"Petulancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relieved, and they are ready to begin over again. Quit the home and quarrelling is less obvious, but it goes on all about one. What proportion of the letters delivered any morning would be found to be written in displeasure, in petulance, in wrath? The postbag shrieks insults or bursts with suppressed malice. Is it not wonderful—nay, is it not the marvel of marvels—that human life has reached such a high point of public ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... its childlike petulance, but I knew that drowsiness would do its work, and that he was now safely stowed away for at least ten hours. He would not interfere ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... only be a minute, I'll stop with him," said I; and there was some kindness in the offer, for I was really afraid of the boy with his heavy angry eyes and fever petulance. The woman gladly accepted it, and hurried off, despite the child's fretful tears, and his refusing to see in "the young gentleman's" condescension the honour which his mother pointed out. No doubt she only meant to be "a minute," and Mrs. Taylor's dwelling ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the quiet of the place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that place of peace and calm solitude. Phoebe could not bear to think that across the seas men were lying in the filth of water-soaked trenches, agonizing and bleeding on the battlefields and suffering nameless tortures ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday's sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her. But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... scholars is commonly badly brought up, and unless they are bridled in by the rules of their elders they indulge in infinite puerilities. They behave with petulance, and are puffed up with presumption, judging of everything as if they were certain, ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... don't understand!" Her sad voice robbed the words of all petulance. "Though you are most awfully kind—and clever—you see you aren't married, Mr. Herrick, and that makes ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... letter in the following collection[57], to which the reader is referred. Originally only the chief officer of those Praetorian troops in Rome by whom the Emperor was guarded, until, as was so often the case, he was in some fit of petulance by the same pampered sentinels dethroned, the Praefectus Praetorio had gradually become more and more of a judge, less and less of a soldier. In the great changes wrought by Constantine the Praetorian guards disappeared—somewhat in the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... that there were two sane men—Lord John Roxton and myself—to prevent the petulance and folly of our learned Professors from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading and explaining before we could get them mollified! Then at last Summerlee, with his sneer and his ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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
... with great petulance; "it is always so. Whatever is destined to give me pleasure fails when I am the most eager to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... skirt. In her hand she held a scented handkerchief, like any lady in a drawing-room; her hair, black at the roots and auburn at the ends, was wreathed, coil on coil, upon the top of her head; her face, which gave away all her secrets, was saucy, expressive of self-satisfaction, petulance, and vanity. And yet it was a handsome face; but it lacked mobility, the chin was too strong, the grey eyes wanted expression, though they were ever on the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... 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 scene ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... fear with some petulance, if he had known of the incumbrance attached to this candidate; and he replied that she had informed him that she was married, but he had no idea she intended to bring her husband with her. He was very ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... sound of their wheels, and instantly opened the door. Lucia's half-formed intention of making some kind of apology for her petulance, had no time to ripen. Maurice helped her down without speaking, bade her good night, exchanged a word or two with her mother, and drove slowly ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... father had always lain like a shadow across his life. It was a subject that his mother had refused to discuss. He shivered now when he realized the agony his perpetual boyish questions must have caused her. His petulance because "other fellows' fathers" could be produced when necessary and were not shrouded away in unexplained obscurity. He remembered her unfailing patience with him, the consistent loyalty she had ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... knows that his entreaties are useless: that his sons will keep all they can; and the tone of entreaty is dashed with all the petulance of foreseen disappointment. Weakness prevails at last. He resigns himself to the inevitable; blesses his undutiful sons; and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Galldra-Kinna (wicked sorceress), from her supposed skill in enchantments. Kiartan, the son of Thurida, a boy of excellent promise, was the only person of the household to whom Thorgunna showed much affection; and she was much vexed at times when the childish petulance of the boy made an ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... well that, this sort of humour, in which was the old admiral, would soon pass away, and then that he would listen to him comfortably enough; so he would not allow the least exhibition of petulance or mere impatience to escape himself, but contented himself by waiting until the ebullition of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Coemgen's petulance at the preoccupation of the bereaved monks (VG) is in keeping with other traditions of that peppery saint. The resurrection of Ciaran after three days is another touch in imitation of the Gospel story: it is, however, also told of Saint Darerca, who appeared to her ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... long-sustained periods of indifference, unbroken by a single word of kindness. And as days passed by and this indifference continued, until at times seeming ready to give place to openly expressed dislike, and her ears became more and more accustomed to words of hasty petulance, and Sergius grew still deeper absorbed in the infatuation which possessed him, and less careful to conceal its influences from her, and the Greek girl glided hither and thither, ever less anxious, as she believed her triumph more nearly assured, to maintain the humble ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... broke in upon his passionate declaration, saying with a pretty petulance: "Oh, you have? What ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... announced our page-boy, throwing open the door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. His manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue impression of age, for he had a slight forward stoop ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy, it was the Emperor Charles V., of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once the instrument and the dupe. The influence which the bigotry of one female,6 the petulance of another,7 and the cabals of a third,8 had in the contemporary policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a considerable part of Europe, are topics that have been too often descanted upon not to be generally known. To multiply examples of the agency ...
— The Federalist Papers
... 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 martial ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... visitors were a trouble. Perhaps there was impertinence in their curiosity, very likely their presence hindered him; but, nevertheless, it was by no means like the sweet-tempered Clarian to show irritability and petulance, and finally, closing his door obstinately against all comers, to elect for solitude and silence at his work. No,—the boy was changed, grown morbid, a pervert, ripe for whatever Devil's sickle might be put forth to gather ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... me to go lumbering, mother?" he inquired in a tone that had a touch of petulance in it. "I've got to do something for myself, and I detest shopkeeping. It's not in my line at all. Fellows like Tom Clemon and Jack Stoner may find it suits them, but I can't bear the idea of being shut up in a shop or office all day. I ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... ahead of me," Lulu said, with petulance born of an uneasy conscience, as she released herself from Grace's arms and began undressing with ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... the Order of the Patriotic Daughters of America in evil mood. She didn't know Miss Ray's address, and in the further assertion that she didn't want to know too readily betrayed the fact that her petulance was due to her not having ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... 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 ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should think not,' says the serjeant. '"Ion" is very different.' The Talfourd household, as it is described by Mr. Lestrange, is a droll mixture of poetry and prose, of hospitality, of untidiness, of petulance, of most genuine kindness ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... larger eyne, Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing Some little petulance in mine, And loved me all the more, for ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... child!" he at last murmured. "But how lovely she is! I, whom all fear—even HE," he emphatically added—"I almost quail before her mad petulance. Well, well!" he continued after a pause, "the priest first, and discipline afterwards. A man who has bowed and broken so many stubborn spirits, will hardly be vanquished by the humours of a wilful girl. Good-night, my lovely bride. 'We shall see,' you said; and assuredly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Avenel had before this seen symptoms in her favourite of boyish petulance, and of impatience of censure or reproof. But his present demeanour was of a graver and more determined character, and she was for a moment at a loss how she should treat the youth, who seemed to have at once assumed the character not only of a man, but of a bold and determined ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sensibly to exceed that of the Southern. Generally, men of very grave, reflective, and unprejudiced minds, students in the philosophy of society and history, men known for their lofty ideal of liberty or of culture, appeared to be on the side of the North; and the calm, unfaltering attitude, free from petulance and invective, of those operative classes in Lancashire, whom the war ruined for a while, has often been pointed to as showing that the more informed and intelligent workingmen were also for the North. They endured a great calamity without murmuring, because they thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... I don't want to hear anything more about it at all. It is all too much in the future, too practical and commonplace altogether to fit such a twilight as this," she said, with a touch of petulance. "I want to know about the people here. What sort of a man is Oily Dave? He looks a ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Bonaparte's uninterrupted progress. England is confronted by the most formidable adversary whom she has ever known, and her defence is entrusted to Canning and Perceval. Canning's armoury contains nothing more serviceable than "schoolboy jokes and doggerel rhymes, an affronting petulance, and the tones and gesticulations of Mr. Pitt." Perceval, instead of ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... at 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 ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... both such very unpleasant things to be even remotely connected with. Poverty he could pardon, but suicide was really disreputable. From the philosophic resignation to which he had attained, he fell back into petulance, always easier ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... there for?" Miss Gibbie's voice made pretence of petulance. "What do you want to ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... great mildness the freedom used by his friends, the satirical allusions of advocates, and the petulance of philosophers. Licinius Mucianus, who had been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, but, presuming upon his great services, treated him very rudely, he reproved only in private; and when complaining of his conduct to a common friend of theirs, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authours of the Canons of criticism and of the Review of Shakespeare's text; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... bark were to destroy them as it had killed 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 a ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 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 by her presence, and defeating ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... the pupils who make them. Not infrequently may children be seen to glance over a paper upon which the teacher has put precious time and some red ink in making corrections, and then crumple the paper and throw it into the waste basket. Sometimes this is done in sheer carelessness, and sometimes in petulance because of the many corrections. This is all a loss of time and opportunity. The teacher should have tact enough to show the pupils that corrections are made on their papers for their benefit, and not as a punishment. And then the pupils should take the trouble ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... with more courtesy and politeness than she treats her father and her brothers—treat no woman more kindly and politely than she does her mother and her sisters. Let her not confine all her graces and fascinations to strangers, and make her family to endure all her petulance and unamiability. So let the brother treat his mother and sisters. So let the father and mother treat each other and their children, and you will, my readers, obtain a noble reward in the increasing happiness and comfort of your family circles—in the manliness which will belong to the sons—in the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... obdurate, and she spoke with some petulance. "If that is the case, perhaps it is just as well that it was Aunt Mary and not ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... that ambition and greed had slowly cemented, and dropping one deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, but its significance pricked ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... asked as she gave him her hand. The disappointment in her voice irritated him, and he answered with a sharp petulance. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... he was, he won neither confidence nor love; wife and barons alike feared the silence with which he listened unmoved to the bitterest taunts, but kept them treasured and unforgotten for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and along its southern frontier peasant and churl ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... During his walk from the farm he had made up his mind to be of a most winning amiability and patience, blended with a determination that nothing should shake. At the door, it is true, he had been stirred to petulance by the foolish face and utterances of the footman James, but during the whole of the time he had been alone with Lady Shuttleworth he had behaved, he considered, with the ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Testament was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been received into the arms of the hero under whom he now fought, adventured to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped in the cold poison of contempt and petulance. It struck, but did not canker, leaves that were immortal.[169] Leland, with the native warmth of his soil, could not resist the gratification of a reply; but the nobler part of the triumph was, the assistance he lent to the circulation of Hurd's letter, by reprinting it with his own reply, to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... glance; then he fetched a tray, piled it with refreshments, and brought it to her side. She ate and drank ravenously. The food acted on her like magic; she sat upright—her eyes sparkled, her pallor left her, and the slight shade of petulance and ill-humor which had characterized her when she entered the room gave place to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... property, the prey of ephemeral criticism, which it darts triumphantly upon; there is a raw thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their grand-daughters, when a new novel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... darkening for a night of thunder, while the silver Thames looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down the valleys. Calm words fall at such times on quick temper like the drip of trees on people who have been dancing. I shivered, as my spirit fell, to think of my weak excitement, and poor petulance to a kind, wise friend, a man of many sorrows and perpetual affliction. And then I recalled what I had observed, but in my haste forgotten—Lord Castlewood was greatly changed even in the short time since ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... rose to the occasion; for, although he saw in Mrs. Belcher's petulance and indignation that his victory was half won, he could not quite submit to the abuse of his ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... be better for any body's example! Thy ill-nature and perverseness will continue to keep thee from that."—"My ill-temper, you have often told me, is natural to me; so it must become me: but upon such a sweet-tempered young lady as Miss Polly, her late assumed petulance ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... 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 ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... command." General Morgan Lewis took temporary command at Niagara, but, being soon called to Sackett's Harbor, he was succeeded by General Boyd, whom Lewis was kind enough to describe, by way of recommendation, in these terms: "A compound of ignorance, vanity, and petulance, with nothing to recommend him but that species of bravery in the field which is vaporing, boisterous, stifling reflection, blinding observation, and better adapted to the bully ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... said then upon the subject; but we saw the next morning something very like coolness on the part of F—towards his wife, which was returned on hers by something very like petulance. Ah! thought we, it all comes of this unlucky fancy ball! We had often heard it declared by our friend that he hated every species of masquerade, and would never allow (though this as certainly before his marriage) either sister, wife, or daughter of his to attend one. But, besides ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... sunlight. The romance and ecstasy that at Wiesbaden had soaked her spirit came no more. She was watching for the weak spots, the passages with which he had struggled and she had struggled; she was distracted by memories of petulance, black moods, and sudden caresses. And then she caught his eye. The look was like, yet how unlike, those looks at Wiesbaden. It had the old love-hunger, but had lost the adoration, its spiritual essence. And she thought: 'Is it my fault, or is it only because he has me now to do what he likes ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... etaient celles d'un homme de bonne compagnie. Habituellement reserve et d'un naturel craintif jusqu'a la mefiance, il ne se livrait qu'avec ses intimes ou les etrangers de passage a Francfort. Ses mouvements etaient vifs et devenaient d'une petulance extraordinaire dans la conversation; il fuyait les discussions et les vains combats de paroles, mais c'etait pour mieux jouir du charme d'une causerie intime. Il possedait et parlait avec une egale perfection quatre langues: le francais, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... 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
... show anger, and then it was with a quiet dignity of displeasure, far removed from petulance or impatience. They asked of her a sign that she was what she ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... us as if to question us, she ran away to her partner with the careless petulance of ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... from another cry, and was very angry with herself for her petulance. She regretted the loss of the drive, too, which would have been a real treat after the week ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... great force in Canada and had done things which should have provoked his admiration. In any case, it was his duty to work with them on some basis and not dislocate the whole administration by brawling. As to Duchesneau, Frontenac was the broader man of the two, and may be excused some of the petulance which the intendant's ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... hastened through his meals that he might be alone with his thoughts. The sun had sunk, and the moon was well over the eastern mountains, before he visited the rose garden. Amy was there, and she greeted him with a pretty petulance because he had not come before. Then, in sudden ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... that the people in all parts of the kingdom have a fair, open, 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
... the Cupids, and the son of the Theban Gemele, and lascivious ease, command me to give back my mind to its deserted loves. The splendor of Glycera, shining brighter than the Parian marble, inflames me: her agreeable petulance, and her countenance, too unsteady to be beheld, inflame me. Venus, rushing on me with her whole force, has quitted Cyprus; and suffers me not to sing of the Scythians, and the Parthian, furious when his horse is turned for flight, or any subject which is not to the present purpose. Here, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... The public, which is so jealous for his dignity, does not otherwise use him as if he were a very great and invaluable creature; if he fails, it lets him starve like any one else. I should say that he lost dignity or not as he behaved, in his effort to right himself, with petulance or with principle. If he betrayed a wounded vanity, if he impugned the motives and accused the lives of his critics, I should certainly feel that he was losing dignity; but if he temperately examined their theories, and tried ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... was to-day?—Men of a learned education are not so sharp-witted as clever men without it; but they know the balance of the human intellect better; if they are more stupid, they are more steady, and are less liable to be led astray by their own sagacity and the overweening petulance of hard-earned and late-acquired wisdom. They do not fall in love with every meretricious extravagance at first sight, or mistake an old battered hypothesis for a vestal, because they are new to the ways ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... his continuance at St. John's. To all, except Lucie, it was evident his absence would be unregretted; for he could not but remark the cold and altered manner of Mad. de la Tour, which she vainly endeavored to disguise, by an air of studied politeness; nor the reserve and petulance of De Valette, which he did not attempt to conceal. La Tour was too politic to display his dislike towards one, whose services were so useful to him; though his prejudices were, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... likewise. And some such would tell us that there is intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the quality which they desire for their country's future good. Self- consciousness, eagerness, volubility, petulance in countenance, in gesture, and in voice—which last is too often most harsh and artificial, the breath being sent forth through the closed teeth, and almost entirely at the corners of the mouth—and, with all this, a weariness often about the ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... began, with harsh petulance, 'I do not want to go down to Cornwall with Louisa and Olive'—she accentuated the two names—'after this,' ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... and Patty knew it. She already felt a little relieved at getting away from Sam Blaney and back with her own crowd. So she shook off her petulance and her anger, and when she entered the Farringtons' drawing-room, no smile that greeted her was brighter than her ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... United States. On both occasions he performed his duties as an Imperial officer judiciously and well. But his relations with Canadian affairs were not so happy. He became dissatisfied with the political conditions as he found them; and his petulance over the slow progress of Confederation led him to threaten resignation. He contrived, moreover, to incur much personal unpopularity, which found vent, during the first session of the Dominion parliament, in a measure to reduce the salary of the governor-general from L10,000 to $32,000. ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... this fillip, resumed his petulance, and proceeded in this manner:—"Hark ye, friend, I might, as Mrs. Gobble very justly observes, trounce you for your audacious behaviour; but I scorn to take such advantages. Howsomever, I shall make you give an account of yourself and your companions; for I believes as how you are in a gang, and ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Vandersee—Oh, thunder!" Barry flung out the expression in petulance. "Why, you were sent aboard because you know this river, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... said in so quiet and straightforward a tone that Montague's wrath vanished. He felt ashamed of having shewn so much petulance at a time when affairs of so great importance ought to have been calmly discussed, so he at once agreed to allow Bumpus to go. Meanwhile Henry Stuart, who had been fretting with impatience at this ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... done!—Tho' honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart] The clown's answer is obscure. His lady bids him do as he is commanded. He answers with the licentious petulance of his character, that if a man does as a woman commands, it is likely he will do amiss; that he does not amiss, being at the command of a woman, he makes the effect, not of his lady's goodness, but of his own honesty, which, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... quite well," she said with an odd petulance. "Please look after that unfortunate Mr. Watts. I am not surprised that he should have been frightened by the rats. They terrified me, too. Oh, how awful they were—in the dark—when their ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... they awaited the arrival of Stephen. They were clever enough to understand each other. The thing must be hushed up. The matron must repair the consequences of her petulance. The girl must hide the stain in her future husband's family. Why not? Who was injured? What does a grown-up man want with a grown brother? Rickie upstairs, how grateful he would be to ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... through a leafy lane leading back to the village, I espied at some distance in advance of me a couple walking together and apparently engaged in engrossing conversation. A second glance served to inform me that one of the pair was Miss Hamm and the other the insufferable Pomeroy. In a fit of petulance for which I am unable to account, unless it be due to my displeasure that he should continue to press his unwelcome attentions upon a young woman so immeasurably his superior, I dashed my eyeglasses upon the earth, thereby ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... And can it be, that the great Doge of Venice, With three parts of a century of years 240 And honours on his head, could thus allow His fury, like an angry boy's, to master All Feeling, Wisdom, Faith and Fear, on such A provocation as a young man's petulance? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... it was about six inches square, and inside it he found another packet, which contained a packet, and so on. At the fourth he hurled the whole thing into the snow. Denys took it out and rebuked his petulance. He excused himself on the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... him to strike his repeater. It was half-past five, and they turned homewards, taking a bye road so as to avoid meeting Mr. Faulkner. And now Lionel began to talk of Caroline, and wonder how she had sped. He seemed to throw off his own private troubles as he talked of hers, and his fit of petulance was melting fast away. At last he made up his mind to inquire how she had caught Sorrel, and was positively interested in the narration, laughing at the idea of the scrape they would have been in if Sorrel ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... merely an outburst of childish petulance? Certainly not. The public were really and seriously convinced that things were all wrong, and they were seriously and enthusiastically desirous that a new and better order of things should be introduced. It must be said ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... 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, that I almost think she's the devil incarnate come ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... prejudice, fear, or affectation; and strove to forget the author's person, while his works fell under their consideration. They have treated simple dulness as the object of mirth or compassion, according to the nature of its appearance. Petulance and self-conceit they have corrected with more severe strictures; and though they have given no quarter to insolence, scurrility and sedition, they will venture to affirm, that no production of merit has been defrauded of its due share of applause. On the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... 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
... comedian, when of age He represents the follies on the stage, They're credulous, forgetful, dissolute; Neither those crimes to age he doth impute, But to old men, to whom those crimes belong. Lust, petulance, rashness, are in youth more strong 390 Than ago, and yet young men those vices hate, Who virtuous are, discreet, and temperate: And so, what we call dotage seldom breeds In bodies, but where nature sow'd the seeds. There are ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... little difficulty in bringing up her children. They were disciplined to obedience, and a simple word was her command. She was not given to any display of petulance or rage, but was steady, well-balanced, and unvarying in her mood. That she was dignified, even to stateliness, is shown us by the statement made by Lawrence Washington, of Chotauk, a relative and playmate of George in boyhood, who was often a guest at her house. He says—"I ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... 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 Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... said Ella, who hardly knew whether to smile or frown at the sarcastic petulance of his guest, who went on with a sly smile—"And now old Dunstan does not know where I am. He left me with a huge pile of books in musty Latin, or crabbed English, and I had to read this and to write that, as if I were no prince, but a scrivener, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... of her cheek, but she restrained herself. He was a guest under her father's roof, and she would 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 advances; he ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... hankered so constantly for office. It is strange enough that the man who wrote as a dictator of public opinion in the Tribune on the 9th of November could write two days later the letter to Seward, dissolving the political firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley. In that letter the petulance of the office-seeker is shown, and the grievous disappointment that he did not get the nomination for lieutenant-governor, which went to Raymond, stands out plainly."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... What! cries Sir Pliant, would you then oppose Yourself, alone, against a host of foes? Let not conceit, and peevish lust to rail, Above all sense of interest prevail. Throw off, for shame! this petulance of wit; Be wise, be modest, and for once submit: 350 Too hard the task 'gainst multitudes to fight; You must be wrong; the World is in the right. What is this World?—A term which men have got To signify, not one in ten knows what; A term, which with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Welldon's half-defiant petulance disappeared. "What's done can't be undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish, "Oh, get me out ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Ramsey could come from the cabin the twins had reached the bedside and had been received with a final lighting up of the boy's spent powers, which his mother made no effort to restrain. In a feeble, altered voice, without heat, scorn, or petulance, with a mind stripped of all its puerilities and full of fraternal care and faithfulness, and with a magisterial dignity far beyond his years, he slowly poured out a measured stream of arraignment ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... spirit which led him to find more heroism in a marauding Viking or in one of Frederick the Great's generals than in Washington, or Lincoln, or Grant, and which caused him to see in the American civil war only the burning out of a foul chimney, he, with the petulance natural to a dyspeptic eunuch, railed at Darwin as an "apostle ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... fallen upon us. We are ruled by ignorant people. But the most ignorant people in modern Britain are to be found in the upper class, the middle class, and especially the upper middle class. I do not say it with the smallest petulance or even distaste; these classes are often really beneficent in their breeding or their hospitality, or their humanity ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... friend of the whole family," she returned, with a petulance which she made an effort to disguise. "Roscoe and he got acquainted somewhere, and they take him to the theater about every other night. Sibyl has him to lunch, too, and keeps—" She broke off with an angry little jerk of the head. "We can see the New House from the second corner ahead. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... them unworthy of thee and me; because I regarded them as the petulance of a passing feminine curiosity; because I knew not ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Smiths, Sydney Smith, alias Peter 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 ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... superiority.] Insolence. — N. insolence; haughtiness &c. adj.; arrogance, airs; overbearance[obs3]; domineering &c. v.; tyranny &c. 739. impertinence; sauciness &c. adj.; flippancy, dicacity|, petulance, procacity[obs3], bluster; swagger, swaggering &c. v.; bounce; terrorism. assumption, presumption; beggar on horseback; usurpation. impudence, assurance, audacity, hardihood, front, face, brass; shamelessness &c. adj.; effrontery, hardened front, face of brass. assumption of infallibility. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... appreciate the fact that the Prince was trying to do something more lasting for him than merely conferring a commission, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the injustice he had done his Highness. He also realized his own petulance with ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... divination and fortunetelling; and that he was predicting splendid success, in all his undertakings, to the Constable of Bourbon, we can only wonder at his thus estranging a powerful friend through mere petulance ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect necessary to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock petulance and dry humor into an instance of mortified vanity and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... face was a wholesome one to look into. She did not shake her head and look solemn or shocked. Neither did she laugh at his petulance. She merely said, with the sweetest of little smiles, "You may live, Jeff, to be a very useful machine yet; if not quite as strong as you were—though even that is uncertain, for doctors are fallible, you know. Never forget that, Jeff—doctors are fallible. Besides, your living at all shows ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... "I am a young man and a private soldier. I have not been long in this room, and already I have shown the petulance that belongs to the one character and the ill manners that you may look for in the other. Have the humanity to pass these slips over, and honour me so far as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... period is also passing through a crisis, but this fact is better understood by 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 feels certain vague, romantic longings that she could ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... wisdom that I had reluctantly learnt, but that though the burden galled my shoulder, it held within it precious things which I could not throw away. And I had, too, the glad sense that even if in a childish petulance I would have laid my burden down and run off among the flowers, God was stronger than I, and would not suffer me to lose what I had gained. I might, I assuredly should, wish to be more free, more light of heart. But I seemed to myself like a woman that had borne a child in suffering, and that no ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was born of petulance rather than of snobbishness, but no such kindly discrimination would be made by any sharp-eared guest of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis, and the Cinnamon Creek ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... me like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said—I had to let the neighbours ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... called a genius for friendship. He did not, indeed, wear his heart upon his sleeve, but ties once formed were never unloosed by any failure in charitable and tender affection on his part. Never, throughout a lengthy life, did irritability and erratic petulance (displayed 'tis true, at times by the translator of "that large infidel"), darken the eyes of those he honoured with his friendship to the simple and whole-hearted ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... offspring, and the rash policy of her urging Abraham to take this Egyptian servant as a concubine, have been already mentioned, as well as the unhappy differences it occasioned in the family. We have seen the pride of Hagar, the petulance of Sarah, and the consent of Abraham that she should be banished from their dwelling. Let us follow the fugitive into the wilderness, and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... now an English classic. It is striking, to see a man of talent thus vindicating his genius in the grave, making a posthumous defence of his character, and compelling posterity to acknowledge the distinctions of which he was defrauded by the petulance of his time. His example and his success administer a moral which ought not to be thrown away. There are many individuals in our own time, who might thus nobly avenge themselves on the injustice of their age. The Frenchman's maxim, Il n'y a que ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... in the dining room before us; she was there when we came in, and we all nodded slightly in greeting. To the actor she was very kind, quite making up for her petulance of the afternoon. ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... appeared on 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 ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... numerous a population for a cabin of those dimensions. In the silent watches of the night, with his head on a duck and a pig on his stomach, he had frequently revolved this idea in his young but apt mind, and at last, though not in any spirit of petulance, he formed the resolution which gave shape and purpose to his ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... love me at all, when you want a great hulking boatman to be in the boat with us, watching us," said the bride, with pretty childish petulance. ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... with an almost infantile petulance that appealed to him as pathetic. There was something terrible about Anne when armoured in the cold steel of her spirituality, taking her stand upon a lofty principle. But Anne, sitting on a high-backed chair, uttering tremulous absurdities, Anne, protected by the unconscious humour ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... help thinking of the first time his eyes had lighted on her, mounting the zigzags of the Castle-hill. There was still the same elasticity of step, the same imperial carriage of the graceful head; but a less observant eye would have detected the change in her demeanor. The pretty petulance and provocative manner which, contrasting with the royalty of her form and feature, contributed so much to her marvelous fascinations, had departed, he feared, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... 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 ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "your little fit of petulance being over, let me ask you once more, and for the last time, will you or will you not afford ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood |
