"Acrimony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... association. Since first I took my place among them, seven or eight years have now rolled by. They have been years of severest trial, years of suffering and sorrow, years of passion and prejudice and calumny, years of rude and bitter conflict, years of suspicion and acrimony, and finally of defeat and shame; still, in that eventful course of time, to me at least, there has occurred no moment wherein I would exchange the faintest memory of our mutual trust, unreserved enjoyment and glad hope for the hoarse approval of an unthinking ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... payments now, and Ralph's popularity was increased fourfold. Mrs. Horsball got out from some secluded nook a special bottle of orange-brandy in his favour,—which Lieutenant Cox would have consumed on the day of its opening, had not Mrs. Horsball with considerable acrimony declined to supply his orders. The sister with ringlets smiled and smirked whenever the young Squire went near the bar. The sister in ringlets was given to flirtations of this kind, would listen with ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... newspaper, and immediately afterwards, in a new edition of his book, renounce the errors which had been pointed out to him, stealing the very language of his amendments from the man whom he had so grossly vilified! It is true that grammarians have ever disputed, and often with more acrimony than discretion. Those who, in elementary treatises, have meddled much with philological controversy, have well illustrated the couplet of Denham: "The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes, Produces sapless leaves in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... poem is not all made up of sorrow and tenderness, there is a mixture of satire and indignation: for in part of it, the poet taketh occasion to inveigh against the corruptions of the clergy, and seemeth to have first discovered his acrimony against Arb. Laud, and to have threatened him with the loss of his head, which afterwards happened to him thorough the fury of his enemies. At least I can think of no sense so proper to be given to these verses in Lycidas." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... and unscrupulous. Swift spared no personage in the party of the Whigs, when by so doing he could please the leaders of the Tories. And he wrote in an age when libels were scandalous and savage,—libels which would now subject their authors to punishment. The acrimony of party strife at that time has never since been equalled. Even poets attacked each other with savage recklessness. There was no criticism after the style of Sainte-Beuve. Writers sought either to annihilate or to extravagantly praise. The jealousy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... himself in the streets without knowing where he was going. As he walked along the boulevards and reached the Rue Saint-Denis, he recollected Molineux, and turned into the Cour Batave. He went up the dirty, tortuous staircase which he once trod so proudly. He recalled to mind the mean and niggardly acrimony of Molineux, and he shrank from imploring his favor. The landlord was sitting in the chimney-corner, as on the occasion of Cesar's first visit, but his breakfast was now in process of digestion. Birotteau ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... Likewise denotes gold at the bottom, but attended with a great proportion of a sharp corrosive, sometimes amounting to a half of the whole, whence half the character expresses acrimony; which, accordingly, both alchemists and physicians observe of iron, and hence that common opinion of the adepts that the aurum vivum, or gold of the philosophers, is contained in iron, and that the universal medicine is rather ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... a time, at a loss for words to express my surprise and indignation at my brother's unfeeling selfishness. I could no longer maintain my usual silence on his conduct, but inveighed against it, as soon as I could find breath, with the utmost acrimony. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Hal's wife, received kindly at the little provincial court, as all ladies were, made herself by no means popular there by the hot and eager political tone which she adopted. She assailed all the Government measures with indiscriminating acrimony. Were they lenient? She said the perfidious British Government was only preparing a snare, and biding its time until it could forge heavier chains for unhappy America. Were they angry? Why did not every American ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... an Equvivalent. What particularly strikes us in those works is the writer's passion for generalisation. He was treating of the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times he was himself placed in the very thick of the civil conflict; yet there is no acrimony, nothing inflammatory, nothing personal. He preserves an air of cold superiority, a certain philosophical serenity, which is perfectly marvellous. He treats every question as an abstract question, begins with the widest ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... girl's mother, and Oldfield noticed the sharp acrimony of voice and gesture. "Mr. Oldfield," she softened as she addressed him, but there was a hardness about her every feature and expression, "my husband has not been seen nor heard from since last Sunday, when he left home, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... acknowledged by the people of England on his return, and the attempts of his enemies to undermine his reputation were confuted by the papers which he brought back with him. For a time Peterborough took a considerable part in politics, and his acrimony in debate so enraged his enemies that his conduct during the war in Spain was called into question. A debate on the subject took place. In this he successfully defended himself from the attacks made against him, and a formal vote of thanks ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... and feebly. The Solicitor spoke at great length and with great acrimony, and was often interrupted by the clamours and hisses of the audience. He went so far as to lay it down that no subject or body of subjects, except the Houses of Parliament, had a right to petition the King. The galleries were furious; and the Chief justice himself stood ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was not of a nature to bear injuries with meekness, or to resent them with dignity: her exasperated pride displayed itself in all the violence and acrimony of a little, or at least of an ill-regulated mind. She would not acknowledge, even to herself, that she had in any degree provoked contempt by her duplicity, but weakly persisted in believing, that she alone was to be pitied, and Montoni alone to be censured; for, as her mind had naturally ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... to deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say, "Sir, you are mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue. After a rank and clamorous opposition you became, on a sudden, silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greatest questions; and you were silent for money! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... be more free. Dr. Kennicot often said that, of the many he had employed in his great biblical undertaking, none had shown more activity or more disinterestedness than our author. He was zealous in the cause of religion, but his zeal was without bitterness or animosity: polemic acrimony was unknown to him. He never forgot that in every heretic he saw a brother Christian; in every infidel he saw a brother man. He greatly admired Drouen de Sacramentis, and Boranga's Theology. Tournely he preferred much to his antagonist Billouart. He thought Houbigant too bold a critic, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... expressed to the people a wish that their house should be attacked, in order that they might thereby have an opportunity of shooting the assailants like dogs. In this way the feeling ran on between them day by day, until the acrimony and thirst for vengeance, on each side, had reached its utmost height. In the meantime, a tithe auction was to take place at a distance of some three or four miles from the Proctor's. On the morning when it was to take place, Mogue Moylan told Alick Purcel that he wished ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... various foreigners resident in Athens, French, Italians, Germans, Ragusans, etc., there was never a difference of opinion in their estimate of the Greek character, though on all other topics they disputed with great acrimony. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... amend the Abandoned Property Act of 867 and nationalize Merlin, when and if discovered and regardless by whom. The support seemed to come from an extremist minority; everybody else, including the Administration, was opposed to it. There was considerable acrimony, however, on the propositions: 1) that Merlin was too important to the prosperity of Poictesme to become a private monopoly; and 2) that Merlin was too important, etc., to become a political ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... amiable and interesting, but being historical rather than doctrinal, is scarcely calculated to give the uninformed reader a very precise view of the creed of the Greek Church. It may serve, however, to assure us that the acrimony of religious discussion and the mutual jealousy of Church and State, which disquiets so many minds at present, was more than matched in the days of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... wonder if they have begotten a son who is mad. (To the 2ND PHYSICIAN) Come, let us begin the cure; and, through the exhilarating sweetness of harmony, let us dulcify, lenify, and pacify the acrimony of his spirits, which, I see, are ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... a prospective European war as unworthy of further attention and held forth with extreme acrimony on the subject of the Great Colorado Strike; which rose to passionate denunciation of the miserable make-shift called civilization which, would permit such a horror in the very heart of a great and prosperous nation. But with the new system...the new system...there would ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... became almost as tyrannical and unreasonable as the bosses. And the breach between capital on the one hand and labour on the other was widening daily, masters and servants snarling over wages and hours, the quarrel ever increasing in bitterness and acrimony until one day the extreme limit of patience would be reached and industrial strikes would give ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... that it has in truth infected my whole soul, and made me incapable of doing or thinking anything useful or rational. This sad delusion, which they endeavor to remove by serious advice, by playful banter, or by seeming to take an interest in my folly for a moment, is encountered with great acrimony by less gentle friends. They who are not bound to me by blood or intimacy—and some who are—deride, insult, and revile me in every way for my subjection to a mental aberration which is rapidly consuming a pretty property, more than average ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... recent appointment to the bench, and expressed his sense of the injustice with which he had been treated. He was very indignant at his claims and merit being overlooked in their not choosing him for the new judge, adding with much acrimony, "And I can tell you they might have got a 'waur[54].'" To which, as if merely coming over the complainant's language again, the answer was a grave "Whaur[55]?" The merit of the impertinence was, that it sounded as if it were merely a repetition of his friend's last words, waur and whaur. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... collected person present. He brushed aside Bower's acrimony as lightly as he had accepted Helen's embarrassed explanation. "This is not my hustle at all," he said. "Stampa heard that ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... that this steadiness and constancy of the Lutherans, was branded by the opposite party, with the epithets, of morose obstinacy, supercilious arrogance, and such like odious denominations. The Lutherans, were not behind hand with their adversaries, in acrimony, of style; they recriminated with vehemence, and charged their accusers with instances of misconduct, different in kind, but equally condemnable. They reproached them with having dealt disingenuously, by disguising, under ambiguous expressions, the ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... up, but said I was sorry to see him do this, because it did not seem to me right or fair for me to rob him under our own roof, when he had been so kind to us. He said, with energy and acrimony: ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... domes of Florence.] Landino's note exhibits a curious instance of the changeableness of his countrywomen. He even goes beyond the acrimony of the original. "In those days," says the commentator, "no less than in ours, the Florentine ladies exposed the neck and bosom, a dress, no doubt, more suitable to a harlot than a matron. But, as they changed soon after, insomuch that they wore collars up to the chin, covering ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... ancestor, and respectable in the symmetry of an intellect which, like a marble masterpiece, leaves nothing to regret except the thought that its perfection excludes the blemish of a soul. John Sherman will figure creditably in history. Mankind soon forgets the sentimental acrimony of the moment, provoked by the suffering of harsh processes, and remembers only the grand results. Thus John Sherman will figure in history as the man who resumed specie payments; and in that the visiting statesman of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... religious than it is a political mission. The supposed party tendency of expressions that occur here and there in our papers is the result of mere chance; it may be detected as often on one side as on another; and in no publication but our own does it rouse the acrimony of partisans. We give information connected with monasteries, churches, and conventicles, with equal impartiality; and if this is found otherwise than useful or amusing, it is the fault of those ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... we see conspiring to rouse the spirit of the ancient forum! The malignity of the human heart, always adverse to superior characters, encouraged the orator to persist. The very players, by sarcastic allusions to men in power, gratified the public ear, and, by consequence, sharpened the wit and acrimony of the ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... reality of moral distinctions, forget in detail the general positions they maintain, and give loose to ridicule, indignation, and scorn, as if any of these sentiments could have place, were the actions of men indifferent; or with acrimony pretend to detect the fraud by which moral restraints have been imposed, as if to censure a fraud were not already to take a part on the side of morality. ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... the history of the American church has been more deeply marked by a sincere and serious earnestness, over and above the competitive zeal and invidious acrimony that are an inevitable admixture in such debates, than the controversy that was at once waged against the two new sects claiming the title "Liberal." It was sincerely felt by their antagonists that, while the one abandoned ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... her own belief. This Catholicism appeared to her a hybrid thing, and she had perhaps learned from Jeanne to consider it such; for Jeanne, in moments of nervous irritability, defended her own scepticism with acrimony against that faith which, because it shone with spirituality and truth, might prove formidable to her. Noemi was always suspicious, not of her sister, but of Giovanni, fearing he would attempt to convert her, and her suspicion had that day been apparent when, discussing the confessional, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... undoubted right to do, but which AEgina beheld with fear and Sparta with jealousy. And this unreasonable meanness and injustice on the part of Sparta, again reacted on the Athenians, and created great bitterness and acrimony. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the few words that the two women had exchanged. Besides, in ageing, whether from repentance for her errors or from hypocrisy, Lady Douglas had become a prude and a puritan; so that at this time she united with the natural acrimony of her character all the stiffness of the new ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with less and less acrimony, all the rest of the day. And the next day, and the next. Then, argument having reached the point of diminishing returns, the three starships ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... Florio's wife and Rosalinde may be fairly inferred from some circumstances consequent upon the lady's marriage, and otherwise connected with her fortunes, which appear to be shadowed forth with great acrimony in the "Faery Queen," where the Rosalinde of the "Shepherd's Calendar" appears before us again under the assumed name of Mirabella. Lest the ascription of these circumstances to particular parties may be imputed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... their conduct. On the contrary, M. Ferrand, the government orator, one of the men who did most mischief to the King and the kingdom, abandoned himself—we borrow the expression of the reporter of the committee—to all the acrimony of his passions, and all the profligacy of his principles. His fury could only be equalled by his folly. He did not scruple to maintain, in the midst of the representatives of the nation, that the emigrants had the greatest right to claim the justice and favour ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... swayed alone, during forty-four years, which was a well-settled and advised maxim; for it valued her the more, it awed the most secure, it took best with the people, and it staved off all emulations, which are apt to rise and vent in obloquious acrimony even against the prince, where there is ONE ONLY admitted ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... ferocious temper. When it broke loose it would be a veritable volcano of revolting acrimony, his thin, firm opening and snapping shut in a peculiar fashion, as though he were squirting venom all over the floor. He was as sensual as Maximum Max, only his voluptuous talks of women were far more offensive ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... native of Germanicia, and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence of his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. "Give me, O Caesar!" he exclaimed, "give me the earth purged of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom of heaven. Exterminate with me the heretics; and with you I will exterminate the Persians." On ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics). Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X considered ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... these different points, Madame de Chevreuse did not consider herself vanquished. She rallied and emboldened her adherents by her lofty spirit and firm resolution. The party feud went on—intrigues were multiplied—but up to the close of August, 1643, no change had taken place, though the acrimony of party feeling had become largely increased. Finding that she had fruitlessly employed insinuation, flattery, artifice, and every species of Court manoeuvre, her daring mind did not shrink from the idea of having recourse to other means of success. She kept up a brisk agitation amongst ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the new Administration, Congress passed the several compromise measures in Mr. Clay's bill as separate acts. The debate on each one was marked by acrimony and strong sectional excitement, and each one was signed by President Fillmore amid energetic protests from the Northern Abolitionists and the Southern Secessionists. The most important one, which provided ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... and uncommunicative, scarcely mentioning "the great business" which had previously been the sole subject of his conversation but to find fault with some arrangement, and exhibiting, whenever his name was mentioned, a marked acrimony against Mr. Cleveland. This rapid change alarmed as much as it astonished Vivian, and he mentioned his feelings and observations to Mrs. Felix Lorraine. That lady agreed with him that something certainly was wrong; ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... duke," said he, "says that your request cannot be granted; and the other day, when I myself mentioned it in the council, began to talk of the decision of Trent, and spoke of yourself as a plaguy pestilent fellow; whereupon I answered him with some acrimony, and there ensued a bit of a function between us, at which Isturitz laughed heartily. By the by," continued he, "what need have you of a regular permission, which it does not appear that any one has authority to grant. The best thing that ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Cicero were combined together for the defence of Murena. But as we read the single pleading that has come to us, we feel that, unlike those Roman trials generally, this was carried on without any acrimony on either side. I think it must have been that Cato wished to have an opportunity of displaying his virtue, but it had been arranged that Murena was to be acquitted. Murena was accused, among other things, of dancing! Greeks might dance, as we hear from ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... discovered that he was most violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason; for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife. This, as may be expected, produced a dispute attended with some acrimony, which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance: but on the day before that appointed for the ceremony, we agreed to discuss the subject at large. It was managed with proper spirit on both sides: he asserted that I was heterodox, I retorted the charge: he replied, and I ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... acrimony, diminish irritation, and soften parts by covering their surfaces with a mild and viscid matter, such as linseed-tea, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... thing said or by the complexion of the day, which was grave and argumentative, fell Upon Lord Temple, and described his behaviour on the commitment of Wilkes. James Grenville,(374) who sat beside him, rose in all the acrimony of resentment: drew a very favourable picture of his brother, and then one of Rigby, conjuring up the bitterest words, epithet, and circumstances that he could amass together: told him how interested he was, and how ignorant: painted his Journey to Ireland ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... harmony in so large a part of their occupations, the points of remaining difference lose their venom. Those who thought they hated each other, unconsciously find themselves friends; and as far as it affects the world at large, the acrimony ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... vegetable is found wild in meadows all over Europe, and, in England, is met with very frequently on dry banks in a chalky soil. In its wild state, the root is white, mucilaginous, aromatic, and sweet, with some degree of acrimony: when old, it has been known to cause vertigo. Willis relates that a whole family fell into delirium from having eaten of its roots, and cattle never touch it in its wild state. In domestic economy the parsnip is much used, and is found to ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... them it produces flowers and fruit the year through, and they hold the blossoms in such veneration, as to use them in the sacrifices they make to their idol IXORA, whence LINNAEUS has taken the name applied by him to this genus. The root is said to possess some acrimony, and to be made use of by the natives in curing ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... the acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church for nothing ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who was a man of peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular," said he, "but I seem to have practised about ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... he considered intolerable) attacked the book by Herr von Wollzogen, and called it pernicious. On the other hand Herr Vogelsang, Herr van der Weye and some other anti-Cocceians also assailed the same [83] book with much acrimony. But the accused won his case in a Synod. Afterwards in Holland people spoke of 'rational' and 'non-rational' theologians, a party distinction often mentioned by M. Bayle, who finally declared himself against the former. But there is no indication that any precise rules have yet been defined ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... to observe the acrimony which the most eminent scholars have infused frequently in their controversial writings. The politeness of the present times has in some degree softened the malignity of the man, in the dignity of the author; but this is by no means an ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... any doubt or controversy. The only question seems to be with regard to the Commons, or the representatives of counties and boroughs, whether they were also, in more early times, constituent parts of Parliament? This question was once disputed in England with great acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they can sometimes prevail, even over faction; and the question seems by general consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined against the ruling party. It is agreed, that the Commons were no part of the great council, till ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... fermentation, by putting them into tubs or chests, covering them with boards or stones, and turning them over every morning to equalize the operation. They emit a good deal of moisture, and lose the natural bitterness and acrimony of their taste by this process, as well as some of their weight. Instead of wooden tubs, pits or trenches dug in the ground are sometimes had recourse to for curing the beans; an operation called earthing. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... say all I feel respecting your opinion of my little volume. The extreme acrimony with which the Monthly Review (of all others the most important) treated me, threw me into a state of stupefaction. I regarded all that had passed as a dream, and I thought I had been deluding myself into an idea of possessing poetic genius, when, in fact, I had ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... how can you indulge such an Acrimony of Speech? That is not only an invidious, but a ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... interferes with the affirmation of the great principles of life; who disdains to follow the multitude in doing not only what is palpably wrong, but what is morally unfine. He seeks to be a free man, an independent being, and to assert without acrimony or invidious criticism of others, yet firmly and unflinchingly, a strong and self-poised manhood. This, then, is one consequence that flows from our point of view: namely, that in the moral sphere the small occasions are to be treated as if they ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... describe himself pretty nearly as ultimus suorum; and if he would have friends in future, he must seek them, as he complains bitterly, almost amongst strangers and another generation. This sense of desolation may account for the acrimony which too much disfigures his writings henceforward. Between 1732 and 1740, he was chiefly engaged in satires, which uniformly speak a high moral tone in the midst of personal invective; or in poems directly philosophical, which almost as uniformly ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... ardent secessionists, expressing themselves with a bitterness, an acrimony, an unreasonableness, which might have astonished me, had I been capable of such a feeling on the subject. Inevitably we slid on to it, when I learnt that their only brother was away doing military duty on Sullivan's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bitterness that descended upon him at White Lodge after the crime on the Dollar Sign. Men with whom he had hunted and fished, cattlemen whom he had helped on the round-up, and storekeepers whose trade he had swelled to considerable degree, attempted to engage in argument tinged with acrimony. Lowell attempted to answer a few of them at first, but saw how futile it all was, and took refuge in silence. He waited until there was nothing more for him to do at White Lodge, and then he went back to the agency to complete the job of ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... he, "I may perhaps speak with too much acrimony; yet, ultimately, my opinions have not much changed. Happiness is given to us with more liberality than we are willing to confess; it is judgment only that is dealt us sparingly, and of that we have so little, that when felicity is before us, we turn to the right or left, or when at the right or ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Origen, Clement, and Dionysius were the most famous of the doctors who discussed these points. All classes of Christians were soon attracted by them. They formed the favorite subjects of conversation, as well as of public teaching. Zeal in discussion created acrimony and partisan animosity. Things were lost sight of, and words alone prevailed. Sects and parties arose. The sublime efforts of such men as Justin and Clement to soar to a knowledge of God were perverted to vain disputations in reference to the relations ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... unremarked in the throng of his fellow sufferers. But, in after days, when the frenzy of that hideous epoch had subsided, it was remembered how loudly Colonel Pyncheon had joined in the general cry, to purge the land from witchcraft; nor did it fail to be whispered, that there was an invidious acrimony in the zeal with which he had sought the condemnation of Matthew Maule. It was well known that the victim had recognized the bitterness of personal enmity in his persecutor's conduct towards him, and that he declared himself hunted to death for his spoil. At the moment ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. The latter was ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... society promptly divided into two camps on the question of his guilt or innocence. The subject was debated with vehemence, even with acrimony. He had been a disagreeable creature from childhood and had made many enemies. On the other hand, great numbers of fair-minded people asserted that no man, however distasteful to themselves, should be convicted ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... truth, which it is distressing to think of. Again; in many men of science or literature there may be an animosity arising from almost a personal feeling; it being a matter of party, a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a consequence of soreness or annoyance occasioned by the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is untrustworthy. Many scientific and literary men, on the other hand, go on, I am confident, in a straightforward impartial way, in their own province ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... went to the marquis, with whom he remained in conversation some hours. When he had left the castle, the marquis sent for his daughter, and poured forth his resentment with all the violence of threats, and all the acrimony of contempt. So severely did he ridicule the idea of her disposing of her heart, and so dreadfully did he denounce vengeance on her disobedience, that she scarcely thought herself safe in his presence. She stood trembling and confused, and heard his reproaches ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... of society, who, whilst united, were miserable and rendered misanthropical by misery. The conviction that wedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations to the perverse: they indulge without restraint in acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim is without appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual ill-temper would terminate ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... education of their children takes its color from the squabbles of the parents. They are nursed in a systematic school of ill-humor, violence, and falsehood, and the conviction that wedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations to the perverse. They indulge without restraint in acrimony and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim is without appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual ill-temper would terminate in separation, and would ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... general, and consequently of this, was questioned by a correspondent of the Spectator, whose letter was undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the answer, which soon followed, written with much zeal and acrimony. The attack and the defence equally contributed to stimulate curiosity and continue attention. It may be discovered in the defence that Prior's Epilogue to Phaedra had a little excited jealousy, and something of Prior's plan may be discovered in the performance ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or their town should, in anything of public honour, be ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and flippant jargon which then passed for wit in the green room and the tavern, was not without keenness and vigour. But his nature, at once ferocious and ignoble, showed itself in every line that he penned. When the first Observators appeared there was some excuse for his acrimony. The Whigs were then powerful; and he had to contend against numerous adversaries, whose unscrupulous violence might seem to justify unsparing retaliation. But in 1685 all the opposition had been crushed. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... poems made some little noise in the world. Shortly, however, after their appearance a criticism on them came out, which made a yet greater noise, on account of its power, its severity, and also its satirical wit. Its acrimony spared neither my work nor my character as a poet, and it produced almost universally a re-action against me. It appeared to me severe and one-sided; and even now, at this moment, it appears to me not otherwise, although I can now ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... preface to the remark that in James II.'s reign, and at the time these party names originated, the Roman Catholics were in league with the Puritans or Low Church party against the High Churchmen, which increased the acrimony of both parties. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... was to blame, and many arrests and trials took place, but there had been such an interchanging of cap numbers and other insignia that it was next to impossible to identify the guilty, and so much crimination and acrimony grew out of the affair that it was deemed best ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... replied, trying not to be aware of the little note of acrimony in her voice. "He's perfectly safe. That place is a paradise for birds. The trees are full of nests. You can stand over there in the morning and hear the young robins squawking for their breakfast. Come up early tomorrow morning and go over with me, won't you? But wear heavy shoes; ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... injure the nerves of the nose, which are endowed with exquisite sensibility, and of which an incredible number are spread over the inner membrane of the nostrils. This membrane is lubricated by a secretion, which has a tendency to preserve the sense. By the almost caustic acrimony of snuff, the mucus is dried up, and the organ of smelling becomes perfectly callous. The consequence is, that all the pleasure we are capable of deriving from the olfactory organs, the omnis copia narium, as Horace curiously terms it, is totally destroyed. Similar ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... feature of the whole," put in Judith, with as much acrimony as ever was displayed by Mr. Ketch, "is that them boys should not have got their deserts. They have not as much as had a birching; and I say that the college masters ought to be hooted. I'd ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... lands the significance of such words sprang from the common people upward. In Germany such interpretations proceeded essentially from the reigning family downward. Discussions under such circumstances, instead of leading toward mutual understanding, breed acrimony. There is little room for shadings, amicable approachments, progress in ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... least attractive of their sex: but the large-boned, stiff and meagre Sabina had none of the yielding and tender grace of these gentle creatures. Her feeble health, which was very evident, became her particularly ill when, as at this moment, the harsh acrimony of her embittered soul came ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mesmerists. It was for many months the target for their combined attacks. All the provinces of France saw refutations of the celebrated report arise: sometimes under the form of calm discussions, decent and moderate; but generally with all the characteristics of violence, and the acrimony of a pamphlet. ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... final adoption, give evidence that these natural apprehensions were strongly felt; but they are now entirely quieted, since, during the two generations and more which have subsequently elapsed, nothing has occurred to verify them, though there have at times been disputes of considerable acrimony, and which became the badges of parties, respecting the limits of the authority of the federal and state governments. The eminently beneficial working of so singular a provision is probably, as M. de Tocqueville remarks, in a great measure attributable to the ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... injudicious, sometimes, in their administration. Out of this arose the newspaper controversy between the public and the surgeons in charge, at Bedloe's Island, which is probably yet fresh in many minds. It was characterized by a good deal of acrimony. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Jews and Jewesses, amiable, prosperous, and kindly, an artist or two, a novelist, a lady pianist, two or three actors. I noticed these. Then there was an old maid, a Mlle. Finisterre, famous in Petrograd society for her bitterness and acrimony, and in appearance an exact ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... circumlocutory terms salvation or damnation. It either gives him or denies him absolution. He believes in it with the implicit faith of one who has never investigated. On the other hand, he is tolerant with the tolerance of one who has in his blood none of the acrimony begotten by an ancestry alternately conquerors and victims through their faith. The Filipino Catholic is far more tolerant than the Irish or German Catholic. But the Philippines have known no battle of the Boyne, no Thirty Years' War. When the abuses of the friars here led to revolt and insurrection, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... consequence to heap copious insults on the horses, great, proud beasts, who make no reply. Meantime, you examine out of the corner of your eye the persons alighting. They are well-clad and seem full of confidence. They are probably going to sit at the table of the gods. The proper thing is to bark without acrimony, with a shade of respect, so as to show that you are doing your duty, but that you are doing it with intelligence. Nevertheless, you cherish a lurking suspicion and, behind the guests' backs, stealthily, you sniff ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... of a criticism so strongly felt that it raises a barrier to appreciation, almost a gate shut against knowledge between the good American readers and the progressives in our literature. Sandburg and Lindsay between them will cause more acrimony in a gathering of English teachers than even Harold Bell Wright. Miss Lowell carries controversy with her, triumphantly riding upon it. Their critics wish form as they have known form, want beauty such as they possess in riper literatures, want ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... up for volunteers in the town, to strengthen their forces; from words of acrimony, they came to those of virulence; then the powerful batteries of hand-bills, and news-papers were opened: every town within fifty miles, interested, on either side, was moved to petition, and both prepared for a grand attack, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... wander out bareheaded in the evening air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man distraught when Maryllia's crushed body had been brought home, and she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely conceal. Almost,—such was her acrimony and vindictiveness—she wished Maryllia ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... his life. He was devoted to her— though the precise nature of his feelings towards her never quite transpired. Her feelings towards him were more mixed. At first, he was 'that great and good man'—'that true saint, Mr. Jowett'; but, as time went on, some gall was mingled with the balm; the acrimony of her nature asserted itself. She felt that she gave more sympathy than she received; she was exhausted, and she was annoyed by his conversation. Her tongue, one day, could not refrain from shooting out at him: 'He comes to me, and he talks to me,' she ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... anger. Irritation, petulance, and vexation are temporary and for immediate cause. Fretfulness, pettishness, and peevishness are chronic states finding in any petty matter an occasion for their exercise. Compare ACRIMONY; ENMITY; HATRED. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and Laura formed no exception. Pin, her most frequent companion, had to bear the brunt of her acrimony: hence the two were soon at war again. For Pin was tactless, and took small heed of her sister's grumpy moods, save to cavil at them. Laura's buttoned-upness, for instance, and her love of solitude, were perverse leanings to Pin's mind; and she spoke out against them with ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... warmth and passion of the character. In the interview with the conspirators, in the third act, he threw a gallantry into his action, as striking as it was unexpected. But he greatly excelled in the vehement reproaches, which, in the fourth act, he poured, with acrimony and force, on the treachery and cowardice of Jaffier. The cadences of his voice were equally adapted to the loudest rage and the most deep and solemn reflection, which he judiciously varied." "Mr. Garrick," says Davies, "when fixed in ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... account of it; she spoke even with a touch of acrimony. "My dear Catherine, you know very well that ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... kept of her comings and goings. But it is by no means certain that she did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions to her husband's adopted country. Isabel presently found herself in the singular situation of defending the British constitution against her aunt; Mrs. Touchett having formed the habit of sticking pins into this venerable instrument. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... New Brunswick, the disputes between the executive and legislative authorities were characterised by much acrimony, but eventually the public revenues were conceded to the assemblies. In Prince Edward Island the political difficulties arose from the land monopoly, and the efforts of the lieutenant-governors to govern as much as possible without assemblies. In these provinces, as in Canada, we find—to cite ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... which the deputies sent to the king from Rome had brought against them; and partly in preferring accusations themselves against the allies of the Roman people, but particularly against Marcus Aurelius, whom they inveighed against with much greater acrimony; for they said that, being one of the three ambassadors sent to them, he had staid behind, and levying soldiers, had assailed them with hostilities contrary to the league, and frequently fought pitched ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... is a great diversity in different constitutions. It has appeared to me to depend, principally, upon the inflammation of the mouth, which is secondary to the original disease, and, in most cases, to arise from the acrimony of the discharge. It is aggravated by loss of rest, want of nourishment, and, probably, by putrid matter finding its way into the stomach. To the latter cause I also refer a diarrhoea, which almost uniformly comes on, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... father should have such a son? I am tempted to give utterance to a strange thought! Why should I not? What is the opinion of the world; what are its prejudices, in the presence of truth? Yet not to respect them is to entail upon ourselves I know not what load of acrimony, contempt, and misery! I must speak—I never yet met a youth whom I thought so deserving of Anna St. Ives as Frank Henley! The obstacles you will say are insurmountable. Alas! I fear they are. And therefore 'tis fortunate that the same thought has not more strongly occurred to you. Perhaps my ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... he should have been discreet. But on the other hand he was possessed of an almost Spartan courage; and through sorrow and suffering, through disappointment and failure, he bore himself with a high and stately tenderness, without a touch of acrimony or peevishness. He never questioned the love or justice of God; he never raged against fate, or railed at circumstance. He gathered up the fragments with a quiet hand; he never betrayed envy or jealousy; he never deplored the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... "where shall I fly," he replied, "to avoid the irrevocable doom passed on all mankind?" Christians! wonder at this heathen, and profit by his example! in his last days he enlarged upon the wicked crime of suicide, which he reprobated with an acrimony not usual with him, declaring it to be an inexpiable offence to the gods, and degrading to man because the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... perfection of government, the democracy of Athens, he hoped one day to see revived; he mentioned the death of Charles the First, and the expulsion of his son, with raptures of applause; inveighed with great acrimony against the kingly name; and, in order to strengthen his opinion, repeated forty or fifty lines from one ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... expenditure which this year is understood to have exceeded all precedent. We have no means of ascertaining the expenses of such a line as the London and York, which was fought inch by inch through the Committees of both Houses with unexampled acrimony and perseverance. We know, however, that the expenses connected with the Great Western, and the London and Birmingham bills, amounted respectively to L88,710 and L72,868, exclusive altogether of the costs incurred by the different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... casually at the house of a friend. In the busy whirl of an active life, I should have forgotten this circumstance, or set it down to my own imagination, had not her brother's paper contained, a month or so later, an attack upon myself that amazed me by what I thought was causeless acrimony. Even when I found myself described as rich, haughty and heartless, "consorting with people who could pay visits to me in coaches with monograms upon the doors, and turning the cold shoulder to those who came on foot,"—I did not associate the diatribe with my visit to the writer's ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... were reported to the captain in the course of the day, so much acrimony was imparted to his account by the officer, that the captain merely said, "I shall be glad if you will defer stating this matter more fully till to-morrow morning, after breakfast; take the night to think of it." Tomorrow came, and the particulars being again detailed, even more strongly and ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... themes had been perpetual in the provinces ever since the early days of the Reformation. Of late, however, the acrimony of theological conflict had been growing day by day more intense. It was the eternal struggle of religious dogma to get possession of the State, and to make use of political forces in order to put fetters on the human soul; to condemn ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... You deserve to be believed, for you draw out his best points. For my own part, the miserable habits of our boyhood have left a habit of acrimony, of which, repent as I will, I cannot free myself. I gave way to it last night. I can be cool, but I cannot help being contemptuous. I make him worse, and I aggravated your ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the injudicious and wicked acrimony of this letter, and some other like conduct of the then Secretary of State, that occasioned me, in a letter to a friend in the government, to say, that if there was any official business to be done in France, till a regular Minister could be appointed, it could not be ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... common Buttercup, the wild Pansy, and the Sundew of our boggy marshes. It is widely known that the field Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus), when pulled from the ground, and carried in the palm of the hand, will redden and inflame the skin by the acrimony of its juices; or, if the bruised leaves are applied to any part they will excite a blistering of the outer cuticle, with a discharge of watery fluid from numerous small vesicles, whilst the tissues beneath become red, hot, and swollen; and these combined symptoms precisely represent "shingles,"—a ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie |
