"Meddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the spot where the Caudron had been left. Tom's mind was eased of the secret fears he had entertained when he saw the machine was still where they had left it. So far as he could tell no one had been near to meddle with it. ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... hurt the owner; he therefore begged of him to forgive me, as he said he never had any complaint of me before, for the many years that I had been with him. After repeated entreaties, Mr. Read said I might go to hell, and that he would not meddle with me; on which my captain came immediately to me at his lodging, and, telling me how pleasantly matters had gone on, he desired me to go on board. Some of my other friends then asked him if he had got the constable's warrant from them; the captain said, No. On this I was ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... her do it," said Mr. Dinsmore, taking a seat by his daughter's side; "I've warned her more than once not to meddle with match-making." And he shook his head ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... your pardon for speaking as I did, mademoiselle. You know the good intentions that make me meddle, just now, in matters which, you no doubt think, have nothing to do with me. But allow me to tell you what I have seen—and I have seen more than you suspect, Christine—or what I thought I saw, for, to tell you the truth, I have sometimes been ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... him, if he had ever practised physic? 'Yes, and please your honour (said he) among brute beasts; but I never meddle with rational creatures.' 'I know not whether you rank in that class the audience you was haranguing in the court at St. James's, but I should be glad to know what kind of powders you was distributing; and ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... one hundred-and-four years, who took a prominent part in the General Election, has just died. This should be a lesson to people who meddle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... scolding and advising me for weeks? Is there a detail of my private or public life that you don't meddle with—as it pleases you? Half a dozen times a day when I'm with you, you make me feel myself a fool or a brute. And then I go home and write you abject letters—and apologize—and explain. Do you think I'd do it for any other woman in the world? Do you dare to say you don't ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to morrow you shall be turn'd out of your place for't; we meddle with no spirit o'th' Buttery, they taste too small for us; keep me a Pie in Folio, I beseech thee, and thou shalt see how learnedly I'le translate him. Shall's have good ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana.... They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought in 1814-'15.... If they have made no demonstration it is because they have no right to meddle with politics, but not because they are not well disposed. All they ask is to have a chance, and they will be worthy sons of Louisiana."[40] Oral testimony gathered by the present writer from old residents in various quarters of the South supports ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... boys knew that they were doing wrong. They had been told, often and often, not to meddle with things that did not belong to them. As Frank was so much older than George, he was the more to blame; but George was old enough to know better, or why did he put his little foot so gently on the stairs, and go out on tiptoe ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... that to thee or thy wife either?' he answered rudely. 'Look to thy own business and meddle not with mine.' ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke
... with his customary attention, and declared that the proper name was the margay, a fact Fritz did not dispute, only requesting that Jack might not meddle with the skin, as he wished to preserve it for a belt. I recommended them to skin it immediately, and give the flesh to the dogs. Jack, at the same time, determined to skin his porcupine, to make dog-collars. Part of its flesh went into the soup-kettle, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... interrogator, and thought of the priests and the inquisition. "No, no," thought he, "that won't do; a name I must give, but it shall be one that you dare not meddle with. A midshipman you might get hold of, but it's more than the whole island dare to touch a post-captain of one of his Majesty's frigates." So Jack took the paper and wrote Captain Henry Wilson, of his Majesty's ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... words the Pope of Dimchurch began:—"Oscar! you are to understand distinctly, if you please, that I maintain my protest against this impious attempt to meddle with my afflicted daughter's sight.—Mrs. Finch! you are to understand that I excuse your unseemly pursuit of two strange surgeons, in consideration of the state that I find you in at this moment. After your last confinement but eight you became, I remember, hysterically irresponsible. Hold ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... periscope. "When you have been at this work as long as I have," he replied, "you will find it healthier not to meddle with Armed Merchant Cruisers. They are all eyes and they shoot straight. No, for the time being our glorious work is done, and we shall now depart from a locality that is quickly becoming unhealthy." He glanced at the depth gauge and thence to the faces ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... no wish to meddle with the belief of his new friends. Here, however, it was a matter of humanity and common sense. He could not let the young girl's life be ruined. He said: "My child, le bon Dieu never asks the unreasonable. Is not God kinder than you; and will he demand of you and Francois ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... to man's estate I shall be very proud and great, And tell the other girls and boys, Not to meddle ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... work it,' he said, 'is to get hold of a woman farm-owner; some one who hasn't any men folks to advise her or meddle with her property. Ten to one she won't have heard of the oil boom, or if she has, it's easy enough to pose as a government expert and tell her her land is worthless for oil. We'll offer her a good price for it for straight farming, and we'll have ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... another quarter, as the gentleman himself admits. I would leave that institution to the exclusive consideration and management of the States more peculiarly interested in it, just as long as they can keep within their own bounds. So far, I admit that Congress has no power to meddle with it. As long as they do not step out of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the people of the United States, whose peace, welfare and happiness are all at stake, so long I will agree to leave them to themselves. But when a member from a free State brings forward certain ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... may be brave and likable enough, but how are we to know what he really is? I don't like to take the risk. I don't like to meddle ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... The police after them? Bartley Fallen must have injured Jack so. They wouldn't meddle in a fight that was only ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... readily, 'you are a lady having gifts that are much in favour in these days. Be careful to use those gifts and no others. Meddle in nothing that does not concern you. So you may make a great marriage with some lord in favour. But meddle in ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... "Sir Lionel, will ye slay your brother?" "Why," said Sir Lionel, "will ye stay me? If ye interfere in this I will slay you, and him after." Then he ran upon Sir Bohort, and would have smitten him; but Sir Colgrevance ran between them, and said, "If ye persist to do so any more, we two shall meddle together." Then Sir Lionel defied him, and gave him a great stroke through the helm. Then he drew his sword, for he was a passing good knight, and defended himself right manfully. So long endured the battle, that Sir Bohort ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... to me that the converse of that which is usually found in that place ought to be substituted. Even the apostles, as we have seen, found it necessary to rebuke the disposition prevalent in their time to meddle with the affairs, and to make inquisition into the conduct of others. But it should be recollected, that the condition of Christians and the state of society then were widely different from the same things with us. Christianity was ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... should be back before evening. In order to go lighter, I determined to leave my tent standing as it was, and all the things which I had purchased of the tinker, just as they were. "I need not be apprehensive on their account," said I to myself; "nobody will come here to meddle with them—the great recommendation of this place is its perfect solitude—I dare say that I could live here six months without seeing a single human visage. I will now harness my little gry and be off to ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the authority of the Tale-Lama is unbounded, as that of a divinity deigning to reign on earth must naturally be over his worshippers. But as he often transmigrates into the body of a mere child, and that, moreover, his very divinity makes it derogatory in him to meddle with worldly affairs, he is supplied with a grosser colleague, who, under the name of Nomekhan, or spiritual emperor, transacts all the business of the state. He is nominated for life by the Tale-Lama, and in his turn chooses four kalons, or ministers, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... being a ward-worker, these and those other reformers who write papers about national corruption when they don't know how their own wards are swung, probably aren't so useful as they might be. The exquisite who says that politics is 'too dirty a business for a gentleman to meddle with' is like the woman who lived in the parlour and complained that the rest of her family kept the other rooms so dirty that she ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... but weak denial. The instrument in question was one, she averred, which the duke had DESIRED her to execute, but which she had declined at all costs to meddle with. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the omnipotent Commission of the General Assembly, and by the full force of prayers and sermons. The letter-writer, Baillie, now deemed "that it were for the good of the world that churchmen did meddle with ecclesiastical affairs only." The Engagers insisted on establishing presbytery in England, which neither satisfied the Kirk nor the Cavaliers and Independents. Nothing more futile could have ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... denial there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of criticism?' Without criticism it would be nothing but one 'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible. We understand that comedy; ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and accurate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably bad. I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business to meddle with such subjects. But besides all this, I was always writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought together, would exceed that of all the many volumes ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... horror, at least, was lifted from my mind; I could look with calm of spirit on that great bright creature, God's ocean; and as I set off homeward up the rough sides of Aros, nothing remained of my concern beyond a deep determination to meddle no more with the spoils of wrecked vessels or the treasures ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anything and regret it with terrible suffering ever after. One such lesson you have had in early manhood. I hope you may not rush on blindly to another. Until you come to me, however," he added with dignity, "I shall not meddle again." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... middle of the operation, in came Bull Bazett, with his head down, and roaring like the last trumpet. Dines and all his merry men hid behind trees in the paddock, and skipped. Dines then got upon a horse, plied his spurs, and cleared for Apia. The next time he is asked to meddle with our cows, he will probably want to know the reason why. Meanwhile, there was the cow, with the board over her eyes, left tied by a pretty long rope to a small tree in the paddock, and who was to milk her? She roared,—I was going to say like a bull, but it was Bazett who did that, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she answered; "they are not working here. They are on top of the bluff, trying to dig down to you. They were afraid to meddle with the ice here for fear that more of it might come down and crush you and the men, too. Oh, there has been a dreadful excitement since it was found that you were ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton
... the river, he fancied he beheld a black object swimming towards him. Taking it for an otter, with which voracious animal the Calder, a stream swarming with trout, abounded, and knowing the creature would not meddle with them unless first attacked, he paid little attention to it; but he was soon made sensible of his error. His arm was suddenly seized by a large black hound, whose sharp fangs met in his flesh. Unable to repress a cry of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a sordid, narrow-minded, and somewhat arrogant man; bustling rather than active; prone to meddle with matters of which he was profoundly ignorant, and absurdly unwilling ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... robe of yellow barred with black, more like one of the great cats from which she took her name than a human being. "Spare me," she gasped, "spare me, I don't want to die. I swear that I will never meddle ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... my poor boy, you are bred for a parson," says my lord, taking Esmond by the hand very kindly; "and it were a great pity that you should meddle in the matter." ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... for it. During a trip which he made to Rome in 981, he had entered into kindly personal relations with the Emperor Otho II., king of Germany, the most important of France's neighbors, and the most disposed to meddle in her affairs. In France, Hugh Capet had formed a close friendship with Adalberon, archbishop of Rheims, the most notable and most able of the French prelates. The event showed the value of such ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... religion; but masters also seem to have given up all family government, and all care or concern for the morals and manners, as well as for the religion of their servants, thinking themselves under no obligation to meddle with those things, or to think any thing about them, so that their business be but done, and their shop ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in a little girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room in the first place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that didn't belong to you in the second. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I quit Calais,' a travel-writer would say, 'it would not be amiss to give some account of it.'—Now I think it very much amiss—that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about and drawing his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely o' my conscience for the sake of drawing it; because, if we may judge from what has been wrote of these things, by all who have wrote and gallop'd—or who have gallop'd and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... inexorable, forbids it. Such little entity as I possess would cease to be; it was all but lost when I saved your life—and again when I told you that you were the beloved of Julia Royce. It would not do for us Martians to meddle with earthly things; the fat would soon be in the fire, I ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... matter of fact, but a traditionalist, proud of the glory of her family, attached to the ancient Roman ideas, desirous only of seeing her son develop into a new Germanicus, a second Drusus. Solely the necessity of helping Nero had led her to meddle with politics. But not in vain had Cato declaimed so loudly in Rome against women who pretend to govern states; not in vain had Augustus's domination been at least partly founded on the great antifeminist legend of Antony and Cleopatra, which represented the ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... support the—certainly somewhat costly—apparatus of a joint-stock company, the joint-stock company is undisputed master of the field, so that there remains to the private undertaking, as its domain, nothing more than the dwarf concerns with which our free society does not meddle. It cannot be said that this is due to the larger money power of the combined capital, for even relatively small undertakings, whose total capital is many times less than that of a great many private millionaires, prefer, I may say choose exclusively, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... in England, many of my friends would fain have dissuaded me from my expedition, urging me to devote myself to special zooelogical studies, and not to meddle with general geological problems of so speculative a character. "Punch" himself did not disdain to give me a gentle hint as to the folly of my undertaking, terming my journey into Scotland in search of moraines a sporting-expedition ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... you." [Deuter, c.ii.] The same people who had successfully repelled the approach of the Israelites from the strong western frontier, was alarmed now that they had come round upon the weak side of the country. But Israel was ordered "not to meddle" with the children of Esau, but "to pass through their coast" and to "buy meat and water from them for money," in the same manner as the caravan of Mekka is now supplied by the people of the same mountains, who meet the ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... put me to a pause, and to a kind of a full stop; and I began, by little and little, to be off my design, and to conclude I had taken wrong measures in my resolution to attack the savages; and that it was not my business to meddle with them, unless they first attacked me; and this it was my business, if possible, to prevent; but that if I were discovered and attacked by them, I knew my duty. On the other hand, I argued with myself, that this really was the way not to deliver myself, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... pressure, Hide accepted full payment of his mortgage, and made over the title of the property to Cuthbert Burbage. Thus Brayne's widow was legally excluded from any share in the ownership of the Theatre. Myles deposed, in 1592, that henceforth Burbage "would not suffer her to meddle in the premises, but ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... supervision from the adjutant-general's department is all that can be required. Thus is all the jealousy between military and medical authority got rid of. The Governor's authority must be supreme, like that of the commandant of a fortress, or the commander of a ship. He will not want to meddle in the doctors' professional business; and in all else he is to be paramount,—being himself responsible to the War-Office. The office, as thus declared, is equivalent to three of the nine old ones, namely, the Commandant, the Adjutant-General, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... landing of Mr Slidell, whose presence here would have no more effect on the policy of your Majesty with regard to America than the presence of the three other Southern Deputies who have been here for many months. Mr Adams assured Viscount Palmerston that the American steamer had orders not to meddle with any vessel under any foreign flag; that it came to intercept the Nashville, the Confederate ship in which it was thought the Southern Envoys might be coming; and not having met with her was going back to the American ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... obeying you in keeping that accursed promise? God knows I have made many blunders, but I think the most senseless was that promise; the most short-sighted, that belief. What right had I to fetter my tongue, or try to govern love? Shall I ever learn to do my own work aright, and not meddle with the Lord's? Sylvia, take this presumptuous and domineering devil out of me in time, lest I blunder as blindly after you are mine as I have before. Now let me finish before Mark comes to find us. I went away, you know, singing the farewell I dared not speak, and for nine months kept myself ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... gasped, then dropped into a chair. "He might have come himself, to be sure," she muttered. "I have more than enough to do that is disagreeable in my own womanly sphere without being required to meddle ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... waiter girls are treacherous things to meddle with. Neither can be depended upon and generally both have unsavory reputations. The only thing pretty about the girls is ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... takes upon itself to meddle with such things, a learned professor may explain that a certain musical note is composed of vibrations—so many thousand per second—which are communicated to particles of matter in suspension in the air and carried ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... now, don't be dismal, and blame yourself for every trouble under the sun. Sit down and talk it over, and see what can be done. Poor old girl, I forgave you the notes, and say I was wrong to meddle with Bopp. I got you into the scrape, and I'll get you out if the sky don't fall, or Bopp blow his brains out, like a second ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... understand why my father should continue to feel vexed about this arrangement of ours," she said seriously. "We do not interfere with his domestic affairs, why should he meddle with ours? It is not at all his business; do you think it is?" This taking it for granted that the arrangement was as satisfactory to him as it was to her, and appealing to him in good faith against himself and his own interests as it were, touched Colonel ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... do or not, my dear, is my own business. Furthermore, I do not like to have any one meddle in my arrangements. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... neglect it; the Latin grammar, however, is a subject on which some of the younger members of the community feel strongly, so I have now written "agricolas". I have also parted with the word "infortuniam" (though not without regret), but have not dared to meddle with other ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... firmly, "I will drive Madame de Chevreuse out of my kingdom—and with her all who meddle with its ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from Christian Rosencreutz, their founder; and to answer the latter charge, they repeated that they knew not what thirst was, and had higher pleasures than those of the palate. They did not desire to meddle with the politics or religion of any man or set of men, although they could not help denying the supremacy of the pope, and looking upon him as a tyrant. Many slanders, they said, had been repeated respecting ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... on the flat. And this Ward, share out the rice—broke open barn. We people? Anything like a silver, bury right there in that garden! Right to Brookgreen garden, what Hontington got now. All Ward thing bury there. Them old time people kill you—you meddle them thing. Cry out, 'Massa Ting!' You better ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... had been made by the said Richard, and Eleanor his wife, under the powers of their settlement. Luckily they had not been employed in the matter, and possessed not so much as a draft or a letter of instructions; and now it was no concern of theirs to make, or meddle, or even move. Neither did they know that any question could arise about it; for they were a highly antiquated firm, of most rigid respectability, being legal advisers to the Chapter of York, and clerks of the Prerogative Court, and able to charge twice as much ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... "He was a man Who stole the livery of the court of heaven To serve the devil in; in Virtue's guise, Devoured the widow's house and orphan's bread; In holy phrase, transacted villanies That common sinners durst not meddle with." ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... the stool in leaving the piano, two idle nervous young men like yourselves would from curiosity and ennui have examined the embroidery, disarranged the vase of flowers, picked up the stool, and closed the piano. But no hand dared to meddle with this holy disorder under pretext of arranging it. These evidences, still fresh and undisturbed, attest a respect that belongs only ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... not been so terribly earnest, she fed him with pine nuts and crab apples. The master took that opportunity to point out to her the noxious and deadly qualities of the monkshood, whose dark blossoms he saw in her lap, and extorted from her a promise not to meddle with it as long as she remained his pupil. This done—as the master had tested her integrity before—he rested satisfied, and the strange feeling which had overcome him on seeing them ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... ghostly fancy. Old superstitions of the coast recurred to me,—old vague warnings of peril in the time of the passage of Souls. I reflected that were any evil to befall me out there in the night,—meddling, or seeming to meddle, with the lights of the Dead,—I should myself furnish the subject of some future weird legend.... I whispered the Buddhist formula of farewell—to the lights,—and made speed ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... ought not too much to be ashamed to bear that sometime, which Apollo, god of learning, himself was not ashamed always to bear. And because ye would have a man wait upon the Muses, and not at all meddle with shooting: I marvel that you do not remember how that the nine Muses their self, as soon as they were born, were put to nurse to a lady called Euphemis, which had a son named Erotus, with whom the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... is that I intend to keep it. I've had you sent out, but you have been too stupid or too obstinate to take the hint. Now I have to warn you in person. I shall send you out once more, but this time you must promise me not to meddle ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... some horrible tragedy. You heard him speak of killing his wife and her lover just now, as if it were a very slight matter. Very. well; I know him; he will do as he says without flinching. These ruddy-faced people are very devils, if you meddle with their family affairs! He is capable of murdering you in some corner of his park, and of burying you at the foot of some tree and then of forcing Madame de Bergenheim to eat your heart fricasseed in champagne, as they say Raoul de ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... labouring virtuously, to obtain everlasting fame in this world? And, of a truth, so extraordinary and sublime a gift as that possessed by Fra Giovanni, should scarcely be conferred on any but a man of most holy life, since it is certain that all who take upon them to meddle with sacred and ecclesiastical subjects, should be men of holy and ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... useful, sahib. He is on a message now. He is a fool who likes to meddle where he thinks none notice him. Such are the sort who cost least and work the longest hours. Who, for instance, sahib, is to balk Kirby sahib when he grows suspicious and begins to search in earnest for his Ranjoor Singh? He knew that Ranjoor ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... see these yellow counters? I am going to make a hole in the stable underneath the cows' manger and bury them; see that you do not meddle with them, or it will ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... think of any other woman but his beloved Miss Fotheringay; and the Captain, looking up at his foils which were hung as a trophy on the wall of the room where Pen and he used to fence, grimly said, he would not advoise any man to meddle rashly with the affections of his darling child; and would never believe his gallant young Arthur, whom he treated as his son, whom he called his son, would ever be guilty of conduct so revolting to every idaya of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little noise in the world, it would hardly have engaged the attention of working naturalists as it has done. We have no idea even of opening the question as to what work the Darwinian theory has incited, and in what way the work done has reacted upon the theory; and least of all do we like to meddle with the polemical literature of the subject, already so voluminous that the German bibliographers and booksellers make a separate class of it. But two or three treatises before us, of a minor or incidental sort, suggest a remark or two upon the attitude of mind toward evolutionary ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... spied on anybody again. He had learned that it is better not to meddle in other people's private affairs. So, after all, perhaps it was a good thing that he tried, just once, to catch Freddie ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... me go in there again!" she pleaded. "I will be good. I'll never meddle with the things in the chest any more. There are mice in there, hundreds of 'em; they'll run all over me; they'll eat me up. Oh, don't make me go ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the devill did indeed stand by him and doe the office as hee dreamed that hee was struck speechless for a time and when hee came to himself hee threw his tobacco in the fire and his pipes at the walls; resolving never to meddle more with it: soe much money as was formerly wasted by the week in to serving ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... wild-animal species is a leap in the dark. On general principles it is dangerous to meddle with the laws of Nature, and attempt to improve upon the code of the wilderness. Our best wisdom in such matters may easily prove to be short-sighted folly. The trouble lies in the fact that concerning transplantation ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... ran the Lucerner fast on the heels of the Schwyzer, who tripped, and both went headlong into a ditch. Feklitus was the only one who kept his ground. He knew who he was; Fortunatus, the only son of Mr. Bickel. No one would dare to meddle with him. He knew, too, that he was by no means nimble, and the sudden appearance of the men in uniform had given him a strange feeling of heaviness in his legs. He had no mind to stay alone, however, and so he seized the shoemaker's boy by the collar, and held ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... having taken the liberty to interfere in the discussion in Antoinette's behalf, declaring that Counts Larinski are not to be distrusted, and that men of science are incapable of comprehending delicacy of sentiment, he gave full vent to his wrath, telling the worthy demoiselle to meddle with what concerned her. For the first time in his life he was seriously angry. Antoinette caressed him into good-humour, promised that she would put on the best possible face to Maitre Noirot, that she would pay religious attention to his counsels, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... ships, and the country, men and victuals.' Later, letters were sent demanding that a large sum should be raised 'to set a fleet at sea ... we having but six or seven days to raise the money, and to return it to London; but our county refused to meddle therein.' John Northcote was Sheriff just at this time, and was most probably held responsible for the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... your eyes, lad, and speak! They'll zay I murdered ye, and if I don't get aboard ship and zail away to foreign abroad, they'll hang me, and the crows'll come and pick out my eyes.—I zay.—I zay lad, don't ye be a vool. It was on'y a drop o' watter ye zwallowed. Do ye come to, and I'll never meddle with the zammon again.—I zay, ye aren't dead now. Don't ye be a vool. It aren't worth dying for, lad. Coom, coom, coom, open your eyes and zit up like a man. You're a gentleman, and ought to know better. I aren't no scholard, ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... over them; and when the more zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross. "It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle! So stupid! If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis's offer, there would not have ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the corn, if they ever had any, all thrashed and hidden. No amount of money can purchase any service from them. Poor dark creatures; not loving Austria much, but loving some others even less, it would appear. Of Bigoted Papist Creed, for one thing; that is a great point. We do not meddle with their worship more or less; but we are Heretics, and they hate us as the Night. Which is a dreadful difficulty you always have in Bohemia: nowhere but in the Circle of Konigsgraz, where there are Hussites (far to the rear of us at this time), will ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... agent, as well as sole owner. There were no mills beside his in the neighborhood; to that fact she ascribed the reason of his having no difficulties in Rosville, and no enmities; for she knew he had no wish to make friends. The Rosville people, having no business in common with him, had no right to meddle, and could find but small excuse for comment. They spent, she said, five or six thousand a year; most of it went in horses, she was convinced, and she believed his flowers cost him a great deal too. "You must know, Cassandra, that his heart is with his ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... representation of the colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to entertain some such thought; but a great flood stops me in my course. Opposuit Natura. I cannot remove the eternal barriers of the creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As I meddle with no theory, I do not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a representation; but I do not see my way to it; and those who have been more confident have not been more successful. However, the arm of public benevolence is not shortened; and there are often several means ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... brutes. [unmannerly] 'An neist my yowie, silly thing, [next] Gude keep thee frae a tether string! O may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends] Wi' ony blastit moorland tup; But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle] Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel! 'And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith; An' when you think upo' your mither, Mind to be kind to ane anither. 'Now, honest Hughoc, dinna ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... to joke? Who gave you the right to do such a thing? Who gave you power over people? How dare you meddle with what to them is right? How dare you interfere with ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... one of the youths, "post a guard over this flying machine. Don't let anybody meddle with it. And have all the noncoms and techs report here, on the double." He turned and shouted up at the truncated ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... embossed according to the old traditional pattern,—you as well as another. Where the material is hard, they put on more power,—where it is soft, more care; wherefore I caution you here, as I would in a mill at Lowell or Lawrence,—Don't meddle with the shafts,—don't go too near the wheel,—in short, keep clear of the machinery. And Hulia does so; for, at the last attack of Padre Doyaguez, she suddenly turns upon him and says, "Sir, you are a Doctrinary and a Propagandist." And the good Father suffers her to depart in peace. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... did not understand the governing of principalities, he appointed me Assistant Prince, with a salary. This seemed like a very good plan, but it did not work. The Dowager soon showed such a disposition to meddle with everything that was going on that my position gradually became so intolerable that I determined to retire to a hermit's cell, to which my ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... So we will not meddle with hens' nests, robins' nests, and all the nests, big and little, that we find about our homes, for they are the "potatoes" of a subject like this, but will try and find some nests that are a little out ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... afeard o' no Purdee ez ever stepped," she said to herself, defining her position. "But I'm fur peace. An' ef the Purdees will leave we-uns be, I ain't a-goin' ter meddle along ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of his councell, the pope granted the king certeine priuileges and customes, which his predecessours had vsed and enioied: but as for the inuestitures of bishops, he would not haue him in any wise to meddle withall: [Sidenote: Polydor.] yet did he confirme those bishops whom the king had alreadie created, least the refusall should be occasion to ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed
... as before, my nearness to her seemed for a moment to meddle with my heart and check it; then, as though to gain the beats they lost, every little pulse began ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... softly. "Always vengeful and vindictive, and always because you must ever mess and meddle with other men's concerns," he retorted. "And yet I say ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... soul of the European coalition against the French ascendency. The clue, without which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of Continental politics, was in his hands. His English counsellors, therefore, however able and active, seldom, during his reign, ventured to meddle with that part of the public business which he had taken as his peculiar ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was himself in the habit of making experiments in painting and etching, though he deplored both the time and money so spent, and repeatedly resolved not to meddle any more with them; but he could not keep the resolution. His mind was so curious about all possible processes and technicalities, and his desire of perfection so great, that not only did he experiment in all the known processes, but invented new ones. Entries in the note-book ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... between Gibson and Clare would be! I don't know when I have been so much pleased. You may despise the trade of match-maker, my lady, but I am very proud of it. After this, I shall go on looking out for suitable cases among the middle-aged people of my acquaintance. I shan't meddle with young folks, they are so apt to be fanciful; but I have been so successful in this, that I do think it is a ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... had become abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, the church where he performed the miracle when he was sick of the fever. He was very ambitious to meddle in affairs of state, but his bad name had weakened his influence with Edmund, and it seemed likely to do the same with well-intentioned Edred. He desired to create a public impression again that ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... partially to favour any of the gladiators, or fencers, as either the Parmularii, or the Secutores. Moreover, to endure labour; nor to need many things; when I have anything to do, to do it myself rather than by others; not to meddle with many businesses; and not easily to ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... the Divine hand which thus conspicuously and signally appeared, put him ashore at Providence, and left him there. A physician being desired to undertake his cure, hearing how he came to lose his sight, refused to meddle with him. This account I lately received from credible persons, who knew and have often seen the man whom the devil (according to his own wicked wish) made blind, through the dreadful ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... decorous for your taste. The fifteen years have made me older and graver. In you I can detect no such becoming change. Your levities and audacities are like the loves and comforts prayed for by Desdemona: they increase, even as your days do grow. No mere pioneering journal dares meddle with them now: the stately Times itself is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as your chaperone; and even the Times must sometimes thank its stars that new plays are not produced every day, since after each such event its gravity is compromised, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... unsolved. That great hiatus needs filling up. I, therefore, whether erroneously or not, in reviewing a German historical work of some pretensions, where this problem emerges, rejected the Portman Square doctor altogether, and traced the term to an old Oxford statute—one of the many which meddle with dress, and which charges it as a point of conscience upon loyal scholastic students that they shall wear cerulean socks. Such socks, therefore, indicated scholasticism: worn by females, they would indicate a self-dedication to what for them would be regarded as pedantic ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... passion.] How dare you! How dare you meddle with my affairs—mine and Mr. Mackworth's! How ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... hill-sides, on the most distant and northern islands—as far north as any of our explorers have gone. The first birds Sverdrup met as he was coming south, in the early spring, were wild geese. These birds are not disturbed on their breeding grounds. The Eskimo do not meddle with them. In the same way caribou are found feeding about the shores of Hudson bay and strait. Like the geese, they feed on berries about the hill sides. I have shot them at the mouth of Churchill river, and near cape Digges ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... of wicked people from hurting you; the blessed Bible is in your hands; when you become men and women you will have full liberty to earn your living, to go, to come, to seek pleasure or profit in any way that you may choose, so long as you do not meddle with the rights of other people; in one word, you are free children! Thank God! thank God! my children, for this precious gift. Count it dearer than life. Ask the great God who made you free to teach you to prefer death to the loss ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... stupefied amazement at the severed bonds before he rushed back up the slope. He ran at full speed to the place where U Saw was placidly chewing betel and waiting the upshot of the affair. The Ruby King was fearfully incensed at the idea that anyone had dared to meddle with the prisoners, and both he and the half-caste breathed the most furious threats of torture and death against all concerned in the affair. That they would re-capture Jack and his father they did not doubt for an instant. The ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... in such a time as this the only way to fight against the devil is to attack him. He has got it too much his own way to meddle with us if we don't meddle with him. But the very devil has feelings, and if you prick him will roar...whereby you, at all events, gain the not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as big grasshoppers ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... an upshooting but also a down-growing branch. We find ourselves, at any rate, still a considerable distance from the turning point, where the history of society begins to descend, and we cannot expect the Hegelian philosophy to meddle with a subject which at that time science had not yet placed upon the order of ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... boys still shouted, and some of them carried their hostility so far as to throw sticks and stones at the little party; but as long as they kept at a respectful distance, Noddy did not deem it wise to meddle with them, though he kept one eye on them, and stood ready to punish those who ventured ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... as a most certain expedient to prevent many afflictions, and to be delivered from them: meddle as little with the world, and the honors, places and advantages of them, as thou canst. And extricate thyself from them as much, ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... been glad to flew above 'em, but the Ring and the vile laws lay holt of her onbeknown to her and dragged her down. And there she is all bruised and broken-hearted by 'em. She didn't meddle with the political Ring, but the Ring meddled with her. How can she fly when the weight of this infamous traffic is ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... of Sylvia's retreat; and when Siward went on sketching she had been content. Now she could not tell whether he had deliberately and skillfully taken his conge to follow Sylvia, or whether, in his quest for his cigarettes, chance might meddle, as usual. Even if he returned, she could not know with certainty how much of a part hazard had played on the landing above, where she already heard the distant sounds of Sylvia's voice mingling with Siward's, then a light footfall or ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... to expect a severe censure from Great Britain do not appear to be so anxious for the event as the friends and well-wishers to the authority of the Government." The Patriots intended no rebellion, and they experienced no apprehension. They put forth no absurd claims to meddle with things that were common and national, and they asked simply to be let alone as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... chance, I assure you. As I don't like folks to meddle with my affairs, I never meddle with theirs. As I have just said, it was entirely the work of chance. One April afternoon I came to invite you to a drive in the Bois. I was ushered into this very room where we are sitting now, and found you writing. I said I would ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... that awful fiddle!" "Hit 'im in the eye with a bit o' biscuit!" or "Grease his bow!" Then a deeper bass voice, evidently Scotch, and just as evidently a junior surgeon's, saying, "Let the laddie practise.—Fiddle away, my boy; I'll thrash all hands if they meddle with ye." ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... this, Marie!" said the Lady Catharine, sternly. "After this have better wisdom, and do not meddle in things ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... "Old person, do not meddle. This papa knows what he is about. The little folks understand very well that a 'biography' is a story of a life; that to 'criticise' is to find fault; and that ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... suppose anyone will say that in this great German event Prussian ambition had no share, or that force and conquest did not act side by side with the impulse of national sentiment. But I do not now meddle with what has been done in Germany; that has nothing in common with the present pretensions of Prussia to Alsace and Lorraine. Have these provinces given any manifestation, any appearance, of a desire to be included in the German unity? Is not the Prussian policy in this openly and exclusively ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... forced to sing low songs, and to dance low dances, and not to meddle with those of a higher character. It is said that when the Thebans made their celebrated campaign in Lacedaemon, they ordered the Helots whom they captured to sing them the songs of Terpander, and Alkman, and Spendon the Laconian; but they begged to be excused, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... physical causes are constant, it follows that the turning of the rod cannot be the result of a physical cause. The only other explanation is an intelligent cause—either the will of an impostor, or the action of a spirit. Good spirits would not meddle with such matters; therefore either the Devil or an impostor causes the motion of the rod, if it does move at all. This logic of Malebranche's is not agreeable to believers in the twig; but there the controversy ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... eye shut as long as they can, and then go off pretty leisurely to pass the word along that they have heard oars or have seen signals, especially if they have got a hot-headed boatswain in charge of their station, a sort of chap who would want to go down to meddle with a hundred men, with only five or six at his back. A man with a wife and some children, perhaps, don't relish the thought of going into a bad scrimmage like that if he can keep out of it; why ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... the fallen trees by means of a slow fire to make their canoes. Their villages were not permanent. They migrated within certain bounds, as they planted. A village might comprise as many as fifty or sixty round houses. The chiefs had absolute power of life and death. Priests did not meddle ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the foul arts of beautifying, and cry out in loud rude voices in every assembly and gathering. They strut about in vain-glorious conceit, and flaunt their gaudy apparel in indecent boldness. They claim what does not belong to them and meddle with what does not concern them. They do not blush to cloud the precious jewel of modesty with the selfish airs of passion. Nothing is said which they do not hear, nothing occurs which they do not see. They become bold, unblushing ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... this very humbly; and yet there was a note of grim resolution in his voice—which the doctor did not fail to note. "But, Samuel!" he protested. "Why—why should you meddle ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... grandpap," she said quietly, "an' if it wasn't for grandma I wouldn't come back. You've been bullyin' an' rough- ridin' over men-folks and women-folks all your life, but you can't do it no more with ME. An' you're not goin' to meddle in MY business any more. You know I'm a good girl—why didn't you go after the folks who've been talkin' instead o' pitchin' into Gray? You know he'd die before he'd harm a hair o' my head or allow you or anybody else to say anything against my good name. An' I tell you to your ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... and his first idea was to arrange the matter. This was a sensible course, and he ought at once to have put the matter into the hands of his friend Perker, with full powers to treat. But no. Mr. Pickwick's vanity and indiscretion made him meddle in the business behind his solicitor's back, as it where, and with damaging results to himself—a warning to all such amateurs. It must be said that Dodson and Fogg's behaviour at the extraordinary visit which he paid them was marked ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... influence of the court of Rome upon their envoy failed before the seductive power, mixed with fear, which Napoleon had exercised upon Cardinal Caprara since his arrival. The French bishops were not less troubled than the Pope. "Has the emperor the right to meddle in those matters?" wrote Aviau, Bishop of Bordeaux, to one of his friends; "who has given him the mission? To him the things of earth, to us the things of heaven. Soon, if we let him, he will lay hands on the censer, and perhaps afterwards wish ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... stopped short in his tracks and peered through the darkness. At first he believed that he must be mistaken. But no, it shone steadily before him, and he knew that some one was there. The thought made him angry, and he hurried forward, determined to make an example of the one who had dared to meddle ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... Mr. William, peace;—silentium, my graceless pupil. Urge the foaming steed, and strike terror into the rapid stag, but meddle not with ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... looking very grave, "don't you know, Hephzibah, it is wrong to meddle with anything ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... woman for having a Bastard Childe ... the Negroe said she Intised him and promised him to marry him: she being examined, Confest the same: the Court ordered that she shall receive Twenty one lashes on her bare Backe ... and the Court ordered the negroe never more to meddle with any white woman more ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... the way. The children began to follow An Ching; but Ku Nai-nai, who certainly appeared to have got out of bed the wrong side that morning (only you can't get off a kang except at one side), would not allow Nelly in the cook-house. 'No foreigners shall meddle with my food,' she said; whereat Nelly was very glad, for she had only offered to go and help on An ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... byldynge, ne yet of them ben fayne: It longeth to a lorde a Prynce or a Kynge That lacke no treasoure theyr werkes to mayntayne To set theyr myndes on excellent buyldynge Therfore who so euer wyll meddle with this thynge Or any other, before let hym be wyse That his myght and ryches ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... desire, like the lawyers and the rest, to make money. I would willingly have given them half of my income—and any one would have done it in my place, understanding what they do—if they had consented not to meddle in my conjugal life, and to keep themselves at a distance. I have compiled no statistics, but I know scores of cases—in reality, they are innumerable—where they have killed, now a child in its mother's ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... yard and talking to another at a window, and a third had opened a door belonging to the office. In the middle of the yard lay a small leather purse with two keys hanging at it, with money in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked how long it had lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an hour, but that they had not meddled with it, because they did not know but the person who dropped it might come ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... feudatory, born into a hereditary caste of soldiers, regards war as the highest vocation for a man of honour, is impatient of priestly arrogance, and believes in his heart that the Church ought not to meddle with politics. It would be a mistake to think of the two privileged classes as always at strife with one another and their social inferiors. But the great wars of Pope and Emperor, the fourteenth-century revolts of French and English peasants, are not events ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... these people, so to speak, a right to meddle and dabble in her heart? Was she to be wept over by Sister Angela—to confess her sins to Father Bowles—still worse, to Father Leadham? As she asked herself the question, she shrank in sudden passion from the whole world of ideas concerned—from all those ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was a little Tailor, who made clothes for many a worse man to wear, and who lived all alone in a little house with no one to darn his stockings for him, and no one to meddle with his coming and going, for he ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... Thus I would guide as I pleased the minds and hearts of my people. I would join morality to my authority by an indissoluble chain, and I would proclaim that one could not exist without the other, so that if any audacious individual attempted to meddle with a tabooed question, society, which cannot exist without morality, would feel the very earth tremble under its feet, and would turn its ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Tribunal, the severity of whose proceedings under him he had condemned, and sentenced to the guillotine; a reflection of his in prison has been recorded: "Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with governing of men." "No weakness, Danton," he said to himself on the scaffold, as his heart began to sink within him as he thought of his wife. His last words were to Samson the headsman: "Thou wilt show my head to the people, it is worth showing"; words worthy of the brother ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Now, thet han't so, and they couldn't ef they would, 'cause it's agin the Constitution—and they stand on the Constitution a durned sight solider nor we do. Didn't thar big gun—Daniel Webster—didn't he make mince-meat o' South-Carolina Hayne on that ar subject? But I tell you they han't a mind to meddle with our niggers; they're a goin' ter let us go ter h—l our own way—and we're goin' thar mighty fast, or I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... to understand," she said, "and now I'll have to tell you again. It was because I was trying so hard not to meddle that I did. I sent that little note to you just to get a chance to tell you not to mind my seeing you there with those others—not to let it spoil your party. I couldn't bear to have you come to me to-day, or to-morrow or whenever it was, feeling—well, ashamed you know, and ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sharp myself.' Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he said to Catherine, 'What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you never go near or meddle with them.' 'No, Frederick,' said she, 'that I never will.' As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy. 'Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money: if ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... order as required, and while the bath was preparing she arranged all the gifts in the coffer. Then closing the lid she said to Odysseus: "Make all fast with thine own hands, that none may meddle with thy goods as thou liest asleep on thy passage across the sea." Odysseus made fast the cord, securing it with an intricate and cunning knot, which he had learnt from the great sorceress Circe; and when he had finished he was ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... is often killed and torn to pieces by a drove of peccaries, that he has been imprudent enough to attack. Indeed, this fierce creature will not often meddle with the peccaries when he sees them in large numbers. He attacks only single ones; but their "grunting," which can be heard to the distance of nearly a mile, summons the rest, and he is surrounded before he is aware of it, and seized by as many as ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... crime of those who make a fraudulent use of the public money. But as it was not in my power to meddle with the public money, no part of which passed through my hands, I am at loss to conceive how I can be charged with peculation! The Due de Rovigo is not the author, but merely the echo, of this calumny; but the accusation ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... saying, "Ho, Fatimeh! Ho, Khedijeh! Ho, Herifeh! Ho, Senineh!" Whereupon all those who were in the place of women and neighbours flocked to me and fell a-laughing at me and saying, "O blockhead, what ailed thee to meddle with gallantry?" Then one of them came and looked in my face and laughed, and another said, "By Allah, thou mightest have known that she lied, from the time she said she loved thee and was enamoured of thee? What is there in thee to love?" And a third said, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave. Ver. If he will not stand when he is bidden he is none of the prince's subjects. Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects.—You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch to babble and talk, is most tolerable, and not to be endured. 2 Watch. We will rather sleep ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... I'm satisfied ter tend 'em. So fur es frayin' an' fightin' goes"—his voice mounted suddenly and the half-whimsical humour died instantly in his eyes—"I've got some of my own ter study erbout—an' I don't have ter meddle with other folkses' quarrels." ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... can take every precaution; but suppose, on the other hand, I kill you. Shall I look to the Duchess to assist me? Will not the finger of suspicion be pointed at her? Shall she say to her gardener when all Paris is hunting for you, 'Mind that you do not meddle with the piece of land at the end of ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... money." If they are in need of cash, they may draw upon his credit with the Spedalingo of S. Maria Novella. The constitutional liability to panic which must be recognised in Michelangelo emerges at the close of the letter. "As to public events, do not meddle with them either by deed or word. Act as though the plague were raging. Be the first to fly." The Buonarroti did not take his advice, but remained at Florence, enduring agonies of terror. It was a time when disaffection ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... out, sir," said the midshipman, and he was holding up the spear-shaft where he stood facing the injured man; "but it would be dangerous to meddle ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Mr. Wilson. "We better not meddle with that matter of disfranchisement," said he. "There are but few of these persons here, so the prohibition will practically not amount to any thing. As we are to accomplish a great object, to establish universal suffrage, we should let alone all propositions ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Lord, open to us." But He answered and said, "Verily I say unto you, I know you not." They find themselves shut out. And let me say this is their final state. One of the fearful things with some of these new theories concerning this last parable is that they meddle with these last words addressed to the foolish virgins, as if they have another chance. No, no, the door was shut and when the door opens again He comes forth not as the Bridegroom, but as the King of kings and the Lord ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have you meddle with it—But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I guess I can tell ye. It was sister ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... in the coup d'etat, and I do not regret it. It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion, and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... that respectable people dread scandal, and they profit by this knowledge. They are sometimes bold and unscrupulous in their way of conducting their business, and at other times endeavor to palm themselves off as injured innocents. They rarely meddle with women, for the difficulties in their way are greater; but, as they know that almost any story about a man will be believed, they fasten themselves like leeches upon the male sex. Young men about to make rich marriages ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... punhial, no cabbage upon two pot-sticks, like some she knew, that were ready enough to give boy a harsh word when they ought to look nearer home, and—may-be—but she said nothing—as God forbid that she'd make or meddle with any neighbor's character; but still, may-be, they'd find enough to blame at home, if they'd open their eyes to their own failings, as well as they do to ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... I mean, if everyone decided against me, nothing should induce me to let that Vaughan into Joe's house to meddle with his patients." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are hungering and thirsting for love, for a man to take care of them, for the right to wifehood and the thrice blessed right to motherhood. In the Press the parrot cry of men echoes ceaselessly: 'Women shouldn't meddle in politics; women shouldn't do this or that—let them mind their homes and their children.' But the restless women who do these things have generally no homes or children to mind; what is the use of preaching the sacredness of motherhood when ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby |
