"Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waited for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud plashed under their feet as if in mocking commiseration. Hoarse exclamations of sleepy voices were heard; irritated, peevish, abusive language rent the air with malice; and, to welcome the people, deafening sounds floated about—the heavy whir of machinery, the dissatisfied snort of steam. Stern and somber, the black chimneys stretched their huge, thick ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... to his full height of six feet three, and, looking at him as he towered above me with his mane of disordered hair and flowing beard, I could not help thinking he rather resembled Samson in one of his peevish moods. The indignation that possessed him seemed sincere enough, but the circumstances of the case utterly bewildered me. I was gazing at him in perplexity when Henry came out of ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... of chinchilla fur that had come with her from Cuba. It was a bad sign, Margaret had learned, when the furs came out in warm weather. It meant a headache generally, and at any rate a chilly state of body, which was apt to be accompanied by a peevish state of mind. Still, she looked so pretty, peeping out of the soft gray nest! She was such a child, after all, in spite of her seventeen years,—decidedly, she ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... she said, and she laid her hand again upon Solita's head. "Take not the speech to heart. 'Tis but the plaint of a woman whose hair is withered from its brightness and who grows peevish in her loneliness. But open your mind to me, for you have twined about my heart even as your curls did but now twine and coil about my wrist, and the more for this pretty vanity of yours. Therefore tell me his name, that I ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... 70 But, if we have the liberty of choice, And all depends on our own single voice, To deem of every country as the same Is rank rebellion 'gainst the lawful claim Of Nature, and such dull indifference May be philosophy, but can't be sense. F. Weak and unjust distinction, strange design, Most peevish, most perverse, to undermine Philosophy, and throw her empire down By means of Sense, from whom she holds her crown, 80 Divine Philosophy! to thee we owe All that is worth possessing here below; Virtue and wisdom consecrate thy reign, Doubled each joy, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... feeling, which directs the tongue to eloquence, had its effect while she listened to him, and she sometimes put on the looks and gesture of assent—sometimes even spoke the language of conviction; but this the first call of dissipation would change to ill-timed raillery, or peevish remonstrance, at being limited in delights her birth and fortune ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... understand, that, as I had been brought on board half famished, he could do no less than to entertain me with what was in the locker, and the rather as he had bid the steward enter me in the mess. Whether this disappointment made Mr. Morgan more peevish than usual, or he really thought himself too little regarded by his fellow mate, I know not, but after some pause, he went on in this manner: "Mr. Thompson, perhaps you do not use me with all the good manners, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... her own case and refuses our pity. Man cannot help her. The starved, ignoble country in Childe Roland, one of the finest pieces of description in Browning, wicked, waste and leprous land, makes Nature herself sick with peevish wrath. "I cannot help my case," she cries. "Nothing but the Judgment's ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Cranky and peevish at times we grow: "Just like a man!" Now and then boastful of what we know: "Just like a man!" Whatever our failings from day to day— Stingy, or giving our goods away— With a toss of her head, she is sure to say, ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... hair, brown eyes, and too-strongly-marked eyebrows; their features are neither good nor bad; their whole aspect is uninteresting. They have no winning dimples, no speaking lines about the mouth. All that one can notice is a disappointed, somewhat peevish look in the eyes. Such was Henrietta. The fact that she had not been much wanted or appreciated hitherto began to show now she was eighteen. She was either shy and silent, or talked with too much positiveness for fear ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... becoming impossible to Isabella, she left the neighbourhood, never to revisit it, and lived near London; and there her son, whom she christened Linton, was born a few months after her escape. He was an ailing, peevish creature. When Linton was twelve, or a little more, and Catherine thirteen, Isabella died, and the boy was brought to Thrushcross Grange. Hindley Earnshaw drank himself to death about the same time, after mortgaging every yard of his land for cash; and Heathcliff was the mortgagee. So Hareton Earnshaw, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... was absolutely different from the type she had imagined. Always she had seen her as one of those vapid, pretty little creatures who had become old long before her time; peevish, spoiled, inclined to be flirtatious, refusing to give up her youth, still living in the recollection of her little day ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the old man crustily, for he was rather peevish at being cut short in his story; "how could they possibly attend to such trifles as the quality of the wares they sold? The best of them were of a lowish average, the worst were transparent make-shifts for the things asked for, which nobody ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... Julia eagerly. "It is I that am turned so cross and so peevish. I am quite a changed girl. Mamma, what is the matter with me?" And she laid her brow on her ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... disappointment to a boat's crew, generally expressed in curses both loud and deep. And no wonder. Let any man pull with might and main for hours and hours together, under a burning sun; and if it do not make him a little peevish, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... now. Your nerves are all jarred, your head's in an unwonted state of excitement, and your pulse is going—though I have not felt it—far above its normal rate. You are ill, sir, bodily and mentally, in a regular peevish state of excitement; and as your doctor, speaking perfectly honestly and straightforwardly, I say to you that the medicine you require is mental; that you have only to go to the captain and have a few words based on my advice, and you will be ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... to please myself. I hear you are melancholy, because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... before the child could be quieted. The peevish little whine almost angered Noel when he saw how it was cutting into Christine's heart. In the hope of diverting the baby he put out his hand and began to snap his fingers softly in front of its face. There was a ring on the hand that sparkled, and the baby ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... those cloudy looks, that labouring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour! Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power, When the blind Gamester throws ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... arguments, the difference in our nationalities, our standing in our home communities (which I thought an especially weak point), our lack of a common language, and several other trivial objections, all of which Swank and I demolished until Whinney got peevish and insisted that he and I ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... eyes were hollow, and there was a look of woe about her which seemed ever to be telling of her own sorrows in this world and of the sorrows of others in the world to come. Ill-nature was written on her face, but in this her face was a false face. She had the manners of a cross, peevish woman; but her manners also were false, and gave no proper idea of her character. But still, such as she was, she made life very serious to those who were called upon to ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... getting old and peevish," said Jack. "You see he lives a lonely life, and has a narrow vision. Besides, some boys have given him a lot of trouble, and he doesn't know the difference between decent fellows and scamps. We'd better let him alone, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... impatience as he seized the poker, but I could not but notice the skilful and almost noiseless manner in which he manipulated the coals. Then he looked round for a match, and lighted a candle on the mantelpiece, in spite of a peevish remonstrance from ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... never at all intimate with that peevish old woman," Stepan Trofimovitch went on complaining to me that same evening, shaking with anger; "we were almost boys, and I'd begun to detest him even then... just as he had me, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... way to insure confidence. She had not been there long before she had both parents in bed, "saving themselves for to-morrow," and was gently rubbing the hot little body of the baby. She kept giving it warm tea she had made of herbs, until soon the threatening jerks were over, the peevish whining ceased, and the child slept peacefully on Grandma's lap. I watched her, fascinated. There was never a bit of faltering, no indecision; everything she did seemed exactly ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... her head, with the peevish persistence of weak obstinacy, and continued vaguely to weep as one ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and power of God be not so abridged and abased as to be thrust into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman, whereby the work of the Creator should be attributed to the power of a creature. Secondly, that the religion of the Gospel may be seen to stand without such peevish trumpery. Thirdly, that lawful favor and Christian compassion be rather used towards these poor souls than rigor and extremity. Because they which are commonly accused of witchcraft are the least sufficient of all other persons to speak for themselves, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... baby to be mine in everything, particularly as she is a girl. I am neither wise nor clever, nor strong now. I fear I am often peevish; but you will excuse me, because I am a weak, ignorant woman. Such defects are not fatal in a mother; hundreds have overcome them for their children. I trust that I will be, if not what a better woman might have been, at least more to my child than any other ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... think I've very much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off on ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... picnics, drives, parties, etc., this summer. I am afraid I am not getting on at all. My prayers are dull and short, and full of wandering thoughts. I am brimful of vivacity and good humor in company, and as soon as I get home am stupid and peevish. I suppose this will always be so, as it always has been and I declare I would rather be so than such a vapid, flat creature as Mary Jones, or such a dull, heavy ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... even from the lips of those she loved, with patience. She knew this very well, and she thought to herself, "if I could get into the habit of hardly caring for it from those very near and dear to me, surely it will be easy enough to meet it with indifference from a poor, cross, peevish, suffering old man, whom I don't care for in the least. The way must be, to get into the habit of it from the first, to let ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... got any money or not. How'd you like to buy your grub at these war-time prices and run a hotel for nothing, and at the same time keep up the assessment work on fifteen or twenty claims? Maybe you'd get kind of peevish when a big bum laid in his blankets and wouldn't even get up ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... to which blindness will inevitably reduce him. He fears that he will be nothing in his parish. I try to cheer him; sometimes I succeed temporarily, but no consolation can restore his sight, or atone for the want of it. Still he is never peevish; never impatient; only ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... slowly, and, as I drew nearer, I saw that he looked very much worn out, very peevish, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... neurotic condition of our American women. Our physicians are saying that there is not one American woman in a hundred who is nervously normal. The profession declares that they are excitable, irritable, peevish, and that this unfortunate state is produced by the unnatural and absurd tension they ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... will, kid. Don't get peevish. I guess Mrs. Braddock knows her business. Has it ever occurred to you that there might be another Romeo lookin' at Christie? Five years is quite a ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... whole kennel of them) would be dressed up in coats of silk and satin with pockets and pocket-handkerchiefs, and then led downstairs to the drawing-room, where Alma's wheezy spaniel and my husband's peevish terrier were supposed ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... statue. He found the father the exact antithesis of the daughter, a nervous, fretful, irritable individual (gout had him by the heels at the time), who was as full of "yaps" and snarls as any Irish terrier, and as peevish and fussy as a fault-finding old woman. Added to this, he had a way of glancing all round the room, and avoiding the eye of the person to whom he was talking. And if Cleek had been like the generality of people, and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... on thus, when Sophia, with a more peevish voice than she had ever spoken to her in before, cried, "Prithee, why dost thou trouble me with all this stuff? What concern have I in what Mr Jones doth? I suppose you are all alike. And you seem to me to be angry it was not ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song from her father as he carried her about in ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... sea, whilst overhead trembled a white sky set thick with blackening stars? As I live, 'twas not ill-devised for a madman's brain! ... and so solemn a ranter should serve your Majesty to make merriment withal, in place of my poor Zabastes, whose peevish jests grow somewhat stale owing to the Critic's chronic want of originality! Nay, I myself shall be willing to enter into a rhyming joust with so disconsolately morose a contemporary, and who knows whether, betwixt us twain, the chords of the major and minor may not be harmonized in some new and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... What means this peevish, this fantastic, change? Where is thy wonted pleasantness of face, Thy wonted graces, and thy dimpled smiles? Where hast thou lost thy wit and sportive mirth? That cheerful heart, which us'd to dance for ever, And cast a ray of gladness all ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... Jack Drayton. The afternoon we rehearsed for the wedding I looked at her, before we pranced down the aisle and endured the endless silly giggles of the bridesmaids, and the usher louts who would fall out of step, and grew more peevish by the minute. I looked her over then, and I said to myself: "You feeble paranoiac, imagine that girl tying up with you." Well, I couldn't very well imagine it, although I tried. But I was extremely noisy, and I heard two or three of the bridesmaids, to say nothing of the maid of honor ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils. Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... amongst ten thousand millions of men that is accurst, disastrous, and evilly planeted, whom Fortune beats most, whom God hates most, and all Societies esteem least, that man is sure to be a husband.—Such is the peevish Moon that rules your bloods. An Impudent fellow best woes you, a flattering lip best wins you, or in a mirth who talks roughliest is most sweetest; nor can you distinguish truth from forgeries, mists from Simplicity: witness those two deceitful monsters that you have entertaind ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the council should recommend to the king the calling of a Parliament. At the same time, they passed a resolution that, in case the Parliament "should prove peevish, and refuse to grant supplies, they would sustain the king in the resort to extraordinary measures." This was regarded as a threat, and did not help to prepossess the members favorably in regard to the feeling with ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill-managery of his bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women, he necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest he made them to better purpose; was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, "abundance of spirit," he equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest hero. Nay, give me leave to say further, ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... in the lingering tread of her weary little feet. It was a look more painful to see than the look of sadness or neglect which motherless children sometimes wear. It was of a wayward temper grown more wayward still for want of a mother's firm and gentle rule. One could not doubt that peevish words and angry retorts fell very naturally from those pale lips. She looked like one who needed to be treated with patience and loving forbearance, and who failed to meet either. And, indeed, the rule to which Christie was forced to submit ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... then proposed to send for the Lord Fitz-Owen, who would see that all possible care was taken of his brother-in-law, and would assist him in settling his affairs. Lord Lovel was against it; he was peevish and uneasy, and desired to be left with only his own servants to attend him. Sir Philip quitted the room with a significant look; and the two Lords endeavoured to reconcile him to his situation. He ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen Barron had now ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the way you take things," said Phil. "The town's gone crazy, and there's a mob in front of your little toy bank, but you're not even peevish." ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... born artists with their responsive minds, the "home children" for whom everything centres in their own home-world, and who have in them the making of another one in the future; the critics, standing aloof, a little peevish and very self-conscious, hardly capable of deep friendship and fastidiously dissatisfied with people and things in general; the cheerful and helpful souls who have no interests of their own but can devote themselves to help ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... to the store?" Fred very naturally demanded, peevish at being wakened at three o'clock in the morning. "I saw you in ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... school, and at their play—I think that I know something about them; and I maintain that a disagreeable child is a sorrowful exception to the rule, and the result of mismanagement and foolish indulgences on the part of parents and teachers. But when this abnormal nuisance is found, a peevish, fretful child—a child who is always wanting to taste, a child who ignores the admirable purposes for which pocket-handkerchiefs were designed, such an enfant terrible as he who told the kindly mother, offering to bring her 'Gustus to join him in his play, that "if you bring your 'Gustus here ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... passion he could not restrain, But shouted out, "You're thievish!" The fox replied, with fine disdain, "Come, country, don't be peevish." (Now "country" is an epithet One can't ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... of waste paper was enough to drive a bibliophile out of his wits. Gayangos was sent back to Spain posthaste. But, alack! he found a library swept and garnished; no trace of the volume he had once held there in his hand, and on the face of his friend the librarian only a frank and peevish wonder that anybody should tease him with questions ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stimpson, if he thinks of death at all, thinks of him as a pitiful rascal, to be kicked down stairs by the family physician; the Bible of the old lady is seldom far from her hand, and its consolations are cheering, calming, and assuring. The peevish fretfulness of age has nothing in common with man or wife, unless when Joe, exasperated with his evangelical daughters' continual absence at the class-meetings, and love-feasts, and prayer-meetings, somewhat indignantly complains, that "so long as they can get to heaven, they don't ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... give over to him all that he craved. But Olaf always shook his head and asked her if she did not think that there was wealth enough for them both in Norway. But Thyra was not satisfied with this constant delay. Whenever her husband spoke with her she always contrived to bring in some peevish mention of her estates. She wept and prayed and pleaded so often that Olaf's patience was well nigh exhausted. It seemed that if only for the sake of domestic peace an expedition to Wendland must soon be brought about. Nevertheless, all the friends ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... LAND. One is peevish, if one can't have one's proper rest. What will you bet the Major has not returned home, and you have been ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... not to trouble me again." Thus after having passed through much danger with a spirit not unbecoming—as I hope—an English gentleman, I acted, when the worst was passed, like a peevish schoolboy. I am ashamed of my conduct in this small matter, and trust it will pass without much notice in the narrative of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... prevail on the Imperial Government to convert Kingston into the provincial capital, that the seat of government should not be at the London of General Simcoe. He was not favorable to York. A muddy, marshy, unhealthy spot, it was unfitted for a city. Lord Dorchester, peevish from age, was, to some extent, under the influence of the Kingston merchants, and was inclined, by a feeling of gratitude, to grant the wishes of Commodore Bouchette, who resided at Kingston, with his family, and to whom Lord Dorchester was indebted for safe conduct through the American camp, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... without him. Christophe suspected nothing, and went off in high delight. In his naive egoism he thought only of the pleasure of having Jacqueline all to himself. He was not suffered to rejoice for long. When she heard that Olivier was not coming, Jacqueline at once became peevish, irritable, bored, and dispirited: she lost all desire to please: she did not listen to Christophe, and answered him at random: and he had the humiliation of seeing her stifle a weary yawn. She was near tears. Suddenly she went ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... is peevish anyhow, you see," Cleopatra explained. "Baby comes home to-morrow, and if there's anything that annoys mother to exasperation, it is to have to cluck and fuss round her chick like an old hen. She loathes it, and Baby always makes her feel she ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... there was holes in the ice of the canal, just as there is to-day, for it was the same season of the year, and the children all cried; and thinks I to myself, "If it was the dog that was going to put their father into the water they would cry less." For he had a peevish temper in drink, which was most of ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... was not a dress that he did not copy from some old print, or a passade that he did not indicate to the humblest member of the troop. The marvellous diction that I had noticed during the reading at Sarah’s served him now and gave the key to the entire performance. I have never seen him peevish or discouraged, but always courteous and cheerful through all those weary weeks of repetition, when even the most enthusiastic feel their courage oozing away under the awful grind of afternoon and evening rehearsal, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... you say anything I'll be peevish," protested Courtney in advance. "Please remember that the gentleman is a ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the east, half-way between horizon and zenith, two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers swaddled by ashes. The birds were waking; there were occasional scurryings in tree-tops and outbursts of peevish twittering to attest as much; and presently came a singing, less musical than that of many a bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the girl who heard it, heart in mouth. A lute accompanied the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... not seen her since that night. Unwell? Sits at the fire perhaps with mamma's shawl on her shoulders. But not peevish. A nice bowl of gruel? ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... acknowledge their debt, we ourselves are to blame no less. We find many men ungrateful, yet we make more men so, because at one time we harshly and reproachfully demand some return for our bounty, at another we are fickle and regret what we have given, at another we are peevish and apt to find fault with trifles. By acting thus we destroy all sense of gratitude, not only after we have given anything, but while we are in the act of giving it. Who has ever thought it enough to be asked ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... after all, is rare. Here and there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and our character. Margaret and ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... back a smile so sweet that she had never seen one like it before. From that moment a wonderful change came over the child. He understood the new affection that had come instead of dislike and loathing in the woman's heart. That touch of human love transformed his peevish, fretful nature into gentle quiet and beauty. The woman had seen a vision of herself in that blotched, repulsive child, and of Christ's wonderful love for her in spite of her sinfulness. Under the inspiration of this vision she had become indeed as Christ to the child. The love of Christ had come ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... of giants were got together, very likely one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable superiority of the very tallest of the party; and so I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to listen? To remember the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... visit, when the servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the humane and equal temper of the man of the house, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate, with such oeconomy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. Thus, respect and love go together; and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this family. When a servant is called before his master, he does not come ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother. As for the gentleman himself, his feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her, and the assiduous attentions ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... began to sizzle in the heat. The same slender figure clad in immaculate white reappeared upon the south verandah of the florid bungalow. Herr Ober-Lieutenant stood staring about the small square with a peevish glint in the fair eyes. A big negro in spotless white hurried around the house bearing a brass tray set with a cup, a liqueur glass and a decanter. Herr Lieutenant sprawled his legs on either arm of a Bombay chair. As he delicately mixed cognac with his coffee, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... the eye by calling up the most hideous images—who shews the world through a discoloured medium—who warms the heart by no generous feelings—who uniformly turns to us the worst side of men and things—who goes on his way grumbling, and labours hard to make his readers as peevish and wretched as himself. The tendency of the strain of Homer is to transform us for the moment into heroes; of Cowper, into saints; of Milton, into angels: but Lord Byron would almost degrade us into a Thersites or a Caliban; or lodge us, as fellow-grumblers, in the style ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... putting up the donkey, and getting all the valuables under lock and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our beefsteak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and cold potatoes—with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Bones. "Let me introduce you to my partner. Captain Hamilton, D.S.O.—a jolly old comrade-in-arms and all that sort of thing. My lady typewriter you know, and anyway, there's no necessity for your knowing her—— I mean," he said hastily, "she doesn't want to know you, dear old thing. Now, don't be peevish. Ham, you sit there. Becksteine will sit there. You, young miss, will sit near me, ready to take down my notes as they fall ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... kind communication of the objections you propose to make in yr. new edition to my system. Nothing can be more perfectly friendly and polite than the terms in which you express yourself with regard to me, and I should be extremely peevish and ill-tempered if I could make the slightest opposition to their publication. I am no doubt extremely sorry to find myself of a different opinion both from so able a judge of the subject and from ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... romantic ideas; and when she found herself again involved in the cares of a family, liable to the control of a man who expected the utmost propriety and order, who looked with a strict eye over every department, and whose opinion did not always coincide with her own, she became constantly peevish, and her former gloom grew ten fold more gloomy. She pined after that connubial affection which their reciprocal conduct was calculated to destroy; and from the hasty decisions of passion convinced herself, that no part of the blame ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the cotillon, as closely as his girth permitted, until an old lady sent for him; and he went and talked about bishops for nearly an hour to her, until his condition bordered on frenzy, the old lady being deaf and peevish. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... much as any approach to fawning or sycophancy. As his imbecility increased, he became daily more liable to mental delusions; and, in particular, he fell into many fantastic notions about the conduct of his servants, and, in consequence, into a peevish mode of treating them. Upon these occasions I generally observed a deep silence. But sometimes he would ask me for my opinion; and when this happened, I did not scruple to say, 'Ingenuously, then, Mr. Professor, I think that you are in the wrong.'—'You think so?' he would reply calmly, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... his black velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a first glance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and the downward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failed to hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. On nearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, asserted themselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on this occasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, it was not difficult to understand why ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... last I broke forth. "Girl," I cried, "how darest thou speak thus to me? Mindest thou who and what I am that thou loosest thy peevish gibes upon me?" ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... having been without any real idea of duty or sacrifice, the match had proved one of those that serve to justify the opinions of people who are "sensible;" the young wife, wearying of the lot she had chosen, had sunk into a state of peevish discontent from which death came ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... little ways. When the expectation of Cecily came to us we made out to be delighted, knowing that the whole station pitied us, and when Cecily came herself, with a swamping burst of expense, we kept up the pretense splendidly. She was peevish, poor little thing, and she threatened convulsions from the beginning, but we both knew that it was abnormal not to love her a great deal, more than life, immediately and increasingly; and we applied ourselves honestly to do it, with the ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... which the peevish spleen, yet bitter malice of Scottish Prelacy, found gratification in attempting to destroy. But there is a righteous retribution even in this world. Men rear their own monuments, and write inscriptions on them which time cannot obliterate. Gillespie's enduring monument is in his actions ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... and in her hard, sad face With flashes of the old fun's animation There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation Bred of a past where troubles came apace. She tells me that her husband, ere he died, Saw seven of their children pass away, And never knew the little lass at play Out on the green, in whom he's deified. Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone, All simple ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... think that a man's religion is going to rid him of his natural qualities. "Bishop Hall" (as you may remember to have seen quoted elsewhere) "prefers Nature before Grace in the Election of a wife, because, saith he, it will be a hard Task, where the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire conquest ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the back of a funny little old donkey, and climbed up herself. Then she was cross with the funny little old bag, and mad with the funny little old donkey, and she beat him with a funny little old stick, and scolded and scolded with a funny little old cracked, quivering, peevish, hateful voice. ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Opposition indulged in petty nagging and in ingeniously unpatriotic tactics; but they only served to throw up in bold relief the consistent and courageous conduct of the Prime Minister. It was an easy task to refute the peevish efforts of Fox to justify the French Jacobins alike before the war, throughout its course, and in their rejection of the British overtures for peace. But in every encounter Pitt won more than a personal triumph. He proved that the war was forced upon us; that ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, A better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... it out with Aunt Agatha, so I followed her into her room, and asked her in a peevish voice what she meant by saying Uncle Keith would be so angry with me, as he had not raised a single objection, and, of course, as silence meant consent, I should most certainly keep my appointment at ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... by the hand And lead me back again to thine own land, The nook supreme, the sanctum in the glen Where pixies walk,—unknown to peevish men And shrew-like women whom no faith uplifts! Show me the place where Nature keeps the gifts She most approves, and where the song-birds dwell, And I'll forego the land of ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... corner of one of these little stones arrested my wandering attention; there was something familiar about it, something that stirred memories in my sluggish brain. What was it? I groped in vain for some clue. The pebble worried me, and I made a peevish gesture to throw it away. No! Whatever it was, I must not do that, rather wash it, wash it. Yes! that was what we used to do. But where was the batea, for now by some strange freak I was back in Brazil, and must have my batea. We washed our gravel for ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... sunlight-destroying, sky-scraping office buildings in New York and elsewhere; nuisances of every kind that I could think of were put down—the headquarters of the Beef Trust and a few of its sponsors; the editorial offices of the peevish and bilious newspapers, which deny principles and right motives to all save themselves; a regiment of alleged humorists who make jokes about the mother-in-law and other sacred relations of life; an opera-box full of the people who hum every number of Wagner and Verdi through, and ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... other, Murray afterwards Lord Mansfield. He then went into the history of his life; or, at least, into such passages of it as were proper for the public ear. He was interrupted by the Lord High Steward, whose conduct to the unhappy State prisoner is said to have been peevish and overbearing. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... starting about the fourth month and continuing until between the twentieth and thirtieth month, when the first dentition should be complete. As a rule there is an interval of rest between the eruption of the various groups. During dentition children are generally more peevish and fretful than usual, but there should be no general constitutional disturbance. During dentition it is of especial importance to keep the bowels well opened; it is better to have them too loose than ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... evening when Sarah had been instructed to put a hot-water bottle in his bed, Henry's tone, in greeting his aunt, had been curt, fretful, peevish, nearly cantankerous. 'Don't worry me!' he had irascibly protested, well knowing that his good aunt was guiltless of the slightest intention to worry him. Here was a problem, an apparent ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... to five hundred persons of all ranks about five hundred falsehoods of this conversation, of my fears and his own brutalities, against all probability as well as fact; and some of them, as I have been assured, even in the presence of your grace. His meanings and his movements were indeed peevish enough, but his words were not. He threatened me with nothing but his pen, yet owned he had no pretence to wit. And indeed I am heartily glad for his own sake that he proceeded no farther, for the least uproar would have called his nearest neighbours ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... his shoulder leaning against them, wrapped in a grey soldier's coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigailov. His face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both, Svidrigailov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man not drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... William. The Lieutenant-Commander coughed apologetically. "He's peevish," he said. "Thought it was us blowing up at first. Wants to know why we wasted a torpedo: thinks he could have captured her and taken the crew prisoners if we'd left it ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... acquaintance; yet they did not love him, for they loved none outside the mating season, and the animosities aroused by other bulls during that season lasted well over until the next. They were a morose and peevish band at best, though here and there were those among them in whom germinated the primal seeds of humanity—reversions to type, these, doubtless; reversions to the ancient progenitor who took the first step out ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and mother were also to be seen; the latter, sour, shrewish, and solemn, in her black hood and close pinners, with a book of devotion in her hand; the former, exhibiting beneath a black silk Geneva cowl, or skull-cap, which sate as close to the head as if it had been shaven, a pinched, peevish, Puritanical set of features, terminating in a hungry, reddish, peaked beard, forming on the whole a countenance in the expression of which the hypocrite seemed to contend with the miser and the knave. "And it is to make room for such scarecrows as these," thought Ravenswood, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... now, as Steele returned to us and entered the stage, he spoke of this report. "It's the longest and the best I ever turned in," he said, with a gray flame in his eyes. "I shan't let Russ read it. He's peevish because I want his part put on record. And listen, Diane. There's to be a blank line in this report. Your father's name will never be recorded. Neither the Governor, nor the adjutant-general, nor Captain Neal, nor any one ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... in a peevish voice; 'to think of my brother Nonus serving me such a trick! What would our blessed mother have said could she have seen it? My whole kit gone, to say nothing of my venture in the voyage! And now I have kicked off a pair of new ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have I found But weeping, and alas, And sorrow, which doth now surround Me, and augment my cross. 73. Ah, bleeding conscience, how did I Thee check when thou didst tell Me of my faults, for which I lie Dead while I live in hell. 74. I took thee for some peevish foe, When thou didst me accuse, Therefore I did thee buffet so, And counsel did refuse. 75. Thou often didst me tidings bring, How God did me dislike, Because I took delight in sin, But I thy news did slight. 76. Ah, Mind, why ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... bosom; his own fell thickly too. They had a sad walk home, and that night, full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection, to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas! the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over Dick's estrangement—for so he put it to himself, and now with growls, cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched himself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unconsciously takes on the nature of the body. A peevish, snarling, ailing man can not develop the vigor and strength of character which is possible to a healthy, robust, cheerful man. There is an inherent love in the human mind for wholeness, a demand that man shall ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... put to shame by this open persecution, begins to study, while the peevish and small tyrant, her pa, is nagging her with such soothing remarks as, "I thought you'd have more respect for your pride;" "Why don't you try to come up to the expectations of your teacher?" By and by the student thinks she has "got it," and the public exposition ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... new-made aldermen and burgesses, and they asked the reason of the hubbub and tumult; and with that every man began to tell his own tale, so that nothing could be heard distinctly. Then was a silence commanded, and the old fox Incredulity began to speak. 'My lord,' quoth he, 'here are a couple of peevish gentlemen, that have, as a fruit of their bad dispositions, and, as I fear, through the advice of one Mr. Discontent, tumultuously gathered this company against me this day, and also attempted to run the town into acts of ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in peevish, fretful feelings. ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... was answered—answered by a very sour and peevish woman next door, who thrust her head out of the window, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking. Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have become master. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... to the Envoy on a matter which should have been left to him to arrange. He complained bitterly of the way in which he was reduced to a cypher—'degraded from a general to the "Lord-Lieutenant's head constable."' Broadfoot went from the General to the Envoy, who 'was peevish,' and denounced the General as fidgety. He declared the enemy to be contemptible, and that as for Broadfoot and his sappers, twenty men with pickaxes were enough; all they were wanted for was to pick stones from ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... dread that Mark would come too late, and then—God's other means! She trembled, and strained her ears to catch the sound of wheels. Mrs. Ardagh now seemed to be sinking into sleep—Catherine strove to rouse her. She stirred and said, "What is it?" in a voice that sounded peevish. ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... visibly aged during the year. It was only in his office that he maintained anything of the spruce appearance and 'sang froid' which had distinguished the diplomatist and the young adventurer. At home he had fallen into the slovenliness that marks a disappointed old age. Was Mrs. Mavick peevish and unreasonable? Very likely. And had she not reason to be? Was she, as a woman, any more likely to be reconciled to her fate when her mirror told her, with pitiless reflection, that she was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... inspiring love. This charm will doubtless ensure the volume hundreds of possessors. The names of a few of the galaxy will give the reader a faint idea of their charms, unless the reader accord with Juliet's somewhat peevish "What's in a name." Thus, we find Julia, the queen of sentimentality; Belinda, gay and sparkling; Madeline, the early prey of despair; Lolah, languishing amid Eastern magnificence; the Orphan, pencilled in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... he left no legacy, Save that his story teaches:— Content to peevish poverty; Humility to riches. Ye scornful great, ye envious small, Come fellow in his track; We all were happier, if we ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... jealous fears and suspicions; for where might a man not be who was so seldom at home? She had never been particularly fond of her husband, but that was no reason why she should not be particularly jealous about him; and her jealousy betrayed itself in a peevish worrying fashion, which was harder to bear than the vengeful ferocity of a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... should influence our very stride, and set its mark upon our "daily walk and conversation." It ought to make us so big that we can never speak a mean word, or do a petty and peevish thing. ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... of the three occupants of the bed; she was about eight years old; her small face was delicate in its outline, her mouth peevish; she did not look a strong child, and self-control could scarcely be expected ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... "As it happens," continued the gallant, "we have lost our heads, and would be much obliged if you would recover them for us. You see, we called here about a hundred years ago and were murdered in our beds, here in this house. It was your great-grandfather's doing; he was a bit peevish that evening. We had arrived with all our trunks, had searched the whole town for lodgings; every place was crowded. Some one advised us to call here. The old gentleman, after a deal of grumbling, showed us into a room, the first floor ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... dared,—longer, indeed, than I had any right to linger, for I heard my mother's voice crying, "Janet!" and I well knew that there was nobody but myself to mix the corn-cake, spread the table, or run the dozen errands that would be needed. I slipped in by the back-door, and, escaping my step-mother's peevish complaints, passed into the little closet which served us for pantry, and, scooping up the meal, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... Fy, fy, Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a Heart ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... is the misery, all that time one must be using some kind of exercise. Your fellow-servant has a blessed time on't that ever you saw. I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw. Then am I ready to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England. But then to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy that I am well again. I am told 'twill do me good, and am content to believe ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... creatures we are! The slight bait so skilfully thrown out by Ralph, on their first interview, was dangling on the hook yet. At every small deprivation or discomfort which presented itself in the course of the four-and-twenty hours to remind her of her straitened and altered circumstances, peevish visions of her dower of one thousand pounds had arisen before Mrs Nickleby's mind, until, at last, she had come to persuade herself that of all her late husband's creditors she was the worst used and the most to be pitied. And yet, she had loved him dearly for many years, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens |
