"Pugnacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in April came to an understanding with him as to Foote's committee and their common desire for prompt consideration of California. The importance of Foote's influence in turning the tide in Mississippi, through his pugnacious election campaign, and the significance of his judgment of the influence of Webster and his speech have been somewhat overlooked, partly perhaps because of Foote's swashbuckling ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... solitudes I am greeted with the pensive, almost pathetic note of the wood pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers, and are easily identified. They are very characteristic birds, have strong family traits and pugnacious dispositions. They are the least attractive or elegant birds of our fields or forests. Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, of little elegance in flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt of the tail, always quarreling with their neighbors and ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... war in Barsetshire. If there was on Dr Thorne's cranium one bump more developed than another, it was that of combativeness. Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious, in the usual sense of the word; he had no disposition to provoke a fight, no propense love of quarrelling; but there was that in him which would allow him to yield to no attack. Neither in argument nor in contest would he ever allow himself to be wrong; never ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... amorous entanglement with Mr. Clemm and tried to say something. She could think of nothing which befitted the occasion; all her glib eloquence was temporarily asphyxiated. Mr. Clemm stammered and looked about for some hole in which to conceal himself. He, too, seemed far different from the pugnacious, self-confident dictator who reigned ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... for the intervention of the president of the room; who bawled out, "Silence, gentlemen; do have silence for the Body Snatcher!" which popular song began as Pen left the Back Kitchen. He flattered himself that he had commanded his temper perfectly. He rather wished that Huxter had been pugnacious. He would have liked to fight him or somebody. He went home. The day's work, the dinner, the play, the whisky-and-water, the quarrel,—nothing soothed him. He slept no better ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as bad as he used to be, Clinton," Easton laughed; "just the same aggressive, pugnacious beggar that ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... former master; the starfish, zoophytes, sea-pens, and other innumerable marine insects, looking fresh and beautiful; and the crabs, as Peterkin said, looking as wide-awake, impertinent, rampant, and pugnacious as ever. It was, indeed, so lovely and so interesting that I would scarcely allow myself to ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... not very healthy-looking person of about fifty years of age, ill-dressed in seedy black clothes and a flaming red tie, with a fat, pale face, a pugnacious mouth, and a bald head, on the top of which isolated hairs stood up stiffly. I knew him by sight, for once he had argued with me at a lecture I gave on sanitary matters, when I was told that he was a draper by trade, and, although his shop was by no means among the ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of improving the shape of his nose, wanting in symmetry as it was. Notwithstanding his pugnacious looks, however, Jermin had a heart as big as a bullock's; that you ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... destiny whether for better or worse, might have been in store for the American people. But those were days when the policy of the nation was stern and uncompromising, when the views of trade were narrow and contracted, when justice was untempered with mercy, and when men were bigoted and pugnacious. Protracted wars consumed the revenues and made many draughts on the national purse, and when the trade of the colonies was laid under ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... As a man Jonson, pugnacious, capricious, ill-mannered, sometimes surly, intemperate in drink and in other respects, is an object for only very qualified admiration; and as a writer he cannot properly be said to possess that indefinable thing, genius, which is essential ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Their stopping of the wells was a common act of hostility, and an effectual one in that land, where everything lives where water comes, and dies if it is cut off. Abimelech's reason for 'extraditing' Isaac might have provoked a more pugnacious person to stay and defy the Philistines to expel him. 'Thou art much mightier than we,' and so he could have said, 'Try to put me out, then,' and the result might have been that Abimelech and his Philistines would have been the ones to go. But the same spirit was in the man as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... more virile figure and one to whom the attribution of genius need not be grudged, is the strong, pugnacious, eminently picturesque Charles Reade. It is a temptation to say that but for his use of a method and a technique hopelessly old-fashioned, he might claim close fellowship for gift and influence with Dickens. But he lacked art as it is now understood: balance, restraint, the impersonal view ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... system. It is better to grow two blades of grass than to dispute who shall have the larger fraction of the one which has previously been the yield. It is better, not merely because there is more grass, but also because men's attitude becomes forward-looking and constructive, not pugnacious and rigid. ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts
... saw of this dogmatic dreamer, this erratic man of action, the more she liked him, the more she found really admirable in him. But mixed with her admiration was an alert and pugnacious fear, so big was he, so powerful, so violently hostile to all the principles involved in her belief that the whole wide world of action should in justice lie as much open to woman to choose ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... who will condemn others to death for crimes that they themselves do not repute so much as faults. I have, in my youth, seen a man of good rank with one hand present to the people verses that excelled both in wit and debauchery, and with the other, at the same time, the most ripe and pugnacious theological reformation that the world has been treated withal these many years. And so men proceed; we let the laws and precepts follow their way; ourselves keep another course, not only from debauchery of manners, but ofttimes ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... drinks his coffee and smokes his cigar. If the ladies of the household are inclined that way they look at it too. But there really is not much to look at as a rule. These paragraphs about the wicked British that seem so pugnacious when they are printed on solid English paper in plain English words, are often in a corner with other political paragraphs about other wicked nations. At times of crisis, when the leading papers are attacking us at great length, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... as the case may be; for at such times a Cassowary man will say to himself, "My leg is long and thin, I can run and not feel tired; my legs will go quickly and the grass will not entangle them." Members of the Cassowary clan are reputed to be pugnacious, because the cassowary is a bird of very uncertain temper and can kick with extreme violence. (A.C. Haddon, "The Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits", "Journal of the Anthropological Institute", XIX. (1890), page 393; "Reports ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... room Mrs. McChesney watched the boy as he surveyed himself in the glass. And as she gazed there came a frightened look into her eyes. It was gone in a minute, and in its place came a curious little gleam, half amused, half pugnacious. ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt the clans Sa'ad and Haram and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain to the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale bears some likeness to the accumulative nursery rhymes in "The House that Jack Built," and "The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;" which find their indirect original in an allegorical ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... character; if he saw a horse that he liked, he put his money on whatever it ran; if charmed by an opera, he went over and over again; if by a poem, he almost learned it by heart. And while he walked along the river—his usual route—he had queer and unaccustomed sensations, now melting, now pugnacious. And ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the London prentices were pugnacious, but as every one joined in the laugh against George, and he was, besides, stuck fast on a quaking tussock of grass, afraid to proceed or advance, he could not have his revenge. And when the slough ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... courage had long been established; and his temper was under strict government. The fury of Glengarry, not being inflamed by any fresh provocation, rapidly abated. Indeed there were some who suspected that he had never been quite so pugnacious as he had affected to be, and that his bluster was meant only to keep up his own dignity in the eyes of his retainers. However this might be, the quarrel was composed; and the two chiefs met, with the outward show of civility, at ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... time Fotis, the maid, had been aroused by the din of battle, and still panting and perspiring freely I slipped in through the opening door, and, as weary as though I had fought with the three-formed Geryon instead of those pugnacious thieves, I yielded myself at one and the same moment to bed ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... I think I know quite well that the little girl of the curly black hair, red ribbons, and blue sailor dress was a very audacious, pugnacious little person, and I wonder that you were willing to help her through the tangle of fractions as you did so cleverly. I well remember thinking you a very wonderful scholar, but you were so much older than I that I admit not thinking about you very much. It was like that ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... lunch, went out together into the town. Each felt that he was now more closely bound to the other than ever. The Dean was thoroughly pleased that it should be so. He intended his son-in-law to be the Marquis, and being sanguine as well as pugnacious looked forward to seeing that time himself. Such a man as the Marquis would probably die early, whereas he himself was full of health. There was nothing he would not do to make Lord George's life pleasant, if only Lord George would be pleasant to him, and submissive. But ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... have pretended that it was designed to typify an expression used by one of his admiring followers in the House—a tribute to his "stable character;" others have said that it became his attribute from the time that he described himself as "playing the part of judicious Bottle-Holder to the pugnacious Powers of Europe;" and Mark Lemon declared that it was simply used as a sort of trade-mark whereby he might be known again, just as Mr. Harry Furniss invented Mr. Gladstone's collars, Lord Randolph ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... punished by force of arms. In short, this is the frequent cause of Aboriginal, as it is of European wars; man, in his natural state, being very much alike in all conditions—jealous of his rights, and exceedingly pugnacious. It is true, the European intruders pay no respect to these Aboriginal divisions of the territory, the black native being often hunted off his own ground, or destroyed by European violence, dissipation, or disease, just as his kangaroos are driven off that ground by ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... she wheeled quickly and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt myself quite ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... We speak of God's fiat "Fiat lux, Let light be." Man has his fiat. The achievements of history have been the choices, the determinations, the creations, of the human will. It was the will, quiet or pugnacious, gentle or grim, of men like Wilberforce and Garrison, Goodyear and Cyrus Field, Bismarck and Grant, that made them indomitable. They simply would do what they planned. Such men can no more be stopped than the sun ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... still more pugnacious. "Going to learn more lies about us, I suppose, that they may teach them to school-children? I was turning over some of their school-books in a shop yesterday. Perfectly abominable! It's monstrous what they teach the children here about what they're pleased to call their War of Independence. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had brown stains on it which might be from either coffee or tobacco. His eyes were set widely apart and were benignant and kind in expression. His brow was benevolent, and counteracted the lower part of his face, which in itself would be pugnacious. His nose was short, broad, and thick. His jaw betrayed the determination of the bulldog. The combination made an exceedingly interesting study. His coarse clothes formed a curious contrast to the elegance of his speech and ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... England who could have driven her against her will. She had a fortune of her own. Enoch Lovatt treated her with the respect due to an equal who had more than once proved herself capable of insisting on independence and equal rights in the most pugnacious manner. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... voyageur was careless of danger, because he counted it as nothing; he gave it no thought, because it only affected himself; and he valued not his own safety and comfort, so long as he could serve the cause by forgetting them. Mere courage is combative, even pugnacious; but the voyageur fought only "the good fight;" he had no pride of conquest, save in the victories of Faith, and rather would suffer, himself, than inflict suffering upon others. Mere courage is restless, impatient, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... to him, 'is physically impossible. Don't be so pugnacious. We leave you the front of the box, and when we appear in your territory our mouths are closed. But in our own domain we claim ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by every sort of weakness: vanity, sensitiveness, irritability, pugnacity —strange, unfamiliar devils to have coming crowding on one and taking possession of one's swept and empty heart. She had never been vain or irritable or pugnacious in her life before. Could it be that San Salvatore was capable of opposite effects, and the same sun that ripened Mr. Wilkins made ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... "advanced" thinkers. The contest between skepticism and revelation has long since shifted to other grounds. Both the philosophy and the temper of the Age of Reason belong to the eighteenth century. But Paine's downright pugnacious method of attack was effective with shrewd, half-educated doubters; and in America well-thumbed copies of his book passed from hand to hand in many a rural tavern or store, where the village atheist wrestled in debate with the deacon or the schoolmaster. Paine rested his argument ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dorgs are pugnacious critters. I had one that set on every fellow of its kind he came across, and took such an affectionate grab of his foe, that nothing would divide them ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... to the R.N.W.M.P. barracks the unsuspecting Jan was violently attacked by a fox-terrier, the pet of one of the senior officers of the corps. This pugnacious little chap wasted no time over preliminaries, and apparently had no desire whatever to examine the new-comer. He just flew straight at Jan's throat, snarling furiously. Captain Arnutt was distressed, for he made sure the terrier would be killed, and that Jan would thereby ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... this disaster this pugnacious whale was captured by the Rebecca Simms of this port. Two of the Ann Alexander's harpoons were found in him and his head had sustained serious injuries, pieces of the ship's timbers being imbedded in it. The whale yielded 70 to 80 ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... frequently invited me to spend Saturday at Pinkie. She was a very ladylike person, in delicate health, and with cold manners. Sir Archibald was stout, loud, passionate, and devoted to hunting. I amused myself in the grounds, a good deal afraid of a turkey-cock, who was pugnacious and defiant. ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... and so were one or two of the men, so she was able to have a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she'd done anything particularly outrageous. And she really enjoyed herself. You see, she's in the position of poor relation in a rather pugnacious family, and her life has been largely spent in smoothing over other people's quarrels. You can imagine the welcome relief of being able to go about saying and doing perfectly exasperating things to a whole houseful of women—and all in the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... astonishingly spiral locks surely constituted better authority for a name than any possible application of baptismal water—was, by right of reputed might, dictator of the Vine Street Primary. Curly was alleged to be of pugnacious disposition, and had not been bred to appreciation of the Golden Rule. He had the outward bearing of one who has reason for confidence in his personal prowess. He was popularly believed to have fought many fights and fierce,—just when and where his admirers seemed not to consider important,—and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Drew was vague in the dusk, to be seen only in the limited light of the lantern on the driver's seat. But they did not miss the pugnacious set of knuckles on hips, nor the truculence which overrode the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... his photograph is inset. At the mention of his name, the oft-seen picture rose before my eyes—a big man, anywhere between thirty-six and fifty—good head, large forehead, curly hair, kind eyes, pugnacious nose, conceited smile under waxed moustache, heavy jaw, unconquerable chin, and prize-fighter's neck and shoulders. "What has Sir Marcus Lark to do with us?" "He's in Egypt—in Cairo just now; and—he's got ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... gave the wall. The bold and athletic took it. If two roisterers met they cocked their hats in each other's faces, and pushed each other about till the weaker was shoved towards the kennel. If he was a mere bully he sneaked off, mattering that he should find a time. If he was pugnacious, the encounter probably ended in a duel ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of this fellow, notwithstanding his pugnacious manner. He had an honest face, and bright blue eyes, in whose depths lurked a merry twinkle. He took it for granted that this was Jake Jukes who wanted a ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... what was possible, or how to wait for amelioration without too visible an effort. These causes led them to miscalculate the impediments, necessities, and practicable resources of the Government they sincerely wished to establish. In the Chambers, they were too exclusive and pugnacious, more intent on proving their opinions than on gaining converts, despising rather than desiring recruits, and little gifted with the talent of attraction and combination so essential to the leaders of a party. They were not sufficiently acquainted with the difficulties of carrying ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... dynamic force that compels right for right's sake independent of compromise? How does the Canadian live in his home? Is he beer-drinking, lethargic, dreamy and flabby in will power; or is he whisky-drinking, fiery, practical and pugnacious? Why hasn't he a distinctive literature, a distinctive art? Nature never was more lavish to any people in beautiful landscape from the quiet rural scenery of the maritime provinces, Quebec and Ontario, to the far-flung epic of the fenceless prairies and the Homeric grandeur of the mountains. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... say!" the vender demands, drawing himself into a pugnacious attitude; "your insinuations against my honour aggravate me more ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... thinned Manchester! Your policy of absorption is good enough when you're dealing with fragments. It's a devilish unlucky thing to attempt with a concrete mass. You might as well ask your head to absorb a wall by running at it like a pugnacious nigger. I don't want you to go into Parliament ever. You're a fitter man out of it; but if ever you're bitten—and it's the curse of our country to have politics as well as the other diseases—don't follow a flag, be independent, keep a free vote; remember how ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from the moment he laid eyes on him. His pugnacious piety he might have endured but for the fact that he was good-looking and eloquent. When he rose in the pulpit in all his sacred dignity, fixed his eyes on Margaret, and began in tenderly modulated voice to tell about the love of God, ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... Saxon. They're very dissimilar, but they've got something like the unifying motive of a monastery, and they're willing to serve and to plod and to be patient. I fight with Saxon because he's a pacifist, but like all pacifists he's a very pugnacious person, and he can get frightfully angry, but it's pitiful to see him when he's been angry, because he's so sorry afterwards. I'm not a pacifist, but I haven't a tenth of his pluck. He'd endure anything, that man. Crews and Jordan are younger than he, and very brainy. Crews looks as if ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... tribe in order to provoke a battle with the whites, and boasting that formerly they had driven them back from the Darling, was a blow that they could not get over, and the result was that the whites were not again molested. It turned out that this pugnacious tribe was the same that threatened Sturt at the Darling junction, when the energetic interference of one man was so effectual. This remarkable savage, it seems, was dead ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... together, and a mountain of luggage at the top under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in a hood; and beneath the hood sat a blue-bloused man with a singular cap, like a concertina, and mustaches, who cracked a loud whip over five squealing, fussy, pugnacious white and gray horses, with bells on their necks and bushy fox-tails on their foreheads, and their own tails carefully tucked ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... passed by without war and retaliation, or that treaties made piracy impossible. In the early and more pugnacious days of the Saracen domination conflicts were frequent. The F[a]tim[i] Khalifs conquered and held all the larger islands of the Western Mediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles. In 1002 the Saracens pillaged Pisa, and the Pisans retaliated ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... window. It was an open, sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes could sweep the lane, up and down; and he could there also give vent to his superfluous energy by lording it over a few sparrows and other small birds that visited the spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of the pugnacious little creature, as he perched there so close to me, and so fearless. His striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in his motions, made his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin is greatly distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the vivid tint on his breast. He ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... consideration of much worth. For however various are the forms of civil politics, there is but one form of polity in the sciences; and that always has been and always will be popular. Now the doctrines which find most favour with the populace are those which are either contentious and pugnacious, or specious and empty; such, I say, as either entangle assent or tickle it. And therefore no doubt the greatest wits in each successive age have been forced out of their own course, men of capacity and intellect ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... when forced upon them. "Militarism" is not a preponderant spirit in either Great Britain or the United States; their commercial tendencies and their isolation concur to exempt them from its predominance. Pugnacious, and even warlike, when aroused, the idea of war in the abstract is abhorrent to them, because it interferes with their leading occupations, and its demands are alien to their habits of thought. To say that either lacks sensitiveness to the point of honor would ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... "Well, the Bible's English, anyway," he said resignedly. The sound of a foreign tongue always made him feel pugnacious, and it was ever a question with him how, as a gentleman, to treat a dead language. Death was respectable, but had its own obligations; obligations which Greek and ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... command of God of no effect,' and so forth. While his sermon rolled along, Dora stood nervously tying her bonnet strings, or buttoning her gloves. Her heart was full of a passionate scorn. Beside the bookseller's muscular figure and pugnacious head she saw with her mind's eye the spare forms and careworn faces of the young priests at St. Damian's. Outraged by this loud-voiced assurance, she called to mind the gentleness, the suavity, the delicate consideration for women ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Speaker I had no strong parliamentary leader of my party on the floor to aid me, and I had had but little experience as a presiding officer. Of the opposite party were Mr. Randall, who had been Speaker of the three preceding Congresses; Mr. Cox of New York, the pugnacious, who had acted as Speaker for a time in the Forty-third; Mr. Carlisle (my successor as Speaker), and Mr. Knott of Kentucky, and others who laid just claim to much parliamentary learning. The House was hardly Republican; and in my own party were disappointed aspirants who ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and twelfth centuries many monasteries were founded and grew in importance, and what might have happened in Japan but for the somewhat unscrupulous prescience of Japanese statesmen actually did happen in Tibet. Among the numerous contending chiefs none was pre-eminent: the people were pugnacious but superstitious. They were ready to build and respect when built the substantial structures required to house monastic communities during the rigorous winter. Hence the monasteries became the largest ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... from the balcony turning into the gateway of the Casa Gould, had addressed no one since coming in. The long, skimpy soutane accentuated the tallness of his stature; he carried his powerful torso thrown forward; and the straight, black bar of his joined eyebrows, the pugnacious outline of the bony face, the white spot of a scar on the bluish shaven cheeks (a testimonial to his apostolic zeal from a party of unconverted Indians), suggested something unlawful behind his priesthood, the idea of a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... stood somewhat aloof, looking at the small, frail, pugnacious woman in the rocking-chair with perplexity and growing impatience. He wanted to go fishing that morning, and the vision of the darting trout in their still, clear pool was before him, like a vision of his own earthly paradise. He gave a despairing glance at Doctor Prescott, who had hitherto said ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... it more than once afterwards. Until 1873 he and his rival, Mr. Fox, were considered inevitable members of almost any combination. Native affairs were in the forefront during that period. Mr. Fox, the most impulsive, pugnacious, and controversial of politicians, usually headed the peace party; Sir Edward Stafford, much more easy going in ordinary politics, was usually identified with those who held that peace could only ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... have place In any soul? Plato affirms ideas; But Aristotle, with his pugnacious race, As ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... over to Holland to keep their hands in there till fortune favoured them once more at home. The old castle, with its rambling towers, and walls, and buttresses was a sort of rallying-point for all the pugnacious spirits of the time, and its bluff walls showed many a scar and many a dint where hostile guns had played upon them, not, you ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... growing grizzled. But his long upper lip was shaved. He had a weather-beaten face—ruddy and deepening to purple about the cheek bones—with eyebrows, rough as bent grass, over deep-set, sulky eyes of reddish brown. His mouth was underhung, giving him a pugnacious and bad-tempered appearance. Nor did his looks appear to libel the old sailor. To Brendon, at any rate, he showed at first no ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... do not quite understand, President, what ours is," answered Barker. "You judge it rather as if England was still a poor and pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many things ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... steam-pipes crackle; and who must straighten out all the tangles of his life, past, present, and future, before he can close his eyes in slumber or take a vacation. The boy Carlyle, proud, shy, sensitive, and pugnacious, was father to the man who made war upon the neighbor's poultry, and had a room, proof against sound, specially constructed for ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... promised them some lively proceedings. Jack noticed that his nose had assumed its normal proportions, from which he concluded that more time than was actually the case had elapsed since he himself was prostrated by illness. The pugnacious youth advanced in his wary fashion, gradually slackening his gait until nearly opposite the pale face, who felt that the exigencies of the situation demanded he should brace up so as to impress the youth with the peril of ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... ignominiously in the bed of the Arno, while his temple and town were appropriated to other purposes. The river was dragged. The statue was found and set upon a column near the edge of the river, on a spot which is now the head of the Ponte Vecchio. True to its pugnacious character, it brought nothing but turbulence and bloodshed upon the town. The long and memorable feuds between the Guelphs and Ghibellines began by the slaying of Buondelmonte in his wedding dress, at the base ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... extremely pugnacious when saying this that Jack knew he must be making up his mind just what sort of corporeal punishment best fitted the crime of playing the spy on rivals in football, in order to obtain an unfair advantage over them and taking a ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... jolly comfortable! This just suits me!" For the wood-pigeon is a vulgar and slangy bird, and therefore no true Scot, for all that the poets have said about him. He is however a great fighter, exceedingly pugnacious with his kind. Listen and you ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... of preserved ginger,—nothing else, upon honor,—and the most simple mixture for the cure, the radical cure, of blue devils and debt I know of; eh, Doctor? You advise it yourself, to be taken before bed-time; nothing inflammatory in it, nothing pugnacious; a mere circulation of the better juices and more genial spirits of the marly clay, without arousing any of the baser passions; whiskey ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and the freshness of his complexion gave him a singularly youthful appearance. His mouth was even-lipped and rather pleasure-loving, which, without the balance of a strong nose, would have appealed to you as effeminate. Warrington's was what the wise phrenologists call the fighting nose; not pugnacious, but the nose of a man who will fight for what he believes to be right, fight bitterly and fearlessly. To-day he was famous, but only yesterday he had been fighting, retreating, throwing up this redoubt, digging this trench; fighting, ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... now seemed to be out of the question. This hair of hers was of a dark-brown hue, threaded with silver, and it grew in a tousled abundance of unruly wisps that seemed to be symbolic of her harum-scarum character. She was as pugnacious as she was charitable, and as quick to make up a quarrel as to pick one. Her husband, Michael Minsker, was a "worldly" man, with only a smattering of Talmud, and their younger children were being educated at the Russian schools. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... those individuals whose mediocre energy has stood between him and so-called success. At present he is forty and occupies about the same position that he did at twenty. As a boy he was fond of play but never excelled in any sport and never occupied a place of leadership. He had the usual pugnacious code of boys, but because he was friendly and good-natured rarely got into a fight. He liked to read and was rather above the average in intelligence, but he never tackled the difficult reading, confining himself to the "interesting" novel and easy information. He left high school when he was sixteen ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... certain habits are inseparably associated as peculiarly characterising them. Thus, in vulgar apprehension, the Frenchman dances, the German smokes, the Spaniard serenades; and on all hands it is agreed that the Irishman fights. Naturally bellicose, his practice is pugnacious: antagonism is his salient and distinctive quality. Born in a squabble, he dies in a shindy: in his cradle he squeals a challenge; his latest groan is a sound of defiance. Pike and pistol are manifest in his well-developed bump of combativeness; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... as mules, tougher than braided rawhide, and disorderly in their conduct. They broke through the fence the first night, went up into a quaking asp patch where there was nothing eatable, and had a scrap with two bears who thought Senor Ortiz had invested in edible pork. The hogs were wiry and pugnacious, and the circumstantial evidence plainly indicated that the bears had no walk-over. However, the bears managed to get one emaciated porker after a long chase, and they bit several samples out of him. They didn't devour the whole carcass, and they didn't try pork again ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... assertions, he hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down," as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he satisfied himself just as ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... insist upon, make a point of. Adj. contending &c. v.; together by the ears, at loggerheads at war at issue. competitive, rival; belligerent; contentious, combative, bellicose, unpeaceful[obs3]; warlike &c. 722; quarrelsome &c. 901; pugnacious; pugilistic, gladiatorial; palestric[obs3], palestrical[obs3]. Phr. a verbis ad verbera[Lat]; a word and a blow; "a very pretty quarrel as it stands" [Sheridan]; commune periculum concordiam parit[Lat]; lis ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... that day sitting on the broad door-sill of the tower. She loved to watch the fiery rain; but she was also waiting for a lull in the cannonading that she might release her swan. He was always forbidden the rooms in the tower by her lady; for he was a pugnacious creature, quick to strike with beak or wings any one who irritated him. Especially did he seem tutored in the dwarf's dislike of Lady Dorinda. In peaceful times when she descended to the ground and took a sylvan excursion outside the fort, he ruffled all his feathers and pursued her even from the ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... a good deal and had received a wound upon one side of his face that did not improve his looks at all. And while he had been so lively and pugnacious up on the hillside, now he splashed about in ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at the sight of one. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who faint at the sight of blood. One of the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college-mates confessed that he had this infirmity. Stranger and far more awkward than this is the case mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There are sounds, also, which ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ignorance and stupidity, although they are decorated with all sorts of fine names. The man of sense sees through all these fine disguises. He knows that the most ignorant people are the most credulous, and that the most stupid are the most pugnacious. Educated and thoughtful men shrink alike from the dogmas of religion and the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... asking a leading question which can only be answered in a sense contrary to the intention of the question: 'Your father and mother of course allow you to drive the chariot?' 'No they do not.' When Menexenus returns, the serious dialectic begins. He is described as 'very pugnacious,' and we are thus prepared for the part which a mere youth takes in a difficult argument. But Plato has not forgotten dramatic propriety, and Socrates proposes at last to refer the question to ...
— Lysis • Plato
... Asia, With Europe's cultured plains; and in their turns Their scatter'd tribes: those whom the hot Crab burns, The tawny Ethiops; Orient Indians; Getulians; ever-wandering Scythians; Swift Tartar hordes; Cilicians rapacious, And Parthians with back-bended bow pugnacious; Sabeans incense-bringing, men of Thrace, Italian, Spaniard, Gaul, and that rough race Of Britons, rigid as their native colds; With all the rest the circling sun beholds! But clouds, and elemental mists, deny These visions blest to any ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... from Antwerp for Breda; and the breach was complete, and William the Silent was calendared as a traitor. In May, Alva set out from Spain with an army to subdue the rebellious Flemings; and Philip, sinister, pugnacious, relentless, was seen a life-size figure. Philip was now himself. In September, Prince Maurice was born and christened with Lutheran rites, the Prince of Orange thus beginning his hegira from the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the Go-cart speeded by, A Bulldog, quite pugnacious, Seized on the handle on the fly And ...
— The Slant Book • Peter Newell
... passage extending from the orifice of the doorway to an interior chamber of the palace. He heard the peculiar sound of moving water that is beset and covered in by barriers of stone, a hollow and pugnacious murmur, as of something so determined that it would be capable of striving through eternity, yet of something that was wistful and ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... of Abyssinian Jews, or rather their mixed descendants, by whom it is, or was, inhabited. I say every one advisedly, for although the public which studies such works is usually select, that which will take an interest in them, if the character of a learned and pugnacious personage is concerned, is very wide indeed. Not to mince matters, I may as well explain what ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... people had caused the captives to be taken straight to Belarab's stockade as a matter of course. Belarab, at a distance, could still outweigh the power on the spot of Tengga, whose secret purposes were no better known, who was jovial, talkative, outspoken and pugnacious; but who was not a professed servant of God famed for many charities and a scrupulous performance of pious practices, and who also had no father who had achieved a local saintship. But Belarab, with his glamour ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... war, and religion is not the same thing and cannot be. Each sex has more power for one domain, and must have less power for another. Equality is an incongruous predicate. "Under the influence of the law of battle the male has become more courageous, powerful, and pugnacious than the female.... So, too, the male has, in the struggle, often acquired great beauty, success on his part depending largely, in many cases, upon the choice of the females who are supposed to select the most beautiful mates. This is thought to be notably the case with birds."[1130] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the ground of the nervousness which continued dissipation produces, and perhaps from his poetical temperament. A poet, we are persuaded, is often the bravest, and often the most pusillanimous of men. Byron was unquestionably in general a brave, almost a pugnacious man; and yet he confesses that at certain times, had one proceeded to horsewhip him, he would not have had the hardihood to resist. Shelley, who, in a tremendous storm, behaved with dauntless heroism, and who would at any time have ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the whole day in a one-day match except as a grisly kind of practical joke. And Mr. Downing and his house realised this. The house's way of signifying its comprehension of the fact was to be cold and distant as far as the seniors were concerned, and abusive and pugnacious as regards the juniors. Young blood had been shed overnight, and more flowed during the eleven o'clock interval that ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... types abound. Here we find students of the most various temperaments, and interested in the most diverse questions, in politics, sociology, literature, and the arts. But Lausanne is pugnacious, and is on bad terms with the other sections. It is itself broken up into factions, and it exhibits separatist trends, which led to a crisis early in 1916. After the manner of Vaud, it keeps itself ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... A large, pugnacious-looking man on the left put in the first comment. "Would it not be a saving of time to provoke violence, in one way or another, and thus form a pretext for disposing ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... table next mine, carefully placed his manuscript upon a chair, and sat down upon it. He was soon lost in a prolonged contemplation of the limited bill of fare posted on the wall, a study which resulted in his ordering, through a hustling, pugnacious-looking waiter, a bowl ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... manhood, they then begin to develop more ambitious ideas and cannot be managed, while with the Chinese a "boy" (a servant throughout the East is called "boy") is always a boy, and is constantly on the watch to serve his master. Again, the Japs are pugnacious, a race of little game-cocks, always in for a fight, especially with a Chinaman. The captain told us the other day a great big Chinaman had complained to him that one of the Japs had abused him. Upon calling up the belligerent, he proved to be such a small ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Venn, who died in 1739. His name occasionally turns up in the obscurer records of eighteenth-century theology. He was rector of St. Antholin's, in the city of London, and incurred the wrath of the pugnacious Warburton and of Warburton's friend (in early days) Conyers Middleton. He ventured to call Middleton an 'apostate priest'; and Middleton retorted that if he alluded to a priest as the 'accuser,' everyone would understand that he meant to refer to Mr. Venn. In fact, Venn had the credit ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... I drove to near the State Agency Office. We entered and were met by Donohue, who was alone (it was early Sunday A.M.) and was pugnacious when he was made aware of his dilemma. I arranged with him, that for friendly appearances, we would walk out arm in arm to our carriage. Then we were whisked away to my office. I left Mr. Kraft, one of my men, in the office to run it and tell callers ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... the Nor'-Westers in Saskatchewan a few years before the beginning of Lord Selkirk's Colony, was "Bras Croche," or crooked-arm McDonald. He was of gentle Scottish birth, but his own acquaintances declared that he was of a "quarrelsome and pugnacious disposition." In his district Colin Robertson was a "Bourgeois" in charge of a station. A quarrel between the two men resulted in Colin Robertson losing his position, and as we shall see he became one of the most active and serviceable men in the history of the Colony. Colin ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... removed Lincoln from the scene of action at a time when North and South alike stood most in need of his kind heart, tact, and firmness. Andrew Johnson succeeded to a task for which he was ill-fitted. Conceited, obstinate, and pugnacious, he began by alarming the South with threats of wholesale punishment for the "crime of treason," and ended by alienating his own party through his slack methods of re-establishing the States. Johnson declared, and no doubt honestly, that he was carrying out Lincoln's ideas. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... where he said that he was sure the court wold not bynd hym, being a counsellor's man. And so I have graunted his request, where he is sure to be bounde, or else is lyke to do worse." The "stubborne fellow" was, without doubt, none other than the high-spirited and pugnacious James Burbage, who fought for twenty-one years over leases with his avaricious landlord, Giles Allen, and of whom Allen's lawyer writes in a Star Chamber document in 1601: "Burbage tendered a new lease which he, the said Allen, refused to sign because it was ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... stickle for; insist upon, make a point of. Adj. contending &c v.; together by the ears, at loggerheads. at war. at issue. competitive, rival; belligerent; contentious, combative, bellicose, unpeaceful^; warlike &c 722; quarrelsome &c 901; pugnacious; pugilistic, gladiatorial; palestric^, palestrical^. Phr. a verbis ad verbera [Lat.]; a word and a blow; a very pretty quarrel as it stands [Sheridan]; commune periculum concordiam parit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... quarrels, which, at a place of this kind, are so apt to occur at night, and to be quietly settled in the morning; and occasionally adopted a quarrel himself, by way of taking down any guest who was unusually pugnacious. This occupation procured Captain MacTurk a good deal of respect at the Well; for he was precisely that sort of person who is ready to fight with any one,—whom no one can find an apology for declining to fight with,—in fighting with whom ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... men of business when openly or implicitly challenged. It is just as if he had said: "Wait a bit! I shall get even with that lot—and let no one imagine the contrary!" From the personality of the man there emanates all the time a pugnacious and fierce doggedness. After he has formally welcomed you into the meshes of his intimidating organisation, and made a few general observations, he says, in a new tone: "Well———," and you depart. And as you pass out of the building the ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... and when thus engaged they gave little trouble to the good folk at home. But in between wars, not being educated, they couldn't sit still and be quiet. It was dull in the house. They liked action. So they rode around the streets in a pugnacious, wild-western manner, despising anyone who could read and often knocking him down; and making free with the personal property of merchants and peasants, who they thought had no special right to property or even to life. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... broad patins of pennywort jutted out between the stones, ready to heal their bruises. The parish choir came part of the way, and the singing-loft from Countisbury; and they kept our soldiers' spirits up with some of the most pugnacious Psalms. Parson Bowden marched ahead, leading all our van and file, as against the Papists; and promising to go with us, till we came to bullet distance. Therefore we marched bravely on, and children came to look at us. And I wondered where ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... much I rejoiced over them. Whatever may have been the effect on the characters of those concerned, I know not. I am persuaded the proceeding was a means of averting much mischief. Boys are noble creatures when placed on their right footing; but they are pugnacious animals and require prudent management. News was brought me one evening, while they waited for admission, that two of them had stripped off their jackets to fight, the dispute being which loved their ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... formerly been attached to the see of Canterbury. He was a man of very violent temper, and his readiness to enter a quarrel and to draw his sword must have made him a very singular exponent of the gospel of peace. Olaf saw very soon that he would require further help than this pugnacious priest could give; so he sent Thangbrand over to England, bidding him fare to Canterbury and bring back with him as many holy men as might be willing to serve him ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... ran round the faces of the esquires, for Brother Roger's pugnacious instincts were ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... or three of these warblers attach themselves, temporarily at any rate, to one of those flocks, composed mainly of various species of tits and nuthatches, which form so well-marked a feature of all wooded hills in India. Hodgson's warblers are pugnacious little creatures. Squabbles are frequent. It is impossible to watch two or three of them for long without seeing what looks like one tiny animated golden fluff ball pursuing another from branch to branch and ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Germany and France are burdened, at least they are defended—at least they are armed for conflict and victory. There seems to be a good deal of doubt as to how far this is true of the nation which has hitherto been known as the pre-eminently pugnacious one. Where France and Germany and Russia count by hundreds, England counts by tens; and it is only, strictly speaking, on the good old principle that one Englishman can buffet a dozen foreigners that a very hopeful view ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... from some monstrous nightmare, and, try as he would, he could not dispel them. He would fix his mind and eyes on Miss Wilson's face, who was now sitting at her desk, and even as he looked at her the face of Brick Simpson, impudent and pugnacious, would arise before him. It was of no use. He felt sick and sore and tired and worthless. There was nothing to be done but flunk. And when, after an age of waiting, the papers were collected, his went in a blank, save for his name, the ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... always, where possible, preferred to house in a cave or big hollow log, one invariably remaining as a sentinel close to the mouth, looking out. If this sentinel were shot, another would almost certainly take his place. They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and were pugnacious to a degree. Not only would they fight if molested, but they would ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... July of this year 1810, inflicted upon me a deadly insult, touching my personal honour, and likewise tending to the humiliation and confusion of my rank and family. The said nobleman, of repulsive aspect, has also a pugnacious disposition, and is full to overflowing with blasphemy ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the bustard is polygamous, and of course terribly jealous and pugnacious, at certain seasons of the year. Swartboy knew that it was just then the "fighting season" among the pauws, and hoped by imitating their challenge to draw the bird—a cock he saw it was—within ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... This pugnacious side of his character would be worthily used sometimes. I remember that an address which was being given to us by an eminent London specialist was much interrupted by a man in the front row, who amused himself by interjecting ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... exemplary parish-priest. 'He was one of the most contented, quiet, sweet-tempered, generous, cheerful men I ever knew,' so says the chronicler of the Leigh family, 'and his wife was his counterpart. The spirit of the pugnacious Theophilus dwelt not in him; nor that eternal love of company which distinguished the other brothers, yet he was by no means unsocial.' Towards the end of his life he removed to Bath, being severely ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... instances, examples, phenomena illustrating human nature and human history. More far-reaching than human nature, they are offshoots of the great struggle for existence, which, as we moderns have had the felicity to discover, gives rise to the survival of the tough and the domination of the pugnacious—the annihilation of the tender and the subjugation of ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... and Tierney had a passage of arms in the House. That pugnacious Irishman had thrust himself to the fore during the secession of Fox and other prominent Whigs from the House, and had to bear many reproaches for his officiousness. He also nagged at Pitt at every opportunity, until, on his opposing a motion of urgency for ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Zachariah was not pugnacious, and could not very well be so in the presence of his huge antagonist; but he was no coward, and not seeing for the moment that his hat had hopelessly gone, he turned round savagely, and laying hold ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... The pugnacious instinct—the desire to fight—is the natural reaction of every human being of sane mind to attack. The inner necessity of avenging is so strong in the child or man of untrained mind or soul that he acts before he thinks. ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... big fellow who held himself erect like a soldier. His swarthy complexion had a patch of purplish bloom spreading itself over the cheek bones which told of constant tavern lounging. A pair of hawk's eyes gleamed from under bushy beetling brows; wide loose lips and a truculent, pugnacious lower jaw completed the picture ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... one of General Jackson's favorite home amusements, and he had become the possessor of a breed of fowl that was invincible in Tennessee. He had some of these pugnacious birds brought to Washington, and one spring morning he rode out toward Bladensburg, with a select party of friends, to see "a main" fought between the Hermitage and the Annapolis cocks. The birds were not only trained ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... were not in our permanent employ, not being able to take all as we had originally intended, they assembled round us, and complained most dolefully of the smallness of their pay. The sepoy, who appeared a most pugnacious customer, cuffed some of them, and made desperate flourishes at others with a big stick, and seemed altogether so anxious to prevent, as he said, the "cherishers of the poor," from being inconvenienced by the "scum of the earth," that we suspected something wrong, and ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... on her knee and was looking at it also in the most serious manner. Now she doubled it into a small but very pugnacious looking fist, which she shook most entrancingly before the very eyes of the young man by her side. The eyes turned such a peculiar look upon her that she hastened to add: "Go on with your dissolving views. It is number eight's ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... write his own life, and his pugnacious vivacity, and hardy frankness, would have seasoned a piece of autobiography; an amateur has, however, written it in the style which amateurs like, with all the truth he could discover, enlivened by some secret history, writing the life of Lenglet with the very spirit of Lenglet: it is a mask taken ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... aggressiveness] My name isnt Brown. [They stare at him: he meets their stare defiantly, pugnacious with sloe gin; drains the last drop from his glass; throws it on the sideboard; and advances to the writing table]. My name's Baker: Julius Baker. Mister Baker. If any man doubts it, I'm ready ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... the pugnacious woodchuck. He bore a special grudge against this clover-eater, beyond the usual hostility that boys feel for any wild animal. One day on his way to school a woodchuck crossed the road before him, and John gave chase. The woodchuck scrambled into an orchard and climbed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a great deal younger than either Tommy or Tuppence had pictured him. The girl put him down as thirty-five. He was of middle height, and squarely built to match his jaw. His face was pugnacious but pleasant. No one could have mistaken him for anything but an American, though he ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... once. The hermits most often travel singly or in pairs, though a small flock is not so very uncommon. Both species preserve absolute silence while here; I have watched hundreds of them, without hearing so much as an alarm note. They are far from being pugnacious, but their sense of personal dignity is large, and once in a while, when the sparrows pester them beyond endurance, they assume the offensive with much spirit. There are none of our feathered guests whom I am gladder to see; the sight of them inevitably fills me with ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... was a powerfully-built man, as I have said, with a fine forehead and rather heavy features; but his eyes had that odd drooping of the skin above the lids which often comes with advancing years, and the fall of his heavy mouth at the corners gave him an expression of pugnacious resolution. He talked to Montgomery in a tone too low for me ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... negligent, pugnacious Regan, by his own sheer neglect, put his property into the hands of the most relentless harpy that ever robbed and fleeced a tenantry. This mode of proceeding was, in fact, one of the many methods resorted to by rapacious agents, for filling their own pockets at the expense ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there was another man in the saloon, standing a little on one side and looking intently at me. The chief mate. His long, red moustache determined the character of his physiognomy, which struck me as pugnacious in (strange to say) a ghastly ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... Ryan an optimist. The blood of Ireland had made him pugnacious. And Mack Nolan had a way with him. Wherefore, Casey Ryan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon and turned in there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw set stubbornly. History has it that whenever Casey Ryan gets that ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... was an undermaster, and paid particular attention to Keats. The latter did not show any remarkable talent at school, but learned easily, and was 'a very orderly scholar,' acquiring a fair amount of Latin but no Greek. He was active, pugnacious, and popular among his school-fellows. The father died of a fall from his horse in April, 1804: the mother, after re-marrying, succumbed to consumption in February, 1810. Before the close of the same year John left school, and he was then apprenticed, to ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... time for his own reputation; for the report that he kept a mysterious and pugnacious statue on the premises would not increase his custom. He must silence it, if possible. "I'm afraid it is, sir—in ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... shoulders and a slow step. His clean-shaven face was a long oval, with pessimistic, brooding eyes—eyes that saw everything except the small modicum of good which is in all human things, and to this they were persistently blind. Taking into consideration the small, set mouth, it was eminently a pugnacious face—a face that might easily degenerate to the coarseness of passion in the trough of a losing fight. But, fortunately, Luke's lines were cast upon the great waters, and he who fights the sea must learn ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... bluffing. You can make him quit. The folded arms and expanded chest of the bluffer mean no more than the high-arched back of a cat. Stroke "Tom" soothingly, and he stops bristling. Stroke the human bluffer tactfully with persuasion, and he will not act pugnacious ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... for a week or so," he answered lightly, "and as to regaining possession of it," he went on, a slightly pugnacious instinct stirring him, "I don't imagine that there'll be ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... occasioned in his white ducks. On regaining the ground he loaded the buggy with his spoils, despite the driver's assertion that "dat all trash." Unfortunately with his epiphytes he brought down whole colonies of ants, and the Jamaican ant is a most pugnacious insect with abnormal biting powers. After I had been forced to disrobe behind some convenient greenery in order to rid myself of these aggressive little creatures, I was compelled to put a stern ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... sharp beaks. They assemble together in groups and small flocks, and they have a very loud bawling note, which can be heard at a great distance, and serves to collect a number together in time of danger. They are very plentiful and very pugnacious, frequently driving away crows, and even hawks, which perch on a tree where a few of them are assembled. They are all of rather dull and obscure colours. Now in the same countries there is a group of orioles, forming the genus ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in their zeal to keep order, irritated some drunkards, who at once became pugnacious. On seeing the excited state of these drunkards, bawling and stepping about in long, sudden, and rapid strides, with brandished spears and agitated bows, endeavouring to exasperate the rest of the mob against us, I rose, and going out before them, said ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke |
