"Exasperating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the narratives of Mannering and Pleydell, that this man was the prime agent in the act of violence which tore him from his family and country, and had exposed him to so many distresses and dangers. A thousand exasperating reflections rose within his bosom; and he could hardly refrain from rushing upon Hatteraick ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... an unusual occurrence with me, but on a more than usually important mission. I needn't note down how I achieved it. Am I likely to forget my impotent speeches? Still, she had given me plenty of excuse for supposing she liked me, and I said so. And then Catherine laughed her exasperating little laugh that always dries up all sentiment on the spot, and makes my blood boil with anger. "I like you?" she repeated mockingly; "not at all! not in the least! What ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating such a question was to a man who didn't know. I said to myself that I ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... that ridiculous ship's march from the window to the wall and back. I am foot weary as I have never been before in my life, but I cannot say that I am excited. No person in Dublin is excited, but there exists a state of tension and expectancy which is mentally more exasperating than any excitement could be. The absence of news is largely responsible for this. We do not know what has happened, what is happening, or what is going to happen, and the reversion to barbarism (for barbarism is largely a lack of ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... shook hands with, he flashed out—seemed in contrast fairly electric. She saw him, just ahead of her where the crowd was thickening in the door of the supper-room, making way for Clara through the press with that exasperating solicitude of his that was half ironic. And the large broadside offered by her elegant Harry, matter-of-factly towing Ella by the elbow, herself conscious of a curl or two awry, and Judge Buller tramping heavily at her side, all took on to her the aspect of a ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the limitations above given, varied, and it is excellent. No one except the greatest prose novelists has such a gallery of distinct, sharply etched characters, such another gallery of equally distinct scenes and manner-pieces, to set before the reader. Exasperating as Crabbe's style sometimes is, he seldom bores—never indeed except in his rare passages of digressive reflection. It has, I think, been observed, and if not the observation is obvious, that he has done ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... manage the Browns in the story is also exasperating. First you represent Mrs. Brown as taking her twins around to church to be christened. In the middle of the book you make Mrs. Brown lament that she never had any children, and you wind up the story by bringing in Mrs. Brown with her grandson in ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the street, engaged in that self-torture which is the chief recreation of unhappy lovers. He steeped his heart in gall by imagining Maud in love with another. His passion stimulated his slow wits into unwonted action, until his mind began to form exasperating pictures of intimacies which drove him half mad. His face grew pale, and his fists were tightly clinched as he walked. He hardly saw the familiar street before him; he had a far clearer vision of Maud and Farnham by the garden gate: ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... more exasperating? We ran up another question, I do not know what, but we waited in vain for the answering flutter, and the hospital ship Princess of Wales rolled along on ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... simply exasperating. You've been reading Nietzsche till you haven't got any sense of moral proportion left. May I ask if you are governed by any laws of ...
— Reginald • Saki
... all his confused thoughts the exasperating consciousness that it was nonsense to be frightened, or even disturbed; that, in truth, nothing whatever had happened. But he could not lay hold of it to any comforting purpose. Some perverse force within him insisted on raising new phantoms ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... has been doing,' interposed Lavvy, over the maternal shoulder, 'ever since we got up this morning. It's all very well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... needed to keep the name of her only son out of the newspapers while she is obtaining for him the wife and the salary suited to his requirements and capacities. Mr. Stephen McKenna provides us with the same kind of exasperating entertainment that we get at games from watching a skilful and unscrupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... red in the face and abusive, while I remained cool and exasperating. I was getting even with Jimmie for everything ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... man: he made resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided—as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow under favour of his own heedlessness, till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity and became unrelentingly hard. This was his system with his tenants: he allowed them to get into arrears, neglect their fences, reduce their stock, sell their straw, and otherwise ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... another ship; what is our Navy doing?" "Oh, but that's only one little hill; the Germans will have it back soon enough." Surely this kind of pessimism, except where the victim of it is not really responsible, must be as offensive to God as it is exasperating to man. ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... I believe what your Lordship says in your letter in regard to the efforts made to get hold of the protest, and that your Lordship does not have it. But it is an exasperating and serious thing that Father Collado, or whoever else has it, should display this tenacious obstinacy; and that so many efforts, so many mediators, and so much argument are not sufficient to get it. It is certain, sir, that so great obstinacy in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... M. Pancaldi, how good it was of him to tell me what I wished to know! I knew, however, that by exasperating him, I should end by picking up the missing clue in what he said. It was just as though one were to hand some one a flint and steel and suggest to him that he was to use it. In the end, the spark is obtained. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... midday dinner approached and there was no sign of Miss Thackeray's return from the woods. Barnes sat for two exasperating hours on the porch and listened to the confident, flamboyant oratory of Mr. Lyndon Rushcroft. His gaze constantly swept the line of trees, and there were times when he failed to hear a word in whole sentences that rolled from the lips of the actor. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... home Y.D., after maintaining an exasperating silence until supper was finished, casually handed the ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... congealed. He resolved, however, to hold his tongue, knowing that, under the circumstances, such would be the best tactics. By similar means, he felt sure that he would not only not become compromised, but that he might succeed in exasperating his enemy, in order to let him drop some imprudent observation. This, at all ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... name, do you mean by your customers and overcharges?" shrieked Major Brown, whose keen feminine nature, steady in pain or danger, became almost hysterical in the presence of a long and exasperating mystery. "Who are you? I've never seen you or your insolent tomfool bills. I know one of your cursed brutes ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... your foot suddenly sinks a couple of feet until it comes to a hard layer. You wade along in this way step by step, like a mudlark at Portsmouth Hard, hoping gradually to regain the surface. Soon you do, only to repeat the exasperating performance ad lib., to the accompaniment of all the expletives that you can bring to bear on the subject. What actually happens is that the warm air melts the surface sufficiently to cause drops of water to trickle down slightly, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... girl's prejudices against the North, but not in her antipathy. The thought that Clancy had waned in his regard or that he could even think of a Northern girl after having "kep' company" with Mara, had been exasperating, but now Aun' Sheba began to suspect that the estrangement was not wholly his fault. "She set agin him by his gwine Norf an' his habin' to do wid de folks dat she an' ole Missus hates. Doan see why he is mad at me ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... There was something strangely exasperating, as well as strangely wearying, in these uncommanded evolutions. It is bitter to return to infancy, to be supported, and directed, and perpetually set upon your feet, by the hand of some one else. The air besides, as it is supplied ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Since all counterfeiting cases belonged distinctly to the Secret Service Department she had little doubt her father would respond as soon as the affairs at the office would permit him to do so. But the delay was exasperating, nevertheless. Indeed, Josie was so sure that the crisis of her case was imminent that she determined to watch old Cragg's house every night until his arrest could be made. If he attempted to escape she would arrest him herself, ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... case," added Jack, between the puffs at his pipe, "why you'll have to wait till they come back. That may be inside of five minutes, and not for an hour; maybe," added Jack in the game exasperating manner, "that nothing will be seen of 'em till daylight. You see that since they have been cheated out of their work they have plenty of time to loaf ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Once there, we gazed up in disarray. That break resembled a walk of life—how easy to slip down, how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil, began to swear and wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mention the danger of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move. We had to climb in single file, which jeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we were ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... judge's private opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his thoughts when he tried him. He happens to know what such a man got by such a transaction, and it was fifteen thousand five hundred pounds, and his income is twelve thousand a year. Our bore is also great in mystery. He believes, with an exasperating appearance of profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last Sunday? - Yes, you did. - Did he say anything particular? - No, nothing particular. - Our bore is surprised at that. - Why? - Nothing. Only he understood that Parkins ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... polite and affable, and during the pauses of the game they call for and drink their beer in true democratic fashion. M. Forgues learns that his charge lives two leagues out of town, and, hugging his exasperating valise—which, we may here remark, was delivered safely to the charge next day—he returns in company with the captain to the steamer, where, seated on the deck, he listens with horror to the stories told by a citizen of divers murders committed in the town and vicinity, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... and Dante was a Catholic Calvinist. There was a determined optimism about Hunt, and a buoyancy as of a cork or other light body, sometimes a little exasperating to men of less sanguine temperament.[22] He ends by protesting that Dante is a semi-barbarian and his "Divine Comedy" too often an infernal tragedy. "Such a vision as that of his poem (in a theological point of view) seems no better than the dream of an hypochondriacal savage." It was some ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... said, with that same exasperating sort of reassurance which the Mother Superior had used, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... her eyes darkened. It was all very well to play with Gaga; but he was now her husband, and that meant an association so constant that in future, so far from tempting him, she would forever be engaged in battles with his exasperating, petty claims to her person and her attention. He would not ever be able to understand her wish to be alone, or to be self-engrossed. Febrile himself, he would be dumfounded at her reserve, which he ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... one," he returned, shaking his head at me with a deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating; "I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don't catch hold of me. You'd be sorry arterwards to have ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... cod-liver oil to me. Who conspicuously walks the Rialto now, and what does he or she wear? Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana on the Garden Theatre still keep her vestal vows through all the exasperating changes of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided aspirants practice their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? What do people go to see at the theaters, and what do they eat and drink there in the world nowadays? ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... ballroom in passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing despatches from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... ardent, and devoted nature suffer in a year or two. Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it, the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... critics, however, while preserving but little of the verse of early Armenia, have handed down to us many legends and traditions, though they relate them, unfortunately, with much carelessness and with a contempt for detail that is often exasperating to one seeking for instructive parallelisms between the heroic legends of different nations. Evidently the only object of the ecclesiastical chroniclers in preserving these legends was to invest their descriptions ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... not a cookery book. It makes no attempt to replace a good one; it is rather an effort to fill up the gap between you and your household oracle, whether she be one of those exasperating old friends who maddened our mother with their vagueness, or the newer and better lights of our own generation, the latest and best of all being a lady as well known for her novels as for her works on domestic economy—one more proof, if proof were needed, of the truth I endeavor to set forth—if ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... heralded by a rather vague cablegram the week before. To be brief, Mr. Bowen recently had been named as joint executor of the will, together with Sir John Allencrombie, of London, W.C., one time neighbour of the late Mr. Skaggs. A long and exasperating cablegram had touched somewhat irresolutely upon the terms of the will, besides notifying him that one of the heirs resided in Boston. He was instructed to apprise this young man of his good fortune. This he delayed in doing until after ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... poor persons daily, and wait upon them themselves; and these poor persons were to have bread and meat or fish, with half a flagon of ale, and were to have new tunics and new russet hoods every year. All this was in addition to various heavy fines. The money part must have been the least exasperating: but it might have been amusing to choose the less agreeable ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... instructions to threaten the man with immediate arrest and imprisonment. And Abigail went down and scolded the man with the more vigor that she herself had been scolded all day on account of the headache. And so Pedro just grinned at her in his exasperating furrin way, and played on until he got good and ready to go. Then he went, and the old lady sat down and wrote that letter, and gave ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... The thread springs into a coil in the shape of the spool. No hem stays turned; the cloth you try to sew springs into its original folds in a most exasperating manner. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom .. you design for my bedfellow —a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... seems to have attached to all Federal military people when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people was preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community was left to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction, himself issued the proclamation for a general convention, which is itself a gem. The delegates met in Monterey, at Colton Hall, ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... more trying to the patience than the long wasted days of waiting. Exasperating as it is to see the tons of coal melting away with the smallest mileage to our credit, one has at least the satisfaction of active fighting and the hope of better fortune. To wait idly is the worst of conditions. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... so many torches blazing here was an exasperating spectacle to Ernst Ortlieb, who with wise caution and love of order insisted that nothing but lanterns should be used to light his house, which contained inflammable wares of great value; but other things disturbed his composure, already ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... philosophical person, could have slain those innocent lovers. He felt, he knew not why, that his chances were slipping away from him; that sensation of something bad about to happen, of which Benita had spoken, spread from her to him. The suspense grew exasperating, terrible even, nor could it be ended. To ask her to come elsewhere was under the circumstances not feasible, especially as he would also have been obliged to request the other pair to make way for them, and all this time, with a sinking of the heart, he felt that probably ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... war; and putting together all the facts as now known, we must pronounce that they were almost certainly right. Bismarck undoubtedly wanted war; and it is impossible to think that he did not intend to use this candidature as a means of exasperating the French. The man who afterwards declared that, at the beginning of the Danish disputes in 1863, he made up his mind to have Schleswig-Holstein for Prussia[27], certainly saw in the Hohenzollern candidature a step towards a Prusso-Spanish alliance or a ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... perhaps on account of his complete ineptitude, I had a feeling of sympathy for Turnbull. It must have been very exasperating for him to stand there, roaring out his sincerest convictions and to be received by every one of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... asked to see me, but I declined to give any other answer, adding that you and the French Ambassr. could make the most Confidential as well as Official Communications[619]." This rebuff was not regarded as final, though exasperating, by Lindsay, nor by the Confederate agents, all being agreed that Napoleon was about to take an active hand in their favour. Lindsay returned to Paris accompanied by Mason, and on April 18 had still another conversation with Napoleon. He reported Russell's refusal of an interview, and that he ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... separation requiring no legal permit; and that a pure honest love sanctifies the union of two people which may not have been confirmed by a civil or religious ceremony. The following passage is a partial statement of these views, which proved very exasperating to her contemporaries. It is the advice given to Maria, after her flight, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... realize that you're the most exasperating woman that ever walked the face of this earth?" the unhappy ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... These exasperating reflections were partly expresssed in the acrimony with which he exclaimed, on feeling himself pulled by the cloak: "What ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... irritated me to see how his wife had subdued her personality to his, she who was of so tender and delicate a fibre, and who more than anyone wanted cherishing, instead of being ridden down, in that debonair, rough-shod way of his, that, although often exasperating, still had something attractive about it. She and I used to discuss it sometimes, in the evenings, when he was kept out late at his job—it's an uncertain business, reporting—we used to discuss it with the tolerance ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... point of view. You're rather exasperating, and don't seem to understand that, even if I might have changed my mind ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Tom, with his exasperating coolness, "I propose that each do his best. I don't suppose you want any baby play. I don't. I invite you to hit me as often and as hard as you can. I'm going to do ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Man's blended duty and interest, in such a case, are to try to see the interior beauty and essential kindness of his fate, to adorn it and embrace it, fomenting his resignation with the sweet lotions of faith and peace, not exasperating his wounds with the angry pungents of suspicion, alarm, and complaint. At the worst, amidst all our personal disappointments, losses, and decay, "the view of the great universal whole of nature," ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... was what he liked about her. She had not revenged herself on Nature by making hideous caricatures of Nature's face; she did not draw in milk-and-water colors, and she did not strum. She had none of the exasperating talents, the ludicrous ambitions of the amateur; she was ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... her intention, little Martha, although much surprised and charmed and perplexed by all that was going on around her, did not forget to pocket something for gran'father. She was met, however, by an exasperating difficulty at the very outset. Her pocket was not large enough to contain the huge roll which, with some meat, had been put hastily into her small hand by a lady with a red rose in her bonnet. To achieve her object with the roll ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... he went on sardonically, "you know that too. You know that I loathe and detest life—that I hate the morning because it begins a new day. Oh, I am bored to extinction, you know all that, you most exasperating woman. I hate"—he suddenly seemed to see that he was giving her pain, and the next words were muttered to himself—"no, I love the ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... of pointing him out as a specimen of the healthy climate, but this was rather a flight of fancy, as Slivers was one of those exasperating individuals who, if they lived in a swamp or a desert, would still continue to feel their digestions good and their ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... unschooled in the commonplaces of life. And while ordinarily, he was not one who was inclined to be querulous, still now on occasion, he could be. He began by asking questions concerning his wife's appearance—irritating little whys which are so trivial and yet so exasperating and discouraging to a woman. Why didn't she get a mauve hat nearer the shade of her dress? Why didn't she go out more? Exercise would do her good. Why didn't she do this, and why didn't she do that? He scarcely noticed that he was ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... answer to the newcomer's demand, Hod shifted his quid and, with exasperating deliberation, spat in the direction of a sawdust-filled box near ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... exasperating to a young man in her cool, smiling air. He stood looking at her, feeling oddly flat ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... generally modified or withdrew them. It was thus that he cancelled Wood's patent in compliance with the absurd outcry of the Irish. It was thus that he frittered away the Porteous Bill to nothing, for fear of exasperating the Scotch. It was thus that he abandoned the Excise Bill, as soon as he found that it was offensive to all the great towns of England. The language which he held about that measure in a subsequent session is strikingly characteristic. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... object of his life, and there was now no longer any obstacle to be overcome. The relief he felt at his father's return was very great; for although he had known that the impediment raised would be soon removed, any impediment whatever was exasperating, and he could not calculate the trouble that might be caused by the further machinations of Donna Tullia and her affianced husband. All difficulties had, however, been overcome by his father's energetic ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... was neither gracious nor lovely, but nothing softer than its iron hand could have done its necessary work. The Puritan character was narrow, intolerant, and exasperating. The forefathers were very "sour" in the estimation of Morton and his merry company at Mount Wollaston. But for all that, Bradstreet and Carver and Winthrop were better forefathers than the gay Morton, and the Puritan spirit is doubtless the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... been an eventless journey from New York to Miami, from Miami to Fort Coquina; but from there through an absolutely pathless wilderness as far as I could make out, the journey had been exasperating. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... and often the prompter, of Mirabeau. Both are misleading, for they wrote long after, and their memory is constantly at fault. Dumouriez wrote to excuse his defection, and Talleyrand to cast a decent veil over actions which were injurious to him at the Restoration. The Necker family are exasperating, because they are generally wrong in their dates. Madame Campan wished to recover her position, which the fall of the Empire had ruined. Therefore some who had seen her manuscript have affirmed that the suppressed passages were adverse to the queen; ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... a Moorish town then best known as a haunt and stronghold of the pirates of the Mediterranean. All was silence, all seemingly peace. The vessel—the ketch, to give it its nautical name—moved onward with what seemed exasperating slowness, scarcely ruffling the polished waters of the bay. The hours passed on. The miles lagged tardily behind. The wind fell. The time crept towards midnight. The only life visible in the wide landscape was that of the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... have to play now that I'm here," he said, with the most exasperating complacency. "My daughter plays some, and she is as crazy about it as the rest of them. I don't see where the fascination comes in. I called the other day on a man who was once in the Cabinet. He is rich and famous, and can have anything or do anything he likes, ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... a saloon and hither the old man hurried. Mary had given him the number of the stage 'phone, and he called it. Despite the coldness of the afternoon, perspiration burst out and beaded his forehead as he waited—only to hear the exasperating voice of the operator announce, "Busy." Three times this was repeated and while he waited, pacing frenziedly back and forth, he sought, after each successive failure, to allay the jump and tremor of his shocked nerves with whiskey, and he ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... and exasperating feeling that I ever experienced. The football player who can conceive of a game in which under no circumstances was it permissible to kick, but instead provided a penalty, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... are exasperating. No one can eradicate your jealousy! That makes an unconstrained intercourse impossible! But what is to be done? Paul is my husband, not you. And so I am compelled to request ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... important discovery for Hazletine to make, but it was attended by two exasperating facts: the interview was nearly over, and the words that remained to be spoken were uttered in such moderate tones that he could not hear a syllable. If the couple had been obliging enough to raise their voices, it is probable that the knowledge ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... at the wheel looked silently forward, with that exasperating unconcern of any landsman's interest peculiar to marine officials. The passenger turned impatiently to the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... that cool way, so exasperating always to her, and lifting one hand, began to tell off the months on ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... you are sleeping on a bed in the open air, foretells that you will have delightful experiences, and opportunity for improving your fortune. For you to see negroes passing by your bed, denotes exasperating circumstances arising, which will interfere with ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... she-hypocrite. The second, a "Mariee," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The third, a "Jeune Mere," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve," being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of any third person as of a lay figure was exasperating. Yet at the moment I did not know how to resent it, but, in any case, Dona Rita would not have given me time. Without a moment's hesitation ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... rolling on my ungainly animal's back as if I were hunting in an open boat on a chopping sea, I had the additional nervous distraction of seeing many sorts of game—deer, wild-hogs, peafowl, partridges—careering about in the most exasperating manner immediately under my gun-muzzle. To add to my dissatisfaction, presently I saw a wild-hog dash out of a thicket with her young litter immediately across our path, and as my elephant stepped excitedly along one of his big ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... desultory, and the principal characters lack interest. We feel, in the presence of the virtue and sense of Elinor, a rebuke which never affects us in the same way with Jane Bennet, Fanny Price, or Anne Elliot; while Marianne is often exasperating. Edward Ferrars is rather stiff; and Colonel Brandon is so far removed from us that we never even ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... judging it. He knew that for four days past it had been undergoing all the training of suggestion; there had been the fever of the long journey, the excitement of the new landscapes, the days spent before the splendour of the Grotto, the sleepless nights, and all the exasperating suffering, ravenous for illusion. Then, again, there had been the all-besetting prayers, those hymns, those litanies, which agitated it without a pause. Another priest had followed Father Massias in the pulpit, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... why, when Dr. Leslie was anything but prone to gossip, Marilla should have been possessed of such a wealth of knowledge of her neighbors' affairs. Strange to say this wealth was for her own miserly pleasure and not to be distributed, and while she often proclaimed with exasperating triumph that she had known for months some truth just discovered by others, she was regarded by her acquaintances as if she were a dictionary written in some foreign language; immensely valuable, but of no practical use to themselves. It was sometimes difficult ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... dress by candle-light and assist at the ceremony of dawn; it is well if for no other purpose than to disarm the intolerance of the professional early riser who, were he in a state of perfect health, would not be the wandering victim of insomnia, and boast of it. There are few small things more exasperating than this early bird with the worm of his conceit ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... air of beneficent dignity, highly exasperating to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the rest of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my conge for the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... endeavoured to bring the Lutherans and Calvinists together, and even entered into negotiations with the Calvinist leader, Gui de Bray. His efforts failed completely, the Calvinists declaring that "they would rather die than become Lutherans." From that time, owing partly to Philip's policy in exasperating the people by the application of the placards and partly also to the fanatic attitude adopted by the new sect, the Reform entered on a new phase in the Low Countries. No concessions on the part of the Government would satisfy the extremists, bent ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... and Gascon lords, assembled together under the banner of the Prince, were bent on a career of glory and plunder. The inaction of the long truce, with its perpetual sources of irritation and friction, had been exasperating in the extreme. It was an immense relief to them to feel that war had at last been declared, and that they could unfurl their banners and march forth against their old enemy, and enrich themselves for life ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his attention to Venice. Venice had been behaving in a most exasperating fashion, and the conqueror felt that the time had come to take the proud City ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... effort at conveying the situation, and his aunt would think it was a code message to which he had omitted to give her the key. His one hope was that he might reach home before sundown. The cab which he chartered at the other end of the railway journey bore him with what seemed exasperating slowness along the country roads, which were pink and mauve with the flush of the sinking sun. His aunt was putting away some unfinished jams and cake ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... his grandfather of this refusal for fear of exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the name of that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... because it exactly describes her, was very good for the first few weeks, after which we began to know her. She is not a convert in any sense of the term. She is just a very wilful, truthful, exasperating, fascinating little Oriental. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... whip, the other dogs looking disgusted meanwhile, like honourable gentlemen at a cad who won't play fair. Angelica, shouting and laughing, made as much noise in her way as the dogs did in theirs, and the din was deafening; an exasperating kind of din too, not incessant, but intermittent, now swelling to a climax, now lulling, until there seemed some hope that it would cease altogether, then bursting out again, whip cracking, dogs howling and barking, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... undertaking, never came. The squadron when collected was detained by contrary winds. Ralegh boasted to Cecil that he was indifferent to good fortune or adversity. But in another letter he confessed: 'This wind breaks my heart.' The delay was the more exasperating that other ships had run out, 'bound to the wars, a multitude going for the Indies.' He was afraid the chiefest places of his enterprise might be attempted, and he should be undone. Others would reap no advantage; for he knew 'they would be beaten, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... amusing and the most affecting piece of gossip which our political annals contain. Randolph, as the most unmanageable of members of Congress, had been for fifteen years a thorn in Mr. Clay's side, and Clay's later politics had been most exasperating to Mr. Randolph; but the two men loved one another in their hearts, after all. Nothing has ever exceeded the thorough-bred courtesy and tender consideration with which they set about the work of putting ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... on thorns. He had no repartee ready. She was secretly exasperating him as usual, making his youth a reproach, and rendering it impossible for him to be his natural frank self with her. In her presence he was always at a disadvantage. She seemed to take stock of his learning and to mock at the idea ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... deal of futile and exasperating poking with the handle of the net, managed to turn the button and throw back the leather-hinged cover. Through the square opening the water beneath looked darkly green. There was much seaweed in the car, and occasionally ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the honey and rushes to revenge himself. And as he seeks to be revenged on all those that sting him, he is revenged on none; in such wise that his rage is turned to madness, and he flings himself on the ground, vainly exasperating, by his hands and feet, the foes against which he is ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... supposed that we were in the old house on the Konigstrasse; that I had just come down quietly to my breakfast; and that my marriage with Gretchen was to take place that very day? My uncle's coolness was exasperating. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... more exasperating to a hostess than to have her guests come to her home too early. It is bad enough to wait a meal for a belated guest, but to have some critical woman casually stroll in before one is dressed, or has put the final touches—so dear ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... Of course, he was not to be bothered, but everybody wanted to talk to him, to ask him how he was, to chatter endlessly at him. Jimmy did not want to talk. His experience in addressing adults was exasperating. That he spoke lucid English instead of babygab did not compel a rational response. Those who heard him speak made over him with the same effusive superiority that they used in applauding a golden-haired tot in high heels and a strapless ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... I saw were just as futile and exasperating as the commercial English and French varieties of the problem-play, though they had a trifling advantage over the English in that their most sentimental passages were lightened by humor, and the odiously insincere felicity of their ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... patience. He looks at the map of the German Empire and painfully admits that the present frontiers and area are practically those bequeathed by the great William. To a divine-right monarch this is exasperating. The loftiest ambition of a sovereign is to have the national area ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... principally on an exasperating drum, the curtain rises on a scene in a seaport town in South America, or, to be exact, in Bolivia. Various disreputable pirates, whose appearance is a libel on a profession adorned by such men as Captain ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... lot of things to say to you." Lydia glanced up at him with that wonderful, exasperating look, half humility, and waited. It seemed to her he must have a great deal to say. "I don't believe it's possible for you—for a girl—to understand what it would be for a man in my place to come home and find everybody so sweet and kind. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... not sending another to England, to match and pair it. That's largely German influence, but also the Chicago packers and the cotton men. These latter have easy grievances, like the Irish. The delays of the British Government are exasperating, but they are really not so bad now as they have been. Still, the President can be influenced by the criticism that he must hit one side every time he hits the other, else he's not neutral! I am working by every device to help ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... inflicted on him before the mocking eyes of a brutal crowd by Henry Burton. Ever as the day's routine business closed, and he retired to the dull solitude of his chamber, the last mind-picture which faded on his waking sense was the scene on the crowded race-course, with all its exasperating accessories—the merciless exultation of the triumphant adversary—the jibes and laughter of his companions—the hootings of the mob—to be again repeated with fantastic exaggeration in the dreams which troubled and perplexed his broken sleep. No wonder that the demons of Revenge and Hate, by ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... a most exasperating time trying to bring in his skin. I was alone, traveling on foot with one very docile little mountain mare for a pack pony. The little mare cared nothing for bears or anything else, so there was no difficulty in packing her. But the man without experience can ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... daughters) this gauze has been withheld and without semblance of such apology they have been frankly trodden under the feet of men. They are and have been objected to, apparently for reasons peculiarly exasperating to reasoning human beings. When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not, how does he look,—but what is his message? It is of but passing interest whether or not the messenger is beautiful or ugly,—the message is the thing. This, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... to meet together to criticize each other. The person to suffer criticism sits in silence, while the rest of the company, each in turn, tell him his faults, with, I judge, an astonishing and often exasperating plainness of speech. Here is the account given by ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... and what's more you never will. Not that it's your fault, Tavy, dear, it's only your misfortune." Exasperating patronage was audible in her voice. Champney noted that a trace of the rich Irish brogue was left. "Here, give ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... of the most exasperating and human things about a gasolene-engine. It is efficient, but not thoroughly dependable. The best of them are liable to break down at the most needed moment, due to a hundred causes outside of the control of a mechanic ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... had a peculiarly exasperating effect upon men of a different type; and Willis became the butt of the more old-fashioned critics, who vied with each other in inventing opprobrious epithets to shower upon the head of this young puppy of journalism. However, Nathaniel was not ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... of mankind'; of 'clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious'; of taking themselves to be a 'chosen few,' despising the multitude, and retorting the dislike which their arrogance has provoked by using still more exasperating language.[564] He suggested that they should do more justice to 'the Romillys and the Broughams,' who had been the real and judicious reformers; and he illustrated the errors of Bentham by especial reference to Mill's arguments upon ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... should be somewhere before daylight. But a new annoyance was in store for me. The steamboats on these waters are constructed of very frail materials, and whenever one came into collision with my flotilla, she immediately sank. This was most exasperating, for the piercing shrieks of the hapless crews and passengers prevented my getting any sleep. Such disagreeable voices as these people had would have tortured an ear of corn. I felt as if I would like to step out and beat them soft-headed with a club; ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... ordinarily refined and well-educated woman on standard subjects, and might have been printed in a manual of polite topics and creditable opinions. She had no desire to astonish a man of whom she had heard nothing particular. It was all the more exasperating to see and hear Hinze's reception of her well-bred conformities. Felicia's acquaintances know her as the suitable wife of a distinguished man, a sensible, vivacious, kindly-disposed woman, helping her husband with graceful ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... He took the people into his confidence, let them know the sources of revenue, the nature of expenditures, and measures of relief. This was very quieting to the public, but exasperating to the privileged classes, who had never taken the people into their confidence, and considered it an impertinence for them to inquire how the moneys were spent. And so Louis, again yielding to the pressure at Versailles, dismissed Necker; ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... of the wretched riverine steamer Honda, Padre Jose de Rincon gazed with vacant eyes upon the scenery on either hand. The boat had arrived from Barranquilla that morning, and was now experiencing the usual exasperating delay in embarking from Calamar. He had just returned to it, after wandering for hours through the forlorn little town, tormented physically by the myriad mosquitoes, and mentally by a surprising eagerness to reach his destination. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... very, but "Miss Ray's head was level," as the purser put it, and despite the snippy and exasperating conduct of most of the sisterhood, that wise young woman pointed out to the shipmaster that theirs was a semi-military organization, and that the senior, Mrs. Dr. Wells, and one or two veteran nurses should ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... the concluding words with exasperating slowness. Iris, astounded by the stipulation, dropped her locket and leaned forward into the red light of the log fire. The sailor's quick eye caught the glitter of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Deronda, who had lately been finding such suppositions rather exasperating. "Even if it were true that I thought so much of others, it would not follow that I had no wants for myself. When Buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the right hour, it is on the condition of bringing you back at the wrong; they either allow you far too little time to examine the castle or the ruin, or they leave you planted in front of it for periods that outlast curiosity. They are perverse, capricious, exasperating. It was a question of our having but an hour or two at Loches, and we could ill afford to sacrifice to accidents. One of the accidents, however, was that the rain stopped before we got there, leaving behind it a moist mildness of temperature and a cool and lowering sky which were in ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... social improvement, and the clergy the moral leaders of the people, we should have seen by this time a tremendous alteration in the condition, and the relations, of all classes of society. There might still be differences, but they would be on a higher plane, and less grievous and exasperating. As the case stands, all the best of the clergy can do is to preach harmless platitudes once a week. One Bishop has been actually harangueing the miners, and only provoking contemptuous remarks about his salary. The truth is, that ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... could not agree with your conditions," Jack informed him on their first interview after the doctor had paid his visit; whereupon the old man elevated his eyebrows with that air of ineffable superiority which was so exasperating, and said— ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... carry which the North does not easily realize. There the negro is not a remote problem of philanthropy; he is not represented by a few stray individuals; it is a great mass, everywhere present, in its surface manifestations often futile, childish, exasperating; shading off into sodden degradation; as a whole, a century or several centuries behind its white neighbors. To get on with it peaceably, to rightly apportion with it the opportunities and the burdens of the community, to keep the common movement directed upward,—this demands ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... that we have been here a month. The time has slipped by, as it has a way of doing when one is frightfully busy; in my case it was particularly exasperating. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... But I saw just as you did, that he wanted to hold us here a certain time. And it wouldn't surprise me one little bit if Tony failed to come back until a couple of hours had gone," and while saying this Phil looked wise, which fact struck his chum as particularly exasperating, seeing that he was so ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... "That is exasperating! Not that I fear these militiamen might give my demons too much work; but I am afraid I may alarm them; then they will scamper in all directions, and frighten the entire Neusiedl region, so that when I arrive at Fertoeszeg I shall find the birds flown and the nest empty. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... who contributed to place the stamp of a higher character on the labours of the book clubs, one of the most remarkable was Sir Alexander Boswell. A time there was, unfortunately, when his name could not easily be dissociated from exasperating political events; but now that the generation concerned in them has nearly passed away, it becomes practicable, even from the side of his political opponents, to glance at his literary abilities and accomplishments without recalling exciting recollections. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... were clinched, and the referee was cutting them apart like a cheese-knife. And now the big man realized that on the swift interchange of blows Bobbles was quicker than he, and that he must keep him at a little distance. Relying, then, on his greater reach, he went at Bobbles in a most exasperating manner, holding one long arm out straight, and fanning Bobbles with the other. Bobbles ran into the outstretched fist with great enthusiasm at first, but after a moment's daze he dodged round and under that arm and devoted ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... bench in front of the cabin. He grinned impudently. His manner was an exasperating challenge. Evidently he did ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... is heard throughout the hours of light and darkness in May, so that one wonders whether this bird ever sleeps. The second call is usually reserved for dawn, when the bird is most vociferous. This cry is particularly exasperating to Europeans, since it often awakens them rudely from the only refreshing sleep they have enjoyed, namely, that obtained at the time when the temperature is comparatively low. The koel extends into the Punjab and is heard ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... twang on their harp of a thousand strings. At breakfast, this morning, when Jack passed me the corn-bread, I said innocently, 'Why, what have we here?' 'It is manna that fell in the night,' answered Jack, with an exasperating snicker. 'You didn't know mutton, but I thought, being a Sunday-school teacher, you would know something about manna.' (N.B.—He alludes to that time I took the infant class for Miss Jones, and they all ran out to see a military funeral procession.) ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... build up, again and again, the crumbling structure of "appearances," her own attention was perpetually distracted by the question: "What on earth can she be driving at?" There was something positively exasperating in Bertha's attitude of isolated defiance. If only she would have given her friend a hint they might still have worked together successfully; but how could Lily be of use, while she was thus obstinately shut out from participation? ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... views. Some of the members were openly hostile to the President, even in a personal way, particularly one representative from the South, and some of the questions addressed to the President were ungracious to the verge of open insult. It was an exasperating experience, but Mr. Wilson stood the test with patience, betraying no resentment to impertinent questions, replying to every query with Chesterfieldian grace and affability, parrying every blow with courtesy and gentleness, gallantly ignoring the unfriendly tone and manifest unfairness ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... until one of the party "thinks he has a nibble" and begs for silence, which at once supervenes out of respect for the momentous interests hanging in the balance. When the excitement is over the frivolous Bagby takes advantage of the relief from suspense to make an exasperating pun, after the manner of a newspaper man, and "Billy Ivins swears he will kill him ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... with her and saw the boy. In the early heat of her Tennyson- worship Mrs. Amyot had christened him Lancelot, and he looked it. Perhaps, however, it was his black velvet dress and the exasperating length of his yellow curls, together with the fact of his having been taught to recite Browning to visitors, that raised to fever-heat the itching of my palms in his Infant-Samuel-like presence. I have since had reason to think that he would have preferred to be called ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton |
