"Carping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Professor Pictet's 'Traite de Paleontologie' are works of standard authority, familiarly consulted by every working paleontologist. It is desirable to speak of these excellent books, and of their distinguished authors, with the utmost respect, and in a tone as far as possible removed from carping criticism; indeed, if they are specially cited in this place, it is merely in justification of the assertion that the following propositions, which may be found implicitly, or explicitly, in the works in question, are regarded ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... been born on the wrong side of the Border at Cranenburg, which is the Prussian frontier station on the Rotterdam-Cologne line, his name was undoubtedly van Heerden, which was Dutch. Change the "van" to "von," said the carping critics, and he was a Hun, and undoubtedly Germany was full of von ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... objection has been speciously raised, which at first sight appears of subversive weight; though, when further examined, it is found to be clearly fallacious. By an able but carping critic it was alleged that the mere chemical analysis of old-fashioned Herbal Simples makes their medicinal actions no less empirical than before: and that a pedantic knowledge of their constituent parts, invested with fine technical names, gives them no more ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... abruptly cease, and great granite cliffs rise, bare and straight, up to the level line stretching ever so far along. "It is so characteristic," and "You grow to be so fond of that mountain," are observations I have heard made in reply to the carping criticisms of travelers, and already I begin to understand the meaning of the phrases. But you need to see the mountain from various points of view and under different influences of sun and cloud before you can take in its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to be "brought up" in Pickwick, so to speak, thoroughly to understand him. No true Pickwickian would ever have called Tuckle the Bath Footman, "Blazer," or Jingle, "Jungle." It were better, too, not to adopt a carping tone in dealing with so joyous and irresponsible a work. "Dickens," we are told, "knew nothing of cricket." Yet in his prime the present writer has seen him "marking" all day long, or acting as umpire, with extraordinary knowledge and enthusiasm. ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... scourge of Homer," and was also known as kuon rhetorikos, "the dog of rhetoric," on account of his biting sarcasm; and his name (as in the case of the English Dennis) came to be used to signify in general a carping and malicious critic. Suidas mentions two works of his, written with the object of injuring or destroying the fame of Homer—(1) Nine Books against Homer; and (2) ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... enough after the practice of these three days. Moreover, if it could loose a fool's tongue to have a king and queen for interpreters, I had them—for there were our Harry and Moll catching at every gibe as fast as my brain could hatch it, and rendering it into French as best thy might, carping and quibbling the while underhand at one another's renderings, and the Emperor sitting by in his black velvet, smiling about as much as a felon at the hangman's jests. All his poor fools moreover, and the King's own, ready to gnaw their baubles for envy! That was the only sport I had! I'm wearier ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... element in the poem that is as significant as it is prosaic, a spirit of carping at poetic custom which reminds the reader of Philodemus' lectures. Philodemus, whether speaking of philosophy or music or poetry, always begins in the negative. He is not happy until he has soundly trounced his predecessors and opponents. The author of the Aetna has learned ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... annoyance, which, although continuously lessening, persisted in some degree throughout his life. This numerically small and individually unimportant element of the Negroes in America would hardly warrant even passing mention except that the always carping and sometimes bitter criticisms of these persons are apt to confuse the well-wishers of the race who ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... famous. We shall make a point of throwing not only crumbs to the birds, but slices of bread and marmalade to the more indigent spectators. We shall also try to get two or three open squash racket courts in Whitehall, so that on hot summer days the most carping critic who watches a rally between Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN and the SECRETARY OF STATE for WAR will have to admit that we are doing our utmost to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... and foot by their narrowness and lack of enthusiasm when he died. If he had lived, we would have moved to Benham shortly in order to escape from bondage. And one thing is certain, dear Mrs. Earle," she continued with intensity, "we must not permit this carping spirit of hostility to original and spontaneous effort to get a foothold in Benham. We must crush it, we must ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... on Marjorie bade good-bye to the five girls. She said it without enthusiasm. Their carping, quarrelsome attitude had taken all the pleasure from knowing them. She made mental exception in favor of Irma and Jerry. The gentleness of the one and the sturdy, outspoken manner of the other had impressed her favorably. But she ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... immodest dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains, locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far too busy for twaddly tea-fights and carping at hard-worked generals who were doing their best and a good best too. He and Linda did dine occasionally with Honoria, but the latter felt she could not let herself go about Vivie in the presence