"Irritating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he not do this in regard to bird life? It is not too much to ask, nor is it too much to exact. Does the Italian workman, or store-keeper who makes his living by honest toil enjoy breaking our bird laws, enjoy irritating and injuring those with whom he has come to live? Does he enjoy being watched, and searched, and chased, and arrested,—all for a few small birds that he does not need for food? He earns good wages; he has plenty ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... stuff, had become very happy, cheeky, and talkative. The fury of the New South Wales German was extreme; he puffed like an exhaust-pipe, and Jim, faintly amused by the scene, was impatient for the time when he could get below: the last ten minutes of the watch were irritating like a gun that hangs fire; those men did not belong to the world of heroic adventure; they weren't bad chaps though. Even the skipper himself . . . His gorge rose at the mass of panting flesh from which issued gurgling ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... straight from this irritating interview, during which Myner had never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old master. Only one card remained for me to play, and I was now resolved to play it: I must drop the gentleman and the frock-coat, and approach ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... occurred. Now, learning on credible authority that Sir Charles's name was still one to conjure with in India, it clearly became his duty to bid his son seek out and secure whatever modicum of advantage—in the matter of advice and introductions—might be derivable from so irritating a source. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... panes? There was, it must be confessed, great need of doing so. Several pieces were wanting in the figure of Saint George, and in other places, where in the course of centuries panes that had been broken had been replaced by ordinary glass. Still, all this was irritating to her. She was so accustomed to the gaps of the saint who was piercing the dragon with his sword, and of the royal princess as she led the conquered beast along with her scarf, that she already mourned ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... of inference went home. It was the first of many. Kenny fought back his temper. Affronted, he crossed the room and laid a roll of bills upon the table. Craig counted them with an irritating ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... the wealthy, hears, as he lingers on the pavement of a summer night, the melodies which float upon the air from the open balconies above him. A vague sense of unknown sweetness comes upon him, mingled with an irritating feeling of envy that some favoured son of Fortune should be able to stand over the shoulders of that singing syren, while he can only listen with intrusive ears from the street below. And so he lingers and is envious, and for a moment curses his fate,—not knowing how weary may be the youth ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... by the German courts to fifteen months' imprisonment for playing off an innocent little joke on four German officers, and did his share of fighting with the French in the early part of the War, is the darling of the Boulevards. They adore his supreme skill in thrusting the irritating lancet of his humour into bulging excrescences on the flank of that monstrous pachyderm of Europe, the German. Professor Knatschke (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), aptly translated by Professor R.L. CREWE, is a joyous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... explain the mystery. The metaphysicians do not throw much light on the subject, and as for materialistic science, listen to what Huxley says: "How it comes about that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about by the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the genie when Aladdin rubbed ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of the missionaries in these early days was sorely tried, and the petty annoyances, so irritating to many of us, were neither few nor infrequent. By dint of immense labour, leading the water to it, the ground which the chief had given the missionaries for a garden was made available; then the women, headed by the chief's wife, encroached upon it, and to save contention ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... savage a country. Such and such like are the incidents which make an Englishman in the States unhappy, and rouse his gall against the institutions of the country; these things and the continued appliance of the irritating ointment of American braggadocio with which his sores are kept open. But though I was badly off on that railway platform, worse off than I should have been in England, all that crowd of porters round me were better off than our English porters. They had a "good ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... little light on one point," remarked the young man, curtly. He felt again the irritating prick of resentment. "What am I to be down to that legislature—myself, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... is annoying. I would have a tame seal myself if he could go about without setting things afloat. A wet seal is unpleasant to pat and fondle, and if he climbs on your knees he is positively irritating. I suppose even a seal would get dry if you kept him out of water long enough; but can you keep a seal out of water while there is any within five miles for him to get into? And would the seal respect you for it if you did? A dog shakes himself dry after a swim, and, if he be your own ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sofa-cushions; they offered to stand by her side with fly-whisks, that she might be free to write. But the struggle was too exciting for her, and the flying insects seemed to increase. Moths of every description—large brown moths, small, delicate white millers—whirled about her, while the irritating hum of the mosquito kept on more than ever. Mr. Peterkin and the rest of the family came in to inquire about the trouble. It was discovered that each of the little boys had been standing in the opening of a wire door ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... air. An animal is predisposed to pneumonia when debilitated by any constitutional disease, and especially during convalescence if exposed to any of the exciting causes. Foreign bodies, such as feed accidentally getting into the lungs by way of the windpipe, as well as the inhalation of irritating gases and smoke, ofttimes produce fatal attacks of inflammation of the lung and bronchial tubes. Pneumonia is frequently seen in connection with other diseases, such as influenza, purpura hemorrhagica, strangles, glanders, etc. Pneumonia and pleurisy ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... for the poor doctor, of fasting, tartarised antimony, and irritating eye-salve. And the captain, no doubt in secret understanding with the admiral, played off the same trick. The survey was deferred from day to day, for six days, and until the very one before the ship weighed anchor. It must have been a period of intense vexation and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... with her quiet acquiescence, "but I must go now and see about your lunch. Would you mind writing the labels? Uncle Alfred will want one for his bag. Oh, I know I'm irritating," she added on a wave of feeling which had to break, "but I can't help it. I—I'm like that." She reflected with humiliation that it was absurd to obtrude herself thus on a scene shadowed by tragedy, yet when she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... a prejudice against Sarah on the general ground of dislike to all housekeepers as a class of servants outside of any mistress's control, and therefore apt to give themselves airs, and especially because this one had a subtle suggestion of independent personality that was all the more irritating because it could not be made plain to the dull male ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... citizens of Rhode Island, more in Hamilton's really magnificent letter to the Governor. Nothing can be more forcible—nay, beguiling—than his argument in that letter in favour of a general government independent of state machinery, and his elaborate appeal to that irritating little commonwealth to consent to the levying of the impost by Congress, necessary to the raising of the moneys. I fear I am not a hero, for I confess I tremble. I fear the worst. But at all events I am determined to place ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... patent medicines, or beer, or whiskey,—every person who signs a note, or draws a bill of exchange, or sends a telegraphic despatch, or advertises in a newspaper, or makes a will, or "raises" anything, or manufactures anything, will naturally inquire why he or she is compelled to submit to an irritating as well as an onerous tax. The only answer that can possibly be returned is this,— that all these vexatious burdens are necessary because a comparatively few persons out of an immense population have chosen to get up a civil war in order to protect and foster their slave-property, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Doctor Lefebre the change in his life became for Max more intimately real than it had been before. The fact that he was travelling second-class, though an insignificant thing in itself, brought it home to him in a curious, irritating way. He felt that he must be a weak, spoiled creature, not worthy to call himself a soldier, because little, unfamiliar shabbinesses and inconveniences disgusted him. He remembered how he had revelled in his one trip abroad with Rose and some friends of theirs the year before he went to West ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... to do now was await the arrival of relief. And a very pleasant sensation, indeed, that is to weary soldiers! The sensation of "relief" is the happiest of all the various sensations one had "out there." There were just a few hours of irritating expectancy to live through—followed sometimes, as at Givenchy in 1918, by some boring experience such as a "stand to" in some particular, and generally uninviting, positions—and then one would be free, safe and in a position and condition to enjoy a delightful sleep: free and ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... Republican party are great enough to know that temperance does go hand in hand with liberty; they are great enough to know that all legislation as to what we shall eat, as to what we shall drink, and as to wherewithal we shall be clothed, partakes of the nature of petty, irritating and annoying tyranny. They also know that the natural result is to fill a country with spies, hypocrites and pretenders, and that when a law is not in accordance with an enlightened public sentiment, it becomes either a dead letter, or, when ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... needless to enter into the detail of Rousseau's life at this time, the time when his most remarkable work was done. Labor was always painful and irritating to him, and it was perhaps the irksomeness of his tasks that drove him into something not unlike madness.[Footnote: There is little doubt that Rousseau was at one time really insane, subject to the delusion that he was being persecuted. His insanity did not become ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... early winter, and the question that was discussed from dawn till dark, and far into the dark, was whether they would get out before the freeze-up or be compelled to abandon the steamboat and tramp out over the ice. There were irritating delays. Twice the engines broke down and had to be tinkered up, and each time there were snow flurries to warn them of the imminence of winter. Nine times the W.H. Willis essayed to ascend the Five-Finger Rapids with her impaired ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... the case with a loin of mutton, the careful jointing of a loin of veal is more than half the battle in carving it. If the butcher be negligent in this matter, he should be admonished; for there is nothing more annoying or irritating to an inexperienced carver than to be obliged to turn his knife in all directions to find the exact place where it should be inserted in order to divide the bones. When the jointing is properly performed, there is little difficulty in carrying the knife down in the direction of the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... have surprised him more disagreeably. My father read the lines sometimes with an affectation of not being able to understand the sense—sometimes in a mouthing tone of mock heroic—always with an emphasis of the most bitter irony, most irritating to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... am?' she said with a half laugh and yet soberly.'I wish I could stand off and look at myself. Mr. Rollo, will you give me another instance? I shall have to forgive that feather, because it had the honour of "irritating" you, and so enlists my sympathies; but what else have you seen me wear, that could do so much more ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... was going to take Betty in hand. Sara sighed one of the plaintive little sighs which I had once thought so charming, but now, to my surprise, found faintly irritating, and said that she would be very much obliged ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... outbreaks as have recently occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina, the remedy will not be reached by the Southern white man merely depriving the Negro of his rights and privileges. This method is but superficial, irritating, and must, in the nature of things, be short-lived. The statesman, to cure an evil, resorts to enlightenment, to stimulation; the politician, to repression. I have just remarked that I favour the giving up of nothing ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... it should be in continuous contact with her person—that was what he longed to be; not to find himself obliged, at nightfall, to leave her after a parting absurdly prolonged by childish pretexts, and return to his irritating, common, vulgar life at home, to the solitude of his room, where he imagined he could see a pair of green eyes staring at him from ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... if, instead of irritating a painful wound, some one had been tickling him in the most delightful manner, Chicot, during the operation, copied the letter from the Duc de Guise to his sister, and made his comments thereon ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... prairies. As he advanced he began to perceive great clouds of smoke at a distance, rising by degrees, and spreading over the whole face of the country. The atmosphere became dry and surcharged with murky vapor, parching to the skin, and irritating to the eyes. When travelling among the hills, they could scarcely discern objects at the distance of a few paces; indeed, the least exertion of the vision was painful. There was evidently some vast conflagration in the direction toward which they were proceeding; ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... knew: there was no mistaking, God help me! the fall of my feet on road or deck. It may be that her heart for a moment fluttered to know that the lad that was I came at last. She has not told me: I do not know. But faith! my own was troublesome enough with a new and irritating uneasiness, for which was ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... Englishmen love liberty, and the Southerner is fighting, not only for his life, but for that which is dearer than life, for liberty; he is fighting against one of the most grinding, one of the most galling, one of the most irritating attempts to establish tyrannical government that ever disgraced the history of the World."—G. W. BENTINCK, quoted by CHAS. FRANCIS ADAMS, l. ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... suspicious of many acts that contain no malice and of many chance occurrences. In brief, they regard everything, in the light of their former hostility, as done on purpose and for an evil end. While they are in this condition those who stand on neutral ground aggravate the trouble, irritating them still more by bearing reports to and fro under the pretence of devotion. There is a very large element which is anxious to see all those who have power at variance with one another,—an element which consequently ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... him that he had exterminated Hanno's last cohorts;—as to the elephants, they were being hunted in the woods, he was arming the foot-soldiers, the horses were on their way; and the Numidian rolled his eyes like a woman and smiled in an irritating manner as he stroked the ostrich feather which fell upon his shoulder. In his presence Matho was at a loss for ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... and try by sight or hearing to get news of the bear. Luckily, there was no wind, so it made little difference which way we turned in following the trail. But just then there happened a disturbing and irritating thing, for a whiskey jack—Canada Jay—took to following us, and chirping about it, too. Crossing a rocky patch on the hillside, the bear came into view as it circled a little in order to descend. Presently it left the shadow of the forest and emerging into sunlight ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... prison; they were not used to cramped quarters and tedious hours, and weary idleness, and early to bed, and limited movement, and arbitrary and irritating rules, and the absence of the luxuries which wealth comforts the day and the night with. The confinement told upon their bodies and their spirits; still, they were superior men, and they made the best that was to be made of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... passed as fashionable. His dress was immaculate; his hair was not so kinky that it couldn't be plastered down with brilliantine, and he perfumed himself copiously. His fingers were heavily laden with rings. Dominique's voice was whining—irritating. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... . . sir," was the reply, in tones as soft and careless and silkily irritating as ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... lungs. Two different states of these often pass as bronchitis. In one of these the tubes are swelled, congested, and full of fiery heat. The whole body is also fevered, and breathing is difficult, with cough. This is true BRONCHITIS (see). But often, with difficult breathing and irritating cough, there is no heat and fever. In this case bronchitis treatment gives no relief. This is, indeed, only an irritated state of the lining of the tubes, and far from dangerous. A change of climate to a drier atmosphere will often ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... done either at home or in society by any lady, however kind-hearted. Her own position must be maintained, and that may demand a certain loyalty to her own set. She must be careful how she lets loose on society an undesirable or aggressive man, for instance, or a great bore, or a vulgar, irritating woman. These will all be social obstacles to the young ladies of her family, whom she must first consider. She must not add to the embarrassments of a lady who has already too large a visiting list. Unsolicited introductions are bad for both parties. Some large-hearted women of society ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... violently," announced Mrs. Maynard. "Sugar, please—lots of it," she added, as Herrick handed her her tea. "It was about the man who lives at Far End," she continued in reply to the Lavender Lady's smiling query. "Miles has been very irritating, and tried to smash all my suggested theories to bits. He insists that the Hermit is quite a commonplace, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... well-aired, I should no more object to your putting on clean underwear than to your changing your dress. Most especially would I advise a frequent change of napkins, in order to remove those which are soiled from their irritating contact with the body. A full bath during menstruation would, for most people, be unadvisable, but the cleansing of the private parts is imperative. For this, tepid water, with good soap, may be used daily or oftener. Other parts of the body may be rubbed with a wet cloth, followed by vigorous, dry ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... going to be yours!" said Oliver through shut teeth—Ted's last remark had, somehow been a little too irritating. He thought savagely that there was only one way of dealing with completely honorable fools—Ted shouldn't, by the Lord!—-Oliver had gone to just a little too much trouble in the last dozen hours to build Ted a happy home to let any of Ted's personal wishes in the matter ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... age be exempt and slaves twelve years and over be taxed per capita at not more than the tax on land worth three hundred dollars.[35] The inhabitants of the west never became reconciled to this discriminating arrangement and it was especially irritating during the years immediately preceding the war,[36] when the price of slaves often ranged from sixteen hundred to eighteen ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... man as irritating as Winkelberg. He was an encyclopedia of misfortune. Everything which can happen to a man had happened to him. He had lost his family, his money and his health. He was, in short, a man completely broken—tall, thin, with ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... that is really so? Certainly it is since he has been at school that he has grown so much." Jock all this time fidgeted about from one leg to another with unutterable darkness upon his brow, could any one have seen it. There are few things so irritating, especially at his age, as to be thus discussed over one's ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... pleasure; this is personal comfort. Unlike a temperate climate, where mere attendance becomes a luxury, the pursuit of game in a tropical country is attended with immense fatigue and exhaustion. The intense heat of the sun, the dense and suffocating exhalations from swampy districts, the constant and irritating attacks from insects, all form drawbacks to sport that can only be lessened by excellent servants and by the most perfect arrangements for shelter and supplies. I have tried all methods of travelling, and I generally manage ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... antique styles, and on the other a long dim gallery. On the marble floor of this pavilion a number of interesting children sat or sprawled, and quaint babies slept or frolicked in their nurses' arms. It was, indeed, a grateful change from the oppressive, irritating heat and glare through which we had ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... all predicted that he was born for great things, then to discover that they had over-estimated him was irritating, it told against their discernment, it was unflattering, and ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... silence everywhere, only broken by the faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music. Under its influence, again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence with God, and nothing ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... of so many years, that she ought to have grown older than she had. But there was something unconquerably young, unconquerably naive, in her—something that, it seemed, would never die. Her cleverness went hand in hand with a short-sightedness that was like a rather beautiful, yet sometimes irritating stupidity. And this latter quality might innocently make victims, might even make a victim of ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... instead of irritating him, touched him. In it he felt a strange pathos—the proud protest of a heart that beat as free as the thudding wings of the wild birds he sometimes ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... diminutive legs behind her, something like a stout pony by the side of a large horse. It was in pedestrianism that Jemmy most felt his inferiority, and the protecting, fond way in which Moggy would turn round every minute and say, "Come along, my duck," would have been irritating to any other but one of Jemmy's excellent temper. Many looked at Jemmy, as he waddled along, smiled and passed on; one unfortunate nymph, however, ventured to stop, and putting her arms a-kimbo, looked down upon him and exclaimed, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... back to Ranch Number Ten he would have arrived at the ranch headquarters long before noon. But, once out in the still dawn, he rode slowly. His mind, when he could detach it from that irritating Terry Pert, was given over to a searching consideration of those conditions which were beginning to ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... which fried food is held by many is that it almost always means eating burned fat. When fat is heated too high it splits up into fatty acids and glycerin, and from the glycerin is formed a substance (acrolein) which has a very irritating effect upon the mucous membrane. All will recall that the fumes of scorched fat make the eyes water. It is not surprising that such a substance, if taken into the stomach, should cause digestive disturbance. Fat in itself is a very valuable food, and the objection to fried foods ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... Lady Ormond setting an example to her sex, in rendering her feeble assistance. Clanrickarde, in Preston's tent, was doing the work of stimulating the old antipathy of that general towards O'Neil, which led to conflicting advices in Council, and some irritating personal altercations. To add to the Confederate embarrassment, the winter was the most severe known for many years; from twenty to thirty sentinels being frozen at night at their posts. On the 13th of November, while the plan of the Confederate attack was still undecided, commissioners ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... instance it served to keep the lint in its place, and I have no doubt that it was mainly instrumental in saving the life of Mr. Critchet, for it prevented the insects from irritating the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... do," the girl replied, after a moment's consideration. "To be unable to see is a handicap. At the same time to have pity drooled all over one is sometimes irritating. But why did you just say you were glad I ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the air of superior knowledge calculated to aggravate youth. With years, he assured Beardsley, men learned to value law and order in art, as in the state, at their worth; and, more and more inspired by his theme, as was his way, he grew preposterously wise and irritating, and he talked himself so successfully into every exasperating virtue of age that I could not wonder at the fierceness with which Beardsley turned upon him and denounced him roundly as conventional and academic and prejudiced and old-fashioned and all that to youth ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife, "you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and tell Mademoiselle Celeste that I don't choose to see her now, because if she made me any irritating answer I might box her ears. You'll tell her that I don't like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to choose Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not want him; that the matter is now all arranged, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... me some letters written by my aunt. She asks me about my plans for the future. She writes even about the crops, but nothing about the inmates of Ploszow. I do not even know whether they be alive or dead. What an irritating way of writing letters. What do I care about the crops, and about the whole estate? I replied at once, and could not ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... ask what was the impression which Plato in the Apology intended to give of the character and conduct of his master in the last great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing sophistries; (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these sophistries to be regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and to his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing from the natural ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... that I went forward slowly, with an accompaniment of taps, which kept irritating me in that hot, stifling passage—no, it is not fair to call such a place a passage, seeing that it was merely an opening formed by the settling down of the packages, or their opening out from the rolling of the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... have indulged in and, perhaps, prided himself on this feeble and irritating paronomasy; but nothing can be less in keeping with the bearing and behaviour of the tragic and sententious Bonivard of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... and gloomy spring, a glimpse of early summer shone over the land; and after a long period of anxious and oftentimes irritating and disappointing travail—in wet and dismal towns, in comfortless inns, with associates not always to his liking—George Brand was hurrying to the South. Ah, the thought of it, as the train whirled along on this sunlit morning! After ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... looked upon human nature with a sort of cold magnanimity that would find excuses for absolutely anything. It wasn't a pose; you could see it was a part of him. He never put it forward, but it was there always. It was quite irritating at times.... He really loathed and hated physical violence. He was a very strange man in some ways, Mr. Trent. He gave one a feeling that he might do unexpected things—do you know that feeling one has about some people?... ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... suppressed with difficulty a petty desire to pinch, and so walked by his side. He was as much at his ease as if promenading jungles with a panther. She felt him quiver with repugnance under her soft hand; and prolonged the irritating contact. She walked very slowly, and told him with much meaning she was waiting for a signal. "Till then," said she, "we will keep one another company;" biting the word with her ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... bark is the part used. Butternut is a mild cathartic, which resembles rhubarb in its property of evacuating the bowels without irritating the alimentary canal. Dose—Of the extract, as a cathartic, five to ten grains; of the fluid extract, one-half to one teaspoonful; of the concentrated principle, Juglandin, one to three grains. As a laxative, one-half of these quantities ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... green. Old Sir Nicholas, though his convictions had survived the tempest of unrest and trouble that had swept over England, and he had remained a convinced and a stubborn Catholic, yet his spiritual system was sore and inflamed within him. To his simple and obstinate soul it was an irritating puzzle as to how any man could pass from the old to a new faith, and he had been known to lay his whip across the back of a servant who had professed a desire to try the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... pretty in that connection, are they? If you would willingly give your identity the slip at times, dear cousin, I have considerably deeper cause to wish to part company with mine! You, in any case, are morally and materially free. A whole class of particularly irritating and base cares can never approach you. And it was in connection with just such cares that I spoke of the hatefulness of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... he was, and his master had become used to his faults. He had one advantage, and that was a consideration. Although he was a Negro by birth he did not speak like a Negro, and nothing is so irritating as that hateful jargon in which all the pronouns are possessive and all the verbs infinitive. Let it be understood, then, that Frycollin was a ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... niche in the wall, which Thorn had not seen. Sylva was there, sleeping the same heavy, dreamless sleep from which Thorn himself had just awakened. He went to her swiftly. She was breathing naturally, though tears from the irritating gas still streaked her face and her skin seemed to be pinkened a ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... these did not compare with the visitations experienced in Havana. As soon as we had dropped anchor, a swarm of dark creatures came on board, with gloomy brows, mulish noses, and suspicious eyes. This application of Spanish flies proves irritating to the good-natured captain, and uncomfortable to all of us. All possible documents are produced for their satisfaction,—bill of lading, bill of health, and so on. Still they persevere in tormenting the whole ship's crew, and regard us, when we pass, with all the hatred ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... sewing, her hand flying with the needle, her masses of brown hair sweeping back around her pink ears and curling in stray ringlets that the wind danced with while she worked, she inflamed her brawny cousin's ardor afresh. "You used to care for me, Nan. You can't deny that." Her silence was irritating. "Can you?" he demanded. "Come, put up your work and talk it out. I didn't use to have to coax you for a word and a smile. What's come ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... was not conscious of it. He was as secular, as cocksure, as irritating as ever, when Ancrum probed him on the subject of the Hall of Science or the various Secularist ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household retainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was thankful to notice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in the cow-house to be told that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as to the imminence of Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began to be shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... evil effects of bad temper in all its forms.—(a) It has a bad effect physically. It produces consequences injurious to health. The man who indulges in it habitually cannot do so with impunity. Doctors constantly warn their patients to refrain from irritating disputes, and to avoid men and things likely to provoke their anger. (b) It has a bad effect socially. The bad-tempered man is seldom a favorite with society. Men eventually dislike him and shun him as ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... life,' he said, turning to Lady Charlotte, a slight irritating smile playing round his strong mouth, 'is—not to be duped. Put too much faith in these fine things the altruists talk of, and you arrive one day at the condition of Louis XIV. after the battle of Ramillies: "Dieu a donc oublie tout ce que j'ai fait pour lui?" ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to an irritating pause. Mr. Lennox had scraped up the last fragments of the omelette, and poured himself out another cup of tea, when Mrs. Ede appeared with the broiled bacon. On seeing Kate talking to Mr. Lennox, she at once assumed an air of mingled ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... irritating way of speaking of a book. He talked of incidents, and effects, and suggestions, as if the whole thing had just been a sensational-aesthetic attribute to himself. Not a grain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink with exasperation. She herself ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... interference of the imperial parliament. It was no wonder that Lord Dalhousie spoke ironically of the effect to be produced by the stoppage of the supplies. The measure was not, however, judicious. It was in the highest degree irritating to Lower Canada. It was a positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... that never passed regularly through the mails, was distributed through the post-offices as an item of party service; and matter of a political character, passing through the mails in the usual course and addressed to patrons belonging to the opposite party, was withheld; disgusting and irritating placards were prominently displayed in many post-offices, and the attention of Democratic inquirers for mail matter was tauntingly directed to them by the postmaster; and in various other ways postmasters ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... have previously been rather wary about having much to do with forward artillery positions. On three previous occasions I have been badly "strafed" by brother Fritz. He has the uncommonly irritating habit of putting his whizz-bangs much too near to be pleasant, with the result that I have more than once been compelled to take my camera and self off to the more congenial quarters of a dug-out, from which place, you will agree, one cannot obtain ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... There remained therefore nothing but silence and the feeble hope that this first fury of the disunion onset might spend itself in angry words, and be followed by calmer counsels. Nevertheless, it was difficult to keep entirely still under the irritating provocation. On the third day of the session, Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, replied to both the President's message and Clingman's speech. Mr. Hale thought "this state of affairs looks to one of two things; it looks to absolute submission, not on ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... point for the artillery. Behind houses, stores, churches, anywhere that offered concealment, our guns were hidden. Our artillery officers used every available inch of cover, for they had to screen our guns from the observation of enemy aircraft which flew with irritating irregularity over the town, and they had to avoid the none too praiseworthy attention of spies, ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... followers, only the advance guard of another irruption of Goths and Vandals from the North, bent on inciting servile insurrection, on plunder, pillage, and devastation. Mr. Mason's committee found no sentiment in the North justifying Brown, but the irritating and offensive course of the Virginia senator called forth a great deal of defiant anti-slavery expression which, in his judgment, was tantamount to treason. Brown was tried and executed. He would not permit the plea of unsound mind to be made on his behalf, and to the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Angel was not in the best of moods. Having to dump all of his business into Serge Paulvitch's hands on twenty-four hours' notice was irritating. He knew Paulvitch could handle the job, but it wasn't fair to him to make him take over ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Helene. How could this creature of the demi-monde have even distant acquaintance of such a wholesome, superior man as her escort? The effusiveness was irritating, and the overacted kittenishness of the girl made her sick at heart, although she betrayed no sign of her feeling. Helene could not understand that despite its mammoth size, New York is relatively provincial in the club and theatrical community, his acquaintanceship ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... of the prisoners had succeeded in controlling themselves; but they, too, shouted irritating words to their fellows, reviled the Egyptians in violent excitement, and shook their clenched ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had asked these two people in to supper. If that was so, Timmy, who was as much at home in the kitchen as in the drawing-room, knew that there would not be quite enough to go round comfortably. This was all the more irritating, as he himself was looking forward to-night to tasting, for the first time, an especially delicious dish. This was lobster pie, for which Old Place had been famed before the War, but which, owing to the present price of lobsters, was among the many delightful things which the War had caused ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... occupants of the car had crowded forward and she was the last of them. She had stood, during an irritating wait, at the water-tower, and now as she moved slowly forward again she heard the hurry of feet behind her and she turned to look into the eager, wondering ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... banter upon good-natured policemen, occasionally asking of mild old ladies the way to places he had never heard of, or demanding what o'clock it was of people who did not possess watches, and whistling most of the time with irritating intensity—our little hero at last came to the conclusion that felicity was not to be obtained by such courses—not at least, at that time. He was out of sorts, somehow, so he would return to the garden and comfort Susy and the old woman, i.e. find ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces. Let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all the day. Bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... times a day—"Master Herbert, don't touch that!" "Master Herbert, for shame!" "Let that alone, sir!" "Master Herbert, how dare you, sir!" but she prudently began by putting forbidden goods entirely out of his reach: thus she, at least, prevented the necessity for perpetual, irritating prohibitions, and diminished with the temptation the desire to disobey; she gave him some things for his own use, and scrupulously refrained from encroaching upon his property: Isabella and Matilda followed ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and led me to put up with a good deal which I should otherwise, in the frame of mind in which I then was, have impatiently shunned. For it only too often happened that in the Councillor's characteristic extravagance there was mingled much that was dull and tiresome; and it was in a special degree irritating to me that, as often as I turned the conversation upon music, and particularly upon singing, he was sure to interrupt me, with that sardonic smile upon his face and those repulsive singing tones of his, by some remark of a quite opposite tendency, very often ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... contains appetizers, to stimulate the desire for food—digestives, to insure complete digestion and assimilation of the food consumed—laxatives, to regulate the bowels—internal antiseptics, to keep the entire digestive tract in a condition of perfect health—worm destroyers, to expel irritating and dangerous intestinal parasites. ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... black servicemen and their families because of its often startling contrast to their life in the services. There was even evidence that some of the off-base segregation, especially overseas, had been introduced through the efforts of white servicemen. Particularly irritating to the committee were restrictions placed on black participation in civil rights demonstrations protesting such off-base conditions. The committee wanted ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... irritating, nerve-racking work. You knew you were on the level. In spite of the General Staff you believed you had a right to be where you were. You knew you had no wish to pry into military secrets; you knew that toward the allied armies you felt only admiration—that ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... calculated to irritate the susceptibilities of the Scotch peers, there were attendant circumstances still more irritating. The three Scotch judges were summoned from Scotland to answer certain legal questions connected with the debate. On their arrival a fresh debate sprang up on the question whether they should be {67} examined at the Bar of the House ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... since we have been favoured with a call from so cultured and learned a gentleman as the Hon. Andoneran P. Balderson, late of Quito, Hancock County, Iowa, who has finally determined to settle in our midst. Cramped by the irritating conventionalities of an effete civilisation, Colonel Balderson comes among us for that larger freedom and wider horizon which his growing powers demand. He comes with the ripened experience of a jurist, a soldier, and a publicist, and, when transportation ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... laughing by making some grotesque face, and, if I face about suddenly, he is staring at nothing on the ceiling, or pretending to catch a fly. He puts oranges in boots, spoons and corkscrews in people's pockets—generally mine—and has an irritating trick of calling out "Hi!" and beckoning; then, when you come, he asks you what ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... fear I have is in the weather. All the other combinations are good. I want to keep up the delusion of an attack on Mobile and the Alabama River, and therefore would be obliged if you would keep up an irritating foraging or other ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... night of Yasmini's escape Samson sat sweating in his private room, with moths of a hundred species irritating him by noisy self- immolation against the oil lamp-whose smoke made matters worse by being sucked up at odd moments by the punkah, pulled jerkily by a new man. Most aggravating circumstance of all, perhaps, was that the movement of the punkah flickered his papers away whenever ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... national habit and custom, this was the mark of the sophistication of the poets, sometimes delicately and craftily exhibited, but often, as in foreign examples which will easily occur to your memory, rankly, as with the tiresome persistence of a slightly stale perfume, an irritating odour of last night's opopanax or vervain. And this is the one point, almost I think the only point, in which the rather absurd and certainly very noisy and hoydenish manifestoes of the so-called Futurists, led by M. Marinetti and his crew of iconoclasts, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... trees immediately around the house, and if the air is still we can always hear them from among the tall trees at the foot of the hill. The thrashers sing in the hedgerows beyond the garden, the catbirds everywhere. The catbirds have such an attractive song that it is extremely irritating to know that at any moment they may interrupt it to mew and squeal. The bold, cheery music of the robins always seems typical of the bold, cheery birds themselves. The Baltimore orioles nest in the young elms around the house, and the orchard orioles in the apple ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... few times, to take some part in this work. She was eager to teach the women better methods, but at last the patriarch told her to let them alone, as she was only irritating them. Unlike the men, who almost worshipped the revolvers, and would have handled them, and even quickly learned to shoot, if Stern had allowed, the women clung sternly to their ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... situation would be removed, if the Protestant Legislature were no longer separate and local, but general and Imperial: and the Catholics themselves would at once feel a mitigation of the most goading and irritating of their present ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... The answer to an irritating thought came to Muldoon while he was waiting for an elevator to take him to the ground floor. He knew where he had seen the same kind of look as was in Robert Reeger's eyes when they had parted. In the eyes of a cat Muldoon had once ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... husband's command was irritating to the feelings of the empress. She thought that his orders should have outweighed her mere remonstrance, and she now felt it her duty ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... colonel; but owing to the accident to the top of his nose, which being still bandaged, or rather court-plastered up, and not tending to add to his beauty, he was not able to turn it up and sniff in his former irritating way that always exasperated me ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... men aboard with a letter from the agent in San Francisco, which agent was irritating on account of slowness, and had weedy-looking hair. But ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... alarmed at the idea of going to him by herself, and thus, perhaps, irritating him still more: she, therefore, said, "He has sent for you; for heaven's sake, do not ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... long time the young composer was unsuccessful in his attempts to break through the barren and irritating drudgery of a schoolmaster's life. At last a wealthy young dilettante, Franz von Schober, who had become an admirer of Schubert's songs, persuaded his mother to offer him a fixed home in her house. The latter gratefully accepted the overture of friendship, and thence ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and request that you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. If I could be of any service to Dr. M'Gill, I would do it, though it should be at a much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests, but I am afraid serving him in his present embarras is a task too hard for me. I have enemies enow, God knows, though I do not wantonly add to the number. Still, as I think there is some merit in two or three of the thoughts, I send it to you as a small, but sincere testimony ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... you scared of?" said young Robinson, moving forward to catch her again, and laughing in an irritating way. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... excitable, nervous organization, it was often a matter of wonder to me to see how much self-control he exercised, under irritating circumstances. He sometimes lost his self-control, and said things that would better have been left unsaid; but when he saw that he had done so he was ready to beg pardon for the offense. But he was kind-hearted and forgiving, and ready to forget ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... other hand, had they waited a day longer, your betrothal would, doubtless, have received Frederick's approval, and have been formally proclaimed. How embarrassing, then, to the Princess; how intensely irritating to the King, and how particularly injurious to you in the eyes of the nation—the people would think you won her under false colors; and, though you proved your innocence a hundred times, the taint would ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... could not tell whether the professor's gaze was fixed on him or on Agnew. Professor Barton had fiercely penetrating eyes, anyway, and the peculiar manner in which he looked at students in the classroom had always been especially irritating ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... have been placed at a slight disadvantage; but he was already like a concentrated volcano—calm outwardly, but surcharged with fire and death within. The taunt did not move his nerves an iota, and he replied in words which were scarcely less irritating. ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... the black figure inquiringly. It was not often that poor, cringing Jocko ventured to question him. "Yes, sloop," he said with an emphasis born of his irritating disappointment. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... young women had committed to memory these causes of evil and their remedies, many a badly-built chimney might have been cured, and many smoke-drawn tears, sighs, ill-tempers, and irritating ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... so violent, that at last it could be induced by touching any part of its body.... The dog had no reason of hatred against any individual; ... both sight and hearing had been destroyed; and many persons the animal had never seen, provoked its rage by irritating the wound." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... did some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and irritating their minds; but that the experience of mankind had declared in favour of moderate drinking. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not say it is wrong to produce self complacency by drinking; I only deny that it improves the mind. When I drank wine, I scorned to drink it when in company.[129] I have drunk ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the vicinity of water, and delight in attacking the tender skin of the stranger. Then, again, beware of scratching any exposed part of the skin, for, unless it is quickly covered by plaister or otherwise attended to, an irritating sore, which may take months ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... It was more irritating than ever for Mrs. Galland to keep pace with her daughter's inconsistencies. There was a Marta listening in partisan sympathy to Hugo's story of why he had refused to fight and telling the story of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... lay outside the scope of this inquiry, we have already had, in the pastoral work of his imitators, ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of the style he rendered fashionable. Its laborious affectation is all the more irritating when we remember that its author, on turning his attention to the more or less unseemly brawling of the Martin Mar-prelate pasquilade, revealed a command of effective vernacular hardly, if at all, inferior ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... curse, as in the dropsy, but essential to life with our food. Oil is valuable, properly taken, but an irritating oil to consume the bones is destructive. How awful the case of the rich man when refused a drop of water to cool that fire which he had created while living, and into which he ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hot days of spring and autumn are the pugnacious ones, even though the actual heat be much less than for summer. We might infer from this that conditions of heat, up to a certain extent, are vitalizing, while, at the same time, irritating, but above that limit, heat is so devitalizing in its effects as to leave hardly energy enough to carry on a fight." (E.G. Dexter, Conduct and the Weather, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... many a wound, sir," said Williams; "and some far worse than yours. 'Tis not a dangerous cut, yours, though 'twill be irritating while it lasts. You won't walk for a ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... by irritating the tips without any object being left in contact with them. Nine radicles, suspended over water, had their tips rubbed, each six times with a needle, with sufficient force to shake the whole bean; the temperature was favourable, viz. about ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... stake. In the midst of all G. arrived. Hay also exerted himself to the utmost; I promised him a hundred pounds, if I found it. He never told me that he said how it would be, never intruded the state of the market, never resented my irritating conduct, but watched me with narrow yet kind solicitude, and frequently offered valuable suggestions, which, however, as everything else did, led to nothing. I did not call on G., but in a week or so his card was ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... herself scarcely knew: it was an accident that on this occasion his absence had been marked for her. Selina had had her reasons for wishing not to go up to town while her husband was still at Mellows, and she cherished the irritating belief that he stayed at home on purpose to watch her—to keep her from going away. It was her theory that she herself was perpetually at home—that few women were more domestic, more glued to the fireside and absorbed ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... really were. When would she leave off making mistakes about them? She hadn't suspected this side of Mrs. Fisher, and she began to wonder whether those other sides of her with which alone she was acquainted had not perhaps after all been the effect of her own militant and irritating behaviour. Probably they were. How horrid, then, she must have been. She felt very penitent when she saw Mrs. Fisher beneath her eyes blossoming out into real amiability the moment some one came along who was charming ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... giving it!" supplemented Hall, remembering the rivalry of the traders. Again he did deliberate thinking. If he should place McDevitt it would be a small but irritating way to annoy Burroughs. He was not above seeking even infinitesimal means of stinging, and this chance encounter might lead to something more to his set purpose. So he went on: "Get you a job, eh? Se-ve-ri-al others want sinecures." He grew facetious as his thought took shape. "I'm out of ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... clear, positive and definite, and his utterances fluent. Orderly, resolute and thorough in all that he did, he despised William McClintock's easy-going habits of husbandry, and found David's lack of "push," of business enterprise, deeply irritating. And yet he loved them both and respected my mother ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland |
