"Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decided wilfulness. She turned impatiently from the nun's well-meant kindness and efforts to console her, which somehow were not what she wanted—not that, but something so different, poor child!—she was cross, peevish, fractious without intending it, scarcely knowing why; the nuns set her down as a perverse unamiable child: and so it happened, that she had not been many weeks in the convent before she came to be regarded with general disfavour and indifference instead of with the kindly feeling that had ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... Mahomedans, men from Hindustan and one or two Daudi Bohras, the regular customers of the "Kasumba" saloon. There is one woman in the room—a member of the frail sisterhood, now turned faithful, nursing an elderly and peevish Lothario with a cup of sago-milk gruel, which opium-eaters consider such a delicacy: while the other customers sit in groups talking with the preternatural solemnity born of their favourite drug, and now and again ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again, hesitated again, and at last handed it back, his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... levies. If Rais persists, he must collect our money at the edge of the sword; and this can't last, for we shall all soon die of hunger." These continual complaints make me melancholy, and added to my impatience "to be up and doing," make me very peevish. O Dio! but such is the lot of man, to suffer always, either in mind or body. Much annoyed at my taleb for eating Said's dinner, even before my face. These Moors, at least some of them, have neither honour ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... have written a letter to my lady ——, that I believe she won't like; and, upon cooler reflection, I think I had done better to have let it alone; but I was downright peevish at all her questions, and her ridiculous imagination, that I have certainly seen abundance of wonders which I keep to myself out of mere malice. She is very angry that I won't lie like other travellers. I verily believe she expects I should tell her of the Anthropophagi, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... be captain of his team, or he will not play. If it happens to be a girl, she insists upon everybody playing the game she wants, or she will go home in a sulk. These people cannot agree long with anybody. They are quarrelsome and peevish. ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... confidence. She had not been there long before she had both parents in bed, "saving themselves for to-morrow," and was gently rubbing the hot little body of the baby. She kept giving it warm tea she had made of herbs, until soon the threatening jerks were over, the peevish whining ceased, and the child slept peacefully on Grandma's lap. I watched her, fascinated. There was never a bit of faltering, no indecision; everything she did seemed exactly what she ought ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... custom that had unwittingly established itself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep. Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... so now, can't you? Laramie, you're powerful peevish to-day. It's that bump on your head. Who does ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... sentimental qualities. A woman who is growing old and has lost the members of her family, especially her husband, requires some object to replace them in her affection. To devote herself to social activity will be the best antidote against the peevish, querulous or sorrowful moods which so easily take possession of the aged woman. It appears that love, which is a phylogenetic derivative of the sexual appetite, and which in middle life is intimately associated with this ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... "mollified" so that the Assembly could convey its opposition to the Stamp Tax without giving the "least offense" to crown and parliament. Fauquier also observed that economic uncertainties had made Virginians "uneasy, peevish, and ready to murmur at every Occurrence." Henry suggests that he drew up the Resolves when he found no one else was willing to do so after hearing of the actual passage of the Tax Act. Whatever the reason, Henry and his associates were ready to abandon the niceties of formal address ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... boots; and Davy was quite alarmed at seeing that a broad leathern belt about his waist was stuck full of old-fashioned knives and pistols. Davy was about to retreat quickly from the shop, when the old man looked up, and said, in a peevish voice:— ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... moment, the wind bent the long stems of grass in the direction of the declining sun, and died away. All that remained audible amid the stillness was the peevish voices ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Jim climbed into his mother's lap and said, "What's 'dead,' mamma? Where's Uncle Andy gone? Is you goin' there?" And the peevish, selfish woman took the child in her arms and went out on the sunny porch, wondering if indeed she was ever going there; whether this something which, after all, she knew had so changed Dan for the better, was ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... understand that she could not employ on my behalf an authority to which she had recourse to protect her children. I at once answered the count seriously, taking up the political question, and managing his peevish spirit with ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... for a time on the various baby-foods with which the market is so abundantly supplied, it is, nevertheless, the case that where fed in this way they are very apt to develop rickets or scurvy, and not uncommonly show evidences of bad nutrition in loss of weight and strength, becoming peevish and fretful, and ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... air of listening from an illimitable distance, which I can quite understand has an exasperating effect on people who do not understand and care. It exasperated Delphine now. I saw the blue eyes flash, and the pink lips set, with a peevish desire to "hit back!" ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the miserable, peevish, lazy, conceited, faithless, prayerless wretch that I am, but I know this too, that One is guiding me, and driving me when I would not be guided, who will make me, and has made me, go His way, and do His work, by ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... Sir William. The Lieutenant-Commander coughed apologetically. "He's peevish," he said. "Thought it was us blowing up at first. Wants to know why we wasted a torpedo: thinks he could have captured her and taken the crew prisoners if ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... men pick out their biggest shillings to lay against it, and 'tis held a favour for a gentlewoman to fill the pipe for her servant [suitor]. I have heard say some will spend three or four hundred a year after this manner, drinking it even at the table; and they that refuse be thought peevish and ill company." ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... will dissemble, a third will despise. Go, try to reclaim even the children of thine own loins, who are all trained through thy means in an evil course. Nay, even these also will scoff at thy rebuke, and say, "Our old father is grown troublesome and peevish through age; he is turned religious only because he has just done with this life, and has one foot in ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... wife of Socrates, noted for her violent temper and scolding propensities. The name is frequently applied to a shrew, or peevish, turbulent, scolding woman. ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... disappointment to a boat's crew, generally expressed in curses both loud and deep. And no wonder. Let any man pull with might and main for hours and hours together, under a burning sun; and if it do not make him a little peevish, he is no sailor. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... from her room discomposed: from that she became restless and irritable; so much so, indeed, that at last Mr. Gaunt told her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning peevish), she had better go to chapel. "You are right," said she, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... approaching, and the light, falling dubiously among the woody places, gave a melancholy tone to the scene well calculated to foster any lurking feeling of awe or superstition. The night hawk, wheeling about in the highest regions of the air, emitted his peevish, boding cry. The woodpecker gave a lonely tap now and then on some hollow tree, and the firebird[1] streamed by them with his deep ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... at a feast of Heracles. Perhaps the remark of Mr. Leaf offers the real explanation of the presence of this long story in the speech of Agamemnon: "Many speakers with a bad case take refuge in telling stories." Agamemnon shows, says Mr. Leaf, "the peevish nervousness of a man who feels that he has been in the wrong," and who follows a frank speaker like Achilles, only eager for Agamemnon to give the word to form and charge. So Agamemnon takes refuge in a long story, throwing the blame ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... heedless body among risks that thou, Looking alone at the great shining God Within thy mind, seest not; but I see And sicken at them. Yet do I not require Thy purpose; whether thy proud heart must have The wound of death from steel that has not toucht The peevish misery these Jews call blood; Whether thy mind is for velvet slavery In the desires of some Assyrian lord— Forgive me, Judith! there my love spoke, made Foolish with injury; and I should be Unwise to stay here, lest it break the hold I have it in. I go, and I am humbled. But ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... life; but nods in sable plumes, Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs. What is not proud? The pimp is proud to see So many like himself in high degree: The whore is proud her beauties are the dread Of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed; And the brib'd cuckold, like crown'd victims born To slaughter, glories in his gilded horn. Some go to church, proud humbly to repent, And come back much more guilty than they went: One ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... no use being peevish. You are a great disappointment to us, but we have not given up hope. If you are not altogether with us to-day, there is to-morrow. I tell you frankly, Mannering, that I look upon you as a man temporarily led astray by a wave of sentimentality. So long as the world lasts there ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... She smiled a little now for the first time. "Partly on dat account, an' partly on his'n. Pete's wife Ca'line, she was a good 'oman, but she was mighty puny an' peevish; an' besides dat, she was one o' deze heah naggers, an' Pete is allus had a purty hard pull, an' I lay out ter give him a better chance. Eve'y bit o' whitewashin' he'd git ter do 'roun' town, Ca'line she'd swaller it in medicine. But she was ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... us. After amusing ourselves by repeatedly springing his tail and receiving the quills in a rotten stick, we made a slip-noose out of a spruce root, and, after much manoeuvring, got it over his head and led him forth. In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our unfair tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and scolded like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was to keep himself ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... do not reach forth your hand for the food, but ask some one to help you. 5. Do not become peevish and pout, because you do not get a part of everything. Be satisfied with what is given you. 6. Avoid a pouting face, angry looks, and angry words. Do not slam the doors. Go quietly up and down stairs; and never make a loud noise about ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the women; and their mates only shook off their pleadings with a peevish show of callousness, that was merely the dumb anguish of undemonstrativeness. For, while their throats were thick, their ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the dignity of England broke, and revealed a malignity less focussed and intense than the German, but perhaps even more distressing. No paternal government had organised the British spirit for patriotic ends; it became now peevish and impatient, like some ill-trained man who is sick, it directed itself no longer against the enemy alone but fitfully against imagined traitors and shirkers; it wasted its energies in a deepening and spreading net of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... dismissal of Puylaurens, but the brilliant favourite had become necessary to the existence of his frivolous master, far more so, indeed, than the wife who was no longer rendered irresistible by novelty; and the only result of her entreaties was a peevish order not to listen to any complaints against those who were attached ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... truth that none of us had the courage to brave her surprise by asking an explanation. My mother's air of surprise when any of us went wrong in any way was very terrible to us. One day, when in a fit of peevish temper, I had taken the liberty to cut off the baby's ear, her simple words, "John, you surprise me!" appeared to me so sharp a reproof that after a sleepless night I went to her in tears, and throwing myself at her feet, exclaimed: "Mother, forgive me for surprising you." So ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... perpetually—now this, now that—now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Sally's name. What he had wished was to have the name of the person for whom she was asking repeated. He now perceived that he had had a bit of luck. A wearying period of disappointment in the matter of keeping the paper-weights circulating while balancing the ruler, had left him peevish, and it had been his intention to work off his ill-humour on the young visitor. The discovery that it was the boss's sister who was taking up his time, suggested the advisability of a radical change of tactics. He had stooped with a frown: he returned to the perpendicular ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... Catch for a Jest or a Quibble, like a Rook for a Cully; but any unprejudic'd Person that knows not the Author, to read any of my Comedys and compare 'em with others of this Age, and if they find one Word that can offend the chastest Ear, I will submit to all their peevish Cavills; but Right or Wrong they must be Criminal because a Woman's; condemning them without having the Christian Charity, to examine whether it be guilty or not, with reading, comparing, or thinking; the Ladies taking up any Scandal on Trust from some conceited ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... flesh soft and flabby; the limbs emaciated; the belly, in some cases, large, in others, shrunk; and the evacuations fetid and unnatural; and in a very few weeks, the blooming healthy child will be changed into the pale, sickly, peevish, wasted creature, whose ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... he said, fervently, "go home with that mare! She's very peevish! I wouldn't like to be looking at her! She has that way of jumping stones her nose'd nearly reach the ground before ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... ten years after Dalrymple's death. That time she passed in great poverty in some chambres garnies at Bruges, with her little girl and an old Madame Le Breton, the maid, housekeeper, and general factotum who had served them in the country. This woman, though of a peevish, grumbling temper, was faithful, affectionate, and not without education. She was certainly attached to little Julie, whose nurse she had been during a short period of her infancy. It was natural that Lady Rose should leave the child to her ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their time upon God's earth, grow old, wear out, lose their first love of what was just and true; and know not the things which belong to their peace, but grow, as the Jews grew in their latter years, more and more fanatical, quarrelsome, peevish, uncharitable; trying to make up by violence for the loss of strength and sincerity: till they come to an end, and die, often by unjust and unfair means, and by men worse than they. Shall we not believe that Christ has pity on them; that he who wept over Jerusalem going to destruction ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... The herring-gulls with peevish cries Rebuke the man who sings vain words; His sheep-dog growls a low complaint, Then turns to chasing butterflies. But when the indifferent singing-birds From midmost down to dimmest shore Innumerably confirm their songs, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... goes on the top of the world, and this under it. At his first coming in, he is a piece of new coin, all sharking old prisoners lie sucking at his purse. An old man and he are much alike, neither of them both go far. They are still angry and peevish, and they sleep little. He was born at the fall of Babel, the confusion of languages is only in his mouth. All the vacations he speaks as good English as any man in England, but in term times he breaks out of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... in the morning if you jiggers will close yore traps and lemme sleep," growled a peevish voice in the next room—on ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... more boisterous; the candle would then no more be thrust almost into the infant's eyes to make it take notice of the light through the mist of tears, the eternal bunch of keys would not dance and jingle at every peevish summons, nor would the roarings of passion be overpowered by insulting songs, or soothed by artful caresses; the child would then be caressed and amused when he looks smiling and good-humoured, and all ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... coming home from a dinner and concert at the Crown and Anchor found William, in a very gloomy and peevish humour, poring over the orations of Cicero. Henry asked him several times "how he did," and similar questions, marks of his kind disposition towards his beloved brother: but all his endeavours, he perceived, could not soothe or soften the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... ails the peevish brat?" snarled the young boatman impatiently. "Rather look this way and tell me whom be these after!" The old man and his other son looked, and saw four men walking along the east bank of the river; at the sight they left rowing awhile, and gathered mysteriously in the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... relate Of fell ambition scourg'd by fate, From reason's peevish blame. Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail I dare expand to Fancy's gale, For sure thy ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... she grew worse; for she never tried to grow better. She became more and more peevish and fretful every day—dissatisfied not only with what she had, but with all that was around her, and constantly wishing things in general to be different. She found fault with every thing and everybody, and all that happened, and grew more and more ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... I grew very peevish, and in the Dumps, notwithstanding all he could say or do to please me. I exclaimed against the Priviledge of Husbands, and vowed I would not be pulled and tumbled about. At last he hit on the only Method, which could have brought ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... companions at length recollected that, though she had embroidered a tulip and painted a peach better than they, yet that they could play as well, and keep their tempers better: she was thrown out. Walking towards the house in a peevish mood, she met ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... Mr. Hamilton gave vent to a suppressed exclamation of impatience as he seized the poker, but I could not but notice the skilful and almost noiseless manner in which he manipulated the coals. Then he looked round for a match, and lighted a candle on the mantelpiece, in spite of a peevish remonstrance ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... have taken unwearied pains, and have put the United States to very considerable expense, in order to give satisfaction to these people, but all we have done has not the effect; we are perpetually told of discontented speeches, and we often receive peevish letters from these persons in one place and another, that they are not treated with so much respect as they expected, nor furnished with so much money as they wanted. We should not regard these reflections if we ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... thousand acres of hilly pasture, and the undivided moiety of a lake brimful of fish. He accounted for his change of name by the favors Carruthers, deceased, had shown him. Therein he did his best to lie, but his present vein of luck turned it into the truth. Old Carruthers had become so peevish that all his relations disliked him, and he disliked them. So he left his personal estate to his heir-at-law simply because he had never seen him. The personality was very large. The house was full of pictures, and China, and cabinets, etc. There was ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... That Bacon loved Sir William Hatton's widow, and induced Essex to support his suit, and that rejecting him she gave herself to his enemy, we know; but history tells us nothing of the secret struggle which preceded the lady's resolution to become the wife of an unalluring, ungracious, peevish, middle-aged widower. She must have felt some tenderness for her cousin, whose comeliness spoke to every eye, whose wit was extolled by every lip. Perhaps she, like many others, had misread the essay 'Of Love,' and ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the dining-room, took the envelope without a word, and passed into the parlor, where, standing beneath the lamp, she tore it open, glanced anxiously at its contents, then threw it with an exclamation of peevish indignation upon the table: ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... by Lowe, whilst Mr. Disraeli leant back with a slight smile on his face, which was a blot of pallor beneath his dark, oiled ringlets. Ishmael was stirred, yet in him something felt amazement and disappointment. These were only men after all, not demigods, and some of them were peevish, some rude, some bored and inattentive. The whole thing seemed somehow childish; it was difficult to believe, except later when Bright's golden tongue was speaking, that in this place the nation was governed.... Afterwards ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Lecky, 'though somewhat peevish and very obstinate, was pure, generous, simple, and affectionate; and she displayed, under bereavements far more numerous than fall to the share of most, a touching piety that endeared her to ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... three o'clock, they came back again! And Casey neglected to send Juan after the tub to water the goats. Wherefore paw sent Humbolt, and watered the goats himself from Casey's barrel and seemed peevish because he must. Maw Smith came after coffee again, and helped herself with no more formality than a shrill, "I'm borrying some more coffee!" sent to Casey ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... from her for a moment; she caught at it painfully, and a peevish expression crossed ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... three quarts of liquor, paid Pete, and departed alone, Carl and Hugh having decided to have another drink or two before they returned to Haydensville. After a second high-ball Hugh did not care how many he drank and was rather peevish when Carl insisted that he stop with a third. Pete charged them eight dollars for their drinks, which they cheerfully paid, and then warily climbed the stairs and stumbled out into ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... found in these. 72. But nothing, nothing have I found But weeping, and alas, And sorrow, which doth now surround Me, and augment my cross. 73. Ah, bleeding conscience, how did I Thee check when thou didst tell Me of my faults, for which I lie Dead while I live in hell. 74. I took thee for some peevish foe, When thou didst me accuse, Therefore I did thee buffet so, And counsel did refuse. 75. Thou often didst me tidings bring, How God did me dislike, Because I took delight in sin, But I thy news did slight. 76. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... impossible to Isabella, she left the neighbourhood, never to revisit it, and lived near London; and there her son, whom she christened Linton, was born a few months after her escape. He was an ailing, peevish creature. When Linton was twelve, or a little more, and Catherine thirteen, Isabella died, and the boy was brought to Thrushcross Grange. Hindley Earnshaw drank himself to death about the same ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... mess?" he observed. "Ain't he a mess? I expect he'll be right down peevish about it when ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... "Peevish person, your young friend," Ismay commented confidentially to Alison. "Still, there's something in what he says. Shall we—ah—begin ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... several nurses who appeared to look upon their work as tasks to be executed mechanically, instead of duties to be performed with pleasure. Then again, others who really preferred the work were either kept away from it entirely, or else made dull, peevish and irritable by the great number of hours they were forced to be on duty each day, thus turning what should have been pleasant employment into a drudgery. And like the nurses, so were the orderlies; their daily work hours were so long and their pay so small that only the least intelligent ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... "Name of Riley, he is. But you draw your pay from me." With his arm he described a circle. "And here's the stock you help take care of. The only one you need to be careful about is that leopard over yonder. She gets a little peevish once in a while. Well, I would sort of keep an eye on the ostrich here alongside you too. The old bird's liable to cut loose when you ain't looking and kick the taste out of your mouth. You give them ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... that appall A drunkard's peevish brain, O'er the grey deep the dories crawl, Four-legged, with rowers twain: Midgets and minims of the earth, Across old ocean's vasty girth ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... this peevish little pigmy was put into short dresses, his father resigned his position in the United States Army to accept a like position with the Czar of Russia. The first railroad constructed in Russia, from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, was built under the superintendence of Major Whistler, who also designed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... merely serving and working members of the state was thus done away— at the same time solving the social question by the most comprehensive and systematic emigration known in history. With all the determination and all the peevish obstinacy of dotage the restored oligarchy obtruded the principle of deceased generations—that Italy must remain the ruling land and Rome the ruling city in Italy—afresh on the present. Even in the lifetime of Gracchus the claims of the Italian allies had been decidedly ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she, but a contending rebel, And graceless ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... than to bear with patience the apparently unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless, or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who have themselves ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... in his chair with a peevish air. "Well, if you must, you must. What is this great affair, Count? Let us have it over, and then you can tell me about ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... to struggle; he cowed there, his head drooping between his shoulders. All he did was to utter a peevish cry, as children do ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... thus far when news came of the death of Lord Byron, and put an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective, which was intended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that we were writing his epitaph, we must have done it with a different feeling. As it is, we think it better and more like himself, to let what we had written stand, than to take up ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... you be so alarmed, Isabel? Of course I have," he continued, in a peevish, though kind tone, as he took hold of her ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... good yourself—for a Winner," Brion snapped back. His exhaustion and sudden peevish anger at this man let the insulting words slip ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... head that day; But, when he began in his artful way To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, A better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... Christian's offence against me and mine? Born a Mankesman—bred and nursed in the island—he broke the laws under which he lived, and died for the breach of them, after the fair trial which they allowed.—Methinks, Margaret, we have enough of this peevish and foolish magistrate—I attend you ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... said Cecil gravely. "Now, Duke can be ever so snappish and peevish; I'm not half so much ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desk sergeant yawned. "Stick him in the cage. We'll call up this Lescott party later on. I guess he's still in the hay, and it might make him peevish ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... I try my hand at writing in a "happy vein." God forbid that I should be such a villain! For I once knew a man who, by reading these happy books, fell into pessimism and a sharp decline. He had wasted to a peevish shadow and had taken to his bed before his physician discovered the seat of his anaemia. It was only by cutting the evil dose, chapter by chapter, that he finally restored him to his friends. Yet neither supposition of my case is true. We who enjoy wet and windy days are ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... never pursue the solution of the great Problem, might he not change that determination at a moment when he foresaw success? He was now fifty-nine years old. At that age a predominant idea contracts a certain peevish fixedness which is the first ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... possess'd of Employments, Commissions, Pensions, and Preferments here, she makes near two Millions by the Trade with Ireland; which I know is more than she gains from the rest of the World. I am not peevish, or at least so peevish, as I used to be, when I had vile Flesh and Blood about me; but these are plain confest honest Truths, and if that generous large thoughted Nation, will consider them calmly and candidly; possibly she will make us other Returns, than cramping our Trade, making ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... the man that we prefer to think. His letters display, in passages which he would not have desired to see quoted, the depth and tenderness and thoughtfulness of his affections. He must have been a delightful friend: illness could not make him peevish, and his correspondence with old college companions could never be taken for that of a consciously dying man. He had perfect courage, and resolution even in his seeming irresoluteness. He was resolved to be, and continued ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... much ado, his Book before him laid, And Parchment with the smoother side display'd; He takes the Papers, lays 'em down agen, And with unwilling fingers tries his Pen; Some peevish quarrel straight he tries to pick, His Quill writes double, or his Ink's too thick; Infuse more Water; now 'tis grown too thin, It sinks, nor can the characters be ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... why shall it be found in these? The father and the sonne may very well be of a farre differing complexion, and so many brothers: He is my sonne, he is my kinsman; but he may be a foole, a bad, or a peevish-minded man. And then according as they are friendships which the law and dutie of nature doth command us, so much the lesse of our owne voluntarie choice and libertie is there required unto it: And our genuine libertie hath no production more properly her owne, than that ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... epicurean, who after his long toil had made his bed in the sun, on which he was preparing to lie down in genial content till the end came. But he feels he must not think of rest; and that, heavy as he is, and irksome to him as it is to move, he must before long be a rover again. Still he is never peevish upon his fortune; he puts the best face on things as long as they ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... by a diminutive red-faced woman, with hair and eyes very much like his own, and a face that wore a peevish, pinched expression. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... whether Tompkins comes off or not," replied Tom Aldridge in the same peevish tone as he had spoken at first. "What's the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... illness. She is not so foolish as to expect to find a pleasant taste in physic, but she expects that it will be of service to her; and she would rather have a bitter taste in her mouth for a few moments, than endure days, weeks, and months of pain and sickness. As peevish, fretful tempers often bring disease on the body, so a patient, even temper not only lessens all suffering, but helps to cure the diseases of the body; Miss Emma, therefore, will perhaps in a short time regain her health, and ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... the play saying to his wife, 'Do you hate me? I can bear that hatred very easily, since of my dishonour I make money.' Not a whit more really in love than this husband is the one, who, not for gain but merely for the sexual appetite, puts up with a peevish and unsympathetic wife, as Philippides, the comic poet, ridiculed the orator, Stratocles, 'You scarce can kiss her if she turns her back on you.' If, however, we ought to give the name of love to this passion, then is it an effeminate and bastard love, and like at Cynosarges,[67] ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... a dozen entered; for a few paces within the doorway the Queen-Mother stood still to receive my patron, who had advanced to meet her. It seemed to me that she was not best pleased to see him at that moment; her voice rang somewhat loud and peevish as she said, "What, my lord! Is it you? I came to receive the trophies from Rocroy, and did not expect to see ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the deadly blaze of August, That turns men faint and mad, She quiets the peevish urchins By telling a dream she had— A heaven with marble counters, And ice, and a singing fan; And a God in white, so friendly, Just like the ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... of depression which attacked him, Scott was the strongest combination of a strong mind in a strong body that I have ever known. And this because he was so weak! Naturally so peevish, highly strung, irritable, depressed and moody. Practically such a conquest of himself, such vitality, such push and determination, and withal in himself such personal and magnetic charm. He was naturally an idle man, he has told us so;[134] he had been a poor man, and he had a horror of leaving ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... palm, and laid his own upon it. "'T is fairly spoken," he said slowly, "and I think you mean it." Then he grew peevish. "A pest on this country!" he cried. "We are all kings in disguise, and have a monarchy hidden in our hats. And what does it amount to? No bread, no wine, no thanks; a dog's life and a jackal's death,—and all to hold some leagues of barren land for his petticoat-ridden majesty at Versailles. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... is the spirit of this prayer, Moses does not appear resigned to the divine order, but rather peevish and fretful at the disappointment of his hope, which he had till then entertained. He had expected to lead Israel to the land of promise; if not indulged, seems not to have cared what became of himself or his family; and is thought here to address his maker, ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the large bony hand which Peter had imposed upon his shoulder, and was about to say something peevish, upon so unpleasant and insolent a mode of interruption, when the door opened, a treble voice saying to the sentinel, 'I tell you I maun be in, to see if Mr. Nixon's here;' and little Benjie thrust in his mop-head and keen ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... close at hand, and a curlew rose, and then a flock of lapwings, to flit round and round, uttering their peevish calls; but Max saw nothing but the scene at the castle, heard nothing but The Mackhai's bitter words, and he tramped onward and onward into the wilderness of mountain and moss, onward ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... of inspiring love. This charm will doubtless ensure the volume hundreds of possessors. The names of a few of the galaxy will give the reader a faint idea of their charms, unless the reader accord with Juliet's somewhat peevish "What's in a name." Thus, we find Julia, the queen of sentimentality; Belinda, gay and sparkling; Madeline, the early prey of despair; Lolah, languishing amid Eastern magnificence; the Orphan, pencilled in the very simplicity of nature, and finely contrasted with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother. As for the gentleman himself, his feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her, and the assiduous attentions which he ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Georgette had been more feverish and consequently more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming in order to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... like that, no business to have jumped into a moving train, no business to put that huge hand-bag into a rack which was 'for light baggage only,' and no business to be wearing, at this hour and in this place, a top-hat. These four peevish objections floated sleepily together round my brain. It was not till the man turned round, and I met his eye, that I awoke fully—awoke to danger. I had never seen a murderer, but I knew that the man who was so steadfastly peering at me now...I ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... with sighs and groans To ease my limbs, to rest my bones, As if my bed were stuffed with stones, No peevish murmur tips my tongue— Ah no! for every sound upflung Says: "Lad, you're free and ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... what we can do to avoid falling under the dominion of these uncanny fears and fancies, as we fall from middle age to age. A dreary, dispirited, unhappy, peevish old man or old woman is a very miserable spectacle; while, at the same time, generous, courteous, patient, modest, tender old age is one of the most beautiful things in the world. We may of course ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... without reporting, placed two armed soldiers in the car, and ordered us sent back. It was futile to point out to him that passes issued by the Military Governor General did not need to conform to the local rules; in fact, it only made him peevish. We scorched back over the road to Liege, but I succeeded in making the soldiers stop at a small town where there was a local headquarters of some sort with a colonel in command, I got him to look at our pass which had been ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... you take things," said Phil. "The town's gone crazy, and there's a mob in front of your little toy bank, but you're not even peevish." ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... follows a "cold in the head," with running nose and a cough. The child is indisposed and peevish because of the cold. In a few days the cough becomes worse, fever develops, the breathing is quicker, and the baby looks and acts sick. The cough may be constant and severe; sometimes the cough does not seem to bother the baby, although ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... made a preacher peevish to have you land in the pit of his stummick with them sharp hoofs of yourn. But you're only an innercent little sheep, and they wan't no sense in his tryin' to stomp ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... National Gallery we cannot possibly see its beauty—see what the picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet. And that is not because a man is not a hero, but because the valet is too close to see the real man. Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable, and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we know him, with all his faults, to have been a great-souled man. Social reformers near at hand are often intolerable bores and religious fanatics frequently a pestilential nuisance. We have to get well away from ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... that a man's religion is going to rid him of his natural qualities. "Bishop Hall" (as you may remember to have seen quoted elsewhere) "prefers Nature before Grace in the Election of a wife, because, saith he, it will be a hard Task, where the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... days ago," answered Bart, who turned moodily away like a peevish child angered with half sleep, and a pang from the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... and peevish," said Jack. "You see he lives a lonely life, and has a narrow vision. Besides, some boys have given him a lot of trouble, and he doesn't know the difference between decent fellows and scamps. We'd better let him alone, and talk of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... Brown and Brandwhite), who had a position in the financial world which could not well be ignored, two places in the country, and a yacht. His long, lined face, with very heavy moustaches, wore habitually a peevish look. He had retired from his firm, and now only sat on the Boards of several companies. Next to him was Mrs. Hussell Barter, with that touching look to be seen on the faces of many English ladies, that look of women who are always doing their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... affliction. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handfuls pull'd his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?" Who has not seen peevish gamesters worry the cards with their teeth, and swallow whole bales of dice in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipt the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employ'd a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself of the river Gnidus, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... appear wrong side up. Hence arises most of the complaints, grumbling and murmurings, about the times, the weather, the government, the people, &c. To one who possesses, or is possessed of a malignant, peevish disposition himself, most of the conduct of others, and the times and circumstances in general, will to him appear wrong side up, and he will not infrequently find his own calculations up side down. Could we at once, view each circumstance in all ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... afterwards Lord Mansfield. He then went into the history of his life; or, at least, into such passages of it as were proper for the public ear. He was interrupted by the Lord High Steward, whose conduct to the unhappy State prisoner is said to have been peevish and overbearing. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... so tense as to become attenuated, but of a most rare and wistful beauty. His humor which is his weakest point is a thing of almost feminine perceptions but quaintly pliable, as the sense of humor in women often is, to an odd strain of peevish extravagance. ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... fancy he was clerk of the kitchen, for the quality and the quantity of our dinner generally depended on the state of his humour. When the report of the Embassador's making conditions with regard to the ceremony of introduction first reached Yuen-min-yuen, he was more than usually peevish, and conceived, as he thought, a notable piece of revenge. Some pains had been taken to arrange the presents in such a manner in the great hall as to fill the room well, and set them off to the best advantage. The old creature, determined to give us additional trouble and to break through the arrangement ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... at his ease upon a neighboring chair, with a pillow behind his head, a huge fur coat around his body, and a rug over his feet, had all the appearance of being very comfortable indeed. His reply, however, was a little short—almost peevish. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of good humour and fair play not prevalent among the Gafsa boys; there was no peevish squabbling, and I only saw one fight which was a perfectly correct transaction—nobody interfering with the two combatants who hammered lustily at each other's faces, and at last separated, satisfied and ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... without superlatives they could not gaze upon the "view"; not with any satisfaction, that is. But this tourist could be heard moving here and there among the rocks, with long lapses of silence when she just stood and gazed. Jack listened and waited, and grew more peevish as the lagging minutes passed. If he went out now, he would have to go ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... alone, unless he, like myself, had some disagreeable experiences there, and I remembered that he had usually gone out when I had, and was seldom, if ever, alone in the studio when I returned. His tone was so peevish and impatient that I thought discussion was injudicious, and simply replied, "Oh, you're bilious; I'll be home early," and went away. I have often thought since that it was the one occasion when I could have easily broached the subject of my mental trouble, and I have always regretted I ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... at ten months unless he is unwell at the time or the weaning comes in the heat of the summer, when there is danger of his becoming sickly or peevish. Preparatory to weaning, the baby should be accustomed to the bottle. Provided the bottle holds half a pint or four glasses, the number of bottles may be increased from one a day at four months to two or six at eight months. The baby should certainly be weaned by the ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... careful not to trouble me again." Thus after having passed through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming—as I hope—an English gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy. I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass without much notice in the narrative of events of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... called. Remain by my side and sustain me, to prevent many a wicked thing and bring to pass much that is good. I shall always be grateful to you in my heart for it; that you can depend upon even if my weather-beaten face looks ill-humored, and my voice is peevish. Remember that I am a fretful old man, who is daily wasting away, approaching that bourne from which ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... spun in May, And if I had a kite There's not a breath of air to-day To help it in its flight.' With peevish frown he left the room And roamed the garden through, And murmured in a tone of gloom: 'I ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... an instant in her work to look at him, and her look revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night only can ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... were missed, the damsel began to cry: Lady Catherine(100) grew frightened, lest her infanta should vex herself sick, and summoned a jury of matrons to consult whether she should give her hartshorn or lavender drops? Mrs. Selwyn,(101) who was on the panel, grew very peevish, and said, "Pho! give her brilliant drops." Such are the present anecdotes of the court ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... as he passed with a certain speculative interest. These eyes belonged to a woman, plain, no longer young, her sole attractions a soft voice and pleasing manner; and a small, meagre man, wiry as a grasshopper, with gray hair, a yellow skin, large nose, and a peevish mouth. In the faces of both husband and wife was a hungry, pinched look. Years of poverty sometimes sets such a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... matter about that! They are old people: they recover in their own way, they laugh in their own way; mine ears have already endured worse and have not become peevish. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... demonstrated by Dr. Tanner to be utterly without foundation. What possible good did it do the world for Christ to go without food for forty days? Why should we follow such an example? As a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate, peevish and unpleasant. A good dinner puts a man at peace with all the world—makes him generous, good natured and happy. He feels like kissing his wife and children. The future looks bright. He wants to help the needy. The good in him predominates, and he wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. Your ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... struggle. True, the Opposition indulged in petty nagging and in ingeniously unpatriotic tactics; but they only served to throw up in bold relief the consistent and courageous conduct of the Prime Minister. It was an easy task to refute the peevish efforts of Fox to justify the French Jacobins alike before the war, throughout its course, and in their rejection of the British overtures for peace. But in every encounter Pitt won more than a personal triumph. He proved that the war was forced ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... for an astonishing fact,—Philip Withers married Josephine! Truly, the ways of Providence are as just as they are inscrutable. The meanness of Withers, mated to the selfish, helpless, peevish stupidity of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... sir, accept my love; Command me, use me; O, you are to blame, That do neglect, my everlasting zeal, My dear, my kind affect;" when (God can tell) A sudden puff of wind, a lightning flash, A bubble on the stream doth longer 'dure, Than doth the purpose of their promise bide. A shame upon this peevish, apish age, These crouching, hypocrite, dissembling times! Well, well, God rid the patrons of these crimes Out of this land: I have an inward fear, This ill, well-seeming ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... him to be an American. The characteristic life of the Hospital is brought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetating here after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpid with the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish, wavering; sometimes shining out with a wisdom resulting from originally bright faculties, ripened by experience. The character must not be allowed to get vague, but, with gleams of romance, must yet be kept homely and natural by little ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... if he must be disturbed, he must; but he does like to be alone sometimes," said the girl, in a peevish tone. She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such an ill-looking fellow into her master's presence. However, she wiped her hands, and bade him follow. Opening the ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... fagged after his long walk from the Elevated road, carrying his heavy suitcase, that he worried about nothing save his own discomfort. Unable to find a taxi, he had been compelled to tramp the entire distance, and the fatigue of it had made him peevish. He could have saved himself at least a mile if he had taken a more direct road, but Keralio's orders were explicit. He must always follow a circuitous route so as to throw possible pursuers off the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the observation of national peculiarities. I am not so sure. A man on a holiday generally takes his goodwill with him, and endeavours, at least, to restrain his temper and his prejudices. He may fail in the attempt, and be a peevish thing at play, but the attempt will show him at his best. From the hotels below, where the crowds of cosmopolis stayed en pension at reasonable and unreasonable terms, the sound of music and songs visited me in the evening. The nations were waltzing. International ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... "I have now given what testimony I could find in our English authors, to prove the practice of immersion from the time the Britons and Saxons were baptized, till King James' days, when the people grew peevish with all ancient ceremonies, and through the love of novelty and the niceness of parents, and the pretense of modesty, they laid aside immersion." (History ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... will not need it. Come, you've all betrayed me,— My friend too!—to receive some vile conditions. My wife has bought me, with her prayers and tears; And now I must become her branded slave. In every peevish mood, she will upbraid The life she gave: if I but look awry, She cries,—I'll ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... has lost an s at the beginning. Even wee, as the phrase "a little wee bit" hints, is thought (by Skeat) to be nothing more than a Scandinavian form of the same word which appears in our English way. Skeat also tells us that "a little teeny boy," meant at first "a little fractious (peevish) boy," being derived from an old word teen, "anger, peevishness." Analogous to tiny is pettish, which is derived from pet, "mama's pet," "a spoiled child." Endless would the list of words of this class be, if we had at our ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... exorbitant heats of spirit, or transports of unbridled passion. When a man is keenly peevish, or fiercely angry, or eagerly contentious, then he blustereth, and dischargeth his choler in most tragical strains; then he would fright the objects of his displeasure by the most violent expressions thereof. This is sometime alleged in excuse of rash swearing: ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... seated. The eldest, a woman of thirty-three, held a book open in her lap and was reading aloud from it; reading with admirable expression and a voice almost masculine, rich as a deep-mouthed bell. And, while she read, the glory of the verse seemed to pass into her handsome, peevish face. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... made useful, and, so far as money could do it, faithful to his designs—diabolical as they were. He accordingly went one night, about the hour mentioned by Donnel, to the cabin of that worthy man; and knocking gently at the door, was replied to in a peevish voice, like that of an individual who had been interrupted in the performance of some act of piety ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... waiting for Mother Johnson who grumbled and fussed before she could be persuaded to take the walk the doctor had recommended. But, once outside, the sky was so blue, the air so pleasant, and Mary Rose so sociable that her face grew less peevish. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... to his conscience, and could prevent himself from thinking uncomfortably of the future, as well as most young men. His secret, unadmitted voluptuous eagerness was alloyed only by an apprehension that after the scene over the telephone Lois might be peevish and ungracious. The ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... she approached the cidevant butler, with the purpose of decoying him out of the garden. But John Gudyill's temper was not improved by his decline in rank and increase in years. Like many peevish people, too, he seemed to have an intuitive perception as to what was most likely to teaze those whom he conversed with; and, on the present occasion, all Jenny's efforts to remove him from the garden served only to root him in it as fast as if ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to please myself. I hear you are melancholy, because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... which the peevish spleen, yet bitter malice of Scottish Prelacy, found gratification in attempting to destroy. But there is a righteous retribution even in this world. Men rear their own monuments, and write inscriptions on them which time cannot obliterate. Gillespie's enduring ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... still in his bath. At length he arrived on the scene, beaming, with a sulky chameleon in his pocket, and flew about giving last directions, until he suddenly discovered that there was a violent hurry, whereupon he began to be boyishly peevish with the chauffeur for not getting off an hour ago. No sooner had the car started, however, than he fell into a serious mood, telling Stephen of many things which he had thought out in the night—things which might be helpful in finding ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... near as I can recollect. Perhaps my readers would like to know something about the occasion which called for this speech; but it is a long story, and hardly worth telling. The truth is, when little boys and girls get very angry, or peevish, or fretful, they sometimes blow out a great deal of ill-humor, something after the manner that an overcharged steam boiler lets off steam—with this difference, however, that the steam boiler gets cooler by the operation, while the boy or girl gets more heated. ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... themselves to the post of usher in some ultra- Protestant school. Sport in all its forms, art and literature, being alike forbidden, the boy's hungry energy had found no reasonable outlet. He had been miserable, peevish, ailing, until at barely eighteen—after a discreditable episode with a scullery-maid—he had been shipped off to New York to learn business in the house of certain brokers and bill-discounters with whom Messrs. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... wife one day, and leaving her depressed by their galling situation, though she was never peevish, but very sad and thoughtful, he found his father and Julia Clifford in the library. Julia had been writing letters for him; she gave Walter a deprecatory look, as much as to say, "What I am doing is by compulsion, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... wherever she arrives, She builds our quiet as she forms our lives; Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even, And opens in ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Peter was in latitude 46 deg., far below the supposed location of the strait of Juan de Fuca, and there was in sight neither Gamaland nor the sister ship. The scientists with Bering were in such a peevish mood {19} over the utter disproof of their mythical continent that they insisted on the commander wasting a whole month pottering back and forth looking for Chirikoff's ship. By this time the weather had become very warm, the drinking water very rank, and ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... came home and repeated her triumphs and comicalities to this faithful friend, but receiving no answering smile, but, on the contrary, a solemn word of reproof or warning, she would often burst into a flood of peevish tears, saying that Dora was getting cross, and did not love her as formerly. In this the good woman saw signs less fearful than those of moral disease, but no less true; saw that this exposure and excitement were rapidly wearing away the frail foundations ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... narrow sphere, within which he wandered incurably idealistic, pursuing prosaic or utilitarian objects—the favor of princes, place at Courts, the recovery of his inheritance—in a romantic and unpractical spirit.[82] Vacillating, irresolute, peevish, he roamed through all the towns of Italy, demanding more than sympathy could give, exhausting friendship, changing from place to place, from lord to lord. Yet how touching was the destiny of this laureled exile, this brilliant wayfarer on the highroads of a world he never understood! Shelley's ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... as the event amply proved, were not those likely to wage a successful war. He was regarded as a timid man, incapable of a burst of passion or a bold act. In place of resolute opinion he courted argument; with an inclination to be peevish and fretful, he was at times arrogantly pertinacious. Although his health, moreover, was delicate and he looked worn and feeble, he exhibited no consciousness of needing support, declining to reconstruct his Cabinet that abler men ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of garish prosperity, wherein they sicken like country maids; for no sooner do they get their little feet settled in a dark, still corner than they are summoned out of it, to sunlight bright and strong. Miss Nancy lives with a bedridden father, who has grown peevish through long patience; can it be that slow, senile decay which has roused in her a fierce impatience against the sluggishness of life, and that she hurries her plants into motion because she herself must halt? Her father does not theorize about it. He says, "Nancy ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... is himself, however, delicate, overgrown, with a narrow chest, a small head, and babyish features, while mentally he is backward, with very defective memory and scant powers of assimilation. He is intensely nervous, peevish, and subject to fits of childish rage. He takes violent fancies to persons of his own sex. But he appears to have only one way of obtaining sexual excitement and gratification. It is his custom to get ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis |
