"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Herein we may see the World moralized, or emblematically described, where most are short, over, wide or wrong-Byassed, and few justle in to the Mistress Fortune: On one side we find Heraclitus and his Followers fret, vex, rail, swear and cavil at every thing; on the other side Democritus, and his Company rejoice and laugh, as if they were created for that purpose. On one side you may see the Mimick screwing and twisting his Body into ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... cavil in Marion's voice. Her eyes were earnest and serious; and she waited, as one waits in honest perplexity, to have a puzzle solved. But she was known as one who held dangerous, even infidel notions, and Mr. Pembrook, bewildered ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... of occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed, if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be proprietor of my field as soon as I receive rent for it from another. This we have shown beyond all cavil. It is the same with all capital; so that to put capital in an enterprise, is, by the law's decision, to exchange it for an equivalent sum in products. I will not enter again upon this now useless discussion, since I propose, in the following ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... when he finds himself ridiculed or reviled. He has parted with the shadow of his life. His motives may be misrepresented, his character belied; his manners, his person, his dress, the "very trick of his walk" are all fair food for the cavil and the caricature. He can never go back, he cannot even pause; he has chosen his path, and all the natural feelings that make the nerve and muscle of the active being urge him to proceed. To stop short is to fail. He has told the world that he will make a name; and he must be set down as ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... odd stir on shore. A cab whirled up furiously and two more youths, shapely, handsome, and fashionable, twins beyond cavil and noticeably older than their twenty years, visibly rich in fine qualities but as visibly reckless as to what they did with them, sprang out, flushed and imperious, to wave the Votaress. One of her guards was still rubbing ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... pleasant relations, except now and then, when the lifting of a veil, as it were, revealed for a moment the true life of each. Yet I was fond of looking at her from a distance, and defending her when silly people were inclined to cavil at her want of feminine graces. Then I would say, 'I would like to be an artist now, that I might paint, not the care-worn countenance and the uneasy air of one seemingly out of harmony with the scene about her, but the soul that sometimes looks ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... every hour of my life, will I look back with emotion to the time when I beheld the two most eminent commanders of the age contemplating each other's greatness without envy, and accepting each other's suggestions without cavil; and I trust that, from the sight, I may receive inspiration as far as lies within my capacity, to emulate their moral as well as ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of Harley Street who essays the role of villain richly deserves to be. However, as he is left a bankrupt, discredited in his practice and detached from the heroine whom he had sworn to appropriate, it would perhaps be straining a point to cavil at his remaining at large. The idea upon which the story is based, and which enables the author to clothe his characters and their actions with bewildering mystery, is essentially good and, I believe, new, though ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... beauty if united with sense and virtue. In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil, if, on a nearer view, they find it less—but let them consider, that if she had more faults than generally belong to others, she had likewise ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... now have been well; but Griselda had a pernicious habit of recurring to any slight words of blame which had been used by her friends. Her husband had congratulated her upon having attained the perfection of the art of disputing, since she could cavil about straws. This reproach rankled in her mind. There are certain diseased states of the body, in which the slightest wound festers, and becomes incurable. It is the same with the mind; and our heroine's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... some excuse for "elevator architecture" will find a good deal to interest him in its practice at Chicago. Indeed, no one can fail to wonder at the marvellous skill of architectural engineering which can run up a building of twenty stories, the walls of which are merely a veneer or curtain. Few will cavil at the handsome and comfortable equipment of the best interiors; but, given the necessity of their existence, the wide-minded lover of art will find something to reward his attention even in their exteriors. In many instances their architects have succeeded ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... lighted exterior of the dance hall now, lit a cigarette. The plan, if successful, placed the guilt without question or cavil upon Klanner, but that was not all—strong as that motive might be, Clarke had had still another in view, and one that perhaps took precedence over the first. Hunchback Joe had defined it clearly enough. The documents would have been valueless to Clarke, either to sell, or to put to any use himself, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... victory, establishing his supremacy beyond cavil, should have satisfied the King, especially as this was not the mating season and there could be no question of rivalry. But his heart was bursting with injury, and his thirst for vengeance was raging to be glutted. As the vanquished bulls struggled to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... to obey] [T: Nor, to obey.] [W: me. Remord] Of these two emendations, I believe, Theobald's will have the greater number of suffrages; it has at least mine. The objection against the propriety of the declaration in Iago is a cavil; he does not say that he has no principle of remorse, but that it shall not operate against Othello's commands. To obey shall be in me, for I will obey you, is a mode of expression not worth the pains here taken to ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the rebellion (variant enough at all times), the attempted establishment of a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit, is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the highest interests of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the glaring halo about the head of two who could claim personal acquaintance with the great war chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail?—who had actually been to ride and hunt with that then just dawning demigod of American boyhood,—Buffalo Bill? Sneer and scoff and cavil as did their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young Westerners, he whom only on ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... for Preservative had given them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... understand why it is that I cannot, must not, will not, neglect him! As soon as he can bear visitors I must be admitted to his room, to do for him all that a young sister might do for her brother; no one could reasonably cavil at that. Papa, Ishmael believes in me more than anyone else in the world does. He thinks more highly of me than others do. He knows that there is something better in me than this mere outside beauty that others praise so foolishly. And I would not like to lose his ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... do not care; I'll give thrice so much land Away to any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, I'll cavil on the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... McDonald a little audacious, though I like him in the main. There is a fallacy in this cavil, you may depend. Some years ago, when I was a little befogged by plausible talk, Dr. Skinner came to our house, got into one of his best moods, and preached a regular sermon on the glory of God, that set me all right again. I am not skilled in argument, but my heart sides with God in everything, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly this Angraecum would become extinct." I am not aware that Darwin's fine argument has yet been clinched by the discovery of that insect. But cavil has ceased. Long before his death a sphinx moth arrived from South Brazil which shows a proboscis between ten and eleven inches long—very nearly equal, therefore, to the task of probing the nectary of Angraecum sesquipidale. And we know enough ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... night, the doctor told my sister and me that, whatever the greater world might think of the sin at Wayfarer's Tickle, whether innocuous or virulent, Jagger was beyond cavil flagrantly corrupting our poor folk, who were simple-hearted and easy to persuade: that he was, indeed, a nuisance which must be ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... from the destruction that was spread for our feet was no more and no other than the craft of a woman and a light o' love. But me-thinks the answer to that is, that the instruments whereby it may please Heaven to work out its purposes are not of our choosing, but of Heaven's; and those that cavil may recall, to their own abashment, how one that was of the same way of life as our Vittoria was permitted by celestial grace to be a minister unto holiness. I will not venture to say that Monna Vittoria did that which she did do with any very conscious thought ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... refreshing, but I argue nothing from it; there is nothing real in the freedom of thought at the West,—it is from the position of men's lives, not the state of their minds. So soon as they have time, unless they grow better meanwhile, they will cavil and criticise, and judge other men by their own standard, and outrage the law of love every way, just as ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... than they had imagined would be a humiliating confession of failure; and worse than a confession of failure; for God had appointed this refuge for them, and not to abide in it in all contentment would be to cavil at his purpose, to question his decree. With the instinct of true pioneers they therefore idealized the barren wilderness, pronouncing its air most healing, its soil most fertile; and with unfailing optimism ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... them in a more concrete fashion pervaded the minds of hundreds. The cavil against the Colonel abated not a jot; the epithets hurled at his devoted head were as picturesque as of yore. But side by side with this domestic hostility there had developed a deeper, less noisy feeling ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... probability. There is no time, in the rush of a dramatic action, for a mathematical calculation of the chances for and against a given event, or for experimental proof that such and such a thing can or cannot be done. If a thing seem plausible, an audience will accept it without cavil; if it, seem incredible on the face of it, no evidence of its credibility will be of much avail. This is merely a corollary from the fundamental principle that the stage is the realm of appearances; not of realities, where paste jewels are at least as effective as real ones, and a painted ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... religions I need not have recourse to such a questionable vindication. They held in them far nobler elements, as is proved beyond cavil by the words of many of the earliest missionaries themselves. Bigoted and bitter haters of the native faiths, as they were, they discovered in them so much that was good, so much that approximated to the purer doctrines that they themselves came to teach, that they ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... although nothing is so common as to use a part for the whole; yet if you should be out of humour with a bad dinner, a bad lodging, an ill-dressed shirt, or an ill-printed book, you might be disposed to cavil, and object, that in critical precision of language, (supposing a man to walk slow) he could not be said to have dirtied his shoes, no more than a boarding-school girl, who has cut her finger in paring an apple, could be said to have ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... and was too satisfied at having gained his object to cavil at Mark's manner of yielding. 'Very well; that's settled,' he said. 'I'm glad you've come to your senses, I'm sure. We'll have you on the Woolsack yet, and we'll say no more about ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,' or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, — that is, in the middle of winter! — a spring-velvet in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism indeed! and yet, to increase the inconsistence, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... we but know The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, Where lie those happier hills and meadows low; Ah! if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil Aught of that country could we surely know, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the Salvation Army is able to prove beyond cavil that it can assist our criminal system to attain this noble end, ought not opportunity to be given it in full measure? Is it too much to hope that when the new Prison Act, of which the substance has recently been outlined ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... father and of Walter Skirving. And do not think that they keep their mouths sealed by any love for me. Were there only my own life and good name to consider, they would speak instantly, and I should be deposed, without cavil or word spoken in my own defence. Nay, by what I have already spoken, I have put myself in your hands. All that you have to do is simply to rise in your place on the Sabbath morn and tell the congregation what I have told you— that the minister of the Marrow ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... news of the day. As Africans are interminable speakers, they make excellent lawyers, and know how to spin out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of their talent:—An ass had got loose and broken into a field of corn, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... startled at the peculiar character of his employer, and in a way slightly disgusted, but he was not in a position to cavil or feel squeamish over apparent lack of honesty, and resolved at once to ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... age, had no reason to despair of having an heir, to cut entirely off the claim of so wicked a brother. Having once began to stir in the affair, it was soon brought to a conclusion.—The fact was incontestable, and proved by witnesses, whose credit left no room for cavil; a bill of divorce was granted on very easy terms, and the gallant fined in so large a penalty, that he was obliged to quit the kingdom, to ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... passing through her mind. She had made a great sacrifice for Guy in hope of doing him good, how great, no one knew, and yet withall she had failed in her object. He looked at her as the world always judges of Christians; not by profession but practise. However, it may sneer and cavil at doctrine, the world is not slow to recognize and respect the character that like pure gold carries with it not ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... to result from it; that determination wears an aspect of scepticism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional in the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil impression on those who are already predisposed to carp and cavil at the evidences of Revelation ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Colonels, captains, officers in the army, soldiers; even these also stand not off from, but close to, and for this work in hand. Those of the Scots nation within this city, by their willingness, do give a check to this cavil raised by some, who have nothing else to say, yet say this, perhaps the kingdom of Scotland will not take it. We can instance in none, none that I know here. The ministers of the Lord, that have refuged themselves to this little sanctuary, both increase and honour the number ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... sort of exclusion or ostracism served to wound my self-respect, it nevertheless had its special advantage for me, for in epochs less glorious or less brilliant (that is to say, in times of failure), they could never cavil at advice or counsel which I had given, nor blame me for the shortcomings ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the common version used in the Kirk of Scotland. Burns had admitted "Death and Dr. Hornbook" into Creech's edition, and probably desired to balance it with something at which the devout could not cavil.] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Intelligence officer could think of food. His first duties were orders for the morrow. The officer in supreme command had been weak enough to have been accompanied by a cable-cart. Lord Wolseley may cavil at correspondents and call them the curse of modern armies; but we are constrained to think that if a tired staff-officer were consulted he would save the cream of condemnatory epithets for the cable-cart, which makes his night horrible with useless telegrams. The nightmare of that midnight message, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... it. He brought in a cigarette, left the door open behind him and stood smiling down at her with the peculiarly complacent look that characterizes a married man of forty when he finds himself dressed beyond cavil in the complete evening harness of civilization, ten minutes ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... no human function, that is no work that belongs to a mere teacher, pattern, martyr, sage, philosopher, or saint. That is a divine work; and the authority of Him whose final word to each of us will settle beyond appeal our fate, and reveal beyond cavil our character, is a divine authority. He has a right to command because He is going to judge; and the lips that declare the law are the lips that will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... rhythmic—through intermittent senses, is converted into motion, and the mind, yielding utterly to its environment, knows the happiness of faith, the ecstasy of compliance, the rapture of congruity. And this the dull dunces—the eyeless, earless, brainless and bloodless callosites of cavil—are pleased to call lust! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... days exclusively upon milk; a healing diet, I dare say, but I have come to weary of the taste and sight of it, and its effect upon me is the reverse of stimulation. But I am in no wise inclined to cavil, for I am entirely free from pain at the moment; the weather is perfectly glorious, and my neighbours, Blades and his wife, are in their homely fashion extremely kind ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... die!" resumed the bishop. "He a mortal like to us! Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus. Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus!" ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... not only warranted in these remarks, but imperiously called upon to make them? What other mode remained to set the public mind at ease? I have now stated what must for ever hereafter preclude all possibility for cavil on one part, or anxiety on the other. I alone have possessed the private and important papers of Colonel Burr; and I pledge my honour that every one of them, so far as I know and believe, that could have injured ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... journeys, and these would entail the expenditure of a good deal of money. Moreover, it was necessary to find a man who would not be afraid of the work attached to the undertaking, and on whose judgment one could rely without doubt or cavil. Owing to the fact that the expenses up to the present had far exceeded the initial calculations, and since it seemed impossible to engage the right sort of man to place in charge of the work, the publisher had become first sceptical ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... mode,—followed various, even contradictory, standards. But, in one line of progress, there was no shadow of turning. Over the road which Bacon laid roughly down and Newton made safe for transit, Physical Science, during the whole period, advanced without let and beyond the cavil of ignorance. If the dreams of the New Atlantis have not even in our days been wholly realised, Science has been brought from heaven to earth, and the elements made ministers of Prospero's wand. This apparent, and partially real, conquest of matter has doubtless done much to "relieve our ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... be received without cavil by most readers; but the reasoning on which it depends is the weakest part of the book, and we shall be surprised if some hard-headed divine, who fears that this doctrine of Intuition will pester ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... "Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington, energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... few of John Ovy's people, amongst whom Richard Greenaway declared the truth; which they attentively heard, and did not oppose, which at that time of day we reckoned was pretty well, for many were apt to cavil. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... companions, doing the same work as well, if not better, the later success of the young blind seeker after knowledge is practically assured; for, as I have said, in mental attainment, at least, the blind child is the peer of the child with eyesight,—here, beyond cavil, the chances are equal. ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... legion, consisting of a swarm of more foul and noxious vermin than Moses inflicted upon the land of Egypt. It was made up of all the attorneys, and pettifoggers, with their clerks, scamps, and runners; every man, or rather every reptile, of them, being profusely fed to bark, to snarl, to cavil, and to bully; and all of them more ravenous and ferocious than sharks or wolves. It is, indeed, almost a libel upon the sharks and wolves to compare them with such creatures. I cannot, perhaps, give a better idea of them than in the forcible, though rather coarse ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again —in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back—I saw it in your face. O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence. "I would that his hands—Abraham Lincoln's hands—might be laid upon all who complain and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in life: I would that his spirit might possess ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... three hundred years after the first coming of the Lord, and that this sacred history, so necessary for the instruction of us who must now dwell in the same land, could not be given until this continent was known to the world, thou wilt cease to cavil, and wilt in all humility believe that that which is done of the hand of the Lord cannot ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... beating of a second and the movement of the hour-hand. When we say that rain comes from the condensation of moisture in the atmosphere, they demand of us a rain-drop from moisture not yet condensed. If they stickle for proof and cavil on the ninth part of a hair, as they do when we bring forward what we deem excellent instances of the transmission of an acquired characteristic, why may not we, too, demand at any rate some evidence that the unmodified beetles actually did ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,) who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in this sublime inscription at the words "repair to Maru," since the reader must already be at Maru before he could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... devoted its utmost energy for half a century—in fact, ever since Bismarck began to make ready for the seizing of unwilling Schleswig-Holstein. And so far as the art of music is concerned there is also no need to cavil. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of it. I am the savant untamed; they the savants civilized. Doctors cavil at the learned. False science is the excrement of the true, and is employed to the destruction of philosophers. Philosophers, as they produce sophists, produce their own scourge. Of the dung of the thrush is born the mistletoe, with which is made birdlime, with which the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... boy!" answered his lordship, and I saw he had crossed to the doorway and stood with his back to us. "Diana," he continued after a moment, "in this world of change, of doubt and uncertainty, one thing is very sure and beyond all cavil and dispute: Peregrine loves you far better than he loves himself, since he is strong enough to forego so much of present happiness for your future welfare. He honours me by placing you in my charge, I who love you as a daughter and will treat you as such. So, Diana, will you give yourself ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... and the instincts of a wandering child who has been convinced that all life's motives are egotistical and base. This equality between master and apprentice disappeared the moment Karl took up his position at the mouth of the furnace. At such times Manuel had to obey the German without cavil ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... surely it is against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will be for our benefit. I believe it is so, lady; or it may be for a punishment; but it is bitter, very bitter, oftentimes to bear. But I am wandering from my story. We could ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... imperforate copy of the 5 cents, 1859, which is beyond challenge". Mr. King states:—"The imperforate varieties are all legitimate, and undoubtedly genuine, having been seen in pairs, or in single copies with margins beyond cavil". Mr. Charles L. Pack writing in the London Philatelist regarding these ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... she was already distinguished, though addicted to 'quizzing'—the not unreasonable ground of unpopularity with her female friends. Emerson alludes to her dangerous reputation for satire, which, in addition to her great scholarship, made the women dislike one who despised them, and the men cavil at her as 'carrying too many guns.' A fragment from a letter in her sixteenth year will illustrate her pursuits at that period:—'I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then practise on the piano till seven, when we breakfast. Next, I read French—Sismondi's Literature ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... facts beyond cavil or dispute or reversion. One is that God's laws cannot be broken. We are not trying to say that they should not be broken; or that they cannot be broken with impunity; or that if broken we shall be punished. They simply cannot be ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... greatness—for the two words are not synonymous. When one speaks of greatness, one speaks of greatness of soul, nobility of character, firmness of will, and, above all, balance of mind. I can understand how people deny the existence of these qualities in Berlioz; but to deny his musical genius, or to cavil about his wonderful power—and that is what they do daily in Paris—is lamentable and ridiculous. Whether he attracts one or not, a thimbleful of some of his work, a single part in one of his works, a little bit of the Fantastique or the overture of Benvenuto, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... earnestness that I took refuge in silence. I could see just where a man of Parton's temperament—which was cold and eminently judicial even when his affections were concerned—could find that in Barker at which to cavil, but, for all that, I could not sympathize with the extreme view he took of his character. I have known many a man upon whose face nature has set the stamp of the villain much more deeply than it was impressed ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... on a table before the chief entrance, and then reported the facts to the Empress. This ended the ceremony. The haughty condescension of the Chinese despatch does not appear to have offended the Japanese, nor did they cavil at the omission of one important ideograph from the title applied to their Empress. China's greatness seems to have been fully recognized. When, a month later, the envoy took his departure, the same Imoko was deputed to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not, my dear nephew, lengthen a long letter, by endeavouring to point out the precise meaning of these expressions. You may understand from them, that charity is patient of ill-usage; that instead of being suspicious and disposed to cavil and carp at every thing, it is open and ingenuous, ready to give men credit for speaking the truth, when there is no good reason to think otherwise; and that it is disposed to hope the best, to think as favourably as it can of those with whom ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... thereof may breed and bring forth manyfold inconveniences as when wilful and heady folks shall confer upon the diversity of the said translations";[162] the translators of the version of 1611 have to "answer a third cavil ... against us, for altering and amending our translations so oft";[163] but the conception of progress was generally accepted, and finds fit expression in the preface to the Authorized Version: "Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the later thoughts ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, Through secret woes the world has never known, When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.— That I o'erlive such ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... landlords demanded, which was about every three months. There were three girls in the family—Mary, Everina and Eliza—all above the average in intelligence. Whether there is any such thing in Nature as justice for the individual is a question, but cosmic justice is beyond cavil. The stupidity of a parent is often a very precious factor in the evolution of his children. He teaches them by antithesis. So if a man can not be useful and strong, all is not lost: he can still serve humanity as a horrible example—like the honest hobo who volunteered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... different from that to which he belonged. The writer, while he knew how much of what he had done was purely accidental, felt the reproach to be one that, in a measure, was just. As the only atonement in his power, he determined to inflict a second book, whose subject should admit of no cavil, not only on the world, but on himself. He chose patriotism for his theme; and to those who read this introduction and the book itself, it is scarcely necessary to add, that he took the hero of the anecdote just related as the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... believe I could fill a volume by the mere enumeration of the diabolical and absurd nostrums offered by knaves to heal men who profess to hold in ridicule the Chinese doctors. I mention but a few, and when I tell you, as a truth beyond cavil, that the most extraordinary of these healers, the most impossible, have the largest following, you can see what I mean by the credulity of the people as a whole. Christian Science doctors have a following ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... to vie with Mr. Allen's unrivalled polemic amiability and be as conciliatory as possible, I will not cavil at his facts or try to magnify the chasm between an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Napoleon and the average level of their respective tribes. Let it be as small as Mr. Allen thinks. All that I object to is that he should think the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... to the different cities, proclaiming the revolution which had taken place, and demanding the recognition of the young Almagro as governor of Peru. Where the summons was accompanied by a military force, as at Truxillo and Arequipa, it was obeyed without much cavil. But in other cities a colder assent was given, and in some the requisition was treated with contempt. In Cuzco, the place of most importance next to Lima, a considerable number of the Almagro faction secured the ascendency of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... special regard was had to our National Confession of Faith, as it was at first and diverse times after professed and is now of late sworn and subscribed, that all mens minds, who delight not to cavil, might rest satisfied in the true meaning thereof, found out by the diligent search of the Ecclesiastick Registers. Our care was also rather at this time to revive and bring to light, former laudable Acts, than to make any new ones, reflecting as little as might ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... that sin which is always at hand to enter an objection against this or that promise that by the Spirit of God is brought to our heart to comfort us; and if the poor coming sinner is not aware of it, it will, by some evasion, slight, trick, or cavil, quickly wrest from him the promise again, and he shall have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... judicious governess, a very small establishment being kept for them, and the earl paying them impromptu and flying visits. Generous and benevolent she was, timid and sensitive to a degree, gentle, and considerate to all. Do not cavil at her being thus praised—admire and love her whilst you may, she is worthy of it now, in her innocent girlhood; the time will come when such praise would be misplaced. Could the fate that was to overtake his child have been foreseen by the earl, he ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... lovable elves, Are all on 'em mortal, just th' same as ussels, An' show tempers 'at sometimes are net ovver pleasant, They find fault whear ther's room, an' sometimes whear ther isn't, An' to get there own way, why they'll kiss, coax, or cavil, They'll smile like an angel, or storm like the devil. But aw've monny times sed, an' aw say it ageean, 'At women are ofter i'th' reight nor are th' men, Just fancy gooin hooam to a bachelor's bed, All shudderin an' shakkin yo lig daan yor heead. There's a ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... that their mysteries were carried on in oak groves and forests; but as the latter fact is doubtful, consequently the etymology founded upon it is shaken. It has been already stated that the Druids were magistrates and philosophers, and very few etymologists will cavil with me if we fix it at once upon the Celtic word ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... it must suffice to say, that these documents have been examined by the ordinary rules of literary criticism, perhaps with more than ordinary care, and that the result has been to place their authenticity and their antiquity beyond cavil. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... with your argument, and establish it beyound cavil that he is a mere imitator with an appearance of genius. The concise grand style of the eighteenth century is lacking; you show that the author substitutes events for sentiments. Action and stir is not life; he gives ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... all the sweetness of the Devil, When he put on the Cherub to perplex[305] Eve, and paved (God knows how) the road to evil; The Sun himself was scarce more free from specks Than she from aught at which the eye could cavil; Yet, somehow, there was something somewhere wanting, As if she ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... in both his grammars, upon that formless, void, and incomprehensible theory of his own: "This application of words," says he, "in their endless use, by one plain rule, to all things which nouns can name, instead of being the fit subject of blind cavil, is the most sublime theme presented to the intellect on earth. It is the practical intercourse of the soul at once with its God, and with all parts of his works!"—Cardell's Gram., 12mo, p. 87; Gram., 18mo, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... ceremony 'twere, Joconde replied, All cavil then we quickly could decide; Precedence would no doubt with you remain: But this is quite another case 'tis plain; And equity demands that we agree, By lot to settle which the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... correct it. You are always believing something is wrong. You knew very well, long ago, that the best part of me had belonged to some one else. You swore it didn't matter. But to-night, because there's absolutely nothing else you can cavil at, you drag it up again—in spite of your promises. I have always been frank with you. Do you thank me for it? No, it's been my old fault of giving everything, when it would have been wiser to keep something back, or at least to pretend to. I might have taken a lesson from you, in parsimonious ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... now an authority which Thorpe, breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman, followed by his valet with the gun and the stool, set meekly off without a word. Balder, with equal docility, vaulted the gate, and moved away down the lane ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... seem like petty cavil to criticize the prayer that has been acclaimed for many centuries as ideal, but, seriously, what valuable principle for guidance through life does the Lord's Prayer contain? Do its requests represent the best modern conception of prayer as an inward aspiration rather than as ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... cavil at the word honourably, as it relates to trade: punctual payment is the honour of trade, and there is a word always used among merchants which justifies my using it in this place; and that is, when a merchant draws a bill from abroad upon his friend at London, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... the divine. In all such cases therefore, as are dependent upon circumstances the apostle speaks not as inspired, but as uninspired; as one whose judgment we have no right to find fault with or to cavil at, who lays down what is a matter of Christian prudence, and not a bounden and universal duty. The matter of the present discourse will take in various verses in this chapter—from the tenth to the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... of faith is injured by allowing that there is no such positive proof, when or by whom these and some other books of holy Scripture were written, as to exclude all possibility of doubt and cavil. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... can mark a greater alienation of the soul from its original nature, than the infidelity which chooses for the bed of the grave spots unhallowed by religious associations. They who deny their God, and cavil at his Word, can have no reverence for places which, like his houses of prayer and the consecrated receptacles of the dead, derive all their sanctity and influence from a belief in his mercies, and a sense of our demerits—hence, having banished themselves ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... the china, and she has the craze badly. Madame turns to inspect the cabinet. There is a true Capo di Monte, and some priceless Nankin, and here a set of rare intaglios. Some one must have had taste and discernment. Laura would like to cavil, but dares not. The professor tells of curiosities picked up in the buried cities of centuries ago,—lamps and pitchers and vases and jewels that he has sent to museums abroad,—and stirs them all ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... partly in the handwriting of the duke himself, partly in that of his secretary, Millet, insert the "Sommaire" precisely as it stands in the Memoires de Conde, without any denial of its authenticity. This would appear, at first sight, to settle the question beyond cavil. But it must be borne in mind that many of the memoires of the sixteenth century are compiled on the plan of including all contemporary papers of importance, whether written by friend or by foe. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... mind produces what is termed organic dis- ease as certainly as it produces hysteria, and it must re- 177:3 linquish all its errors, sicknesses, and sins. I have demonstrated this beyond all cavil. The evidence of divine Mind's healing power and abso- 177:6 lute control is to me as certain as the evidence ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had picked out here a lip—and there a chin—out of the collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... News.—"The seventeenth-century version of the fables, by Sir Roger l'Estrange, with its pleasant quaintness of language, lends itself, and how delightfully, to its setting of illustration; and it would surely be a child hard to please who would cavil at this book." ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... required from eight to ten weeks for the mail clippers to make a voyage across the Atlantic. Opposition to the general idea of such a treaty as the mass of Republicans and Anti-Federalists supposed Washington hoped to secure, grew week by week. The Silent Man heard the cavil and said nothing. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... would not whistle. It is one of those mannish tricks of hers which give a wrong impression. Her father ought to stop it; but he is so fond of the girl, and thinks her so altogether perfect and beyond cavil, that he lets everything go. She needs to have some one stronger than herself come into her life. I ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... it is only natural that Edith Cavil should have a prominent place. To be sure King Albert and his queen and others are there. As in Belgium the first casualties occurred it is fitting that here alone is seen a wounded man and the Red Cross workers are caring for him as he lies upon a stretcher. ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... has been said) would not evade disputation, if a man could find his interest in disputing it: such is the spirit of cavil. But I, upon a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page of prose that could be selected from the best writer in the English language (far less in the German) which, upon a sufficient interest ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... awful!" said Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at idle forms. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... concerns to carry them into practice under such limitations as may be necessary to sustain the basic object, but without any payment to him except for the actual expense incurred. The hypercritical may cavil and say that, as a manufacturer of cement, Edison will be benefited. True, but as ANY good Portland cement can be used, and no restrictions as to source of supply are enforced, he, or rather his company, will be merely ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... multitudes of even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact, than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil of ignorance respecting improbabilities? ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... the sum of 1451 millions by eighteen years, it appears that 80 millions a year was raised; and, taking the legitimate expenditure of the country, during those eighteen years, at an average of 45 millions a-year, a sum so high as to preclude all cavil, it appears that the country raised and expended eighteen times the difference between 45 and 80 millions, that is 630 millions; notwithstanding which expenditure, let it be observed, the country got richer and richer every day."—Bradshaw's ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... reluctance. He felt that there was odium to be incurred; he knew that much would be expected of him, and that his means would be limited. His powers would be liable to a constant and various restraint. His measures were sure to be the subject of perpetual cavil. If the city were besieged, there were nearly one hundred thousand mouths to feed, and nearly one hundred thousand tongues to dispute about furnishing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... business, and we are very fortunate to be out of it so well. Yet it was not treachery: no, no, Mr. Anne, it was not treachery; and if you will do me the favour to listen to me for the inside of a minute, I shall demonstrate the same to you beyond cavil." He seemed to wake up to his ordinary briskness. "You see the point?" he began. "He had not yet read the newspaper, but who could tell when he might? He might have had that damned journal in his pocket, and how should we know? We were—I may ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... understand the rude Saxon usage that enforces submission under a threat of physical violence. That a man should be ready to defend his honor—to convince an opponent by endeavoring to kill him—yes, he accepted without cavil those tenets of the French social code. But the brutal British fixity of purpose displayed by this truculent chauffeur left him gasping with indignation. He was quite sure that the man meant exactly what he had said. He felt that any real departure from the compact ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... expired with the Sovereign. A paper had indeed been circulated, in which the logic of a small sharp pettifogger was employed to prove that writs, issued in the joint names of William and Mary, ceased to be of force as soon as William reigned alone. But this paltry cavil had completely failed. It had not even been mentioned in the Lower House, and had been mentioned in the Upper only to be contemptuously overruled. The whole Magistracy of the City swelled the procession. The banners of England and France, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are protected by law. Indeed all animal life is spared, from religious convictions, except such as is brought to the altar. We finally got safely back to our quarters, at the Kaiser-i-Hind Hotel, far too well pleased with our trip to Ambar to cavil at ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... unreasoning tears. He was her youngest. He was so big, so handsome, so like Tom,—yet so different! She did not believe that Tom could really see anything to cavil at in Lance's presence, in his changed personality. Tom, she thought, was secretly as proud of Lance as she was, and only pretended to sneer at him to hide that pride. The constraint would soon wear off, and Lance would be ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... bound; That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved, Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved; Has choicest notes by many a famous head, Such as to doubt have rustic readers led; Have made them stop to reason WHY? and HOW? And, where they once agreed, to cavil now. Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun; Who simple truth with nine-fold reasons back, And guard the point no enemies attack. Bunyan's famed Pilgrim ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ancient's proper character; His fable, subject, scope in every page; 120 Religion, country, genius of his age; Without all these at once before your eyes, Cavil you may, but never criticise. Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... much emphasis and pathos, the terrible words, "JE SUIS ASSASSINE! JE SUIS ASSASSINE!" (I am killed! I am killed!) But as his voice grew stronger, instead of weaker, at every repetition of the phrase, doubts were entertained of his veracity; and a surgical inspection showed beyond cavil, that he was laboring under a hallucination, and asseverating with needless energy what was not ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... this rule is the cause of a very common error." Better, "Inattention to this rule," etc. "He abhorred being in debt." Better, "He abhorred debt," "Cavilling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties." Say, "To cavil and object upon any subject is much easier than to clear ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... the mother of two children, called L'Aurore and Le Jour,[9] but the fact that a collection of fables was, in the sixth century of our era, brought from India to Persia, and by means of various translations naturalized among Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, and all the rest, admits of no doubt or cavil. Several thousand years have passed between those two migrations, and to mix them up together, to suppose that Comparative Mythology has anything to do with the migration of such fables as that of Perrette, would be an anachronism of a ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... so, when a cavil is made against the best thing in the whole play; and I would willingly part with anything ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... was true; yet will not seem Likely to one of sober sense possessed: But Sacripant, who waked from worser dream, In all without a cavil acquiesced: Since love, who sees without one guiding gleam, Spies in broad day but that which likes him best: For one sign of the afflicted man's disease Is to give ready faith to things ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... field was physics, and in addition he did much original research and was greatly distinguished as a scientist. His chief contribution to science was his studies of the electron and his monumental work on the "Identification of Matter and Energy," wherein he established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate unit of matter and the ultimate unit of force were identical. This idea had been earlier advanced, but not demonstrated, by Sir Oliver Lodge and other students in ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... was so wretched, because he was so small, because he had gone so far away from God; therefore, the seeking love came after him, and would draw him to itself.' That, I think, is answer enough to the cavil. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... earnestly beg that you will express yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I am your servant and will accept your judgment without cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned me by the Constitution would be seriously impaired should your judgment be adverse, and I must frankly tell you so because so many critical issues ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... to be but little even for himself, turned to the friars and said: "If my memory serves me, you do not eat any kind of flesh in your convents at this season." At these words the friars were compelled by their rule to admit, without cavil, that this was the truth; so the merchant had his wish, and eat the chicken and the friars did the best they could. After dinner the messmates departed, all three together, and after travelling some distance they came to a river of some width ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... it from the sierra on various occasions. Nevertheless, Senor Huertis believed that the young men spoke the truth, while the Cura, probably, did not; and hoping to catch him in his own snare, if such had been laid, asked the guides their terms, which, though high, he agreed to at once, without cavil. They said it would take us eight days to reach the part of the sierra described in the letter, and that we might have to wait on the summit several days more, before the weather would afford a clear view. They would be ready ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... cosset brought to the house. Not that it could make any more work for her, since Lem did all that was done about the housekeeping. Chained to her chair by her paralyzed legs, as she was, she could accomplish nothing more than to sit and cavil at the management of the universe all day, until Lem came home, gave her her supper, and ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... too, of our ship sailing over the peaceful Sabbath sea, and our own prayers and services celebrated there. So each, in his fashion, and after his kind, is bowing down, and adoring the Father, who is equally above all. Cavil not, you brother or sister, if your neighbour's voice is not like yours; only hope that his words are honest (as far as they may be), and his heart ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... here, in fact, conveniently review the progress which has been hitherto made in this investigation. And in order to bar the door against dispute and cavil, let us be content to waive the testimony of Papias as precarious, and that of Justin Martyr as too fragmentary to be decisive. Let us frankly admit that the citation of Vincentius a Thibari at the viith Carthaginian Council is sufficiently inexact ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... Miss Johnson's nature, but free from sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites," like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But, written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with her other work, ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the troopers wonder at these precautions, though not so much as might be expected. They are accustomed to receive mysterious commands, and obey them without cavil ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... mine host has to consult the taste of his client, or whether the latter has simply to accept what is proffered, is not absolutely decided; probably they are both imbued with a belief in the necessity of solid fare, regarding it as a solemn truth beyond all possibility of cavil. ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture! No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea? Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant: 'Brickwork I found thee, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... people ever fought for liberty and justice, it was the Cheyennes. If any ever demonstrated their physical and moral courage beyond cavil, it was this race of purely American heroes, among whom Little ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... et nouvelle Police de Geneve, 1865; Advis et Devis des Lengnes, etc., 1865, which were edited by the late J. J. Chaponniere, and, after his death, by M. Gustave Revilliod, has placed his reputation as historian, satirist, philosopher, beyond doubt or cavil. One quotation must suffice. He is contrasting the Protestants with the Catholics (Advis et Devis de la Source de Lidolatrie, Geneva, 1856, p. 159): "Et nous disons que les prebstres rongent les mortz et est vray; mais nous faisons bien pys, car nous rongeons les vifz. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... summer over a hole in the ground, and had idled in town since Thanksgiving. He was a cowboy (vaquero was the name they used in those pleasant valleys) and so was his friend. And he had found a cowboy's paradise, and a welcome which a king could not cavil at. Would Jack stake himself to a horse and outfit, and come to Palo Alto till the snow was well out of the mountains and they could ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... iron of my training to guard the expression of my face. We were here on ceremonial to-day; a ghastly enough affair throughout all its acts, if you choose, but still ceremonial; and I was minded to show Phorenice a grand manner that would leave her nothing to cavil at. After all that had been gone through and endured, I did not intend a great scheme to be shattered by letting my agony and pain show themselves, in either a shaking hand or a twitching cheek. When it came to the point, I told myself, I would lay the living body ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... tributary to the Bitter Root River, that run through the valley, afford excellent and abundant mill-seats; and the land bordering these is fertile and productive, and has been found, beyond cavil or doubt, to be well suited to every branch of agriculture. I have seen oats, grown by Mr. John Owen, that are as heavy and as excellent as any I have ever seen in the States; and the same gentleman informs me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... thou Minstrel Harp, Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway. And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Encouraged by this answer, a few of the excluded peers attempted to take their seats, and met with no opposition; the example was imitated by others, and in a few days the Presbyterian lords did not amount to more than one-fifth of the house. Still, however, to avoid cavil, the peers who sat in the king's parliament at Oxford, as well as those whose patents bore date ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... banished from domestic cookery. At an opportune moment, therefore, he sold out his interests in the article which had brought him in colossal wealth at a critical juncture, and placed his financial reputation beyond the reach of cavil. As for Leonore, who was now an heiress on a far greater scale than ever before, he naturally found her something a vast deal higher in the husband market than a two-hundred-a-year poster designer. Mark Spayley, the brainmouse who ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... war with Great Britain, generally known in the annals of history as the War of 1812, though it was in reality the second war for independence. It was the war which established independence beyond the cavil of a doubt and sustained ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... as were within hearing, that there was to be divine service. If there were no service, then those who had come from a distance in expectation of devotion, retired to the tavern and drank and gossiped, and were not disposed to cavil. The Church of Thursley is curious, it has a central bell-tower supported on huge beams of oak, such oaks they must have been as are never seen now. Those desiring to see the parson had to seek him in the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Wallingford, under the last will and testament of her uncle. A feeble effort was made to throw doubt upon the genuineness of the document; but the oath of the witnesses to the signature of Captain Allen settled the question beyond the reach of cavil, and the executors under the first will were ordered to transfer, by a certain date, all property belonging to ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... for initiating young people in the rudiments of knowledge, and of giving them a clear and distinct view of those principles upon which they are founded. No preceptor, who has had experience, will cavil at the superficial knowledge of a boy of twelve or thirteen upon these subjects; he will perceive, that the general view, which we wish to give our pupils of the useful arts and sciences, must certainly tend to form ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... so well, in pitting her wits against the brains of the mighty; perhaps she has a cynic soul that finds a savage joy in running down the faults of the seemingly faultless—running them to earth and taking her profit therefrom. Who are you, Marcus Gard, to cavil at the lust of conquest—to sneer at the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... while there was no attempt on his part to exculpate himself from the damning charge. That it was he who had furnished funds for the proposed murder and mutiny, knowing the purpose to which they were to be applied, was proved beyond all cavil and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... personal existence; yet though so many have sought,—so many, and so able, and for so long a time—none have found. There is no demonstration which can be pointed to with any unanimity as settling the matter beyond power of reasonable cavil. On the contrary, it may be observed that from the attempt to prove the existence of a personal God to the denial of that existence altogether, the path is easy. As in the case of our own existence, it will ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... over to the Church. Theodoret and Sozomen say many were converted; but as to the Jews, they evidently mean a sudden flash of conviction, not a real and lasting conversion. The incredulous blinded themselves by various pretences: but the evidence of the miracle leaves no room for the least cavil or suspicion. The Christian writers of that age are unanimous in relating it with its complicated circumstances yet with a diversity which shows their agreement, though perfect, could not have been concerted. The same is confirmed by the testimony of the most obstinate adversaries. They ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of a more important kind, which, it may be hoped, will now no longer perplex the ignorant, or furnish matter of cavil to the ill-intentioned. After the great discovery, or at least the full confirmation of the great discovery, of the vicinity of the two continents of Asia and America, we trust that we shall not, for the future, be ridiculed, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... bottom, two sides. It is, in the first place, achieved by a narrow definition of the purpose of the state. To Locke the State is little more than a negative institution, a kind of gigantic limited liability company; and if we are inclined to cavil at such restraint, we may perhaps remember that even to neo-Hegelians like Green and Bosanquet this negative sense is rarely absent, in the interest of individual exertion. But for Locke the real guarantee of right lies in another direction. What his whole work amounts to in substance—it ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... was a wish to split up the party for a few minutes so that no one would know what the others were doing. I knew I should immensely annoy the eunuchs by going towards the women's quarters. Well, I would not cavil.... ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... throughout all Italy. As often as Milord committed a new assassination, and the attempt was made to extort from us more than two pauls as the price of blood, we drew this document from our pocket, and proved beyond a cavil that two pauls was what we were accustomed to pay on such occasions, and obstinate indeed must have been the man or woman who did not yield to such a weight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... point of the discussion, the agents and surveyors of both parties proceeded as a matter of course to the point marked in 1798 as the source of the St. Croix.[44] This point is therefore fixed and established beyond the possibility of cavil, and the faith of both Governments is pledged that it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... figures so largely in a tale, yet it is always important. The author must know his countryside, whether real or imaginary, like his hand; the distances, the points of the compass, the place of the sun's rising, the behaviour of the moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the moon is! I have come to grief over the moon in "Prince Otto," and, so soon as that was pointed out to me, adopted a precaution which I recommend to other men—I never write now without an almanac. With an almanac and the map of the country, and the plan of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... estimation of repeating a great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes extempore, or the making of a satirical simile of everything, or the turning of everything to a jest, or the falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like (whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copy, and such as by device and practice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder), than I do of the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines; the one being the same in the mind that the ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... written: we know somewhat, and we imagine the rest. The observation, that his imagination would, probably, have been more fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe, may be answered, by a remarker somewhat inclined to cavil, by a contrary supposition, that his judgment would, probably, have been less severe, if his imagination had been more fruitful. It is ridiculous to oppose judgment to imagination; for it does not appear that men have ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... slightest tinge of chemistry should have kept him from suggesting that the conversion of water into wine at Cana was but the acceleration of a natural process. A smattering of optics would have prevented Dr. Williams from repeating the old cavil of Voltaire, that light could not have been made before the sun. A moderate reflection upon the laws of speech and the method of Genesis would have restrained Huxley from sneering at the 'marvelous flexibility' of the Hebrew tongue in the word 'day,' and a New York ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... about that," said Maurice, puffing into Johann's face. "When cabinet ministers play spy, small fry like you will not cavil at the occupation. And you are not in their pay?" Johann glared. "I want to know," Maurice went on, "what you know; what you know of Colonel Beauvais, his plans, his messengers to the duchy, what is taking ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... that I was no true son Of Polybus. Oh, I was wroth! That one Day I kept silence, but the morrow morn I sought my parents, told that tale of scorn And claimed the truth; and they rose in their pride And smote the mocker.... Aye, they satisfied All my desire; yet still the cavil gnawed My heart, and still the story crept abroad. At last I rose—my father knew not, nor My mother—and went forth to Pytho's floor To ask. And God in that for which I came Rejected me, but round me, like a flame, ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... solitude of your old habitation, to look into the magic lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require—you must not cavil at the form; the rest I can leave to your own good ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... steps of that aristocratic hotel to which very few midshipmen of those days ever thought of going. My mother, being well acquainted with the internal economy of a man-of-war, had provided me with a chest of very moderate dimensions, at which no First-Lieutenant, however strict, could cavil. It and I were deposited at the hotel, and the waiter, seeing the kind way in which the Captain treated me, must have taken me for a young lord at least, and ordered the porter to carry ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... nerves have been laid bare for months, to quiver with agony and respond with headlong violence, when imperilled character, property and life, hang upon the fiat of his courageous promptitude? The doubters may cavil over the philosophy, but I think I may remain content with the fact. I did my ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... muckle horned deil," and poetically, after Burns "auld Clootie, Nick, or Hornie," or, according to others, in a broader set form of speech, "the devil in hell," that is, the "devil of a devil," or in scriptural phraseology, the "great red dragon," the "Devil or Satan." But we shall not cavil on this mighty potentate's name; much less dispute his identity, notwithstanding the doubt that has been broached, whether the said devil be a real or an imaginary personage, in the shape, form, and with the faculties that have been so ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... golden letters the legend, 'Pro libertate et religione nostra.' These horse-soldiers were made up of yeomen's and farmers' sons, unused to discipline, and having a high regard for themselves as volunteers, which caused them to cavil and argue over every order. For this cause, though not wanting in natural courage, they did little service during the war, and were a hindrance rather than a help ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lily, solemn, carol, very, spirit, coral, borough, manor, tenant, minute, honor, punish, clamor, blemish, limit, comet, pumice, chapel, leper, triple, copy, habit, rebel, tribute, probate, heifer, profit, cavil, revel, drivel, novel, hovel, city, pity, british, critic, madam, credit, idiom, body, study, tacit, licit, hazard, ezad, lizard, closet, bosom, vicar, liquor, liquid, ...
— A Minniature ov Inglish Orthoggraphy • James Elphinston |