of Mrs. Rossiter and seemed a ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... It is no carping criticism to say this of Browning's work in Sordello, because it is the very criticism his after-practice as an artist makes. He gave up these efforts to force, like Procrustes, language to stretch ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... by chance in a carping, critical mood he mentioned this fact, he was greeted by a roar of derision from Monkey Stallings and Alec, who told him to brush up a little on history. He must remember that in those ancient days gunpowder ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... to his purpose through good and through evil report. The hostility which he experienced from some of the directors opposed to the adoption of the locomotive, was the circumstance that caused him the greatest grief of all; for where he had looked for encouragement, he found only carping and opposition. But his pluck never failed him; and now the "Rocket" was upon the ground,—to prove, to use his own words, "whether he was a man of his word ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... hush, my children," said the deep voice of the venerable Marshal Niel. Though yellow with extreme old age the old gentleman bore himself proudly and his dress was glossy and clean. "We all have our place in the world. Let carping critics say what they please, whether it is Dorothy in her gay gown or Liberty in her revolutionary wear, our showy American cousins, our well-beloved Scotch relations, or our Persian guests—they are all welcome, all beautiful." "Hear, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... were it not for contempt, one would be disposed to nail the hands of such trumpery scribblers to a post, and scourge their bare backs with thorny rods to cure them of their insolence! Nay, even my fool Zabastes hath found place in these narrow columns, to write his carping diatribes against me,— me, the King's Laureate! ... As I live, his cumbersome diction hath caused me infinite mirth, and I have laughed at his crabbed and feeble wit till my sides have ached most potently! Now get thee gone, fellow!—thou and thy news!"—and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... hats, and that the brave captain and explorer walked with some difficulty; but the speech and action of the sailor were spirited, and the captain's halting step was doubtless owing to temporary fatigue. Moreover, one glance at the boyish face under the great cocked hat was enough to make the most carping critic forget all other defects while, in strangely modern idioms and with a lofty disregard for dates, the old-time hero reminded his comrade of their long and perilous voyage over the sea, of the great wilderness which lay before ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... enterprise was absolutely new and only just stepping on the very threshold of commercial exploitation. To enter in and possess the land required the confidence of capital and the general public. Hence it was necessary to maintain a constant vigilance to defeat the insidious attacks of carping critics and others who would attempt to injure the Edison system ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... he had been thrown that day, from the French barber, whose intellect accepted nothing without carping, and whose little fingers worked all day, to save himself from dying out, to his own mother, whose intellect accepted anything presented with sufficient glow, but who, until she died, would never stir a finger. When Shelton reached his rooms, he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... always eccentric or unexpected. There would come periods when she would say and do very much as her neighbours said and did; looking then pale and lifeless, but absolutely beyond the reach of hostile criticism, as her champion would suggest to carping neighbours. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... this book I have shown, I believe convincingly, why sex knowledge is even more important for women than it is for men. I have examined carefully the books that have been written for girls and women, and I know that it is not bias, nor carping criticism, but strict honesty that forces me to say that I have not found one satisfactory girl's or woman's sex book. There are some excellent books for girls and women on general hygiene; but on sex hygiene, on the general manifestations of the sex instinct, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... compensate the toil of perseverance. The love of lucre may, or may not, have influenced my Parisian translator; but the love of discovery of latent error, and of exposure of venial transgression, has undoubtedly, from beginning to end, excited his zeal and perseverance. That carping spirit, which shuts its eyes upon what is liberal and kind, and withholds its assent to what is honourable and just, it is the distinguished lot—and, perhaps, as the translator may imagine, the distinguished felicity—of M. Crapelet to possess. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... John, optimistically. "You're always carping about the man's luck. We must break ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... some wicked blue bows for throat and hair, and re-trimming her gipsy hat with the same shade. It is, of course, an undoubted fact that women dress for their own satisfaction only, and in accordance with their instincts of "the true and the beautiful;" so it would be mere hypercritical carping to suspect coquetry of lurking in the deft folds of that unpretending blue ribbon, or that, in the face of her grande passion for Du Meresq, she could for a moment occupy herself with the foolish admiration ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the rest of his life in a hermit's cell in the Forest of Lecceto. The annals of the time throw some entertaining side- lights on his figure. Famous for his austerities and for the sanctity of his life, he was also a very impatient and somewhat intolerant person, given to carping criticism of his brother hermits. Catherine, in writing to him, analyses mercilessly the dangers of the ascetic life; one feels that not much self-righteousness could be left in a man after reading her trenchant phrases. Soon, however, she lifts ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... this was done, that it might be fulfilled," &c. Do my critics mean to tell me that Jesus was not aware of the prophecy? or if Jesus did know of the prophecy, will they tell me that he was not designing to fulfil it? I feel such carping to be little ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... balance, still it is the task of criticism in counting up the contributions of one of these strong men to examine the mischiefs no less than the benefits incident to their work. There is no puny carping nor cavilling in the process. It is because such men are strong that they are able to do harm; they may injure the taste and judgment of a whole generation, just because they are never mediocre. That is implied in strength. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... both looked at me, this pair of carping pessimists, rather furtively, like two fags who have allowed their tongues to wag over freely in the presence of a monitor. It was a curious tribute to the power of officialdom, for they were both far bigger men, in every sense, than ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... thus highly distinguished, has already demonstrated itself worthy of the exalted name, so happily bestowed upon it, the most carping critic must admit. With a population now reaching up toward a million and a half, and with all the forces that make for industrial, commercial and agricultural supremacy in full swing, and gathering ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... account for such disorders as broken heads, sunstroke, superfluous toes, home-sickness, burns and strangulation on the gallows; but against the testimony of so eminent bacteriologists as Drs. Koch and Pasteur their carping is as that of the idle angler. The bacillus is not to be denied; he has brought his blankets and is here to stay until evicted, and eviction can not be wrought by talking. Doubtless we may confidently expect his eventual suppression by a fresher and more ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... which Bland and others, in the name of the Corporation of Tangier, did present to Norwood, for his opinion in, in order to the King's service, which were drawn up very humbly, and were really good things; but his answer to them was in the most shitten proud, carping, insolent, and ironically-prophane stile, that ever I saw in my life, so as I shall never think the place can do well, while he is there. Here, after some talk, and Creed's telling us that he is upon taking the next house to his present lodgings, which ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Morgan's, we were very sorry for the mortified New Englanders, yet not at all forgetful of their carping and insolent attitude toward the ragged New York Line—where at least the majority of our officers were gentlemen and where proper and military regard for rank was most decently maintained. Gad! To hear your New Englander talk, a man might think that this same war was being ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... issued them, or of the reckless lenders who advanced the money. At the same time the United States strained a point elsewhere in the direction of protecting any legitimate debt, and of dealing generously with a fallen foe, by a payment which the most carping critic will some day be ashamed to describe as "buying the inhabitants of the Philippines ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... always carping, but it does seem to me that nearly everything is being done here in the most wasteful way possible. We waste time, we waste labour, we waste material, oh Lord! how we waste our country's money. These aren't, I can assure you, the opinions of a conceited ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... tricot Palm Beach suit, who thought palms grew in jardinieres only. On page 17 she was revealed in the boyish impudence of our Aiken Polo Habit, complete, $90. She was ravishing in her golf clothes, her small feet in sturdy, flat-heeled boots planted far apart, and only the most carping would have commented on the utter impossibility of her stance. Then there was the Killiecrankie Travel Tog (background of assorted mountains) made of Scotch tweed (she would never come nearer Scotland than oatmeal for breakfast) only $140. To say nothing of motor clothes, woodland suits, ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... day; but I fancy these must have been from an old and bare mob, and that this number of well-woolled sheep would be quite beyond one man's power. Sheep are not shorn so neatly as at home. But supposing a man has a mob of 20,000, he must get the wool off their backs as best he can without carping at an occasional snip from a sheep's carcass. If the wool is taken close off, and only now and then a sheep snipped, there will ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... a matter of sentiment; she had merely the dreamy faith that a woman never quite loses, and if she performed any religious duties at all it was only because she had been so used to them at the convent, for the baron's carping philosophy had long ago overthrown all her convictions. The Abbe Picot had always been contented with the little she did do, and never chid her for not confessing or attending mass oftener; but when the Abbe Tolbiac did not see her at church on ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... your carping, Dawn!" I told myself. "You can't expect charming tones, and Oriental do-dads and apple trees in a German boarding-house. Anyhow there's running water in the room. For general utility purposes that's better ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... a few bushels of coals or a score or two of rabbits! Mr. Slide's energetic love of public virtue was scandalised as he thought of the probability of such a catastrophe. To his thinking, public virtue consisted in carping at men high placed, in abusing ministers and judges and bishops—and especially in finding out something for which they might be abused. His own public virtue was in this matter very great, for it ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the carping critic, if the Negro were less patient, forbearing and more combative, if he risked less for country, and gloried more in deeds of heroism for his personal defense, he would lie truer to his self-preservation. Other races placed in condition quite similar to the Negroes have tried ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... 'we could only realise, that in the SPIRIT we are all one, all equal in the spirit, all brothers there—the rest wouldn't matter, there would be no more of this carping and envy and this struggle for power, which ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... I was feeling Wagner's seductiveness so strongly there were always some carping people among my elders ready to quench my admiration and say with a superior smile: "That is nothing. One can't judge Wagner at a concert. You must hear him in the opera-house at Bayreuth." Since then I ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... say, "When I try to restrain my flow of spirits, I feel as if I should be suffocated." Her reckless gayety and unconventional manners led to strange rumors. She would wander over the country attired in boy's clothes, and without an escort, and a great variety of innocent escapades led a carping world to believe that she indulged excessively in stimulants, but the truth was that she never drank anything but a ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... Monthly Magazine' (Scribner's), for November 1882, pp. 159, 160, where is given a fac-simile of the poet's Ms. of these verses and of the ten verses he afterwards added, in response, it seems, to a carping critic. — ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the labours of the tailor. Now, some carping critics may be wicked enough to insinuate that this garb too was finished by a goose! The worst fate I can wish to such malignant scoffers is a complete dressing from this worthy dame; and if she does not make ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Aunt Mary, "and above all, do not let this delicacy show itself in the carping at other people, which only exalts our own opinion of ourselves, and very soon ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carping cynic here Will greet my homely image with a sneer. Well—let us see—I would the monster view: Man with umbrageous whiskers, is it you? Ah, no—I was mistaken: every brow Beams with benevolence and kindness now; Beauty and fashion ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the nobleness of Milton's conception and the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... prevented Sir Robert Peel and the Tories from taking office and kept in the Whig Government. The unpalatable fruits of the embroilment had to be eaten and digested at the present crisis. Accordingly there were carping faultfinding, and resistance—even defeat—on every measure concerning the Prince brought before the Lords ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... passed through the sitting room on her way out, her mother would appear in the doorway, dishtowel in hand. Her pride in this slim young thing and her love of her she concealed with a thin layer of carping criticism. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... nature that the achievement of eminence brings with it the malice and spite of petty minds and no one of prominence can avoid becoming the target of stupid and unscrupulous attack. It would be pointless now to go into those carping and unjust accusations directed at me by irresponsible newspaper columnists. Another man might have ignored these mean assaults, but I am naturally sensitive, and while it was beneath my dignity to reply ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... no doubt an optimistic enterprise. But it is good for awhile to be free from the carping note that must needs be audible when we discuss our present imperfections, to release ourselves from practical difficulties and the tangle of ways and means. It is good to stop by the track for a space, put aside the knapsack, wipe the brows, and talk a little of the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... of course. I thank you for your applause, gentlemen, but I'm not through yet. We have passed the question of things seen, and we now come to the question of things done, which is perhaps more important. It is obvious even to the doubtful or carping mind that if a new thing is done it is done by somebody first. Others will do it afterward, but there must and always will be ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... this book is a severe one on the clergy of the church of Rome. He terms it POMH-PYMH, by which we suppose he intended to brand Roma, as the Sink of Superstition. He observes, if Juvenal, whom he calls Aquine's carping spright, were now alive, among other surprising alterations ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Booker had no staff officer to assist him, and in this position Capt. Akers might have been of some service, and won more glory than he did in the campaign. As to Lieut.-Col. Booker's conduct on the field at Lime Ridge (which was so unfavorably commented upon by the public press and carping critics who accepted the multitude of erroneous rumors that were prevalent during that period of excitement), it may lie stated that the whole affair was fully investigated by a Military Court of Inquiry, composed of three competent officers of high and honorable ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... who during His life had not believed on Him. What a welcome to that room did they receive from John, their adopted brother! May we not indulge the thought that among "the women" were her own daughters; and that we hear her joyfully asking the once carping question of the Jews concerning "the carpenter's son," but with changed meaning, saying, "His sisters, are they not all with us?" If so "His Mother called Mary," "and His brethren," "and His sisters," and John the adopted son and brother, were at last a blessed family indeed. ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... spirit of carping criticism, but as earnest admirers of German forethought and thoroughness (Gruendlichkeit), we feel it our duty to point out that there are a few contingencies for which these otherwise admirable regulations fail to provide, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... learned head of the Suffolk Bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in aid of the officers of the government. This was regarded as neither strange nor improper. The counsel for the prisoners, in that case, contented themselves with answering his arguments, as far as they were able, instead of carping at his presence." This is, in substance, the demand that we make upon the supporters of the war in the Philippines. Let them cease to denounce us as traitors; let them explain the facts on which they are ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... a classic. He had left their arena; he never measured his strength with them; and he was always loud in applause of their exertions. They could, therefore, entertain no jealousy of him and thought no more of detracting from his fame than of carping at the great men who had been lying a hundred years in Poets' Corner. Even the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of the Dunciad, were for once just to living merit. There can be no stronger illustration of the estimation in which Congreve was held than the fact that the English Iliad, a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... like to see young girls care-free and contented; time enough for that later on! And as years robbed him of actual dignities, and as Monroe's estimate of him fell lower and lower, he turned upon his daughters the authority, the carping and controlling that might otherwise have been spent upon respectful employees and underlings. He found some relief for a chafed and baffled spirit in the knowledge that Sally and Martie were helpless, were bound to obey, and could easily be ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... luxurious car. The burden she carried perpetually weighed less heavily upon her than usual. The genial atmosphere of Baronmead had warmed her heart. The few words that Lucas had spoken with her hand in his still echoed through her memory. Yes, she knew where to look for friends; no carping critics, but genuine, kindly friends who knew ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... he began to mend. I was not altogether unhappy, owing to a certain grim pleasure I had in debating with him, which I shall presently relate. There was much to annoy and anger me, too. My cousin Philip was forever carping and criticising my Greek and Latin, and it was impossible not to feel his sneer at my back when I construed. He had pat replies ready to correct me when called upon, and 'twas only out of consideration for Mr. Carvel that I kept my hands from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... is done in many (might I not say, in most?) companies, what is it but one telling malicious stories of, or fastening odious characters upon another? What do men commonly please themselves in so much, as in carping and harshly censuring, in defaming and abusing their neighbours? Is it not the sport and divertisement of many, to cast dirt in the faces of all they meet with; to bespatter any man with foul imputations? Doth not in every corner a Momus lurk, from the venom of whose ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... seene, but wondred at: and so my State, Seldome but sumptuous, shewed like a Feast, And wonne by rarenesse such Solemnitie. The skipping King hee ambled vp and downe, With shallow Iesters, and rash Bauin Wits, Soone kindled, and soone burnt, carded his state, Mingled his Royaltie with Carping Fooles, Had his great Name prophaned with their Scornes, And gaue his Countenance, against his Name, To laugh at gybing Boyes, and stand the push Of euery Beardlesse vaine Comparatiue; Grew a Companion to the common Streetes, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... CARPENTER meant by pursuing him. He was used to being blackguarded by the enemies of his country, but now he was hounded in the house of his friends. He had looked through the whole Congressional Library and failed to find a precedent for the course of the carping CARPENTER, except in the case of the classic chap who had warmed a viper which had turned again and rent him. He did not mean to say that Mr. CARPENTER was a viper, but he thought nobody but an Adder would put this and that together as Mr. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... A carping critic might presume to ask the names and addresses of these "expert engineers." He might also have the temerity to inquire the precise distance in which the train was pulled up, the shortest distance in which other ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... would have been absolutely improper. It is certainly to be wished that decency should be observed on all public occasions, and consequently also on the stage. But even in this it is possible to go too far. That carping censoriousness which scents out impurity in every bold sally, is, at best, but an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals; and beneath this hypocritical guise there often lurks the consciousness of an impure imagination. The determination to tolerate nothing which has the least reference to the sensual ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... care anything about it, one way or the other. It's the immaculate life that concerns me. As you said yourself a few minutes ago, words cannot frighten me. Am I going to stand carping, 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?' What do I care if it comes out of Sodom and ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... in my breast, because I have not always been as kind As woman should, by nature's laws, But showed sometimes a wilful mind, Carping at straws. ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... praises or those of our family? We look askance even at unpretentious honesty, and do so all the more when its fame is trumpeted abroad. In short, it is only the good action that is done by stealth and passes unapplauded which protects the doer from the carping criticism of the world. For this reason I have often debated whether I ought to have composed the speech, such as it is, simply to suit my own feelings, or whether I should have looked beyond myself to the public. I am inclined to the former alternative by the thought that many ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... what's the good of going to see that girl with you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She won't suit you, and you'll only spoil ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have been fierce from the very first, had there ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Now, before carping at a small statement like this, the Quarterly Reviewer should have made sure that he was quite right. But he happens to be quite wrong. I suspect he got his notion of the manner in which a gibbon walks from a citation in "Man's Place in Nature." ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... afford to have done with carping, and can turn to the much more grateful task of praise. I do not think it too much to say that Mr. Hardy has studied his own especial part of England, has made himself master of its landscape, its town and ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... made haste to restore them when they read in the long-hidden paintings the story of Sir Asker's return and gratitude, just as tradition had handed it down from the twelfth century. It is not the first time the loyal faith of the people has proved a better guide than carping critics, and likely it will not ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... The counsel good and full of reason, Her money counted, and designed To visit Moscow in the season. Tattiana learns the intelligence— Of her provincial innocence The unaffected traits she now Unto a carping world must show— Her toilette's antiquated style, Her antiquated mode of speech, For Moscow fops and Circes each To mark with a contemptuous smile. Horror! had she not better stay Deep in ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... St. John on Chinese immigration. The revenue and expenditure of the territory. Zeal of the Company's officers. Armed Sikh and Dyak police. Impossible to raise a native force. Heavy expenditure necessary in the first instance. Carping critics. Cordial support from Sir Cecil Clementi Smith and the Government of the Straits Settlements. Visit of Lord Brassey—his article in the 'Nineteenth Century.' Further expenditure for roads, &c., will be necessary. What the Company has done for Borneo. Geographical exploration. Witti ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... he, sternly, "what do you mean by this constant carping? Do you wish to cease to be an actress? Or what in all the world do ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Collings has changed from a respectable Radical, with good intentions and excellent sentiments, into a carping, venomous, wrong-headed hater of Mr. Gladstone and all the proposals which come from a Liberal Government. On the 8th of February, he gave an extremely ugly specimen of his malignant temper, by complaining ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... hundred years and more after his time, Sun Pin lived. He was a descendant of Wu.] [13] In his treatment of deliberation and planning, the importance of rapidity in taking the field, [14] clearness of conception, and depth of design, Sun Tzu stands beyond the reach of carping criticism. My contemporaries, however, have failed to grasp the full meaning of his instructions, and while putting into practice the smaller details in which his work abounds, they have overlooked its essential purport. That is the motive which has ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... their own interests. For there were jealous people everywhere; envy stalks rampant through the world; failure cavils at mediocrity, mediocrity sneers at genius. And Sheila had always considered her father a genius, and the carping of those over whom her father had ridden roughshod had always sounded in ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sexes. I wish with all my heart I could go the whole length with you. You seem to think that such birds probably select the most beautiful females: I must feel some doubt on this head, for I can find no evidence of it. Though I am writing so carping a note, I admire ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... carping critic could have found no fault with Edith's manner. If she felt any superiority, she did not show it. She accorded to Rosemary the same perfect courtesy she showed Madame, and, apparently, failed to notice that the girl had not spoken since the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... received from Edwin considerable quantities of Mr Orgreave. But the fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful ass, and quite unable to assimilate Mr Orgreave; Edwin could never comprehend how Clara, so extremely difficult to please, so carping and captious, could mate herself to a fellow like Benbow. She had done so, however; they were recently married. Edwin was glad that that was over; for it had disturbed him in his attentions ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the sea in the Roumanian navy, and English out of a book; he would still at times pronounce the e's at the end of "there" and "here"; he was a naturalised Englishman, and he drove me into a reluctant and uncongenial patriotism by his everlasting carping at things English. Pollack would set himself to "draw him out." Heaven alone can tell how near I ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... How is this? some carping reader exclaims. How is it that Amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was so beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her discriminating sex? My dear sir, there were no men at Miss Pinkerton's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... best to the front. Extinguish personal aims. Mind not at all the little picking and carping of human gadflies, whose desire to extract blood is perhaps a survival of their species, and an evidence of their ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... the wedding. Even the most carping one of all the village gossips was ready to agree that it had thrown new lustre over the entire community, and even shed its beams into the next county whence certain of the guests had come. There had been many guests and some unusual costumes. The church had been filled with a wealth ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... had felt irritated at his companion's persistent carping, began to glow, for he felt that his ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... them, all subjects of the highest interest, with that of Mungo Park, for instance, arid we have a fair measure of the French traveller's value. The native words inserted into the text are for the most part given with unusual correctness, and the carping criticism which would correct them sadly requires correction itself. "Thus the word which he writes mouloundu in his text, and mulundu in his vocabulary, is not singular, as he supposes, but the plural of loondu, a mountain" (p. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... tale at length, because some carping, malevolent scribes have dared to insinuate, actually to insinuate in print, that the Grand Duke and his Order have no existence. To these jelly-faced purveyors of balderdash I only say this:—How, if His Serene Highness be a myth, could I receive from him the letter I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... his grave several weeks. Life had gone on much as usual in Boston, with the bickerings of small souls the gaping imitations of the mob, the carping of the self-appointed critics, and the earnest endeavor of the honest and inspired workers, who leaven ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... gray, Shut from the sight of carping critic, His lonely thoughts would often stray From Vedic verse and tongues Semitic, Bidding the ghost of vanished hope Mock with its past the sad possessor Of the dead spray of heliotrope That once ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... mind of a carping critic the universal newness might have forced the question, "Where did the family live before they came here? Did all their accumulation of personal belongings burn with an old homestead? Or did they start fresh with their new ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... more evident than demonstration itself, that whilst this impression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no other condition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing and disgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit; carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true and steadfast; winning and inveigling away from you such as are flexible and wavering; thrusting ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Zadar that the Italians would be followed in the course of days by the other Allies. Anyhow the Yugoslavs were in no carping spirit; about 5000 of them assembled to greet the Italian destroyer; they were, in fact, more numerous than the Italians. And perhaps one should record that on this memorable occasion—it was at an early hour—Dr. Ziliotto had to complete his toilette ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... are not about to proceed through a volume such as this in a carping spirit, though food enough for such a spirit may be found; there is too much genuine merit, too much genuine humour, in the work. What, indeed, is the use of selecting from an author who will indulge in all manner of vagaries, whether ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... I heard a carping of a clerk All at yon woodes end, Of good Robin and Gandeleyn, Was ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... detraction seizes him at times, a mania which some of his admirers have more kindly than wisely endeavoured to shuffle off as a humorous dramatic touch intentionally administered to him by his Eidolon North. The most disgraceful, perhaps the only really disgraceful, instance of this is the carping and offensive criticism of Scott's Demonology, written and published at a time when Sir Walter's known state of health and fortunes might have protected him even from an enemy, much more from a friend, and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... position, but found even repose, security, mystery, and general respect therein. On the contrary, in the debasement of a common or humble attachment, he would encounter, even among his meanest subjects, carping and sarcastic remarks; he would forfeit his character of infallibility and inviolability. Having descended to the region of petty human miseries, he would be subjected to paltry contentions. In ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her climate in a carping spirit, nevertheless he accorded due praise to her unsurpassed beauty. "No place so brands a man," he declared; and, in his turn, Stevenson left his brand on the romantic city of his birth, for now no book on Scotland's capital ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... note upon the great duke be a carping one. Rather let my final sentence be one which will remind you of his frugal and abstemious life, his carpetless floor and little camp bed, his precise courtesy which left no humblest letter unanswered, his courage which never flinched, his ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle |
