"Petulancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expression are coupled with the bitterest tirades against a stupid audience, which refuses to take the poet's genius on trust, and which remains utterly unmoved by his avowals that he has much to say to it that lies too deep for utterance. Such an outlet for the poet's very natural petulance is likely to seem absurd enough to us. It is surely not the fault of his hearers, we are inclined to tell him gently, that he suffers an impediment in his speech. Yet, after all, we may be mistaken. It is significant that the singers who are most aware of their inarticulateness are not the romanticists, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... with genial petulance; "it was too small. Half the world was crowded into it; and it ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... is the pathway to any such betterment as I have ventured roughly to sketch to-night? I will not attempt to map it, but I feel very confident which way it does not run. I am sure it does not run through the region of disaffection, complaint, threatening, restlessness, petulance, or secession. Mere fretfulness never carries its points. No, the true way to better things is always to begin by holding on manfully to that which we already are convinced is good. The best restorers of old fabrics are those who work with affectionate loyalty as nearly as possible on ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... civilized man in the expression of his feelings, confers upon him already a certain degree of authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain aptitude to rise above the purely passive state of the soul, to interrupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts. Therefore everything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these movements of the affections does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a virtue (for virtue ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... as they remained and held command in their respective countries, they eminently sustained, and when they were driven into exile, yet more eminently damaged the fortunes of those countries, is common to both. All the sober citizens felt disgust at the petulance, the low flattery, and base seductions which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed himself to employ with the view of winning the people's favor; and the ungraciousness, pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on the ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... was displeased at my petulance and boldness, I was about to commence a kind of defence, when ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... one, in seeming petulance, oppressed With heat has cast his brown young body free: With arms behind his head and heaving breast He lies and gazes at the cool bright sea; So young Leander might when in the noon He panted for the starry eyes of eve And whispered o'er the waste of wandering ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... receiving impressions and noting them. I like your country; I like your people. I have observed foibles in the North and in the South, but there is an under-current of strong feeling and good sense which I have noted and admired. I think your quarrel is one of foibles—one conceived in the spirit of petulance, and about to be prosecuted in the spirit of exaltation. I believe the professed mutual hatred of the sections to be superficial, and that it could be cancelled. It is fostered by the bitterness of fanatics, assisted by a very natural disinclination ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... assumption of superiority.] Insolence — N. insolence; haughtiness &c adj.; arrogance, airs; overbearance^; domineering &c v.; tyranny &c 739. impertinence; sauciness &c adj.; flippancy, dicacity^, petulance, procacity^, bluster; swagger, swaggering &c v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. saucebox &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... difference between the forlorn, poverty-stricken, ragged Archie, and the petted, and pampered, and richly-clad Willie; but to the eye of the unwearied watcher who had witnessed the patience and the goodness of the sick lad, and contrasted it with the petulance and sinfulness of her nephew, the gifts of God ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... share in Critical Strictures on the ground that neither he nor his collaborators could have written a tragedy nearly so good. The Critical Review, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, characterized the pamphlet as "the crude efforts of envy, petulance, and self-conceit." "There being thus three epithets," says Boswell, "we, the three authours, had a humourous contention how each should be appropriated."[8] The Monthly Review was hardly less severe. It conceived the author of Critical Structures to ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... this morning, to be more exact, I called on my family grit of which he's so proud and I did a little talking to Senator Corson. And he knows that the business is unfinished—he knows it will be brought duly to his attention—and he'll be in a better frame of mind after his present petulance has worn off." ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... are going to say disagreeable things about the baby, I won't listen to you," said Deena, crossly, and then, ashamed of her petulance, added: "Run along to school, dear; the sooner you get some knowledge into that little red head of yours, the sooner you can have automobiles and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... anxious face. She attended to him assiduously; but she was only a nurse, nothing of a lover, and presently he found himself wondering at her lack of emotion, fretting for the absent caress with an invalid's petulance. As his strength returned, Aurora permitted Mary Kyley to assume the larger share of the nursing, and Jim was told what news there was, excepting the truth about poor Mike. It was Ryder who had informed Aurora that Done and his friends were in the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... a single word of kindness. And as days passed by and this indifference continued, until at times seeming ready to give place to openly expressed dislike, and her ears became more and more accustomed to words of hasty petulance, and Sergius grew still deeper absorbed in the infatuation which possessed him, and less careful to conceal its influences from her, and the Greek girl glided hither and thither, ever less anxious, as she believed her triumph more nearly assured, to maintain the humble guise which she ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Unrebuked by my petulance, Captain Giles, with an air of immense sagacity, began to tell me a minute tale about a Harbour Office peon. It was absolutely pointless. A peon was seen walking that morning on the verandah with a letter in his ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the twins had reached the bedside and had been received with a final lighting up of the boy's spent powers, which his mother made no effort to restrain. In a feeble, altered voice, without heat, scorn, or petulance, with a mind stripped of all its puerilities and full of fraternal care and faithfulness, and with a magisterial dignity far beyond his years, he slowly poured out a measured stream of arraignment and appeal which their hardened hearts were still ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... quiet," Entman said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when they start chasing frightened householders ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... down indefatigably, preparing everything for the accommodation of the guests, smoothing down Deborah's petulance, and keeping her mother from over-exertion or anxiety. Much contrivance was indeed required, for besides the colonel and his son, two soldiers had to be lodged, and four horses, which, to the consternation of old Margery, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... result of cooping yourself in here all day, just thinking and smoking cigarettes," grumbled Dade, himself worried to the point of nervous petulance. If he could have taken his own riata and fought also, he would have been much nearer his usual calm, ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... in her kindest moments she had not seemed so near to him. He was elated by this discovery; he did not seek its cause and, had he done so, he was not acute enough to see that hitherto the feelings she had shown him had been chiefly feigned, and that this real resentment, marking her face with petulance, revealed her nature to be ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... by petulance and hunger, there was another important point which set the greatest part of the people at variance with the captain. This was their difference in opinion from him, on the measures proper to be pursued on the present ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... I can't come," she said with that petulance which had grown upon her recently. "I have to go with Rosamond. I've been fixing my dress, and everything's ready. Besides," she added, "I promised Madame Milano I would only come home once a week, and as I've been here today, I couldn't ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... with such a sweet decision. Her 'I love you!' was a bond with eternity. In the simplest as in the greatest things she saw his wish and acted frankly upon it. No pretty petulance, no affectation of silly-sweet languishing, none of the weaknesses of woman. And so exquisitely fresh in her twenty years of maidenhood, with bright young eyes that seemed to bid defiance to all the years ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... feeling was the unbounded and unimpaired confidence in General Lee. The conduct and bearing of the men were characterized by the same sterling qualities they had always displayed. The only exhibition of petulance that I witnessed was by a staff officer who bore no scars or other evidence of hardships undergone, but who acquired great reputation after the war. He "could not submit to such degradation," etc., threw away his spurs and chafed quite dramatically. When a bystander suggested that we cut our way ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... All she said but made the Queen more indignant. She would scarcely bid her husband farewell: she turned her back to the fairy with undignified petulance. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... was eaten alive by rats, and the Rationalist and Republican was slowly seethed in molten lead, the fate of each being, of course, a just judgment of heaven on those who presumed to differ from the author. Thus the voice of morality is confounded with that of tyrannical petulance and self-love. Not only is Scott not personal, but we cannot conceive his being so. We cannot think it possible that he should degrade his art by the indulgence of egotism, or crotchets, or petty piques. Least of all can we think it possible that his high and gallant nature should use ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... cried the youth, seizing her arm again with a boyish petulance. "You think of yourself and of other people, but never of me. What am I going to do all along with ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... charge was echoed that once more the interests of Canada had been sacrificed by Britain on the altar of Anglo-American friendship. The outburst was not understood abroad. It was not, as United States opinion imagined, merely childish petulance or the whining of a poor loser. It was against Great Britain, not against the United States, that the criticism was directed. It was not the decision, but the way in which it was made, that roused deep anger. The decision on the main issue, that the line ran back of even the deepest ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... appeared on the sidewalk, his Derby hat on his head, his corn-cob in his mouth. For a moment he turned, and, looking back, flung out his hand with a gesture expressive of petulance and dismissal towards an invisible person at his door. And then he came towards us sedately, caressing his pipe, eyes on the ground, and seated himself in the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... young boy Bearing their double life abroad in one— Beginning new the world, and bringing hopes That in their path fell flower-like. Not at ease They dwelt, though; for a slow discordancy Of temper—weak-willed waste of life in bursts Of petulance—had marred their happiness. And so the boy, young Reuben, as he grew, Was chafed and vexed by this ill-fitting mode Of life forced on him, and rebelled. Too oft Brooding alone, he shaped loose schemes of flight Into the joyous outer world, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... writings a certain petulance of remark in reference to churches or churchmen, he was a person of a rare, tender, and absolute religion, a person incapable of any profanation, by act or by thought. Of course, the same isolation which belonged to his ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... single out and cling to this or that figure till it was lost in the street beyond, and then he would try to realize that it was lost to him forever. For the street beyond lay toward the coast, where many ships awaited. The archducal petulance gave ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... himself without sound or motion, bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Mr. Fopling had a vacant expression, and his face was not an advantageous face. It was round, pudgy, weak, with shadows of petulance about the mouth, and the forehead sloped away at an angle which house-builders, speaking of roofs, call a quarter-pitch. His chin, acting on the hint offered by the forehead, was likewise in full retreat. Altogether, one might have said of Mr. Fopling that if ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... peaceably, he must necessarily learn to practice self-denial in small things as well as in great. Men have to bear as well as to forbear. The temper has to be held in subjection to the judgment; and the little demons of ill-humor, petulance, and sarcasm, kept resolutely at a distance. If once they find an entrance to the mind, they are apt to return, and to establish for themselves ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... sunlight. The romance and ecstasy that at Wiesbaden had soaked her spirit came no more. She was watching for the weak spots, the passages with which he had struggled and she had struggled; she was distracted by memories of petulance, black moods, and sudden caresses. And then she caught his eye. The look was like, yet how unlike, those looks at Wiesbaden. It had the old love-hunger, but had lost the adoration, its spiritual essence. And she thought: 'Is it my fault, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the attention of every one was the perfect order that prevailed throughout the camp, and which more particularly marked proceedings in the council. Whether the demands put forward were granted by the Governor or not, there was no petulance, no ill-feeling, evinced; but everything was done with a calm dignity that was pleasing to behold, and which might be copied with advantage by more pretentious ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... mother he's thinking about," Jo said with pretty petulance. In truth, she was angry with Thaine for taking Leigh home last night and for ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... sufficient to confer celebrity on those who could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authours of the Canons of criticism and of the Review of Shakespeare's text; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... homewards, taking a bye road so as to avoid meeting Mr. Faulkner. And now Lionel began to talk of Caroline, and wonder how she had sped. He seemed to throw off his own private troubles as he talked of hers, and his fit of petulance was melting fast away. At last he made up his mind to inquire how she had caught Sorrel, and was positively interested in the narration, laughing at the idea of the scrape they would have been in if Sorrel had made his way to the road, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... would remain to be accounted for, except the deportment of Miriam herself; her reserve, her brooding melancholy, her petulance, and moody passion. If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and exhaustive influences of imaginative art, exercised by a delicate young woman, in the nervous and unwholesome atmosphere of Rome. Such, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... while that had elapsed since her marriage. But the realization of what that change was hurt her cruelly. He looked mean and base as he had never looked before. The old amiable submission to adversities had given place to an expression of petulance, of resentment, of cunning, of cowardice. Or was it that Sylvia was looking at him ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... spring to come slowly, so one does not feel choked with it," Evelyn said after a little, as she gazed out of the window. "There are actually daisies in that field. They have come too soon." Evelyn spoke with an absurd petulance which was unusual ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... woman; and a sort of irritable feeling came upon her even when she saw him seated by any young and pretty girl, and paying her the common attentions of society. She was too well bred to display such sensations except by those slight indications, or by a certain petulance of manner, which he was not close observer enough of other people's ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up the pony, and laughing at her own petulance. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an English classic. It is striking, to see a man of talent thus vindicating his genius in the grave, making a posthumous defence of his character, and compelling posterity to acknowledge the distinctions of which he was defrauded by the petulance of his time. His example and his success administer a moral which ought not to be thrown away. There are many individuals in our own time, who might thus nobly avenge themselves on the injustice of their age. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... said, "Always meet petulance with gentleness, and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even an elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness. Opposition to peace is sin." The Buddhist says, "If a man foolishly does me wrong I will return him the protection of my ungrudging love. The ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... him, and had been received very charmingly and told how clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a piece of petulance ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... might have left me frigid but for the artist who played Cherubino. This was no other than Pauline Lucca, in the prime of youth and petulance. From her first appearance to the last note she sang, she occupied the stage. The opera seemed to have been written for her. The mediocrity of the troupe threw her commanding merits—the richness of her ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... real world, where things change. Peter dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... to humor me, and walked beside me, saying nothing. I glanced at his face, half shamed of my petulance, and I saw that he was no longer smiling. His lips were closed in that firm straight line which I had already seen once or twice, and which during years of trial became habitual to him. My own petty anger vanished at ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... entangled in unexpected difficulties, he is harassed by sudden objections, he is unprovided with solutions or replies; his surprise impedes his natural powers of reasoning, his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance with an ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to pieces if I can't do SOMETHING!" She sighed, and tried to cover the sigh with a laugh—which was not, however, a great success. "I wish I could be as cool-headed as Thomas," she said, with a tinge of petulance. "It don't ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... exclaimed abruptly one afternoon, as she glanced at the pair snuggled in the depths of the armchair, Diantha had flung her hat aside. Her face was dreamy as she looked down at the little head against her shoulder. All her girlish coquetry, every trace of juvenile mischief, the occasional flashes of petulance which told that she was her mother's daughter had vanished. She looked a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... rage, choler, impatience, passion, resentment, displeasure, indignation, peevishness, temper, exasperation, ire, pettishness, vexation, fretfulness, irritation, petulance, wrath. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... there was that note of ever ready petulance. "It is too provoking. He should know that he must make me anxious by his silence. Dick is so thoughtless—so careless of other people's feelings. I shall write ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... feeling ran so strongly in Boston that the conservatives thought it prudent to remove the government temporarily to Cambridge, that they might more easily control the election which was to come in May. Vane, with some petulance, refused to entertain the motion; but Endicott put the question, and it was carried. As the time drew near the excitement increased, the clergy straining every nerve to bring up their voters from the country; and on ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... device to blind Isaac and get Jacob out of harm's way, in the excuse that she cannot bear his marriage with a Hittite woman. Her exaggerated expressions of passionate dislike to 'the daughters of Heth' have no religious basis. They are partly feigned and partly petulance. So the poor old blind father is beguiled once more, and sends his son away. Starting under such auspices, and coming from such an atmosphere, and journeying back to Haran, the hole of the pit whence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... unslung his hand-organ and slid it with a show of petulance into a corner, crossed the room, swinging strongly and easily between his crutches, like a fine piece of machinery, climbed upon the model's platform, and seated himself in the plain deal chair which already occupied it. From this ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... hour she was not so talkative, however, and after a while she stole away; for in spite of her petulance at Larry's words, they had suggested a train of thought which made her want to be by herself. She went up to the oratory and stayed there a long time, amid the twilight shadows. Finally the ringing of the supper bell ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with everybody and everything, until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... ceased to be furious at Antonia; he had not written in cold blood the wrathful, finishing letter planned in heat of brain. That, after all, was Antonia as he had always known her and been her friend: Antonia, capable of heroisms and generosities, fineness and insight, density and petulance. One could not drop the great woman into the waste-basket because on one occasion more she had been perverse and the sufferer happened to be oneself. But the great woman, thought Gerald, needed a sober word spoken to her. In conclusion, he would not go to see her, no, until ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... strong belief—strangely ill-founded—that Pompey would be as successful as a statesman as he had been fortunate as a general. For him he had also a warm personal attachment, which never seems to have wholly died out, in spite of much petulance of language. This partly accounts for the surrender of B.C. 56, and his acquiescence in the policy of the triumvirs, an acquiescence never hearty indeed, as far as Caesar and Crassus were concerned, but in which he consoled himself with ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... foot impatiently upon the rug, and frowned a little, with a touch of petulance in her manner that was the most bewitching thing I ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... remembered what had passed. Bull's words haunted him; he could not forget them; they burnt within him like the flame of a moral fever. He was moody and petulant, and for a time could hardly conceal his aversion to Bull. Ah Eric! moodiness and petulance cannot save you, but prayerfulness would; one word, Eric, at the throne of grace—one prayer before you go down among the boys, that God in his mercy would wash away, in the blood of his dear Son, your crimson stains, and keep your conscience ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... to extricate me from jeopardy, and that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery—it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good humour, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lewis gave a characteristic account. "Hearing one day," he said, "my introduction of negroes into a feudal baron's castle" (in The Castle Spectre) "exclaimed against with as much vehemence as if a dramatic anachronism had been an offence undeserving of benefit of clergy, I said in a moment of petulance, that to prove of how little consequence I esteemed such errors, I would make a play upon the Gunpowder Plot, and make Guy Faux in love with the Emperor Charlemagne's daughter. By some chance or other, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... if he had made a vow of patience. When at moments his eyes flashed with petulance, self-will, and anger, he restrained those flashes promptly, and looked with alarm at her, as if to implore pardon. This acted still more on her. Never had she such a feeling of being greatly loved as then; and when she ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... asked as she gave him her hand. The disappointment in her voice irritated him, and he answered with a sharp petulance. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... us in order; even M. yielded to the dashing vivacity of S.D." The last is everywhere commended for the brilliancy of his wit and repartee: he was never afraid to speak the truth. Once when the poet in one of his fits of petulance exclaimed, intending to produce a terrible impression, "I shall go mad!" Davies calmly and cuttingly observed, "It is much more like silliness than madness!" He was the only man who ever laid Byron under any serious pecuniary obligation, having lent ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... you, Angelique," said he, "I did not expect so much condescension after my petulance at the Governor's ball; I ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... respect, and have that or nothing.... Then he works as he never worked before—on dad's books, in the shop, out on the range. He seems obsessed with some thought all the time. He talks little. All the old petulance, obstinacy, selfishness, and especially his sudden, queer impulses, and bull-headed tenacity—all gone! He has suffered physical distress, because he never was used to hard work. And more, he's suffered terribly for the want of liquor. I've heard him say to dad: ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... her petulance and fatigue, to the old air of protection, and he gave her his hand. It was pleasant to be the object of his care, to be with him as at first, to renew their former relation. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... minds, students in the philosophy of society and history, men known for their lofty ideal of liberty or of culture, appeared to be on the side of the North; and the calm, unfaltering attitude, free from petulance and invective, of those operative classes in Lancashire, whom the war ruined for a while, has often been pointed to as showing that the more informed and intelligent workingmen were also for the North. They endured a great calamity without murmuring, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... he came up with the coffee. I thought he turned a shade or two paler at seeing me up and dressed; but no vestige of petulance remained. Having really taken no offense at the outburst, I rallied him ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... we can make out a full day's work in Canada, can't we? It is best to take it moderate," said Mr Snow, smiling benignly on Rose. He was tolerant of the young lady's petulance, and not so ready to excite it as he used to be in the old times, and generally listened to her little sallies with a deprecating ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... lake, as we may call it, surrounded by the reef, where a ship could anchor, I should prefer this to any of the inhabited islands, if the only want were refreshment. For the quantity of fish that might be procured would be sufficient, and the people might roam about unmolested by the petulance of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... me to sit once more for you as I did the other day," she continued with playful petulance, "I will never consent to do such a thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at all, and yet you look ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself my friend?" I replied, in a tone of some pique. "Rather so, and yet you must not feel offended at that. The situation of this sarcastic and talented old man is very peculiar; his unquiet petulance incessantly gives birth to fresh perils. He, of necessity, must make friends in every quarter, left and right, in France and foreign countries. The necessary consequence is, that he cannot follow a straight path. The Choiseuls have served ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... reminded me of my chief difficulty in refusing. It is the sacred purpose which makes me doubt my own judgment. It would be a painful reflection to think that the temple should suffer by my refusing this gift. Maybe I should be yielding to my own petulance or personal motives if I were to decline. I must not let my pride stand in the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... that the style of the New Testament was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been received into the arms of the hero under whom he now fought, adventured to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped in the cold poison of contempt and petulance. It struck, but did not canker, leaves that were immortal.[169] Leland, with the native warmth of his soil, could not resist the gratification of a reply; but the nobler part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as a kind of needful appendage to the Dragon, a piece of property of his own, about whom he need take no trouble, merely laughed and said, "Want must be thy master then." But Ambrose treated her petulance in another fashion. "Look here, pretty mistress," said he, "there dwells by me a poor little maid nigh about thine age, who never goeth further out than to Saint Paul's minster, nor plucketh flower, nor hath sweet cake, nor manchet bread, nor sugar- stick, nay, and scarce ever ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... husband under which I chafed would not have moved me; I should have welcomed Martha and her father to my home and made them happy there; I should have had no conflicts with my servants, shown no petulance to my children. For it would not have been I who spoke and acted but Christ who lived ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... had watched his opportunity, and, taking the centry unawares, had snatched away his musquet. Upon this, the petty officer, a midshipman, who commanded the party, perhaps from a sudden fear of farther violence, perhaps from the natural petulance of power newly acquired, and perhaps from a brutality in his nature, ordered the marines to fire: the men, with as little consideration or humanity as the officer, immediately discharged their pieces among ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... chances, and the humours of his correspondence. The Contessa ceased to quarrel with him. The handsome Englishman with the colour of a Titian, and the features of an antique, with his eloquence, his petulance, his conceit, his charm, filled the stage, quickened the dull hours whenever he appeared. Eleanor's tragedy explained itself. The elder woman understood and pitied. As for Lucy Foster, the Contessa's shrewd eyes watched her with a new respect. At what stage, ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for some few months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn tears in young Arthur; had rallied Richard with infantine petulance in the Duke of York; and in her turn had rebuked that petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder child in Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life; but as yet the "Children in the Wood" ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... had publicly intimated in the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy." In the preface to the very first of Shadwell's plays, printed in 1668, he takes occasion bitterly, and with a direct application to Dryden, to assail the grounds of this criticism and the comedies of the author who had made it.[17] If this petulance produced any animosity, it was not lasting; for in the course of their controversy, Dryden appeals to Shadwell, whether he had not rather countenanced than impeded his first rise in public favour; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Men shrink more from skin-diseases than from any other.[2] [Footnote 2: And they are amongst the hardest to cure; just as the skin-diseases of the soul linger long after the heart is greatly cured. Witness the petulance, fastidiousness, censoriousness, social self-assertion, general disagreeableness of so many good people—all in the moral skin—repulsive exceedingly. I say good people; I do not say very good, nor do I say Christ-like, for that they ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... people feel even for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What thoughts filled that young head—what contemplation took the place of what should have been the [v]ineffable upspringing of childish emotion—what complaint or questioning were living behind that white face—no one could guess. In an older person the face would have betokened ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... portraiture, because he is a compound of formality and explosiveness. The formal manners and dress and ponderous courtesy of the eighteenth century, combined with an outspoken way of calling things by their right names and a boyish petulance and quickness of temper, make a contrast that is essentially humorous, and more attractive than the philosophic and broad-minded temper of earlier times or the reticence and indifference of our own day. Dr. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... You always contrive to bring it round to that!" she exclaimed, not without a hint of petulance. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... upon her family, thanks to the wit of the grand-daughter of Henry IV. The king, jealous, as a young man and as a monarch, of the superiority of those who surrounded him, could not resist admitting himself vanquished by a petulance so thoroughly French in its nature, whose energy more than ever increased by English humor. Like a child, he was captivated by her radiant beauty, which her wit made still more dazzling. Madame's eyes flashed like lightning. Wit and humor escaped ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are not bound to do what I bid you—I never thought that; and you are father and mother's friend—how could I help being ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... other great cause; for a struggle of eighteen years had taught us its strength. And, under God, we rely very much on the Christian public of Great Britain; for every expression of feeling from the wise and good of this land, with whatever petulance it may be met by some, goes to the heart of the American people. [Hear, hear!] You must not judge of the American people by the expressions which have come across the Atlantic in reference to the subject. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the edge of the top so that she came into view, I could see she was looking at me with storm-bright eyes. And as I swung around the rigging lightly and joined her, I saw approval in her eyes that was quickly routed by petulance. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... prominent member of the Bar—was he K.C.? a triton among the minnows—therefore heading the table, listened to with reverence as he told of the judges, possibly of "old Stareleigh's" last exhibition of petulance—"with it's high time for him to go, etc." But if he had not silk, why did not Perker retain him instead of the incapable Phunky, whom he did not ask on this occasion. "I gave the chap a good ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... continuance at St. John's. To all, except Lucie, it was evident his absence would be unregretted; for he could not but remark the cold and altered manner of Mad. de la Tour, which she vainly endeavored to disguise, by an air of studied politeness; nor the reserve and petulance of De Valette, which he did not attempt to conceal. La Tour was too politic to display his dislike towards one, whose services were so useful to him; though his prejudices were, in ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... be a ground of petulance or of complaint. It is discovered to have a value. It is judged to be worth while. And it is possible to find in such a faith the grounds of a conviction that behind and beneath all suffering is the love which redeems it and the purpose which ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... answered, turning his head aside, and added with sudden petulance, "God's curse upon Pasquale Paoli, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... too young. But the sculptor's intellect must be reinforced by keen eyes and a steady hand: of all artists, Nature finds him most vulnerable. Donatello's last work shows the fatigue of hand and eye, though the intellect never lost its ardent and strenuous activity. There was no petulance or meanness in his old age, no decadence; he merely grew old, and his personality was great until ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... niece, a miss of twenty or so, who had a fancy for an editorial career and who had vainly been seeking a situation of this character for some time, found a windfall in the instant need for a substitute first reader. It was with some petulance, it struck me, that she yanked the door open one day. She was, apparently, showing some one about her office. "All that," she said, waving her hand toward my case, "practically untouched; and mountains besides. I don't know how I'm to get away ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... right," said Ruby, half-ashamed of the petulance of his reply; "at any rate, I confess you are right as far as I ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Roderick was shocked at the change that had come upon him within three days. He seemed like another man, his features being pinched, his eyes sunken, and his manner quick and nervous. The normal calm of his demeanor was gone, and his stately courtesy was replaced by a restless petulance of hands. He stood uneasily near the mantel waiting for the young officer to ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... he replied, with positive petulance. "You do not unterstant. I do not buy and sell. Zis is a chemical fact. We must bublish it for the sake off its seoretical falue. I do not care for wealse. I haff no time ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... accustomed to think of what was fashionable than of what was reasonable, without at all considering the good sense of what his uncle said to him, replied with childish petulance: ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... sit down," she said with some petulance. "There's nothing up here to hurt you." There was so much meaning in her tone of the things that would hurt me on the floor below that I hastened to show my confidence in her, and drew up a chair to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... Resentments never to be got over for my seducing her away, these angry Commands to leave her,—what shall we say, if all were to mean nothing but Matrimony?—And what if my forbearing to enter upon that Subject comes out to be the true Cause of her Petulance ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... of France, and she is clearly an uncommon individual in her own right. The women will squabble about her looks; the men will have views about her figure: all must agree that her fortune on the stage is assured. A more pleasing performance I never saw. Love, innocence, tenderness, grief, joy, petulance, uncertainty, modesty, despair—every feminine attribute, in fact, showed to admiration in her expressive features. Voice, bewitching. Gestures, exquisite. All, in fact, was truly enjoyable. I would not have missed the evening on ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... lachrymae," said Ormond. "I know his Grace well. While the rebuke of his aspiring petulance was a matter betwixt your Majesty and him, he might have let it pass by; but a check before a fellow from whom it was likely enough to travel through the Court, was ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... old man was soon upset by insignificant trifles, and after he had given way to a little burst of petulance like this, he had a strange, half pathetic way of staring straight in front of him for a few seconds, as if ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman |
