"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deposited. The very secrecy of the ballot is intended to secure the independence and irresponsibility to the lodge of the voter. And, although it is undoubtedly a crime for a member to vote against the petition of an applicant on account of private pique or personal prejudice, still the lodge has no right to judge that such motives alone actuated him. The motives of men, unless divulged by themselves, can be known only to God; "and if," as Wayland says, "from ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... gormandizing Romish Priest is call'd a Pimp agen; and the Duke's Steward, Manuel, is no witty pleasant fellow, because he calls the Chaplain, whom I mentioned in the beginning of my Preface, and who is, no doubt, the sole occasion of this Gentleman's Pique to me—Mr Cuff-cushion; and because having an insight into his Character, he tells him, a Whore is a Pulpit be loves [Footnote: Ibid.]; but my hope is, that my Reader will think him no fool for this, tho the Carper does, who then tells the Chaplain Saygrace, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... his men were stung with sudden pique And worked as never a worker worked before; They decorated madly for a week And then the last one tottered from the door, And I was left, still working day and night, For I have found a way of keeping warm, And putting paint on everything in sight ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... partial to that which is good. She was soon comfortably ensconced between the sheets. But to avoid quarrels and strife, my noble warriors drew lots for their turn, arranged themselves in single file, playing well at Pique hardie, saying not a word, but each one taking at least twenty-six sols worth of the girl's society. Although not accustomed to work for so many, the poor girl did her best, and by this means never closed her eyes the whole night. In the morning, seeing the soldiers were fast asleep, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... the heavenly-affinity sentiment loses its hold and a woman comes to know that if she cares to try hard enough she can love any man who will be thoughtful and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at war with her own. But that kind of love doesn't breed love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while, and then you would know the curse of unsought love and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day. No, David, I have read you to little purpose if these are the things ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... brisk. And he that understands these things is much more able to preserve quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and unskilful. Besides, I think none will doubt but that the steward ought to be a friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise in his injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions unequal, in his jests apt to scoff and give offence. Such a figure, Theon, as out of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward of a feast; and now I deliver ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... to the inn, I found Mademoiselle at the breakfast table, which was set in a back room fronting a very pleasant garden. She rallied me pleasantly enough, but as I thought with an air of pique, upon my morning walk and my fair companion, and Felice happening to enter the room, asked her how she should like a foreign husband. "Very well, Mademoiselle," replied the girl with great innocence, "after I had taught him to talk in ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... Cope's statement of his plans, and his slight touch of pique did not pass away. Toward the end of the evening, he spoke of the wreck and the rescue, ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... and, half in pique at the dubious character given him by Bob-Cat and half in thanks for the meeting at the station and the ride, he turned to the cowboy, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... "I pique myself on this, that whether Bohemian or not, I will go nowhere that I am not wanted. Though,—for the matter of that, I suppose I'm not wanted here." Then Phineas gave him the message from his father. "He wishes to see me to-morrow morning?" continued Lord Chiltern. "Let him send me word ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... outline of its "Gothic grandeur" was displayed to us. Crossing the little bridge of Rieval, we proceeded along the banks of the Rye, which morosely rolled along, scarcely deigning to murmur its complaints to the woody hills which skirted it, as if in pique for the ruin of its sublime temple, and the disappearance of its monastic lords. The village of Rieval, constructed out of the wreck of the spacious abbey, displays some reverence for the preservation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique. "I am pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why you should be pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... proud assent as he stuck a biscuit in his mouth and looked at the lights with the greatest pleasure. I took off his new cap with its two blue bows over the ears, unbuttoned his little pique coat, which I had almost entirely built myself, and which was of excellent cut, and settled down to ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... humble opinion) the most beautiful and delicious description of a character that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakspeare. It is a wonder how old Richardson, girded at as he had been by the reckless satirist—how Richardson, the author of "Pamela," could have been so blinded by anger and pique as not to have seen the merits of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... want to put an end to this miserable pique between us," cried Andrew warmly. "It's absurd, and I hate it. I thought we were to be always friends. I can't bear it, Frank, for ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... novel of still greater interest than 'Pique.' The plot is well conceived, the characters skilfully developed, and the attention is fascinated even to the end. The moral is unexceptionable, the style fresh and pure. We must however enter an earnest protest against the manifest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... observed her not at all, being but semi-conscious. Looked upon thoughtfully, it is a coincidence that we breathe; certainly it is a mighty coincidence that we speak to one another and comprehend; for these are true marvels. But what petty interlacings of human action so pique our sense of the theatrical that we call them coincidences and are astonished! That Julia should arrive during Noble's long process of buying a ticket to go to her was stranger than that she stopped to look at him, though still not comparable in strangeness ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Mar. 5. Chaikovsky's opera "Pique Dame" presented at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, with Emmy Destinn, Leonora Sparkes, Alma ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... say that Mr. Charles Mackay's "Life and Liberty in America" is unusually free from the worst of these faults. Hasty judgments, offences against taste, inaccuracies, occasional revelations of personal pique it has; but it is not malicious. Sometimes it is even affecting in its tenderness. It breathes a spirit of paternal regard. But it is, perhaps, the dullest of books. If not "icily regular," it is "splendidly null." The style is as oppressive as a London fog. It is marked, to use the author's own ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... whom systematic authors would make the descendants of the Toltecs and Aztecs, constructed walls of earth and sometimes of stone without mortar,* from ten to fifteen feet high, and seven or eight thousand feet long. (* Of siliceous limestone, at Pique, on the Great Miami; of sandstone at Creek Point, ten leagues from Chillakothe, where the wall is fifteen hundred toises long.) These singular circumvallations sometimes enclosed a hundred and fifty acres of ground. In the plains of the Orinoco, as in those of Marietta, the Miami, and the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... suggest you insinuate the girl has favored your suit, but has practically said 'no,' because she is too proud to marry into a rich family. That will do more to pique mamma's interest in the matter than volumes of praise for Alice. Don't say too much, but if she questions you about her, answer frankly to the point, but convey the impression that you consider your case hopeless, and ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... disastrously. She had spent wakeful hours as a result of that meeting; but the cloud of apprehension had passed, leaving her sky serene again. And now Harboro had put aside the incident of the Mesquite Club ball as if it did not involve anything more than a question of pique. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... arts—were virtues admirably performed for him by others. But the phlegm or nullity of his being was not, after all, so complete as I have made it, perhaps, appear. He had one susceptibility which is more common with women than with men,—the susceptibility to pique. His amour propre was unforgiving: pique that, and he could do a rash thing, a foolish thing, a spiteful thing; pique that, and, prodigious! the watch went! He had a rooted pique against his marchioness. Apparently he had conceived this pique from ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Frenchmen are impulsive. He threw his arms about Tarzan and embraced him. Monsieur Flaubert embraced D'Arnot. There was no one to embrace the doctor. So possibly it was pique which prompted him to interfere, and demand that he be ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the eight thousand dollars, which surprised me not a little; for Richards was by no means a man to remain silent on a subject affecting his worldly interest, and I fully expected he would have felt and expressed some pique or resentment at my sudden withdrawal of my funds. But, on the contrary, the letter I had given to Menou, in which I requested Richards to pay over the money in question to the Creole, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... said, "I protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against Judgment." If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water: I am already planning a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... most absurd, most infamous, and most detestable of all privileges, and adduces a very flagrant instance of injustice committed under its plea.—D'Alegre, governor of Gisors, in consequence of a private pique against the Baron du Hallot, lord of the neighboring town of Vernon, treacherously assassinated him at his own house, while he was yet upon crutches, in consequence of the wounds received at the siege of Rouen. This ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... a petty pique, Enwraps in gloom, or bursts in storm; She questions all that love may speak, And weighs its tone, and marks its form, Or yields her ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... decorations of crinkled paper, they found, buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the Rye Quartet, consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello, and his two daughters with fiddles and white pique frocks. At first the music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords released their tongues and filled their mouths with awkward simultaneousness. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Daisy liked Mr. Stokes, but he could not give her a title. The duke could—if he would. But would he? She was rich, but there were others richer. People said that he was wary. Yet he admired Miss Daisy, it was true, and if by her flirtation with Mr. Stokes she could pique him into a proposal, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... nature—not in his insensitive hide nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way, and in his sensitive trunk and still more sensitive mind and capability of pique on points of honor. Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high breeding in men generally, will be their kindness and mercifulness, these always indicating more or less firmness of make ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the individual that is to be pursued and sought. While the church endeavours to remain pure, its aim and object should be mainly to correct and reform the offender, that his spirit may be saved. When discipline is undertaken from any other motive than this; and when it is pursued from private pique, or rivalship, or ambition, or the love of power, it is wrong. The salvation of the offender, and the glory of God, should prompt to all the measures which should be taken in the case. 'Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... any considerable pecuniary loss by reason of their breach of the law. Finding that their conduct led to their being made the subjects of a sort of hero-worship, it is not surprising that they soon came to pique themselves upon what they had done, and, so far from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the papers on the subject, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the apartment deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered: his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he crossed the threshold? ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... the first year a gradual change to lighter mourning may be made by discarding the widow's cap and shortening the veil. Dull silks are used in place of crape, according to taste. In warm weather lighter materials can be worn—as, pique, nun's ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... he adds, 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... that the act Of eating, with another act or two, Makes us feel our mortality in fact Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout, And fish, and soup, by some side dishes back'd, Can give us either pain or pleasure, who Would pique himself on intellects, whose use Depends so much upon ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... such an order. He announced his rank and authority, to which the answer was, "We only know the prefect by his clothes." Now it had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat; nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so, when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down with the green coat! We have enough ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... jailers, be loaded with fetters; thus shall you be cleared from every unworthy aspersion, and restored to reputation and honour!' This is the consolation she affords to those whom malignity or folly, private pique or unfounded positiveness, have, without the smallest foundation, loaded with calumny." For myself, I felt my own innocence; and I soon found, upon enquiry, that three fourths of those who are regularly subjected to a similar treatment, are persons whom, even with ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... she looked appealingly up at Latisan he was steadfastly staring past her. Her impulses were already galloping, but the instant prick of pique was the final urge which made the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... "You pique my curiosity, my lords," said the Fair Geraldine; "and since there is no other way of gratifying it, if the Lady Mary Howard will accompany me, we will ourselves venture into the forest, and try whether we cannot have a meeting with this wild ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Glowry, Esquire. This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called blue devils. He had been deceived in an early friendship: he had been crossed in love; and had offered his hand, from pique, to a lady, who accepted it from interest, and who, in so doing, violently tore asunder the bonds of a tried and youthful attachment. Her vanity was gratified by being the mistress of a very extensive, ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... swept across her face. Peter could not altogether read it. It was not merely anger, or pique, or disappointment; it certainly was not merely grief. There was all that in it, but there was more. And she said—he only just caught the sentence of any of their words, but there was the world of bitter ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... and even put by a nest-egg for future emergencies. Jim consented to all her proposals. He felt depressed and unlike himself. In short, there never was a more unwilling bridegroom. He had never loved Louisa. She had always been repugnant to him. In a moment of pique he had asked her to marry him, and his repentance began half an hour after his engagement. Still he managed to play his part sufficiently well. Louisa, whose passion for him increased as the days went on, made no complaint; she was true to her ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... thought to pique him with this adjective, she was disarmed by the heartiness of his admission, "As green as grass! But I'd like to help you all the same, if ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... gayer than Paris was that morning, at that charming golden hour of the day when the world seems peopled only with good and generous spirits who love one another. Paris does not pique herself on her generosity; but she still takes to herself at this charming hour an air of innocence, cheerfulness, and ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... Gilbert the second, Rufus or Rubens, i.e. Red, is another well-known figure. Like his father, he at first supported the barons, but soon after the battle of Lewes he took the King's side, and fought for him at Evesham. Again from pique he deserted him, returning to his allegiance once more in 1270. He was buried in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... man with a dark complexion, alluring black eyes and black moustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the third envelope in the pocket of his pique waistcoat. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... impossible! you know she is delicate yet, and the mornings are quite chilly.' 'Well, good night; and don't forget that we breakfast early.' 'My dear Sir,' said I, 'I could rise at cock-crow for Zounds and Sounds.' . . . Now, I had never even heard the words before; but I pique myself on knowing strange and choice dishes; not the far-fetched things of the French, but things good per se, and without a sea of condiments; the delicate, the rare subtleties which our own women know so well to compound. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... unconvinced, and for years she nourished a pique against Professor Gale, not so much owing to his having bracketed her son as because the letter P has ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... very best possible presentation of the book is required. Here is the place where most of all the prospective purchaser's interest must be aroused. Here the most felicitous publicity inspiration is needed—and the problem is to indicate the story, yet not tell it, and to pique curiosity to the buying point. On books of a serious nature a jacket note is just as essential, if not more so, but the problem is different. The prospective purchaser of such a book as "Irish History and the Irish Question," "The Flower Garden," for example, has an interest in ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... last article in the Review, is a critique upon Mr. CORNELIUS MATHEWS'S 'Writings,' including his poem on 'Man in his Various Aspects,' which embodies the opinions we have ourselves expressed in relation to them. Since the unfounded charge of being 'actuated by private pique,' which was brought against us by the author, cannot be assumed against the North American Review, we trust that our 'complainant' will not object that we fortify our own estimate of his literary merits by grave authority. The ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... connexion with the feast. And to show how stringent was the expression pique-nique in imposing a specific task, Leroux quotes "considerant que chacun avait besoin de ses pieces, prononca un arret de pique-nique." (Rec. de Piec. Com.) ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... quarterings, and not a farthing; it is now in your power to be wife to the greatest lord in South America, who has very beautiful moustachios. Is it for you to pique yourself upon inviolable fidelity? You have been ravished by Bulgarians; a Jew and an Inquisitor have enjoyed your favours. Misfortune gives sufficient excuse. I own, that if I were in your place, I should have ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... dulled by so much when he matched his boy's wit against hers. His mind had not sought out the hidden motive that lay behind what she had said; he had followed where she led and, finding her logic impregnable, had yielded like a child, in a pique. Yes, yielded out of spite without ever once thinking that she worked, day ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... and free for all the world," she went on, not looking at me more than I could now at her. "I have set my life to prove this thing. When I came here to this America—out of pique, out of a love of adventure, out of sheer daring and exultation in imposture—then I saw why I was born, for what purpose! It was to do such work as I might to prove the theory of my father, and to justify the life of my mother. For that thing I was born. For ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the worst precipices in the Dungeon of Buchan, and looked into the nest of the eagle on the Clints of Craignaw. It was not likely that I would come to any harm so long as there was a foothold or an armhold on the face of the cliff. At least, my idiotic pique had now pledged me to the attempt, as well as my pride, for above all things I desired to stand well in the eyes of ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... made his breakfast he, however, became sensible of a certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and the girl, which led him to remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon before he called ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... that pique had just betrayed his judgment made him the more inclined to quarrel with the poet. But assuredly the sight that met his eyes caused his blood to boil; for Mr. Moggridge was calmly in possession of the chair and newspaper which Sam had but a ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as they bowed to the commander.) "As I was saying to Barker, as matters stand in this regiment, some half a dozen at least of the men referred to as its 'representative officers' are apparently resentful of my arrest of Lieutenant Lanier, and attribute my course to pique, because he saw fit to show himself at the hop I declined to permit him as officer-of-the-guard to attend. You think, possibly, that because men like Captain Snaffle, Lieutenant Crane, and one or two of that set have been in consultation with me, the matters at issue are beneath ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... of the king were inflamed. His reason was blinded, and artful courtiers, from motives of intrigue or pique, stimulated his anger. There are ever those who stand ready to administer to unholy passions, and who are watching for the fall of such as are high in place or favour. And still under the influence of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... the Confederate service." This proposal brought about a sharp debate upon the Confederate Government and its military policy. Rhett made a remarkable address, which should of itself quiet forever the old tale that he was animated in his opposition solely by the pique of a disappointed candidate for the presidency. Though as sharp as ever against the Government and though agreeing wholly with the spirit of the state army plan, he took the ground that circumstances at the moment rendered the organization of ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... banter in monosyllables, and kept her dancing eyes veiled by their own long-fringed lids, but this only served to pique ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... in his affection made her absolutely outrageous. She had so little considered Claribel in that light, that she had not deigned to notice Lionel's attention to her, which indeed her vanity whispered was merely a feint to pique herself, and to give him an opportunity of still hovering near her. The gift of the fairy, which had operated so much to Claribel's disadvantage in the opinion of her lover, secured her from sharing the keen mortification of ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... was her best friend, almost her brother, and she had no right to feel so limp because—she did not finish the sentence even to herself; yet she was swept into such a turmoil of emotion—friendship, love, pique, doubt—that she could restore nothing to order. She knew Derby thought Giovanni wanted her money—instinctively her mouth hardened as she thought of it—but then—every one wanted it except Jack! And at once, with an unaccountable baffling ache, she was brought face to face with the fact that ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... and Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange! how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking characters—because I am too proud of my character as a man, to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biased against squalid poverty—I was unacquainted with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the animals, during the few months of his experience as assistant, had been altogether phenomenal, his chief felt a qualm of pique upon being warned against the big puma. He had too just an appreciation of Hansen's judgment, however, to quite disregard the warning, and he turned it over curiously in his mind as he went to his dressing-room. Emerging a few minutes later in the black-and-white ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... country, was their sole, or even principal motive; and I dare say that, if the truth were known, we should find that many other motives at least concurred, even in the great Brutus himself; such as pride, envy, personal pique, and disappointment. Nay, I cannot help carrying my Pyrrhonism still further, and extending it often to historical facts themselves, at least to most of the circumstances with which they are related; and every day's experience confirms me in this historical incredulity. Do we ever hear the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the bloody document, and the last signature of the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of complement ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride for stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,— Nor galloped less steadily ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... her attention very much divided between tumultuous joyance in the mountain grandeur, bathed in the marvelously life-exciting air, and concern for the outcome of the day. If a faint suggestion of pique at the manner in which the horseman ignored her presence crept subconsciously into all her meditations, she did ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... given her consent to marriage unless she believed herself in love with the man who wooed her. It could have been no trifling episode in her life, whatever the story; Irene was not of the women who yield their hands in jest, in pique, in lighthearted ignorance. The change visible in her was more, he fancied, than could be due to the mere lapse of time; during her silences, she had the look of one familiar with mental conflict, perhaps of one whose pride had suffered an injury. The one or two glances which he ventured whilst ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... do without her," replied my mother, with pique. "I'm very glad that she's going, for I have always protested at Virginia's being so intimate with her—a tobacco shop is not a place for a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... have shown it. This is another perverse and suicidal inconsistency on a woman's part: she should never exhibit these small meannesses of pique, sullen tempers, jealousy, to her husband, since they place her wholly at a disadvantage, making her less attractive than the objects she wishes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... raced at a man's side for days, with the object of getting the better of him at some sport or pastime, cannot reasonably hope to be connected in his thoughts with ideas more tender or more elevated than "odds" or "handicaps," with an undercurrent of pique if his unsexed companion ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... was one of the scholars she offended and put down—gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... granddaughter of Apollo—even marriage with Theseus would have been a me'salliance. And now, here is a chance, a chance most marvellous, of covering her silly escapade. She will be sensible, I think, though she is still a little frightened. She will accept this god's suit, if only to pique Theseus—Theseus, who, for all his long, tedious anecdotes of how he slew Procrustes and the bull of Marathon and the sow of Cromyon, would even now lie slain or starving in her father's labyrinth, had she not taken pity on him. Yes, it was pity ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... could be no doubt about that. She liked him, and she would not leave him. Also, she was a young woman of exceptional common sense, and, being such, she would not risk the loss of a large fortune merely for the sake of indulging pique engendered by his refusal to gratify ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... foot—who, amiable, frank, friendly, manly in private life, was seized with the dotage of age and the fury of a woman, the instant politics were concerned—who reserved all his candour and comprehensiveness of view for history, and vented his littleness, pique, resentment, bigotry, and intolerance on his contemporaries—who took the wrong side, and defended it by unfair means—who, the moment his own interest or the prejudices of others interfered, seemed to forget all that was due to the pride of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... colloquialisms, which we could not notice, his words began to thrill us like potent oratory. We felt all that ecstasy of buoyant and auspicious rebellion which animated Hotspur the night he could have plucked bright honor from the pale-faced moon. At Jim's final question, Cornish, forgetting his pique, sprang to the map, swept his finger along the line Elkins had described, followed the main ribs of Pendleton's great gridiron, on which the fat of half a dozen states lay frying, on to terminals on lakes and rivers; and ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... pecked at the viands as a bird might do, and I scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole stay in the country. Both at Parker's Hotel in Boston, and at the Westminster in New York, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort and happiness, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day, with the hope that he might be induced to try unwonted things and get up again the habit of eating more; but the influenza, that seized him with such masterful powder, held the strong man down ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... mention of the national hero, he thought that he detected in Mistress Polly's eyes an enthusiasm which he could not very well ascribe to his own individuality, he added with some pique: ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... country. An oracle on subjects of mere business, in the great questions of policy he is comparatively a failure. He never embraces any party heartily; he never espouses any question as if wholly in earnest. The moderation on which he is said to pique himself often exhibits itself in fastidious crotchets and an attempt at philosophical originality of candor which has long obtained him, with his enemies, the reputation of a trimmer. Such a man circumstances ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consideration on the part of either bride or groom as to the responsibilities of the marriage state. Many of the marriages are made simply as a matter of convenience—in order to inherit property, for social position or in a spirit of pique. Such marriages are not natural marriages and are in violation of the right spirit of the law of marriage. The much quoted saying, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," surely does not ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... perfect mutual understanding on a pinnacle of married experience. Fancy there being any need for anything else between us! they said. Their editor then supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been a soupcon of personal feeling in the case—bias, pique, whatever one likes to call it. You know, dear Mrs. Fenwick?" But Mrs. Fenwick waited for further illumination. "Well, you know ... I suppose it's rather a breach of confidence, only I know I shall be ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... honestly delighted me. It was refreshing to know that the omniscient Paul Harley was capable of pique. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... angry with Michael when he left her. There was perhaps more hurt pride and pique in her anger than she would have cared to own. He had failed to succumb to her charms, he had not seemed to notice her as other men did; he had even lost the look of admiration he used to wear when they were boy and girl. He had refused utterly to tell her what she had ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... to make trouble between Clara and her lover; upon my soul, I didn't, and wish Seguin had not put the notion into my head, since it has given you pain. I only tried to pique you into showing some regret, when I neglected you; but you didn't, and then I got desperate and didn't care what became of any one. Oh, Dora, if you knew how much I loved you, I am sure you'd forgive it, and let me prove my repentance by giving up everything that ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... to a violent quarrel with her and her husband, which had had unexpected results, for Jinny had taken his part—Jinny who was the idol of her parents and the pivot on which the whole establishment turned. John's whilom indifference had led first to pique on Jinny's part and then to interest. John, perturbed of spirit and sore of heart, had been grateful for her favour. The attachment which poor Sally had for a time diverted was soon re-established, and before six months had ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... kindled in him something of the old glow. Brussels! She was in western Europe again, then. Yes, she still possessed the Heine letter he required; only it was in her father's possession, and she had written to him to Russia to send it on. Her silence had been due to pique at the condition Lassalle had attached to acceptance of the mere friendship she offered him, to wit, that, like all his friends, she must write him two letters to his one. "Inconsiderate little creature!" ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... may fall, They always fret, and say that I Am far too low or far too high. Although I try with all my might, I never seem to strike it right. Now I admit it seems to me They show great inconsistency. But they imply I am to blame; Of course that makes my anger flame, And in a fiery fit of pique I stay at ninety for a week. Or sometimes in a dull despair, I give them just a frigid stare; And as upon their taunts I think My spirits down to zero sink. Mine is indeed a hopeless case; To strive to ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... house with attractive people, of harmonizing, of giving satisfaction, of rendering her guests at home with herself, of charming grave men and wise scholars, as well as gay young girls. It is true Violet has married him, but was not Floyd Grandon's regard brought about by a pique, an opportunity to retaliate the wrong once done to him? What if there were moments ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to have loved you no longer; but it was certainly only a feeling of pique, since just now, as soon as I found you again at my feet, my heart beat rapidly, and my first impulse was to follow you as if I were your slave. Then, if I love you, why am I afraid of you? What is it that prevents me from leaving this room, as ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... sternly, leaning out toward him and looking Barney in the eyes, "don't be a fool. The man that would, from pique, willingly hurt a friend is a mean ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... expired of self-betrayed despair. Little she helped him, at his direst need, Roving her eyes o'er hill, and wood, and sky, Peering intently at the meanest weed; Ay, doing aught but look in Lancelot's eye. Then, with the small pique of her velvet shoe, Uprooted she each herb that blossomed nigh; Or strange wild figures in the dust she drew; Until she felt Sir Lancelot's arm around Her waist, upon her cheek his breath like dew. While through his ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... to those cultivated persons who will read it "to overrule the dicta of judges who would sacrifice truth and justice to professional rule, or personal pique, pride, or prejudice"; meaning, the great mass of those who have studied the subject. But how? Suppose the "cultivated persons" were to side with the author, would those who have conclusions to draw and applications to make consent to be wrong because the "general body of intelligent ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... on the dead, Pete, it was mostly jealousy. I thought my mother couldn't care for me any more if she could take a second husband. My sister thought so too, but she wasn't able to get away like me. Of course I was strong. It was boyish pique that drove me away. I didn't fancy having another man in my dead father's place, either. And I wanted to get around and see the world a bit. After I'd gone I often wished I hadn't. I'd never imagined how much I loved mother and sis. But I was tougher and prouder ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Miss Gibbie turned off all lights save the one on the candle-stand by the high mahogany bed, with its valance of white pique, drew the large wing chair close to the open window and sat down in it. Over her gown she had put on a mandarin coat bought somewhere in China, and on her feet were the slippers embroidered for her by a Japanese girl she had sent ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... Fitzgerald, in the Morning Post) to claim the character of 'Vates' in all its translations, but were they not a little prophetic? I mean those beginning, 'There's not a joy the world can,' &c. &c., on which I rather pique myself as being the truest, though the most ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that—though I have need here of every manageable attenuation of language—with the first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very likely that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... active a part in the defence of Dole against Louis XIII., that the Capuchin Father d'Iche had the direction of the artillery; and when an officer of the enemy had seized the Brother Claude by the cowl, the Father Barnabas made the officer loose his hold by slaying him with a demi-pique. When Arbois was besieged by Henry IV., the Sieur Chanoine Pecauld is specially mentioned as proving ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... Simons'—the largest shop in town. The first-story front of clear glass, the plates cleverly bound at the edges with brass. The second story of pleasant tapestry brick. One window of excellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an obvious notion of neatness and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She had met a Haydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of thirty-five. He seemed great to her, now, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... dame continued, tossing her head with mingled pique and triumph. "'Tis a sad day for thee and thine, then! This Sir Guy of thine is as good as dead, girl! Thy popinjay is a traitor, and his crimes ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... suit you at all; and a public confession "I am a sinner, a sinner, a sinner," is such pride that it made me feel uncomfortable. When the pope took the title "holiness," the head of the Eastern church, in pique, called himself "The servant of God's servants." So you publicly expatiate on your sinfulness from pique of Solovyov, who has the impudence to call himself orthodox. But does a word like orthodoxy, Judaism, or Catholicism contain any implication of exceptional personal ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... ago, she told herself, and lay tucked away in the receptacle which contained the varied neatly labelled patterns of her masculine world; but at the same time she was perfectly aware that within five minutes he would pique afresh both her interest and her liking. "You can't warm yourself by fireworks," she had once said to him, and a moment later had paused to wonder at the intrinsic meaning of a daring ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... "The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far indeed from entering immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at your ease, like the well-bred French, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Dujardin, a gallant young officer, well-born, and his own master, had courted her with her parents' consent; and, even when the baron began to look coldly on the soldier of the Republic, young Dujardin, though too proud to encounter the baron's irony and looks of scorn, would not yield love to pique. He came no more to the chateau, but he would wait hours and hours on the path to the little oratory in the park, on the bare chance of a passing word or even a kind look from Josephine. So much devotion gradually won a heart which in happier times she had been half encouraged to give ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... later he writes: "Welbeck is a devastation. The house is a delight of my eyes, for it is a hospital of old portraits." One is inclined to believe that something in the order of his reception had stung him into lasting pique. ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... protested he, laughing awkwardly. In the last few minutes he had developed a sentiment hitherto unknown to him—pique! He had been imagining Cornelia in love with him, and angry at his preference for Sophie; whereas, it would now seem that the only reason she cared for him at all, was because he was Sophie's lover: a most correct spirit in her, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... heart, she was sure of that. In spite of the fact that she had tried to pique him that fatal day, merely to "stir him up," as she phrased it, Viola was deeply and earnestly in love with Harry Bartlett, and she was sure enough of his feeling toward her to find in it a ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... call out or challenge, is to begin a contest; one provokes another to violence. To affront is to offer some defiant offense or indignity, as it were, to one's face; it is somewhat less than to insult. Compare PIQUE. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... enter a prairie wheat-field one thousand miles long and of unknown width, into which the nations of the world are pouring. "The sleeping nation beyond," is what General Sherman in a moment of pique once called Canada. The sleeping giant has awakened. We are on the heels of the greatest economic trek this world has ever seen. The historian of to-morrow will rank it with ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... at twelve pesos a yard, and you'll see if I put on these rags!" retorted the goddess in pique. "Heavens! You can talk when you have done something fine like that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... this. If it had been Marcia to whom he had spoken she would have judged he did it out of pique, but a pretty stranger coming upon the scene at this critical moment was trying. And then, too, David's manner was so indifferent, so utterly natural. He did not seem in the least troubled by ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... heard read the letter which I left for my mother, giving the motives for my self-exile, had repeated it to all the neighborhood, so that I not only had failed, but became the butt of the jokes of the boys of the neighborhood, who already held a pique against me for my serious ways and my habit of rebuking certain vices amongst them. I was jeered at as the boy "who left his mother to seek religion," and this made life for a time almost intolerable. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this singular behavior to arise from a consummate ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Brutus, who had known, Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none! But virtues opposite to make agree, That, Reason! is thy task; and worthy thee. Hard task, cries Bibulus, and reason weak: Make it a point, dear Marquess! or a pique. Once, for a whim, persuade yourself to pay A debt to reason, like a debt at play. For right or wrong have mortals suffer'd more? B—— for his prince, or —— for his whore? Whose self-denials nature most control? ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... one have more than real old china and heavy silver plate? I rather pique myself on that; I think it has quite a good, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dispelled, came to understand that it was insuperable. To cut short an impossible situation, he tendered his resignation, on which all the ministers resigned; but as the question was one of personal pique, the king commanded them to remain at their posts. Cavour applauded this decision. For the moment it was better that he, not D'Azeglio, should be sacrificed. They parted without ceasing to be private and political friends. Massimo d'Azeglio's nature was too generous ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Constance had made no sign of compliance to reward the patient wooer. Now, at the sight of these preparations for departure, and the presence of the stalwart stranger in the property wagon, he experienced a sudden sensation of pique, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... fellow; each man and woman on the place had or fancied some reason for being set against him; some from sympathy with Juan Can, some from idleness and general impatience; Margarita, most of all, because he was not Alessandro. Margarita, between remorse about her young mistress and pique and disappointment about Alessandro, had become a very unhappy girl; and her mother, instead of comforting or soothing her, added to her misery by continually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left in the ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... armed with a long whip, which he uses at discretion; and it is a fact, well known to persons who have visited slave countries, that punishments are more frequently inflicted to gratify the private pique or caprice of the driver, than for crime or ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... not say this from pique or anger—I am not angry now—but because my leaving home at present would from solid reasons be difficult to manage. If all be well I will visit you in the autumn, at present I cannot come. Be assured ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... a while. Then came the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: "If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... touches to quite a respectable structure—half tent, half bower—for which the skipper had acted the part of architect-in-chief. This structure had cost Captain Blyth a vast amount of almost painful cogitation, and was the result of a little fit of excusable, and perhaps natural pique, which had come over him on finding how exceedingly well the two landsmen had managed without him. From the moment of their being thrust out of the ship to that other moment when he had rejoined them, they had scarcely been out of his thoughts for an hour, and ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... such, I mean, as we shared with the rest of our company; and I reminded myself often that though we now met in the same house and at the same table, she was still the Mademoiselle de la Vire who had borne herself so loftily in the King of Navarre's ante-chamber. This I did, not out of pique or wounded pride, which I no more, God knows, harboured against her than against a bird; but that I might not in my new prosperity forget the light in which such a woman, young, spoiled, and beautiful, must still ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... made no attempt to struggle; she nursed no sense of open resentment against her captors. The battery of her vital forces was depleted and depolarized. She experienced only a faintly poignant sense of disappointment, of indeterminate pique, as she realized that she was no longer a free agent. Leaning back in the cushioned gloom, inert, impassive, with her eyes half-closed, she seemed to be drifting through an eddying veil of gray. The voices so close beside her sounded thin and far off. An impression of unreality ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... the standard of musical revolution; his title of the "Grand Valse" he finds too unassuming. "Surely a waltz with some angelic creature must have inspired you, Moscheles, with this composition, and that the title ought to express. Titles, in fact, should pique the curiosity of the public." "A view uncongenial to me," adds Moscheles; "however, I did not discuss it.... A dinner at Rossini's is calculated for the enjoyment of a 'gourmet,' and he himself proved to be the one, for he went through the very ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... understand, but it could not shake the old soldier's loyalty. He gravely resigned the empty title of General, which only made confusion worse confounded, and rode away to act as colonel of his own Lincoln regiment, pitying his master's perplexity, and resolved that no private pique should hinder him from doing his duty. His regiment was of foot soldiers, and was just opposite to the standard of ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of our morals develops in the young girl whom you make your wife a curiosity which is naturally excessive; but as mothers in France pique themselves on exposing their girls every day to the fire which they do not allow to scorch them, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... south-western France, in the department of Haute-Garonne, 87 m. S.S.W. of Toulouse, on a branch line of the Southern railway from Montrejeau. Pop. (1906) 3448. The town is situated at the foot of the central Pyrenees in a beautiful valley at the confluence of the One and the Pique. It is celebrated for its thermal springs and as a fashionable resort. Of the promenades the finest and most frequented are the Allees d'Etigny, an avenue planted with lime-trees, at the southern extremity of which is the Thermes, or bathing-establishment, one of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... "Pique Dame" (Queen of Spades), Op. 68, and "King Rene's Daughter" are not considered in any way distinctive, although the former was performed in New York, at the Metropolitan. The Third Piano Concerto, Op. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... who answered under cover of the great man's name and ultimately found out and, incognito, beheld the lady. She was beautiful and he lost his heart to her. When later the subterfuge was discovered, Canalis, interested now, wanted to marry the lady, she being presumably rich. Through pique, Modeste, for a while, listened to his suit and smiled on him, albeit, in verity, she was touched by La Briere's sincere affection. The circumstances leading to the unmasking of Canalis' selfish character ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the landlady, the ticket-seller at the Globe, and meek little Mr. Quan, the assistant stage manager, all had looked at her, as at some one they couldn't classify. John Galbraith, out of a wider experience of life, had classified her, or thought he had, as a well-bred young girl who, in a moment of pique, or mischief, had decided it would be fun to go on the stage. The test he had applied wasn't, from that point of view, unnecessarily cruel. The girl he had taken her for, would, on being ordered to repeat that grotesque bit of vulgarity of his, have drawn her dignity ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... French appears to them a fit of delirium. When they speak, it is with deliberation, without gestures and without passion; they listen without interrupting you; they are silent for whole days together, and they by no means pique themselves on supporting conversation. If they walk, it is always leisurely, and on business. They have no idea of our troublesome activity, and our walks backwards and forwards for amusement. Continually seated, they pass whole days smoking, with their legs crossed, their pipes in ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... occasion did occur before many days were over. Two days afterwards the "Blanche" was joined by the "Quebec" frigate, and together, when sailing by Guadeloupe, they discovered the French thirty-six-gun frigate "Pique" lying at anchor in the harbour of Pointe-a-Pitre, ready for sea. Not to deprive his brother captain of the honour he might obtain by engaging an antagonist so worthy of him, Captain Carpenter parted company, and the "Quebec," steering westward, was soon ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... for him, feigns to break with her, and she, though really loving him, returns an indifferent answer and marries Gaspero out of pique. The distracted lover thereupon falls upon his sword in the presence of the newly wedded couple, and the bride, touched by the spectacle of her lover's devotion, languishes and dies in ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... newcomer," says this critic, "was recognised as Mrs. James by a Prince of the Blood and his companions in the omnibus-box. Her beauty could not save her from insult; and, to avenge themselves on Mr. Lumley, for some pique, these chivalrous English gentlemen of the upper classes hooted a woman from ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... thing—her marrying him so suddenly. But, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I have never quite made up my mind that Ethel was really fickle. She did it out of pique, or pride, or impulse, or whatever it is that sways women in such cases. She was angry, or indignant—how like fire and ice at once she was when she was angry!—and she was resolved to show me that she could do without me. She would not listen to my explanations; and ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... soon enabled me to supply the want of leisure. My nights were surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with all the earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to a yet higher degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were resolved to convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without those talents, the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his sneer. Besides, I had already learned that no such scheme as mine could be successfully prosecuted, unless by a stern resolution; ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Restaurant Elaine had returned to Manchester Square (where she was staying with one of her numerous aunts) in a frame of mind that embraced a tangle of competing emotions. In the first place she was conscious of a dominant feeling of relief; in a moment of impetuosity, not wholly uninfluenced by pique, she had settled the problem which hours of hard thinking and serious heart-searching had brought no nearer to solution, and, although she felt just a little inclined to be scared at the headlong manner of her final ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... astonishment at seeing him so suddenly transformed, glorified, redeemed and clean-shaven? His figure, which once appeared so stodgy, now looked merely strong and athletic encased in a well-fitting morning coat, a waistcoat of a discreet shade of smoke grey, with a hint of starched pique slip at the opening. His irreproachable trousers were correctly creased—not too marked to be ostentatious, but just a graceful fold emerging, as it were, out of the texture, even as the faint line of dawn ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... sudden wave of hostility or pique, but a sentiment which had for years existed in the minds of both nations—a sentiment of mutual suspicion. The Englishman thought Germany was prepared to dispute with him the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, the German that England intended ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... career worthy of manhood, great, glorious, and inspiriting, opened before me, coming so soon after the late downfall of my hopes, was in itself a source of such true pleasure that ere long I listened to my friend, and heard his narrative with breathless interest. A lingering sense of pique, too, had its share in all this. I longed to come forward in some manly and dashing part, where my youth might not be ever remembered against me, and when, having brought myself to the test, I might no longer be looked upon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... At these unfortunate break downs, he would be obliged to resign the speaking-trumpet to the first lieutenant; and if, as sometimes happened, the latter (either from accident, or perhaps from a pardonable pique at having the duty taken out of his hands), was not at his elbow to prompt him when at fault—at these times the cant phrase of the officers, taken from some farce, used to be, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... more than cool, is there no chance of an "open season?" Must it come to this—that the mere sight of the youth, and strength, and beauty that have left us far behind shall stir our bile, as though it were an insolent parade—that the choicest delicacies at our neighbor's wedding-breakfast shall not pique our palate like the baked meats at his funeral? Not so; if we must give ground let us retreat in good order, leaving no shield behind us that our enemy may build into his trophy. If we are rash enough to assail Lady Violet Vavasour with ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... demarcation being perfectly clear but not so rigid as in Haydn; the much greater richness of the whole musical fabric, due to Mozart's marvellous skill in polyphony. The time had not yet come when the composer could pique the fancy of the hearer by unexpected structural devices or even lead him off on a false trail as was so often done by Beethoven. Both Haydn and Mozart are homophonic composers, i.e., the outpouring of individual melodies is the chief ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... by the worthy man was in keeping with his manners and his countenance. No power could have made him give up the white muslin cravats, with ends embroidered by his wife or daughter, which hung down beneath his chin. His waistcoat of white pique, squarely buttoned, came down low over his stomach, which was rather protuberant, for he was somewhat fat. He wore blue trousers, black silk stockings, and shoes with ribbon ties, which were often unfastened. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... That Mr. Vigors should have presumed to cancel my recommendation to a settler on the Hill was an act of rebellion, and involved the honour of my prerogative; but I suppressed my indignation at an affront so unusual, partly out of pique against yourself, but much more, I think, out of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... fascination on Madame Blumenthal's part, and even to certain possibilities of sincerity of which my appreciation was vague, yet it seemed to me less ominous that he should be simply smitten than that his admiration should pique itself on being discriminating. It was on his fundamental simplicity that I counted for a happy termination of his experiment, and the former of these alternatives seemed to me the simpler. I resolved to hold my tongue and let him run his course. He had a great ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... not regard her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume. He was not very wise, but very good-natured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. Sallie Gardiner was absorbed in keeping her white pique dress clean and chattering with the ubiquitous Fred, who kept Beth in constant terror by ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Pamela, you have been hardly used, more than you'll say. I know my sister's passionate temper too well, to believe she could be over-civil to you, especially as it happened so unluckily that I was out. If, added he, she had no pique to you, my dear, yet what has passed between her and me, has so exasperated her, that I know she would have quarrelled with my horse, if she had thought I valued it, and nobody else was in her way. Dear sir, said I, don't say so of good ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... the shade afforded by the trees that line the way on either side. To walk from the "Thermes" along the Allee des Bains, turning into the Casino gardens, or continuing further—leaving the "Chute de la Pique" on the right—along the riverside till the road to Montauban cuts it at right angles, is a most delicious evening stroll. We prolonged this, by taking the road in question between the poplars up to the village of Montauban itself; but found more interest in the beautiful new church ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... has come under my observation, I should say the fraudulent and disgusting system of puffing and of abusing, as interest or pique dictates, is even carried to a greater length in France than it is in either England or America. The following anecdote, which relates to myself, may give you some notion of the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Raffles. "What did he not say! He boasted of his rise, he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique and jealousy because he had so much. He mentioned names, too, with the most charming freedom, and swore he was as good a man as the Old Country had to show—PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it he pointed ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... humours of a Court; to devote his brilliant imagination and affluence of invention either to devising a pageant which should throw all others into the shade, or a compromise which should get great persons out of some difficulty of temper or pique. ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in your way," he added with an air of some pique and he began ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... suspect, however, that they were more and more determined to rescue Maude from what they would have termed a frivolous career; and on one of these occasions—so exasperating in married life when a slight cause for pique tempts husband or wife to try to ask myself whether this affair were only a squall, something to be looked for once in a while on the seas of matrimony, and weathered: or whether Maude had not, after all, been right when she declared that I had made a mistake, and that we were ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from this romantic state of mind there is absolutely no possible theoretic escape. Whether, like Renan, we look upon life in a more refined way, as a romance of the spirit; or whether, like the friends of M. Zola, we pique ourselves on our 'scientific' and 'analytic' character, and prefer to be cynical, and call the world a 'roman experimental' on an infinite scale,—in either case the world appears to us potentially as what the same Carlyle once called it, a vast, gloomy, solitary ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... period of pique and disappointment, when she realised that Denis Quirk was impervious to her attractions, Sylvia Jackson suddenly awoke to a new interest in life. At the moment she was hesitating between an interesting decline and a fearful ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ago had been called Vanushka and Vanka and had been ready to punch a man in the face and turn the house upside down over twenty kopecks, was dressed devilishly well. He had on a broad-brimmed straw hat, exquisite brilliant boots, a pique waistcoat. . . . Thousands of suns, big and little, glistened on his watch-chain. With much chic he held in his right ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... greatly esteemed by every one. Neither pique nor passion nor petty feelings could ever influence her mind. She is the most angelic, good woman I ever met—she is one to whom one may complain, and be a bore. She has such ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... 'Tis most absurd, as you have clearly shown. And yet I fear some of us have been nibbling At this same heresy. 'Twere well that one Should find it poison. I have no pique at ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald |
