Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Meddle   Listen
verb
Meddle  v. i.  (past & past part. meddled; pres. part. meddling)  
1.
To mix; to mingle. (Obs.) "More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts."
2.
To interest or engage one's self; to have to do; in a good sense. (Obs.) "Study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business."
3.
To interest or engage one's self unnecessarily or impertinently, to interfere or busy one's self improperly with another's affairs; specifically, to handle or distrub another's property without permission; often followed by with or in. "Why shouldst thou meddle to thy hurt?" "The civil lawyers... have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them."
To meddle and make, to intrude one's self into another person's concerns. (Archaic)
Synonyms: To interpose; interfere; intermeddle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Meddle" Quotes from Famous Books



... we meddle with the Marchbankses? With Olivia and Adelaide, of all the Marchbankses? We could not take it for granted that they meant to ask us. There was no such thing as suggesting a compromise. Rosamond looked high and splendid, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... of trees.} {SN: Soyle.} Fruit-trees most common, and meetest for our Northerne Countries: (as Apples, Peares, Cheries, Filberds, red and white Plummes, Damsons, and Bulles,) for we meddle not with Apricockes nor Peaches, nor scarcely with Quinces, which will not like in our cold parts, vnlesse they be helped with some reflex of Sunne, or other like meanes, nor with bushes, bearing berries, as Barberies, Goose-berries, or Grosers, Raspe-berries, and such like, though the ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... after his death he received divine honours for the good he did on earth, yet he was but a god of their own making; that the last Tarquin was expelled justly for overt acts of tyranny and mal-administration (for such are the conditions of an elective kingdom, and I meddle not with others, being, for my own opinion, of Montange's principles—that an honest man ought to be contented with that form of government, and with those fundamental constitutions of it, which he received from his ancestors, and under which himself was born, though at the same time he confessed ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... them, has been made a sanction for such mischievous practices, I am under the necessity of recalling it altogether. You will therefore immediately make it known to your whole corps, that they are not under any pretence whatever to meddle with the horses or other property of any inhabitant whatever on pain of the severest punishment, for they may be assured as far as it depends upon me that military execution will attend all those who are caught in the like ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... vagaries of fashion of beards in his time: "I will saie nothing of our heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered to grow at length like womans lockes, manie times cut off, above or under the eares, round as by a woodden dish. Neither will I meddle with our varietie of beards, of which some are shaven from the chin like those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto, some made round like a rubbing brush, others with a pique de vant (O fine fashion!), ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... trouble," added Pearl, as he walked aft with the captain. "I shall not meddle with your management of the boat. I only said what I ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... tools, and fire—these are the three things children mustn't meddle with. But it isn't children only as must be kept off money. Men are just as bad. They have a way of getting rid of it is just astonishin' to us females. They be just like jackdaws. I know them creeturs—I mean jackdaws, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... it." When he liked women he liked them pretty and feminine; he had not the faintest idea of admitting any kind of partner in his glory; he had no literary taste; and not only did Madame de Stael herself meddle with politics, but her friend, Constant, under the Consulate, chose to give himself airs of opposition in the English sense. Moreover, she still wrote, and Bonaparte disliked and dreaded everyone who ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... strongest, but did not attempt to drill or organise them, thinking, perhaps, that they could not at the best turn them into trained soldiers till they had some breathing space. The clever general, his soldiers, and the police did not meddle with all this in the least in the world; and things were quieter in London that week-end; though there were riots in many places of the provinces, which were quelled by the authorities without much trouble. The most serious of these were ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... Christ's testament. That baptism or washing with water is the outward manifestation of dying unto sin and walking in newness of life; and therefore in no wise appertaineth to infants." They held "that no church ought to challenge any prerogative over any other"; and that "the magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience nor compel men to this or that form of religion." This is the first known expression of absolute liberty of conscience ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... how this can concern me, or you, either. You must pardon me if I say that I dislike meddling, and people who meddle." ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... drawing. If the rooms were not an addition, and it did not suggest itself at the moment to look attentively, I believe these little architectural and ornamental steps to have been; and as we know he did meddle with brick and mortar, by building a small chapel here, the conjecture is not improbable;—it is but a conjecture, and remains for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various

... itself out of a very competent injury. Therefore get you on and give him his desire. Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with me which with as much safety you might answer him. Therefore on, or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that 's certain, or forswear to wear ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... named your thought about William to his father, who expressed such horror and aversion to the idea of his singing in public, that I cannot meddle in it directly or indirectly. Ayrton is a kind fellow, and if you chuse to consult him by Letter, or otherwise, he will give you the best advice, I am sure, very readily. I have no doubt that M. Burney's objection to interfering was the same—with mine. With thanks for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... old clergyman, who kept possession of his church and rectory all through the war, and went on with the service till he died, no man daring to meddle with him. But Otterbourne was sure to follow the fate of Hursley. The King's Head Inn at Hursley is thought to have been so called in allusion to the death of King Charles I. A strange ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge

... means that he must not meddle with other peoples' fights and quarrels. He must not take sides; that is, he must not help either of the herds to beat the other. That is the usual rule in the jungle which a wise elephant leader ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh

... remedium," he said, "my good friend, is in the Grand Duke's Treasury at Turin. It is in a steel box, it is true, but in one with three locks and three keys, sealed with the Grand Duke's private signet and with mine; and laid where the Treasurer himself cannot meddle with it." ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... quo Buccleuch; "Let's waken Lord Scroope right merrilie!" Then loud the warden's trumpet blew "O whae dare meddle wi me?" ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the thistle. Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, and thine heart hath lifted thee up: glory of this, and tarry at home, for why shouldest thou meddle to thy hurt, that thou shouldest fall, even thou, and Judah with thee? But Amaziah would not hear. Therefore Jehoash king of Israel went up; and he and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... had become their lodger. Linda certainly could not go to Peter for advice. She would have gone to Jacob Heisse, but that Jacob was a man slow of speech, somewhat timid in all matters beyond the making of furniture, and but little inclined to meddle with things out of his own reach. She fancied that the counsel which she required should be sought for from some one wiser and more learned ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... faith of his fathers idly. I do not know what may be in the days to come, but here in the Andredsweald some dozen of us will not leave the old gods. It was the bidding of Ethelwalch the king that we should do so, but that is not a matter wherein a king may meddle, as it seems ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... a drawback and no mistake,” cried Keawe. “I would not meddle with the thing. I can do without a house, thank God; but there is one thing I could not be doing with one particle, and that is ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were likewise sober when you wrote to the Senate of Sweden, who, upon a report of your death, endeavoured to take some care of your kingdom, that you would send them one of your boots, and from that they should receive their orders if they pretended to meddle in government—an insult much worse than any the Macedonians complained of from me when I was most heated with wine and with adulation. As for my chastity, it was not so perfect as yours, though on some occasions I obtained great ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... not trust him. As long as there is fighting, he will meddle with nothing else; but, mark my words, Ithamar: in quiet times ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... so sure of an allusion to turkeys. No, I took the first down train. There are more pretty girls in New York, twice over, than there are in Centreville, I console myself; but, by George! Polder, Kate Stevens was charming!—Look out there! don't meddle with the skipper's coils of rope! can't you sleep ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... about the body the chest and abdomen you must not meddle except to protect them when possible without much handling with the materials of ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... the question. He was a fair-haired, well-made young lad, looking like a sailor, and every inch a gentleman. Had he believed that the Lady Anna was the Lady Anna, no earthly consideration would have induced him to meddle with the money. Since the old Lord's death, he had lived chiefly with his uncle Charles Lovel, having passed some two or three months at Lovel Grange with his uncle and aunt. Charles Lovel was a clergyman, with a good living ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... it's a place like North Dormer it's enough to make people hate each other just to have to walk down the same street every day. But you don't live here, and you don't know anything about any of us, so what did you have to meddle for? Do you suppose the other girls'd have kept the books any better'n I did? Why, Orma Fry don't hardly know a book from a flat-iron! And what if I don't always sit round here doing nothing till it strikes five up at the church? Who cares if the library's open or shut? Do you suppose ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... wait to be asked; they gave their opinions unsolicited. "The authority of the University of Paris," writes one contemporary, "has risen to such a height that it is necessary to satisfy it, no matter on what conditions." The university "wanted to meddle with the government of the Pope, the King, and everything else," writes another. We find Paris intervening repeatedly in both church and state affairs, [27] and representing French nationality before it had come into being, as the so- called Holy Roman Empire represented the Germans, and the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... shut up in her room out of the way. The children began to follow An Ching; but Ku Nai-nai, who certainly appeared to have got out of bed the wrong side that morning (only you can't get off a kang except at one side), would not allow Nelly in the cook-house. 'No foreigners shall meddle with my food,' she said; whereat Nelly was very glad, for she had only offered to go and help on An ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... nothing more than she deserves. Why should you suffer? It is nobody's business to meddle ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... the institutions of our country, and always ready to take up the quarter-staff in our defence. A great reformer, and honest as the day is long. Wrote much in favor of American independence in 1774, and, with Sir Francis Burdett and others, who chose to meddle with the British Constitution wherever they found a fragment large enough to talk about, has been visited by the government, and tried and imprisoned. His book on the British Constitution is, though somewhat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... closed and bolted on the inside. Panna had been obliged to go out with the others, but she would not leave the spot, where she was joined by her father, though she entreated him to return home or go to his work in the field and not meddle with anything. ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... trumpets!' quoth Buccleuch; 'Let's waken Lord Scroope right merrilie!' Then loud the Warden's trumpet blew— 'O wha daur meddle wi' me?'" ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... is passing faster than I want it to and I'm doing very well. I don't never meddle in young folks' business and I don't 'low them meddling in mine. Folks is the ones making times so hard. Some making times hard for all rest of us can't help ourselves. It is sin and selfishness makes times so hard. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... These Indians being in all things most superstitious, attach a kind of sacredness to these scaffolds and all the materials used or about the dead. This superstition is in itself sufficient to prevent any of their own people from disturbing the dead, and for one of another nation to in any wise meddle with them is considered an offense not too severely punished by death. The same feeling also prevents them from ever using old scaffolds or any of the wood which has been used about them, even for firewood, though the necessity may be very great, for fear some evil consequences ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her out of the very jaws of death were these: 'How dare you meddle with me? why didn't you leave me to die?' Her exact language—I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so provoked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own coin. 'There's the river ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... "I never meddle with her ideas on—on these subjects. I am too ignorant to understand them. But Miss Carew's generosity to me has been unparalleled. And she does not seem to know that she is generous. I owe more to her than I ever can repay. At least," Alice ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... ses the mate, holding up 'is 'ead. 'I don't want no p'lice to protect me. Five's a large number, but I drove 'em off, and I don't think they'll meddle with any British ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... well known not only I, but the meanest servants in my family, talk of you with the utmost respect. I have always, as far as in me lies, exhorted your servants and tenants to be dutiful; not that I any way meddle in your domestic affairs, which were very unbecoming for me to do. If some of your servants express their great concern for you in a manner that is not so very polite, you ought to impute it to their extraordinary zeal, which deserves ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... meddle wid dem guess sort of folks, Miss Sarah. 'Druder not be gwine in dere," responds the black, with a broad ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... scientific books. He had a taste for travel and adventure—the Arctic regions, Asia, Siberia, and Africa—but Africa was all locked away in a lower drawer of the writing-table. He did not care for the servants to meddle with his books, he told himself. He did not tell anybody that he did not care to let the servants see him reading his books of travel ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... Jefferson had employed General Wilkinson, with indifferent success. President Madison found more trustworthy agents in Governor Claiborne of New Orleans and Governor Holmes of Mississippi, whose letters reveal the extent to which Madison was willing to meddle with destiny. "Nature had decreed the union of Florida with the United States," Claiborne affirmed; but he was not so sure that nature could be left to execute her own decrees, for he strained every nerve to prepare the way for American intervention when the people of West Florida should declare ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... subject. These "children of the soil," lead a harmless, tranquil, and sober life, which they never suffer passing events to disturb; they have no ambition to join their more restless and enterprising countrymen, who have made themselves masters of Alorie and Raka, nor even to meddle in the private or public concerns of their near neighbours of Keeshee. Indeed, they have kept themselves apart and distinct from all; they have retained the language of their fathers, and the simplicity of their manners, and their existence glides serenely and ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... to force them to drink to excess, and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs, forbidding them expressly to meddle with any of a better kind. And, accordingly, when the Thebans made their invasion into Laconia, and took a great number of the Helots, they could by no means persuade them to sing the verses of Terpander, Alcman, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... for all he knew, have his own blood in her veins was a very different matter. He felt it was in him to interpose roughly, imperiously—and if he did so, would Bice care? She would turn upon him with smiling defiance, or perhaps ask what right had he to meddle in her affairs. Thus Sir Tom was so preoccupied that the change in Lucy, the effort she made to go through her necessary duties, the blotting out of all her simple kindness and brightness, affected him only dully as an element of the general ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... be the kindes, if I could name them, But I a shepheard and no fisher am: Little it skils whether I praise or blame them, I onely meddle with my ew and lamb: Yet this I say that blacke the better is, In birds, beasts, frute, stones, flowres, herbs, ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield

... men who dare write it, cannot. They say the age is not ripe for it; and if they mean that it would cause violent offence to the potent rulers of fashionable religious dogmatism, they are right. But I wander from my theme, and meddle with the subjects which this is not ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... "Then, don't attempt to meddle with things which are more powerful, than you and the forces you control. And—don't waste breath on Mr. ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... say to you?" she curtly replied. "I may have seen that you were inclined to meddle with me, but I do not choose to be on people's wicked tongues for nothing. I do not mean to have you for a ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... muckle for the compliment," said the doctor, dryly; "but I ha'e my doubts they'd think it ane, and they're crusty carls that's no' ower safe to meddle wi'." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... a sigh, "is a dangerous thing to meddle with. If you hadn't happened to find the piglet, Eureka would surely ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... was a very correct view of the case, but not one of them volunteered to go and talk to Mrs. Cliff on the subject. This was not from timidity, nor from an unwillingness to meddle in other people's business, but from a desire on the part of each not to injure herself in Mrs. Cliff's eyes by any action which might indicate that she had a personal interest ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... dux, "won't the Philistines be wild! Fancy upsetting them in the mud, and knocking Bernard's wind out! They won't be in a hurry to meddle with us again. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... over the other orders and makes various explanations regarding his attitude toward the orders. He then urges the bishop to follow his suggestions, and thus to fulfil his obvious and pressing duties—advising Salazar not to meddle with the encomenderos, and other matters which do not concern his office. Dasmarinas also complains that the bishop does not provide laymen to instruct the natives; that he allows the Indians to come to Manila too often ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... person, rich or poor, should leave his house unrefreshed, and he made both servants and children welcome to see their friends if these did not trespass on his time. A nervous inquiry in later years, if he heard of any guest being expected, was, "He, or she, will not meddle with me, will he?" Assured that the privacy of his library would be respected, any one was free to the rest of the house; and if they showed no disposition to intrude, Dr Burton would gradually become tame to them, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told me as much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if you wish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise not to meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me to join the crowd outside; it ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... common, unwritten code among boys on such occasions, that while in the water, each swimmer's clothes are to be held sacred from molestation, even by his sworn enemies; at least, that was the "law," as the writer understood it, in the year 1866. To meddle with another boy's clothes while he was in the water was deemed ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... matters still more," he averred, with as near an approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compass. "I don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone. Am ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... aged one hundred-and-four years, who took a prominent part in the General Election, has just died. This should be a lesson to people who meddle with politics. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in a little girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room in the first place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that didn't belong to you in the second. Where did you ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... brown head of her daughter. "Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these children while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... Beaugrand? For generations the great amethyst had sparkled in the front of Blomidon, visible at intervals in certain lights and from certain standpoints, and again unseen for months or years together. The Indians called it "The Eye of Gluskap," and believed that to meddle with it at all would bring down swiftly the vengeance of the demigod. Fixed high on the steepest face of the cliff, the gem had long defied the search of the most daring climbers. It lurked, probably, under some over-hanging brow of ancient rock, as in a fit and inviolable setting. At ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... them. Until we know more, I do not wish to touch the scalp of that bee-hunter. It may do us great harm. I knew a medicine-man of the pale-faces to lose his scalp, and small-pox took off half the band that made him prisoner and killed him. It is not good to meddle with medicine-men. A few days ago, and I wanted this young man's scalp, very much. Now, I do not want it. It may do us harm to touch it. I wish to let him go, and to take his squaw with him. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... been a goose so to disturb myself," mademoiselle laughed out in relief. "You do well to rebuke me, cousin. I shall never meddle in ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... go to their leader some time—if not now, at least to-morrow; and why should I lose touch with them? So far it was certain that my presence was undiscovered. The hag had suspicion of me, but not in their way; the men were too busy, I thought, talking of their own affairs to meddle even with their neighbours. Dan knew on what business I had left the ship, and would quieten Roderick's alarm for me. It was plain that fortune had turned ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... the prince had learnt the secret of the horse and the manner of its motion. Moreover, the King said to his son, 'Methinks thou wilt do well not to mount the horse neither go near it henceforth; for thou knowest not its properties, and it is perilous for thee to meddle with it.' Now the prince had told his father of his adventure with the King's daughter of Senaa, and he said, 'If the King had been minded to kill thee, he had done so; but thine hour was ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... return; outcasts without home or honor, would not death or exile be preferable? Oh, let us abandon our loved home to these implacable enemies, and find refuge elsewhere! Take from us property, everything, only grant us liberty! Is this rather frantic, considering I abhor politics, and women who meddle with them, above all? My opinion has not yet changed; I still feel the same contempt for a woman who would talk at the top of her voice for the edification of Federal officers, as though anxious to receive an invitation requesting ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... parsec or two. Grange is not one of the strong arm blaster boys. Suppose Tang Ya does a little listening in—and maybe we can rig another surprise if Grange does try to ask advice of someone off world. In the meantime I don't think they are going to meddle with the Salariki. They don't want to have to answer awkward questions if we turn up a Patrol ship to ask them. So—" he stretched and beckoned to Dane, "we shall go to ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... marster don't 'low nuttin like dat—I'se too val'eble er nigger. Nobum, dey ain't none ob 'em gwine ter pester me, an' I ain't gwine ter meddle wid dem—dey kin des fight ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... came from the cellar where the eggs were supposed to be hatching in their nest. An unwary hound sniffing about the door got a throatful of the stinging smoke and fled yowling. Hydrochloric acid, vitriol and nitre-glycerine are kittle things to meddle with, and the place ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... much Alarm to alle. He made light of it himselfe, and sayd 'twas merelie a suddain Rush of Blood to the Head, and woulde not be dissuaded from going out; but Mother was playnly smote at the Heart, and having lookt after him with some anxietie, exclaimed, "I shall neither meddle nor make more in this Businesse: your Father's suddain Seizures shall never be layd at my Doore;" and soe left me, till we met at Dinner. After the Cloth was drawne, enters Mr. Milton, who goes up to Mother, and with Gracefulnesse kisses her Hand; but she withdrewe it pettishly, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... thee or thy wife either?' he answered rudely. 'Look to thy own business and meddle not ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke

... definite purpose in life than to write checks for charities. Your Christianity commands that women shall stay at home, and declares that they are not entitled to seek their own salvation, to have any place in affairs, or to meddle with the realm of the intellect. Those forbidden gardens are reserved for the lordly sex. St. Paul, you say, put us in our proper place some twenty centuries ago, and we are to remain there for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a person with whom it was not wise to meddle, unless his assailants could make out a case without a flaw. He was without question the most venerated person in Oxford. Without an equal, in Oxford at least, in the depth and range of his learning, he stood out yet more impressively among his fellows in the lofty ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... "you are a gallant and most promising soldier, but be careful how you use the favors of the ladies; for not all your services rendered to a queen will compensate the most trivial disregard offered to the woman; and above all, be cautious how you meddle with rings." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... new tool. We use it for a while with pleasure. Then it blisters our hands, and we hate to touch it. By-and-by our hands get callous, and then we have no longer any sensitiveness about it. But if we give it up, the calluses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the novelty and get the blisters.—The story is often quoted of Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good for nothing until it had been preached forty times. A lecture doesn't begin to be old until it has passed its hundredth delivery; and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... province were relatively few in number, and the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated the whole country, was quite content with its own large endowments received from the bounty of the king or private individuals during the days of French occupation, and did not care to meddle in a question which in no sense affected it. On the other hand, in Upper Canada, the arguments used by the Anglican clergy in support of their claims to the exclusive administration of the reserves were constantly answered not only in the legislative bodies, but in the ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... You, Mr. Hythe? Thank you. In the future don't meddle with their legitimate pleasures, (laughing with pain) They've so little to amuse them. How selfish I am! (the bell rings) ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... out that the wickedness of those times surpassed understanding, and that a change and sweeping away of the human evil that had accumulated was necessary, and was effected by supernatural means. The relation of this must be left to them, since it is not the province of the philosopher to meddle with such matters. ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... in any emergency she was thus sure of one faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to the spiritual training of their children—there was no necessity for Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious feelings that interpret ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... realised, with a cold suddenness, that here was no jest—we were standing face to face with actual war. We were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no hesitation, no indecision: we said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those soldiers, he could go ahead and do it; but if he waited for us to follow him, he would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Reason."[4] Again and again he warns the reader to let his book alone unless he is ready for a new dawning of divine Truth, for a fresh Light to break: "If thou art not a spiritual overcomer, then let my book alone. Do not meddle with it, but stick to thy ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... to stare out of the window. Somehow I was stirred. There seemed to me something ominous in my own preoccupation with these affairs, affairs in which I could not, even had I the right, to meddle. My friend's laconic exposition only deepened the dramatic quality of the situation. For an author I had been singularly luckless in meeting drama in my life. I had often had my artistic cupidity excited by Mr. Carville, by the way he was continually having ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... with courts, and skittish, I ne'er presume to mean the British: I meddle with no state affairs, But spare my jest and save my ears; And our court schemes are too profound For Machiavel himself to sound. A captious fool may feel offended; They ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... his portrait is the special pride of Providence; and there is a "Providence that shapes his ends." Thus it will be seen that BURNSIDE is the very man for the situation. It may be asked, (there are cavillers who ask impertinent questions about everything,) what business BURNSIDE has to meddle with European affairs? Pshaw!—one might as well ask what business Colorado JEWETT has to meddle with everybody's affairs, or GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN, or PAUL PRY, or WIKOFF. BURNSIDE against BISMARCK for diplomacy any time. Probably ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various

... with us by doing just that sort of a trick. Of course, Sara is rich enough without accepting a sou under the will, but she's a canny person. She hasn't handed it back to us on a silver platter, with thanks; still, on the other hand, she refuses to meddle. She makes us feel pretty small. She won't sell out to us. She just sits tight. That's what gets ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... first thing I will meddle with is my own rick of turf. And I'll give you leave to go do the same with your own umbrella, or whatever ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... schoolmistress left her penknife open upon her desk, when she went out of her room during the recess; nearly all the girls took it into their hands to look at it, for it had a number of blades, and was rather curious; some of them tried the knife to see how sharp it was. We had been told not to meddle with her things, and all of us knew it was wrong; as I was one of the small girls, I did not get a chance to look at it till all had seen it; but, when the others ran out to the play ground, and I was left alone, I went to the desk, and took up the knife, and opened ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen

... speaking. Carthew is not my friend, and you know it. If I had had no personal feud—for it has become that with him—I should be more at liberty to speak, but as it is I would rather remain silent. I tell you this now, that you may know, in case I ever do meddle in your affairs, how painful it is for me to do so, and how unwillingly I do it. At any rate, there is nothing whatever to connect the accident that took place today with him. The event is one of a series of successes that he has gained over me. It does not affect me much, for though ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... looking up my past," Woods continued, "one might think you were the father of the lady and I a youthful suitor. While I recognize no right of yours to meddle in my affairs, the fact that I was sent to America as the duly accredited agent of the French Government should have some weight. They are not accustomed over there to hiring thugs and cutthroats to ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... positive law so profound; never was the reverence for Parliaments so great as at the death of Elizabeth. There was none of the modern longing for a king that reigned without governing; no conscious desire shows itself anywhere to meddle with the actual exercise of the royal administration. But the Puritan could only conceive of the kingly power as of a power based upon constitutional tradition, controlled by constitutional law, and acting in ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... let me do the telling," he stated at last, grimly. "What can be said, I'll say. Like a fool, I will meddle." ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... take great care in catching him, for they are very much afraid of him, thinking that his sharp spines are poisoned, and can inflict a deadly wound. But in this they are too hard upon the fellow. He can prick them deeply and painfully, and he will if they meddle with him; but he is a perfectly respectable fish, and would not think of such a cowardly thing as ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous

... to thrust his nose curiously into the warrant officers' little boxes. On arriving at the gun-room, he merely glances, with a well-bred air of assumed indifference, at the apartment of the officers, with whose habits and arrangements he scarcely ever ventures to meddle. He next dives into the cockpit, which in a frigate is used only for the purser's store-room, leading to the bread-room, both of which he examines carefully. The spirit-room hatchway, too, is lifted up for his inspection, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... does not meddle in such matters," said Mr. Edson, simply. "I pay a stated sum yearly toward the support of the gospel, and give as much as people in general to the missionary and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... do it," said Mr. Dinsmore, taking a seat by his daughter's side; "I've warned her more than once not to meddle with match-making." And he shook his head at her ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... it's a secret, I've no more to say; for I never meddle with any man's secrets that he does not choose to trust me with. But I wish, neighbour Grant, you would put down that book. You are always poring over some book or another when a man comes to see you, which is not, according to my notions (being a plain, UNLARNED Englishman ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... contains stand or fall with my success in stating them; and these last at least I may associate with your name. They are not mine. I have not discovered or invented them. They are so obvious that any one who chooses may see them; and I have been only moved to meddle with them, because, from being so obvious, it seems that no one will so much as deign to look at them, or at any rate to put them together with any care or completeness. They might be before everybody's eyes; but instead they are under everybody's feet. My occupation has been merely ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... philosophers ought not to interest themselves in the management of public affairs. Thus, as M. Villemain observes, it was a maxim of the Epicureans, "Sapiens ne accedat ad rempublicam" (Let no wise man meddle in politics). The Pythagoreans had enforced the same principle with more gravity. Aristotle examines the question on both sides, and concludes in favor of active life. Among Aristotle's disciples, a writer, singularly elegant and ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... help, is the rara avis in terris, and, in regard to his sympathy with the clergy, would often be thought by them to deserve the rest of the hexameter; but it is really to his credit that he is loth to meddle with church music. Its social vexations, its eye to the market, its truckling to vulgar taste and ready subservience to a dominant fashion, which can never (except under the rarest combination of circumstances) ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges

... visitation. The horror, at least, was lifted from my mind; I could look with calm of spirit on that great bright creature, God's ocean; and as I set off homeward up the rough sides of Aros, nothing remained of my concern beyond a deep determination to meddle no more with the spoils of wrecked vessels or the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Anne says," said Maud, "and when I am with her, I think so too; and then something tiresome happens and I meddle, I meddle! Jack says I like ruling lines, but that it is no good, because ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... would I get 'em but in the heads of your own sheep? Would you have me meddle with the bastes of any neighbor, who might put me in the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... spluttering wrathfully in the broadest of his native Scotch, as was his habit when angered or surprised. "Ye reckless fou, wha hae put ye to sic a jackanape trick? Dinna ye ken that sic a boon is nae for a laddie like you to meddle wi'? Wha hae put ye ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... strive with him that sits and guides the helm. I know your reading will inform you soon, What creatures they were, that barkt against the moon. I'll give you better counsel as a friend: Cobblers their latchets ought not to transcend; Meddle with common matters, common wrongs; To the House of Commons common things belongs. Leave him the oar that best knows how to row, And state to him that best the state doth know. If I by industry, deep reach, or grace, Am now arriv'd at this or that great ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... meddle. If this Miss Cecelia Brooke (as she named herself) fostered any sort of intrigue, he wanted nothing so fervently as to be left altogether out of it. But already he had been dragged in, without wish or ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... the contrary, for he hath done so much against me that he hath well deserved it. And so ran upon him, and would have smitten him through the head, and Sir Colgrevance ran betwixt them, and said: An ye be so hardy to do so more, we two shall meddle together. When Lionel understood his words he took his shield afore him, and asked him what that he was. And he told him, Colgrevance, one of his fellows. Then Lionel defied him, and gave him a great stroke through the helm. Then he drew his sword, for he was a passing good ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... are a lady having gifts that are much in favour in these days. Be careful to use those gifts and no others. Meddle in nothing that does not concern you. So you may make a great marriage with some lord in favour. But meddle in ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... don't meddle with other people's affairs. I want 'em to leave mine alone, and consequently I leave theirn alone. You hear ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... live at the humble abode of Mrs. Greenough after the dawn of our prosperity. I had saved nearly all my wages, and at the opening of my story I was worth, in my own right, about two thousand dollars, with which, however, I did not purpose to meddle. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... what I am trying to do," said Warrender. "As for her grief, you know—which isn't so much grief as a dreadful shock to her nerves, and the constitution of her mind, and many things we needn't mention—as for that, no one can meddle. But just to make her feel that there is some one to whom nothing is a trouble, who will go anywhere, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... take my advice you will not trouble yourself about him," said Stanbury. "But as far as I am concerned, I am not to meddle or make with him? Of course," continued Stanbury, after a pause, "if I find that he is intruding himself in my mother's house, I shall tell him that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... as I had never heard before, and have never heard since. The bugles screeched, and the iron bars rang, and above all sounded the wild Border slogan, "Wha dare meddle wi' me?" which the men shouted with all their might. One would have thought that the whole men in Scotland were about the ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... that the United States is our friend and tell him also that it has the same right to maintain a republican form of government as we have to choose a monarchy. Tell him also that he must keep his hands off and not meddle in its affairs for I will not allow anyone to interfere on the other side of the Atlantic. He who strikes my friend, strikes me." This answer in diplomatic language went the same day to Paris and soon after Russian battleships arrived in the harbors of New York and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... Ramon," he went on, dropping his tone, "we ain't here to molest you. We come out here with a scientific gent, to measure the mesa. We was going back home ter-night, an' was takin' a last look around when you come along. I'll give you my word—and you know it's good—that we don't want ter meddle with your affairs so long as they don't affect us. Run all the guns you want—for I know that's your little game—but we've got some kids with us, and it's up to me to get 'em back home safe. Let us git out of here peaceable, and no ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... Holland, smiling a patronizing smile at his patron, "Tommy, my friend, if you take my advice you'll not meddle with what doesn't concern you. You're a peer; better leave the Word of God to me. I'm not a peer, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... same time I must admit that you have invariably resisted all attempts to apply any practical check or remedy to the great and growing evil, stoutly maintaining that it was a local institution, and that we of the North had no right to meddle with it. I am well aware that you have stigmatized every effort to awaken public attention to its nature and tendency, or to point out methods, more or less available, of abolishing the system, as unconstitutional, incendiary, and quixotic. I concede that your indignation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... infinite satisfaction. What more can we say? He directed the proceedings. He prompted or browbeat the witnesses, he undertook the duties of a prosecuting attorney. He regulated the trial.... He directed coarse jokes at the unhappy Pepin; but reckless as he was, he dared not meddle with Morey. He had no hesitation in accusing himself. He owned himself the worst of criminals, and declared that he esteemed himself happy to be able to pay with his own blood for the blood of the unhappy victims of his crime. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... leisurely to pass the word along that they have heard oars or have seen signals, especially if they have got a hot-headed boatswain in charge of their station, a sort of chap who would want to go down to meddle with a hundred men, with only five or six at his back. A man with a wife and some children, perhaps, don't relish the thought of going into a bad scrimmage like that if he can keep out of it; why should ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... negociation of a public character: the Wardenship was not vacant, and the government seems to have tried to induce Newton to take something subordinate. March 14, Newton wrote to Halley, in reference to a current rumour,—"I neither put in for any place in the Mint, nor would meddle with Mr. Hoar's [the comptroller's] place, were it offered me." On the 19th, Montague informs Newton that he is to have the Wardenship, vacant by the removal of Mr. Overton to the Customs. Four years afterwards, when the great ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various

... a dream, she said, when he was gone; "but it'll be a lesson to me not to meddle with anybody's old ring ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... bottles, some of which the energetic German officers, I suppose, had emptied in honour of their achievement, an achievement I bow down before, for their pluck and strength had taken them here in a shorter time by far than mine. I do not meddle with anything, save to take a few specimens and to put a few more rocks on the cairn, and to put in among them my card, merely as a civility to Mungo, a civility his Majesty will soon turn into pulp. Not that it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... benefit to society, that we grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich men is a safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private misfortune ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... royal decree is that the said merchandise of China shall enter into the said Manila through the hands of the said Chinese, and at their own account and risk, as the said decree says, without any other persons being authorized to meddle in it at all, or any merchants save the said Chinese. Thus the said violation is manifest, since the said Portuguese are the ones who carry and deliver the merchandise in the said city, by means of the said commerce which they have in China. Without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... relating several of his stories, though from time to time he looked timidly at Marfa Timofeevna and coughed. That cough always seized him whenever he was going to embellish the truth in her presence. But this time she did not meddle with him, never ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... had a great deal of discourse with Monsieur about it, but I did positively say that he had noe relation to my knowledge to the King my Master, and if he should have I make a question or noe whither in this case the King will owne him. However, my Lord, I had nothing to doe to owne or meddle in a buisines that I was so much a stranger to. . ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great, And tell the other girls and boys, Not to meddle with my toys." ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... navvy!" said Ivan. "I didn't know that, but I at once made up my mind it was dangerous to meddle with Fairfield if he was watched. I gave him the slip, went back to Mr. Grell, and typed out a note ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... to meddle with history,—with which our narrative is no otherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,—we will return to our two friends, who were still ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... came to take his pipe, hee had such an apprehension that the devill did indeed stand by him and doe the office as hee dreamed that hee was struck speechless for a time and when hee came to himself hee threw his tobacco in the fire and his pipes at the walls; resolving never to meddle more with it: soe much money as was formerly wasted by the week in to serving his ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... room, stretched where he had been struck back upon the bed, I found the boy who had elected to meddle in ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... shouldst thou know?" replied he gruffly. "Meddle with thy ironing, but donnot be asking questions about what ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... understand you, Benis. But then, I never did. Your private affairs are your own, also your motives. And I never meddle, as you know. I think though, that I may be permitted a straight question. Has your ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... women; labours to make their minds sick, ere their bodies feel it, and then there's work for the dog-leech. He pretends the cure of madmen; and sure he gets most by them, for no man in his perfect wit would meddle with him. Lastly, he is such a juggler with urinals, so dangerously unskilful, that if ever the city will have recourse to him for diseases that need purgation, let them employ ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... shewn himself to be a very illogical writer. To have said this of him formerly on another ground, was accounted a heresy and a piece of presumption not easily to be forgiven. Indeed Mr. Malthus has always been a sort of "darling in the public eye," whom it was unsafe to meddle with. He has contrived to make himself as many friends by his attacks on the schemes of Human Perfectibility and on the Poor-Laws, as Mandeville formerly procured enemies by his attacks on Human Perfections and on Charity-Schools; and among other instances that we might ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... in there again!" she pleaded. "I will be good. I'll never meddle with the things in the chest any more. There are mice in there, hundreds of 'em; they'll run all over me; they'll eat me up. Oh, don't make me ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... against this witness. He has mentioned no less than five different lies which he has told, and has narrated a number of episodes in which he deliberately broke the law. Is it or is it not a misdemeanor for anyone to meddle with our Highroads in the manner that has just been described? By his own confession this young man is disqualified for a witness! By his own confession he is a law breaker ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... ashore several times in search of the captain. He was afraid to speak to him, considering it a lack of discipline to meddle in the management of the boat, so he invented the most absurd pretext in order ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... was Mr. Brough's condescension, that when some of his fashionable servants refused to meddle with the trunks, he himself seized a pair of them with both bands, carried them to the carriage, and shouted loud enough for all Lamb's Conduit Street to hear, "John Brough is not proud—no, no; and if his footmen are too high and mighty, he'll show ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... other's houses. But apart from them nobody ever seems to leave Ashbridge (though a stroll to the station about the time that the evening train arrives is a recognised diversion) or, in consequence, ever to come back. Ashbridge, in fact, is self-contained, and desires neither to meddle with others nor ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... not see why you are putting yourself to all this trouble. The king will pay off the indebtedness; the kingdom is said to be rich, or Austria wouldn't meddle with it." ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... no case for us to interfere in," he said, with clouded brow. "If they have a heretic to deal with we must not meddle. It is not England's way for a score to attack one; but we must not interpose betwixt Mortimer and a heretic. That would be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... unintentionally deceiving others, they were fatally deceiving themselves likewise; and of this, it is probable that no one was aware, with the exception of St. George, who, seeing that his warnings were neglected, did not choose to meddle further in the matter, although keeping himself ready to aid the lovers to the utmost of his ability by any means that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... he had been cheekin' some one or playin' a far-fetched joke, I might be able to forgive him, but there must be reason in everythink, an' to go an' meddle with other's property is carryin' things too far. 'Heed the spark or you may dread the fire,' is a piece of wisdom I've always took to heart in rarin' my family, and I notice them as are inclined to look leniently on ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... having taken the liberty to interfere in the discussion in Antoinette's behalf, declaring that Counts Larinski are not to be distrusted, and that men of science are incapable of comprehending delicacy of sentiment, he gave full vent to his wrath, telling the worthy demoiselle to meddle with what concerned her. For the first time in his life he was seriously angry. Antoinette caressed him into good-humour, promised that she would put on the best possible face to Maitre Noirot, that she would pay religious ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... and ask him. But, remember, I shall be very much annoyed if you do so,—and that such an inquiry cannot but be injurious to me. If, however, you won't believe me, you can go and ask. At any rate, don't meddle with the guano. We should lose over L1000 each of us, if you were to do so. By George, a man should neither marry, nor leave London for a day, if he has to do with a fellow so nervous as you are. As it is I think I shall be back a week or two before my time is properly up, lest ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... point into a mutual church covenant, it seems to me that the converse of that which is usually found in that place ought to be substituted. Even the apostles, as we have seen, found it necessary to rebuke the disposition prevalent in their time to meddle with the affairs, and to make inquisition into the conduct of others. But it should be recollected, that the condition of Christians and the state of society then were widely different from the same things with us. Christianity was ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... M. Clemenceau," he faltered, "I never meddle with matters which do not teach me anything. One word has existed thousands of years, and yet full explanations on the highest secrets have been wholly refused, so that the finest intellects give up seeking them unless they want to go mad. So I think it my duty to abstain and not lose ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... comet-tail, to the Konigsberg [KING'S-HILL so called; no great things of a Hill, O reader; made by barrow, you can see], to the top of the Konigsberg; there draws sword; and cuts, grandly flourishing, to the Four Quarters of the Heavens: 'Let any mortal, from whatever quarter coming, meddle with Hungary if he dare!' [Adelung, ii. 293, 294.] Chivalrous Hungary bursts into passionate acclaim; old Palfy, I could fancy, into tears; and all the world murmurs to itself, with moist-gleaming eyes, 'REX NOSTER!' This is, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and of which we feel a desire to speak, multiply faster than the names for them. Except on subjects for which there has been constructed a scientific terminology, with which unscientific persons do not meddle, great difficulty is generally found in bringing a new name into use; and independently of that difficulty, it is natural to prefer giving to a new object a name which at least expresses its resemblance to something ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... fight with savage nature, savage beast, and savage man. And thus she gave the little race strength of heart and body and brain, and taught it to stand together as she taught each man of the race to stand alone, protect his women, mind his own business, and meddle not at all; to think his own thoughts and die for them if need be, though he divided his own house against itself; taught the man to cleave to one woman, with the penalty of death if he strayed elsewhere; to keep her—and even himself—in dark ignorance of the sins against Herself for which ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... a black, bronzed hunter, pressing to the front, 'that what I hold of thee, King William, on tenure of homage, and of two good horses and staunch hounds yearly, I yield to no English mongrel churl, who dares to meddle with me.' ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... they can live naturally, and spend their lives helping in the great work of feeding, clothing, and housing their fellow men. I've no desire to leave my job or take them from theirs, to start a lazy, shiftless life of self-indulgence. I don't meddle much with the Bible, but I have a profound BELIEF in it, and a large RESPECT for it, as the greatest book in the world, and it says: 'By the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,' or words to that effect. I was born a sweater, I shall just go ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... mischief and annoyance is considerable. Lord Grey succumbs to him, and they say in spite of his behaviour is very much attached to him, though so incessantly worried that his health visibly suffers by his presence. There is nothing in which he does not meddle. The Reform Bill he had a principal hand in concocting, and he fancies himself the only man competent to manage our foreign relations. Melbourne, who was present at this scene, said, 'If I had been Lord Grey, I would have knocked ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... Missouri, unless they point exclusively to them, as I have shown they do not. The guarded manner, too, in which some of the gentlemen have occasionally expressed themselves on this subject, is somewhat alarming. They have no disposition to meddle with slavery in the old United States. Perhaps not—but who shall answer for their successors? Who shall furnish a pledge that the principle once ingrafted into the Constitution, will not grow, and spread, and fructify, and overshadow the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... and applied to stewards of foreign vessels a'n't legal, and wasn't intended; but now it's controlled by popular will,—the stewards a'n't legislators, and the judges know it wouldn't be popular, and there's nobody dare meddle with it, for fear he may be called an abolitionist. You better take my advice, Cap: ship the nigger, and save yourself and Consul Mathew the trouble of another ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... to the idea expressed. The two spring from the same source, and correspond. You impress more forcibly by retaining your native manner of statement; chastened where necessary, but not defaced by an imitation, even of a self-erected, yet artificial, standard. It does not do to meddle too much with yourself. But I do resort to a weeding process in revising; a verb or an adjective, an expletive or a superlative, is dragged out and cast away. Even so, as often as not, I have to add. The words above, "as far as I can see it," have just ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... spite against you; best leave him alone," said the other. And the two turned away, evidently aware that it would not be safe to meddle with me; and I once more pursued ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland



Words linked to "Meddle" :   meddler, step in, tamper, interfere, meddling



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com