"Querulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mingling with her dreams. But in a while she wakened quite, and heard the double knocks one after another in quick succession; and huddling on her clothes, and muttering to herself all the way, she got into the hall, and standing a couple of yards away from the door, answered in shrill and querulous tones, and questioning the messenger ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... on the bed took form in words which, while strong in their note of calamity, yet expressed a querulous mental reaching for some near thing to blame. "And it'll be lucky fer us if we ain't both butchered in our sleep—plundering and running off horses—old Santo's gone—you see ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... conference between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian clergy. He was willing to sacrifice non-essentials to peace; but personal disputations were more apt to confirm than to remove prejudices. One party would be too querulous, the other too tenacious. Personal considerations would mix in the dispute; difficulties would be started; objections raised, when none, in fact, existed; and, in the heat of debate, real improvements would be rejected, which, in the calm seclusion of the closet, would be allowed to be important. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Poor, querulous, feeble-minded Felix, with a foul fistula, which filled the whole ward with its odour. In one sleeping hand lay his little round mirror, in the other, he clutched his comb. With daylight, he would trim and comb his moustache, his poor, little drooping moustache, ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... "spiritoolly edifyin' and condoocive to grace." Drifting between cat-naps Shelby usually found it a fillip to the fancy. He would detect infant damnation and argument for sprinkling in the deep boom of the Presbyterian bell, and instant dissent in the querulous note of the Baptist, whose echo droned "i-m-m-e-r-s-i-o-n" to infinity. This was the cue for a jaunty flaunting of apostolic succession on the part of the Episcopalian sexton, only to be himself reminded by the First Methodist that there were bishops and bishops. So on, assertion, rejoinder, surrejoinder, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... the ship's coming, alone upon the Needle. This promontory is like a Titan's finger of black rock thrust out into the water. The day was perishing, and the querulous sea before Demetrios was an unresting welter of gold ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... understood to make these things subject for reproach or complaint; I dare not do so; respect for my sister's memory forbids me. By her any such querulous manifestation would have been regarded as ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... reduced to only two ounces of rice per day, and had but two days' rations left. Other children, who were helping the nuns, moved noiselessly about among the prostrate forms. The hushed silence of sanctuary was broken only by low moaning, or the querulous sobbing of little children weary with pain. The Sister brought me to see one little mite, whom she called the "first fruit" ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... the most part on the platform of an engine, Maraton sped on his splendid mission. It was Ernshaw himself who drove, with the help of an assistant, but as they passed from place to place the veto was lifted. The men in some districts were a little querulous, but at Maraton's coming they were subdued. It was peace, a peace how splendid they were soon to know. By mid-day, trains laden with coal were rushing to several of the Channel ports. Maraton found his task with ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was going to hold out indefinitely against the encroachments of civilization upon the old order of things on the range. And it had begun to look as though he was going to best Time at his own game, and refuse also to grow old; as though he would go on being the same pudgy, grizzled, humorously querulous Old Man beloved of his men, the Happy Family of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... been saying their hands are sore, Minnie?" she asked, in the faint, querulous voice that would not ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... whether his Passions (especially those of the gentler Kind) play easie, since it is not his Wit, but the Delicacy and Tenderness of his Sentiments, that will affect his Readers. His Versification likewise should be soft, and all his Numbers flowing and querulous. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... moments the silence remained unbroken. Then young Monteith sprang to his feet and led the audience in a succession of mad cheers that indicated the depth of passion to which they were stirred. After the cheering had subsided Larry rose and in a slightly querulous tone and with a humorous smile ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... are quite altered now," continued she, in a querulous tone. "I always prophesied, that you would cease ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... thought, with shame and remorse, of the few shillings which I had earned at various times by taking piecework home, to buy my candles for study. I whispered my doubts to Crossthwaite, as he sat, pale and determined, watching the excited and querulous discussions among ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the boy whispered. "They're always crowdin' me." His voice was querulous, uncomprehending, like that of a child complaining of something beyond his experience. "I can't remember when they haven't been crowdin' me. Movin' me on, you understand? Always movin' me on. Moved me out of India, then Cairo, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... nettled little Puddock—who never himself took a liberty, and expected similar treatment—but he knew Sturk, the nature of the beast, and he only bowed grandly, and went to pay his respects to cowed, kindly, querulous little Mrs. Sturk, at the other end of the room. An elderly gentleman, with a rather white face, a high forehead and grim look, was chatting briskly with her; and Puddock, the moment his eye lighted on the stranger, felt that there ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... this college glories in its associations with Erasmus, who was probably advised to go there by Bishop Fisher. There are certain of his letters extant which he dates from Queens', and it is interesting to find that he wrote in a querulous fashion of the bad wine and beer he had to drink when his friend Ammonius failed to send him his usual cask of the best Greek wine. He also complained of being beset by thieves, and being shut up because of plague, but it need not be thought from this that Cambridge was ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... a few more of the tourists who are picking their way over the continent, would illustrate their books of travels with such noble sentiments as are contained in these few lines—instead of the querulous whinings about cheap and dear living, the miseries of our climate, and a thousand other ills of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... male and female, no doubt—were seen at that moment by the edge of the thicket, out of which the hunters had just emerged. Both were standing on their hind limbs, and both uttering the strange snuffing noise that had attracted attention to them. Other noises were now mingled with these—sharp querulous grunts—and, by the gestures which the bears were making, it was evident they not only saw the three hunters in the open ground, but were reconnoitring them perhaps with an intention to make an ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... The feather'd quiristers] Imitated by Boccaccio, Fiammetta, 1. iv. "Odi i queruli uccelli," &c. —"Hear the querulous birds plaining with sweet songs, and the boughs trembling, and, moved by a gentle wind, as it were keeping tenor to ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... grew pink and white. Through the lengthening days we toiled in the truck patch, but always as I bent to my work Polly Ann's face saddened me—it had once been so bright, and it should have been so at this season. Old Mr. Ripley grew querulous and savage and hard to please. In the evening, when my work was done, I often lay on the banks of the stream staring at the high ridge (its ragged edges the setting sun burned a molten gold), and the thought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made me alive again: my last night's epistle was childishly querulous; but you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... out our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone about vino nobile, biftek, and possibly a polio arrosto, or a dish of tord? At the end of the half-hour, as he was well aware, self-congratulations and visions of a hearty supper would turn to discontented wailings, and the querulous complaining of defrauded appetites. But the end of half an hour was still half an hour off; and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... praises of others, and of himself, is always intermingled a strain of discontent and lamentation, a sullen growl of resentment, or a querulous murmur of distress. His works are undervalued, his merit is unrewarded, and "he has few thanks to pay his stars that he was born among Englishmen." To his criticks he is sometimes contemptuous, sometimes resentful, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... myself, and of a moral character more manly and on a higher level, had chosen the navy, and went off to the preparatory college at Portsmouth. But he evidently underwent persecution for righteousness' sake at the college, which was then (say about 1820) in a bad condition. Of this, though he was never querulous, his letters bore the traces, and I cannot but think they must have exercised upon me some kind of influence for good. As to miscellaneous notices, I had a great affinity with the trades of joiners and of bricklayers. Physically I must have been ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... traveller, but it sinks heavily and damply in his heart. A stranger is at first unaware of the cause of the mental misery he endures; his temper sours as his spirits sink; every person, and every circumstance, annoys him; it affects even his dreams; sleep itself is not a refuge from querulous peevishness, and every motion is ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... Ruskin's life was a time of increasing sadness, due partly to the failure of his plans, and partly to public attacks upon his motives or upon his sanity. He grew bitter at first, as his critics ridiculed or denounced his principles, and at times his voice is as querulous as that of Carlyle. We are to remember, however, the conditions under which he struggled. His health had been shattered by successive attacks of disease; he had been disappointed in love; his marriage ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... was that miserable business about—about Kathleen," said Force, a querulous note creeping into his voice. Mr. Bingle did not think it worth while to tell him that it was the same miserable business that kept him awake. "Now, I want the truth, Bingle. I want to be sure before I go ahead. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... what I wanted. He was a little querulous, spiteful child now, and I had possession of him. I had seen his soul undressed and naked, and it frightened me. I felt more than anxiety for him; I felt compassion. And it was I that put him to bed that night. But meanwhile we were on the way to ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... the uneasy, querulous bleating of a goat, answered by the impatient cry of a kid, and now and again the satisfied grunting of pigs, though in those days they called them swine, of which there were several basking in the sunshine in the little farm attached to the villa, the little herd having shortly before ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... their mind and heart. They resorted more and more to those arts which are the weapons of crafty, ambitious, and unprincipled women. They were too apt to be cunning, false, intriguing. They were personally cowardly, as their own chronicles declare; querulous, passionate, prone to unmanly tears; prone, as their writings abundantly testify, to scold, to use the most virulent language against all who differed from them; they were, at times, fearfully cruel, as evil women will be; cruel with that worst cruelty which springs from cowardice. If I seem ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... necessary for the development of intelligence, and for the thorough enjoyment of our common nature. Of all wretched men, surely the idle are the most so;—those whose life is barren of utility, who have nothing to do except to gratify their senses. Are not such men the most querulous, miserable, and dissatisfied of all, constantly in a state of ennui, alike useless to themselves and to others—mere cumberers of the earth, who when removed are missed by none, and whom none regret? Most wretched and ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... not admit. In weary and querulous tones she began expatiating on the merits of her daughter: her fair hair, her graceful neck—until the African, bored and impatient, turned ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... my querulous companion went on. 'What will you be in South Kensington, I wonder? a sad and solitary Satan, disillusioned and distinguished, or a bluff, breezy sailor, fond of his bottle ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... Then comes the dreadful order, 'Take down your breeches, sir!'.... But the scene is too horrible to contemplate. He punishes all, this schoolmaster, for he is unbelievably old, and with the years' advance has grown querulous. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... did not know the human character. I had not sufficient conversation with him to judge of this. He was intimate with d'Invernois, who spoke highly of him. He had certainly none of our Irish vivacity, and fulness of imagery. He was rather querulous and prolix, than piquant, and declaimed rather than said sharp things. I said to him, "Why do you not endeavour, in your writings, to accommodate yourself more to the public taste?" He answered, in despair, "I cannot—I have no turn ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... brandy-and-water, and Esther sat at the table at work. They both came forward to greet the new arrival; and the girl, relieving him of his monstrous burthen, proceeded to display her offerings to her father. Van Tromp's countenance fell several degrees; he became quite querulous. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discomfort. He accepted the most nerve-racking situation with the even-tempered calmness of one who had foreseen it and to whom it was but a trivial incident, inevitable to his far-reaching plans. When others—their tempers tried to the breaking point—cursed with dry, high-pitched, querulous curses the heat, the land, the sun, the dust, the Company and their fellow-sufferers, Jefferson Worth's cool, even tones and unruffled spirit helped them to a needed self-control and gave them a new and stronger grip on things. ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... SOL. Hast pardoned me That I was querulous? But lovers crossed Wrangle with those that love them, as ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... high-ranged plaster cupids, whose cheeks and breasts and thighs were thrown comically into relief by a thick coating of dust. Here a permanent fog seemed to hang under the roof; only a few lights twinkled frugally; and the querulous voice of the programme-seller punctuated the monotonous torrent of feet. Row upon row, the seats were filled as if by tumultuous waters entering appointed channels, programmes rustled, sandwiches were drawn from clammy packets, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... man, and short of stature for a soldierly figure when out of the saddle. His gray hair was thinning in front, and his sharp querulous face was seamed in frowning pattern about the eyes. His forehead was fashioned on an intention of massiveness out of keeping with his tapering face, which ran out in a disappointing chin, and under the shadow of that projecting brow ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... there is endless consulting. The streets swarm strangely with busy crowds, pacific yet restless and loquacious; at intervals, is seen the gleam of military muskets; especially about the Palais, where Parlement, once more on duty, sits querulous, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... respect the alliance between Adrian and his wife was not an unfortunate one. A woman, and a woman of abilities, fastidious, and inclined to be querulous, might safely be counted on as, in general, ensuring for both parties in their union an unsatisfactory and unhappy life. But Adrian, though kind, generous, and indulgent, was so absorbed by his own great affairs, was a man ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hartright," he said in a querulous, croaking voice, which combined, in anything but an agreeable manner, a discordantly high tone with a drowsily languid utterance. "Pray sit down. And don't trouble yourself to move the chair, please. In the wretched state of my nerves, movement of any kind is exquisitely painful to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows, 15 The cattle shake their walnut bows; While peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. 20 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... fields, whose children, if she has them, must be as the perfectly discreet and peaceful, unravished Kore; on the other hand, we have Persephone, as the wholly terrible goddess of death, who brings to Ulysses the querulous shadows of the dead, and has the head of the gorgon Medusa in her keeping. And it is only when these two contrasted images have been [95] brought into intimate relationship, only when Kore and Persephone have been identified, that ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... business, and now they're beginning to find out it isn't all in my camp by a damned sight. I want that letter copied at once." Then with a glance at Gray, who had whipped off his cap and was standing in respectful attitude, he changed his tone from the querulous, half-treble of complaint. "What's this you'd best leave alone?" he suddenly demanded. "There are a dozen things you'd best leave alone and a dozen you would do well to cultivate and study. When I was—however, I never was a lieutenant except in war-time, when they amounted to something. I got my ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... had gone to the continent. Months passed. My poor father fretted sadly at the silence of Ellen, and the supposed rejection of his kind overtures. His unhappy state of mind had evidently an effect upon his body; he grew weaker and more querulous every day. At last a letter arrived from Ellen, which I now blush to say, gave me inexpressible joy. It announced the death of her husband— a trifling wound on the thumb having ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... first moments some thought would have crossed her mind—some faint, repressed satisfaction at being free at last—free to marry Giovanni Saracinesca. But it was not so. She did not feel free—she felt alone, intensely alone. She longed for the familiar sound of his querulous voice—for the expression of his thousand little wants and interests; she remembered tenderly his harmless little vanities. She thought of his wig, and she wept. So true it is that what is most ridiculous in life is most sorrowfully pathetic in death. There was not one of the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... in a querulous tone; "so I am, though I hear you well enough when you shout like that. Perhaps he'll be as deaf as I am when he's as old. There's nothing like youth for pride and impudence. But ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... exception of a reddish-brown streak down the middle of the back. When first taken, or when kept tied up, it is very timid and irritable. It will not allow itself to be approached, but keeps retreating backwards when any one attempts to coax it. It is always in a querulous humour, uttering a twittering, complaining noise; its dark, watchful eyes are expressive of distrust, and observant of every movement which takes place near it. When treated kindly, however, as it generally ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... her, never loved aught of hers beyond her jointure. And yet, there was the habit of thirty years. For thirty years they had been yoke-fellows, however detestable the yoke. But yesterday he had been alive and strong, a stupid, querulous thing maybe, but a living. And now he was so much carrion that should be given to the earth. In some such channel ran her ladyship's reflections during those few seconds in which she was recovering. For an instant she was softened. The long-since ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... He became a querulous advocate of slavery as a divine institution, and denounced woe upon the abolitionists for interfering with the will and purpose of the Creator. As the cause of freedom gained ground, the poor man's heart failed him, and his hope for church ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... emphasized in such a way as to mean doubt rather than certainty, as if trying to assure her own mind of a matter about which painful misgivings could not be banished. The quick ear of the sick man caught the tone, and in a querulous voice he said, "Oh! if he should not get here in time, it would be the last bitter drop in my cup, now full and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... He leaned heavily upon a stick, and he had the appearance of a man prematurely aged, as though by an illness or some great suffering. His tone, as he turned to his companion, was courteous enough but querulous. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... object," cried Summerlee in a querulous voice. "When we must die let us by all means die, but to deliberately anticipate death seems to me to be a foolish ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... VENERABLE BEDE, the father of English History, who died in 735; BONIFACE, the English Apostle to the Germans, whose martyrdom took place in 754; LANFRANC, to whose influence over the Conqueror the English owed what liberty William still allowed them to enjoy; PETER OF BLOIS, the gossiping but querulous archdeacon of Bath; THOMAS A BECKET, the greatest churchman of any time, and the fearless upholder of the rights of the Church against the usurpations of the Crown and his contemporaries; honest plain-spoken JOHN OF SALISBURY; ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... silently executed by the men. But the children had no awe of the gambler, and their protests were many and querulous. However, the tub was filled satisfactorily, and Scipio finally succeeded in fumbling the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... querulous. Have noticed sometimes, when a man hopelessly in the wrong, he is inclined to turn on his best friend and rend him. This Clongorey business, truly, a bad one. When, just now, SEXTON moved adjournment of House, in order to call attention to ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... at once that his mood had greatly changed. He rose slowly, dragging himself up out of his chair, as they came up to him, but shewing as he did so,—and perhaps somewhat assuming,—the impotency of querulous sickness. His wife went to him, and took him by the hand, and placed him back in his chair. He was weak, he said, and had not slept, and suffered from the heat; and then he begged her to give him wine. This she did, half filling for him a tumbler, of which he ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... sharp, decided tones, as he directed and helped them to lay the injured man upon the settee, where he subsided with a querulous cry, grinding his teeth the while, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... long, and the Grout youngsters had learned at an early date that Pop always forked over when he was nagged into it. Any of the children in trouble could always write or telegraph home a "must have," and it was always forthcoming. There usually followed a querulous note about "Sorry you have to have so much, but I suppose it costs a lot where you are. Make it go as far as you can, for I'm a little pinched just now." But this was taken as a mere ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... querulous, a whisper old, Feeble and hollow as if shut in a chest: "Take my face on your bosom; I am cold." She bared her holy bosom's truth-white nest, And forth her two hands instant went, love-bold, And took the face, and close against her pressed: Ah, the dead chill!—Was that the feet again?— But ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... tried to distract himself by fancying how the discovery of their absence would be made. He heard the listless, half-querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervaded the nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as he halted beside the wagon, and said, "Come out o' that now, you two, and mighty quick ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... his wife—sour, querulous, austere—came over him, but he said to himself, "She must take to such a child,—women always take to beauty." He bent down and gently pressed his lips to Sidney's forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and drew her brother to the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cottage." The fact was that Tom saw all things and persons with quite a different pair of eyes from those which he had been provided with when he arrived in Englebourn that morning. He even made allowances for old Mr. Winter, who was in his usual querulous state at luncheon, though perhaps it would have been difficult in the whole neighborhood to find a more pertinent comment on, and illustration of, the constable's text than the poor old man furnished, with his complaints about his own health, and all he had to do and think of, for ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... found the consul's house and knocked at the door, whereupon a high-pitched, querulous voice ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... by this time come to dislike each other most cordially, insomuch that it taxed their powers to the utmost to treat each other with becoming respect. Sometimes the effort was beyond their power, and they snapped and snarled at one another upon the bench like two querulous old women. They now differed in opinion upon almost every case which came before them, and it is impossible to doubt that their differences were in large measure due to their personal hostility. This was a serious matter, for, as no third judge ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... birds enliven the forest; they are insectivorous, granivorous, and omnivorous but all are beautiful in their rich and wonderful variety of colour. Amongst these the pheasant for its oriental plumage and the cockatoo for its querulous voice ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... bent over the fine muslin frills she was pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some one talking to her,—a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a plaintive and almost querulous key. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... canal and the Black River. He had left Albany in the very early hours of the morning. Now it was nearing noon and there were yet eighty miles, four hours, of this interminable journey before he could find a good wash and rest and some clean food. But he was not hungry, neither was he querulous. There were worse ways of travel than even by a slow and dusty train. And in his wide-flung, rock-strewn diocese the Bishop had found plenty of them. He was never one to complain. A gentle philosophy of all life, a long ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... dealing with casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how the negro stood in slavery ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... anybody got," demanded Brown with querulous ferocity, "to interfere between me and a lady? Eh? Whose compartment was she in? Me in hers or her in mine? Eh? Me. I'm sleeping. Hasn't a gent a right to sleep? Next thing I know she's fingerin' my whiskers. How should I know she's not balmy on red ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... away!' repeated Herrick with weary, querulous scorn. 'What was there to give away? We're transparent; we've got rascal branded on us: detected rascal—detected rascal! Why, before he came on board, there was the name painted out, and he saw the whole thing. He made sure we would kill him there and then, and ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the tedious noises of the professional musician, and the E A D G of the fiddle was the accompaniment to all my games. From noon until seven in the evening I played amid the squeak of the fiddle, the chant of the 'cello, the solemn throb of the double bass, and the querulous wail of flute and piccolo; and always the music was the music of Italy, for these elders worked in operatic orchestras. So I learned to love it, and especially do I still love the moderns—Leoncavallo, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... moderate provocation; to loss of temper when exhausted; to embarrassment in unusual situations; to chronic indecision; to the sleeplessness resulting from mental preoccupation; and above all, to the futile regrets, the querulous doubts, and the undue anxiety included under the term worry, designated by a recent author "the disease ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... Knowledge destined for the fortunate Maldives had been digested by the recluse Popanilla; for a recluse he had now become. Great students are rather dull companions. Our Fantasian friend, during his first studies, was as moody, absent, and querulous as are most men of genius during that mystical period of life. He was consequently avoided by the men and quizzed by the women, and consoled himself for the neglect of the first and the taunts of the second ...
— English Satires • Various
... to a worthy man Who kept an office and a case of books— An honest lawyer. People called him learn'd, But wanting tact and ready speech he failed. The rest were pettifoggers—scurrilous rogues Who plied the village justice with their lies, And garbled law to suit the case in hand— Mean, querulous, small-brained delvers in the mire Of men's misfortunes—crafty, cunning knaves, Versed in chicane and trickery that schemed To keep the evil passions of weak men In petty wars, and plied their tongues profane With cunning words to argue honest fools Into ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... "Don't deny it!" Querulous imperiousness was in the voice. "You hate me—you'll go back to Boston and tell my mother about this. I know—you've got the upper hand now. You'll tell her why I came out here—you'll tell her about the ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... repaid for all he had endured when, in his turn, he was able to write and announce the birth of a boy for whom the bells had been set ringing as the heir of Brackenhill. Jim, with his sick fancies and querulous conceit, Mrs. James Thorne, with her coarsely-colored splendor and imperious ways, faded into the background now that Horace's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... not in the whole catalogue of acting plays a character more disadvantageous to an actor, than that of Alonzo. A compound of imbecility and baseness, yet an object of commiseration: an unmanly, blubbering, lovesick, querulous creature; a soldier, whining, piping and besprent with tears, destitute of any good quality to gain esteem, or any brilliant trait or interesting circumstance to relieve an actor under the weight of representing him. In addition ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... sat staring absently at the backs of his roughened hands, now and again rubbing one or the other, and enveloped in a gloom that Bryant could both see and feel. Then all at once Stevenson began to talk, in a voice querulous ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... fancy:—he told Mrs. Dunlop with what pangs of heart he was compelled to take shelter in a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle him in the mire. In this land of titles and wealth such querulous sensibilities must ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... careless, desultory way. His tone was loud yet not declamatory, at first in a grumbling, grandfatherly, half-humorous, querulous accent that riveted every ear instantly. A sort of drollery of a contagious kind haunted it. Here and there a member tittered in expectation ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the pleasant little bed-chamber which the good-hearted lady told Ruth was to be her own for that night, they heard voices in the sitting room— the voice of Mr. Curtis and the querulous one. But it was not so sharp and strained as it seemed before. However, on opening the door, Mr. Curtis was revealed sitting alone and there was no sign of the owner of the sharp voice, which Ruth supposed ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... the best, in advising his retirement. It is the only occasion in all the correspondence in which the least cloud seems to have rested on the perfect friendship of the two men. Atticus does not appear to have shewn any annoyance at the querulous remarks of his friend. He steadily continued to write, giving information and advice, and made no difficulty in supplying his friend with money. During Cicero's absence Atticus became still more wealthy than before by inheriting the estates of his cross-grained ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and lunched George Edmund once at the Criterion and twice at the Climax Club, while thinking of nothing in all the world but the incalculable strangeness of women. George Edmund thought him a very passive leadable parent indeed, less querulous about money matters and altogether much improved. The glitter and colour of these various entertainments reflected themselves upon the surface of that deep flood of meditation, hook-armed wooden-legged pirates, intelligent elephants, ingenious but ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... sudden swoop with whistling wings of single birds close overhead, create a perpetual din. Then as darkness follows hard upon the down-sinking of the sun, the birds hustle among the thick foliage of the jungle, with querulous, inquiring notes and much ado. Gradually the sounds subside, and the subdued monotonous rhythm of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... and cut off one company or another. And if so by day, by night there was no long peace under the large stars. Desperate stampedes, the scattering of camp-fires, trampling, grunting in the dark; ghostly horsemen looming and vanishing suddenly in the half-light; and in the lull the querulous howling of ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... millionaire, awaiting them. The skill of the cook seemed to have been quite unaffected by the losses of his master. M. Formery, an ardent lover of good things, enjoyed himself immensely. He was in the highest spirits. Germaine, a little upset by the night-journey, was rather querulous. Her father was plunged in a gloom which lifted for but a brief space at the appearance of a fresh delicacy. Guerchard ate and drank seriously, answering the questions of the Duke in a somewhat absent-minded fashion. The Duke ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... footsteps came slowly and heavily to the gate. Probably the fellow inspected us through a loophole, for he paused a moment, and my heart sank; but the next, seeing nothing suspicious, he unbarred the gate with a querulous oath, and, pushing it open, bade us enter ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... cooked but it must be packed properly and the finishing touches put to it. Mrs. Buck was wandering around the kitchen making futile attempts to help. Jeff, who was sitting outside on a bench under the syringa bushes, could hear her querulous drawl and Judith's ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... above her and sank down the west. The shadows shortened and crept back to the woods, night noises grew fainter, and the mists floated up from the valley and Clung around the mountain-tops; but she stirred only when a querulous voice came from ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... carriages through crowds. It was observed how well the Corporation had laid out the flower-beds. Sometimes a straw hat was blown away. Tulips burnt in the sun. Numbers of sponge-bag trousers were stretched in rows. Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs. Triangular hoardings were wheeled along by men in white coats. Captain George Boase had caught a monster shark. One side of the triangular hoarding said so in red, blue, and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... of all her faculties, was very active for one of her age, and felt unabated interest in the welfare of kindred and friends. She had by no means outlived her usefulness or grown querulous with age, but was ever the same bright, cheerful, happy Christian that she had been in ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... of her shadowy load that she sang as soon as she was out of the hall. She accepted the exuberant greeting of the girls with evident pleasure. Her colour was clear, her eyes shone like stars. They had plenty to tell her of Thore. He was very rich, they said, and a widower. He had had a querulous and sick wife, and had always treated her well. He was not exactly "near," but thought twice about what he spent. He had a stone-built house up the country. A just man, and one who did not bend his knee to any one. Eric Red had often quarrelled with him. Except Theodhild he ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... The mountain-peak directly opposite the hotel looked weird now. Was it peopled with Liliputians? Another bird made itself heard somewhere in the underbrush flanking the brook. It was saying something in querulous accents. I knew nothing of birds, and the song or call of this one sounded so queer to me that I was almost frightened. All of which tended to enhance the uncanny majesty of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... not querulous, nor malevolent; She loved not the fierce wrangling of women; She was not a backbiting serpent, or a liar; She sold not the Son of God for that which ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... her soldier husband, sitting in saddle at the bank. Bravely she answered the flutter of his handkerchief in farewell. Then all was swallowed up in the shadows of the distant prairie, and from the nursery adjoining her room there rose a querulous wail that told that her baby daughter was waking, indifferent to the need that sent the soldier father to the aid of distant comrades, threatened by a merciless foe, and conscious only of her infantile demands and expectations. Not yet ten years wed, that brave, devoted wife and mother had ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... like their mother, vain and affected, only without her cleverness. They feel bitterly their position at Fairclose, and make matters worse by their querulous complainings. I never go into the house unless I am sent for professionally, for their peevishness and bad temper are intolerable. If things had gone differently, and they had made good marriages, they might have turned out pleasant girls enough. As it is they ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... forms; perhaps the most amusing, and the richest food for satire, was the mock-querulous style, of which he showed himself ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... he, in a high-pitched and querulous tone. "No! I want to see if this business owns me, or if I own it. Why should you need to communicate with me? Whenever I'm off a day you always sign everything; and I shall be gone but a day on any given date this time; ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... volume of Tennyson in my pocket, which somehow settled that question, and ended the querulous dispute between me and Conscience, under the shape of the neglected and irritated Greek muse, which had been going on ever since I had commenced my walk about Athens. The old spinster saw me wince at the idea of the author of Dora and Ulysses, and tried to follow up her advantage ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... darkness in Beardsley's brain as all the mental and emotional equations of his being sang a sharp alarm. For subtly, ever so subtly ECAIAC's deep-throated tone had changed ... nothing like those other times, rather it was a halting stutter of puzzlement, erratic and querulous, with overtones of immediacy as if some formless presence were ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... evidences of events, which may be improved to the benefit of our country, has led me to speak of this, which I deem important in the manner I have done, and I presume Congress will not attribute it to a querulous disposition. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... sleep, while my mother's loud threats against Samuel sounded from the other side of the room with each separate garment that she laid on the chair at the foot of her bed. In sheer desperation at last I pulled the cover over my ears in an effort to shut out her thin, querulous tones. At the instant I felt that I was wicked enough to wish that I had been born without any mother, and I asked myself how she would like it if I raised as great a fuss about baby Jessy's crying as she did about Samuel's—who didn't ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... not so much as a whisper could be heard of night bird or animal astir. Once he thought he heard a querulous cry far out on the shallow sea-washed shore such as a wading bird might make, but it was not repeated, and at last he found himself listening, with his heart beginning to beat heavily, for the terrible roaring sound, and the more he tried not to think about it the more the thoughts ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... any doubt upon the point I was soon to learn that she was indeed the mother of the notorious Mr. Edwards; for, ere she had time to reply, a high-pitched, querulous voice which I had heard before cried out ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Why, you might think he lived all by himself up there in Colina; but he don't. He's got more old Spaniards around"—she raised her eyes—"and they're the awfullest! Cut-throats and pirates, I call 'em. They come up from the coast. And it's funny, too," she exclaimed in a sort of querulous wonder, "because Gallito's awful ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... eye flows no tear, from my lips fall no curses, I blast not the fiends, who have hurl'd me from bliss, For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses, Its querulous grief, when in anguish ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... was bitterly troubled in spirit. He had spent the whole morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had not known what to make of it. The Pope had been tetchy and querulous,—precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or important. For with such advanced years the faculties are often as brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... that his hypocritical canine introducer was only availing himself of an opportunity to gain ingress into the house, and was leading him as a responsible accomplice to probable exposure and disgrace. His expectation was quickly realized: a lazily querulous, feminine outcry, with the words, "Yer's that darned hound agin!" came from an adjacent room, and his exposed and abashed companion swiftly retreated past him into the road again. Mr. Ford found himself alone in a plainly-furnished sitting-room ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... touch very poignantly the heart of the people, and it is not too much to say that all England watched by the cradle-side of Prince Edward in that dolorous hour, when first the little battlements rose about the rose-red roof of his mouth. I am glad to think that not one querulous word did His Royal Highness, in his great agony, utter. They only say that his loud, incessant cries bore testimony to the perfect lungs for which the House of Hanover is most justly famed. Irreiterate be the ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Pedius—genuine—such as the singers of Antioch take of mornings to restore the waste of their voices," the dealer answers, in a querulous nasal tone. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... inducing one among those whom it addressed to forget the sensation of his present suffering, and to fix his attention on the vision of future advantage, spread before all listeners by the fluent priest. With the same murmurs of querulous complaint, and the same expressions of impotent hatred and defiance of the Goths which had fallen from them as they entered the church, the populace now departed from it, to receive from the city officers the stinted allowance ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a querulous tone; "how can a man have any sense in such weather? Some foreigner says, that the odious climate of England is an over-balance for her good constitution. The sun of the south is in truth well worth the liberty of the north. It is a sad thing," said ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... and for ever hanging about her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the parlor window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Log after log was chopped free by the axemen along the shore, but the mass remained unshaken. Meanwhile the logs were gathering swiftly behind, ramming down and solidifying the whole structure, and damming back the flood till its heavy thunder diminished to the querulous rattling of a mill-race. In a short time the river was packed solid from shore to shore for several hundred yards above the brow of the jam; and above that again the waters were rising at a rate which threatened in a few hours to flood ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... drew forth a large trunk from the closet, and set to work with querulous and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe. She tore her best dress in taking it from the hook on which it hung: she scratched her soft hands twice with an ambushed pin. All the while, she kept up an indignant commentary ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... supremely at his ease with one of the opposite sex. He loved Claire—he drove that fact home almost angrily to himself—but he was forced to admit that he had always been aware of something in the nature of a barrier between them. Claire was querulous at times, and always a little too apt to take offence. He had never been able to talk to her with that easy freedom that Elizabeth invited. Talking to Elizabeth was like talking to an attractive version of oneself. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... repeated Herrick with weary, querulous scorn. "What was there to give away? We're transparent; we've got rascal branded on us: detected rascal—detected rascal! Why, before he came on board, there was the name painted out, and he saw the whole thing. He made sure we would kill ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and cadaverous. A nimbus of mosquitoes buzzed about each man's head. Their faces were coated with blue clay. Each carried a lump of this damp clay, and, whenever it dried and fell from their faces, more was daubed on in its place. There was a querulous plaint in their voices, an irritability of movement and gesture, that told of broken sleep and a losing struggle with the ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... heap of nets, lost her balance, stumbled, and sat down very suddenly. Then she threw back her head and laughed; peal on peal of deliciously childish laughter rang through the ancient net-shed, until, overhead, the passing gulls echoed her mirth with querulous mewing, and the sea-hawk, towering to ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... no wind to stir the leaves, The harsh leaves overhead; Only the querulous cricket grieves, And shrilling locust weaves A song ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... took the letter to her father. He was in one of his most querulous moods, ill-disposed to believe in any good thing coming to him. He read the letter under such influence, and yet he could not but ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... be inconsistent with happiness and utility at home. But happiness and utility are possible nowhere to a man who represents nothing and who looks out on the world without a plot of his own to stand on, either on earth or in heaven. He wanders from place to place, a voluntary exile, always querulous, always uneasy, always alone. His very criticisms express no ideal. His experience is without sweetness, without cumulative fruits, and his children, if he has them, are without morality. For reason and happiness are like other flowers—they wither ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... marry very ordinary women, which perhaps accounted for the fact that no Borlsover had been a genius, and only one Borlsover had been mad. But they were great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to the bypath meadows ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... pleading with her husband; then the undignified contest with her own slave into which she had been betrayed; and now came this old man—her father, to be sure—but so much the more mortifying to her, as his vulgarity, querulous complaining, and insulting strictures were ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... merriment, Might suit him better. He will try the experiment. His mirth's a smirk and not a paroxysm; "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism" Do not disturb the "plie" of his prim lips, Neither do cynic quirks and querulous quips. Mirth would guffaw—when hearts and mouths were bigger, OSRICK would shrink from aught beyond a snigger, Such as is stirred by screeds of far-fetched whim. Ay! that's the humour o't, sententious Nym. Let's hail a dying century's latest birth,— The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... a broken piece of earthenware for toys, they were happy in their way. Whatever their food might have been, they showed no traces of hard usage. Their red "puddy" fists were fat, and their naked legs round and plump enough. Their faces were full and rosy, and their voices clear and anything but querulous. The eager passions of childhood come out fierce and unrestrained, and blows were freely interchanged, without, however, either cries or apparent hatred. Their naked knees were on the stone-flags, and the wind, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... to interview the cook when he returns from the bazaar. Herr Krauss is something of a gourmand and rather querulous about his food, and he often brings in one or two men to ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... of cake which the matron had given her during the day. Sometimes her voice, low and sweet, as if in tearful entreaties, floated along the garret, and then might have been heard another voice, sometimes rude, sometimes querulous, but very feeble, answering her with sharp reprimands. After this the child would come down in tears and steal away, as we have ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... implacable enemy to anxiety, sorrow, fear, and constraint, who, having nature for her guide, has fortune and pleasure for her companions, that they have gone, according to their own weak imagination, and created this ridiculous, this sorrowful, querulous, despiteful, threatening, terrible image of it to themselves and others, and placed it upon a rock apart, amongst thorns and brambles, and made of it a hobgoblin to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... manages to transform his self-consciousness into the semblance of proud humility, and extracts a bitter and rather morbid pleasure from dwelling upon his disappointments and failures. Half-a-dozen of his best Essays give expression to this mood, which is rather bitter than querulous. He enlarges cordially on the 'disadvantages of intellectual superiority.' An author—Hazlitt, to wit—is not allowed to relax into dulness; if he is brilliant he is not understood, and if he professes an interest in common things it is assumed that then ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... see him alone, too," continued Mrs. Carbuncle, "and, of course, the police would hear of it. I am not at all surprised that he should stay away." Lizzie's condition did not admit of much argument on her side, and she only showed her opposition to Mrs. Carbuncle by being cross and querulous. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... his hand as a sign for his friend to be quiet, and at that moment somewhere on the bank above them they heard a querulous voice: ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... picture was one of BURNE-JONES'S best; "SALLIE" was snub-nosed and showily drest; I sought her visage in querulous quest, When oh, what a surprise! Plump in the midst of a "puddingy" face, Coarse-cut in feature, devoid of grace, Nature capricious had chosen to place ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... raised his eyes to his father, and listening whispered, 'Ere yet I could speak, I am sure, O my father, that I heard that voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a sweet voice? O my father! this is it': and Cain trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, but it was thin and querulous, 105 like that of a feeble slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet can not refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, behold! Enos glided forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
