"Peevishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... Negro: I know it tells powerfully upon white folks. The psalmist, addressing his Maker, says, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." It is a mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness, fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will legitimately result in thriftlessness, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... features told a tale of lassitude and weariness, at variance with the prime of life, which was then her own. No intellect, no emotion was expressed on her countenance; it never varied, except, perhaps, to denote peevishness or sullenness when domestic affairs annoyed her, which appeared to be the case at present. A volume of the last new novel was in her hand, in which she appeared sufficiently interested as to feel still more annoyed ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... not merely in humble but in affluent houses, families of daughters sitting waiting to be married, I have pitied them from my heart. It is doubtless well—very well—if Fate decrees them a happy marriage; but, if otherwise, give their existence some object, their time some occupation, or the peevishness of disappointment, and the listlessness of idleness will infallibly degrade their nature.... Lonely as I am, how should I be if Providence had never given me courage to adopt a career...? How should I be with youth past, sisters lost, a resident in a moorland parish where there is not a single ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... musical. Raven concluded he must have been strangely moved to break into that mad "Hullo." It had been more, he thought, that wild repetition with the echo throwing it back, like the Gabriel hounds. But Raven took no notice of the question. He spoke with a calculated peevishness. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... young ladies, when in the fulfilment of their daily duties, were models of deportment; in their hours of ease, the elder's cold dignity was rather apt to turn to peevishness, while the younger sister, relieved from the restraints of the showroom, betrayed a lively ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... dog, he conceives himself a marvellous clever fellow; yea, even those of her own sex who are below what is called a "certain age" (what that age is, I cannot tell), think themselves privileged to giggle at the expense of their elder sister. Now, though there may be a degree of peevishness (and it is not to be wondered at) amongst the sisterhood, yet with them you will find the most sensitive tenderness of heart, a delicacy that quivers, like the aspen leaf, at a breath, and a kindliness of soul that a mother ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... coachman's coat flung off his shoulders and hanging down to his heels, a swallow-tail, tight pantaloons, and Hessian boots—extracting from his bosom his father's portrait and expressing filial sentiments to it. One was less likely to accuse Corinne of peevishness when one beheld the delineation of family worship in the Edgermond household from which she fled. And the faithful eyes remonstrated with the petulant brain for scoffing at excessive sentiment, when they saw how everybody was always at somebody ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... evidence before all others, we see no hope for the faithful and earnest historian; he must give himself up to swim as he may on the frothy stream of private letters, anecdotes, and pamphlets, the puppet of the ignorance, credulity, peevishness, spite, of any and every ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... them and observed their weaknesses and craft, with the same quiet interest he displayed toward worthier objects. A thoroughly equable nature was his—with little capacity for righteous indignation on the one side, and no small tendencies toward envy or peevishness on the other. There was not a wrinkle on his calm countenance, nor any power of angry flashing in his steadfast, wide-apart, gray eyes. But his tongue ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "Come, let us walk. It grows cold. I enjoy that, but it is not very safe for you. And, pardon me, dear friend, I spoke harshly just now. I told you I was getting old. Put my words down to the peevishness ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... and studied him more closely. He saw that this bereaved husband was of the high-strung, Southern-gentleman type, hot-tempered, impulsive, one of those apt to believe that "shooting" is the remedy for one's personal ills or injuries. The lines of his mouth betrayed selfishness and peevishness. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... would be burthensome to himself, and consequently incapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of her products plays the step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, has endowed some men with that unhappy peevishness of disposition, as to nauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and much admire what belongs to other persons, so as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birth or fortunes have bestowed upon them: for what grace is there in the greatest beauty, if it be always clouded ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... did not seem to hear him. She leaned back in the corner of the sofa like a wooden figure. The immovable peevishness of the face, framed in the limp, rusty lace, had a ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... tranquilly that Chris was hardly able to keep back his tears. It seemed that the soul still kept its serene poise in that wasted body, and was independent of it. There was no weakness nor peevishness anywhere. The very room with its rough walls, its cobwebbed roof, its uneven flooring, its dreadful chill and gloom, seemed alive with a warm, redolent, spiritual atmosphere generated by this keen, pure soul. Chris had never been near so ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... numbering over three children, and the mortality among the new-born is excessive, owing to the ignorance and neglect of the ordinary rules of hygiene. They seem, however, to be kind to their children, who in respect to crying do not show the same peevishness as seen in our nurseries; indeed, the social and demonstrative good nature of the race seems to crop out even in babyhood, as I have often witnessed under such circumstances as a baby enveloped in furs in a skin ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... period, Tom, whose heart was of the melting mood, began to sob and weep plenteously, from pure affection. Crowe, who was not very subject to these tendernesses, d—-ed him for a chicken-hearted lubber; repeating, with much peevishness, "What dost cry for? what dost cry for, noddy?" The surgeon, impatient to know the story of Sir Launcelot, which he had heard imperfectly recounted, begged that Mr. Clarke would compose himself, and relate it as circumstantially ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... kings, it is a part of their royal prerogative; but it is only a great king who can be weary gracefully. And Leopold was not a great king; indeed, he was many inches short of the ideal; but he was philosophical, and by the process of reason he escaped the pitfalls which lurk in the path of peevishness. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... series of resolutions passed to that effect. The west wind is hopeful; it has promise and adventure in it, and is, except to Atlantic voyagers America-bound, the best wind that ever blew. The east wind is peevishness; it is mental rheumatism and grumbling, and curls one up in the chimney-corner like a cat. And if the chimney ever smokes, it smokes when the wind sits in that quarter. The south wind is full of longing and unrest, of effeminate suggestions of luxurious ease, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the leaves complaining to one another that they must die, and commiserating the hardness of their lot in having ever been induced to bud forth, we should, I imagine, despise them for their peevishness more than we should pity them. We should tell them that though we could not see reason for thinking that they would ever hang again upon the same-or any at all similar-bough as the same individual leaves, after they had once faded and fallen off, yet that as ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... of suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... was the barest chance, of course. Personally he thought nothing of poison. The remotest chance. He was—he assured me—considered to be infinitely more useful than dangerous, and so . . . "But the Rajah is afraid of you abominably. Anybody can see that," I argued with, I own, a certain peevishness, and all the time watching anxiously for the first twist of some sort of ghastly colic. I was awfully disgusted. "If I am to do any good here and preserve my position," he said, taking his seat by my side in the boat, "I must ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Marietta was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman who disliked the bondage ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... peevishness had promptly put aside Such honor and refused the proffered boon," . . . II. Half Rome ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... to their duties, meet him in that, especially in this exigent when his kingdom and person are in apparent danger, the world might see he is forced, contrary to his own inclination, to use extraordinary means rather than, by the peevishness of some few factious spirits, to suffer his state and government to ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... you true; 'tis the fashion on my knowledge: Yet the good lord, to please your peevishness, Must put it ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... young bride. Her husband was a reckless, unsatisfied being, and though he ever loved her with all the affection of which such natures are capable, the warm expressions of his love, varied by fits of peevishness and ill-humor, were so unlike the calm, unchanging devotedness of her nature that she felt a bitter disappointment. Soon after the birth of their daughter his health failed, and he repaired to Italy for the benefit of a more genial climate, and in the hope of perfecting himself in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... countrymen. Our dispositions too frequently change with the colour of the sky; and when we find ourselves cheerful and good-natured, we naturally pay our acknowledgments to the powers of sunshine; or, if we sink into dulness and peevishness, look round the horizon for an excuse, and charge our discontent upon an easterly wind or a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... parables, like a detective out of a book," said Thornton, with a peevishness that his covering smile could not entirely conceal. "But I know you'll have your own way when you don't want to be too precise. How do you regard the burnt paper? Is ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... herself at the time that the baby fell ill, and unusually ill-fitted to bear a heavy blow. Then her watchful eyes had seen symptoms of ailing in the child long before the windmiller's good sense would allow a fuss to be made, and expense to be incurred about a little peevishness up or down. And it was some words muttered by the doctor when he did come, about not having been sent for soon enough, which were now doing as much as any thing to drive the poor woman frantic. They struck a blow, too, at her blind belief in the miller's invariable wisdom. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... gives most excellent fruit from a thorny stalk, so the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the first approaches, will make the married state more agreeable and pleasant. But those husbands who cannot put up with the early peevishness of their brides, are not a whit wiser than those persons who pluck unripe grapes and leave the ripe grapes for others.[156] On the other hand, many brides, being at first disgusted with their husbands, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... him through, and nursed him to convalescence. I thought I knew something of the peevishness of convalescents: but Farrell beat anything I had ever seen, or heard, or read of. By this time I was worn weak as a rat with night-watching and day-watching: but of this he made no account whatever. He started by using his greater weakness for strength, and he ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... say," answered Sam, with something of peevishness; "losses is losses: there's no use talking about 'em ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were economical, and therefore could afford to be generous. All the wants of this destitute widow were supplied from the profits of their industry: they nursed her with daily humanity, bore with the peevishness of disease, and did all in their power to soothe the anguish of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... commanded to be subject to their masters, "not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward." The non-observance of this command on the part of servants, has frequently engendered that peevishness and perverseness in masters to which the apostles alludes, viz. forwardness among servants, has engendered frowardness in masters. It is the duty of servants, to oppose the evil tempers and dispositions, and the inhumanity of masters, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... keeping Charles in the north as long as possible. In the mean time, they endeavored to alienate his regards from the minister by exaggerated reports of his arbitrary conduct and temper, rendered more morose by the peevishness of age. Charles showed a facility to be directed by those around him in early years, which gave little augury of the greatness to ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... vicious woman nothing would have troubled her, but she was not vicious. She was not even less than good in her moral instincts. Only she was weak, hopelessly weak, and so all these things drove her to a shrewish discontent and peevishness. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... not in error, seem so. Often wrong, occasionally right, he possessed in perfection the unhappy art of doing the right thing in the wrong way. Restless and irascible, passing from self-confidence to gloom, he would find relief for nerve tension in a peevishness which was the last quality one in his difficult position should have shown. An autocratic official amid little rough, dissatisfied communities of hard-headed pioneers was a king with no divinity to hedge him round. Without pomp, almost without privacy, everything ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition of many clergymen has sharpened my spirits perhaps too much against them; so I warn my reader to take all that I say on these heads with some grains of allowance.—Swift. I will ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... cigarette had gone out, I threw it with some peevishness into the grate. Judith's expression had changed from mock to real gravity. She sat bolt upright and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... beware of that anxiety which generates peevishness. It is a greater fault than any which servants can commit by mere negligence, to allow of those intemperate sallies against their misconduct, which, by degrading their mistresses in their eyes, diminish the good effect a genuine piety might otherwise produce. It is a weakness ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... but a feeling somewhat akin to it, provoked by untoward events and inevitable happenings, such as the weather, accidents, etc. It is void of all spirit of revenge. Peevishness is chronic impatience, due to a disordered nervous system and requires the services of a competent physician, being ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... name he loves Misanthropus, and the marks whereby he may be known peevishness and spleen, wrath and rudeness and abhorrence. If ever one burning to death should call for help against the flames, let me help—with pitch and oil. If another be swept past me by a winter torrent, and stretch out his hands for aid, then let mine press him down head ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... could not counterbalance the harshness of its contents. Madame Balzac, be it granted, was cantankerous; but how many sons who have never sponged on their mothers have supported them cheerfully, gladly, for long years out of meagre resources, and have borne with a smile the natural peevishness of old age, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... unclothed that she might be clothed upon, she certainly made a tolerable to-do about the garment she was so soon to lay aside; especially seeing she often spoke of it as an ill-fitting garment—never with peevishness or complaint, only, as it seemed to me, with far more interest than it was worth. She had even, as afterwards appeared, given her husband—good, honest, dog-like man—full instructions as to the ceremonial of its interment. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... of his peevishness her husband may be trying hard to minimize his defects and be a reasonable, ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... still with that suggestion of peevishness, hanging over the rail and peering down at us. "Oh! By gracious!" he exclaimed, abruptly. "I'm glad to see you, Ridgeway. I had a boatman coming out before this, but I guess—well, I guess he'll be along. By ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... indeed the best work Miss DELL has yet done, is her treatment of the romantic friendship between Christine and Bertrand de Montville. It is handled so touchingly and so surely that I resent with all the more peevishness the banality of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... him would have been to set him at liberty and send him to Oxford. There he might have stayed, tortured by his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else to plague with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces and antics in the cathedral, continuing that incomparable diary, which we never see without forgetting the vices of his heart In the imbecility of his intellect minuting down his dreams, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Berta stumped conceitedly along the path in her new rubber boots. Gertrude wondered aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads. Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice, Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where she hid the notions which she dimly felt looked ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... in the parched air and stung more sharply their bloodshot, aching eyeballs. The dust settled smotheringly upon them, filled nostrils and lungs and roughened their patience into peevishness. A calf bolted from the herd, and a "hold-up" man pursued it vindictively, swearing by several things that he would break its blamed neck—only his wording was more vehement. A cinder got in Slim's eye and one would think, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... mangles more, And itch most hurts when angered to a sore; So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse, You only make the matter worse and worse. He past it o'er; affects an easy smile At all my peevishness, and turns his style. He asks, "What news?" I tell him of new plays, New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas. He hears, and as a still with simples in it Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute, Loth to enrich me with too ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... passions have aptly been compared to the boisterous ocean, which is known to produce the most terrible effects. 'Passions are the elements of life,' but elements which are subject to the control of reason. Whoever will candidly examine themselves, will find some degree of passion, peevishness, or obstinacy in their natural tempers. You will seldom find these disagreeable ingredients all united in one; but the uncontrolled indulgence of either is sufficient to render the possessor unhappy in himself, and disagreeable to all who are so unhappy as to be witnesses ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... exquisite is this whole speech! And that profound nature of noble pride and grief venting themselves in a momentary peevishness of ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate.... And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loves all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... have the victory I cannot yet say the old man is dead; some seeds of peevishness yet remain to be destroyed. Praise God, I hate the garment spotted by the flesh. 'All peace, all love,' is the desire of my heart, and the longing of my soul.—A day of fasting and prayer; but separation from every thing that defileth is what is pleasing to the Lord. May this be my ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... While Bright-eyes, full of fun, made many a joke at the expense of the blind, crabbed old rat, who had been so fond of talking, and now could scarcely utter a squeak— of eating, and now could not nibble a nut,— Oddity never thought the sufferings of another the subject for a smile, or the peevishness and infirmities of age any theme for the ridicule of the young. He had been often laughed at himself; that was perhaps the reason why he never gave the same ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... exhausting nights and very peevish wakenings. However, this shall be remedied, and last night I was distinctly better than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguey peevishness; why (say I) what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable - that is no reason for mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and GIRN on the unfortunate Cassandra. - Your ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distressing excitement and a gloomy depression, her temper gives way; and even the words of the Divine Master lose their influence over her. She becomes fretful, and yet full of remorse for yielding to her peevishness; she seeks for sympathy, without being able to give reasons for needing it; she annoys those around her by groundless fears, and is angered when they show their annoyance. In fine, she is utterly wretched, without ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... and burly like thyself, Thomas—nearly as thick-headed, but without thy indifference to danger and carelessness of offence? I tell thee that Austria has in all that mass of flesh no bolder animation than is afforded by the peevishness of a wasp and the courage of a wren. Out upon him! He a leader of chivalry to deeds of glory! Give him a flagon of Rhenish to drink with his besmirched ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... in his heart. A stranger is at first unaware of the cause of the mental misery he endures; his temper sours as his spirits sink; every person, and every circumstance, annoys him; it affects even his dreams; sleep itself is not a refuge from querulous peevishness, and every motion is ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... until next morning. Summoning all my resolution, I repaired without my uncle's knowledge to the poet's house at an early hour, and after much difficulty was admitted to his room. He was still in bed. Every body has heard of Byron's peevishness, when disturbed or intruded on. He demanded my business in a petulant and offensive tone. I replied, respectfully, that on the preceding day I loaned him a silver pencil,—strongly emphasizing and repeating the word silver,—which, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... and charity, his morality and religion.' The last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read Johnson's admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of a Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to literature and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the nurses; they had no swaddling bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; nor afraid in the dark, or of being left alone; without any peevishness or ill humor or crying. Upon this account, Spartan nurses were often bought up, or hired by ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... a mouse, her brain exulting in its vivid memories of her time with Toby; and she did not think of Gaga at all. She only hoped that he would not come to the office. She was feeling too tired to deal effectively with any peevishness from Gaga; although, the causes of her hysteria having been removed, she was not likely to repeat the failure of that other restless night. A heaviness hung upon her as the day wore on; a kind of thick readiness for sleep. She yawned over her work. The workroom ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... had seen her, or his child. The woman stared at me with astonishment; and I turned my eyes on the squalid object [that accompanied her.] She could hardly support herself, her complexion was sallow, and her eyes inflamed, with an indescribable look of cunning, mixed with the wrinkles produced by the peevishness of pain. ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... of an old beau as I am. But my friend Horace has very well said: "Every year takes something from us;" and instructed me to form my pursuits and desires according to the stage of my life; therefore, I have no more to value myself upon, than that, I can converse with young people without peevishness, or wishing myself a moment younger. For which reason, when I am amongst them, I rather moderate than interrupt their diversions. But though I have this complacency, I must not pretend to write to a lady civil things, as Maria desires. Time was, when I could have told her, "I had received ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... a suspicion of peevishness in his voice; "that is not very much. What do you think they mean to do with us? That is what I am trying to get at. Of course I remember that the gist of Mitchell's homily to us was: 'Don't go, if you value your lives, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... the order was carried out; then he returned to his room. He felt that though he had conquered in this instance, he had adopted the wrong tone, and that he must offer something else than peevishness and irritation to ward off Westby's humor; already it gave indications of becoming too audacious. Yet on the whole Irving was pleased because he had at least asserted himself—and had rather enjoyed ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... in with a pleased exclamation, his voice had no longer the thin, worn sound, as if only resolute resignation prevented peevishness; there was a cheerfulness and solidity in the tone, as he came fondly to her side, regretted having missed her first appearance, and feared she had ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you are conscious that you are naturally rough and austere, that disappointments have soured, or prosperity has elated you, or that habits of command have rendered you quick in expression, and impatient of contradiction; or if, from whatever other cause, you have contracted an unhappy peevishness of temper, or asperity of manners, or harshness and severity of language, (remember that these defects are by no means incompatible with an aptness to perform services of substantial kindness); if nature has been confirmed by habit till at length your soul seems thoroughly ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... relieve me, and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirit and a good conscience.... And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... of many which filled Elodie's head with an illusion of the brilliant genius of Horatio Bakkus. In spite of her peevishness she had a wholesome respect for Andrew—for his honesty, his singleness of purpose, his gentle masterfulness. But, all the same, their common detection of the drill-sergeant in his nature formed a sympathetic bond ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... Folly treats of serious Matters, in such a gay, familiar, ingenious and pleasant manner, as makes it a Work proper to be read by intelligent People, to remove out of their Minds all Bigotry contracted by Ignorance and an evil Education, all Peevishness, Hatred, and Ill-nature towards one another, on account of different Sentiments in Religion; and to form in them the natural Principles of Moderation, Humanity, Affection and Friendship. Our learned and ingenious ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... was then going to college. The Porter boys—nice little fellows—are great friends of Edna's brothers, and often come out to spend Saturday with Frank and Charlie. Louis sometimes comes for a holiday, and shows himself much more manly; he is gradually outgrowing his peevishness and selfishness, so that he bids fair to be a ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... the constant and wearing difficulty of getting Fred Wentworth to be civil to him; yet May Gaston was half-inclined to fall in with it. The attitude of offence which he had at first maintained towards her was marked by peevishness, not by dignity, and when it was relaxed his old excessive politeness revived in full force. He had few 'moments' either; and the one reported to her with enthusiasm by Dick Benyon took place on Duty Hill while she was gossiping on the lawn. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... whining in it than in any other country on the face of the globe. If we are to die, "Nibbled to Death by Ducks" may well be put on the tombstone. Little things are permitted to bring about paroxysms of peevishness. Even our pleasures have come to be taken sadly. We are irritable at picnics, snarly at clambakes, and ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... in children, husband and household. And of those who really enjoy their homes most are remarried after a divorce, or even after two or more. Our society suffers from a plague worse than the pestilence itself, a plague of greed for excitement, eagerness for novelty, of peevishness and fickleness. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... peevishness troubled their harmonious intercourse: and, instead of bickerings and discontents among them, nothing was seen but mutual condescension, which delighted all who had the opportunity of being in their company. May this serve as a useful lesson to my youthful readers, how ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... during the solemn hours of public worship, he beguiles our hearts with some scheme for doing good; taking care, however, that self be uppermost in it. When we are in a bad frame, he stirs up the unholy tempers of our hearts, and leads us to indulge in peevishness, moroseness, harshness, and anger, or in levity and ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... whilst cutting their first set of teeth often suffer severe constitutional disturbance. At first there is restlessness and peevishness, with slight fever, but not infrequently these are followed by convulsive fits, as they are commonly called, which depends on the brain becoming irritated; and sometimes under this condition the child is either cut off suddenly, or the foundation of serious mischief to the brain ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... thoroughly well. Being her own mistress and at the same time having a man to take care of her, having an important and comfortable house of her own, ordering about her own servants and spending her husband's money, such things made her life pleasant, and checked the growth of peevishness ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... afraid of the drab side of life. But he never shows peevishness on the one side nor bloodless romanticism on the other. He sees this drab side, and he sees the passion of life—the aspiring human always trying to be more than it is, or can be, in some desperate, foolish way. This is the tragedy and the hopefulness ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... say . . ." he went on musing, "I wonder what they would say? . . . Come back to the lamp," he cried with sudden peevishness. "Don't look out there . . . this circle of light on the pavement . . . like ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... tries to enforce his own opinion by peevishness, whining, or complaining, with the result that he uses ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... you've got anything to say! I don't see what you mean, and you are damned officious. Yes, that's it—damned officious." The peevishness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nature, that my love was founded, and these will never change;—and if, at times, unpleasant circumstances should arise, into which my sex and age unfit me to inquire to throw a cloud over his features, or a transient peevishness into his humour, it would ill become me—in short," continued she in a trembling voice, and throwing her arms around Lady Percy's neck, to conceal her tears, "in short, dear Madam, you must remember that dearly, tenderly, dutifully, as Helen loves her mother, the wife of Greville can have no complaints ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... they did not help me to think of anything definite to ask for; and when Lady Elizabeth said, "would you like to go home, my dear? or do you want me to ask your friend to stay with you?" I had the grace to feel ashamed of my peevishness, and to thank my godmother for her kindness, and to protest against wanting anything more. I only added, amid my subsiding sobs, that "it did seem such a thing," when I had got a Dutch fair to play at dolls in, that Joseph should be so ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... his temper or disturbed his serenity. His faculties were unclouded, his memory retentive, his perceptions clear to the last; no murmur of impatience ever escaped him, no querulous word, no ebullition of anger or peevishness; he was uniformly patient, mild, indulgent, deeply sensible of kindness and attention, exacting nothing, considerate of others and apparently regardless of self, overflowing with affection and kindness of manner and language to ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... another to the feast, nor take food in the mansion, until I, placing thee upon my knees, satisfied thee with viands, previously carving them, and supplied thee with wine. Often hast thou wetted the tunic upon my breast, ejecting the wine in infant peevishness.[316] Thus have I borne very many things from thee, and much have I laboured, thinking this, that since the gods have not granted an offspring to me from myself, I should at least make thee my son, O Achilles, like unto the gods, that ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... know. Everything depends on her, and I think she can no longer have any reasons for hesitation. . . . At all events," he added, after a moment's silence and with a touch of peevishness, "I cannot see any that she could allege ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Nature that purpose to thwart which man in his peevishness is apt to attribute to her. Just because he desired so much that the winter should hold off a few days longer, Bates, on seeing the snow falling from the white opaque sky, took for granted that the downfall would continue and the ice upon the lake increase. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... beyond the reach of his lady's sharp querulousness. "All his misfortune," says Roger North, "lay at home, in perverse consort, who always, after his day-labor done, entertained him with all the chagrin and peevishness imaginable; so that he went home as to his prison, or worse; and when the time came, rather than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free chat at the tavern, over a single bottle, till twelve or one at night, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... true that home life may be lovely under the lowliest roof, although he liked to paint it without a shadow on its beauty there. It is still a fact that the sick are very often saintly, although he put no peevishness into their patience with their ills. His ethical intention told for manhood and fraternity and tolerance, and when this intention disappeared from the better holiday literature, that literature was sensibly the poorer ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for this sentence stood like a mill post at my back; yet, towards the evening of the next day, I felt this word begin to leave me and to withdraw its supportation from me, and so I returned to my old fears again, but with a great deal of grudging and peevishness, for I feared the sorrow of despair; 'nor could my faith ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Milton engaged, and prosecuted it with vigour; but the most enthusiastic admirer of that poet, upon reading it will not fail to discover a spirit of bitterness, an air of peevishness and resentment to run through the whole. Milton has been charged with interpolating the prayer of Pamela into the King's Meditations, by the assistance of Bradshaw, who laid his commands upon the printer so to do, to blast the reputation of the King's book. Dr. Newton ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... in a manner that quite justifies the woman. They whine, they rave, and they seem most of all to be astonished at the woman's lack of judgment in not recognising their merits. Instead of a noble sorrow, they exhibit peevishness; they seem to say, "You'll be sorry some day." Browning's rejected lovers never think of themselves and their own defeat; they think only of the woman, who is now more adorable than ever. It never occurs to them that the woman is lacking in intelligence because of ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... culpably careless in all things that concerned his health and comfort, he spent his earnings for the welfare of his brothers, in order that an honourable posterity might carry on the name he bore, and which he made illustrious. We may smile at his peevishness in repudiating the title of sculptor after bearing it through so many years of glorious labour; but when he penned the letters I have quoted, he was the supreme artist of Italy, renowned as painter, architect, military engineer; praised as a ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... impossible not to hear from those who have lived longer, of wrongs and falsehoods, of violence and circumvention; but such narratives are commonly regarded by the young, the heady, and the confident, as nothing more than the murmurs of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and, notwithstanding all the documents of hoary wisdom, we commonly plunge into the world fearless and credulous, without any foresight of danger, or apprehension ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... what part Bassompierre was to play, I looked for his coming as anxiously as anyone. And probably the King shared this feeling; but he affected indifference, and continued to sit over the fire with an air of mingled scorn and peevishness. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... offensive. Some, who would be thought critics, say, 'This humour of his is forced.' But, to remove that objection, we may consider him, first, to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many are, to whom all sharp sounds are unpleasant: and, secondly, we may attribute much of it to the peevishness of his age, or the wayward authority of an old man in his own house, where he may make himself obeyed; and this the Poet seems to allude to, in his name MOROSE. Besides this, I am assured from divers persons, that BEN. JOHNSON was actually ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... governing. There are several lusts in the soul that cannot be mastered, if hope be not in exercise-especially if the soul be in great and sore trials. There is peevishness and impatience, there is fear and despair, there is doubting and misconstruing of God's present hand; and all these become masters, if hope be not stirring; nor can any grace besides put a stop to their tumultuous raging in the soul. But now, hope in God makes them ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... sensation of treading on air. Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught myself in the act once or twice. I looked into the faces of the women I passed and there saw so much trouble and anxiety, discontent, even to peevishness, that my heart went out to them, and I wished I could impart to them a wee bit of the sunshine I ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... I forget the enchanting hours which I passed in Mr. Garrick's society; he appeared to me as one who possessed more power, both to awe and to attract, than any man I ever met with. His smile was fascinating, but he had at times a restless peevishness of tone which excessively affected his hearers; at least it affected me so that I ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... spiteful creature. The wrinkles of contempt crossed the wrinkles of peevishness, and made her face as full of wrinkles as a pat of butter. If ever a king could be justified in forgetting anybody, this king was justified in forgetting his sister, even at a christening. She looked very odd, too. Her forehead was as large as all the rest ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... previous uproar, and began clamouring for the absent dog. The audience took up the cry, the dogs barked more excitedly, and five minutes of hilarity delayed the turn which, when at last started, was marked by rustiness and erraticness on the part of the dogs and by great peevishness on the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... faith in him. Mrs. Morrison, a woman who had much trouble with herself, having come into the world with the wings of the angel in her well glued down and prevented from spreading by a multitude of little defects, had been helped without her knowing it by his example out of many a pit of peevishness and passion. Who shall measure the influence of one kind and blameless life? His wife, in her gustier moments, thought it sheer weakness, this persistent turning away from evil, this refusal to investigate and dissect, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... equally proud, resentful) and ungovernable. At Essex House, he had to calm the rage of a young hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations) and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, whose temper, never very gentle, had been rendered morbidly irritable by age, by declining health, and by the long habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit obedience. It is hard to serve two masters. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... delicate, artificial constitution, too fragile for the trials and duties of life. The body of your child has not the blooming, blushing form of nature, but the cold marble cast of a statue; and it imprints itself upon the disposition, the spirit, the mental faculties. It shows itself in peevishness, in imbecility, in such a passive, slavish subjection to the rules and interests of mere artificial life, as to admit no ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... Mrs. Elliot. There was a touch of peevishness in her voice. "And we've had such a hunt to find you. Do you know ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to the displeasing and unquiet wife, upon this ground principally, That marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man: where, therefore, the match proves such as that the wife doth but pull down aside, and, by her innate peevishness and either sullen or pettish and froward disposition, bring rather discontent to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should it not, saith he, be in the husband's power, after some unprevailing ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... numerous, scarcely ever falling below half-a-dozen, and not unfrequently doubling that allowance. They generally appeared upon the stage in rapid succession—one had scarcely time to get out of the way, before another was pushing him from his place. The peevishness thus begotten in the mother—by the constant habit of nursing cross cherubs—though it diminished the amount of family peace, contributed, in another way, to the general welfare: it induced the father to look abroad for enjoyment, and thus gave the country the benefit of his wisdom as a political ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... might be sufficient to warn other young men in such circumstances, as his once were, from falling into faults of that kind, which had brought him to ruin and shame. Yet though he laid aside all desires relating to worldly things, he yet expressed a little peevishness from the neglect shown towards him by his friends in the country, who though they knew well enough of his misfortunes, yet they absolutely declined doing anything for him, from a notion perhaps that it might reflect upon themselves. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... and merrily sung the lark, when Lisardo quitted his bed-chamber at seven in the morning, and rang lustily at my outer gate for admission. So early a visitor put the whole house in commotion; nor was it without betraying some marks of peevishness and irritability that, on being informed of his arrival, I sent word by the servant to know what might be the cause of such an interruption. The reader will readily forgive this trait of harshness and precipitancy, on my part, when he is informed that ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to the bulletins of Napoleon's health, produced an order from the governor for the arrest of O'Meara. There was a vast quantity of peevishness exercised on the subject, and Napoleon attempted to raise this trifling affair into a general quarrel of the commissioners. But on his declaring that he would no longer receive the visits of O'Meara while under arrest, the governor revoked the order, and O'Meara continued his attendance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... manifests itself in every degree of disturbance from mere peevishness and fretfulness to severe and intensely painful attacks in which restlessness passes into grunting, writhing, and kicking; the forehead becomes puckered and the face has an agonized expression; the baby tends to scream violently and draws his ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship. They are all public servants engaged ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... rather as a zealous citizen, than a pacific Christian. These reproaches touched him: and in the latter part of his life he wished only his sacred poems had been preserved[49]. But, notwithstanding the peevishness of those Divines, Grotius's Poems had a great run, were printed in England, and several ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... returned. Then, with a smile of peevishness not unmingled with contempt, he added: "He's getting too uppish for me. I don't think the Latin agrees ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride or design ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... your voice so changed?" said Lilian. "Its tone jars on my ear," she added, with a peevishness so unlike her, that it startled me more than it offended; and without a word further, she quickened her pace, and ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in spite of ardent friendship he had perhaps loved best of all things—some other companion, an unfailing companion, ever at his side throughout; doubling his pleasure in the roses by the way, patient of his peevishness or depression, sympathetic above all with his grateful recognition, onward from his earliest days, of the fact that he was there at all? Must not the whole world around have faded away for him altogether, had he been left for one moment really alone in it?" One can see in ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... will, when concentrated, produce, if taken medicinally, effects very similar to those brought about by taking mercurial salts, viz., an ulcerative-state of the mouth, with a profuse flow of saliva, and with excessive stimulation of the liver: peevishness also on the following day, with a depressing backache in men, suggesting paralysis, and with a profuse fluor albus in women. When given in moderation as food, or as physic, the fruit will remedy this chain ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... in emotional incidents than the other works of Chopin which bear the same name. More than to any one of the master's scherzos, the name capriccio would be suitable to his third "Scherzo," Op. 39, with its capricious starts and changes, its rudderless drifting. Peevishness, a fierce scornfulness, and a fretful agitation, may be heard in these sounds, of jest and humour there is nothing perceptible. At any rate, the curled lip, as it were, contradicts the jesting words, and the careless exterior does not altogether ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... which always attends miscarriage, did not spare the character of this commander; his attack was condemned as rash, and his retreat as pusillanimous. In such a case allowances must be made for the peevishness of disappointment, and the clamour of connexion. How far Mr. Abercrombie acquitted himself in the duty of a general we shall not pretend to determine; but if he could depend upon the courage and discipline of his forces, he surely ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... enough to blame Sir Charles for his peevishness, and she began to throw out little expressions of dissatisfaction at him; but these were so promptly discouraged by the faithful wife that she drew in again and avoided that line. But one day, coming softly as a cat, she heard ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... peevishness, the jealousy of the elder brother in the close of the parable represent, in its most distinctive features, the character of the Jewish people and their leaders, in the beginning of the Gospel. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... wants his natural sleep, and growing dull would gladly give the remnant of his life for two hours rest; yet through his frowardness, will rather choose to watch another man, drowsie as he, than take his own repose. All this I know: yet a strange peevishness and anger, not to have the power to do things unexpected, carries me away to mine own ruine: I had rather die sometimes than not disgrace in public him whom people think I love, and do't with oaths, and am in earnest then: O what are we! Men, you must ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... at the door, and her mother's voice, admonished her that dinner was waiting. An impulse all but caused her to say that she would rather not go down for the meal, that she wished to be left alone. But this would be weak peevishness. She just looked at the glass to see that her face bore no unwonted signs, and descended to take ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life, and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge; and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her mind. Her appointment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... View of the same Follies; like a Person who is tir'd with seeing the same Tragi-Comedy continually acted. This sowres his Temper; And unless some favorable Incidents happen to mellow him, he resigns himself wholly to Peevishness.—By which Time he perceives that the World is quite tir'd of him.—After which he drags on the Remainder of his Life, in a State of War with the rest ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... morning in the spring of the year, Peggy happened to be peevish. The cause of her peevishness was a swarm of intensely active flies. Mr. Fry was accustomed to an occasional swish of her tail across his face. He even welcomed it, for the flies bothered him almost as much as they did Peggy. On mornings when he felt unusually tired, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... depression, Pen, at that time, composed a number of poems suitable to his misery—over which verses he blushed in after days, wondering how he could have ever invented such rubbish. He had his hot and cold fits, his days of sullenness and peevishness, and occasional mad paroxysms of rage and longing, in which fits his horse would be saddled and galloped fiercely about the country, bringing him back in such a state of despair as brought much worry ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... showed millions of strange, cankerous worms, which, feeding upon those blossoms, so shared their blessed hue, as to make it unblessed evermore—worms, whose germs had doubtless lurked in the very bulb which, so hopefully, I had planted: in this ingrate peevishness of my weary convalescence, was I sitting there; when, suddenly looking off, I saw the golden mountain-window, dazzling like a deep-sea dolphin. Fairies there, thought I, once more; the queen of fairies at her fairy-window; at any rate, some ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was called in. At this period the prominent tokens of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform domestic duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except when pearls were mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter, the pupils dilated, and the patient, after various incoherent exclamations, burst into a passion ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... bad, it breeds bad consequences. But the badness of the act is moral; the badness of the consequences, physical. There is an evident intrinsic irrationality, and thereby moral evil, in such sins as intemperance, peevishness, and vanity. But let us take an instance of an act, apparently harmless in itself, and evil solely because of the consequences. Supposing one insists upon playing the piano for his own amusement, to the disturbance of an invalid who is lying in a critical state ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... together with Henry's emphatic and positive statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his relatives to a desperate step—a step involving intrigue and prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning symptom of peevishness—peevishness in Henry! It wanted ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... lip to give hint of that capacity of noble indignation which lay hid under its usual courtly calm and sweetness; if there be a defect in the face, it is that the eyes are somewhat small, and close together, and the eyebrows, though delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too closely pressed down upon them, the complexion is dark, the figure tall and graceful; altogether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentleman, lovely to all good men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence none dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left, feeling themselves ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and I will give you an instance. We had a large dinner-party at our house; Johnson sat on one side of me, and Burke on the other; and in the company there was a young female (Mrs. Piozzi named her), to whom I, in my peevishness, thought Mr. Thrale superfluously attentive, to the neglect of me and others; especially of myself, then near my confinement, and dismally low-spirited; notwithstanding which, Mr. T. very unceremoniously begged of me to change place ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... back, with the greatest composure and gravity, as if satisfied with having punished the child for crying, and with the hope of indulging in a comfortable nap. No doubt she had often seen the child punished in this manner for peevishness; and as there was no one near who seemed disposed to administer correction in this instance, Puss determined to take the ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... and that the beginnings of all Science are difficult to Children (who cannot like grown People fix their Attention) it is justly to befear'd that they should by the ill usage they receive from the impatience and peevishness of such Teachers, as Servants, or Young Tutors, take an Aversion to Learning (and we see in effect, that this very frequently happens). For the Teaching of little Children so as not to disgust them, does require much greater Patience and ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... there on the slopes of the valley the men and women, and the very children whose voices I can just hear, are living by an outlook in which the values are different from those of easy-going people, and in which, especially, hardships have never been met by peevishness, but have been ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt |
