"Nuisance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poets" was legion, but poetry was rare and Apollo was compelled, as always when so many throng towards Parnassus, to make very short work. The long poems never were worth anything, the short ones seldom. Even in this literary age the poetry of the day had become a public nuisance; it sometimes happened that one's friend would send home to him by way of mockery as a festal present a pile of trashy verses fresh from the bookseller's shop, whose value was at once betrayed by the elegant binding and the smooth paper. A real public, in the sense in which national ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... them once. Anyhow she does not know him the way I do. Yesterday I was with the Warths all day. We played Place for the King and Robert caught me and I had to give him a kiss. And Erna said, that doesn't count, for I had let myself be caught. But Robert got savage and said: Erna is a perfect nuisance, she spoils everyone's pleasure. He's quite right, but there's some one else just as bad. But I do hope Erna has not told Dora about the kiss. If she has everyone will know and I shouldn't like that. I lay in wait for Erna ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... would drag its tail through the dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because a queen or a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a maid-of-all-work or a factory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about with her—pah! that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... his nerves if he had nerves. The man, at any rate, was becoming an intolerable nuisance. The colonel marked him down as one of the problems calling for ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... matter," she answered, with a delightful smile. "I can make my own dresses, if you like. Annette is a shocking nuisance to me." ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at all. But then I haven't such a soft heart for animals as you. We should think it silly in Scotland. You wouldn't teach a dog manners at the expense of a howl. You would let him be a nuisance rather than give him a cut with a whip. What a nice mother of children you will make, Clementina! That's how the children of good people are so often a ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... question, William, which I am glad you have done, rather than it should have remained on your mind, and have puzzled you. It is true that the shepherd might agree with you, that the wolf is a nuisance; equally true that the husbandman may exclaim, What is the good of thistles, and the various weeds which choke the soil? But, my dear boy, if they are not, which I think they are, for the benefit of man, at all ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... The nuisance of mowers must be gone through to be appreciated. They come and work very well for the first week. They slash down acre after acre, and stick to it almost day and night. In consequence the farmer puts on every ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... explained, as well as she could, what had happened, and the Misses Belvoir looked so frightened and worried that Barbara felt she must be a dreadful nuisance. But they were very nice and extremely apologetic, declaring that such a thing had never happened before, and that the police should be told in the morning, and their brothers would search the garden at once and sit outside their door ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... must be lessened in proportion as the animal, upon which it is raised, is less necessary; for many a man that would pay for his dog, will dismiss his dedicator. Perhaps, if every one who employed or harboured an author, was assessed a groat a year, it would sufficiently lessen the nuisance without destroying the species. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Canterbury in the year of the Reform Bill and polled 275 votes, and in the following year he started a paper called the Lion which ran to eighteen numbers. Five years later, however, he had become such a nuisance that a warrant was safely issued against him "on the charge of enticing away the labourers of a farmer." Tom shot one of the constables who served the warrant, and on the afternoon of the last morning of May in 1838, two companies of the 45th regiment were marched out of Canterbury to ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... end. These two days have been for him days of great trouble; one can see that very clearly. And he has done nothing to embarrass us. Men in distress are apt to be a nuisance. I am grateful to M. Wethermill. But we are nearing the end. Who knows? Within an hour or two we may have ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... our hearts. What wreck of empire has the stream of time Swept, with her vices, from the mountain height Of grandeur, deified by half mankind, To dark oblivion's melancholy lake, Or flagrant infamy's eternal brand! Those names, at which surrounding nations shook, Those names ador'd, a nuisance! or forgot! Nor this the caprice of a doubtful die, But Nature's course; no single chance against it. For know, my lord! 'tis writ in adamant, 'Tis fixt, as is the basis of the world, Whose kingdoms stand or fall by the decree. What saw these eyes, surpris'd!—Yet why surpris'd— ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... of the cold water seemed to revive the wounded lad. He opened his eyes and attempted to smile, although his lips were twitching with pain. "What a nuisance I am, old ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "there are lots of things the Females of the Species have to learn early, if they would avoid trouble in this world. The very first of all is to let yourself be well groomed, make the most of the gay pompoms on your harness, and cultivate tact above all things. Never make a public nuisance of yourself. Be steadfast, but not militant; and do not snarl and snap, tear children's clothing, nor upset the puppies' food dish, even though you are dissatisfied with existing conditions. But instead, never forget there are wonderful opportunities even in a dog's life, and be ever ready ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... coming back and making haste to roll down his sleeves and put on his coat. "Here's a nuisance! A whole party of folks—two sleigh-loads—right on us. I don't know who they be, or where they're from. But I know where I wish they was. Well, of course, it's natural they should want to see a loggin'-camp," ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... rather salty. Macaroons and cocoanut creams. They turned out to be the same price, so I thought I might as well get a mixture. The cocoanut creams are lighter, so one gets more of them for the money. Tongue. I told him not to put paper on the tongue. I always think brown paper is rather a nuisance in a boat. It gets so soppy when it's the least wet. There's no use having more of it than we can help. Peaches. He hadn't any of the small one and sixpenny tins, so I had to spend your other shilling to make up the half-crown for the big one. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... themselves, one might descant on certain auxiliary advantages—as, that it is not apt to bring its votaries into low company; that it offends no one, and is not likely to foster actions of damages for nuisance, trespass, or assault, and the like. But rather let us turn our attention to the intellectual advantages accompanying the pursuit, since the proper function of books is in the general case associated with intellectual culture and occupation. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... nuisance to have to look for another sure spot," was the only lament. "Just see, there's a whole basket of artichokes gone to waste—and my ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... in a most imperative tone. "A row is a horrid nuisance when there are women in it!" And he caught his charges, either by an arm, and bustled them out of the dell and down ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... that it does, but all the same it is a nuisance when one fellow keeps himself to himself and never seems to go in for anything. I do not suppose Easton means to give himself airs, but there is nothing ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... is an exceedingly simple machine—much simpler than an ordinary steam engine. But the air may also be used in an ordinary steam engine; and in this case it can be much simplified in many details. Very little packing is needed, as there is no nuisance from gland leakage; the friction is therefore very slight. Pistons and glands are packed with soapstone, or other self-lubricating packing; and no oil is required except for bearings, etc. The company will undertake the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... puzzling my brain over it for days and days. Anybody can tell I am not the sort of girl to have a mission! Maybe he just said it to encourage me,—he's a very encouraging sort of man. He's very nice,—oh, very nice, indeed! But isn't it a nuisance to have him tagging along home with me, when I might be having such a good time with you and the twins, or father? Can a girl tell a man she prefers to go home with her family, without hurting his feelings? Is there ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... to think that study is laborious and uninteresting, a nuisance and a bore. Nothing of that sort is true of the study of Shakespeare, because for every effort there is a present reward, there is no waiting to see results. Of course there are right ways and wrong ways to study, just as there are right ways and wrong ways of doing anything. Sometimes teachers ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... not survive his father, but lived to perish gloriously at Fredericksburg in 1862. Neither he nor his son Archer knew of the shunned house as other than a nuisance almost impossible to rent—perhaps on account of the mustiness and sickly odor of unkempt old age. Indeed, it never was rented after a series of deaths culminating in 1861, which the excitement of the war tended to throw into obscurity. Carrington Harris, last of the male line, knew it ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... make excuses. You know and I know the Boss-man is suspicious." Kennon shrugged. "Normally I wouldn't blame him but it's a damned nuisance with things the way they are. All we have is one more bay and ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... I was led to speculate on what a happy people must inhabit the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and newspaper wrath bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, granting that it is not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the march in 'William Tell,' 'Home, sweet Home,' or 'La Donna e mobile,' under one's window at meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker hours of headache, surely the nation which cries aloud over this ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... a hard winter, and the first week of the strike wore away without a sign of hope. Public opinion was slow to rouse, and the newspapers were definitely adverse. The general view seemed to be that such a strike was an intolerable nuisance, if not something worse. At length the conservative Ledger came out with a two-column editorial, outlining the situation, and from then on news of the various happenings, as they occurred, could be found in all ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... this rule would remove much ambiguity. Thus: "There was a public-house next door, which was a great nuisance," means "and this (i.e. the fact of its being next door) was a great nuisance;" whereas that would have meant "Next door was a public-house that (i.e. the public-house) was a great nuisance." *"Who," "which," &c. introduce a new ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... their interest; for their interest they quitted him; and when it is their interest, he may depend upon it, they will return to their former connection. Such people subsist at all times, and, though the nuisance of all, are at no time a worthy subject of discussion. It is false virtue and plausible error that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not dangerous, is decidedly a nuisance and can be exterminated in the same way—by draining the swamps and pools, or by flooding them with crude petroleum,—or by draining swamps or pools into fresh-water ponds and then putting minnows or other ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... no need to rely on any of these books, they did nothing to hinder in the peculiar way in which I had feared some hindrance. For it is a nuisance to find that somebody else has done something in the precise way in which you have planned doing it. I have not yet encountered that nuisance here. Dr. Jessopp's general plan is most like mine—indeed some similarity was unavoidable: but the two are not identical, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... says Barque, with a smile and an engaging air, "we're not like those disagreeable people who get drunk and make themselves a nuisance. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... over the feeling that dear Budge is born for something grand. [Grand nuisance.] He is sometimes so thoughtful and so absorbed, that I almost fear the result of disturbing him; then, he has that faculty of perseverance which seems to be the on|y thing some men have lacked to make them great. [He certainly has it; he exemplified ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... passion. 'Don't pester me! I don't know and don't care. You're a nuisance, worrying like that just when a fellow wants ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... general building is considerably deteriorated in appearance at present through "associations" in this part. At the south-eastern end there is a small wretched-looking beershop, and near it a dingy used-up cottage. These two buildings are a nuisance to the church; they spoil the appearance of the building at one end completely, and they ought to be pulled down and ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... screw'd-up front, thy state grimace, Thy formal nods, important sneers, Thy whisperings foisted in all ears, (Which are, whatever you may think, But nonsense wrapt up in a stink,) Have made thy presence, in a true sense, To thy own side, so d—n'd a nuisance, That, when they have you in their eye, As if the devil drove, they fly. T. My good friend Mullinix, forbear; I vow to G—, you're too severe: If it could ever yet be known I took advice, except my own, It should be yours; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... compact, we talked little in the cars. A communicative friend is the greatest nuisance to have at one's side during a railroad-journey, especially if his conversation is stimulating and in. itself agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto. Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... one word, however, to be added. Your bedside friends should be dressed in soft leather and printed on thin paper. Then you can talk to them quite snugly. It is a great nuisance if you have to stick your arms out of bed and hold ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... "Ach, what a nuisance! I've got a house-warming party to-night; it's only a step from here. Couldn't he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are coming?" Razumihin said to Zossimov. "Don't forget, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... young person whose presence of mind rarely deserted her. It occurred to her now that she must undergo on some occasion the nuisance of a direct offer from this man, and that she could have no better opportunity of answering him after her own fashion than the present. Her mother was absent, and the field was her own. And, moreover, it was a point ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the young man, cheerfully, "they're a nuisance, anyway—always ticking and striking and getting you ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... a half dozen of them slept in one room. He has made money by selling liquor; he is now doing business in one of the most valuable pieces of property I see in East L street. He has been a curse, and his saloon a nuisance in that street. He has gone up in property and even political influence, but oh, how many poor souls have gone down, slain by strong ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... those men aren't making a nuisance of themselves They've had strict orders to keep in the background I'm orf'ly upset," said Mr. Pilkington in a thick emotional voice, "about this affair; and I want to consider you, Miss Harden, in every ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... especially because the French had their Headquarters there. But luckily they left San Martino alone, thinking it too small to worry about. There seemed to be no anti-aircraft defences anywhere. But our Air Force soon mitigated the nuisance by raiding their aerodromes, and brought down a number of hostile ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... evil. The little dingy slips that emanated freely from the palace press were as indiscriminate as they were quaint. No topic was too sublime or too ignoble for them. All was "copy" that came to those cases,-from the glory of the heavenly bodies to the nuisance of the busybodies who scolded his Majesty through the columns of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... until their reason tottered, and they became beasts, refusing to work, growing ugly, even menacing, preferring to beg the food their empty stomachs craved for rather than toil, as before. At last they made themselves such a nuisance that the attention of the vigilance committee was called to their particular case. In short order they were hauled up and ordered to leave camp. There was no alternative but to obey, and thus began the dreary trek homeward of the two broken and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... which case I either had to remain silent or "try to make up." I got such a reputation for this—I was so sought after for it by even total strangers—that in a couple of years I pushed it all far away from me as an intolerable nuisance. ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... butter could be made successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country, said, during a morning call, "My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the cook makes the butter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it: and besides that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave. She says she did not 'engage' to 'mess' ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... would interpose a query—Was it really necessary to suppress the names? This elaborate and unscholarly tenderness for the feelings of the friends and relations of the dead, and for those of their descendants even, is becoming, in our judgment, a nuisance. Had people been so fussy and timid always we should have no history worth reading. After all, men, and women too for that matter, have got to stand on their own feet. We are not our grandmothers' keepers. No one will think at all the worse of Mr. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... be not of consequence, as it is exerted; and whether great force without great wisdom may not be a nuisance? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... who have nothing else to do, and who in these wrangling affairs are in their native element, thoroughly enjoying themselves. What makes the work so hard for the Loyalist lawyer is the fact that our folks are all for business and look upon politics as a nuisance, while the other side make politics the principal business of their lives. They are tremendously energetic in this, but wonderfully supine in everything else. In politics they spare neither time nor money, nor (for the matter of that) swearing. The lying that goes on in ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the apprentices and servants of the metropolis, do not countervail the loss of pleasure sustained by those who would be so much better pleased; and, therefore, perhaps, taught by a lively comedy, satirising some of the light vices or laughable follies of the age. We trust this theatrical nuisance will be for the future reformed; we can almost excuse the holiday folks for being turbulent, when we reflect upon the insult offered to their understandings, in the treatment ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... extremely useful. I bet for him, I make appointments for him to have his hair trimmed, I retain stalls for him, and occasionally I admit him to the house at an unlawful hour. In fact, he is a confounded nuisance. He is impertinent, grossly ignorant, and a niggard. Moreover, Toby, he hath an eye whose like I have seen before—once. Then it was set in the head of a remount which, after it had broken a shoeing-smith's leg, was cast for ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... there with the child! I wonder what I would do in her place? Throw it into the water, I fancy. It's often the only way of getting rid of a nuisance." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the great Guelph and Ghibelline struggles, every bit as ideal as that of Spenser or Cervantes; and with the difference that Sir Calidore and Sir Artegal have an appointed task, some Blatant Beast or other nuisance to overcome; and that Don Quixote has the general rescuing of all the oppressed Princesse Micomiconas, and the destruction of all windmills, and the capturing of all helmets of Mambrino, and the establishing all over ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... of the Grand Babylon, and the moon regarded it with bland and changeless face; what they thought of it and its inhabitants cannot, unfortunately, be recorded. What Theodore Racksole thought of the moon can be recorded: he thought it was a nuisance. It somehow fascinated his gaze with its silly stare, and so interfered with his complex meditations. He glanced round at the well-dressed and satisfied people—his guests, his customers. They appeared to ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... of motoring, and to long to be back in town again. She was quite kind to Carmel, but treated her with the distantly indulgent attitude of the lately-grown-up for the mere schoolgirl. It was evident that she regarded the whole tour as more or less of a nuisance, and just a means of killing time until she could start off for Scotland to join a certain house-party to which she had been invited, and where she would meet several ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... curiously. And as the girl made no objection to a step so absolutely in accordance with the tribal customs, Grom thought about it a good deal. A few days later he excused himself to the Chief, saying that other women in his cave would be a nuisance, and would interfere with those studies of the Shining One which had proved so beneficial to the tribe. Bawr had accepted the excuse, though somewhat perplexed by it, and had accommodatingly taken the extra wives himself—a solution which had seemed to meet ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the wind of words would in ten thousand years blow away a spadeful. And yet is talk a less evil than the mischief of mere experimenters. It is well there is the talk to keep many from doing positive harm. It is not those who, regarding the horrors around them as a nuisance, are bent upon their destruction, who will work any salvation in the earth, but those who see the wrongs of the poor, and strive to give them their own. Not those who desire a good report among men, nor those who seek an antidote against the tedium ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... been badly cut by a blow with a club from Walter Fletcher. "You are always getting into trouble, and are becoming the terror of other boys. Why do you not play more quietly? The feuds between the boys of different wards are becoming a serious nuisance, and many injuries have been inflicted. I hear that the matter has been mentioned in the Common Council, and that there is a talk of issuing an order that no boy not yet apprenticed to a trade shall be allowed ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... distress which occurred in London after the Great Fire. In return for their charity, they were assured that this was a mere pretence to keep up the cattle trade with England; and accordingly an Act was passed in which the importation of Irish cattle was forbidden, and termed a "nuisance," and language was used which, in the present day, would be considered something like a breach of privilege. The Duke of Buckingham, whose farming interests were in England, declared "that none could oppose the Bill, except such as had Irish ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... a motion annoying to the animals, Mr. Littlepage evidently wishes his readers to understand that his friend, Ten Eyck, was too knowing to have recourse to the practice. Even the straps are coming into disuse, the opinion beginning to obtain that sleigh-bells are a nuisance, instead of an advantage. Twenty years since, the laws of most large towns rendered them necessary, under the pretence of preventing accidents by apprising the footman of the approach of a sleigh; but more horses are ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... has no perception. He has his fashions that spread from city to city. In one of our large cities the rage at one time was an old tin can with a string attached, out of which they tortured the most savage and ear-splitting discords. The police were obliged to interfere and suppress the nuisance. On another occasion, at Christmas, they all came forth with tin horns, and nearly drove the town distracted ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... men, but of those who wilfully abstained from joy and have received the greater damnation. My children are mostly writings, poor weakly creatures dying inarticulate and unchristened, tenderly remembered by myself only, but at least no nuisance to the world. I loved them at their birth, I hold them in remembrance, though they were ever of a ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... last place I should go to, especially to-day, when it will be crowded. Oh! no, I'm better off in town, and I wish to goodness that this holiday nuisance would ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... they reached the street. "No, I don't want you to come with me; I've got some business to see to and you'd only be a nuisance." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Good-bye, and thanks ever so much Micky. You'll ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... passing plaisaunt cheere, And Arthure's tales of hippogriffs ben mervaillous to heare; But stranger far than any tale told of those knyghts of old Ben those facetious narratives ye Western straunger told. He told them of a country many leagues beyond ye sea Where evereche forraine nuisance but ye Chinese man ben free, And whiles he span his monstrous yarns, ye ladies of ye court Did deem ye listening thereunto to be right plaisaunt sport; And whiles they listened, often he did squeeze a lily hande, Ye which proceeding ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... the daughter gave her answer, In the very words which follow: "Him from Vainola I choose not, Nor an aged man will care for, For an old man is a nuisance, And an aged ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... Starkweather family long, long ago. Before I came to valet for Mr. Cornelius, Mary Boyle had her own room and was a fixture in the house. Mr. Cornelius took her more—more philosophically, as you might say, Miss. My present master and his daughters look upon poor Mary Boyle as a nuisance. They have to allow her to remain. She is a life charge upon the estate—that, indeed, was fixed before Mr. Cornelius's time. But the present family are ashamed of her. Perhaps I ought not to say it, but it is true. ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... boy had no use for tramps. He looked on the vagrants as a nuisance and a menace to the community. At the same time, no self-respecting scout would think of casting the first stone at a wandering hobo, though, if attacked, he would always defend ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... now that he has taken to what he considers an English costume, and has made up his mind that he will never settle down again under a Burmese government, he has been trying hard to pick up the language. I found that it was rather a nuisance at first when, instead of telling him what was wanted in his own language, I had to tell him in English, and then translate it for him. However, he does understand a good deal now and, whenever he has nothing else to do, he is talking with ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... who say that we robins are a nuisance, and that we destroy so much fruit that they wish we would never come near them. The fact is, we do more good than harm to your orchards and berry patches. Just think how many insects we destroy! If it were not for us I think much more fruit would be ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... on the other. No more was said about Marian, or Gilbert's plans for the future. In his own mind that one subject reigned supreme, shutting out every other thought; but h did not want to make himself a nuisance to John Saltram, and he knew that there are bounds to the endurance of ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... who rides and demands assistance in truth becomes a nuisance before the run is over, let her beauty be ever so transcendent, her horsemanship ever-so-perfect, and her battery of general feminine artillery ever so powerful. She is like the American woman, who is always wanting ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... and Dunstable had seen. It was impossible to hush it up now. The scutcheon of Seymour's was definitely blotted. The name of the house was being held up to scorn in Appleby's probably everywhere else as well. It was a nuisance, thought Linton, but it could not be helped. After all, it was a judgment on the house for harbouring ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Talactic," the large pigeon "Buabu," a bee-eater "Patirictiric," and other names were "Pipit," "Culiaun," "Alibasbas," "Quilaquilbunduc," "Papalacul," "Batala," "Batubatu," "Culasisi." Some of the spiders here were of great size, and in these mountain forests their webs were a great nuisance. These webs were often of a yellow glutinous substance, which stained my clothes, and when they caught me in the face, as they often did, it ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... would make slender allowance for his vein of humour! But here, curse him! he is a sort of privileged nuisanceone of the last specimens of the old fashioned Scottish mendicant, who kept his rounds within a particular space, and was the news-carrier, the minstrel, and sometimes the historian of the district. That rascal, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... "Yep. Nuisance, isn't it? So the word has come from your father that since we can't go round visiting until we've been checked, the Crew's going to have a dance tonight ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... early come to think of the being as feminine—had seemed timid, fearful lest her intrusions into his mind prove a nuisance. It took some time for him to assure her that she was always welcome. With time, too, his impression of her grew stronger and more concrete. He found that he was able to visualize her, as he might visualize something remembered, ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... Birmingham;[892] it appears that all the rest of these 'Chapels of Ease' unblushingly gave the lie, so far as in them lay, to the declaration of our Lord that the poor have the Gospel preached unto them. Some time had yet to elapse before improved feeling could do much towards abating the unchristian nuisance. But energetic protests were occasionally heard. 'I would reprobate,' wrote Mrs. Barbauld (1790) 'those little gloomy solitary cells, planned by the spirit of aristocracy, which deform the building no less to the eye of taste than to the eye of benevolence, and insulating each family ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... manner, that, as a rule, there is no more quiet and modest member of society than the urban clergyman. Domination over religious belief is reserved for the exclusive use of those who admit the right: the rare exception to this mode of behavior is laughed at as a bigot, or shunned as a nuisance. But the overbearing minister of nature, who snaps you with unphilosophical as the clergyman once frightened you with infidel, is still a recognized member of society, wants taming, and will get it. He wears ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... cities where there are corpses to be wailed over every night, it has been found so objectionable to the expanding intellects of the more enlightened Turks that it has been prohibited as a public nuisance, and these days it is only in such conservative interior towns as Bey Bazaar that the custom still obtains. When about starting early on the following morning the khanjee begs me to be seated, and then several men who have been waiting around since before daybreak vanish hastily ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... sensation-seeker, for the news of the murder had spread, and though there was nothing to see but the bare stones on which the body had lain, there were more open mouths and staring eyes around the entry than Spargo had seen for many a day. And the nuisance had become so great that the occupants of the adjacent chambers had sent for a policeman to move the curious away, and when Spargo and his companion presented themselves at the entry this policeman was being lectured as to his duties by a little weazen-faced gentleman, in very snuffy and ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... she declared, with an affectionate little hug. "If you don't want to wear it, wear something else. What a nuisance clothes are, anyhow! I've always said I wished we didn't have to change our dress every time we ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... protection, the more completely will the real character of a people be reflected, as by a mirror, in their laws and government. Political morality can never have any solid existence on a basis of individual immorality. Even freedom, exercised by a debased people, would come to be regarded as a nuisance, and liberty of the press but a vent for licentiousness and ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... plague it is! Horrid sandy-coloured stuff, and such a nuisance in the water! I think I ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... at first," explained the poet, "but they would go on knocking, and boys and policemen passing would stop and help them. It got to be a nuisance; so now I have them in, and get the thing over. I show them the room where the murder was committed. If it's a nervous-looking party, I let them off with a brief summary. If that doesn't do, I go into details ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... to the phrase about the almighty dollar is that it is an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty nuisance. I mean that it is made to explain everything, and to explain everything much too well; that is, much too easily. It does not really help people to understand a foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... some of the best plants are water-crowfoot, water-starwort, and the great water moss. Anacharis should not be introduced into any water, either pond or stream, unless it can be kept down easily. It will otherwise become an unmitigated nuisance. ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... not always make others happy. Nothing came amiss to me; I was always either laughing or singing, and do not recollect having an hour's illness in my life. Now and then, by the elders of the family, and by Aunt Martha especially, I was voted a nuisance; and it was with no small satisfaction, at the end of the holidays, that they packed me off again to school. I was fond of my brothers and sisters, and they were fond of me, though I showed my affection ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... the stupid march-out, when it became so nearly vexatious to boys almost biliously oppressed by the tedium of a day merely allowing them to shove the legs along, ironically naming it animal excise, that some among them pronounced the sham variation of monotony to be a bothering nuisance if it was going to happen every Sunday, though Sunday required diversions. They hated the absurdity in this meeting and meeting; for they were obliged to anticipate it, as a part of their ignominious weekly performance; and they could not avoid reflecting on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was a nigger on each foot, industriously brushing away as if his life depended on it. They would follow you on to a tram-car, and whether you got a seat or not there would be somebody working on your boots two seconds after boarding it. Another nuisance were the sellers of swagger-sticks, and I have frequently bought one just for the pleasure of laying it across the back of its previous owner. They soon picked up our language and its choicest words, but one word they never understood was "No!" The first Egyptian word we ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... leave school, from ten or twelve up to fourteen and sixteen, schools everywhere have come to contain many children who, having no natural aptitude for study, would at once, unless specially handled, become a nuisance in the school and tend to demoralize schoolroom procedure. These laws have thrown upon the school a new burden in the form of public expectancy for results, whereas a compulsory- education law cannot create capacity to profit from education. Under the earlier ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... low soft voice you sing a verse of song.... Or it may come on the cold winds of winter, through the ascetic trees.... But women are always cognizant of God.... Even bad women, Shane, who mistake the Unknown God for the true.... And a woman is very much apart from her body. It is just a nuisance at times, or at times a thing of beauty, or at times a thing one expresses something with, something that is too deep for words, as with a violin. And to some it is a curse.... But a body is always apart from one, and a mind is, too.... Shane, you have seen very beautiful old women.... ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Rome, has been ill from the day on which I returned until now. It is true that he is getting better; but he lay for about a month in peril of his life, despaired of by the doctors, and I never went to bed. There are other annoyances of my own; and now I have the nuisance of this lad, who says that he does not want to waste time, that he wants to study, and so on. At Florence he said he would be satisfied with two or three hours a day. Now the whole day is not enough for him, but he must needs ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... of Lowestoft, Suffolk, in the forties the parish clerk's name was Newson (would-be wits called him "Nuisance"). He was arrayed in a velvet-trimmed robe and bore himself bravely. The way in which he mouthed "Let us sing to the glory of God" was wonderful. But the chief amusement he afforded was the habit ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the fort houses seeking articles, and soon became a terrible nuisance. One room in particular was constantly thronged to the exclusion of its regular occupants, when the latter, losing all patience with the savages, adopted the following plan ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman |
