridget, if any thing wants cleaning. You're a real Meddlesome Matty, Bertha." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... that on the left these words "To the memory of Mrs. Fanny Jones, ob. January 27, 1864, aged 75 years." Mr. Jones was a former incumbent of St. Thomas's. He was a quiet, mild-minded man, devoid of bombast, neither cynical nor meddlesome, and was well liked by all. His wife died just two days before him, and both were interred in one grave in St. Peter's church yard. The pulpit and reading desk at St. Thomas's are good-looking and substantial, but both are rather ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... hearsay and believed to be a pernicious innovation. Before he had been long at the monastery, he had detected the secret murmurings of some shallow brothers who disliked the institution. He was, besides, a meddlesome, inquisitive man, who poked his nose into everything. This was why the news of the fresh "miracle" performed by Father Zossima reduced him to extreme perplexity. Alyosha remembered afterwards how their inquisitive guest from Obdorsk ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... banishment had, perhaps, a good effect upon the unborn generation, whose parents had not then entered the matrimonial state. Whatever other purpose it subserved, except to show to other communities the "latest novelty" from California, is the unfathomable conundrum. John Crowe was a noisy, blatant, meddlesome fellow, the keeper of a livery stable on Kearny street, and a fierce denouncer of the Committee. There was nothing else to his discredit, so far as I could learn at the time. Reub. Maloney was a compound character—a good deal of a knave, something of ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... short, this celebrated lady—for her reputation was more than local—was what the American so succinctly terms a 'she-boss'; and in a less enlightened age she would indubitably have been ducked in the Beorflete river as a meddlesome, scolding, clattering jade. Indeed, had anyone been so brave as to ignore the flight of time and thus suppress her, the righteousness of the act would ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... her aunt were notified that they should appear before His Honor. The lawyers told Mrs. Clark that the visit to the probate court was a mere formality,—meant nothing at all. But under their breaths they cursed Judge Orcutt for a meddlesome old nuisance, which would not have worried him. Adelle and her aunt, got up in their best mourning, accordingly appeared before the probate judge, who at the moment was hearing a case of non-support. So they ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... Ferrall hotly, "before they begin to bully you. There was no earthly reason for you to talk to Stephen. No disinterested impulse moved you. It was a sheer perverse, sentimental restlessness—the delicate, meddlesome deviltry of your race. And if that poison is in you, it's well for you ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... the Dutch government. In the year 1897 a numerous band of Madangs had migrated into the extreme head of the Baram from the corresponding and closely adjoining part of the Rejang, largely owing to the pressure put upon them by the ever roving and meddlesome Sea Dayaks. Neither these Madangs nor the Kenyahs of the Batang Kayan had entered into friendly relations with the Sarawak government, and they had preserved a hostile attitude towards the Baram tribes. The Resident therefore ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... Crust of Bread Unknown "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" Isaac Watts The Brown Thrush Lucy Larcom The Sluggard Isaac Watts The Violet Jane Taylor Dirty Jim Jane Taylor The Pin Ann Taylor Jane and Eliza Ann Taylor Meddlesome Matty Ann Taylor Contented John Jane Taylor Friends Abbie Farwell Brown Anger Charles and Mary Lamb "There Was a Little Girl" H. W. Longfellow The Reformation of Godfrey Gore William Brighty Rands The Best Firm ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... the old feud. They cannot help respecting each other after such an encounter as that. I'll try and get hold of young Darley, and then of Mark; and perhaps I may be able to—Bah! you weak-minded, meddlesome old driveller!" he cried impetuously. "You would muddle, and spoil all, when perhaps a Higher Hand is at work, as it always is, to make everything tend toward ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... swung, was kept in repair by unknown hands. Upon looking for the man whom Eva had discovered, Mrs. Arlington saw leaning upon the curb, in a posture of meditation, a figure which both she and her husband recognized. There was no possibility of avoiding or of evading a meeting with the meddlesome babbler who had volunteered to prescribe "cowcumber bitters" as a sure cure for Chester's love. Within the ten years since the revelation on the summit of the mound, and the piroque tour to the island, Arlington had seen ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or two hence, Brandenburg became again the theatre of business; Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644), with intent "to shut up Torstenson and his Swedes in Jutland," where they had been chastising old Christian IV., now meddlesome again, for the last time, and never a good neighbor to Sweden. Gallas could by no means do what he intended: on the contrary, he had to run from Torstenson, what feet could do; was hunted, he and his MERODE-BRUDER (beautiful inventors of the "Marauding" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... greatest happiness of the greatest number, comfortable domestic axioms, little schemes for the elevation of the masses by the classes, had, on their logical basis, no attraction for this sceptical, wayward girl. To be merely useful was, in her eyes, to make oneself meddlesome and absurd. The object of existence was to be heroic or nothing. She could imagine herself a Poor Clare: she could not imagine herself as a great young lady dividing her hours judiciously between district visiting and the ball-room, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... went on just the same. In his rage, he took a chopper, and cut the wand in two, but instead of stopping it brought twice as much; a double lot of pails appeared, and at last the torrent of water washed away the house of the meddlesome man. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... service to be done and the man who orders it), it was permanently organized under the constitutional government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers constantly struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials hastened ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... the troops from Winchester, to strengthen Fort Cumberland, which was now to become headquarters; thus weakening the most important points and places, to concentrate a force where it was not wanted, and would be out of the way in most cases of alarm. By these meddlesome moves, made by Governor Dinwiddie from a distance, without knowing any thing of the game, all previous arrangements were reversed, every thing was thrown into confusion, and enormous losses and expenses ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... care for children; they were meddlesome and noisy. He waged continual warfare against certain naughty boys on Pleasant Street, who, divining his dislike, resorted to all sorts of teasing tricks. They carried off his door-mat, unhinged his gate, favored him with uncomplimentary valentines, and robbed his grape ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... Indians. Mr. Justice Davar was the Parsee Judge who sentenced Tilak. The Kesari declared that "he had already settled the sentence in his own mind after a careful consideration of external circumstances," and "had made himself the laughing-stock of the whole world, like the meddlesome monkey in the fable who came to grief in trying to pull out the peg 'from a half-sawed beam,'" Now the Kesari was Tilak's own paper, and he was convicted on two seditious articles that had appeared ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... the risk of giving or of receiving serious affront, would be to push that whim of his into more than wonted exaggeration. Thus he could more decidedly and briefly come to the point; and should he, in doing so, appear too meddlesome, rather provoke a laugh than a frown-retiring from the ground with the honours due to a humorist. Accordingly, in his deepest nasal intonation, and withdrawing his eyes ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Tilly, for leaving me to die like a rat in a hole. I have stood the pains of hell for thirty-eight hours, and can't stand them any longer. They shan't take me alive. Box and that hound Carruthers' papers are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush, where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you. Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm dead and torture the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... ever you look at her. I had n't observed you for two minutes by the clock, when I knew your secret as well as if you 'd chosen me for your confessor. But what's holding you back? You can't expect her to do the proposing. Now curse me for a meddlesome Irishwoman, if you will—but why don't you throw yourself at her feet, and ask ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... for fastening your boat?" asked Uncle Gerald. "To guard against its being tampered with by meddlesome persons, as well as to prevent its drifting away, you ought to secure it to a stake near the bank by ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... and left the handling of the crew entirely to him. His aloofness forestalled any of that familiarity which, with such a gang, would have led to contempt. On the other hand, his avoidance of any assumption of meddlesome authority prevented the irritation and dislike which free men inevitably feel for the self-important type of leader. Thus he cannily steered himself and his mates between the two rocks which might have wrecked ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... going to leave us," announced Trotter, with a smile. "He goes north to-night. Here is the slip of paper, my boy, that will take you past any meddlesome inquiry. But it is good only until midnight, so I advise you to be sure to catch ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... worst evidence came from Lancashire, Cheshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, East Scotland, and South Wales. In these districts juvenile labour was cheap and plentiful; and this was an irresistible argument for its employment, though the miners themselves disliked it. The meddlesome restrictions on the factories were a contributory cause. Parents, it was said in Lancashire, were pushing their children into colliery employment at an earlier age because of the legal restrictions upon sending ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... (that ponderous curtain hung between the service to be done and the man who orders it), it was permanently organized under the constitutional government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers constantly struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... hitherto, in writing to you, I have resolutely put the hopes foremost. Now, however, my pride has forsaken me, and I should like hugely to give expression to a little comfortable despair. I should like to say, 'My dear wise woman, you were right and I was wrong; you were a shrewd observer and I was a meddlesome donkey!' When I think of a little talk we had about the 'salubrity of genius,' I feel my ears tingle. If this is salubrity, give me raging disease! I 'm pestered to death; I go about with a chronic heartache; there are ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... know Sarah's temper, or you would wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... whisper so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "I have often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and I know precisely what it signifies. Bigotry; self-conceit; an insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, and substitute one's self in its awful place,—out of these, and ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of hell for thirty-eight hours, and can't stand them any longer. They shan't take me alive. Box and that hound Carruthers' papers are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush, where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you. Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm dead and torture ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... goes on to describe in detail how, governed and possessed by one idea, and by a theory, to oppose which was "moral depravity," he proceeded to establish his intolerable system of discipline, based on dogmatic grounds—meddlesome, inquisitorial, petty, cruel—over the interior of every household in Geneva. What is there fascinating, or even imposing, in such a character? It is the common case of political and religious bigots, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... interferin' and puttin' in your meddlesome oar?" the Deacon said, turning to Waitstill. "The girl would never 'a' been there if you'd attended to your business. She's nothin' but a fool of a young filly, an' you're an old cart-horse. It was your job to look out for her as your mother told ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the habit of a mischievous class of dwellers on the planes of spirit life to falsely impersonate other spirits as such seances. As all investigators of the subject know very well, it is not an infrequent thing for such mischievous and meddlesome spirits to endeavor to pass themselves off as the relative or friends of those in the circle, or even to falsely impersonate some great historical personages. In such cases the sitters should insist upon the spirit ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... deal older than you and I am a friend—of many years—of your mother. There's nothing I like less than to be meddlesome, but I think these things give me a certain right—a sort of privilege. For the rest, my inquiry will ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... in an abscess, and the pus sac is ruptured by meddlesome, unskilled treatment, scientific or otherwise, causing the pus to burrow toward the groin, surgery is the only treatment; there is no hope of recovery in such a case without establishing thorough drainage, and this means skilled surgical treatment. It will positively be a miracle if such ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... would have never left, if these meddlesome abolitionists hadn't put it in their heads; but, darling, don't bother your brain about such matters. See what I have bought you this morning," said he, handing her a necklace of the purest pearls; "here, darling, is a birth-day present ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... "I am sure I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own judgment, He was sorry to have given ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... cried the witch, furiously. "This time I will show thee no mercy. Take thy fate, meddlesome woman!" ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... "that there will be no occasion for applying to a Court of Chancery. There ought to be none. There is but one child, Mrs Vincent, whom you have seen this evening in the drawing-room. The great essential is to keep prying and meddlesome attorneys from thrusting themselves into the business. You acted as confidential secretary as well as tutor, while you were domiciled with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... "Forgive all my meddlesome chatter and forget my advice. It is very silly in me to undertake to tell you what to do. When you are embarrassed, do as you think best, and you will do very well. When you are in a ...
— The American • Henry James

... the commencement of proceedings against Mr. Gourlay under the Alien Act, his conduct had furnished a pretext to those in authority for striking a heavy blow against freedom of speech and action. The holding of conventions, whereat meddlesome persons of the Gourlay stamp might air their grievances and agitate for investigations into public abuses, was a thing not to be tolerated in Upper Canada. Upon the assembling of the Legislature at York, in October, 1818, the Lieutenant-Governor, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... and pit their own deeds and actions against theirs, with the intent of outshining them, they add envy and malignity to their vanity. The proverb teaches us that to put our foot into another's dance is meddlesome and ridiculous; we ought equally to be on our guard against intruding our own panegyric into others' praises out of envy and spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we should make way for those that ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... I seem to you impertinent, meddlesome. I know quite well that this is no business of mine, but—but I know Mrs. Carstairs, and I know she has been made bitterly unhappy by this wretched misunderstanding. And I am sure, as sure as I am that you and I sit here to-day, that she never wrote one word of ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... nice frock. Do let the furniture alone, child. Ring for Bridget, if any thing wants cleaning. You're a real Meddlesome Matty, Bertha." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... that she was debating whether or not to speak some thought which she feared Del might regard as meddlesome. "When you finally do have to get out," she said presently, "it'll be like giving up your own home, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... that price, and he went home puzzled and fighting-mad. If, then, the Blue-grass people had handled with the firebrand corporate aggrandizement of toll-gate owners who were neighbors and friends, how would they treat meddlesome interference from strangers? Already one courteous emissary in one county had fled the people's wrath on a swift thoroughbred, and Burnham smiled sadly to himself and ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... of, but them cops is very meddlesome. I thought that pickpocket might have set 'em on ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... infernal cheek!" croaked the man. "So you have cut me down? You meddlesome idiot, by what right did you poke your nose ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... in one place, she would be sure to report it in another; so that all the masters and misses who had the mortification to fall into her company, considered themselves as under the malicious inspection of a meddlesome spy; which they had the more reason to do, because she seldom failed to embellish her informations with the recital of several unfavourable circumstances of her own invention." "Indeed, Mr. Wiseman, said Betsey, my youngest daughter, what you ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... of the houses here are entirely too small to admit the bicycle, and that much-enduring vehicle has to take its chances on the low roof with a score or so inquisitive and meddlesome goats that instantly gather around it, as though revolving in their pugnacious minds some fell scheme of destruction. Outside are several camels tied to their respective pack-saddles, which have been taken off and laid ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... neutrality of England in the destructive civil war now raging in America appears to me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, and the courage of them; but at the same time he showed himself fully alive to the fact that no greater calamity could possibly overtake ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... hereditary disease. But who knows? Those two lads may grow up to be friends, and kill the old feud. They cannot help respecting each other after such an encounter as that. I'll try and get hold of young Darley, and then of Mark; and perhaps I may be able to—Bah! you weak-minded, meddlesome old driveller!" he cried impetuously. "You would muddle, and spoil all, when perhaps a Higher Hand is at work, as it always is, to make everything tend ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... are standing on is my land. Because my own land was only taken from me by a crime, and a worse crime than poaching. This has been a single estate for hundreds and hundreds of years, and if you or any meddlesome mountebank comes here and talks of cutting it up like a cake, if I ever hear a word more of ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... course of his extended career Mr. Wintermuth had been called upon to face many serious and unexpected crises. Conflagrations; rate wars; eruptions of idiotic and ruinous legislation adopted by state senates and assemblies composed of meddlesome agriculturalists, saloon keepers, impractical young lawyers, and intensely practical old politicians;—all these he had lived through not once, but often, and had always piloted the Guardian's bark to port in safety. In fact, he had done this with such aplomb that long ago he had dismissed ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... important enough to be worth the trouble of solving. Gogyrvan at once seemed to be schooling himself to patience under some private annoyance and to be revolving in his mind some private jest; he was queer, and probably abominable: but to grant the old rascal his due, he was not meddlesome. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... "All night long my heart hath been heavy, fearing for thee from wild beasts or other mischances. Now praise be to Allah for thy safety!" I thanked him for his friendly solicitude and, retiring to my corner, sat pondering and musing on what had befallen me; and I blamed and chided myself for my meddlesome folly and my frowardness in kicking the alcove. I was calling myself to account when behold, my friend, the Tailor, came to me and said, "O youth, in the shop there is an old man, a Persian,[FN212] who seeketh thee: he hath thy hatchet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... natural than that this intelligent, respectable and popular citizen should be considered a worthy candidate. The legislature convened, his prospects of election were more than promising, and he would undoubtedly have been chosen had not some meddlesome fellow recognized him as the long lost La Croix. Of course, he ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... family was alone again, there was a violent outburst of wrath against that meddlesome Aunt Teresa, and Mr. Meyer himself waxed so wroth that he felt bound to pour forth his grievances outside as well as inside the house. He still possessed two or three acquaintances whom he had learnt to know in his official ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... "You careless, meddlesome young one, to take it off my steps where I left it just long enough to go round to the back and hunt up my door-key! You've given me a fit of sickness with my weak heart, and what business was it of yours? I believe you think you own the flag! Hand it ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... hearty fellows, who kept 'Bachelor's Hall' in fine style at the Ti. I had no doubt but that they regarded children as odious incumbrances; and their ideas of domestic felicity were sufficiently shown in the fact, that they allowed no meddlesome housekeepers to turn topsy-turvy those snug little arrangements they had made in their comfortable dwelling. I strongly suspected however, that some of these jolly bachelors were carrying on love intrigues with the maidens of the tribe; although they did not appear publicly to acknowledge ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... taught him a lesson that would keep him from spoiling any more trades." Mrs. Barnett laughed. And then accusingly: "Isn't it queer how mean some people are. Now just that little interference from that meddlesome stranger kept me from having a small fortune." A deep sigh. "And one can do so much good with money. Just think if I had that money how many poor people around here I could help. I hear there are families living across the ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... fellows at the club may chaff me all you choose. I'm going to marry her and that's all there is to it. I'm my own master, do you understand? I have no family—no inquisitive, meddlesome relatives, thank God! If this marriage is going to cost me what friends I have—all right—let them keep away! Such friends are not worth having, anyway. My mind is made up and you know me. Once I make up my mind, nothing can alter it." Determinedly he added: ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... indorsed it in her heart. She sat on her tossed bed, the sickness of disappointment heavy over her. An hour ago wealth was in her hand, ease was before her, and the future was secure. Now all was torn down and scattered by an old yellow paper which prying, curious, meddlesome old Sol Greening had found. She bent her head upon her hand; tears ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... replied, with a laugh, "if you really want to know, I understand that every eighth of a mile is marked with a single small white rag; each quarter has a blue one; while the mile shows a plain red one. I hope some meddlesome fellow doesn't go to changing the signals on Brad, and make him think he's doing a record stunt. But I believe he's got some other secret sign of his own to ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... Captain Beardsley's expressed wish that the act might lead to an open rupture between the United States and England, and he was glad to learn that there was to be no trouble on that score. But England could not long keep her meddlesome fingers out of our pie. She did all she dared to aid the Confederacy, and when the war was ended, had the fun of handing over a good many millions of dollars to pay for the American vessels that British built and British armed steamers had ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... was still filled with rage at the meddlesome giant, because he had lost him the serpent, but he quietly picked up the boat and carried it home, Hymer taking the whales. Once more under his own roof, the giant's courage returned, and he challenged Thor to show his strength by breaking his drinking-cup. Thor sat down and, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... sits up aloft guided them to a cheap and respectable boarding-house. Both found positions and became wage-earners. They remained chums. It is at the end of six months that I would beg you to step forward and be introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are shaking hands please take notice—cautiously—of their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at the horse ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... "All right, Miss Meddlesome. But you won't let your ideas of fair play run away with you and betray me to the enemy? You're a Laird man, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... officially discussed, with a view to a more ambitious alliance. Persistent as the rumours of a divorce had been for seven years past, they seem to have emanated, not from the husband, but from jealous sisters-in-law, intriguing relatives, and officious Ministers. To the most meddlesome of these satellites, Fouche, who had ventured to suggest to Josephine the propriety of sacrificing herself for the good of the State, Napoleon had lately administered a severe rebuke. But now he caused Talleyrand and Caulaincourt to sound ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... pottering; busy, busy as hen with one chicken. working, at work, on duty, in harness; up in arms; on one's legs, at call; up and doing, up and stirring. busy, occupied; hard at work, hard at it; up to one's ears in, full of business, busy as a bee, busy as a one-armed paperhanger. meddling &c v.; meddlesome, pushing, officious, overofficious^, intrigant^. astir, stirring; agoing^, afoot; on foot; in full swing; eventful; on the alert, &c (vigilant) 459. Adv. actively &c adj.; with life and spirit, with might and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... "He's a meddlesome, impertinent young scamp!" says Aunt Tillie, growin' red under the layers of rice powder. "Haven't I a right to marry without consulting ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... "meddlesome as a fly." Now he lights upon a dane's skin hung in a church. Again, upon a magic-lantern. Yet again upon a traitor's head, and the prospect of London in the distance. He will drink four pints of Epsom water. ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... sixteenth century had a delicacy and magnificence of taste which would have made the houses and manners of modern stock-jobbers intolerable to them. Renaissance millionaires could be vulgar and brutal, but they were great gentlemen. They were neither illiterate cads nor meddlesome puritans, nor even saviours of society. Yet, if we are to understand the amazing popularity of Titian's and of Veronese's women, we must take note of their niceness to kiss and obvious willingness to be kissed. That beauty for which ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... our patient exclaimed, hurriedly; "I want no meddlesome quack near me, with his solemn face and pretended knowledge. There is not a doctor in Ballarat that I would trust with my life. Besides, they are so expensive, and where is the money to come from to ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... Prescott. "But I wonder whether Tip earned that suit or stole it, or whether he has just succeeded in threatening more money out of Ripley. How foolish Fred is to stand for blackmail! I wonder if I ought to speak to him about it, or give his father a hint. I hate to be meddlesome. And, by ginger! Now I think of it, Tip looked ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... vrouw meddlesome, mynheer," said Raff. "She has been sore touched of late about a lad whose folks have gone away—none knows where—and I had a message for them ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... sic a halesome clan—frae auchteen or thereawa' doon tu the wee toddlin' lassie was the varra aipple o' the e'e to a' the e'en aboot the place! But that's naither here nor yet there! A' gaed on as a' should gang on whaur the servan's are no ower gran' for their ain wark, nor ower meddlesome wi' the wark o' their neebours; naething was negleckit, nor onything girned aboot; but a' was peace an' hermony, as quo' the auld sang about out bonny Kilmeny—that is, till ae nicht.—You see I'm tellin' ye as it cam' to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... So called from their habit of going entirely naked. One of them is said by Arrian to have said to Alexander. "You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that you abandon your home like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardships yourself, and inflicting hardships on ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... a good little girl, but is meddlesome. She has a good Grandmother, called Mrs. Mason, and she sometimes goes to her house. One day Mary got into mischief. Seeing her Grandmother's spectacles on the table, she put them on her nose, and said, "I'm Grandmother." Mary began ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous

... know? Because Chaldea was hiding under the studio window this afternoon and overheard all that passed between you and Garvington and that meddlesome Lambert. She knew that I was in danger and came at once to London to tell me since I had given her my address. I lost no time, but motored down here and dropped her at the camp. Now I've come to get you out of ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... and his fatherly protection of Markovitch had inspired apparently nothing more fruitful than distrust. I would like to emphasise that it was in no way from any desire to interfere in other people's affairs that young Bohun undertook these Quests. He had none of my own meddlesome quality. He had, I think, very little curiosity and no psychological self-satisfaction, but he had a kind heart, an adventurous spirit, and a hatred for the wrong and injustice which seemed just now to be creeping about the world; but all this, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first by general ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... small frontier forts, and most of the troops from Winchester, to strengthen Fort Cumberland, which was now to become headquarters; thus weakening the most important points and places, to concentrate a force where it was not wanted, and would be out of the way in most cases of alarm. By these meddlesome moves, made by Governor Dinwiddie from a distance, without knowing any thing of the game, all previous arrangements were reversed, every thing was thrown into confusion, and enormous losses ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... Jane Austen's novel Emma, is the somewhat meddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentleman living at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people named are other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being an old gentleman of ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... of the midnight hour; and then they were so overjoyed at what appeared a new lease of life, that sleep, that "sweet restorer," was a stranger during the night. In the morning, however, a gloom was again cast over the spirits of some of the most superstitious by the remark of a meddlesome old West India captain, that undoubtedly Cochran, like the seers of olden times, made his calculations according to the "old style" of computing time. Thus twelve additional days were allowed to pass ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... occurred a singular contact of minds. It was very well for me to spin sonorous generalities, but I had never till now dreamed of being so vulgar as to translate them into practice. I had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism. To be thrown with Davies was to receive a shock of enlightenment; for here, at least, was a specimen of the breed who exacted respect. It is true he made use of the usual jargon, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... say! It sounds very grand when you put it that way. Miss Ormrod called you 'Meddlesome Matty', and said you deserved to ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... should blow his nose strongly while the empty nostril is compressed. Unless this removes it a physician should be called. Meddlesome interference ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... may be—I don't say a word against that," replied the mother, somewhat surprised at the mildly reproachful nature of that response which her daughter had made, so different from her usual custom:—"he may be very good, but I think he's very meddlesome to come here talking about ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... the fields, bird-nesting and botanizing, and had like to have been taken up as a poacher in Hilly Wood, by a meddlesome, conceited gamekeeper belonging to Sir John Trollope. He swore that he had seen me in the act, more than once, of shooting game, when I never shot even so much as a sparrow in my life. What terrifying rascals these woodkeepers and gamekeepers are! They make a prison of the forest, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... about the bush, my dear," she began, "I'm here on a meddlesome business which you mustn't take amiss. As an old woman who has seen something of the world in general, and much of this queer little Albany corner of it in particular, you must permit me to tell you that you have been too generously lenient with a person who has forfeited ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... upon this it would be needless to report, and not only needless, but a vast deal worse—shabby, interloping, meddlesome and mean, undignified, unmanly, and disreputably low; for even the tanner and his wife (who must have had right to come forward, if anybody had) felt that their right was a shadow, and kept back as if they were a hundred miles away, and took one another by the hand and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... could hardly refrain—in defiance of nautical etiquette—from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a fool in his time. Have ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... any harm, neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies could easily starve them out. Dubs rejoined that, if they took care to keep the sea door open, their friends at Portlossie ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... at some fancied slight to his honour or disregard of his affections and suddenly "amok"? The wise adviser would be the first victim, no doubt, and death would be his reward. And underlying the horror of this situation there was the danger of those meddlesome fools, the white men. A vision of comfortless exile in far-off Madura rose up before Babalatchi. Wouldn't that be worse than death itself? And there was that half-white woman with threatening eyes. How could he tell what an incomprehensible creature of that sort would ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... golfer bowed and resumed his paper, the other passengers ceased for the moment to have the faintest interest in a life which was nothing but Dead Sea fruit, and my friend uttered a sigh of relief as he registered a vow never to be a meddlesome idiot again. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... a delicacy in mentioning how it came about to you, Mr. L., as there undoubtedly was a great deal of 'interference with other men's matters' in the business. In short, the young man fell in the way of one of those meddlesome fellows, who go prowling about, distributing tracts, forming temperance societies, and all that sort ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... character and conduct caused him to be feared at bottom; though in conversation many pretended not to mind him in the least, others would only smile sourly at the mention of his name, and there were even some who dared to pronounce him "a meddlesome old ruffian." But for almost all of them one of Captain Eliott's outbreaks was nearly as distasteful to face ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... wordy pedagogue, meddlesome theorist, you seek the limits of your mind. They are at ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... power, and was my duty, to settle all other strikes, so after the peace of Portsmouth there were other persons—not only Americans, by the way,—who thought it my duty forthwith to make myself a kind of international Meddlesome Mattie and interfere for peace and justice promiscuously over the world. Others, with a delightful non-sequitur, jumped to the conclusion that inasmuch as I had helped to bring about a beneficent and necessary peace I must of necessity have changed my mind about war being ever necessary. A couple ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... preferred to him modest and meritorious Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his vast wealth and power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an evidence of happiness; that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and often make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster; and that no man's life can be called happy until the whole of it has been played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach of reverses. Croesus treats this opinion as absurd, but "a great judgment from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... clean apron and her best hat, and giving Susan some parting instructions, she opened the door and set forth for the common destination. Mrs. Berry had the courage of her curiosity. She was not meddlesome, but only interested; and as there was nothing whatever between her and what she saw in the world,—not even an education,—she dealt with life in her own resourceful way. Mrs. Berry was a "railroad widow"; she supported herself and Susan by ceaseless ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... here, you meddlesome young jackanapes, there's been enough blood spilt on board this ship already—chiefly in consekence of your havin' shoved in your oar where it weren't wanted, and advisin' the skipper to flog a sick man—and I don't want to have to shed any ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... she had had an interview with Morris Townsend; and on receiving this news the girl started with a sense of pain. She felt angry for the moment; it was almost the first time she had ever felt angry. It seemed to her that her aunt was meddlesome; and from this came a vague apprehension ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... from behind the cabin, and eyed them through cunningly narrowed slits of eyes. At last he was going to have the island all to himself; and he set himself to dig a burrow directly under the doorstep, where that meddlesome MacPhairrson had never permitted ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... with the internal affairs of our country. But I have some little knowledge of European statecraft, of European diplomacy, of European rulers, and of European diplomats; and I assert, emphatically, that they are emboldened to offer their meddlesome services because they have very little if any respect for our official leaders; and because the want of energy and of good faith to the principles of the North as displayed by Seward, he nevertheless remaining at the helm, has firmly settled the conviction in European minds, that the rebels ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... bowed again politely, whipped up Hosea and trotted off. I wondered whether he would come. He had said: "Delighted, I'm sure," but he had not looked delighted. Very possibly he regarded me as a meddlesome, gossiping old tom-cat. Perhaps for that reason he would deem it wise to adopt a propitiatory attitude. Perhaps also he retained a certain affectionate respect for me, seeing that I had known him as a tiny boy in a sailor suit, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... the nursery, children," said Mrs. Hirst, "I cannot have your meddlesome little fingers here. Robin, put down that hat immediately! Wilfred, you're not to open that bag! No, Kitty, my pet, you mustn't peep inside parcels. Milly, take them away, and make them wash their hands. I didn't expect ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... the killing of calves between January 1 and May 1, under a penalty of 6s. 8d., because so many had been killed by 'covetous persons' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25 Hen. VIII, c. 1); and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be bought but in open fair ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... connected with the disposition of the public lands were clearly exposed by one Robert Gourlay, a somewhat meddlesome Scotchman, who had addressed a circular, soon after his arrival in Canada, to a number of townships with regard to the causes which retarded improvement and the best means of developing the resources of the province. An answer from Sandwich virtually ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... inspector is looked upon with deep disfavor as one result of the demoralization brought about by liberal and other loose ways of viewing public rights. The private, self-constituted one, it may then be judged rightly, is regarded as a meddlesome and pestilent busybody seeking knowledge which nobody should wish to obtain, and another illustration of what the nineteenth century is coming to. Various committees of inquiry, from the Organized Charities and from private bodies of workers, visit manufactories and industries in general, where ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... born in a day. A baby is always six months old before he is twenty-one. Our fathers, who first reasoned that God made all men equal, said: "You sha'n't hang a man until you have asked him if he consents to the law." Some meddlesome fanatic, engaged in setting up type, conceived the idea, that he need not pay his tax till he was represented before the law: then why should woman do so? Now, I ask, what possible reason is there that woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a laborer, as a capitalist, as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... afterward with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The greatest poet has less a marked style and is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution and is the free channel of himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... W. P. Jones, M.A., ob. January 29, 1864, aged 77 years," and that on the left these words "To the memory of Mrs. Fanny Jones, ob. January 27, 1864, aged 75 years." Mr. Jones was a former incumbent of St. Thomas's. He was a quiet, mild-minded man, devoid of bombast, neither cynical nor meddlesome, and was well liked by all. His wife died just two days before him, and both were interred in one grave in St. Peter's church yard. The pulpit and reading desk at St. Thomas's are good-looking and substantial, but both are rather bad to get into and out of—the steps are narrow ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... to this undertaking," I heard Mr. Bainrothe say; "her own moody and excitable condition of late—the absence of her physician (meddlesome people, those conscientious medical men sometimes prove, even when not asked for an opinion!)—Mrs. Austin's testimony as to those lethargies, which would be conclusive of itself—our own disinterestedness, so fully proved by our devotion to her and Mabel, under difficulties—her mother's mysterious ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... have the opportunity, I wish you would explain that I gave no opinion as to what might or might not be expedient under present circumstances at Cambridge. I do not want to seem meddlesome. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... patrons and its enemies, has confirmed me beyond repentance in the belief, that, let the character of the Abolitionists be what it may in the sight of the Judge of all the earth, this is the most meddlesome, impudent, reckless, fierce, and wicked excitement I ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... in an unnatural god who apparently must be ever ready to answer anybody's prayerful cry and act as a general servant to humanity by distributing good things to those who beg for them; a sort of meddlesome god who enters into all the petty quarrels of hunan beings and generally settles ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... for once of all its artistry, ran stumbling round and round in interminable circles like a disheveled hag. In shrill crescendos and discordant basses, with heartpiercing jaggedness, with blood-curdling raspishness, each one, boy, father, mother, meddlesome relative, competent or incompetent assistant, indiscriminate servant, filing his separate sorrow into the Senior ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott









Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar