"Exasperating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extent of his misfortunes. But the bitterness of his feelings, as great as it was, at being stripped of all his property through such a series of wrongs, soon became wholly merged in anxiety and grief for his sick and sorrow-stricken parent, and in the exasperating thought that her sickness and suffering proceeded from the same source with his other injuries. And close and unremitting had been his attentions to her, until the day previous to the one on which ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... unfair and ill natured manner in which they had discharged their functions; but they could not have been accused of usurping functions which did not belong to them for the purpose of insulting the Sovereign and exasperating the nation. But these men well knew in what way and for what purpose they might safely venture to exceed their commission. The Act of Parliament from which they derived their powers authorised them to report on estates forfeited during the late ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... always been one of character. And you must admit that the direct and unmitigated manner of depreciating the reputation, not merely of Jane Arrowsmith, but of Mrs. Wynyard, a personal friend of Miss Martineau's to whom she professes great obligations, could not be otherwise than exasperating to a woman of her generous temper, and this just in the crisis of her gratitude for her restoration to life and enjoyment by the means (as she considers it) of this friend. Not that I feel at all ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... new outpost line, and we proceeded to dig positions with such effect that by nightfall 500 yards of trench were ready for occupation. Barbed wire and extra tools were brought up from Bardawil station by tired camels, and tired camels are if possible more exasperating than fresh camels, especially to tired men. On the 29th the Commander-in-Chief rode round our new line, which was by this time in good order, and the spear-head had again been pushed a mile or two nearer the Promised Land. It was at Salmana we received instructions issued by G.H.Q. and carefully ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... same Patient a strange mixture of Tension and Relaxation, of Shivering and Heat, of Agitation and Sinking; insomuch, that we were obliged constantly to endeavour at the expulsion of the noxious Ferments lodged in the primae Viae, or dispersed through the whole Mass of Blood, without exasperating them at the same time; or to correct and lessen their Action, without weakening the Patient. We ought, for Example, to vomit or purge without irritating or exhausting; to procure a free Perspiration or Sweating, without too much animating or inflaming; ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau
... what right," cried the greedy juryman, speaking under the exasperating influence of hunger—"by what right does Mr. Westerfield's family dare to suppose that a barmaid may not be a ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... illustrates nearly everything that makes the adolescent so puzzling and so exasperating to ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... their own searchlights the French and German admirals, steaming as they thought to join hands with their victorious friends, saw the strangest and most exasperating sight that their eyes had ever beheld. The advancing force was a curiously composed one. Trained, as they were, to recognise at first sight every warship of every nation, they could nevertheless hardly believe their eyes. There were ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... anxious hope for relief. There was not even a lull in the exasperating withdrawals of gold. On the contrary, they grew larger and more persistent than ever. Between the 4th day of December, 1894, and early in February, 1895, a period of scarcely more than two months after the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... worse than any pride. So he let things be, still cheating himself into the belief that the arrangement was for your happiness, till, as you are aware, it turned out so manifestly otherwise that he found himself obliged once more to come to the rescue of his lady love. But his exasperating humility was such that he never suspected the real reason for your change of mind, and when I accused him of cutting me out, he was as scandalized as only a righteous man knows how to be. You can't do much with a fellow like that, you know,—a ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably might have been publicly scourged for it, had the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance. But he "meant to be prosecuted for treason, not for felony," to use the words of a modern offender. He therefore commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful, calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood; and denouncing upon them the "condemnation of hell." He was successful. He had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life, and given colour to the charge of political ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... triumph. Gliding round the point, he found himself instantly engaged with a light battery of four or six guns, doubtless the same we had seen in the distance. The "Milton" was within two hundred and fifty yards. The Connecticut men fought their guns well, aided by the blacks, and it was exasperating for us to hear the shots, while we could see nothing and do nothing. The scanty ammunition of our bow gun was exhausted, and the gun in the stern was useless, from the position in which we lay. In vain we moved the men from side to side, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... but," said the Kid with exasperating calmness, "you won't get a price on him. I can quote some myself. The voice of wisdom ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... she propounded this matter to her husband, only to find that she might better have tried to knock down a stone wall with her head than induce him to change his plans. He listened to her patiently—unless over-irritated, a perfectly exasperating patience was one of his gifts—then said in a cold voice that he was ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... Patapedia. He came to the fly just at dusk, rising very softly and quietly, as if he did not really care for it but only wanted to see what it was like. He went down at once into deep water, and began the most dangerous and exasperating of all salmon-tactics, moving around in slow circles and shaking his head from side to side, with sullen pertinacity. This is called "jigging," and unless it can be stopped, the result ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... unfortunate!" complained Mrs. Kemble. "If it had only happened a little earlier, or a little later! To have all one's preparations upset and one's plans frustrated is exasperating. Were it not for that journey, Helen would have been married by this time. People come ostensibly to express sympathy, but in ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... up to that day, concerning the violence and lust of Sextus Tarquin, the horrid violation of Lucretia and her lamentable death, the bereavement of Tricipitinus, to whom the cause of his daughter's death was more exasperating and deplorable than the death itself. To this was added the haughty insolence of the king himself, and the sufferings and toils of the people, buried in the earth in cleansing sinks and sewers; that the Romans, the conquerors of all the surrounding states, instead of warriors had become labourers ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... let you out on the hat question," he said, evading the real issue and laying stress upon the small matter of obedience, as is the exasperating habit of parents. "You don't see any of the bunch going around bareheaded. Only ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... traps seemed to desire to test him. There was an exasperating delay and some questions; then the traps were sprung with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... knew she deserved no less from these kind if narrow-minded people. Denah smiled triumphantly; Julia felt she deserved that too; moreover, Denah's nose was so pink and her face so swelled with tears, that the smile was more amusing than exasperating. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... himself with rage over the exasperating piece of folly he had witnessed. Hang it all! if he had not been so seriously concerned to get to the end of his long years of service he would certainly have put a spoke in the wheel of this young gentleman, the senior-lieutenant. But no; that would be too foolish. Only a few days ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... insect pests (excepting, perhaps, harvest bugs) are so utterly unendurable as the "little, busy, thirsty fly." It seems odd, too, as he neither stings nor bites, that he should be so objectionable; but his tickly method of walking over your nose or down your neck, and the exasperating pertinacity with which he refuses to take "no" for an answer when you flick him delicately with a handkerchief, but "cuts" and comes again, maddens you until you rise, bloody-minded in your wrath, and, seizing the nearest sledgehammer, fall ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... largely by the exercise of the most trying—and, to those who do not possess it, the most exasperating—of all the virtues: Patience. Patience which, moreover, was coupled with a rare sense of homely humor. When pettifogging scandal-mongers sneaked up to him with tales that Grant, his most successful commander, ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... have seen, did not run quite so much risk as others, owing to his mother's affection for him. The Prime Minister's son, also, and Prince Ramonja, made no effort to conceal their opinions, though they were wise enough to refrain from exasperating the angry Queen ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Catherine's. Not an unusual occurrence with me, but on a more than usually important mission. I needn't note down how I achieved it. Am I likely to forget my impotent speeches? Still, she had given me plenty of excuse for supposing she liked me, and I said so. And then Catherine laughed her exasperating little laugh that always dries up all sentiment on the spot, and makes my blood boil with anger. "I like you?" she repeated mockingly; "not at all! not in the least! What can you be ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... the symphonic poem; striving, however, in vain. For it has none of Strauss's glitter and point, and is rather dull and soggy. The great, bristling, pathetic climax is of the sort that has become exasperating and vulgar, rather than exciting, since Wagner and Tchaikowsky first exploited it. On the whole, the work is much less "Pelleas et Melisande" than it is "Pelleas und Melisanda." And the other works of this period, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... kind, and that there is a boundlessness in his nature at times trying to his patience. He looks at the map of the German Empire and painfully admits that the present frontiers and area are practically those bequeathed by the great William. To a divine-right monarch this is exasperating. The loftiest ambition of a sovereign is to have the national ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... assault him with edged tools, or leave him altogether, or strip off her few remaining garments and go naked. But for the vastly more various and numerous crimes of omission—and in sum they are more exasperating and intolerable than even overt felony—she cannot be brought to book ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... that same exasperating sort of reassurance which the Mother Superior had used, "Yes, we ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... Mr Benden was in the exasperating position of the Persian satraps, when they could find no occasion against this Daniel. He was angry with the Bishop for releasing Alice at his own request, angry with the neighbouring squires, who had promoted the release, angry with Roger Hall for not allowing himself ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... exasperating deliberateness, one of them turned and announced that the blue rosette was awarded to number "1104." Andrea's cheeks went scarlet, and the air was rent by cries of "Urra! ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... judgment to be pronounced against us by a sister Government which was standing in solemn treaty relations with us as a unit in our nationality! What did England suppose had become of our Northern manhood, of the spirit of which she herself once felt the force? There was something alike humiliating and exasperating in this implied advice from her, that we should tamely and unresistingly submit to a division of continent, bays, and rivers, according to terms defiantly and insultingly proposed by those who had a joint ownership with ourselves. How would England receive such advice from us ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... of three speeches, debate on motion for Judicial Inquiry turned aside to deal with critical situation in Ireland, it rose to heights commensurate with the national interests involved. Yesterday Winston, towards close of speech particularly exasperating to Opposition, suddenly sheathed his sword and waved the olive branch. The happy accident of Prince Arthur's chancing to resume debate this afternoon gave it at outset the lofty tone echoed and preserved by Carson and the Premier. As the latter said, it was impossible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... life—how easy to slip down, how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil, began to swear and wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mention the danger of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move. We had to climb in single file, which jeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at once, like boys on a pond, ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Within stood an easy chair or two and a small table which was presently spread with a linen cloth, set with porcelain dishes, and garnished with silverware. All the way down the Athabasca Thompson had found every meal beset with exasperating difficulties, fruitful of things that offended both his stomach and his sense of fitness. He had not been able to accommodate himself to the necessity of juggling a tin plate beside a campfire, of eating with one hand and fending ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... from the monster's flank. And this time it definitely abandoned the quarry behind it. With a scream like the keening of a dozen steam whistles, it charged back over its tracks toward the distant pigmies that were inflicting such exasperating punishment ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... become as exasperating as the astronomers, for they give us a glimpse of incalculable wealth in the meanest substance. For wealth is measured by the available energy of the world, and if a few ounces of anything would drive an engine or manufacture nitrogenous fertilizer from the air all our troubles would be over. Kipling ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... only the chairman of an executive board, and presents a complete contrast to the President of the United States, who is virtually a monarch, elected for a short reign. Sir Henry Maine says in his book on "Popular Government," that somewhat exasperating but always instructive arraignment of democracy: "On the face of the Constitution of the United States, the resemblance of the President of the United States to the European king, and especially to the King of Great Britain, is too obvious to mistake. The President has, in various degrees, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... as they become in her later novels: the plot is desultory, and the principal characters lack interest. We feel, in the presence of the virtue and sense of Elinor, a rebuke which never affects us in the same way with Jane Bennet, Fanny Price, or Anne Elliot; while Marianne is often exasperating. Edward Ferrars is rather stiff; and Colonel Brandon is so far removed from us that we never ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... would have an argument. He would bring up each case and confront her with it; and how very unloving a procedure was that—and how exasperating was his manner as he ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... kept on. The hair should be arranged simply, but not allowed to hang in a loose braid, unless you are very sure you will not see any but the patient, and even then it may be unwise, as a braid of hair has an exasperating way of slipping from its proper place (hanging down the back) and dipping into whatever you are stooping over. Dressed thus, with night shoes to protect the feet, one can lie down on a lounge and sleep very comfortably, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... the "Bible Defense of Slavery" and was going upstairs three steps at a stride, when I came upon Camille and Estelle. My aim was to get Harry's revolver to him before he should have the exasperating surprise of finding Gholson armed, and to contrive a pretext for so doing; and happily a word from the two sisters gave me my cue. With the fire-arms of both officers I came downstairs and out upon ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... plagued his landladies by insisting upon method and routine, by his faddish attention to domestic minutiae; he now learnt what it was to be subjected to the same kind of despotism, exercised with much more exasperating persistence. Whereas Mrs. Elderfield had scrupulously obeyed every direction given by her lodger, Mrs. Jordan was evidently resolved that her husband should live, move, and have his being in the strictest accordance with her own ideal. Not in any spirit of nagging, or ill-tempered unreasonableness; ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... repeated that exasperating formula of words, a door opened at the end of the passage. My voice had evidently reached the ears of somebody in the back parlor. Who the person was I could not see, but I heard the rustle of a woman's dress. My situation was growing desperate, my suspicions were aroused—I determined to risk ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... the theologian with exasperating coolness. 'I thought it possible that even your blind prejudice might not refuse to listen to a simple mathematical demonstration of the possibility of a true scientific religion, but I find that I was mistaken. I am not annoyed—not at all. I prefer to look with lenity ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... in the scattered farms for miles around. Once, when we were passing under high rocks, he shouted with such a terrible voice that he brought some loose stones rattling down upon the road so close to us that my head, as well as his own, nearly paid the penalty for thus exasperating the peaceful night. This was either the effect of vibration or of the sudden movement of some bird or other creature that he had ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... like this better," Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight of the other adherents. "Those cowards were exasperating me at last. For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all the Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... time hitherto, for in addition to the ordinary routine of making and breaking camp twice a day, Garth had now the four horses to look after. Catching them was a task of uncertain duration, even though they were turned out hobbled; in particular, the exasperating Timoosis developed the proficiency of a very circus horse, in walking on his hind legs. And once caught, there was all the business of saddling, ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... passed, her reticence upon all personal matters became exasperating. At the end of the first month she demanded and received her salary. Moreover, refusing our escort, she tramped three dusty miles to the village post-office, and returned penniless but jubilant. At supper Ajax said—"It's more blessed to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Mrs. Whaling permeated the post in an ecstasy of soulful comfort, shedding prayers and prophecies of similar fortune for the —th with the impartiality of a saint. She even succeeded in scaring Mrs. Turner half to death and exasperating Mrs. Wilkins to the verge of a tirade, but the latter had contented herself with the spirited, though ungrateful announcement that when it came to having hearses and mutes it wouldn't be Mrs. Whaling they'd inquire for. "Matters are bad enough without your making 'em worse, ma'am," ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... There is nothing more exasperating to the mind of a man than to find all his kindness and favour slighted; neither is the Lord Jesus so provoked with anything, as when sinners abuse his means of grace; if it be barren and fruitless under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... went on sardonically, "you know that too. You know that I loathe and detest life—that I hate the morning because it begins a new day. Oh, I am bored to extinction, you know all that, you most exasperating woman. I hate"—he suddenly seemed to see that he was giving her pain, and the next words were muttered to himself—"no, I love the pity in ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... they twang on their harp of a thousand strings. At breakfast, this morning, when Jack passed me the corn-bread, I said innocently, 'Why, what have we here?' 'It is manna that fell in the night,' answered Jack, with an exasperating snicker. 'You didn't know mutton, but I thought, being a Sunday-school teacher, you would know something about manna.' (N.B.—He alludes to that time I took the infant class for Miss Jones, and they all ran out to see a military funeral procession.) 'I wish you knew something about manners,' snapped ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... their merits, as the recipients of their direct teaching, should be regarded with a feeling resembling jealousy. In Europe, the difficulty of getting into any sort of relations with the fountain-head of Eastern philosophy is regarded as due to an exasperating exclusiveness on the part of the adepts in that philosophy, which renders it practically worth no man's while to devote himself to the task of soliciting their instruction. But neither feeling is reasonable when considered in the light ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... into negotiations with the Calvinist leader, Gui de Bray. His efforts failed completely, the Calvinists declaring that "they would rather die than become Lutherans." From that time, owing partly to Philip's policy in exasperating the people by the application of the placards and partly also to the fanatic attitude adopted by the new sect, the Reform entered on a new phase in the Low Countries. No concessions on the part of the Government ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... are some compositions which present difficulties which few work hard enough to surmount. Among these might be mentioned the Godowsky-Chopin etudes (particularly the etude in A flat, Opus 25, No. 1, which is always especially exasperating for the student sufficiently advanced to approach it); the Don Juan Fantasie of Liszt; the Brahms-Paganini variations and the Beethoven, Opus 106, which, when properly played, demands enormous technical ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... October 29th, 1887. It had for its object the negotiation of a treaty with America on several outstanding questions.] but a man of one-tenth of his talent ought to have seen the folly of widening breaches and exasperating all passions as a preliminary to charging himself with a business that eminently requires a ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... too hard. This is a very exasperating man to meet because fortune usually favours him. Either he flukes immoderately or he does not leave well. He is usually a hearty fellow with no sense of shame. Perhaps he says "Sorry;" but he adds, "It ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... there multiplied by others direr yet and unknown before. Man's blended duty and interest, in such a case, are to try to see the interior beauty and essential kindness of his fate, to adorn it and embrace it, fomenting his resignation with the sweet lotions of faith and peace, not exasperating his wounds with the angry pungents of suspicion, alarm, and complaint. At the worst, amidst all our personal disappointments, losses, and decay, "the view of the great universal whole of nature," as Humboldt says, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... through all his confused thoughts the exasperating consciousness that it was nonsense to be frightened, or even disturbed; that, in truth, nothing whatever had happened. But he could not lay hold of it to any comforting purpose. Some perverse force within him insisted on raising new phantoms in his path, and directing ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Pringle in his most complacent tones. "I want to talk about myself, always, Stella May Vorhis; we've come thirty miles and I've heard Christopher Foy, Foy, Foy, all the way! It's exasperating! It's sickening!" ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... ought never to have been. He could not make her speak, and his words of reproach might as well have been given to the winds as to that cold, statue-like woman, who mechanically laid aside the fanciful costume in which she was arrayed, doing everything with a deliberation and coolness more exasperating to Richard than open defiance would have been. A second knock at the door, and another servant appeared, saying, apologetically, that the note he held in his hand had been left at the office for Mrs. Markham early in the morning, but ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... poetry is in verse; verse is identified with the very greatest poetry, and the very greatest poetry can only be understood and savoured by people who have put themselves through a considerable mental discipline. To others it is an exasperating weariness. Hence chiefly the fearful prejudice of the average lettered man against the mere form ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... are fair scholars, firm friends, and good planners; they make few mistakes, and succeed pretty well in all they do. Order does not make a genius; but a genius without order is exasperating when he is a man, and is only pardoned for his want of order when he is a boy because he is expected to do better each day. Begin with orderly habits; next day try order in thought; and then will follow naturally ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... unintentional—illuminating testimony to the difference between the Irish and the British temperament. And this testimony supports the point I am trying to make—that the "typical" logicless, inconsequential Irish mind, so winsome and so exasperating, is not the kind of brain ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... touch with others nor others with it. 'Getting touch' seemed easy on a map and was often done in statements over the telephone. Tangible relations were more difficult and efforts to obtain them often involved most exasperating situations, for whole nights could be spent meandering in search of positions, which in reality were only a few hundred yards distant. Total absence of guiding landmarks was freely remarked as the most striking characteristic ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... gallops to her house away. Trembling he seeks the young princess— Tattiana finds in loneliness. Together moments one or two They sat, but conversation's flow Deserted Eugene. He, distraught, Sits by her gloomily, desponds, Scarce to her questions he responds, Full of exasperating thought. He fixedly upon her stares— She ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... message to John O'Gorman at Washington demanding instant help. Since all counterfeiting cases belonged distinctly to the Secret Service Department she had little doubt her father would respond as soon as the affairs at the office would permit him to do so. But the delay was exasperating, nevertheless. Indeed, Josie was so sure that the crisis of her case was imminent that she determined to watch old Cragg's house every night until his arrest could be made. If he attempted to escape she would arrest him herself, with the aid of the little revolver she ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... stamp in open court by a jury of his peers. The man whose imprudences and self-indulgences have made his liver slothful, his stomach rebellious, and wrecked his constitution in other ways, may—probably does—become an exasperating little tyrant, full of all manner of petty selfishness, which saps the comfort of others, as acid vapors corrode metals, but does that make him a 'scoundrel?' Opinions vary. His much enduring feminine relatives would probably resent such a query with tearful indignation, while unprejudiced ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... sympathy with my refusal to accept the opportunity that was mine to fulfil the destiny of my sex and at the same time become the wife of the man she had long wished me to marry. The power of money was dear to her. She understood it well, and my failure to appreciate it properly was peculiarly exasperating to her. Discussion was useless. It never got farther than where it started. If I said that which I wanted much to say, it would merely mean hearing again what I did not want to hear. Concerning the pursuit of a happy livelihood we were not ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... tone was very exasperating, and Eleanor straightened haughtily. "I don't think either of us need worry about being too charitable just yet awhile," she began. Then she caught herself up sharply. "Don't let's get to bickering, Jean. You know I ought to ask her, and you know how much I want to. But I'm ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... yet whether the machine is knocked out of commission or not," muttered Josh, disconsolately, as he proceeded to hastily examine into matters; "but it would be exasperating for us if that happened, just when we're close to the battle line, and want to get around so lively. Hang ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... do not think you will have the opportunity to reject a gift from him," replied Rosie, with what seemed to Lulu exasperating coolness. "However, I sincerely regret having said anything to rouse that fearful temper of yours. I should not have spoken so had I known you ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... of the Dutch to seek compensation and restitution of their property. Since Downing was a very exasperating man with whom to deal they were undoubtedly pleased when toward the end of May, 1664, he suddenly returned to England[96]. The Dutch, therefore, decided to send VanGogh to London, with the hope that he could obtain more satisfactory results there than had ever been ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... but when he saw him expelled out of the commonwealth, and how impatiently he took his banishment, he ventured to communicate it to him, and desired his assistance, showing him the king of Persia's letters, and exasperating him against the Greeks, as a villainous, ungrateful people. However, Themistocles immediately rejected the proposals of Pausanias, and wholly refused to be a party in the enterprise, though he never revealed his communications, nor disclosed the conspiracy ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... useless to enter into all the Psychological details which marked the course of my passion for the Countess, and to explain to you more fully the attraction of curiosity which she offered me more and more every day. It was getting exasperating, and the more so, as she resisted me as stoutly as the shyest of innocents could have done, but at the end of a month of mad Satanism, I saw what her game was. Do you know what she had thought of? She meant to make me Bakounine's prompter, or, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Yes, Tommy was exasperating to him still as in the long ago, and Cathro said this maliciously, yet feeling that he did a risky thing, so convinced was he by old experience that you were getting in the way of a road-machine when ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... proper, sacred and profane. In almost all of these there is noticeable an extraordinary inequality, the same in kind, if not in degree, as that on which we have commented in the case of The Flaming Heart. Crashaw is never quite so great as there; but he is often quite as small. His exasperating lack of self-criticism has sometimes led selectors to make a cento out of his poems—notably in the case of the exceedingly pretty "Wishes to His Unknown Mistress," beginning, "Whoe'er she be, That not impossible she, That shall command ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... the image of a boy's face, a swarthy little boy, grinning, grinning with a horrible knowingness and pointing his finger—an accusing finger. It had been the most exasperating, humiliating, and shameful incident in the bishop's career. It was the afternoon for his fortnightly address to the Shop-girls' Church Association, and he had been seized with a panic fear, entirely irrational ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... unhampered, the free, the personal individual medium. No water, no oil, no palette, no squeezing of tubes or wiping of tints; no scraping, scumbling, or other dilatory and exasperating necessities. Just a piece of coal, the size of a cigarette, held flat between the thumb and the forefinger, a sheet of paper, and then "let go." Yes, one thing more—care must be taken to have this forefinger fastened to a sure, knowing, and ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... girl had been perforce clandestine, because the disapproval of the holy fathers was matched in thoroughness by that of Diego de Susan. It had been vexatious enough on that account not to be able to boast himself the favoured of the beautiful and opulent Isabella de Susan; it was exasperating to discover now a new and more imperative reason for this ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... himself most bravely in this last war," added Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... kinnikinick and fire smoke; the mingled smell of tobacco and skins made it nauseating. Colonel Cummings would gladly have hurried his errand. But Indian etiquette forbade haste. He was forced to contain himself and let the council proceed with customary and exasperating slowness. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... drearily over the future that lay before them all. How was he to bear himself, he wondered, under circumstances so exasperating? She was free, and he knew her to be free—for Cyril would never claim her—and yet she would regard herself ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... nationalised we may have to be licensed before we can burn coal or go away for a week-end; if the Eugenists have their way a licence will be necessary before we can propagate the species; and before we can get a licence to do anything we shall have to go through an exasperating process of filling in forms innumerable, inconsistent, overlapping and incomprehensible. Finance is the latest victim of this melancholy tendency. Under the guise of an attempt to give greater freedom to it a system has been introduced which makes a Treasury licence necessary, with ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... which might give rise to this horrible doubt in other men's minds now struck him, one after another, as plain, obvious, and exasperating. That a childless old bachelor should leave his fortune to a friend's two sons was the most simple and natural thing in the world; but that he should leave the whole of it to one alone—of course people would wonder, and whisper, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... trial. By this time the prepossession of the common people in her favour had risen to such a pitch of enthusiasm, that the most palpable truths which appeared on the other side, had no other effect than that of exasperating them to the most dangerous degree of rage and revenge. Some of the witnesses for Squires, though persons of unblemished character, were so intimidated, that they durst not enter the court; and those who had resolution enough to give evidence in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... recognize his civil power. General Riley, however, with that rare diplomacy which seems to have attached to all Federal military people when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people was preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community was left to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction, himself issued the proclamation for a general convention, which is itself a gem. The delegates met in Monterey, at Colton ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... convicts rob a drunken soldier of his uniform, and, disguised as officers, go to India. The drunken soldier is arrested as an escaped convict and dragged to prison. The entire population of Great Britain embark for India in a neat pasteboard steamer. Exasperating drums beat until the audience becomes too much confused to notice the astounding evolutions of the military. After a few hours of this sort of thing some intelligent carpenter ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... things more trying to the patience than the long wasted days of waiting. Exasperating as it is to see the tons of coal melting away with the smallest mileage to our credit, one has at least the satisfaction of active fighting and the hope of better fortune. To wait idly is the worst of conditions. You can imagine how often and how restlessly we climbed to the crow's nest and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... conviction; "because ye're both, so to speak, in a line o' idees and business that draws ye together,—to lean on each other and trust each other ez pardners. Not that YE are ezakly her ekal," he went on, with a return to his previous exasperating naivete, "though I've heerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're still young, but in matters o' this kind there is allers one ez hez to be looked up to by the other,—and gin'rally the wrong one. She looks up to you, Mr. Editor,—it's part of her po'try,—ez she looks down ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... post-boat to Assouan, and then two days on a camel in the Libyan desert, with an Ababdeh guide, and three baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace. However, even two and a half miles an hour mount up in time, and at last, on the third evening, from the blackened slag-heap of a hill which is called the Jebel Kurkur, Hilary Joyce looked down upon a distant clump of palms, and thought that this cool patch ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... generally of 'wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of mankind'; of 'clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious'; of taking themselves to be a 'chosen few,' despising the multitude, and retorting the dislike which their arrogance has provoked by using still more exasperating language.[564] He suggested that they should do more justice to 'the Romillys and the Broughams,' who had been the real and judicious reformers; and he illustrated the errors of Bentham by especial reference to Mill's arguments upon government and education. There ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... now? I think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as flagons of cod-liver oil to me. Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana still keep her vows through all the exasperating changes of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided aspirants practise their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? What do people go to see at the theatres, and what do they eat and ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... is one of those exasperating books which you feel you ought to present to your young friends, yet find yourself unwilling to part with." WILLIAM B. ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... just as exasperating as all lawyers," she said with a show of impatience. "Do you know that your client has fallen heir to a very large fortune? And do you know that he could pay the principal as well as ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... was quite at leisure, and, full of smiling interest, awaited his victim, laying forth his unpleasant little tools with the exasperating alacrity of his kind. Glad to be released from any share in the operation, Betty retired to the back window to be as far away as possible, and for half an hour was so absorbed in her book that poor Thorny might have groaned dismally ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... It was exasperating for the hounds thus to be held in leash when the game was speeding from them, with the scent warm, but there ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... not Lady Janet's business to speak. She listened with the blandest attention. She waited with the most exasperating silence to ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... astonishing grace and ingenuity; his accounts of his condition often sufficient to bring the tears into the manliest eyes; and his ceaseless and vain efforts to procure his liberation mortifying when we think of himself, and exasperating when we think of the petty despot who detained him in so long, so degrading, and so worse ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... functioning. On the other hand, there is a peculiar abhorrence of murder by night, poisoning, drowning in a ship's hold, because, while all the physiological machinery for action is on hand, there is no chance to work it. It is a most exasperating thing to die without making a fight for it. The so-called American duel is an abhorrent thing, because life or death is decided by a turn of the dice, not on the racially developed principle of the ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... care about riding under an almost tropical sun, nor did he care to expose his horse to the exasperating attacks of forest-flies; so he went about with the Duchess and her daughter in Lady Mabel's pony carriage—he saw schools and cottages—and told the two ladies all the grand things he meant to do on his Irish estate when he ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... Lower Cascades to such a degree that it left me only a narrow neck of firm ground to advance over toward the point occupied by the Indians. On this neck of land the hostiles had taken position, as I soon learned by frequent shots, loud shouting, and much blustering; they, by the most exasperating yells and indecent exhibitions, daring me to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... of his inconstancy as its effect. It may well be, of course, that the "dear L.," whose moral and mental graces her lover had celebrated in such superfine, sentimental fashion, was a commonplace person enough. That she was really a woman of the exquisite stolidity of Mrs. Shandy, and that her exasperating feats as an assentatrix did, as has been suggested, supply the model for the irresistibly ludicrous colloquies between the philosopher and his wife, there is no sufficient warrant for believing. But it is quite possible that the daily companion of one ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Lanyard smiled an exasperating smile, lounged low in his chair, and looked at the deck beams—taking occasion to note that the tell-tale had swung to true ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... 84th battery. All day the Boer snipers clung to the column, as they had done to French's cavalry in the same district. Mere route marches without a very definite and adequate objective appear to be rather exasperating than overawing, for so long as the column is moving onwards the most timid farmer may be tempted into long-range fire from the flanks or rear. The river was reached and the Boers driven from a position which they had taken up, but their signal ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a direct ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... armored, and armed, the Tennessee must have been a very exasperating vessel to her commander. She had two grave defects; the first, perhaps unavoidable from the slender resources of the Confederacy, was lack of speed. Her engines were not built for her, but taken from a high-pressure river steamboat, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... case he would not pledge himself either. I put before him as strongly as I could all the various arguments for resisting this desperate measure of making Peers (to which he was well inclined to assent), and pressed upon him the importance of not exasperating the Tories and the Conservative party to the last degree, and placing such an impassable barrier between public men on both sides as should make it impossible for them to reunite for their ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... tingling with the old desire to hurt him, flick him in the raw, make him wince in his exasperating complacency. Then, "I've said it anyhow. I'm trying to show an interest in you—as ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Weight had no eyes for her aged neighbor. Every faculty she possessed was bent on proving the identity of the stranger. He kept his face turned from her in a way that was most exasperating. Could it be the man she saw last night? If her eyes were going as bad as that, she must see the optician next time he came through the village, and be fitted a new pair of glasses; it was scandalous, after paying him the price she did no more ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... face had taken upon itself that appalling and exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but drive others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil between their own feelings and their opponents'. "I'll tell you all about it after I've put up the horse," he said hurriedly, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... carry away the lashing of the heavy relieving-tackle. The chain then ran over the windlass, and, before anything could be done, the pointer to which the end of the chain was attached had been torn from the bolts, and our best ground-tackle was lost overboard. It was an exasperating accident. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... to you," she said, with that exasperating coldness of the voice, "that I was equal to the situation. I suppose you thought Mr. Grimes had only to beckon and I would joyfully answer. I'll have you know, Monty Brewster, right now, that I am quite able to choose my friends, and to handle them. Mr. Grimes has character and I like him. He ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... written word made her an admirable typist. But not all at once. To say that she brought to her really horrible task a respect, a meticulous devotion, would give you no idea of the child's attitude; it was a blind, savage superstition that would have been exasperating if it had not been so heart-rending. It cleared gradually until ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... postponed, which he supported in a spirited address, mainly on the ground of the great inconvenience that must be suffered from the postponement of the Corn Bill. The motion of the Secretary of State would produce a long, exciting, and exasperating debate. Time would be lost—for what? To advance one stage of a measure which it was avowedly not the intention of the government to press at the present moment. Sir William concluded with a very earnest appeal to Lord George Bentinck and his friends, who might ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... girl's prejudices against the North, but not in her antipathy. The thought that Clancy had waned in his regard or that he could even think of a Northern girl after having "kep' company" with Mara, had been exasperating, but now Aun' Sheba began to suspect that the estrangement was not wholly his fault. "She set agin him by his gwine Norf an' his habin' to do wid de folks dat she an' ole Missus hates. Doan see why he is mad at me 'bout it. Reckon he's mad anyhow an' can't speak peac'ble to nobody. Well, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe |
