"Termagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Several bullocks were here purchased, and a considerable quantity of onions. At noon, on the 24th, having gained no intelligence, the fleet again weighed, and stood for Ceuta; but variable winds, and a thick fog, kept them all night in Gibraltar Gut. About four o'clock, next morning, the Termagant joined, with an account of the combined fleet's having been seen, the 19th of June, by the Curieux brig, standing to the northward. At eight, the Spaniards fired a few shot, from Tariffa, at the Victory; which, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... little lieutenant knew that kind-hearted termagant, Aunt Becky, too well, to be long cast down or even flurried by her onset. When the same little Puddock, about a year ago, had that ugly attack of pleurisy, and was so low and so long about recovering, and so puny and fastidious in ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... waywardness drives her would-be husband to despair. She squanders his money, visits the theatre on the very day of their marriage ignoring the presence of her husband in such a manner, that he wishes himself in his grave, or rid of the termagant, who has destroyed the peace of his life.—The climax is reached on his discovery among the accounts, all giving proof of his wife's reckless extravagance, a billet-doux, pleading for a clandestine meeting in his own garden. Malatesta ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... play with a man's toys?" To return to the subject in hand. Will you put me quite out of your mind and thoughts? Can you? If so, I pray you do so. For I love you not at all. 'Tis so absurd of you to want to marry the little red-haired termagant you used to play with. And believe me, I'm naught now save a big red-haired termagant. And I love you not one whit more than I did in the old days when I used to hate you. Perhaps 'twould be folly to say that I never will love you. I might meet you somewhere, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... said of one who has a termagant for his wife, that he has married the Devil's daughter, and lives ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the Church Termagant. They are the Scolds of the Church-hold, terrible from the beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they have always a burden against something. Obsta decisis is their motto,—"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are called for, the Church ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... its best to place the peccant husband above the suffering wife. Some called her a poor spiritless thing, and declared, that, with a little of her sister's spirit, she might have brought to reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were it the termagant Falconbridge himself. But the greater part of their acquaintance affected candour, and saw faults on both sides; though, in fact, there only existed the oppressor and the oppressed. The tone of such critics was—"To be sure, no one will ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they have always a burden against something. Obsta decisis is their motto,—"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are called for, the Church Termagant holds up its hand. A turbulent people, and a troublesome, are these sons of thunder,—a brotherhood of universal come-outers. Their only concord is disagreement. It is not often, perhaps, that they have better thoughts than the rest of men, but a superior ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... brain had worked busily since the message reached him. He was glad Pauline had not been with him to hear it. She was such a jealous little termagant. He entered the room the moment after Lafayette and Barrington had left it by ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... has hit it; why should we endanger our Men against a desperate Termagant; If he love Wounds and Scars so well, let him exercise on our Enemies—but if he will needs fall upon us, 'tis then time enough for us to venture our ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... off, and their wives talkin' to them. Even the girl couldn't make 'em forget the honor of capturing Crop-eared Jose here in Colina, so run along, run along. The girl's too pretty to be hurt with a frisky horse. My Lord!" striding down the hall again, "you fools stop scrapping with that termagant and put her out, put ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the name was vitiated into Wolfert's Roost, probably from its quaint cock-loft look, or from its having a weather-cock perched on every gable. This name it continued to bear, long after the unlucky Wolfert was driven forth once more upon a wrangling world, by the tongue of a termagant wife; for it passed into a proverb through the neighborhood, and has been handed down by tradition, that the cock of the Roost was the most hen-pecked bird ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... to it? heere's some of us knowes how to runne away and they be put to it. Though wee have left our brave Generall, the Earle of Pembrooke, yet here's Cavaliero Bowyer, Core and Nod, by Jesu, sound cards: and Mahound and Termagant[148] come against us, weele fight with them. Couragio, my hearts! S. George for the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... could'—it must be done. Do you think I could sleep under this roof, propped up by the timbers of that ruined tienda? Do you think I could wear those diamonds again, while that termagant shop-woman can say that her money bought them? No! If you are my husband's friend you will do this—for—for his sake." She stopped, locked and interlocked her cold fingers before her, and said, hesitating and mechanically, "You meant well, Captain Poindexter, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Mitchell, D'Iraeli, Moncton Milnes and the rest, are classed under the common term of boyocracy, a very good phrase to denote the ridiculous portions of the young creed. Though the author has no view of this class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of a coxcomb himself, he has no mercy on the fop turned politician and theologian. The mistake of his satire on Young Ireland ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... and hypochondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... letter the late Marquis had appended in pencil. "Of course Rochebriant never denies the claim of a kinswoman, even though a drawing-master's daughter. Beautiful creature, Louise, but a termagant. I could not love Venus if she were a termagant. L.'s head turned by the unlucky discovery that her mother was noble. In one form or other, every woman has the same disease—vanity. Name of her intended ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... think your time may not be better employed in tracing the fugitives. I believe he gained entrance as one of some dancing or masking party. Rowley, you know, is accessible to all who will come forth to make him sport. So in stole this termagant tearing gallant, like Samson among the Philistines, to pull down our fine scheme about ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... wakened me, then drink with me! It is an interesting tale, brother, that of the boot! I didn't want to go with Olga. I don't like to be bossed. She came under the window and began to abuse me. She always was a termagant. You know what women are like, all of them. I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot and heaved it at her. Ha-ha-ha! Teach her not to scold another time! But it didn't! Not a bit of it! She climbed in at the window, lit the lamp, and began to hammer poor ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... parish of the shire of Ayr since the Reformation. Two of the bairns, after no small sifting and searching, we got fathered at last; but the third, that was by Meg Glaiks, and given to one Rab Rickerton, was utterly refused, though the fact was not denied; but he was a termagant fellow, and snappit his fingers at the elders. The next day he listed in the Scotch Greys, who were then quartered at Ayr, and we never heard more of him, but thought he had been slain in battle, till one of the parish, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... A VERY termagant woman, if she happens also to be a very artful one, will be conscious she has so much to conceal, that the dread of betraying her real temper will make her put on an over-acted softness, which, from its very excess, may be ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... to her, which was not a thing to be lightly forgiven to any handsome and stalwart gentleman. Besides this, he had been so moved by the piteous case of the poor Queen, during her one hopeless battle for her rights when this termagant beauty was first thrust upon her as lady of her bedchamber, that on those cruel days during the struggle when the poor Catherine had found herself sitting alone, deserted, while her husband and her courtiers gathered in laughing, worshipping ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... waxed wroth, And vowed, by his troth,— While the beggar slunk into a corner,— If his termagant wife Did not end her ill strife, He would change words for ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... caught them in the corridor. She was beside herself, but the only outward symptoms were a white face and a cold steely voice that grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of the adherents of Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly developed into a termagant—without knowing it! ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... studio, his father pursued him for some fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature, as became the father-in-law of Jan Steen, called out to his other pupils—"Berg hem" (Hide him!) and the phrase stuck, and became his best-known name. Nicolas married a termagant, but never allowed her to impair ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... assume in Kate Peyton. And yet she had great influence, and softly governed "her master" for his good. She would come into the room and take away the bottle, if he was committing excess; but she had a way of doing it, so like a good, but resolute mother, and so unlike a termagant, that he never resisted. Upon the whole, she nursed his mind, as in earlier days she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... romance was sad and bad and mad enough while it lasted; and when Clothilde was (figuratively) dragged from my arms I cursed and swore and out-Heroded Herod, played Termagant, and summoned the heavens to fall down and crush me miserable beneath their weight. And then her brother challenged me to fight a duel, whereupon, as the most worshipped of all She's had not received a ha'porth of harm at my hands, I called him a silly ass and threatened to break his head ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... his vow. Ye will not smile If, at the first, the best that he could do Was with his first poor penny-piece to buy A cat, and bring her home, under his coat By stealth (or else that termagant, the cook, Had drowned it in the water-butt, nor deemed The water worse to drink). So did he quell First his own plague, but bettered others, too. Now, in those days, Marchaunt Adventurers Shared with their prentices the happy chance Of each new venture. Each might ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... say, as forms avaunt At sleep's departure: toiling long and sore He seeks the damsel there, 'twixt plant and plant, Now can his wretched eyes behold her more. Blaspheming his Mahound and Termagant, And cursing every master of his lore, Ferrau returned towards the sylvan fount, Where lay on earth the helmet ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... irritable &c. adj. temper; genus irritabile[Lat], hot blood. ill humor &c. (sullenness) 901a; asperity &c., churlishness &c. (discourtesy) 895. huff &c. (resentment) 900; a word and a blow. Sir Fretful Plagiary; brabbler[obs3], Tartar; shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, scold, Xantippe; porcupine; spitfire; fire eater &c. (blusterer) 887; fury &c. (violent person) 173. V. be irascible &c. adj.; have a temper &c. n., have a devil in one; fire up &c. (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; bad-tempered, ill-tempered; irritable, susceptible; excitable ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Pantag'ruel, who dressed him in a ragged doublet, a cap with a cock's feather, and married him to "an old lantern-carrying hag." The prince gave the wedding-feast, which consisted of garlic and sour cider. His wife, being a regular termagant, "did beat him like plaster, and the ex-tyrant did not dare call his soul his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... now Lady Mary's turn to show confusion at the old termagant's talk, and she coloured as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I forgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of "baboon" because of the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary was not to be trusted when I was near by. My father used to say that ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... we not all know to what a termagant you are united? and her temper and high rank combined must no doubt make her a sweet companion." Here he burst into a loud laugh, and the little man actually strutted with a feeling of superiority over ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise! I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod pray you ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... young fellow like him bent on taking responsibilities he don't know the heft of." Ketchel only grinned at Bill Sheehan's doleful prophecy for he knew the root of it, as the fireman's wife was something of a termagant and the sound of her scoldings had reached ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madam established a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gone through before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, first, she would station herself plump in the middle ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... raged. The husband was at his wit's end. "You think of nothing, sir." "You spend too much." "You gad about, sir." "You are idle." Indeed she had so much to say that, in the end, tired of hearing such a termagant, he sent her to her parents in the country. There she mixed with those who minded the turkeys and pigs until she was thought to be somewhat tamed, when the husband ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... reduced those he insulted by his love below the level of the poor Georgian slave, who knows no higher destiny than to glitter for a few short moons as the star of the harem. But if some of the women of that court were deeply degraded—if the termagant and imperious Castlemaine; the lovely and intriguing Denham; the coquettish, cold, and cunning Richmond; the innately-dissipated and unrestrainable Southesk; the equivocal Middleton; the rapacious, prodigal, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... addresses to me. But I never gave them an opportunity, for before they could open their lips, I poured a torrent of satirical reproaches in their ears that struck them all dumb; insomuch, that it was said some of them never recovered their speech afterward. Do you not hate me, my prince, for being such a termagant?" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... the signs of property which he was beginning to consider as Susan's greatest charms. He had secretly said to himself, that if Eleanor Hebthwaite and Susan Dixon were equal in point of riches, he would sooner have Eleanor by far. He had begun to consider Susan as a termagant; and when he thought of his intercourse with her, recollections of her somewhat warm and hasty temper came far more readily to his mind than any remembrance ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and disagreeablest children, so it happened with Liberty, who doted on this daughter to such a degree, that by her good will she would never suffer the girl to be out of her sight. As Miss Faction grew up, she became so termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter gave her warning to be gone; and her mother rather than forsake her, took the whole family down to earth. She landed at first in Greece, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... intelligent man is certain to increase. Such a man does every act with cleverness. In consequence of self-restraint, he succeeds in winning great fame. Home-keeping men of little understanding have to put up with termagant wives that eat up their flesh like the progeny of a crab eating up their dam. There are men who through loss of understanding become very cheerless at the prospect of leaving home. They say unto themselves,—These are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... married, the children should never cry, nor the servants commit a fault: they'd set the house to rights; they would do every thing. But the lion-like talkers abroad are mere baa-lambs at home, being generally dupes and slaves to some termagant mistress, against whose imperiousness they dare not open their lips, {50}but are frightened even if she frowns. Old bachelors, in this, resemble your pretenders to atheism, who make a mock in public of what in private they tremble at and fall down to. When they ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... the tortuous ways of the Seaton towards his own door, he met sounds of mingled abuse and apology. Such were not infrequent in that quarter, for one of the women who lived there was a termagant, and the door of her cottage was generally open. She was known as Meg Partan. Her husband's real name was of as little consequence in life as it is in my history, for almost everybody in the fishing villages of that coast was and is known by his to-name, or nickname, a device ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... overlooked the tables, and conducted all the more important arrangements, yet she was by no means an Amazon to her husband, if she did play a masculine part in other matters. No; and the more is the pity, poor Mary seemed too much attached to Danby, to seek to rule him as a termagant. Often she went about her household concerns with the tears in her eyes, when, after a fit of intoxication, this brutal husband of hers had been beating her. The sailors took her part, and many ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... her with one comprehensive glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a woman—a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; their unformulated sentiment best expressed in ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... my mother's return from Bath, where the compact with Lady Aresfield was fully determined, the persecution has been fiercer. I may have aroused suspicion by failing to act my part when she triumphantly announced my uncle's marriage to me, or else by my unabated resistance to the little termagant who is to be forced on me. At any rate, I have been so intolerably watched whenever I was not on duty, that my hours of bliss became rarer than ever. Well, sir, my uncle charges me with indiscretion, and ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a man who could stoop to such deception! As the days went on the public became more excited and the attacks more ferocious. It was rumored that his fiancee had married him against his will, that she was a virago and a termagant. Would the country be contented to see the Executive Mansion ruled by petticoats, and by those of a hussy at that? What sort of a hero was the man who could be ordered about by a woman and could not call his ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... turned over in his mind whether it would be well for him to tell this termagant at once that he should call on whom he liked and do what he liked, but he remembered that his footing in Barchester was not yet sufficiently firm, and that it would be better for him ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... ameco. Tendon tendeno. Tenement logxejo, apartamento. Tenet dogmo, kredo. Tenor tenoro. Tension strecxo. Tent tendo. Tentative prova. Tepid varmeta. Term (time) templimo. Term (expression) termino. Termagant kriegulino. Terminate fini. Terminology terminaro. Termite termito. Terrace teraso. Terrestrial tera. Terrible, terrific terura. Terrify timegigi. Territory teritorio. Terror teruro. Terrorise terurigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... that a gentleman, named Petruchio, came to Padua, purposely to look out for a wife, who, nothing discouraged by these reports of Katharine's temper, and hearing she was rich and handsome, resolved upon marrying this famous termagant, and taming her into a meek and manageable wife. And truly none was so fit to set about this herculean labour as Petruchio, whose spirit was as high as Katharine's, and he was a witty and most happy-tempered humourist, and withal so wise, and of such a true judgment, that he well knew how to feign ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... a fair chance of being wholly spoiled, and growing up to one of those termagant, mammythrept romps we used to laugh at in Mr. Colley Cibber's plays. The schoolmistress fawned upon her, for, although untitled, Esquire Greenville (from whom my descent is plain), and he was so much respected in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... situation; and, having for ten dinars redeemed me from captivity with the Franks, carried me along with him to Aleppo. Here he had a daughter, and her he gave me in marriage, with a dower of a hundred dinars. Soon after this damsel turned out a termagant and vixen, and discovered such a perverse spirit and virulent tongue as quite unhinged all my domestic comfort.—A scolding wife in the dwelling of a peaceful man is his hell, even in this world. Protect and guard ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Termagant very high in her Anti-Pragmatic notions—there had been, for eight months past; and it went on, fiercely enough, doggedly enough, on both sides for Six Years more, till 1748, when the general Finis came. War of which we propose to say ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... responsibility, for you have to judge whether human law may interfere with the working of divine justice. It was the decree of fate, your Honour, following his own word and action, that this man should become as a rag doll in the hands of a termagant. I submit to you that Providence, in the memory of the living, has done ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... Wistaston in Cheshire, a distant relation of Dr. Paget's own, and exactly thirty years younger than Milton. "A genteel person, a peaceful and agreeable woman," says Aubrey, who knew her, and refutes by anticipation Richardson's anonymous informant, perhaps Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded to have read or written ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. Pericles said, "You are on a search for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... around about me. I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the piteousness of my appeal. Cui bono? I can't whine to women—or to men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others—no. I believe my great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... is torn aside by Master Willie Joffers (well versed, for all his mumming, in matters of chivalry). "Kisses for such coward lips?" cries he. "Nay, but a swinge to silence them!" and would have struck trousered Angelica full on the mouth. But decollete Geoffrey Dizzard, crying at him "Sweet termagant, think not to baffle me by these airs of manhood!" had sprung in the way and on his own nose received ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... might be ready to assert, after reading this connubial wrangle, that the fault was not all on one side, but that Nancy's sharp tongue was in some measure responsible for Tom's drinking; that, in fact, if she had not been such a termagant he might, at least, have been an average husband. But if you have so concluded, I will endeavour to disabuse your mind; for Nancy, before she married Tom Flatt, was a smart, good-tempered lass, but his continued neglect and ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... much afraid of going too far with Betty. If you should make a match with her, she is a very likely creature, though a vixen, as you say. I have an admirable receipt to cure a termagant wife.—Never fear, Joseph, but thou shalt be master of thine house. If she be very troublesome, I can teach thee how to break her heart in a twelvemonth; and honestly too;—or the precept would not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... enabling them to bear up cheerfully under heavy griefs and sufferings. She was very little, very thin, very lame, very old-looking (ninety at least, in appearance), very tremulous, very subdued, and very sweet. Even that termagant gossip, Mrs Hard-soul, who dwelt alone in a tumble-down hut near the quay, was heard upon one occasion to speak of her ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... complicity in Darnley's murder. At that stage the investigations were stopped; but the Duke of Norfolk, the head of the commission, was not deterred from pressing the design of marrying Mary himself. Mary was placed in the charge of Shrewsbury and his termagant spouse, Bess of Hardwick. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... of prisoners, stunted and forlorn as Falstaff's ragged regiment, already hi hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old termagant into the river, took care to ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and smacked his thick lips. Then indeed, would he be very rich, for all the villages would pay tribute to him and he could even have as many as a dozen wives. With that thought, however, came a mental picture of Naratu, the black termagant, who ruled him with an iron hand. Usanga made a wry face and tried to forget the extra dozen wives, but the lure of the idea remained and appealed so strongly to him that he presently found himself reasoning ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not repress a smile at the rememberance of Jake's termagant mother nad her dirty, comfortless cottage, an how her intemperance in administering such castisement as conveyed most grief to a boy's nature first drove Jake to seek refuge ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... did Margaret. You must bear with her, for her heart is breaking now, and if she has become a termagant it is because her shamed pride has driven her mad. Bear with her, then, a ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... they in a manner expel him; and, in his absence, riot away on the remnant of his broken fortunes. As to their mother, (who was once so tender, so submissive, so studious to oblige, that we all pronounced him happy, and his course of life the eligible,) she is now so termagant, so insolent, that he cannot contend with her, without doing infinite prejudice to his health. A broken-spirited defensive, hardly a defensive, therefore, reduced to: and this to a heart, for so many years ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... see hell:—He who is purified by poverty; he who is purged by a painful flux; and he who is harassed by importunate creditors; and some say, he also who is plagued with a termagant wife. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... answered, firmly. "A vulgar termagant, feeling a sense of injury, finds relief in an outburst of jealousy and a furious quarrel. You have always lived among ladies. Surely you ought to know that a wife in my position, who respects herself, restrains herself. I try to remember what I owe ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... hen-pecked husband's lament: he woos and marries the termagant within three days—then follows trouble. She "mashes his mouth with a shovel," bundles up her "duds", and leaves him ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... prospects, social and matrimonial. This did not distress her, but none the less was the time that followed an unhappy one. The mother whom she had idolized, and of whom she always remained excessively fond, appears to have been something of a termagant in her later years. The heavy troubles of her life had aggravated one of those irascible and uncontrollable tempers that can only be soothed by superior violence. Aurore, saddened, gentle, and submissive, only exasperated her. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... and in the end somewhat termagant female figure, this divine Emilie. Her temper, radiant rather than bland, was none of the patientest on occasion; nor was M. de Voltaire the least of a Job, if you came athwart him the wrong way. I have heard, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... nest was made, which she threw out on the ground disdainfully. Back again she flew, and in an instant brought some more and threw it out. This she did with the most impudent look you can imagine. Then she flew swiftly in and out, like a little termagant, throwing out of the mouth of the jar, sticks, dead leaves, grass, with all the nice soft things which the poor bluebird had been a week in collecting. Every now and then, she came out for a minute and sang ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... unveiled the hidden things. Libbie found out that Margaret Hall was a widow, who earned her living as a washerwoman; that the little suffering lad was her only child, her dearly beloved. That while she scolded, pretty nearly, everybody else, "till her name was up" in the neighbourhood for a termagant, to him she was evidently most tender and gentle. He lay alone on his little bed, near the window, through the day, while she was away toiling for a livelihood. But when Libbie had plain sewing to do ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... There was nothing dignified in Lady Nelson's tornado farewell to her husband; rather, if the records may be relied on, it was accompanied by a flow of abuse which could only emanate from an enraged termagant. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... an outburst of termagant spleen, "I warrant you will be ready enough to eat them by-and-by, you idle dog! and yet you cannot watch them burning under your ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... nevertheless I may venture to say that I know you well, for there's a termagant of an Irish woman down at the camp going about wringing her hands, shouting out your good qualities in the most pathetic tones, and giving nobody a moment's peace because she does not know what ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... drawing-room, it was also a sort of winter kitchen; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity's soldier-life were clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well- cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for the absent termagant. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of him kicking her orphan child, prayed that neither he nor his wife should have children; "and you know," she exclaimed, "my prayers have been answered!" The woman professed to believe her unholy prayers had hindered the subjects of her wrath from having offspring. The man quailed under the termagant's piercing eye, and trembled ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... accurate, and the manners should be attended to, or at least, the general moral that is to be drawn from them. The attitude of Sephora, the boxing lady in Gil Blas, must appear unnatural to children who have not lived with termagant heroines. Perhaps, the first ideas of grace, beauty, and propriety, are considerably influenced by the first pictures and prints which please children. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us, that he took a child with him through a room ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... had seen the monstrous relics of the age you admire. The few ruled the many; the knights were simply a brotherhood of blood and rapine; men were slaves, women were worse. The bravest were as unlettered as your body-servant, the most beautiful dames as termagant as Penelope the cook. At the table men and women ate from a common dish, without forks or spoons. Men guzzled gallons of unfermented wine. A bath was unknown. Cleanliness was as unpracticed as Islamism in New York. Ugh! anything but chivalry ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... leaving Annette all alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I had it in control and could pull her through when that old termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Sophie went about the job of persuading her old lover do not read pleasantly. She was a termagant. The Prince was stubborn. He hated the very idea of making a will—it made him think of death. He was old, ill, friendless. Sophie made his life a hell, but he had become dependent upon her. She ill-used him, subjecting him to physical ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... ungovernable termagant as ever—conceited little puss! But she always amuses me—that's one consolation!" He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. "Will you have one?" Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?" he asked—"Any ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... have, however, settled this point otherwise by their inscriptions and statues in the Hotel de Ville, which certify this river-god as already married to the Saone: the Durance, therefore, can hold no higher rank than that of his termagant mistress, while the gentle, even, beneficent character of her rival, and the priority of her claims, suit much better with the title of wife. If it be permitted me to quote Mad. de Sevigne once more, I should remark, that the broken Gothic bridge ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... error? when he described Vittoria's attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of Camillo and Isabella, her husband and his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... sprays, and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs; and, after this termagant career, would steal forth into open day, with the most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and ill-humour, come dimpling ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... triumphant; and there burst forth such a jubilation, over the day of small things, as is now astonishing to think of. Had the Termagant's own Thalamus and Treasury been bombarded suddenly one night by red-hot balls, Madrid City laid in ashes, or Baby Carlos's Apanage extinguished from Creation, there could hardly have been greater English joy (witness the "Porto-Bellos" they still have, new Towns so named); so flamy ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fellow[44] tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,[45] who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant;[46] it out-herods Herod:[47] Pray ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... the glowing tip of his cigar, peered through the grimy window at the uninspiring view of Hambleton and generally comported himself with discretion and savoir faire. Inwardly, he was wondering if he had any right to inflict this termagant tanner on his unsuspecting friend, the detective. Not by a jugful, unless the mutt had a mighty ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... everything.] One of the most tedious Sieges; one of the paltriest languid Wars (of extreme virulence and extreme feebleness, neither party having any cash left), and for an object which could not be excelled in insignificance. Object highly interesting to Kaiser Karl VI. and Elizabeth Farnese Termagant Queen of Spain. These two were red, or even were pale, with interest in it; and to the rest of Adam's Posterity it was not intrinsically worth an ounce of gunpowder, many tons of that and of better commodities as they had to spend upon it. True, the Spanish ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... worship Mahound and Termagant. I saw a blackamoor last week behind his master, a merchant of Genoa, in Paul's Walk. He looked like the devils in the Miracle Play at Christ Church, with blubber lips and wool for hair. I marvelled that he did not writhe and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... termagant ones in a club, undervaluing our new translation of Virgil, I've known both what opinion I ought to harbour, and what use to make of them; and since the opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make bold to ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... thrilling and whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half- breed, the senor was not ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... own hand would she put the others out of the wigwam, laughing when they threatened to tell their lord when he returned, for Wanska managed to tell her own story first; and, termagant as she was, she ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a single thought of ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... by a much more recent association. A poor Highland pensioner—a sorely dilapidated relic of the French-American War, who had fought under General Wolfe in his day—had taken a great fancy to the cave, and would fain have made it his home. He was ill at ease in his family;—his wife was a termagant, and his daughter disreputable; and, desirous to quit their society altogether, and live as a hermit among the rocks, he had made application to the gentleman who tenanted the farm above, to be permitted to fit up the cave for himself as a dwelling. So bad was his English, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... with the destroyers Termagant, Truculent and Manly, were stationed at a position suitable for the long range bombardment of Zeebrugge in ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... energetic nature soon made itself felt in the councils of Europe, where she carried on schemes for territorial and political aggrandisement; was an accomplished linguist; is called by Carlyle "the Termagant of Spain"; her Memoirs are published in four ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... clever hussy! It's well our plans are altered. If Rich not only offered thee an engagement but made love into the bargain then the fat would be in the fire. He hath a termagant of a wife. She'd as lief scratch your face as look at you. But ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... joined the group, a hook-nosed termagant, with gray eyes and sour lips, mother of the dead boy's comrade. She manifested plainly a mistrustful restlessness, as if she anticipated some accusation against her own son. She spoke with bitterness, and seemed almost to bear a grudge ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... History, has furnished me with a droll illustration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... and the white man came down there and said, "You seem to have a good time laughing here this morning," and she said, yes, she had a right to laugh. He said, "You are getting that corn out, and you would have made more if you had stuck to your husband." She seemed to be a sort of termagant, and she said nobody said that about her unless you told them. He made some insulting remark, and she made something in return to him, and he took a billet of wood and struck her on the shoulder, and he pulled a pistol and beat her with it, and she went for him to kill ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... stars I am so intimately acquainted with, that I can assure him, he will never have her: for would you believe it, though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends on her, the termagant for whom he sighs, is in love with a fellow, who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see, she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... present, lying there while she sponged my wound, I saw only that she was a great deal younger than I had deemed; and not only young but in distress; and not only distressed but in some sort helpless. In short, here was a woman so unlike the termagant who had charged across the bridge that I could hardly reconcile the two or believe ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends upon her, the termagant for whom he sighs is in love with a fellow who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... strode out of the shadow as if lifted by indignation but there was the flicker of a smile on his lips. "You say I don't know women. Maybe. It's just as well not to come too close to the shrine. But I have a clear notion of woman. In all of them, termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman, blue-stocking, outcast and even in the ordinary fool of the ordinary commerce there is something left, if only a spark. And when there is a spark there can always ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... old man waved it aside. "Forget it. I just like to see that little termagant taken down. But don't count on my being soft. My methods may be a bit unusual—I always did like the courtroom scenes in the old books by that fellow Smith—but Space Lobby never had any reason to reverse my ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... Jose was gathered to his fathers, his mysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half-breed, the Senor was not ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... "that that chattering termagant robs me for her Jews, who vanish in the daytime but are prowling around in the night, like rats in ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... at once, Ishmael; call 'em twelve!" cried his termagant assistant. "For if your moth-gathering, bug-hunting friend, can be counted a man, I beg you will set me down as two. I will not turn my back to him, with the rifle or the shot-gun; and for courage!—the yearling heifer, that them skulking devils the Tetons stole, was the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was flowing from his wound, and spoke piteously, saying, "Father Jove, are you not angered by such doings? We gods are continually suffering in the most cruel manner at one another's hands while helping mortals; and we all owe you a grudge for having begotten that mad termagant of a daughter, who is always committing outrage of some kind. We other gods must all do as you bid us, but her you neither scold nor punish; you encourage her because the pestilent creature is your daughter. See how she has been inciting proud Diomed to vent his rage on the immortal gods. First he ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... churchyard, which told that Athanasius Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The old man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (where in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and had many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in the occupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that he could learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow and children. The clerk of the parish recollected her—the old man was scarce altered in the fourteen years that had ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as till say, Bark, Bawtie, and be dune wi't!—I tell ye," raising her termagant voice, "I want my bairn! ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... termagant, imperious, prodigal, lewd, profligate wench, as ever breathed; she used to rantipole about the house, pinch the children, kick the servants, and torture the cats and the dogs; she would rob her father's strong box, for money ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his [v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... her, quizzed her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called 'really cruel' to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears, sooner even than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The child grew to understand her father well, and the two had the most delightful intercourse together—half banter, half seriousness, but altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants; Betty, a cook, and a girl who was supposed ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Amazon, six foot if an inch, and massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd. Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a termagant! ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... hers as being "free from affectation." But one historian not only says this, he adds: "She was the protector of her country, and the prudent executor of its will." She was nothing of the sort; on the contrary, she was a cold, greedy, heartless termagant, who risked the loss of her country by her parsimony, and it was only saved by the dauntless courage of the famishing seamen. I think that is one of the most gruesome and humiliating pieces of British history: for the monarch ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... jar of Queen-Dowager snuff) had fallen into one of his gloomy fits, and was thought to be dying;—did, in fact, die, in a state nearly mad, on the 10th August following. By Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and by all manner of Treaties, Carlos of Naples, his Half-Brother (Termagant's Baby Carlos, whom we all knew), was to succeed him in Spain; Don Philip, the next Brother, now of Parma and Piacenza, was to follow as King in Naples,—ceding those two litigious Duchies to Austria, after all. Friedrich, vividly awake to every ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Waiter to Prince George of Denmark, and in 1707 he was made Gazetteer; and in the same year he m. as his second wife Mary Scurlock, his "dear Prue," who seems, however, to have been something of a termagant. She had considerable means, but the incorrigible extravagance of S. soon brought on embarrassment. In 1709 he laid the foundations of his fame by starting the Tatler, the first of those periodicals which are so characteristic a literary feature of ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Hock you youngsters would disapprove of, and we cunning oldsters know to contain more virtues in maturity than a nunnery of May-blooming virgins, just so the very faults of a royal lady-royal by birth and in temper a termagant—impart a perfume! a flavour! You must age; you must live in Courts, you must sound the human bosom, rightly to appreciate it. She is a woman of the most malicious fine ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... duty as a gentleman to say that his bearing through the ordeal did credit to his noble family and his personal character. The Archduchess, who is foolhardy and insolent, does not deserve such a lover, and it is grievous to think that such a termagant should have so much power over such a man. I regard her as I would some poisonous reptile. Piety—which improves most women—only seems to render her the more defiant, and love—which softens most wills—makes hers the more hard. After ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... asks one's self what maiden in her teens, a pretty face, would have done in the midst of these good, plain folk, stunted and elderly, with faces like wrinkled apples. A simple accessory most of the time, woman is for him merely a termagant or a blue-stocking ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... Stockport, England, says in speaking of the brank preserved in that town: "There is no evidence of its having been actually used for many years; but there is testimony to the fact that within the last forty years the brank was brought to a termagant market-woman, who was effectually silenced ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... fact down to the fortunate circumstance that the evening papers had published rough wood-cuts which professed to be my portrait, and which naturally led the public to look out for a brazen-faced, raw-boned, hard-featured termagant. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... that breaks but never bends. I believe in my soul if I was to carry her off to sea to-morrow she would leap overboard and end it all the day after. I wish I had never listened to Blanche's tempting. I wish I had left the little termagant in peace. The game isn't ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... made no reply. He was fond of the child, but knowing what a termagant his wife was, he thought that silence like discretion was the better part of valor, and hastily beat ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... 'em was worth looking at, my word! 'D'ye see that big upstanding three-year-old dark bay filly, with a crooked streak down her face,' Starlight would say, 'and no brand but your father's on. Do you know her name? That's young Termagant, a daughter of Mr. Rouncival's racing mare of the same name that was stolen a week before she was born, and her dam was never seen alive again. Pity to kill a mare like that, wasn't it? Her sire was Repeater, the horse that ran the two three-mile heats with Mackworth, in grand time, too.' ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... in their ages, Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... by this new complication in the life of the girl he was beginning to love, stared at his companion in dismay. Was it not enough that Virginia's mother should be a slattern and a termagant? At last he spoke: "Where have ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... travels of the sun as shown by moving bands of light on the walls and in the cells—all remind him of the day when he was, as he now sees it, happy and free ... he forgets entirely, in the midst of the jail's black restraints, the lesser evils of outside, daily life. Even the termagant wife is turned into a ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... revelations of human nature a real man in such a position could give me: 'Hand me the shovel. You stop a bit,—you're out of breath. Sit down on that stone there, and light your pipe; here's some tobacco. Now tell me the rest of the story. How did the old fellow get on after he had buried his termagant wife?' That's how I should treat him; and I should get, in return, such a succession of peeps into human life and intent and aspirations, as, in the course of a few years, would send me to the next vicarage that turned up a sadder and wiser ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... for a little while after men leave the church they may go to extremes until they demonstrate for themselves that the path of vice is the path of thorns, and that only along the wayside of virtue grow the flowers of joy. The church has depicted virtue as a sour, wrinkled termagant; an old woman with nothing but skin and bones, and a temper beyond description; and at the same time vice has been painted in all the voluptuous outlines of a Greek statue. The truth is exactly the other way. A thing is right because it pays; a thing is wrong because ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and sympathised together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit, thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do, he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married man. Sneakingly, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... well as modern pieces, "The Disobedient Child" concludes unhappily, though without any attempt at a highly wrought tragical catastrophe; the Rich man persists in his unrelenting conduct, and we are left to imagine that his son returns to live and die in misery with his termagant wife.] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... Such a little termagant as Bessie Hatch looked at that moment, with her black eyes flashing, her hands clinched, and her cheeks like two flaming poppies! Half irritated, half amused, Annie, the Irish nurse, regarded her ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... narrow escape I had had from myself intercepting this remarkable retribution. The villain had again been attempting to play off the same hellish scheme with a beautiful young rustic which had succeeded in the case of my ill-fated Agnes. But the young woman in this instance had a high, and, in fact, termagant spirit. Rustic as she was, she had been warned of the character of the man; everybody, in fact, was familiar with the recent tragedy. Either her lover or her brother happened to be waiting for her outside the window. He saw in part the very tricks in the act ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... termagant; Christina said she admired his patience more than his erudition. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... about it, for each knew that the other understood. What still disturbs me, though, is something not in my boy's make-up, but in my own. During the long and silent drive home I noticed a mark on my husband's neck. And I was the termagant who must have put it there, though I have no memory of doing so. But from it I realize that I haven't the control over myself every civilized and self-respecting woman should have. I begin to see that I can't altogether trust ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... true. And you're a termagant, Jenny. That's what you are. You want it all your own way! Anything that goes wrong is my fault—not yours! You don't think there's anything that's your fault. It's all mine. But, my good girl, that's ridiculous. What d'you think I know about you? Eh? Nothing ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... all who were related to her mistress either on the paternal or on the maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she detested them all, James, William ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the same week in the families of both Sewall and Dow. The ministrations of Dr. Stickney had not been available, and the two mothers had survived because they had the constitutions of frontierswomen rather than because they had the benefit of the nursing of the termagant who was Jerry Tompkins's wife. The babies—known to their families, and to the endless succession of cowboys who came from near and far to inspect them, as "the Bad Lands babies"—were just ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... men who call you a cynic; who speak of "the withered world of Thackerayan satire;" who think your eyes were ever turned to the sordid aspects of life—to the mother-in-law who threatens to "take away her silver bread-basket;" to the intriguer, the sneak, the termagant; to the Beckys, and Barnes Newcomes, and Mrs. Mackenzies of this world. The quarrel of these sentimentalists is really with life, not with you; they might as wisely blame Monsieur Buffon because there are ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... not have them," screamed the termagant. "I have no use for your gold, but I want my dinner. So be off with you. You will get nothing from me if ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to live independent ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... do," cried the Baron, beginning to ascend the companion-ladder. "Captain Jan Dunck, keep the Count down here below; don't let him show himself on any account. I will settle the matter. This female, this termagant, will carry off one of your passengers, and, as an honest man, you are ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... and a frown upon her brow. I wondered what could be the matter, but I held my tongue. My knowledge of Julia was intimate enough for me to hit upon the right moment for speech or silence—a rare advantage. It was the time to refrain from speaking. Julia was no termagant—simply a woman who had had her own way all her life, and was so sure it was the best way that she could not understand why other people ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... that you have inspected the flower of womanhood, I cannot soberly believe you prefer your termagant of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... object I am happy to say I was successful. 'Here,' said I, 'is a wife remarkable for putting as much good-nature into her six or eight hours of day-life as most women put into twice the time. No one can tell what she is in her sleep: perhaps the veriest termagant on earth. Suppose her sleep could be abridged, might not some of this termagantism overflow into and be diffused over her waking existence? I can well imagine this, and you, my friend, reduced to such straits by it that you might wish she would never waken more. Be content, then, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... This termagant was a little broad-set figure wearing a mask, intended as a representation of his Satanic majesty, adorned with a huge pair of horns. From it hung a black cloak or shirt, out of which protruded a goodly and substantial tail. No one could ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the termagant winds should scold The Christmas Eve so bitterly! But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old, Big Charley, Nimblewits, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... thought of sleep had I, rather I lay that I might watch her (furtively, beneath my arm) where she sat head aloft, cheeks flushed and bosom tempestuous. And (despite her beauty) a very termagant shrew I thought her. Then, all at once, I saw a tear fall and another; and she that had sung undaunted to the tempest and outfaced its fury, sat bitterly weeping like any heart-broke maid, yet giving due heed to our course ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... * * * Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow (like yourself) tear a passion to tatters, &c.—I would have such a fellow whipped (give it him, he deserves it) for o'erdoing Termagant. * * * Oh, there be players that I have seen play, (no, we see him,) and heard others praise, and that highly, (oh! oh! oh!) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the accent of Christians, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various |
