"Acerbity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could hardly stop short ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... once introduced, generated the usual heat and irritation in her, for, as they neared the front door, she suddenly said, with an acerbity he had not heard for ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in contrast with the foregoing is found in persons of a more strenuous, perhaps more admirable but less agreeable character. The savour of acerbity may be a natural attribute of the critical character, and it is certainly not lessened where moral philosophy is the subject-matter of the criticism. The continual search after solutions of problems that ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... repeated, raising his clear, cultivated voice and speaking with acerbity, for inattention at such a moment was deplorable, "of taking you to Italy for Easter. Did you not ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... curlpapers, announced themselves in feminine caligraphy, like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson, Apple, and Peach. The scene closing on these charmers, and the lower slide ascending, oranges were revealed, attended by a mighty japanned sugar-box, to temper their acerbity if unripe. Home-made biscuits waited at the Court of these Powers, accompanied by a goodly fragment of plum- cake, and various slender ladies' fingers, to be dipped into sweet wine and kissed. Lowest of all, a compact ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... with the miserable fate of possessing the temperament of genius without the electric spark itself, magnified the help he had given, and felt extreme bitterness at the shortness of memory shown by the great writer, whom he vainly strove to sting into feeling by the acerbity of ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... great power is that of self-restraint, and it would be a beneficent result of this memorable meeting, this oecumenical council of the press, if it taught us all—the brethren of this mighty priesthood—that mutual knowledge of each other which should modify prejudices, restrain acerbity of thought and expression, and tend in some degree to ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Mrs. Tramore) he revealed to Rose that he had some acquaintance with Lady Maresfield's eldest daughter, though he didn't know and didn't particularly want to know, her ladyship. He expressed himself with more acerbity than she had ever heard him use (Christian charity so generally governed his speech) about the young donkey who had been prattling to them. They separated at the door of the hotel. Mrs. Tramore had got rid of Mr. Mangler, and Bertram Jay was ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... lady's good taste," said Hamilton with some acerbity. "But won't it be a bit lonely ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... those vehement disputes; those recriminations of abuse, so inseparable from literary life,—appear to me too dreadful for a man not utterly hardened or malevolent voluntarily to encounter. Good Heavens! what acerbity sours the blood of an author! The manifestoes of opposing generals, advancing to pillage, to burn, to destroy, contain not a tithe of the ferocity which animates the pages of literary controversialists! No term of reproach ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mockery and challenge whereby its evils are borne, its extended knowledge, the intensity of its spirit—all these are reflected in Villon, and first reflected in him. Since his pen first wrote, a shining acerbity like the glint of a sword-edge has never deserted the ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... sister were obliged to pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which were necessaries in her condition. She would so fain have made sacrifices for them, and have lightened their cares, that the original generosity of her disposition added acerbity to her temper. All this was borne by Miss Jessie and her father with more than placidity—with absolute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her juvenility of dress, when I saw her at home. I came to perceive that Captain Brown's dark Brutus wig ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... au Paix; and, should she succeed in effecting her design, it might prove difficult if not impossible to capture her. His anxiety to speedily get alongside her and force her to action accordingly grew almost momentarily more intense, as also did his acerbity of temper, until at length he became so nearly unbearable that, had he just then happened to have been washed overboard, I believe not a single man in the ship— apart from the officers, that is, of course—would have raised a hand or joined in any ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... the year 1826 the Advocate's criticisms upon certain members of the oligarchical faction were marked by exceptional acerbity. The persons attacked, however, sought in vain throughout the closely-packed columns for any material upon which a criminal prosecution might be founded; for Mr. Mackenzie, whether by prudence or good fortune, contrived for some weeks to say very acrid things without rendering himself liable ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... rather surprised at the sudden acerbity of her tone. But his momentary impression was immediately lost in the interest roused in him by the emergence from the wood, in front, of Nelly and Cicely. He was a warm-hearted fellow, himself just married, and the approach of the black-veiled figure, which he had last seen in bridal white, ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... only remarkable for the mildness of his temper and the amenity and grace of his manner, but whose society was courted in the most distinguished circles of Paris on account of his accomplishments. He perceived in Bonaparte a kind of acerbity and bitter irony, of which he long endeavoured to discover the cause. 'I believe,' said Albert one day to my mother, 'that the poor young man feels keenly his dependent situation.'" ('Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, vol. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... said this she put her hand lovingly upon his arm, as a cousin might do, and spoke in a tone which divested her threat of its acerbity. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... not to be a fool, but she spoke without acerbity, and, speaking, she squeezed his hand. She understood this potent magician better than she intended ever to ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Nature, so he emancipated man as forming with Nature an integral part of the supreme Being. He was led upon this path to combat Aristotle and to satirize Christian beliefs, with a subtlety of scholastic argumentation and an acerbity of rhetoric that now pass for antiquated. Much that is obsolete in his writings must be referred to the polemical necessities of an age enthralled by peripatetic conceptions, and saturated with the ecclesiastical divinity of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... you would leave the dog alone," said Damaris, with a certain amount of acerbity. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... between these men; that the former has been an oppressed debtor—the latter a most oppressive creditor. Mr. Keegan's spirit towards the prisoner's family you may learn from the scandalous and unwarrantable language which has been proved to you to have been used by him towards them. Mr. Keegan's acerbity has been increased by the mutilation he has undergone, and which he conceives he owes to his interference with the Ballycloran property. This man and the witness Brady have, as you have heard, constantly been talking over this trial, and the attorney, it seems, has repeatedly ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... elaborate defence of evangelical opinions; and though at this time the pupil and one of the warmest admirers of Wesley, he afterward became conspicuous in the Calvinistic section of the party, and wrote with much acerbity against his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... fortunes and fate of the Royal Slave, Oroonoko, of whom she writes (with all due allowance for pardonable exaggeration and purely literary touches), so naturally and feelingly, that 'one of the Fair Sex' with some acerbity makes it her rather unnecessary business to clear Aphra from any suspicion of a liaison. It was Surinam which supplied the cognate material for the vivid comedy, the broad humour and early colonial life, photographic in its realism, of The Widow Ranter; or, The History of Bacon in Virginia. Mistakes ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... months. Mr. Wakley seconded this amendment. The motion was carried by a majority of two hundred and one against fifty-four. But although the principle of the bill was thus emphatically confirmed, yet on several occasions the attacks upon it were renewed by its opponents with much acerbity. Upon the motion for the committal of the bill, Mr. Townley Parker moved, and Mr. Grimsditch seconded the motion, that it should be committed that day six months: but this was negatived by a large majority, and the bill was committed. When the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... key." He locked the door and then turned toward Ernie, sudden comprehension in his face. "Oh, you told him I came over with you. That explains it." Ernie protested. He would have repeated the entire conversation that had taken place if the Colonel had not stopped him with considerable acerbity. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... basis whereon to found a claim for special fraternal observation and kindred social intercourse? Dick, who was fond of his money, would not for a long time look at the matter in this light, but harassed his brother from time to time by applications which were quite useless, and which by the acerbity of their language altogether shut Mrs. Roby out from the good things which might have accrued to her from so distinguished a brother-in-law. But when it came to pass that Thomas Roby was confirmed in office by ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... blue and stars; leading a life plainly, wholly exceptional, and out of work in a winter when he was a trifle past twenty-six; hears his sister's children crying, "Bread, bread, give bread;" rises in sullen acerbity; smites his huge fist through a baker's window, and steals a loaf; is arrested, convicted, sent to the galleys, and herded with galley slaves; attempts repeated escapes, is retaken, and at the age of forty-six ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Tilly was the image of her mother. Entirely gone was the slight crust of acerbity that had threatened her in her maiden days, when, thanks to her misplaced affections, it had seemed for a time as if the purple prizes of life—love, offers of marriage, a home of her own—were going to pass her by. She was now a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... hauteur in her voice. She preserved much of the acerbity which had marked her demeanor when they had said good-by to each other. He would not acknowledge to himself that he hoped she would meet him on another plane; he meekly accepted her attitude as the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Moore from Genoa on November 9, Lord John says: 'I am just setting off for London. Mackintosh has written me an oily letter, to which I have answered by a vinegar one; but I want you to keep me up in acerbity.' ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... little sourly, and there was a suggestion of acerbity in his voice as he said in a low tone, as if more to himself than as a contribution to the general conversation, 'He has cast a decided shadow over Gloria.' He did not quite like Helena's ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... is never to cease, and our arms are never to rust. Would any man, who heard the noble lord deliver these impressive sentiments, have believed not only that the strife with respect to religious liberty was to be revived with a greater degree of acerbity, in the year 1851, but that the noble lord himself was to be a main agent in its revival—that his was to be the head that was to wear the helmet, and his the hand that was to grasp the spear? My conviction is, that this great subject of religious freedom is not to be dealt with, as one of the ordinary ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that you will ever have it to take," he said with some acerbity; "If the King should by any means come to know of your ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... very noble intellectual origin. It does not, however, follow that its author was, as is so often asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, I am nothing more than a public preacher. He defends, not always without acerbity, his work from those who, even in his own life, stigmatized it as a confused heap of dreams, or, what is worse, a forgery. He is not the only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of supernatural ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... sake, my dear lady," he replied with an acerbity which sounded sufficiently genuine, "it might scarcely have seemed feasible to go so far from the camp; but for the brave old comrade who was intrusted to my care I would have made even more difficult things possible—and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The very acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan's absence, fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed indifference and gayety to all my actions. I argued against delay, and dwelt with excellent ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter. A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that in the business ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... inevitable interviewer, and chose the Hamburg News as the medium of communicating to the world his opinion of the new regime and the men who were conducting it; and made use of that paper with such instant vigour and acerbity that little more than two months from his retirement elapsed before the new Chancellor thought it advisable to issue instructions to Germany's diplomatic representatives warning them carefully to distinguish between the "present sentiments ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... her place in the fiacre and said "Allons!" in a subdued tone that strongly contrasted with her former acerbity. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... reviles us for our human infirmities, and throws in our teeth the fact that being clergymen we are still no more then men, demands of us that we should do our work with godlike perfection. There is nothing godlike about us: we differ from each other with the acerbity common to man—we allow differences on subjects of divine origin to produce among us antipathies and enmities which are anything but divine. This is all true. But what would you have in place of it? There is no infallible head for a church on earth. This dream of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... with little artifice, and indeed with a prolixity and minuteness of detail, arising no doubt from the deep interest which as an actor he took in the scenes he describes. His sentiments are expressed with boldness, and sometimes with the acerbity of party feeling. He has been much commended by the best Spanish writers, such as Zurita, Zuniga, Marina, Clemencin, for his veracity. The internal evidence of this is sufficiently strong in his delineation of those scenes in which he was personally engaged; ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... first meeting he had felt that she was far superior to the other Biamite maidens, not only in beauty but in everything else. The very acerbity of her nature had seemed charming. To win this wonderful, pliant creature, slender as a cypress, whose independence merged into fierce obstinacy, had appeared to him worth any sacrifice; and having perceived in her an admirable model for his Arachne, he had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... paragraph, beginning "Illustrious Holland," are affixed the words "Bad enough;—and on mistaken grounds besides." The bitter verses against Lord Carlisle he pronounces "Wrong also:—the provocation was not sufficient to justify such acerbity;"—and of a subsequent note respecting the same nobleman, he says, "Much too savage, whatever the foundation may be." Of Rosa Matilda (v. 738.) he tells us, "She has since married the Morning Post,—an exceeding good match." To the verses, "When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall," &c., ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... t' suffer some gittin' that five hundred dollars paid up," Marthy returned with some acerbity. "I'm much obleeged to yuh, Mr. Seabeck, fer bein' so easy on us. If yuh hadn't drug Billy Louise into it, I'd say yer too good to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... with a sneering acerbity peculiar to him, in which his voice seemed sharpened and concentrated to a point by the contraction of his lips. "And there's tykes aboot," he added, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... equal. "Why, my lord, have I anything to say to you? What common tongue can we use? How are we to understand one another? And what is there between me and you?" And he persevered in this distant lofty vein, hardly permitting himself a single moment of acerbity. We feel the ever-inspiring breath of seriousness and sincerity. This was because, as we repeat so often, Rousseau's ideas, all engendered of dreams as they were, yet lived in him and were truly rooted in his ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... was speaking, his reasoning received a curious and apposite illustration. Three or four ladies near us began fainting, or affected to faint, and hartshorn and gentlemen's arms were in general requisition. Notwithstanding his acerbity, Caustic, like a preux chevalier, pressed forward to offer his aid where the pressure was most oppressive, and where the fainting ladies were dropping by dozens, like ripe fruit in autumn. As for myself, I was just in time to receive ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... is the result of family dinner-parties, and family-talks kept up till midnight!" said Mary Harper, with a little natural acerbity. "It is provoking for the mistress of a precise household to sit waiting ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she always addressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabob which she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and putting down the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on the little sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... usefulness. The only other point to be remarked upon is the general charge against Mr. Burroughs's temper and disposition. It may be that he became so disgusted with the state of things as to have shown some acerbity in his manners, but such a supposition is not in harmony with what little is known of him from other sources; and John Putnam's conduct at the meeting described proves that his mind was fully perverted, and bereft as it were of all moral rectitude of judgment, in reference to Mr. Burroughs. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... of neatness, sweetness, cleanliness, prettiness, and order. The other is dirty, frowsy, disorderly, and of evil odour. The Papists deny the right of the Protestants to be in the island at all, speak of them with acerbity, call them the Colonists, the perverts, the Soupers, the Jumpers, the heretics; and look forward to the time when a Dublin Parliament will banish law and order, so that these interlopers may be for ever swept away, and their fields and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... tuft on the top of his nose, and a stubby iron-grey beard; but his eyes are bright and piercing. He has the reputation of being a rigid disciplinarian, and of shooting freely for insubordination. I understand he is rather unpopular on this account, and also by reason of his occasional acerbity of manner. He was extremely civil to me, and gave me permission to visit the outposts, or any part of his army. He also promised to help me towards joining Morgan in Kentucky, and he expressed his regret that a boil on his hand would prevent him from accompanying me ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... one sex was not corrected by any great acerbity from the other. Lord Doltimore at the age of twenty-two was a very good parti; and, whatever his other deficiencies, he had sense enough to perceive that he received much greater attention—whether from opera-dancers in ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... will be envied. Sorell is a capital fellow! And one of the ablest of our younger scholars—though of course"—the speaker drew himself up with a slight acerbity—"he and I belong to different schools of criticism. He ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... honour," Sir Charles answered, with some acerbity. Then he whispered in my ear: "Confounded clever scoundrel, Sey; rather wish we hadn't ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... carried on with more decency than it was by Martin Lutherand a certain Lord Chancellor, to whom you just now alluded; but if more courtesy is to be found in polemical writers, who are less sincere than either the one or the other, there is as much acerbity of feeling and as much bitterness of heart. You have a class of miscreants which had no existence in those days—the panders of the press, who live by administering to the vilest passions of the people, and ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... Triebschen. Here is nothing of the tension, burning passion, and unfathomable depth of Tristan, but a pretty love-story, with some comedy and more than a little of very broad farce. In it Wagner determined to satirize the musical pedants, and he did so with considerable acerbity. But it is not to see his enemies roughly handled that we go to The Mastersingers: it is to hear one of Wagner's two most beautiful operas. There is no need to go through it closely, as in the case of Tristan. The methods are those of Tristan; we have the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... said the M.L.O., with the acerbity of an overworked staff-officer. "They never were, and ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... had not improved her complexion, and her left foot was paining her excessively. These two facts had not combined to sweeten the natural acerbity of her temper. Mrs Ray Jefferson did not heed the question, or the smile it provoked on one ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... mysterious instinct to their neighbor, Nelly Woodridge. She also turned and caught his eye. But to all appearances she not only showed no signs of her usual agitation at his presence, but did not seem to even recognize him. In the acerbity of his pique he was for a moment gratified at what he believed to be the expression of her wounded pride, but his uneasiness quickly returned, and at the conclusion of the service he slipped out of the church with one or two of the more restless in the congregation. As he passed through ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said and done in reference to this country is too fresh in our memories to require that we should recite or recapitulate it here. His past career, as we have reviewed it, may account for the now intolerable acerbity of temper and the ludicrous vanity which disgrace him. Never was a Nemesis more just than that which has for the present consigned him to a melancholy obscurity. The political extinguisher has certainly dropped upon his head, and this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of the acerbity of Mr. Tyrrel's feelings, it is probable, however, he did some justice to his rival. He regarded him, indeed, with added dislike; but he no longer regarded him as a despicable foe. He avoided his encounter; ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin |
