"Bickering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opposition of the legislative and executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country, and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had the colony been ruled ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... upon the naked skin. A battalion of tongues began to chatter as the red-faced waiters rushed between the tables, taking orders. It was after eleven o'clock, and through the swinging doors passed a throng of motley people, fanning, gossiping, bickering—all eager and thirsty. Clarence Steyle pointed out the celebrities with conscious delight. Over yonder—that man with the mixed gray hair—was a composer who came every night for inspiration,—musical ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... old octavo volume, to read, and for the last hour she had been poring over it. Greatly did she admire it, it was so fine, so grand; but all that thunderous roll of rhetoric—the whiskered Pandoors and the fierce Hussars, and Freedom's shriek when Kosciusko fell, and flights of bickering comets through illimitable space—a kind of celestial fireworks on a stupendous scale—and all the realms of ether wrapped in flames—all this had produced a slight headache, a confusion or giddiness, like that which is experienced by a person ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... presence, a bickering match took place between them, one of them playing the part of a citizen's wife and the other of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... course, did not like her, for as she grew older she was more convinced than ever that the lower orders must be constantly reproved. But poor people are very magnanimous, and they were sure of a good many presents. She was also for ever bickering with her servants, but "poor old lady" as they said, "she's getting on now, it makes her worry," and she found in Annie one who knew how to give at least as good as she got. Horror of being defrauded by servants and tradespeople was a great resource, and ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... it unaided and in isolation. Washington Irving has a delightful sentence somewhere (in Astoria I think) about the frontiersman hewing his way through the back woods and developing his character by "bickering with bears." "The frontiersmen, by their conquest of nature, had come to despise the strength of all enemies," says Dr. Sparks in his History of the United States. It was only to be expected, it was indeed ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... husband could not persuade her to joust with him, and this bickering lasted all night, without his being able to do anything, which much displeased our bridegroom. Nevertheless, he was patient, hoping to make up for lost time the next night, but it was the same as the first night, and so was the third, and so on up to the fifteenth, matters ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... always throwing in her face?" The daughter, too, of whose approaching union the fond father had been so proud, was now, like her cousin whom she had wronged by her mean suspicions, deserted; the match broken off after much bickering; one quarrel having brought on another, until they separated by mutual consent. Her temper and her health were both materially impaired; and her beauty was converted into hardness ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... these sympathetic moments, and where Wanhope was there would probably be Rulledge, passively willing to listen and agree, and Minver ready to interrupt and dispute. I myself liked to look in and linger for either the reasoning or the bickering, as it happened, and now, seeing the three there together, I took a provisional seat behind the painter, who made no sign of knowing I was present. Rulledge was eating a caviar sandwich, which he had brought from the afternoon tea-table near by, and he greedily incited Wanhope to go ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... every thing in impenetrable obscurity. Just as I was about to turn to my guide, and demand the explanation of these appearances, the smoke rolled away, and instantaneously, there flashed forth a thousand bickering flames. "What," cried I, "is the meaning of these objects?" "Check, for one moment, your impatience, and your curiosity shall be gratified," replied my guide. I then distinctly viewed thousands of Black Men, who had been groaning under the rod of oppression, starting up in ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... thatched with gold; Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors; Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors, And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast. There dwelt men merry-hearted, and in hope exceeding great Met the good days and the evil as they went the way of fate: There the Gods were unforgotten, yea whiles they walked with men. Though e'en in that world's beginning rose a murmur now and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... and in no way affected the friendly tenor of their domestic relations. They would interfere with each other's conversation, contradicting assertions, and disputing conclusions for a whole evening; and then, when all the world and his wife thought that these ceaseless sparks of bickering must blaze up into a flaming quarrel as soon as they were alone, they would bowl amicably home in a cab, criticizing the friends who were commenting upon them, and as little agreed about the events of the evening as about the details of any other ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... was very exasperating, and Eleanor straightened haughtily. "I don't think either of us need worry about being too charitable just yet awhile," she began. Then she caught herself up sharply. "Don't let's get to bickering, Jean. You know I ought to ask her, and you know how much I want to. But I'm going to do it, and I expect every girl on my program to help make her have just as good a time as if she were one of us." And Eleanor was off down the hill, leaving Jean ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... by one is cutting the strands which originally held the States together. You have seen your churches divided; you have seen trade turned aside from its accustomed channel; you have seen jealousy and uncharitableness and bickering springing up and growing stronger day by day, until at last, if it continue, the cord of union between the States reduced simply to the political strand, may not suffice to hold them together. Once united by every tie of fraternal feeling, shoulder to shoulder, step by step, our fathers ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... had built the Theatre, evidently a somewhat sharp and grasping individual, failed to live up to the terms of his lease which he had agreed to extend, provided that Burbage expended a certain amount of money upon improvements. There was constant bickering between Allen and Burbage regarding this matter, which also eventuated in a lawsuit that was carried on by Cuthbert and Richard Burbage after their father's death in 1597. Added to these numerous irritations, came further trouble from a most unlooked-for source. ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... Their bickering, their cabals, their secret manoeuvres, were in the long run to triumph. Duruy had just succumbed under the incessant attacks of the clericals. In him Fabre lost a friend, a protector, and his only support. Embittered, defeated, he was now ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... that this cannot be. You never will enjoy peace under your mother's roof. The sighing heart and the saddened features will forever upbraid her, and bickering and repining will mar every domestic scene. Your mother's aversion to me is far from irreconcilable, but that which will hasten reconcilement will be marriage. You cannot forfeit her love as long as you preserve your integrity; and those scruples which no ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... street was full of cries, Of bickering and snarling lies In many keys— The tongues of Egypt and of Rome And lands beyond the shifting foam ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... instead of my disgrace, I will make her my footstool to honour and wealth. And, then, to the devil with the footstool! Yes! two years I have borne what was enough to turn my whole blood into gall,—inactivity, hopelessness, a wasted heart and life in myself; contumely from the world; coldness, bickering, ingratitude from the one for whom (oh, ass that I was!) I gave up the most cherished part of my nature,—rather, my nature itself! Two years I have borne this, and now will I have my revenge. I will sell her,—sell her! God! I ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... discover what a country morning was like." But before Amy could form a sufficiently withering reply, a tiny bird, perched on the topmost bough of a neighboring tree, had burst into such music that the little party stood silenced, and even playful bickering ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Ammon sailing, Perches on the engine's peak, And, the Eagle firemen hailing, Soothes them with its bickering beak. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on high, But all about and around him goes up a bitter cry From the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steel Sends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reel Behind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo, have ye seen the corn, While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind streak overborne When the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... potential Kings I clearly trace Ground for this hope; no bickering there, no jostling; If HEALY cares to hint that DEVLIN'S race Subsisted by hereditary ostling, That's just the family fun Brothers can well afford whose hearts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... entered into a general free fight in the runway, but the noise of their bickering was unheeded in the excitement of the contest in the exhibition cage. Depew rose as Miller cracked his whip and approached him, and made a rush which the trainer met with his pronged training rod, driving it hard between the ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... way to reenforce the garrison, but hearing of its surrender, he fell back. An assembly was convoked to elect a czar. It was composed of delegates of the clergy, the nobles, the men-at-arms, the merchants, towns, and districts. There was much bickering, but all were agreed that no alien should be presented. When the name of Michael Romanof was called, it was received with enthusiasm, and he was declared elected. (1613.) The delegates remembered the relation between his family ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... confusion, either chattering and squealing with fright or bickering at the other animals. Whenever they attempted to make her do anything, she protested indignantly; and if they tried force, her squalls and cries excited all the animals in the arena ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... unquestionably, much unhappiness in families where polygamy prevails,—daily bickering, jealousies, and heart-burnings,—but it is carefully concealed from the knowledge of the public. If domestic troubles become so aggravated as to be unendurable, recourse is usually had to Brigham Young for a divorce. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... usual over the price, but to-night Maria was too excited over other matters to spend much time in bickering over ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... offended, as everyone must, Whose thoughts are progressive, whose actions are just, With kindness he reasoned all errors to show, And made a staunch friend of a bickering foe. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... estates." We listened, but all was still, save here and there a low whistle from some of the watchmen. He said that night was a specimen of every night now. But it had not always been so. During slavery these villages were oftentimes a scene of bickering, revelry, and contention. One might hear the inmates reveling and shouting till midnight. Sometimes it would be kept up till morning. Such scenes have much decreased, and instead of the obscene and heathen ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie. Thou need na start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle.... ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... appeared that the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families were kept, and the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to Monterey from the junction at Salinas City—though that and so many other things are now for ever altered—and it was from here that you had the first view of the old township lying in the sands, its white windmills bickering in the chill, perpetual wind, and the first fogs of the evening drawing drearily around it from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... involved you in bickering, and never suspected you, in any one action of your life, of practising guile against any human ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... shrivel was wet, and hung with spiders' webs that like a slender netting upheld the dew. The keeper swore a good deal about a certain gentleman farmer whose lands adjoined the estate, but who held under a different proprietor. Between these two there was a constant bickering—the tenant angry about the damage done to his crops by the hares and rabbits, and the keeper bitterly resenting the tenant's watch on his movements, and warnings to his employer that all was not quite as it ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... bronze-tinted shadow upon the dusky red stream, which at that point is full fifteen hundred feet broad; the right bank offering a succession of the most luxuriant palmetto grounds, with here and there a bean or tulip tree, amongst the branches of which innumerable parroquets were chattering and bickering. A pleasant breeze swept across from the palmetto fields, scarcely sufficient, however, to ruffle the water, which flowed tranquilly along, undisturbed save by the paddle of our steamer, that caused the huge black ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... said the Major, "that it would be better to throw the four packs into two. Then you would have less squabbling and bickering about the different boundaries, and you would kill the same number of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... vessel rides Where my obscure condition hides. Waves scud to shore against the wind That flings the sprinkling surf behind; In port the bickering pennons show Which way the ships would gladly go; Through Edgecumb Park the rooted trees Are tossing, reckless, in the breeze; On top of Edgecumb's firm-set tower, As foils, not foibles, of its power, The light ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... "We will have no bickering here," she protested. Evander paid her a salutation, and, moving a little aside, resumed his book. He would not retire while Sir Blaise was in presence, but he guessed that the lady wished for speech with her friend. Sir Blaise did not find ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hauing with them a conuenient power, incountred the enimies, slue part of them, and chased the other to their ships. They that escaped and got once to their ships, obteined of Makbeth for a great summe of gold, that such of their friends as were slaine at this last bickering, might be buried in Saint Colmes Inch. In memorie whereof, manie old sepultures are yet in the said Inch, there to be seene grauen with the armes of the Danes, as the maner of burieng noble men still is, and hieretofore hath beene vsed. A peace was also concluded at the same ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... upon me, for which they had no ground; and that it was still harder, considering the circumstances I was under in the family; that I hoped I had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me, or given any occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters, and I had more need to think of a coffin than of being in love, and begged she would not let me suffer in her opinion for anybody's mistakes but ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... whereupon Oliver bitterly rejoins, had his friend only done so at first, they would have been reinforced by now, and that the emperor can no longer reach them in time. He can, however, avenge them and give them an honorable burial, Roland argues, and he and his friend continue bickering until the archbishop silences them, bidding Roland blow his horn. Placing Olifant to his lips, the hero, after drawing a powerful breath, blows so mighty a blast that it ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... bickering with all others, should be taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in the family, it cannot be settled by attributing ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... don't, but the real discontent is with the whole system, with the nature of things. I had a curious revelation on that point the last time I tried to deal with my men as a union. They were always bothering me about this and about that, and there was no end to the bickering. I yielded point after point, but it didn't make any difference. It seemed as if the more I gave the more they asked. At last I made up my mind to try to get at the real inwardness of the matter, ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... truth of the misunderstanding suddenly came home to Nancy, and after some bickering between the lawyers, she was allowed to narrate, in her own homely way, the current of events from the first time she had noticed the illness coming over Mr. Moore, until she had stood by the switch watching the train going to destruction. ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... ... they had no sooner deliver'd there Fraight at Accomack, but they hoyse up there sayles, and back againe to Yorke River, where with a Marvellous celerity they surprise one Major Cheise-Man, and som others, amongst whom one Capt. Wilford, who (it is saide) in the bickering lost one of his eyes, which he seemed little concern'd at, as knowing that when he came to Accomack, that though he had bin starke blinde, yet the Governour would take care for to afford him a guide, that should show him the way to ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... such a relief to her to be alone at last! For one thing, though Timmy and Tom both loved her dearly, their love never suggested to them that it must be disagreeable to her to hear them constantly bickering the one with the other, and they would have been surprised indeed had they known how their teasing squabbles had added to the strain and fatigue of serving the elaborate dinner she ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... heard, upstairs, that unmistakable sound instantly recognized the world over—a bickering woman's voice, rising as her anger and fury grew. I could hear, between the gusts, the temperate rumble of Bell's tones, striving to oil the ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... it, but it was nearly daylight the following morning before the hide had thawed sufficiently for the combined efforts of Connie and the Indian to unroll it. All night the two tended the fire and listened to the petty bickering and quarrelling of the two helpless partners, the man in the bunk taunting the other with being a fool for wrapping up in a green moose hide, and being in turn called a fool for chopping his own foot. It was disgusting in the extreme to Connie but at last the humour of the situation got the better ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... drawing room to another. They strive to get their pieces played; they previously submit them to the judgment of actors; they solicit a word of praise from the Mercure; they read fables at the sittings of the Academy. They become involved in the bickering, in the vainglory, in the pettiness of literary life, and still worse, of the life of the stage, inasmuch as they are themselves performers and play in company with real actors in hundreds of private theaters. Add to this, if you please, other petty amateur talents such as sketching in water-colors, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... inaccessibility. There could hardly have been a more unfit instrument for that dexterous manipulation which the tangled knot of Irish politics required than this narrow, pedantic, tactless peer. The Chancellor soon saw that endless petty bickering would be the result of continuing him in the post. His petty pride was offended by having to serve as deputy to Albemarle. He was ingenious in detecting legal difficulties, and wearied the patience of the Attorney-General ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... turning from the rose pink of early morning. I could hear again the bickering cries of the snow geese and sandhill cranes away in an unknown distance, the homelier calls of barnyard fowl nearer at hand. Cattle trotted before me and to right and left, their heads high, their gait swinging with the freedom of the half-wild animals of the ranges. After a few steps they turned ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... attractive place in which to live. There were men there who wrote like geniuses and quarreled like children. Father Taylor said that if Emerson were sent to hell, he would start emigration in that direction. The refugees from France made Geneva popular, and all the bickering added spice to existence and made ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... sleekit, cowrin' tim'rous beastie. Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa' sae hasty. Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin and ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... were rapidly outliving the sudden friendship of Rad's sick days, when it was thought he might be blind for life, and were dropping back into their old ways of bickering and rivalry ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... and, having mutual interests, both white and black are more tolerant and better informed. The Bulldozer and White Liner can find but little room to ply their nefarious work where everybody finds plenty of work that pays well, and where material prosperity is the first and political bickering the secondary consideration. Because of the mutual interests at stake, colored men in the sugar districts are often protected by ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... me to leave her. "What," she would say, "has young blood to do with this bickering of kirks and old wives' lamentations? You have to learn and see and do, Andrew. And it's time you were beginning." But I would not listen to her, till by the mercy of God we got my father safely forth of Scotland, and heard that he was dwelling snugly at Leyden in as great ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... just starting in to answer this indictment when Trimalchio, who was delighted with his fellow-freedman's tirade, broke in, "Cut out the bickering and let's have things pleasant here. Let up on the young fellow, Hermeros, he's hot-blooded, so you ought to be more reasonable. The loser's always the winner in arguments of this kind. And as for you, even when you were a young punk you used to go 'Co-co co-co,' ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of passion, Between the bickering fire Where flames of fierce love tremble On the body of ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... certain Alderman Cockayne, to grant Cockayne a patent for the creation of a home-dyeing industry, reserving to the crown a monopoly for the sale of the goods. The Adventurers complained of this as a breach of their charter; and, after much bickering, the king in 1615 settled the dispute by withdrawing the charter. Cockayne now hoped that the company he had formed would be a profitable concern, but he and the king were doomed to disappointment. The Estates of Holland refused to admit the English dyed cloths, and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... attacked him at the Diet at Wollin, nor all the doctors from Stettin, nor even Doctor Pomius, who had been sent from Wolgast by the old Duchess, to attend her dear son; and as the doctor (as I have said) was a formal, priggish little man, he and the fool were always bickering and snarling. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, Shines with the image of its golden screen And glimmerings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... rough, shingly shallows wide," and then "bickering down the sunny day." On one day, it might, in places, and with the aid of stepping-stones, be crossed dryshod; and within twenty-four hours it might be swelled by mountain torrents into a river wider than the Thames at Richmond. This ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... often did other lessons, though this was quite contrary to the express orders of her father, who was very anxious that his children should have a "proper regard for the day." There was continual bickering, many disputes and petty quarrels, and when bed-time came every one was weary and cross, and seemed glad the day was over. No wonder that Ruth often longed and sighed for one of the happy ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... given him a bad moment, Karl chose to be deliberately cruel. "Perhaps!" he said. "But even then if this marriage were purely one of expediency, Olga, I might hesitate. Frankly, I want peace. I am tired of war, tired of bickering, tired of watching and being watched. But it is not one of expediency. Not, at least, only that. You leave out of this discussion the one element that I consider important, Hedwig herself. If the Princess Hedwig were to-morrow to be ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... what I mean, you blighter!' he snarled. 'Oh, for God's sake, no—we mustn't start bickering alongside of that!' He forced his eyes to look down again at the corpse, and shuddered. 'The tide's going ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... European Monetary Union for the time being. Constitutional reform is also a significant issue in the UK. The Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly were established in 1999, but the latter is suspended due to bickering ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... interrupted in his tale of the afternoon's experience by the tempest at the other end of the table, turned toward the twins impatiently. "Stop your eternal bickering, ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... kings of Barbary, and my portly bassoes, [130] We hear the Tartars and the eastern thieves, Under the conduct of one Tamburlaine, Presume a bickering with your emperor, And think to rouse us from our dreadful siege Of the famous Grecian Constantinople. You know our army is invincible; As many circumcised Turks we have, And warlike bands of Christians renied, [131] As hath the ocean or the Terrene [132] sea Small ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... and several sharp political moves and countermoves, John and Philip came to terms, May 18, 1200, by which the French King conferred almost all of the disputed fiefs on John. Constant bickering, however, continued. John had to do homage for his fiefs, and his French vassals took every opportunity to appeal from him to Philip, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... all,' said Psmith deprecatingly. 'Not at all. You do not take me. My point is this. I do not wish to revive painful memories, but it cannot be denied that there was, here and there, some slight bickering between us on that occasion. The fault,' said Psmith magnanimously, 'was possibly mine. I may have been too exacting, too capricious. Perhaps so. However, the fact remains that you conceived the ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... another "broetchen" or something else, he would put down the half-franc he had previously received. Again the soldier received a rude surprise. The canteen proprietor would reluctantly say that the French money was useless to him. There would be a repetition of the previous bickering over the British shilling, and at last the astonished soldier would learn that he could only change the French half-franc at a discount of forty per cent. In this instance the change would be the equivalent of twopence in English money, but it would be given in Belgian coins. Upon the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... in their private lives, persons of the most depraved morals. Why this should be the case, it is impossible even to conjecture, the fact only remaining that it is so. Perhaps there are so many different standards of morality, that humanity, weary of the eternal bickering consequent upon the conflicts entered into for their enforcement, have made for themselves a new interpretation which they find less difficult to observe, and find more peace and ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... stage, the Prince of Wales, who hitherto had seemingly kept aloof from the quarrel, suddenly stepped forward and abruptly interposed the weight of his authority and of his social position between the bickering adversaries. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that such and such events are said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries, Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive, telling it over and over again to their children. On numberless days, no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games. The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or sister ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... and the whistling man were still within hearing when Tom swung Nan lightly to the ground and dropped beside her. No word was spoken until she had emptied and refilled her bucket at the spring, then Tom said, with the bickering tang still on ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... his double-barrelled shotgun over his shoulder. He shot into a tree-top full of bickering blackbirds and brought three down, torn, flopping, bleeding. He thrust them into his sack, which reddened through, and we went on ... still in silence. The silence began to make me tremble but I was glad, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... mighty voice guilt on Latinus calls, 580 And bids the Gods to witness him twice to the battle driven, Italians twice become his foes, and twice the treaty riven. But mid the turmoiled city-folk arose the bickering then, Some bade unbar and open gates unto the Dardan men; Yea, some unto the walls would drag their very king and lord; But some bear arms and go their ways the walls of war to ward: E'en as the shepherd finds the bees shut in, a fenced folk, In chinky pumice rock, and fills their house ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... receive you into mine empire; ye are numbered amongst my adorers. Enjoy whatever this palace affords: the treasures of the pre-Adamite Sultans, their bickering sabres, and those talismans that compel the Dives to open the subterranean expanses of the mountain of Kaf, which communicate with these. There, insatiable as your curiosity may be, shall you find sufficient to gratify it; you shall possess ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... stop your bickering," Mr. Galbraith said at last. "You are wasting the whole luncheon, squabbling. You'd much better be deciding what you are going to do with Bob for ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Singing One. She was the granddaughter of old Marrow-Bone, and the daughter of the Hairless One. She was a young thing, greatly given to singing at the mouth of her cave in the twilight, and she had but recently mated with Crooked-Leg. He was a quiet individual, molesting no one and not given to bickering with his fellows. He was no fighter anyway. He was small and lean, and not so active on his legs as ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... just like these relatives of hers. She was both ashamed and amused,—ashamed of their ill-breeding and amused by their useless bickering. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... must request you to desist from this bickering," said Allan Roscoe. "I am sorry, Hector, that I cannot comply with your request. By the way, you did not tell me ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... pardieu! the Scotch are the peat, for they will smolder and you will never come to the end of them. I have had many happy hours on the marches of Scotland, for even if there be no war the Percies of Alnwick or the Governor of Carlisle can still raise a little bickering with the border clans." ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you say so much, sir," she answered gently. "I have often envied my companions at the Ursulines when they talked of their brothers. It was so strange to hear them tell of bickering and ill-will between brother and sister. Had God given me a brother, I would not quarrel ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Reformation, and had no place in the practice at least of the mediaeval Church, which we cannot too carefully remember is little more represented by modern Catholicism than by modern Protestantism. The contest, therefore, between the Crown and the Church was a mere bickering between two bodies, without any essential antagonism between them, as to how far the administration of either reached; neither dreamed of subordinating one to the other, far less of extinguishing ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... quarrel seemed likely to end only in legal bickering. Balliol at first gave way, and it was not till 1293 that he alleged himself forced by the resentment both of his Baronage and his people to take up an attitude of resistance. While appearing therefore ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... sharing a bottle of gingerbeer imbibed through a couple of straws, "I've really done a clever thing, only those fellows don't quite see it. Here we've been for a week pegging away at this Bill, bargaining and bickering. Sometimes I've yielded a trifle to the Opposition; sometimes I haven't. But it's pretty much all the same in the end. The Act will look very well in the Statute Book, and I hope will help us at the General Election. But as far as practical use goes, I have sometimes laughed when ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... utmost good humor and feeling prevailed. Most of the members of the company were young; there was no bickering. They knew that Frohman's struggle was with and for them. They called him "The Governor," and he always referred to them as his "nice little company." All looked forward confidently to better days, and in this belief they were supported and ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... the troops were arriving. Columns of childish, reportorial prattle followed, describing the martial bearing of the officers, the fierceness of the "bronzed Indian fighters." The city was under martial law. He read also the bickering telegrams exchanged between the state authorities and the federal government, and interviews with leading citizens, praising the much-vilified President for his firm act in upholding law and order. The general managers were clever ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa' sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hastie, Wi' bickering brattle! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... races is a remarkable creature. She bears her bondage and its hardships with consummate fortitude, and the greatest good humour and gaiety, never quarrelling or sulking with her master, and only now and then having a little bickering of jealousy or rivalry with her fellow slave. Two or three slaves only, for the present, are unable to keep up, and placed on the backs of camels. I am astonished to see how well they keep up, what fatigue they are capable ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... sake let's do something now." There are weight and solidity in a policeman's club, while a "moral equivalent" happens to be pale like the stuff of which dreams are made. To the politician whose daily life consists in dodging the thousand and one conflicting prejudices of his constituents, in bickering with committees, intriguing and playing for the vote; to the business man harassed on four sides by the trust, the union, the law, and public opinion,—distrustful of any wide scheme because the stupidity ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... necessary. So let me have no more threats of any sort, or I shall be compelled, for peace and quietness' sake, to request my friend Bowata and his people to take charge of you. This is not the first time that you have obliged me to say this. I shall not again repeat it. Let there be no more bickering between us. The cutter is very nearly completed and, please God, we shall soon be at sea in her and on our way back to civilisation ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... subdued and hidden and discredited thing. Contentious professions cease to be an honourable employment for men. The peace between nations is also a peace between individuals. We live in a world that comes of age. Man the warrior, man the lawyer, and all the bickering aspects of life, pass into obscurity; the grave dreamers, man the curious learner, and man the creative artist, come forward to replace these barbaric aspects of existence by a less ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... during the joint occupancy of that vast region with Great Britain—an arrangement terminated not longer than two years before. There must be some sort of law and leadership between the Missouri and the Columbia. Amid much bickering of petty politics, Jesse Wingate had some four days ago been chosen for the thankless task of train captain. Though that office had small authority and less means of enforcing its commands, none the less the train leader must be ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... up the little Glen, which was in all the melancholy beauty of autumn, the little brook brawling and bickering in fine style over its ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... paths, crossed and heard more near at hand the bickering of the streams, and tasted the coolness of those recesses where the houses stood. The birds sang about us as we descended. All along our path my guide was being hailed by voices: "Mikael—Kaoha, Mikael!" From ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than me. But when I look back it seems as if I had been born into the bickering. It always looked as natural as the grassy slopes outside the door. I thought it was a consequence of twins, that all parents with twins went on so. When my father's next older brother fell ill, and there seemed a possibility of his succeeding to the property, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... lane led us up from Quartes with its church and bickering windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... encouraging. The issue of the acquaintance is a sorry one. Pope revenged himself for her scorn in his worst and most unmanly fashion of innuendo; she, on her side, retorted with lampoons and satire as cruel. One feels glad that she finally left England and that further bickering was impossible. The other two persons were the already mentioned Blounts, each of whom seems at first to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... mind in which Hewson rose, and flung open his shutters to let in the dawn upon the scene of the apparition, which he now perceived must have been, as it were, self-lighted. The robins were yelling from the trees and the sparrows bickering under them; catbirds were calling from the thickets of syringa, and in the nearest woods a hermit-thrush was ringing its crystal bells. The clear day was penetrating the east with the subtle light ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... back to his place among the furs, and the bickering was continued. For two hours it waged, ending finally by the promise of the Mongol that, in the morning, the cattle should be at hand; that they would be better than those Johnny had seen; and that Johnny's "beggarly" price of one pound of gold for ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... out of our partial successes, drive the enemy out of our country wherever he had a foot-hold, otherwise the South would slowly but surely crumble away. So much had been expected of Longstreet's Corps in East Tennessee, and so little lasting advantage gained, that bickering among the officers began. Brigadier Generals were jealous of Major Generals, and even some became jealous or dissatisfied with General Longstreet himself. Crimination and recrimination were indulged in, censures and charges were made and denied, and on the whole the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... agreed to, stipulating the kind and quantity of game to be paid in return for flour, goats, and fowl, and a certain number of huts that were to be turned over to the visitors. The details having been settled after an hour or more of that bickering argument of which the native African is so fond, the newcomers entered the village where they were ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... whether we wish to be or no, and for six weeks or more on the island we shall see no faces but our own. Are we to be divided from the beginning by quarrels? Are maybe even the men of us to be set by the ears through the bickering of women?" ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... of property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was freely blamed. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... developed into the leader of the reptile press of the South which sought by all means fair or foul to break down and destroy the President. This sheet was made the organ of all the bickering, backbiting, complaining and sulking in the army and the civil ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... such bickering as I have indicated, between the soldiers of the two sections; and, fortunately, there has been none between the politicians. Possibly I am the only one who thought of the liability of such a state of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... phantasmata O'erbrow the silent citizens of Dis:- Hast not thy fill? Tarry awhile, lean Earth, for thou shalt drink, Even till thy dull throat sicken, The draught thou grow'st most fat on; hear'st thou not The world's knives bickering in their sheaths? O patience! Much offal of a foul world comes thy way, And man's superfluous cloud shall soon be laid ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... his brother,—and most fellows do,—there is scant use or grace or common-sense in keeping up, from mere carelessness, or through an irritable habit, a continual bickering, for these germs of evil are possessed of a marvelous faculty for growth, and some day their gigantic deformities will confront you in deeds of which you ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... till't they gaed, wi' heart and hand; The blows fell thick as bickering hail; And mony a horse ran masterless, And mony a ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... aldermen to answer for certain trespasses. Several holders of office, and among them Edmund le Lorimer, Gaoler of Newgate, for whom Hugh le Despenser had solicited the Small Beam, were deposed: a proceeding which gave rise to much bickering between mayor, aldermen and commons. Disputes, moreover, had arisen in the city touching the election and removal of the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen of the city, which required some pressure from the Earl Marshal and other of the king's ministers, sitting in ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... and they were ready for bed. The squabbling and bickering among the dogs had long since died down, and the weary animals were curled in the snow, each with his feet and nose bunched together and covered by his wolf's brush of a tail. Kama spread his sleeping-furs and lighted his pipe. Daylight rolled ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... N. disagreement; discord, discordance; dissonance, dissidence, discrepancy; unconformity &c 83; incongruity, incongruence^; discongruity^, mesalliance; jarring &c v.; dissension &c 713; conflict &c (opposition) 708; bickering, clashing, misunderstanding, wrangle. disparity, mismatch, disproportion; dissimilitude, inequality; disproportionateness &c adj.^; variance, divergence, repugnance. unfitness &c adj.; inaptitude, impropriety; inapplicability &c adj.; inconsistency, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... shifting, o'er the pool Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career Arrests the bickering stream." ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the consulates, and only one-half of the sum agreed should be paid in advance; the other half must be kept in hand, to operate as a check on the crew. After every precaution has been taken, one can seldom escape without some bickering and quarrelling. On these occasions it is always advisable at once to take high ground, and not to give way in the most trifling particular, for this is the only method ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... rise among these pines, he spoke in detail of the charitable and philanthropic work that might be organized, of money that might be saved for banks and business. Finally he urged unity, and deprecated especially religious and denominational bickering. "To-day," he said, with a smile, "the world cares little whether a man be Baptist or Methodist, or indeed a churchman at all, so long as he is good and true. What difference does it make whether a man be baptized in river or washbowl, or not at ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... shadows far into the future and will make their impress upon the annals of our history, and that we shall appear upon the bright pages of that history just in so far as we cordially, without guile, without bickering, without small criticisms, lend our aid to promote the great cause of humanity ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... to answer, for her reproach was righteous; yet he loved her dearly. He was released from this embarrassment by the return of Mitri, who had been into the town to visit a sick man. He had drawn quite near before the bickering pair perceived him. Nesibeh made as if to fly indoors; but the priest called her ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... further bickering. The juniors were giving their gymnastic and dancing display in the lecture hall, and Miss Beasley had announced that she wished the entertainment to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... bickering gonfalons, * far-ranged as for Tartarean wars, Went a waver of ribbed fire *—as night-seas on phosphoric bars Like a flame-plumed fan shake slowly out * their ridgy reach of ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... surprise of many, withdrew from the Executive to accept the post of Railway Commissioner. His motives were probably in part a desire to provide for his family, which his personal extravagance and political honour alike had kept in a continual state of penury, and in part that disgust at partisan bickering which so often seizes upon provincial politicians in ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... although not large, held many treasures of book making, and was sufficient for the requirements of the young monk. He could keep the hours of the Church in the little chantry attached to the house, and he was taken out of the atmosphere of jealousy and bickering which, to his own great astonishment and dismay, he had found to be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Inexperience, unwillingness, or inability due to insufficient food, to do the hard work that was necessary and the lack of sufficient information about how to survive in a primeval wilderness led to bickering, disagreements, and, to what was ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... fears the war remained popular with practically all the men with whom I talked. Various companies were being formed, and militia captains, to make sure of seeing active service, were not punctilious as to where and by what means they secured their men. There was much ill-natured bickering over this rivalry, with several matters assuming such proportions that only Colonel Lewis ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... went out into the garden an hour or so later to gather roses for the table, Harmony was flooded with the exquisite morning sun, the birds were twittering and bickering among themselves, and Carlo sprang up to meet her, barking an affectionate "good morning," as he playfully ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... flaxen-haired dolls and bright ribbon streamers; squaws and bucks who brought rugs and blankets to sell, and who would bargain with you in broken English and smile and nod in friendly fashion if you spoke to them in Spanish or paid without bickering the price they asked for a rug. You might see them in the fifteen-cent store, buying cheap candy and staring in mute admiration at all the gay things piled high on the tables. Remember that, when I ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... good-humored bickering and sifting of requests to suit Patricia's repertoire, the tumult gradually quieted and ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... looked from one young face to the other, enjoying the friendly bickering and feeling happy that he was no dampener to their fun, for they accepted him as one of themselves. Mrs. Williams' hearty laugh urged them on to further ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... o'er the ocean wave Through realms that rove not, clouds that cannot save, Sinks in the sunshine; dazzles o'er the tomb And mocks the mutiny of Memory's gloom. Oh! who can feel the crimson ecstasy That soothes with bickering jar the Glorious Tree? O'er the high rock the foam of gladness throws, While star-beams lull Vesuvius to repose: Girds the white spray, and in the blue lagoon, Weeps like a walrus o'er the waning moon? Who can declare?—not thou, pervading ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... financial burden, and so vexatious and disheartening the bickering and ingratitude, that Penn thought seriously of selling his governorship; and it was in the market for several years awaiting a purchaser. Indeed, in 1712, he had so far perfected a bargain to transfer his proprietary rights to the crown for L12,000, that ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... year 1789, the States, after much debate and bickering, finally ratified the document known as the Constitution of the United States. While the work of the American Revolution was thus being completed, and a new nation was being formed, events were transpiring on the other side ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming bickering fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth through the snug apartment; which, notwithstanding the general antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern habits rendered either ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... children, not repining at neglect While tumult sweeps them ample room for play, Everywhere questions answered ere begun, Everywhere crowds, for everywhere alarm. Thus winter gone, nor spring (though near) arrived, Urged slanting onward by the bickering breeze That issues from beneath Aurora's car, Shudder the sombrous waves; at every beam More vivid, more by every breath impelled, Higher and higher up the fretted rocks Their turbulent refulgence they display. ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... when Francois was not around, With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-leks were unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse. Things no longer went right. There was continual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog-driver was in constant apprehension of the life-and-death struggle between the two which he knew must take place sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... disagreement, dispute, brawl, affray, fray, variance, bickering, contention, wrangle, spat, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... it!" declared Zurich bluntly. "And—damn you—you shan't do it! He's a dangerous old bow-legged person, and I wish he was farther. And I must admit that I am myself most undesirous for any personal bickering with him. To hear Jim Scarboro relate it, old Pete is one wiz with a six-gun. All the same, I'll not let him be shot from ambush. He's too good for that. I draw the line there. I'm not exactly afraid of the little old wasp, either, when ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... eighty thousand feet a day the output dropped to seventy, sixty, fifty thousand—and the end was not in sight. Good-natured banter and friendly tussles among the men gave place to surly bickering and ugly fist-fighting, and in spite of the best efforts of the second cook the crew growled sullenly or openly cursed ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the starters was pulled up and down the line in a skiff to criticise. Not every girl was as fair-minded to her opponents as the girls from Green Knoll Camp, and there was some little bickering before the starter shouted for the whole crowd—both ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... little, cowering, timorous beastie! Oh what a panic's in thy breastie! You need not start away so hasty, With bickering speed: I should be loth to run and chase thee I ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... that other sixteenth-century lady who used to kick them and hit them on the head with her fists and put them in the stocks.[13] All prioresses were not 'ful plesaunt and amiable of port', or stately in their manner. The records of monastic visitations show that bad temper and petty bickering sometimes broke the peace of ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... wearisome task to him, we need not doubt. But he did it with anxious vigilance; ever thinking Daun would try something, either on Prince Henri or on him, and that the Play would begin. But the Play did not. There was endless scuffling and bickering of Outposts; much hitching and counter-hitching, along that Bohemian-Silesian Frontier,—Daun gradually hitching up, leftwards, northwards, to be nearer his Russians; Friedrich counter-hitching, and, in the end, detaching against the Russians, as they approached in actuality. The details of all ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... up the crop and offered it. As he did so, the horse became restive, and there was quite a substantial bickering before his mistress could accept the whip. Anthony, if he thought about it at all, attributed the scene to caprice. In this he was right, yet wrong. Caprice was the indirect reason. The direct cause was the heel of a little hunting-boot adroitly applied to ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... there was the heavy sleep beneath blanket and buffalo robe, through the biting chill of a breezeless night, the ground a welcomed bed, the stars vigilant from horizon to horizon, the wolves stalking and bickering like ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... his money better than in paying for that; and that it would be better for him and Grettir to go on bickering since "each oak has that which it scrapes from the other." Thorkell said: "But I ask you, Grettir, to do so much for my sake as not to attack Bjorn while you ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... of the world of fire! 440 The ocean-king, lord of the waters, rides High on his hissing car, whose concave skirrs The azure deep beneath him, flashing wide, As to the sun the dark-green wave upturns, And foaming far behind: sea-horses breast The bickering surge, with nostrils sounding far, And eyes that flash above the wave, and necks, Whose mane, like breakers whitening in the wind, Toss through the broken foam: he kingly bears His trident sceptre high; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... warn young Erskyll of the dangers of overwork and emotional over-involvement. Each time, the Proconsul would pour out some tale of bickering and rivalry among the chief-freedmen of the Managements. Citizen Khouzhik and Citizen Eschkhaffar—they were all calling each other Citizen, now—were contesting overlapping jurisdictions. Khouzhik wanted to change the name of his Management—he no longer bothered mentioning Sesar Martwynn—to ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... and don't make such fools of yourselves again. We can't have all this bickering and fighting over a simple ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... hers, but she was as young as a spring apple and as pretty as a picture; so that there was no end of those who would have liked to have had her, each man for his own. Even that day there were three princes at the castle, each one wanting the queen to marry him; and the wrangling and bickering and squabbling that was going on was enough to deafen a body. The poor young queen was tired to death with it all, and so she had come out into the garden for a bit of rest; and there she sat under the shade of an apple-tree, fanning herself ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... is at its best a wildly beautiful confusion of impressions and at its worst a dingy uproar. It crowds upon us and jostles us, we get our little interludes for thinking and talking between much rough scuffling and laying about us with our fists. And I cannot afford to be continually bickering with Chesterton and Belloc about forms of expression. There are others for whom I want to save my knuckles. One may be wasteful in peace and leisure, but economies ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... bitter play of war went bickering up and down, AEneas clave the seas with keel amidst the dead of night: For when Evander he had left and reached the Tuscan might, He met their king and told his name, and whence his race of old, And what he would and how he wrought: and of the host he told, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil |
