"Vexing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head as he poured out his complaints to her. Ida's contradictory behaviour was as much a puzzle to her as to him, and she deplored it scarcely less. But she insisted that he should not trouble the girl by demanding explanations of her, as that, by vexing her, would only ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... malicious. As Satan is the enemy of God, so he hates everything that is good. He is continually bent on mischief. If his power were not restrained, he would introduce general disorder, anarchy and confusion, into the government of God. He loves to ruin immortal souls; and he takes delight in vexing the people of God. Hence he is called Destroyer,[G] Adversary, Accuser, Tormentor, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... wayward and wild. Well, my dear old mother used to coax, pray, and punish. My father was dead, making it all the harder for her, but she never got impatient. How in the world she bore all my stubborn, vexing ways so patiently will always be to me one of the mysteries of life. I knew it was troubling her, knew it was changing her pretty face, making it look anxious and old. After a while, tired of all restraint, I ran away, went off to sea; and a rough time I had of ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... he cried, "do not let my poor affairs be vexing you." He put, for the first time in his life, an arm about her waist, bending over her, with all forgotten for the moment save that she had longed for love and seemingly found it not. At the touch of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... child of the Italian Renascence rather than of the New Learning of Colet or Erasmus, and her attitude towards the enthusiasm of her time was that of Lorenzo de' Medici towards Savonarola. Her mind was untroubled by the spiritual problems which were vexing the minds around her; to Elizabeth indeed they were not only unintelligible, they were a little ridiculous. She had been brought up under Henry amidst the ritual of the older Church; under Edward she had submitted to the English Prayer-Book, ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... exclaimed peevishly;—"but, pardon me, it's no fault of yours. Damaged! I should think so. I doubt if he will ever be fit to ride again. But I can't make it out quite yet, it's very vexing. I had rather have given a hundred pounds than it should have happened. And Dick, too; the fellow told the queerest tale about it. I should have thought he was telling a lie, only he was taking the blame to himself, and that didn't look like lying.—By-the-by, Amos, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... hotel late one evening after a long and vexing day at the engravers to find James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk by the window, with the outline of a great square draped in ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... nightly watch is set, the rebel, sad and lonely in his Tower dungeon, tries to sleep and weeps for home and children. Aloft upon the gates and walls are noble heads glaring fiercely down upon the dreaming city, and vexing the hungry dogs that scent them in the air, and tear the ground beneath with dismal howlings. The axe, the block, the rack, in their dark chambers give signs of recent use. The Thames, floating past long lines of cheerful windows whence ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... and turmoil of a day when the children have been especially vexing, what mother does not smile in forgiveness upon the peaceful faces of her offspring, whose characters in sleep appear as spotless as the sheets which cover them? So smiled the sun upon the grown-up children of the Sierras asleep under the winter snow. After the ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... is our work. It is not the abolition of races, but the recognition of brotherhood. This is the work which Christ has given us to do; and if we would solve this negro problem, and all the thousand and one problems which are ever vexing the life of our free Republic, we must solve them by the principles of the Golden Rule and the democracy of the Lord's Prayer. It is not sufficient for us to stand with Thomas and say in rapt admiration, "My Lord and my God." Side by side with our black brother and with our white brother, with our ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... had in hand a far more serious matter, a vexing issue that grew out of Civil War diplomacy. The British government, as already pointed out in other connections, had permitted Confederate cruisers, including the famous Alabama, built in British ports, to escape ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... biographer,[115] "good easy man," suspects nothing more extraordinary when he tells us Toland was at Berlin or Hanover, than when he finds him at Epsom; imagines Toland only went to the Electoral Princess Sophia, and the Queen of Prussia, who were "ladies of sublime genius," to entertain them by vexing some grave German divines, with philosophical conferences, and paradoxical conundrums; all the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... be wasted will make you a little stingy in putting on fresh paint, which is one of the worst habits a beginner can fall into. You cannot paint well unless you have paint enough on your palette to use freely when you need it. It is all well enough to put on more, but nothing is more vexing than to have to squeeze out new paint at almost every brushful. You must have paint enough when you begin, to work with, or you waste too ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... North has been teasing and vexing the South till the Southerns can't stand it any ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... ideal of the mere natural soul, or rather the purely sensuous fancy which shapes and governs the pleasing or the vexing delusions of sleep. They lead a merry, luxurious life, given up entirely to the pleasures of happy sensation,—a happiness that has no moral element, nothing of reason or conscience in it. They are indeed a sort of personified dreams; and so the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... had lapped her round since childhood, was a harder, more bitter night than any of the preceding three hundred and sixty-five she had spent tossing weary, aching limbs on a lumpy straw mattress with a coarse brown woollen blanket drawn up beneath her chin, vexing her ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... down in dismal loneliness. Then came her vexing thoughts again; And quick, as if she broke duress Of heavy weariness or pain, She sought ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... with the Regatta—to Newson's sorrow, who certainly must have carried off the second 10 pounds prize. And the Day ended by vexing me more than it did him. Posh drove in here the day before to tan his nets: could not help making one with some old friends in a Boat-race on the Monday, and getting very fuddled with them on the Suffolk Green (where I was) at night. After all the pains I have taken, and all the real anxiety I have ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... can eventually get the whole. But they had better settle the question if they possibly can, for experience might have shown them that if the spirit of resistance and hostility to the Church is again roused into action, the means of vexing and impoverishing the clergy will not be wanting, and the provisions of Stanley's Bill will only have the effect of making the landlords parties to the contest, who, if they find their own interests at variance with the interests ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... that very few of them live in a manner conformable to his views, will it not necessarily result therefrom, that in the immense crowd of beings whom God has created for his glory, only a very small number of them glorify and please him; while all the rest are occupied in vexing him, exciting his wrath, troubling his felicity, deranging the order that he loves, frustrating his designs, and forcing him to change ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... creditors and sometimes under false names and titles, made their way to America as best they could and came to Washington with pretentious claims. Germans and Poles there were, too, and also exiles from that unhappy island which remains still the most vexing problem of British politics. Some of them wrote their own testimonials; some, too, were spies. On the first day, Washington wrote, they talked only of serving freely a noble cause, but within a week were demanding promotion and advance ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... with great judgment and address. Nevertheless, if your modesty forbids the subject we'll come back to another more pressing. What did you mean when you said Captain Colden's delay was due to the solution of a vexing problem?" ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... notice. Think what preparation is required for a family of half a dozen to get ready to spend a month in the country—how tailors and milliners and dressmakers are put in requisition—how business arrangements must be made—how a thousand little vexing details constantly suggest themselves which need attention. Think of a thousand families—ten thousand—making these preparations! What a vast hurly burly! What an ocean of confusion! How many delays and disappointments! During the fortnight or month which ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to none. But would she link her lot with his? He yearned for some assurance. He had no ambition whatever for himself, but he would have toiled to succeed for her. It was his weakness to require someone to work for as he was working for the Boy; a purely personal ambition seemed to him a vexing, vain, and insufficient motive for action. All selfless people suffer from indolence when only their own interests are in question; they require a strong incentive from without to arouse them. Such incentive as the Tenor had was in itself a pleasure ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... in the water now. "O, how vexing!" she exclaimed. "There's not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and the well is I don't know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the pitcher I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping the tips of your ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... nun, I will!" I exclaimed. "I know that papa left me some money so that I should be married, and I know that the nuns marry the Saviour. Mamma says she does not care, it is all the same to her, so that it won't be vexing her at all, and they love me better at the convent ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... fall of Fort Sumter and the European recognition that a civil war was actually under way in America, a large number of new and vexing problems was presented to Russell. His treatment of them furnishes the subject matter of later chapters. For the period previous to April, 1861, British official attitude may be summed up in the statement that the British Minister at Washington hoped against hope that some solution ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... there between your position now and theirs? Lazarus was with God, and they knew he had gone, come back, and gone again. You know that he went, came, and went again. Your friend is gone as Lazarus went twice, and you behave as if you knew nothing of Lazarus. You make a lamentable ado, vexing Jesus that you will not be reasonable and trust his father! When Martha and Mary behaved as you are doing, they had not had Lazarus raised; you have had Lazarus raised, yet you go on as ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... into a flood of tears and sobbed piteously, but it was some minutes before he would relent and look towards her. Eustace scolded her for making such a noise, and vexing Harold when he was hurt, but that only made her cry the more. I told her to say she was sorry, and perhaps Harold would forgive her; but she shook ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time had fled since the children bad felt any curiosity to hear the sequel of this venerable chair's adventures! Summer was now past and gone, and the better part of autumn likewise. Dreary, chill November was howling out of doors, and vexing the atmosphere with sudden showers of wintry rain, or sometimes with gusts of snow, that rattled like small pebbles ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Pythagorean School had much virtue on its side, and made a sincere and earnest effort to solve certain problems that yet are vexing us. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing green grass with pine shavings and chips of chesnut joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about brushing ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... of four of these early popes, and, with Cuvier-like sagacity, he reconstructed, out of a hundred and twelve separate, minute, and scattered pieces, the metrical inscription in which Damasus expressed his desire to be buried with them, but his fear of vexing their sacred ashes.[O] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... roll-call of our nobility have been also among the most persecuted and ill-fated. Not to dwell on the high-spirited Isabelle, Countess Dowager of Arundel, and widow of Hugh, last earl of the Albini family, who upbraided Henry III to his face with 'vexing the church, oppressing the barons, and denying all his true born subjects their right'; or Richard, Earl of Arundel, who was executed for conspiring to seize Richard II—we must think with indignation of the sufferings inflicted by Elizabeth on Philip, Earl of Arundel, ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... a short pause, and then Glory said with a quivering mouth: "You are vexing me, and you will end by making me cry. Don't you see you are degrading me too? I am not used to being degraded. You see me with a weak silly creature who hasn't an idea in her head and can do nothing but giggle and laugh and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... many unlawful and unwarrantable fees and other dutyes have been, under colour of his Majesty's Royal authority, unjustly imposed ... & that divers new unlawful, unpresidented & very burthensom and grievous wayes & devises have been of late made use of to the great impoverishing Vexing and utter undoeing of many of his Majesties Subjects of ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... laugh. 'By Jove, Monsieur le Cure, it is very vexing not to have an Epiphany queen, for we have the bean. Come, think. Is there not a married mayor, or a married deputy-mayor, or a ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... will live through thee, one by one, Like animal life, and though we can obscure not The soul which burns within, that we will dwell 485 Beside it, like a vain loud multitude Vexing the self-content of wisest men: That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, And foul desire round thine astonished heart, And blood within thy labyrinthine veins ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... would sometimes say, "what could I have done to deserve being treated in this manner? Yet, I am sure, you cannot be less unhappy than myself, when you reflect you wounded me without a cause. However, I would not wish your generous nature should be grieved. Let us forgive each other; I for vexing you, and you ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... with increasing solicitude. When he woke on the sixth morning, he was resolved to send a scout into the Gap to learn what he could of the situation. The long silence, de Spain knew, portended nothing good. And the vexing feature of his predicament was that he had at hand no trustworthy spy to despatch for information; to secure one would be a matter of delay. He was schooled, however, to making use of such material as he had at hand, and when he had made up his ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... not much less weary than the gardener and coachman of the old sisters' habits of criticism. But only the shadow of their former power of vexing her remained, now that they could no longer appeal to Sir Timothy to join them in reproving his wife. She was no more to be teased or exasperated into ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... He was a little surprised by all this heat. "I never expected anything else," he said. "And it's altogether at a loss I am to understand why your lordship should be vexing yourself in ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... of Christ to have ears to hear the bitter groans. Everybody hears them, if one may judge from the universal reports of the daily papers. Indeed, how to suppress the groans or to prevent them from becoming more articulate and coherent is the most vexing problem of the government of the most civilized state in the world. At least Prince von Buelow so represents the case in his book entitled Imperial Germany. And the party leaders of the United States have all been alert for two decades to discover ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... vexing, Mother; it has to be," said Flemild, but there were tears in her eyes. "I'm glad Derette's ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... I feel at times my mind decline,[186] But with a sense of its decay: I see 190 Unwonted lights along my prison shine, And a strange Demon,[187] who is vexing me With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below The feeling of the healthful and the free; But much to One, who long hath suffered so, Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place, And all that may be borne, or can debase. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... moved off, leaving the house party grouped at one end of the platform, Judith and Jeff at the other. It was plain that something was vexing Mildred and the smart young beauty by her side. Jeff, however, was perfectly unconscious of being the cause of ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... the Unitarian Association in 1870 was largely occupied with the vexing problem of the basis of fellowship; and the secretary, Charles Lowe, read a conciliatory and explanatory address. He said that the wide differences of theological opinion existing in the denomination were "an inevitable consequence of the great principle on which Unitarianism rests. That ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... days in Fashoda to rest, but the countless number of mosquitoes above the river made their stay unendurable. During the daytime appeared swarms of big blue flies, which did not indeed bite, but were so vexing that they crept into the ears, filled the eyes, and fell even into the mouths. Stas had heard while in Port Said that the mosquitoes and flies spread fever and an infection of the inflammation of the eyes. Finally he himself entreated Seki Tamala ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the winds afar to blow Each vexing thought, and heart-devouring woe, And fix thy mind alone on rural scenes, To turn the level lawns to liquid plains? To raise the creeping rills from humble beds And force the latent spring to lift their heads, On ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... on the project, but that did not affect me. I had more experience of such follies than he, and my conscience approved me. A man may be justified in playing with his own life, but he should be slow in playing with the lives of others. He prepares a vexing responsibility for himself ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... much indisposition in these days. It is all too vexing to your friends. The world will be surprised, if you allow a migraine to come between us. Indeed, it will be shocked. The world understands always so imperfectly, and I have no gift of explanation. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whose fate I must Sigh at; Alaq, that such frolic should now be so quiet! What spirits were his! what wit and what whim! Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb; Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball; Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all. In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at old Nick, But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, As often we wish'd to have Dick ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... in debates and discussions, and adjustment of differences between the old and new list of prices, deputations were sent round to all shops where the men had not joined the strike, and, among others, they visited me. For some reason—perhaps to avoid vexing the boss—they would not come up stairs, and requested me to meet them at the basement door. On going down, I saw some five or six well-dressed, intelligent-looking men—not a rare sight among the mechanics of New York—and then, they standing under the 'stoop,' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... were apparently more serious than at first supposed, safely disposed in a hospital ambulance. Thereupon he proceeded to the Hotel Cecil, and set himself seriously to the solution of his problem. He was too weary for clear thinking and as the result of long, confused and very vexing cogitation, he resolved upon a letter to Commander Howard Vincent, R. N. R. This, after much labour, he succeeded in accomplishing. Thereafter, much too weary for food, he proceeded to his room, where he gave himself up to the unimaginable ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the harmonies which he had never heard, had learned from no man. The sluggish breath of the old house, being enchanted, grew into quaint and delicate whims of music, never the same, changing every day. Never glad: uncertain, sad minors always, vexing the content of the hearer,—one inarticulate, unanswered question of pain in all, making them one. Even the vulgarest listener was troubled, hardly knowing why,—how sorry Tom's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Pinkerton meant to be kind, but she did not manage to gain the children's hearts, and Bee soon came to understand why Rosy called her "pretending." She was so afraid of vexing anybody that she had got into the habit of agreeing with every one without really thinking over what they meant, and she was so afraid also of being blamed for Rosy's tempers that she would give in to her in any way. So Rosy did not ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... advantage. Sir Boyle, eager to defend the measures of government, immediately rose, and in a very few words, put forward the most unanswerable argument which human ingenuity could possibly devise. "What, Mr. Speaker!" said he, "and so we are to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honorable gentleman, and this still more honorable house, why we should put ourselves out of our way for posterity: for what has posterity ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... colonies. And there was one very interesting map,—but not very bright,—showing the American colonies, as they used to be. And there was a little inner closet in which he could brush his hair and wash his hands; and in the room adjoining there sat,—or ought to have sat, for he was often absent, vexing the mind of Phineas,—the Earl's nephew, his private secretary. And it was all very gorgeous. Often as he looked round upon it, thinking of his old bedroom at Killaloe, of his little garrets at Trinity, of the dingy chambers in ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... gentleman like the Rector is thinking of, for to encourage you in such rubbish, my dear," said she, "it passes me! It's vexing enough to see dirt and bits about that shouldn't be, when you can take the dust-pan and clear 'em away. But to have dead leaves, and weeds, and stones off the road brought in day after day, and not be allowed so much as to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of Addison by vilifying his old enemy, and could give resentment its full play without appearing to revenge himself. He therefore published "A Narrative of the Madness of John Dennis:" a performance which left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore discovered more desire of vexing the critic than of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... stem the current. Her love and her sorrow were ready to believe in miracles. How is it possible, she often thought, that such a brief sweep of water should carry him so utterly away? In spite of her fear of vexing Coronado, she questioned him over and over as to the course of the stream and the nature of its banks, only to find that he knew next ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... is obviously administrative. The whole vexing problem of insuring fairly wide cultivation along with opportunities for specialization is conveniently settled by giving general training, most of it remote from business work, for two years, after which the student is considered ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... grades that would pass them with credit from year to year. The horrors of the war and the disorders following it had begun to impress upon the young brains growing into maturity the idea that soon it would be their task to take over the problems that were now vexing the world's greatest statesmen and its wisest and most courageous women. A tendency was manifesting itself among young people to equip themselves to take a worthy part in the struggles yet to come. Classmates who had looked with toleration upon Linda's common-sense shoes and plain ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... vessel rolling in the trough of the sea. Of course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the loss to Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of all Europe and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think of the fortunes of his 'other girl,' as he named her, and cried: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now come for the new President to deliver the inaugural address. Great anxiety has been felt about this speech, because it was expected that it would give the people some idea of the way Major McKinley meant to treat the several questions that are vexing us ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 19, March 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... practical foot regulator. But immediately the deplorable deficiency of his education struck him. What preparation had he for his life's vocation? Of mathematics he knew absolutely nothing! The priceless years had been squandered on mere Latin, English prose, French verbs and the vexing grammars. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... nothing in this world can make me joy: Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, That it yields nought but shame ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a very vexing thing," continued the good lady, "to be in that dependent station; and you that hae right and title to sae muckle better, I wonder how ye ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... enjoyments. Thus these two white doves flew with one wing beneath their pure blue heaven; Etienne loved, he was loved, the present was serene, the future cloudless; he was sovereign lord; the castle was his, the sea belonged to both of them; no vexing thought troubled the harmonious concert of their canticle; virginity of mind and senses enlarged for them the world, their thoughts rose in their minds without effort; desire, the satisfactions of which are doomed to ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... to fear That the Miller would appear,— And, to him, this strange sight would be vexing; So he, first, sharply coughed, And, then, knocked very soft,— Lest his summons should be ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... attached to the position of stockholder in the New-York Tribune. Mr. GREELEY conceives some of his most brilliant editorial articles while churning the mercurial milk of the Chappaqua farm into butter; or vexing the gracious grain with the flying flail; or listening to the pensive murmurings of the plaintive pigs, and the whispered cadences of the kindly cattle. RICHARD GRANT WHITE can't write, it is said, until a towel moistened with Cologne water is applied to his nostrils. Sometimes, however, he varies ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... with the thought of Joan there came mingling the vexing wonder of the train of violence that had attended him into the sheeplands. He had come there to be a master over flocks, not expecting to encounter any unfriendly force save the stern face of nature. He had begun to muddle and meddle at the outset; ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... the foot of the Alps, the little nation of Allobrogians, having fallen a prey to civil dissension, had given up its independence to Rome. Even in southern and western Gaul the populations of Agnitania were rising, vexing the Roman province, and rendering necessary, on both sides of the Pyrenees, the intervention of Roman legions. Everywhere floods of barbaric populations were pressing upon Gaul, were carrying disgnietude even where they had not themselves yet penetrated, and causing presentiments ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and George surveyed her in some perplexity. "If any one's been bothering or vexing you, just you tell Phil all about it. Don't have any secrets from him,—he'll soon put ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... could join with the fervour of a neophyte in the Stoic's profession: "Good and evil are in choice alone, and there is no cause of sorrowing save in my own errant and wilful desires. When these shall have been overcome, I shall possess my soul in tranquillity, vexing myself in nowise if, in the world's illusive good, all men have the advantage over me. For all outward things I will bear with equal mind, even chains or insults or great pain, ashamed of this only, if reason shall not wholly free me from ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... then, my dear son, let that vexing question drop forever, and begin to act as my son and heir should. You have a great deal to learn, but I will myself be your teacher, and your mind is now free to attend to my instructions. Do you find anything to love ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... contradistinction to the flighty conquest and ephemeral possession of France? The obvious reason is, that however the governments might be disliked, neither the Austrian soldier, nor the Prussian, nor even the Russian, made himself abhorred, employed his study in vexing the feelings of the people, had a perpetual sneer on his visage, or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that coxcomb superiority to all other human beings, that pert supremacy, that grotesque and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... then, to feel your pulse vonce more. I shall determine den more perfectly dis vexing subject ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... I advise you not to quarrel with Cornelia. She will be a great resource. I myself am looking forward to the delightful change Jacobus may have at Hyde Manor. It will make a new life for him, and also for me. This afternoon something is vexing you. I shall take no offence. You will regret ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... an officer in the Royal Guard, rode ahead by order of Colonel Quinnox. Truxton, therefore, had her back in view—at rather a vexing distance, too—for mile after mile of the ride to the city. Not so far ahead, however, that he could not observe every movement of her light, graceful figure as she swept down the King's Highway. She was a perfect horsewoman, firm, jaunty, free. Somehow he ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... that's vexing; I relied on seeing the general's father, to talk over some important matters with him. At any rate, they know where to write to him. So to-morrow you will let him know, my lad, that his granddaughters are arrived. In the mean time, children," added the soldier, to Rose and Blanche, "my ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... perplexed and grieved at thus vexing his brother, declared that he would have done so with all his heart, but that this very Easter Sunday there was coming a friend of Master Hansen's from Holland; who was to tell them much of the teaching in Germany, which ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... meteorological laws—the hands now thought, on being so suddenly summoned again on deck, and forced to leave their untasted meal just as they were in the very act, so to speak, of putting it into their mouths, and with its tantalising taste and smell vexing them all the more, that the 'old man' only roused them out again from sheer malice and devilry, to make another fresh tack or short board, with the object of 'hazing' or driving them, as only slaves and sailors can be driven in these days by a ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... enough on these questions to be fully entitled to the praise which Voltaire gives to Zadig. "Il en savait ce qu'on en a su dans tous les ages; c'est-a-dire, fort peu de chose." The Book of Job shows that, long before letters and arts were known to Ionia, these vexing questions were debated with no common skill and eloquence, under the tents of the Idumean Emirs; nor has human reason, in the course of three thousand years, discovered any satisfactory solution of the riddles ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... all the forms of ill- humour and sour-sensitiveness, which especially belong to equal intimacy (though indeed, they are common to all), are best to be met by impassiveness. When two sensitive persons are shut up together, they go on vexing each other with a reproductive irritability. {93} But sensitive and hard people get on well together. The supply of temper is not altogether out of the usual laws ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... taken he lay in an ecstasy of anticipation, feeling new pulses in all his frame and the blood warm in his face. It would mean a new dawn for Israel. There would, however, be a vexing difficulty in the matter of the present wives of the Saints. The song of Lorena came ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... vexed, and revenged himself by vexing the children in all sorts of ways. They would have told their mother, and asked her to send Bill away, only she had a great many anxieties just then, for their old grandmother was very ill, and they did not like to make a fuss about any thing that ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... commanded at last, thoroughly tired and angry. "Hold your tongues over those questions, at least while I am with you. Odds! I care nothing as to your Catholic or Protestant, your popes or preachers. Be done, and bear yourselves like men. I will no longer have you vexing the air with controversy while our very lives are hanging by a thread. There are other things to talk about just now. So, Cairnes, if you cannot bide quietly in our company, then stay here alone while I take ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... narrow bars 95 To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; A seed of sunshine that doth leaven Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than the Day; 100 A conscience more divine than we, A gladness fed with secret tears, A vexing, forward-reaching sense Of some more noble permanence; A light across the sea, 105 Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still glimmering from the heights of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... and curves, concaves and convexities, and angles of every degree, in the stones that make up my tower. The vexing question is, What conglomerated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... He shook his head as if to shake off a vexing thought. "I—it makes me feel like a brute to think I've been knocking out a half-starved man and throwing him into that water because he crawled under an old blanket in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I question him decently? ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... said, 'Some men, and very thinking men too, have not those vexing thoughts[17]. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the year round[18]. Beauclerk, except when ill and in pain, is the same. But I believe most men have them in the degree in which they are capable of having them. If I were in the country, and were distressed ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... things were going on in Italy, another notable reformer was vexing his righteous soul in Spain. St. Dominic was a very different man from the gentle and romantic young Italian. Of high birth, which among the haughty Castillians has always counted for a great deal, he had passed his boyhood among ecclesiastics and academics. He was twelve ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... saft a voice and slid a tongue, You are the darling of baith auld and young: If I but ettle at a sang or speak, They dit their lugs, syne up their leglens cleek, And jeer me hameward frae the loan or bught, While I'm confused with mony a vexing thought; Yet I am tall, and as well built as thee, Nor mair unlikely to a lass's eye; For ilka sheep ye have I'll number ten, And should, as ane may think, come ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the sleeping street, Hie me forth on darker roads. Ah! I cannot stay my feet, Onward, onward, something goads. I will take the mountain path, Beard the storm within its den, Know the worst of this dim wrath, Vexing thus ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... desirable. Half a hundred times, nearly, I would doze for an instant, only to awake with a start, and find my pipe gone out. Nor did the exertion of relighting it pull me together. I struck my match mechanically, and with the first puff dropped off again. It was most vexing. I got up and walked around the room. It was most annoying. My cramped position had almost put both my legs to sleep. I could hardly stand. I felt numb, as though with cold. There was no longer any sound from the other rooms, nor from without. I sank down in my window ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... flash out in foam among the dark foliage, and contribute their tiny warble to the diapason of the waterfall. It rewards one well for penetrating the deep gash which has been made into the earth. It seemed so very far away from all buzzing, frivolous, or vexing things, in the cool, dark abyss into which only the noon-day sun penetrates. All beautiful things which love damp; all exquisite, tender ferns and mosses; all shade- loving parasites flourish there in ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... and innumerable vexing errors—the "bugs" that inhere with a new, mechanical job—yet the day came when the ship was a thing of sleek beauty, and her thousand feet of length enclosed a maze of latticed struts where ammunition rooms and sleeping quarters, a chart room ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... on those bands of young roisterers!" fumed Lampaxo. "They go around all night, beating on doors and vexing honest folk. Why don't the constables trot ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... doll to its proper position; and, as she settled its costume, gave Daisy her answer, by putting into words the thought which was vexing the minds of some of her elders, but addressed herself to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... he began to think for the first time of his journey's end. He must leave Miss Catherwood somewhere in comparative safety, and he must get back to Richmond, his absence unnoted. These were problems which might well become vexing, and the exaltation of the moment could not prevent their recurrence. He stopped the wagon and took a look at the worthy Elias, who was slumbering as peacefully as ever. "A sound conscience makes a sound sleeper," he quoted, and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... opinion that ecclesiastical dignitaries were often fascinating. They paid one another outrageous compliments. It never struck the good man that these charms and graces were displayed only for the purpose of vexing a gentleman of forty, who was eating his luncheon irritably on the other side of her. She managed to avoid talking to Dick Lomas afterwards, but when she bade Lady ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... edges of the lurid mass— 50 Restless, as if some idly-vexing Sprite, On swift wing coasting by, with tetchy hand Pluck'd at the ringlets of the vaporous Fleece. These are sure signs of conflict nigh ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... told me this. I have been turning it over in my mind; and it is particularly vexing not to know more. "Delightful" can be such jargon and mean nothing—or, at any rate, nothing more than amiability. Still, that is something, for one is not always amiable, even when meeting strangers. On the other hand it might be, from this man, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... true, because of the emotion which he rightly judged the cause of her not joining him, than the necessity laid on him of eating his dinner without having first unburdened his mind; but the latter fact also had its share in vexing him. ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... every winter in pauperizing the unemployed by giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor would be at once enabled to respond to the call ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... possible in even more complete detail, in the American work of Messrs. Reisner, Lythgoe, and Mace (the last-named is an Englishman) for the University of California, when published. The question of speedy versus delayed publication is a very vexing one. Prof. Petrie prefers to publish as speedily as possible; six months after the season's work in Egypt is done, the full publication with photographs of everything appears. Mr. Reisner and the French explorers prefer to publish ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... It was vexing, but not fatal. He had probably gone for something. While he was getting it she would elude him. One thing was certain—she couldn't face the look of disappointment in those sick dark eyes again. She opened the door. She shut it noiselessly behind her. Steptoe ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... broad dwelling-place for man.— Thus are we tortured;—in our weal, That which we lack, we sorely feel! The chime, the scent of linden-bloom, Surround me like a vaulted tomb. The will that nothing could withstand, Is broken here upon the sand: How from the vexing thought be safe? The bell is pealing, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... belonged to the last-named of the three classes. He had arrived in England two months previously for the purpose of holding a conference at eight-stone four with one Joseph Edwardes, to settle a question of superiority at that weight which had been vexing the sporting public of two countries for over a year. Having successfully out-argued Mr Edwardes, mainly by means of strenuous work in the clinches, he was now on the eve of starting on a lucrative music-hall tour with his celebrated inaudible monologue. As a result of these things ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... fever, but unintelligibly, continually asking questions about Venus, Diana, Juno, and many other persons whose names had never before been heard in the house. How fortunate that my crazy brain had thus continued vexing itself with this idle question! She also told me that Yoletta had watched day and night at my side, that at last, when the fever left me, and I had fallen into that cooling slumber, she too, with her hand ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... sails before they put them up. So I wetted it; but that only made matters worse than they were before. A dry sail clinging to your legs and wrapping itself round your head is not pleasant, but, when the sail is sopping wet, it becomes quite vexing. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... Still, there was no denying that, though a clean, it was a very forlorn little room, with very few things for comfort or convenience. Tip had never seen this with such wide-open eyes as he did today; so coming home did not quiet the vexing thoughts. ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... pleasure to you, I am delighted; for I owe you an evening, I think, when you have given up yours for me. When you refused to go to Mme. de Bargeton's, you were quite as generous as Lucien when he made the demand at the risk of vexing her." ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... fate I must sigh at; Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet! What spirits were his! what wit and what whim! Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb; Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball, 55 Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all! In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old Nick; But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, As often we wish'd to have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... was inflicted upon the brethren through Manasseh, the steward of Joseph, the allotment of territory given to the tribe of Manasseh was "torn" in two, one-half of the tribe had to live on one side of the Jordan, the other half on the other side. And Joseph, who had not shrunk from vexing his brethren so bitterly that they rent their clothes in their abasement, was punished, in that his descendant Joshua was driven to such despair after the defeat of Ai that he, too, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... risen above the timber, and their messages had also been duly noted down at the Red Lilies and elsewhere, and acted upon. The Maluka was on the river, and when the Maluka was about, it was considered wisdom to be off forbidden ground; not that the blacks feared the Maluka, but no one cares about vexing the goose ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... moon was half bewildered by the vexing clouds That did beset her in her path serene, Veiling her beauty with their envious shrouds, Hiding her glorious, most majestic mien. There was a depth of silence in the night— A mist of melancholy in the air— And the capricious beams of Dian's light Gave something mystic to the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... some rebate withal. So the lord of men enjoying such religious gain, should also give somewhat to living things. The world indeed is bent on large personal gain, and hard it is to share one's own with others. O! let your loving heart be moved with pity towards the world burdened with vexing cares." Thus having spoken by way of exhortation, with reverent mien he turned back to the Brahma heaven. Buddha, regarding the invitation of Brahma-deva, rejoiced at heart, and his design was strengthened; greatly was his heart of pity nourished, and purposed was ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... it is only necessary to say that he is still at Pugsty, vexing the souls of his parishioners ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... serenity of the eminent specialist. There was another dating back only to that very morning. The thought that when called urgently to his Assistant Commissioner's private room he had been unable to conceal his astonishment was distinctly vexing. His instinct of a successful man had taught him long ago that, as a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement. And he felt that his manner when confronted with the telegram had not been impressive. He had opened his eyes widely, and had exclaimed "Impossible!" exposing ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... hope had a right to believe that after all public opinion was a weapon which was sometimes more effective than any other. Mr. Wilson and the State Department were justified in feeling that their policy toward Germany was after all successful not alone because it had solved the vexing submarine issue, but because it had aided the forces of democracy in Germany. Because, with the downfall of von Falkenhayn and von Tirpitz, there was only one recognised authority in Germany. That was the Chancellor and the Foreign Office, ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... considered, and it was all the more a matter of difficulty, as economy in that direction was a new necessity. Boots had always been a serious matter to the Inglises, but wood had been plentiful at Gourlay. However, there were boots enough, and wood enough, and to spare, and things that were vexing to endure, were only amusing to look back upon, and when Spring came, none of the Inglises looked back on the winter with regret, or forward to the summer with dread, and so their first year in Singleton came ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... he delivered two sound whacks at Margot, a trifle merely to warn her that she should never be the wife of a Mahe. As a result, Margot, furious, declared that she would pass that pair of slaps on to Delphin if he ever ventured to rub against her skirts. It was vexing to be boxed on the ears for a boy whom she had ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... All of our most vexing moral problems are those in which benefit to some must be weighed against benefit to others. Shall a man who is needed by his family risk his life to save a ne'er-do-well? Shall we insist that people unhappily ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... intellectual culture. It takes years and years of study and discipline to draw out and train the faculties of the mind. An indolent, self-indulgent student may have an easy time; he never troubles himself with difficult problems; he lets the hard things pass, not vexing his brain with them. But in evading the burden he misses the blessing that was in it for him. The only path to the joys and rewards of scholarship is that of patient, ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... great pressure brought to bear upon him, but he was not long convincing himself that it was his duty to take his knowledge of certain subjects vexing the Confederation, to the decrepit body which was feebly striving to save the country from anarchy. He had given little attention to the general affairs of the country during the past six months, but an examination of them fired his zeal. He accepted the appointment, and returned to his ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... vexing! You would feel for me if you knew what Valmai is to me! I seem to love her with all the accumulation of love which had missed its object for so many long years ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... these mortals be!" exclaims Puck in A Mid-summer Night's Dream. And well might the fairy marvel who sees folk vexing themselves over matters that nine times out of ten come to nothing. Much wiser is the man who smiles at misfortunes, even when they are real ones and affect him personally. Charles Lamb once cheerfully helped to hiss off the stage a play he ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... with his terrors. Strange enough, his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me, nor of my coming. Instead of leaping out and devouring me, he scarcely seemed conscious of my presence. The fact is, he was occupied with matters more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me. He probably thought as{57 "OLD MASTER" LOSING ITS TERRORS} little of my advent, as he would have thought of the addition of a single pig ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... always will,' the child repeated with great emotion, 'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy, then I ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens |
