"Vexatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who had been on the watch for it. His irritation fell; he was ready on the instant to be propitiated. Putting his hat aside he sat down, and having introduced himself, made reference to Ballarat and his acquaintance with the lawyer's father: "Who directed me to you, sir, for advice on a vexatious affair, in which I have had the misfortune to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... vexatious as well as tiresome. General Crook was a fighter; he never quit a trail and he liked to travel fast and light, and strike the enemy. He knew that while he waited, the Sioux were gaining strength and ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... positions, but in the third none of them would draw. The honest farmer thought the age of witchcraft had not yet passed. At the conclusion of the forenoon he gave up the undertaking in disgust, and, carrying the whipple-tree home, told the story of his unsuccessful and vexatious experiment. ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... aunt spoke to each of them in the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each visitor, though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... your care of me: I will not stay a great deal here, but at present I never was better in my life-and here I have no vexatious moments. I hate to dispute; I scorn to triumph myself, and it is very difficult to keep my temper when others do. I own I have another reason for my retirement, which is prudence. I have thought of it late, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... cost our traveller more trouble than he had anticipated, for the moor was very rugged, the brambles vexatious, and the spines of the gorse uncommonly sharp. Impediments of every kind were more numerous than he had been accustomed to meet with even on the heath-clad hills of Scotland, with which—although "the land of ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... and harassing march of twenty-five days. The heats during the passage of the desert between El-Arish and Belbeis exceeded thirty-three degrees. On placing the bulb of the thermometer in the sand the mercury rose to forty-five degrees. The deceitful mirage was even more vexatious than in the plains of Bohahire'h. In spite of our experience an excessive thirst, added to a perfect illusion, made us goad on our wearied horses towards lakes which vanished at our approach; and left ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... argument. Every man's house is his castle; and every man's common-place is his stronghold, from which he looks out and smiles at the dust and heat of controversy, raised by a number of frivolous and vexatious questions—'Rings the world with the vain stir!' A cure for this and every other evil would be a Parliamentary Reform; and so we return in a perpetual circle to the point from which we set out. Is not this a species of sober madness more provoking than the real? Has not the theoretical ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Heaven, and the rest accusing one another of complicity in the hoax. If that was somebody's intention, it was literally a howling success. For a while, it was even feared that there would be questions in Parliament, but eventually, the whole vexatious business was hushed. ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... divides them from it by a gulf which they themselves proclaim to be impassable and eternal, and unites them only in a gloomy conspiracy of misanthropy with each other; that it is indeed a law-making power, but that the laws it makes are little-minded and vexatious prohibitions of things innocent, demoralising restraints upon the freedom of joy and the healthy instincts of nature; that it favours hypocrisy, moroseness, and sometimes lunacy; that the only vice it has power to check is thoughtlessness, and its ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... plump little Mr Gambart to his plump little wife, bustling into the parlour with an open letter in his hand, "isn't this vexatious! Just ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... previously to my last journey to the trap, I had been able to remember the exact spot where I had deposited them. But now I endeavored in vain to call it to mind, and busied myself for a full hour in a fruitless and vexatious search for the missing articles; never, surely, was there a more tantalizing state of anxiety and suspense. At length, while groping about, with my head close to the ballast, near the opening of the box, and outside of it, I perceived a faint glimmering of light in the direction of the steerage. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Farmers General as parties to that arrangement. It rests, therefore, of necessity, on the basis of a letter only. You will perceive that this is nothing more than a continuation of the order of Berni, only leaving the prices unfixed; and like that, it will require a constant and vexatious attention to have ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... entertainment given by Africanus, the governor of the second Pannonia, at Sirmium, some men having drunk rather too much, and thinking there was no witness of their proceedings, spoke freely of the existing imperial government, accusing it as most vexatious to the people. And some of them expressed a hope that a change, such as was wished for by all, might be at hand, affirming that this was portended by omens, while some, with incredible rashness, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... luxury and wealth of its ancient masters. He may look in one direction over the broad lands and towering spires of Eridge Castle, or turning in another, soon lose amidst the recollections of Penshurst and in the homage which the heart renders to departed virtue, all sense of the vexatious forms and frivolous though perhaps inseparable ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... be cut off," as a friend once expressed it; then soft and full of content, as if the aforesaid hen had laid an egg ten minutes before, and were still felicitating herself upon the achievement. It was vexatious that here, in the very home of Florida gallinules, I should see and hear less of them than I had more than once done in Massachusetts, where they are esteemed a pretty choice rarity, and where, in spite of what I suppose must ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... It was very vexatious to be obliged to pass David Milliken a second time; "though there warn't no sign that he cared anything about it one way or 'nother, bein' blind as a bat, 'n' deef as an adder, 'n' dumb as a fish, 'n' settin' stockstill there ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to swagger in a court; And, secondly, to shew my fury Against an uncomplying jury; And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention, To favour Wood, and keep my pension; And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick, Get the great seal and turn out Broderick; And, fifthly, (you know whom I mean,) To humble that vexatious Dean: And, sixthly, for my soul to barter it For fifty times its worth to Carteret. Now since your motto thus you construe, I must confess you've spoken once true. Libertas et natale solum. You had good ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... catches. What angler ever forgets the wild transport of landing his first salmon? What minister ever forgets the spot on which he knelt with his first convert? In the long and tedious hours when the waiting is weary, and the nibblings vexatious, and the bites disappointing, let him live on these wealthy memories as the bees live in the winter on the honey that they gathered in the summer-time. Yes, let him think about those unforgettable triumphs, and let him talk about them. They make great talking. And as he recalls ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... available towards deciphering these long-lost literary treasures. His expectations, however, were not fully crowned with success, although the partial efficacy of his methods was established; and he relinquished the pursuit at the end of six months, partly from disappointment, partly from a belief that vexatious obstacles were thrown in his way by the jealousy of the persons to whom the task of unrolling had been intrusted. About five hundred volumes have been well and neatly unrolled. It is rather remarkable that, as ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... for the two eldest boys was forwarded to Paris. Immediately the proof of four noble descents was demanded. The movement of letters was slow, that of officials even slower, and the delays in securing copies and authentications of the various documents were long and vexatious. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... was a good deal in the open air, and it tells," was her tribute to the memory of this plate. She developed the subject further, incidentally. "Tryin' on is a change, of course, but liable to temper, and vexatious when the party insists on letting out and no allowance of turn-over. The same if too short in front. What was I a-sayin'?... Oh, Mrs. Prichard—yes! You was inquiring, ma'am, about the length of time I had known her. Just four years this ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... not very mirthfully. "Nothing whatever, in my opinion. But I may as well tell you—they say that she has overlooked the mount so that we shall never be able to finish this corner of the wall. It is vexatious, because I meant that nook for your garden. It is the only place that is sheltered from the wind and at the same time has sunshine and a good outlook. But the wall has thrice been all but finished, and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... offered in the spirit of ridicule. The Uitlander question is too serious for joking. They are reproduced to enable those who have no knowledge of the Boer—his petty tyrannies and annoying and irritating habits, and the vexatious regulations from which the Uitlander continually suffered—to form an idea of the terrible mental gulf which existed between oppressor and oppressed. As the constant dropping of water will wear away stone, so the constant ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... indolent, without their fulness of life, she seemed to me little more than a child; and she fell with apparent willingness into that position, accepting naturally its privileges and exemptions. She alone was never in the way, never vexatious or exacting. Content with the notice that naturally fell to her share, she obtained the more. Never intruding between Eveena and myself, she alone was not wholly unwelcome to share our accidental privacy when, in the peristyle or the grounds, the others left us temporarily alone. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... "Oh, how vexatious!" he cried, as he ground his teeth. "After all that work, after being so sure, to be out here on this wretched shelf like an old cormorant, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... IT WAS vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole country, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People went dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot imagine how she was gaped at, stared at, envied. Why, one would have supposed that some great and fortunate ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... a while seemed inclined to favour him in a lavish manner; his mother-in-law died, and with her many of the vexatious suits dropped, and others were compromised at an easy rate, so that his father was soon in a condition to make a settlement upon him sufficient to qualify him for a seat in parliament, which, on the first vacancy, thro' favour, he got into, though at that time the house was not ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... few years before the arrival of that grand epoch. At that period the state of things in the valleys was far from satisfactory. Not to recount, as among the causes, those political disabilities to which reference has been previously made, I will refer to some additional circumstances of a vexatious and depressing character. One was the hindrances to the obtaining the most indispensable religious books, such as Bibles, catechisms, hymn-books. With each parcel of Bibles and New Testaments, the moderator was obliged to sign a formal undertaking that not ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... simple affair, for there were none of those vexatious little legacies and donations to charities, which fritter away a man's possessions, and damage the majestic effect of that little paragraph in the morning papers accorded to Forsytes who die with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to matters of great moment, while patience may apply to slight worries and annoyances. As regards our relations to our fellow men, forbearance is abstaining from retaliation or revenge; patience is keeping kindliness of heart under vexatious conduct; long-suffering is continued patience. Patience may also have an active force denoting uncomplaining steadiness in doing, as in tilling the ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the muses, exasperated at this vexatious perseverance of the painter, who he imagined had come to tease and insult him, "I would," said he, "sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, were I assured that any person had been taken up for extirpating such a troublesome Goth ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and narrow alleys winding in and out, in which circulation, difficult enough at all times, sometimes became impossible for hours, when long strings of camels, fastened together with ropes, were going along them. Nothing could have been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and beast alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, whenever the Giaours ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... ill with the Spaniards in Florida; the good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and tenderness compared to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, and hatred to open war. The forest paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... understand, talked itself weary, dispersed on trivial pretences. But not to sleep immediately. Directly Dangle was alone he began, with infinite disgust, to scrutinise his darkling eye, for he was a neat-minded little man in spite of his energy. The whole business—so near a capture—was horribly vexatious. Phipps sat on his bed for some time examining, with equal disgust, a collar he would have thought incredible for Sunday twenty-four hours before. Mrs. Milton fell a-musing on the mortality of even big, fat men with dog-like eyes, and ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... seems more vexatious than that which prevented the Arkansas bill from coming before the people after the Legislature of 1915 had approved submission. Nor is Arkansas alone in limiting the number of amendments to be submitted to the people at one time; Kentucky goes farther and makes the limit two ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... known to him, to his great delight. He told us that the canoe was close at hand, but that Kalong had become alarmed at hearing the signal of the attack, and, at the risk of his life, had gone back to look for us. Grateful as I was to the faithful creature, the delay was very vexatious. Of course, however, we had no remedy but to wait for him. In the meantime we launched the canoe, and placed Eva and Nutmeg in the centre, with our provisions. Ungka jumped in after them. Blount and I were to use the two middle paddles, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... received a letter from Tyler, Texas, propounding the following fateful conundrum: "Can Woman Hypnotize Man?" My correspondent adds that "by answering, the ICONOCLAST will confer a favor on the people of Tyler, decide a bet and settle a vexatious question." ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... it, which I was resolved I would never agree to. But before it came to this, she pressed my girl to describe the tyhaia, or head-dress, which she did so cleverly that the Quaker could not help saying mine was just such a one; and after several other similitudes, all very vexatious to me, out comes the kind motion to me to let the ladies see my dress; and they joined their eager desires of it, even ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... Now really, Lucy, this is extremely ridiculous and vexatious too. Is not my daughter a woman ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... 'This vexatious and unjust practice of tenants against landlords had been too common, and had too long been favoured by the party spirit of juries; who, being chiefly composed of tenants, had made it a common cause, and a principle, if it could ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the knight seeming cheerful, because the vexatious journey was over; but Roderick was half ashamed to think that his mind had been so full of his new plaything that he was hardly glad to see his parents return. Presently his mother said, "You look very bright and happy, dear child," and Roderick, knowing that he spoke falsely, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... my journey there we talked, my guide and I, of what constitutes a good landlord. It was a negative sort of goodness which he expected from the good landlord—"that he would not harry the tenants with vexatious office rules; that he would let them alone on their places so long as they paid their rent; that he would not raise the rent so that all grown on the land would be insufficient to pay it." Since the Land League agitation some landlords have granted a reduction of rents, ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... abused, that on the complaint of the Spaniards the senate in 583 found it necessary to withdraw from the governors the right of fixing the price of the supplies for either purpose.(32) Requisitions had begun to be made on the subjects even for the popular festivals in Rome; the unmeasured vexatious demands made on the Italian as well as extra-Italian communities by the aedile Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, for the festival which he had to provide, induced the senate officially to interfere against them (572). The liberties which Roman magistrates at the close of this period allowed themselves ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... short a period, leaps up merrily enough. But at two-and-thirty it is more alive to consequences; it is not the present moment, but the duration of life, that it regards; it seeks to proceed with a sure foot. And at this crisis, in the midst of all this irresolution, that was unspeakably vexatious to a man of his firm nature, Brand demanded of himself his utmost power of self-control. He would not imperil the happiness of his life by a hasty, importunate appeal. When at length he sat down, determined not to rise ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... all senses) as the opening of a theatre; he was so good-humoured, took so much pains, corrected so good-humouredly, and produced, as I thought and think, a prologue so superior to the common run of that sort of trumpery, that it is quite vexatious to see him attacked for it. Some part of it is a little too much laboured, and the whole too long; but surely it is good and poetical.... You cannot imagine how I grew to like Lord Byron in my critical intercourse ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... this vexatious affair was at last brought to a conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged his authority [u]; and he carried war into Philip's dominions. He besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... avail themselves of this kindness; but to decide upon going, and upon going instantly, without the least consultation, the least inquiry as to the suitableness of the arrangement, the visit of Miss Poinsett abruptly and ungraciously terminated, for example—all this was vexatious, distressing: a mode of management which out of the simplest incidents of domestic life contrived to extract some ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... he is going to do will be an infinite disparagement to his understanding, which, at another time, he sets no small value upon; tell him that it will blacken his reputation, which he had rather die for than lose; tell him that the pleasure of sin is short and transient, and leaves a vexatious kind of sting behind it, which will very hardly be drawn forth; tell him that this is one of those things for which God will most surely bring him to judgment, which he pretends to believe with a full assurance and persuasion: ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... buttoning of a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest; but in 1855-60 frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before with such natural rights as the cut of the beard—not as matter of neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not permitted to wear a full beard, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... inconsequent and fantastic. All attest that in Dreamland there is no such thing as repose. We are always up and doing with a mind for any adventure. We act, strive, think, suffer and are glad to no purpose. We leave outside the portals of Sleep all troublesome incredulities and vexatious speculations as to probability. I float wraith-like upon clouds in and out among the winds, without the faintest notion that I am doing anything unusual. In Dreamland I find little that is altogether strange or wholly new to my experience. No matter what happens, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Versailles a veteran captain of the grenadiers of France, called the Chevalier d'Orville, who for four years had been soliciting from the Minister of War the post of major, or of King's lieutenant. He was known to be very poor; but he supported his lot without complaining of this vexatious delay in rewarding his honourable services. He regularly attended the Marechal de Segur, at the hour appointed for receiving the numerous solicitations in his department. One day the Marshal said to him: "You are still at Versailles, M. d'Orville?"—"Monsieur," ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the farm; as, for instance, forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... some violence to his own feelings by his constant refusal to allow Abel to help him to sweep the mill or couple the sacks for lifting. He would have been only too glad to put some of his own work on the shoulders of another, had it not been for the vexatious thought that he would be giving pleasure by so doing where he only wanted to annoy. And in his very unamiable disposition malice was a stronger ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... change was at hand! Then, to say truth, I was heartily glad of a pretence of escaping from a numerous cohort of folles amours, with Madame D'Anville at the head; and the very circumstance which men who play the German flute and fall in love, would have considered the most vexatious, I regarded ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... great minister ceased to have leisure to attend to it. The bishops, however, continued, each in his own diocese, to act with such vigour as they possessed. Their courts were unceasingly occupied with vexatious suits, commenced without reason, and conducted without justice. They summoned arbitrarily as suspected offenders whoever had the misfortune to have provoked their dislike; either compelling them to criminate themselves by questions on the intricacies of ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... possible that if she should she wouldn't care. Miriam's essential fondness for trying different ways was always there as an adequate reason for any particular way; a truth which, however, sometimes only half-prevented the particular way from being vexatious to ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... character, let it be remembered that some good qualities appear to be incompatible with others; nor let the seductive and corrupting nature of power be left out in the account. Her insincerity was perhaps the greatest blot in her character and the fruitful source of all the vexatious incidents of her reign. Though unacquainted with philosophical toleration, the only method of disarming the turbulence of religious factions, she yet preserved her people, by her prudence and good sense, from those theological disputes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... introduced. The same hindrance is, however, experienced by the Bergheims which has paralyzed all other efforts for the improvement of the land. The difficulties raised by the venal and corrupt under-officials of the Government have been vexatious and incessant, being due to the determination to extort money by some means or other, or else to ruin the enterprise from which they could gain nothing. The Turkish Government recognizes the right of foreigners to hold land, subject to the ordinary laws and taxes; but there ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... up the paper. The house was very quiet, for Small Porges was deep in the vexatious rules of the Multiplication Table, and something he called "Jogafrey," Anthea was out, as usual, and Miss Priscilla was busied with her numerous household duties. Thus the brooding silence was unbroken save for the occasional murmur ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... terror, had to be cared for at once. Finally they met the young daughter coming back. In one case an old man and two infirm persons could not keep the daughter who was their sole support. And everywhere the enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are going ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... freely granted to friendly nations to enter their ports and harbors, to purchase supplies and transship commodities. He said that they subjected our citizens, engaged in fishing enterprises in waters adjacent to their northeastern shore, to numerous vexatious interferences and annoyances, had seized and sold their vessels upon slight pretexts, and had otherwise treated them in a rude, harsh, and oppressive manner. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... day, she read the letter it was, again, an iteration of the longing to see her and, again, more, much more, of the little troubles: the residue was of the gossipy gossip that Rosalie already had formed the habit of skipping till "afterwards." Altogether a vexatious letter. ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... (absent and distrait.)—"The Squire—yes, very true—quite proper." (Then looking up, and with naivete)—"Can you believe me, I never thought of the Squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many English prejudices, that really—dear me, how vexatious that it should never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant—it is not like being her father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and—but, as you say, it is quite proper that he should be consulted as ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... whisking you off to Bumpville; She paces, she shies, and she stumbles, in spots, In the tortuous road to Bumpville; And sometimes this strangely mercurial steed Will suddenly stop and refuse to proceed, Which, all will admit, is vexatious indeed, When one is en ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... styled in the abominable phraseology of legal documents. The baron took the pen and signed, then the representative. The baroness approached, leaning on Madame de Villefort's arm. "My dear," said she, as she took the pen, "is it not vexatious? An unexpected incident, in the affair of murder and theft at the Count of Monte Cristo's, in which he nearly fell a victim, deprives us of the pleasure ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Social History of England, almost unknown to the rising generation, was the reappearance, in Wales, of "Rebecca and her daughters," a riotous mob, whose grievance was, at first, purely local—they resisted the heavy and vexatious tolls, to which, by the mismanagement and abuses of the turnpike system, they were subjected. Galled by this burden, to which they were rendered more sensitive by reason of their poverty, and hopeless of obtaining any assistance or relief by legitimate ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... many difficulties and great entreaties to avoid these vexatious and mortifying conditions; but the hour approaching which the Emperor had appointed for an audience, and the guards refusing to let him enter till he had satisfied the desires of the potter, he was obliged to submit to them; to promise the thousand sequins, to hang the pot about his neck, and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... stories, it is enough to say that Uncle John was himself abundantly blessed with wives and children needing to be fed, that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that it was sometimes vexatious to follow rapid fluctuations in the market value of butter, eggs, beef, potatoes, beet-molasses, and the like. Certain it is that after money came to circulate it was a much more satisfactory business all around; two dollars a blessing—flat, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... discusses a wife's behavior toward a husband when laboring under disappointment or vexatious accidents; sleeping in different beds; how a woman should act when finding that her husband harbors unjust suspicions of her virtue; the great indiscretion of taking too much notice of the unmeaning or transient gallantries of a husband; the methods which a wife is justified to take after supporting ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... introduction of another race of animals, not at all likely to degenerate or die out in a climate so much more congenial to their nature, than the comparatively inclement regions of our hemisphere, where, notwithstanding the activity of hostile hands, they are known to propagate with most vexatious activity. "Their houses," says the missionary account, "are full of fleas, which harbour in the floor, and are very troublesome, though the natives are much less affected by them than we are; they say they were brought to them by the Europeans. One of our missionaries ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... more than a friend and companion, eaten and slept, marched and bivouacked, on the closest terms of confidence, without receiving from him an unkind or ungenerous word, for seventeen months, although he was my immediate superior officer, and we had both gone through many hardships and vexatious trials together. This was the more remarkable as we were each of sanguine temperament ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and vexatious absurdities, the actual form and composition of the work show some skill. The poet passes from scene to scene, from battle to battle, with ease and assurance in the earlier books. It is only with ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... ports have nothing to do with the tariff question. They are simply zones established in which imports may be stored, re-packed, manufactured and then exported without the payment of duties in the first place, duties for the refund of which the present law makes provision, but only after vexatious delays and expensive red tape. Precautions are taken to prevent smuggling. In the preliminary investigations and recommendations made by the Department of Commerce, New York, San Francisco and New Orleans have been designated as ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... settlement, however, was reached in regard to Luxemburg. The union of the Luxemburgers with the Belgians remained in effect, while on the other hand strong German garrisons continued to hold the fortifications. For years to come this remained a vexatious problem. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... In all but the name—in time of peace—the world's merchant shipping already comes near being so neutralised, and the slight further simplification required to leave it on a neutral peace footing would be little else than a neglect of such vexatious discrimination as is still in force. If no nation could claim the allegiance, and therefore the usufruct, of any given item of merchant shipping in case of eventual hostilities, on account of the domicile of the owners or the port of registry, that would create a further handicap on eventual warlike ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... English method for considering vexatious questions—was appointed, under the chairmanship of Mr. James (afterwards Lord) Bryce, "to consider the best methods of establishing a well- organized system of secondary education in England." The Report was important and influential. It recommended the creation of a general Board of Education under ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... Vane; and then, as he hurried down the stairs, it seemed as if there was to be quite a vexatious re-opening of ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... the mining interest by vexatious legislation. Under this head came many grievances, some special to the mines and some affecting all Uitlanders. The dynamite monopoly, by which the miners had to pay 600,000 pounds extra per annum in order to get a worse quality of dynamite; the liquor laws, by which one-third ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... setting about the act (his thoughts being then disengaged and free, and his body in its true and natural estate) he was at leisure to cause the part to be handled and communicated to the knowledge of the other party, he was totally freed from that vexatious infirmity. After a man has once done a woman right, he is never after in danger of misbehaving himself with that person, unless upon the account of some excusable weakness. Neither is this disaster to be feared, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... particularise in several of the chief of them as they come in my way. And indeed I think I may say this of the main of the observations in that treatise that the clear satisfaction I had about them and how much I might rely upon them was a great ease to my mind during this vexatious voyage; wherein the ignorance, and obstinacy withal, of some under me, occasioned me a great deal of trouble: though they found all along, and were often forced to acknowledge it, that I was seldom out in my conjectures when I told ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... those who have never led a steady life, it would not much matter with whom they mixed. But caste not only brings with it no good as far as the town population is concerned, but its continuance is fraught with a multitude of painful and vexatious evils, which meet us at every turn, for it hampers the actions, and clogs those efforts at progress which are the natural result of intellectual advancement. And here I cannot do better than quote the words of a Parsee gentleman, whose unceasing efforts to aid the progress of India entitle him ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... come at the end of a feast when the various viands (always including mutton as being easy of digestion for dyspeptic people) were still warm, though cut pretty near to the bone, would, by most persons, particularly aldermanic "bodies," be considered sufficiently vexatious; how doubly annoying then must it be to come so late as to find the meats more than half cold, and, perhaps, but little of them left even in that anti-epicurean state! Whoever has been unfortunate enough to miss a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... signs of suffering loyalty. Persecution is so unnatural to them, that they gladly snatch the very first opportunity of laying aside all the tricks and devices of penal politics; and of returning home, after all their irksome and vexatious wanderings, to our natural family mansion, to the grand social principle, that unites all men, in all descriptions, under the shadow of an equal ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... was youthful enough to have a strong taste for effect, and it was after a long and vexatious delay that Grisell was suddenly summoned to her presence, to be escorted by Master Groot. There she sat, on her chair of state, with the high tapestried back and the square canopy, and in the throng of gentlemen ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the removal of the vexatious restrictions, the Jew had a chance of reaching his full development, and he has taken a position in the medical profession comparable to that occupied in the palmy Arabian days of Cordova and Bagdad. In Germany particularly, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... class are all so like one another in every way that you might as well try to discriminate between every individual sheep of a flock in a pasture. And yet, such is the natural contradictiousness and vexatious disposition of the British parent, that you'll always find him coming to inquire after just one of those very particular Tommies or Bobbies. Charles Warrington:—Cyril Anastasius Guy Whatyoumay—call it: that'll do: I shall remember now all about them.' And the doctor arranged his hair before the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... no more vexatious question could have arisen between two rival nationalities. The doctor again tried ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... years old. Pepe Rey, shut up in a school in Seville, was making lines on paper, occupied in proving that "the sum of all the interior angles of any polygon is equal to twice as many right angles, wanting four, as the figure has sides." These vexatious commonplaces of the school kept him very busy. Year after year passed. The boy grew up, still continuing to make lines. At last, he made one which is called "From Tarragona to Montblanch." His first serious toy ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... mob is the most sanguinary, that of soldiers the most expensive, and that of civilians the most vexatious.—Colton. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... opposition to St. John Huss, to whom the Bohemians, for many years after the suppression of the Protestant worship among them, continued to pay saintly honours; and he continues to this day, in the reverence with which he is everywhere greeted,—a sort of galling and vexatious, because constantly-recurring memorial, of the system of mental thraldom, under which Bohemia ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... 1588) reports the capture of the treasure-ship "Santa Ana" off the California coast, by the English adventurer Thomas Candish, which has caused much loss and hardship to the Spaniards in the Philippines. Complaint is made of vexatious imposts levied on the Philippine trade by the viceroy of Mexico; the Audiencia ask that he be ordered to cease these measures, also that he shall not meddle with letters sent from Spain to the islands, or with the personal affairs of officials there. The existence ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... woman?" said Aymer de Valence, who was growing every moment more impatient at the loss of time, which was flying fast, in an investigation which had something vexatious in it, and even ridiculous. At the same time, the sight of an armed partisan of the Douglasses, in their own native town, seemed to bode too serious consequences, if it should be suffered to pass without being probed to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... was the more vexatious as Cargrim knew that the ex-sailor had seen Mother Jael, and shrewdly suspected that he had obtained from the beldam valuable information likely to incriminate the bishop. Whether his newly-found evidence did so or not, Baltic gravely declined to say, and Cargrim was furious at ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... but it was also vexatious, that such peaceful people as we were should be considered so terrible. I sent a bullet after the ship, to induce her to stop; she then hoisted the English flag, but never slackened her speed; so that ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... muttered Hilary, as he heard the departing steps; "they've locked me up safe enough. Was anything ever so vexatious?" ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... was a diligent devourer of the newspaper in the vexatious times (as at all others), he met many a torrent of criticism, incitement, and counsels which left him stunned rather than alleviated. To a special correspondent who hampered him, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... remain for two or three days at a convenient anchorage to enable us to make short excursions into the interior; but the vexatious mismanagement of the tender now made it incumbent that I should make every possible use of the time to complete the operations connected with the hydrography of this sea; for I perceived that the duties which I intended should be performed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... freed from the depressing influences of the Academical Crypt, we forget all but our admiration of JANAUSCHEK'S superb acting, and the exceptional command which she has gained over a language so vexatious in its villanous consonants as our own. And we express to every available listener the earnest hope that SKEBACH and FECHTER will profit by her success, and at once begin the study of English, with the view of devoting their efforts hereafter ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... no offer of an apology had been made. A momentary human sensation of an unworthy sort beset me when I saw them standing together again, and contrasted the collectedness and good-humour of my adversary's representative with the vexatious and unnecessary naggling of mine, the sight of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on the day subsequent to that on which John Lander had written his rhapsody on the agreeables of Badagry, the noise and jargon of their guests pursued them even in their sleep, and their dreams were disturbed by fancied palavers, which were more unpleasant and vexatious, if possible, in their effects than real ones. Early on the morning of the 25th, they were roused from one of these painful slumbers to listen to the dismal yell of the hyenas, the shrill crowing of cocks, the hum of night ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... It is most vexatious that, in spite of all admonition, the Courier persists in its warlike tone and justification of the interference of the Continental Powers in the internal affairs of Spain, in opposition to all the known views and declarations of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... it," said Reginald; "and that makes it the more vexatious. It's bad enough to think that Clifton should get ahead of him, but one may comfort one's self in the idea of his genius; but when it comes to those donkeyfied ignorami, it is past endurance. He has not tried a bit: I have ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... text "Ms wa Mzi," the latter wordvexatious, troublesome. [I notice that in the MS. the name is distinctly and I believe purposely spelt with Hamzah above the Ww and Kasrah beneath the Sn, reading "Muus." It is, therefore, a travesty of the name Ms, and the exact counterpart of "Muhsin", being the active participle of "asa", 4th ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... as if Kit's plans were destined, if not for defeat, to postponement. Unconditional surrender was his only choice against the superior strength of Aaron Bickford. It was certainly very vexatious. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... part of our photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the sight of the JANET NICOLL made him sick; and indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... addressing the jurors. 'So this is all that can be found to be laid against me. This is the way that matters of five years back are raked up to vex the princes and nobles of Scotland. I am sorry for you, lords and gentlemen, if this is the way that vexatious are to be stirred up against those who have ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of time, and presently found that she had missed the only train by which she could return home. A cab would be too much of an expense; she had no choice but to walk the three or four miles. The evening was close; walking rapidly, and with the accompaniment of vexatious thoughts, she reached the gates of the Hall tired perspiring, irritated. Just as her hand was on the gate a bicycle-bell trilled vigorously behind her, and, from a distance of twenty yards, a ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... measure relieved from this lingering and vexatious situation on the 9th September, by an order then received by Commodore Anson, from the lords justices, to put to sea on the first opportunity, with his own squadron only, if Lord Cathcart should not be ready. Being thus freed from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... keen enough to foresee that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his denial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's will would be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him one vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even fibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace at what he called Rosamond's ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... up a creed for popular use, a short and simple document of this kind would have been suitable enough. The undecided bishops received it with delight. It contained none of the vexatious technical terms which had done all the mischief—nothing but familiar Scripture, which the least learned of them could understand. So far as Arianism might mean to deny the Lord's divinity, it was clearly condemned already, and the whole ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... delicacies, how they would all have suffered, how they would all have been sacrificed! And for what? Children are the last word of human imperfection. Health flees before their face. They cry, my dear; they put vexatious questions; they demand to be fed, to be washed, to be educated, to have their noses blown; and then, when the time comes, they break our hearts, as I break this piece of sugar. A pair of professed egoists, like you and me, should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he had imparted, was quite confounded by this turn of things. If there had been one word of either expostulation or argument, he would have blazed and stormed in a fury of passion; but as it was, this broken-hearted submission, though vexatious, was perplexing. He sent for me, and opened his mind, and begged me to talk with Dolores and show her the advantages of the alliance, which the poor foolish child, he said, did not seem to comprehend. The man was immensely rich, and had a splendid ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... threatening witnesses, 3. perjury, 3. theft, 4. receiving stolen goods, 4. buying from domestic inferior, 7. taking on deposit from domestic inferior, 7. in default of multiple restitution, for theft of second order, 8. appropriation of lost properly, 9. selling lost property, 10. vexatious claim of property as lost, 11. kidnapping, 14. procuring desertion of slave, 15. harbouring fugitive slave, 18. ,, of defaulting militia, 16. detaining fugitive slave, 18. keeping recaptured slave, 19. housebreaking, ...
— The Oldest Code of Laws in the World - The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon - B.C. 2285-2242 • Hammurabi, King of Babylon
... the sense of this injury has had, and must continue to have, a very unfavorable influence upon them. From its satisfactory adjustment not only a firm and cordial friendship, but a progressive development of all their relations, may be expected. It is, therefore, my earnest hope that this old and vexatious subject of difference ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... This, with the activity of the government in throwing large tracts of land into the market, has done away with a good many of the abuses detailed in our narrative; more especially the "station jobbing," attributed to Bob Smithers, and the vexatious detentions to small capitalists desirous of becoming farmers. Another of its features is the inducement held out to the agriculturalist to cultivate cotton in the shape of bounties almost amounting to the value of the staple. The towns have also been ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... to Kingston to explain our adventure before the magistrates, who, finding we were first attacked, acquitted us of wilful murder as we had been compelled to act in self-defence, but informed us it was necessary to appear before a jury next day for the satisfaction of the townspeople. This was vexatious. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Heir-Apparent to manage all business in the Palace and elsewhere." [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, ii. 66.] poor old Gentleman, he has the biggest Palace almost in the world; only he could not finish it for want of funds; and it lies there, one of the biggest futilities, vexatious to look upon. No doubt the old Gentleman has had vexations, plenty of them, first and last. He is now got disgusted with the affairs of public life, and addicts himself very much to "turning ivory," as the more eligible employment. He lives in that ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... In those tribulations, then, which can both profit us and harm us, we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Yet none the less since they are hard, since they are vexatious, since, too, they are opposed to our sense of our own weakness, mankind with one consent prays that they may be removed from us. But we owe this much devotion to the Lord our God that, if He refuses to remove them, we should not therefore fancy that we are neglected ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... needles. It is the rough handling, the jars, the tension of the heartstrings that sap the foundations of a woman's life and consign her to an early grave; and a Cherokee rose-hedge is not more thickly set with thorns than a literary career with grievous, vexatious, tormenting disappointments. If you succeed after years of labor and anxiety and harassing fears, you will become a target for envy and malice, and, possibly, for slander. Your own sex will be jealous of your eminence, considering your superiority ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... our presently inquiring souls from any farther care as to the reason for a violet's spur,—or for the extremely ugly arrangements of its stamens and style, invisible unless by vexatious and vicious peeping. You are to think of a violet only in its green leaves, and purple or golden petals;—you are to know the varieties of form in both, proper to common species; and in what kind of places they all most fondly live, and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... years, a prisoner in the hands of his victorious enemies. "At this news," says Froissart, "the kingdom of France was greatly troubled and excited, and with good cause, for it was a right grievous blow and vexatious for all sorts of folk. The wise men of the kingdom might well predict that great evils would come of it, for the king, their head, and all the chivalry of the kingdom were slain or taken; the knights and squires who came back home were on that account so hated and blamed by the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... well not to scan too closely the infirmities of the appointments over which an air of decent reticence is cast, and it will have been quite useless to try guarding all the points at which you might be plundered. The result is more vexatious than ruinous, and perhaps in a hotel also you would be plundered. In a lodging you are promptly and respectfully personalized; your tastes are consulted, if not gratified; your minor wants, in which your comfort lies, are interpreted, and possibly there ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... time went on. His father threw himself into it with characteristic energy and generosity, contributing many thousand pounds, for the sum required greatly exceeded the modest figure above mentioned. Mr. Gladstone conducted a laborious and sometimes vexatious correspondence in the midst of more important public cares. Plans were mature, and adequate funds were forthcoming, and in the autumn of 1842 Hope and the two Gladstones made what they found an agreeable tour, examining ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... to the bitter disappointment of our young officers, proved an unlucky one. In all directions things went wrong. As for Marlborough, from the very opening he experienced the old Dutch thwartings and oppositions, and, after a short and vexatious summer, he closed the campaign almost abruptly, and much earlier than in former years. There was to be no ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... merciless tyrants, and thereby free the world from an instrument of unrighteousness? Ah!" exclaimed Scott, "life is sweet, and death bitter; let me prolong my days to the utmost limits allowed to man." Exhausted, Sir Michael leaned back on the seat whereon he sat. Long watching, deep study, and vexatious encounters with the evil ones so exhausted him that he fell into a disturbed sleep. In his dreams he beheld the place of torment with all its horrors. The fiery lake looked more dismal than anything he had heard described, or what he could have imagined. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... such a way that (1) in the interests of public health alcohol may not be too easily or too cheaply obtainable, that (2) the restraints on its sale may be a source of revenue to the State, and that (3) at the same time this regulation of the sale may not be a vexatious and useless attempt to interfere unduly with national customs. States have sought to attain these ends in various ways. The sale of alcohol may be made a State monopoly, as in Russia, or, again, it may be carried ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... an insipid, a vexatious, or a happy condition, the first is, when two people of no taste meet together, upon such a settlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers, from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both parties. In this case the young lady's person ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... disinherited—that he knew well enough; but neither he nor his Nina, as he called her, would have paused for this consideration. There were other difficulties, trivial in appearance, harassing, vexatious, insurmountable in reality, that yet seemed from day to day about to vanish; so they waited, and temporised, and hesitated, till the opportunity came of escaping together, and they availed themselves of it ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole estate, if he wouldn't ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... Hjalte was sitting with the king and talking to him, and the king was very merry and drunk. Then Hjalte said, "Manifold splendour and grandeur have I seen here; and I have now witnessed with my eyes what I have often heard of, that no monarch in the north is so magnificent: but it is very vexatious that we who come so far to visit it have a road so long and troublesome, both on account of the great ocean, but more especially because it is not safe to travel through Norway for those who are coming here in a friendly disposition. But why is there no one to bring proposals ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... vexatious work," exclaimed Harry, as he and Headland were walking the quarter-deck during the first watch, when the frigate lay becalmed about ten or a ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... vexatious enough, and seems a sort of dramatic Calvinism—predestined damnation, without a sinner's own fault. I took all the pains poor mortal could to prevent this inevitable catastrophe—partly by appeals of all kinds up ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... order to keep the line in order, and Nelson even went out of his way to have a note of encouragement and kindness sent aboard the Superb (seventy-four guns) for Commander Keats, whose ship had been continuously in commission since 1801, and was in bad condition. Her sailing qualities were vexatious. Keats implored that he should not be disconnected from the main fleet now that the hoped-for battle was so near at hand, and being a great favourite of Nelson's, he was given permission constantly to carry a press ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... "now I know it; you have received tidings from our son, and vexatious tidings! Yes, yes, that is it! I know those tender looks and beaming eyes; it is not my wife that I recognize in them: it is the mother of our Electoral Prince, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... small pest obtains lodgment in a barn, or in the oak finish or furniture of a house, it is likely to do a vexatious amount of damage, and no practicable method of checking its ravages has been found. Varnishes do not exclude it. Boiling will kill the borer, but furniture and wainscotings are ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Sometimes indeed, the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco.[39] It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested, and that the manners of the community were even more austere and more puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn association ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... annexation, but the rest have to submit, or, by dint of great sacrifice, obtain private French teaching. And, whilst even Alsatians are quite ready to render justice to the forbearance and tact often shown by officials, an inquisitorial and prying system is pursued, as vexatious to the patriotic as enforced vaccination to the Peculiar People or school attendance to the poor. One lady was visited at seven o'clock in the morning by the functionary charged with the unpleasant mission ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... 94 Mr. Bonsal says: "A vexatious delay occurred before the two independent columns could communicate and advance with concerted action. . . . When the two columns were brought into communication it was immediately decided to make a general attack upon the Spanish position. . ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... spring from any form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as I ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... superintending the Indians who were employed in driving the numerous caravan. Often, in order to add to our collections of new mineral substances, we found ourselves obliged to throw away others, which we had collected a considerable time before. These sacrifices were not less vexatious than the losses we accidentally sustained. Sad experience taught us but too late, that from the sultry humidity of the climate, and the frequent falls of the beasts of burden, we could preserve neither the skins of animals hastily prepared, nor the fishes and reptiles placed in phials ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... and weary month, full of vexatious delays and nerve-racking demands from his creditors, left its mark on Wiley's face; but in six weeks the mine and mill were running. Three shifts of men broke the ore at the face and sent it up the shaft to the grizzly and from there it was fed down through the ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... difference between the actual and the supposed direction was a matter of little practical importance so long as the neighboring territory remained unsettled, or so long as the two provinces were essentially under one government; but as the population increased it became an exciting and vexatious question. Towns were chartered by Massachusetts in territory claimed by New Hampshire, and this action led to bitter feeling and provoking legislation. Massachusetts contended for the land "nominated in the bond," which would carry the line fifty miles northward into the very heart of New ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Mount has become a popular lion, and can only be seen under the vexatious companionship of a guide and a party' is true enough; nevertheless, we can stay at the inn on the island, and thus be enabled to examine and make drawings of some of the most beautiful thirteenth-century work in the cloisters that we shall meet with in Normandy. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... skilful marches and countermarches, had gained the opportunity for which he longed, of bringing the enemy to an engagement on terms approaching to an equality, never failed to interpose with their fatal negative, and prevent any thing being attempted. They did this, in particular, under the most vexatious circumstances, on the 27th May, near Nevilles, where Marlborough had brought his troops into the presence of the enemy with every prospect of signalizing that place by a glorious victory. A council of war forbade an engagement despite Marlborough's most earnest entreaties, and compelled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... entertained an opinion that for this purpose only we are deputed by our constituents, who, if they had reposed no confidence in our care or abilities, would have given up, long since, the vexatious right of contesting for the choice of representatives. They would have furnished the ministry with general powers to act for them, and sat at ease with no other regard to publick measures, than might incite them to animate, with their applauses, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... but Dr. Seve had sanguine hopes, at least, of a long time being given. But I have just seen him, and he now says it is an affair of days. So all is nearly over. Mme. T. is also very ill, and Beaumont being forced to leave them is most vexatious. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... time did not pass away thus without some vexatious cares to ruffle it. The affair of the American ships was not yet over, and he was again pestered with threats of prosecution. "I have written them word," said he, "that I will have nothing to do with them, and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... up, and therefore had to abandon the attempt. The next thing was to convey the captured goods to the cutter. This occupied some time, as there were literally several boatloads of goods, to the value, I fancy, of a couple of thousand pounds. It must have been vexatious in the extreme, to any of the smugglers witnessing our proceedings, to see their property thus carried off before their eyes. It must have made them vow vengeance against those who captured it, and against us especially, who, they must have suspected, had given the information respecting ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana: Theory of Probabilities, 182.) is a 'fallacy answered by fallacies,'—meaning by this last that Paley had conceded to his opponent more than he ought to have done. With similar vexatious opposition, Mr. J. S. Mill says, that, to make any alleged fact contradictory to a law of causation, 'the allegation must be that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... vexatious to the commentator, is the exactness with which Shakespeare followed his authors. Instead of dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his main design, only because he happened to find them ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson |
