"Peevish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the rest, Hsiang-yn had, though a young girl, and of delicate physique, nevertheless ever been very fond of talking and discussing; but, on this instance, Chia Cheng was at the feast, so that she also held her tongue and restrained her words. As for Tai-y she was naturally peevish and listless, and not very much inclined to indulge in conversation; while Pao-ch'ai, who had never been reckless in her words or frivolous in her deportment, likewise behaved on the present occasion in her usual dignified manner. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the twinkle still in his eye, "his Majesty, Williams the Conqueror, was in to see me just now and acted real peevish. He was pretty disrespectful to you, too. Called your outfit 'one horse.' That's a mistake, because you've got two horses at work right now. It seems a shame to make a great man like that lie. Hadn't you better lay off one ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Broke fought with the Chesapeake was in every respect unexampled. It was not—and he knew it was a bold assertion which he made—to be surpassed by any other engagement which graced the naval annals of Great Britain." Admiral Warren was still in a peevish humor at the hard knocks inflicted on the Royal Navy when he wrote, in congratulating Captain Broke: "At this critical moment you could not have restored to the British naval service the preeminence it has always preserved, or contradicted in a more forcible manner the foul ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... neutralise the concession of the first sentence, but only to purify and ennoble a gladness which, without them, would be apt to be stained by many a corruption, and to make permanent a joy which, without them, would be sure to die down into the miserable, peevish, and feeble old age of which the grim picture follows, and to be quenched at last in death. So there are three words that I take out of this text of mine, and that I want to bring before my young friends as exhortations which it is wise to follow. These are Rejoice, Reflect, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... coveted. Well for him if he had been contented with fretting. But, my friends—and be you rich or poor, take heed to my words—whenever any man gives way to selfishness, and self-seeking, to a proud, covetous, envious, peevish temper, the Devil is sure to glide up and whisper in his ear thoughts which will make him worse—worse, ay, than he ever dreamt of being. First comes the flesh, and then the Devil; and if the flesh opens the door of the heart, the Devil steps in ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... irritated because he did not feel splendid emotions after making a resolution and a plan which ought to go down in history—if it worked. He wasn't uplifted. He wasn't aware of any particular feeling of being the instrument of destiny or anything else. He simply felt peevish and annoyed and obstinate about ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... close at hand, and a curlew rose, and then a flock of lapwings, to flit round and round, uttering their peevish calls; but Max saw nothing but the scene at the castle, heard nothing but The Mackhai's bitter words, and he tramped onward and onward into the wilderness of mountain and moss, ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... "You're kind of peevish today, ain't you?" inquired the other, grinning. "You'll get used to the way we snore before long, and you'll kind of enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in the night and didn't hear everybody ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... steamer, he still kept his position, so that he could instantly catch sight of his father as he passed down. I stood close behind him, and watched the motley procession of passengers; most of them had the dull colourless skin which bespeaks long residence in India, and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old man was grumbling loudly as he slowly made his way ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... to perform this last act of sovereignty with such formal pomp as might leave a lasting impression on the minds not only of his subjects, but of his successor. With this view he called Philip out of England, where the peevish temper of his queen, which increased with her despair of having issue, rendered him extremely unhappy; and the jealousy of the English left him no hopes of obtaining the direction of their affairs. Having assembled the states of the Low Countries at Brussels, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... she who made me feel that we are all too ready with our peevish outcries against the beautiful world in which we have been placed; too ready to complain that all is sadness and sorrow and disappointment, when the gloom exists within ourselves, not without us; it is from ourselves the misty darkness springs; it is we ourselves who have lost, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... glad when she went off to college, because, though she's a kind-hearted girl, she was so peevish and untalkative it made me tired. I think people ought to be cheerful around their own homes. But the family didn't seem to see it; there are such a lot of us that you have to blow a trumpet before you get any special notice—except ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... which he believed himself to be a perfect master. His first choice had not proved a happy one. Robert Carr, who had lately become earl of Somerset, had had his head turned by his elevation. He had grown peevish toward his master, and had placed himself at the head of the party which was working for a close alliance ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Bumble in a peevish squeak. She sidled down a passage, and disappeared into a storeroom which had been used ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... long intervals, and for a brief moment only—we realized this solemn fact; but it didn't seem to impress us much on the spot. Why, even the birds were silent. Only the sea-gulls flashed their white wings under the boughs in the edge of the wood, and wheeled away in dizzy circles, piping sharp, peevish cries. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... ill how to obey," replied Genvil; "that is what you would say; and, by my faith, I cannot deny but there may be some truth in it. But is it not peevish in thee to let a fair expedition be unwisely conducted, because of a foolish word or a sudden action?—Come, let it ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... hood and close pinners, with a book of devotion in her hand; the former, exhibiting beneath a black silk Geneva cowl, or skull-cap, which sate as close to the head as if it had been shaven, a pinched, peevish, Puritanical set of features, terminating in a hungry, reddish, peaked beard, forming on the whole a countenance in the expression of which the hypocrite seemed to contend with the miser and the knave. "And it is to make room for such scarecrows as these," thought Ravenswood, "that ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... when news came of the death of Lord Byron, and put an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective, which was intended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory. Had we known that we were writing his epitaph, we must have done it with a different feeling. As it is, we think it better and more like himself, to let what we had written stand, than ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... thou trouble not the wise secret earth; for in the mould that thou throwest up shall the first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness; and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let it be enough ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... of July came hot and sultry, without a breath of wind. Isoult Avery had sunk to sleep after a weary day. The very warmth brought languor, and Walter had been naughty and peevish, needing all her patience; and Mr Tremayne had had a large party to supper, of which she had been one; and a multitude of little worries had pressed upon her—those worries which seem too insignificant to repeat or care about, yet form in the mass a ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... time vitiated his constitution, and a slow disease siezed upon him. He refused physick, neglected exercise, and lay down on his couch peevish and restless, rather afraid to die than desirous to live. His domesticks, for a time, redoubled their assiduities; but finding that no officiousness could soothe, nor exactness satisfy, they soon gave way to negligence and sloth; and he that once commanded nations, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... and saw the woman who had been with Mary on her first night at the Casino. He remembered the faded, white-rose face, with its peevish crumples that were not yet lines, and the false little smile that tried to draw attention away from them. He noticed that she was no longer shabby, but wore a smart new dress and hat, with a huge boa of ostrich feathers half covering her thin, bare ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she, but a contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... present we had all agreed splendidly, but now John's irritability seemed to increase hourly; and as regards myself, I often found it necessary to exercise very great self-control to avoid giving very sharp and snappish answers to John's peevish ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... left to God and her own soul, with this young lion-cub in leash, to tame and train for this life and the life to come. She had loved her husband fervently and holily. He had been often peevish, often melancholy; for he was a disappointed man, with an estate impoverished by his father's folly, and his own youthful ambition, which had led him up to Court, and made him waste his heart and his purse in following a vain shadow. He was one of those men, moreover, who possess ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... putting up the donkey, and getting all the valuables under lock and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our beefsteak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and cold potatoes—with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit to ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a diminutive red-faced woman, with hair and eyes very much like his own, and a face that wore a peevish, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... those shrill, long-drawn whistles without which in Europe no train can start. It had a peevish, infantile sound, like the squeak of a nursery toy. But it was as ominous as though some ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... Jeffrey, on account of Jeffrey's sensitiveness of literary taste, and his inward rage that events, men, and books, outside of him, do not correspond to the exacting rules which are the products of his own subjective and somewhat peevish intelligence. "I like," says Sydney, "to tell you these things, because you never do so well as when you are humbled and frightened, and, if you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... from her room discomposed: from that she became restless and irritable; so much so, indeed, that at last Mr. Gaunt told her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning peevish), she had better go to chapel. "You are right," said she, "and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and I have not been spared the discipline of responsibility. Action, danger—helps a man. You at home have had the worst of it—you dear, sweet, beautiful thing. It would have made some women peevish or rebellious. You have grown under it in mind and heart, and I think the soul has fed the dear body. To have set you free from Aunt Ann's morbid unreason and the sorrow of Uncle Jim's condition would have been enough to repay my taking over responsibilities ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... held a book open in her lap and was reading aloud from it; reading with admirable expression and a voice almost masculine, rich as a deep-mouthed bell. And, while she read, the glory of the verse seemed to pass into her handsome, peevish face. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... new-made Divine, "Your old modes we reject, Nor give ourselves trouble about them: It is manners and dress that procure us respect, And it 's wrong to look for it without them." Says the grave peevish Saint, in a fit of the spleen, "Ah! me, but your manners are vile: A parson that 's blythe is a shame to be seen, And it 's wrong in you even ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again, hesitated again, and at last handed it ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... so that the Assembly could convey its opposition to the Stamp Tax without giving the "least offense" to crown and parliament. Fauquier also observed that economic uncertainties had made Virginians "uneasy, peevish, and ready to murmur at every Occurrence." Henry suggests that he drew up the Resolves when he found no one else was willing to do so after hearing of the actual passage of the Tax Act. Whatever the reason, Henry ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... divination to the table and their cards. But they were scarcely seated before they heard a crackling step in the brush outside, and the free latch of their door was lifted. A younger member of the camp entered. He uttered a peevish "Halloo!" which might have passed for a greeting, or might have been a slight protest at finding the door closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim had just risen before the fire, shook his wet clothes like a Newfoundland dog, and sat down. ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... just risen from primero with the Duke of Nevers, nodded to Rambouillet. 'Well, my friend, anything fresh?' he cried. He was more at his ease and looked more cheerful than at our former interview; yet still care and suspicion lurked about his peevish mouth, and in the hollows under his gloomy eyes. 'A new guest, a new face, or a new game—which ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... those of the sea. This put me into a more violent passion, which occasioned him to say several bitter reflecting things, that nettled me to the quick. He left me, as much dissatisfied with myself as he could possibly be with me; and in this peevish mood I gave a spring from the bottom of the sea up to the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... of August, That turns men faint and mad, She quiets the peevish urchins By telling a dream she had— A heaven with marble counters, And ice, and a singing fan; And a God in white, so friendly, Just ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... nurses who appeared to look upon their work as tasks to be executed mechanically, instead of duties to be performed with pleasure. Then again, others who really preferred the work were either kept away from it entirely, or else made dull, peevish and irritable by the great number of hours they were forced to be on duty each day, thus turning what should have been pleasant employment into a drudgery. And like the nurses, so were the orderlies; their daily work hours were so long and their pay so small that only the least intelligent ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... is gentlest in command, Obedience is a stranger in the land: Hardly subjected to the magistrate; For Englishmen do all subjection hate. Humblest when rich, but peevish when they're poor, And think whate'er they ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... Gamaland'; but when the fog lifted the St Peter was in latitude 46 deg., far below the supposed location of the strait of Juan de Fuca, and there was in sight neither Gamaland nor the sister ship. The scientists with Bering were in such a peevish mood {19} over the utter disproof of their mythical continent that they insisted on the commander wasting a whole month pottering back and forth looking for Chirikoff's ship. By this time the weather had become very warm, the drinking water very rank, and the ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... after the events of which I am writing, said of Nelson, for whom he had an affectionate regard, that "he was in many points a really great man, but in others he was a baby." No one who has studied his career will ever doubt his greatness, but his peevish childishness, even when he was responsible for the carrying out of great deeds that did not come so quickly as his eager spirit craved, ofttimes tried the patience of those who set high value on his matchless talents and his otherwise ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... bolt out of the sky there came a great shout of "Yes!" And instantly afterwards, from another direction, there came a fourth voice, a peevish, tremulous voice, the voice of an old woman. Naomi knew it—it was the voice of Rebecca Bensabott, ninety-and-odd years of age, and still deaf as ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Mexicans, filling them with promises and expectations of enjoying gold in abundance. From the negligent coldness of his reception in Tezcuco, and the similar appearances in Mexico, he became vexed, disappointed, and peevish; insomuch, that when the officers of Montezuma came to wait upon him, and expressed the wishes of their master to see him, Cortes exclaimed angrily: "Away with the dog, wherefore does he neglect to supply us." The captains De Leon, De Oli, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... opportunity. He dare not refuse to listen, for his experience teaches him that his hostess will find a way to punish him for his unfeeling conduct. It is of no use to change his quarters, for he may fare worse in this respect at the next place. And so he submits, and grows peevish and fretful, and even bald and gray over the woes of his tormentor. He consoles himself with one thought—in the next world landladies cease from troubling and boarding-houses ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... That all peevish sects that would live uncontroll'd, And will not be govern'd, as all subjects should, To New England may pack, or live quiet i' ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... evening was approaching, and the light, falling dubiously among the woody places, gave a melancholy tone to the scene well calculated to foster any lurking feeling of awe or superstition. The night hawk, wheeling about in the highest regions of the air, emitted his peevish, boding cry. The woodpecker gave a lonely tap now and then on some hollow tree, and the firebird[1] streamed by them with ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... 'shrewdness' is applied to men rather in their praise than in their dispraise. And not 'shrewd' and 'shrewdness' only, but a multitude of other words,—I will only instance 'prank' 'flirt', 'luxury', 'luxurious', 'peevish', 'wayward', 'loiterer', 'uncivil',—conveyed once a much more earnest moral ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... But, when he began in his artful way To talk of Insurance (Life), And asked me to take out a policy for My conjugal partner, my cordium cor, "No, no," said I, "If my spouse should die We should enter again into strife; You would come and say at the funeral, 'Sir, Your wife was peevish and plain; for her I offer six hundred or, if you prefer, A better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who loves them not, to see their letters. You, my dear, would not call them my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call them my relations, I think!——But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more peevish than I should be. It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... view of the case. A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclus desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... back into his querulous, peevish mood. Trimmer poured out the medicine, administered it, and then departed on ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... glaring at the doorway, which had suddenly been darkened by the vast bulk of Professor Boomly—a figure largely abdominal but majestic—like the massive butt end of an elephant. For the rest, he had a rather insignificant and peevish face and a melancholy mustache ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... ails the peevish brat?" snarled the young boatman impatiently. "Rather look this way and tell me whom be these after!" The old man and his other son looked, and saw four men walking along the east bank of the river; at the sight they left rowing awhile, and gathered ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... see the shadow returning. A touch of anxious hope possessing her, she left the window and hurried down the corridor to Penelope's room. What she found there was most convincing. It was not a trick of the lanterns. The shadow had been real. It must be confessed that the peevish heart of Lady Bazelhurst beat rather rapidly as she hastened back to the window to peer anxiously out into the sombre park with its hooting owls and chattering night-bugs. The mournful yelp of a distant dog floated across the black valley. The watcher shuddered as she recalled ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... name of arthritici vaga, or the flying gout; and when he ails ever so little (it signifies nothing concealing his infirmities, where they are so well known, and when he cares not who knows them), he is so peevish, and wants so much attendance, that my mamma, and her two girls (one of which is as waspish as her papa; you may be sure I don't mean myself) have much ado to make his worship keep the peace; and I being his favourite, when he is indisposed, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... taint, sour, crabbed, sharp, short, trenchant, sarcastic, biting, doggish, caustic, virulent, bitter, acrimonious, venomous, contumelious; snarling &c. v.; surly, surly as a bear; perverse; grim, sullen &c. 901a; peevish &c. (irascible) 901. untactful, impolitic, undiplomatic; artless &c. 703; Adv. discourteously &c. adj.; with discourtesy &c. n., with a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... trembled a white sky set thick with blackening stars? As I live, 'twas not ill-devised for a madman's brain! ... and so solemn a ranter should serve your Majesty to make merriment withal, in place of my poor Zabastes, whose peevish jests grow somewhat stale owing to the Critic's chronic want of originality! Nay, I myself shall be willing to enter into a rhyming joust with so disconsolately morose a contemporary, and who knows whether, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... knaves cannot be better expressed than by Chesterton. 'They are real somewhere. We are talking to a garrulous and peevish sneak; we are watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change and harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face of clay becomes a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... practice. And the philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handsful pulled his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief?"—[Cicero, Tusc. Quest., iii. 26.]—Who has not seen peevish gamesters chew and swallow the cards, and swallow the dice, in revenge for the loss of their money? Xerxes whipped the sea, and wrote a challenge to Mount Athos; Cyrus employed a whole army several days at work, to revenge himself of the river Gyndas, for ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of order. His morals were regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, and operative. In his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares and saddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmost counsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; in all the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in his friendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, of treachery, or of vindictiveness. Rising as he did by the strength of his own merits, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was angry at it, and a suspicion came into his mind as to those sons whom he had put to death, whether that had not been brought about by the false tales of Antipater; so that at that time he made Antipater a long and a peevish answer, and bid him begone. Yet was he afterwards prevailed upon cunningly by his flatteries, and changed the marriages; he married Aristobulus's daughter to him, and his son to ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... she was also seen crying at times, and she was apt to bite her finger nails. She had to be tube-fed. Gradually these tendencies increased so that she lay in her bed with head covered, saying in a peevish tone, when spoken to, "Oh, let me alone." And for years she was mute, lying with her head covered, tube-fed. When reexamined in 1914 (ten years later), she was found lying in bed with an empty smile. There was paper stuffed in her ears. When approached, ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... haste begun to find fault before he knew just what move to make. He realized that Smith read that fact in his manner and peevish complaining. He felt the hook in his gills. Smith felt the tug on the line. Perhaps at that interview he thought how like my advice this sarcastic statement from Smith seemed. At times he felt like a coward, and then encouraged himself to believe he was really a brave ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... right before him; sometimes I would address her as Miss "Don't Care," and I exhausted myself in nonsensical chatter without succeeding once in taking her out of her peevish and tragic self. There were moments when I felt I must break out and start swearing at her till all was blue. And I fancied that had I done so Jacobus would not have moved a muscle. A sort of shady, intimate understanding seemed to ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and ever will be, a living, breathing present to me. In stifled sobs, I tried to tell my little tale of grief, and was about to bury my tear-stained face upon his shoulder, when he raised his eyes impatiently, and brushed away, with a peevish gesture, one of my salt tears that lay appealingly upon the smooth broadcloth covering of his arm: he chided me for crying so very immoderately, saying, he hated "little girls that cried," and drawing a silver piece from his pocket, he slipped ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... pledge? You have seen how I took head in hand and sat me down under your own roof-tree, my good Gavan of the keep. Faith, it was an even chance on which side the platter would fall, but this time the luck was mine. We should have been leagues away in the sun's eye by now, only that a peevish boy would have ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... not answer, for he had discovered that silence was his best weapon. Giovanni continued, in the peevish tone of a man who has been badly frightened and is ashamed ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Belv. Why so peevish, good Ned? some Disappointments, I'll warrant— What! did the jealous Count her Husband ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... by moonlight, amid a baying of dogs so energetic that it roused every living thing in the barnyard to protest in a peevish chorus of clucking and grunting and ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... (arranging the food upon the table) Now, why are you so peevish to everybody? Why don't you be sociable, and take some supper? (Glances at sideboard.) You seem to have taken everything else. Oh, that reminds me. Would you object to loaning me about—four, six—about six of our knives and forks? Just for the supper. I suppose we can borrow from ...
— Miss Civilization - A Comedy in One Act • Richard Harding Davis
... In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our unfair tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and scolded like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was to keep himself as ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... pleasing. The republic of letters is only a market in which one sells books. Not making concession to the publisher is our only virtue; let us keep that and let us live in peace, even with him when he is peevish, and let us recognize, too, that he is not the guilty one. He would have taste ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... signs of labour. Not a paper to be seen that required immediate attention; every item neatly disposed; himself smoking—a fairly strong pipe; scarcely a telephone call to interrupt. He seemed the sculptor's embodiment of strength in reserve; a man who never could be tuckered or peevish or unable to detect either the weakness of an opponent, the penetration of a critic or the need of a man who came to ask him for advice. There was a big instant kindliness about him that would have won the cordiality of the stolidest of interviewers, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... obliged to endure twenty more boisterous; the candle would then no more be thrust almost into the infant's eyes to make it take notice of the light through the mist of tears, the eternal bunch of keys would not dance and jingle at every peevish summons, nor would the roarings of passion be overpowered by insulting songs, or soothed by artful caresses; the child would then be caressed and amused when he looks smiling and good-humoured, and all ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... in attendance, only half a dozen entered; for a few paces within the doorway the Queen-Mother stood still to receive my patron, who had advanced to meet her. It seemed to me that she was not best pleased to see him at that moment; her voice rang somewhat loud and peevish as she said, "What, my lord! Is it you? I came to receive the trophies from Rocroy, and did not expect to ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... alarmed at seeing that a broad leathern belt about his waist was stuck full of old-fashioned knives and pistols. Davy was about to retreat quickly from the shop, when the old man looked up, and said, in a peevish voice:— ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... everyone to whom he spoke. He was so fully aware of this failing that he at once, in confessing it to a mutual friend, shed tears of regret. Yet he was a millionaire man of business, and had a strong will which might have been directed to a cure. All peevish, fretful and talkative, or even complaining people, should be induced to ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and resolutely broken in, would have made as great a man, as Charles, naturally meek, did make a good one; but for the matter of educating her boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of Otranto; so he must go at any rate; and (as no difference in the treatment of different characters ever occurred to any ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... possessed common memories of the kind that distinguish old acquaintances from new ones. When it did not transpire in chance words she caught it in their glances or divined it in the mental atmosphere. As autumn passed into early winter she became nervous, peevish, and exacting; she lost much from her pretty ways and something from her looks. In the family the change was ascribed to the fatigue incidental to the sudden round of lunches, dinners, dances, suppers, theatre-parties, opera-goings, and "teas" with ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... last five years, since during that period age had impaired the faculties of Micipsa. Hiempsal said that he agreed, since it was within the last three years that Jugurtha had been adopted to a share in the throne. The object of this remark betrayed little emotion; but it was believed that the peevish insult was the stimulus to an anxious train of thought which, as was to be expected from the resolute character of the thinker, soon issued into action. To be a usurper was better than to be thought one; the first situation entailed power, the second only danger. Anger ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Hoppner was deserted by the Whig ladies; he had only now the Whig lords to paint: unless he took up with landscape art, for which he had decided talent, as many of the backgrounds to his pictures demonstrate. He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a noble picture, but it has one damning defect—it's a thing of to-day. Prove it to be but ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... thrive. Sand knew it and hated me. I was the sturdy oak, Frederic the tender ivy. I poured out my heart's blood for him, poured it into his music. He was a mere girl, I tell you—a sensitive, slender, shrinking, peevish girl, a born prudish spinster, and would shiver if any one looked at him. Liszt always frightened him and he hated Mendelssohn. He called Beethoven a sour old Dutchman, and swore that he did not write piano music. For the man who ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... thing in the world is the different way in which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,—not at all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in the county, was ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... peevish. He was so hungry! And he couldn't help thinking how good old Mother Grouse would have tasted. He couldn't reach her now. But still he didn't go along toward home. He simply couldn't keep his greedy eyes off fat old Mother Grouse! And he squatted ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... all measure, as a cow licks her calf. So by degrees the child became very sly: he used to pull the horses' tails, and blow smoke into the bulls' nostrils, and bully the neighbours' children in petty ways and make them cry. From a peevish child he grew to be a man, and unbearably undutiful to his parents. Priding himself on a little superior strength, he became a drunkard and a gambler, and learned to wrestle at fairs. He would fight and quarrel for a trifle, and spent ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... brawny arms repeat the stroke. Fallen are the elm and reverend oak. Through the long wood loud axes sound, And echo groans with every wound. To see the desolation spread, Pan drops a tear, and hangs his head: His bosom now with fury burns: Beneath his hoof the dice he spurns. Cards, too, in peevish passion torn, The sport of whirling winds are borne. 80 'To snails inveterate hate I bear, Who spoil the verdure of the year; The caterpillar I detest, The blooming spring's voracious pest; The locust too, whose ravenous band Spreads sudden famine o'er the land. But what are these? ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... quite the usual pleasant, happy-go-lucky affair that day. The gallant little Major, recently married to the fluffy-minded Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves and her peevish little dog, sat on the right of the overwhelmingly complacent Cornucopia. With the hope of rendering himself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as usual, farcically ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... never secret kept, The peevish, blustering railer! Told it the Oar, as on he swept; The Oar informed the Sailor. The Sailor whisper'd it to his fair, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... objects of public charity, come under the direction of those who are appointed to take care of them with minds weakened by adversity, and soured by disappointment; and finding themselves separated from the rest of mankind, and cut off from all hope of seeing better days, they naturally grow peevish, and discontented, suspicious of those set over them, and of one another; and the kindest treatment, and most careful attention to every circumstance that can render their situation supportable, are therefore required, to prevent their being very unhappy. ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... cannot conceive how people can allow themselves to be so utterly distraught by illness. I feel I can never have any respect for her again; she moaned and lamented in such cowardly fashion, was so peevish all the time on board the vessel, and looked so very begrimed and untidy and plain when she was carried out on Bristol quay. The captain called it dirty weather, but I thought it lovely, and I don't think I ever enjoyed myself ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... pitieth." The Chinese have often said to me, "Your children seem made for this life." But I know it was God's great goodness. He knew how hard the life was, and how difficult it would have been for me to continue that work had the children been peevish or hard to manage. Time and time again we had to get the little ones up before daybreak to start on a cart journey, but I do not remember that they ever even cried. They would just wake up enough to get dressed and ask sleepily, "Are we going again, Mama?" and then go off to sleep as ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... merry day among the children of her own age in the village; she fretted at coming away, and was frightened at turning into so lonely a path through the hazel stems, trotting after Patience because she was afraid to turn back alone, but making a low, peevish ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bonfire of waste paper was enough to drive a bibliophile out of his wits. Gayangos was sent back to Spain posthaste. But, alack! he found a library swept and garnished; no trace of the volume he had once held there in his hand, and on the face of his friend the librarian only a frank and peevish wonder that anybody should tease him with questions ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... right, law. derramar to spill, waste. derretir to melt. derribar to demolish, raze. derrota rout, defeat. derrotar to rout, defeat. derrumbar to precipitate. derwich dervish. desabrido insipid, tasteless, peevish. desafio challenge, duel. desaforado huge, disorderly. desangrar to bleed. desapacible disagreeable, harsh. desaparecer to disappear. desarrollar to unroll, develop. desatar to untie, loosen. desazonar ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... religion were intended 205 For nothing else but to be mended. A sect, whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss; 210 More peevish, cross, and splenetick, Than dog distract, or monkey sick. That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way; Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, 215 By damning those they have no mind to: Still so perverse and opposite, As if they ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... possibly see its beauty—see what the picture really is. No man is a hero to his own valet. And that is not because a man is not a hero, but because the valet is too close to see the real man. Cecil Rhodes at close quarters was peevish, irritable, and like a big spoilt child. Now at a distance we know him, with all his faults, to have been a great-souled man. Social reformers near at hand are often intolerable bores and religious fanatics frequently a pestilential ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... gave me a vast reputation for chastity. I continued to perform all the necessary functions in the diocese as far as the jealousy of my uncle would give me leave, and, forasmuch as he was generally so peevish that it was a very hard matter to please him, I at length chose to sit still and do nothing. Thus I made the best use imaginable of my uncle's ill-nature, being sure to convince him of my honest intentions upon all occasions; whereas had I been my own master, the rules of good conduct would ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... suffers from her father, In all this there is much exaggeration:— Old men are testy and will have their way; A man may stab his enemy, or his vassal, 75 And live a free life as to wine or women, And with a peevish temper may return To a dull home, and rate his wife and children; Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny. I shall be well content if on my conscience 80 There rest no heavier sin than what they suffer From the devices of my love—a net From ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... profession about the neurotic condition of our American women. Our physicians are saying that there is not one American woman in a hundred who is nervously normal. The profession declares that they are excitable, irritable, peevish, and that this unfortunate state is produced by the unnatural and absurd tension they are under ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... him to understand, that, as I had been brought on board half famished, he could do no less than to entertain me with what was in the locker, and the rather as he had bid the steward enter me in the mess. Whether this disappointment made Mr. Morgan more peevish than usual, or he really thought himself too little regarded by his fellow mate, I know not, but after some pause, he went on in this manner: "Mr. Thompson, perhaps you do not use me with all the good manners, and complaisance, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... firmly over protest. At best she might wring from him a reluctant change of mind and an annoyed offer of company which she must from sheer pride decline. At worst she would be treated with a dignified silence—the peevish and exacting woman who ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... such a fright and tremble you cannot think. Speak, Mary, have not you, I say, heard of thieves?' 'Yes,' replied Mary, in a very sleepy voice, 'a great many times.' 'Well, then, pray sister, do not go to sleep,' said Nancy, in a peevish accent, 'suppose, I say that noise I heard should be thieves, what should we do? What will become of us? O! what shall we do?'—'Why, go to sleep, I tell you,' said Mary, 'as fast as you can; at least, do pray let me, for I cannot say I am in the smallest fear about house-breakers or house-makers ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... his station, certain it is that all his buoyancy failed him when away from society, and that in the quietness of his home he was depressed and dispirited to a degree; and to that genial temper, which once he could count on against every reverse that befell him, there now succeeded an irritable, peevish spirit, that led him to attribute every annoyance he met with to some fault ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever |
