"Petulance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cytherea. The speech was an unfortunate one, and was the very 'fuel to maintain its fires' that the other's petulance desired. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the East an enormous native population is ruled by a dominant race, whose number amounts to less than a four-thousandth part of its own, but whose superiority in war and civil government is at present so decided as to reduce any efforts of opposition to the mere outbursts of hopeless petulance. In that golden land, however, even the Anglo-Saxon race can not increase and multiply; the children of English parents degenerate or perish under its fatal sun. No permanent settlement or infusion of blood takes place. Neither have we effected ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... played the Ghost in Hamlet, that he must have had a voice that was full and resonant and deep. So from reading the plays of Moliere we can imagine the robust figure of Magdeleine Bejart, the grace of La Grange, the pretty petulance ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Queen of France, and she is clearly an uncommon individual in her own right. The women will squabble about her looks; the men will have views about her figure: all must agree that her fortune on the stage is assured. A more pleasing performance I never saw. Love, innocence, tenderness, grief, joy, petulance, uncertainty, modesty, despair—every feminine attribute, in fact, showed to admiration in her expressive features. Voice, bewitching. Gestures, exquisite. All, in fact, was truly enjoyable. I would not have missed ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... He at once remembered what had passed. Ball's words haunted him; he could not forget them; they burnt within him like the flame of a moral fever. He was moody and petulant, and for a time could hardly conceal his aversion. Ah, Eric! moodiness and petulance cannot save you, but prayerfulness would; one word, Eric, at the throne of grace—one prayer before you go down among the boys, that God in His mercy would wash away, in the blood of His dear Son, your crimson stains, and keep your ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... more than another should feel thus abashed, it is certainly one who has first to ask their pardon for the petulance of boyish expressions of partial thought; for ungraceful advocacy of principles which needed no support from him, and discourteous blame of work of which he had never ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... her ireful march. Such a fine woman as Julia really awes a man with her carriage at such a time. The poor soul thinks he sees before him the indignation of the just; when very likely it is only what in a man would be called Petulance. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... He ignored my petulance and grinned. "No, I meant anti-gravity. I think it's possible. If you had a superconductor ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... family, the indulgent kindness of the Countess, whose pride of birth yields, almost without struggle, to her affection for Helen, the honesty and uprightness of the good old lord Lafeu, make very interesting parts of the picture. The wilful stubbornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardice of Parolles, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a very ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... haunt of a ferocious banditti. But tradition has ascribed to the Urisk, who gives name to the cavern, a figure between a goat and a man; in short, however much the classical reader may be startled, precisely that of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, with the form, the petulance of the silvan deity of the classics; his occupation, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's Lubbar Fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in name and appearance. 'The Urisks,' says Dr. Graham, 'were a sort of lubberly ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... perceived it all;—how she had taken advantage of his former answer to her and had acted upon it in a spirit of contradictory petulance. But he resolved that he would forgive it and endeavour to bring her back to him. "I thought we were both joking," he ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... denounced in unmeasured terms. From Atlantic to Pacific the charge was echoed that once more the interests of Canada had been sacrificed by Britain on the altar of Anglo-American friendship. The outburst was not understood abroad. It was not, as United States opinion imagined, merely childish petulance or the whining of a poor loser. It was against Great Britain, not against the United States, that the criticism was directed. It was not the decision, but the way in which it was made, that roused deep anger. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... lachrymae," said Ormond. "I know his Grace well. While the rebuke of his aspiring petulance was a matter betwixt your Majesty and him, he might have let it pass by; but a check before a fellow from whom it was likely enough to travel through the Court, was a matter ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... silence for the first time since he had entered the house, 'I understand that' He pulled gravely at his pipe, and sipped again at the glass Laurent had poured out for him. 'What's going to be done?' he asked; and then, with a sudden petulance, 'What have ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... not indeed know at present, but, as far as we shall be permitted to know hereafter, we shall see that his most inscrutable procedure was guided by consummate wisdom; that our choice was often as foolish as our petulance was provoking; that the success of our own wishes would have been our most painful chastisement, would have diminished our happiness, and detracted from His praise. Let us study, therefore, brethren, to subject ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... auditors of the Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth, reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance that you would expect from his Review, but a mild, simple, unassuming man,—he it is who prunes the contributions and takes the sting out of them (one would like to have seen them before the sting was taken out); and Scott, the right honest-hearted, entering ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... larger eyne, Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing Some little petulance in mine, And loved me all the more, for being; Not ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... might have left me frigid but for the artist who played Cherubino. This was no other than Pauline Lucca, in the prime of youth and petulance. From her first appearance to the last note she sang, she occupied the stage. The opera seemed to have been written for her. The mediocrity of the troupe threw her commanding merits—the richness of her voice, the purity of her intonation, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... through a paroxysm of rage with Leicester at the moment. She ventured to call him 'traitor' and to accuse him of conspiring with the Prince of Orange. Notwithstanding this, his influence was still paramount with her, and it was characteristic of her shrewd petulance to confide in Leicester's protege, although not in Leicester himself. Towards the end of March, Raleigh settled at ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... her friends than is the crisis of the boy's life. Her parents are anxious that she shall pass the crisis safely, and they have more patience with her eccentricities. She, too, often shows nervousness, irritability, petulance, or willfulness. She has headaches and backaches, she manifests lassitude and weariness, and is, perhaps, quite changed from her former self. She weeps easily or over nothing at all. She is dissatisfied with herself and the whole world. She ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... is mere petulance. Let's proceed with our dooties. As soon as Texas has killed an' skelped the hold-up you represents, I'll shoot it out with you, if ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... you," said Ford with disproportionately sudden choler; "but I don't propose to alter my habits for a ridiculous school-boy whom I have dismissed." The unjust and boyish petulance of his speech instantly flashed upon him, and he ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... recollection of the young, charming face of a girl, the Doctor's niece, as he had seen her standing by his friend's sofa when he paid his adieux; in the beginnings of an intimacy, in which, as he foresaw, the petulance of the invalid, his impatience at an enforced detention, might be considerably forgot. And all that had been ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... you must be quite close to the bird in order to hear the queer canticle distinctly, and when you do hear it you will wonder why nature ever put such a song into a bird's larynx. The Harris sparrow also utters an explosive alarm-call, which expresses not a little petulance and concern. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... him with troubled eyes. "And I'm getting it, too—seems like I'd go all to pieces if I can't do SOMETHING!" She sighed, and tried to cover the sigh with a laugh—which was not, however, a great success. "I wish I could be as cool-headed as Thomas," she said, with a tinge of petulance. "It don't seem to worry ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... fragmentary diary of a brilliant girl, half impatient of her own success in an art for which she was peculiarly gifted, yet the details of which were sincerely repugnant to her. It crackled and sparkled with naive arrogance. It criticized a new world and fresh forms of civilization with the amusing petulance of a spoiled daughter of John Bull. It was flimsy, flippant, laughable, rollicking, vivid. It described scenes and persons, often with airy grace, often with profound and pensive feeling. It was the slightest of diaries, written in public for the public; but it was universally read, as its author ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... were you about to suggest with regard to Polonius," observed the cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance, expressive of the patience of a superior mind at the petulance of an inferior one; "how do you characterize his ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... pipe," Casey grumbled with drunken petulance. "Anybody got a cigarette? I'm single-handed an' I ain't able t' ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... ground; among the laden bushes, the silent soaring trees of fir and ash, it seemed as if this was no other than the land of outer darkness whereto the lost are driven at the end. It maddened him to think of what he had been brought to; he shook his fist in a childish and impotent petulance at the spacious unregarding east where Doom lay—the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... think of it," she said aloud, with a petulance very unusual in Golden Carol, whose disposition was as sunny as her looks. "Why, I simply cannot. I have always been longing to ask Maud to visit me, and now that the chance has come I am not going to throw it away. I am very sorry for Ruth, of course. It ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the letter, long after he had finished reading it; there was nothing of the petulance of a spoiled child in this simple, this heartbroken farewell. And Nina herself was in every phrase of it—in her anxiety not to be a trouble to any one—her gratitude for very small kindnesses—her wish to live in the gentle remembrance of ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... family, thanks to the wit of the grand-daughter of Henry IV. The king, jealous, as a young man and as a monarch, of the superiority of those who surrounded him, could not resist admitting himself vanquished by a petulance so thoroughly French in its nature, whose energy more than ever increased by English humor. Like a child, he was captivated by her radiant beauty, which her wit made still more dazzling. Madame's eyes flashed like lightning. Wit and humor escaped ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sudden smile had brought out the dimples in the oval face and that her petulance had been swept away by ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... with pretty petulance, as soon as they had shaken hands. "There hasn't been a stampede for a week. That masked ball Skiff Mitchell was going to give us has been postponed. There's no dust in circulation. There's always standing-room now at the Opera House. And there hasn't been a mail from the Outside ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... resentment. Moreover, her young husband, and even his father, always thought the ladies were hard upon her, and would not have her vexed; and as their presence always brightened and restrained her, they never understood the full amount of her petulance and waywardness, and when they found her out of spirits, or out of temper, they charged all on her ailments or on want of consideration from her mother ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into the house to get some kind of an old cloth for the purpose. If you had been there I should have asked for what I wanted, but you were not to be seen, and when I called out your name you did not answer. Then, in a fit of momentary stupid petulance, I went into the front bedroom, opened my trunk, and took out the first thing that came uppermost. I should have taken and used it for what I wanted just then, even if it had been a silk dress or petticoat; but it happened to be a coat of my own. I took it out to the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... therefore prepared to descend the hill. My position as President of the Republic did demand a certain amount of personal dignity; and how was I to uphold that in my present circumstances? "Jack," said I, "it is the sign of a noble mind to bear contumely without petulance. Since our horses have gone before us, and Crasweller and the crowd have gone, we will follow them." Then I put my arm within his, and as I walked down the hill, I almost took joy in thinking ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... however, afforded him by one of these intervals, of summoning about his bed his wife, grand-children, and servants; confessed to them his weaknesses and errors, asked their forgiveness for any pain he might have caused them by petulance and haste, and professed "his trust in God, through Christ, for the pardon of his sins." One expression, which Dr. Johnstone reports him to have used on this occasion, is extraordinary—that "from the beginning of his life he was not conscious of having fallen into a crime." Far be it from us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... speak the honest truth of her, no wonder the poor child is vexed, and gives herself airs, and so on. Ruth can be very useful to us in a number of little ways; and I consider it quite a duty to pardon her freak of petulance." ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... thinking sometimes, when the United States seemed to change its smile of prosperity to a sudden smile of anger or petulance, that we were a spoiled nation, too much pampered by divine blessings. If we had not been our own rulers, but had been ruled—what would America have been then? We were like Ireland crying for liberty and abusing liberty the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... on the wall," said Sherburne, musing; for, under the other's influence, his petulance was gone. He knew that he was not a part of this life, that he was ignorant of it; of, indeed, all that was vital in it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said again, with a little petulance in her voice. I saw no way out of it. If I refused, she would guess (if she did not know already) that I was not there only for bottles of gin. "Oui, mademoiselle," I said. "Oui. Merci." So out I went to where the mare stood. She followed me to the door to ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... retained their seats at the amply filled table. But Alec rose from his and departed without a word, or even a glance in Murray's smiling direction. The rudeness, the petulance of his action! These things left his mother and sister ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, "forgive my first petulance. I see in you the very man I desired and wanted—your acuteness surprises and encourages me. Go to Wales, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... introduction of negroes into a feudal baron's castle" (in The Castle Spectre) "exclaimed against with as much vehemence as if a dramatic anachronism had been an offence undeserving of benefit of clergy, I said in a moment of petulance, that to prove of how little consequence I esteemed such errors, I would make a play upon the Gunpowder Plot, and make Guy Faux in love with the Emperor Charlemagne's daughter. By some chance or other, this idea fastened itself upon me, and by dint ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... many times before suffered from his petulance and coldness; but under present circumstances, when she sought to bring him sympathy and relief, to be repulsed, seemed as though it would break her heart. Slowly and in tears did she leave the dreadful place that confined her husband, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... as indeed, his petulance proved, that Hiram was right, but he had some pride in not appearing to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... invisible, poured forth a song of universal praise to greet this new-born day. With this joyful clamour in my ears, this fresh, green world before my eyes, I grew joyful too, and hasted towards the brook, my foolish petulance quite forgotten. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Reuben and Grace beheld a brave young boy Bearing their double life abroad in one— Beginning new the world, and bringing hopes That in their path fell flower-like. Not at ease They dwelt, though; for a slow discordancy Of temper—weak-willed waste of life in bursts Of petulance—had marred their happiness. And so the boy, young Reuben, as he grew, Was chafed and vexed by this ill-fitting mode Of life forced on him, and rebelled. Too oft Brooding alone, he shaped loose schemes of flight Into the joyous outer world, to break From the unwholesome wranglings ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... an ungracious sharpness in his voice, such an outburst of petulance in his manner as he spoke, that his mother gave him a warning touch on the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... she met his steady, powerful eyes, it was impossible not to feel the sweetness of the dream he was dreaming; it reached her before she could shut it out, and hid itself in her heart. She began to shuffle her cards furiously. "I'm angry with you, Emil," she broke out with petulance. "Why did you give them that lovely blue stone to sell? You might have known Frank wouldn't buy it for me, and I ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... enduring as if he had made a vow of patience. When at moments his eyes flashed with petulance, self-will, and anger, he restrained those flashes promptly, and looked with alarm at her, as if to implore pardon. This acted still more on her. Never had she such a feeling of being greatly loved ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... him for some moments; it seemed to him that he had never so clearly read his companion's strangely commingled character—his strength and his weakness, his picturesque personal attractiveness and his urgent egoism, his exalted ardor and his puerile petulance. It would have made him almost sick, however, to think that, on the whole, Roderick was not a generous fellow, and he was so far from having ceased to believe in him that he felt just now, more than ever, that all this was but the painful complexity of genius. Rowland, who had not a grain of genius ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... acquaintance with her had not been so numerous as I could have desired, and I sincerely regretted it. She had produced a very favorable impression on me. Singularly inexperienced and impulsive—with an odd mixture of shyness and vivacity in her manner, and subject now and then to outbursts of vanity and petulance which she was divertingly incapable of concealing—I could detect, nevertheless, under the surface the signs which told of a true and generous nature, of a simple and pure heart. Her personal appearance, I should add, was attractive in a remarkable degree. There was something in it ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... he replied, with positive petulance. "You do not unterstant. I do not buy and sell. Zis is a chemical fact. We must bublish it for the sake off its seoretical falue. I do not care for wealse. I haff no time to ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... held herself so far above suspicion as to have received her sister's innuendoes and the archdeacon's lecture with indifference. She had not done this, but had shown herself angry and sore, and was now ashamed of her own petulance, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... impressively returned the young man, grasping the hand that was extended to him in amity. "It is I, rather, Blessington, who should ask you to forgive my petulance; but, indeed, indeed," and again his tone faltered, and his eye was dimmed, "I am more wretched even than I am willing to confess. Pardon my silly conduct—it was but the vain and momentary flashing of the soldier's spirit impatient of an assumed imputation, and the man less than the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical laughter, but her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account. She said with Fridtjof's own petulance, "Your boon is like the one Canute has in store for me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I shall have no teeth left to chew them with. I like it much better to take your kindness in the shape of food, if ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... from her, her soul absorbing itself in the sense of a Divine Love, awful, profound, immeasurable, underlying and transcending all things, incomprehensibly satisfying the soul and justifying and explaining the universe. The infinite fret and fume of life seemed like the petulance of an infant in the presence of this restful tenderness diffused through the great spaces. How holy the stars seemed up there in the quiet sky, like so many Sabbath lights ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... then tossed it aside with petulance, parted his hair and peered into his face, passed her hands lightly over his head for the prominences, dashed unexpected tears from her eyes, and then ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... unto Drona, these words, from petulance and wrath, and in great cheerlessness of heart at the sight of the prosperity of their foe. Skilled in speech, and filled with rage at the success of the foe, the king said these words in the hearing of all the troops, "O foremost of regenerate ones, without doubt thou hast set us down for men who ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... not refuse to contribute to Colonel Fitz Gibbon's list; and it is recorded that when one of his sons called upon him for the amount which he had subscribed, he handed over the sum with justifiable petulance, saying: "There, go and make one great fool of yourself again."[85] Such of the rioters as were possessed of means contributed to the fund according to their respective ability, but the others were not allowed to bear more than a very small ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... me to sit once more for you as I did the other day," she continued with playful petulance, "I will never consent to do such a thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at all, and ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... kind of you, Angelique," said he, "I did not expect so much condescension after my petulance at the Governor's ball; I was wicked that ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Servant Question—was of course written for publication, but so, practically, was everything that ever came from its author. It so happens too that, putting aside his usual King Charles's Head of Demand and Supply, there is little in it of his more mischievous crotchets, nothing of the petulance (amounting occasionally to rudeness) of language in which he sometimes indulged, but much of his nobler idealism, while it is a capital example of his less florid style. "Launce," "Grumio" and "Old Adam" are ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... gratitude and the promise of your attachment are, certainly, very touching," said Madame de Fleury, with a scornful petulance which she had never before evinced toward Madeleine; "but I beg leave to decline the indebtedness. You have forced me to remember, for the first time, that when a lady in my station deals with a person ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Holland, and a war with Spain would have deprived English merchants of their most lucrative branch of commerce. The refusal of supplies by the Commons hastened the king's resolve. "Things have turned out ill," he said to Temple with a burst of unusual petulance, "but had I been well served I might have made a good business of it." His concessions however were as usual complete. He dismissed Buckingham and Arlington from office. He made peace with the Dutch. But Charles was never more formidable than ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... continues to perplex historians, and that it gave rise to much scandal which we are inclined to think unfounded. Each of them treated the sovereign whose favour he enjoyed with a rudeness which approached to insolence. This petulance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as proud as his own, and accustomed, during near half a century, to the most respectful observance. But there was a wide difference between the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unslung his hand-organ and slid it with a show of petulance into a corner, crossed the room, swinging strongly and easily between his crutches, like a fine piece of machinery, climbed upon the model's platform, and seated himself in the plain deal chair which already occupied it. From this point of vantage ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Plymley. I had forgotten his very existence till I discerned the queer contrast between his black coat and his snow-white head, and the equally curious contrast between the clerical amplitude of his person, and the most unclerical wit, whim, and petulance of his eye. I shook hands with him very heartily; and on the Catholic question we immediately fell, regretted Evans, triumphed over Lord George Beresford, and abused the Bishops. [These allusions refer to the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... one word of the past! It is as if he would earn my respect, and have that or nothing.... Then he works as he never worked before—on dad's books, in the shop, out on the range. He seems obsessed with some thought all the time. He talks little. All the old petulance, obstinacy, selfishness, and especially his sudden, queer impulses, and bull-headed tenacity—all gone! He has suffered physical distress, because he never was used to hard work. And more, he's suffered terribly for the want of liquor. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... glance at us as if to question us, she ran away to her partner with the careless petulance of her years. ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... her of his hopes. When first she had mingled something of sarcasm with her congratulations, though it had annoyed him, it had hardly made him unhappy. When she called him Romeo and spoke of herself as Rosaline, he took her remark as indicating some petulance rather than an enduring love. That had been womanly and he could forgive it. He had his other great and solid happiness to support him. Then he had believed that she would soon marry, if not Silverbridge, then some other fitting young nobleman, and that all would ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... reduced the centre of Dublin to ruins, and the British commanders killed their leading prisoners of war in cold blood morning after morning with an effect of long-drawn-out ferocity. Really it was only the usual childish petulance in which John Bull does things in a week that disgrace him for a century, though he soon recovers his good humor, and cannot understand why the survivors of his wrath do not feel as jolly with him as he does with them. ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... and exact report of the actual proceedings of their representatives and legislators, which in our constitution is highly to be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been too much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most respectable ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... respective countries, they eminently sustained, and when they were driven into exile, yet more eminently damaged the fortunes of those countries, is common to both. All the sober citizens felt disgust at the petulance, the low flattery, and base seductions which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed himself to employ with the view of winning the people's favor; and the ungraciousness, pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on the ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Entman said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when they start chasing frightened ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... the sidewalk, his Derby hat on his head, his corn-cob in his mouth. For a moment he turned, and, looking back, flung out his hand with a gesture expressive of petulance and dismissal towards an invisible person at his door. And then he came towards us sedately, caressing his pipe, eyes on the ground, and seated himself in the Fourth ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Blanchard, who lacked all power of hiding his inner heart, soon made it superficially apparent that new troubles had overtaken him. No word concerning his intolerable anxieties escaped him, but a great cloud of tribulation encompassed every hour, and was revealed to others by increased petulance and shortness of temper. This mental friction quickly appeared on the young man's face, and his habitual expression of sulkiness which formerly belied him, now increased and more nearly reflected the ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... advancement as the quality of his love. Moses Pennel's love was egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and capricious—sometimes venting itself in expressions of a passionate fondness, which had a savor of protecting generosity in them, and then receding to the icy pole of surly petulance. For all that, there was no resisting the magnetic attraction with which in his amiable moods he drew those ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... say," she replied; "but would think the happiness of a married life depended in a great measure upon a congeniality of temper, mutual forbearance, and reciprocity of kindly feeling, existing between the parties concerned; and that if amiability is allied to impetuosity, or petulance to generosity, the result ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... afterwards openly." "Is he then afraid openly to evince himself my friend?" I replied, in a tone of some pique. "Rather so, and yet you must not feel offended at that. The situation of this sarcastic and talented old man is very peculiar; his unquiet petulance incessantly gives birth to fresh perils. He, of necessity, must make friends in every quarter, left and right, in France and foreign countries. The necessary consequence is, that he cannot follow a straight path. The Choiseuls have served him with perfect zeal: do not be astonished if he abandon ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... doesn't matter much, one way or the other," Bristow said, conscious of Greenleaf's petulance. "The ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... little kitten to keep her company," she said, "while I go and ask Marthon for a cup of coffee." I remember that speech, and the way it roused me, for I did not like Amante to think I wanted amusing by a kitten. It might be my petulance, but this speech—such as she might have made to a child—annoyed me, and I said that I had reason for my lowness of spirits—meaning that they were not of so imaginary a nature that I could be diverted from them by the gambols of a kitten. So, though I did not choose to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... moment the Intelligence officer could ill disguise his astonishment. Here, standing in front of him, was the girl who had taught him his first lesson in staff jurisprudence. The memory of the incidents at the farmhouse, her petulance with the Tiger, her tears for her lover, had been almost effaced by the vicissitudes of the last forty-eight hours. If he had ever thought of the girl at all, it had been in the same spirit as a mariner recalls a passing ship, whose shapely lines were barely distinguishable ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... of the month, at the height of the hunting season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair, as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He had ceased to love her and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... thought that the cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be taken abroad when they're married. The second half of the body of the letter was very much disfigured by the Squire's petulance; so that the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by a touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake of the widow was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... first flash he had seen for days of her girlish petulance. He smiled. "That sounds like the Jean ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... weaknesses. She was inordinately fond of dress; she was sensitive to her own good looks; she was jealous of pretty women; she was vain, and susceptible to flattery; she was irritable when crossed; she gave way to sallies of petulance and anger; she occasionally used language unbecoming her station and authority; she could dissimulate and hide her thoughts: but her nature was not hypocritical, or false, or mean. She was just, honest, and straightforward ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... her fears to St. Clare; but he threw back her suggestions with a restless petulance, unlike his ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a man of real good nature, of an easy benevolent disposition, and his friends ever esteemed him as a most agreeable companion. He had none of the petulance, which too frequently renders men of genius unacceptable to their acquaintance. He was of so composed a temper, that he was seldom known to be in a passion, and he wore a perpetual chearfulness in his countenance. He was rather bashful, than forward; his address ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... of contemporary praise and blame. There have been very few men who have been able to combine so strong a faith with a thorough distrust of both logic-chopping and emotional excitement, and who, while denying themselves these aids to conviction, have been able to say, calmly and without petulance, that with them it is a very small thing to be judged ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... seat, doing so with a guilty feeling of acting a part. When he actually came into the grove he found her seemingly lost in a reverie as she gazed out over the wide expanse in front of her. He was hot after his walk, and with something very like petulance threw himself into a cane armchair, exclaiming as he did so with the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... will be, morbid in its character. I have known myself cases not a few, where, by the very nicest gradations, and by steps too silent and insensible for daily notice, the utmost harmony and reciprocal love had shaded down into fretfulness and petulance, purely from too easy a life, and because all nobler agitations that might have ruffled the sensations occasionally, and all distresses even on the narrowest scale that might have re-awakened the solicitudes of love, by opening necessities for ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... himself down into his throne with much of the petulance of manner that is observable in the demeanour of a spoilt child when its temper has been ruffled, from which I surmised that the impression produced upon the ladies of his harem by His Majesty's ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... which is really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue—the station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of kow-towing girls; but how ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... feminine replica of the face on the wall. She had never noticed the likeness before. She had only to push back her hair and she saw her father. Where his nose was straight, hers was slightly tilted, but there was the same darkness of hair and eyes, the same modelling of the forehead, the same incipient petulance ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... long enough to convey the inference that she was unfeminine enough to place a value on her own words, and then, the pause having led to a change, or, at least, modification of what had almost found utterance, she continued, with a touch of petulance which suggested that the general principle had in the mind of the speaker a special application, "It is certainly a great pity that the modern ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... strenuously exerted himself to purge his law courts of abuses, and to secure his subjects from evils wrought by judicial dishonesty; and though there is reason to think that he prosecuted his reforms, and punished offending judges with more impulsiveness than consistency—with petulance rather than firmness[14]—his action must have produced many beneficial results. But it does not seem to have occurred to him that the system adopted by his predecessors, and encouraged by the usages of his own time, was the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... hours before their regular time; and the cries for Mr. Kemble became so loud, that the manager thought proper to obey the summons. Amid all these scenes of uproar he preserved his equanimity, and was never once betrayed into any expression of petulance or anger. With some difficulty he obtained a hearing. He entered into a detail of the affairs of the theatre, assuring the audience at the same time of the solicitude of the proprietors to accommodate themselves to the public wish. This was received with some applause, as it was thought at ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... before the time of action. Kisses however were snatched at times, or where a handkerchief round the neck interposed its feeble barrier, it was not extremely respected: the hands of the men went to work with their usual petulance, till the provocation on both sides rose to such a pitch, that my particulars's proposal for beginning the country dances was received with instant assent: for, as he laughingly added, he fancied the instruments were in tune. This was a ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... his mother he's thinking about," Jo said with pretty petulance. In truth, she was angry with Thaine for taking Leigh home last night and ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... indubitably necessary, I am glad the decision on the case has been complete. On these last three days I have finished my review of Tytler for Lockhart and sent it off by this post. I may have offended Peter by censuring him for a sort of petulance towards his predecessor Lord Hailes. This day visited by Mr. Carr, who is a sensible, clever young man, and by his two sisters[292]—beautiful singer the youngest—and to my ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... had Stephen returned to Adrian than he flung his arms affectionately round his ward, who was preparing his pride for some sharp rebuke for his petulance. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to see the sudden look of petulance that crossed the other's face. "Oh, my working-tools!—You see you can't understand. You, of course, only need ink and paper. But we painters must have plenty of implements to work with.—Why, I kept them and starved! ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... nothing so silly!" I answer, with lofty petulance. "I am a great deal too old for ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... done with this explosion of petulance and brow-beating, I endeavored to demonstrate to him the unfairness of his remarks, and the disadvantage to himself if he should appear to connive at the ruffianly behavior of his people. But I assured him that in future ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... only long enough now and then to deplore my lack of appetite. Meanwhile Mingo officiated around the improvised board with gentle affability; and the little girl, bearing strong traces of her lineage in her features—a resemblance which was confirmed by a pretty little petulance of temper—made it convenient now and again to convey a number of tea cakes into Mingo's hat, which happened to be sitting near, the conveyance taking place in spite of laughable pantomimic protests on the part of the old man, ranging from appealing nods and grimaces to indignant frowns ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Pascualo. But when prosperity came, and the memory of the tragedy grew dim with the years, sina Tona showed unmistakable fondness for Tonet, a child of feline shrewdness, who treated everybody with imperious petulance, but for his mother always had the speculative fondness of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that he would not trick her into a confused surrender to the personal influence he still possessed over her, but must seek to convince her by the tedious process of argument and exposition, against which she knew no defense but tears and petulance. But he had, at any rate, gained her consent to his setting forth his views at the meeting of directors the next morning; and meanwhile he had meant to be extraordinarily patient and reasonable with her, till the hint of Mrs. Ansell's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... may learn with proud teachers how to throw down the Vendome Column, and burn the Louvre, but never how to lay so much as one touch of safe colour, or one layer of steady stone: and if indeed there be among you a youth of true genius, be assured that he will distinguish himself first, not by petulance or by disdain, but by discerning firmly what to admire, and whom ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... you are right," said Ruby, half-ashamed of the petulance of his reply; "at any rate, I confess you are right as ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the Prince, found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet was content to court by an act which I hope was unwillingly performed. When it was found that Pope clandestinely printed an unauthorised pamphlet called the "Patriot King," Bolingbroke in a fit of useless fury resolved to blast his ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... us bother with conventionalities, Don!" she exclaimed, her emotion showing itself in petulance. "I had to come and ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had been many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... told how clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a piece of petulance which delighted him. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... only person irritated. After one of these fragments of conversation Langham also walked rapidly home in a state of most irrational petulance, his hands thrust with energy into the pockets ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the youth, seizing her arm again with a boyish petulance. "You think of yourself and of other people, but never of me. What am I going to do ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... me," Lulu said, with petulance born of an uneasy conscience, as she released herself from Grace's arms and began undressing with great energy ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... Steno, one of those young and insubordinate gallants who are a danger to every aristocratic state, having been turned out of the presence of the Dogaressa for some unseemly freedom of behavior, wrote upon the chair of the Doge in boyish petulance an insulting taunt, such as might well rouse a high-tempered old man to fury. According to Sanudo, the young man, on being brought before the Forty,[56] confessed that he had thus avenged himself in a fit of passion; and regard having been had to his age and the "heat of love" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... got into the lake, as we may call it, surrounded by the reef, where a ship could anchor, I should prefer this to any of the inhabited islands, if the only want were refreshment. For the quantity of fish that might be procured would be sufficient, and the people might roam about unmolested by the petulance of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... female part of his congregation. In short, our popular declaimer has, contrary to the Scripture-caution, put new wine into old bottles, or new cloth on old garments. He has, with an unlimited and daring licence, mixed the sacred and the profane together, the carnal and the spiritual man, the petulance of the bar with the dogmatism of the pulpit, the theatrical and theological, the modern and the obsolete;—what wonder that this splendid piece of patchwork, splendid by contradiction and contrast, has delighted some and confounded others? ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... so handsome, so beautiful, in budding youth; there was such a free, gay petulance in his manner; there seemed so little of real evil in him; he put himself on equal ground with the rustic Septimius so generously, that the latter, often so morbid and sullen, never felt a greater kindness for fellow-man than at this ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was "full of leprosy." Men shrink more from skin-diseases than from any other.[2] [Footnote 2: And they are amongst the hardest to cure; just as the skin-diseases of the soul linger long after the heart is greatly cured. Witness the petulance, fastidiousness, censoriousness, social self-assertion, general disagreeableness of so many good people—all in the moral skin—repulsive exceedingly. I say good people; I do not say very good, nor do I say Christ-like, for ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked child?—of Helena, against the petulance and insult of a careless youth?—of the patience of Hero, the passion of Beatrice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the "unlessoned girl," who appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle angel, bringing courage and safety ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... I said, "and no key for that." It only aggravated my feeling of mockery to discover that both parts of the lock were still strong. In my petulance I flung the door back ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Roderick was shocked at the change that had come upon him within three days. He seemed like another man, his features being pinched, his eyes sunken, and his manner quick and nervous. The normal calm of his demeanor was gone, and his stately courtesy was replaced by a restless petulance of hands. He stood uneasily near the mantel waiting for the young officer to speak. Hardinge ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... suffer the offence to pass. The persistent gallant was more crest-fallen by this last silent rebuke, than by the first with its angry words. The first, in his vanity, he had deemed an outburst of petulance, instead of an expression of personal dislike, especially as the girl had so suddenly calmed herself and extended hospitalities. He gnashed his teeth that a half-breed girl, in an obscure village, should resent his ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... with any applause, the reader will probably look upon him as a man of little genius; he had a power however of rendering his conversation agreeable by a facetious and gentleman-like manner, without any of the stiffness of the scholar, or the usual petulance of a poet. He always lived in affluent circumstances, and by mixing with genteel company, his habit of elegance was never lost, a fate which too frequently happens to those, who, notwithstanding the brightest parts, are excluded the circle of politeness by the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Sam's petulance at once directed itself toward Roddy partly because of the latter's tactless use of the word "even," and the two engaged in controversy, while Penrod was left free to continue the ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... She was well versed in polite literature; she played upon the lyre, and understood geometry; and she had made considerable improvements by the precepts of philosophy. What is more, she had nothing of that petulance and affectation which such studies are apt to produce in women of her age. And her father's ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative disunion; but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady. She had soft answers for the turning away of wrath. She could smile bewitchingly at her step-daughter's open petulance, and laugh merrily at the young lady's ill-temper. Perhaps had she been less amiable, had she been more like Alicia in disposition, the two ladies might have expended their enmity in one tremendous quarrel, and might ever afterward have been affectionate and friendly. But Lucy Audley ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... not to be struck by?—-Faulty, wicked, abominable, scandalous, (which are the angry Adjectives, he prefers to that sweet one) wou'd have carried Marks of her Rage, not Affliction—whereas naughty contains, in One single significant Petulance, [5th: "a Variety of"] {twenty thousand} inexpressible Delicacies!—-It insinuates, at once, all the beautiful Struggle, between her Contempt of his Purpose, and tender Regard for his Person; her Gratitude to Himself and his Family; her Recollection ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... landed in time to have a few last words with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the public life ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... for evil is only equalled by their opportunities. If your cousin had not flamed after them like an avenging sword you might have cried loudly enough for the one of whom, in your fit of unseemly petulance, you can speak so slightingly. I advise you to go to your room and thank ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. — Then there's her brother, 'squire Jery, a pert jackanapes, full of college-petulance and self-conceit; proud as a German count, and as hot and hasty as a Welch mountaineer. As for that fantastical animal, my sister Tabby, you are no stranger to her qualifications — I vow to God, she is sometimes so intolerable, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... itself on the attention of every one was the perfect order that prevailed throughout the camp, and which more particularly marked proceedings in the council. Whether the demands put forward were granted by the Governor or not, there was no petulance, no ill-feeling, evinced; but everything was done with a calm dignity that was pleasing to behold, and which might be copied with advantage by more ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... about the tent after we left it, had watched his opportunity, and, taking the centry unawares, had snatched away his musquet. Upon this, the petty officer, a midshipman, who commanded the party, perhaps from a sudden fear of farther violence, perhaps from the natural petulance of power newly acquired, and perhaps from a brutality in his nature, ordered the marines to fire: the men, with as little consideration or humanity as the officer, immediately discharged their pieces among ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... good fortune as might encourage him so to do. To Emma, his reply was in a few words; he thanked her for her continued good opinion of him, the idea of having lost which had made him very miserable, assuring her that he was ashamed of the petulance which he had shown, and that it was for him to have asked pardon, and not one who had behaved so kindly, and protected him for so long a period; that he felt much better already, and hoped to be able to shorten the time of absence which had been demanded by him and kindly granted by ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... as soon as he had put together a large lump of gold, he would go back to Cambridge and win Hester Bolton to be his wife. But yet what a singular woman was this Mrs. Smith! As to marrying her, that of course had been a joke produced by the petulance of his snoring friend. He began to dislike Shand, because he did snore so loudly, and drank so much bottled ale, and smelt so strongly of cavendish tobacco. Mrs. Smith was at any rate much too good for Shand. Surely she must have been ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... good-natured fellow, whose vanity was easily wounded, but who was not otherwise very sensitive, and was certainly not very intelligent. Astrardente had laughed at him and his friends in a way which touched him to the quick, and with childish petulance he had retaliated in the easiest way which presented itself. Indeed there was more foundation for his tale than Astrardente would allow. At least it was true that the story was in the mouths of all the gossips that morning, and Valdarno ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the least. You are my true friend. I feel that I can trust you. You wouldn't deceive me, Harry?" throwing into her eyes a look of trust and tenderness that melted away all his petulance and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... answer, and I decided that petulance was of no avail. Some other tack was necessary, and I decided to appeal to his sympathies—granting that ghosts have sympathies to appeal to, and I have met some who were so human in this respect that I have found it hard to believe that they were ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... regretted that the stringent regulations of the postal authorities will not permit us any report of the heart-to-heart talk that followed his departure, other than the baldest summary. It was marked by earnestness, sincerity, even by some petulance, interspersed with frank and spirited repartee. Mutual ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... ran up and down indefatigably, preparing everything for the accommodation of the guests, smoothing down Deborah's petulance, and keeping her mother from over-exertion or anxiety. Much contrivance was indeed required, for besides the colonel and his son, two soldiers had to be lodged, and four horses, which, to the consternation of old Margery, seemed likely to devour the ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "It is always the same story. Another failure! But no, I will not suffer it. Sooner than that I will have you penned and stuffed as though you were a Strasburg goose." But I only laughed at his petulance and walked ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... of her petulance, I was at first disposed to resent it; but, reflecting that a maiden is no more responsible for her tongue than a donkey for his heels in this season of life (but both must be for ever a-flying out at some one ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... people called him Wizard; whom at first She played about with slight and sprightly talk, And vivid smiles, and faintly-venomed points Of slander, glancing here and grazing there; And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer Would watch her at her petulance, and play, Even when they seemed unloveable, and laugh As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew Tolerant of what he half disdained, and she, Perceiving that she was but half disdained, Began to break her ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Smith, who had always to be convincing not only others but himself that he was a strong man whose views were unassailable, the eyes of Buckingham Smith like black holes in his handsome face, the stylish gestures and coarse petulance of Buckingham Smith, the shy assurance of little old Prince. He envied the pair. Their existence had a cloistral quality which appealed to something in him. They were continually in the studio, morning, afternoon, evening. They were independent. They had not to go forth to catch ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... time too when the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... neglect the prosaic truth. But, arguing from present signs, he might well believe that Montholon's letter was a tissue of falsehoods; for that officer soon confessed to him that "it was written in a moment of petulance of the General [Bonaparte] ... and that he [Montholon] considered the party to be in point of fact vastly well off and to have everything necessary for them, though anxious that there should be no restrictions as to the General going ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose |
