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Acrimony   Listen
noun
Acrimony  n.  (pl. acrimonies)  
1.
A quality of bodies which corrodes or destroys others; also, a harsh or biting sharpness; as, the acrimony of the juices of certain plants. (Archaic)
2.
Sharpness or severity, as of language or temper; irritating bitterness of disposition or manners. "John the Baptist set himself with much acrimony and indignation to baffle this senseless arrogant conceit of theirs."
Synonyms: Acrimony, Asperity, Harshness, Tartness. These words express different degrees of angry feeling or language. Asperity and harshness arise from angry feelings, connected with a disregard for the feelings of others. Harshness usually denotes needless severity or an undue measure of severity. Acrimony is a biting sharpness produced by an imbittered spirit. Tartness denotes slight asperity and implies some degree of intellectual readiness. Tartness of reply; harshness of accusation; acrimony of invective. "In his official letters he expressed, with great acrimony, his contempt for the king's character." "It is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received." "A just reverence of mankind prevents the growth of harshness and brutality."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acrimony" Quotes from Famous Books



... faith of the past with the inexorable liberty of thought of the present. Like his co-laborers in this work, he experienced only a mortal sadness under which he sank. True, his wife contributed no little to hasten his end by the intemperance of her zeal and the acrimony ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... attack on the personality of Homer. It is no less fresh in the minds of critics how that modern Jupiter, Lessing, waged a long and bitter battle with the Titans of the French classical drama, and finally crushed them with the thunderbolt of the "Dramaturgie;" nor what acrimony sharpened the discussion between the rival theorists in music, Gluck and Piccini, at Paris. All of the intensity of these art-campaigns, and many of the conditions of the last, enter into the contest between Richard Wagner and the Italianissimi ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... with less and less acrimony, all the rest of the day. And the next day, and the next. Then, argument having reached the point of diminishing returns, the three starships took the ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... Atlee took out his pocket-book and read from a memorandum: 'Should M. Kostalergi refuse your offer, or think it insufficient, on no account let the negotiation take any turn of acrimony or recrimination. He has rendered me great services in past times, and it will be for himself to determine whether he should do or say what should in any way bar our ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... of honor and justice is outraged by this proposition equally with our own. While, then, we seek to sustain the cause of freedom unwaveringly, let us also hold it to be our office as true women to moderate the acrimony of political contest, remembering that the slaveholder and the slave are alike our brethren, whom the law of God commands us to ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... acrimony about earnest students, whose motive, he thinks, is a small ambition. But surely a man may be fond of metaphysics for the sweet sake of Queen Entelechy, and, moreover, these students looked forward to days in which real work ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... so frequently to make us good as to make us wise, that our friends employ the officiousness of counsel; and among the rejectors of advice, who are mentioned by the grave and sententious with so much acrimony, you will not so often find the vicious and abandoned, as the pert and the petulant, the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... campaign. The gradual disruption of parties, and the new and radical attitudes assumed by men of independent thought, gave ample occasion to indulge in such epithets as "apostates," "renegades," and "traitors." Unusual acrimony grew out of the zeal of the Church and its ministers. The clergymen of the Northern States not only spoke against the repeal from their pulpits, but forwarded energetic petitions against it to Congress, 3050 clergymen of New England of different denominations joining their ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... a quarreling pack of sentimentalists. From all accounts Miss Etta must have been at that time a rugged girl of twenty-eight, of striking, if ungentle, appearance; and only the unsteadied sensibilities and the too-ready acrimony could have foreshadowed the large blatant woman she was to become, a woman who alternated between a generous flow of emotion on the one hand and an unimaginative hardness on the other. Only Lin Darton could have given promise then of the middle-class, semi-prosperous business man who was ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... under Pleurisies, low or other Fevers, being brought into Hospitals where the Malignant Fever was frequent, had their original Disorders changed into this Fever by breathing a foul infected Air, and by their Communication with those ill of the Fever, and of Fluxes; at other Times, a mere Acrimony of the Blood, set in Motion by a supervening Fever, determined the Disorder to be of this kind: and I always observed, that those Men were most apt to catch this Fever, whose Constitutions had been broke ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... by ungrateful neglect on the one hand, and by seditious advisers on the other, turned the guns which they had so often manned in defence of the English flag against their own countrymen and their own home, and, with all the acrimony of feeling ever attending family quarrels, seemed determined to sacrifice the nation and themselves, rather than listen to the dictates of reason and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... however must be made to those parts which relate to the King's Private Library at Paris, and to Strasbourg: these having been executed by different pens, evidently in the hands of individuals of less wrongheadedness and acrimony of feeling than the Parisian Printer. Mons. Crapelet has prefixed a Preface to his labours, in which he tells the world, that, using my more favourite metaphorical style of expression, "a CRUSADE has risen up ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... servants, stood for an hour in the dining-room with his back toward the fire, thinking of his position. He had many things of which to think. In the first place, there were these pseudo-creditors who had just attacked him in his own park with much acrimony. He endeavored to comfort himself by telling himself that they were certainly pseudo-creditors, to whom he did not in fact owe a penny. Mr. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... his eyebrows and bent over his plate. "I have noticed," he said with an acrimony that surprised them all, "that hate as an occupation blunts ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... were reported to the captain in the course of the day, so much acrimony was imparted to his account by the officer, that the captain merely said, "I shall be glad if you will defer stating this matter more fully till to-morrow morning, after breakfast; take the night to think of it." Tomorrow came, and the particulars being again detailed, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... light in the few words that the two women had exchanged. Besides, in ageing, whether from repentance for her errors or from hypocrisy, Lady Douglas had become a prude and a puritan; so that at this time she united with the natural acrimony of her character all the stiffness of the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... characters, truth put into the mouth of a clown, malice enveloped in simple utterances, the master duped but saved from being ridiculous by his deportment, the valet rebellious but preserved from acrimony by his gaiety, and you can comprehend how Beaumarchais could have the ancient regime played before its head, put political and social satire on the stage, publicly attach an expression to each wrong so as to become a by-word, and ever making a loud report,[4144] gather up into a few traits ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... went to the marquis, with whom he remained in conversation some hours. When he had left the castle, the marquis sent for his daughter, and poured forth his resentment with all the violence of threats, and all the acrimony of contempt. So severely did he ridicule the idea of her disposing of her heart, and so dreadfully did he denounce vengeance on her disobedience, that she scarcely thought herself safe in his presence. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... to that perfection of government, the democracy of Athens, he hoped one day to see revived; he mentioned the death of Charles the First, and the expulsion of his son, with raptures of applause; inveighed with great acrimony against the kingly name; and, in order to strengthen his opinion, repeated forty or fifty lines from one ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... protracted contest, at an expenditure which this year is understood to have exceeded all precedent. We have no means of ascertaining the expenses of such a line as the London and York, which was fought inch by inch through the Committees of both Houses with unexampled acrimony and perseverance. We know, however, that the expenses connected with the Great Western, and the London and Birmingham bills, amounted respectively to L88,710 and L72,868, exclusive altogether of the costs incurred by the different parties who opposed these lines ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... precedent. But it was impossible for Undine to understand a social organization which did not regard the indulging of woman as its first purpose, or to believe that any one taking another view was not moved by avarice or malice; and the discussion ended in mutual acrimony. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... passed over, as they belong rather to ecclesiastical and political than to literary history. Yet these are the most characteristic productions of the times, and display the effects of controversy in a very unfavorable light. The license, personality, acrimony, and grossness of the invectives published by the controversial writers, particularly of the sixteenth century, can hardly be imagined by a modern reader who has not read the originals. The better specimens of this style of writing are found in the remains of Manuel and Zwingle. Manuel (1484-1530), ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... however, long enough to let Mr. Blunt's half-hidden acrimony develop itself or prey on itself in further talk about the man Allegre and the girl Rita. Mr. Blunt, still addressing Mills with that story, passed on to what he called the second act, the disclosure, with, what ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... was increased fourfold. Mrs. Horsball got out from some secluded nook a special bottle of orange-brandy in his favour,—which Lieutenant Cox would have consumed on the day of its opening, had not Mrs. Horsball with considerable acrimony declined to supply his orders. The sister with ringlets smiled and smirked whenever the young Squire went near the bar. The sister in ringlets was given to flirtations of this kind, would listen with sweetest complacency to compliments on her beauty, and would return them with interest. But ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... express the slighter forms of anger. Irritation, petulance, and vexation are temporary and for immediate cause. Fretfulness, pettishness, and peevishness are chronic states finding in any petty matter an occasion for their exercise. Compare ACRIMONY; ENMITY; HATRED. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... of receiving his approbation; but not till too late I discovered that he was most violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason; for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife. This, as may be expected, produced a dispute attended with some acrimony, which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance: but on the day before that appointed for the ceremony, we agreed to discuss the subject at large. It was managed with proper spirit on both sides: he asserted that I was heterodox, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... can a clause delivered in a postscript, concerning my opinion of my way, be abusive to the Parliament?" A great privilege either of postscripts or of his opinions, that they cannot be abusive to the Parliament. Many passages are full of acrimony, many extravagant, and not to the point in hand, many void of matter. Concerning such Lactantius(1346) gives me a good rule, Otiosum est persequi singula,—it is an idle and unprofitable thing to persecute every particular. ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... through, and they hold the blossoms in such veneration, as to use them in the sacrifices they make to their idol IXORA, whence LINNAEUS has taken the name applied by him to this genus. The root is said to possess some acrimony, and to be made use of by the natives in ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... above quarter. "The duke," said he, "says that your request cannot be granted; and the other day, when I myself mentioned it in the council, began to talk of the decision of Trent, and spoke of yourself as a plaguy pestilent fellow; whereupon I answered him with some acrimony, and there ensued a bit of a function between us, at which Isturitz laughed heartily. By the by," continued he, "what need have you of a regular permission, which it does not appear that any one has authority to grant. The best thing that you can do under all circumstances is to commit the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... acrimony of the tears, the lining of this duct may be inflamed and thickened, or some foreign body, or some unctuous matter from the ciliary glands, may insinuate itself into the duct, and the fluid accumulates in the sac and distends it, and it bursts; or ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... certain volubility about it, and the writer seemed to me to pull out rather adroitly one or two loose sticks in his opponents' bundle, and to lay them vehemently about their backs. But, alas! the acrimony, the positiveness, the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... out bareheaded in the evening air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man distraught when Maryllia's crushed body had been brought home, and she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely conceal. Almost,—such was her acrimony and vindictiveness—she ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... doing or thinking anything useful or rational. This sad delusion, which they endeavor to remove by serious advice, by playful banter, or by seeming to take an interest in my folly for a moment, is encountered with great acrimony by less gentle friends. They who are not bound to me by blood or intimacy—and some who are—deride, insult, and revile me in every way for my subjection to a mental aberration which is rapidly consuming a pretty property, more than average talents, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... these circumstances, that the negotiation for peace will be full of difficulties, and that it will probably be necessary, in pretensions as well as proceedings, to be very cautious, and to act so as to remove those difficulties, and everything, which might increase the acrimony, to which the English Plenipotentiaries ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... conduct. On the contrary, M. Ferrand, the government orator, one of the men who did most mischief to the King and the kingdom, abandoned himself—we borrow the expression of the reporter of the committee—to all the acrimony of his passions, and all the profligacy of his principles. His fury could only be equalled by his folly. He did not scruple to maintain, in the midst of the representatives of the nation, that the emigrants had the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... week after week the debates continued, sometimes with great courtesy, and sometimes with considerable acrimony, until the tenth of September, when all plans and amendments which had been adopted by the convention were placed in the hands of a committee for revision and arrangement. Hamilton, who had returned to the convention at the middle of August, was placed upon that committee, having for his associates ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... I do not wonder if they have begotten a son who is mad. (To the 2ND PHYSICIAN) Come, let us begin the cure; and, through the exhilarating sweetness of harmony, let us dulcify, lenify, and pacify the acrimony of his spirits, which, I see, are ready to ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere

... public sentiment to sustain its prosecution. Inspired by this majestic manifestation of the popular will, he was able to speak of the future with hope and confidence. But with characteristic prudence and good taste, he uttered no word of boasting, and indulged in no syllable of acrimony; on the contrary, in terms of fatherly kindness he again offered the rebellious States the generous conditions ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say, "Sir, you are mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue. After a rank and clamorous opposition you became, on a sudden, silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greatest questions; and you were silent for money! You ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Becky, who was a furious partisan of Smock-alley Theatre and Mossop against Barry, Woodward, and the Crow-street play-house, went off again. Indeed, this was a feud which just then divided the ladies of all Dublin, and the greater part of the country, with uncommon acrimony. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... virulence of national prejudice which rages now with tenfold acrimony. They no longer despise, they hate, the Americans. The battle on Champlain and before Flattsburgh has decided the business; the moans and bewailings for this business are really, to an American, quite comforting after their arrogant boasting ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... great contest with Rome which had so occupied the thoughts of theological writers and the whole English people during the later years of the preceding century, and the remembrance of which was still fresh. The acrimony of argument had been somewhat abated by the very general respect entertained in England for the great Gallican divines, Pascal, Fenelon, and Bossuet. Among the Nonjurors it was further softened by political and social considerations. English Roman Catholics were almost all Jacobites, and were therefore ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... broke on the domestic bickering, they generally ended in that moody sullenness which so often finds love a grave in repentance. Nothing makes people tire of each other like a familiarity that admits of carelessness in quarrelling and coarseness in complaining. The biting sneer of Welford gave acrimony to the murmur of his wife; and when once each conceived the other the injurer, or him or herself the wronged, it was vain to hope that one would be more wary, or the other more indulgent. They both exacted too ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the necessity of proving this point? Certainly the very men who charged the Indian war on the detention of the posts, will call for no other proofs than the recital of their own speeches. It is remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the western country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... he said had crept into public observance and which he considered intolerable) attacked the book by Herr von Wollzogen, and called it pernicious. On the other hand Herr Vogelsang, Herr van der Weye and some other anti-Cocceians also assailed the same [83] book with much acrimony. But the accused won his case in a Synod. Afterwards in Holland people spoke of 'rational' and 'non-rational' theologians, a party distinction often mentioned by M. Bayle, who finally declared himself against the former. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... America and other democratic lands the significance of such words sprang from the common people upward. In Germany such interpretations proceeded essentially from the reigning family downward. Discussions under such circumstances, instead of leading toward mutual understanding, breed acrimony. There is little room for shadings, amicable approachments, progress in the direction of ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... them know whither the chase is proceeding. They often did this out of sport, in order to tease their opponent; for of all pesterers that ever fastened on man he was the most insufferable: knowing that his coat protected him from manual chastisement, he spared no acrimony, and delighted in the chagrin and anger of those with whom he contended. But he was sometimes likewise of real use to the heads of the Presbyterian faction, and therefore was admitted to their tables, and of course conceived himself a ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... the sum of a criticism so strongly felt that it raises a barrier to appreciation, almost a gate shut against knowledge between the good American readers and the progressives in our literature. Sandburg and Lindsay between them will cause more acrimony in a gathering of English teachers than even Harold Bell Wright. Miss Lowell carries controversy with her, triumphantly riding upon it. Their critics wish form as they have known form, want beauty such as they possess in riper literatures, want maturity, richness, suavity, grace, and ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... only made them appeare unaequall adversaryes, but carryed the warr into ther owne quarters, and made the Popes infallibility to be as much shaken and declyned by ther owne Doctors, and as greate an acrimony amon[g]st themselves upon that subjecte, and to be at least as much doubted as in the schooles of the Reformed or Protestant, and forced them since to defende and maintayne those unhappy contraversyes in religion, with armes and weopons of another nature, then were used ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... give passage to the urine. It is entirely appropriated to the purpose of conveying the semen; and a distinct canal conducts the urine into the rectum, by an opening about an inch from the external orifice of the intestine. The gut at this part is defended from the acrimony of the urine, by the mucus secreted by two glands, which, probably for this reason, are very large in the male, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... uttered without acrimony, had yet enough of delicate reproach in it to satisfy Lieutenant Murphy that the speaker was far from approving the expression of such selfish anticipations at a moment like the present, when danger, in its most mysterious ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... speech in the House of Representatives ever made a more enduring impression, or exerted greater convincing power, upon the minds of those to whom it was addressed. It was a far more valuable exposition of the Reconstruction question than that given by Mr. Stevens. It was absolutely without acrimony, it contained no harsh word, it made no personal reflection; but the whole duty of the United States, and the whole power of the United States to do its duty, were set forth with absolute precision of logic. The Reconstruction debate continued for a long time and many able speeches ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... nationalize Merlin, when and if discovered and regardless by whom. The support seemed to come from an extremist minority; everybody else, including the Administration, was opposed to it. There was considerable acrimony, however, on the propositions: 1) that Merlin was too important to the prosperity of Poictesme to become a private monopoly; and 2) that Merlin was too important, etc., to become a political football and ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done to Christianity by this corsair). These were on so considerable a scale at this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered consonant ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... copious insults on the horses, great, proud beasts, who make no reply. Meantime, you examine out of the corner of your eye the persons alighting. They are well-clad and seem full of confidence. They are probably going to sit at the table of the gods. The proper thing is to bark without acrimony, with a shade of respect, so as to show that you are doing your duty, but that you are doing it with intelligence. Nevertheless, you cherish a lurking suspicion and, behind the guests' backs, stealthily, you sniff the air persistently and in ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck

... then, and then only, might a triumphant progress be secured. Mixed with such notions was apparently a desire to keep the imprudent and 'advanced' men from going 'too far.' In one form or other this opposition has persisted till the present; but its acrimony has sensibly lessened as, on the one hand, the 'denominational' workers have more fully accepted the principle of unfettered inquiry, and on the other, the lessons of experience have shown that, however eager the Unitarians ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... course a great row occurred as to who was to blame, and many arrests and trials took place, but there had been such an interchanging of cap numbers and other insignia that it was next to impossible to identify the guilty, and so much crimination and acrimony grew out of the affair that it was deemed best to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan

... compass, and a little suffices to stay the cravings of hunger. Thus, upwards of a thousand persons may occupy more than two months in a journey from Abyssinia to Cairo without any other kind of food[X]. Its bland, demulcent properties fit it to correct the acrimony of the secretions formed under the influence of a tropical sun and torrid air, with a scanty and irregular supply of water. Plants, likewise, are preserved in a vegetative and living state, mid sandy and arid wastes, by the quantity ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... says with acrimony as he enters his wife's room, where she is finishing her toilette, "you seem to have lost your habitual tact. This is a nice time to be giving dinner parties! Twenty ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... their own kitchens, and were undoubtedly injudicious, sometimes, in their administration. Out of this arose the newspaper controversy between the public and the surgeons in charge, at Bedloe's Island, which is probably yet fresh in many minds. It was characterized by a good deal of acrimony. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... respectable in the symmetry of an intellect which, like a marble masterpiece, leaves nothing to regret except the thought that its perfection excludes the blemish of a soul. John Sherman will figure creditably in history. Mankind soon forgets the sentimental acrimony of the moment, provoked by the suffering of harsh processes, and remembers only the grand results. Thus John Sherman will figure in history as the man who resumed specie payments; and in that the visiting statesman of 1876 and the wrecker ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... recognition of the right of every member of the household to independence and privacy (her emphasis on "privacy" is intense) in their personal concerns. And because you have always enjoyed that, it seems such a matter of course to you that you don't value it. But (with biting acrimony) there is another sort of family life: a life in which husbands open their wives' letters, and call on them to account for every farthing of their expenditure and every moment of their time; in which women do the same to their children; in which no room is private and no hour sacred; in which ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... a Query (Vol. ii., p. 246.), but chiefly as a preface to the remark that in James II.'s reign, and at the time these party names originated, the Roman Catholics were in league with the Puritans or Low Church party against the High Churchmen, which increased the acrimony of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... Prelude.] and Burns, but it is by no means stilled at present. Yeats [Footnote: See The Scholar.] and Vachel Lindsay [Footnote: See The Master of the Dance. The hero is a dunce in school.] have written poetry showing the persistence of the quarrel. Though the acrimony of the disputants varies, accordingly as the tone of the poet is predominantly thoughtful or emotional, one does not find any poet of the last century who denies the superiority of poetic intuition ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... success, and the animosity that raged between them is also long dead; it perished years before they did. It is here rehearsed merely as an integral and essential part of this biography, to be regarded in a spirit of philosophic contemplation, entirely devoid of bitterness or acrimony, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... the nose, which are endowed with exquisite sensibility, and of which an incredible number are spread over the inner membrane of the nostrils. This membrane is lubricated by a secretion, which has a tendency to preserve the sense. By the almost caustic acrimony of snuff, the mucus is dried up, and the organ of smelling becomes perfectly callous. The consequence is, that all the pleasure we are capable of deriving from the olfactory organs, the omnis copia narium, as Horace curiously terms it, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... was to be expected that after this triumph, the war in the pit would rage with redoubled acrimony. A riot beginning at half-price would not satisfy the excited feelings of the O. P.s on the night of such a victory. Long before the curtain drew up, the house was filled with them, and several placards were exhibited, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... however, and the speculations of the learned often sound as quaint in retrospect as do the cocky assertions of the quack bills. Pamphlet warfare among physicians about their conflicting theories achieved an acrimony not surpassed by the competing advertisers of Stoughton's Elixir. The aristocratic practitioners of England, the London College of Physicians, refused to expand their ranks even at a time when there ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... unsuspecting chronicler, he assures him that he was 'doing his best, by the Lord's help,' to get him appointed Principal of the University of Glasgow. In one of his letters to Lauderdale, after stating that the office, 'in the opinion of many,' would require a man 'of more acrimony and weight' than 'honest Baillie,' he urges that the presentation should be sent him, with a blank space, in which the name of the presentee might be ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... partly expresssed in the acrimony with which he exclaimed, on feeling himself pulled by the cloak: "What do you ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... One is the adaptation of sense to all the rhymes which our language can supply to some word, that makes the burden of the stanza; but this, as it has been only used in a kind of amorous burlesque, can scarcely be censured with much acrimony. The other is the imitation of Spenser, which, by the influence of some men of learning and genius, seems likely to gain upon the age, and therefore deserves to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... never been finer examples of this than during the present war. But in justice to ourselves and to the French during the Napoleonic wars, I think it was grossly impolitic to engender vindictiveness by unjustifiable acrimony. Up to the time that Nelson left the Mediterranean for England, except for the brilliant successes of the Nile and the equally brilliant capture of the balance of the French Mediterranean fleet, and subsequently the capitulation of Malta on the 5th ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... Demulcents correct acrimony, diminish irritation, and soften parts by covering their surfaces with a mild and viscid matter, such as linseed-tea, gum, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... was never at a loss either to praise or blame, and Zora was equally ready to retort, and defended herself with such acrimony that the lad, knowing himself to be in fault, entirely lost the small remnant of temper which he still possessed, and dashed out of the room, declaring that he never wished to set eyes upon Zora again, and that she might ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... acquaintance. Ingram, a squire and son of squires, was perhaps a shade above her degree; she may have required him to give a tone. This, considering that wretched marriage of his—a month's engagement in defiance of head-shaking, a blazing Hanover Square wedding, a year's bickering, one month's acrimony (done by letter) and Ingram's unquenchable hatred of the woman—this, I say, you may well doubt. But I can give no other explanation. He came, he talked in his high-voiced, querulous, bitter-humoured way, he saw ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... society promptly divided into two camps on the question of his guilt or innocence. The subject was debated with vehemence, even with acrimony. He had been a disagreeable creature from childhood and had made many enemies. On the other hand, great numbers of fair-minded people asserted that no man, however distasteful to themselves, should be convicted ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... the inhabitants are lovers of tea or the contrary. How happy would it be for Europe, if, by unanimous consent, the importation of this infamous leaf was prohibited, which is endued only with a corrosive force derived from the acrimony of a gum with which ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith

... heart, always adverse to superior characters, encouraged the orator to persist. The very players, by sarcastic allusions to men in power, gratified the public ear, and, by consequence, sharpened the wit and acrimony of ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... streets without knowing where he was going. As he walked along the boulevards and reached the Rue Saint-Denis, he recollected Molineux, and turned into the Cour Batave. He went up the dirty, tortuous staircase which he once trod so proudly. He recalled to mind the mean and niggardly acrimony of Molineux, and he shrank from imploring his favor. The landlord was sitting in the chimney-corner, as on the occasion of Cesar's first visit, but his breakfast was now in process of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... a fight on your hands you maybe can't handle. I don't see any sense in haggling about going, now you know what to expect. But, of course," he added, with some acrimony, "it's your own business. I don't know what the dickens I'm getting all worked up over it for. Suit yourself." He turned toward ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... their secret might not be discovered, that it was known only to their Rabbis and rich men. Apparently there were but few who did not consider this extravagant accusation well founded; indeed, in many writings of the fourteenth century, we find great acrimony with regard to the suspected poison-mixers, which plainly demonstrates the prejudice existing against them. Unhappily, after the confessions of the first victims in Switzerland, the rack extorted similar ones ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... pure air: these were the points of sincerity of moral judgment, a gentle force which operated as character to which Mrs. Warricombe owed the humanisation observable when one compared her in 1885 with what she was, say, in 1874, when the sight of Professor Walsh moved her to acrimony, and when she conceived a pique against Professor Gale because the letter P has alphabetical precedence of W. Her limitations were of course the same as ever, and from her sons she had only learnt ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking of the two. I know Charles is head over ears in debt at this moment, but,"—with sudden acrimony—"he will not get another farthing from me. It is ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... newspaper, and immediately afterwards, in a new edition of his book, renounce the errors which had been pointed out to him, stealing the very language of his amendments from the man whom he had so grossly vilified! It is true that grammarians have ever disputed, and often with more acrimony than discretion. Those who, in elementary treatises, have meddled much with philological controversy, have well illustrated the couplet of Denham: "The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes, Produces sapless ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Sign. Men with whom he had hunted and fished, cattlemen whom he had helped on the round-up, and storekeepers whose trade he had swelled to considerable degree, attempted to engage in argument tinged with acrimony. Lowell attempted to answer a few of them at first, but saw how futile it all was, and took refuge in silence. He waited until there was nothing more for him to do at White Lodge, and then he went back to the agency to complete the job of forgetting an incredible number ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... the street; and this habit of narration, of talking with her mistress like a sort of companion, of describing people and drawing silhouettes of them, had eventually developed in her a facility of animated description, of happy, unconscious characterization, a piquancy and sometimes an acrimony in her remarks that were most remarkable in the mouth of a servant. She had progressed so far that she often surprised Mademoiselle de Varandeuil by her quickness of comprehension, her promptness at grasping things only half ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... Vere, or Spencer, to have swayed alone, during forty-four years, which was a well-settled and advised maxim; for it valued her the more, it awed the most secure, it took best with the people, and it staved off all emulations, which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony even against the prince, where there is ONE ONLY ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... at last!" exclaimed the countess, with acrimony, as Maurice opened the door of his father's chamber. Then, pointing to the count, who still lay in a state of unconsciousness, she added, "Do you see what calamities you leave me alone to bear?—you who are the only ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... the story (for me) has yet to come. We all know how easy it is to turn obstinate and defend a pet theory with acrimony. Mr. Dobell did nothing of the sort. Although his enthusiasm had committed him to no little expense in publishing The Prospect, with a preface elaborating his theory, he did a thing which was worth a hundred discoveries. He sat down, convinced himself that my explanation ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... desired that it should be acted upon; but the majority opined that this notice came from suspected persons, who had been accustomed to practise fraud and deceit, and that no account should be made of it." The latter opinion prevailed; and the battle of Moncontour was fought with extreme acrimony, especially on the part of the Catholics, who were irritated by the cruelties, as La Noue himself says, which the Protestants had but lately practised at the fight of La Roche l'Abeille. Coligny was wounded in the action, after having killed with his own hand the Marquis Philibert of Baden; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Lutherans, was branded by the opposite party, with the epithets, of morose obstinacy, supercilious arrogance, and such like odious denominations. The Lutherans, were not behind hand with their adversaries, in acrimony, of style; they recriminated with vehemence, and charged their accusers with instances of misconduct, different in kind, but equally condemnable. They reproached them with having dealt disingenuously, by disguising, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... Discussions on the stump, and above all the discussions he himself has with his fellows, breed a desire for knowledge which will take no refusal and which leads to great general intelligence. In political discussion, acrimony and hate are not essential, and have of late years quite perceptibly diminished and will more and more diminish when discussions by women, and in the presence of women, become more common. If, then, discussion of public affairs among ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... be unknown, or sufficiently near to be enjoyed. The lower orders are agitated by the chance of success, they are irritated by its uncertainty; and they pass from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the exhaustion of ill-success, and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment. Whatever transcends their own limits appears to be an obstacle to their desires, and there is no kind of superiority, however legitimate it may be, which is not irksome ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... he had employed in his great biblical undertaking, none had shown more activity or more disinterestedness than our author. He was zealous in the cause of religion, but his zeal was without bitterness or animosity: polemic acrimony was unknown to him. He never forgot that in every heretic he saw a brother Christian; in every infidel he saw a brother man. He greatly admired Drouen de Sacramentis, and Boranga's Theology. Tournely he preferred much to his antagonist Billouart. He thought Houbigant too bold a critic, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... person present. He brushed aside Bower's acrimony as lightly as he had accepted Helen's embarrassed explanation. "This is not my hustle at all," he said. "Stampa heard that ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... but without acrimony, simply in weariness. 'I should like to shoot you; but you rule the world—little pot-bellied gods. There is no other God. Your last suggestion (he looked at them with a smile of so peculiar a quality and such ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... leave of Mr. Secretary Seddon rasps Congress severely, and is full of professions of esteem, etc. for the retiring Secretary. The members of Congress reply with acrimony. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... literature there may be an animosity arising from almost a personal feeling; it being a matter of party, a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a consequence of soreness or annoyance occasioned by the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is untrustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on the other hand, go on, I am confident, in a straightforward impartial way, in their own province and on their own ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... at least. Hal's wife, received kindly at the little provincial court, as all ladies were, made herself by no means popular there by the hot and eager political tone which she adopted. She assailed all the Government measures with indiscriminating acrimony. Were they lenient? She said the perfidious British Government was only preparing a snare, and biding its time until it could forge heavier chains for unhappy America. Were they angry? Why did not every American citizen rise, assert his rights as a freeman, and serve every British ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... said the flapper, "plenty of room for flowers and the tennis court, and I'll do the marketing when I motor in for you. They won't let me do it back there," she concluded with some acrimony; "and they get good and cheated and I'm perfectly glad of it. Eighteen cents a head for lettuce! I saw that very ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... Sallet. The Limon is somewhat more acute, cooling and extinguishing Thirst; of all the [Greek: Oxubapha] the best succedaneum to Vinegar. The very Spoils and Rinds of Orange and Limon being shred and sprinkl'd among the other Herbs, correct the Acrimony. But they are the tender Seedlings from the Hot-Bed, which impart an Aromatic exceedingly grateful to the ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... the Tagus in his return, and showed the natives of the new country. When he was admitted to the king's presence, he acted and talked with so much haughtiness, and reflected on the neglect which he had undergone with so much acrimony, that the courtiers, who saw their prince insulted, offered to destroy him; but the king, who knew that he deserved the reproaches that had been used, and who now sincerely regretted his incredulity, would suffer no violence to be offered him, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... Literature," a place where one would think the most flagitious author safe from animosity, speaks of Godwin's private life in terms that are little less than scurrilous. Over against this persistent acrimony may be put the fine eulogy of Mr. C. Kegan Paul, his biographer, to represent the favourable judgment of our own time, whilst I will venture to quote one remarkable passage that voices the opinions of many ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... from some remarks that have been made during this discussion, that not only my motives, but the terms in which I have expressed them, have been misapprehended. I have been untrue to every purpose of my mind, if I have spoken with any bitterness or acrimony. I thought it was my duty to be plain—at the same time temperate though emphatic. I thought I had been so. Nothing is farther from my purpose than the irritation of any section, much less of any member here. Most ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... beneath his notice, and only felt himself called forth to do so by the dogmatism of those who laid down confident rules or laws in matters so trifling. This affectation of supercilious censure appears deeply to have provoked Dryden, and prompted the acrimony of the following Defence, which he prefixed to a second edition of the Indian Emperor published in 1668, probably shortly after the offence had been given. The angry friends were afterwards reconciled; and Dryden, listening more to the feelings of former kindness than of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... a ringed barrier around me they presently succeeded in rearranging the contending elements and in restoring me to the society of my friends. To these persons they complained with somewhat unreasoning acrimony that I had been exciting the inmates into a state of rebellion with wild imaginings, and for the first time I then began to understand that an important error had been perpetrated by some one, and that instead of being a meeting-place for those upholding the wisdom and authority ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... warmth and passion of the character. In the interview with the conspirators, in the third act, he threw a gallantry into his action, as striking as it was unexpected. But he greatly excelled in the vehement reproaches, which, in the fourth act, he poured, with acrimony and force, on the treachery and cowardice of Jaffier. The cadences of his voice were equally adapted to the loudest rage and the most deep and solemn reflection, which he judiciously varied." "Mr. Garrick," says Davies, "when fixed in the management of ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... says, he could never procure a sight of either of these, but as to the play called, See me, and See me not, ascribed to him by Winstanley, he says, it is written by one Drawbridgecourt Belchier, Esq; Thomas Nash had the reputation of a sharp satirist, which talent he exerted with a great deal of acrimony against the Covenanters and Puritans of his time: He likewise wrote a piece called, The Fourfold way to Happiness, in a dialogue between a countryman, citizen, divine, and lawyer, printed in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... domes of Florence.] Landino's note exhibits a curious instance of the changeableness of his countrywomen. He even goes beyond the acrimony of the original. "In those days," says the commentator, "no less than in ours, the Florentine ladies exposed the neck and bosom, a dress, no doubt, more suitable to a harlot than a matron. But, as they changed soon after, insomuch that ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... in the history of the American church has been more deeply marked by a sincere and serious earnestness, over and above the competitive zeal and invidious acrimony that are an inevitable admixture in such debates, than the controversy that was at once waged against the two new sects claiming the title "Liberal." It was sincerely felt by their antagonists that, while the one abandoned the foundation of the Christian faith, the other ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... adoption, give evidence that these natural apprehensions were strongly felt; but they are now entirely quieted, since, during the two generations and more which have subsequently elapsed, nothing has occurred to verify them, though there have at times been disputes of considerable acrimony, and which became the badges of parties, respecting the limits of the authority of the federal and state governments. The eminently beneficial working of so singular a provision is probably, as M. de Tocqueville ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... jealousy of his servants. In the audience which I asked, as a matter of course, after being presented at his levee, he recapitulated all the transactions of that period, with the strongest encomium upon Mr. Pitt, and with much apparent acrimony hinted at Lord Shelburne, whom he stated to have abandoned a situation which was tenable, and particularly so after the popular resentment had been roused. This was naturally attended with strong expressions of resentment and disgust of his Ministers, ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... benevolence. He was compassionate both by nature and principle, and always ready to perform offices of humanity; but when he was provoked, and very small offences were sufficient to provoke him, he would prosecute his revenge with the utmost acrimony, 'till his passion had subsided. His friendship was therefore of little value, for he was zealous in the support, or vindication of those whom he loved, yet it was always dangerous to trust him, because he considered himself as ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... in the first edition of Lockhart's Life, provoked strong protests from the representatives of the Ballantynes, and a rather acrimonious pamphlet war followed, in which Lockhart is accused by some not merely of acrimony, but of a supercilious and contemptuous fashion of dealing with his opponents. He made, however, no important retractations later, and it is fair to say that not one of his allegations has ever been disproved by documentary ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... where he should have been calm, impulsive where he should have been discreet. But on the other hand he was possessed of an almost Spartan courage; and through sorrow and suffering, through disappointment and failure, he bore himself with a high and stately tenderness, without a touch of acrimony or peevishness. He never questioned the love or justice of God; he never raged against fate, or railed at circumstance. He gathered up the fragments with a quiet hand; he never betrayed envy or jealousy; he never deplored the fact that he had not realised his own possibilities; ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... of a nature to bear injuries with meekness, or to resent them with dignity: her exasperated pride displayed itself in all the violence and acrimony of a little, or at least of an ill-regulated mind. She would not acknowledge, even to herself, that she had in any degree provoked contempt by her duplicity, but weakly persisted in believing, that she alone was to be pitied, and Montoni alone to be censured; for, as her mind had naturally little ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... endeavors to shake off the yoke of custom, wherever it interferes with the affirmation of the great principles of life; who disdains to follow the multitude in doing not only what is palpably wrong, but what is morally unfine. He seeks to be a free man, an independent being, and to assert without acrimony or invidious criticism of others, yet firmly and unflinchingly, a strong and self-poised manhood. This, then, is one consequence that flows from our point of view: namely, that in the moral sphere the ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... later I met Lady Meryon, and was swept in to tea. Her manner was distinctly more cordial as she mentioned casually that Vanna had left—she understood to take up missionary work—"which is odd," she added with a woman's acrimony, "for she had no more in common with missionaries than I have, and that is saying a good deal. Of course she speaks Hindustani perfectly, and could be useful, but I haven't grasped the point of it yet." I saw she counted on my knowing ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... contradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much acrimony: as, "Sir, you don't see your way through that question:"—"Sir, you talk the language of ignorance." On my observing to him that a certain gentleman had remained silent the whole evening, in the midst of a very brilliant and learned society, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... tameness with which the stranger bore his last reflection, began to think he had nothing of Hector but his outside, and gave a loose to all the acrimony of his party rancour. Hearing the knight mention a company of licensed thieves, "What else," cried he, "is the majority of the nation? What is your standing army at home, that eat up their fellow-subjects? What are your mercenaries ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... seems to be with regard to the Commons, or the representatives of counties and boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent parts of Parliament? This question was once disputed in England with great acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they can sometimes prevail, even over faction; and the question seems by general consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined against the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... readers will never allow him to turn back again. He is a born essayist, but he has, in addition, the breadth and generosity that journalism alone can give a man. The combination gives a kind of golden gossip—criticism without acrimony, fooling without folly. The work contains sixteen pictures in colour of English types by Frederick Gardner. 300 pp. Buckram, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... tract, entitled, "The moral union of our temporal and eternal interests considered, with respect to the establishment of parochial seminaries," and which fell still-born from the press. He therefore retorted with some acrimony, until, from less to more, Miss Mally ordered him to keep his distance; upon which he bounced out of the room, and they were never afterwards on speaking terms. Saving, however, and excepting this particular dogma, Miss Mally was on all other topics as liberal and beneficent as could be expected ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... prosperous, and kindly, an artist or two, a novelist, a lady pianist, two or three actors. I noticed these. Then there was an old maid, a Mlle. Finisterre, famous in Petrograd society for her bitterness and acrimony, and in appearance an exact copy ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... aims, and low pandering to ignorance and brutality, vile superstition and intimidation— these things must be destroyed if the Church is to last with honour to itself and with usefulness to others. To-day, over in England, they are quarrelling with bitter acrimony concerning forms and outward symbols of religion, thus fulfilling the words of the Lord, 'Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within ye are full of extortion and excess.' Now, if the Spirit of Christ were at ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... proportion as its forms survived in the unreformed worship of modern Europe. The one preceded and the other followed the Reformation at almost equal intervals. Dante was the first religious reformer, and Luther surpassed him rather in the rudeness and acrimony than in the boldness of his censures of papal usurpation. Dante was the first awakener of entranced Europe; he created a language, in itself music and persuasion, out of a chaos of inharmonious barbarisms. He was the congregator of those great spirits who presided over ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!—I ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... greatly perplexed my affairs; and though I have many debts due to me from people of great fashion, I assure you I know not where to be certain of getting a shilling." Wild greatly felicitated him on the lucky accident of preserving his note, and then proceeded, with much acrimony, to inveigh against the barbarity of people of fashion, who kept ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... to the reason rather than to the passion and prejudice of party—a fact in itself some evidence of the progress of the readers in culture. The great change in the business basis on which the leading newspapers are now-a-days conducted, of itself must tend to modify political acrimony, and make them safer public guides. A great newspaper now-a-days must be conducted on the same principles on which any other business is carried on. The expenses of a daily journal are now so great ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... sports of the field." He neither overestimated the importance nor under-estimated the difficulties of the critic of Shakespeare. With his usual sense of the true scale of things he treats the quarrels of commentators with contempt: "it is not easy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed. The subjects to be discussed by him are of very small importance: they involve neither property nor liberty"; and in another place {217} he characteristically bids his angry colleagues to join with him in remembering ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... seldom sweet-tempered; and Laura formed no exception. Pin, her most frequent companion, had to bear the brunt of her acrimony: hence the two were soon at war again. For Pin was tactless, and took small heed of her sister's grumpy moods, save to cavil at them. Laura's buttoned-upness, for instance, and her love of solitude, were perverse leanings to Pin's mind; and she spoke out against ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... complaining to him of being passed over in a recent appointment to the bench, and expressed his sense of the injustice with which he had been treated. He was very indignant at his claims and merit being overlooked in their not choosing him for the new judge, adding with much acrimony, "And I can tell you they might have got a 'waur[54].'" To which, as if merely coming over the complainant's language again, the answer was a grave "Whaur[55]?" The merit of the impertinence was, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay



Words linked to "Acrimony" :   tartness, acerbity, disagreeableness



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