"Asperity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all my own and all Colvin's clothing; I then retired to the house, and then to bed; in a condition of sorrow for myself unequalled. The sun is forth again (laus Deo) and the wind is milder, and I am greatly re-established. A certain asperity of temper still lingers, however, which Colvin ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exclaimed. "Sally would never go without you; and she will die, you say, unless she has change." Then hesitating, and turning very red, Hetty stammered, "I can pay you any thing—which would be necessary to compensate you: we have money enough." Dr. Eben bowed, and answered with some asperity: ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... you I will hear all,' returned Charles, with increased asperity. 'I know you will say nothing to his advantage that you can help, but still I know you will speak what you think the truth, and I want to judge ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silence means refusal, my dear, I think you ought to realize the responsibility you assume." Mrs. Peyton's voice had acquired an edge of righteous asperity. "If Denis has a fault it is that he is too gentle, too yielding, too readily influenced by those he cares for. Your influence is paramount with him now—but if you turn from him just when he needs your help, who can say what ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... meant was to express a sincere desire that the Sergeant were happily rid of doubt and suffering. A little shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man, though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his own wishes justice. "You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder," said he, "to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... one, except of course to my relatives, for fifteen years," rejoined Mrs. Carr a trifle tartly. Then her manner lost its unusual asperity, and she added excitedly, "They're coming now, Jane. There's Cousin Jimmy and he's bringing ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... "his answer was satisfactory," the President, on reaching the last paragraph of Mr. Motley's letter, in which he begged respectfully to resign his post, "without waiting to learn what Mr. Seward had done or proposed to do, exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my dispatch.'" Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship for the late ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with asperity. "Somebody had a property there once—either one of our family or a friend. Why don't your family become Esthonians? You'd find it much more convenient. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... it to read by," Grandmother announced, with considerable asperity, "and you don't need to hunt around for no more lamps, neither. I've ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... to leave us here in rags and beggary, while you are amusing yourself in London?" replied Mrs Rainscourt, with asperity. "With your altered circumstances, you will have no want of society, either male or female," continued the lady, with an emphasis upon the last word—"and a wife ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... well say that, Mr Ramsden," replied the lady, with asperity; "he is the greatest fool that ever God made! Every one knows what a sweet temper I was before I married; but flesh and blood cannot bear what I am ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: 'Turnips should never be pulled; it injures them. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... year older than Joe," Mrs. Newbolt corrected him, with some asperity, "and she's one of the kind that'll keep. Well, I was married myself, and had a baby, when I was nineteen. But ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding the destroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, in writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham people "will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second time, to ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... replied Stillwell, with asperity. "His orders. Are you forgettin' orders? Wal, you're a fine cowboy. You an' Nick an' Monty, 'specially, are ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... what Mr. Adams said," retorted Mrs. Adams, with some asperity, "and I told him that I would rather the dozen policemen were in evidence before I was shot and robbed than after. I had on all my rings, and ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said Charles, with some asperity. "Now, by the great God of Heaven, who sees all our hearts, I will not give in to such a horrible doctrine! I will not believe it; and were death itself my portion for my want of faith, I would this moment die in my disbelief of anything so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Bull Onuphis was worshipped at a place in Egypt, which he could not specify on account of its asperity. AElian de ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... dark from an Irish literary, or even "Irish Ireland," point of view. It was before the Gaelic movement, and before we had such things as "intellectuals" and the "economic man," or even the Irish Literary Theatre. Leamy's gentle and loyal soul could have taken no influence from the asperity of some of the intervening ferment, "Parliamentarian" though he was. Had the impulse to write this volume come to him in this later period he would only have drawn from the time the nourishment which the atmosphere ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... however, she knew the deference due to the commanding officer, even though she did not choose to show it, and when bidden to say her say and tell what things "was goin' on" Mistress McGann asseverated, with the asperity of a woman who has had to put her husband to bed two nights running, that the time had never been before that he was so drunk he didn't know his way home, and so got into the back of the bachelor quarters instead of his own. "And to think av his bein' propped ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... suppose that, after this introduction, I made haste to explain every particular. My mother was surprised and grieved. She rebuked me, with some asperity, for my reserves. Had I acquainted her with my brother's demands, she could have apprized me of all that I had since discovered. My brother, she asserted, was involved beyond any one's power to extricate him, and ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... excellent purchase, on account of the great charm and felicity of much of their incidental criticism; to say nothing, as I hinted just now, of their being extremely amusing. Nothing in fact is more comical than the familiar asperity of the author's style and the pedagogic fashion in which he pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads toward this, rapping their knuckles for that, sending them to stand in corners and giving them Scripture ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was but a secondary consideration; as a Lawyer you were not obliged to advance it till due; as a Friend the request might have been complied with. When it is required at Xmas I shall expect the demand will be answered. In the course of my letter I perhaps have expressed more asperity than I intended, it is my nature to feel warmly, nor shall any consideration of interest or Fear ever deter me from giving vent to my Sentiments, when injured, whether by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... say it was quite empty?" Miss Bride asked, with some asperity. "To be sure, there are always people. But she'll miss the best of it. She ought to be there for the Patrick's Ball and the command nights at the theatre. The last time I was at the Theatre Royal I was ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... novels. Its most important offices aside from this were perhaps to present large and kindly views of literature and literary characters, especially through biographical essays; and to ameliorate somewhat the prevailing asperity of periodical criticism. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... will be very well, sir!" she retorted, with a distinct trace of asperity. "I am not a heathen, I'd thank you to remember—and when I'm a wife I shall be my ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... in the sumptuous state chamber proper to her rank; and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself now on one foot, now on the other; if she repeats two or three times the reply she gives thee; if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from asperity to tenderness; if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though it be not disarranged. In short, my son, observe all her actions and motions, for if thou wilt report them to me as they were, I will ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shut that door?" said Mrs. Davis, unprimming her mouth slightly to say it, but speaking with asperity. "I have something important to say, and I can't say it with ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some asperity,— ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... will!' said his mother with asperity. 'I don't read the papers for nothing, and I know men all move up a stage by marriage. Men of her class, that is, parsons, marry squires' daughters; squires marry lords' daughters; lords marry dukes' daughters; dukes marry queens' daughters. All stages of gentlemen ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... The ice was wonderful. Oh, come on! Fanny skated very well. But she hesitated. Mrs. Brandeis, dozing on the couch, sensed what was going on in her daughter's mind, and roused herself with something of her old asperity. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... bath and out of the bath; more tender in their regard for another generation, they recommend all nurses to undergo a slight course of the springs to keep their milk from turning sour, yet will curdle the milk of human kindness in our lacteals by instilling therein the sour asperity which they entertain towards each other, and which, notwithstanding the efforts of the ladies to keep peace between them, by christening one their "beau medecin," and the other their "bon medecin," has arrived at such a pitch that they refuse to speak ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... talk. Who cares?" Lucy replied, with a good deal of asperity of manner for her, for that very morning the old housekeeper at Prospect Hill had ventured to remonstrate with her for "running after the parson." "Pray, where is the wrong? What harm can come of it?" and she tossed ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... is rebuked more forcibly upon another occasion, when the nymph bids the priest with asperity to ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the change of commanders, for the campaign from Louisville on was looked upon generally as a lamentable failure, yet there were many who still had the utmost confidence in General Buell, and they repelled with some asperity the reflections cast upon him by his critics. These admirers held him blameless throughout for the blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... sat reading in his own rooms, he was much surprised at hearing a well-known voice at the door, inquiring with some asperity whether Mr. Le Breton was at home. He listened to the voice in intense ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... "dinner" was announced, and we all paired off with the utmost ceremony, and I found myself seated between Frank Lovell and dear old Mr. Lumley, and opposite the elder Miss Molasses, who scowled at me with an asperity of which I should have believed her unmeaning face incapable, as if she hated me on this particular evening more than all the other days of the year. I soon discovered the cause. Frank was more attentive to me than I had ever known him, although there was a something in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Scot of Haining, from the ruins of a cottage on the opposite side of the Yarrow. There was extant, within these twenty years, some verses of a song on his death. The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scotts may serve to explain the asperity, with which the chieftain of that clan is ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... fair Bella, with just a soupcon of asperity in her tone,—as much as she ever allows herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon her maid ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... chaise. But, without allowing time for an answer, and striking his boot impatiently with a riding whip, he hoped I was ready. "Not until he has gone up to my mistress," replied my old protectress, in a tone of some asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and directions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, naturally I have forgotten. The most memorable circumstance to me was, that I, who had never till that time possessed the least or most contemptible coin, received, in a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... plainly furnished, but represented the romance of her life to old Susanna. Memories of her youth came back and softened the asperity of age, her wrinkled face taking on gentler lines and her harsh voice a tenderer tone. But to-day she was in haste. She felt herself needed at The Maples, even with the capable Deacon Meakin left to "hold the fort," as he expressed it. Going to a chest of drawers she opened the top one and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold, who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing-room, and ordered Harry off to bed, with some little asperity of tone. The boy rose at once, rang the bell, bade them all good night, and went. A servant met him at the door with a candle, and ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... would be glad enough to have the money, when you have gone off like the prodigal son, and wasted health and substance in foreign lands," said grandmother with some asperity. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the least nor reply to her appeal for forgiveness; he only waited until she was quiet, and then went on with increased asperity veiled ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... really seems to have been a very charming young woman, modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly; a Royalist, as was to be expected from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard; religious, and occasionally gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... requires nothing further from me; but your administration, the theme of your own solitary praise, might not improperly have been touched upon, but that it is a field too extensive for me, and that I have not asperity enough in my nature to do justice to the subject. I will yet observe upon some matters in your pamphlet, not in direct connexion with one or the other subject; but which are extremly[TN] demonstrative of a temper in the writer ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... was profoundly true that since the disclosure the chaplain's reticence had become remarkable. When his own wife questioned him on the subject (very naturally), he checked her with some asperity, and read her a lecture on feminine curiosity that moved the poor woman, even to weeping. Mrs. Danvers was greatly surprised and disconcerted by the decision with which Mr. Fullarton rejected her suggestion, that he should aid and abet in thwarting Keene's supposed designs. "He had thought ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... rather surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintances, who call themselves friends, can change, when their interest comes, in the slightest degree, in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hand so much benumbed that ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of April, Mr. Wilberforce made his motion. He began by expressing a hope, that the present debate, instead of exciting asperity and confirming prejudice, would tend to produce a general conviction of the truth of what in fact was incontrovertible; that the abolition of the Slave Trade was indispensably required of them, not only by morality and religion, but by sound policy. He stated that ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... attack any of them with cynical asperity, or with the ambition to establish any new dogmatical tenets in the place of old received opinions. It can, however, do no harm to discuss this important subject with proper reverence and humility. Without alarming those mothers, who declare themselves above all things ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... collected outside, by which its retreat may always be known. The burrow leads to a chamber in which is collected a bed of small pebbles on which it sits, the thick close hair of the belly protecting it from the cold and asperity of such a seat. Its food appears to be vegetable. In its habits it is monogamous ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... it hurts the boys for us to have a dance," rejoined Judith with asperity. "If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it wouldn't fetch 'em back on the mountain any quicker." Then with a teasing flash, "I'll tell 'em when they git ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... of patience with her more tender sister, yet at this moment her love and her patriotism—by which is meant her heart and soul—were violently in conflict. Fearing lest the former might prevail, she replied with greater asperity: ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... that passeth understanding; it's for the like o' them, an' maybe no' even sae muckle worth, folk daunton God to His face and burn in muckle hell; and it's for that reason the Scripture ca's them, as I read the passage, the accursed thing.—Mary, ye girzie," he interrupted himself to cry with some asperity, "what for hae ye no' put out the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... condemnation, or the mere placing in its way of an impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling when my venerable sire would ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... the hereditary bitterness against the English has lost much of its asperity, or rather has become merged in a new source of jealousy and apprehension: I allude to the incessant and wide-spreading irruptions from New-England. Word has been continually brought back to Communipaw, by those of the community who return from their trading voyages in cabbages and oysters, of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... of strangeness in her ideas which is often noticeable in characters that have developed late, in savages, who think much and speak little. Her peasant's wit had acquired a good deal of Parisian asperity from hearing the talk of workshops and mixing with workmen and workwomen. She, whose character had a marked resemblance to that of the Corsicans, worked upon without fruition by the instincts of a strong nature, would have liked to be the protectress of a weak man; but, as a ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... it has to do with; that is what I shall be obliged if you will find out," answered Sir Robert with some asperity. "One can't divide a matter of this sort into watertight compartments. It is true that in so important a concern each of us has charge of his own division, but the fact remains that we are jointly and severally responsible for the whole. I am not sure that ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... small poet; and some of the most savage lampoons which were handed about the coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many enemies, said that he consulted his personal safety ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed. Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the value of the Falkland ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... was not unsuitable to his appearance. I lost some of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Farlow the truth, of course," Ida answered with asperity; "then he can judge for himself. It will relieve us of responsibility in the matter. It is the only ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Blake that his uncle looked ill, which might account for his asperity, and he made ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... reception, that SALLO had the satisfaction of seeing it, the following year, imitated throughout Europe, and his Journal, at the same time, translated into various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute critic, the animadversions of SALLO were given with such asperity of criticism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... have accepted. Indeed, we regretted her obduracy. It would have been such a capital way out, with no sacrifice of her scruples nor waiver of our collective impressiveness. So Harwood came in for mild reprehension, the Sage Dennis remarking with some asperity that when the gods have provided us with farces, comedies, and tragedies in from one to five acts it is unseemly to string them out to six ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... that?" asked the sharp-tongued little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine. Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in private, so postponed telling her news till ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to the "conversations" between leaders which had taken place during the winter, said that since no definite agreement had been reached the Government had decided to reopen the matter in the House. This meant, as Redmond pointed out with some asperity, that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for taking the initiative in making proposals to meet objections whose reasonableness he did not admit. The Opposition, he thought, should have been left to put ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... than by weight of character. His large benignity repressed the expression of any small or mean thought in his presence; and his arrival was sufficient without his saying a word to elevate the tone and manner of any discussion in which he was expected to participate. He was incapable of asperity. ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so near his end," said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the roseate curves of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... said Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are a Governor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming home before I go? Sometimes I don't ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... subject to religious or moral consideration, it is dangerous to be too rigidly in the right. Sensibility may, by an incessant attention to elegance and propriety, be quickened to a tenderness inconsistent with the condition of humanity, irritable by the smallest asperity, and vulnerable by the gentlest touch. He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and submits to endure nothing in accommodations, attendance, or address, below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the crowd of life, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Franklin was subjected at a time when the inevitable anxieties and severe labors of his position were far beyond the strength of a man of his years. He showed wonderful patience and dignity, and though he sometimes let some asperity find expression in his replies, he never let them degenerate into retorts. Moreover, he replied as little as possible, for he truly said that he hated altercation; whereas Lee, who reveled in it, took as an aggravation of all his other injuries that his opponent was ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... liquid with no great favour. I was a little surprised at his choice of a drink, for I had never before known him care for any other refreshment than spirits; but I did not like to make any reference to the change. Looking thus, with great disgust, upon his pint, he began to talk with some asperity ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... me," said Rampson with asperity; then correcting himself quickly, and with a rather ghastly smile, "I say, you ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... more put out than it became a philosopher to be. "I came," he cried, with a kind of asperity, "for a very different purpose, not to be corrected in my Italian. I came——" but here his feelings were too strong for him, "to lay my life and my heart at your feet. Do you understand me now? To tell you that I love you—no, that is not enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... it a hundred and sixty dollars. "The devil is in the money!" exclaimed the horse-dealer; "I'm certain I counted right." "And so am I!" said the woman; "I can not be mistaken. It is you who have made the mistake. You always were a stupid old fool about money!" This she said with some degree of asperity, for she was evidently displeased at the whole proceeding. "A fool, eh? A fool!" muttered the old man; "you do well to call me a fool before strangers!" "Ja, that's the way! I always told you so!" screamed the woman, in rising ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the newspaper to pour forth compliments of condolence.—Mrs. Somers tore the piece of paper as he approached the table, and said, with some asperity, "One would think this was a matter of life and death, by the terms ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... I was sun-broiled upon this causse, I was interested at every step by the flowers that I found there. Dry, chaffy, or prickly plants, corresponding in their nature to the aridity and asperity of the land, were peculiarly at home upon the undulating stoniness. The most beautiful flower then blooming was the catananche, which has won its poetic French name, Cupidon bleu, by the brilliant colour of ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... I do meet with him," he continued, "I shall take great pleasure in giving you my impressions by letter, or in person, of your nephew-in-law." "Don't call him that!" exclaimed the old lady with much asperity. "I don't acknowledge the title. But I won't say any more about him," with a grim smile, "or you may think I don't ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... been led to depart from them under circumstances that might very well have afforded me an ample shield for refusing satisfaction to a too eager and pressing adversary? It was precisely because I hold the duel in such contempt that I spoke with such asperity to the deceased when he pronounced Lord Wellington's enactment a degrading one to men of birth. The very sentiments which I then expressed proclaimed my antipathy to the practice. How, then, should I have committed the inconsistency of accepting ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... pass bright remarks that we non compree but enjoy just the same, for we know you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics when hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the air. And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the untactful, inefficient, bulldozing ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked with those jewels, paid a visit to the old ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... against errors on both sides, I must enter a caveat against another misapprehension, of a kind directly contrary to the preceding. M. Comte, among other occasions on which he has condemned, with some asperity, any attempt to explain phenomena which are "evidently primordial" (meaning, apparently, no more than that every peculiar phenomenon must have at least one peculiar and therefore inexplicable law), ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... trees for the recent favorable season of 1880. The previous autumn was unfavorable for the ripening of young wood, and the trees in an unprepared condition were exposed during a great part of December, 1879, to an asperity of climate unprecedented in this latitude. This might have led one to expect a falling off in the growth of wood, and it appeared, from comparison of measurements, that, with very few exceptions, the growth of wood last year was even more below the average ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... me to do it," said Susy with a touch of asperity. There were moments when her duty to Clarissa weighed on her somewhat heavily; whenever she went off alone with Nick she was pursued by the vision of a little figure waving wistful farewells from ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Dobbs' for a cemetery, Mr. Parmalee?" demanded Captain Dobbs, with asperity. "Who's ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... their accusations made a deep impression on a certain class, and the tyranny of the settler magistrates, of whom thirty were dismissed from the commission, was denounced with increasing boldness and asperity. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... is rarely popular, and some absurdities, as, for example, the imputations upon the American Federalists, in the Sketches of Switzerland. The book on England excited most attention, and was reviewed in that country with as much asperity as if its own travellers were not proverbially the most shameless libellers that ever abused the hospitality of nations. Altogether the ten volumes which compose this series may be set down as the most intelligent ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... severity, tartness, asperity, malignity, sharpness, unkindness, bitterness, moroseness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... college," he retorted with the merest hint of asperity, "is at the bottom of all that people call higher education. The church was founding colleges and supporting them before the State thought even of primary schools. Look at Oxford and Cambridge—church colleges. Look at Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the smaller New England colleges—church ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... other side of the Seine, when I perceived the woman of the Jardin des Plantes approach. Tyrrell (for that, I afterwards discovered, was really his name) started as she came near, and asked her, in a tone of some asperity, where she had been? As I was but a few paces behind, I had a clear, full view of the woman's countenance. She was about twenty-eight or thirty years of age. Her features were decidedly handsome, though somewhat ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... asperity—"and you must have known quite well it was me. Who else could get into the Close after the gates ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was the same woman after that terrible day, nor do I remember that the nose, that was turned awry by the fall, was ever straightened. When I spoke to her of the new law and her removal to a stand near the counter, she said it was a good thing. "No woman of proper feeling," she said with some asperity, "would have borne it as long as I did. I never wanted to stand there and be gazed at by men, it looked so bold. As for those women of brass that like it, it is all very well, but I couldn't stand it. Admiration can never ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr. Holmes?" she asked, with a touch of asperity in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... you mean by that?" Evelyn inquired with a trace of asperity. Though she was not prepared to pose as Vane's advocate, she was conscious of a growing antagonism ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... rejoinder—not a word—scarce giving him the grace of a look. Which a little nettling him, his smooth tone changed to asperity, as addressing himself to the soldier, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of the sort,' I interposed with extreme asperity of manner. 'Am I to understand that ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... authors' stings, would derive comfort from the consciousness of accompanying honey. These hopes generally proved fallacious, and the authors, falling to the ground between the two stools of American sensitiveness and British asperity, were regarded in the light of stern warnings by many of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... pleasant but impossible task of accounting to myself for her mood. I went over all we had said and done together that day, and at last, after perhaps half an hour of unbroken silence, fell back on what seemed the only possible explanation. She was thinking of her father. But why that suspicion of asperity on her face? Was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... complained, with his usual vehemence and asperity, of the indignities to which innocent and honourable men, highly descended and highly esteemed, had been subjected by Aaron Smith and the wretches who were in his pay. The leading Whigs, with great judgment, demanded an inquiry. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... aplomb, apostasy, apparatus, apparition, appellate, appertain, appetency, apposite, approbation, appurtenance, aquatic, aqueous, aquiline, arbitrary, archaic, arduous, aromatic, arrear, articulate, ascetic, asperity, asphyxiate, asseverate, assiduity, assimilate, astringent, astute, atrophy, attenuate, auditory, augury, auscultation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... sincerity; for the Dictionary was duly read aloud to her, betwixt sleep and waking, as it proceeded towards an infinitely distant completion; and the Doctor was a little sore on the subject of mummies, and sometimes resented an allusion with asperity. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some asperity; 'and I rose early to make the best of it—I have been here alone this ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... allow, anything "which he thought diverting or interesting." Then Lear read the debates of the Virginia Assembly on the election of a Senator and Governor. "On hearing Mr. Madison's observations respecting Mr. Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold before mentioned, which ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... as they held action to be the criterion of oratory, made the best actors their models; nor was this a groundless opinion adopted by a few or superficial men; for Demosthenes having remarked with some asperity that the worst orators were heard in the rostrum in preference to him, the celebrated actor SATYRUS, in order to show him how much grace, dignity, and action add to the celebrity of a public man, repeated ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... California has carried the ducking-club idea to the limit where it is claimed that it constitutes an abuse. Dr. Palmer says that one or two of the club preserves on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley contain upward of 40 square miles, or 25,000 acres each! With considerable asperity it is now publicly charged (in the columns of The Examiner of San Francisco) that for the unattached sportsmen there is no longer any duck-shooting to be had in California, because all the good ducking-grounds are owned and exclusively ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... to retire, my lord," observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: "I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs Lascelles for ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to withdraw him, it is to place him out of danger," he retorted with asperity. "Not because I wish to mortify him, naturally. Is that clear? Does he want to pass the next thirteen ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... to say, Miss De Haro," returned the Senator, rising with some asperity, "that you seem to have been unfortunate in your selection of acquaintances, and still more so in your ideas of the derivations of the English tongue. The—er—the—er—expressions you have quoted are not common to Boston, but emanate, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... dish of good cow-heel and bacon something soothed the asperity of the artist, which wholly vanished before a choice capon, so delicately roasted that the lard frothed on it, said Wayland, like May-dew on a lily; and both Gaffer Crane and his good dame became, in his eyes, very painstaking, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... to the former; for although there is much laxity of principle among Irishmen, naturally to be expected from men whose moral state has been neglected by the legislature, and deteriorated by political and religious asperity, acting upon quick passions and badly regulated minds—yet we know that they possess, after all, a strong, but vague undirected sense of devotional feeling and reverence, which are associated with ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... mio, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly by those ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to see Mr. Hegan personally," Montague answered, with just a trifle of asperity, "If you will kindly take in this ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to the steeple, and look out—But—no—follow me to the house; and remember," she added, with all the asperity of a person who is conscious of having permitted temper to overcome judgment, "that we are in the house of mourning, and ought not to indulge in any thing like jest—say nothing of my alarm—I mean of what I heard, to your companions: ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Sir: but, after my former letter to you, and your ungenerous perseverance; and after this attempt to avail yourself at the expense of another man's character, rather than by your own proper merit; I see not that you can blame any asperity in her, whom you have so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Hamlet as the amiable and accomplished young prince, too weak to support the burden of a great action, did not recommend itself either to Schlegel or Coleridge, who take the mental rather than the moral disposition to task. Schlegel, with some asperity, speaks of "a calculating consideration that cripples the power of action;" and Coleridge, with more subtlety, applies Hamlet's antithesis of thought and resolution to the elucidation of his own character, concluding that Hamlet "procrastinates ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... have been behaving as a gentleman should," replied Harley, with some asperity; "and if I have been unlucky enough to incur her dislike, I shall endure it as ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... getting too personal, Brayle," interrupted Mr. Harland, quickly, and with asperity—"Santoris, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Tydeus, Diomede, perceived, Heroic Chief, by chariots all around 435 Environ'd, and by steeds, at side of whom Stood Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. Him also, Agamemnon, King of men, In accents of asperity reproved. Ah, son of Tydeus, Chief of dauntless heart 440 And of equestrian fame! why standest thou Appall'd, and peering through the walks of war? So did not Tydeus. In the foremost fight His favorite station was, as they ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... have to be very careful not to overfeed that child, or you will have her down sick," remarked Mrs. Scrimp with asperity, addressing Violet. "She ought never to eat anything at all after three o'clock ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... not think him high-tempered beyond the requisites of manhood," she replied, with something like asperity in her tone. "I cannot endure your meek, mild mannered men, who seem to forget their sex, and almost make me long to change my own with them, that their sweet ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... what was on the Professor's mind; in fact, she had known it for some time, but had assured herself that he would never have the courage to put his hints, and suggestions, and allusions, into an actual declaration. So she replied with some asperity, "What made you think I was looking ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... so," replied Cynthia indifferently, emptying the coffee-grounds into the kitchen sink. The asperity of her tone was caused by the entrance of Lila, who came in with a basin of corn-meal dough tucked under her bared arm, which showed as round and delicate as a child's ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the constable with asperity; "but I think you haven't half searched. Maybe he's hiding somewhere up in ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... in so flagrant a case, to allow myself a severity of animadversion little congenial with the general spirit of these papers. I hesitate not to submit it to the decision of any candid and honest adversary of the proposed government, whether language can furnish epithets of too much asperity, for so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... of every description had made me, much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... pathetically that I could but laugh, seeing that there was so much incongruity between the remark and the situation all about us. My laughter must have jarred her, for she said with some asperity, "You are laughing now, but in a minute you will be laughing on the other ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... splendid war-horse, gaily caparisoned, and attended by a groom whose sole duty was to see to my wants. How different is my present condition! I wish I had never given up the battlefield for the mill." The Miller replied with asperity, "It's no use your regretting the past. Fortune has many ups and downs: you must just ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... harmonizer of faiths, is not likely to accomplish much that will be permanently good. Religions to-day have lost much of their asperity one toward the other. The study of Comparative Religion has led men everywhere to magnify the assonances, rather than the dissonances, of the Great World Faiths. Theosophy magnifies into a cult this function of bringing religions together. It ignores, however, the fundamental ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French Company—for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication. These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... home. When we next encounter the decayed virtuoso, he has grown a beard (very badly kept), and set up as a philosopher of the hyper-virtuous Jaques school. Of course he lectures us upon every vice which we have not, and every little frailty which we have, with a pointed asperity that upsets our temper for the day, and causes us long afterwards to bewail the evil hour in which we rescued such an ill-conditioned grumbler from the kindly ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... other time Sarah would have defended her own sex with much asperity; instead, there was something oddly wistful ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Minister (with some asperity). "Members are well aware what Home Rule meant. It was a plan—or rather it was a scheme—that is to say, it was an act of parliament, or I should say a bill, in fact, Mr. Speaker, I don't mind confessing that, ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... receiving the stipulated reward on my return." Akaitcho did not seem prepared to hear such declarations from his brothers, and instantly changing the subject, began to descant upon the treatment he had received from the traders in his concerns with them, with an asperity of language that bore more the appearance of menace than complaint. I immediately refused to discuss this topic, as foreign to our present business, and desired Akaitcho to recall to memory, that he had told me on our first meeting, that he considered me the father of every person attached ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin |
