"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing of music whatever, and no more of dancing than is here common to the meanest peasants, who, by the way, dance with great zeal and spirit. So that I am instructor in my turn, and she takes with great gratitude lessons from me upon the harpsichord, and I have even taught her some of La Pique's steps, and you know he thought me a ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... "Histoire des Girondins," 409.—"Archives Nationales," F7 3196. Letters of de Sades on the sacking of his house near Apt, with supporting document and proofs of his civism; among others a petition drawn up by him in the name of the Pique section and read at the Convention year II. brumaire 25. "Legislators, the reign of philosophy has at last annihilated that of imposture... The worship of a Jewish slave of the Romans is not adapted to the descendants of Scoevola. The general prosperity which is certain to proceed from individual ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... about 5 P.M. yesterday, Russian at anchor, and went towards her, but were afterwards obliged to remove to some distance, as we had not water enough where she is. While we were going to our berth, the 'Pique' came in sight. So here we are—'Pique' 'Furious' and 'Slaney' (gunboat), in an open sea, land not even risible. Captain Osborn started off this morning, in the gunboat, to sound and find out what chance we have of getting over the bar at the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... 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
... to write the letter myself, and dictate it to him. He made one or two changes; and at last signed and sealed it. But I had the greatest difficulty yet in inciting him to give it to the King. I had to follow him, to urge him, to pique him, almost to push him into the presence. The King received the letter very graciously; it had its effect; and the marriage ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... to have gotten over it. This seems to be getting more of a tangle all the time, and a sort of mutual-admiration society. I have no objection to keeping up the conversation, but you pique my curiosity as to how it is all going to come out. As I have already remarked, I can't see any argument that would lead you to let me walk away from here unless I tell you, as you told Petrak and Buckrow, that ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... the officers 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 to which you are subjecting her, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... his part so innocently and so simply that it was hard to suspect him of any intention to pique her and annoy Richard, but I am sure he did it with just those two intentions. He was as thorough a flirt as any woman, and withal very fond of change, and I think my pink grenadine quite dazzled him as I stood on the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... also usurped his old place in their affections. This displeased him greatly, for he was not one who could contentedly take the second place. He could not have had a more excellent companion than the manly and upright Whalley; but in his close intimacy with him he had rather hoped to pique Walter, and show him that his society was not indispensable to his happiness. But Walter's open and generous mind was quite incapable of understanding this unworthy motive, and with feelings far better trained ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... part in the defence of Dole against Louis XIII., that the Capuchin Father d'Iche had the direction of the artillery; and when an officer of the enemy had seized the Brother Claude by the cowl, the Father Barnabas made the officer loose his hold by slaying him with a demi-pique. When Arbois was besieged by Henry IV., the Sieur Chanoine Pecauld is specially mentioned as proving ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... a fool, she would hate me. I shall never mention his name. I make one of my tools hang jail over old Merton. Susan thinks George married. I strike upon her pique and her father's distress. I ask him for his daughter. Offer to pay my father-in-law's debts ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of this interruption we can only explain by resuming the adventures of another set of our characters; for, like old Ariosto, we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to keep company with any ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... 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 heart and found she possessed my mind ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... The trim soberness of the dusty road with its gray windings and vistas of sand-ruts becomes less matter-of-fact at length, and so you leave it to itself, and seek a path that leads to the heart of Nature and far from ways of men. Down grassy slopes and over little hillocks that pique your curiosity by shutting out the view of what is coming next; now skirting the edge of a furrowed potato-patch, and now sauntering down cool lanes of corn, listening to the breezy lisping of the long, green leaves that flap you softly in the face; now across a moist spot where a ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... handed over. She was rosy and round with her mother's blue eyes. She wore a little buttoned hat of white pique, with strings tied under ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... burn and scuttle the Nightingale. This was accordingly done, and the crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey was taken, tried, and hanged, and Benson ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... on the support of the American government; and when he found that the government considered Ledyard's promises visionary, he threw the venture over in a pique. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... not given up Rosemary's lover; and Norman Douglas, then a handsome, red-haired young giant, noted for wild driving and noisy though harmless escapades, had quarrelled with Ellen and left her in a fit of pique. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lived in a state of cruel uncertainty. Worse than that, she was no longer sought; and for this, too, she was wholly responsible. In a spirit of loyalty to Dickie Blue, who deserved nothing so devoted, she had repelled other advances; and when, once, in a wicked mood of pique, as she afterward determined, she had walked with Sandy Watt on the Squid Cove road, the disloyalty implied, mixed with fear of the consequences, made her too wretched to repeat that lapse from a faithful and consistent ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... the murder of Thomas Ball, Burnworth, and Barton, whom we have before mentioned, pitched upon the house of an old Justice of the Peace of Clerkenwell, to whom they had a particular pique for having formerly committed Burnworth, and proposed it to their companions to break it open that night, or rather the next morning (for it was about one of the clock). They put their design in execution and executed it successfully, carrying off some things of real value, and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... was gravely declared on the occasion to have rendered himself, by his assumption of independent power, liable to a capital penalty. Posterity will be inclined to transfer the actual condemnation to the commander-in-chief, whose freakish pique stopped only short of an outrage. But Essex had the fortune or misfortune to have all his errors popularly accounted virtues. In relating this occurrence, for instance, Vere, though he admits the matter was 'grievously aggravated by the most,' speaks of Ralegh's act as a 'crime,' ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... made upon the neighbourhood was curious in one way—it was so very mixed, In the adverse part of the mixture, however, a good deal of personal pique was apparent, and one thing was always obvious: people liked her as much as she would let them. She even might have been popular had she chosen, but popularity comes of condescending to the level of the average, and Evadne was exclusive. She was une vraie petite grande dame at ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... love each other, and passionately long to enjoy an intimate union in reciprocal confidence, esteem, and sympathy, but are prevented by some unhappy impediment, some disastrous misunderstanding or morbid pique. Many a parent yearns with unspeakable fondness towards a disobedient and ungrateful child; the heart breaking with agony for the reconciliation, the embrace, the sweet communion fate withholds. Many a child profoundly desires to fall ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... facts, he was obliged to rely on would-be philosophical dissertations which it is to be hoped were not obtained from his father's notebooks. Young Forster says that the appointment was first of all given to his father in a spirit of pique on the part of Lord Sandwich, and then the order forbidding him to write was made because the father had refused to give Miss Ray, Lord Sandwich's mistress, who had admired them when on board the ship, some birds brought home from the Cape of Good Hope as a present to the Queen. In the end the ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... according to Treaty. And has a touch of bitter sarcasm in uttering his complaints against, such treatment,—the heart of him, I suppose, bitter enough. Most Christian King has felt this of the Scamander, Friedrich perceives; Louis's next letter testifies pique;—and of course we are farther from help, on that side, than ever. "From the STANDE of the Kur-Mark [Brandenburg] Friedrich was offered a considerable subsidy instead; and joyfully accepted the same, 'as a loan:'"—paid it punctually ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... inexorable to the entreaties of his friends, it must not be supposed that he was influenced in the course which he pursued, as was presumed by many at the time not acquainted with the circumstances, by any feeling of pique or brooding sullenness. No high-spirited man under vexatious and distressing circumstances ever behaved with more magnanimity. In this he was actuated in a great degree by a sense of duty, but still more by that peculiar ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... at the worst, only the same wilful and spoiled child she had always been, while he was over twenty years her senior. What he hoped for was that her common sense, her breeding, and her pride would come to the rescue, and that after her pique had spent itself, she would become ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in pique at the dubious character given him by Bob-Cat and half in thanks for the meeting at the station and the ride, he turned to the cowboy, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a gradual change to lighter mourning may be made by discarding the widow's cap and shortening the veil. Dull silks are used in place of crape, according to taste. In warm weather lighter materials can be worn—as, pique, nun's ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... 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 masterful powder, held the strong man down till he ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... 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, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... had honored him with a serenade that had lasted beyond midnight. The "prominents" among them had shown some pique at having cooled their heels all afternoon at the Club waiting for the deputy in vain. He put in an appearance well on towards evening, and after shaking hands once more all around and responding to speeches ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... plan 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 ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... attack on Willis very probably did him good; he needed a little discipline, and though he got it too unsparingly, some cautions came with it which were worth the stripes he had to smart under. One noble writer Spelling treated with rudeness, probably from some accidental pique, or equally insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three survivors before referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an American writer, "who made long since a happy snatch at ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... both worlds, can we best economise our scepticism and make a little belief go far?[69] The nineteenth century is not precisely the age of the martyrs, or, if we are to find them, we must in general turn to politics and to science; Bishop Blougram does not pique himself on a genius for martyrdom; if he fights with beasts, it is on this occasion with a very small one, a lynx of the literary tribe, and in the arena of his own dining-room over the after-dinner wine. He is pre-eminently a man of his time, when the cross and its doctrine can ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... on Captain Cook,' a 'Monody on Major Andre,' whom she had known from her early youth; and there is a poem, 'Louisa,' of which she herself speaks very highly. But even more than her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary correspondence. It must have been well worth while writing letters when they were not only prized by the writer and the recipients, but commented on by their friends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq.,' writes, after five years, for copies ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... again. Conversation was scarcely worth while during the dancing. Neale watched as before. Twice as he gazed at the whirling couples he caught the eyes of the girl Ruby bent upon him. They were expressive of pique, resentment, curiosity. Neale did not look that way any more. Besides, his attention was drawn elsewhere. Hough yelled in his ear to watch the fun. A fight had started. A strapping fellow wearing a belt containing gun and bowie-knife had jumped upon a table just as the music ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... destruction of his old patron Essex. He did not now let his conscience afflict itself at the thought that he was about to gloss an act, which a historian, not very friendly to the sufferer, has said 'can hardly be dignified with the title of a judicial murder.' Neither passion, pique, nor fear, inspired his pen. His function in official life, as he interpreted it, was to be the advocate of authority; his feeling for any but scientific truth was never acute; and he had positive pleasure in the employment of his intellectual dexterity, whatever the object. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell had by his astute policy succeeded in bringing about a religious state of things in England that approached very nearly to Lutheranism. Taking advantage of Henry's pique and anger at the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from Katharine of Arragon, Cromwell set about widening the breach between England and Rome. After weakening the power of the bishops and lower clergy, he was able to force the oath of supremacy upon the nation, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... are angry with Wordsworth for not encouraging their awkward flights. They, like you, accuse him of jealousy, forsooth! That is the reason that they are now gabbling at his knees, now hissing at his heels. Moreover, our caprices are not unuseful to our interests. We alternately pique and soothe readers by them, and so keep our customers. As day is partitioned between light and darkness, so has the public taste as to Wordsworth been divided between his reverers and the followers of the Jeffrey heresy. After a lengthened winter, Wordsworth's glory is now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... statement of his plans, and his slight touch of pique did not pass away. Toward the end of the evening, he spoke of the wreck and the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... company; and I reminded myself often that though we now met in the same house and at the same table, she was still the Mademoiselle de la Vire who had borne herself so loftily in the King of Navarre's ante-chamber. This I did, not out of pique or wounded pride, which I no more, God knows, harboured against her than against a bird; but that I might not in my new prosperity forget the light in which such a woman, young, spoiled, and beautiful, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... simply would not permit so rash a project, and their example carried weight. But here at "Hawkshurst" was a lively young brood, chaperoned by a matron as wild as her charges and but little older, and eager one and all for any glory or distinction that could pique the pride or stir the envy of "that Craney set." It was too much for a girl of Sallie Waring's type. Her eyes have a dangerous gleam, her cheeks a witching glow; she clings tighter to his arm as she looks up ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... be abroad. The city was steeped in Sabbath calm and a quiet moon rode in a quiet heaven. Prescott did not stop now to analyze his feelings, though he knew that a touch of pique, and perhaps curiosity, too, entered into this pursuit, otherwise he should not have troubled himself so much with an unbidden task. But he was the hunter and she the hunted, and he was alive now with the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... noticed the pique of the Chevalier at the mention of Philibert, but in that spirit of petty torment with which her sex avenges small slights she continued to irritate the vanity of the Chevalier, whom in her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... dozing, half listening, as usual, to the various little night sounds that constantly pique my curiosity, for no matter how long you may have lived in the country you are not wholly in touch with it until you have slept at least a few nights in the open,—when rain began to fall softly, an even, persevering, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... purchasing in secret what he openly depreciates; or—to spread a dangerous snare—pretending to secure with avidity a picture which already belongs to him. There, some are tempted to buy; and some repent of having bought. There, out of pique and bravado, another shall pay fifty louis for an article which he would not have thought worth five and twenty, had he not been ashamed to draw back when the eyes of a crowded company were upon him. There, you may see a woman of condition turn pale at the mere thought of losing a paltry pagoda ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... of pique was struggling for appropriate expression. "I'm sure I don't see why you laugh at him; I think he's very nice," she exclaimed; "and, at any rate, a girl who married him would always have ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a woman! to be left to pique and pine, When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine. Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still? There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill. All the boats at anchor they are ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... his heart desired to leap with joy, but it did not seem to know how to do it. The situation was such an anomalous one. After such a message as this, why had she not let him see her? Why had she been angry with Keswick? Was that pique? And then a dark thought crossed his mind. Had he been accepted to punish the other? No, he could not believe that; no woman such as Roberta March would give herself away from such a motive. Had Keswick been joking with him? ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... less informed than his soldiers. This he did not wholly conceal, and Pizarro aware of the cause of it, neither forgot nor forgave it.43 The anecdote is reported not on the highest authority. It may be true; but it is unnecessary to look for the motives of Pizarro's conduct in personal pique, when so many proofs are to be discerned of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... fine edge of his reason had been dulled by so much when he matched his boy's wit against hers. His mind had not sought out the hidden motive that lay behind what she had said; he had followed where she led and, finding her logic impregnable, had yielded like a child, in a pique. Yes, yielded out of spite without ever once thinking that she worked, day ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... am perjured, for I've wed a dumpy lass I much despised in days of yore, Of quite the plainest class, Because each maiden of my dream, Whose favor I did seek, Was so opposed unto my scheme I married Jane in pique. ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... perhaps, 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 ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... had been 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 ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... 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 blouse, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... he, laughing awkwardly. In the last few minutes he had developed a sentiment hitherto unknown to him—pique! He had been imagining Cornelia in love with him, and angry at his preference for Sophie; whereas, it would now seem that the only reason she cared for him at all, was because he was Sophie's lover: a most correct spirit in her, no doubt; but, instead of being gratified, as was his ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... they had! I have been long accustomed to defend you, 35 To heal and pacify distempered spirits. No; no one railed at you. They wrapped them up, O Heaven! in such oppressive, solemn silence!— Here is no every-day misunderstanding, No transient pique, no cloud that passes over; 40 Something most luckless, most unhealable, Has taken place. The Queen of Hungary Used formerly to call me her dear aunt, And ever at departure to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ruler took the world into his confidence by announcing in a Vermilion Edict that he had degraded Prince Kung and his son in their hereditary rank as princes of the empire, for using "language in very many respects unbecoming." Whether Tungche took this very decided step in a moment of pique or because he perceived that there was a plan among his chief relatives to keep him in leading-strings, must remain a matter of opinion. At the least he must have refused to personally retract what he had done, for on the very following day (September 11) a decree appeared from the two ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... striped stockings; a white pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his hair in powder. He must have worn ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... love breed jealousy. And yet, I would I had not wagered; it implies Doubt. If I doubted? Pshaw! I'll walk awhile And let the cool air fan me. 'Twas not wise. 'Tis only Folly with its cap and bells Can jest with sad things. She seemed earnest, too. What if, to pique me, she should overstep The pale of modesty, and give bold eyes (I could not bear that, nay, not even that!) To Marc or Claudian? Why, such things have been And no sin dreamed of. I will watch her close. There, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... 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 coat! We have enough of charlatans like that!" and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his mind as a good goer against the field, and he had a real desire to win her affection. The more indifferent she was to him, the keener was his desire to possess her. His unsuccessful wooing had passed through several stages, first astonishment, then pique, and finally something very like passion, or a fair semblance of devotion, backed, of course, since all natures are more or less mixed, by the fact that this attractive figure of the woman was thrown into high relief by the colossal fortune ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... serving to pique rather than satisfy; a series of hors d'oeuvres that I began to suspect must form the whole repast. On the verge of coherence the woman would break off to gloat over a herd of thoroughbred Durhams or a bunch of sportive Hereford calves or a field teeming with the prized fruits of ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... down panting. She hardly understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious that, for her own interests, she had acted during the whole afternoon like a fool. First, stung by the pique excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was his bank. Elegant gentlemen behind the counter shovelled gold to and fro with the same casual indifference as I had seen grocers' assistants shovel tea. One of them, a gorgeous fellow wearing a white pique tie and a horse-shoe pin, paid such deference to Paragot that I went out prodigiously impressed by my master's importance. I was convinced that he owned the establishment, and during the next quarter of an hour I could not speak to him ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... see that the blow would blast them. She had had youth to help her, and even she had been blasted. What chance had they? And so she said that Garrison and she had quarreled seriously and that in sudden anger, pique, he had left. Oh, yes, she knew he would return. She was quite sure of it. It was all so silly and over nothing, and she had no idea he would take it that way. And she was so sorry, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... yearning look full of aspiration in their voluptuous glow, and a fugitive blush flitted across her lily-white cheeks. She was more beautiful than ever. But who can fathom the follies of a young man who has got too hot blood in his head and heart? The bitter pique which the Baron had stirred up within me I transferred to the Baroness. The entire business seemed to me like a foul mystification; and I would now show that I was possessed of alarmingly good common-sense and also of extraordinary sagacity. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and man at first seemed friends, But, when a pique began, The dog, to gain his private ends, Went mad, and bit ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... 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 consented to his marriage with my ward; for it was in that capacity ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... "you suffered what the new psychologists call a 'psychic trauma'—a soul-wound. You were engaged, but your censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of your fiance. In pique you married Price Maitland. But you never lost your ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... nothing more than pique," thought Patience. "We women are all hypocrites, even to ourselves. I will serve her whether she will or not. She shall see the earl. I hope there is no harm in wishing you may be happy with Leonard Holt," she added aloud. "He will make you a ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... great, glorious, and inspiriting, opened before me, coming so soon after the late downfall of my hopes, was in itself a source of such true pleasure that ere long I listened to my friend, and heard his narrative with breathless interest. A lingering sense of pique, too, had its share in all this. I longed to come forward in some manly and dashing part, where my youth might not be ever remembered against me, and when, having brought myself to the test, I might no longer be looked upon and treated ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... want to put an end to this miserable pique between us," cried Andrew warmly. "It's absurd, and I hate it. I thought we were to be always friends. I can't bear it, Frank, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... The pique which Eunice had felt at the beginning of the game had vanished by now. She was feeling extremely pleased with her performance on the last few holes, and would have been glad to go into the matter fully. Also, she was conscious ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... dear, tut, tut! You've made a marriage that is founded on suitability of position, property and education, and everything will come right by and by. Don't act on a fit of pique or spleen, and so destroy your happiness, and that of everybody about you. Think of your father. Remember what he has done to make this marriage. I may tell you that he has paid forty thousand pounds to discharge your ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the dame continued, tossing her head with mingled pique and triumph. "'Tis a sad day for thee and thine, then! This Sir Guy of thine is as good as dead, girl! Thy popinjay is a traitor, and his crimes ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... western Europe again, then. Yes, she still possessed the Heine letter he required; only it was in her father's possession, and she had written to him to Russia to send it on. Her silence had been due to pique at the condition Lassalle had attached to acceptance of the mere friendship she offered him, to wit, that, like all his friends, she must write him two letters to his one. "Inconsiderate little creature!" he thought, smiling but half resentful. But, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a proud assent as he stuck a biscuit in his mouth and looked at the lights with the greatest pleasure. I took off his new cap with its two blue bows over the ears, unbuttoned his little pique coat, which I had almost entirely built myself, and which was of excellent cut, and settled down to dine with him ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... understand you somehow," he said then; "you are surrounded by mystery, you puzzle me, you pique my curiosity. I am not curious about small things as a rule, but this is not a small thing, and I have a great curiosity as to the state of your heart, as ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... best game at the cards for two persons, though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms—such as pique—repique—the capot—they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She would argue thus:—Cards are warfare: the ends are gain, with glory. But cards are war, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... brisk. And he that understands these things is much more able to preserve quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and unskilful. Besides, I think none will doubt but that the steward ought to be a friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise in his injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions unequal, in his jests apt to scoff and give offence. Such a figure, Theon, as out of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... of the party were all cheerful and good-humoured. Mr. Ellsworth was quite devoted to Elinor, as usual, of late. Mary Van Alstyne amused herself with looking on at Mrs. Creighton's efforts to charm Harry, pique Mr. Stryker, and flatter Mr. Wyllys into admiring her; nor did she disdain to throw away several arch smiles on Mr. Hopkins. "She seems successful in all her attempts," thought Mary. Harry was quite attentive to her; and it was evident that Mr. Stryker's admiration had very much increased since ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well calculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature of the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... frescos; and all are colder and more comfortless than can possibly be imagined without having been in them. The pictures, most of them, interested me very little. I am of opinion that good pictures are quite as rare as good poets; and I do not see why we should pique ourselves on admiring any but the very best. One in a thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of men, from generation to generation, till its colors fade or blacken out of sight, and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded and decried as this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If the present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique of his own may be the cause of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they bowed to the commander.) "As I was saying to Barker, as matters stand in this regiment, some half a dozen at least of the men referred to as its 'representative officers' are apparently resentful of my arrest of Lieutenant Lanier, and attribute my course to pique, because he saw fit to show himself at the hop I declined to permit him as officer-of-the-guard to attend. You think, possibly, that because men like Captain Snaffle, Lieutenant Crane, and one or two of that set have been in consultation with me, the matters ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... heard them, as he sat there still fanning his face, till at last, in a fit of half-maddening pique, Fred turned again on Samson, and signed ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... be sure I was in her debt for the opportunity she had given me of meeting these literary friends, but that gave her no license to misrepresent me, in a light which in my present humor was the most distasteful she could have selected. Under the spur of pique I redoubled my graciousness toward Mr. Spence and Mr. Fleisch, and likewise watched my opportunity to court the artist with a smile, whereupon he sighed again and reached out his hand for the crystal pitcher; but it ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... give Texas free and unencumbered, and we surrender all our claims on Spain for damages not included in that five millions of dollars." He challenged the right of the President and Senate to alienate territory without the consent of the House. Behind Clay's opposition lay some personal pique against the President and his Secretary of State; but he voiced, nevertheless, the spirit of the Southwest, which already looked toward Texas as a possible field of expansion and resented ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... Ranelagh for the Duke of 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 woman ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Cauldstaneslap party; then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that - though I have need here of every manageable attenuation of language - with the first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very likely ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... things. It answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof, and many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she did not think fit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and asked no more. The lamps were all shaded like the windows in this bower of beauty. There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some softly-falling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed through ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... of human resentment honestly delighted me. It was refreshing to know that the omniscient Paul Harley was capable of pique. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... hide all traces of pique or annoyance. She would never let him find her dull or unhappy. Men liked to be amused. She would do her best to entertain him; he would never have a moment's vacancy in her society. She would find sparkling ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... you would do what we desired at last, you might as well have done it at first," is a common nursery-maid's speech, which is well calculated to pique the pride of a half-subdued penitent. When children are made ashamed of submission, they will become ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Caen in this matter has been severely commented on, as it was entirely due to his personal pique and jealousy in the affair that this indignity was put upon Flinders. The generous hospitality extended by the British settlement to the French navigators at Port Jackson found no response in this rough specimen of a soldier of the revolution, who throughout the period of Flinders' detention, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... when I took my glass I could see the nervous frown on his brow and the restless gleam of his eyes. By my side William Adolphus was chuckling with bovine satisfaction at an allusion in Coralie's song; his last night's pique seemed forgotten. I leaned forward and looked again at Coralie. She saw me and sang the next verse straight at me. (She did the same thing once more in later days.) I saw people's heads turn toward my box, and drew back behind the shelter ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... with some pique, the general grew serious, and Blondet told the story of his fishing ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... tendency to schism. There seems very little in the movement which makes for peace and unity. Any little pique or difference of views has not only created internal dissension, but also ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... 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 who ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... think of her, although admitting to himself that it might all turn out for the best. He would have soon accepted changes in externals, and her added accomplishments, but there were other and more subtle changes which he could not grasp. It began to pique him that he had already been forced to abandon more than one impression in regard to her character. It was somewhat humiliating that he, who had seen the world, especially in its social aspects, should be perplexed ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... 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
... the girl stood there, gazing defiance at him, but although a slight smile hovered about his lips, she realized in some subtle way—woman's intuition, perhaps—that he meant what he said. Her eyes lowered, and an expression of pique came into her pretty face; then she ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... The Egyptian's pique had vanished, but she may have thought that the conversation was becoming dangerous, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Mr. Thrale's, where we 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 ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... been offended by Milly's neglect to take advantage of her opportunities the night of the suffrage meeting,—at least she showed no pique when Milly finally got around to telephoning her friend and congratulating her on her successful speech. But Hazel had become so involved in the movement by this time, especially so intimate with the fascinating young married agitator, that she had less time and less interest ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... "I pique myself on this, that whether Bohemian or not, I will go nowhere that I am not wanted. Though,—for the matter of that, I suppose I'm not wanted here." Then Phineas gave him the message from his father. "He wishes to see me to-morrow morning?" continued Lord Chiltern. "Let him send me ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... rolling clouds: 'If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself in your ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Glover's face, returning somewhat the ridicule heaped on him, was intended to pique the interest of the sightseers it was effective. He was restored, provisionally, to favor; his suggestion that after dinner they take horses for the ride up Pilot Mountain to where the Gap could be seen by moonlight was eagerly ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... should 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 sex. Naturally, however, his attitude toward them had been somewhat embittered ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber |
