"Pettish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in gentlemen's headwear, and carried only shapes, I observed, that were confined to exclusive firms so as to insure their being worn by the right set. As to gloves and a stick, he was again rather pettish and had to be set right with some firmness. He declared he had lost his stick and gloves of the previous day. I discovered later that he had presented them to the lift attendant. But I soon convinced him that he would not be let to appear without these ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... stone hall of Llangarth, Daurn-ap-Tavis, the old Welsh Wolf lay dying. Outside was the night and a sullen gale whose winds came moaning down the hills and clung about the house with little bodeful whispers that grew to long-drawn eerie wails, while pettish rain-squalls spent their spite in futile gusts on ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... troubling himself to see if she followed—this was too much for her composure. Her face clouded over, and though she made a valiant effort to preserve her composure, it was in vain, and she was glad to find an outlet for her irritation in pettish complainings. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... her hand away with a pettish gesture. "For goodness' sake, stop being so ancient and fatherly! And what right have you to tell me anything about mother? I don't mind your explaining about God to me, and Christian duty, and things like that. It's your business, and I suppose it bores ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... President had not yet left his chamber. I wrote my business on a card with a pencil, not omitting to use the name of Mr. Benjamin, and sent it up. A moment after the President came down, shook hands with me, and, in his quick and rather pettish manner, said "send me the order." I retired immediately, and finding Mr. Benjamin still in the hall of the department, informed him of my success. Then, in conformity with his suggestion, I repaired to Adjutant-General Cooper, who wrote ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at last she got tired of watching her and began to talk in a ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of paper that had fallen at her feet, and flung it out from her on the water. Mr. Haydon affected not to see the pettish act, but turned to ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... fellow, John Constantine," was the answer, in a weary, almost pettish tone. "God knows I have more reason to be grateful to you than to any ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... and both walked home without speaking another word; Jane having relapsed into a pettish silence which her brother felt it impossible to break without creating unnecessary excitement in a mind ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... The broil must have been turbid in the old man's brain which the grand, slow-stepping music of the Florentine could not calm. She had learned that long ago, and used it as a nurse does some old song to quiet her pettish infant. His ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... them contagious—may decide by a shout what years of afterthought may find it hard, or even impossible, to undo. There have been some things in the deportment of the President of late that have suggested to thoughtful men rather the pettish foible of wilfulness than the strength of well-trained and conscientious will. It is by the objects for whose sake the force of volition is called into play that we decide whether it is childish or manly, whether we ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... thing, not only while he continued in a condition, in which it might have been dangerous to have put his spirits into the least agitation, but after he was grown well enough to walk abroad, had made him become extremely pettish and self-willed; which shews, that an over-indulgence to youth, is no less prejudicial, than too much austerity.—Happy is it for those who are brought up in a due proportion between these two extremes; for as nature will be apt to fall into a dejection, if pressed down with a constant, and uninterrupted ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... exclaimed the rabbit, a bit pettish-like, for he didn't care to have even a toad think he couldn't jump as well as ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... hand with a smile, and bowed in return to the salutation of the page, whose stiff reception of his advances he imputed to the proud pettish disposition of a Scotch boy, trained up in extravagant ideas of family consequence and personal importance, which his acquaintance with the world had not ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... continuance growing strong enough to be, as it were, a new nature, being excited by any intervening accident, force men, though unwilling, to their accustomed passions. Consider the timorous, they are afraid even of those things that preserve them. Consider the pettish, they are angry with their best and dearest friends. Consider the amorous and lascivious, in the height of their fury they dare violate a Vestal. For custom is very powerful to draw the temper of the body to anything ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... before, in the Louvre; her form too was of a classical lightness and perfection. The Englishman noticed indeed that her temper was apparently not equal to her looks. When her small brothers interrupted her, she repelled them with a pettish word or gesture; the English governess addressed her, and got no answer beyond a haughty look; even her mother was scarcely ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me. "Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit, might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French Consul taught me ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... kindest person in the world put in comparison with Roger was as nothing; he stood by himself. Cynthia's next words,—and they did not come very soon,—were on quite a different subject, and spoken in rather a pettish tone. Nor did she allude again in jesting sadness to her ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in the natures next to him. Of course there must be exceptions to this rule, because the will is free and man is reasonable, and the motive and power to pluck up unwelcome seed, and unpleasant growths, inheres in all men. I have known a good-natured man to live with a pettish, ill-natured, jealous, fault-finding wife through all the years of my acquaintance with him, he meantime growing no worse, and she growing no better. They had voluntarily and effectually shut themselves each from the influence of the other. He had closed his spirit against ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... portions than for lightness and gracefulness in the lyric. This loss brought with it a compensation, however. Many protests have been felt, when not expressed, against the tendency of singers to make Mignon a mere wilful, pettish, silly young woman. The poet's ideal was sufficiently despoiled by the unconscionable French librettist without this further desecration which effectually dispelled the last glimmer of the poetical light that ought always to shine about this strange ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... you like, Cousin Elizabeth; but mamma doesn't work samplers," said the boy, with a dash of pettish contempt in his tone. "Uncle has given me a bright new shilling for a Christmas gift, to do what I please with, and I want to get something with it for ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... Pestilential pesta, pestiga. Pestle pistilo. Pet dorloti. Petal florfolieto. Petard petardo. Petition petegi. Petition petskribo. Petrify sxtonigi. Petroleum petrolo. Petticoat subjupo. Pettish malgxentila. Petty malgranda. Petulance petoleco. Petulant petola. Pew pregxbenko. Pewter stano. Phantom apero, fantomo. Pharmacist farmaciisto. Pharmacy (place) farmaciejo, apoteko. Pharmacy (science) farmacio. Pharos lumturo. Pharynx faringo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... merely nominal price. To give plausibility to the purchase, we said we wanted the rags for a paper-mill. Joyously did Leonora and I call a passing chariot, and, with the mummy between us, we drove to our abode. I was surprised on the way by receiving a pettish ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... had danced with the well-built, soft youth, his companion, Loerke, was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and would not even notice her existence in the room. This piqued her, but she made up to herself by dancing with the Professor, who was strong as a mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... may naturally imagine, came down with my mother into the country, in but a pettish kind of a humour. The first twenty or five-and-twenty miles he did nothing in the world but fret and teaze himself, and indeed my mother too, about the cursed expence, which he said might every shilling of it ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... and Dan sent her to school what he could, for he set store by her. She was always ailing,—a little, wilful, pettish thing, but pretty as a flower; and folks put things into her head, and she began to think she was some great shakes; and she may have been a matter of seventeen years old when Mrs. Devereux died. Dan, as simple at twenty-six as he had been ten years before, thought to go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... and men, and listening to the orders as if something were going to happen again. I never felt so before; I never used to have the least concern in what you call 'the working of the ship,' and now"—her voice, which had been half playful, half pettish, suddenly became grave,—"and now—look at the mate and those men forward. There certainly is something going on, or is going to happen. What ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... be sent to the suffering creature we had just returned from visiting, I lingered by the window and saw the first shadowy flakes of a new storm. The wind rose quickly to a howl, an icy branch tapped at the pane; we had narrowly escaped a dangerous home-coming. I could not resist a somewhat pettish complaint. ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... that trunk?" he said in a pettish, indignant voice. "It's full of Christmas presents for my grandchildren. It's got crocodiles in it and lions and Billy Possums and music-boxes and dolls and yachts and steam-engines and spiders and monkeys and doll's furniture and china. It cost me seven hundred ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... bust; her skin, dazzling white at the neck, ran into golden russet before it reached the burnt splendour of her cheeks; her mouth, rather long and curved up at the corners, had lips rich and crimson; of which, however, the upper was short to a fault, and so curled back as to give her, a pettish or fretful look. Her dark hair, which was plentiful and drawn low over her ears into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck, was dressed within a fine gold net. Her arms were bare to the elbow, large and snowy white; from her fingers gems and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... that the youth refused to give his name, and he wished to know if he must pay him the five one hundred pound notes without it. For a moment Mr. Hase lost his temper, and positively ordered the clerk not to pay it unless the usual custom was complied with; and he began in a pettish manner to question my son, and in a peremptory tone demanded his name. The younker, however, as peremptorily and as sturdily refused to comply. Mr. Hase was just going away in dudgeon, when he happened to cast his eye upon ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... what may be called the first stage of the affection, in which there are signs of congestion of the brain, such as I have already described, coupled with general irregular attacks of feverishness. The child becomes more gloomy, more pettish, and slower in its movements, and is little pleased by its usual amusements. Or, at other times, its spirits are very variable; it will sometimes cease suddenly in the midst of its play, and run to hide its head in its mother's lap, putting its hands ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... laughed louder than ever; on which the old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughed louder than any of them, Then, when the spinster aunt got 'matrimony,' the young ladies laughed afresh, and the Spinster aunt seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing her hand under the table, she brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old Mr. Wardle, who enjoyed a joke as ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Good reasons alleged are seldom the true ones Holiday eloquence I know myself (no common piece of knowledge, let me tell you) Indolence INTOLERATION in religious, and inhospitality in civil matters Kick him upstairs Many are very willing, and very few able Perseverance has surprising effects Pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too young Reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does Singularity is only pardonable in old age Smile, where you cannot strike To govern mankind, one must not overrate them Too like, and too exact ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... be miserable," said Gwendolen, with pettish remonstrance. "It only makes me more so. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... now the toilet's care Claims from her couch the restless fair; The toilet's care!—the glass has won Just half a glance, and all is done! A snappish—pettish word or so Warns the poor maid 'tis time to go:— Not at her toilet wait the Graces Uncombed Erynnys takes their places; So great a mind expands its scope Far from ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he flew at her as if she had been a very barrister, and hunted her mercilessly up and down through all sorts of charming sophisms, as she begged the question, and shifted her ground, as thoroughly right in her conclusion as she was wrong in her reasoning, till she grew quite confused and pettish.—And then Lancelot suddenly shrank into his shell, claws and all, like an affrighted soldier-crab, hung down his head, and stammered out some incoherencies,—'N-n-not accustomed to talk to women—ladies, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... gentle! for the noblest hearts At times may have some grief, And even in a pettish word May seek to ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... door; and then Denry most clearly heard the Countess's own authentic voice saying in a pettish, disgusted tone: ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... turned away to his desk with the pettish gesture of a woman whose inner thoughts are ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... cried Oliver impetuously, as he advanced with outstretched hand toward his prisoner, "and with all my heart, sir, I thank you. Forgive my pettish speech of a moment since; you were right to reprove me. No one appreciates a gallant foe more than I; and though the fortune of war has to-day made you my prisoner, to-morrow may ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... small brute!" and accompanied the words with a pettish little kick which reduced the dog to ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... Repenting follies that full long have fled, Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair: Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light She fears to perfume, perfuming the night: **And Clytia pondering between many a sun, While pettish tears adown her petals run: ***And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth— And died, ere scarce exalted into birth, Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing Its way to Heaven, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for thus I regarded it, became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary unapproachable—how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish, grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview. She appeared to be passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering. I have seen her, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... flowering bush, invites my sense To a delicious madness,—and faint thoughts Of childish years are borne into my brain By unforgotten ardors waking now. Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown Is the prime labor of the pettish winds, That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, And the gay humming things that summer loves, Through the warm air, or altering the bound Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line Divide dominion with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... wind blows. His wife listened with some uneasiness, for she had always hoped the Colonel tacitly approved the attachment between their respective relatives, which to her appeared so evident. She could only trust this was but a pettish effusion from their prolonged absence, and determined to guard against such causes of offence ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... you were to divorce me, YOU would be taken back too," she added quickly, suddenly withdrawing herself with a pettish movement and walking to ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... managed to don in two days filled him with amazement and gave her person an ever-varying charm and interest. She appeared always accompanied by a very placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick man, whose indifferent and pettish attitude toward her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother or an uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not married. She acquired no male attendants, but sat most of the time very properly, if a little restlessly, with her two companions. Once or twice Ramon felt her look upon him, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... (who indeed young as he was had felt the kind pulses of all those dear kinsmen), that Harry thought it would be his duty to warn my Lord Mohun, and let him know that his designs were suspected and watched. So one day, when in rather a pettish humour, his lordship had sent to Lady Castlewood, who had promised to drive with him, and now refused to come, Harry said—"My lord, if you will kindly give me a place by your side I will thank you; I have much to say to you, and would like ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... humble and satirical in his look, while he uttered this: yet so contrived as to make the man appear a pettish angry blockhead, who should take offence at it; and I certainly was not inclined to quarrel with my new comrades, the first day ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a very pettish speech in Evelyn, and her cheek glowed while she spoke; but an arch, provoking ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Editor-Who-Believes-In-Me. Let the thing go on." I would send him off another manuscript. He would take it. Victory, by Jove! Then—wonk! Back would come my third effort with the curtest of refusals. I always imagined editors in those days to be pettish, whimsical men who amused themselves by taking up a beginner, and then, wearying of the sport, dropped him back into the slime from ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... his shop, in pettish displeasure at being summoned hither so hastily, to the interruption of his more abstract studies; and, unwilling to renounce the train of calculation which he had put in progress, he mingled whimsically with the fragments of the arithmetical operation, his oratory to the passengers, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... her eyes suddenly filling with tears, and her pettish mood changing to a tender and very sad one—"those eggs were given for Daisy, and no one else shall eat them. Do you know, Primrose, that Miss Egerton does not think ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... shall just put aside all this dreary collection of formulae and scalpel-work, and you shall write me an essay on the whole subject, saying the best that you feel about it all, not the worst that a stiff intelligence can extract from it. Don't be pettish about it! I assure you I respect your talent very much. I didn't think it was in you to produce ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... looks in the glass to confirm what he has said, Annette takes him by the hand, tells him he must not mind, now; that if he is good he shall see Franconia,—and mother, too, one of these days. He must not be pettish, she remarks, holding him by the hand like a sister whose heart glows with hope for a brother's welfare. She gives him in charge of the messenger, saying, "Good by!" as she imprints a kiss on his cheek, its olive hues changing into ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the silent spirits of the mountains and woods: but if they are too much squeezed,—for when not prest for room and left in peace they will live on good terms with man and beast,—but when one elbows them too close, and into their very ribs, they grow pettish and mischievous: then come deaths, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations, landslips, and all the other things they bring to pass; or else you must put a stiff yoke on them, and then they will serve you indeed, but ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Dorm. What a pettish Fool is a Maid in love at fifteen! how unmanageable! But I'll forgive all— go get you in, I'll watch for your Lover; I would not have you disoblige a Man of his Pretensions and Quality for all the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... he grows pettish, And stamps his foot; And then with a chatter, He cracks his nut; And thus he lives All the long summer through, Without either a care Or a thought ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Elizabeth de Bruce; it is very clever, but does not show much originality. The characters, though very entertaining, are in the manner of other authors, and the finished and filled up portraits of which the sketches are to be found elsewhere. One is too apt to feel on such occasions the pettish resentment that you might entertain against one who had poached on your manor. But the case is quite different, and a claim set up on having been the first who betook himself to the illustration of some particular class of characters, or department of life, is no more a right of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... in vain to detain him. There was a certain change in Mr. Waife's manner to him: it was much more distant; it was even pettish, if not surly. Lionel could not account for it; thought it mere whim at first: but as he walked part of the way back with them towards the village, this asperity continued, nay increased. Lionel was ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Ere March came in with Marlowe's rapturous rage: Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours: Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers: And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage Fed by some gay great lady's pettish page Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers: Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves: And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse Weeps Marian yet on Robin's wildwood hearse: ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to vibrate, to ring. Diz'n, dizzen, dozen. Dochter, daughter. Doited, muddled, doting; stupid, bewildered. Donsie, vicious, bad-tempered; restive; testy. Dool, wo, sorrow. Doolfu', doleful, woful. Dorty, pettish. Douce, douse, sedate, sober, prudent. Douce, doucely, dousely, sedately, prudently. Doudl'd, dandled. Dought (pret. of dow), could. Douked, ducked. Doup, the bottom. Doup-skelper, bottom-smacker. Dour-doure, stubborn, obstinate; cutting. Dow, dowe, am (is or are) able, can. Dow, a dove. Dowf, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... when Mr. Lazelle called him "a pretty little fellow," and thought it a fine joke. He laughed, too, when the young man told him to "come out," for there was something in the pettish tone of his voice which Horace considered ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... an indulgent but rather troubled way. Her problem was serious; she could not afford the Imp's pettish treatment of the world and the people in it. Janie had responsibilities—banks and buildings full of them—and a heart to please into the bargain. Singularly complicated questions are rather cruelly put before young women, ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... nothing should appear, and that he would discourage any Parliamentary attempt to elicit them. Now that Durham's Report has come forth, containing strictures on Head's conduct, he assumes a right to publish, for his own vindication, and he has asserted this in a pettish letter to Melbourne; whereas, if he had again asked for permission on this express ground, it would not have been refused. The motto of this ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to his companion, but whether of admiration or dislike, I had no other means of conjecturing than from the frequency with which he arranged, disarranged, and re-arranged his spectacles, first, fixing them tightly to the bridge of his nose, then, unfixing them, with a pettish jerk, to wipe them with his handkerchief, and, at last, refixing them with much precision, by removing the hat from his head and clasping it between his knees, till the yielding pasteboard crackled again. This circumnavigation continued for some time, much to my amusement, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... have spoken some ghostly consolation, but she answered with pettish impatience, "Waste not words—waste not words!—Let me speak that which I must tell, and sign it with my hand; and do you, as the more immediate servant of God, and therefore bound to bear witness to the truth, take heed you write ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... a pettish conversation. I asked him whether he might not perhaps find the discipline he needed in doing the pastoral work which did not interest him, rather than in developing his life on lines which he preferred. I confess ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the worst player, and not being able to keep in at all against boys who played with so much more skill than he did. Sometimes he would not have minded this, but the day was very hot, George had risen early, began to be tired, and, as the truth must be told on these occasions, rather cross and pettish. Several games had been played, all of which had been won by the set of boys of the side opposite to that of George, for as four of the lads with whom he played were good players, and the fifth, Tom Fletcher, a much better ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... hosts, canst thou be mummer, languishing poet, pettish woman and spoiled princeling all in one? No! And I shall love the clanking of arms and thy mailed footsteps all the more if thou permittest me to look upon irresponsible ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... forth, 'tis not for any thy goodness, but I would not be hard on thee in the first minute of thy home-coming, and I make allowance for thy coldness and weariness, that may cause thee to be pettish." ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... some pleasant odour of a not too pungent kind. But the table lacked one customary feature; no tea was laid as it was wont to be at this hour. The child gazed round in surprise. Her mother was in bed, lying back on raised pillows, and with a restless, half-pettish ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... half forgotten the matter; but now he remembered that Mildred had been keen to have the part only a week ago, and a little pettish because he had advised her to leave it alone, on account of Mrs. Shaw. Now she was hanging on him with desperate eyes and that worried brow which he had not seen once since he had ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... so alarming to this young physician (who, indeed, young as he was, had felt the kind pulses of all those dear kinsmen), that Harry thought it would be his duty to warn my Lord Mohun, and let him know that his designs were suspected and watched. So one day, when in rather a pettish humor his lordship had sent to Lady Castlewood, who had promised to drive with him, and now refused to come, Harry said—"My lord, if you will kindly give me a place by your side I will thank you; I have much to say to you, and would like to speak ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... bib, and gave her baby a nice ivory ring to bite; then began to dance up and down the room, till the shadowy baby clapped its hands and kicked delightedly. Polly laughed, and did the same, feeling sorry she had been so pettish. Presently both babies grew quiet, went to sleep, and were laid in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... had heard on the previous night, and which even his untutored ear could recognize as an attempt to accompany him. But before he had finished the second verse the unknown player, after an ingenious but ineffectual essay to grasp the right chord, abandoned it with an impatient and almost pettish flourish, and a loud bang upon the sounding-board of the unseen instrument. Masterton finished ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... storm-cloud of misfortune lowers and life seems dim and dreary, that is the hour to summon up courage, and to look persistently beyond the bounds of the mournful present. Why should we uplift our voices in pettish questioning? The blows that cut most cruelly are meant for our better discipline, and, if we steel every nerve against the onset of despair, the battle is half won even before we put forth a conscious effort. There never yet was a misfortune ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... very trying work, arguing with conscience when a number of chattering girls were buzzing about, laughing and asking questions, and Ruth gave several sharp and pettish replies to their inquiries, and was rallied upon her silence ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... now sixteen years old, and being undersized and childish of appearance had never had the pleasure of the company of a young man. The yearning in her pettish face as she stood unevenly on the discarded harness, looking out of the window toward John Hunter, caught Elizabeth's attention and illuminated the whole affair to the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... of this pony was indeed one of my father's many kind thoughts for my welfare and amusement. My odd pilgrimage to the Rectory in search of change and society, and the pettish complaints of dulness and monotony at home which I had urged to account for my freak of "dropping in," had seemed to him not without a certain serious foundation. Except for walks about the farm with him, and stolen snatches of intercourse with the grooms, and dogs, and horses ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... lady lavished all the care she could spare from herself. The miserable little creature shivered all summer, and lay during most of the winter half paralysed with cold in a wadded basket before the fire. It snapped with pettish impotence at every one who approached it, including its mistress, and the house was frequently convulsed because there was too much salt in its soup or too little sugar in its tea. Greifenstein's pointers generally regarded it with silent scorn, but occasionally, when it was being petted with more ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... my good friend," said I; "I was a fool then, and did not think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a year, instead of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish laird; and thinking my imaginary consequence altogether ruined, I cared not how soon, or how absolutely, I was rid of everything that recalled it to my own ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... extending order of unkindness people actually did call him—history must be an annoying study. The things that ought to happen do not happen, and the things that do happen have to be awkwardly explained away or hazardously ignored His almost pettish disgust for the historic estimate in literature itself may have either caused or been caused by this more general dislike, and the dislike itself explains the leniency with which he always regarded the sheer guess-work ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... house late on the afternoon of Friday, and there was much fresh crying between her and Annie. Leslie had on new black, too, "just what I could grab down there," she explained—and was pettish and weary with fatigue and the nervous shock. She gave only the side of her cheek to Acton's dutiful kiss, and answered his question about the baby with an impatient, "Oh, heavens, she's all right! ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy! Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!' cried my mother, turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, 'what a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... is no need to tell how many cross and quarrelsome things the two tired friends said to each other. They were sitting on opposite sides of the fire, one very gloomy, and the other very pettish, when the waggonette stopped at the gate, to put out Miss Hacket and take up Dolores. Hands pulled her up the step, and a hubbub of merry voices ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned against his Will. He gets quite pettish—and after having had it out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the other day: 'They want my money.' It gave me such a turn, because, as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does seem a pity he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... found Caterina standing in some confusion as if she had been startled from a reverie. She felt relieved when she saw it was Maynard, but, the next moment, felt a little pettish that he should have come to interrupt ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... to be useful! Course, I don't figure out no awful slump in Corrugated stocks if I should get pettish some day and tell 'em they'd got to find a new office boy. That ain't the kind of shredded thought I'm feedin' on. I fit into a lot of places besides the chair behind the brass gate. Why, I have to put on a sub. three or four times a week, while I'm spreadin' myself out all ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... aperture he saw the lady walking impatiently up and down the room, tapping at the window, mending the fire, and expressing her haste in many other pettish manners so truly feminine. It was Florine. He knew the girl well from his frequenting Bertrand's during this piece of business. Jerome sent her word he would be in, and changing his costume to one he usually wore, presented himself before her in the ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... we can, and all I mean to do," said Alice Hooper, with a pettish accent of fatigue. "Everything's perfectly comfortable, and if she doesn't like it, we can't help it. I don't know why we make ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... might be ugly behaviour in a common man is suitable and right in a king. But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am seven times tired ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... is irritable, and fractious, peevish, and pettish. He is morbidly anxious about trifles: slight ruffles on the surface, and trivial annoyances in the family circle or during the course of business, worry, flurry, tease and fret him, nothing satisfying or soothing ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... The pettish look had passed from her face; so also had the world-wise expression. There was something in her present naive frankness that prevented it from ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... write from Rochdale when I arrive, if my affairs allow me; but I shall be so busy and savage all the time with the whole set, that my letters will, perhaps, be as pettish as myself. If so, lay the blame on coal and coal-heavers. Very probably I may proceed to town by way of Newstead on my return from Lancs. I mean to be at Cambridge in November, so that, at all events, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... out before eight, aunt," said Hetty, in a pettish tone, with a slight toss of her head. "But this clock's so much before the clock at the Chase, there's no telling what time it'll be when ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... convey. Or haply 'twas the cannonade Of the pent and darkened lake, Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade, Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break, Afflicted moan, and latest hold Even into May the iceberg cold. Was it a squirrel's pettish bark, Or clarionet of jay? or hark Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads, Steering north with raucous cry Through tracts and provinces of sky, Every night alighting down In new landscapes of romance, Where darkling feed the clamorous clans By lonely ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Ministry in postponing redress, their pretexts turned upon points of detail, accessory to the main transaction, or upon the subsequent course of the United States Government, which showed conscious weakness by taking hasty, pettish half-measures; instead of abstaining from immediate action, and instructing its minister to present an ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... said he could not remain, and unfastened her arms from his neck with a somewhat pettish air. She laughed however, and again clasped ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... at Oxford the fealty of the barons, and passed into Normandy in the spring of 1154. The work of reformation had already begun. Stephen resented indeed the pressure which Henry put on him to enforce the destruction of the castles built during the anarchy; but Stephen's resistance was but the pettish outbreak of a ruined man. He was in fact fast drawing to the grave; and on his death in October 1154 Henry returned to take the crown without ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, "I don't know—I wish—how can I say yes or ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... and I am very pettish, sometimes. Papa has spoiled me. You are always affectionate, and those worrying ways of yours, which I get angry at, all come from love for ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... deeper feeling of resentment against Boyle than he ever had felt for any man. It seemed to come over him unaccountably, like a disagreeable sound, or a chill from a contrary wind. It was not a pettish humor, but a deep, grave feeling of hatred, as if the germ of it had grown in the blood and spread to every tissue of his body. The thought of Boyle's being so near him was discordant. It pressed on him ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... I ever kiss her, after I had seen her lips pressed by the snake's, though she sometimes coaxed me, and grew pettish and vexed when I would not; but she guessed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is a capricious master, seldom setting the same task twice, nor directing his slaves into similar pathways. He delights, moreover, in reversing the edge of a person's disposition, making good-natured people pettish or morose, while he sometimes improves those of naturally evil temper. Often under his sway the somber and the stoical become gay and impulsive, while the joyful sink into despondency. But with Robert ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... said.—"It is sad to lose such a friend."—"Indeed it is," said my companion, "I don't know what I shall do. No one else ever understood my constitution. I really don't know whom I am to go to now"—and he went his way in a pettish mood, as though his physician had rather shabbily deserted him. Alas, is there not much of this when one of these pleasant ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... anticipate what some of my honorable friends will bring before your Lordships; but I tell you, that, so far from quarrelling with Gunga Govind Sing, or being really angry with him, it is only a little pettish love quarrel with Gunga Govind Sing: amantium irae amoris integratio est. For Gunga Govind Sing, without having paid him one shilling of this money, attended him to the Ganges; and one of the last acts of Mr. Hastings's government was to represent this man, who was unfaithful even to fraud, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... turns pettish or ill-humoured, I'll taunt her with that spark,' he said, when he had recovered. 'She'll little think I know about him; and, if I manage it well, I can break her spirit by this means and have her under my thumb. I'm glad nobody came. I didn't call too loud. The audacity ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... went up to them, rather timidly. "I want to tell you how sorry I am, Mr. Froehling," she said conciliatingly. Polly had a kind heart, if a pettish manner. "What a pity you didn't take out your certificate when Manfred advised ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... matter, but she saw that something was wrong. At times, Hester's manner was so unboundedly affectionate, that it was impossible to suppose that unkind feelings existed towards herself; though a few pettish words were at other times let drop. Hester's moods of magnanimity and jealousy were accounted for in other ways by her sister. Margaret believed, after a course of very close observation, that she had discovered, in investigating the cause of Hester's discomposure, a secret ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... even when they are under the glow of splendid eloquence, that there is behind the words a thinking, reflective, and composed mind. The speech gained enormously by the contrast of its composure—its fine temper, its calm and broad judgment—from the somewhat pettish, personal, and passionate utterances of Mr. Chamberlain. This young man will go ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... said Miss Purcell with a half-pettish gesture. 'I don't know what to talk to Dora about now. She thinks of nothing but St. Damian's and her work. It's worse than father. And, of course, I know she hasn't much opinion of me. Indeed, she's always telling me so—well, not exactly—but ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... possessing an extraordinary capacity for fancying herself slighted, or not regarded as the superior being she knows herself to be, morbidly anxious lest the servants should, by some mistake, treat her with offensive cordiality, pettish if the patient gives more trouble than she had expected, intensely injured and disagreeable if he is made so courageous by his wretchedness as to wake her during the night—an act of desperation of which I was guilty once, and once only. Oh, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... not to evince too much cordiality; so that the onus of the morning's welcome was thrown upon Eve, who, utterly ignorant of any offence Jerrem had given, thought it advisable to make amends for the pettish impatience she feared she had been betrayed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weariness: But under her black brows a swarthy one Laughed shrilly, crying, 'Praise the patient saints, Our one white day of Innocence hath past, Though somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... her whole character—that is, if she had made a good use of them. But in these times, being usually already out of temper with the difficult answers of the Catechism questions, and obliged to keep in her pettish feelings towards what concerned sacred things, she let all out in the music lesson, and with her murmurs and her inattention, her yawns and her blunders, rendered herself infinitely more dull and unmusical than nature had ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be kind to me, and you are cruel; for when I ask for love, you give me jewels, books, or flowers, as you would give a pettish child a toy, and go away as if you were weary of me. Oh, it is not right, Sir! and I cannot, no, I will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in his pettish resentment, that the younger traveller, who was in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it, especially as it was obvious, that every now and then the old gentleman, though very angry, could not help laughing ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... tables, Bertha,' said he, in a pettish tone; 'I can never consult in a room full of tables.' He walked into the conservatory, and she followed him. He seemed plunged in thought. They were again silent. Suddenly he seized her hand and led her back to the sofa, on ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... is so full of Lofes and Passions for Mrs. Gwinifrid, and she is so pettish and overrun with Cholers against me, that if I had the good Happiness to have my Dwelling (which is placed by my Creat-Cranfather upon the Pottom of an Hill) no farther Distance but twenty Mile from the Lofers Leap, I would indeed ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to my father's thinking to have met with my cozen John Holcroft, but he came not, but to my great grief I found my father and mother in a great deal of discontent one with another, and indeed my mother is grown now so pettish that I know not how my father is able to bear with it. I did talk to her so as did not indeed become me, but I could not help it, she being so unsufferably foolish and simple, so that my father, poor man, is become a very ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his home he had lost entirely the air of business-like severity which he had worn all day. He looked young and credulous. Juliet laughed with the pettish protest of a half-spoiled wife and drew ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... ignorant of my condition; he bade me take tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco was a thing I did not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing; I could not sing. Then he bid me come again and he would tell me many things; but when I came he was angry and pettish; for my former words had displeased him. He told my troubles, sorrows and griefs to his servants so that it got among the milk-lasses. It grieved me that I should have opened my mind to such a one. I saw they were all miserable comforters, and this brought my troubles more upon me. Then ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... surprise and wonder. Surprise and wonder that the beautiful Juliet St. Leger, during six months of intimate courtship, so successfully could have veiled, under constant guise of amiability, the weak, pettish nature which she ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... was beginning to discover that he had made a blunder, that his fair young wife's temper was not all sunshine, and that his intended plaything was likely to prove his eventual tyrant. Constance, on her part, felt a twinge of conscience for her pettish desertion of him in his old age; for to her apprehension he was now an old man: and she was privately conscious that she could not honestly plead any preconsideration for her husband. She had merely pleased herself, both in ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... CONSCIENCE. Such pettish quibbling is utterly unworthy of your good sense and ordinary candor. You know, as well as I do, the great difference between industry in some safe and honest calling, and driving a business which carries poverty and ruin to ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... pettish fume. No sooner was he within and the door fast shut, that none might behold save only those of his own household, who were accustomed to the aberrations of his temper and who regarded them with blended awe and respect, than he reft his cocked hat from his head and flung it upon the ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... were suggested by an indignant feeling at the cold manner with which the National Anthem was received by some persons who used to be loud in their professions of loyalty on former public occasions. Happily, this wayward and pettish, I will not call it disloyal spirit, has passed away, and most of the "Annexationists" are now heartily ashamed ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... really wish one could see a little advance in the way of real refinement and true elegance among all the vast improvements we are making in frippery and follies," cried Mr. Monson, throwing down an evening paper in a pettish manner, that sufficiently denoted discontent. "We are always puffing our own progress in America, without exactly knowing whether a good deal of the road is not to be traveled over again, by way of undoing much that we have done. Here, now, is a specimen of our march in folly, in an ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... had been seeking—a torn half column, or less, of the Herald. The moment Miss Crawford saw the slip, her anxiety seemed to be redoubled, and she reached over to Joe, as if to take the paper, with the words, half-pleading, half-pettish: ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... housekeeper, which was transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that time forth I could never lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but were reserved and silent themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs. Rusk sometimes pettish and angry, when ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... thunder, And savage as RURIC the Red. For this did we lose the Crimea? For this did we larrup the Jews? I really had not an idea Republics could rule—and amuse. Miss FRANCE looks extremely coquettish. How well Miss COLUMBIA can coax! The Teuton, no doubt, will look pettish, The Briton will grumble "a hoax." Aha! I can snub a Lord Mayor, And give shouting Emperors a hint; I back La Belle France. Her betrayer My meaning must see, plain as print. My reply to the great Guildhall grumble Had less of politeness than pith, But—well I've no wish so to humble My ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... The pettish inquiring tone was exactly what delighted him. And he continued to tease her in the same style till Laura and Amabel came running in with ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... merry times, and don't care if I never have any more!" answered our pettish little Pandora. "And, besides, I never do have any. This ugly box! I am so taken up with thinking about it all the time. I insist upon your telling me what is inside ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... in denying that young madam took to bed for three days, and was very pettish for a fortnight; but eventually gave in to the match, and was not so much afflicted by it as she had expected, after the first brunt. Granny, in her age, was so absurdly set on the mesalliance, and so obliging and pleasant about everything ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Patria. Patria potestas. Patriarch. Patrician. Patrimony. Patriotism. [Greek: patris]. Patrius sermo. Patron. Peacock. "Pearl grass." Pearls. Pebbles. Pedagogy (Primitive). of play. Peevish. Pelican. Pennalism. Peunou. Pennyroyal. Peragenor. Perambulation. Percival. Personal names. Pet, pettish. Phallus. Pharaoh. Phatite. Philemon. Philology (see Linguistics). Philosophy. [Greek: phusi]. Phyllis. Physical efficiency. Physiognomy. "Physonyms." Pigs. Pine. Pinks. Pippadolify. "Pity my Case." "Place, my." Plant-food. —mother, —names. —oracles. Planting trees. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... persons, so as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birth or fortunes have bestowed upon them: for what grace is there in the greatest beauty, if it be always clouded with frowns and sulliness? Or what vigour in youth, if it be harassed with a pettish, dogged, waspish, ill humour? None, sure. Nor indeed can there be any creditable acquirement of ourselves in any one station of life, but we should sink without rescue into misery and despair, if we were not buoyed up and supported by self-love, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... than the hot-headed son of Peleus, who bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is true, the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or dignity; but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastic: a perfect hero is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is also true, that while the epic hero ought to be drawn with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be represented as extremely absurd. But ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... dearest Hilda," said Zillah, instantly appeased; "I'm always pettish; but you won't mind, will you? You never mind ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... in the hotel chamber in Ciudad Real—that forlornest of royal cities—her face wore the pettish look of one who, having passed through great events, having tasted of great passions and moved amid the machinery of life and death, finds the ordinary routine of existence intolerably irksome. Many faces wear such a look in this country; every second ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... joined the party. He muttered over some short speech about regret for having been so long detained elsewhere, when he knew he should have the pleasure of seeing Madame Cheron here; and she, receiving the apology with the air of a pettish girl, addressed herself entirely to Cavigni, who looked archly at Montoni, as if he would have said, 'I will not triumph over you too much; I will have the goodness to bear my honours meekly; but look sharp, Signor, or I shall certainly run away ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... "As to my having nothing to put me out, you may be right, and you may be wrong, dear. There is never any excuse for being what you call put out, by which I understand cross and pettish, but I am rather amused, too, at your fixing on a daily governess, as a person the least likely in the world to have trials of temper and patience." "Yes, I dare say I vex you sometimes, but"—"Well, not ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... but content ourselves with merely saying that the effect of Grace's exclamation on Eve was unpleasant, and that, unlike the baronet, she thought her cousin was never less handsome than while her pretty face was covered with the pettish frown it had assumed ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... have had it by me for twenty years! Seeing that thee must stick thy nose into my business!" His tone was pettish and he stooped down and began to toss splinters and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... in Paris," says the young man, still in the same discontented, pettish voice. "She will be there, no doubt—well to the front—in the thickest ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... So the pettish voice rambled on, the others tenderly and sadly listening, till presently Lord Findon shook his ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... susceptible; excitable &c. 825; thin-skinned &c. (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy[obs3], tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy,; pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, " sudden and quick in quarrel " [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish[obs3]; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) 720; cantankerous, exceptious[obs3]; restiff &c. (perverse) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Selwyn, finding herself physically intact, was keeping up an irritating moaning, interspersed with pettish diatribes against a Government that could be so culpably careless as to permit her to be bombed out of house and home; whilst Jane Crab, who had found and lit a candle, and recklessly stuck it to the table ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... but in some way the feeling permeated the table. The widow pushed her plate aside, and sipped her glass of wine in silence. Charlotte took a pettish pleasure in refusing what she felt she was unwelcome to. Both left the table before Julius and Sophia had finished their meal; and both, as soon as they reached their rooms, turned to each other with faces hot with indignation, and hearts angry ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... other purpose, it seemed. Whatever it was she received the news in haughty defiance. She spoke fiercely at first, and they humbled themselves the more. Then Anna appeared, and joined her supplications to theirs, till at last the lady, like a pettish child chasing a brood of tiresome chickens, shooed them all from the room, 'twixt laughter and tears. Then she threw up her arms in rage for a moment, and ran back to the loggia where Paul still slept. Here she sat and looked at him ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... Andre, still laughing. "But even though you disclaim all effort to find me, or wish to be agreeable when found, yet I will still confess that you arrived most opportunely. Monsieur de St. Aulaire grows fatiguing," she went on, with a pettish shrug of her shoulders. "He is as prodigal of compliments as you are ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... from the sort of clothes I have now," said Florence, giving her foot a pettish kick against the obnoxious blue serge, "I should judge they did not cost five pounds a year. Yes, the fifteen pounds would be delicious; and you would give it to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... pettish, but he was discouraged and unstrung. He knew that his arrest, which was imminent, was, in part, due to the assertions of the medium and the Ouija Board. These secrets had leaked out somehow, and though the detective, Weston, would have scorned to acknowledge ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... clasped eager arms round a coy waist and heard the beating of a passionate heart against thine own! A truce to thy musty volumes! Believe it, those ancient and sorrowful philosophers had no manhood in them—their blood was water—and their slanders against women were but the pettish utterances of their own deserved disappointments. Those who miss the chief prize of life would fain persuade others that it is not worth having. What, man! Thou, with a ready wit, a glancing eye, a gay smile, a supple form, thou wilt not enter the lists of love? What ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone out from the mountains never to return, leaving to their mother's aching heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a girl's face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he seldom spoke ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) |
