"Asperity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you must argue or discourse with me, I will endure your asperity for the sake of your acuteness; but it appears to me a more philosophical thing to avoid what is insulting and vexatious, than ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... fair Bella, with just a soupcon of asperity in her tone,—as much as she ever allows herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon her ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... the act of removing his muffler from Rosemary's neck. He had already taken his thin overcoat from Harold's shoulders, so she missed that part of his personal sacrifice. She asked with considerable asperity if he was ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... over the rims of his glasses inquiringly, and with a suggestion of asperity, but the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... sort of strangeness in her ideas which is often noticeable in characters that have developed late, in savages, who think much and speak little. Her peasant's wit had acquired a good deal of Parisian asperity from hearing the talk of workshops and mixing with workmen and workwomen. She, whose character had a marked resemblance to that of the Corsicans, worked upon without fruition by the instincts of a strong nature, would have liked to be the protectress of a weak ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... of Newcastle, he found obdurate in another direction, speaking with great asperity against Lord Derby and his party; he would make no vows as to junction, not even that he would not join Disraeli; but he thought this government must be opposed and overthrown; then those who led the charge against it would reap the reward; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... buts about it," broke in Tilda with swift asperity. "Think what you'd feel like if you ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... sand I had rubbed or the ashes of my pipe. I lived in dread of these entrances, but at last I found that they chanced only within certain hours, and I arranged my times of work accordingly. Once or twice, however, being impatient, I scratched the stone with some asperity and noise, and was rewarded by hearing my fellow stumbling in the hall; for he had as uncertain limbs as ever I saw. He stumbled upon nothing, as you have seen a child trip itself up by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Akaitcho did not seem prepared to hear such declarations from his brothers, and instantly changing the subject, began to descant upon the treatment he had received from the traders in his concerns with them, with an asperity of language that bore more the appearance of menace than complaint. I immediately refused to discuss this topic, as foreign to our present business, and desired Akaitcho to recall to memory, that he had told me on our first meeting, that he considered me the father ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... heard of a king who made the sign to put a captive to death. The poor wretch, in that state of desperation, began to abuse the king in the dialect which he spoke, and to revile him with asperity, as has been said; whoever shall wash his hands of life will utter whatever he may harbor in his heart:—"When a man is desperate he will give a latitude to his tongue, like as a cat at bay will fly at a dog"—"at the moment of compulsion when it is impossible to fly, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... to his appearance. I lost some of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... sell out," continued the Judge, with a trifle of asperity, "why on earth didn't you go to Bob Standish? Why didn't you go to an expert? And why didn't you have an audit made of Mix's company—why didn't you get a little information—why didn't you know what you were buying? Oh, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... following the capture of New Orleans he gave positive instructions to Dayton in Paris and Adams in London to propose the withdrawal of the declaration admitting Southern belligerent rights. Thouvenel replied with some asperity on the folly of Seward's demand, and made a strong representation of the necessity of France to obtain cotton and tobacco[633]. Adams, with evident reluctance, writing, "I had little expectation of success, but I felt it my duty at once to execute the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Rampson with asperity; then correcting himself quickly, and with a rather ghastly smile, "I say, you two ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... some asperity). "Members are well aware what Home Rule meant. It was a plan—or rather it was a scheme—that is to say, it was an act of parliament, or I should say a bill, in fact, Mr. Speaker, I don't mind confessing that, not having my papers with me, I am unable to inform the House just what ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... cordiality at its true worth and was unresponsive. "So you've got the job. They'd be sorry to part with Maggie." Then pursing her lips, she placed her season ticket in her purse, and said with condescending asperity: "I want to go ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... you I will hear all,' returned Charles, with increased asperity. 'I know you will say nothing to his advantage that you can help, but still I know you will speak what you think the truth, and I ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Brisac laid down the newspaper to pour forth compliments of condolence.—Mrs. Somers tore the piece of paper as he approached the table, and said, with some asperity, "One would think this was a matter of life and death, by the terms in which it ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... dangerous to be too rigidly in the right. Sensibility may, by an incessant attention to elegance and propriety, be quickened to a tenderness inconsistent with the condition of humanity, irritable by the smallest asperity, and vulnerable by the gentlest touch. He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and submits to endure nothing in accommodations, attendance, or address, below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the crowd of life, be harassed with innumerable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... you heard me!" Fairchild spoke with some asperity. "I said that he had disappeared, and I want some help in hunting for him. He may be injured, for all I know, and if he 's out here in the mountains anywhere, it's almost sure death for him unless he can ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... are we to see the world unless we go round it?" exclaimed the Baron, with some asperity in his tone. "That is what I thought we ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... college," he retorted with the merest hint of asperity, "is at the bottom of all that people call higher education. The church was founding colleges and supporting them before the State thought even of primary schools. Look at Oxford and Cambridge—church colleges. Look at Harvard and ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... went on to remark with asperity that Murillo painted like an ignoramus. But all at once he stopped short in the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the Peripatetics; they cling to words with great tenacity; and as they cannot bear to have them taken from them one after another, they become more fierce, and rough, and harsher both in their language and manners. But Panaetius, wishing to avoid their moroseness and asperity, would not approve of either the bitterness of their sentiments, or their captious way of arguing: and so in one respect he was more gentle, and in the other more intelligible. And he was always quoting Plato, and Aristotle, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Joseph, with great asperity, 'the cord of existence—my affairs would be found, I hope, in ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... on the subject was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold, who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing-room, and ordered Harry off to bed, with some little asperity of tone. The boy rose at once, rang the bell, bade them all good night, and went. A servant met him at the door with a candle, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... with some asperity, "if there is anything on earth that changes its mind as often as a weather-vane, that ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... to leave us here in rags and beggary, while you are amusing yourself in London?" replied Mrs Rainscourt, with asperity. "With your altered circumstances, you will have no want of society, either male or female," continued the lady, with an emphasis upon the last word—"and a wife will probably be ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... obscured by a capricious and despotic temper. His plans for the advancement of the colony were bold and judicious, his representations to the government of France fearless and effectual, his personal conduct and piety unimpeachable, but he exhibited a bitterness and asperity to those who did not enter into his views little suited to the better points of his character, and it is said that ambition and the love of authority at times overcame his zeal for the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... to the steeple, and look out—But—no—follow me to the house; and remember," she added, with all the asperity of a person who is conscious of having permitted temper to overcome judgment, "that we are in the house of mourning, and ought not to indulge in any thing like jest—say nothing of my alarm—I mean of what I heard, to your companions: it is ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... it made you think of me, whom you never saw, to see another woman's profile," she retorted, with the faintest touch of asperity in her childlike voice. "But," she added, more gently and with a relapse into her adorable naivete, "most ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... be incredulous without being cruel, I should think," said Mittie, with asperity. She felt the reproach, and could not believe it accidental. Poor Mittie! ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to fool me!" said Silas, with asperity. "It ain't creditable to deceive a man old ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... that Americans have retorted with some asperity upon criticisms in which any approach to such insolent insularism is even remotely or ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... know about it?" James answered her with asperity. "It's a pretty mess at this time of night, too!" He lapsed into silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to say: 'I can't tell—I don't know; I knew how it would be!' But he did ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... "Memoirs of a Cavalier." This book attempts to give a picture of the Parliamentary war; but in some places an unfair, and everywhere a most superficial account. I said so; and my uncle, who had an old craze in behalf of the book, opposed me with asperity; and, in the course of what he said, under some movement of ill-temper, he asked me, in a way which I felt to be taunting, how I could consent to waste my time as I did. Without any answering warmth, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... she answered with asperity. "Somebody had a property there once—either one of our family or a friend. Why don't your family become Esthonians? You'd find it much more convenient. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... observed rather uncautiously that the smell of it was enough, at which Mrs. Portheris remarked, with some asperity, that she hoped Mrs. Wick would never be obliged to be indebted to the "smell." "It is quite excellent," she said, "most cordial. I really think, as a precaution, ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... not wish from a man so nearly allied to me by marriage; for all he could talk of, was the dignity of their house, when the reason of the thing was strong with the other; and it fell to my lot to answer what he said; which I did with some asperity; and this occasioned a coolness ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... is rebuked more forcibly upon another occasion, when the nymph bids the priest with asperity to "hold his ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the Court in his own defence, Magee had occasion to allude to some public character, who was better known by a familiar designation. The official gravity of Clonmel was disturbed; and he, with bilious asperity, reproved the printer, by saying, "Mr. Magee, we allow no nicknames in this court,"—-"Very well, John Scott," was ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... State, was present to give it his personal supervision. In the course of Mr. D.'s argument, he let fall some profane language, for which he was promptly checked and reprimanded by the Judge. Mr. D., accustomed to unrestrained license of tongue, retorted with great asperity, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... perhaps the last man in Christendom to have accepted the testimony of Mr. Bayne's heart-throbs. He intimated with some asperity that he knew better than anyone else what Lady Clare did say, and he pointed out that she had just cause for resentment against a mother who had placed her in such an embarrassing position. The controversy is one of the drollest in literature; but what is hard to understand is the mental ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... said of VAUCANSON, that he was as much an automaton as any which he made. HOGARTH and SWIFT, who looked on the circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company; but their grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being the greatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners in his way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and it would cease to be itself were it ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... returned with some asperity. "Why should he get married with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house for Mr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that time he's never found his beef overdone or a ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... twelve people packed into a rocky landscape of cardboard portmanteaus and umbrella- peaks; twenty-four legs, and urgent need of stretching-room as the night wore on. There was jostling, there was asperity from those who could sleep and from those who would; there was more when two shock-head drovers—like First and Second Murderers in a tragedy—insisted on taking off their boots. It was not that there was little room for boots; indeed I think ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... changed being. All his asperity of temper was gone; he was as gentle as a child. Whole days he would sit in the chair where his wife used to sit in the happy days of her young wifehood, speaking to no one, smiling sometimes to himself, as though he heard some inner whisperings ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with some asperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenstone Demilt is her brother." She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I have some hope—remote, alas! but there—of becoming ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Spenser Hale?' I inquired with some asperity, forgetting for the moment that the man invariably became ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed, till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations, where no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... as briefly as possible," said the merchant, with a little asperity, for there was not as much deference in the manner of the other as he thought there should have been. Like most new men, he was jealous of his position, and solicitous lest he should not be treated ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... disappointment. His own was slightly marked with annoyance, and, suddenly ceasing to arrange some folded law papers that he held in his hands, and had gathered up from the table at which he was standing, he exclaimed in tones of mingled surprise and asperity: "Still at the old song! still harping, harping, harping! Peace, no more of it. Heaven would be insufferable with but one hymn, hell thrice horrible with but one howl, earth uninhabitable with but one evil. Oh, variety, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... received—the former from the Protestant, and the latter from the Catholic, historian—the praise that party spirit failed to weaken; the heroic gallantry, the indomitable perseverance, and the patient and resolute endurance under suffering, of both, having deprived political partizans of their asperity—compelling them, for once at least, to render justice to their opponents; all having readily subscribed to the opinion that "Derry and Limerick will ever grace the historic page, as rival companions and monuments of Irish ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... "are the work of a young newspaper artist who belongs here. A clever fellow. He has caught the expressions of these men wonderfully. His only failure, indeed, is that picture of myself." He regarded it with distaste, and a touch of asperity crept into his manner. "I don't know why the committee lets it stay there," he said, irritably. "It isn't a bit like." He recovered himself. "But all the others are excellent, excellent, though I believe many of the subjects are under ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... you be always riding," said Mrs. Macpherson, with some asperity, for there was a little natural jealousy between these ladies on the subject ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... cheerfully. As she turned away, however, she tossed her head. "A new pose, indeed!" she muttered, with some asperity. "Just as if there could be a new pose after all those ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... with frigid asperity as to my meaning; but the very iciness of his manner satisfied me that he understood perfectly, and, believing that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himself all details of his machine—whatever it might ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... the hopes of Miss Ada Bishop. Meanwhile Flossie (hitherto regarded from a merely decorative point of view) became a person of considerable importance in the boarding-house. It was not merely that she was an engaged young lady; for, as Miss Bishop pointed out to her with some natural asperity, anybody can be engaged; but she had now the privilege, denied to any other boarder, of going in and out of Mr. Rickman's study. She said that she went in to tidy it; but strange to say, the more Flossie tidied ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... "conversations" between leaders which had taken place during the winter, said that since no definite agreement had been reached the Government had decided to reopen the matter in the House. This meant, as Redmond pointed out with some asperity, that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for taking the initiative in making proposals to meet objections whose reasonableness he did not admit. The Opposition, he thought, should have been left to put forward ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... seen a more ill-ordered youth, and he experienced an increasing difficulty in keeping a marked asperity from his speech and conduct. Eliza Provost shortly came down, and the three strolled out into the ruddy light of late afternoon. Howat Penny consumed a long time dressing for the evening; and, in the end, irritably ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are a Governor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming home before I go? Sometimes I don't believe you have ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... between surprise and terror—Hazlewood mistook the nature of my alarm, and, when Brown advanced towards me as if to speak, commanded him haughtily to stand back, and not to alarm the lady. Brown replied, with equal asperity, he had no occasion to take lessons from him how to behave to that or any other lady. I rather believe that Hazlewood, impressed with the idea that he belonged to the band of smugglers, and had some bad purpose in view, heard and understood ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... flash of his old asperity, "nobody can't bluff me. You never ast me. You made your spiel, and you t'rowed me out, and I let it go at dat. And, say, friend, dis chasin' cows is outer sight. Dis is de whitest bunch of sports I ever travelled with. You'll let me ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... reprehensible? The old dispute as to conduct rises in full intensity: Does the end justify the means? Two parties are sure to appear with views just opposite; the one excuses, the other condemns, often with no little asperity. The Odyssey has been denounced even as an immoral Book and both its hero and heroine have been subjected to a burning ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... of his narrative, relates his arrival at the island of AEolus, his departure thence, and the unhappy occasion of his return thither. The monarch of the winds dismisses him at last with much asperity. He next tells of his arrival among the Laestrygonians, by whom his whole fleet, together with their crews, are destroyed, his own ship and crew excepted. Thence he is driven to the island of Circe. By her ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... was quite evident that there was nothing in the world else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could hardly get up ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... he saw him entered upon the dire life of idleness and dependence, partial or entire, which he had known so many Americans even willing to lead since the first great hard times began; and he spoke to him with the asperity ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... mind the pit-saw!" exclaimed MacSweenie, with a touch of asperity. "All the planks we want are sawn, an' if they were not, surely we could mend—tut, man, I wonder ye can play the fuddle. It always seemed to me that a goot fuddler must be a man of sentiment, but ye are the exception, Tonal', that proves the rule. Away wi' you an' gie my orders to ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... rather surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintance who call themselves friends can change when their interest comes in the slightest degree in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hands so much benumbed that he could ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... said Mrs Griffith, with some asperity, feeling the doubt almost an affront to her—'I'm sorry to say that I ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... related that, in 1832, while he was at Paris, an article was shown him in an American newspaper, purporting to be a criticism on one of his works, but reflecting with much asperity on his personal character. "I care nothing," he is reported to have said, "for the criticism, but I am not indifferent to the slander. If these attacks on my character should be kept up five years after my return ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... pupils with an ardour of manner and of expression proportioned to his own conviction of the truth. The detection of long-established errors is apt to inspire the young philosopher with an exultation which reason condemns. The feeling of triumph is apt to clothe itself in the language of asperity; and the abettor of erroneous opinions is treated as a species of enemy to science. Like the soldier who fleshes his first spear in battle, the philosopher is apt to leave the stain of cruelty on his early ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... Welsh's sister that Charley Welsh was out this morning, and drew his own pay," came back the manager's familiar tones, crisp with asperity. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of such an arrangement, or want of arrangement, is obvious; and it must have caused much friction in the House. We can imagine the officer in charge of the finances resenting the intrusion of his brother of the library with an asperity not wholly in accordance with fraternal charity. And yet, so strong is the tendency of human nature to put up with whatever exists, rather than be at the trouble of changing it, no effectual steps in the way of remedy were taken until the fifteenth century. In that century, however, we find that ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... propensities are formed, Tom had a mother who watched over his health, his well-being, and every part of education in which a female could be useful. You had lost a mother who would have cherished you, whose talents you inherited, who would have softened the asperity of our father's temper, and probably have prevented his unaccountable partialities. You have always shown a noble independence of spirit, that the pecuniary difficulties you often had to encounter could not induce you to forego. As a public man, you have been, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... it strike her as strange that a taxi, with its flag up for hire, should be standing opposite the bank door, blocking the way for arriving vehicles; or that, having persistently refused many irate would-be hirers, and patiently listened to the asperity of their remarks, the driver should have opened the door and held it back as she walked straight across the pavement, got in, and, without hesitating gave the address of the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... such an awful faux pas," Blue Bonnet said with asperity. "They always have afternoon tea at Oxford. Alec Trent has a friend there and he told ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... they not so much differ from the temperature of those countries: unless upon the out-coast lying open unto the ocean and sharp winds, it must indeed be subject to more cold than further within the land, where the mountains are interposed as walls and bulwarks, to defend and to resist the asperity and rigour of the sea and weather. Some hold opinion that the Newfoundland might be the more subject to cold, by how much it lieth high and near unto the middle region. I grant that not in Newfoundland alone, but in Germany, Italy and Afric, even under the equinoctial line, ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... you don't know whar she is," retorted the other, with asperity; "you never keep a eye on 'er. Ef you'd a-watched 'er better an' kept 'er more at home thar never would 'a' been the talk that's now goin' about an' makin' you an' her the laughin'-stock of the settlement. I told you all along that John Westerfelt never had ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... that the Bull Onuphis was worshipped at a place in Egypt, which he could not specify on account of its asperity. AElian de Animalibus. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... so pathetically that I could but laugh, seeing that there was so much incongruity between the remark and the situation all about us. My laughter must have jarred her, for she said with some asperity, "You are laughing now, but in a minute you will be laughing on the ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... seemed dug and little bits of some vitreous substance left at the bottom. "Well, mate," cried he harshly, "what do you want that you stick to us so tight?" This was addressed to a peddler who had been standing opposite showing the contents of his box with a silent eloquence. Now this very asperity made the portable shopman say to himself, "wants me out of the way—perhaps buy me out." So he stuck where he was, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... interesting subjects of the time, religious, or political; in which the titles of the books or pamphlets prefixed furnish only the name and occasion of the disquisition. I do not arraign the keenness, or asperity of its damnatory style, in and for itself, as long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere impersonation of the work then under trial. I have no quarrel with them on this account, as long as no personal allusions are admitted, and no re-commitment (for new trial) of juvenile ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... what you're drivin' at," Bert said with asperity. "An' all I can tell you is, livin' or dead, in a job or out, no matter what happens to me, if you will lead that way, you will, an' there's nothin' ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... follow Comrag's tracks," she said, pointing toward the spot where the hoof-prints emerged from the brush. "You'd better leave your rifle here," she added with some asperity, "You might take a fancy to shoot Comrag if he strayed ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... said," replied Stillwell, with asperity. "His orders. Are you forgettin' orders? Wal, you're a fine cowboy. You an' Nick an' Monty, 'specially, are to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... had wished that," replied the lady, with some asperity, "I would have asked you to do so. As it is, I asked you to fix ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... played a meaner one now." Mr. Wiggins made the assertion with asperity and looked at the same time directly at Octavius Buzzby. "I know all about their free dispensaries that'll draw trade away from my very counter and take the bread and butter out of my mouth; and as for the fees—there won't be a chance for recording a homestead site; there isn't any counting on such ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... if I were the young gentleman who shared his post chaise. But, without allowing time for an answer, and striking his boot impatiently with a riding whip, he hoped I was ready. "Not until he has gone up to my mistress," replied my old protectress, in a tone of some asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and directions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, naturally I have forgotten. The most memorable circumstance to me was, that I, who had never till that time possessed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... things, what way shall we take in giving men counsel of comfort? If the faith were in our days as fervent as it hath been ere this in times past, little counsel and little comfort would suffice. We should not much need with words and reasoning to extenuate and diminish the vigour and asperity of the pains. For of old times, the greater and the more bitter the pain were, the more ready was the fervour of faith to suffer it. And surely, cousin, I doubt little in my mind but what, if a man had in his heart ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Buenaventura, I have seen promising ledges of copper ore. Copper carbonates predominated, the green ore known as malachite and the beautiful blue ore azurite were quite common, and white quartz, which on being broken showed little specks of native copper, was also to be found. The asperity of the region, the absence of roads and the uncertainty as to the extent of these deposits caused the attempts at working them to be but feeble until recently, when extensive works of development were undertaken in the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... coadjutors, and the literary exercises and curious researches of others, we cannot but applaud that strict and conscientious devotion to the interests of his employer, and to what he considered the true objects of the enterprise in which he was engaged. He certainly was to blame occasionally for the asperity of his manners, and the arbitrary nature of his measures, yet much that is exceptionable in this part of his conduct may be traced to rigid notions of duty acquired in that tyrannical school, a ship of war, and to the construction given by his companions to the orders of Mr. Astor, so little ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... more notion than you how long it is to last," Holmes answered with some asperity. "If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us. As to what it is we—Well, THAT'S what we ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... when one hears of such things as these, it becomes a duty, perhaps, a little to soften that extreme asperity with which most men speak of murder. To hear people talk, you would suppose that all the disadvantages and inconveniences were on the side of being murdered, and that there were none at all in not being murdered. But considerate men think otherwise. "Certainly," says Jeremy Taylor, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... to say why you were so eager to go on guard out of your turn?" said Canker, oracularly. "That in itself is sufficient to convince any fair-minded court of your guilt, sir." Whereat Gordon winked at Billy and put his tongue in his cheek—and Billy stood mute until ordered, with much asperity, to go back ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... experience on that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the presence of any member of the family. My nervousness was fully warranted. The gloom on Alan's brow deepened, and after a very short "They say so" he turned full upon me, and inquired with some asperity why on earth I had developed this ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... I don't know how it may be now," would reply Mrs. Peedles, with some slight asperity; "but in my time we ladies of the legitimate stage used to look down upon dancers and such sort. Of course, no offence to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... still more attracted by the controversy that then raged in Edinburgh and elsewhere on the value of Phrenology and Animal Magnetism. Hamilton, as all students of contemporary philosophy are aware, denounced the pretensions of Phrenology with curious vehemence and asperity. It was the only doctrine, his friends said, that he could not even tolerate. On Animal Magnetism he held a very different opinion, and he wrote to Greg encouraging his enthusiasm in that direction. 'There has always,' he said, 'seemed ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... but I am for Fox against Pitt. The King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend;" and to Burke, when he was a candidate for a seat in the new Parliament, he wished, as he told him with a smile, "all the success that an honest man could wish him." Even towards Wilkes his asperity was softened down into good humour by their meeting together over a plentiful table at the house of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... if you made so insulting a speech to Herr Hardy," said the Pastor, with some asperity, "that it should be withdrawn. To tell a man that he is a coward and has false pride is too galling, and when not a single ground for it exists the more so. You might thereby have tempted him to risk his life, to say ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... of all the players at every change of fortune. Even the young ladies, all but Miss Simmons, seemed to be equally sensible of the passion of gaining money with the rest; and some of them behaved with a degree of asperity which quite astonished him. After several changes of fortune, it happened that Miss Simmons and Harry were the only remaining players; all the rest, by the laws of the game, had forfeited all pretensions to the stake, the property of which was clearly vested in these two, and one ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... to its rotten roots the social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Where has the human machine gone wrong? It has gone wrong in the brain. What, is he 'wrong in the head'? Most assuredly, most strictly. He knows—none better—that when his wife employs a particular tone containing ten grains of asperity, and he replies in a particular tone containing eleven grains, the consequences will be explosive. He knows, on the other hand, that if he replies in a tone containing only one little drop of honey, the consequences ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... his eyes. The blood rushed into his pale face, as he replied with great asperity of look and tone, 'Margaret, you have taken an unfair advantage, and abused the confidence I reposed in you; I did not expect this ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... be wise to get her into things. It might keep some others out if we made her prominent," put in Lila Cary with some asperity. "We must have some social ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... the personal characteristics of the householder with an asperity which was still restrained. She had a hairy chin, said Mrs. Makebelieve: she had buck teeth and a solid smile, and was given to telling people who knew their business how things ought to be done. Beyond this she would not say anything.—The amount of soap the lady allowed ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... facts in this narrative are confirmed by Lord Clarendon.—'Continuation of his Life', p. 33. It is difficult to speak of the persons concerned in this infamous transaction without some degree of asperity, notwithstanding they are, by a strange perversion of language, styled, all men ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... influence of the Oxford writers came next: on this subject I knew we should not agree, though of course it was interesting to me to hear Mr. Kingsley's opinion. He spoke with some asperity of one or two of the leaders, though his chief objection was to certain young men who had put themselves forward as champions of the movement. Of Mr. Keble he spoke very kindly. He said he had at one time been much under the influence of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... we are getting at my character at last," observed Brook with some asperity. "You've discovered my vanity, now. By-and-by we shall find out some more ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... many loud complaints from the forts of Terrenate, written by religious and laymen, of the governor there, Lucas de Bergara Gaviria—not only of his asperity and harsh government, but of his lack of balance in other things. Since these complaints were so numerous, I was obliged to get the opinion and resolution of the members of this royal Audiencia; but at the same time came letters from Lucas de Bergara Gaviria, asking permission to resign his post. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... she said with asperity, "you may go after your practicing, as I said, but you will be ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... after this introduction, I made haste to explain every particular. My mother was surprised and grieved. She rebuked me, with some asperity, for my reserves. Had I acquainted her with my brother's demands, she could have apprized me of all that I had since discovered. My brother, she asserted, was involved beyond any one's power to extricate him, and his temper, his credulity, were such ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... esteemed an orator. Q. Capio too had a great deal of spirit, and was a brave citizen: but the unlucky chance of war was imputed to him as a crime, and the general odium of the people proved his ruin. C. and L. Memmius were likewise indifferent orators, and distinguished by the bitterness and asperity of their accusations: for they prosecuted many, but seldom spoke for the defendant. Sp. Torius, on the other hand, was distinguished by his popular way of speaking; the very same man, who, by his corrupt and frivolous law, diminished [Footnote: By dividing great ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling when my venerable sire would ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... direction with the novels. Its most important offices aside from this were perhaps to present large and kindly views of literature and literary characters, especially through biographical essays; and to ameliorate somewhat the prevailing asperity of periodical criticism. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... The wife, dressed with a certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... turned from the path of right by pleasure, by lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his pride and resentment for the monitions of conscience, and deceived himself into a belief that, in treating friends and foes with indiscriminate insolence and asperity, he was merely showing his Christian faithfulness and courage. Burnet, by exhorting him to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made him a mortal enemy. "Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest, "to mind his own business, and to let me look after mine." ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with asperity; for I am not a person to inaugurate a dinner hour one day and change it the next. Bates wished to make conversation,—the sure sign of a guilty conscience in a servant,—and I was not disposed ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... with a touch of asperity. "Oh, yes. Pish, sir! Friends, I am learning, have their own hides to consider. And those gentlemen of yours are Gentiles with goods for Salt Lake Mormons. Are they going to throw all business to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... he would have lain in this state of felicity it is impossible to say, for his slumbers were rudely interrupted by a slight lurch of the schooner, which caused the blocks and cordage attached to the sheet of the jib to sweep slowly, but with rasping asperity, across his face. Any ordinary man would have been seriously damaged—at least in appearance—by such an accident; but this particular sea-dog was tough in the skin,—he was only awakened by it—nothing more. He yawned, raised himself lazily, and gazed round with ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the Edinburgh Review with a warmth which I am willing to believe sincere, because he qualified his compliments with several very sensible cautions. My great danger, he said, was that of taking a tone of too much asperity and contempt in controversy. I believe that he is right, and I shall try ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... handed about the coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many enemies, said that he consulted his personal safety even in his most ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nationalism will of course appear biased to anyone who has been in the habit of rating German Culture high in all its bearings, and to whom at the same time the ideals of peace and liberty appeal. Indeed, such a critic, gifted with the due modicum of asperity, might well be provoked to call it all a more or less ingenious diatribe of partisan malice. But it can be so construed only by those who see the question at issue as a point of invidious distinction between this German animus on the one hand and the corresponding ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... in the morning came her sister, her ambassadress. Then began the usual phrases: 'She is in a terrible state. What is the matter?' 'Why, nothing has happened.' I spoke of her asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the better! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and determinedly, in ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... vapid, if negligence were not sometimes roused, and sluggishness quickened, by due severity of reprehension. But acids unmixed will distort the face and torture the palate; and he that has no other qualities than penetration and asperity, he whose constant employment is detection and censure, who looks only to find faults, and speaks only to punish them, will soon be dreaded, hated ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... sharp, the chin round and sometimes retreating. The body is angular and generally convex in outline, with sharpness at all angles. This temperament is usually accompanied with great activity of mind and vivaciousness of disposition, and sometimes develops great energy and asperity. It is very likely ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Treaty under the guarantee of all the Great Powers. This project was opposed by Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers as an encroachment on the Sultan's sovereignty, and its rejection led the King to write with some asperity to his ambassador in London that he should seek the welfare of Prussia in absolute neutrality. [468] At a later period the King demanded from England, as the condition of any assistance from himself, a guarantee for the maintenance ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... he has to protect the escort. Christians are looked upon as dogs by all the self-satisfied natives, and treated so by some of them when they can be saucy with impunity. It was my lot to be called a dog by a small fanatic, who hissed at me with the asperity and industry of a disturbed gander, and pelted me with stones. But two can play at that game, and that boy will think twice before he lapidates a full-grown Christian again. But he will hate him for ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... was also distressed by an attack make in The Times upon the memory of her husband by Colonel Grant, who declared that Burton had treated both Speke and their native followers with inhumanity. Lady Burton replied with asperity—giving the facts much as we have given them in Chapter ix. Grant died ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had that moment discovered that her best porcelain saucepan was cracked; she therefore answered with some asperity. "Indeed, then, Miss Margaret, what is good enough for Mr. Montfort must be good enough for his nephew or any other young gentleman. My supper is all planned, and I can't be fashed with new things at this ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... healthful. The asperity of winter is softened by the ocean streams coming from the south; the heat of summer is reduced by the high latitude and the mountains. Withal the Lord has blessed this celebrated country with rare natural ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... be the result, Philip?—what will be the result?" added Venner, with a curious mingling of exultation and asperity. "If our victims appeal to Nick Carter for help—are we not also already in his good graces? Have we not insured his confidence in us by this little move of to-day? Will he not reveal himself and his suspicions ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... she didn't mean it but she made it clear even with a touch of asperity that she did. "Oh, all right," he growled and reached for the ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... himself into difficulties, and charitable even to a fault. It was not that he was free from the failings of humanity, but he had the tenderness of it, too, which made everybody excuse whom everybody loved; and even the asperity of his verses seems ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... "I tell you what," said the Straussian, with some warmth, "sooner than believe all the absurdities of such an hypothesis as that of Paulus, I could believe Christianity to be what it professes to be." "I may say the same of that of Strauss," said the other, with equal asperity; "if I had no better escape than his, I could say to him, as Agippa to Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" "For my part," exclaimed the Deist, who was perfectly contented with his ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the understanding whereof, we may consider, that there is in mens aptnesse to Society; a diversity of Nature, rising from their diversity of Affections; not unlike to that we see in stones brought together for building of an Aedifice. For as that stone which by the asperity, and irregularity of Figure, takes more room from others, than it selfe fills; and for the hardnesse, cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindereth the building, is by the builders cast away as unprofitable, and troublesome: so also, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... have to be very careful not to overfeed that child, or you will have her down sick," remarked Mrs. Scrimp with asperity, addressing Violet. "She ought never to eat anything at all after three ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... wealth, who would dare to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler, of such an equivocal character as this Mr. What-do-they-call-him—Francis Bond Head." Ever and anon the Tory press retorted on him in a spirit by no means calculated to soften the asperity of his heart. The most contemptuous epithets were freely bestowed upon him, and he was from time to time taunted with his humble origin. It seems almost unnecessary to say that those who indulged in such ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... be explained. The balmy night, the time for talk, the amusement of Paris, the memory of younger passages, gave a lift to the occasion. Nick had already forgotten his little brush with Julia on his leaving Peter's tea-party at her side, and that he had been almost disconcerted by the asperity with which she denounced the odious man he had taken it into his head to force upon her. Impertinent and fatuous she had called him; and when Nick began to plead that he was really neither of these things, though he could imagine his manner ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... writing of Thoreau, says: "He improves with age—in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity, and fully ripen him. The world likes a good hater and refuser almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter—only it ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... demanded the old woman, with some asperity. "Whaur but in's ain room, sair cast doun for ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. [80] The health ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... little pig!" returns Red Umbrella, with maternal asperity. She looks up to the fair vision that stands on high amongst the poppies, and nods and smiles. "However I am to thank you!... Such a turn when we missed her!..." She utters these incoherences with a great deal of eye-play, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... refinement he was a man punctual and precise in his habits. Associating constantly with fashionable folk his naturally dignified behavior was increased. He was an aristocrat- -there is no other word—and he did not care to be hail-fellow- well-met with the musicians. A certain primness and asperity did not make him popular. While teaching, his manner warmed, the earnest artist came to life, all halting of speech and polite insincerities were abandoned. His pupils adored him. Here at least the sentiment was one of solidarity. De Lenz is his most censorious critic ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... amiable. They might have angered another man; but Cardo detected a tremor in the voice and an anxious look in the eyes which softened their asperity. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... encouraged her. After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity. "If all the editors," he said, "of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press exists were to be assembled, we should have a crew to which you would NOT confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour and reputation." On the functions of a monarch, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... about to retire, my lord," observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: "I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... heard a great deal of nonsense, Madge!" said Hilda with some asperity. "Come! you would like to see something of the island before the steamer comes to take you back. I will get the canoe and take you for ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards |
