"Meddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voices to condemn Mr. Madison, and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies despised ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... were now of an age to understand and to govern themselves by reason; and with these she determined to use those preventive measures which reason affords. Without meddling with politics, in which no amiable or sensible woman can wish to interfere, the influence of ladies in the higher ranks of life may always be exerted with perfect propriety, and with essential advantage to the public, in conciliating the inferior classes of society, explaining to them ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... with giving only a character of the person and his writings, without meddling with the transactions of his life, which was altogether private: I shall only make this known observation of his family, that there was scarce so many extraordinary men in any one. I have been acquainted with five of his brothers, of which three ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... wandered on these banks to thwart my ripe design? Perdition to the meddling slave! his life shall pay the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... not having nor in no ways holding any part of her former husband's estate whatever." We have also the declaration of a widower on marrying a widow in 1702, who had property in her own name, probably gained by will, "that he did renounce meddling with her estate." These declarations evidence that the widow relinquished, and that the groom received her without the least design upon the estate. It has been intimated that in a few instances these declarations became a "sign," but we can hardly credit it. The "rich" widow was taken ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... we don't want you meddling now, old mousetrap," said the birds; "none of your night-birds here." Saying which, they pecked and buffeted old Shoutnight to such a degree that he was glad to shuffle off to his hole ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... women, always meddling in things they don't know anything about. I'll tell you when you ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... widow, too, I've sometimes spied, Sad sight! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead: Listless, she crawls along in doleful black, Whilst bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, Fast falling down her now untasted cheek: Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst busy, meddling memory, In barbarous succession musters up The past endearments of their softer hours, Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... we all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real mischief ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Old Mr. Toad!" grumbled Jimmy, as he ambled up the Lone Little Path through the Green Forest on his way to the hill where Prickly Porky lives. "Of course I'm not afraid, but just the same I don't like meddling with things I don't know anything about. I'm not afraid of anybody I know of, because everybody has the greatest respect for me, but it might be different with a creature without legs or head or tail. Whoever heard of such a thing? It gives ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... understanding, I can discover the powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any degree proportionate; and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be beyond the reach ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... at Gross-Nossen, and perhaps a little surprised to find no Loudon meddling with him, pushes out, first one party and then another,—Dalwig, Bulow, towards Landshut Hill-Country, to threaten Loudon's Bohemian roads;—who, singular to say, do not hear the least word of Loudon thereabouts. A Loudon strangely indifferent ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the Scythian or Leucon the Pontic. But I will here also set down his very discourse, that we may see whether, as from the treble and the base strings there arises a symphony in music, so the life of a man who chooses quietness and meddling with little accords with him who, upon any necessity, rides along with the Scythians and manages the affairs of the tyrants in the Bosphorus: "For that a wise man will both go to the wars and live with potentates, we will again consider this hereafter; some indeed upon the like ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... have said all that is necessary. I deserve it, too, for meddling in your affairs. It may satisfy you to know that I have always despised you. Having confessed, I can only add that we cannot live another hour under the same roof. You need not order me to go. I shall do so of my own accord—gladly." ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... of the deaths that came from the poor Queen; or rather that justly came from meddling with her arrangements and thwarting her purpose. Do you not think that, in putting it as you have done, you have been unjust? Who would not have done just as she did? Remember she was fighting for her life! Ay, and for more than her life! For life, and love, and all the glorious possibilities ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... dote upon the next creature seen. Having this herb's juice, Oberon would watch Titania when she was asleep, and drop the liquor into her eyes, that when she wakened she might pursue the first object she cast eyes on with the soul of love, whether it should be lion, bear, wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or busy ape. The delusion accomplished, he would give her another herb to remove the charm, but not before ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... all right, my girl. I fancy what meddling you do will make no difference to me. Just don't get ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... and searched about for gold. They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw directly that all was not right. The first said, "Who has been sitting on my stool?" The second, "Who has been eating off my plate?" The third, "Who has been picking at my bread?" the fourth, "Who has been meddling with my spoon?" The fifth, "Who has been handling my fork?" The sixth, "Who has been cutting with my knife?" The seventh, "Who has been drinking my wine?" Then the first looked round and said. "Who has ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... the prostrate dead: Listless, she crawls along in doleful black, Whilst bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, Past falling down her now untasted cheek. Prone on the lowly grave of the dear man She drops; whilst busy meddling memory, In barbarous succession, musters up The past endearments of their softer hours, 80 Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks She sees him, and, indulging the fond thought, Clings yet more closely to the senseless ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... gentlemen, who are out of doors all day, to ladies muddling and meddling all day about the house. I must say I do, too, Mr. Denzil," ended the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... cafe and restaurant at the end of the Chiaja, and the big cafe and restaurant in the great arcade, were at daggers drawn, and a war of cutting down of prices raged. In those happy days one could dine or lunch at either place sumptuously for a shilling. Some meddling busybody interfered in the quarrel and brought the proprietors into a friendly spirit. The Gambrinus, with its bright rooms, good decorations, and fair attendance, is perhaps the best restaurant at which a stranger can take ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... will only be one sentence for him," said the old lady grimly; "it's beheaded he will be. 'Tis a pity, for he was a well-favoured youth; but what else could he expect, meddling with such matters?" and then she left the room, eager to find some fresh listeners to whom she could tell ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... this new Jerusalem, if they believe according to the tale that is told of her, that she is and has been of old a rebellious city, and destructive to kings, and a diminisher of their revenues. She is not for meddling with any thing that is theirs, from a thread even to a shoe-latchet. Her glory is spiritual and heavenly, and she is satisfied with what is her own. 'Tis true, the kings and nations of this world shall one day bring ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... the pot off the fire and put the stew into a dish, as it had been cooking quite long enough and she was hungry. But no sooner had she tasted it than she put her spoon down, and declared that her daughter must have been meddling with it, for it was impossible to eat anything that ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... answered; "and I think I'd rather not. They're not canny after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and we've sons and daughters to help us, and that's better than meddling with the Fairies, to my mind. No! no!" she added, laughing, "if we had had one you'd have heard of it, whoever didn't, for I should have had some decent clothes made for him. I couldn't stand rags and old cloaks, messing and moth-catching, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... before, Arnold Greatson," she said, "that you were meddling with greater concerns than you knew of, and that harm would come to you for it. Now you have chosen to shield a murderer, and to use your strength upon a woman. These things will not ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this to me officially? No? Well, then, I don't want to know anything about it. I won't burn my fingers in meddling with a ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... not so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?" When he did not answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. "What should I know about such matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it behooves a woman to shun meddling with great affairs?" ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the neighbourhood; but all around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the cable, however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, until a little, wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant-officers' mess, a small meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well behaved weeks only once, began to taunt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... good folk,' he said; 'my wife is one, and I've given her a little church of her own to do as she likes in; still, I'm not very sure about them; I think some of them are too fond of meddling ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... Presbyterians attributed the calamities to the wickedness of Jacobites, Prelatists, Sabbath-breakers and Atheists, as they denominated some of their fellow-sufferers. The accused parties, on the other hand, complained bitterly of the impertinence of meddling fanatics and hypocrites. Paterson was cruelly reviled, and was unable to defend himself. He sunk into a stupor, and ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... the Jew quietly, "when you say your men surround this house. You are alone. You are NOT in the police service, you are a busybody meddling with men who think as little of killing you as they did of killing your friend. My servant was placed to watch your window, saw your signal, reported to me. And I found your assistant and threw him into an area, with ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... did not feel justified in meddling. But he wishes that he had gone to Ethel at once—or that I had been at home and that he had come to me. He is reproaching himself terribly ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the year I joined myself with a gang who usually go every year to Stourbridge Fair, and from thence to Bury Fair, in Suffolk. We promised ourselves great things there, but when I came to see how things were, I was weary of it presently; for except mere picking of pockets, there was little worth meddling with; neither, if a booty had been made, was it so easy carrying it off, nor was there such a variety of occasion for business in our way, as in London; all that I made of the whole journey was a gold watch at Bury Fair, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... "His name isn't Drummond at all: it is Plummer. And he isn't fit to be a guest in any decent house, and I've come to tell you so and have you give him the sack and put him to the door at once. Excuse me meddling, but you have been very kind to me and received me most hospitably, and I am not going to see you taken in by a rascal and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... and A—, and well acquainted with the particular affairs of each; who, far from treating him as a bastard and impostor, received him with civility and seeming kindness, asked him to eat, presented him with a piece of money, and, excusing himself from meddling in the affair, advised him to go to Ireland, as the most proper place for commencing a suit for the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... when they awake, dote on the first thing they see. Some of the juice of that flower I will drop on the eyelids of my Titania when she is asleep; and the first thing she looks upon when she opens her eyes she will fall in love with, even though it be a lion or a bear, a meddling monkey or a busy ape; and before I will take this charm from off her sight, which I can do with another charm I know of, I will make her give me that boy to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Secessionist, for I quietly adopted father's views on political subjects without meddling with them. But even father went over with his State, and when so many outrages were committed by the fanatical leaders of the North, though he regretted the Union, said, "Fight to the death for our liberty." I say so, too. I want to fight until we win the cause so many ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... fellow's vicious, but he's an extravagant slacker and a fool, which is perhaps as bad. Anyhow, if he can be reformed at all, it's Sadie's business, and I've no doubt she finds it an arduous job. There's no use in an outsider meddling, and your anxiety for his improvement might be misunderstood. In fact, it has ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... reproach {against herself}. Accordingly, off she runs to her Father, to be avenged {on him} in her turn, and with great rancour, makes a charge against the Son, how that he, though a male, has been meddling with a thing that belongs to the women. Embracing them both, kissing them, and dividing his tender affection between the two, he said: "I wish you both to use the mirror every day: you, that you may not spoil your beauty by ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... understood neither Latin nor Greek, he wisely avoided naming the constant moderator in English, but always gave the Greek or Latin name for it. Sermon being ended, Scoon said to some of the nobles attending him, You see I have scared the preacher from meddling with the constant moderator, but I wonder who he spoke so much against by the name of praestes ad vitam. They told him, That it was in Greek and Latin the constant moderator; which so incensed him, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. Any description in words, or even any inert picture, requires an effort of memory before a picture exists in the mind. But on the screen ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... frighten them," continued Daly; "and then, you know, when we see what sort of fight they make, we'll be able to judge whether we ought to go on and prosecute or not. I think the widow'll be very shy of meddling, when she finds you're in earnest. And you see, Mr Lynch," he went on, dropping his voice, "if you do go into court, as I don't think you will, you'll go with clean hands, as you ought to do. Nobody can say anything against you for trying to prevent your ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... that far. So our business is not to give him any excuse—not even the very slightest. Suppose we meddle in this affair of Schloshold-Markheim, which is really his dependency—don't you see, he might easily, and quite logically, claim that as a precedent for meddling in the affairs of the Transvaal, which we claim as our dependency. Now I hope that you perceive the pistol, and see, too, that it isn't in the least a toy affair, but a very ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... each other and so I was free to talk to her. At the second visit we were like old friends, which was absurd considering that all the chances were that we would never meet again in this world or in the next. I am not meddling with theology but it seems to me that in the Elysian fields she'll have her place in a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... all the way from London, and that my family affairs are to be published for the readers of the Morning Tatler newspaper? The Morning Tatter be ——(the Captain here gave utterance to an oath which I shall not repeat) and you too, sir; you unpudent meddling scoundrel.' ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the type once established does not persist of its own accord. It can only be maintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The average stature of man did not change a centimetre in a thousand years, till we came in with our meddlesome eugenics. Leave off our scientific meddling and the race will quickly revert to the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... begin to be all that he does, for he's meddling with every thing, and continually making remarks about our society," said Grimshaw, evidently intending to create ill feeling against the consul, and to make the ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... memory, and we were both men, Traddles and I met again. He had the same simple character and good temper as of old, and had, too, some of his old unlucky fortune, which clung to him always; yet notwithstanding that—as all of his trouble came from good-natured meddling with other people's affairs, for their benefit, I am not at all certain that I would not risk my chance of success—in the broadest meaning of that word—in the next world surely, if not in this, against all the Steerforths living, if I ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Horace Mann, Sept.-Calais on his return to England. Amorevoli. The Viscontina. Passage to Dover. Comfort and snugness of English in country towns. The distinction of "meddling people" nowhere but in England. Story of Mr. Pope and the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... more than that, helpful or healthful in action—to the harmful and filthy action of temporary meddlers, such as the hanging of seventeen priests before breakfast, and our profitable military successes, in such a prolonged piece of 'temporary meddling' as the ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... cause, however, of this exceptional lenity is not hard to discover. Much as we laugh at home about the Civis Romanus doctrine, abroad it is a very powerful reality. Whether rightly or wrongly, foreign governments are afraid of meddling with English subjects, and act accordingly. Then, too, Englishmen as a body care very little about foreign politics, and are known to live almost entirely among themselves abroad, and seldom to interfere in the concerns of foreigners; and lastly, I am afraid that the moral influence of ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... grievances, the Commons proceeded to take into consideration the state of Europe. The King flew into a rage with them for meddling with such matters, and, with characteristic judgment, drew them into a controversy about the origin of their House and of its privileges. When he found that he could not convince them, he dissolved them in a passion, and sent some of the leaders ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cajoled him into buying an ass worth fifty dirhams[FN479] for five thousand and five hundred.[FN480] His friends blamed him and a gathering of the folk laughed at him and admired his folly and over-faith in believing the talk of the sharpers without suspicion, and meddling with that which he understood not and thrusting himself into that whereof he had no sure knowledge. "On this wise, O King Shah Bakht" (continued the Wazir), "is the issue of greed for the goods of the world and indeed coveting that which our knowledge containeth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... fountain-basin. Half an inch of water is sufficient—small birds will not bathe unless the water is very shallow, and they do not like to get under the spray—or a little platform could be managed in the fountain-basin. For my birds, as a dish placed upon the ground always excites the insolent curiosity and meddling of the turkeys, I have had recourse to another device: a little platform on four posts about three feet high, perforated to admit a wash-basin to the rim. Around three sides of this table I set a dozen supple oak saplings, fastening them by iron staples to the edge of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... now France is fighting not so much to recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken, Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend ourselves. We might have a navy that would enable us, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a bit taken aback and I thought—as a matter of fact, I thought it might be dangerous being out alone in this wild part of the country so late at night, but I did not want to interfere; you can understand, can't you? What I want you to get out of your mind is, that I am that odious thing, a meddling ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... know even that," returned the Winkie. "We have trouble enough in keeping track of our own dishpans, without meddling with ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... majesty a portrait of the lady, which the king examining, declared "that person could not be unhandsome." The ambassador, who was of a certainty most anxious for this union, then said it was true the princess was a catholic, and would never change her faith; but she was free from "meddling activity;" that she had been reared by a wise mother, and would only look to the freedom of practising her own religion without interfering with that of others. Finally, he added that the princess would have a dowry befitting her high station, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... had kept a constant watch over me, there is no saying how many awkward habits I might unconsciously have contracted. But she cured me of poking my head forward, of standing on one leg, of tilting my chair, of meddling with things that were not my own, of leaning against the furniture while I was speaking, of putting my elbows on the table, of biting my nails, of spilling my tea, and of making crumbs on ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... alone; but as for exclusively attending to my own business, that would be far too dull; besides, it is human nature to interfere with other people's affairs, and I can't go against nature."—He retired, biting his lip, and as the door closed, I thought I heard the words "Meddling ass!"—but ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... come to church, even on Easter, he determined to reprove him, and impose penance upon him. Well, he hardly escaped with his life. "Hark ye, pannotche!" [Footnote: Sir] he thundered in reply, "learn to mind your own business instead of meddling in other people's, if you don't want that goat's throat of yours stuck together with boiling kutya." [Footnote: A dish of rice or wheat flour, with honey and raisins, which is brought to the church on ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... a person whose conscience I am acquainted with tries to plead with you about the vices you are callous to, I get my friend to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of his own, and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt personal consolation. My field of usefulness is about trimmed down to tramps, budding authoresses, and that line of goods now; but don't you worry —I'll harry you on theirs while they last! Just you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... oppose it on different grounds. One is in the nature of a previous question: that some alterations may be expedient, but that this is not the time for making them. The other is, that no essential alterations are at all wanting, and that neither now nor at any time is it prudent or safe to be meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our Constitution,—that our representation is as nearly perfect as the necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be,—and that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and thankful enjoyment, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Denner," Dr. Howe said, when, the business over, he rose to go, "this den of yours is cold!" He stooped to shake the logs in the small stove, hoping to start a blaze. The rector would have resented any man's meddling with his fire, but all Mr. Denner's friends felt a sort of responsibility for him, which he accepted as a ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... number to Andros, a thousand into Thrace to dwell among the Bisaltae, and others into Italy, when the city Sybaris, which now was called Thurii, was to be repeopled. And this he did to ease and discharge the city of an idle, and, by reason of their idleness, a busy, meddling crowd of people; and at the same time to meet the necessities and restore the fortunes of the poor townsmen, and to intimidate, also, and check their allies from attempting any change, by posting such garrisons, as it were, in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... dreaded influenza epidemic did not make its appearance, and, though people still talked learnedly of germs and microbes, and put meddling fingers into the medical pie, it was decided by the legitimate authorities that the mischief had blown over ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... will drive her to madness, and she will kill every man of you," said Lord Claud coolly. "She has a devil in her, and is bullet proof; you had better leave meddling with ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was so good a man that he never mistrusted any one. That is why the big lock was not fastened. The key, not working well, he took it some days ago to the locksmith, and when the latter failed to return it, he laughed, and said he thought no one would ever think of meddling with his front door." ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... treat Boniface VIII. worse than he. With wonderful audacity, he declares the Papal throne vacant by the mouth of Saint Peter himself.[232] Even if his theory of a dual government were not in question, Dante must have been very cautious in meddling with the Church. It was not an age that stood much upon ceremony. He himself tells us he had seen men burned alive, and the author of the Ottimo Comento says: "I the writer saw followers of his [Fra Dolcino] burned at ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... both within and without; consequently all fear of intrusion from that quarter was entirely removed. However, at times, I could not help ruminating on the malpractices that might have been committed by evil-disposed persons, through this communication; and "busy meddling fancy" was fertile in conjuring up imaginary horrors. Every thing, however, was quiet, and agreeable to my wishes, for some months after my arrival. One moonlight night, in the month of June, I retired to my bed, full of thought, but slept soundly till about one o'clock; ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... that. There is a remedy for every mistake except—a few physical ones, which we euphuistically describe as visitations of God.—Steady, steady there—wait a bit.—And I—I tell you I can't sit down under this unhappiness of yours and just put up with it. Don't think me a meddling fool, please. Something's got to be done. I know I probably appear to you the last person in the world to be of use. And yet I'm not sure about that. I have time—too much of it—and I'm not quite an ass. And ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... pieces and put together, at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance, and complexity, composed of far other wheels and springs and balances and counteracting and cooeperating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. The British Constitution may have its advantages ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fellows! Somebody is meddling with our machines! Back to the road!" shouted Jerry, turning and plunging through ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar; I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord, For certain words he spake against your Grace In your retirement, I had swinged ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... continue pouring after the lye had become "too weak to bear up an egg," was a part of Betsey's daily duty for some weeks. Then came the soap-boiling in great iron kettles over the fire in the wide fireplace. Apparently, this was not always a certain operation. Science had not yet put her meddling but useful finger into the soap-pot, for madam sadly records that on the twenty-first of May she had superintended the soap-boiling, but had not been blessed with "good luck;" and on the third of June we find the suggestive entry, "Finished the soap-boiling to-day." Eleven days—for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... just the one to do it, and that it is your obvious duty, and all that?" said Mrs. Swan. "Now, just take my advice, and don't burn your fingers meddling with other people's affairs, nor do any such foolish thing ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... remarkable person whom Wildrake was now approaching had acquired that influence over the minds of his enemies, which constant success is so apt to inspire—they dreaded while they hated him—and joined to these feelings, was a restless meddling curiosity, which made a particular feature in Wildrake's character, who, having long had little business of his own, and caring nothing about that which he had, was easily attracted by the desire of seeing whatever was curious or ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... cloaths."—"A very good lady indeed!" cries the landlord; "and if you had not been a little too hasty, you would not have quarrelled with her as you did at first."—"You need mention that with my truly!" answered she: "if it had not been for your nonsense, nothing had happened. You must be meddling with what did not belong to you, and throw in your fool's discourse."—"Well, well," answered he; "what's past cannot be mended, so there's an end of the matter."—"Yes," cries she, "for this once; but will it be mended ever the more hereafter? ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... intentions and your knowledge. He has seen wheat fail all his life, he has seen grass succeed. Grass has saved him, and now he is asked to turn his back on it. Little wonder that he curses you for a meddling fool. "Prove it!" he says—and you cannot. You could if you had it in your power to show him that your guarantee of a fair price for wheat was "good as the Bank." Thus, the first item of instruction to the farmer consists in the definite alteration of ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... this fashion: 'Mr. Miller—At first I thought I would treat your letter with silent contempt, but recently I have concluded to write and thank you to mind your own business. By order of George Lacey, Esq.—Julia Middleton, Secretary.' Yes, that would serve the meddling old Yankee Dictionary right," continued she, and then, as her eye fell upon the remaining letter, she added, "Yes, I'll read this one too, and see what new thing ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... man's anger lasts an instant, A meddling man's for two hours, A base man's a day and night, A ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... terraces and in many of the surrounding Valleys, groves of trees bearing luscious peaches of the yellow clingstone variety. Although the trees were ungrafted, unpruned, and, in fact, had not been interfered with by meddling man since the germination of the stones that gave them auspicious birth, the size and flavor of the fruit were ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... desire at a turnpike, where the collector, being drunk in his solitude, paid down a shilling to have it to himself. There was one small place of rich promise in which their hopes were blighted, for a favourite character in the play having gold-lace upon his coat and being a meddling wooden-headed fellow was held to be a libel on the beadle, for which reason the authorities enforced a quick retreat; but they were generally well received, and seldom left a town without a troop of ragged children shouting at ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... we shall have no troubles but what belong to Nature. Those we will endure or combat as we can. What we desire is, that the friends of humanity should cease to add to them. Our disposition toward the ills which our fellow-man inflicts on us through malice or meddling is quite different from our disposition toward the ills which are inherent in ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... started on his new journey—carrying with him the paternal blessing, and a long chapter of instructions, as to how he should manage his mule, and keep himself clear of all meddling ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... vices of Frederic's administration resolve themselves into one vice,—the spirit of meddling. The indefatigable activity of his intellect, his dictatorial temper, his military habits, all inclined him to this great fault. He drilled his people as he drilled his grenadiers. Capital and industry were diverted from their natural direction ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... plot had been laid on foot of which I knew nothing. A disturbance had been purposely created between the Bedawin and the Druzes, which enabled the Turkish Government to attack the Druzes in the Hauran. The Wali let Richard go in order to accuse him of meddling. The fact was, the Wali had intended a little campaign against the Druzes, and was endeavouring, by means known only to the unspeakable Turk, to stir up sedition among them, in order to have an excuse for slaughtering them; but Richard had, unknowingly, spoiled ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... family. She set about this at once while Captain Baker and the neighbors sat in judgment upon the trembling surveyor. These impromptu courts held by the Green Mountain Boys when they happened to capture a Yorker guilty of meddling with the settlers, were in the nature of a court martial. Sometimes the sentences imposed were doubtless unjust, for the judges and juries were naturally bitter against the prisoners; but the punishment ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... Dr. Sly, between ourselves, that was exactly my impression; and she is then very, very, I do not exactly mean to say meddling or inquisitive; but, but you ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the folly of boys like you meddling with what you don't understand," said he, sourly, and in a more crabbed tone than he had ever before ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... was put there to do some work, drew up a memorandum on the necessity of creating at the Admiralty a Naval Intelligence Department. The memorandum was laid before the Board, and the Junior Lord was told he was meddling with high matters that did not come within the scope of his business. A few weeks later a Naval Intelligence Department (of a sort) was created. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... separate, and instead of having one to have two independent governments. The spirit of secession is rampant in the land. I do not know what the result will be, and I fear it will bode no good to the country. Between the fire-eating Southerners and the meddling Abolitionists we are about to be plunged into a great deal of trouble. I fear there are breakers ahead. The South is dissatisfied with the state of public opinion in the North. We are realizing that we are two peoples in the midst of one nation. William H. Seward has ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... they had been bought. One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud Damat's meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... copy for the printer. He seldom arrived at the office before eleven o'clock and never settled down to work before three o'clock. The interim was spent in puttering over the exchanges, gossiping with visitors, of whom he had a constant stream, quizzing every other member of the staff, meddling here, chaffing there, and playing hob generally with the orderly routine of affairs. He was a persistent, insistent, irrepressible disturber of everything but the good-fellowship of the office, to which he was the chief contributor. No interruption from Field ever ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... I. I have come to you at the risk of being thought a meddling old fool! But the fact is, I have several times lately heard your name mentioned in connection with William's, and recently there came into my possession this packet of letters addressed to my son in a feminine hand and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... kind and I like not the breed," replied Dauvrey. "Methinks he resembles rather his brethren of Italy than those I have seen in this land of mist and fog. He has been meddling with ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... criminal of several sorts, among them the crime of meddling with the government. He's over there now—where he can do ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... are a serious man now, a legislator! As for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... of his job. A man must make a living some way, so some of us earn our salt by bucking up against the law of the survival of the fittest, thereby rendering humanity the beautiful service of encumbering the earth with the weak. If the medical profession would just quit its damn meddling, nature might manage, in time, to ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... pick up 'toffs.' When she manages to do this her accomplice the coshman (a man who carries a 'cosh' or life preserver) comes up, when she has signed to him that she has got the 'toff's' watch and chain, and quarrels with him for meddling with his wife. Whilst the quarrel is going on the moll walks off with the booty. I know one coshman who pretends to be a missionary, and wears a white choker. Instead of quarrelling, he talks seriously to the 'toff' about the sin of fornication, and advises him to pursue ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... were brought from Alsace," explained Miss Chrissy, as I commented freely. "Elsace is the way to call it—and we can't bear to have strangers meddling with what is ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... "Tax restrictions and governmental meddling in industry and business were reduced save for a few necessary safe-guards of minimum-wage and maximum-safety laws. With these restrictions removed, and with control of so many vital sciences and technologies taken away from the military, ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... the Rajah received his complaints very coldly, and showed no signs of vengeful disposition towards the white man. In truth, Lakamba knew very well that Almayer was perfectly innocent of any meddling in state affairs; and besides, his attitude towards that much persecuted individual was wholly changed in consequence of a reconciliation effected between him and his old enemy by Almayer's newly- ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... were a poor Mormon, Cecilia. And from first to last I opposed my family's entering the community. Tithes and meddling sent my father out of it a poor man. But I'm glad he went before this; and ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Westray," she said, "do not touch them, do not let us have anything to do with them. I wanted poor dear Mr Sharnall not to go meddling with them, and now see what has happened. Perhaps it is a judgment"—and she uttered the word under her breath, having a medieval faith in the vengeful irritability of Providence, and seeing manifestations of it in any untoward event, from the overturning ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... tact, an impatient temper, and often spoke with execrable taste. The chief article in his political creed was his belief in the excellence of the constitution. He was an ardent reformer of abuses, but with the constitution itself he would have no meddling. Unlike Pitt, he saw that the only effectual check to corrupt influence was to be found in government by a party united for the promotion of national interests upon some common principle. Such a party might, he believed, be based on the whig families, if only they would ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... make himself mair busy than other folk? Cannot he sing his sang, and take his drink, and draw his salary, like Collector Snail, honest man, that never fashes ony body? And I wonder at you, Laird, for meddling and making. Did we ever want to send for tea or brandy frae the borough-town when Dirk Hatteraick used to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mis-addressed letters that have been carried all night through tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and to you, who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say I am free from the itch of meddling, but God knows this is no tempting job to meddle in; I smile at picturesque circumstances like the Misi Mea (MONSIEUR CHOSE is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the business as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing; ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not to speak much upon this subject. Men have been very tender in meddling with the power of kings; yet, seeing these days have brought forth debates concerning the power of kings, it will be necessary to be clear in this matter. Extremities would be shunned. A king should keep within the bounds of the covenant made ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... like to be interfered with, and naturally high-spirited, he at first flew into a passion, declaring that he would not have folks meddling with him, that he thought of Lucy Atherstone all the time, and he did not know what more he could do; that 'twas a pity if a man could not enjoy himself in his own way, provided that way were harmless, that he'd ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... him, Tho' Cant is his hobby and meddling his bliss, Tho' sages may pity and wits may despise him, He'll ne'er make a bit the worse Saint for ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... offer of friendship. 'You—you!' said he, in a towering passion; 'hang you for a meddling brat: your hand is in everybody's pie. What business had you to come brawling and quarrelling here, with a gentleman who has fifteen ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what do you deserve, I'd like to know, for going meddling with those poor happy young things? Why couldn't you let them alone? Karen's been a bother to you for years. Why couldn't you be satisfied at having her nicely fixed up and let her tend to her own potato-patch while you tended to yours? You can't make me believe ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... better than you deserved," Harry said. "I wouldn't have believed that any man would have played such a fool's trick as to go meddling with the Mormons in their own country without any kind of reason. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... leave her husband. The Inglese was not a Catholic. I heard the priest call him a heretic. And the padre, who, though not so bad as some of his cloth, was a meddling bigot, thought it perhaps best for her soul that it should part company with a heretic's person. I can't say for sure, but I think that was it. The padre seemed to triumph when the Signora was gone." Graham mused. The peasant's supposition was not improbable. A woman such as Louise Duval ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of an enemy; for he found himself entirely without status, the grain dealers recognizing him merely as a farmers' representative, whatever that was. Even at the office of the Chief Grain Inspector he was looked upon as a man who was meddling with something which he wasn't supposed to ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... After carelessness, meddling with an engine comes next in the list of bad habits. The tinkering engineer never knows whether his engine is in good shape or not, and the chances are that if he should get it in good shape he would not know enough to let it alone. If anything does actually get wrong with your engine, ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... or any other 'ism' than the wretched recrimination: "Why, yours, Dr. Priestley, is just as bad!"—Yea, and no wonder:—for in essentials both are the same. But there was no reason for Fuller's meddling with the subject at ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sensible that M. de Matignon is not one of my brother's friends, and that he is, besides, a busy, meddling kind of man, who is sorry to find a reconciliation has taken place with us; and, as to my brother, I will answer for him with my life in case he goes hence, of which, if he had any design, I should, as I am well assured, not be ignorant, he never having yet concealed ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... to him, his lawyer, were not likely to dispose such a man to meet the eyes of his fellow-citizens. Had Fortini known that the Marchese had been made aware of the purposed excursion of his nephew with the singer—as the reader knows that he had been by the officious meddling of the Conte Leandro,—it might have seemed strange that he should have chosen just that day and hour for the declaration of his intention. Was it that he hastened to acquire such an authority over Bianca, as might enable him to put an end to any such escapades for the future? Was it that he ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... think it is a new name," said Mr. Tulliver, with angry emphasis. "Dorlcote Mill's been in our family a hundred year and better, and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the river, till this fellow came and bought Bincome's farm out of hand, before anybody else could so much as say 'snap.' But I'll Pivart him!" added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had defined his ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the domestic empire of Ready-Money Jack; which only shows the intrigues and internal dangers to which the best regulated governments are liable. In this perplexing situation of their affairs, both mother and son have applied to Master Simon for counsel; and, with all his experience in meddling with other people's concerns, he finds it an exceedingly difficult part to play, to agree with both parties, seeing that their opinions and wishes are so ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... patience and the vice-president out of funds. It seemed that her brief ascendancy had carried the lady to such an altitude as to dizzy her brain and rob her of all sense of proportion. It seems that the surgeons in charge of three hospitals had complained of her meddling, that colonels of several regiments had discovered her to be the author of letters to the home papers setting forth that neglect, abuse, and starvation were driving their men to desertion or the grave. It seems that the Red Cross had protested against her as the originator of malignant ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... had himself jointly with Mr Morris complained of our interfering as he thought in that department; and therefore he did not incline to subject himself to any further censures, or as he expressed it "raps over the knuckles" for meddling in the affair. We were indeed as much surprised as Mr Izard appears to have been on the occasion, but our surprise arose from another cause; it was to find Mr William Lee desirous of holding such a plurality of appointments, in their own nature ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... king, or tutelar ghost-deity. In fetichistic thought, the name is an entity mysteriously associated with its owner, and it is not well to run the risk of its getting into hostile hands. Along with this caution goes the similarly originated fear that the person whose name is spoken may resent such meddling with his personality. For the latter reason the Dayak will not allude by name to the small pox, but will call it "the chief" or "jungle-leaves"; the Laplander speaks of the bear as the "old man with the fur coat"; in Annam the tiger is called ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... peace. I dare say the most of them are conscientious men and women of a certain order of intellect. They believe, and from the way that they interpret their sacred book have some reason to believe, that in meddling uninvited with the spiritual affairs of others they perform a work acceptable to God—their God. They think they discern a moral difference between "approaching" a man of another religion about the state of his soul and approaching ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... with silver lamps. There seemed to Rowland something intensely serious in the scene in which he had just taken part. He had laughed and talked and braved it out in self-defense; but when he reflected that he was really meddling with the simple stillness of this little New England home, and that he had ventured to disturb so much living security in the interest of a far-away, fantastic hypothesis, he paused, amazed at his temerity. It was true, as Cecilia had said, that for an unofficious man it was ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Meddling in everybody's interests, Tonsard heard everybody's complaints, and often instigated frauds to benefit the needy. His wife, a kindly appearing woman, had a good word for evil-doers, and never withheld either approval or personal help ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... intellectual supremacy of Hamilton,—who was never truly popular, any more than Webster and Burke were, since intellectual arrogance and superiority are offensive to fortunate or ambitious nobodies,—Jefferson's prudence and modesty kept him from meddling with the funded debt and from entangling alliances with the nation he admired. Jefferson was not sweeping in his removals from office, although he unfortunately inaugurated that fatal policy consummated by Jackson, which has since been the policy of the Government,—that spoils belong ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of absolutely no consequence to me—among my subjects I am sovereign, and answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always lived till you came, and so I shall ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... she said, with genuine feeling in her tone, "is it so real as that? I wouldn't have hurt you for the world, if I had known. What business had you to be meddling with vows and renunciation until you ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... pursued with such signal success in the cases of Hayti, Mexico, and Venezuela, all inhabited by people equally unfit for self-government, and geographically much closer to ourselves. We propose to guarantee them against outside meddling, and, above all, from "tutelage," and make them, by walking, ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... the settle, you; it is in the way!" he cried to Diccon; then to me, in a voice thick with passion: "Come on, sir! Here there are no meddling governors; this time let ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... moved by a certain divine and spiritual influence, which also Melitus, through mockery, has set out in the indictment. This began with me from childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, always diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges me on. This it is which opposed my meddling in public politics; and it appears to me to have opposed me very properly. For be well assured, O Athenians! if I had long since attempted to intermeddle with politics, I should have perished long ago, and should not have at all benefited you ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... it was not in the hall. He said he had left it in the study; we could not find it there. At last he found it himself in the old summerhouse, and said—I beg pardon—he said he was sure you had taken it there: that some one, at all events, had been meddling with it. However, I am very glad it was found, since he seems to set such ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... silver one like the key of my piano, or the black cabinet. She woke and was very angry to find me meddling." ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... Charles Pinckney, "South Carolina can never receive the plan [of the Constitution] if it prohibits the slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling with the importation of negroes." (Madison Papers, p. 1389.) Mr. Charles C. Pinckney "thought himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not think South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in any short time." Thus ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... little I have dared to say. There is much behind, even more worth saying, which must not be said. Perhaps some far wiser men than I will think that I have said too much already, and be inclined to answer me as Elisha of old answered the over- meddling ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... a pleasant thing for persons like Mrs. Caldwell to look other people's troubles directly in the face. It is bad enough to dwell among their own pains and annoyances, and they shrink from meddling with another's griefs. But, in the present case, Mrs. Caldwell, moved by a sense of duty and a feeling of interest in Mrs. Brady, who had, years before, been a faithful domestic in her mother's house, was, constrained to overcome all reluctance, and ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... marriage. That is the last thing you need fear from me. Whether it was a girl I was fond of, or a girl I disliked—so long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know the harm that is done by other people's meddling—nothing, nothing, would induce me ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... these states. To deal with trade and industry as though they were matters that concerned only the particular business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany's economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... be a nice night, after all," she said. "Now, Bill, bring me that revolver, and if I catch you meddling with it again I'll put that pair of fur rugs you are so proud of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... me to take up a pen for an answer, I grumblingly borrowed the steward's inkstand, and hurried to give it back to him with all the haste I could, in the vain hope that I should never have need of the loan any more. Instead of meddling with those weary quires and reams and piles of old books, I filled my chamber with flowers and grasses, for I was then in my first fervour for botany. Having given up employment that would be a ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... practice, and you know what are the results upon the watch. I should think you can divine what are the results of analogous operations upon the human body. And because men of sense very soon found that such were the effects of meddling with very complicated machinery they did not understand, I suppose the first thing, as being the easiest, was to study the nature of the works of the human watch, and the next thing was to study the way the parts worked together, and the way the watch worked. Thus, by ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... consider Pierce the brightest man in the country, for there are twenty more so." It would have been a mild statement if he had said two hundred. Pierce wanted him, of course, to write a campaign biography, and communicated with him to that effect; but Hawthorne disliked meddling in such matters, and at first declined to do it, although it was expected to be highly remunerative. Pierce, however, insisted, for Hawthorne's reputation was now much beyond his own, and he felt that a ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... at the others. It was almost impossible to hear each other speak—and what was there to say? Each boy and girl realized the situation in which Ferd's meddling ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... share. We only relate such things as could not possibly escape our knowledge, and what we actually know to be true. We don't set up for naturalists and men of great learning, therefore have avoided meddling with things above ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... don't take up tatting," she thought, as she went upstairs, "or find something else to do, I'll be a meddling old maid inside ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... dear, you are not to be speaking about lies, for that iss not a pretty word among friends, and you will not be meddling with me, for you will be better at the preaching and the singing than dealing with women. It iss not good to be making yourself too common, and Miss Kate will be thinking the more of you if you be holding ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... people, who supplied us with milk, and treated us very kindly. We had some adventures, nevertheless. One day as we were passing by a tuft of small trees, a rhinoceros charged upon my horse, which very narrowly escaped by wheeling short round and getting behind him; the beast then made off without meddling with us any more. Every day we used to shoot some animal or other, for provision: sometimes it was a gnu, something between an antelope and a bull; at other times it was ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... show, that aspirations after intellectual freedom had nothing whatever to do with the movement. Dante, who struck the Papacy as hard blows as Wicliff; Wicliff himself and Luther himself, when they began their work; were far enough from any intention of meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas of mediaeval Supernaturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to Muenzer, Rothmann, and John of Leyden, I fail to find a trace of any desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... second man, "is that if you leave the gods alone they'll leave you alone. It's no trouble to them to do whatever is right themselves, and what call would men like us have to go mixing or meddling with their high affairs?" ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... the back-ground of trees," said the other, approaching the window, and directing the attention of his companion to the Cove: "'Tis the bark that has so often foiled the efforts of all thy cruisers, and which transports me and my wealth whither I will, without the fetters of arbitrary laws, and the meddling inquiries of venal hirelings. The scud, which floats above the sea, is not freer than that vessel, and scarcely more swift. Well is she named the Water-Witch! for her performances on the wide ocean have been such as seem ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... that a man is baptized three times? And as to other customs of baptism, from what Scripture comes the renunciation of Satan and his angels? Does not this come from the unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in silence, averse from curious meddling and inquisitive investigation, having learned the lesson that the reverence of the mysteries is best preserved in silence? How was it proper to parade in public the teaching of those things which it was not permitted the uninitiated to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... of this troop of infant robbers; he valued himself much on never meddling with small matters or committing any meaner crime than that of the highway. It happened he had a mistress coming out of the country and he would needs have his companions take each of them a doxy and go with him as far as Windsor to receive her. They readily complied, and at Windsor they were all ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... always dangerous business meddling with lovers' affairs," rejoined Richard. "Lovers take themselves very seriously indeed, and—well, here the thing is! Now, who will go and fetch her from Liverpool? I should say that both my father and my mother ought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... attractive woman. Noticing that the head had been squeezed into a point on top, she kneaded it gently despite the infant's cries, trying to round it a bit. Madame Lorilleux grabbed the baby from her; that could be enough to give the poor little thing all sorts of vicious tendencies, meddling with it like that while her skull was still soft. She then tried to figure out who the baby resembled. This almost led to a quarrel. Lorilleux, peering over the women's shoulders, insisted that the little girl didn't look the least bit like Coupeau. Well, maybe a little ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. Because time softens its outlines and rounds the sharp angles of its cornices, shall a fellow take a pickaxe to help time? Let me tell you what comes of meddling with things that can take care of themselves.—A friend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a boy,—a "bull's eye," with a loose silver case that came off like an oyster-shell from its contents; you know them,—the cases that you hang on your thumb, while ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... would not leave their places until relieved by other women, even for lunch, for fear of losing a vote. The whole thing appealed to the men irresistibly. We are receiving praise from all quarters for the kind of campaign we made—no personalities, no boasting of what we would do, no promises, no meddling with other issues—just 'Votes for Women' straight through, because it is just and reasonable and everywhere when tried has been ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Master Harry's notions was his belief in the necessity of his "meddling"—so his father put it—in the affairs of the town, the state, and the nation, as well as those of the Lossing furniture company. But, though he was pleased to make rather cynical fun of his son's political enthusiasm, esteeming it in ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... was very encouraging, and disclosed to me a somewhat consoling prospect of increasing my influence as musical conductor at a time when my disgust was daily growing stronger at the constant meddling with our opera repertoire, which made me lose more and more influence as compared with the wishes of my would-be prima donna niece, whom even Tichatschek supported. Immediately on my return from Berlin I had begun the orchestration of Lohengrin, and in all other respects had given ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the ruffian continued, addressing the girl, 'unless you want to be thrown out the same way you were thrown in! The sooner I see your back, my sulky Madam, the better I shall be pleased. No more meddling with petticoats for me! This comes of working ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... diligence; perseverance &c 604.1; indefatigation^; habits of business. vigilance &c 459; wakefulness; sleeplessness, restlessness; insomnia; pervigilium^, insomnium^; racketing. movement, bustle, stir, fuss, ado, bother, pottering, fidget, fidgetiness; flurry &c (haste) 684. officiousness; dabbling, meddling; interference, interposition, intermeddling; tampering with, intrigue. press of 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... felt? All his brave resolutions seemed to drain away before their old, gnomish faces. Here he'd been thinking of himself as a brave spy, a gallant fighter in humanity's cause and what not. Now he saw himself for what he was; a reckless boy, meddling in affairs too big for him. He ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... "Shall I be—meddling in what isn't my business, if I ask what they are?" queried Mr. Smith diffidently. "You know I am ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... his diplomatic art from meddling openly in the internal affairs of the country, caused this epuration to be carried out through M. Zaimis. It was hard for the poor Premier to expel fellow-citizens {201} who had occupied eminent positions and with whom he ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott |
