"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pecked at the viands as a bird might do, and I scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole stay in the country. Both at Parker's Hotel in Boston, and at the Westminster in New York, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort and happiness, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day, with the hope that he might be induced to try unwonted things and get up again the habit of eating more; but the influenza, that seized him with such ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... night, the question which had so much troubled me suddenly resolved itself, and I became convinced that the change in the manner of my secretary was due to increased pressure of the rules of the House of Martha. I would not, I could not, believe that a fit of pique, occasioned by my apparent want of interest in her, could make her thus cold and even rude. She was not the kind of girl to do this thing of her own volition. It was those wretched rules; and if they were to be enforced in this way, the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... little octoroon, who had heard read the letter which I left for my mother, giving the motives for my self-exile, had repeated it to all the neighborhood, so that I not only had failed, but became the butt of the jokes of the boys of the neighborhood, who already held a pique against me for my serious ways and my habit of rebuking certain vices amongst them. I was jeered at as the boy "who left his mother to seek religion," and this made life for a time almost intolerable. But it was in part compensated for by the change in the situation in the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... at Pigeoncot; how he will have two thousand a year more when his uncle dies; how she had peremptorily to put a stop to the assiduities of that unprincipled young man, Lord Roughhead, whom Lavinia always detested, and who married Miss Brent out of sheer pique. It was a great escape for her darling Lavinia. Roughhead is a most wild and dissipated young man, one of Kicklebury's Christchurch friends, of whom her son has too many, alas! and she enters into many particulars respecting the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... esteemed by every one. Neither pique nor passion nor petty feelings could ever influence her mind. She is the most angelic, good woman I ever met—she is one to whom one may complain, and be a bore. She has such ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... she is related to everybody in France. No sooner does any grandee die, than she puts on mourning. Ah well! if she is such a great lady, why did she condescend to become a catin? She ought to expire with shame: for myself, it is my profession; I don't pique myself on anything else. The King keeps me; I am at present his solely. I have brought him a son, whom I intend he shall acknowledge, and I am assured that he will, for he loves me quite as well as he does his Portsmouth.' ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... and Boarham have severally taken occasion by his neglect of me to renew their advances; and if I were like Annabella and some others I should take advantage of their perseverance to endeavour to pique him into a revival of affection; but, justice and honesty apart, I could not bear to do it. I am annoyed enough by their present persecutions without encouraging them further; and even if I did it would have precious ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... several years later, when a lady incited him to quarrel with one of his best friends on account of a groundless pique of hers. He went to Washington for the purpose of challenging the gentleman, and it was only after ample explanation had been made, showing that his friend had behaved with entire honor, that Pierce and Cilley, who were his advisers, could ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... inspired by a keen sensitiveness to his people's wants and the spirit of the age,—could not endure his commanding ascendency and haughty dictation, and accepted his resignation offered in a moment of pique. He fell even as Wolsey fell before Henry VIII.,—too great a man for a subject, yet always loyal to the principles of legitimacy and the will of his sovereign. But he retired at the age of seventy-five, with princely estates, unexampled honors, and the admiration and gratitude of his countrymen; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... had helped to pique my curiosity; and I felt desirous of knowing at least the name of this ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... helpless and ignorant about the commonest affairs of life, and the sight of American independence never inspired her with the idea of breaking the bondage in which she was spellbound. Still, she shrank back with instinctive horror from every advance of Gilbert's, and at last, to pique her, Lisette brought forward the intelligence that Allen ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... always disliked people who said or wrote "and/or," but he had no desire to antagonize the Power Utilities representative by showing personal pique. "Let me understand you clearly," he said. "Power Utilities wants to buy my rights ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... language. He rather fulfilled her ideal of the light-hearted student who had brought away the air of the university without being oppressed by its learning. She saw, with a curious little blending of pique and pleasure, that he was not in the least afraid of her, and that, while claiming to be simply a farmer, he unconsciously asserted by every word and glance that he was her equal. She had the penetration to recognize from the start that she could not patronize him in the slightest ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... interest to live unless he can live in the spirit, because his spiritual capacity, when unused, will lacerate and derange even his physical life. The brutal individualist falls into the same error into which despots fall when they declare war out of personal pique or tax the people to build themselves a pyramid, not discerning their country's interests, which they might have appropriated, from interests of their own which ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... hundred acres of the Tolliver plantation, which the school needed so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and ignorant white man, hating "niggers" only a shade more than he hated white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she was sure, even now when the promise of ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Bret Harte's stories lies in their originality of conception, their well-defined local color, and the chaste richness of their literary style. The power to pique one's interest to the last page belongs to Mr. Harte above all other writers of stories of American life. His latest book has all the good qualities of its predecessors. It tells a perfectly natural story ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... an instant to result disastrously. She had spent wakeful hours as a result of that meeting; but the cloud of apprehension had passed, leaving her sky serene again. And now Harboro had put aside the incident of the Mesquite Club ball as if it did not involve anything more than a question of pique. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... and the last signature of the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of complement to his ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion, John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She simpered and refused to go ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... right; it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at least ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... advice before we part: even the 'servant' may presume to counsel his 'master' as he is quitting his service. The landlord within is not one of those landlords who pique themselves on courtesy: and the gentleman tourist, with submission be it said, is not one of those tourists who travel with four horses,—or even by the stage-coach: and foot-travellers in England, especially ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... deal of bore and botheration; but, through Heaven's mercy, he merely spoke a few words, and left me. This is so unlike his deportment in times past, that I suspect "The Celestial Railroad" must have given him a pique; and, if so, I shall feel as if Providence had sufficiently rewarded me ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Cambridge. "The newcomer," says this critic, "was recognised as Mrs. James by a Prince of the Blood and his companions in the omnibus-box. Her beauty could not save her from insult; and, to avenge themselves on Mr. Lumley, for some pique, these chivalrous English gentlemen of the upper classes hooted a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... at a glance. Bennett was trying not to look discourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had been interrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I fancied that Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor and determined ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... Miss Gabriel repeated with a very positive nod of her head. "He has not been the same man since the Lord Proprietor took over the presidency of the Court and he refused, upon pique, to be elected an ordinary member. Say what you like, a man cannot be virtual Governor of the Islands one day and the next a mere nobody without its preying ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... defiantly, as though with a personal grievance against the polling-clerk. He had a vote, not as lessee of the business premises, but as his father's lodger. He despised Labour; he did not care what happened to Labour. In voting for Labour, he seemed to have the same satisfaction as if from pique he had voted against it because its stupidity ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... possibilities as well as Peter's. If any man were to turn the passionate stream of her nature back on herself, or to love—to see the woman rise above the fanatic—it should be I, not Peter. But I said nothing of this to him. I do not think he ever knew it at all. It began in pique on my side, then jealousy, lastly passion. Christopher, if I had loved her from the first beginning of things I should not be ashamed to meet your eyes now. Don't look round yet. I laid deliberate siege to her ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the second, Rufus or Rubens, i.e. Red, is another well-known figure. Like his father, he at first supported the barons, but soon after the battle of Lewes he took the King's side, and fought for him at Evesham. Again from pique he deserted him, returning to his allegiance once more in 1270. He was buried in the Abbey ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... chief opponent "in an affair upon which he knew his heart was so much set." [Footnote: Life, ii. 240.] It was characteristic of James that he should deal with a matter of vital interest to the kingdom, as if it was the fitting subject of petty personal pique. Anne undertook the duty, and begged her father no longer to oppose the Duke. Clarendon told her that she "did not enough understand the importance of that affair;" but he would speak to the Duke about it. At their interview, James renewed his tone of personal ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such reformers ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... abstracted, listless, and utterly desolate. All day he had gone over again and again the details of the interview with Mr. Haim, his telegram to Marguerite and her unspeakable telegram to him, hugging close a terrific grievance. Only from pique against Marguerite had he accepted Lucas's invitation. The adventure in Piccadilly Circus had somewhat enlivened him, and now the fluttering prospect of acquaintance with the legendary Irene Wheeler pushed Marguerite into the background of his mind, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in your way," he added with an air of some pique ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... In a moment of pique Girty had deserted his military post at Fort Pitt, and become an outlaw of his own volition. Previous to that time he had been an able soldier, and a good fellow. When he realized that his step was irrevocable, that even his best ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... a slight indication of pique in her tone, hastened to kiss her, and call her her best and dearest friend. But in her heart she mourned over what she considered, for the first time in her life, a great mistake in ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... I have on no occasion sanctioned the baser motives of private pique, envy, revenge, and love of detraction. At least I have not recommended harsh treatment upon any of these grounds. I have argued simply on the abstract moral principle which a Reviewer should ever have present to his mind: but ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... refreshment, and the agonising consciousness that all her own physical pleasure at the moment was destroyed by the mental sufferings she endured at having quarrelled with her son, and that he was depriving himself of what was so agreeable only to pique her, quite overwhelmed the ill-regulated mind of this fond mother. Between each sip and each mouthful, she appealed to him to follow her example, now with cajolery, now with menace, till at length, worked up by the united stimulus of the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... his lordship, when the dinner hour came an invitation was sent up to me by the housekeeper, from which I understood I was to dine at what is called the second table. At this time I had much pride and little philosophy, and a more effectual way to pique that pride could not have been found. I returned a civil answer, the purport of which was that I should dine out, and immediately wrote a short note to his lordship; informing him that 'I took it for granted his housekeeper had mistaken his intentions, and did not understand the terms on ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Richard Burton." No denizen of Grub Street in the coarse old day of British mob-savagery could have produced a more damning specimen of wilful falsehood, undignified scurrility and brutal malevolence, in order to gratify a well-known pique, private and personal. The "Saturday Reviler"—there is, I repeat, much virtue in a soubriquet—has grown only somewhat feebler, not kindlier, not more sympathetic since the clever author of "In Her Majesty's Keeping" styled ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... with generous baskets of food and drink. Finding their sweethearts so merrily employed, "Just look at them!" they say; "As we live, they are dancing! The ladies do certainly seem superfluous!" With a playful feint of pique they pass without further notice the lighted, noisy ship, and go toward the Hollander, whose blood-tinted sails and black masts form but a grim silhouette against the star-sown sky. "Hi, girls,—stop! Where are you going?" the simple-minded ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... atheistical sentiments (possibly but a transient vagary of his youth) was the ostensible cause of his banishment from Odessa to his paternal estate of Mikhailovskoe in the province of Pskoff. Some, however, aver that personal pique on the part of Count Vorontsoff, the Governor of Odessa, played a part in the transaction. Be this as it may, the consequences were serious for the poet, who was not only placed under the surveillance of the police, but expelled from the Foreign Office by express order of the Tsar ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, except in a moral light, as a penance, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Earl had a private pique at Charles, ever since he refused to sail to Scotland with the Prince in a herring-boat, in 1744. He had also been estranged by Charles's treatment of Goring in 1754. Moreover, he was playing for a pardon. We might conceivably discount the Lord Marischal, and Dr. King's censures in his ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... She had heard of pique driving persons to make a fresh choice, when a former attachment appeared obliterated by indignation, only to revive too late, and to be the misery of all parties. Percy's late words, harsh when he fancied them indifferent, made her doubtful whether it might not be so in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... again, his love for Agatha tormented him. He had thought to pique her by a show of indifference himself, but he found that this plan did not answer: it was evident, even to him, that Agatha was not vexed by his silence, his altered demeanour, and sudden departure. He had miscalculated her ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the ceremony proceeded and he observed her absent-ness, her vacancy, her pathetic imbecility, he began to be oppressed by an awful sense of her consciousness of error. Was she taking this step out of pique? Was she thinking to punish him, forgetting the price she would have to pay? Would she awake to-morrow morning with her vexation and vanity gone, face to face with a hideous future—the worst and most terrible that is possible to any woman—that ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... indeed, she had been much more frightened than attracted by the conduct of her admirer, and really felt it a relief, notwithstanding her pique, when he retired into a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... instant, Olive struggled with her pique. Then she cast it off, and looked up at Dolph with her ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Granville, "Never mind, Gerald," he pursued good humouredly "she is a splendid girl, and one that you need not be ashamed to own as a conquest. By heaven, she has a bust and hips to warm the bosom of an anchorite, and depend upon it, all that Cranstoun has said arises only from pique that he is not the object preferred. These black eyes of hers have set his ice blood on the boil, and he would willingly exchange places with you, at I ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... strong a mind—much too marked a character of her own, to be made Lady Anything by Lord Anybody. Lord Cashel might possibly prevent her from marrying Frank, especially as she had been weak enough, through ill-founded pique and anger, to lend him her name for dismissing him; but neither he nor anyone else could make her accept one man, while she loved another, and while that other ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... for her spite against you, Henry. You told her to decline Richard Raby, and so she declined him. Spite, indeed! The gentle pique of a lovely, good girl, who knows her value, though she is too modest to show it openly. Well, Henry, you have lost her a husband, and she has given you one more proof of affection. Don't build the mountain of ingratitude any higher: do pray take the cure that ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... property is all mine,—anything that’s loose on the place. Perhaps my grandfather planted old plate and government bonds just to pique the curiosity of his heirs, successors and assigns. It would ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... very much to be commended for having taken care, in giving a general idea of Aristophanes's writings, to throw a veil over those parts of them that might have given offence to modesty. Though such behaviour be the indispensable rule of religion, it is not always observed by those who pique themselves most on their erudition, and sometimes prefer the title of ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... raised against me with unexampled fury in every part of Europe. All the gazettes, journals and pamphlets, rang the alarm-bell. The French especially, that mild, generous, and polished people, who so much pique themselves upon their attention and proper condescension to the unfortunate, instantly forgetting their favorite virtues, signalized themselves by the number and violence of the outrages with which, while each seemed to strive who should afflict me most, they overwhelmed ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... than Paris was that morning, at that charming golden hour of the day when the world seems peopled only with good and generous spirits who love one another. Paris does not pique herself on her generosity; but she still takes to herself at this charming hour an air of innocence, cheerfulness, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... no letter! Very well! I know what I will do. I am almost certain I will do it. But first I will go down to the beach and give it a couple of hours' sober reflection. No one shall say I acted hastily, ill-advisedly, or in pique. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... were advised by George Thomas, who had instigated them to this violence out of pique against the Begam for her preference of the Frenchman,[29] to set aside their puppet and reseat the Begam in the command, as the only chance of keeping the territory of Sardhana.[30] 'If', said he, 'the Begam should die under the torture of mind and body ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... himself for the afternoon. Perhaps it was the haunting tyranny of the defunct Hector; perhaps it was pique at being baffled, so far, in finding the culprit; whatever may have been the reason, he was in an ominously uncompromising mood when at last he returned to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... Dorset—and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not—set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." A year later, in another letter to Moore, he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the truest, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." (March 8, 1816.)—Letters, 1899, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... elapsed. She had evidently forgotten him. She might, at least, have been civil. He took refuge again in his reserve. But it was now mixed with a certain pique. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... now to reveal the immediate object of this mighty and chivalrous preparation, which had, in fact, the gratification of a royal pique at bottom. The severe lesson which Ferdinand had received from the veteran Ali Atar before the walls of Loxa, though it had been of great service in rendering him wary in his attacks upon fortified places, yet rankled sorely in his mind, and he had ever since held Loxa ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... you didn't read your paper very carefully," said Raffles, with the first trace of pique in his tone. "It was rain that closed play before five o'clock. I hear it was a sultry day in town, but at Manchester we got the storm, and the ground was under water in ten minutes. I never saw ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... comfortable in your position, and yet you—Oh! I suppose the real truth of the matter is, that you have heard of something better, and you are ready to give us the go-by in order to improve your own circumstances?" said Mr. Balderby, with a tone of pique; "though I really don't see how you can very well be better off anywhere than you are here," ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... other explanation than that afforded by the unconscious girl over whom Clancy watched. He had heard of the young man's devotion to Miss Ainsley, and, from what he had seen, believed that they were affianced. He was too just and large in his judgment to think Mara's course toward him was due to pique and wounded pride, and he was not long in arriving at a very fair explanation of her motives and action. Keenly intelligent and mature in years he was beyond the period of passionate and inconsiderate resentment. Moreover his love for the orphan girl ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... pique because Urdaneta's advice to colonize New Guinea had been disregarded, and because these islands were, as Urdaneta declared, in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... I feared she was not so just, and hoped she would prove more yielding. I knew that her affections were strong and enduring, but that her temperament was capricious, and her sunniest moods easily overcast by some small cloud of jealousy or pique. I had never imagined, however, that she was capable of such intensity as was revealed by these few words of hers. As I say, I felt concerned. I had learned to like Malcolm Murchison, and had heartily ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... service with the Empire from any pique or folly, but from a necessity for adventure and for the refounding of my house. It might have chanced that I should marry: the land demanded an heir. My impoverishment weighed upon me like an ill deed, for all this belt of land is dependent upon the old house, which I can with such difficulty ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... But the phlegm or nullity of his being was not, after all, so complete as I have made it, perhaps, appear. He had one susceptibility which is more common with women than with men,—the susceptibility to pique. His amour propre was unforgiving: pique that, and he could do a rash thing, a foolish thing, a spiteful thing; pique that, and, prodigious! the watch went! He had a rooted pique against his marchioness. Apparently he had ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and my master said, I fear, Pamela, you have been hardly used, more than you'll say. I know my sister's passionate temper too well, to believe she could be over-civil to you, especially as it happened so unluckily that I was out. If, added he, she had no pique to you, my dear, yet what has passed between her and me, has so exasperated her, that I know she would have quarrelled with my horse, if she had thought I valued it, and nobody else was in her way. Dear sir, said I, don't say so of ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... compliance with the resentment of a prostitute,1 at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the SAMNIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the MEGARENSIANS,2 another nation of Greece, or to avoid a prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a supposed theft of the statuary Phidias,3 or to get rid of the accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Ladies' Home Journal began one of the most popular series it ever published. It was called "Great Personal Events," and the picturesque titles explained them. He first pictured the enthusiastic evening "When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden," and, as Bok added to pique curiosity, "when people paid $20 to sit in rowboats ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... pinnacle of married experience. Fancy there being any need for anything else between us! they said. Their editor then supplied explanatory text: "Of course there may have been a soupcon of personal feeling in the case—bias, pique, whatever one likes to call it. You know, dear Mrs. Fenwick?" But Mrs. Fenwick waited for further illumination. "Well, you know ... I suppose it's rather a breach of confidence, only I know I shall ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... must leap with delight upon the disincumbered earth, where once stood that gloomy abode of "broken hearts," and reflect upon the sufferings of the wretched Latude, and the various victims of capricious pique, or prostitute resentment. It was here that, in the beautiful lines of Cowper, the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... him, whatever you do, that's certain," continued she, after a short pause, as the lad leaned back upon his seat without deigning a reply. Then taking up the thin hand that lay upon his knee, she kissed it affectionately as if to atone for the momentary pique against him; but her eyes followed the poor boy until he was no longer visible among the crowd, and she was thinking of the pitiful expression, and contrasting it with the trustful, hopeful one that she had last seen from the lonely library, and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... more organic fusion of the different portions of a movement—Mozart's lines of demarcation being perfectly clear but not so rigid as in Haydn; the much greater richness of the whole musical fabric, due to Mozart's marvellous skill in polyphony. The time had not yet come when the composer could pique the fancy of the hearer by unexpected structural devices or even lead him off on a false trail as was so often done by Beethoven. Both Haydn and Mozart are homophonic composers, i.e., the outpouring of individual melodies is the chief factor ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... and were, of course, unanimous; though it is difficult to say how far they were influenced by sound argument and how far by pique and a desire to thwart the Englishman. While they sat, Captain Salt remained on deck cursing quietly and examining the approaching ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hardness of heart and deed. Yet she recognised guiltily her own share in that hardness. She had played with and goaded him; she had used Radowitz to punish him; her championship of the boy had become in the end mere pique with Falloden; and she was partly responsible for what had happened. She could not recall Falloden's face and voice on their last walk without realising that she had hit him recklessly hard, and that her conduct to him had been one of the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... saw it, Roddy was acting from pique and in the belief that his father would continue to supply him with funds. This Caldwell knew was not the intention of Mr. Forrester. He had directed Caldwell to inform Roddy that if he deliberately opposed him he must not only seek work elsewhere, but that he did not think he should ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... to pique him with this adjective, she was disarmed by the heartiness of his admission, "As green as grass! But I'd like to help you all the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... hand could maintain what the brow menaced," returned Montreal, with haughtiness; for he had much of the Franc vivacity which often overcame his prudence; and he had conceived a secret pique against Adrian since their interview at ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... an element of personal charm. Close acquaintance with the cosmopolitan society of Paris and London had familiarized her with many types of European and American beauty, and her surprise that such an uncommonly good-looking girl should be the niece of David Verity was not unmingled with pique at finding her already ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... no doubt, very sensible to your good opinion," remarked the captain, with evident pique; "but, Winnebeg, as I am sure you never allow a white man to interfere with you, when you find fault with your young chiefs, you must let ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... He announced his rank and authority, to which the answer was, "We only know the prefect by his clothes." Now it had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat; nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so, when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down with the green ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange! how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking characters—because I am too proud of my character as a man, to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biased against squalid poverty—I was unacquainted ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... have infuriated them, but it served to pique. He wasn't actually as unconcerned as he appeared, but he had early learned that effort in their direction was unnecessary. Nick had little imagination; a gorgeous selfishness; a tolerantly contemptuous liking for the ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... about a sharp debate upon the Confederate Government and its military policy. Rhett made a remarkable address, which should of itself quiet forever the old tale that he was animated in his opposition solely by the pique of a disappointed candidate for the presidency. Though as sharp as ever against the Government and though agreeing wholly with the spirit of the state army plan, he took the ground that circumstances at the moment rendered the organization of such an ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... or sarcastic letters when your offerings are rejected. You may need the good-will of that editor some day. Although personal pique seldom actuates him, he may be frail enough to be annoyed when ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... wounded pride struggled with John's relief; but then a glorious vision of what this admission of Mary's might mean to him swept away his pique. ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... a little pique, though her face was pleasant as ever. "Surely your own ideas are to a ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... not at all, being but semi-conscious. Looked upon thoughtfully, it is a coincidence that we breathe; certainly it is a mighty coincidence that we speak to one another and comprehend; for these are true marvels. But what petty interlacings of human action so pique our sense of the theatrical that we call them coincidences and are astonished! That Julia should arrive during Noble's long process of buying a ticket to go to her was stranger than that she stopped to look at him, though still not comparable ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... riotous, gave always a zest to the tete-a-tete which otherwise it might have lacked. She was, truth to tell, a little disappointed to find him after each visit no more alarming than he had been before. She even tried to pique him into an exhibition of the "dangerous" symptom, treating him with the caprice and the disdain she dared not have shown but for Emily's repeated assurance she could play as she liked with him and he would never take offence. The mother, Deleah, even little Franky, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... that, next to the letter itself, the news of its seizure was the best thing he could deliver—also, it was his duty to advise the Embassy at the quickest possible moment. You see, dear lady, personal pride and pique play no part in this game. They are not even considered; it's the execution of the mission that's the one important thing; all else is made to bend to that ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... unworthy of her loyalty either to Giovanni's love or to Jack's friendship. Jack was her best friend, almost her brother, and she had no right to feel so limp because—she did not finish the sentence even to herself; yet she was swept into such a turmoil of emotion—friendship, love, pique, doubt—that she could restore nothing to order. She knew Derby thought Giovanni wanted her money—instinctively her mouth hardened as she thought of it—but then—every one wanted it except Jack! And at once, with an unaccountable baffling ache, she was brought ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Yes, it was from her sister-in-law as she had expected. Eva was always falling into foolish little flurries and rushing to consult friends and relatives by mail or wire or word of mouth. Possibly this important communication was a request for advice about the babies' pique coats. It could wait for a reading till Berta had found a safe refuge from the girls who would certainly surround her as soon as chapel was over. They would ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... each other that our divinity was a strong divinity and would come victorious out of this ordeal. We began at last to fancy that we had not worked enough on the soldier, that he would forget the dispute, and that we ought to pique his vanity more keenly. From that day we began to live a different life, a life of nervous tension, such as we had never known before. We spent whole days in arguing together; we all grew, as it were, sharper; ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... your Majesty," said Albert—and then stopped short, from the difficulty of finding words to express the unpleasant nature of his feelings. They could not escape Charles; but he proceeded without scruple. "I pique myself on seeing as far into the hearts of young ladies as most folk, though God knows they are sometimes too deep for the wisest of us. But I mentioned to your sister in my character of fortune-teller,—thinking, poor simple man, that a country girl must have no one but her brother to dream ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... white pique coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and pale blue hat—and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes. She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I have just brought Madame Mere a present of eight fine carriage-horses. She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... with envy and despair. Her's ain't half so nice, you see. Did I write you, Belle, about How she tried for Charley, till I sailed in and cut her out? Now, she's taken Jack McBride, I believe it's all from pique— Threw him over once, you know— Hates me so she'll scarcely speak. Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that— Pa won't mind expense at last I'll be off his hands for good; Cost a fortune two years past. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... glass after glass of wine, she became more and more amiable toward Fandor. And since the King paid little attention to her caresses, she began a flirtation with the journalist in order to pique him. ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered: his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he crossed ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... the house must be done all over again, and exactly as you would like it; so there's no more to be said about it,' said George, without a trace of pique ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... while the eatables were spread in a kitchen metamorphosed with decorations of crinkled paper, they found, buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the Rye Quartet, consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello, and his two daughters with fiddles and white pique frocks. At first the music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... in obedience to a conviction of duty. His unfailing courage and good sense won fights that the incompetency or cankering jealousy of commanders had lost. High officers were occasionally disloyal, or willing to sacrifice their country to personal pique; still more frequently they were ignorant and inefficient; but the enlisted man had more than enough innate soldiership to make amends for these deficiencies, and his superb conduct often brought honors and promotions to those only ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... here's the agent . . . is 't the name? The captain, or whoever's master here— 120 You see him screw his face up; what's his cry Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!" If you won't understand what six feet mean, Compute and purchase stores accordingly— And if, in pique because he overhauls Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board Bare—why, you cut a figure at the first While sympathetic landsmen see you off; Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, You peep up from ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... have passed since I began this journal! I have just been looking over it from the commencement. Many and various are the feelings which it attempts to describe—anger, pique, joy, sorrow, hope, pleasure, weariness, ennui; but never, never once, humiliation or remorse!—these were not doomed to be my portion in the bright years of my earliest youth. How shall I describe ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... week in January. The Duke was then at Matching with his wife and a very small party. The singular arrangement which had been effected by the Duchess in the early autumn had passed off without any wonderful effects. It had been done by her in pique, and the result had been apparently so absurd that it had at first frightened her. But in the end it answered very well. The Duke took great pleasure in Lady Rosina's company, and enjoyed the comparative ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... wish (like Mr. Fitzgerald, in the Morning Post) to claim the character of 'Vates' in all its translations, but were they not a little prophetic? I mean those beginning, 'There's not a joy the world can,' &c. &c., on which I rather pique myself as being the truest, though the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not even permitted to suffer any considerable pecuniary loss by reason of their breach of the law. Finding that their conduct led to their being made the subjects of a sort of hero-worship, it is not surprising that they soon came to pique themselves upon what they had done, and, so far from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the papers on the subject, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... get a little more light on the question, but Chairman Presson was ready for them and hustled them into the carriage. And on the ride to the station, during the journey by train, at the convention city, there were other matters uppermost besides a young man's pique. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... our ancestors called those who supported them. The nobles manage things much more daintily. For the rest, you saw yourself what happened at Avignon. If you had been told that, you would never have believed it, would you? Those gentlemen pillagers of stage coaches pique themselves on their great delicacy. They have two faces, not counting their mask. Sometimes they are Cartouche and Mandrin, sometimes Amadis and Galahad. They tell fabulous tales of these heroes of the highways. My mother told me yesterday of one called Laurent. You understand, my dear ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... flushed, but no longer with pique. Her voice quavered, and broke; and finally there fell upon the faded page of ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... cannot and dare not attack us in Parliament, they do everything that they can to be personally rude to me.... The Whigs are the only safe and loyal people, and the Radicals will also rally round their Queen to protect her from the Tories; but it is a curious sight to see those, who as Tories, used to pique themselves upon their excessive loyalty, doing everything to degrade their young Sovereign in the eyes of the people. Of course ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Weary reiterated—ungenerously, perhaps; but it was the only card he felt sure of. There was no gainsaying that fact, it seemed. She had married Spikes in a fit of pique at Irish. Still, it was not well to remind her of it too often. In the next five minutes of tumultuous recrimination, Weary had cause to remember what Shakespeare has to say about a woman scorned, and he wondered, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... "Carlisle Arms." On a certain occasion, when the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Carlisle, was making some sort of progress through Ireland, he proposed stopping at the hotel at Maam, a hotel under the thumb of the late Lord Leitrim, who had some pique at the Lord Lieutenant, which determined him to order under pain of the usual penalty that there be no admittance to the Viceroy of Ireland at this hotel. His Lordship for once felt the power of a text of Scripture, and sent orders that from the highways ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... feeling corrected by the dictates of duty did not escape the Moslem, who, if he did not entirely understand all which it conveyed, saw enough to convince him with the assurance that Christians, as well as Moslemah, had private feelings of personal pique, and national quarrels, which were not entirely reconcilable. But the Saracens were a race, polished, perhaps, to the utmost extent which their religion permitted, and particularly capable of entertaining high ideas of courtesy and politeness; and such sentiments prevented ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... pressed upon the attention of Congress during its present session. In 1870 an admirable law was passed by the House of Representatives under the skilful and intelligent leadership of Hon. James A. Garfield, but it failed in the Senate because of the apathy of some and the personal pique of others. It seems incredible that in that dignified body so little attention was paid to this vast subject. Again and again its consideration was postponed because a sufficient attendance could not be secured ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... The gray eyes were laughing at him. Was his jealousy then so apparent? And was it jealousy? Evidently, since she had discovered it. And that vexed him, because he had supposed that he was hiding his pique under a great self control. Angrily he stepped toward her, but the saucy eyes only grew merrier. Then his mood changed. He resolved grimly on open fighting. He meant to have either decisive honors or a decisive repulse. For it was his tantalizing doubts ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... half sheet, but it was as much as I could do to read your letter a second time, and it was only by making a great effort that I was able to write a few lines. However, this morning I will try and continue, in order to reward you, not for that one which you have deprived me of from pique, but for those bewitching ones which ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... meekest and the humblest of men, even when we carry the most magnificent of messages. But when our own hearts are not right the very magnificence of our message, and the very authority of our Master, become all so many subtle temptations to pride, pique, self-importance, and lothness-to-stoop. With so much still to learn, how slow we ministers are to stoop to learn! How still we stand, and even go back, when all other men are going forward! How few of us have made the ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... at all, she must have done so just to pique Janice, not understanding how really valuable the contents of the box were. If possible, Mr. Day wished to recover the lost box without the publicity of going to the police, both for Olga's sake ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... also, it stood in her own mind as the only amends she could offer him for having married him without love. It was her father who made the match; and Amelia had succumbed, not through the obedience claimed by parents of an elder day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power—gone home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... be kept cool, therefore do not use a sunbonnet which shuts out all of the air. Muslin caps and light pique hats provide enough shade, if the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... met the Irish Dr. Campbell. Johnson had supped the night before at Mrs. Abington's, with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to pique his MISTRESS a little with jealousy of her housewifery; for he said, (with a smile,) 'Mrs. Abington's jelly, my dear lady, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... impulse to hold out her hands, to say, 'Jerry, don't go! 'If she only knew! Was he going because he thought that she wished to dismiss him, or because he wished to dismiss himself? Was it pique that bade him carry the play to the end, or was it merely the desire to get out of ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... who contended that there was no reason why they should not coalesce with Canning and Peel. What induced him to alter his opinion so decidedly and to become so bitter an enemy to the present arrangements does not appear, unless it is to be attributed to a feeling of pique and resentment at not having been more consulted, or that overtures were not made to himself. The pretext he took for declaring himself was the appointment of Copley to be Chancellor, when he said that it was impossible to support ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... moral importance that I was not disposed to concede without knowing more about him. I suppose an Arab feels the same sensation when a Westerner lords it over him on highly moral grounds. At any rate, something or other in the way of pique urged me to stir him out of his self-complacency, just as one feels urged to prod a bull-frog ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin's love for himself. He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn's offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised that he would come. It did seem natural to him that she should have desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to depart from it. And then her jealousy about Lucy's ring, and her ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... in question as extraordinary as they may, will never see anything beyond what he possesses himself, for the very good reason that this is all he wants to see. If there is anything on which he is in doubt, it will give him a vague sense of fear, mixed with pique; because it passes his comprehension, and therefore is ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... over. She was rosy and round with her mother's blue eyes. She wore a little buttoned hat of white pique, with strings ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... me, Mr. De Gex," I replied with pique. "It would be so much easier if you would be ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... "Galanthis, one who tended me, of race "Plebeian; yellow-hair'd; and sedulous "What order'd to perform; and much esteem'd "For courteous deeds;—she first suspected, (what, "I know not) somewhat, form'd by Juno's pique: "And while she constant pass'd; now to, now fro, "She saw the goddess on the altar sit, "Girding her arms, with close-knit fingers o'er "Her knees, and said;—O dame, whoe'er thou art, "Our mistress gratulate. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the sweet insolence of youth, health, colour, beauty; of the bud just burst into full flower. The other wore the stamp of care, of the much knowledge wherein is much sorrow, and in her eyes dwelled the ghosts of dead years. She herself looked like a ghost-dressed in white pique, which of itself drew the colour from her white face and pale lips and mass of faint straw-coloured hair, the pallor of all which was accentuated by the red spots on her ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... her shoulder. Derek and Lady Underhill were merged into the mass of refugees. She could not see them. For an instant a little spasm of pique stung her at the thought that Derek had deserted her. She groped her way after her companion, and presently they came by way of a lower box to the iron pass-door ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... she looked appealingly up at Latisan he was steadfastly staring past her. Her impulses were already galloping, but the instant prick of pique was the final urge which made the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... pique they had against him was his opposing the law by which the city was to be divided; for the tribunes of the people brought forward a motion that the people and senate should be divided into two parts, one of which should remain at home, the other, as the lot should decide, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had worked and happily (or unhappily) as Marcia's pique and ill-humor had fitted into it, I could not believe that Jerry's revolt had ended matters. Even if the boy had been willing to end them (a thing of which I was not at all sure), Marcia Van Wyck was not the kind of girl to retire on this ungraceful climax, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... should be a matter of such disagreeable duty to you, Signora Violante," said Ludovico in a tone of pretended pique. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined that no slightest stain should remain on ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... almost made mad sometimes. I can't stay still in any place, but wander about always restless and unhappy. All my friends have been false to me—all. There is no such thing as an honest man in the world. I was the truest wife that ever lived, though I married my husband out of pique, because somebody else—but never mind that. I was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted me. I was the fondest mother. I had but one child, one darling, one hope, one joy, which I held to my heart ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... operation to prevent Parliament and the people from enjoying the Administration they desired, and which it was their particular interest to have, it tends to establish a dangerous precedent, that would afford too much opportunity of private pique against the public interest. I, for one, therefore, refused to connect myself with any one argument that should sanction that principle; and, in my opinion, every man who accepted office under that Administration ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... adopted by the worthy man was in keeping with his manners and his countenance. No power could have made him give up the white muslin cravats, with ends embroidered by his wife or daughter, which hung down beneath his chin. His waistcoat of white pique, squarely buttoned, came down low over his stomach, which was rather protuberant, for he was somewhat fat. He wore blue trousers, black silk stockings, and shoes with ribbon ties, which were often unfastened. His ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac |
