"Meddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... present "blue-laws" is strong and the laws under fire are branded as the limit of legislative meddling, but here are some of the old laws that ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... old digger in men's flesh, Doctors are ever itching to be priests, Meddling in conduct, natures, life's privacies. We have been coupled now for twenty years, And she has never turned from me an hour— She knows a woman's duty and a queen's: Whose, then, can her affection be but mine? How can I hurt her—she is still my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... The Kaiser after disastrously meddling with the General Staff during the first month of the war, subsequently took no active hand in military, naval and political policies unless conflicts between his chosen chieftains forced him to ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... like good mother-English—it wants translating. Here and there you might, I think, have condensed some sentences. I go on the plan of thinking every single word which can be omitted without actual loss of sense as a decided gain. Now perhaps you will think me a meddling intruder: anyhow, it is the advice of an old hackneyed writer who sincerely wishes you well. Your remark on the two sexes counteracting variability in product of the one is new to me. (151/2. Scott (op. cit., page 214): "The reproductive organs of phoenogams, as is well-known, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... commenced between the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, the former had met with considerable assistance from the United Provinces. Barneveldt, who foresaw the embarrassments which the country would have to contend with on the expiration of that truce, had strongly opposed its meddling in the quarrel; but his ruin and death left no restraint on the policy which prompted the republic to aid the Protestant cause. Fifty thousand florins a month to the revolted Protestants, and a like sum to the princes of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... painstaking burden of being involved in a league (of human rights). Men who cannot find time once in three months to drop a ballot in the box, will not come three times a week to attend the meetings of a club. Far from meddling with the government, they abdicate, and as they refuse to elect it, they cannot ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Conservatives by his Liberalism, the coarser Radicals by his pietism and culture. He displeased the fast set by his strict morality; they called him slow, because he did not bet, gamble, use bad language, keep an opera dancer. With more reason he displeased the army by meddling, under the name of a too courtly Commander-in-Chief, with professional matters which he could not understand. But there was a cause of his unpopularity scarcely appreciable by the German author of this memoir. He had brought with him the condescending manner of a German ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... long story to tell in a few words. Another people, the Locrians, had also made an invasion on Delphian territory. The Amphictyonic Council called on Philip to punish them, He at once marched southward, but, instead of meddling with the Locrians, seized and fortified a town in Phocis. At once Athens, full of alarm, declared war, and Philip was as quick to declare war in return. Both sides sought the support of Thebes, and Athens gained it. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... In the past Terra had been racked by wars of religion, one fanatically held opinion opposed to another. There was no righteousness in such struggles, only fatal ends. The Reds had no right to this new knowledge—but neither did they. It must be locked against the meddling of ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... religion and the dishonor of God. We are bound to say, however, that none among the priesthood encourage or take a part in them, unless those low and bigoted firebrands who are alike remarkable for vulgarity and ignorance, and who are perpetually inflamed by that meddling spirit which tempts them from the quiet path of duty into scenes of political strife and enmity, in which they seem to be peculiarly at home. Such scenes are repulsive to the educated priest, and to all who, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the lower town. The native troops have been paid, and all signs of discontent abated. The duchess can do nothing but replace von Rumpf. The Marshal is a straw in the wind; von Wallenstein and Mollendorf, I hold a sword above their necks. Nearly half the Diet is with us. There has been some strange meddling in the customs. Englishmen have brought me complaints, through the British legation, regarding such inspections as were never before heard of in a country at peace. I consulted the chief inspector and he affirmed the matter. He was under orders ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... are out of doors all day, to ladies muddling and meddling all day about the house. I must say I do, too, Mr. Denzil," ended the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... grandfather had used it for years. It had the advantage that it could be used inside a gravity field, where a Lawlor drive could not. It had the other advantage that commercial spacecraft could not mount such gadgets for defense, because the insurance companies objected to meddling ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... makes grimaces of the most bitter human weeping, wringing her hands, and sometimes adding a fourth hand or foot to make the appeal more touching. Grass or leaves she draws around her to make a nest, and resents anyone meddling with her property. She is a most friendly little beast, and came up to me at once, making her chirrup of welcome, smelled my clothing, and held out her hand to be shaken. I slapped her palm without offence, though she winced. She began to untie the cord with which ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the first to descend and to dip Peddling and meddling in private affairs: To detect and collect every petty defect Of husband and wife and domestical life; But intrepid and bold, like Alcides of old, When the rest stood aloof, put himself to the proof In his country's ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... avoid giving extra trouble to the hostess, or to the servants. She may offer assistance when circumstances warrant her doing so, but must refrain from meddling with household matters when her help is evidently not desired. She should entertain herself easily when the hostess is otherwise busy, yet never seem to have any absorbing occupation that would prevent her from being ready at once to join the family in any project. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... in men, so needs must have strong walls to keep out all comers from over seas. And we have an ill neighbour or two, who would fain share in our booty. However, men know in Sweden, and Finmark, and Norway also, that it is ill meddling with Jarl Ingvar and ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... my position quite plain," said Meldon, "and to prevent any possibility of your thinking that I'm meddling with your affairs in an unwarrantable manner, I may add that I recognise in you one of the pillars of society, a bulwark of our civil and religious liberty, a mainstay of law and ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... have here no place; At council set as foils on Danby's[56] score, To make that great false jewel shine the more; Who all that while was thought exceeding wise, Only for taking pains and telling lies. But there's no meddling with such nauseous men; 80 Their very names have tired my lazy pen: 'Tis time to quit their company, and choose Some fitter ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... that it's your picture, and I put in a little time meddling with your property for want of something else to do. All I painted doesn't cover one quarter of the canvas, and I guess you've done enough for me to more than make up. I guess you needn't worry over that cow and calf—you're ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... am going to wave the olive branch, to-morrow," she answered, laughing. "If he ignores it, I'll try it again in some other form. I only wanted to make sure that you approved of my meddling." She put her hand through Theodora's arm and together they paced up and down the broad piazza. Above them, the stars were dotting the still, dark air, and the ragged outline of The Savins showed itself faintly through the great trees. "His eyes have looked so ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... should run the slightest risk of being lowered in a nation which depends so largely upon the individual qualities of her citizens for her defence. Do away with war, if the cursed thing can by any wit of man be avoided, but until you see your way to that, have a care in meddling with those primitive qualities to which at any moment you may have to appeal for ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... several sorts, among them the crime of meddling with the government. He's over there now—where he ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as you would be ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... own accord. It can only be maintained by the rigid continuance of the selection. The average stature of man did not change a centimetre in a thousand years, till we came in with our meddlesome eugenics. Leave off our scientific meddling and the race will quickly revert ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... was come as a judgment upon him for his loose life, his gluttony, drunkenness, and avarice; for laying aside his father's will in an old mouldy trunk, and turning stock-jobber, newsmonger, and busybody, meddling with other people's affairs, shaking off his old serious friends, and keeping company with buffoons and pickpockets, his father's sworn enemies; that he had best throw himself upon the mercy of the court, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... wife of his may feel the consequence of meddling in other folk's concerns. Not that I care for that now, there's metal more attractive; but she has crossed me, and shall suffer for it.' These short sentences met the ear of a broad-shouldered ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at the others. It was almost impossible to hear each other speak—and what was there to say? Each boy and girl realized the situation in which Ferd's meddling had placed them. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... that there seem to be fools enough, already, meddling in this business," he said, in tones of mock lament, "permit that I join their number, Ser Romeo, and ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... to the genial heat; and so close that, had a spark flown, they would have been warmed with a vengeance, and the superiority of the male intellect demonstrated. This done, he retired, with a guilty air; for he did not want to be caught meddling in such frivolities by Miss Dover or Miss Maitland. However, he was quite safe; those superior spirits were wholly occupied with the loftier things of the mind, especially the characters of ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... issued for the Church of Scotland, which owed their existence to the dangerous meddling of Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury. James, who loved Episcopacy, had dreaded the influence of Laud in Scotland; his fear was justified, for it was given to Laud to make an Episcopal Church impossible ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... of those idle, meddling fellows, who, having no employment of their own, are perpetually interfering in the affairs of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... alterations may be expedient, but that this is not the time for making them. The other is, that no essential alterations are at all wanting, and that neither now, nor at any time, is it prudent or safe to be meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our Constitution—that our representation is as nearly perfect as the necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be; and that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and thankful enjoyment, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... infliction of it can find forgiveness; but how can we forgive the infliction of death-in-life? How can God forgive it, this profane meddling with sacred and fathomless life? Will He accept the plea that we did it "for the protection of society?—for the man's own good?—or a warning to others?" In that day of questioning, I would rather take my chances ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... of his golden net hold the District Judge firmly. It will be easy to postpone, to weary out, to harass this strange faction. He has stores of coin ready. They are the heaped-up reserves of his "senatorial ammunition." And yet Joe Woods, that burly meddling fool. To placate Natalie! To induce her to leave at once for Paris! How shall this be done? Ha! The marriage is her dream in life! He is elected now. He fears not her Southern rival. The ambitious political lady aspirant! ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... keeping out of trouble seemed very simple. It looks very easy to mind one's own business, but it is one of the hardest things in the world to do, because it is one of the hardest things in the world for us to be willing to do. The Scripture says, "Every fool will be meddling," and it is so hard for some folks not to act like fools, anyway in this particular respect, even though they are ever so wise. The affairs of others are so interesting to them! This is a very human trait, but it sometimes leads ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... will open my mouth boldly, and tell him all from beginning to end. You knew it before me, and ought to have given me a hint of what was going on! The girl might yet have been advised. It might still have been time to save her! But, no! There was something for your meddling and making, and you must needs add fuel to the fire. Now you have made your bed you may lie on it. As you have brewed so you may drink; I shall take my daughter under my arm and be off with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... saints that no further harm was done," ejaculated the lady shuddering, while her lord proceeded—"It was not malice, but malapert meddling, then. Master Leonard Copeland, thou must be scourged to make thee keep thine hands off where they be not needed. For the rest, thou must await what my Lord of Whitburn may require. Take him away, John Ellerby, chastise him, and keep him in ward ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... how they had cajoled him into buying an ass worth fifty dirhams[FN479] for five thousand and five hundred.[FN480] His friends blamed him and a gathering of the folk laughed at him and admired his folly and over-faith in believing the talk of the sharpers without suspicion, and meddling with that which he understood not and thrusting himself into that whereof he had no sure knowledge. "On this wise, O King Shah Bakht" (continued the Wazir), "is the issue of greed for the goods of the world and indeed coveting that which our knowledge containeth not shall lead to ruin and repentance. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... before was easily made comfortable for the family. She set about this at once while Captain Baker and the neighbors sat in judgment upon the trembling surveyor. These impromptu courts held by the Green Mountain Boys when they happened to capture a Yorker guilty of meddling with the settlers, were in the nature of a court martial. Sometimes the sentences imposed were doubtless unjust, for the judges and juries were naturally bitter against the prisoners; but the punishment seldom went beyond ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... say them of St Paul, if he had ever been in the circumstances," said the Rector; "and I should just like to know what he would have done in a parish like this, with the Dissenters on one side, and a Perpetual Curate without a district meddling on the other. Ah, my dear," continued Mr Morgan, "I daresay they had their troubles in those days; but facing a governor or so now and then, or even passing a night in the stocks, is a very different thing from a showing-up in the 'Times,' not to speak of the complications ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... ended by saying that the Governor's answer would be a guide to him in his political correspondence with the government he represented. In consequence of this letter, M. Theron and the French consul at Richmond, who had also been meddling with Texan affairs, were ordered to leave the Confederate States. The object evidently was to set up an independent republic between the new empire in Mexico and whichever power, Union or Confederacy, should triumph ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... a tone of displeasure, "you will oblige me by not meddling with my visitors. Luke, ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... would divert you. Opposite lives a Christian dyer who must be a seventh brother of the admirable barber. The same impertinence, loquacity, and love of meddling in everybody's business. I long to see him thrashed, though he is a constant comedy. My delightful servant, Omar Abou-el-Hallaweh (the father of sweets)—his family are pastrycooks—is the type of all the amiable jeune premiers ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... delivered this sentence, and gave in addition a sermon on meddling, short, emphatic, and not uncheerful apparently, if estimated by the hearty laugh that closed it; though a lady remarked, "Oh, dear me! You are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I think I'd rather not. They're not canny after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and we've sons and daughters to help us, and that's better than meddling with the Fairies, to my mind. No! no!" she added, laughing, "if we had had one you'd have heard of it, whoever didn't, for I should have had some decent clothes made for him. I couldn't stand rags and old cloaks, messing and moth-catching, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... down on her. That was a good shot, though I say it, but it hit her on the shoulder instead of the head as luck would have it, which was bad luck for me. However, in she went, and I thought all was well and lost no time in getting away from the place. If it hadn't been for that meddling fool Andy!... Well, then, at dinner, Uncle Douglas came out with the news that she was his daughter, not his intended, and everything looked worse than ever. Afterwards when she went to talk to him in the library, and passed through the billiard-room where I was knocking the balls about ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... his life in the convent or out, by his superiors. Or again he would fix his mind resolutely on his approaching priesthood; while the Prior sat gnawing his lips, playing with his cross and rapping his foot, before bursting out again and bidding them all be silent, for they knew not what they were meddling with. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... on with your poor father. Or your Uncle Victor. He did his best to prevent him being made trustee.... And now he comes meddling, wanting to upset ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... word of it. Here I you go off up-stairs," speaking sharply, and with a threatening look to the child. "I'd like to know what business he has to come here, meddling in affairs ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... learned asses of the masculine sex, who advise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate all the stupidities from which "man" in Europe, European "manliness," suffers,—who would like to lower woman to "general culture," indeed even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. Here and there they wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers: as though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious or ludicrous to a profound and godless man;—almost everywhere her nerves are being ruined by the most morbid ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... is a steady, hardworking, energetic Western man. HAYES is a meddling Yankee. Of course HALL is the better man for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... turning a disgusted shoulder on this display of emotion, "to my mind this business of draining Pontesordo is too much like telling the Almighty what to do. If God made the land wet, what right have we to dry it? Those that begin by meddling with the Creator's works may end by laying hands on ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the time you planted that bomb on us. Anyone who tried to work any changes in his own past would be almost certain to end up finding himself never having been born. So we don't do any meddling. What we have discovered is a way not only of moving back into the past, but also of making our own choice of spatial references while we do it, and of changing our spatial anchor ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher
... fear me his charity flatters us. Certainly no man can deny that Scotland is ever ringing with debate. But much of it had better been left unsaid, and most of it is carried on by ignorant brawlers, who should be left ploughing fields and herding sheep instead of meddling with matters too high for them. At least such is my humble mind, but I am only a gentleman private of the Prince's guard, and there is opposite me a commissioned officer of his army. It is becoming that Captain Hugh MacKay, who many will say has a better right to speak ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... the country; but Otho was not so easily repulsed. He insisted that the prince should communicate his sentiments to Queen Victoria; and, in spite of all the assurances he received of the impossibility of meddling with diplomatic business in such a way, his Hellenic majesty, to this very day, feels satisfied that Lord Palmerston was sent to the right-about for offending him; and he is firmly persuaded that, unless Lord Aberdeen furnish him with as many millions as he demands ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... these commanders that the army must attack the enemy, and it advised the country of the earnestness of the President to vigorously prosecute the war, and thus aided enlistments, inspired confidence, and warned meddling nations ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... came in sight of a gang of elk. Wyeth was immediately for pursuing them, rifle in hand, but saw evident signs of dissatisfaction in his half-breed hunters; who considered him as trenching upon their province, and meddling with things quite above his capacity; for these veterans of the wilderness are exceedingly pragmatical, on points of venery and woodcraft, and tenacious of their superiority; looking down with infinite contempt ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... whatsoever. Even the factory act and the various attempts to legislate in behalf of women and child workers strikes the average employer as a gross interference with his constitutional rights. Where he can he evades. Where he cannot he is apt to grow purple over the impertinence of meddling reformers who cannot let ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... Obviously enough, he could not live in this way, suspecting everything but plain bread and water, and hardly feeling safe in meddling with them. Not only had this school-keeping wretch come between him and the scheme by which he was to secure his future fortune, but his image had so infected his cousin's mind that she was ready to try on him some of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... even for my most wilful conduct, and an excuse for my most irrational, will easily credit that, in interfering in an affair in which you are concerned, I am not influenced by an unworthy, an officious, or a meddling spirit. No, dear May! it is because I think it better for you that we should speak upon this subject that I have ventured to treat upon it. Perhaps I broke it in a crude, but, credit me, not in an unkind, spirit. I am well conscious ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... intention of meddling with political affairs until he actually should become the ruler of Belgium, and he gave scant encouragement to those who sought to sound him and find out what his future policies would be. While he surveyed all public affairs with a keen eye and attentive mind, he kept the public ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... of that. What did he say to thee? He was feeling very bad, I know, about the Naylor boys. I wonder what makes thee even thyself with that low set. Thy father will be angry, if he knows, and Greenwood thinks he is sure to know if Naylors are meddling in his family or his affairs. Greenwood speaks very badly of ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... what Roderic proposed a shudder of horror ran through the land. Nobles and bishops hastened to the audience chamber and sought to hinder the fateful purpose of the rash monarch. Their hearts were filled with dread of the perils that would follow any meddling with the magic spell, and they earnestly implored him not to bring the foretold disaster upon ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Franklin! Take my advice, and let the Diamond be! That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near it. Don't waste your money and your temper—in the fine spring time of your life, sir—by meddling with the Moonstone. How can YOU hope to succeed (saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess of it? Sergeant Cuff!" repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at me sternly. "The ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... been regarded as a man of exceptional ability. Time and the issue of this war will tell. The verdict of history may be to the contrary. The world for a time may easily confuse restless energy and habitual meddling with real ability, but its final verdict will go far deeper. Since the Kaiser dropped his sagacious pilot, Germany's real position in the world has steadily weakened. Then it was the first power in Europe ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... go that far. So our business is not to give him any excuse—not even the very slightest. Suppose we meddle in this affair of Schloshold-Markheim, which is really his dependency—don't you see, he might easily, and quite logically, claim that as a precedent for meddling in the affairs of the Transvaal, which we claim as our dependency. Now I hope that you perceive the pistol, and see, too, that it isn't in the least a toy affair, but a very dangerous ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... the table, for there was enough to talk about without meddling with delicate subjects. When the repast was over, Florry invited her brother to look at the flower-garden, which was in the height of its glory, and she was followed by Gerty her cousin, and by Mrs. Passford. As in the Northern family, there were ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... Jay is a very mischievous little bird. Yes, sir, he certainly loves to tease. Grandmother Magpie is mischievous, too, but she's no worse than little Jimmy Jay. She does harm by meddling and Jimmy Jay ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... wakened at the sounds. He heard all, but he chose to seem to be asleep, and, would you believe it? he was only the more provoked! Paul's exertion made his neglect seem all the worse, and he was positively angry with him for 'going and meddling, and poking his nose where he'd no concern. Now he shouldn't be able to get the stuff to-morrow, and so make it up; and of course mother would go and dock Paul's supper ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ignorance, we do not know how fatal to success and happiness is this lack of purpose. We fail to impress it upon our youth. And, when one demands chart and compass, we cannot supply them. No wonder belief in luck, fate, stars, or a meddling, unreasonable Providence is ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... hope you are right," said Lady Mary. "It would really be a very nice thing for Blanche. At all events, we are out of the Chipchase girls for to-day." And, so saying, she rose somewhat comforted, little aware, poor woman, that another ringer was meddling with the ropes. ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... and Madame Ragon, despairing of the royal cause, determined to give up perfumery, and live like honest bourgeois without meddling in politics. To recover the value of their business, it was necessary to find a man who had more integrity than ambition, more plain good sense than ability. Ragon proposed the affair to his head-clerk. Birotteau, now master ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... she was slightly indignant at this evidence that the people in the country near her had been meddling with her affairs, and she did not see the ashen pallor that quickly spread over Hagar's face. Had Ruth been looking she must have suspected the girl's secret. But it took her some time to mount her pony, and then looking back she waved her hand at Hagar, who was ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he did not feel justified in meddling. But he wishes that he had gone to Ethel at once—or that I had been at home and that he had come to me. He is reproaching himself ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... scolding for meddling in your affairs.... So we must be very careful if you come to me. But I doubt whether you will stay when you have seen the place; you do not know ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... hold no brief for the brewer and the distiller. They got exactly what was coming to them. Had they, as a class, been content to obey the existing laws, instead of conniving to break them; had they kept their meddling fingers out of local politics; had they realized more fully their responsibilities as manufacturers and purveyors of potentially dangerous products; had they been willing to cooperate with right-thinking men in ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... As for that meddling Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and his crack-brained followers, they must be effectually swept out of the way first of all. De Batz felt that they were the real, the most likely hindrance to his schemes. He himself would have to go very cautiously to work, since apparently ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... mind to say that he did not see why the meddling monk should wish to see them at all, and Ambrose looked a little reluctant, but Father Shoveller said in his good-humoured way, "As you please, young sirs. 'Tis but an old man's wish to see whether he can do aught to help you, that you be not as lambs among wolves. Mayhap ye deem ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... or the still later and wiser words, "Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." The foundations of true manhood and true womanhood are fortunately laid too deep for our meddling. It is true that we may destroy the perfume of life, for men and women, by mistaken efforts and perverse guidance, but the fruit of our error is not immortal, and it is never too late to ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... the dorsum of the foot extending from one malleolus to the other, and as far forwards as the front of the scaphoid. The chief caution required is to divide all ligaments which hold the bone in place, and dissect it clean on all other parts before meddling with its posterior surface where the groove exists for the flexor longus pollicis tendon near which the posterior tibial vessels and ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... I suppose Marion told him about that. He said at the end of the letter that he had no motive in writing it except a sincere wish for Conroy's welfare. This was quite untrue. He had several other motives. His love of meddling was one. Hatred of Crossan was another. Jealousy of Bob Power ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... ghost-deity. In fetichistic thought, the name is an entity mysteriously associated with its owner, and it is not well to run the risk of its getting into hostile hands. Along with this caution goes the similarly originated fear that the person whose name is spoken may resent such meddling with his personality. For the latter reason the Dayak will not allude by name to the small pox, but will call it "the chief" or "jungle-leaves"; the Laplander speaks of the bear as the "old man with the fur coat"; in Annam the tiger is called "grandfather" ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... "Meddling fool," he muttered. "Do you know that there are two detectives now in Salthouse? They come and go and ask all manner of questions. One of them pretends that he believes Engleton was drowned, and walks always on the beach and hires boatmen ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scorned the idea of "women-folk meddling wi' their 'counts and wool," and, "besides," as Matt argued, "Davie's going would necessitate the hiring of two shepherds; no hired man would do more than half of what folk did ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... dispositions cannot overtake. The gardener should be an idler, and have a gross partiality to the kitchen plots: an eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden landscape; a tasteful gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the borders raw, and take the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if you are in the south, an olive-yard, if in the north, a swarded apple-orchard reaching to the stream, completes your miniature domain; but this is ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... still unhappily possible for the arrogant impatience of a single ruler or the persistent intrigue and misrepresentation of an ambassador to embroil the European situation. Unless the nations in council can devise some practical checks upon irresponsible meddling, the flower of their manhood will have massacred each other in vain. The antecedents of Sir Edward Grey, and more especially his attitude during the crisis which led to war, justify us in the hope that his entire influence will be employed in the right direction when the decisive moment arrives, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... thought what a good one it would be to knock a man down with. I was going along, in and out among the bushes, when I caught sight of him coming riding slowly in front. I knew he was most likely going to the creek, for it seemed as if he could not keep from meddling with me continually, and I did not want to talk to him, so I slipped into a big bush to wait till he was gone by. I declare I had no thought of harming him, but he always put me in a rage, so I did not mean to speak to him at all. Well, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... contrary rendered it either the Pity or Contempt of its Neighbours. The Cardinal erected that famous Academy which has carried all the Parts of Polite Learning to the greatest Height. His chief Design in that Institution was to divert the Men of Genius from meddling with Politicks, a Province in which he did not care to have any one else interfere with him. On the contrary, the Marquis de Torcy seems resolved to make several young Men in France as Wise as himself, and is therefore taken up at ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... treat your letter with silent contempt, but recently I have concluded to write and thank you to mind your own business. By order of George Lacey, Esq.—Julia Middleton, Secretary.' Yes, that would serve the meddling old Yankee Dictionary right," continued she, and then, as her eye fell upon the remaining letter, she added, "Yes, I'll read this one too, and see what new ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the stories told by travelers of officious meddling by the police on their arrival in Russia, and of their footsteps being dogged, I have recently been favored with some light on that subject. I believe the tales, with reservations, since some perfectly innocent and truthful friends of mine related to me their own similar experience. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... is given, in the letter below of the "Irishman who was shot in the forehead;" also of one of the same kin, who in meddling with Underground Rail Road passengers, got his arm broken ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... serious moment and the general complexion of the later work has in it such an access of Protestant coloring, that high Anglican writers have been in the habit of attributing the main features of the revision to the interference of the Continental Reformers. "If it had not been for the impertinent meddling," they have been accustomed to say, "of such foreigners as Bucer, Peter Martyr, and John a-Lasco, we might have been enjoying at the present day the admirable and truly Catholic devotions set forth in the fresh morning of the Reformation, before the earth-born vapors of theological controversy ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... weren't," cut in Martin. "She was a meddling, aggravating old harridan. I hated her, and I'm glad ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... creature seen. Having this herb's juice, Oberon would watch Titania when she was asleep, and drop the liquor into her eyes, that when she wakened she might pursue the first object she cast eyes on with the soul of love, whether it should be lion, bear, wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or busy ape. The delusion accomplished, he would give her another herb to remove the charm, but not before she gave up ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... didn't," said Cal Blount, gravely. "You sort of allowed that he was a meddling sneak-thief, Miss Lady. I want to say right here that I allow a lot different from that. Now, if I know that man at all, he ain't going to come around you and make any sort of talk. You'll have to go ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... now France is fighting not so much to recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. And that is what would happen if Russia were trampled upon, France broken, Britain disarmed. We should be left without any means to defend ourselves. We might have a navy that would ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... some men are professionally bound to attend to the concerns of others. But this is not the case supposed. The bulk of mankind will be happier, and do more for others, by letting them alone; at least by avoiding any of that sort of meddling which may ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... desperately alone, how young and foolish and frightened he felt? All his brave resolutions seemed to drain away before their old, gnomish faces. Here he'd been thinking of himself as a brave spy, a gallant fighter in humanity's cause and what not. Now he saw himself for what he was; a reckless boy, meddling in affairs too big for ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the world rather as a spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy[10], business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them, as standers-by ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... when Maren had been to the village shop, Ditte ran out screaming, as she came back. "Grandad's dead!" she burst out sobbing. Soeren lay bruised and senseless across the doorstep to the kitchen. He had been up on the big chest, meddling with the hands of the clock. Maren dragged him to bed and bathed his wounds, and when it was done he lay quietly following her movements with his eyes. Now and then he would ask in a low voice what the time was, and from this Maren knew that ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... travell'd monkeys their grimace improve, Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood: His solid sense—by inches you must tell. But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell; His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, Still making work ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... I, somewhat testily, though without a grain of anger in my heart against any one but the meddling old woman. 'But, Helen, I've something to say ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... bound for the Mediterranean. But before his ship sailed, a letter, also from Italy, from his aunt Maria, who was spending the winter in Rome, informed him that the ring was a Christmas gift from her. In his rage he unjustly condemned Aunt Maria as a meddling old busybody, and gave her ring to ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... know is given— 'Tis fearful meddling with the things of Heaven; Its sacred mysteries belong alone To Him whose paths are awful and unknown; Who wings the storm, or whispers "Peace, be still;" Cradling to rest the mountain wave at will; Who for our souls his Son a ransom gave, ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words separately through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down there. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... minute's delay might be fatal; and added, though with the voice of sorrow rather than of anger, that if she had not resolution enough to execute the commands he brought her from her husband, his ruin would lie at her door; and, for his own part, he must give up any farther meddling in his affairs. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... knew they had been bought. One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud Damat's meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... corn, or endow the Roman Catholic religion, making such protection or endowment a fundamental law (s. iv., n. 8, p. 323), and withholding from the government, which they proceed to set up, the power of meddling with that law. They are then not only a Constituent but likewise a Legislative Assembly. But this power of making laws and moulding the future constitution of the State, what else is it but sovereign power, and indeed the very ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... deserts, ma'am. As you say. But there's the wisdom of twenty years' shabbiness in me. And I wonder if the good Sir John wants to be meddling." ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... go to York to attend to it; and if you have any business, please attend to it, and don't be meddling with ours on the public highway. We have no business with you, and I am sure you have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... little I have dared to say. There is much behind, even more worth saying, which must not be said. Perhaps some far wiser men than I will think that I have said too much already, and be inclined to answer me as Elisha of old answered the over- meddling sons ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man's ailment. And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[NOTE 9] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite." Then they say: "We pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his blood or of his goods what thou wilt in consideration of thus restoring him to health." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... officers and men alike. By September twenty-ninth fourteen guns were mounted and four mortars, the essential material was gathered, and by sheer self-assertion Buonaparte was in complete charge. The only check was in the ignorant meddling of Carteaux, who, though energetic and zealous, though born and bred in camp, being the son of a soldier, was, after all, not a soldier, but a very fair artist (painter). For his battle-pieces and portraits of ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents as a combination of 'blundering and plundering.' The jingle was thought to be adapted from a previous epigram about 'meddling and muddling;' but here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the 'Courier:' 'The writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were made of the ——government. "Government!" ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... give his opinions, even in society, against the political system of the country to which he is accredited. Discretion and delicacy both tell him to use a proper reserve on a point that is of so much importance to others, while it is no affair of his, and by meddling with which he may possibly derange high interests that are entrusted to his especial keeping and care. All this is very apparent, and quite beyond discussion. Still circumstances may arise, provocations may be given, which will amply justify such a man in presenting the most ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... how he behaves. If he persists in saying to me what he likes, he'll be hearing things that he don't like. Am I meddling with these matters or interesting myself? Can you not endure your troubles with a patient mind? For as to what I say, whether it is true or false what I have heard, can soon be known. A certain man of Attica, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... he had had his great idea of liberty: the freedom of the will that saved men from being prisoners. But the squalid tasks remained to him even while he bragged of being free: to warn Moore away from meddling with women's names, no matter how Madame Beattie might invite him to do her malicious will, to warn Madame Beattie even, in some fashion, and to protect Lydia. Of Esther he could not think, save in a tiring, bewildered way. She seemed, from the old habit of possession ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the point, these same business men, when they have once found out just what it is the people want, are the only men who are in a position, all in the same breath, without asking anybody and without arguing with anybody, without meddling or convincing anybody—to get it ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... oldest and most celebrated ministers of religion, employed their venal pens and voices to condemn Mr. Madison, and to justify the British doctrine. This is a deep stain on the character of our clergy; and the subsequent conduct of the British, may serve to shew these ever meddling men, that our enemies despised ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... reason," said the stranger. "I have much ado to get meat for my own belly, seeing that I eat for a hundred men; and I will not have any horseboy meddling with ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Hence, false taste may be known by its fastidiousness, by its demands of pomp, splendor, and unusual combination, by its enjoyment only of particular styles and modes of things, and by its pride also, for it is forever meddling, mending, accumulating, and self-exulting, its eye is always upon itself, and it tests all things around it by the way they fit it. But true taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... woman. Noticing that the head had been squeezed into a point on top, she kneaded it gently despite the infant's cries, trying to round it a bit. Madame Lorilleux grabbed the baby from her; that could be enough to give the poor little thing all sorts of vicious tendencies, meddling with it like that while her skull was still soft. She then tried to figure out who the baby resembled. This almost led to a quarrel. Lorilleux, peering over the women's shoulders, insisted that the little girl didn't ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... to be all that he does, for he's meddling with every thing, and continually making remarks about our society," said Grimshaw, evidently intending to create ill feeling against the consul, and to make the ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... I hear, that you have been the one to set all this mischief astir," said her mother. "I thought I could trust my little girl. Think, Dimple, what a day's work. You have tempted your cousin to do wrong, first by going out in the wet, and again by meddling with the clothing upstairs; then you hurt her feelings, and quarreled with her, and now you blame the weather for it all, besides setting a bad example to Bubbles. Where ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... privileged character, and the protection he enjoyed from the sovereign, that any of the courtiers resented his remarks; but Sir Thomas Wyat's feelings being now deeply interested, he turned sharply round, and said, "How now, thou meddling varlet, what business ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... humanity at large; indications which bear the mark of absolute genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See, for instance, Whitman's poem, "To the Garden the World" (Leaves of Grass, complete edition, p. 79). But an eternal life of the third order; not, thank heaven! an eternity of the meddling and muddling ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... delighted with her story-telling and she got soon into his favour. Thus some time passed. But in course of time the king fell deeply in love with this woman, and at last married her and made her his queen, in spite of strong dissent from the court. Shortly this new queen began meddling in the affairs of the government, and it soon turned out that she was spoiling everything by her redes, whenever she had the chance. Once it happened that the queen spoke to the king and said, "Strange indeed it seems to me that you make no inquiry about your youngest son's running away: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... trouble. He must have appreciated my feelings—nevertheless, he persisted in abusing his powers; he began finally to really interfere with me, to call me off of important tasks and humiliate me with futile assignments, and I realized that I was threatened with failure through his meddling. This may sound trivial to you"—the speaker raised his eyes to his audience—"but, take my word for it, there were many instances of the kind over there. Jealousy, intrigue, malevolence, petty spite, drove ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... civilly enough—he was one of the former steerage passengers—"I don't know what to do about that. I'd be willing enough to take the thing out of the young gentleman's mouth, but my orders are strict; and if anything was to happen through my meddling you may depend upon it I should be made to suffer ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... you sassy meddling up-start—you belong to me till you are twenty-one years old. What 'ud you do with a ginger man 'cept to eat it?" He cuffed the boy through the door ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... meddling in industry and business were reduced save for a few necessary safe-guards of minimum-wage and maximum-safety laws. With these restrictions removed, and with control of so many vital sciences and technologies taken away from the ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... whom I answered, that I did not come thither to talk with him, but with the justice. Whereat he supposed that I had nothing to say for myself, and triumphed as if he had got the victory; charging and condemning me for meddling with that for which I could show no warrant; and asked me, if I had taken the oaths? and if I had not, it was pity but that I should be sent to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... two spiritual things had power with him; the one material thing was hunger, the two spiritual things were a feeble love for Clare, and a strong horror of water of any seeming depth. Now a new element was added to this terror by the meddling of the moon in the fiendish mystery—the secret of which must, I think, have been the bottomless depth she ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... which the troops,[204] who were guarding the only real danger zone, the southeastern part of the state, were expressly excluded. The hydra-headed evil of the western world then asserted itself, the meddling, particularistic spoils system, with the result that Lane and Pomeroy, unceasingly vigilant whenever and wherever what they regarded as their preserves were likely to be encroached upon, went to President Lincoln and protested against the preferment of Denver.[205] Lincoln ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... other women, even for lunch, for fear of losing a vote. The whole thing appealed to the men irresistibly. We are receiving praise from all quarters for the kind of campaign we made—no personalities, no boasting of what we would do, no promises, no meddling with other issues—just 'Votes for Women' straight through, because it is just and reasonable and everywhere when ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various |
