"Irritable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a natural man—a natural son of God. He had the desires, appetites and ambitions of a man. If he voiced great thoughts and wrote great scores, he did these things in a mood—and never knew how. At times he was coarse, perverse, irritable. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... through that period when, from almost maudlin appreciation, a husband gradually sinks into the commonplace mood of taking his soul's mate "for granted." Only real friendship can live through the disillusionment of irritable temper, lack of imagination, and boredom so often revealed while travelling in the company of friends. More than half the mutual life of lovers and friends is spent behind masks—for masks are sometimes necessary to keep love and friendship great ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... the hostess. He now rose, drank off his glass of wine, and with a significant wink promised to bring the Chevalier back, not perhaps to-morrow or the day after, but in any case in good order and condition. Casanova, however, had suddenly grown distrait and irritable. So cold was his farewell to the fond hostess that, at the carriage door, she whispered a parting word in his ear ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... was possible for weather to be worse than it had been the day before, it was worse this day—wetter, muddier, colder. There were more errands to be done, the cook was more irritable, and, knowing that Sara was in disgrace, she was more savage. But what does anything matter when one's Magic has just proved itself one's friend. Sara's supper of the night before had given her strength, she knew that she should sleep well and warmly, and, even though she had naturally begun to ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... light-hearted and gay, but Mabel often had moods of despondency, which, while they never made her cross or irritable, were so pathetic that it ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... was herself exhausted, and her poor victim covered with blood. This scene was renewed every morning, and the cries and moans of the poor suffering blacks, announced that they were enduring the penalty of slavery, in being the objects on which the irritable and malevolent passions of the whites are allowed to vent themselves with impunity; nor could I help deeply deploring that state of society in which the vilest characters in the community are allowed an almost uncontrolled power of life ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... velvet hands in her own palm. The clear blue-white of their eyes, the softness of their hair, the very feel of their firm, strong bare legs gave her an actual pang of joy. But a half hour—an hour—with them, and she grew restless, irritable. She didn't try to ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... question. Even avarice, the most suspicious of passions, has in no instance I ever heard of, desired to compose her hoards by an accumulation of the precious metals. The confidence in the credit of our ordinary medium has not been doubted even in the dreams of the most irritable and jealous ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His face was broad, but his features were sharp; his cheeks were scorched into a dusky red by two fiery little gray eyes, his nose turned up, and the corners of his mouth turned down, pretty much like the muzzle of an irritable pug-dog. ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... ill of a low fever soon after Ben's second marriage, and when he rose from his bed he seemed to have grown ten years older. He was more childish in his fault-finding, and more irritable than ever before, and this new wife of Ben's had little patience with him. She was not at all like Edith. She bullied him, and frightened him into silence when he began to find fault with her extravagances. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... two men. Jim played with the gems, running them through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out flat and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung, and anaemic—a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted features, small eyes, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly hungry, brutish in a catlike way, stamped to the ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... to their room, full of irritable reproaches. But Lottie puzzled her again, as she had done before that day. Gayety vanished from the face as light from a clouded landscape, and with an expression that was even scowling and sullen she sat brooding before the fire, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... him and threw a course of circles around him as he came slowly forward. Plainly she expected him to do something, but what this might be Alcatraz could not tell. Besides, a growing thirst was making him irritable and the insistence of the grey mare made him wish to fasten his teeth over the back of her neck and shake her ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... September scarcely merits all the evil epithets that are applied to it. The truth is that, after the torrid days of the hot weather and the humid heat of the rainy season, the European is thoroughly weary of his tropical surroundings, his vitality is at a low ebb, he is languid and irritable, thus he complains bitterly of the climate of September, notwithstanding the fact that it is a distinct improvement on that ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... said the Evil Spirit. "But I warn thee that there have been very many pleasanter companions than she will make thee, for she is excessively irritable and passionate. Withal she is so fond of admiration, that I have no doubt she would give chace to the ugliest toad that ever devoured a worm, so she could captivate him. She ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of my slanderer, and was refused it. And then. I burst out, for the first time in my life, into a real fit of rage with her. I cannot tell how I dared to say what I did, but I was weak, nervous, irritable—my brain excited beyond all natural tension. Above all, I felt that she was unjust to me; and my good conscience, as well ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of an abatement of the irritable and painful symptoms of his loathsome malady; and, in a short time, by persevering in the use of the remedy which the natural sagacity of his humble companions had suggested, he became wholly cured of the leprosy and was delighted to find himself restored to health ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... his pocket. I felt a kind of fright on perceiving a barrel of white metal terminating in a slender tube. At the sight of this mechanism, which the doctor exhibited with satisfaction, Their Graces blushed, became irritable, and muttered several fine sentiments about the dignity of the English: for instance that the Catholics of old England were more distinguished for their opinions of this infamous instrument than for their opinions ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... hat. If I am discredited, I appeal to history, which tells us that the hats of the Hillford five-and-twenty were all exceedingly hind-ward-set when the march was resumed. It followed that Peter Bartholomew, potboy, made irritable objections to that old joke which finished his name as though it were a cat calling, and the offence being repeated, he dealt an impartial swing of his stick at divers heads, and told them to take that, which they assured him they had done by sending him flying into a hedge. Peter, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... (sphagnol), Swedish wood tar, permanganate of potash, perborates and percarbonates of soda and ammonia, chlorine compounds, but none of these has at present come much into favour, and some had only ephemeral existence. Of the many drugs that it has been suggested to admix in soap for use in allaying an irritable condition of the skin, the majority are obviously better applied in the form of ointments, and we need not ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... passage to Otaheite, Captain Bligh had several disturbances with his men. He had an extremely irritable temper, and would often fly into a passion and make most terrible accusations, and use most terrible language to his officers ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... harbours from Plymouth to the Land's End, and perhaps several others, but he was more of a pilot than a master, and usually conversed about landmarks, church steeples, and crayfish. The surgeon was a clever little dapper man, well-read, shockingly irritable, fond of controversy on ethics, etymology, and giving the blue pill. I need not acquaint my reader he was from York. The purser was the shadow of a man, very regular in his accounts, fond of peach-water, playing the flute, of going on shore, receiving his necessary money and taking ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... passive, they do nothing of themselves, they have no wants, and nature as regards them treats them as she does plants. But as they are irritable in their parts, the means which nature employs to maintain their existence enables them to execute movements ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... that he must have been condemned to death. I make him talk for the purpose of getting at his secret; but he is of a truly Castilian taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo di Cordova, and nevertheless angelic in his patience and gentleness. His pride is not irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner nature; he forces us to civility because his own manners are so perfect, and holds us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My father declares that there is a great deal ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... party of four. Lucy was quite unchanged—pretty, foolish, and gentle as ever. George showed the full five years' increase of age, and seemed to have acquired a somewhat painful control of his temper. Instead of the old petulant outbursts, there was at times an air of nervous, irritable self-restraint, which I found the less pleasant of the two. But it was in Alan that the most striking alteration appeared. I felt it the moment I shook hands with him, and the impression deepened that evening with every hour. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... son as respected extent and vigour of intellect, speculative opinions, amusements, studies, outward demeanour. But the groundwork of the character was the same in both. To both were common the love of order, the love of business, the military taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the temper irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the pain and humiliation of others. But these propensities had in Frederic William partaken of the general unsoundness of his mind, and wore a very different aspect ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by protoplasm. To be sure, vitality is more marvelous than aquacity, but so is protoplasm a more complex compound than water. This compound was a very unstable compound, just as is a mass of gunpowder, and hence it is highly irritable, also like gunpowder, and any disturbance of its condition produces motion, just as a spark will do in a mass of gunpowder. It is capable of inducing oxidation in foods, something as water induces oxidation in a bit of ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled, and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine. It was an old face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and gray, but never have I met a look that showed more fire and unconquerable will. "The commandant wishes you," he went on. "He asked me to fetch you. I should not have complied—it ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Barrows continued their conversation about lawn tennis and riding, as if Ted were not there, but the lieutenant observed that Miss Croffut's eyes strayed often toward Ted, and it made him irritable. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... to me, my love"—another yawn and an irritable one. "Gossip as you know is abhorrent ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the happy day arrived when the mate suggested that the patients should make an effort to get a little way from the ship, and with eyes brightened the two young men were helped down the steps in spite of their irritable declarations that ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... the lieutenant quietly. To the lads he said softly: "Never mind him. He is always irritable when he misplaces something." ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... neighbours in modesty and manners. Dr. Enfield, a feeble and superficial man of letters, was gone also from the literary supper-table before my time. There was Sir James Smith, the botanist, made much of and really not pedantic and vulgar like the rest, but weak and irritable. There was Dr. Alderson, Mrs. Opie's father, solemn and sententious and eccentric in manner, but not an able man in any way;' and thus the leading lights of Norwich are contemptuously dismissed. 'The great days of the Gurneys were not come yet. The remarkable family from which ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... raillery, and replied at once so happily and so respectfully, that the change of his tone and manner made obviously a more favourable impression on the Count than he had entertained from his prisoner's conduct during the preceding evening, when, rendered irritable by the feelings of his situation, he was alternately moodily silent or fiercely argumentative. The veteran soldier began at length to take notice of his young companion as a pretty fellow, of whom something might be made, and more than hinted to him that would he but resign his situation in the ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... before they came in, things had gone badly. Mrs. McCormick held persistently to the topic of Karl's eyes, putting forth all sorts of "home remedies" which would cure them in a night. He had grown nervous and irritable under it, and Mrs. Hubers several times had come to the rescue with her graciousness. She was worried herself; the doctor could see that in the way she looked from her husband to him, scenting something not on the surface. He was just beginning ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole pepper-harvest, they feed wholly on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as is called, cudgeled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... another process accomplished by exercise, which more immediately concerns the nervous system. "Many people," says Mr. Abernethy, "who are extremely irritable and hypochondriacal, and are constantly obliged to take medicines to regulate their bowels while they live an inactive life, no longer suffer from nervous irritation, or require aperient medicines when they use exercise to a degree that would be excessive in ordinary constitutions." This leads us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... so much to heart, that he could neither eat nor sleep; meantime Desiree was little better—she did nothing but look at the prince's portrait, and was exceedingly irritable with Longthorn and Gilliflower, her two maids of honour. The other lady—the Black Princess—was in equally sore plight, for she, too, had fallen in love with the prince's portrait, and his rejection of ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... Don't ask me what else besides 'Olga' she is named," said the irritable cook, "for I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you my own name, scarcely, to-night. I'm ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... wore at Muhl-berg, his long lance in rest, his visor up over the eager, powerful face,—the eye and beak of an eagle, the jaw of a bull-dog, the face of a born ruler, a man of prey. And yet in the converging lines about the eyes, in the premature gray hair, in the nervous, irritable lips, you can see the promise of early decay, of an age that will be the spoil of superstition and bigotry. It is the face of a man who could make himself emperor and hermit. In his son, Philip II., the soldier dies out and the bigot is intensified. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... they abused Bradshaw, and discussed the weather. Bruce said how wonderful it was how some people always knew what sort of weather it was going to be. Madame Frabelle, who was getting sufficiently irritable to be epigrammatic, said that she never cared to know what the weather was going to be; the weather in England was generally bad enough when it came without the added misery of ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... a second expedition, which had been intrusted to the traitor Arnold, arrived from New York in James River. Baron Steuben, the Prussian officer, who had "brought the foreign arts from far," was at this time in command, but with really little or no army. Steuben was, at the best, an irritable person, and his descriptions of the Virginia militia are probably tinged by his indignation at constant failure. General Nelson, who was the Governor of the State, behaved with spirit, but neither he nor Steuben could make the militia stand against Arnold. They could not create a corps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... meeting the child in the way he is counselled to meet others. One must refuse to be in any way a nervous irritant to the child. In that case quite as much instruction is received as given. A child, too, is doubly sensitive; he not only feels the intrusion on his own individuality, but the irritable or self-willed attitude of another in ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... James must be made to see it, was a moral buttress. Timidity of James would not prevail against it. Besides that, deeply within herself, lay the conviction that James was kind if you took him the right way. He was irritable, and very annoying when he was sarcastic; but he was good at heart. And it was odd, she thought, that directly she got into an awkward place with a flirtation, her first impulse was to go to James to get her out. In her dream she had called to him, though Urquhart ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... litter from Fredriksborg to his beloved Copenhagen, where he died a week later. Christian IV. was a good linguist, speaking, besides his native tongue, German, Latin, French and Italian. Naturally cheerful and hospitable, he delighted in lively society; but he was also passionate, irritable and sensual. He had courage, a vivid sense of duty, an indefatigable love of work, and all the inquisitive zeal and inventive energy of a born reformer. Yet, though of the stuff of which great princes are made, he never attained to greatness. His own pleasure, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... she was irritable, unkind, neglectful—not like the same woman. She left me alone sometimes; she gave me no food at others; she hid herself away from me; she was angry at the least thing. And then—then," went on the girl, in a frightful ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... grown so irritable lately, and you talk so darkly and symbolically that you must forgive me if I fail to follow you. I am too simple to ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... spent three years on the property he had bought himself and suddenly married a wealthy half-educated woman who was captivated by his unceremonious and sarcastic manners. But Pigasov's character had become so soured and irritable that family life was unendurable to him. After living with him a few years, his wife went off secretly to Moscow and sold her estate to an enterprising speculator; Pigasov had only just finished building a house on it. Utterly crushed by this last blow, Pigasov began a lawsuit ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... the "ant-eaters" were very irritable and audacious and quickly I prepared myself for both the defence and the charge. My preparations were short. I rubbed off the ends of five of my cartridges, thus making dum-dums out of them, a sufficiently intelligible argument for so unwelcome a guest. Putting ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... torturing physical pain, in the extreme form of that experience, of which the slightest degree makes us fretful, irritable, self-absorbed, our Lord calmly provides for the future of His mother and the disciple whom ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... these occupations were very wearisome. Now all his occupations related to other people and not to Dmitri Ivanovitch, and they were all interesting and attractive, and there was no end to them. Nor was this all. Formerly Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff's occupations always made him feel vexed and irritable; now they produced a joyful state of mind. The business at present occupying Nekhludoff could be divided under three headings. He himself, with his usual pedantry, divided it in that way, and accordingly kept the papers referring to it in three different portfolios. The first referred to Maslova, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... played upon the visage of the poet became suddenly converted into a frown. His whole frame appeared discomposed; his tone of affected suavity became hard and imperious; and he called to an attendant to open the door, with a peevishness seldom exhibited even by the most irritable. ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... to be one of the captain's bad days—by which I mean that it was one of the days when the fever from which he had been suffering seemed to partially regain its hold upon him, making him impatient, irritable, and unwilling to receive anything in the shape of a suggestion from anybody; and my proposal was therefore scouted as savouring of something approaching to timidity. I had long ago got over any such feeling, however; and even ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Anxious, irritable, his nerves well-nigh on the rack, he nevertheless crossed the guard-room with a firm step and entered the cell where the prisoner was still lying upon the palliasse, as he had been all along, and still presenting that ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... way in a manner a lot dignified an' lofty; while Texas Thompson—who's mebby morbid about his wife down in Laredo demandin' she be divorced that time—although he picks up his hand in a fracas, ready an' irritable an' with no delays, after all is that well-balanced he's bound to be ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... self-reproach from myself, and sometimes a gayety of derision from him. One only of these defiances I declined. There was a horse of this same guardian B.'s, who always, after listening to Cherubini's music, grew irritable to excess; and, if any body mounted him, would seek relief to his wounded feelings in kicking, more or less violently, for an hour. This habit endeared him to my brother, who acknowledged to a propensity ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... far coarser and less irritable animal organization which must be the basis of an insulated physical sensibility. Brutes can neither suffer from intellectual passions, nor, probably, from very complex derangements of the animal system; so that in them the motives to suicide, the temptations to suicide, are ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... and obtained a verdict for a great part of his charge. This brought me for the first time in contact with Mr. Counsellor Scarlett, he having been employed by the High Bailiff against me. I at once discovered, that this worthy Barrister, although a very clever fellow, was cursed with a very irritable, waspish disposition, of which I always took advantage afterwards, as often as we met in the Courts, which, unfortunately for me, was much too frequently for ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates from too much reception without due outlet? Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the whole case hinged. And as to the exact language employed, he alone of those within earshot had lived to testify for or against the accused: of the five soldiers who stood in that now celebrated group, three were shot to death within the hour. He was growing nervous, irritable, haggard; he was getting to hate the mere mention of the case. The promotion of Hayne to his own company thrilled him with an almost superstitious dismay. Were his words coming true? Was it the judgment of an offended God that his ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the despair of a hope for recovery growing daily less, or the realization of absolute weakness that comes with early convalescence; try to imagine yourself bearing some of these ills with nerves and brain weakened by disease, and you will not wonder that your patient is irritable, that he thinks the minutes of your absence are "hours," that the unevenness of the bed is "hard lumps," that the food is "slops," and the medicine "no good." Remember that he is a prisoner, and he has a cruel jailer; his bed is ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... because it knows all and consequently it stands in the way of learning more or much. Hence, it is sorely impatient of novelty, of improvement, of originality. It is intolerant of contradiction, irritable, thin-skinned, and impatient of criticism, of a word spoken against it. It is chargeable with the Law of Copyright, which is not only legalised plunder of the foreigner, but is unfair, unjust and ungenerous to native talent for the exclusive benefit of the short-sighted ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... special interest. It is no wonder, therefore, that he was not a popular favorite, although recognized as having very brilliant qualities. During all this period his mind was doubtless fermenting with projects which kept him in a fevered and irritable condition. "He had a small writing-table," Mr. Phillips says, "with a shallow drawer; I have often seen it half full of sketches, unfinished poems, soliloquies, a scene or two of a play, prose portraits of some pet character, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dear, not cross; only worried and irritable. Hang it, Edie, my pet, it's a horrible wrench to lose her. No hope of that scoundrel Stratton breaking his neck, or repenting, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... Von Hartmann, who was becoming irritable. "Is there anything wonderful in that request when a man has been out all day? I'll wait in the dining-room. Anything will do. Schinken, and sausage, and prunes—any little thing that happens to be about. There you are, standing staring again. Woman, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of anything irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution, which he contemplated with that entire composure which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... would be all agreed as to the impossibility of her accepting her cousin's offer. She knew her Cousin Helen would not make her house a happy or an easy home to live in, for she was a weak, nervously-strung woman, with an irritable temper and an abject fear of her husband, whose will was absolute law. And in the secret depths of Elfie's heart there was a strong disinclination, even though she would not own it to herself, to leave home at present. Though Alick Lester had not said much to her, she knew well ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... had not refused to shake hands when he offered his. In ordinary circumstances, she would have made haste to tell her mistress all about it, thinking no harm; unfortunately it happened that for some days Miss Starbrow had been in one of her worst moods, and during these sullen irritable periods Fan seldom ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... But we have been through much. The late general was ill for four years. It was a bad time. You know he was always an irritable man. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... ought to have been on the banks by daylight." Mr. Neckart's sharp, irritable voice jarred somehow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... symmetrically round each, the big fireplace guarded with high iron bars, I was led across the room, and committed to the care of a little, pompous, stout man, with big side-whiskers, a reddish nose, and an air half irritable, half good-natured, in a short gown, who was holding forth to a class. It was all complete: I had my place and my duty before me; and then gradually day by day the life shaped itself. I had a little cubicle in a high dormitory. There was the big, rather frowsy ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ball was a godsend, for it came just in time to divert Sybil's mind from its troubles. A week had now passed since that revelation of Sybil's heart which had come like an earthquake upon Mrs. Lee. Since then Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all the more because she was conscious of being watched. She was in secret ashamed of her own conduct, and inclined to be angry with Carrington, as though he were responsible for her foolishness; but she could not talk with Madeleine on the subject without ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... favorably known. At this time I was in excellent health and weighed one hundred and forty-three pounds. But from the moment of the public announcement of my lecture, my appetite for food, for meat particularly, began to fail me. "How peevish and irritable he is growing!" I heard one member of the family remark to another. Soon the grocer's scales indicated that my weight was diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,—then to one hundred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... space of a week, there had fallen on the yard a hallowed time of peace very different from the period of oppression and irritable energy which had preceded it. Maudie attributed the change to the absence of the Monster-without-Manners who had departed quietly with the Four-legs there was all the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... see, of course, that this same parting was really for her good; that there, under the strain and discord of her home she was allowing herself to become irritable and captious, despondent and sharp-tongued. She knew she always felt cross and injured and sore, but she never set herself to face ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... I had that when I married your father," said Mrs. Copley, beginning to cry. This was a very strange thing to Dolly and very terrible. Her mother's nerves, if irritable, had always been wont to show themselves of the soundest. Dolly saw it was not all nerves; that she was troubled by some unspoken cause of anxiety; and she herself underwent nameless pangs of fear at this corroboration of her own ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... freight. The carabao (pronounced carabough, with the accent on the last syllable), is the water buffalo of the Philippines, a slow, ungainly beast of burden that proves patient and tractable so long as he can enjoy a daily swim. If cut off from water the beast becomes irritable, soon gets "loco" and is then dangerous, as it will attack men or animals and gore them with its sharp horns. The carabao has little hair and its nose bears a strong resemblance to that of the hippopotamus. Its ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across. She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least of her personal beauty. Hence ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in that governor's favour than did any other writer. Dr. Lang tells us that the behaviour of certain subordinates towards MacArthur was highly improper, and that MacArthur's speech in open court was "calculated to give great offence to a man of so exceedingly irritable disposition as Governor Bligh." Again, Dr. Lang says that Bligh by no means merited unqualified commendation for his government of New South Wales, and that the truth lies between the most unqualified praise and the most unqualified vituperation which ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... Cualnge, or Cooley Cattle-raid, and it is full of combats and feats of strength and prowess. High character meant high pride, always ready to give account of itself and strike for its ideals: "Irritable and bold", as one historian has it. They were jealous and quick to anger, but light-hearted laughter came easily to the lips of the ancient Irish. They worked cheerfully, prayed fervently to their gods, loved their women and children devotedly, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Edith vainly trying to find something to do, and working hard in her garden, which as yet brought no return. She was often very sad and despondent, and again very irritable. Laura's apathy only deepened, and she seemed like one not yet awakened from a dream of the past. Zell made some show of work, but after all left almost everything for Hannibal as before, and when Edith sharply chided her, she ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... next to that of invalids the most difficult to deal with, is made up of people who are by nature or by habit uncomfortably sensitive or irritable. Who has not lived at one time or other in his life in daily contact with people of this sort,—persons whose outbreaks of temper, or of wounded feeling still worse than temper, were as incalculable as meteoric showers? The suppressed atmosphere, ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the level of a mere seaman to the dignified position of a petty officer. But though, in similar cases, I had seen such effects produced upon some of the crew; yet, in the present instance, I knew better than that;—it was solely brought about by his consorting with with those villainous, irritable, ill-tempered cannon; more especially from his being subject to the orders of those deformed blunderbusses, Priming ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... counted. It was swept away by a feeling of loyalty to Emmy. The tale she had told, the plea she had advanced upon Emmy's behalf, if it had not influenced him, had sent a warm thrill of conviction through her own heart. When she came thus to feel deeply she knew as if by instinct that Emmy, irritable unsatisfied Emmy, was as much superior to Alf as she herself was superior to him. A wave of arrogance swept her. Because he was a man, and therefore so delectable in the lives of two lonely girls, he was basely sure of his power to choose from among them ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the king's youngest sister, was married in her sixteenth year to Christian VII., king of Denmark. This monarch was addicted to licentious and degrading pleasures, and was a prince of weak intellect, irritable and capricious, open to flattery, and easily deceived by the crafty. Soon after his marriage he visited England, France, and Germany, where he might, if he had possessed intellect, have obtained such knowledge as would have made him a better man. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... indeed, was the custom of his house—and had survived his wife, by whom he had two fair daughters, but no heir; and this was a source of vexation so constantly present to his mind, that in the end it altered the whole disposition of the man, rendering him irritable, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... at length and began to dig his brown fingers into the powdery sand with irritable energy; but a minute or more passed before very ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... one has in a manner loved, he never had very much head to lose. He was always imaginative, erratic, inconsistent, recklessly inexact, and his inundation of wealth merely gave him scope for these qualities. It is true, indeed, that towards the climax he became intensely irritable at times and impatient of contradiction, but that, I think, was rather the gnawing uneasiness of sanity than any mental disturbance. But I find it hard either to judge him or convey the full development of him to the reader. I saw too much of him; my memory ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... excellent mechanic, proficient at the anvil and the forge, and proud of his skill in digging ditches and thatching roofs. Interested in music, and devoted to play-acting, he was badly educated, taking the coronation oath in the French form provided for a king ignorant of Latin. Vain, irritable, and easily moved to outbursts of childish wrath, he was half-conscious of the weakness of his will, and was never without a favourite, whose affection compensated him for his subjects' contempt. The household of so careless a master was disorderly ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... did not still distinguish her voice; and in an irritable strain, she rejoined: "It's no matter who you may be; Mr. Secundus has given orders that no one at all should be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... unwholesome—feeding their wash-and-scrub-women with the same; and their efforts to support the burden of their domestic responsibilities deprived them of outdoor exercise and mental rest and recreation—kept them at too close quarters with one another, each rubbing her quivering prickles upon the irritable skins of the other two. Frances bore the strain with least good-nature and self-control, and since she had to vent her ill-humour on someone, naturally made Miss Keene her victim when it was a choice between her and Deb. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... There are in his Diaries many bitter reproaches and vehement denunciations, but they are all directed against his own conduct. Like Orlando, he will chide no breather in the world but himself, against whom he knows most faults. He had the defects incidental to a sensitive organization, an irritable temperament and an aspiring mind. He was apt to suspect hostility where none existed, and to resent indignities that were never intended. He confesses on one occasion at least to an unworthy elation at the inferiority ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... was relieved to have Martha and her big eyes out of the way. Though we snatched our books and ran through the corridors we were two minutes tardy in reaching the Latin room. The instructor was so irritable that she laid down her book and the whole class waited while Lila and I tiptoed to our seats in the middle ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... was all mild and doucereux—all which proves that they do wish to compromise if they could manage it conveniently. Lord John Russell told her that there was no going on with Durham, that he never left Lord Grey, tormented his heart out, and made him so ill and irritable that he could not sleep. Durham wanted to be Minister ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Farmer Manton's buxom daughters got up one of their celebrated "flare-ups" in his honor, and all the female population of Stillton was set by its ears. Mabel was not present, of course,—fortunately, too, perhaps, for her state of heart and mind was strangely and unnaturably irritable at that time, and his promiscuous attentions to the various country belles might have provoked a feeling of which she would afterward have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Mary Louise usually could put him in his place. But thus put in his place, Joe could assume all the irritable stick-to-itiveness of a ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... education. She was bright, efficient, well liked by her employers (in one position five years). As to her peculiarities, she was thought to be, perhaps, a little headstrong, and was also described as always very exact, rather quick-tempered and inclined to be irritable when crossed. ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... expression. [Footnote: None of the editors, any more than the casual reader, has been able to find anything of a sidesplitting nature in this joke. The trouble is, of course, that the utterance sounds like a plain statement of fact. Caracalla's natural disposition was harsh and irritable. Some have changed the word "man" to "Pan (in anger)", but without gaining very much. I offer for what it is worth the suggestion that a well-known truth, especially in the case of personal characteristics, may sound very amusing when ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... would be improved, gain self-command, and respect for law and order, under prolonged discipline and daily sacrifice. A freethinker of the educated class, or a private of Socialistic tendencies, on the other hand, would insist that the strain must make men restless, irritable, more eager for their rights, less tolerant of control. Each imagined that the war would further the chances of the future as they dreamed of it. If I had talked with capitalists—there are none among ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... was fourteen, and his sister was twelve, past. These are the ages when children often experience a change of heart, as all "revivalists" know. Robert Browning was swinging off towards atheism. He grew melancholy, irritable and wrote stanzas of sentimental verse. He showed this verse, high-sounding, stilted, bold and bilious, to his mother and then to his father, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... he was not quite so tall as the Russian, but of no mean height, and his intense, ascetic face, emaciated to extreme leanness, now reddened with passion, while the veins stood out upon his high, narrow forehead. He was always very irritable when crossed, and his ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... beautiful. And Ruth enjoyed herself immensely. That is, she found the occasion enjoyable until they got back to the bungalow and had bidden the Copleys and their party good night. Then the girl of the Red Mill found her roommate rather irritable. Helen pouted and was frankly cross when ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... passions or guide his conduct, was gradually falling into those habits of dissipation to which he was peculiarly exposed by the character of the times. He neglected his business. He formed disreputable acquaintances. He became irritable and domineering over his wife, and was often absent from home, with convivial clubs, until a late hour of the night. Neither mother nor daughter ever uttered one word to each other in reference to the failings of the husband and father. Jane, however, ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... bred a languor which is the sickest, most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk down the beach and back, and yet they were wearied to death of the inaction. After a little they became irritable toward one another. Each suspected the other of doing less than he should. You who know men ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... thought this, he never said anything, and catching Alice's eye, followed it to the window. There, leaning against the glass, his face buried in his hands, and his broad back shaking with emotion, stood Doctor Mulhaus. Alas! no. Our kindly, good, hearty, learned, irritable, but dearly-beloved old friend, is no more. There never was such a man in reality: but in his place stands Baron ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... too much. He wants a touch of misfortune to bring him to himself; he has a real influence over people—the influence that all definite, good-humoured, outspoken people have; it is easier for others to do what he likes than to resist him; he is not irritable, and he is pertinacious. He is the sort of man who may get very much spoilt if he doesn't marry the right woman, because he is the sort of person women will tell lies to rather than risk displeasing him. If he does not take ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... passed since he was a little boy that he had forgotten that what appears to be only sullenness may in reality be something quite different. Perhaps if he had been more like his normal self instead of being a very tired and a very irritable doctor he would not have considered it necessary to regard David with the eye of stern discipline. But however that may be, the man pivoted suddenly upon his heel and marched out of the room, leaving the little boy alone to brood at his leisure upon the sad impropriety ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... as good-natured a man as is often met, but even he got excited and irritable when hunting his own pack. All masters of hounds do. Some one was always too forward, another too near the dogs, a third interfering with the servants, and a ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... more irritable than the feelings of a culinary artist, I was expecting a sharp answer; but just then the advocate came in. He had heard the end of our dialogue, and told me that not only would the man find plenty of witnesses to his skill, but that I should find a very great difficulty in getting anybody ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Avillius, whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with that of the emperor. He was a man who united all those qualities of prudent forethought, with prompt execution and attention to business, which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannise over the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions were ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... eyes I began, from sheer force of habit, to think if I had anything to rejoice over that day. I had been somewhat hard-up lately, and one after the other of my belongings had been taken to my "Uncle." I had grown nervous and irritable. A few times I had kept my bed for the day with vertigo. Now and then, when luck had favoured me, I had managed to get five shillings for a feuilleton from some newspaper ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... you're cross." Polly looked up in sudden surprise at the irritable note in Angela's voice. "What's ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... too, have red, watery, sensitive eyes and puffy eyelids. In fact, in rather severe cases the whole face has a rather swollen, puffed appearance. The throat feels parched and a dry, irritating cough increases the discomfort. The child is apt to come home from school feeling drowsy and irritable, not infrequently complains of chilly sensations, and may even have a chill. At night the irritation increases, the child is feverish, the whites of the eyeballs show little red lines upon them, and the little sufferer has the appearance of being just ...
— Measles • W. C. Rucker
... a window as he works, to see how he handles the ax. Then, noticing that he is talking to himself, I steal out of the house to listen. If he makes a false stroke, he takes it patiently, and does not trouble himself; but whenever he knocks his knuckles, he turns irritable and says: "Fan! Fansmagt!" [Footnote: "The Devil! Power of the Devil!"]—and then looks round suddenly and starts humming a tune ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun |
