"Vex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... cease, for why should I prolong My notes, and vex a Singer with a Song? Oh thou with pen perpetual in thy fist! Dubbed for thy sins a stark Miscellanist, So pleased the printer's orders to perform For Messrs. Longman, Hurst and Rees and Orme. Go—Get thee hence to Paternoster Row, Thy patrons wave a duodecimo! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... that Thou shouldst grant grace unto my soul, that my spirit may speed to Thee with peace, O King of angels! to pass into thy keeping. I sue to Thee that Thou suffer not the rebel spirits of hell to vex ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moraine once blocked off Billington sea from the ocean, but Town Brook released it. Long before the Pilgrims came it had cut its valley through the great wall of gravel and occupied it in peace till latter day highways and factories came to vex it. In spite of these, unhampered bits of the original brook show in Plymouth itself and you are not far out of town before ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... what you call ill-natured," said Miss Fosbrook, "unless it is saying the very things most likely to vex another." ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the remains of his chocolate and gulped it down; "for it is Sunday morning, and we must respect the feelings of our padre. You were unkind to him, he tells me, just now, and even said some disrespectful things of me. What have I done to vex you?" ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... paint unscratched, do not worry yourself with visions of the day when it will rattle and creak, and when you will make it wait for you at the corner of back-streets when you drive into town. Do not vex yourself by fancying that you will never have heart to send off the old carriage, nor by wondering where you shall find the money ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... kind were many; and there was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a question I never could solve; but having discovered, he habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... like the sad presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings; Vex'd and tormented, runs poor Barrabas, With fatal curses towards ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... road to death is life, the gate of life is death, We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane; Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath, The fall of a river ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go. Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... defence of the good bishops, that I promised him, should my urgent errand in any way permit it, he might count on me to assist him in his righteous hue and cry. For I loathed all that set itself up to vex our gracious Queen and the peaceful order of her kingdom. The man commended my loyalty, and we talked of other matters— he doing the most of it—till we came to Colnbrook, where, finding my nag slow, and his business being very urgent, he left me and rode forward; appointing to meet ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... she cudna be cured, and it was true, for there's juist ae man in the land fit for 't, and they micht as weel try tae get the mune oot o' heaven. Sae a' said naethin' tae vex Tammas's hert, for it's heavy eneuch ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... then, the whole affair is a hoax, perpetrated to vex and annoy you. The old man who employed this chauffeur may not have been old. I have looked upon all sides of the affair, and it begins to look like a practical ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do not mean to vex you; I read as I run, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... "I didn't mean to vex you," said Alice, who was disconcerted at this evident grief. "I dare say I shall get accustomed to you after a bit. I mean I do not really ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... thoughts which had moved her bosom since the morning. He had pleaded for quietude during the unquiet days that were coming. She was resolved he should have it in so far as it depended upon her. At least it was much too early in the day to vex his mind with forebodings. She therefore comforted and calmed him by words of assurance, and, when he crossed his threshold, that evening, the lonely old man felt that he was indeed secure under the protection ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... take away the covering cast over all people (Isa 25:7), and the vail that is spread over all nations (Isa 11:9); 'For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea' (v 13). Then 'Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.' Thus will the God of peace bruise Satan under foot shortly; and one reason why the Lord may suffer all this darkness and differences that have been, and yet are, is, that we might long and look for this blessed promise of the gospel, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake, I listened with heart fit to break. ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... died suddenly of cholera, and two others have had bombs thrown at them. I shall be thankful to find myself safely on board the steamer, but even if I escape I am leaving Boggley in the midst of these perils. Not that he lets the thought of them vex his soul. You learn, he says, to look upon death in a different way in India, but I am sure I never could learn to regard with equanimity the thought of being quite well one day and being hurried ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... cease to consider irksome any such thing as pertains neither to our physical nor to our spiritual nature, and do not vex yourself at what has happened. For to us belongs no choice as I told you, of living as we please, but it is quite requisite for us to endure what the Divinity determines. If we do this voluntarily, we shall not be grieved: if involuntarily, we shall ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... yourself, Tulek, do not vex yourself, you will be ill," urged widow Clemens; but once his confessions were begun he went ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... date-tree give her for this purpose. Then the servant lighted his lantern, and was so busy picking up all the crown-pieces that he forgot to follow the palfrey; and Zezolla came home quite safely, and had changed her clothes, as the fairy told her, before the wicked sisters arrived, and, to vex her and make her envious, told her of all the fine things they had seen. But the King was very angry with the servant, and warned him not to miss finding out next time who this beautiful maiden was, and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... you nor "vex," But I ask you to answer me now; Did the torturing pain Of a love that is vain Ever furrow ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... there any present here, Whom I can have a cause to fear?— Whom it were wrongful to perplex, Or faulty policy to vex? In what affrights the quiet mind My bitter thoughts employment find! In what torments a common grief Do I alone expect relief! Our aching sorrows to disclose, Our discontents, our wrongs repeat, To hurl defiance at our foes, And let the soul respire, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... female to fret and vex, But if I belonged to the sensitive sex, Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds, I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds. Lord! only think of chucking a copper To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, Who ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... young man soothingly—"don't you vex yourself any more about it. Now you go in, and forget all your trouble awhile, please God, by my ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with apparent cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I shall have to suffer, so today I'll ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... regain the bed, where he was content to lie with closed eyes and analyze his various pains and weaknesses. Maria came in several times to change the cold cloths on his forehead. Otherwise she left him in peace, too wise to vex him with chatter. This moved him to gratitude, and he murmured to himself, "Maria, you getta da milka ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... him to write a letter to his mother, begging that he might see the ambassadors pass. She was obliged to refuse him. When she reproached the tutor with having caused her and her boy this pain, he replied that the Dauphin wished to write, and he could not vex a sick child—the very thing which he compelled the mother to do, after having fixed the subject in the boy's ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Dorsain, taking his hand, and looking up into his face, "Uncle," she said, "we wish you to remain, surely you will not vex us by ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... archers who have gone ahead. And forbid the soldiers to vex the hermitage, or even to approach ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... vulgar.' For the young men who listened aimed at simplicity, and therefore naturally argued, the simpler the better; in fact, the conversational style is best of all. Where, then, the need for elaborate preparation? We shall only vex and confuse the people, consequently preparation is superfluous. We know the results. 'A few words' on the schools; an obiter dictum on the stations; a good, energetic, Demosthenic philippic against some scandal. But instruction,—oh, no! edification,—oh, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... lavish and waste so many blessings upon them except to comfort us thereby, and make us to know how good He is to "such as are of a clean heart"? as it is said in that same Psalm lxxii. If He is so good to the wicked, how good will He not be to the good? [Ps. 73:1] Except that He does not vex the wicked with any evil, yet afflicts the good with many evils, in order that they may acknowledge His goodness to them not only in the present blessings, but even in those that are hidden and yet to come, and that they may say, with ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... is, and if she be not quite so tractable or open to conviction as I could wish, I must remember perfection is not the lot of humanity. And as long as we can regard those we love, and to whom we are closely allied, with profound and very unshaken esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by, what appear to us, unreasonable and headstrong notions. You, my dear Miss Wooler, know full as well as I do the value of sisters' affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this world, I believe, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... on the left: all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view."—See Middleton's Cicero, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... yonder, Mr. Patrick; feind o' me will mistryst you for a' my mother says. I thought it best to slip out quietly though, in case she should mislippen something of what we're gaun to do—we maunna vex her at nae rate—it was amaist the last word my father said to me ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... retirement was dear, Felt vex'd at beholding the flutterers near; For living in harmony, softness, and quiet, [p 12] She hated all bustle, intrusion, and riot; And tho' a few trips to the gay world she made, Her heart, still unalter'd, remain'd in the shade. However, our fair pensive warbler ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... might, And Commerce chearful Plenty shall invite: But Goodness chief ... in form angelic drest, (Such as she lives in FREDERICK'S royal breast!) Beneath her wings shall bid the worthy find A shelter from the storms that vex mankind; The friend of truth, by fraud or malice hurl'd Through all the mazes of a faithless world. Whom envy persecutes and bigots hate, Shall here enjoy an undisturb'd retreat; With HIM, who scorns the empty pride or blood, But shares his grandeur with the wise and good! What ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... to this shop for the purpose of purchasing a few pipes. The indifferent Italian, in which language he spoke to his Cicerone, and the latter's still more imperfect Turkish, made it difficult for the shopkeeper to understand their wishes, and as this seemed to vex the stranger, I addressed him in English, offering to interpret for him. When his Lordship thus discovered me to be an Englishman, he shook me cordially by the hand, and assured me, with some warmth ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... are their equals in every respect, that we are perhaps better, more accomplished, and talented than all of those haughty Christian women. How often did they neglect and insult us in society! How often did they offensively try to eclipse us! How often did they vex us by their scorn and insolent bearing! We will pay it all back to them; we will scourge them with the scourges with which they have scourged us, and compel them to bow ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... I have seen my father make, when he begged my mother's pardon and took her in his arms to make it up. I know those eyes. A man may make such eyes, and yet find it in his heart to beat a wife who never did a thing to vex him! It made my flesh creep to see ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... it was of you to vex and excite this blockhead by pronouncing him dead! Had you left him alone, he would have gone off, and left the Maticza in possession of the old miser's fortune. Now we may go and hunt for other fools; this one ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... to vex a man, Mr Braithwaite," observed the first lieutenant. "As we could not send on board last night to take possession of our prize, she has managed to slip away during the darkness. She left a light burning astern on a cask to deceive us. If we ever come up with her we'll make ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... and Ghirlandajo's masterpieces are the apotheosis of that quality. How correct, how judicious, how sagacious, how mathematically ordered! we exclaim; but we gaze without emotion, and we turn away without regret. It does not vex us to read how Ghirlandajo used to scold his prentices for neglecting trivial orders that would fill his purse with money. Similar traits of character pain us with a sense of impropriety in Perugino. They harmonise ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... various effects, which sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix, from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to be the greatest men ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... know why I stay to vex and trouble you?' she asked Caroline. 'Well, then, it is that I may see your brother united to you all: and then I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is that? I only didn't want a scene. I kept away from Lisa for weeks so as not to vex you. Forget you! I think I have been very considerate of you under the circumstances. You have a dislike to Lisa, ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... increase among Christ's professed friends and followers, may be healed; that being cemented and knitted to one another, they may join heart and hand together in the matters of the Lord, and the concerns of his glory; when Ephraim shall no more envy Judah, and Judah shall no more vex Ephraim, but both shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines, Isa. xi. 13.; with a further accomplishment of these with other gracious promises,—And thine officers shall be peace, and thine exactors righteousness, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... suspicious and fearful of losing their newly-gotten power. If they are envious now, what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels? Heaven knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them. But you will be here, and then nothing can vex me. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... nor my desire to vex them,—poor things! It never harmed me to get a friend's sympathy; though it's little ever I got. I'll not trouble them." And she went and seated herself at a little distance ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... at Hexham, it's risky to vex 'em, They suck a man dry at a sitting, no doubt, But just as the mare passed, he fluttered my hair past, I lifted my hand, and ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... that we are talking only about grafting and growing, pray do not vex yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the pippins. It may be desirable for us to have much art, or little—we will examine that by-and-bye; but just now, let us keep to the simple consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps it might be just as well that a man ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... alive, heels tied, heads down, throats distended and squalling—until the barnyard became Babel, and still he went about pinching the fowls' breasts, running the corn through his hands, dispensing a word of praise here, a prescription there, and kindness everywhere. Now bad harvests would vex him no more, nor the fate of his familiar fields. In the wreck of all he had lived for, his life had stood up clear for a moment, complete in itself and vindicated. And the moment which had revealed had also ended it; he lay now beneath the chapel pavement at Fort Amitie, indifferently awaiting ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sad young man," good-natured Lady Clavering whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? Nothink, I hope, to vex such a dear Mar as yours? How is your dear Mar? Why don't she come and me? We an't seen her this ever such a time. We're a goin about a gaddin, so that we don't see no neighbours now. Give my love to her and Laurar, and come all to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marker, so much so, that before he is half through he has exhausted the limit of errors. Sachs, who is pleased with the young nobleman, for his own welfare frustrates the desperate attempt to elope with the maiden. In doing this he finds at the same time an opportunity to greatly vex the Marker. The latter, who to humiliate Sachs had upbraided him because of a pair of shoes which were not yet ready, posts himself at night before the window of the maiden and sings his song as a test, for ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... in fine, he cannot wait until he finds a more secluded spot: nay, verily, he embraces her because—tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers, soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason? For it does not appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love. By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine macintosh is well known to be ill ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... point of good-breeding, which can not, in all cases, be understood and applied by children in its widest extent. It is that which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; to be inattentive when addressed in conversation; to contradict ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... time, to take the oath, and to bear my own responsibilities, Mr. Muir. I have neither fellowship nor communication with Rebels, and I deem it a strange insult to be called a spy. 'T is a great pity one should stay here to vex himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... I rage, in vain I rouse my powers; But I shall wake again, I shall, to better hours. Even in slumber will I vex him; Still perplex him, Still incumber: Know, you that have adored him, And sovereign power afford him, We'll reap the gains Of all your pains, And seem to have restored him. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... temporary leaders, that the authority of the senate might yield to a slow process of attrition, but would never be engulfed by any cataclysmic outburst of popular hostility. It was no part of the statesman's task to pry into the future and vex himself with the query whether a new and permanent headship of the State might not be created, to play the all-pervading part which destiny had assigned to the senate. The senate's power had not vanished, it ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... fretful. I perceived, however, that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, 'I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way. But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, as it might vex them.' I suggested, that going to Italy might have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. 'I rather believe not, Sir. While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as opinion meets ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... her first idea. But then there was a stern fixedness of purpose in Bessy's words when she spoke of Mr. Holmes, which had expelled this hope, and Mrs. Garrow had for a while thought it better that the young man should not come. But Bessy would not permit this. It would vex her father, put out of course the arrangements of other people, and display weakness on her own part. He should come, and she would endure without flinching while the fox ...
— The Mistletoe Bough • Anthony Trollope
... the sergeant plies Tom with liquor, swearing that he will go back to the regiment, and leave Mary altogether, and advises Tom to do the same. At last, what with the sergeant's persuasions, and Tom's desire to vex Mary, he succeeds in 'listing him, and giving him the shilling before witnesses; that was all the rascal wanted. The next day Tom was sent down to the depot, as they call it, under a guard; and the sergeant remains here to follow up Mary without interruption. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "grumble to yourself if you like, but don't vex my ears with your complaints. Suppose I were to bring back Moneta and the child,—would you give ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... second coming you appear, (For I foretell that millenary year) The sharpened share shall vex the soil no more, But earth unbidden shall produce her store; The land shall laugh, the circling ocean smile, And Heaven's indulgence ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... upon them, and while the bitter tears fell fast from her eyes she murmured half aloud, "Oh! why am I always so naughty? always doing something to displease my dear papa? how I wish I could be good, and make him love me! I am afraid he never will if I vex him ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... suppose, is only intended to vex me," cried the warrior king, who always considered himself, and very naturally, a person of such consequence as ever to be uppermost in the thoughts and minds of others. "If thou must tell a tale, then tell one, Vampire! or else be silent, ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... that means, Be a creature whose life swings far out beyond this world and its affairs—swings dangerously between heaven and hell. Eternity is in the heart of every man. The fashionable modern gospel of Pragmatism is telling us to-day that we should not vex ourselves about the ultimate truth of theories, but inquire only as to their value for life here and now, and the practical needs which they serve. But the most practical of all man's needs is his need of some contact with a higher world than that ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... vex, my friend, Your soul and mine with false suspicion, (aside) Oh! I am choked! I'd give full ten years of my life To tell, to laugh—& yet ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... that Anna confided to me a trouble of which she had kept the knowledge secret, fearing it might vex me, to the neglect of my work at Amsterdam. I had become so absorbed in my love for her, that I had given no thought to the question of others paying their court. Yet that such should be the case was but natural. Anna was young, beautiful, and wealthy, the only child of a proud noble, so that when ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... A Forbear to vex the patient Ass, Its heaving sides to goad, And far and safe its useful back Will carry ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Catholic reaction, and then was disturbed for a century and a half by the war of Puritanism, and of Tory Anglicanism. The latter had scarcely had time to win the victory, and to fall into a doze by her pipe of port, when Evangelical religion came to vex all that was moderate, mature, and fond of repose. The revolutionary enthusiasm of Shelley's time was comparatively feeble, because it had no connection with religion; or, at least, no connection with the religion to which ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... I must ask you to forget it. Of course, I was wrong, but I'll try not to vex you again. What are we going ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... persons that I feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable, unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,—these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner. He has been the author of all these wrongs; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... Around me than the ivy clasps the oak, Didst breathe a vow—mocking the gods with it— A vow which, false one, thou hast foully broke; That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, So long wouldst thou be ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... try to keep him for you until to-morrow, when you can go and sell him. If your father saw his tricks he would, himself, dispose of him and pocket the cash. I will shut him in an outhouse until you come again, and I only hope that he will not bark and vex Tommy!" ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... seven-thousand horse-power here. Eh, Lord! They're grand—they're grand! Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood, Were ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good? Not so! O' that world-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex, Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man—the Artifex! That holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip, An' by that light—now, mark my word—we'll build the Perfect Ship. I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve—not I. But I ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries, and nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city, for God did vex them with all adversity. But [4] when Shishak was dead, and Egypt fell into troubles, Judah had quiet ten years; and in that time Asa built fenced cities in Judah, and got up an army of 580000 men, with which, in ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... better than this? Tell the king that I shall not vex him longer with my presence here, and accept of my goods and estates ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... barefooted among thorns and briers and prickles. "Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us; and in prudently cultivating and under-growth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... voices pent In mines, and heard from underground, Come murmurs as of discontent, And clamorings of sullen sound The city sends me, as, I guess, To vex me, though they do but bless Me in my ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges an' schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion less ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... the night before diligently getting up the details of their case? He hated patronage and the making of appointments—a feeling rare in Ministers. "As for the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe they die to vex me." But when at last the appointment was made, it was made with keen discrimination. His colleagues observed another symptom—was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom? He went to sleep in ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... the Old Year dieth, And the forests utter a moan, Like the voice of one who crieth In the wilderness alone, "Vex not ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... the fair sex Beats that of friends and relatives: In love, although its tempests vex, Our liberty at least survives: Agreed! but then the whirl of fashion, The natural fickleness of passion, The torrent of opinion, And the fair sex as light as down! Besides the hobbies of a spouse Should be respected throughout life By every proper-minded wife, And this ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... of Captain Sword, But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word, For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs, And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound Now heard in the distance, now gathering round, Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be; But the soul of the cause of it well ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... me, smiling. He was prone to vex And hector me with flings upon my sex. He liked, he said, to have me flash and frown, So he could tease me, and then laugh me down. My storms of wrath amused him very much: He liked to see me go off at a touch; Anger became me—made my color rise, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... discord between capital and labor is fundamentally born of the belief of some that wealth is as socially right in all important matters as it is socially powerful and the faith of others that the social problems that vex men and women would pass with the destruction of wealth's artificial social advantages. Each group confines itself to the territory of experience where everything has to do with matters of human relationship, and each group insists that only one ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... edge of the bedclothes over his ear. Soon he was asleep; but, even as he dropped off, the absurd phrase wove itself into the midnight chime from the church tower and passed on to weave itself into his dreams and vex them. "If I should survive my wife—" In his dreams he was back in Troy, indeed, and yet among foreigners. They spoke in English, too; but they conversed with one another, not with him, as though he might overhear but could not be expected ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England; having courage in the face of his countrymen to assert of some suggested policy,—"This is good for your trade; this is necessary for your domination: but it will vex a people hard by; it will hurt a people farther off; it will profit nothing to the general humanity: therefore, away with it!—it is not for you or for me." When a British minister dares speak so, and when a British public ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... gentle Knight, do not vex thus, It will but hurt your health. You cannot grieve more then I do, but to what end? But hark you, Sir Raph, I was about to say something—it makes no matter. But heark you in your ear: the Friar's a knave; but God forgive me, a man cannot tell neither; s'foot, I ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... cease, you vex me with your babblement; I am like to think you dote in your old age. Is it not arrant folly to pretend That gods would have a thought for this dead man? Did they forsooth award him special grace, And as some benefactor ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Brown is not used to educating children, you know, that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I told her so, but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth. Well, then we young ones—that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn, and I—drank tea out on the lawn. Mary had to sit up and be company; but we had such fun! There was a great old laurel tree, and Armyn put Sylvia and me up into the fork; and that was our nest, and ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... goodliness of thy youth and the pleasantness of thy compostition and the sweetness of thy speech;" but Ala al-Din replied, "This talk becometh thee not, neither is it seemly in thee; if I be content with her, how should this vex thee?" So the Kazi was satisfied and they came to an accord and concluded the marriage contract at a dower precedent of five purses[FN264] ready money and a dower contingent of fifteen purses, so it might be hard for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... sorry that the matter should vex you!' was the grave reply; and lifting his hat, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... tough cordage, timber strong, Her moving shape, all these he doth survey, And all admires, but most his easy prey. The seamen search her all within, without; Viewing her strength, they yet their conquest doubt; Then with rude shouts, secure, the air they vex, With gamesome joy insulting on her decks. Such the feared Hebrew captive, blinded, shorn, Was led about in ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... accepted them unwillingly, and under protest; but a day came when it became necessary for her to remonstrate with the sick man once again concerning this matter, sorry as she was to thwart or vex him; she therefore requested, to have a few minutes' talk ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... to the time when these vast fortunes were rolled together. Without this explanation, this work would be deficient in clarity, and would leave unelucidated many important points, the absence of which might puzzle or vex the reader. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... did not. She listened with wonder in her eyes, and something of shamed contrition in her face, and knew so well—so very well that she did not deserve it. She had wanted—really wanted to vex him when she played the cards, when she had danced past, and never let on she saw him looking somberly in at the window the night before. But in the light of morning and with the knowledge of his wounded arm, all her resentment was gone. She could ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... left, to play gaily on his pipes: no doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care. Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but it struck him how indignant she would be if he ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... been capable, as Gulliver in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances, it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... will vex you, and the night deny Your idle prayer: Shall I, across strange waters, hear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... as treacherous as the winds that vex it, pitiless, murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of the certain tides. There's nothing and nobody to fall back upon when the breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilization ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, And I should evermore be vex'd with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament, Or ghostly foot-fall ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... uncle, peace! Cousins of ours, be still! drag not to light from its grave the strife that we buried there. Hope not for honor from us, while ye heap upon us shame, or think that we shall forbear from vexing when ye vex us. Sons of our uncle, peace! lay not our rancor raw; walk now gently awhile, as once ye were wont to go. Ay, God knows that we, we love you not, in sooth! and that we blame ye not that ye have no love for us. Each of us has his ground for the loathing his fellow ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance of death bitter; and, O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at rest in his possessions, the man that hath nothing to vex him, yea unto him that is able to receive meat![212] Therefore hast thou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receive meat, my fasting day, my eve to this great festival, my dissolution. And this day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day, the day of my resurrection; ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... best cypress, remained water-tight, and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye, and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to say, my little son?" he said, smiling. "That hurt you, because you thought it would vex the friend from the Bahamas, the friend who steals. And yet you like him a little, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... ghost shall dare appear 5 To vex with shrieks this quiet grove; But shepherd lads assemble here, And ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... reasoning, but Harlson had repeated to him the reasoning of the Hindoo skeptic. Woodell had at least intelligence enough to follow the line of thought, and, in after time, when he was a family man and deacon, the lines would recur to vex ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... receives Madame Adolphe with a smile. He smiles at everything, and he smiles as he takes her round the waist with an agility which leaves Caroline no time to resist, especially as she says to herself, "Adolphe particularly recommended me not to vex ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... sword in so sacred a strife—a strife which consecrates the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your souls so subdued by servitude; are you so accustomed to bonds and tortures, that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness? Are you so wedded to inaction that you cease to feel? Is it the frequency of the punishment that has made you callous to the ignominy and the pain? Certainly your viceroy gives ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... fresh as morning glen, Awakes and lights the gloom where shadows creep. —The night will come and with it women weep. Stay, Dear, with me, for dark will come and then, It fills the soul with fear—don't go again— Black clouds will roll, when only children sleep. O Darling storms of midnight vex and threat; The gullies moan and then the goblins see! It is not wise or brave to prattle so; And Dear, if you must go, I will not fret; The sun will shine when you come home to me, Dark night is day ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede
... graceful; brown the mountain in its shade, Whose circling grandeur, part by mists conceal'd, Part with white rocks resplendant in the sun, Should bound mine eyes; aye and my wishes too, For I would have no hope or fear beyond. The empty turmoil of the worthless world, Its vanities and vices would not vex My quiet heart. The traveller, who beheld The low tower of the little pile, might deem It were the house of GOD: nor would he err So deeming, for that home would be the home Of PEACE and LOVE, and they would hallow it To HIM. Oh life of blessedness! ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... evening meal. Then all this time, too, was he busy carving with his knife, out of the hardest wood he could find, a stock of letters, with which, when an occasion offered, he meant to make trial of imprinting whole sentences with ink. He did this secretly. He feared to vex his mother, and run the risk of his letters being burned as before, and he feared, too, that some one might find out his plan, and make use of it before he was ready prepared to show ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... Emmanuel for help. This I give you to understand, that ye may yet know how to carry it to the wretched town of Mansoul. Wherefore, O my trusty Diabolonians, I command that yet more and more ye distress this town of Mansoul, and vex it with your wiles, ravish their women, deflower their virgins, slay their children, brain their ancients, fire their town, and what other mischief you can; and let this be the reward of the Mansoulians from me, for ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... Present sit down, between an unknown Future and a too believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms of faith, half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward steadfastly into the night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of delight alternate vex and soothe the ear of man!—But the time will come, when the soul of man shall return again childlike and trustful to its faith in God; and look God in the face and die; for it is an old saying, full of deep, mysterious meaning, that he ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... one day with the collective account of antiquity and make up its balance-sheet. If we have this, antiquity will be overcome. All the shortcomings which now vex us have their roots in antiquity, so that we cannot continue to treat this account with the mildness which has been customary up to the present. The atrocious crime of mankind which rendered Christianity possible, as ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... notice the restraint of her manner, and making the rearrangement of the flowers which she held a sort of link between them, so that she could not follow her impulse, and leave the room.—'Tell me,—honestly as I know you will if you speak at all,—have not I done something to vex you since we were so happy ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Crafty Matchers, and base Booty-Players:) Herein we may see the World moralized, or emblematically described, where most are short, over, wide or wrong-Byassed, and few justle in to the Mistress Fortune: On one side we find Heraclitus and his Followers fret, vex, rail, swear and cavil at every thing; on the other side Democritus, and his Company rejoice and laugh, as if they were created for that purpose. On one side you may see the Mimick screwing and twisting his Body ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... and before the man who had so bitterly denounced it; and being above all tender-hearted and gallant where a woman, and a sorrowing one, was concerned, he must give Corinne and the child a fair and square start in the house of Breen, with no overdue accounts to vex her except such petty ones as a small life insurance and a few ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... madam," said the spinster; "but your music—what stuff! Such things are null. They vex the ear a little, but they ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the beating of drums go quite wild, and tear themselves in their rage. Similarly, as some men cannot bear to see scarlet and purple dresses, and others are put out by cymbals and drums,[183] what harm would it do wives to abstain from these things, and not to vex or provoke husbands, but to live with them ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... I vex the shades no more. Their form of valour is no longer known amongst us; but there are some who regret. I find pathetics among them, and quaint ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... This creates a vacuum, which the surrounding air hastens to fill, causing thus a constant indraught from both the north and south towards the equator; and the fact of the opposing winds meeting at this point produces those very calms which vex us poor mariners. There, Master Tom, that's all I can tell you; for, I must see about my sextant now to consult the great luminary we have been talking of, so as to see where our ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... possible that I can aid thee? I have not wings to affix to thy fair shoulder, I have not a voice powerful enough to raise echoes on a shore whence assistance might be sent. Nay, look not so sternly on me, beloved Nisida, I did not intend to vex thee with idle jestings; but thou knowest that I ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... broke up the last two rungs of the chair, but they did not burn long enough to cook an egg by. Besides, the wind comes in through the window as if it were at home, and whispers a great deal of bad advice which it would vex you if I were to listen to. I prefer to go out a bit; I shall take a look at the shops. They say that there is some velvet at ten francs a yard. It is incredible, I must see it. I shall be ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... his nectar, and chattering with his usual gayety, Hannah, who had long owed a grudge both to mistress and man, was tempted to convey the letter from Tom's pocket, where it was but half deposited, into her own. Her only motive was to vex and disappoint those whose chief pleasure it had always been to vex and disappoint her. The tankard being hastily emptied, he hastened away to the post-office. When he arrived there, he felt for the letter. It was gone; dropped, as he supposed, in the street. In ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... of his meditations, when he recollected and compared the circumstances of every mortification to which he had been lately exposed, he could not help suspecting that some of them must have been contrived to vex him; and, as he was not ignorant of his lieutenant's disposition, nor unacquainted with the talents of Peregrine, he resolved to observe them both for the future with the utmost care and circumspection. This resolution, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Lord; your whootings and your clamors, Your private whispers, and your broad fleerings, Can no more vex my soul, than this base carriage; But I have vengeance yet in store for some, Shall in the most contempt you can have of me, Be ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... his epistle he read it over more than once, and was satisfied that it would be vexatious to the Marquis. It was his direct object to vex the Marquis, and he had set about it with all his vigour. "I would skin him if I knew how," he had said to Gilmore. "He has done that to me which no man should forgive. He has spoken ill of me, and calumniated ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... masks!" was the general cry; and the musicians, each after his kind, did pierce and vex the air with such a medley of disquieting sounds that the talkers were fain to cease, and the dancers to fall to in good earnest. Alice and her brother were disguised as the cunning beggar had predicted—to wit, as the virgin ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... they owe: But I disdain to cast my eyes so low, That for my thoughts o'er base a subject seem'd, Which still the vulgar course too beaten deem'd; And loftier things delighted for to know. Though presently this plague me but with pain, And vex the world with wondering at my woes: Yet having gained that long desired repose My mirth may more miraculous remain. That for the which long languishing I pine, It is a show, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achaians should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their ships and not stay to vex us ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.) |
