"Vexatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wants and sets him free to follow his own devices; it is itself his end, or at least a part of it. And from this it follows that the regulations of the state were not regarded by the Greeks—as they are apt to be by modern men—as so many vexatious, if necessary, restraints on individual liberty; but rather as the expression of the best and highest nature of the citizen, as the formula of the conduct which the good man would naturally prescribe to himself. So that, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges reduced to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its keenness, there was a great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging on Riva Schiavoni and looking out at the far-shimmering lagoon. There was entertainment indeed in simply getting ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and their reloadings were carried on by means of whale-boats ferrying back and forth between ship side and dock side with the push cars to facilitate the freight movement at the land end of the connection. This was a laborious and a vexatious proceeding, necessitating the handling and rehandling of every bit of incoming or outbound cargo several times. But then, steamers did not come very often to Good Friday Island; one came every two ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering she," who once held lord Hastings under her distaff, but her annoying jealousy, "vexatious days, and jarring, joyless nights," drove him away from her. Being jealous of Jane Shore, she accused her to the duke of Gloster of alluring lord Hastings from his allegiance, and the lord protector soon trumped ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... but one thing lacking to her Christmas cheer," she remarked, after a pause, and with the too evident intention of saying something vexatious. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... for passengers or freight. I have myself been detained two or three days at a place after steam was up, the gang planks, all but one, drawn in, and after the time advertised for starting had expired. On this occasion we had no vexatious delays, and in about three days Pittsburg was reached. From Pittsburg I chose passage by the canal to Harrisburg, rather than by the more expeditious stage. This gave a better opportunity of enjoying the fine scenery of Western Pennsylvania, and I had rather a dread of reaching my destination ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... offered him his protection. Hutten at the same time proceeded to launch the most violent controversial diatribes and satires against Rome; one in particular, called 'The Roman Trinity,' wherein he detailed in striking triplets the long series of Romish pretensions, trickeries, and vexatious abuses. At Easter he held a personal interview at Bamberg with Crotus, on his ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... have, a very unfavorable influence upon them. From its satisfactory adjustment not only a firm and cordial friendship, but a progressive development of all their relations, may be expected. It is, therefore, my earnest hope that this old and vexatious subject of difference ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... that virtue; and the more composed, we are under any trouble, the more commendable is our wisdom, and the larger will be our recompense. Let the provocation be what it will, whether from a good-natured and conscientious, or a wicked, perverse, and vexatious man; all this we should take as from the over-ruling hand of God, as a punishment for our sins. Many times injured innocence may be abused by false oaths, or the power of wicked, jealous, or malicious men; but we often find it, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... only public meeting I witnessed during three years of warfare—a recruiting rally in the Manchester Hippodrome—was a poor outlet for one's activity. An offer of the command of the new 3rd line reserve unit at Southport naturally failed to quench my keenness to rejoin the Battalion, and after vexatious delays I at last sailed from Devonport for the East, on the Simla, on the 13th ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... The vexatious question of so-called legation asylum for offenders against the state and its laws was presented anew in Chile by the unauthorized action of the late United States minister in receiving into his official residence two persons who had just failed in an attempt at revolution and against whom criminal ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... know where it pinches me."[167] A wife ought not therefore to put her trust in her dowry, or family, or beauty, but in matters that more vitally concern her husband, namely, in her disposition and companionableness and complaisance with him, not to make every-day life vexatious or annoying, but harmonious and cheerful and agreeable. For as doctors are more afraid of fevers that are generated from uncertain causes, and from a complication of ailments, than of those that have a clear and adequate cause, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... or ten days, and superintending the Indians who were employed in driving the numerous caravan. Often, in order to add to our collections of new mineral substances, we found ourselves obliged to throw away others, which we had collected a considerable time before. These sacrifices were not less vexatious than the losses we accidentally sustained. Sad experience taught us but too late, that from the sultry humidity of the climate, and the frequent falls of the beasts of burden, we could preserve neither the skins of animals hastily prepared, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... proved that the student had recently entered during his absence, and that he had never seen him. He won the confidence of the students, and very soon their affections. He regarded a mass of petty regulations as being only vexatious, and yet by his tact and firmness his discipline became most effective. Very seldom was there any breaking of the laws. He was so honoured and loved that they tried to please him in all things. Of course, there were exceptions. I ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... the Chevalier d'Orville, who for four years had been soliciting from the Minister of War the post of major, or of King's lieutenant. He was known to be very poor; but he supported his lot without complaining of this vexatious delay in rewarding his honourable services. He regularly attended the Marechal de Segur, at the hour appointed for receiving the numerous solicitations in his department. One day the Marshal said to him: "You are still at Versailles, M. d'Orville?"—"Monsieur," he replied, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the sight of the JANET NICOLL made him sick; and indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... darky gravely. "She done been kickin' up something vexatious. She absumlutely won't strike with the others—absumlutely won't! After the rest of 'em are through, in she comes a minute late, chiming away on her own hook, all independent like, as if she was ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... Constitution into the hands of a General Convention. Who can tell what such a convention would do with the Constitution; what it would do with the decisions of the Supreme Court, under which so many of the vexatious questions have been settled? It would be worse than attempting to settle our differences in a town meeting. I would hesitate long before I would submit such questions to a convention. Before they could be settled in that way, the Union would be gone ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... yes," muttered Hilary, as he heard the departing steps; "they've locked me up safe enough. Was anything ever so vexatious?" ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... thought of everything himself, and when she had thought of it it had already been done. This naturally pleased the master very much and caused him to speak with increasing kindness to Uli and to show more and more confidence in him. Nothing is more vexatious for a master than to come home in the evening tired or sleepy and find everything at sixes and sevens and his wife full of complaints; to see only half the work done that should have been accomplished, much of it botched and ruined, so that it had better have been let alone; and then into the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... enthusiasm which the exhibition of his invention aroused among the learned men and others in Paris, he met with obstructions of the most vexatious kind at every turn, in his effort to bring it into practical use. Just as the way seemed clear for its adoption by the French Government, something happened which is thus described in a letter to Mr. Smith, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... son, Prince Philip, a boy of fourteen years, a prisoner in the hands of his victorious enemies. "At this news," says Froissart, "the kingdom of France was greatly troubled and excited, and with good cause, for it was a right grievous blow and vexatious for all sorts of folk. The wise men of the kingdom might well predict that great evils would come of it, for the king, their head, and all the chivalry of the kingdom were slain or taken; the knights and squires who came back home were ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... if it can possibly avoid it, lay its eggs in any place where they are likely to be found by man. Moreover, their rude and little-modulated cries are in the summer season almost incessant, and the din which a considerable flock can produce is exceedingly vexatious. They thus do not fit the needs or comfort of man to the degree which is likely to give them a permanent ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... removing the Senecas, necessarily produced great agitation, and a very unsettled state among those who had no idea of emigrating. The chiefs on the reservations of Alleghany and Cattaraugus, harassed and perplexed by this vexatious state of things, at length determined to address the President on the occasion. This application procured the appointment of the council which was held at Cattaraugus on ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... ports and harbors, to purchase supplies and transship commodities. He said that they subjected our citizens, engaged in fishing enterprises in waters adjacent to their northeastern shore, to numerous vexatious interferences and annoyances, had seized and sold their vessels upon slight pretexts, and had otherwise treated them in a rude, harsh, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Bend, some distance up the river, and the deduction in this case was easy. The Bar-20 cared very little about what went on at Perry's Bend—that was a matter which concerned only the ranches near that town—as long as no vexatious happenings sifted too far south. But they had so sifted, and Perry's Bend, or rather the undesirable class hanging out there, was due to receive a shock ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... a fortress. Above all, the building is utterly unmeaning, it is neither a temple nor a tomb, neither has altar, statue, nor inscription. It is, in fact, a 'folly' of the same sort, but far more ambitious and costly, than that which is built at Barrackpoor, and it is vexatious to think that a very handsome church might have been built, and a handsome marble monument to Lord Cornwallis placed in its interior, for little more money than has been employed on a thing, which, if any foreigner saw it, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... overweening; and when she went abroad, she gave herself so many airs that she did nought but make wry faces, as if there came to her a stench from whomsoever she saw or met. But, letting be many other vexatious and tiresome fashions of hers, it chanced one day that she came back to the house, where Fresco was, and seating herself near him, all full of airs and grimaces, did nothing but puff and blow; whereupon quoth he, 'What meaneth this, Ciesca, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Wych Hazel had reason to remember her walk of that morning. It was a shorter way than he had come, that by which her conductor took her, and in parts easy enough; but in other parts requiring his skill as well as hers to get her over them. He said not a word further; he served her in silence: the vexatious thing was, that he was able to serve her so much. Many a time she had to accept his hand to get past a rude place; often both hands were needed to swing her over a watercourse or leap her down from a rock. She ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... amply sufficient for folks of their species, they had no need to look for an ox. With keen delight and an appetite to match they were just about to eat up the egg between them, when an unbidden guest appeared in the shape of Master Reynard the fox. This was a most awkward and vexatious visitation. How was the egg to be saved from the jaws of him? To wrap it up carefully and carry it away by the fore paws, or to roll it, or to drag it, were methods as impossible as they were hazardous. But Necessity, that ingenious mother, furnished the never-failing invention. The sponger being ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... 14th.—After all the vexatious haggling for a house, I gained my object to-day by a judicious piece of bribery which I had intended to accomplish whenever I could. I now succeeded in sending—for I could not, under the jealous eyes in Uganda, get it done earlier—a ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... favorite English method for considering vexatious questions—was appointed, under the chairmanship of Mr. James (afterwards Lord) Bryce, "to consider the best methods of establishing a well- organized system of secondary education in England." The ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the muses, exasperated at this vexatious perseverance of the painter, who he imagined had come to tease and insult him, "I would," said he, "sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, were I assured that any person had been taken up for extirpating such a troublesome Goth as you are from the face of the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of disorganization and want of definite aim were to come. While many artists desired to continue relations with the Society of Arts, others regarded the conditions imposed by that Society as vexatious and embarrassing. Particularly they objected to the introduction into their exhibition of the works of the Society's students. They represented further that the exhibition had been 'crowded and incommoded by the intrusion of persons whose ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... least pecuniarily, liable for an unjust sentence.[632] We shall elsewhere have occasion to dwell on the value which the equestrian order attached to this immunity, and we shall see that its relief at the freedom from vexatious prosecution is of itself no sign of corruption. One of our authorities does indeed emphatically assert the ultimate prevalence of bribery in the equestrian courts:[633] and circumstances may be easily imagined which would have made this resort natural, if not inevitable. A band of capitalists ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before with such natural rights as the cut of the beard—not as matter of neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not permitted to wear a full beard, nor a mustache; ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the Gallas. For years they had been at enmity, and the marauding expeditions which the soldiers of the mountain had lately made into their territory, had increased that bad feeling, and quite destroyed any hope of reconciliation. This was the more vexatious, as now that Mastiate had, by her treaty with Gobaze, obtained possession and garrisoned all the districts around Magdala, it was but natural to expect that she would make some efforts at least to seize upon a fortress that lay within her dominions. Not many days after the departure of Gobaze ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... one of sufficient importance to awaken in the monarch's mind any very serious anger, and so, instead of inflicting any heavy punishment upon the offender, he contented himself with attempting to tease and torment him with sundry vexatious indignities and annoyances. ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... bowed the visitor out, he returned to Monroe with an expression of weariness on his handsome face. "So many affairs to think of! so many people to see! Really, it is becoming vexatious. I believe I shall turn hunks, and get a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... The Germans are as badly off as any people. But we are all badly off. So far as world air transit goes any country can, if it chooses, choke any adjacent country. Directly any trade difficulty breaks out, any country can begin a vexatious campaign against its neighbour's air traffic. It can oblige it to alight at the frontier, to follow prescribed routes, to land at specified places on those routes and undergo examinations that will waste precious hours. But so far as I can see, no European ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... that my eyes were closed up and incapable of supporting the light, and occasioned me such acute anguish that I could get no sleep but by the effect of laudanum. This misfortune at this crisis was peculiarly vexatious and mortifying for me, as it put it out of my power to accompany the Pasha, who departed with the army for Dongola on the 26th, taking his route on the west bank of the river, and leaving the Divan Effendi and a small party of soldiers to expedite the loading and forwarding the boats ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... gentlemen, I flattered myself that I was temporarily done with the vexatious details of insurance, and I was getting ready to bank up one of the flowerbeds with black dirt when who should come along but another neighbor, and a very charming one, too—Angus Cameron Macleod? For two years we have been more or less intimate. Macleod combines many strangely ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... subject, but she set up her screen of silence. It was disappointing, for Albinia had believed better things of her sense, and hardly made allowance for the different aspect of the love-sorrows of seventeen, viewed from fifteen or twenty-six—vexatious, too, to be treated with dry reserve, and probably viewed as a rock in the course of true love; and provoking to see perpetual tete-a-tetes that could hardly fail to fill Sophy's romantic head ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... houses of correction were subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long time in arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where the right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck out of the list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions had ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... go back by Mallaig. I don't just understand why, but they're lookin' for you down that line. It's a vexatious business when your friends, meanin' the polis, are doing their best to upset your plans and you no able to enlighten them. I could send word to the Chief Constable and get ye through to London without ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... could not, however, be effected without the agency of a tyrannical police. He did not shrink from the most vexatious interferences with the much-prized freedom of Italian private life, using the espionage of servants on their masters as a means of carrying out his moral reforms. That transformation of public and private life which the Iron Calvin was but just able to effect ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the interests of public health alcohol may not be too easily or too cheaply obtainable, that (2) the restraints on its sale may be a source of revenue to the State, and that (3) at the same time this regulation of the sale may not be a vexatious and useless attempt to interfere unduly with national customs. States have sought to attain these ends in various ways. The sale of alcohol may be made a State monopoly, as in Russia, or, again, it may be carried on under disinterested municipal ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... annoyed at learning the continuance and extent of the vexatious opposition to his wishes; but, begging me not to be influenced by the injustice committed, strongly urged the necessity of my using every endeavour for immediate action,—I at once pointed out to His Majesty that the only way to accomplish this was, to restore confidence to the men by maintaining ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... that were always arising on account of the insulting exactions of toll and tribute in the Austrian border cities. A sharp war broke out, and the Swiss city of Lucerne took the opportunity of destroying the Austrian castle of Rothemburg, where the tolls had been particularly vexatious, and of admitting to their league the ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the co-operation of employers, workmen, and the general public; the three must act and endure together, or we delay and maybe imperil victory. We ought to requisition the aid of every man who can handle metal. It means that the needs of the community in many respects will suffer acutely vexatious, and perhaps injurious, delay; but I feel sure that the public are prepared to put up with all this discomfort, loss, and privation if thereby their country marches triumphantly out of this great struggle. [Cheers.] We have every reason for confidence; ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was bent over the list she was writing; but the vexatious color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the mystery of last night. But this was ten times ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for those who always sigh And fear an ill to-morrow; Who, when they have no troubles nigh, Will countless evils borrow; Who poison every cup of joy, By throwing in a bramble; And every hour of time employ In a vexatious scramble. What though the heart be sometimes sad! 'T is better not to show it; 'T will only chill a heart that's glad, If it should chance to know it. So, cheer thee up if evil's nigh, Droop not beneath thy sadness; If sorrow finds ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... inexperienced and infant republic, Solon had laid it down as a principle of his code, that as all men were interested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The common informer became a most harassing and powerful personage, and made one of a fruitful and crowded profession; and in the very capital of liberty there existed the worst species of espionage. But justice was not thereby facilitated. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... favourable, giving us to understand that the Major had been much employed in the West Indies, where he still held a moderately lucrative, semi-military appointment, being then in England to settle certain long and vexatious accounts, as well as to take Emily, his only child, from school. He was expected to return to the old, or some other post, in the course of a few months. A portion of this I gleaned from Emily herself, and ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... said the doctor. "If I am not mistaken, we have accomplished nearly half of our journey in ten days; but, at the rate at which we are going, it would take months to end it; and that is all the more vexatious, that we are threatened with a lack ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... reads the Duchess novels. I think, however, she has the grace to be ashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when I handed her 'A Modern Circe.' I could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would almost atone for not being able to read at all, but I refrained. It is vexatious all the same, for, though one doesn't expect to find perfection here below, the 'nut-brown mayde,' externally considered, comes perilously near it. After she had gone I discovered a slip of paper which had blown under some stones. It proved to be an itinerary. ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... artificial. It has been sustained by I know not how many laws, breaking in upon the plainest principles of general expediency. At the last session of Parliament, the manufacturers petitioned for the repeal of three or four of these statutes, complaining of the vexatious restrictions which they impose on the wages of labor; setting forth, that a great variety of orders has from time to time been issued by magistrates under the authority of these laws, interfering in an oppressive manner with the minutest details of the manufacture,—such as limiting ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... dear!" said Margaret, when he had gone; "what horrid creatures men are, and what a temper I'm in, and what a vexatious place the world is! I wish I were a pauper! I wish I had never been born! And I wish—and I wish I had those League papers fixed! I'll do it to-night! I'm sure I need something tranquillising, like assessments and decimal places and unpaid dues, to keep me from screaming. I hate them all—all ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... be owned, had reason to roar—became calmed at the evident innocence of the servants and the gentle sounds of this British lamb. He therefore went to the rescue, and explained the matter to No. 2, who in his turn meekly expostulated: "Very vexatious! Dear me! My capital boots made expressly for Alpine climbing! But we must make the best of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... think much better and more wisely, they always act exactly like other men. They know very well how to subdue all appetites and passions, and to despise both pain and pleasure; and this knowledge affords much delightful contemplation, and is easily acquired; but the practice would be vexatious and troublesome; and, therefore, the same wisdom which teaches them to know this, teaches them to avoid carrying it ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... thing is soon put to rights. In Languedoc, as I understood, they have no barns whatever, and therefore this practice is universal. The wheat was not very heavy, it resembled barley rather than wheat; the average crop about sixteen English bushels. Nothing is so vexatious as the French measures; I do not understand them yet, though I ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... attention. The exorbitant rates exacted by an arbitrary valuation of the goods, the practice of exacting duties twice on the same goods, first from the seller and afterwards from the buyer, and the vexatious disputes and delays drawn on the merchants by these oppressions, were loudly complained of; and some instances of this kind were said to exist at the very time when I was in Benares. Under such circumstances, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... man might be excused for calling the Century of Nuisances, rather than the Century of Commerce. I will now leave it to the consciences of the rich and influential among us, and speak of a minor nuisance which it is in the power of every one of us to abate, and which, small as it is, is so vexatious, that if I can prevail on a score of you to take heed to it by what I am saying, I shall think my evening's work a good one. Sandwich-papers I mean—of course you laugh: but come now, don't you, civilised as you are in Birmingham, leave them all about the Lickey hills and your public gardens and ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... their triumph, the Basilian fathers commenced in earnest the task of Church reform, and passed several decrees of a character vexatious to the Pope, particularly one for the total abolition of annates. A second breach was the consequence. Eugenius, under pretence of furthering the negotiation then pending for the reunion of the Greek and Latin branches of the Church, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "In the case of the fascinating Sylvie, I do not know when I have had so much trouble about a woman. It is interesting, but vexatious. Sometimes I think I shall have to give up and gallop off ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... the diaphragm is that of choking off air movement and consequently reducing evaporation. This gives exactly the same results as the use of moisture, but the machine is easier to operate and seemed to do away with the vexatious moisture problem which, together perhaps, with some fancied resemblance of felt diaphragms to hen feathers, has resulted in the widespread use of this ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... Pleasure of the One is from the Torment of the other; yet Nothing is more evident, than that both are derived from and owing to the same craving principle in our nature, the Desire of Food; for when this is entirely lost, it is more vexatious to eat, than it is to let it alone, tho' the whole Body languishes, and we are ready to expire for Want of Sustenance. Hitherto I have spoken of honour in its first literal Sense, in which it is a Technic ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... down, and the part down to the hall had a thin strip of carpet on it secured by brazen rods; the margins on either side of this carpet had to be beeswaxed and the brass rods polished. There was a great deal of unnecessary and vexatious brass of one kind or another scattered about the house, and as there were four children in the family, besides Mrs. O'Connor and her two sisters, the amount of washing which had constantly to be ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... individualists obey reluctantly, when they obey at all, any laws which they regard as unreasonable or vexatious. Indeed, they are increasingly opposed to any law, which affects their selfish interests. Thus many good women are involuntary smugglers. They deny the authority of the state to impose a tax upon a Paquin gown. The law's delays and ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... commander-in-chief. Fletcher, therefore, in his character as such, called for a portion of the men; but scarcely one could he get. He was met by excuses and evasions, which, especially in the case of Connecticut, were of a most vexatious character. At last, that colony, tired by his importunities, condescended to furnish him with twenty-five men. With the others, he was less fortunate, though Virginia and Maryland compounded with a sum of money. Each colony claimed the control of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... from the clear fact that it is your duty to manage your household wisely and prudently, which we have seen cannot be done without business system, of which you must be the head, I assure you that such a system is neither intricate nor vexatious. It does not necessarily entail upon you the least participation in the actual labor of the family. It does not absolutely require your personal presence at the scene of those labors, although the woman who considers it beneath her dignity to go into her kitchen, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that they had little to fear. It was not very probable that her armies would cross the Elbe, or that her fleets would force a passage through the Sound. But the naval strength of England and Holland united might well excite apprehension at Stockholm and Copenhagen. Soon arose vexatious questions of maritime right, questions such as, in almost every extensive war of modern times, have arisen between belligerents and neutrals. The Scandinavian princes complained that the legitimate ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wanted. It was in quite a different trap that I rode in on my visit to Glenveigh. During my journey there we talked, my guide and I, of what constitutes a good landlord. It was a negative sort of goodness which he expected from the good landlord—"that he would not harry the tenants with vexatious office rules; that he would let them alone on their places so long as they paid their rent; that he would not raise the rent so that all grown on the land would be insufficient to pay it." Since the Land League agitation some landlords have granted a reduction ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... this, a most vexatious thing happened; for when he had resolved to take off the debts, and was considering the proper form and fit beginning for it, he told some of his friends, Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus, in whom he had a great deal ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... recovered from his vexatious defeat in the skirmish where the Widow Hopkins was his principal opponent, when he received a note from Miss Silence Withers, which promised another and more important field of conflict. It contained a request that he would visit Myrtle Hazard, who seemed to be in a very excitable and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Dagobert, with a sigh of regret. "I thought to make my first parade through Paris with you this morning; but it must be deferred in favor of your work. It is sacred: since it is that which sustains your mother. Nevertheless, it is vexatious, devilish vexatious. And yet no—I am unjust. See how quickly one gets habituated to and spoilt by happiness. I growl like a true grumbler, at a walk being put off for a few hours! I do this! I who, during eighteen years, have only hoped to see you once more, without daring to reckon ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... real tobacco, came from the warm Devon land, but little of it reached so far, on account of the distance, the difficulties of intercourse, the rare occasions on which the merchant succeeded in escaping the vexatious interference, the downright robbery of the way. Intercourse was often ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... is a little vexatious, and think that perhaps the youth who stays at home may after all score over the youth who is sent to roam. There is a little feeling all the time which you felt as a child on seeing all sorts of delights arranged for ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... The vexatious delays over, Joan of Arc set out for Orleans. In the church of Fierbois she had seen, among other old weapons, a sword marked with five crosses. For this she sent. When she left Vaucouleurs she had put on a man's dress; now she was clad in white armor. A banner was ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... condition for men and women who desired to do their duty by the state, and though the wise emperors did everything in their power to encourage it, a very large proportion of the men of the upper classes regarded it as a burden and a vexatious interference with their liberty. It was not necessarily that they had any desire to be vicious, nor indeed would marriage be much of a hindrance to vice; it was that they desired to be free. The cause of their disinclination ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... is a cause for rejoicing, and for applauding the might of your sorceries, Messire Manuel, whereas you are plainly thinking of vexatious matters." ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Having again filled the vexatious little pipe, she puts the silver tube to my lips with a bow. Courtesy forbids my refusal; but I find ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... 1679, the house of William Morse, of Newbury, was, for more than two months, infested in a most strange and vexatious manner. The affair was brought into court, where it played a conspicuous part, and was near reaching a tragical conclusion. The history of the proceedings in reference to it is ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... emotions subsided, and they could talk again. She leant upon the wall, and he sat upon it so that he could keep an eye open for any returning dogs. Two, at any rate, were up on the hillside and keeping up a vexatious barking. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... It is most vexatious that, in spite of all admonition, the Courier persists in its warlike tone and justification of the interference of the Continental Powers in the internal affairs of Spain, in opposition to all the known views and declarations of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... citizen of the particular country in which his estate lies. The proprietor of stock is properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country. He would be apt to abandon the country in which he was exposed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to a burdensome tax; and would remove his stock to some other country, where he could either carry on his business, or enjoy his fortune more at his ease. By removing his stock, he would put an end to all the industry ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... extant a wild story relating to some vexatious events that happened at his funeral, which, at the end of Congreve's Life, by a writer of I know not what credit, are thus related, as I find the account transferred to a ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... recommending that priests be allowed to marry, and calling for the suppression of many of the cloisters. It is further urged that foundations for masses and for the support of idle priests be abolished, that various vexatious provisions of the Canon Law be repealed, and that begging on any pretext be prohibited. The twenty-fourth article deals with the Bohemian schism, saying that Huss was wrongly {72} burned, and calling for ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... limits of the English Kingdom, however, stories about "duty work" clash oddly on the ear, and yet I am assured that in the lesser island of Turk such work has been insisted on and "processed" for within twelve or eighteen months. Vexatious processes are not undertaken just now for ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... the unhappy visitor heard within the shuffling slippers and vexatious scraping cough of the detestable master. Marneffe opened the door, but only to put himself into an attitude and point to the stairs, exactly as Hulot had shown him the door ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... properly nursed and recovered from the fatigue you must have undergone in your long march. The papers you have brought me are indeed, of very great importance, and come at a particular fortunate moment, as they in all probability, will save me from a very vexatious lawsuit, with which I have been threatened." So saying, he rang the bell, and desired the servant to take John into the housekeeper's room, and to see that every possible attention was paid him. John, after having had some refreshments, began to wonder that he did not see Marion again. ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... example, —after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases. Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... processes by which authority was given to custom-house officers to make search for smuggled goods; since they were general in their terms and authorized the search of any premises by day, they might have been made the means of vexatious visits and interference. In February, 1761, an application for such a writ was brought before the Superior Court of Massachusetts, which was not subject to popular influence. James Otis, advocate-general of the colony, resigned his ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... is becoming every day more and more like an absolute king that we must complain of him. He is certainly perfectly honorable as a man, an estimable father of a family, a tender spouse and a good economist, but it is vexatious to see how he allows all the trees of liberty to be felled and stripped of their beautiful foliage that they may be sawed into beams to support the tottering house of Orleans. For that, and that only, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... had been stirs and quarrels among the disciples regarding his boats, and John's and James' boats too, he said, and by the jealous and envious, he muttered, who would like to come between us and the Master. Joseph asked who had raised the vexatious question, but Peter avoided it, and went about the wharf grunting that none could answer it: was it to Matthew, the publican, he was to give his boats? one, he said, who never was on the water in his life till I took him out for a sail a week come Tuesday. A fine use they'd be ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... always pay the price, usually a vexatious one. Bores stopped him on the street to repeat ancient and witless stories. Invented anecdotes, some of them exasperating ones, went the rounds of the press. Impostors in distant localities personated him, or claimed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Hambrough, as a great many more, he says, he believes do, but nothing but the reconciling of the Presbyterian party will save us, and I am of his mind. At the office all the afternoon, where every moment business of one kind or other about the fire-ships and other businesses, most of them vexatious for want of money, the commanders all complaining that, if they miss to pay their men a night, they run away; seamen demanding money of them by way of advance, and some of Sir Fretcheville Hollis's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... south-westerly gale on the fourth day out forced us to heave to. I would have liked to have run before the wind, but the sea was very high and the 'James Caird' was in danger of broaching to and swamping. The delay was vexatious, since up to that time we had been making sixty or seventy miles a day, good going with our limited sail area. We hove to under double-reefed mainsail and our little jigger, and waited for the gale to blow itself out. During that afternoon we saw bits of wreckage, the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... you think of it? Now I will not mention her again,—I will refer to her, when I shall have vexatious occasion, as "that woman." And, indeed, "that woman" and Honorius set us up in comprehension of matters progressing. It seems that quite twenty years have passed since Sarah's soul slid through a knife-gash; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... successfully, and this dreaded disease has been extirpated from the Western States and also from the Eastern States, with the exception of a few restricted areas, which are still under supervision. The danger has thus been removed, and trade and commerce have been freed from the vexatious State restrictions which were deemed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Dalton turned in his bed. Something beyond the chilliness was wrong with him, and he did not know what it was. There is no condition so vexatious as an unexplainable lack of ease; and Old Dalton twisted, gathered up his knees, straightened them again, tensed, relaxed, shifted the bedclothes, and busily but vainly cast about for the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 1601, Raleigh became involved in a vexatious quarrel between certain of his own Dorsetshire servants. The man Meeres, whom he had appointed as bailiff of the Sherborne estates nine years before, after doing trusty service to his master, had gradually become aggressive ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... you have a cheque-book. Horrible things, aren't they?—such a nuisance remembering to fill out those little stubs. Of course, I forgot to bring mine with me—I always do; and equally, of course, a vexatious debt turns up and finds me without an Occidental Bank ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... to the letter of the covenant was a sufficient test of true religion unless accompanied with a change in the inner life. She was a nonconformist among those who, refusing to conform to the Church of England, had now themselves become conformists of the strictest type. To Mrs. Hutchinson the "vexatious legalism of Puritanism" was as abhorrent as had been the practices of the Roman and Anglican churches to the Puritans, and, though the latter did not realize it, they were as unjust to her as Laud had been to them. ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... of the expression "the testimony of Zacharias" ([Greek: te Zachariou marturia]), which he points out "might signify either 'the testimony borne to Zacharias,' i.e. his recorded character, or 'the testimony borne by Zacharias,' i.e. his martyrdom." By a vexatious mistake in reprinting, "to" was accidentally substituted for "by" in my translation of this passage in a very few of the earlier copies of my sixth edition, but the error was almost immediately observed and corrected in the rest of the edition. ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... prince of the blood of England, to the empty and precarious glory of a foreign dignity. But he had not always firmness sufficient to adhere to this resolution: his vanity and ambition prevailed at last over his prudence and his avarice; and he was engaged in an enterprise no less expensive and vexatious than that of his brother, and not attended with much greater probability of success. The immense opulence of Richard having made the German princes cast their eye on him as a candidate for the empire, he was tempted to expend vast sums of money ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... London, and better than London; and London is the world, and is German. How gladly would Pauli, that honest, noble German soul, stay, if he had but an occupation. The subjection of the mind by the government here becomes more vexatious, more apparent, more diabolical. One form of tyranny is that of Augustus, the more thorough, because so sly. They will not succeed in the end, but meanwhile it is horrible to witness. More firmly than ever I settle myself down ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... a borrowed book, and I can hardly return it in this condition. It is really vexatious," she replied, wondering how to lead the conversation back to the place where it was interrupted. She might have succeeded, but fate seemed against her. A passenger, who knew them both, strolled by and ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... our presently inquiring souls from any farther care as to the reason for a violet's spur,—or for the extremely ugly arrangements of its stamens and style, invisible unless by vexatious and vicious peeping. You are to think of a violet only in its green leaves, and purple or golden petals;—you are to know the varieties of form in both, proper to common species; and in what kind of places they all most fondly live, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... peace—the world's merchant shipping already comes near being so neutralised, and the slight further simplification required to leave it on a neutral peace footing would be little else than a neglect of such vexatious discrimination as is still in force. If no nation could claim the allegiance, and therefore the usufruct, of any given item of merchant shipping in case of eventual hostilities, on account of the domicile of the owners or ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... enough, but it was also vexatious, that such peaceful people as we were should be considered so terrible. I sent a bullet after the ship, to induce her to stop; she then hoisted the English flag, but never slackened her speed; so that finding we ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the class are all so like one another in every way that you might as well try to discriminate between every individual sheep of a flock in a pasture. And yet, such is the natural contradictiousness and vexatious disposition of the British parent, that you'll always find him coming to inquire after just one of those very particular Tommies or Bobbies. Charles Warrington:—Cyril Anastasius Guy Whatyoumay—call ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... not offered in the spirit of ridicule. The Uitlander question is too serious for joking. They are reproduced to enable those who have no knowledge of the Boer—his petty tyrannies and annoying and irritating habits, and the vexatious regulations from which the Uitlander continually suffered—to form an idea of the terrible mental gulf which existed between oppressor and oppressed. As the constant dropping of water will wear away stone, so the constant fret of Boer treatment wore out ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... with tails have given good results in experimental work; but the tails are annoying and an unnecessary weight, and may better be dispensed with. Every boy has had the vexatious experience of sending up a kite in a light breeze with a tail made light in proportion, only to find that, on reaching stronger air currents above, the kite has begun to dive and grow unmanageable. Then, when he has taken the kite down and added a heavier tail, ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... says she, "an abhorred, barbarous, capricious, detestable, envious, fastidious, hard-hearted, illiberal, ill-natured, jealous, keen, loathsome, malevolent, nauseous, obstinate, passionate, quarrelsome, raging, saucy, tantalizing, uncomfortable, vexatious, abominable, bitter, captious, disagreeable, execrable, fierce, grating, gross, hasty, malicious, nefarious, obstreperous, peevish, restless, savage, tart, unpleasant, violent, waspish, worrying, acrimonious, blustering, careless, discontented, fretful, growling, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... all these promises—hidden, perhaps, from the profane—the calm of that countenance has something, I know not what, that is vexatious. More sad, more serious than gracious, that face is marked by the melancholy of constant meditation. For this reason Mademoiselle des Touches listens more than she talks. She startles by her silence and by that deep-reaching ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... only tied up when they are on the road.' She would wish to find some fault with him, but as she forcibly says, 'if he be of opinion that the tails of these noble animals are not only a natural ornament, but of real use to defend them from the vexatious insects that in summer are so apt to annoy them, how far from a dispraise is this humane consideration!' The other anecdote is of a different kind. When Sir Charles goes to church he does not, like some other gentlemen, bow low to the ladies ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... I learnt that two men had set off in quest of water and had been absent all night. That they should have taken this step without first asking permission was wrong, but that nobody had mentioned the circumstance to me till then was still more vexatious as, by firing shots and throwing up rockets, these men might have found their way back in the dark. I was very glad however to hear them at length answer our shots, and not at all sorry to see them come in thoroughly drenched with the empty kettles ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... saint (St. Vuilgefortis), whom the Jesuit Sautel, in his Annus Sacer Poeticus, has celebrated for her beard—a mark of divine favour bestowed upon her for her prayers.' Omniana, 1812, ii. 54. 'Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere! What! can nothing be one's own? This is the more vexatious, for at the age of eighteen I lost a legacy of fifty pounds for the following epigram on my godmother's beard, which she had the barbarity to revenge by striking me out of her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... occupied. But at the same time we are compelled to say, on general grounds of prudence and of justice, that it is a monstrous thing that communities should be disturbed with contests so absurd as these, which deserve to be censured in the old Parliamentary language as frivolous and vexatious. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... going to his father for money towards meeting his actual debt. Fred was keen enough to foresee that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his denial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's will would be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him one vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even fibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... same majority. He moved again that the chairman should leave the chair. He was beaten again. He divided on the second clause. He was beaten again. He then said that he was sensible that he was doing very wrong; that his conduct was unhandsome and vexatious; that he heartily begged our pardons; but that he had said that he would delay the bill as far as the forms of the House would permit; and that he must keep his word. Now came a discussion by which Nancy, if she had been in the ventilator, [A circular ventilator, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... under which the provincials so long had suffered. Military licence, therefore, and civil corruption alike, he put down with a resolute hand, never acting through intermediaries, but himself investigating every complaint, rewarding merit, and punishing offences. The vexatious monopolies which previous governors had granted, he did away with; and, while he firmly dealt with every symptom of disloyalty, his aim was "not penalty but penitence" [nom paena sed saepius paenitentia]—penitence shown in a frank acceptance ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare |
