"Petulancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... practice in her fright, But wrought upon his mood and hugged him close. The pale blood of the wizard at her touch Took gayer colours, like an opal warmed. She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales: She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept Of petulancy; she called him lord and liege, Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love Of her whole life; and ever overhead Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain Above them; and in change ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... laid her hand on his shoulder, for he had sat down again; and although he pushed her away with some petulance, she went on in a tone of gentle entreaty: "If we are not to be altogether too late in the field, let us consider the situation calmly. I am but a girl, and this fresh disaster will fall more hardly on me than on you; for what ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... valued by the king for more solid merits, he was needed by the king, and it was more than a table scorned or a clash of opinion upon the validity of divorce; it was a more general estrangement and avoidance of service that caused that fit of regal petulance by which he died. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Riccabocca under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... age, had for some few months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder child in Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life; but as yet the "Children in the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... meet a man in his wrath and get an invitation to dinner, you feel almost as if you had been taken in. You are heated, your arguments are at your fingers' ends, your stock of petulance is ready for immediate use; and all have to ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... convalescent, at a time too when the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... difficulties, he is harassed by sudden objections, he is unprovided with solutions or replies; his surprise impedes his natural powers of reasoning, his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... putting on a pouting face, burst into tears. Her adopted parents had always been more tolerant and indulgent to her than if she had been a child over whom they felt entire rights, and instead of rewarding her petulance with such a blow as would have fallen to the lot of a veritable Talbot, Richard shrugged his shoulders and left the room—the chamber which had been allotted to Dame Susan at the Manor-house, while Susan endeavoured to cheer the girl by telling her not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... risen. "I don't like you to tell strangers about me," he cried with passionate petulance, "and you know it. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... suggestion that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know I ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... the divinity of wind and sunlight. The romance and ecstasy that at Wiesbaden had soaked her spirit came no more. She was watching for the weak spots, the passages with which he had struggled and she had struggled; she was distracted by memories of petulance, black moods, and sudden caresses. And then she caught his eye. The look was like, yet how unlike, those looks at Wiesbaden. It had the old love-hunger, but had lost the adoration, its spiritual essence. And she thought: 'Is it my fault, or is it only because he has ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, but its significance pricked him, like a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... sharp-witted as clever men without it; but they know the balance of the human intellect better; if they are more stupid, they are more steady, and are less liable to be led astray by their own sagacity and the overweening petulance of hard-earned and late-acquired wisdom. They do not fall in love with every meretricious extravagance at first sight, or mistake an old battered hypothesis for a vestal, because they are new to the ways of this old world. They do not seize upon it as a prize, but are ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... as might encourage him so to do. To Emma, his reply was in a few words; he thanked her for her continued good opinion of him, the idea of having lost which had made him very miserable, assuring her that he was ashamed of the petulance which he had shown, and that it was for him to have asked pardon, and not one who had behaved so kindly, and protected him for so long a period; that he felt much better already, and hoped to be able to shorten the time of absence which had been demanded by ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... visitors, and visitors were a trouble. Perhaps there was impertinence in their curiosity, very likely their presence hindered him; but, nevertheless, it was by no means like the sweet-tempered Clarian to show irritability and petulance, and finally, closing his door obstinately against all comers, to elect for solitude and silence at his work. No,—the boy was changed, grown morbid, a pervert, ripe for whatever Devil's sickle might be put forth to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... glance; then he fetched a tray, piled it with refreshments, and brought it to her side. She ate and drank ravenously. The food acted on her like magic; she sat upright—her eyes sparkled, her pallor left her, and the slight shade of petulance and ill-humor which had characterized her when she entered the room gave place to a sunshiny and ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... face was a wholesome one to look into. She did not shake her head and look solemn or shocked. Neither did she laugh at his petulance. She merely said, with the sweetest of little smiles, "You may live, Jeff, to be a very useful machine yet; if not quite as strong as you were—though even that is uncertain, for doctors are fallible, ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... had found us unprotected, young woman, you would have rued the day. Their capacity for evil is only equalled by their opportunities. If your cousin had not flamed after them like an avenging sword you might have cried loudly enough for the one of whom, in your fit of unseemly petulance, you can speak so slightingly. I advise you to go to your room and thank Heaven ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... bore with great mildness the freedom used by his friends, the satirical allusions of advocates, and the petulance of philosophers. Licinius Mucianus, who had been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, but, presuming upon his great services, treated him very rudely, he reproved only in private; and when complaining of his conduct to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... described in a letter in the following collection[57], to which the reader is referred. Originally only the chief officer of those Praetorian troops in Rome by whom the Emperor was guarded, until, as was so often the case, he was in some fit of petulance by the same pampered sentinels dethroned, the Praefectus Praetorio had gradually become more and more of a judge, less and less of a soldier. In the great changes wrought by Constantine the Praetorian ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... that this is a truth which the populace is especially likely to apply wrongly, in consequence of its ignorance, passion, and heedlessness, we may answer by appealing to history, which is rather a record of excessive patience in the various nations of the earth than of excessive petulance.] ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... on those who could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authours of the Canons of Criticism and of the Review of Shakespeare's Text; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... and the Lady Hermione, while she remarked the quick, sharp, and retentive powers of observation possessed by her young friend, often found sufficient reason to caution her against rashness in forming opinions, and giddy petulance in expressing them. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... again with the elaboration of one who means to stay a long while. During his walk from the farm he had made up his mind to be of a most winning amiability and patience, blended with a determination that nothing should shake. At the door, it is true, he had been stirred to petulance by the foolish face and utterances of the footman James, but during the whole of the time he had been alone with Lady Shuttleworth he had behaved, he considered, with the ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... sleeping, and where the night waits until the passing of day. He is astonished that books have not found out the soul, and where it resides, and the air it breathes, and its form and shape. He thinks, too, of the dregs of the soul, and debates what is the best intoxication for its petulance and wonder and mockery. And, in a poem certainly late, or interpolated with fragments of a Latin hymn, he uses the eternal numeration of the mystics, and speaks of 'the nine degrees of the companies of heaven, and the tenth, saints a preparation of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... said with a sort of hurried petulance. "Know all about that. Malt's like a lot of these young new physicians—always running off on vacations. Mustn't hold me responsible for his absences. Got no time to think about the other fellow. Own affairs are enough—keep me busy. Well, go on, why don't you? ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... am a young man and a private soldier. I have not been long in this room, and already I have shown the petulance that belongs to the one character and the ill manners that you may look for in the other. Have the humanity to pass these slips over, and honour me so far as to ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he scarcely wished to look at her, and hastened through his meals that he might be alone with his thoughts. The sun had sunk, and the moon was well over the eastern mountains, before he visited the rose garden. Amy was there, and she greeted him with a pretty petulance because he had not come before. Then, in sudden compunction, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... refusing. It is the sacred purpose which makes me doubt my own judgment. It would be a painful reflection to think that the temple should suffer by my refusing this gift. Maybe I should be yielding to my own petulance or personal motives if I were to decline. I must not let my pride stand in the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... remain here for the enemy's superior force to attack us," said a third. "To struggle against such odds is folly, and prudent men submit to the decrees of fortune, instead of resisting them in a spirit of childish petulance." ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... hear the paradoxes of thy philosophy explained: but to shew thee, that I fear not thy power, thou shalt live. I will leave thee to hopeless regret; to wiles that have been scorned and defeated; to the unheeded petulance of dotage; to the fondness that is repayed with neglect; to restless wishes, to credulous hopes, and to derided command: to the slow and complicated torture of despised old age; and that, when thou shalt long have ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... manifestations of fondness increased, if possible, still Nisida would frequently sigh and look wistfully at the sea as if she would have joyed to behold a sail in the horizon. The third time the fatal close of the month drew nigh, Wagner knew not how to act; but some petulance on the part of Nisida furnished him with an excuse which his generous heart only had recourse to with the deepest, the keenest anguish. Throwing back the harsh word at her whom he loved so devotedly, he exclaimed, "Nisida, I leave thee for a few hours until ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... example of the crusades: Gens nobilis, prudens, bellicosa, dapsilis et nitida .... Quos enim Britones, Anglos, Ligures, si bonis eos moribus videamus, non illico Francos homines appellemus? (p. 478.) He owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into petulance among foreigners, (p. 488.) and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are not bound to do what I bid you—I never thought that; and you are father and mother's friend—how could I ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... snuggled in the depths of the armchair, Diantha had flung her hat aside. Her face was dreamy as she looked down at the little head against her shoulder. All her girlish coquetry, every trace of juvenile mischief, the occasional flashes of petulance which told that she was her mother's daughter had vanished. She looked ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... fingers, for instance? You know what infinite pains and patience and time it took you to do that, and do you think that you would find it easier if you once set yourself to cure that lust, say, or that petulance, pride, passion, dishonesty, or whatsoever form of selfish living in forgetfulness of God may be your besetting sin? If you will try to pull the poison fang up, you will find how deep its roots are. It is like the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he were a distillation of smiles, and yet his heart may be a swamp of nettles. There are business men who all day long are mild, and courteous, and genial, and good-natured in commercial life, damming back their irritability, and their petulance, and their discontent; but at nightfall the dam breaks, and scolding pours ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... you, Angelique," said he, "I did not expect so much condescension after my petulance at the Governor's ball; I ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... already a certain degree of authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain aptitude to rise above the purely passive state of the soul, to interrupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts. Therefore everything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these movements of the affections does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a virtue (for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he burst out, angrily, with a curious note of surprise and petulance in his voice, "you an' that brother o' yours know me, old Pap Spooner, purty doggoned well. Hev ye heard anyone ever speak a good word ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... nor there," says he with petulance. "Sandy would of been just as happy if he'd lost the whole eighteen dollars him and ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... would not be with the airs of Lucia and Traviata that she would become famous. As if in answer, the child began to hum the celebrated waltz, a moment after a beautiful Ave Maria, composed by a Fleming at the end of the fifteenth century, a quick, sobbing rhythm, expressive of naive petulance at delay in the Virgin's intercession. Mr. Innes called it natural music—music which the modern Church abhorred and shamefully ostracised; and the conversation turned on the incurably bad taste and the musical misdeeds of a certain priest, Father Gordon, whom Mr. Innes judged to be responsible ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... yeek of petulance and scampered into the living room. In a moment, he was back with something elongated and metallic which he laid ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... piece of petulance and it would have served the maker of it right to have had it granted. "A painful and lingering disease followed by death" or "Ninety, a burden to yourself and every one else"—there is not so much to pick and choose between them. Surely, "I thank thee, O Lord, that ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... indubitably necessary, I am glad the decision on the case has been complete. On these last three days I have finished my review of Tytler for Lockhart and sent it off by this post. I may have offended Peter by censuring him for a sort of petulance towards his predecessor Lord Hailes. This day visited by Mr. Carr, who is a sensible, clever young man, and by his two sisters[292]—beautiful singer the youngest—and to my taste, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... choler, impatience, passion, resentment, displeasure, indignation, peevishness, temper, exasperation, ire, pettishness, vexation, fretfulness, irritation, petulance, wrath. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... indeed, great foibles and weaknesses. She was inordinately fond of dress; she was sensitive to her own good looks; she was jealous of pretty women; she was vain, and susceptible to flattery; she was irritable when crossed; she gave way to sallies of petulance and anger; she occasionally used language unbecoming her station and authority; she could dissimulate and hide her thoughts: but her nature was not hypocritical, or false, or mean. She was just, honest, and straightforward in her ordinary dealings; she ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... displeased at my petulance and boldness, I was about to commence a kind of defence, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of us could read between the lines, or rather, between the words. Here was a prominent member of the Bar—was he K.C.? a triton among the minnows—therefore heading the table, listened to with reverence as he told of the judges, possibly of "old Stareleigh's" last exhibition of petulance—"with it's high time for him to go, etc." But if he had not silk, why did not Perker retain him instead of the incapable Phunky, whom he did not ask on this occasion. "I gave the chap a good chance, but he destroyed my whole case!" "Catch me letting ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches! what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season preserved one temperature. But it was when she could and did love me! Unchanged must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began to insist on a date being set for the wedding, Aunt Olivia grew to have a strangely disturbed look. She became very quiet, and never laughed except under protest. Also, she showed signs of petulance when any of us, but especially father, teased her about her beau. I pitied her, for I think I understood better than the others what her feelings really were. But even I was not prepared for what did happen. I would not have believed ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... answer. "An Antwerp girl would not stay here ten days, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your factory;" then softening, "You are very good, dear brother—excuse my petulance—but truly my domestic trials are severe, yet they are probably my destiny; for I recollect that our revered mother experienced similar sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants in Antwerp. Domestics are in all countries a spoiled ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... very different from the petulance that she had sometimes displayed, as on the occasion when she had been jealous of poor Bessie. And Bessie recognized the difference. It seemed to reveal a new side of Dolly's complex character, the side that was loyal and fine. Dolly was not resenting any injury, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... circumstances, however, he could not refuse to contribute to Colonel Fitz Gibbon's list; and it is recorded that when one of his sons called upon him for the amount which he had subscribed, he handed over the sum with justifiable petulance, saying: "There, go and make one great fool of yourself again."[85] Such of the rioters as were possessed of means contributed to the fund according to their respective ability, but the others were not allowed to bear more than a very small ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... excused for its impatience and petulance for it has not yet learned the inevitable facts of life—such as that breaks must be repaired, tires must be made so that they will not leak, and that the gasoline tank cannot be empty if the machine is to run. But a man, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... times before suffered from his petulance and coldness; but under present circumstances, when she sought to bring him sympathy and relief, to be repulsed, seemed as though it would break her heart. Slowly and in tears did she leave the dreadful place that confined her husband, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... at M. Belmont, Roderick was shocked at the change that had come upon him within three days. He seemed like another man, his features being pinched, his eyes sunken, and his manner quick and nervous. The normal calm of his demeanor was gone, and his stately courtesy was replaced by a restless petulance of hands. He stood uneasily near the mantel waiting for the young officer to speak. ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... not understand the object of all these questions," said the Marquise with petulance. "It seems to me that if you would only consider the state in which I am placed by my husband's insanity, you ought to be troubling yourself about him, and not ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... the wall," said Sherburne, musing; for, under the other's influence, his petulance was gone. He knew that he was not a part of this life, that he was ignorant of it; of, indeed, all that was vital in it and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... more human traits—'weak' is hardly the word I should have used. His rebuke of the Sabbatarians, His personal violence to the hucksters, His outbursts against the Pharisees, His rather unreasoning petulance against the fig-tree because it bore no fruit at the wrong season of the year, His very human feeling towards the housewife who bustled about when He was talking, his gratification that the ointment should have been used for Him instead of being devoted to the poor, His self-distrust before the ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... part of his congregation. In short, our popular declaimer has, contrary to the Scripture-caution, put new wine into old bottles, or new cloth on old garments. He has, with an unlimited and daring licence, mixed the sacred and the profane together, the carnal and the spiritual man, the petulance of the bar with the dogmatism of the pulpit, the theatrical and theological, the modern and the obsolete;—what wonder that this splendid piece of patchwork, splendid by contradiction and contrast, has delighted some ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... one in Cannes; she knew few if any Englishmen, yet the face, with its combined hint of cynicism and petulance, was undoubtedly familiar. It stirred some vibration in her memory, recent, and in an indefinable way unpleasant. Where had ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... with conventionalities, Don!" she exclaimed, her emotion showing itself in petulance. "I had to come and have an understanding ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Plymley. I had forgotten his very existence till I discerned the queer contrast between his black coat and his snow-white head, and the equally curious contrast between the clerical amplitude of his person, and the most unclerical wit, whim, and petulance of his eye. I shook hands with him very heartily; and on the Catholic question we immediately fell, regretted Evans, triumphed over Lord George Beresford, and abused the Bishops. [These allusions refer to the general election which had recently taken place.] He then very kindly ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the populousness and riches of the first metropolis of Christendom. [68] Descending from his state, young Alexius was prompted by interest and gratitude to repeat his frequent and familiar visits to his Latin allies; and in the freedom of the table, the gay petulance of the French sometimes forgot the emperor of the East. [69] In their most serious conferences, it was agreed, that the reunion of the two churches must be the result of patience and time; but avarice was less tractable than zeal; and a larger sum ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... long-sustained periods of indifference, unbroken by a single word of kindness. And as days passed by and this indifference continued, until at times seeming ready to give place to openly expressed dislike, and her ears became more and more accustomed to words of hasty petulance, and Sergius grew still deeper absorbed in the infatuation which possessed him, and less careful to conceal its influences from her, and the Greek girl glided hither and thither, ever less anxious, as she ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... said, "Always meet petulance with gentleness, and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even an elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness. Opposition to peace is sin." The Buddhist says, "If a man foolishly does me wrong ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... with any illusion, and to accept the inevitable good-temperedly. Plunged as we are in human existence, we must take it as it comes, not too bitterly, nor too tragically, without horror and without sarcasm, without misplaced petulance or a too exacting expectation; cheerfulness, serenity, and patience, these are best—let us aim at these. Our business is to treat life as the grandfather treats his granddaughter, or the grandmother her grandson; to enter into the pretenses of childhood and the fictions of youth, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her, mounting the zigzags of the Castle-hill. There was still the same elasticity of step, the same imperial carriage of the graceful head; but a less observant eye would have detected the change in her demeanor. The pretty petulance and provocative manner which, contrasting with the royalty of her form and feature, contributed so much to her marvelous fascinations, had departed, he feared, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... surprise to see the sudden look of petulance that crossed the other's face. "Oh, my working-tools!—You see you can't understand. You, of course, only need ink and paper. But we painters must have plenty of implements to work with.—Why, I kept them and starved! ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... marriage. But the realization of what that change was hurt her cruelly. He looked mean and base as he had never looked before. The old amiable submission to adversities had given place to an expression of petulance, of resentment, of cunning, of cowardice. Or was it that Sylvia was looking at him ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... me to go lumbering, mother?" he inquired in a tone that had a touch of petulance in it. "I've got to do something for myself, and I detest shopkeeping. It's not in my line at all. Fellows like Tom Clemon and Jack Stoner may find it suits them, but I can't bear the idea of being shut up in a shop or office all day. I want to be out of doors. ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... rightly the cause of her petulance, I was at first disposed to resent it; but, reflecting that a maiden is no more responsible for her tongue than a donkey for his heels in this season of life (but both must be for ever a-flying out at some one when parted from the ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... larger eyne, Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing Some little petulance in mine, And loved me all the more, for ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... regular time; and the cries for Mr. Kemble became so loud, that the manager thought proper to obey the summons. Amid all these scenes of uproar he preserved his equanimity, and was never once betrayed into any expression of petulance or anger. With some difficulty he obtained a hearing. He entered into a detail of the affairs of the theatre, assuring the audience at the same time of the solicitude of the proprietors to accommodate themselves to the public wish. This was received ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... in seeming petulance, oppressed With heat has cast his brown young body free: With arms behind his head and heaving breast He lies and gazes at the cool bright sea; So young Leander might when in the noon He panted for the starry eyes of eve And whispered o'er the waste of wandering ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... and down indefatigably, preparing everything for the accommodation of the guests, smoothing down Deborah's petulance, and keeping her mother from over-exertion or anxiety. Much contrivance was indeed required, for besides the colonel and his son, two soldiers had to be lodged, and four horses, which, to the consternation of old Margery, seemed likely to devour the cow's winter store of ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Drake?' Clarice asked as she gave him her hand. The disappointment in her voice irritated him, and he answered with a sharp petulance. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... the grievances, on account of which he was determined to break with his mother, and adopt the manner of life of which I have just spoken, all to play the part of the young Emilius. Alarmed at his petulance, I immediately wrote to him, endeavoring to make him change his resolution, and my exhortations were as strong as I could make them. They had their effect. He returned to his duty, to his mother, and took ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... un indifferent in matters of human fortune. His earlier poems, of course, are much concerned with the matter of most early poems—with Lydia and Cynthia and their light loves. The verses of his second period often deal with the most evanescent subjects, and they now retain but a slight petulance and sparkle, as of champagne that has been too long drawn. In a prefatory plea for M. De Banville's poetry one may add that he "has loved our people," and that no poet, no critic, has honoured Shakespeare with ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward might haply come to mean something disastrous to him. The touch of Mrs. Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling. He detained it, audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and looked sharply over at Laura. Did she know about this? Was it the explanation of her petulance and discontented attitude? That fellow Madison was now a man of means. The coincidence of the despatch brought back to the broker's mind the night scene on the terrace in Denver, and later their conversation at the boarding ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... said Ormond. "I know his Grace well. While the rebuke of his aspiring petulance was a matter betwixt your Majesty and him, he might have let it pass by; but a check before a fellow from whom it was likely enough to travel through the Court, was ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... insults the character of a vague, unnamed general to whose petulance and busy-body spirit he ascribed the order which made ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... of his intention among his friends, and one, in particular, was privy to his whole course of preparation. This was Mr. McCrab, a pungent little personage, whose occasional petulance and acrimony, however they might rankle and fester in more sensitive natures, were never known to curdle the bland consciousness of self-esteem which dwelt, like a perpetual spring, upon the mind of Mr. Stubbs. Mr. McCrab was himself an amateur actor; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... get it done in quite as good time as you have, Signor Fortini. Pray allow me to judge for myself, when I think it right to make my will. I have usually been able to manage my own affairs." He spoke with a degree of anger and petulance, jumping up from his chair, and taking a turn to the window and back again, which seemed to conquer the shivering fit from which he had ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... say that Alicia would very much have preferred a hearty pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative disunion; but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady. She had soft answers for the turning away of wrath. She could smile bewitchingly at her step-daughter's open petulance, and laugh merrily at the young lady's ill-temper. Perhaps had she been less amiable, had she been more like Alicia in disposition, the two ladies might have expended their enmity in one tremendous quarrel, and might ever afterward have been affectionate and friendly. But Lucy Audley would not ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... this sort of humour, in which was the old admiral, would soon pass away, and then that he would listen to him comfortably enough; so he would not allow the least exhibition of petulance or mere impatience to escape himself, but contented himself by waiting until the ebullition of feeling fairly worked ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in her voice had changed from sharp petulance to a low sort of wail. She sank on a chair, laid her head on the table which stood near, and burst ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Southern. Generally, men of very grave, reflective, and unprejudiced minds, students in the philosophy of society and history, men known for their lofty ideal of liberty or of culture, appeared to be on the side of the North; and the calm, unfaltering attitude, free from petulance and invective, of those operative classes in Lancashire, whom the war ruined for a while, has often been pointed to as showing that the more informed and intelligent workingmen were also for the North. They endured a great calamity without murmuring, because they thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... reprimanded, much against her will, by the Duchess, and ordered to retire for a season to his convent. She did not attempt to disguise her dissatisfaction at every step which had been taken by the Duke. In all this there was much petulance, but very little dignity, while there was neither a spark of real sympathy for the oppressed millions, nor a throb of genuine womanly emotion for the impending fate of the two nobles. Her principal grief was that she had pacified the provinces, and that another had now arrived to reap the glory; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with everybody and everything, until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the happy restoration ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... never mentions the name of Jamieson, and in 1826 he spoke boldly of himself as breaking into "unknown and untrodden paths." It is not impossible that Sir Walter Scott's patronage of Jamieson had something to do with the ungenerous petulance of Borrow's references to ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... give me trouble during the next day, but that was more in the way of unreasonable demands and petulance than through hysteric exhibitions. She did not repeat her request to be landed, which was now quite impracticable, as we were well out in the Atlantic, but she referred ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... thou'lt never be better for any body's example! Thy ill-nature and perverseness will continue to keep thee from that."—"My ill-temper, you have often told me, is natural to me; so it must become me: but upon such a sweet-tempered young lady as Miss Polly, her late assumed petulance sits ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... only hope nothing had been heard in the corridor, but her first surreptitious glance was not consolatory. Camille, with an expression oddly commingled of mirth and petulance, was intensely busy with her glove-fastening, while the broad back of George Dalton, who was apparently as busy gazing from a barred window against a stone wall, had a most uncanny look of intelligence about it. As for the sheriff—he ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... no man with more courtesy and politeness than she treats her father and her brothers—treat no woman more kindly and politely than she does her mother and her sisters. Let her not confine all her graces and fascinations to strangers, and make her family to endure all her petulance and unamiability. So let the brother treat his mother and sisters. So let the father and mother treat each other and their children, and you will, my readers, obtain a noble reward in the increasing happiness and comfort of your family circles—in the manliness which will belong to the sons—in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... was so perfect—her cheek's turn, her voice, sweet with a trace of petulance, her fingers—that it was sustained in a flooding illumination through the commonplace revealing act of supper. It was as if the eighteen years since Hannah, his Hannah, was a reality were but momentary, the passage of the valley. His love for her ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... into his throne with much of the petulance of manner that is observable in the demeanour of a spoilt child when its temper has been ruffled, from which I surmised that the impression produced upon the ladies of his harem by His Majesty's martial garb had fallen short ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... not what is known as rustication; for Milton did not lose a term, taking his two degrees of B.A. and M.A. in regular course, at the earliest date from his matriculation permitted by the statutes. The one outbreak of juvenile petulance and indiscipline over, Milton's force of character and unusual attainments acquired him the esteem of his seniors. The nickname of "the lady of Christ's" given him in derision by his fellow-students, is an attestation of virtuous conduct. Ten years later, in 1642, Milton takes an opportunity ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... being given in marriage by Mrs. Devar, I assure you," began Medenham, smiling anxiously, for the fatherly "tell me all about it" was not being borne out by the Earl's petulance. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... no misfortune in itself," she retorted with some little petulance. "It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... felt where Flora reigns; The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, And sullen sadness that o'ershade, distort, And mar the face of beauty, when no cause For such immeasurable woe appears, These Flora banishes, and gives the fair Sweet smiles, and bloom ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... wife!' she answered; and flashed her eyes on him in sudden petulance; and then, 'Well, perhaps if my lady had her choice—to be wife to a rake can be no bed of roses, Sir George! While to be wife to a ruined rake—perhaps to be wife to a man who, if he were not ruined, would treat you as the dirt beneath his feet, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... you love me at all, when you want a great hulking boatman to be in the boat with us, watching us," said the bride, with pretty childish petulance. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... tends to sculpture the body into beauty or into ugliness. Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, petulance, discontent, every dishonest act, every falsehood, every feeling of envy, jealousy, fear,—each has its effect on the system, and acts deleteriously like a poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James of Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, "Every small stroke of virtue or ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... old," no one believed it, and he did not believe it himself, for he entitled the piece 'Fanfaronnade'; and in fact it was nothing more than a fanfaronnade. The book was full of the freshness, buoyancy, and frolicsome petulance of youth. Here and there a few reminiscences might be traced to the earliest poets of the sixteenth century, more particularly to Clement Marot. A tinge of the expiring romanticism lingered in 'Les Amoureuses' with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... eyes were set like a sleep-walker's. With one hand he gesticulated. The fingers of the other were twitching all the time. His head was lifted to the skies. There was something in his face which redeemed it from its disfiguring petulance. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the whole family," she returned, with a petulance which she made an effort to disguise. "Roscoe and he got acquainted somewhere, and they take him to the theater about every other night. Sibyl has him to lunch, too, and keeps—" She broke off with an ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... how to humor me, and walked beside me, saying nothing. I glanced at his face, half shamed of my petulance, and I saw that he was no longer smiling. His lips were closed in that firm straight line which I had already seen once or twice, and which during years of trial became habitual to him. My own petty anger vanished ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said—I had to let the neighbours ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... seems to me no cross or critical word is ever spoken, whose boys and girls trust her absolutely and love her devotedly, learned her patience and forbearance, acquired her fine courtesy and graciousness in the years when she was a misunderstood girl and had to live in an atmosphere of petulance, ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... more timid Tories professed to fear has already fallen upon us. We are ruled by ignorant people. But the most ignorant people in modern Britain are to be found in the upper class, the middle class, and especially the upper middle class. I do not say it with the smallest petulance or even distaste; these classes are often really beneficent in their breeding or their hospitality, ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... remains "to credit," there are not a few things to be set on the other side of the account. The sameness of the chanson story, the almost invariable recurrence of the stock motives and frameworks—of rebellion, treason, paynim invasion, petulance of a King's son, somewhat too "coming" affection of a King's daughter, tyrannical and Lear-like impotentia of the King himself, etc.—may be exaggerated, but cannot be denied. In the greatest of all by general acknowledgment, the far-famed Roland, the economy of pure story interest is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... if you desire it," said Richard, with a shade of sternness in his voice, stopping the horses suddenly, after two miles of what would have been ill-temper if we had been married, but was now perhaps only petulance. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... to extricate me from jeopardy, and that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery—it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good humour, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in the room, and a shilling under each. The ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is not another Tweed. I sometimes fancy the world may be mad—yet that seems egotistical. The fact remains that for the greater part of my young life Mr. Sandsome got an appetite upon us from nine till twelve, and digested his dinner, at first placidly and then with petulance, from two until five—and we thirty odd boys were sent by our twenty odd parents to act as a sort of chorus to his physiology. And he was fed (as I judge) more than sufficiently, clothed, sheltered, and esteemed on account of this relation. I think, after all, there must have been something ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Michel Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] confessed that he had thus avenged himself in a fit of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... attention and eagerness by all present, both ladies and gentlemen—by the lowly and the distinguished. And though the intensity of the feelings of all was manifest by a mere glimpse round the court, yet any momentary display of eccentricity on the part of a witness, or of petulance or repartee on the part of counsel, would occasion a momentary merriment which, in point of fact, served only as a sort of relief to the strained feelings of the audience, and instantly disappeared. The tombstone part of the case was got through easily; scarcely any attempt being made ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... insult to himself and his country calmly was very doubtful, and we all awaited Lord Whitworth's reply in trembling silence. With compressed lips and eyes that flashed in spite of himself, but with a calmness in marked contrast to Bonaparte's petulance, he replied: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... introduction of negroes into a feudal baron's castle" (in The Castle Spectre) "exclaimed against with as much vehemence as if a dramatic anachronism had been an offence undeserving of benefit of clergy, I said in a moment of petulance, that to prove of how little consequence I esteemed such errors, I would make a play upon the Gunpowder Plot, and make Guy Faux in love with the Emperor Charlemagne's daughter. By some chance or other, this idea fastened itself upon me, and ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... triumphantly upon; there is a raw thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their grand-daughters, when a new novel is announced? That mail-coach copies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... the aspirant, proudly conscious of a certain technical skill in composition and construction, and disheartened by repeated failures, exclaims with petulance: "What shall I write about?" She dolefully imagines that the list of feasible subjects is exhausted; her wearied brain refuses any longer to carry on its sterile activities, and despair settles down upon her. This is because ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... mercifully given her occupation, first with the Judge, and later, when she needed it more, with Clarence. It was she whom he recognized first of all, whose name was on his lips in his waking moments. With the petulance of returning reason, he pushed his mother away. Unless Virginia was at his bedside when he awoke, his fever rose. He put his hot hand into her cool one, and it rested there sometimes for hours. Then, and only ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of cooping yourself in here all day, just thinking and smoking cigarettes," grumbled Dade, himself worried to the point of nervous petulance. If he could have taken his own riata and fought also, he would have been much nearer his usual ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... me; of resentments never to be got over for my seducing her away; these angry commands to leaver her:—What shall we say, if all were to mean nothing but MATRIMONY? And what if my forbearing to enter upon that subject come out to be the true cause of their petulance and uneasiness! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... pretty generally characterise Italian politics. These narrow politics, which support themselves by cunning and temporizing, were incompatible with the French blood, that circulated in his veins; and the continual conflicts, that arose between his novel inclinations and his natural petulance, were incessantly rendering his words and actions at variance, and leading him into devious paths, where he could not fail, to go ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... his brother, yet with no petulance in his tone, "pray go not too hard with me at the start. I thought I had done fairly well, to sit at the table of the council of coinage on my first day in London. 'Tis not every young man gets so far ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... retained their seats at the amply filled table. But Alec rose from his and departed without a word, or even a glance in Murray's smiling direction. The rudeness, the petulance of his action! These things left his mother and sister ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads. Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice, Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where she hid the notions which she dimly felt looked best in the dark, she reflected that an attack of some mild disease might be a valuable ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... the Austins and the vow he had registered on his return. There was thus an artificial element in his punctilio that at times might almost raise a smile. But it stood on noble grounds; for this was how he sought to shelter from his own petulance the woman who was to him the symbol of the household and to the end the ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as his enchantress. Within a month of his arrival in Barkington he obtained Mrs. Dodd's permission to ask his father's consent to propose an engagement to Julia, which was promptly refused; and inquiry, petulance, tenderness, and logic were alike wasted on Mr. Hardie by his son in vain. He would give no reason. But Mrs. Dodd, knowing him of old, had little doubt, and watched her daughter day and night to find whether love or pride was the stronger, all the mother in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... pleasant to see that Emily had grown innocently, childishly fond of her cousin, and her fondness expressed itself in a number of pretty ways. 'Now, Hubert, Hubert, get out of my way,' she would say, feigning a charming petulance; or she would come and drag him out of his chair, saying, 'Come, Hubert, I can't allow you to lie there any longer; I have to go to South Water, and want you ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... Forester, who knew nothing of the application to his friends, obtained the vacant clerkship. He did not, however, long continue in his new situation. At first he felt happy, when he found himself relieved from, the vulgar petulance of Miss M'Evoy and her brother Colin: in comparison with their rude ill-humours, the clerks who were his companions appeared patterns of civility. By hard experience, Forester was taught to know, that obliging manners in our companions add something to ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... to Ascher the better I liked him. His admiration for his wife's sensitiveness to sound was very touching. I am convinced that he knew a great deal more about music than she did and appreciated it more. But her sudden outbursts of petulance when the band played seemed to Ascher a plain proof that she had the spirit of an artist. He confided in me that it gave him real pleasure to see her and Gorman together because, as artists, they must have much in common. Ascher has a very simple and beautiful nature. No one with any other kind ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... oblivious of its existence—would lurch against it as a man inspired with rum might treat a lamp-post intent on getting in his way. Leering at the post for a second, the bird would march round again to shoulder it roughly a second time. Then a queer look of simulated petulance and indignation would spread over its features, and, taking in its measure, the bird would lash out at the post with grim earnestness. A cyclonic attack ensued. With many feints and huddling up of its neck, and dodges, and ducks, and lateral movements ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the leader of the cowboys. And then, with the petulance of one that is "all in": ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... him at this time of night," said Stafford, with the petulance of weariness. Why did ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... answer, unless a slight shrug and a passing his hand across his face with a rather dispirited gesture be an answer. I feel ashamed of my petulance. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... bushes, the silent soaring trees of fir and ash, it seemed as if this was no other than the land of outer darkness whereto the lost are driven at the end. It maddened him to think of what he had been brought to; he shook his fist in a childish and impotent petulance at the spacious unregarding east where Doom lay—the scene of all ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... had not thought it was dead, but had prayed that, faded and choked though it were, yet it might find life in the sunshine of my love and the water of her tears. But she did not weep, unless in a passing petulance because I asked what she could not give; and the clouds swept dark over my love's ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... in the economic wisdom of the ministers was further weakened by the gratuitous abandonment of the malt tax, apparently in a fit of petulance, on the ground, explicitly stated, that, if another war tax must be raised, two or three millions more or less would make little difference. By a temporary suspension of the sinking fund, a deficit might be converted ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when they start chasing frightened ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... of your gratitude and the promise of your attachment are, certainly, very touching," said Madame de Fleury, with a scornful petulance which she had never before evinced toward Madeleine; "but I beg leave to decline the indebtedness. You have forced me to remember, for the first time, that when a lady in my station deals with a person in your sphere, it is ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... me back to tell me that?" said Thorne, who now realy felt angry at the impertinent petulance of the man before him: "you should consider, Scatcherd, that my time may be of value to others, if not ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... John's. To all, except Lucie, it was evident his absence would be unregretted; for he could not but remark the cold and altered manner of Mad. de la Tour, which she vainly endeavored to disguise, by an air of studied politeness; nor the reserve and petulance of De Valette, which he did not attempt to conceal. La Tour was too politic to display his dislike towards one, whose services were so useful to him; though his prejudices were, in ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... superiority.] Insolence — N. insolence; haughtiness &c adj.; arrogance, airs; overbearance^; domineering &c v.; tyranny &c 739. impertinence; sauciness &c adj.; flippancy, dicacity^, petulance, procacity^, bluster; swagger, swaggering &c v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c adj.; effrontery, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the packet; it was about six inches square, and inside it he found another packet, which contained a packet, and so on. At the fourth he hurled the whole thing into the snow. Denys took it out and rebuked his petulance. He excused himself on the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed. Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance—combined with some transient perverseness and petulance—I said at last,— ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... it, Sabrey," said the old gentleman, with an air of petulance, and without deigning any direct answer to the troublesome question,—"why is it that you cannot take the opinion of your friends, who know so much more than you do about these matters, instead of raising, as I have noticed you have lately seemed inclined to do, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... forced itself on the attention of every one was the perfect order that prevailed throughout the camp, and which more particularly marked proceedings in the council. Whether the demands put forward were granted by the Governor or not, there was no petulance, no ill-feeling, evinced; but everything was done with a calm dignity that was pleasing to behold, and which might be copied with advantage ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... charmingly and told how clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a piece of petulance which ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... are my true friend. I feel that I can trust you. You wouldn't deceive me, Harry?" throwing into her eyes a look of trust and tenderness that melted away all his petulance and distrust. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... unsuccessfully, and no other pieces of his meeting with any applause, the reader will probably look upon him as a man of little genius; he had a power however of rendering his conversation agreeable by a facetious and gentleman-like manner, without any of the stiffness of the scholar, or the usual petulance of a poet. He always lived in affluent circumstances, and by mixing with genteel company, his habit of elegance was never lost, a fate which too frequently happens to those, who, notwithstanding the brightest parts, are excluded the circle of politeness by the oppressions of poverty. In ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... to sit once more for you as I did the other day," she continued with playful petulance, "I will never consent to do such a thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at all, and yet you ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... the kingdom have a fair, open, and exact report of the actual proceedings of their representatives and legislators, which in our constitution is highly to be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been too much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most respectable character ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... for corn, and for this energy Mr. Wingfield gives credit to "Mr. Smith especially," "which relieved the colony well." To the report that was brought him that he was charged with starving the colony, he replies with some natural heat and a little show of petulance, that may be taken as an evidence of weakness, as well as of sincerity, and exhibiting the undignified nature of all ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... by the conflict of testimony, making often the probabilities of success to vibrate backwards and forwards with as much apparent uncertainty as the chances in a game of hazard, is no doubt often the reason and apology for apparent disrespect in manner and language; but let it be observed, that petulance in conflicts with the Bench, which renders the trial of causes disagreeable to all concerned, has most generally an injurious effect ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had been many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read this simple lesson ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... in a pleading petulance as she looked into his face, still holding on to the sleeve of his coat to detain him the longer, "just think of this letter of Pencoyd's; nothing has ever been offered you better than this. He has the very best people in Philadelphia on his list, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... all that happy, noisy family, only he and Hermann left! In one of the open doorways, for it was warm, a final caress of vanishing summer, he saw a fat, youngish woman knitting woolen hose. Two or three children sprawled about her knees. There was that petulance of lip and forehead which marked the dissatisfaction of the ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... that, as soon as he had put together a large lump of gold, he would go back to Cambridge and win Hester Bolton to be his wife. But yet what a singular woman was this Mrs. Smith! As to marrying her, that of course had been a joke produced by the petulance of his snoring friend. He began to dislike Shand, because he did snore so loudly, and drank so much bottled ale, and smelt so strongly of cavendish tobacco. Mrs. Smith was at any rate much too good for Shand. Surely she must have been ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... one than that, her husband thought, was to see her in her boat at sunset; when sea and sky were aflame, when every flake of foam was a rainbow, and the great chalk-cliffs were blood-red; when the wind blew her net off, and in pretty petulance she pulled her hair down, and it rippled all about her as she dipped into ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... another should feel thus abashed, it is certainly one who has first to ask their pardon for the petulance of boyish expressions of partial thought; for ungraceful advocacy of principles which needed no support from him, and discourteous blame of work of which he had never felt ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin |
