"Cavil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... earlier. Even her husband discovered it. He brought in a cigarette, left the door open behind him and stood smiling down at her with the peculiarly complacent look that characterizes a married man of forty when he finds himself dressed beyond cavil in the complete evening harness of civilization, ten ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... promise an arrangement between the Emperor and Dutch. Their ministers have signed preliminary articles, some of which, however, leave room for further cavil. The Dutch pay ten millions of florins, yield some forts and territory, and the navigation of the Scheldt to Saftingen. Till our treaty with England be fully executed, it is desirable to us, that all the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... grouped before the painting. Silence, such as is rarely met with amongst a numerous collection of amateurs, reigned throughout the crowd. Assuming the knowing and supercilious look of an acknowledged connoisseur, he approached the picture, prepared to cavil and find fault, or, at best, to damn with faint praise. But the canting phrase of conventional criticism died away upon his lips at the sight he there beheld. Faultless, pure, gracious, and beautiful as some fair and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... my readers may cavil at the expression, "True Ghost Stories." For myself I cannot guarantee the genuineness of a single incident in this book—how could I, as none of them are my own personal experience? This at least I can vouch for, that the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... cavil at portions of the first part of my work, I was fully convinced, and as there are many observations quite new to most of them, they are by them considered to be false; but the United States, as I have before observed, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the fear of God nor laws of men" (saith he) "awed any man, because the plague swept all away alike, good and bad; they thence concluded it was alike to worship or not worship the gods, since they perished all alike." Some cavil and make doubts of scripture itself: it cannot stand with God's mercy, that so many should be damned, so many bad, so few good, such have and hold about religions, all stiff on their side, factious ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Treaty, as the Queen desired; and in one of the first general conferences, they would not suffer the British secretary to take the minutes, but nominated some Dutch professor for that office, which the Queen refused, and resented their behaviour as an useless cavil, intended only to shew their want of respect. The British plenipotentiaries had great reason to suspect, that the Dutch were, at this time, privately endeavouring to engage in some separate measures with France, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... an authority which Thorpe, breathing heavily over the unwonted exercise and hoping for nothing so much as that they would henceforth take things easy, thought intolerable. He was amazed that the two brothers should take without cavil the arbitrary orders of this elderly peasant. He bade Lord Plowden proceed to a certain point in one direction, and that nobleman, followed by his valet with the gun and the stool, set meekly off without a word. Balder, with equal docility, vaulted ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... misgivings, which he resolved to allay once and for all. He would dispel them by seeing with his own eyes that they had no force, while he would convict Miss Lucilla of groundless alarm by ocular demonstration. It would be enough, he was sure, to watch the young people together to prove beyond cavil that Dorothea was aware of the gulf between the son of Mrs. Wappinger, worthy woman though she might be, and a daughter of the Pruyns. He had, therefore, astonished every one not only by accepting the invitation himself, but by insisting that Miss ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... farewell, thou Minstrel Harp, Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway. And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... forwardness as to be able to adorn herself with a little jaunty cap—curious in microscopic punctures and cherry-coloured ribbon interlardments—placed so far back on her finely-shaped head as to proclaim beyond all possibility of cavil that it was there for ornament, and not for the purpose of concealing the liberties of time with her well-kept, clearly parted, raven-black hair. Liberties of time, forsooth! Mrs. Springwheat was in the heighday of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... "Soul"—(accept A word which vaguely names what no adept In word-use fits and fixes so that still Thing shall not slip word's fetter and remain Innominate as first, yet, free again, Is no less recognized the absolute Fact underlying that same other fact Concerning which no cavil can dispute Our nomenclature when we call it "Mind"— Something not Matter)—"Soul," who seeks shall find Distinct beneath that something. You exact An illustrative ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... simply taken, is beyond cavil, unless the attempt to explain scientifically how any designed result ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... light" met in Miss Johnson's nature, but free from sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites," like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But, written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with her ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... my translation may fairly claim to be true to the spirit of the original. Even the strictest moralist will not cavil at seeing equivocal situations painted in Bilse's book when his purpose in doing so has been the radical exposure of ills existing in a body around which cluster so many traditions of honor and duty well done as is the case with the German army. And ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... thoughts were passing through her mind. She had made a great sacrifice for Guy in hope of doing him good, how great, no one knew, and yet withall she had failed in her object. He looked at her as the world always judges of Christians; not by profession but practise. However, it may sneer and cavil at doctrine, the world is not slow to recognize and respect the character that like pure gold carries with it not ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... pulp of the peach, what the cob is to the kernels on an ear of Indian corn. Once more: Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant, with all his knowledge and valuable qualities, and will "cavil on the ninth part of a hair," if it will give him a chance to show off his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every department of the work, and to its minutest details. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... examined the confused and so often conflicting records of that time, or of the incomparable skill with which he has brought them into a clear continuous narrative. To glean after Macaulay is indeed a barren task. So far, then, from affecting to cavil at his work, I must acknowledge that without his help this little book would have been still less. Yet I do think he has been hard upon Claverhouse. Perhaps the scheme of his history did not require, or even allow him, to examine the man's character and circumstances so closely ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... war that Prussia has devoted its utmost energy for half a century—in fact, ever since Bismarck began to make ready for the seizing of unwilling Schleswig-Holstein. And so far as the art of music is concerned there is also no need to cavil. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Nathan with your argument, and establish it beyound cavil that he is a mere imitator with an appearance of genius. The concise grand style of the eighteenth century is lacking; you show that the author substitutes events for sentiments. Action and stir is not life; he gives you pictures, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... record to prove this to have been the case; and where this evidence of persons so objected to and proscribed, has been the sole means of the conviction to death of the accused, surely it could afford no room for cavil that a jury should in part be composed of persons, whose conduct during the term of their punishment has been such as to give general satisfaction, and who have proved by their conduct that they have reformed their dispositions, corrected their principles, and are likely to become useful, ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... Companions for that Bible newly bound; That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved, Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved; Has choicest notes by many a famous head, Such as to doubt have rustic readers led; Have made them stop to reason WHY? and HOW? And, where they once agreed, to cavil now. Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun; Who simple truth with nine-fold reasons back, And guard ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... therefore, notice another obstacle which has hindered our author's popularity, and it is a fault of which the world is daily becoming more and more intolerant. That fault is prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take time to be brief; and in his polemical writings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil unanswered, that he spent, in closing loop-holes, the strength which would have crushed the foe in open battle. No misgiving as to the champion's powers will ever cross the mind of the spectators; but movements more rapid would render the conflict ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... of the Capulets, and this tomb being found in the middle of the garden, was easily recognized as that of Juliet. Its genuineness, as well as its employment in the ruse of the lovers, was proven beyond cavil by a slight hollow cut for the head to rest in, and a hole at the foot "to breathe through," as the boy said. Does not the fact that this relic has to be protected from the depredations of travellers, who could otherwise carry it away piecemeal, speak eloquently ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... again, farewell, thou Minstrel harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, 855 Through secret woes the world has never known, When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone. That I o'erlived such woes, Enchantress! ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... table before the chief entrance, and then reported the facts to the Empress. This ended the ceremony. The haughty condescension of the Chinese despatch does not appear to have offended the Japanese, nor did they cavil at the omission of one important ideograph from the title applied to their Empress. China's greatness seems to have been fully recognized. When, a month later, the envoy took his departure, the same Imoko was deputed to accompany him, bearing a despatch* ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... been changed into infusion, with as much ease and as little contradiction as communion under one kind was established, so that the same reason stood for retaining one as the other. It is a fact most certainly avowed in the Reformation, although some will cavil at it, that baptism was instituted by immersing the whole body in water. This fact, I say, is unanimously acknowledged by all the divines of the Reformation: by Luther, by Melancthon, by Calvin, by Casaubon, by Grotius, by all the rest." (Varia. ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... such a Truth as we meet with in every Object, in every Occurrence, and in every Thought. If we look into the Characters of this Tribe of Infidels, we generally find they are made up of Pride, Spleen, and Cavil: It is indeed no wonder, that Men, who are uneasy to themselves, should be so to the rest of the World; and how is it possible for a Man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every Moment of losing his entire ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... passed, doubled the interest she felt in Mulford and in all that belonged to him. Jack Tier was useful on board a vessel, though his want of stature and force rendered him less so than was common with sea-faring men. His proper sphere certainly had been the cabins, where his usefulness was beyond all cavil; but he was now very serviceable to Mulford on the deck of the schooner. The first two days, Mrs. Budd had been left on the islet, to look to the concerns of the kitchen, while Mulford, accompanied by Rose, Biddy and Jack ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... susceptible than he might have been some years since to that spirit of depreciation and hostility which it has been his misfortune to excite amongst the general contributors to the periodical press for the consciousness that every endeavor will be made to cavil, to distort, to misrepresent, and, in fine, if possible, to RUN DOWN, will occasionally haunt even the hours of composition, to check the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... anything you please, But when I join the Muse's revel, Begad, I wish you at the devil! In vain my verse I plane and bevel, Like Banville's rhyming devotees; In vain by many an artful swivel Lug in my meaning by degrees; I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil; And grovelling prostrate on my knees, Devote his body to the seas, His correspondence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carry the strife of our politics back into those times, in other than a quite general manner, is as futile as it is tasteless and vexatious. After this avowal, we shall not be thought disposed to enter into any needless cavil, upon this topic, with Mr Grote; we shall not, certainly, be upon the watch to detect the too liberal politician in the historian of Greece. An interest in the working of popular institutions is a qualification the more for his task; and the historian himself must have felt that it was no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... in my official report herewith, that I need add nothing to it. It was a magnificent battle in its conception, in its execution, and in its glorious results; hastened somewhat by the supposed danger of Burnside, at Knoxville, yet so completely successful, that nothing is left for cavil or fault-finding. The first day was lowering and overcast, favoring us greatly, because we wanted to be concealed from Bragg, whose position on the mountain-tops completely overlooked us and our movements. The second day was beautifully clear, and many a time, in the midst of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Republican or Democrat it mattered not—they set out to determine from the material before them what was Right and what was Wrong. Once convinced that the Hun was a menace they made their readers understand beyond cavil just what that menace meant. So I claim that the editors of the United States are entitled to high rank among the Defenders of Democracy. When the history of the war, or rather a just analysis of its causes and effects, comes to be written I shall be much mistaken if the critical historian does ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... making this great common effort there should be no discord and dispute. This is no time to cavil or to question the standard set by this universal agreement. It is time for patience and understanding and cooperation. The workers of this country have rights under this law which cannot be taken from them, ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... and Le Jour,[9] but the fact that a collection of fables was, in the sixth century of our era, brought from India to Persia, and by means of various translations naturalized among Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, and all the rest, admits of no doubt or cavil. Several thousand years have passed between those two migrations, and to mix them up together, to suppose that Comparative Mythology has anything to do with the migration of such fables as that of Perrette, would be an anachronism ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... no really formidable internal trouble, slavery alone excepted. Let us come out of this conflict victorious in the field, escaping also the more serious danger of conquering ourselves by compromise, and the case of free government is settled past cavil. History may put up her spy-glass, like Wellington at Waterloo, saying, "The field is won. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... be known, for from various reasons the town on the five hundred acre tract was never begun. In short, while the Moravians were risking much personal discomfort, there was nothing in their plan which could possibly injure others, and the cavil and abuse of their opposers was as uncalled for as is many a "private opinion ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... and collective action has resulted in this particular case in thousands of the children's "Arbor Gardens" round about the city. It is an experience "en gros," one of such dimensions that cavil ceases and ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... said) would not evade disputation, if a man could find his interest in disputing it: such is the spirit of cavil. But I, upon a very opposite ground, assert that there is not one page of prose that could be selected from the best writer in the English language (far less in the German) which, upon a sufficient interest arising, would not furnish matter, simply through its defects in precision, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... inoffensive fashion possible—in such a fashion, in fact, as is hardly ever elsewhere found in the larger specimens, and by no means very often in the smaller. Hardly even in As You Like It, certainly not in the Arcadia, do the crook and the pipe get less in the way than they do here. A minor cavil has been urged—that the "shepherds" and the "knights," the "shepherdesses" and the "nymphs" are very little distinguishable from each other; but why should they be? Urfe had sufficient art to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... to her majesty's use, and so to yours by her majesty's grant, we thought good for the better assurance thereof to record some of the particular gentlemen and men of account who then were present, as witnesses of the same, that thereby all occasion of cavil to the title of the country, in her majesty's behalf, may be prevented, which otherwise such as like not the action may use and pretend. Whose names are, Master Philip Amidas, Master Arthur Barlow, captains; William Greenville, John Wood, James Bromewich, Henry Greene, Benjamin Wood, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... critic of high renown, (the late Dr. Johnson,) who has severely scrutinized the epitaphs of Pope, might cavil in this sublime inscription at the words "repair to Maru," since the reader must already be at Maru before he could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... consequence seems by no means just; and besides, a later act, that which repealed the triennial law, had determined, that it was necessary to hold parliaments only once in three years. Such weight, however was put on this cavil, that Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, insisted strenuously in the house of peers on the invalidity of the parliament, and the nullity of all its future acts. For such dangerous positions they were sent to the Tower, there to remain during the pleasure of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this, that it pained him more to see his wife at variance with others,—even with Dolly, the servant,—than to be in a state of cavil with her himself; and the quarrel between her and Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it quite nullified the pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state of his early cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast the next morning. Still, he went ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... pleasant, and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed its being so. I have said more than once that he believed in his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much stronger and more real than the Ernest ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... kindred power and spirit. Researches and discussions in this department are still pushed with the greatest zeal; and it is confidently believed that in a few years the views adopted in the present writing will be established beyond all cavil from any fair minded critic. Then all the steps will have been clearly defined in the development of that doctrine of the great Day of the Lord, which, beginning with a poetic picture of a Jewish overthrow ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... disturbance in every part of the country, in the course of which troops had been called out in several states, and civil war had been narrowly averted at least half a dozen times, had proved this beyond all cavil. With almost any other people than the Americans civil war would have come already. With all the vast future interests that were involved in these quarrels looming up before their keen, sagacious minds, it was a wonder that they ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... would be cast. It was possible they would find her an apt pupil. Of this they could not complain, that she was untravelled; for she had ridden a horse, bareback, half across the continent. They could not cavil at her education, for she knew several languages—aboriginal languages—of the North. She had merely to learn the dialect of English society, and how to carry with acceptable form the costumes of the race to which she was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... simplicity and antique rigour of language, to the common version used in the Kirk of Scotland. Burns had admitted "Death and Dr. Hornbook" into Creech's edition, and probably desired to balance it with something at which the devout could not cavil.] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... every day and every hour of my life, will I look back with emotion to the time when I beheld the two most eminent commanders of the age contemplating each other's greatness without envy, and accepting each other's suggestions without cavil; and I trust that, from the sight, I may receive inspiration as far as lies within my capacity, to emulate their moral as well as their ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Clinton, by saying it was necessary," said he steadily. "There are other distinguished men here who are further distinguishing themselves by toeing the mark without complaint or cavil. Mr. Landover was appealed to on three distinct occasions by Captain Trigger and the committee. He ignored all private appeals—and commands. The time had come for a show-down. It was either Landover and his little ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the two words are not synonymous. When one speaks of greatness, one speaks of greatness of soul, nobility of character, firmness of will, and, above all, balance of mind. I can understand how people deny the existence of these qualities in Berlioz; but to deny his musical genius, or to cavil about his wonderful power—and that is what they do daily in Paris—is lamentable and ridiculous. Whether he attracts one or not, a thimbleful of some of his work, a single part in one of his works, a little bit of the Fantastique or the overture of Benvenuto, reveal more ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... about that," said Maurice, puffing into Johann's face. "When cabinet ministers play spy, small fry like you will not cavil at the occupation. And you are not in their pay?" Johann glared. "I want to know," Maurice went on, "what you know; what you know of Colonel Beauvais, his plans, his messengers to the duchy, what ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... meeting there with some few of John Ovy's people, amongst whom Richard Greenaway declared the truth; which they attentively heard, and did not oppose, which at that time of day we reckoned was pretty well, for many were apt to cavil. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... figures so largely in a tale, yet it is always important. The author must know his countryside, whether real or imaginary, like his hand; the distances, the points of the compass, the place of the sun's rising, the behaviour of the moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the moon is! I have come to grief over the moon in Prince Otto, and so soon as that was pointed out to me, adopted a precaution which I recommend to other men—I never write now without an almanack. With an almanack, and the map of the country, and the plan of every house, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Anywhere; I'd not cavil about the road. Don't you know that I have days when "don't care" masters me—when I'd do ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the conclusion that the effects of individual experience are not cumulatively hereditary we shall cease to cavil at the fact that there has been no anatomical or structural progress in the human body or brain since the time when men first became social and civilised beings, that is to say, since they first began to work together with their heads and hands, and we shall ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... lady, being the elder, and a little more the elder than she cared to say, would occasionally venture upon 'Paul dear,' with an air so matronly that the most censorious of observers could have found no cavil with the manner of it. It came about in due time, let Laurent's watch-dogs do what they would, that the contrabandists once more succeeded in running their cargo into the Hotel of the Three Friends. It was a very small one, but it was large enough ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... speech, oral and recorded, as we now possess, modern philology has, in so far as was possible, succeeded in restoring certain forms of the parent speech, and in so doing has achieved not the least striking of its many triumphs; for those very forms thus restored have since been verified past all cavil by their actual discovery in the old Gaulish inscriptions recently come to light. The phonesis of Welsh as it stands is modern, not primitive its grammar,—the verbs excepted,—is constructed out of the fragments of its earlier forms, and its vocabulary ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... mean to cavil, only other folks will, and he may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears. However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though Milton ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... army list in hand, Where he found a new "Field Marshal;" And when he saw this high command Conferred on his Highness of Cumberland,[47] "Oh! were I prone to cavil—or were I not the Devil, I should say this was somewhat partial; 190 Since the only wounds that this Warrior gat, Were from God knows whom—and the Devil ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the particular context of the Belle Dame there is nothing whatever to cavil at. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... of the Virginia school—men who "would cavil for the ninth part of a hair"—affirmed in general terms, that this Government was established with the view of regulating our external affairs, leaving all internal matters to be regulated by the States; and then, descending to particulars, declared, that, while ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... will, if you desire it, and if Captain Tomlinson will engage that Mr. Harlowe shall keep them absolutely a secret; that I may not be subjected to the cavil and controul of any others of a family that have used me ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... multitudes of even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact, than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... to ask how you became possessed of the guilty secret which I had kept from every one—even from my wife—but to offer you such explanation and confession as you have a right to demand from me. I do not cavil about that right—I admit that you possess it, without desiring further proof than your actions, your merciless words, and the Bracelet in your ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... work as well, if not better, the later success of the young blind seeker after knowledge is practically assured; for, as I have said, in mental attainment, at least, the blind child is the peer of the child with eyesight,—here, beyond cavil, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... If democracy shall prove itself capable of having raised twenty millions of people to a level of thought where they can appreciate this cardinal truth, and can believe no sacrifice too great for its defence and establishment, then democracy will have vindicated itself beyond all chance of future cavil. Here, we think, is a Cause the experience of whose vicissitudes and the grandeur of whose triumph will be able to give us heroes and statesmen. The Slave-Power must be humbled, must be punished,—so humbled and so punished as to be a warning forever; but Slavery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the head of two who could claim personal acquaintance with the great war chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail?—who had actually been to ride and hunt with that then just dawning demigod of American boyhood,—Buffalo Bill? Sneer and scoff and cavil as did their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young Westerners, he whom only on flaring posters or in the glare ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... 'twere, Joconde replied, All cavil then we quickly could decide; Precedence would no doubt with you remain: But this is quite another case 'tis plain; And equity demands that we agree, By lot to settle which ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... causes which have produced discontent of late years, I would mention our forest laws and sanitary regulations, our legislative and fiscal systems—measures so necessary that no one interested in the prosperity of India could cavil at their introduction, but which are so absolutely foreign to Native ideas, that it is essential they should be applied with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... don't believe in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but we have it sealed in the New Testament. "As, it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah." They don't believe in Lot's wife, but He says, "Remember Lot's wife." So there is not a thing that men to-day cavil at but the Son of God indorses. They don't believe, in the swallowing of Jonah. They say it is impossible that a whale could swallow Jonah—its throat is too small. They forget that the whale was prepared for Jonah; as the colored woman said, "Why, God could ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... know concerning himself and his government of our world, is revealed in this Holy Volume; and if there are some things in the moral government of God, which we cannot comprehend, we have no right to cavil. "The Judge of all ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... daily countenance of the President, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day, proposed, supported, and finally negatived, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conduct of the whole, it does not appear to be of a piece; every vision seems a distinct rhapsody, and does not carry on either one single action or a series of many; but we ought rather to wonder at its beauties than cavil at its defects; and if the poetical design is broken, the moral is entire, which, is uniformly the advancement of piety, and reformation of the Roman clergy. The piece before us is entitled the Vision of Piers the Plowman, and I shall quote that particular part which seems to have furnished ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Africans are interminable speakers, they make excellent lawyers, and know how to spin out a case or involve it in a labyrinth of figures of speech. Mungo Park, who frequently heard these special pleaders, says that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not easily surpassed by the ablest pleaders in Europe. The following may serve as an example of their talent:—An ass had got loose and broken into a field of corn, much of which it destroyed. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... little wine was mulled; the girl could not swallow it, emaciated as she was. Her condition need not be described in detail, but she was very near her death, as the medical evidence, and that of a midwife (who consoled Mrs. Canning on one point), proves beyond possibility of cavil. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... she love me, till I know, beyond The cavil of a doubt, that she is mine— Wholly, past question—do you think that I Could so afflict the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... with, "George, that 'are doctrine is rather of a puzzler; but you seem to think you've got the run on't. I should re'ly like to know what business you have to think you know better than other folks about it;" and, though he would cavil most courageously at all George's explanations, yet you might perceive, through all, that he was inly uplifted to hear how his ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sours the temper and narrows the views. To have produced works of genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn is one of the heaviest trials of human patience. We exaggerate our own merits when they are denied by others, and are apt to grudge and cavil at every particle of praise bestowed on those to whom we feel a conscious superiority. In mere self-defence we turn against the world, when it turns against us; brood over the undeserved slights we receive; and thus the genial current ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of a hero of everyday life, whose love of truth, clothing of modesty, and innate pluck, carry him, naturally, from poverty to affluence. George Andrews is an example of character with nothing to cavil at, and stands as a good instance of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... them; any who followed his mode of argumentation, his subjects of disquisition, or his course of life; any who would subdue the malignant passions or coerce the looser; any who would abstain from calumny or from cavil; any who would devote his days to the glory of his country, or, what is easier and perhaps wiser, to his own well-founded contentment and well-merited repose. Xenophon, the best of them, offered up sacrifices, believed in oracles, consulted soothsayers, turned ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... aukward, rude, and disputacious — He has had the benefit of a school-education, seems to have read a good number of books, his memory is tenacious, and he pretends to speak several different languages; but he is so addicted to wrangling, that he will cavil at the clearest truths, and, in the pride of argumentation, attempt to reconcile contradictions — Whether his address and qualifications are really of that stamp which is agreeable to the taste of our aunt, Mrs Tabitha, or that indefatigable ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... a plan of united action. Mr O'Brien did so in a memorandum which suggested that Mr Redmond should take the initiative in inviting a Conference with the Irish Unionists to devise a programme of common action for the double purpose of drawing up an agreement for Home Rule on a basis beyond cavil in the matter of generosity to the Irish Unionists, and, on the strength of this agreement, undertaking a joint campaign to raise an Irish Army Corps, with its reserves, which was Mr Asquith's own measure of Ireland's just contribution. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... the noble, musingly. "Now heaven forefend no evil hath befallen him; but to thy mission, Athelbert, I must not detain thee with doubts and cavil. Ha! reverend father, right welcome," he added, perceiving him as he turned again to the table, on the esquire reverentially withdrawing from his presence, and bending his head humbly in acknowledgment of the abbot's benediction. "Thou ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... dissipation in his face, and the domineering, discontented expression which gave to him the aspect of a far greater age than he had yet attained. A note of eager enthusiasm in his voice proved beyond cavil that if this sprig of nobility had had half a chance in the beginning he might have been nobler than he was to-day. But underneath the fascinating charm of manner, back of the old world courtliness, there lurked the ever dominant signs of intolerance, selfishness ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Foreign Office to the Lord Mayor, announcing that the definitive treaty had been finally settled at Amiens, on the 27th of March, by the plenipotentiaries of England, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic. The treaty, as it transpires, is the source of general cavil. It leaves to France all her conquests, while England restores every thing except Ceylon and Trinidad; the one a Dutch colony, and the other a Spanish; both powers having been our Allies at the commencement of the war. The Cape is to be given back to the Dutch; but Malta, the principal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... though it were originally intended as one of a battery of three uniform spires. The general plan of this facade is the masterpiece of design of the building, and, except for the ludicrously diminutive clock-face, could withstand nobly the cavil of the most exacting pedant who ever read or studied architectural forms, solely out of books. In the immediate foreground falls the before mentioned street of steps. Many old tumble-down houses have recently been cleared away, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," with a variety of fruit to follow. Verily a supper at which even a gourmand might not cavil; though it was but the debris of a dinner, which seemed to have been partaken of by a goodly ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Such an uninteresting undertaking could not last forever, he told himself over and over again; nothing ever did. And now with ironic conformity to law, his philosophy had turned on him, demonstrating beyond cavil that not only did the things one longed to be free of come to a sure finality but so did those ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted the true divino amore of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age, he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first professed himself seized with a ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... them but a small roast chicken. The merchant, seeing this to be but little even for himself, turned to the friars and said: "If my memory serves me, you do not eat any kind of flesh in your convents at this season." At these words the friars were compelled by their rule to admit, without cavil, that this was the truth; so the merchant had his wish, and eat the chicken and the friars did the best they could. After dinner the messmates departed, all three together, and after travelling some distance they came to a river of some width and depth. All three being on foot—the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Will-o'-the-Wisp that draws honour, genius, and all that is good into its fatal, deadly quagmire.' To the assertion that our valued contemporary is 'the possessor of one of the brightest intellects of the present century' (as he so modestly informs us) we do not cavil at for one moment. But even the patients under the Jordan (American quack) system may have relapses; and, when the Planters' Friend can calmly publish two columns of leaded matter insinuating that a mud ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Esther he says: "Indeed, there is little in results to justify further employment of this much vaunted agency. That there have been perplexities I am fully aware. Having given the subject such careful thought, I am not disposed either to minimize obstacles or to cavil at well-meant efforts. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,' or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, — that is, in the middle of winter! — a spring-velvet in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... more than fears In the well-mannered people; at that day, All was in common, every man bare sway O'er his own family; the jars that rose Were soon appeased by such grave men as those: This mine and thine, that we so cavil for, Was then not heard of; he that was most poor Was rich in his content, and lived as free As they whose flocks were greatest; nor did he Envy his great abundance, nor the other Disdain the low condition of his brother, But lent him from his store to mend his state, And with his love he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... for so puerile an objection, taken at a moment when union and promptitude were of the highest importance. "We shall sit here very long," he said, "if we sit till Sir Robert can conceive how such a thing is possible;" and the assembly thought the answer as good as the cavil deserved. [618] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seemed always best to represent to himself what he hoped to be longest remembered for; and exactly what he felt as to this, his friend Jeffrey warmly expressed. "All the tribe of selfishness, and cowardice and cant, will hate you in their hearts, and cavil when they can; will accuse you of wicked exaggeration, and excitement to discontent, and what they pleasantly call disaffection! But never mind. The good and the brave are with you, and the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... complete—too consistent, as we may say—to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had picked out here a lip—and there a chin—out of the collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... as well as the experience, how wonderingly be smiles at his worship of former idols, how different a colour does history wear to him, how cautious is he now to praise, how slow to admire, how prone to cavil! Human nature has become the human nature of art; and he estimates it not from what it may be, but from what, in the corruptions of a semi-civilization, it is! But in the same manner as the young student ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is really to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not the dissatisfaction of the critic, who himself suffers from the same uncertainty. Non me tua fervida ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... feel inclined to cavil with this association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute," because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul; but were these ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... received without cavil by most readers; but the reasoning on which it depends is the weakest part of the book, and we shall be surprised if some hard-headed divine, who fears that this doctrine of Intuition will pester his Church, does not find out the flaws in the argument. It will be urged, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... looks at me sidewise and speaks about how the people ought to be patient and pray more to God to give them the power to be patient. And I say that the people pray, but evidently God has no time, because he doesn't listen to them. The priest begins to cavil with me as to what prayers I pray. I tell him I use one prayer, like all the people, 'O Lord, teach the masters to carry bricks, eat stones, and spit wood.' He wouldn't even let me finish my sentence. —Are you a lady?" Rybin asked Sofya, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... possession of the capital, was to send to the different cities, proclaiming the revolution which had taken place, and demanding the recognition of the young Almagro as governor of Peru. Where the summons was accompanied by a military force, as at Truxillo and Arequipa, it was obeyed without much cavil. But in other cities a colder assent was given, and in some the requisition was treated with contempt. In Cuzco, the place of most importance next to Lima, a considerable number of the Almagro faction secured the ascendency of their party; and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... misjudge &c. 481; paralogize[obs3]. take on faith, take as a given; assume (supposition) 514. pervert, quibble; equivocate, mystify, evade, elude; gloss over, varnish; misteach &c. 538[obs3]; mislead &c. (error) 495; cavil, refine, subtilize[obs3], split hairs; misrepresent &c. (lie) 544. beg the question, reason in a circle, reason in circles, assume the conclusion. cut blocks with a razor, beat about the bush, play fast and loose, play ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... these extracts. So precisely do they resemble each other, that they seem rather as the offspring of a single mind, than of many minds. A large majority of them come in the most official and authoritative shape, and their language is explicit beyond cavil. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... to me, Elsie," he said, with a passionate intensity that stilled the rising storm in her bosom. "Doctor Christobal may have pleaded his own cause already. It is not for me to cavil at him for doing that. But I cannot lose you without a word. Whether you marry him or me, or neither of us, I shall love you for ever. I want you to know that. It is no new discovery to me. I think my heart went out to you when I carried you in my ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... never safe to quote poetry from memory, at least while the writer lives, for he is ready to "cavil on the ninth part of a hair" where his verses are concerned. But extreme accuracy was not one of Emerson's special gifts, and vanity whispers to the misrepresented ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the side of the girth. Upon it was printed in golden letters the legend, 'Pro libertate et religione nostra.' These horse-soldiers were made up of yeomen's and farmers' sons, unused to discipline, and having a high regard for themselves as volunteers, which caused them to cavil and argue over every order. For this cause, though not wanting in natural courage, they did little service during the war, and were a hindrance rather than a help to ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has, at bottom, two sides. It is, in the first place, achieved by a narrow definition of the purpose of the state. To Locke the State is little more than a negative institution, a kind of gigantic limited liability company; and if we are inclined to cavil at such restraint, we may perhaps remember that even to neo-Hegelians like Green and Bosanquet this negative sense is rarely absent, in the interest of individual exertion. But for Locke the real guarantee of right lies in another direction. What his whole work amounts to in substance—it is a ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... satisfactory condition. There were serious drawbacks which would have terribly militated against the effective employment of the battalion as a first-class fighting unit. Individually, the men were all right, but the battalion record in certain respects was held to be very faulty. I have no wish to cavil at the War Office authorities' honest desire to serve the public and yet temper their judgment with mercy to individuals. But the case was one where they should not have temporised in any way. As matters turned out, the Royal Irish Fusiliers were very angry at being passed over ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... casting everything aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation, to look into the magic lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require—you must not cavil at the form; the rest I can leave to your own good ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... document became at length an indisputable authority for the price of cats throughout all Italy. As often as Milord committed a new assassination, and the attempt was made to extort from us more than two pauls as the price of blood, we drew this document from our pocket, and proved beyond a cavil that two pauls was what we were accustomed to pay on such occasions, and obstinate indeed must have been the man or woman who did not yield to such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... ruler of Ts'i officially proclaimed himself Protector in the year 679 B.C., which is one of the fixed dates in Chinese history about which there is no cavil or doubt, He soon found himself embroiled in war with the Tartars, who were raiding both the state to his north in the Peking plain, and also the minor state, south of the Yellow River, that his predecessor has protected specially in 688. This was the state of Wei (imperial clan), through ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the investigation of the second point of the discussion, the agents and surveyors of both parties proceeded as a matter of course to the point marked in 1798 as the source of the St. Croix.[44] This point is therefore fixed and established beyond the possibility of cavil, and the faith of both Governments is pledged that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... resumed the Bishop. He a mortal like to US? Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus: Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus. ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Vain cavil! all that is hath come either by Mir'acle or by Law;— Why waste on this your hate and fear, why waste on that your love ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... His chosen field was physics, and in addition he did much original research and was greatly distinguished as a scientist. His chief contribution to science was his studies of the electron and his monumental work on the "Identification of Matter and Energy," wherein he established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate unit of matter and the ultimate unit of force were identical. This idea had been earlier advanced, but not demonstrated, by Sir Oliver Lodge and other students in the new field ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... of the Constitution. I felt convinced in my own mind that I was not guilty of such a heinous offense; but I could never make out a legal justification of my course, nor has it ever been done, sir, until you, on the floor of Congress, at the late session, established it beyond the possibility of cavil or doubt. I thank you, sir, for that speech. It has relieved my mind from the only circumstance that rested painfully upon it. Throughout my whole life I never performed an official act which I viewed as a violation of the Constitution of my ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... bell-rope and announced to such of the parishioners as were within hearing, that there was to be divine service. If there were no service, then those who had come from a distance in expectation of devotion, retired to the tavern and drank and gossiped, and were not disposed to cavil. The Church of Thursley is curious, it has a central bell-tower supported on huge beams of oak, such oaks they must have been as are never seen now. Those desiring to see the parson had to seek him in the Vicarage of the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... startled at the peculiar character of his employer, and in a way slightly disgusted, but he was not in a position to cavil or feel squeamish over apparent lack of honesty, and resolved at ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... against all the rules one can conceive of justice that a virtuous action should be thus rewarded. Perhaps you will say that His ways are inscrutable, and, that as we have neither the power, nor have we the right to attempt to read them, so we should not venture to cavil at His ordinances, but humbly believe that the ultimate result will be for our benefit. I believe it is so, lady; or it may be for a punishment; but it is bitter, very bitter, oftentimes to bear. But I am wandering from my story. We could watch the progress of the fated vessel ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... absolutely permanent and indestructible, untried by circumstance and untouched by time; and this opinion is, she says, indorsed by every woman who has ever been in love. Thus fortified, the conclusion seems beyond cavil. If, therefore, any incidents here recorded appear to conflict with it, we must imitate the discretion of Plato and say, either these persons were not Sons of the Gods—that is. True Lovers—or they did not do such things. Unfortunately, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... to me by a fair Southern wife—"I pray that Philip may die in the front, and that they may burn me in the plantation, before the Confederacy makes peace on any terms but our own." I see that reverses, instead of making this people cashier their generals, or cavil at their rulers, only intensifies their fierce energy of resistance. Here men are fighting—not to gain a foot of ground, but simply to hold their own, with the liberty which they believe to ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... plot, sitting comfortably among the corn; but it was not the plantation that occupied his thoughts, they were with Mitsha; and he pondered over what she had told him the night before, and how he might succeed in making her his beyond cavil. Looking up accidentally he discerned the form of his uncle coming toward him, and his face brightened. He motioned Hayoue to come, and this time Hayoue was eager to ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the boy by his side? Why had he not ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... scrutiny and a fresh look into my carpet-bags, mainly (I understand) for Tobacco! When any tide-waiter finds more of that about me than the chronic ill breeding of traveling smokers compels me to carry in my clothes, he is welcome to confiscate all I possess. But they found nothing here to cavil at, and ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the patience of my ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... for dinner. Then he bounded up to his room humming. His very muscles were of quite a different texture seemingly now from an hour or two ago! How the blood flew about joyously in his body! Dear Venus! she makes us pay generally, but who can cavil at the glorious gifts she gives? As soon as his dinner was disposed of, and all his other servants had retired from the room, Hamilton called his butler, Pir Bakhs, to him, and held a long conference ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... he who minds and cares for the engine; he is a mecanicien and nothing else—in France and elsewhere. We needed a word for the individual who busies himself with, or drives an automobile, and so we have adapted the word chauffeur. Purists may cavil, but nevertheless the word is better than driver, or motor-man (which is the quintessence of snobbery), ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... same dream she allowed the custom-house officers to tumble out the contents of her little valise, and satisfied, without cavil, all their demands, and answered without hesitation all the questions put to her ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... always believing something is wrong. You knew very well, long ago, that the best part of me had belonged to some one else. You swore it didn't matter. But to-night, because there's absolutely nothing else you can cavil at, you drag it up again—in spite of your promises. I have always been frank with you. Do you thank me for it? No, it's been my old fault of giving everything, when it would have been wiser to keep something back, or at least to pretend to. I might have taken a lesson from you, in parsimonious ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... partly in that of his secretary, Millet, insert the "Sommaire" precisely as it stands in the Memoires de Conde, without any denial of its authenticity. This would appear, at first sight, to settle the question beyond cavil. But it must be borne in mind that many of the memoires of the sixteenth century are compiled on the plan of including all contemporary papers of importance, whether written by friend or by foe. Frequently the most ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... said Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... To admit that life on the physical and moral frontier was less than they had imagined would be a humiliating confession of failure; and worse than a confession of failure; for God had appointed this refuge for them, and not to abide in it in all contentment would be to cavil at his purpose, to question his decree. With the instinct of true pioneers they therefore idealized the barren wilderness, pronouncing its air most healing, its soil most fertile; and with unfailing optimism proving, by the very ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... he conceived human duty. The "And so, please God, a gentleman," was the cardinal clause in his creed and all his work proves it. It is wiser to be thankful that a man of genius was at hand to voice the view, than to cavil at its narrow outook. In literature, in-look is quite as important. Thackeray drew what he felt and saw, and like Jane Austen, is to be understood within his limitations. Nor did he ever forget that, because pleasure-giving ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... the garishly lighted exterior of the dance hall now, lit a cigarette. The plan, if successful, placed the guilt without question or cavil upon Klanner, but that was not all—strong as that motive might be, Clarke had had still another in view, and one that perhaps took precedence over the first. Hunchback Joe had defined it clearly enough. The documents would have been valueless ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... books may induce us to consider them as reliable; or, if the latter points be lacking from the supernatural character of the occurrences related, yet the evidence of authenticity may be so overwhelming as to place the accuracy of the accounts beyond cavil. But if external evidence be wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of history, and to place them in the fairy ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... of 1451 millions by eighteen years, it appears that 80 millions a year was raised; and, taking the legitimate expenditure of the country, during those eighteen years, at an average of 45 millions a-year, a sum so high as to preclude all cavil, it appears that the country raised and expended eighteen times the difference between 45 and 80 millions, that is 630 millions; notwithstanding which expenditure, let it be observed, the country got richer and ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... self-seeking on the part of men in power, no public character of his day stands out more honourably in the strong light which posterity is already concentrating on the words and actions of the past, than does Prince Albert for undeniable truthfulness and disinterestedness. Men may still cavil at his conclusions, and maintain that he theorised and systematised and was tempted to interfere too much, but they have long ceased to question his perfect integrity and single-heartedness, his ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... his staff were without home, and it was long past dark before the Intelligence officer could think of food. His first duties were orders for the morrow. The officer in supreme command had been weak enough to have been accompanied by a cable-cart. Lord Wolseley may cavil at correspondents and call them the curse of modern armies; but we are constrained to think that if a tired staff-officer were consulted he would save the cream of condemnatory epithets for the cable-cart, which makes his night horrible ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer |
