"Meddler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you quit it, you meddler! You shall be taught to keep that long nose of yours out of ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... brick, with many-gabled roof and small-paned, deeply embrasured windows. A subsequent proprietor had enlarged its ground-plan, added an upper story, and changed the roof to one of flat pitch crowned by a hideous cupola. Still a third meddler had tried to make it over into a colonial homestead by painting the stucco white and joining on an enormous columned porch. The final result could hardly have been otherwise than an artistic monstrosity, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... said Patty, with sparkling eyes. How she longed to scratch the powder from Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene's beak-like nose! Busybody, meddler! "I never suspected John had ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... Elizabeth. "What! This independent young barrister—this parliamentary meddler in opposition, forsooth! He craveth a monopoly? God's death! A monopoly in all the impudence in this our realm is of a surety this fellow's right! We grant it—we grant it. Let the papers ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... soon, it might topple back and crush him. The people could be led, but they couldn't be driven. And therefore Mr. Mix, who had naturally made himself solid with the reactionaries and the church-going element (except those liberals who regarded him as an officious meddler), and who had actually succeeded in being mentioned as the type of man who would make a good Mayor, or President of Council, followed out a path which, unless his geography of common-sense was wrong, could ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... place. He was sly enough with me at first, and would brow-beat the Squire only while I was out of earshot. It chanced one day, however, that I heard loud voices through an open window and paused to hearken. That vile servant called my father 'a meddling old fool,' 'Fool and meddler art thou thyself, varlet,' I shouted, springing through the window, 'that for thy impudence!' and in my heat I smote him a blow mightier than I intended, for I have some strength in mine arm. The fellow rolled over and never breathed afterwards, I think I broke his neck or something the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... my life in the Rockies that trip and I guess a fellow whose life you've saved has a pull on you no one else has. Anyhow I'll chance it, and if I'm a damned interfering meddler it's up to you to say so and I'll apologise—handsomely. Are you in ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... professional layers had turned their slates and were out on watch for the event that would mean thousands in or out of their pockets. Among the second choices Artillery, the black Meddler mare, was held a shade the best. Next to her came Tay Ho, a son of Hastings, five years old, who might have divided honors with the favorites but for being an arrant rogue. To-day he ran in blinkers, and nodded the least bit in his stride, whereas his stable mate, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a? Come to the pedlar; Money's a meddler That doth ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... think about Dol Vin, if that helps you any. But just the same, she still acts the adroit meddler. When I recall how she tried all last year to spoil our time here—yours and mine—and now when I see she is making tools of these two innocents- -" Jane paused from ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... not be forbidden to demand of this man repayment of former favours? He had a motive for forgetting them: he denied all knowledge of his friends and comrades, and wished men only to see, to think, and to speak of him as emperor. He regarded his old friend as an impertinent meddler. ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... her it would be a war of words, while if he entered the arena it must be a fight? as we sometimes see, when a man goes home fighting drunk, every man of the neighborhood keeps out of sight, while all the women go out and help his wife to get him home. The most troublesome meddler was, as might be expected, an English sparrow. From the time when the first stick was laid till the babies were grown and had left the tree, that bird never ceased to intrude and annoy. He visited the nest when empty; he managed to have frequent ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... sister states as "the meddler," the "maker of trouble," and the duke as "Old Grumpy"—Brummbaer. To use a familiar Yankee expression, Barscheit had a finger in every pie. Whenever there was a political broth making, whether in Italy, Germany or Austria, ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... so, Mr. Brent," said Peppermore. "You see, he only got elected Mayor by one vote. That meant that half the Council was against him. Against his policy and ideas, you know. Of course he was a reformer. Those who didn't like him called him a meddler. And in my experience of this place—ten years—it's a bad thing to meddle in Hathelsborough affairs. Too many vested interests, sir! Certainly—amongst some people—Mr. Wallingford was not at ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence 'password hacker', 'network hacker'. The correct term ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... meddler I was, I tore the wound afresh. I exposed the bruised place in the girl's life, but my blunder brought to ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... Your little meddler spoils everything he touches; do not be vexed, but put out of his reach whatever he can spoil. He breaks the furniture he uses. Be in no hurry to give him any more; let him feel the disadvantages of ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... difficult to know what to do for the best," Fyne assured me. It is. Good intentions stand in their own way so much. Whereas if you want to do harm to anyone you needn't hesitate. You have only to go on. No one will reproach you with your mistakes or call you a confounded, clumsy meddler. The Fynes watched the door, the closed street door inimical somehow to their benevolent thoughts, the face of the house cruelly impenetrable. It was just as on any other day. The unchanged daily aspect of inanimate things is so impressive that Fyne went ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... manufacturing interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and right, and which, when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... in his library. Very quietly, sadly indeed, he told the story. The Elder, righteously indignant, stormed at the minister, denying everything; accusing Dan of being an impudent meddler; threatening him with dismissal from, the church and the denomination; accusing him even, with unlawful interest in the affairs of the widow, and taunting him with the common reports as to his relations with ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... quarrelsome, replied by a stinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins.[A] Pawkins in his "Rejoinder"[B] suggested that Hapley's microscope was as defective as his power of observation, and called him an "irresponsible meddler"— Hapley was not a professor at that time. Hapley in his retort,[C] spoke of "blundering collectors," and described, as if inadvertently, Pawkins' revision as a "miracle of ineptitude." It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely interest the reader to detail ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Mr. Neal answered to the call of luncheon, Mr. Neal mounted the steps leading to the open-air restaurant, with the somewhat sheepish air of the man who has done his duty, and is inclined to feel himself a meddler for his pains. The luncheon itself passed without gaiety. Manisty was either moodily silent, or engaged in discussions with the strange priest, Father Benecke, as to certain incidents connected with ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... experience and great fame a fighting divine was likely to give less help than scandal. The Bishop elect was determined to be wherever danger was; and the way in which he exposed himself excited the extreme disgust of his royal patron, who hated a meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle and a gownsman who pushed himself into a battle were the two objects which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Silat the bean- seller; and Akrashah the greengrocer; and Humayd the scavenger; and Sa'id the camel-man; and Suwayd the porter; and Abu Makarish the bathman;[FN621] and Kasim the watchman; and Karim the groom. There is not among the whole of them a bore or a bully in his cups; nor a meddler nor a miser of his money, and each and every hath some dance which he danceth and some of his own couplets which he caroleth; and the best of them is that, like thy servant, thy slave here, they know not what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the pony have his way, and was off in a clatter. Lonely, fuming with resentment, Rudolph stared after him. What could he know, this airy, unfeeling meddler, so free with his advice and innuendo? Let him go, then, let him canter away. He had seen quickly, guessed with a diabolic shrewdness, yet would remain on the surface, always, of a mystery so violent and so profound. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... business, no sinecure, plenty to do, many irons in the fire, great doings, busy hum of men, battle of life, thick of the action. housewife, busy bee; new brooms; sharp fellow, sharp blade; devotee, enthusiast, zealot, meddler, intermeddler, intriguer, busybody, pickthank[obs3]; hummer, hustler, live man [U.S.], rustler * [U. S.]. V. be active &c. adj.; busy oneself in; stir, stir about, stir one's stumps; bestir oneself, rouse oneself; speed, hasten, peg away, lay about ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... interesting to watch the change which seemed to be going on in the jays' disposition by reason of the unusual friendship. Deedeeaskh the jay has not a friend among the wood folk. They all know he is a thief and a meddler, and hunt him away without mercy if they find him near their nests. But the great fishhawks welcomed him, trusted him; and he responded nobly to the unusual confidence. He never tried to steal from the young, not even when the ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... not," he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes me, curse him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent man of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... delivering those stores of arms and ammunition which belonged to the Chevalier, and which had been put into the French magazines when Sir George Byng came to Havre. Castel Blanco is a Spaniard who married a daughter of Lord Melford, and who under that title set up for a meddler in English business. I cannot justly tell whether the honour of obtaining this promise was ascribed to him, to the Junto in the Bois de Boulogne, or to any one else. I suppose they all assumed a share of the merit. The project ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... with these liberties, who dares intrude uninvited into their premises and paint out the signs they have permitted to occupy their fences and barns and sheds? Who would do these things but an impertinent meddler who is so inexperienced in life that he sets his own flimsy judgment against that of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... The numbing effects of the odour he had inhaled testified to its poisonous nature, but no precautions, he reflected, had been taken to ensure its effect; on the contrary, its immediate result was to alarm and warn the rash meddler ere mischief could be wrought. Nama also had hastened away, as not expecting any such terrible issue, of which certain tidings would be desired if murder such as he dreamed of had been contemplated. It could ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... speaking these words. If anyone should say, O King, putting all in a word, that thou hast given up thy kingdom and all men everywhere to Justinian, he would be speaking correctly. For since he is by nature a meddler and a lover of those things which in no way belong to him, and is not able to abide by the settled order of things, he has conceived the desire of seizing upon the whole earth, and has become eager to acquire ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... constitutional dislike of paradox. During the restaurant dinner he had been forced to listen in almost absolute silence to a strange tissue of improbabilities strung together with the ingenuity of a born meddler in plots and mysteries, and it was with a feeling of weariness that he crossed Shaftesbury Avenue, and dived into the recesses of Soho, for his lodgings were in a modest neighbourhood to the north of Oxford Street. As he walked he speculated on the probable fate ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... "Listen, you meddler," he addressed Placido, "I wasn't questioning you, but since you think you can save others, let's see if you can save yourself, salva te ipsum, and ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... while the scraping, metallic sounds continued steadily, then abruptly ceased as though the unseen meddler had ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... passionate;' a description which applies to the anonymous poems alluded to, but is not particularly applicable to those artificial and tame performances which he was willing to acknowledge. And this so commanding Poet, who was at the same time an aspiring courtier and meddler in affairs of state, and who chose, for some mysterious reason or other, to forego the honours which those who were in the secret of his literary abilities and successes,—the very best judges of poetry in that time, too, were disposed to accord him,—and we are not without references to cases ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... about their duty to their children, and who end by neither making their children happy nor having a tolerable life for themselves. A selfish tyrant you know where to have, and he (or she) at least does not confuse your affections; but a conscientious and kindly meddler may literally worry you out of your senses. It is fortunate that only very few parents are capable of doing what they conceive their duty continuously or even at all, and that still fewer are tough enough to ride roughshod over their ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... with a smile. "What a meddler the fellow is! To tell you the truth, sir, it rather pleases me to mislead Roy, and put him on the wrong scent. He comes here, pumping, trying to get what he can out of me: asking this, asking that, fishing out anything there is to fish. I recollect, he did say something about the codicil, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one. "It's a barometer, and it shows which way a meddler blows in!" ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... evidences of Spanish authority were to be obliterated. Both objects Jackson attained with characteristic speed and thoroughness. At St. Marks he made Arbuthnot a prisoner; at Suwanee he captured another meddler by the name of Ambrister; and after a court-martial he hanged one and shot the other in the presence of the chieftains whom these men had deceived into thinking that Great Britain stood ready to come to the red man's relief. Two ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... all this, I felt a great curiosity to know who these seven people could be, whom the devils themselves held in so much dread. But ere a minute had elapsed, the clerk of the crown called their names, as follows:—Master Meddler, alias Finger in Every Dish; but he was so vehement and busy in advising the others, that he could not get a moment's time to answer for himself, until Death threatened to transfix ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... you," cried Oscar, "what did you tell Ralph about the blackboard for! I 'll learn you to mind your own business, next time, you mean, sneaking meddler. Take that—and that," he continued, giving Whistler several hard blows with his fist. The latter attempted to dodge the blows, but did not return them, for this he knew would only increase the anger of Oscar, who was so much his superior in ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... why you came with me," said Angus, bitterly. "Just because that stupid old meddler, Helen Raeburn, took it into her wooden head that I could not take care of myself, and talked my father into sending me with you now, instead of letting me go the other way round by myself! Could not take care ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... may also rejoice exulting at the revelation of his glory. [4:14]If you are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. [4:15]But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil doer, or as a meddler in other men's affairs; [4:16]but as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, let him glorify God on this account. [4:17]For it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it first begins with ...
— The New Testament • Various
... instant that I, with a record for having made fewer blunders than any man in the service, could afford to take a chance with you unless I was absolutely sure of my ground, do you? You ask me what I take you for. Well, I take you for a meddler who, if given a free rein, may upset the whole pot of beans and work an irreparable injury to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... out of date—the thing is gone by—it is too late to call in question a transaction so long past. Thus, if a man is interested personally, he is unfit to question an abuse; if he is not, is it probable that he will question it? and if, notwithstanding this, he do so, then he is to be accounted a meddler. If he is insulted, and complain, he is told to wait until he is cool; and when that period arrives, he is then told he is too late. If his remonstrance relates to the alteration of laws which are never referred ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... plan. To-day, he ordered this; to-morrow, he ordered that; and, the next day, upset the other two by something quite different from either: so that Washington was often left completely in the dark as to what the uncertain meddler's wishes or ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... knight: "For ye, fool and meddler, whether ye be knight or no, will I not stay my hand, nay, rather for your shame, will I chastise her the more; and should ye but speak another word to her I shall thrust ye straightway from your steed ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... at the foot of the stair and was slowly preparing to light a cigarette. Recalling his humiliation of a few hours before at Juneau, when the other had very clearly proved him a meddler, words refused to form quickly on Alan's lips. Before he was ready with an answer Mary Standish had confidently taken his arm. He could see the red flush deepening in her upturned face. She was amazingly unexpected, bewilderingly pretty, and as cool as ice except for the softly glowing ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... who begins to tell tales to his mother of his little brothers and sisters will, if not corrected, grow up to be just such another sneak as Jerry; and Jerry, unless he cures himself of his vice, will become a mere odious meddler and scandalmonger in society, and may arrive at the unenviable distinction of being the most detested man ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... replied the goldsmith, "the nature of my employment affords me direct access to the interior of the palace; I am well known to be no meddler in intrigues or party affairs, so that no favourite has as yet endeavoured to shut against me the door of the royal closet; on the contrary, I have stood well with each while he was in power, and I have not shared the fall of any. But I cannot be thus connected with the Court, without hearing, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... an amateur philanthropist. I trust I'm not an amateur anything. I am a business woman earning my own living by my own labors and I pay taxes and for the past year or so I have been a citizen and a voter. Please do not regard me merely as an officious meddler—a busybody with nothing to do except to mind other people's affairs. It was quite by chance that I came upon this poor child and learned something of her ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... mahogany, which would make the case to be much younger than the clock. The Captain assured us that it was the best time-keeper in the world. It only requires winding once a month; used to show the day of the month, but some meddler disarranged that part of the machinery. The dial plate is of some white metal, brilliant and silvery. Captain Knox said it was brass, but I have seen things look more brazen that were not ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... wisdom and good sense which did credit to the new feeling which animated him, Croustillac put these two cases to himself: Either Blue Beard wished to amuse herself, and that night would say to him frankly, "Sir, you have been an impertinent meddler; blinded by vanity, urged on by cupidity, you have made a wager that you would become my husband in a month's time; I have wished to torment you a little, and to play the ferocious part accredited to me; the buccaneer, the filibuster, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... than the other landed functionaries. But the owners of the other estates tenaciously held them intact. The people regarded Bellomont as a sincere and ardent reformer, but the landed men and their following abused him as a meddler and destructionist. Despairing of getting a self-interested assembly to act, Bellomont appealed ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... into the lives of twenty thousand human beings!" the professor said to himself many times a day, with the joy of the scientist. "I'm being first assistant to the world's greatest meddler. That young man is headed for a place as one of the world's leaders, or for a lamp-post and a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... from the first; the lurking figure by the fire in the woods was no longer a mystery; the scene on this very spot, when she had bent down to hand Emmet the candle, was explained. The whole story, in which he played the part of a meddler and a fool, was unrolled before him. Emmet—Emmet—Emmet—that had been her theme, and apparently her chief interest in life. Still, with a pitiful hope, he must needs have the final proof before believing. There ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... you. But I can only do so if you give me the right to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only too ready to do that—people related to you by blood and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... performed; but the Spanish minister, the Duc de Soto Mayer, resented this interference as an insult to Spain, and the British minister was dismissed from Madrid. In England Lord Palmerston was denounced as a meddler, and a minister whose policy was provocative of foreign discord. The course of policy, however, adopted by the noble viscount was customary with all British ministers, did not exceed the right which one friendly nation has to advise another, and was based ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thought. Probably he reflected that there are two sides to every argument, and he had heard but one. Certainly, John Delancy Curtis did not strike him as the dare-devil meddler, if not worse, he had been depicted by ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... character, all written out," insisted Miss Elsham. "He's that kind. He didn't dare to presume with me as he would with a girl in a dining room; but I was getting along all right till Crowley butted in." She turned spitefully on that monopolizer and meddler. "And now don't stand there and say again that you claim the credit. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... looking forward to for days—dragging himself back to protect her—oh, it was too hopeless! Should she ever be able to explain to him why she had sent for him, and that her intentions had been the opposite of those of the moralizing meddler he would take her for? If only she could make it up to him somehow. She would have liked to reach over and pull him down into her arms, mother him and tell him not to mind—there was something so intolerably ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... future. He had told her of his pitiful childhood. He had told her of his business. It had been definite—the simple statement he made—and she accepted it without question until Jane Anderson had dropped these ugly suspicions. She hated the meddler for it. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round distinct centres, and forming themselves into solid masses, which after a time assume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. I may, like an ignorant meddler wishing to hasten matters, introduce confusion into this order. This may be done by plunging a glass rod into the vessel; the consequent action is not the pure expression of the crystalline forces; the molecules ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... thought I'd done something awful. She yelped and wriggled and cried—she did—she actually cried. And you wouldn't believe what she finished up by doing—she went and took a bath! A whole bath—when she didn't have to! She can't see a joke at all. Now Alice is a horrid meddler—she and Maria. Yet Alice is a sport, and takes her medicine. I've seen that girl with a beetle in her hair, which I put there, keep her teeth shut and not make a sound—only a low gurgle—until she'd got him and slung him out of the window. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and gone—millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and died—to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... to injure Mr. Pickwick recoiled upon the head of its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy to the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... upon his friend's shoulder. "What's more, that is exactly what I would do in your place. I'd borrow all I could and give my sister her one supreme hour, free from all disturbing fears and embarrassments; then I'd tell the impertinent meddler who was to blame for my trouble to go whistle for his satisfaction. Of course ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... with your 'Clarion,' Boyee. Blow your fool head off. Deave us all deaf. Play any tune you want, and pay yourself for your piping. I won't interfere—any more'n I can help, being an old meddler by taste. Blood's thicker than water, they say. I guess it's thicker than printer's ink, too. Remember this, right or wrong, win or lose, Boyee, I'm ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... meddler!" ejaculated the squire, throwing the letter from him in impatience. "I suppose the Barton boy has been writing to him. He evidently considers it my duty to support all my poor relations, himself included. I will undeceive him on that point." He drew writing ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... more factories, more masters; more men were wanted. The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with only a smattering of the knowledge of the real facts of the case, even though that meddler be called the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... whole story—he's writing regularly to that little girl. She and her mother, in spite of the guardians, regard it as an engagement signed and sealed, and all his friends believe he's quite determined to marry her because of the money. You may think me an odious little meddler, Julie, if you like, but I vow I could stab him to the heart, with all ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hopes of patching it up, but I can't write now—my hand is too shaky—and mebbe it was just as well, for meddling is terribly risky work in a love trouble, Nora May. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and them she meddles with is worse than ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... smiled. In this smile was the whole of his polite and easy-going philosophy. "I am no meddler," it seemed to say; and at sight of that smile Lady Casterley tightened ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Raven reminded her, seeing she needed prompting, not yet guessing where the question was to lead. Curiously, he thought, it was Milly's exasperating fate to put everybody on guard. But it was inevitable. When you had a meddler in the family, you never knew where you'd ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... out of her sight, he fell into a boundless perplexity. Perhaps she was right, after all. Mr. Ancrum was a meddler and he an ass. When next he saw David, he spoke to the boy harshly, and demanded to know where he went loafing every afternoon. Then, as the days went on, he discovered that Hannah meant to visit his insubordination upon ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... make this selection without bitter opposition and grave warning. He was told that McClellan was an aggressive pro-slavery Democrat, a political meddler and unalterably opposed to him and his party on every essential issue before the people. These arguments found no weight with the man in the White House. He would ask but one question, ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... a pace or two, and a sneer curled his thin lips, although his face had suddenly paled. "I've heard of you, of course—the international meddler! What sort of sensation are you trying to work up now, my man, by such a ridiculous assertion? Pennington Lawton—murdered! Why, all the world knows ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... your understanding my motives. But anyhow, just for to-night, give way to my schemes, and don't let the others see that you're offended with us. If after a night here you still honestly think I'm a fool and a meddler, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... for a meddler and a coxcomb, Sir George Soane!' cried the angry man; and quick as thought he struck Sir George, who was at elbows with him, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... else in learned prose, that you will always be, in spite of everything that may be done, the very same you have been all your life; that is to say, a scatter-brain, a man of distempered reason, always perplexed, wanting common sense, a man of left-handed judgment, a meddler, an ass, a blundering, hare-brained, giddy fellow,—what can I think of? A... a hundred times worse than anything I can say. This is only an abridgement of ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... affairs to meddle are;) Who are you? with awe-stricken looks, All ask: his airy knuckles he crooks, And raps, 'I was Eliab Snooks, That used to be a pedler; Some on ye still are on my books!' Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, (More fearing this than common spooks) Shrank each indebted meddler; Further the vengeful ghost declared 771 That while his earthly life was spared, About the country he had fared, A duly licensed follower Of that much-wandering trade that wins Slow profit from the sale of tins And various kinds of hollow-ware; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... heart as he realized that this woman's love could never be his. The knowledge excited his passion the more. His hatred of Anstruther now became a mania, an insensate resolve to mortally stab this meddler who always ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... entoirely, for there's mony a thing she's tried to tell us an' can't for the want of a worrud. But foind me a man of yer as does any thinkin' 'thout his woman there to prompt him," she quoth contemptuously, "an' I'll foind ye a polaceman as isn't a meddler in other folks' affairs, as this yere mob is ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... Now, sir, if the man who has fooled the greatest number of persons to the top of their bent were to be adjudged the fittest companion for Jack of Dover, you would find him in a distinguished meddler with everything who has been for half-a-century the merry-andrew of a vast arena, which he calls moral and political science, but which has in it a dash of everything that has ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... so far in his interference with the regular course of Nature that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to be inflicted on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. This rebel by every step forward renders himself liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in one single step. One of Nature's most powerful agencies in thwarting his determination to live ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... had evidently come to regard his niece as his son's lawful property, and the Baron as the troublesome meddler; and Diane had much the same feeling, enhanced by sore jealousy at Eustacie's triumph over her, and curiosity as to whether it could be indeed well founded. She had an opportunity of judging the same evening—mere habit always caused Eustacie to keep under her wing, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... struggle. One was holding the other down by the lower jaw, while a man, evidently the owner of the half-vanquished brute, was trying to separate them. Outside this ring about twenty other brutes—men, women, and children—were cheering the combatants, and calling on the meddler to desist. It was strange how the peacemaker managed to stand up against the volleys of oaths they showered on him; he did, however, and persisted in his laudable efforts, till a tall, rawboned, heavy-jawed fellow stepped into the ring, and, taking ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... more worldly wise than the rest, accompanied his modest petition for mercy with the gift of a barrel of cider, after which the Parson's ministrations were perceptibly less exhausting than before. He had an irrepressible conscience and a highly aggressive sense of duty, which made him an intolerable meddler in the affairs of other people, and which, joined to an underlying kindness of heart, made him so indiscreet in his charities that his wife and children were often driven to vain protest against the excesses of his almsgiving. The old Puritan fanaticism was ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... excitement. "We take the train in twenty minutes. Your interference is not only impudent—it's useless. I know perfectly well who sent you: it was Judge Hollis. He was the only man we met after we left town. Just return to him, with my compliments, and tell him I say he is a meddler ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... studied under him, whether Dr. Rush had ever learned the meaning of that saying of Lord Bacon, that man is the minister and interpreter of Nature, or whether he did not speak habitually of Nature as an intruder in the sick room, from which his art was to expel her as an incompetent and a meddler. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Amine, as the door closed, "I know you did; but I must rid myself of your unwelcome company. I will have no spy upon my actions—no meddler to thwart me in my will. In your zeal you have committed yourself, and I will take the advantage you have given me. Is not the privacy of a woman's chamber to be held sacred by you sacred men! In return for ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... racking pains I had come to the stage of querulous self-pity. 'Twas monstrous, this burying a man alive, ill, fettered, uncared-for, to live or die in utter solitude as might happen. I could not remotely guess to whom I owed this dismal fate, and was too petulant to speculate upon it. But the meddler, friend or foe, who had bereft me of my chance to die whilst I was fit and ready, came in for a Turkish cursing—the curse that calls down in all the Osmanli variants the same pangs in ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... face was now as scarlet as her own, the veins upon his brow were swollen and hard as knotted cords; but his hand was very steady, as he took the bottle, removed the cork, smelled, tasted. "Who has had access to this bottle?" he thundered then, and his voice boded little good to any meddler. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... saloon, being lowly and harmless, must go. In their stead came the mirrored bar with its greater influence for the spread of intemperance but clothed with more respectability outwardly. Public officials were embarrassed, cajoled and threatened. The malcontent, the meddler, the demagogue, had injected their baneful innovations into the political ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... them with testimonials and mid-year and final marks. I intimated plainly, impudently, that they were "stalling"! In vain did the chairman, Ex-President Hayes, explain and excuse. I took no excuses and brushed explanations aside. I wonder now that he did not brush me aside, too, as a conceited meddler, but instead ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... what I am going to be,—a home missionary, in his home; and all the principalities and powers of earth shall not prevent it. And now, you dear, precious, old meddler, good-by. You shall, one day, sit in the snuggest corner of as cosy a little home in the West as was ever made in the East;" and she vanished, leaving the old gentleman chuckling to himself, "It doesn't look as if it would be 'stopped' after all. Perhaps sister ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... again! Well, the suggestion haunts me, too. I'll investigate promptly; and—what I shall do after that I haven't yet decided. I hate a meddler and am not anxious to become one. Heigho! No matter how hard a tired man tries to mind his own business he can't do it! Here comes that young Melvin Cook, and he's a lad with a pedigree, let me tell you, as long as any oldest Marylander of all. He and I have ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... is reprieved. [Aside] Yet, if my complicity in his escape were known! Plague on the old meddler! There's nothing for it— [aloud]— Hush, pretty one! Such bloodthirsty words ill become those cherry lips! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... constitutional processes, not merely to direct, but even to thwart them; nor this merely for himself, but it is in his power, through the nullification of his own constitution, to nullify also that of the world, to dally with the institutions of Nature, and on the grandest scale to play the meddler. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Moreover, if man is to remain a civilized being, he must be held to his business of producer and protector. She cannot overlook her obligation to keep him up to his part in the partnership, and she cannot wisely interfere too much with that part. The fate of the meddler is common knowledge! ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... not from the eye, lest she be wanton-eyed; not from the ear, lest she be an eavesdropper; not from the neck, lest she be insolent; not from the mouth, lest she be a tattler; not from the heart, lest she be inclined to envy; not from the hand, lest she be a meddler; not from the foot, lest she be a gadabout. I will form her from a chaste portion of the body," and to every limb and organ as He formed it, God said, "Be chaste! Be chaste!" Nevertheless, in spite of the great caution used, woman has all the faults God tried ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... a quarrelsome, mischief-making meddler, good for nothing but to set the parish together by the ears; and I must beg of you to drop his name when at my table, Peveril. As to the chimes, you will ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... a very tame and crestfallen Garnache who quitted the Auberge du Veau qui Tete and rode out of the town to take the road to Paris. How they would laugh at him at the Luxembourg! Not even an affair of this kind was he fit to carry through; not even as a meddler in women's matters as Tressan had called him—could he achieve success. Rabecque, reflecting his master's mood—as becomes a good lackey—rode silent and gloomy a pace ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... after I had your final answer, I obtained possession of some papers, which revealed another of those subtle schemes for the escape of a batch of French aristocrats—that traitor de Tournay amongst others—all organized by that arch-meddler, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Some of the threads, too, of this mysterious organization have come into my hands, but not all, and I want you—nay! you MUST help me to gather ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... combat. One turn by himself as far as the turnpike, however, and he gave up the first, and retained only the second resolve. Half-an-hour more, and he had settled in his mind that there was no need to punish the meddler that way: and so he resolved to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was no meddler, but a man speaking of something very near his heart; no presuming and interfering outsider who deserved a snub, but a man suffering from ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... we went off together to visit at the other cabin, or, if they were as bad there, find a warm corner with our blankets in the log barn, and there chat away the hours until our companions had calmed down and turned into their bunks. John Bar was not a meddler, nor what is contemptuously called, in such reckless societies as ours was, "a preacher;" but as he was loyal to his country, and loyal to his parents, he was far more loyal to his God. It would madden any man to hear his mother's name profanely used; it made John Bar's ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... about him. Eyen Marcus owned the other day that he feared he would never be fit for much. But there is no use in trying to manage other people's lives. As Aunt Madge says, it takes all our strength and cleverness to manage our own. 'A meddler is always a muddler;' how well I remember her saying that. We did not make the world, and we cannot rule the world. When I see grown-up folk trying to arrange for other people, I always think of children playing at snap-dragon. One gets one's fingers burnt so badly when we try to pull out ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... did you tell him?" she cried. "I hate you. I'll hate you for this as long as I live. You have sent him to his death—you meddler, you simpleton! And you don't even know what you have done. You have sent him to his death, I tell you! Yes, that's what you have done, and I will never forgive you while I breathe. He has gone to warn the attorney-general, and he will be killed, too. You heard what uncle said about the ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Persis' animation had returned. The confirmed meddler has one thing in her favor, that whatever the crisis of her own fortunes, there are always the affairs of other people to distract her thoughts. She dropped into a chair by the lamp and read the brief letter with breathless ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... to say. If you had left your precious young meddler to vegetate in his native village you would have saved me ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... be locked up. I can not accord you recognition; without the essential representations, I see nothing in you but an impertinent meddler. To-morrow evening you shall be conveyed to Brunnstadt, where you will reside for some time, I can assure you. Perhaps on your head will rest the blood of many gallant gentlemen; for within another twenty-four hours ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... was not from negligence or indifference that I delayed to make this known unto thee, for it is true and beyond question, but 'twas because I reverenced the excellency of thy majesty, lest thou mightest think me a meddler. If therefore thou bid thy servant put thee in mind of these things for the future, I shall obey thy behest.' 'Yea,' said the king, 'not every day only, but every hour, renew in me the remembrance thereof: for ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... meddler, Villa Rocca! Hardin weaves a scheme. He will wait her letters. If the Italian is his enemy, he will lure him to ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... universal ethical laws—"the golden rule is that there is no golden rule"—thus while in the Pillars of Society he advocates candid confession and honest revelation of the truth of things; in the "Wild Duck" he attacks the pig-headed meddler, who comes "dunning us with claims of the Ideal." Ultimately, though absorbed in "matters of conscience," it is as an artist rather than as a philosopher that ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... cussed meddler er not, I'm a cussed shore shot. An' I advise ye to give over on all this an' mind yore business. Ye'll have plenty to do by midnight, an' by that time all yore womern an' children, all yore old men an' all yore cowards'll be prayin' fer ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... he happens to think that our fighting and victories may go hand in hand with a measure which is to prevent future war, he is 'opposed to the Administration,' is 'a selfish traitor thinking of nothing but the Nigger,' and altogether a stumbling-block and an untimely meddler. If he protest that he cares no more for the welfare of the Negro than for that of the man in the moon, he is still reviled as an 'abolitionist.' If he insist that emancipation will end the war, his 'conservative' foe becomes pathetic over his indifference as to what is to become of the four millions ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
