"Irritable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Rotherwood at the centre of the upper table sat Cedric the Saxon, irritable at the delay of his evening meal, and impatient for the presence of his favourite clown Wamba, and the return of his swineherd Gurth. "They have been carried off to serve the Norman lords," he exclaimed. "But ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... not patient enough with him," she sighed, as better feelings warmed in her heart. "I was always a little irritable. But I will try to do better. If he were not so close about money, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... ruins of all the necessities of nature and all the prescriptions of society. But what these want in personality they possess in number, in recurrency, in invulnerability. The spirit of man, an agent indeed of curious power and boundless resource, but trembling with sensibilities, tender and irritable, goes out against the inexorable conditions of destiny, the lifeless forces of nature, or the ferocious cruelty of the multitude, and long before the hands are weary or the invention exhausted, the heart may be broken ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Christmas Day that the best of it was over in the morning—the stockings and the presents and the postman, leaving long, over-eaten, irritable hours to be got ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... upper part of the parietal bone to the base of the brain. The cerebral membranes of this side also seem to be painfully sensitive, the hands and feet becoming cold, and sweat appears on the brows and palms. The disposition becomes irritable and intolerant, anxiety, trembling and restlessness are apparent.... I have met with headaches of this type which yielded readily to coffee and with many more in which the indicated remedy failed to act until the use ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... enemies in the world, and that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not fond of quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his father's irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never accounted to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his father was faulty in ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped, and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry's eye. But that old friend's face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to meet the district attorney's eye, instead, and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... passport, sir, my servant will show it to you. No? You wish to welcome me to the place, and to offer your services? I am infinitely flattered. If you have any authority to shorten the performances of your town band, you would be doing me a kindness to exert it. My nerves are irritable, and I dislike music. Where is the landlord? No; I want to see my rooms. I don't want your arm; I can get upstairs with the help of my stick. Mr. Mayor and Mr. Doctor, we need not detain one another any longer. I ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... finished; and Mustapha not being able to procure any more, they were read a second time. After which the pacha, who felt the loss of his evening's amusement, became first puzzled how to pass away his time; then he changed to hypochondriacism, and finally became so irritable, that even Mustapha himself, at times, approached him with some ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... she would have made haste to tell her mistress all about it, thinking no harm; unfortunately it happened that for some days Miss Starbrow had been in one of her worst moods, and during these sullen irritable periods Fan seldom spoke ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... an irritable baboon, I have little to do. The marchioness—a strong woman is also, mercifully, too much engaged upon works of supererogation, which, in a rich bass, she styles "her manifold duties," to observe my existence. Lord Pomfret Fresne, however, a gilded youth with three thousand a year, finds me extremely ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His face was broad but his features were sharp, his cheeks were scorched into a dusky red by two fiery little gray eyes; his nose turned up, and the corners of his mouth turned down, pretty much like the muzzle of an irritable pug-dog. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... command of the most ruthless severity; or as smiting Uzzah to death because the unfortunate man thoughtlessly, but naturally enough, put out his hand to stay the ark from falling—can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man? There appears to me, then, to be no reason to doubt that the notion of likeness to man, which was indubitably held of the ghost Elohim, was carried out consistently throughout the whole series of Elohim, and that Jahveh-Elohim was thought of as ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... go at that," smiled Mr. Prenter. "You may even, sometime, if it will please Mr. Bascomb, hand him your resignation. I will see to it that it doesn't get past the board of directors. Mr. Bascomb is irritable, and sometimes he is a downright crank, but he is valuable to us just the same. We feel, too, Reade, that you and Hazelton are just the men we need to put this breakwater ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... for part of each to read and write and market for the old recluse, and he grew less formidable, but not more likable, as he became more familiar. He was an extraordinary example of a human being converted into a money-making and accumulating machine. He was not especially irritable; indeed his physical powers were weak and dying of every species of starvation; but his coldness was supernatural. Fortunately for Katherine, his former housekeeper was greedy and extravagant, so that his niece's management seemed wise ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... walk forwards and be shot at in a city which now held little for him but danger and ennui. Not even Manuela's fortunes could prevail against boredom. As he lay upon his hateful bed, disgust with Spain grew upon him hand over hand. He became irritable. To Gil Perez he announced his determination. This sort of ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... ZVEZDNTSEVA. Wife of Leond. Stout; pretends to be young; quite taken up with the conventionalities of life; despises her husband, and blindly believes in her doctor. Very irritable. ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... irritable mood, and his voice sounded as though he were ready to quarrel with anyone on the smallest pretext. It was therefore with an exclamation of impatience that he realized that Henri, with quick impulsiveness, had gripped him by the arm and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... themselves definitely unfit for it. Indeed, although patience and the hopeful spirit do not figure on the list of qualifications demanded of candidates, they might well head it, for most certainly an irritable or despondent woman could not find any work for which she was more unsuited, or in which she was more likely to be ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... are in some cases irritable, and great restlessness and involuntary movement, accompanied even with twisting of the neck, shows itself. This will yield to skilful cooling of the spinal nerves with damp ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... I've lost all that country road, and now I'm on the fringe of London. And I might have loitered all the morning! Ugh! Thank Heaven, sir, you have not the irritable temperament, that you are not goaded to madness by your endogenous sneers, by the eternal wrangling of an uncomfortable soul and body. I tell you, I lead a cat and dog life—But what IS the use of talking?—It's all of ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... replied the lieutenant quietly. To the lads he said softly: "Never mind him. He is always irritable ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... sister, was married in her sixteenth year to Christian VII., king of Denmark. This monarch was addicted to licentious and degrading pleasures, and was a prince of weak intellect, irritable and capricious, open to flattery, and easily deceived by the crafty. Soon after his marriage he visited England, France, and Germany, where he might, if he had possessed intellect, have obtained such knowledge as would have made him a better man. He returned, however, to his dominions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... chagrin. As is usually the case with invalids, he was at times inclined to be decidedly irritable, as was the case ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... not the only one who was impatient under the unreasonable absence of Mr Ruthven. Poor Mr Elphinstone, ill and irritable, suffered not an hour to pass without vexing himself and others, wondering at, and lamenting, his delay. Lilias had much ado to keep him from saying angry and bitter things about his nephew, and exaggerated the few details she ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... snore which begins lightly, delicately, faintly soprano, goes down the scale a note with every breath, and, after keeping the listener tense with expectation, ends with an explosion that tears the very air. I was more and more irritable: I sat on the edge of the berth and hoped the snorer would choke to death. He had considerable vitality, however; he withstood one shock after another and survived to start again with new vigor. In ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had spoken of the Scottish bagpipes as "bugpipes." This gave some offense to his Scottish admirers. A great many persons told him that the word was "bagpipes," and not "bugpipes." But he replied with irritable obstinacy: ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... continued their conversation about lawn tennis and riding, as if Ted were not there, but the lieutenant observed that Miss Croffut's eyes strayed often toward Ted, and it made him irritable. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... the fourth he reappeared, haggard, unkempt, a furtive look haunting his eyes, sullen for once, irritable, who had never been irritable before—to confess his failure. Cross-examined further, he answered with unaccustomed fierceness: "I seed nowt, I tell ye. Who's the liar ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... anomalous, her habits were lawless, her antipathies were many and intense, and she was liable to explosions of ungovernable anger. Some said that was not the worst of it. At nearly fifteen years old, when she was growing fast, and in an irritable state of mind and body, she had had a governess placed over her for whom she had conceived an aversion. It was whispered among a few who knew more of the family secrets than others, that, worried and exasperated by the presence and jealous ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... considered. He had a fairly clear idea of the conditions at the ranch; daily riding, some little reading, and a great deal too much of each other. A sick man, too, unhappy in his exile, chafing against his restrictions, lonely and irritable. The girl, early seeing her mistake, and Clark's jealousy of her husband. The door into their apartment closing, the thousand and one unconscious intimacies between man and wife, the breakfast for two going up the stairs, and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the photometers, we the irritable goldleaf and tinfoil that measure the accumulations of the subtle element. We know the authentic effects of the true fire through every one of its ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to talk with Webb for the next few days. He had seen the cloud on Burt's brow, and had observed that he was suspicious, unhappy, and irritable; that reason and good sense were not in the ascendant; and he understood his brother sufficiently well to believe that his attack must run its natural course, as like fevers had done before. From what he had seen he also thought that Amy could deal with Burt better than any one else, for although ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... is thick and dark; my second is connected with the sea; my whole is an acid concrete salt, or some one keen and irritable. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... She was thinking. Believing that the men were seeking her only, she knew that their intention would be directed from her companion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... of this conversation the emperor seemed overstrained and irritable. As William II advances in years, family traditions, the reactionary tendencies of the court, and especially the impatience of the soldiers, obtain a greater empire over his mind. Perhaps he feels some slight jealousy of the popularity acquired by his son, who flatters the passions of the Pan-Germans ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... deficient portion of internal and proper warmth, minds of this class seek in the crowd circum fana for a warmth in common, which they do not possess singly. Cold and phlegmatic in their own nature, like damp hay, they heat and inflame by co-acervation; or like bees they become restless and irritable through the increased temperature of collected multitudes. Hence the German word for fanaticism, (such at least was its original import,) is derived from the swarming of bees, namely, schwaermen, schwaermerey. The passion being in an inverse proportion to the insight,—that the more vivid, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... house on the other side of the square, and to watching how black shadows kept flitting to and fro behind their panes as the faint, lugubrious notes of a guitar made themselves heard. And a high-pitched, irritable voice kept repeating at intervals: "Allow me. Pray, permit me to speak," and being answered by a voice which intermittently shot into the silence, as into a bottomless sack, the words: "No, do you wait a moment, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... philosophers, and now, urged by Selene and her complaints, I have determined to defer the consideration of the question no longer. There is a class which has recently become conspicuous among men; they are idle, quarrelsome, vain, irritable, lickerish, silly, puffed up, arrogant, and, in Homeric phrase, vain cumberers of the earth. These men have divided themselves into bands, each dwelling in a separate word-maze of its own construction, and call themselves Stoics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and more farcical names yet. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... fun here, and heavens knows I'm dead tired." The young fellow's accents were those of an irritable, hungry human animal, and ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... a peculiar depression of spirits with hysteric phenomena, although deriving much benefit from the administration of the drug from the hemorrhage caused by uterine fibroids. After taking ergot for three days she felt like crying all the time, became irritable, and stayed in bed, being all day in tears. The natural disposition of the patient was entirely opposed to these manifestations, as she ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... some pleasant glimpses of Cherubini as a man during this serene autumn of his life. Spohr tells us how cordially Cherubini, generally regarded as an austere and irritable man, received him. The world-renowned master, accustomed to handle instruments in great orchestral masses, was not familiar with the smaller compositions known as chamber music, in which the Germans so excelled. He was greatly delighted ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... women—so far as they are simply women—would be glad to find in the man they marry defects so advantageous. But all men of letters (Adolphe, alas! is barely a man of letters), who are beings not a bit less irritable, nervous, fickle and eccentric than women, are far from possessing such solid qualities as those of Adolphe, and I hope they have not all been as ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... Some minds are constitutionally ill-adapted for fellowship with Him because they lack what Keats calls "negative capability"—"that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go a fine isolated verisimilitude, caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge." We have to trust God with His ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In other words, he was as near like the God of the old testament ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... petulant, peevish, cynical, surly, unamiable, inaffable, crabbed, crusty, captious, fractious, churlish, vixenish, querulous, fretful, choleric, touchy, waspish, morose, sullen, ill-natured, irascible acrimonious, irritable; inverse, interchanged. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... proportion in a population estimated at a million and a half, in an island abounding with elephants, with which, independently of casual encounters, voluntary conflicts are daily stimulated by the love of sport or the hope of gain. Were the elephants instinctively vicious or even highly irritable in their temperament, the destruction of human life under the circumstances must have been infinitely greater. It must also be taken into account, that some of the accidents recorded may have occurred in the rutting season, when elephants are subject to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... and as a long convalescence interfered with his dissipated habits, and confined him for some time to his own house, his friends hoped that he would have time and leisure to make some useful reflections. But they were deceived; sickness and suffering only made him more selfish and irritable: poor Jane had already paid a heavy penance for her duplicity, and her obstinacy in marrying him. Mr. Taylor had quarrelled with his partners; and it was the object of his present visit to New York, to persuade his father to make ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are his likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can, what are his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what influences is he now? In a word, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of poor Byron is extremely interesting. I had always a strong attachment to that unfortunate though most richly-gifted man, because I thought I saw that his virtues (and he had many) were his own; and his eccentricities the result of an irritable temperament, which sometimes approached nearly to mental disease. Those who are gifted with strong nerves, a regular temper, and habitual self-command, are not, perhaps, aware how much of what they may think virtue they owe to constitution; and such are but too severe judges of men ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a legal subtlety that he does not appreciate. He has learned his law in the orderly-room, where the qualifications to practise are an irritable temper and a loud voice. However, the practical point is, inspector, that the warrant is irregular. You can't arrest ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... have been on the banks by daylight." Mr. Neckart's sharp, irritable voice jarred somehow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... in an irritable frame of mind. The day had been for him one long round of annoyances. When he commenced his duties that morning, already exasperated by the thought that if the drought continued the produce of his tiny patch of ground would be completely ruined, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... didn't." The tone of Ringsmith's reply was irritable. Peter Knott stopped putting on his gloves and looked ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... peered over at the paper dial of the clock. Once or twice he stirred with a suggestion of impatience. At times his heavy breathing became louder and shorter, and he seemed about to give expression to some irritable thought. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... work, hence she had but little education. She was bright, efficient, well liked by her employers (in one position five years). As to her peculiarities, she was thought to be, perhaps, a little headstrong, and was also described as always very exact, rather quick-tempered and inclined to be irritable ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... spasmodic literature, since it directly promoted the sale of the best authors in whose works he dealt. The craving for an intense and exciting literature Dr. Ray attributes to "feverish pulse, disturbed digestion, and irritable nerves." No doubt he is right,—within limits. But may not a healthy laborer find in the startling effects of the younger Cobb refreshment as precisely adapted to idealize his life, and divert his thoughts from a hard day's work, as that for which the college-professor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... was passing through the Temple with his temper made a little more irritable than usual, it may be by the heat of the sun, it may be by an additional cup of sack, it may be by the thought of an especially stiff piece of reading which was before him—it may be all three together—he met a friar. The priest came along with easy step and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... a hundred shadowy diversions to keep his perverted mind clear and sharp. Here he met only the silence of nature, the sternest accuser of a guilty soul. Reid could not bear the accusation of silence. Under it his mind grew irritable with the inflammation of incipient insanity. In a little while it would break. Even now he was breaking; that was plain in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this fancy of hers. The caprices of sick people were never to be despised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered irritable and exacting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... by Miss Sprotts, the dog resigned his comfortable place with a plaintive growl, but the cat, of a more irritable temperament, set up and made a sudden scratch at her hand, drawing ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... lively business talk with the hostess. He now rose, drank off his glass of wine, and with a significant wink promised to bring the Chevalier back, not perhaps to-morrow or the day after, but in any case in good order and condition. Casanova, however, had suddenly grown distrait and irritable. So cold was his farewell to the fond hostess that, at the carriage door, she whispered a parting word in his ear which was anything ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... in an irritable frame of mind. Agriculture was in a state of depression; manufacturing was not developing as had been expected; the steadily mounting tariffs were working economic disadvantage; the triumph of members of Congress and of the Supreme Court who favored a loose construction ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... wise-headed grey mare loped out to meet him and threw a course of circles around him as he came slowly forward. Plainly she expected him to do something, but what this might be Alcatraz could not tell. Besides, a growing thirst was making him irritable and the insistence of the grey mare made him wish to fasten his teeth over the back of her neck and ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... down, and he was resolved, if his enemy appeared, to give him a run for it. While employed one afternoon in the congenial task of foreclosing a mortgage his creditor begged for another day to raise the money. Tom was irritable on account of the hot weather and talked to him as a good man of the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of hers. And she said ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... those whom Nature has qualified to administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold, from the love of honorable danger in a generous cause: but, with or without right, a revolution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... make children desire to remove the sufferings of others. Various circumstances increase the feeling of pity, as when the sufferers are beloved by us, or are morally good. It is confirmatory of this view, that the most compassionate are those whose nerves are easily irritable, or whose experience of ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... back to the days of school and placed father as a rather irritable person, vaguely reputed to be something of an ogre in ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... unfit to go. No doubt he felt unusually irritable. "By the holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "I wish there wasn't a baby under the Canopy!"—and while I was trying to puzzle out and piece together all these darkling hints and inferences, the Old Squire came up stairs and after a word with Addison and Gram, told ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... way, and, after the manner of successful men, had little sympathy with failure. The presence of the two pale, dejected-looking young men filled him with impatient wrath. At the supper-table he was morose and irritable, until a chance remark set the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... least, suffered for a holiday to ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of a man—fret, wear, worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a texture; they cannot estimate the wish ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... two died of convulsions. One an idiot, one a dement (suicidal), one repeatedly insane. These three are scarcely likely to be chosen in marriage. One peculiar and irritable, one ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... Vogels, and in spite of the intoxication of his adolescence, Christophe had preserved an instinctive modesty, a need of purity, of which he was entirely unconscious. At first it struck Ada, attracted and charmed her, then made her impatient and irritable, and finally, being the woman she was, she detested it. She did not make a frontal attack. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... fifteen dollars from a friend and promising to pay it back the next day, and then avoiding that friend for ten months. When at home his mother had aroused him for the early labour of his life on the farm, it had often been his fashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical; and his mother had died since he ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... (who was a tallow chandler) paid her a visit. "Come awa', bailie," said she, "and tak' a trick at the cards." "Troth madam, I hae nae siller!" "Then let us play for a pound of candles."] His was certainly a nervous, irritable, and rather censorious temper. Like Mr. Brattle, in The Vicar of Bulhampton, he was thinking always of the evil things that had been done to him. With the pawky and philosophic Scots of his own day (Robertson, Hume, Adam Smith, and "Jupiter" Carlyle) he had little in common, but with the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... This irritable sensitiveness led him to consider those detestable attacks of the journals worth a threatening ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... me again, when he has done with it?" The exteriors of politeness did not belong to Johnson. Even that civility, which proceeds, or ought to proceed, from the mind, was sometimes violated. His morbid melancholy had an effect on his temper; his passions were irritable; and the pride of science, as well as of a fierce independent spirit, inflamed him, on some occasions, above all bounds of moderation. Though not in the shade of academic bowers, he led a scholastic ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... time she was never absent from the services, returning languid, and with the luminous eyes of a seer; and the Capuchin's burning words haunted her; certain of his images stirred her to ecstasy. She grew irritable, and she seemed to have conceived a feeling of anger and contempt for every ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... purport was, "The ambassadors of the Greeks, having been rejected, and being perhaps to be put to death, the aged king, not contented with the Hellespont, will throw bridges over the Granicus and the Rhyndacus, and invade Asia Minor with a numerous host, being by his own natural disposition irritable and fierce; and being now prompted and inflamed by him who was formerly the successor of the Roman emperor Hadrian,[95] it is all over with the Greeks if they ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of the trio, to the shoer half an hour before. There was a moment's consternation and Bertel left the digging over of my hardy beds to speed down to the village on his bicycle, and when the stanhope finally came up, father was as nearly irritable as I have ever seen him, while Tim Saunders's eyes looked extra small and pointed. Evidently Bertel had said things on his ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Outdoors to consider what they had to offer. The folders created a sensation. They came in the morning after a night of excessive heat and humidity. The guests found them in their mail when, fishy-eyed and irritable, ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... as she cast about her for the usual subterfuge and failed to find it. In that moment Kate realized that it had been a long programme of subterfuges with her mother—subterfuges designed to protect her from the onslaughts of the irritable man who dominated her. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... those times was never weary of inculcating that "delays are dangerous," and that the sluggish man—the man "who roasteth not that which he took in hunting"—will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it: and in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the enterprise, the merchant admiral being but an indifferent seaman. Michel, whose skill was great, held a high command and the title of Rear-Admiral. He was a man of a sensitive temperament, easily piqued on the point of honor. His morbid and irritable nerves were wrought to the pitch of frenzy by the reproaches of treachery and perfidy with which the French prisoners assailed him, while, on the other hand, he was in a state of continual rage at the fancied neglect and contumely of his English associates. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... for having arisen from something lower, and being in a fair way to become something higher? Certainly not, unless I am less a man for having once been a baby. It is only when I am unusually cross and irritable that I object to being reminded of my infancy. But a young child does not like to be reminded of it. He is afraid that some one will take him for a baby still. And the snob is always desperately afraid that some one will ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... days, irritable and exacting. Moody, too, and much away from home. He hated idleness at its best, and the strike was idleness at its worst. Behind the movement toward the general strike, too, he felt there was some hidden and sinister influence at work, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... subject. Nothing is more common than to hear of men in the prime of life being seized with what is called a "nervous breakdown,"—which generally means a digestive breakdown—to be followed by an era of misery for the unfortunate subject and his scarcely happier family. Nervous and irritable, the slightest inconveniences are magnified into terrible calamities, he constantly fears death, and his sleepless nights become a saturnalia of gloomy ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... often wondered that both my mother and myself (persons of exceptional impatience of disposition and irritable excitability of temperament) should have taken such delight in so still and monotonous an occupation, especially to the point of spending whole days in an unsuccessful pursuit of it. The fact is that the excitement of hope, keeping the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled, and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine. It was an old face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and gray, but never have I met a look that showed more fire and unconquerable will. "The commandant wishes you," ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Redfield was not different from most of us. So many years had passed since he was a little boy that he had forgotten that what appears to be only sullenness may in reality be something quite different. Perhaps if he had been more like his normal self instead of being a very tired and a very irritable doctor he would not have considered it necessary to regard David with the eye of stern discipline. But however that may be, the man pivoted suddenly upon his heel and marched out of the room, leaving the little boy alone to brood ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... Water Taffy King was not at the private dock when Lawford arrived. Mr. Israel Tapp was an irritable and impatient man. He "flew off the handle" at the slightest provocation. Many times a day he lost his temper and, as Lawford phlegmatically ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... a fairyland of roses as they drove to the station, and peace had descended upon Theodora. She had fallen into her place, a place occupied by many wives before her with irritable, ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... self-denunciation? One pictures such tenderness and concern as existing between parents and children, but rarely between brothers. Here he was evincing the same thing, as soft as love itself, and he a man of years and some affairs and I an irritable, distrait ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... in his log-book, Mr Ark," the irritable old seaman then resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during the intervening time. "Though my cook has no great relish for a frog, they who would taste of his skill must seek ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... reproaches and vehement denunciations, but they are all directed against his own conduct. Like Orlando, he will chide no breather in the world but himself, against whom he knows most faults. He had the defects incidental to a sensitive organization, an irritable temperament and an aspiring mind. He was apt to suspect hostility where none existed, and to resent indignities that were never intended. He confesses on one occasion at least to an unworthy elation at the inferiority of a rival. Above all, he was unable to curb the outbreaks of impatience ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... apologized for his irritability; but as he got better, he forgot that he had been irritable—he had something else to think of! He must get down to the office and write to Mr. Houghton, asking him to address personal letters to a post-office box. And he made things still safer by going out to Medfield ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... water may get under the cap, and pass along the top till a hole lets it among the bees. As for slides, I do not approve of them at all; in shutting off communication, it is almost certain to crush a few bees. This makes them irritable for a week; they are unnecessary for me, at least. We will now ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the house," he said abruptly; and then turning to Selwyn, he asked him to take a walk up the hill. The young man complied. He was quite unconscious of the anger in the tone of the request. For a few yards neither spoke; then the laird, with an irritable glance at his placid companion, said, "Mr. Selwyn, fore-speaking saves after-speaking. Helen Crawford is bespoke for young Farquharson of Blair, and if you have any hopes o' wiving in ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... this increasing nervousness on the part of their guest was not due to school troubles alone, but, at any rate, nervous she was, and particularly nervous, and, it must be confessed, somewhat inclined to be irritable, during the supper and afterward, on ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... coarser and less irritable animal organization which must be the basis of an insulated physical sensibility. Brutes can neither suffer from intellectual passions, nor, probably, from very complex derangements of the animal system; so that in them the motives ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... two periods as interfering with school work,—except when one of the lovers is absent. A score or more of the observers assert that during the absence of one of the lovers, the other does not do as good work and often becomes moody and irritable. On the other hand it very materially quickens the efforts of many who want to appear well before their lovers. One boy, nine years old, who had been quite lazy and was looked upon as being rather dull, braced ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... woman- worship of all women to-day and to which Leo subscribes. Man is a lazy, loafing savage. He dislikes to be pestered. He likes tranquillity, repose. And he finds himself, ever since man began, saddled to a restless, nervous, irritable, hysterical traveling companion, and her name is woman. She has moods, tears, vanities, angers, and moral irresponsibilities. He couldn't destroy her. He had to have her, although she was always spoiling his peace. What was ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... opposition. There is a dilemma to which every opposition to successful iniquity must, in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, you are considered as an accomplice in the measures in which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable power to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least, it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... stated to have troubled her while she was at Miss W—-'s, seems to have begun to distress her about this time; at least, she herself speaks of her irritable condition, which was certainly ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... an all-night sitting rendered the House unusually irritable. Mr. HEALY fulminated at Sir E. CARSON (who was not present) in language that reminded Colonel SHARMAN-CRAWFORD of "a low police-court." Mr. DILLON'S high top note was ceaselessly employed in emitting adjectives ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... disposition in which the squire had come home appeared to have passed off completely. Bessie had seen him often crabbed and sarcastic, but never so irritable as he was that evening. Nothing went right, from the soup to the dessert, and Jonquil even stirred the fire amiss. Some matter in his correspondence had put him out. But as he made no allusion to his grievance, Bessie was of course blind and deaf to his untoward symptoms. The next day he went ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... a somewhat irritable old gentleman, having been thus disturbed two nights in succession, determined that he would no longer subject himself to the nuisance. He bought a single sash and inserted a second window on the ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... man if it could, never roused such hate as sprang to meet the icy stare of her passionless ladyship. Many a man with no admiration of the florid, would have sought refuge in Mrs. Wylder's plump face, vivid with an irritable humanity, from the moveless pallor of lady Ann's delicately formed cheek, and the pinched thinness of her fine, poverty-stricken nose. Oh those pinched nostrils, the very outcry of inward meanness! will they ever open to the full ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... the great Irish epic of antiquity was the Tain Bo Cualnge, or Cooley Cattle-raid, and it is full of combats and feats of strength and prowess. High character meant high pride, always ready to give account of itself and strike for its ideals: "Irritable and bold", as one historian has it. They were jealous and quick to anger, but light-hearted laughter came easily to the lips of the ancient Irish. They worked cheerfully, prayed fervently to their gods, loved their women and children devotedly, clung passionately ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... relation of Boswell to Johnson, as a blot in the escutcheon of the family. He thought, not perhaps altogether without reason, that his father had exhibited himself in a ludicrous and degrading light. And thus he became so sore and irritable that at last he could not bear to hear the 'Life of Johnson' mentioned. Suppose that the law had been what my honorable and learned friend wishes to make it. Suppose that the copyright of Boswell's 'Life of ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... enters the dissecting-room about one o'clock, his fellow-students administer to him a pint of ale, warmed by the simple process of stirring it with a hot poker, with some Cayenne pepper thrown into it, which he is assured will set to rights the irritable mucous lining of his stomach. The effect of this remedy is, to send him into a sound sleep during the whole of the two o'clock anatomical lecture; and awakened at its close by the applause of the students, he thinks he is still at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... gentleman, whose name was Don Sebastanio, seeing that his remark had given offence, hastened to apologise for the liberty he had taken—assuring Donald that he meant nothing disrespectful or insulting. This apology was just made in time, as the irritable Celt had begun to entertain the idea of challenging the Spaniard to mortal combat. As it was, however, his good nature at once gave way to the pacific overture that was made him. Seizing the apologist by the hand, with a gripe that produced some dismal contortions of countenance ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... December. To some few millions of people D-e-c- e-m-b-e-r spells Christmas. But to Emma McChesney it spelled the dreaded spring trip. It spelled trains stalled in snowdrifts, baggage delayed, cold hotel bedrooms, harassed, irritable buyers. ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... endeavours always miscarry; some droll repartee passed, and much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal authority over this irritable tribe. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reflecting. 'I think that remorseful feeling she unluckily has at times, of having disobeyed her mother, and caused her death, makes her irritable,' she murmured. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... and his officers did not think it necessary to consult Mr. Forster as to the movements of the ship, or, what is more probable, he was in one of his irritable moods and must say something nasty ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... dear. Hippy, stop teasing Emma. She is worn out and irritable. By the way, Mr. Lang, what is an artesian well?" asked Nora, which brought down another shout of laughter, this ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... nurse. Take care of your sister," he added almost appealingly, divided between his knowledge of how poor a nurse Miss Madigan was and how impossible it was to tell this to her niece. "She'll be cross and irritable and—even worse than usual," he said, with a grim smile that recognized the battle-ground upon which the Madigans spent their lives; and this recognition made him seem more human to them than any other adult. "But you just treat her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... of a given course, depend entirely on the probabilities of success. If a father has a son of a very peculiar temperament, and he knows by observation, that the use of the rod will make him more irritable and more liable to a certain fault, and that kind arguments, and tender measures will more probably accomplish the desired object, it is a rule of expediency to try the most probable course. If a companion ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... somewhat receding chin and small, very light-colored blue eyes, which had a habit of looking past one while their owner was speaking. A glance at Harry's face was sufficient to show that he had been drinking heavily. Although Shuter had drunk sparingly, there was a strange irritable ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... is better not to mention the department. There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service. Each individual attached to them nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person. Quite recently a ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their favorite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... between meals. She wrote too with her own hand letters which she would otherwise have dictated to her secretary. Unfortunately the scare had died down again almost at once; and the passing of danger always left her rather irritable. Lady Valleys' visit came as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... more advanced years, Allan, who was naturally of good and benevolent dispositions, became peculiarly irritable; he fancied that his merits as a poet had been overlooked, and the feeling preyed deeply upon his mind. He entertained extreme political opinions, and conceived a dislike to his native country, which he deemed had not sufficiently ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... or ascend to heaven and rule over the gods. Rama replies, that he had been born for the good of the three worlds, and would now return to the place whence he had come, as it was his function to fulfil the purposes of the gods. While they are speaking the irritable rishi Durvasas comes, and insists on seeing Rama immediately, under a threat, if refused, of cursing Rama and all ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... She was irritable and dissatisfied with herself and everyone besides. Fearing lest the French Ambassador should not be received with due pomp in London, and sending for Lord Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester again and again to amend the ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... were as clear, as innocent, as guilelessly adoring as she had ever seen them. They gazed into her own without a shadow of self-consciousness, and as she met that gaze Betty flushed, and the irritable lines disappeared from her face as if wiped out ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... shoe-contemplating—strange. Sharp seemed to like him, but Sharp saw him only for half an hour, and that walking. He is, I verily believe, kindly-natured: is very fond of, attentive to, and patient with children, but he is jealous, gloomy, and of an irritable pride. With all this there is much good in him. He is disinterested; an enthusiastic lover of the great men who have been before us. He says things that are his own, in a way of his own: and though from habitual shyness, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... much the better, it amuses 'em," said Mr. Poyser, who did not easily take an irritable view of things. "But they're going away now, t' have their dinner, I reckon. Well move about a bit, shall we, and see what Adam Bede's doing. He's got to look after the drinking and things: I doubt ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... love and kindness can make such an irritable animal as the cat so loving and grateful, teach us all their heavenly power? Ought we not to do all which we can to ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... the same time fierce and timorous, the despot not unfrequently made of vice a fine art for his amusement, and openly defied humanity. His pleasures tended to extravagance. Inordinate lust and refined cruelty sated his irritable and jaded appetites. He destroyed pity in his soul, and fed his dogs with living men, or spent his brains upon the invention of new tortures. From the game of politics again he won a feverish pleasure, playing for states and cities as a man plays chess, and endeavoring to extract the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... becoming unjust, irritable, womanish; everything he had always most despised in a man ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... said Rand, then bit his lip. He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last. His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage. It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels. Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... itself, and yet when complication is added to it few of us can avoid laughing, and I am afraid that some considerably enjoy objectionable allusions. To tell a man to go to h—-, or that he deserves to go there, is merely coarse and profane abuse, but when a labourer is found by an irritable country gentleman piling up a heap of stones in front of his house, and being rated for causing such an obstruction, asks where else he is to take them, and is told "to h—- if you like," we are amused at the answer—"Indeed, then, if I was to take them to heaven, they'd be more out ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... existence, but it was the youngest and feeblest thing in the nation. It had not yet spoken a word. It had to be taught, developed, and made fit for the service of the irritable business world. All manner of discs had to be tried, some smaller and thinner than a dime and others of steel boiler-plate as heavy as the shield of Achilles. In all the books of electrical science, there was nothing to help Bell and Watson in this journey they ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... an extraordinary influence on me, and one hard to describe. He was great, grim, and taciturn to behold, yet with a good heart, and not devoid of humour. He was gouty, and yet not irritable. He continually recurs to me while reading Icelandic sagas, and as a kind of man who would now be quite out of the age anywhere. All his early associations had been of war and a half-wild life. He was born about 1758, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... treatment. Finally she walked as well as other girls, and hastily made up her arrears of education, as best she might, at a private school in Watauga. She would always be frail; the invalid habit had gotten into both mind and body; she would continue dependent, demanding; and somewhat irritable; yet there was a fragile prettiness about her, and her very childishness ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... days went; and Mr. Thorold said I grew thin; and the nurses and attendants were almost reverentially careful of me; and Dr. Sandford was a silent servant of mine and of Mr. Thorold's too, doing all that was possible for us both. And Preston was fearfully jealous and irritable; and wrote, I knew long afterwards, to my mother; and my mother sent me orders to return home to her at once and leave everything; and Dr. Sandford never gave me the letters. I missed nothing; knew nothing; asked nothing; until the day came ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sigh, and thought, as she said 'good-night,' and hastened upstairs, that she ought to be thankful that the imperturbable and dull Wilhelmina Nugent had been the choice of that discontented and irritable colonel, instead of the quick-tempered, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... feeling, pangs of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness of sensual beings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour, sensations— the only riches of our world of senses. A poet may be a simple being but he is bound to be various and full of wiles, ingenious and irritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the ingenuity of the late bard of civilisation would be able to invent for the tormenting of his dependants. Poets not being generally foresighted in practical affairs, no vision of consequences ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... his anger rising; for Mr. Dodd, though not irritable, is passionate—at least I think so. I tried to smooth matters. But no; Mr. Talboys persisted in putting this ungenerous question, when all of a sudden Mr. Dodd burst out, 'You wish to know why I love Arthur? Because he is an orphan; and because an orphan finds a ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... exacting officer is he, but yet a favorite with the men—for he is always first in any emergency or danger, his lion-like voice sounding loud above the roar of the elements, cheering the crew to their duty, and setting the example with his own hands. He is rather inclined to be irritable toward those who have gained the quarter-deck by the way of the cabin-windows, but, on the whole, I shall set him down in the list of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... original wolf-like progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform, heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons become irritable and savage like their ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... he was superior to his neighbours in modesty and manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial man of letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of and really not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and irritable. There was Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie's father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in manner, but not an able man in any way;' and thus the leading lights of Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. 'The great days of the Gurneys were not come yet. The remarkable family from which issued ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... Esther's voice was eager. "I know very little of the real trouble myself. It seems to be just a general state of health. But it varies so. Sometimes she seems quite well, bright, cheerful, ready for anything! Then again she is depressed, nervous, irritable. She has desperate headaches which come on at intervals. They are nervous headaches, she says, and are so bad that she shuts herself up in her room and will not let any of us in. She will not eat. I—I don't know very ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... hour and the open windows all around her, she burst into a rippling peal of laughter, which was interrupted by the appearance of a figure, imperfectly seen through the lattice-work which divided her balcony from the next one, and the sound of an irritable voice. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... irritable, mother," she said repentantly. "The idleness and uselessness of my life have grated on me until I know I'm not fit to live with. If I had had any of the training of a society girl, I could bear it better; but papa kept my head full of school,—for ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... that their servitude is not to God's law but to man's ambition is creeping over the people here. That is a very hopeful sign. When a man first feels he is a slave he begins to grow grey inside, to get moody and irritable. The sore spot becomes more sensitive the more he broods. At last to touch it becomes dangerous. For, from such pent-up musing and wrath have sprung rebellions, revolutions, the overthrow of dynasties and the fall of religions, aye, thrice as mighty as this. That Thought ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... fortress, behind whose fortifications the tyrants of Syracuse had intrenched themselves in danger. He also caused Heraclides to be privately assassinated, so that the Syracusans began to hate him as cordially as they had hated Dionysius. This unpopularity made him irritable, and suspicious and disquieted. A conspiracy, headed by Callippus, put an end to his reign. He was slain by the daggers of assassins. Thus perished one of the noblest of the Greeks, but without sufficient ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... plants presenting two or three distinct forms, adapted for reciprocal fertilisation, so that, like plants with separate sexes, they can hardly fail to be intercrossed in each generation. The male and female organs of some flowers are irritable, and the insects which touch them get dusted with pollen, which is thus transported to other flowers. Again, there is a class, in which the ovules absolutely refuse to be fertilised by pollen from the same plant, but can be fertilised by pollen from any other ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin |
