"Meddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wreathed her arm in his, and they paced the room in silence. At length she said, "If we go to find John Hagar, shall we not be meddling again? A man who respects a woman's freedom must love his own. It is the last thing left him. Don't hunt him down. I believe nothing could hurt him now like seeing ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... dine Cambaceres." His table was in fact an important state engine, as appears from the anecdote of the trout sent to him by the municipality of Geneva, and charged 300 francs in their accounts. The Imperial 'Cour des Comptes' having disallowed the item, was interdicted from meddling with similar municipal affairs in future (Hayward's ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... had told him over and over how his master would give him to the big mastiff if he ever found him 'meddling.' Samson had got too near the mastiff's kennel once, and had felt his terrible breath in his face. He thought about that, but he pulled in ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... know that Jimmy Jay is a very mischievous little bird. Yes, sir, he certainly loves to tease. Grandmother Magpie is mischievous, too, but she's no worse than little Jimmy Jay. She does harm by meddling and Jimmy ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... meddling with this lock," he said, after a moment's hesitation, looking stealthily up and ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... taken on an absorbed and pondering look. "I never come along here that it doesn't put me back at least fifty years," he observed, leaning over his side of the barouche, and peering down one of the side streets that led past the churchyard. "Sorry they've been meddling with that old church. Better have left it as it used to be in my boyhood. Do you see that little house there, set back in the yard, with the chimney crumbling to pieces? That was the first school I ever went to, and it was taught by old Miss Deborah Timberlake, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... deal with trade and industry as though they were matters that concerned only the particular business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany's economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing to cope with ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... your worship's valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task, there is a variety of opinions. Some say, 'mad but droll;' others, 'valiant but unlucky;' others, 'courteous but meddling,' and then they go into such a number of things that they don't leave a whole bone either in your worship or ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... eat till they were fully satisfied, and they left him nothing but the bare bones. The next heavy blast of wind opened the branches and liberated him. He went home, thinking to himself, "See the effect of meddling with frivolous things when I had ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... show traces of sickness." "This were the best way," answered I, "I have just now bathed in hot water, but I will have my head shaved." Then I said to my page, "Go to the bazaar and bring me a barber, a discreet fellow and one not inclined to meddling or impertinent curiosity or likely to split my head with his excessive talk."[FN609] The boy went out at once and brought back with him this wretched old man, this Shaykh of ill omen. When he came in he saluted me and I returned his salutation; then quoth he, "Of a truth I see ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... nay, rabidly devout, if we may coin the adverb; in her own eyes she was perfection, in those of her neighbours slightly objectionable; and she was altogether a droll, and by no means an unusual compound of piety, censoriousness, charity, proscription, gossip, kindness, meddling, ill-nature, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... no is nothing. I don't think that means much, but we call him that for fun...." But Mary could not remember what the child's real name was. What difference did it make? As if she could have a child meddling round the house while she was sewing. But of course this was not the real reason. The real reason was that she could not bring up a child—did she ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... The getting rid of the present evil is not cure, unless there be a general amendment of condition. Good does not immediately succeed evil. One evil, and a worse, may follow another, like Caesar's assassins, who brought the republic to such a pass, that they had reason to repent the meddling with it." Such, too frequently, is the lot of those who, abandoning themselves to their imagination, and without consulting the past, mix together promises of liberty and the despotism of Utopias which they would impose on nations under pretext of enfranchising them. Despising the work of the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... at once obscured. "Mary, a considerable spell back a wise man said, 'Every fool will be meddling.' If you aren't familiar with the author, Mary, it would pay you to read him." Again he gave his attention to Celia. "We'll share this, turn and turn about," he compromised. "First you have a spoonful ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... inexhaustible like Nature. He is to paint, as Turner said, only his impressions, and this precisely because they are not his, but stand outside of his will. To further this, to get the direct action of the artist's instinct, clear of the meddling and patching of forethought and afterthought, is no doubt the aim of the seemingly careless, formless handling now in vogue,—the dash which Harding says makes all the difference between what is good and what is intolerable in water-colors,—and the palette-knife-and-finger ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... representing the respect and affection with which the Parliament regarded him, and that he was master either to accept or refuse its offers. No reprimand was given, therefore, to the Parliament, but it was informed that the King prohibited it from meddling with the corn question. However accustomed the Parliament, as well as all the other public bodies, might be to humiliations, it was exceedingly vexed by this treatment, and obeyed with the greatest grief. The public was, nevertheless, much affected by the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "beloved adopted country;" and ended by saying that the Governor's answer would be a guide to him in his political correspondence with the government he represented. In consequence of this letter, M. Theron and the French consul at Richmond, who had also been meddling with Texan affairs, were ordered to leave the Confederate States. The object evidently was to set up an independent republic between the new empire in Mexico and whichever power, Union or Confederacy, should ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... eyes of his fellow-citizens. Had Fortini known that the Marchese had been made aware of the purposed excursion of his nephew with the singer—as the reader knows that he had been by the officious meddling of the Conte Leandro,—it might have seemed strange that he should have chosen just that day and hour for the declaration of his intention. Was it that he hastened to acquire such an authority over Bianca, as might enable him to put an end to any such escapades for the future? Was it that he ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to the families of A— and A—, and well acquainted with the particular affairs of each; who, far from treating him as a bastard and impostor, received him with civility and seeming kindness, asked him to eat, presented him with a piece of money, and, excusing himself from meddling in the affair, advised him to go to Ireland, as the most proper place for commencing a suit for the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... will drive her to madness, and she will kill every man of you," said Lord Claud coolly. "She has a devil in her, and is bullet proof; you had better leave meddling with both the beasts." ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood: His solid sense—by inches you must tell. But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell; His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making work his selfish ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... saw Mr. Patterson ride up. He went into the bunk-house to wait until the men should come. Now, from something Gale had said I fancied that Bob Patterson must be the right man. I am afraid I am not very delicate about that kind of meddling, and while I had been given to understand that Patterson was the man Sedalia expected to marry, I didn't think any man would choose her if he could get Gale, so I called him. We had a long chat and he told ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... this new Jerusalem, if they believe according to the tale that is told of her, that she is and has been of old a rebellious city, and destructive to kings, and a diminisher of their revenues. She is not for meddling with any thing that is theirs, from a thread even to a shoe-latchet. Her glory is spiritual and heavenly, and she is satisfied with what is her own. 'Tis true, the kings and nations of this world shall one day bring their glory and honor to this ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... before his ship sailed, a letter, also from Italy, from his aunt Maria, who was spending the winter in Rome, informed him that the ring was a Christmas gift from her. In his rage he unjustly condemned Aunt Maria as a meddling old busybody, and gave ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... as public property: what would be an intrusion on a domiciled gentlewoman is a tribute to me. You cannot have celebrity and sex-privilege both.' Thus Ethelberta laughed off the awkward conjuncture, inwardly deploring the unconscionable maternal meddling which had led to this, though not resentfully, for she had too much staunchness of heart to decry a parent's misdirected zeal. Had the clanship feeling been universally as strong as in the Chickerel family, the fable of the well-bonded fagot might ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... autonomous; but I should like you to recollect that this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist apparently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; or meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part of his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken"]—how to learn biology, the use of Museums, and above all, the utility of biology, as helping to give right ideas in this world, which] "is after all, absolutely governed by ideas, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... uncomfortable feeling, doubt, invaded him. He had an unjustified sense of meddling, of blundering into a paramount situation to which he lacked the key. He had done nothing debatable, he assured himself; Mariana's inherent, well—prejudices, couldn't be charged to him. In the room where he was to sleep the uneasiness followed ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... briar pipe, knickerbockers and white spats had already become a familiar object in the streets of the town, when a terrible uproar at the Club—one of those periodical, approximately monthly, rows at which the police, who hated meddling with foreigners, were reluctantly compelled to intervene—suggested to her that something might be done in that direction. She got him elected President for that year, President for the next, the next, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... to become absorbed in the process of his thought; the look was wholly impersonal: I have seen the same in the eyes of portrait-painters. The counts upon which whites have been deported are mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of the sinews of his power, 'peaking, and political intrigue. I felt guiltless upon all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in a gift: how to express ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Abbe Le Loutre. But while his energy, ability and patriotism are undoubted, his conduct has been the subject of severe criticism not only on the part of his adversaries but of the French themselves. He did not escape the censure of the Bishop of Quebec for meddling to so great an extent in temporal affairs, but the Bishop's censure is mild compared to that of an anonymous historian, who writes: "Abbe Loutre, missionary of the Indians in Acadia, soon put all in fire and flame, and may be justly deemed the scourge and curse of this country. This wicked ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... his wife do household labors, and have all the balance of the time to play and get forty cents a month, and be happy. No it would have happened that way in the books, but didn't happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was glad of it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on them milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... youths are especially subject to propoganda of the four-flusher for their home influence is, to say the least, negative. Their opportunities limited, their education neglected and they are easily aroused by the meddling influence of the vote-getter and the traitor. I would to God that their eyes might be opened to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the rich man's diversion, and men of poor or moderate means cannot afford to think about it. The beautiful world is full of entertainment for those who search wisely; then why should any man vex heart and brain by meddling with a pursuit which gives him no pleasure, and which cannot by any chance bring him profit? I have no pity for a man who ascribes his ruin to betting, and I contemn those paltry weaklings whose cases I study ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... handling the razors, For talking of cutting throats, For calling hair-powder flour, For meddling with anything on ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... of the word. On the contrary three of our earlier translations of the Bible have, "Meddle with your own business" (1 Thess. iv. 11); and Barrow in one of his sermons draws at some length the distinction between 'meddling' and "being meddlesome", and only condemns ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... no further harm was done," ejaculated the lady shuddering, while her lord proceeded—"It was not malice, but malapert meddling, then. Master Leonard Copeland, thou must be scourged to make thee keep thine hands off where they be not needed. For the rest, thou must await what my Lord of Whitburn may require. Take him away, John Ellerby, chastise him, and keep ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... communicated to me, and as far as I had it in my power I obtained redress for the oppressed. I very soon, therefore became an object of suspicion and dread amongst the petty tyrants of that district; and by them I was denominated "a busy meddling fellow;" but as a set off to this, I received the thanks, the blessings of the poor, and the love of my servants, whom I looked upon as my friends and neighbours. I had as much work done for my money as any man; I paid ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... of Bashkai. The minute Dravot puts on the Master’s apron that the girls had made for him, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone that Dravot was sitting on. ‘It’s all up now,’ I says. ‘That comes of meddling with the Craft without warrant!’ Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand-Master’s chair —which was to say the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it to clear away ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... always saying that you don't like to let feeling interfere with business. But I wouldn't stand Farnsworth—little shrimp!—setting up to run a bank. Ill? Well, he ought to be; makes himself ill meddling with other people. He'd be better if he didn't worry about what doesn't belong to him. I'd give him rest. It's all well enough to sneer at a woman's notion of business, but the bank would be better off if you had entire control of it. The directors know that, they ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... you do so, if it pleases you? Women must aye be meddling with pins and barbs. If they be not pricking velvets or home-spun, they must be thrusting sharp points into those that love them best. Why shouldst thou differ from others of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... truly popular, any more than Webster and Burke were, since intellectual arrogance and superiority are offensive to fortunate or ambitious nobodies,—Jefferson's prudence and modesty kept him from meddling with the funded debt and from entangling alliances with the nation he admired. Jefferson was not sweeping in his removals from office, although he unfortunately inaugurated that fatal policy consummated by Jackson, which has since been the policy of the Government,—that spoils belong to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... sent were Free-masons, who, joining in the communication, made "a very honorable report to the Queen, who never more attempted to dislodge or disturb them; but esteemed them a peculiar sort of men, that cultivated peace and friendship, arts and sciences, without meddling in the affairs of Church or State" (Book of ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... foolish and absurd for you to be meddling thus with the affairs of your neighbors. Give up your inquisitive habits, and learn some useful business. While you are doing this, I will consent to manage ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... "It was not exactly that, Mr. Lyman. But I did think that it was meddling with something ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... have loved Stephen almost all his life, as though he were my own, and hoped as long for his great happiness. On more than one occasion I contrived situations which I thought might make your choice my happiness, too. I know now that I was no better than any other meddling old woman, whose efforts are well meant but dangerous for all that. And I will meddle no more. But—but my heart aches a little, too, to-day, Barbara. May I just talk ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Yetmore, sharply. "Why, Tom Connor, himself, and old Crawford and those two meddling boys of his. They'd not only suspect—they'd know that you had done the job and that I'd paid you for it. And if they should go around telling their version of the story, everybody would believe them and nothing I could say would count against them; for they've all of them, worse luck, ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... old notebooks the maxim Incredibilia sola Credenda, soon perceived how high and glorious a thing was that service at which he assisted. Our stupid ancestors taught us that we could become wise by studying books on 'science,' by meddling with test-tubes, geological specimens, microscopic preparations, and the like; but they who have cast off these follies know that they must read not 'science' books, but mass-books, and that the soul is made wise by the contemplation of mystic ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... of this world and we've got to live in this world. Mike's always trying to get beyond it, to get into touch with the other side. It's no good meddling with that sort of thing, it always has a disastrous effect on the human mind and human happiness, which proves to me that we're not intended to know or to get in touch with those who have left us. It's unwise to give up one's thoughts to ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... will never resent words of warning or comfort if they are prompted by genuine feeling. When I was a young man, I felt as you do. My wife's cousin, a young fellow not yet of age, lived in our house for six months. My dread of meddling was such that I never asked him to be present at family worship, or spoke to him on the subject of religion. He fell into the company of a wild set, and was rapidly going to the bad. When I reasoned with him I spoke of Christ. "Do you call yourself a Christian?" he asked, assuming ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... were issued for the Church of Scotland, which owed their existence to the dangerous meddling of Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury. James, who loved Episcopacy, had dreaded the influence of Laud in Scotland; his fear was justified, for it was given to Laud to make an Episcopal Church impossible north of the Tweed. Although certain of the Scottish ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... compromise Epimetheus, Prometheus?" demanded Pandora. "Besides, my attendant Hope was always telling me that all would come right, without any meddling of mine." ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... replied, very innocently. "If there were none others, the world would get along without so much meddling ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... to admiring missionary enterprise," she wrote. "The enthusiasm which seems to so many magnificent seems to me but a meddling in other people's business; the money that is poured out, so much bread and light and air and happiness filched from the smitten children ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... hair Only one material and two spiritual things had power with him; the one material thing was hunger, the two spiritual things were a feeble love for Clare, and a strong horror of water of any seeming depth. Now a new element was added to this terror by the meddling of the moon in the fiendish mystery—the secret of which must, I think, have been the bottomless depth ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... in all particulars like it that had gone before, what little hope the few had in Judge Thayer's weather doctor evaporated and passed away. Those who had scoffed at the beginning jeered louder now, making a triumph of it. The Baptist preacher said the evil of meddling in the works of the Almighty was becoming apparent in the increasing severity of the hot wind. Ascalon, for its sins past and its sacrilege of the present, was to writhe and scorch and wither from the face of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... his kind and I like not the breed," replied Dauvrey. "Methinks he resembles rather his brethren of Italy than those I have seen in this land of mist and fog. He has been meddling with ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... plaint against M. de La Tour d'Azyr! You are out of your senses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yours who has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him. The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was of the most offensive. Perhaps you didn't know that. It does not at all surprise me that the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... old man said, "What are you after now?" and the Lion asked if he had seen Ananzi pass that way, but the old man said, "No, that fellow Ananzi is always meddling with some one; what mischief has he ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... with feathers. And yet of all this the laws are so full that without it they cannot be understood, as I intend more fully to show unto you in a peculiar treatise which on that purpose I am about to publish. Therefore, if you will that I take any meddling in this process, first cause all these papers to be burnt; secondly, make the two gentlemen come personally before me, and afterwards, when I shall have heard them, I will tell you my opinion freely without any feignedness ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... earn our salt by bucking up against the law of the survival of the fittest, thereby rendering humanity the beautiful service of encumbering the earth with the weak. If the medical profession would just quit its damn meddling, nature might manage, in time, ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... following two rounds of transparent presidential elections. Guinea-Bissau's transition back to democracy will be complicated by a crippled economy devastated by civil war and the military's predilection for governmental meddling. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... all poets, but the best. Nemo infelicius de poetis judicavit, quam qui de poetis scripsit. {148a} But some will say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make more faults than they mend ordinarily. See their diseases and those of grammarians. It is true, many bodies are the worse for the meddling with; and the multitude of physicians hath destroyed many sound patients with their wrong practice. But the office of a true critic or censor is, not to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocent ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... seem like meddling, but it isn't," she began rather concernedly. "It's just that I'm used to looking after people. I wanted to talk to you about ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... careful a superintendent as Rose; for unless she had kept a constant watch over me, there is no saying how many awkward habits I might unconsciously have contracted. But she cured me of poking my head forward, of standing on one leg, of tilting my chair, of meddling with things that were not my own, of leaning against the furniture while I was speaking, of putting my elbows on the table, of biting my nails, of spilling my tea, and of making ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... old digger in men's flesh, Doctors are ever itching to be priests, Meddling in conduct, natures, life's privacies. We have been coupled now for twenty years, And she has never turned from me an hour— She knows a woman's duty and a queen's: Whose, then, can her affection be but mine? How can I hurt her—she is still my queen? If her strong ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... in the fact that it is a free union and only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural virtues is not quite so firm as we assert; we are always meddling with it and worrying over its health and anxiously trying to bolster it up. We are not by any means willing to let it rest on the sanction of its own natural or divine laws. Our feeling is, as James Hinton used ironically ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... messenger despatched to-night from Downing Street will be at the Embassy in the Faubourg Saint Honore the day after to-morrow. But that constant and minute control, which the Foreign Secretary is bound to exercise over diplomatic agents who are near, becomes an useless and pernicious meddling when exercised over agents who are separated from him by a voyage of five months. There are on both sides of the House gentlemen conversant with the affairs of India. I appeal to those gentlemen. India is nearer to us than China. India is far better known ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by travelers of officious meddling by the police on their arrival in Russia, and of their footsteps being dogged, I have recently been favored with some light on that subject. I believe the tales, with reservations, since some perfectly innocent and truthful friends of mine related to me their own similar ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... top, she kneaded it gently despite the infant's cries, trying to round it a bit. Madame Lorilleux grabbed the baby from her; that could be enough to give the poor little thing all sorts of vicious tendencies, meddling with it like that while her skull was still soft. She then tried to figure out who the baby resembled. This almost led to a quarrel. Lorilleux, peering over the women's shoulders, insisted that the little ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... loving or angry, bold or busy, courteous or cruel or cowardly, and don't drink too often, [E] or be too lofty or anxious, but friendly of cheer. [G] Hate jealousy, be not too hasty or daring; joke not too oft; ware knaves' tricks. Don't be too grudging or too liberal, too meddling, [N] too particular, new-fangled, or too daring. Hate oaths and [P] flattery. [Q] Please well thy master. Don't be too rackety, [S] or go out too much. [V] Don't be too revengeful or wrathful, and wade not too deep. The middle path is ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... And from the way you talk, I can imagine who it is you have in mind. That wouldn't be the first time Lef Seller has been guilty of meddling!" ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Hood's band," he continued. "At least I've been adopted by a new sort of Robin Hood who's travelling round robbing the rich to pay the poor, and otherwise meddling in people's affairs—the old original Robin Hood brought up to date. If it hadn't been for him I might be cooling my heels in jail right now. He's an expert on jails—been in nearly every calaboose in America. He's tucked me under his ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... safely raised at any time. After being thus driven out, they may be pushed about with impunity, and still be quiet! In short, by using smoke on all occasions where they would be likely to be disturbed without it by our meddling with them, it has a tendency to keep dormant their combative propensities. When these have never been aroused, there is much less danger from their attacks while walking or looking among them. Any one wishing further proof, I would recommend the experiment of managing ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... he half whispered, "what on earth, or in hell, has made you come meddling here, I'd like to know! ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... birds through the fairy land of first love. Such an interlude! to be called on by gruff human voices to give up all the cherished secrets that she had trembled to whisper even to herself. She felt as if love itself had been defiled by the coarse, rough hands that had been meddling with it; so to her sister's soothing address Susan made no answer, only to cry and sob ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he was attacked by a bully and ex-prize fighter who was hired by some of his enemies to teach him the rewards to be won from "meddling." The result was unexpected. The bully went sprawling, knocked down by a well directed blow from the undersized, bespectacled young assemblyman—and some of the gang that attempted to bring aid to the fallen also found themselves upon the floor. ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... meddling with my things for? Do you want to get at the check, and be peering at it to see if it's all right? But you can't; I've paid it away. Perhaps you'd like to know who to? Then you shan't. I'll not be accountable to you for all my proceedings. I'll not be treated like a baby. You'd better ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... life the barber plays an important part. In the Arabian tales he is generally a shrewd, meddling, inquisitive fellow. In Spain and Italy the barber is often the one brilliant man in his town; his shop is the place where gossip circulates, and where many a ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... did not impress me favorably, and I sometimes wished the distance between our camps greater. His most serious failing was an uncontrollable propensity to interfere with and direct the minor matters relating to the command, the details for which those under him were alone responsible. Ill-judged meddling in this respect often led to differences between us, only temporary it is true, but most harassing to the subordinate, since I was compelled by the circumstances of the situation not only invariably to yield my own judgment, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... been the lesson he had received for meddling with Imperial fiefs; and he must have been mad had he thought of provoking further the resentment of the Emperor. To Farnese, Charles V was a sleeping dog it was as well to ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... before beginning the chronicle of the kingbird babies, I should like to give my testimony about one member of the family. As a courteous and tender spouse, as a devoted father and a brave defender of his household, I know no one who outranks him. In attending to his own business and never meddling with others, he is unexcelled. In regard to his fighting, he has driven many away from his tree, as do all birds, but he never sought a quarrel; and the only cases of anything like a personal encounter were ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... stye of hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were made of the ——government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... quick temper, and as he turned on his heel, was like to have replied and raised a brawl. My own meddling tongue had brought the rebuff upon me: but yet my heart was ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... what we had for lunch and dinner, who came to see us, and what clothes we wore. I'm glad you wouldn't have that mantua-maker of hers. Cannot my girl have her frocks made where she likes? I'll tell you what, Nelly: your aunt is a presumptuous, meddling, overbearing, ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... approved throughout the world: he would destroy slavery as a necessary step to the preservation of the Union. In the first year of the war he had said to a Southern Unionist, who warned him against meddling with slavery, "You must not expect me to give up this Government without playing my last card." This "last card" was undoubtedly the freeing of the slaves; and when the time came, Lincoln played it unhesitatingly ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... boldly, and tell him all from beginning to end. You knew it before me, and ought to have given me a hint of what was going on! The girl might yet have been advised. It might still have been time to save her! But, no! There was something for your meddling and making, and you must needs add fuel to the fire. Now you have made your bed you may lie on it. As you have brewed so you may drink; I shall take my daughter under my arm and be off with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... cut him short. "I can take care of myself. I don't say your motives are bad,—you may think this is a favor,—but I call it a confounded piece of meddling, and I'll trouble you to let ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Maxime, "you are a serious man now, a legislator! As for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of other people ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... preaching in the cities." The concessions of August had always been odious, and were now canceled. "As for you and your accomplices," she continued to the Count, "you will do well to go to your homes at once without meddling with public affairs, for, in case of disobedience, I shall deal with you ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... patriarch. Peter asked the patriarch if nothing could be done to protect the pilgrims, and to retrieve the Holy Places. The patriarch replied, "Nothing, unless God will touch the heart of the western princes, and will send them to succor the Holy City." The patriarch did not propose meddling himself, nor did it occur to him that the pope should intervene. He took a rationalistic view of the Moslem military power. Peter, on the contrary, was logical, arguing from eleventh-century premises. If he could but receive a divine mandate, he would raise an invincible army. He prayed. His prayer ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... West took himself off toward his room, his broad shoulders well back, and his clear, merry voice singing the school song as he strode along. Joel turned into the library, feeling well satisfied with the result of his meddling, to pore over a reference book ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the state of things in Italy so well as the large-hearted German ambassador, who enjoyed the confidence of every element in Italian politics as a sincere friend of the country. He was recalled later on account of a pique of Herbert Bismarck, whose untimely meddling with public affairs had, I believe, more to do with his father's fall than any act of the Prince. As an eminent German statesman put it, in a conversation not long after the recall of Von Keudall, "a Bismarck ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... case worker is clearly defined," a teacher had said. "Meddling in another's province, without the permission of your supervisor, is ...
— Hex • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... they came in sight of a gang of elk. Wyeth was immediately for pursuing them, rifle in hand, but saw evident signs of dissatisfaction in his half-breed hunters; who considered him as trenching upon their province, and meddling with things quite above his capacity; for these veterans of the wilderness are exceedingly pragmatical, on points of venery and woodcraft, and tenacious of their superiority; looking down with infinite contempt upon all raw beginners. The ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... be killed!" shrieked her sister, "and just because of your meddling ways, Therese." But she called to deaf ears, for now Mademoiselle Therese, enjoying notoriety, kept popping her head in and out of the window, dodging the stones and shouting out threats and menaces, which were returned by ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... quality. My cousin and Henry Allegre had a lot to say to each other and so I was free to talk to her. At the second visit we were like old friends, which was absurd considering that all the chances were that we would never meet again in this world or in the next. I am not meddling with theology but it seems to me that in the Elysian fields she'll have her place ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... as the king my sovereign and father (whom may holy Paradise keep) was informed that the religious who resided in the Philipinas Islands, busied in the instruction and conversion of the Indians, were meddling in things that did not concern them, he ordered Gomez Perez das Marinas, then governor and captain-general of the Philipinas Islands, or the person in whose charge the government might be—by his decree, dated ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... darling of your political Repairer. Call the party and the men by their right names: and give me for utility in legislation or administrative action an Old Tory and Obstructive party rather than this middling, meddling, muddling Repairer— ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... very encouraging, and disclosed to me a somewhat consoling prospect of increasing my influence as musical conductor at a time when my disgust was daily growing stronger at the constant meddling with our opera repertoire, which made me lose more and more influence as compared with the wishes of my would-be prima donna niece, whom even Tichatschek supported. Immediately on my return from Berlin I had begun the orchestration of Lohengrin, and in all other ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... forgotten all about her raid upon Uncle Ewen's affairs. Her thoughts floated to a little cottage on the hills, and its two coming inhabitants. And in her dream she seemed to hear herself say—"I oughtn't to be meddling with other people's lives like this. I don't know enough. I'm too young! I want somebody to ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you get for your infernal meddling!" snapped Halkett. In catastrophic moments many barriers go down; deference to superior ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Constable Wiseman filled his mind through two courses, for he did not speak until he set his fish knife and fork together and muttered something about a "silly, meddling jackass!" ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... touch very nearly the administrative independence of China itself," and that a loan thus obtained was "obnoxious" to the principles upon which the American government rests. It is to be hoped that President Wilson's dictum will be universally accepted after the war and that meddling in Chinese affairs will cease.] although the rupture which had come in the previous June as a forerunner to the Crisp loan had caused the general public to lose sight of the supreme importance of ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Dr. Howe said, when, the business over, he rose to go, "this den of yours is cold!" He stooped to shake the logs in the small stove, hoping to start a blaze. The rector would have resented any man's meddling with his fire, but all Mr. Denner's friends felt a sort of responsibility for him, which he accepted as ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... mistrusted any one. That is why the big lock was not fastened. The key, not working well, he took it some days ago to the locksmith, and when the latter failed to return it, he laughed, and said he thought no one would ever think of meddling with his ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... to pun, but since you speak of La Surete,[4] I cannot help noticing that they are blundering terribly over these very affairs. Confound those clumsy fools and their meddling! They will interfere with things which are no concern ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... to receive unsolicited advice from another quarter. He was told by Lord Loughborough, both in words and in writing, that the plan savored too much of the advice given to M. Egalite, and he could guess from what quarter it came. For his own part, he was then of opinion, that to have avoided meddling in the great political questions which were then coming to be discussed, and to have put his affairs in a train of adjustment, would have better become his high station, and tended more to secure public respect to it, than ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... suggested that our estray laws—the law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some others, are deficient in their present form, and require alterations. But considering the great probability that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer [not] meddling with them, unless they were first attacked by others, in which case I should feel it both a privilege and a duty to take that stand, which in my view, might tend most to ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... whom I answered, that I did not come thither to talk with him, but with the justice. Whereat he supposed that I had nothing to say for myself, and triumphed as if he had got the victory; charging and condemning me for meddling with that for which I could show no warrant; and asked me, if I had taken the oaths? and if I had not, it was pity but that I should be sent ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... railing. It was seldom, such was his privileged character, and the protection he enjoyed from the sovereign, that any of the courtiers resented his remarks; but Sir Thomas Wyat's feelings being now deeply interested, he turned sharply round, and said, "How now, thou meddling varlet, what business ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... new-made widow too, I've sometimes spied, Sad sight! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead: Listless, she crawls along in doleful black, Whilst bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, Past falling down her now untasted cheek. Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst busy meddling memory, In barbarous succession, musters up The past endearments of their softer hours, 80 Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and, indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way. Invidious ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... them out. I don't mean in anything wrong, but the order is so entirely opposed to the monastic spirit. It is difficult to explain; I really can't.... What I mean is ... well, that their worldliness is repugnant to me—fashionable friends, confidences, meddling in family affairs, dining out, letters from ladies who need consolation.... I don't mean anything wrong; pray don't misunderstand me. I merely mean to say that I hate their meddling in family affairs. Their confessional is a kind of marriage bureau; they have always got some plan on for marrying ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... glory of the Navy. Paul Jones in the Revolutionary War singeing John Bull's beard at his own fireside. 1812. The ships of iron that kept the Confederate States engirdled and forbade outside meddling with domestic troubles. ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... better, and thee might be worse. Anyhow, we couldn't do without thee, John. Hey, Phineas! who's been meddling with my spectacles?" ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing and cooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in a fool's paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all its tattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk, but you know he loved dangling in Armida's garden. Pray, my Lady Armida, what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that not glory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in whose way I fell, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Constance would never be on so large a scale as her sister, so that the jacket refused to be transferred except at the risk of being spoilt by alteration; and here Mrs. Morton interfered, 'It would never do to have them say at Northmoor that "Lady Morton's" gift had been spoilt by their meddling with it.' Constance was glad, though she suspected that Lady Adela would ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "do not touch them, do not let us have anything to do with them. I wanted poor dear Mr Sharnall not to go meddling with them, and now see what has happened. Perhaps it is a judgment"—and she uttered the word under her breath, having a medieval faith in the vengeful irritability of Providence, and seeing manifestations of it in any untoward event, from the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... his mother asked anxiously. "It will not do for you to be found meddling in these matters. At present you stand well in the favour of the Earl, who loves you for the sake of his wife, to whom you are kin, and of your father, who did him ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... devil! Some one has been meddling already, I find! The very sword I speak of is gone! There's the sheath hanging empty! What can it mean? Do you know anything of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... of Maggy's hand! And here's a deep hole which Fred's naughty finger must have made! And here, Bessy, are your marks. I'm ashamed of you all. Meddling with my nice cake ...
— The Nursery, August 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 2 • Various
... beauties; no more playing, no more trumpeting 'Chaos Vanquished' is vanquished. 'The Laughing Man' is done for. 'Taratantara' is dead. Dea sleeps on. She does well. If I were she I would never awake. Oh! she will soon fall asleep again. A skylark like her takes very little killing. This comes of meddling with politics. What a lesson! Governments are right. Gwynplaine to the sheriff. Dea to the grave-digger. Parallel cases! Instructive symmetry! I hope the tavern-keeper has barred the door. We are going to die to-night quietly at home, between ourselves—not I, nor Homo, but Dea. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... meddling, meddling still And always altering things— And, what's already at the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Mr. Charles Pinckney, "South Carolina can never receive the plan [of the Constitution] if it prohibits the slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling with the importation of negroes." (Madison Papers, p. 1389.) Mr. Charles C. Pinckney "thought himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not think South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in any short time." Thus you see, Sir, that the "deliberate declarations" ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... himself jointly with Mr Morris complained of our interfering as he thought in that department; and therefore he did not incline to subject himself to any further censures, or as he expressed it "raps over the knuckles" for meddling in the affair. We were indeed as much surprised as Mr Izard appears to have been on the occasion, but our surprise arose from another cause; it was to find Mr William Lee desirous of holding such a plurality of appointments, in their own nature incompatible ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you'd better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very bad, for boys in your condition,—very;" and Mr. Wilson sat down to a table, and began nervously chewing the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... begin to be all that he does, for he's meddling with every thing, and continually making remarks about our society," said Grimshaw, evidently intending to create ill feeling against the consul, and to make the matter as bad ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... last provision was generally and most justly blamed. To turn every ignorant meddling magistrate into a state inquisitor, to insist that a plain man, who lived peaceably, who obeyed the laws, who paid his taxes, who had never held and who did not expect ever to hold any office, and who had never troubled his head about problems of political philosophy, should ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "you have a taste in these things, let us have your aid in the selection." Rupert was by no means backward in complying, for he loved to be meddling ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... aback by this unexpected attack that at first he hardly knew how to meet it. Should he lecture his wife for her presumption in meddling in his affairs, which were quite beyond her comprehension as a woman, or should he make light of the matter and laugh it off? After a moment's reflection he ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... between this and Daverill's removal, words came from him which may bring the story home or explain it if events have not done so already. "The old * * * has got his allowance. He won't ask for no more. Who was he, to be meddling? You was old enough in all conscience, July-ar!" His pronunciation of her name has a hint of a sneer in it—a sneer at the woman he victimised, some time in the interval between his desertion of his wife and his final error of judgment—dabbling ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the dragon and even ridden in him," said Mr Chairman. "There is a famous story about that; but the majority still look upon the railway with suspicion and even distrust. We only ask to be let alone, and not be interfered with by meddling mortals," he said in a gruff voice. "What do we need with you? Our civilization and our history are more ancient even than that of India or Egypt, and from us the human ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... this time. A break in their friendship now would bring Dora forward to explain, and Dora had a wonderful cleverness in presenting her own side of any question. Ethel shrunk from her innuendoes concerning Fred, and she knew that Basil would be made to consider her a meddling, jealous girl who willingly saw evil in Dora's guileless enjoyment of a ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... oppositionists, and the oldest and most celebrated ministers of religion, employed their venal pens and voices to condemn Mr. Madison, and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... to co-operate, you are asking a man deeply and deservedly cynical about your intentions and your knowledge. He has seen wheat fail all his life, he has seen grass succeed. Grass has saved him, and now he is asked to turn his back on it. Little wonder that he curses you for a meddling fool. "Prove it!" he says—and you cannot. You could if you had it in your power to show him that your guarantee of a fair price for wheat was "good as the Bank." Thus, the first item of instruction to the farmer consists ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... alike. The aim of the distinguished writer of the "Grip of Desire" is far removed from that of vulgar and gratuitous image-breaking. He seeks to show the danger to human character that comes through meddling with one of the most imperious of natural instincts. If in the "Chastisement of Mansour" he bodies forth the consequences of unbridled Libertinism, in the "Grip of Desire" he demonstrates the evils attendant on a life of forced Celibacy. In the first we have ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... us take advantage of the absence of this American, to talk over our affairs; some things don't concern him at all, and I don't care to have him meddling with them." ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... to you, you stupid darling?' answered Pelagia, who lived in hourly fear of thunderstorms. 'Who is going to be cross with any one, except I with you, for mishearing and misunderstanding, and meddling, as you are always doing? I shall do as I threatened, and run away with Prince Wulf, if you are not good. Don't you see that the whole crew are expecting you to make ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the thought of it," cried Helen, desperately. "Please don't think I'm meddling, but has ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... two Browns, whose quarrels are the scandal of the neighbourhood. Her influence in fact over the poor is a strange mixture of good and evil, of real benevolence with an interference that saps all sense of self-respect, of real sympathy and womanly feeling with a good deal of womanly meddling, curiosity, and babble. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green |
