"Vexatious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... association with an active creative experience. Anarchism comes when the Socialist repudiation of property is dropped into the circles of thought of men habitually ruled and habitually irresponsible, men limited in action and temperamentally adverse to the toil, to the vexatious rebuffs and insufficiencies, the dusty effort, fatigue, and friction of the practical pursuit of a complex ideal. So that it most flourishes eastwardly, where men, it would seem, are least energetic and constructive, and it explodes or dies on ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... that rocked on a track of its own, and thus saved the yellow-and-red hotel carpet, the Honourable Dave Beckwith patiently explained the vexatious process demanded by his particular sovereign state before she should consent to cut the Gordian knot of marriage. And his state—the Honourable Dave remarked—was in the very forefront of enlightenment in this respect: practically all that she demanded was that ladies in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gladly accept your proposal to join the water-party today, but I came to town to meet Lord Grenville; and, having seen him, I am preparing to return part of the way to Walmer in the course of the evening. I was brought to town by the vexatious accounts from Vienna, which give too great a chance of our being disappointed in our best hopes by the blind and perverse ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... character, somewhat similar to that of a bad lithograph taken from a worn-out stone. I should wish my wax-paper negative to be similar in appearance to that of a good calotype one, or to show by transmitted light, as my vexatious specimen does when viewed on its right side by reflected light. As the most lucid description must fall far short of a sight of the article itself, I purpose enclosing you a specimen of my failure, a portion of one of the negatives in question. Would immersion, instead of floating on the gallo-nitrate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... "It is vexatious to be shut up here, in the dark, Maud," he said, "when every minute may bring an attack. This side of the house might be defended by you and Beulah, aided and enlightened by the arm and counsels of that young 'son of liberty,' little Evert; whereas the stockade in front may really need the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... evening. When, therefore, he simply said, in his modest, beseeching manner, "I beg to return you my very sincere thanks," his brevity seemed almost ungracious to those who didn't know that it was physically impossible for him to make a speech. It was vexatious that routine had omitted from the list of speakers Mr. Everett, who was at Irving's side; but, as diplomate, the Prussian and Russian had precedence, and as American author, Irving, of course, was the representative man. An Englishman near me said ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... what I have not written, come back to me, for it is time you did. And though the state of affairs to which I invite you is one to be avoided, yet let your value for me so far prevail, as to induce you to come there even in these vexatious circumstances. For the rest I will take care that due warning is given, and a notice put up in all places, to prevent you being entered on the census as absent; and to get put on the census just before the lustration is the mark of your ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and the activity of the persecution was something relaxed, as the guiding mind of the great minister ceased to have leisure to attend to it. The bishops, however, continued, each in his own diocese, to act with such vigour as they possessed. Their courts were unceasingly occupied with vexatious suits, commenced without reason, and conducted without justice. They summoned arbitrarily as suspected offenders whoever had the misfortune to have provoked their dislike; either compelling them to criminate themselves by questions on the intricacies of theology,[533] or allowing sentence ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... she has the grace to be ashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when I handed her 'A Modern Circe.' I could have told her that such a blush on such a cheek would almost atone for not being able to read at all, but I refrained. It is vexatious all the same, for, though one doesn't expect to find perfection here below, the 'nut-brown mayde,' externally considered, comes perilously near it. After she had gone I discovered a slip of paper ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "It is so vexatious," she said. "Mrs. Ashe meant to go to York and Lincoln and all the cathedral towns and to Scotland; and we have had to give it all up because of the rains. We shall go away having ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Social History of England, almost unknown to the rising generation, was the reappearance, in Wales, of "Rebecca and her daughters," a riotous mob, whose grievance was, at first, purely local—they resisted the heavy and vexatious tolls, to which, by the mismanagement and abuses of the turnpike system, they were subjected. Galled by this burden, to which they were rendered more sensitive by reason of their poverty, and hopeless of obtaining any assistance ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... pictures, horses, antique relics and similar curiosities to take much interest in government; he suffered from religious mania, and was constantly afraid of being murdered; and his daily hope and prayer was that he might be spared all needless trouble in this vexatious world and have absolutely nothing to do. And now he committed an act of astounding folly. He first revived the Edict of St. James, ordered the nobles throughout the land to turn out all Protestant pastors {1602-3.}, and sent a body of armed men to close the Brethren's ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Bench. Being Stroke-oar, I was spared the continual contemplation of a Man's back in front of me, which other Slaves have told me makes you so mad that you want to Bite him; but 'twas scarcely less Vexatious to have behind, as I had, a Chattering Fellow of a Frenchman, for ever jabbering forth his complaints, and not bearing them with the surly Dignity of a Briton. I could almost hear this fellow grimace; and he was ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... lads themselves—tiresome and vexatious often—she was, for the most part, patient and forbearing, but it was not a loving patience, or a considerate forbearance, as old Kirstin's had been. Kirstin had been vexed often, and had sometimes complained of ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... was a diligent devourer of the newspaper in the vexatious times (as at all others), he met many a torrent of criticism, incitement, and counsels which left him stunned rather than alleviated. To a special correspondent who hampered him, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... When a vexatious litigant began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole estate, if he wouldn't ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... loud, authoritative voices, and, for the time being, appeared masters of the vessel and all that it contained, examining with provoking exactness, cupboards, bedding, boxes, and binns of biscuit, till there seemed no end to their prying and vexatious system of cross-questioning. ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... to dream that she is displeased with her apparel, foretells that she will find many vexatious rivalries in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... in the mire; and then Ariel, in the likeness of an ape, would make mouths at him. Then swiftly changing his shape, in the likeness of a hedgehog, he would lie tumbling in Caliban's way, who feared the hedgehog's sharp quills would prick his bare feet. With a variety of such-like vexatious tricks Ariel would often torment him, whenever Caliban neglected the work which Prospero commanded ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... hurt by many circumstances, when, on your mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of others. For you received no support from either in regard to my vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used, before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much of, and kiss my enemy mine do I say? rather the enemy of the laws, of the law courts, of peace, of his country, of all loyal men ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... was just what these officers had been working for, and it was vexatious indeed that, after years of successful manipulation, a lady of Mrs. Arnot's position should ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... inquired into most things, but has never had a committee on "the Queen". There is no authentic blue-book to say what she does. Such an investigation cannot take place; but if it could, it would probably save her much vexatious routine, and many ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Versailles. He went to Vienna to study the military art, and dissuaded Leopold from making peace with the Sultan. Peter wished to conquer Kertch in order to secure the Straits of Ienikale. He was preparing to go to Venice, when vexatious intelligence reached him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... threatening witnesses, 3. perjury, 3. theft, 4. receiving stolen goods, 4. buying from domestic inferior, 7. taking on deposit from domestic inferior, 7. in default of multiple restitution, for theft of second order, 8. appropriation of lost properly, 9. selling lost property, 10. vexatious claim of property as lost, 11. kidnapping, 14. procuring desertion of slave, 15. harbouring fugitive slave, 18. ,, of defaulting militia, 16. detaining fugitive slave, 18. keeping recaptured slave, 19. ...
— The Oldest Code of Laws in the World - The code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon - B.C. 2285-2242 • Hammurabi, King of Babylon
... opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,—always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the side of scrupulosity; ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a complicated jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in the minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight with which questions were anticipated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... mental and physical wreck, but determined to solve those vexatious questions: "What do the King and Prince George know?" "What have ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering she," who once held lord Hastings under her distaff, but her annoying jealousy, "vexatious days, and jarring, joyless nights," drove him away from her. Being jealous of Jane Shore, she accused her to the duke of Gloster of alluring lord Hastings from his allegiance, and the lord protector soon trumped up a charge against ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... I was preparing to row my friend for his vexatious display of philanthropy, when he came to me with his right arm soaked up to the shoulder, grievously lamenting his having failed, by an untimous slip, in securing a fellow of at least ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... himself out in attempting to prove what I fear cannot be proved, to make him feel that he has robbed you with even less semblance of justice than before? Can you not leave him to his own life, which will be a useful and a distinguished one? Let us keep this vexatious confession, at least till you ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... vegetable, mineral, personal memoranda, abrupt raids of criticism, crude gossip of philosophy, varied sands and clumps—without bothering ourselves because certain pages do not present themselves to you or me as coming under their own name with entire fitness or amiability. (It is a profound, vexatious never-explicable matter—this of names. I have been exercised deeply about it ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... flight imparted by it to the arrow. He uses three strips of feather, which is better than two flat ones for the purpose of keeping the missile steady, but still does not prevent its swerving toward the end of its course, as more than one vexatious incident of his hunting record shows. This usage may help to account for the superiority of the old bowmen to the amateurs of to-day in accuracy at long ranges. The best targets reported on the part of the latter, such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... "future couple," as they are styled in the abominable phraseology of legal documents. The baron took the pen and signed, then the representative. The baroness approached, leaning on Madame de Villefort's arm. "My dear," said she, as she took the pen, "is it not vexatious? An unexpected incident, in the affair of murder and theft at the Count of Monte Cristo's, in which he nearly fell a victim, deprives us of the pleasure of seeing ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... vindictive after much irritation, they may claim at least as good a reputation for forbearance in a conquered country as our officers in India. They are not ill-humoured, and they are not peevishly arrogant, except upon provocation. The conduct of the tender Italian dames was vexatious. It was exasperating to these knights of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes sounding of exquisite Vienna, while their legs stretched in melancholy inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... holding of hay, straw, roots, green crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... previous suspicion of this fatal truth but, the moment I sat down to write, I began to perceive it. I had scarcely fallen into my most promising attitude, and dipped my pen in the ink, when I found the clock upon the pier - a red-faced clock with a white rim - importuning me in a highly vexatious manner to consult my watch, and see how I was off for Greenwich time. Having no intention of making a voyage or taking an observation, I had not the least need of Greenwich time, and could have put up with watering-place time as a sufficiently accurate article. The pier-clock, however, persisting, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... ended last week, with a sentence which was levelled against Codrington, and which called the charges groundless, frivolous, and vexatious. It is generally thought that this sentence might have been spared, though the acquittal was proper; that Codrington behaved very foolishly, and in ever mentioning the round robin after he had forgiven it, very ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... friends, and their backs, at the present moment, were more than half turned to her. It would be just possible for me to speak to her, without being observed by them, if I were both extraordinarily cautious and lucky. At any moment Wildred, who had perhaps gone to rectify some vexatious mistake about a table, might return. If I meant to take the step at all there was no time to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... heat, vexatious din, and whirl! Of deep humiliation for the sullen hired-girl; Of grief for mother, hating to see things wasted so, And of fortune for that little boy who pined to taste that dough! It looked so sweet and yellow—sure, to taste it were no sin— But, oh! how sister ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... vexatious formula is that if fish was used, the cooked fish was incorporated with the raw beaten eggs which were then scrambled in the pan. In that event this formula resembles closely the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... so many petty annoyances and vexatious of life attendant upon residents abroad, that it must require some strong motives to induce them to remain. Wherever the English settle they raise the price of everything, much to the annoyance of the rentiers ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... by accident into a room where a gallant is on his knees before his mistress, and in the act of "popping the question," is vexatious. An ass thrusting its head through the broken window of a country church, and braying aloud while the congregation are busily chanting "Old Hundred," or some other equally devout melody, is vexatious. An elderly gentleman losing his hat and wig on a windy day, is vexatious. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... various impossibilities which torment and humiliate the painter, none are more vexatious than that of drawing a mountain form. It is indeed impossible enough to draw, by resolute care, the foam on a wave, or the outline of the foliage of a large tree; but in these cases, when care is at fault, carelessness will help, and the dash of the brush will in some measure give wildness ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... of a woodland rock. Sprawling at her lapped breasts, was her wide-awake fawn, stark naked, its black little body half lifted from the deck, crosswise with its dam's; its hands, like two paws, clambering upon her; its mouth and nose ineffectually rooting to get at the mark; and meantime giving a vexatious half-grunt, blending with the composed snore ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... is, of course, that upon mechanic's liens, which are burdensome to a degree that is vexatious, besides being subject to amendment almost every year. In a general way, no land-owner is free from liability for the debt of any person who has performed labor or furnished materials on the buildings placed upon the land, even without the knowledge or consent of the ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... in all this, however vexatious and insulting under the circumstances—the recent death of the husband, and the young widow's unprotected state—that neither of us could forbear laughing at the conclusion of Mrs Irwin's story. It struck ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... unjust to the Negro, and incidentally to the 'poor white' man as well. If we do, we have a perfect right to agitate for changes; and we can do much to disclose, without heat, the actual facts regarding the complicated and vexatious legislative situation in the South, as regards the suffrage. Every change in the legislation upon this subject should, indeed, be jealously watched, that the principle of political equality between the races be not legally ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... a great failure of justice, or, to use McWriggler's classic language, 'a fizzle.' But he knew, as well as we do, what led to that result; for, as I remarked a few moments ago, the whole proceedings were a farce. Between the vexatious objections of Murdon, the pettifogger, who had charge of the defence, and of Sealy, who, I believe, had entered into a conspiracy with the former to defeat the ends of justice by browbeating and cajoling the other two magistrates, the trial was ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... returned, we got our breakfast, and were impatient to leave the place, lest some other vexatious accident should befall us. It is situated on the north side of Tiarrabou, the south-east peninsula, or division, of the island, and at the distance of about five miles south east from the isthmus, having a large and commodious ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the government of the kingdom and the considerations that dictated the royal policy. More than this, he possessed himself of every detail concerning the king's health, although the utmost reticence was observed on this subject. Had his discoveries stopped there, they would have been vexatious and disquieting, but perhaps of little serious harm. They went further. Set on the track by his acquaintance with what had passed during Mr. Rassendyll's tenure of the throne, he penetrated the secret which had been kept successfully from the ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... reached a part of the lake where the waves were rolling with some force, it was found that the vast weight was too much to be lifted by the feeble and broken efforts of these miniature seas. The consequences were, however, more vexatious than alarming. A few wet feet among the less quiet of the passengers, with an occasional slapping of a sheet of water against the gangways, and a consequent drift of spray across the pile of human heads in the centre of the bark, were all the immediate personal inconveniencies. Still unjustifiable ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... freehold house and estate as think to drive you out of it into the wide world of common sense and argument. Every man's house is his castle; and every man's common-place is his stronghold, from which he looks out and smiles at the dust and heat of controversy, raised by a number of frivolous and vexatious questions—'Rings the world with the vain stir!' A cure for this and every other evil would be a Parliamentary Reform; and so we return in a perpetual circle to the point from which we set out. Is not this a species of sober madness more provoking than the real? ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... satisfy my hunger, and I wondered when and where a halt was to be called and rations parcelled out. It is a vexatious feeling for the young to feel the pangs of hunger, and I was not used to a long fast. My feelings were relieved by Whistling Jim, who informed me that he had placed a very substantial ration in my holsters; and I am free to say that, ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... perhaps so little food and fire to be had, they cared not to curtail their slumbers. I had no time to think of them, however; aching with weariness and desperation, I hurried on. The gig did not overtake me: and it was well I had not waited for it; vexatious rather, that I had been fool ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... contaminated by cholera matters. By land, passengers from infected places are similarly inspected at the frontiers and their luggage "disinfected"—in all cases a pious ceremony of no practical value, involving a short but often a vexatious delay; only those found suffering from cholera can be detained. Each nation is pledged to notify the others of the existence within its own borders of a "foyer" of cholera, by which is meant a focus or centre of infection. The precise interpretation of the term ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... I wanted it to do. Every one has been so cross and contrary. Tom would take Jenny up when she ought to have been in bed. Jem did not care a straw for this book that I borrowed on purpose for him, but sat laughing. I saw, though he did not think I did, when all was going provoking and vexatious. Mary—no! Mary was a help and a comfort, as she always is, I think, though she is so stupid over her book. Mary always contrives to get people right, and to have her own way somehow; and yet I'm sure she does not take half the trouble I do to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... he continued in Schroeter's employment. At the end of that time the Prussian Government chose him to superintend the erection of a new observatory at Koenigsberg, which after many vexatious delays, caused by the prostrate condition of the country, was finished towards the end of 1813. Koenigsberg was the first really efficient German observatory. It became, moreover, a centre of improvement, not for Germany alone, but ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... martial had been ordered by Congress, against which Arnold had expressed his indignation for what he regarded as its mistaken policies in respect to the war. This conflict with Congress, together with certain vexatious circumstances, rising out of his command in Philadelphia—he had gone heavily into debt—led him into a secret correspondence with the British general, Sir Henry Clinton, and he asked for the assignment to West Point for the very purpose of betraying this strategic ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... sensation, before Mary's stare, a stare that seemed to resume and take in, in the moment of stupefaction, a world of new impressions. The memory of Mary staring, with her hair done in a new and becoming way, was to remain for Imogen as a symbol of the vexatious and altered, perhaps the corrupted life, that she was, after all, leaving for good ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to 'the bourgeoisie;' and besides, when you begin to talk of this measure or that other you lose sight of the goal and see, to reverse Swinburne's description of Tiresias, 'light on the way but darkness on the goal.' By mistakes Morris meant vexatious restrictions and compromises—'If any man puts me into a labour squad, I will lie on my back and kick.' That phrase very much expresses our idea of revolutionary tactics: we all intended to lie upon our back and kick. D..., pale and sedentary, ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... burden exclusively affecting land, although the whole community derive benefit from their use. This burden, exclusive of the sum levied at turnpike gates, in England amounted to L1,169,891, a-year.[24] This charge, heavy as it is, is felt as the more vexatious, that the rate-payers are not at liberty either to limit the use of the road, for which they pay, to themselves, or to allow it to fall into disrepair. An indictment of the road lies at common law, if it becomes unfit for traffic, even at the instance of any party using the road, though he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... say to yourselves, is the state of things at present. You recount in detail the numberless impediments, great and small, formidable or only vexatious, which at every step embarrass the attempt to carry out ever so poorly a principle in itself so true and ecclesiastical. You appeal in your defence to wise and sagacious intellects, who are far from enemies to Catholicism, or to the Irish Hierarchy, and you have no hope, or rather you ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... with a thump, which cocks the nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle assume an air of drunken defiance. The fragile China is chipped here and there around its edges with those minute gaps so vexatious to a woman's soul; the handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion of Biddy's washing-day hurry, when cook wants her to help hang out the clothes. Meanwhile, Bridget sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and shakes out showers of ashes from the grate, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... going to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle is overcome a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By using those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which when we all return ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Skill as well as Power of pleasing. Her Form is majestick, but her Aspect humble. All good Men should beware of the Destroyer. She will speak to you like your Sister, till she has you sure; but is the most vexatious of Tyrants when you are so. Her Familiarity of Behaviour, her indifferent Questions, and general Conversation, make the silly Part of her Votaries full of Hopes, while the wise fly from her Power. She well knows she is too Beautiful and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... perfection in the two styles of oratory. It is true, that distinguished barristers have sometimes been distinguished in the House of Commons, but they have not been of the race of orators; they have been sharp, shrewd, bitter men, ready on vexatious topics, quick in peevish speech, and willing to plunge themselves into subjects whose labour or license is disdained by higher minds. But Erskine was an orator, vivid, high-toned, and sensitive; shrinking from the common-place subjects which common-place men take up as their natural portion; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... indolent daughter. "Do, ma, keep still," she would say, with amiable wonder at ma's notable ways. This incarnation of sweet selfishness was hateful in my eyes, and I have often queried, in the twenty years which have passed since I saw her, what sort of woman she made. As a girl she was vexatious, though no ripple of annoyance crossed the white brow, no frown obscured it, and no flurry of impatience ever tossed the yellow curls. She had no aspirations which candy and a rocking-chair could ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... than I, and would not suffer me to lose what I had gained. I might, I assuredly should, wish to be more free, more light of heart. But I seemed to myself like a woman that had borne a child in suffering, and that no matter how restless and vexatious a care that child might prove to be, under no conceivable circumstances could she wish that she were barren and without the experience of love. I felt indeed that I had fulfilled a part of my destiny, and that I might be glad that the suffering ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... interpreter and two other men whom the sultan, at parting, appointed judges on any sudden occasion. It was everybody's interest to make him guilty, and therefore he was condemned to find two sheep, to be killed and eaten in the camp. Another case of theft, much more vexatious than this, occurred when I first arrived here, and turned off some spare camel-drivers, who took away all the packing-ropes with them, and I have been obliged to employ the remaining men ever since in chewing acacia bark into fibres to ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... vexatious!" he cried, as he ground his teeth. "After all that work, after being so sure, to be out here on this wretched shelf like an old cormorant, but without ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... something like the establishment of a Royal residence in Dublin, would have begun the work well. Materially and sentimentally, they were the right steps to take. They are now proposed too late. They are regarded as petty concessions, insufficient and vexatious. The lower and the higher elements in the population are fused by the enthusiasm of men who find themselves marching in full body on a road, under a flag, at the heels of a trusted leader; and they will no longer be fed with sops. Petty concessions are signs of weakness to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... THERE are many vexatious accidents and uneasy situations which raise little compassion for the sufferer, and which no man but those whom they immediately distress can regard with seriousness. Petty mischiefs, that have no influence on ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... when they are on the road.' She would wish to find some fault with him, but as she forcibly says, 'if he be of opinion that the tails of these noble animals are not only a natural ornament, but of real use to defend them from the vexatious insects that in summer are so apt to annoy them, how far from a dispraise is this humane consideration!' The other anecdote is of a different kind. When Sir Charles goes to church he does not, like some other gentlemen, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... curling ribbons, uniform in thickness and texture, is a sight that provokes astonishment, as much by the rapidity of the operation as by the ease with which it appears to be accomplished, but which has only been arrived at by a persevering circumvention of vexatious difficulties. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... forth, passionately addressing the jurors. 'So this is all that can be found to be laid against me. This is the way that matters of five years back are raked up to vex the princes and nobles of Scotland. I am sorry for you, lords and gentlemen, if this is the way that vexatious are to be stirred up against those who have defended their ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of his predecessor has since been even attempted to be changed, and, on the contrary, new ones have been continually added, further to exasperate these people, render them desperate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebellion." It had been a vexatious circumstance, too, that not long before this time he had received a rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for having been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of some legislation of an injurious ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Squire—yes, very true—quite proper." (Then looking up, and with naivete)—"Can you believe me, I never thought of the Squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many English prejudices, that really—dear me, how vexatious that it should never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant—it is not like being her father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and—but, as you say, it is quite proper ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... reality of this picture I soon had full proof. My tragedy, after a number of rehearsals, during which all these vexatious incidents and many more were experienced by me, was at length performed. To say that the applause it received equalled my expectations would be false: but it greatly exceeded the expectations of others. It was materially injured by the want of the actor who had refused ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... White Linen Nurse cocked her head towards the lure of the green-crested hill. Still wrestling conscientiously with the General-Phenomenon-of-Being-a-Trained-Nurse she found her collar suddenly very tight, the tiny cap inexpressibly heavy and vexatious. Timidly she removed the collar—and found that the removal did not rest her in the slightest. Equally timidly she removed the cap—and found that even that removal did not rest her in the slightest. Then very, very slowly, but very, very permeatingly ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... breathing longer; he grew very red, and by the time the coat was fairly on was so exhausted, and so relieved at being through with the exertion, that he drew a long breath and sighed heavily, which expanded his portly frame until the coat burst in twenty rents. "How vexatious!" thought Kaddel, "and my grandmother who is blind, is the oldest woman! If now, the King were only as thin as I am," (for he was very thin,) "there would be no difficulty; or if I were only the king," he half added ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... of allegiance to the king of Spain, of which a formal instrument was drawn up before the royal notary, Godoy, and proclamation of this change of dominion was made through the province, to the great joy of the natives for being relieved from the vexatious exactions of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... matters of great moment, while patience may apply to slight worries and annoyances. As regards our relations to our fellow men, forbearance is abstaining from retaliation or revenge; patience is keeping kindliness of heart under vexatious conduct; long-suffering is continued patience. Patience may also have an active force denoting uncomplaining steadiness in doing, as in tilling the ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... strange to say, was always rustic and uncouth, and so he was sent out to Illinois to be a farmer. We thought that the best place for him—that he would live and die there; but now, in the most vexatious manner in the world, he turns ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... sustained by I know not how many laws, breaking in upon the plainest principles of general expediency. At the last session of Parliament, the manufacturers petitioned for the repeal of three or four of these statutes, complaining of the vexatious restrictions which they impose on the wages of labor; setting forth, that a great variety of orders has from time to time been issued by magistrates under the authority of these laws, interfering in an oppressive manner with the minutest ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... same loss on a criminal that he caused another is seen in the cases of mutilation, eye for eye, limb for limb, tooth for tooth,(163) but also in the penalty of son for son, daughter for daughter, slave for slave;(164) and in the rule that a vexatious suitor shall pay the penalty which his suit was calculated to bring on ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... returned Squeers, rubbing his knees, 'and when he begins to be useful in a certain sort of way, this young scoundrel of a Nickleby comes and carries him off. But the most vexatious and aggeravating part of the whole affair is,' said Squeers, dropping his voice, and drawing his chair still closer to Ralph, 'that some questions have been asked about him at last—not of me, but, in a roundabout kind ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... well-contrived disguises, their true character. They came to us in all shapes and with all appearances save the true one, with most miserable stories of mishap and sickness and all "the ills which flesh is heir to." It was particularly vexatious to discover, when too late, that our sympathies and charities had been expended upon such graceless vagabonds as the "Barrington beggars." An old withered hag, known by the appellation of Hopping Pat,—the wise woman of her tribe,—was in the habit of visiting us, with ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... with tails have given good results in experimental work; but the tails are annoying and an unnecessary weight, and may better be dispensed with. Every boy has had the vexatious experience of sending up a kite in a light breeze with a tail made light in proportion, only to find that, on reaching stronger air currents above, the kite has begun to dive and grow unmanageable. Then, when he has taken the kite down ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the way: The cur, with never-ceasing tongue, Upon the passing traveller sprung. 30 The horse, from scorn provoked to ire, Flung backward; rolling in the mire, The puppy howled, and bleeding lay; The pad in peace pursued the way. A shepherd's dog, who saw the deed, Detesting the vexatious breed, Bespoke him thus: 'When coxcombs prate, They kindle wrath, contempt, or hate; Thy teasing tongue had judgment tied, Thou hadst not, like ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... prerogative and interest belonging to his guild. Established for life in his native town, in the midst of old colleagues, numerous relatives and youthful companions, he esteemed their good opinion. Exempt from vexatious or burdensome taxes, tolerably well off, owning at least his own office, he was above sordid preoccupations and common necessities. Used to old fashioned habits of simplicity, soberness and economy, he was not tormented by a disproportion between his income and expenses, by the requirements ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... reply to this somewhat vexatious question, a man who had been left in the tearooms came hurrying up the staircase and burst in upon them. He ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... fact, these foreigners were soon undeceived. They expected to meet the most perfidious and brutal enemies in arms, and in open rebellion against their king; but, on the contrary, they found them all in peace, and experienced the most kind and respectful treatment; and though their duty was a most vexatious and oppressive one, they performed it in general with moderation. On this account they could not refrain from expressing their astonishment at the reports made to them by the authorities at Nismes, declaring, "They had found a population suffering great misfortunes, but no rebels; and ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... after, the slackening became such that there was no continuing without rendering the piece perfectly ridiculous. It was recommenced twice, thrice, four times; a full half-hour was occupied in ever-increasingly vexatious efforts, but always with the same result. The preservation of allegretto time was absolutely impossible to the worthy man. At last the orchestral conductor, out of all patience, came and begged him not to conduct ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... of the world has no such chapter as the Negro's fifty years of freedom. The duty of the hour is to unshackle him and make him wholly free. When the Negro is free from the vexatious annoyances of color and has only the same problems of life as any other men, his contribution to the general welfare of his country will ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... aside and entered the room. I related the whole affair to the bishop, exaggerating the uproar, making much of the injustice of such proceedings, and railing at a vexatious police daring to molest travellers and to insult the sacred rights of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... developed intelligence, and produced wealth. But burghers under the feudal rule were obliged to pay heavy tolls and taxes. For example, for protection on a journey through any patch of territory, they were required to make a payment. Besides the regular exactions, they were exposed to most vexatious depredations of a lawless kind. As they advanced in thrift and wealth, communities that were made up largely of artisans and tradesmen armed themselves for their own defense. From self-defense they proceeded farther, and extorted exemptions and privileges ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... delicate duty of discussing the claims of our Government, representing its citizens, for spoliations committed upon our commerce under the celebrated Milan and Berlin decrees of Napoleon, and, backed by the determination of Jackson, happily succeeded in finally settling this vexatious question. A sum was agreed upon, and paid into the United States Treasury; but if I am not mistaken, none, or very little of it, has ever reached the hands of the sufferers. Upon the proof of the justice of their claims, France was compelled to pay them to the Government; but ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the Pleasure of the One is from the Torment of the other; yet Nothing is more evident, than that both are derived from and owing to the same craving principle in our nature, the Desire of Food; for when this is entirely lost, it is more vexatious to eat, than it is to let it alone, tho' the whole Body languishes, and we are ready to expire for Want of Sustenance. Hitherto I have spoken of honour in its first literal Sense, in which it is a Technic Word ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Dagobert, with a sigh of regret. "I thought to make my first parade through Paris with you this morning; but it must be deferred in favor of your work. It is sacred: since it is that which sustains your mother. Nevertheless, it is vexatious, devilish vexatious. And yet no—I am unjust. See how quickly one gets habituated to and spoilt by happiness. I growl like a true grumbler, at a walk being put off for a few hours! I do this! I who, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the mystery of last night. But this was ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... improvements should be effected in the telescope,) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse. And when he tells his famulus—'Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors,' possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, what's a world, more or less? In the spiritual heavens are many mansions: in the starry heavens, that are now unfolding and preparing to unfold before us, are ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... could not satisfy herself. She had sat, conscious and inwardly distressed, at the tea-table, where nothing remarkable had occurred; and was glad to escape from the circle where all that was said appeared to her excited spirit to be tiresome, or trifling, or vexatious. ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... and places in a strong light the disadvantages with which the collection of duties in this country would be encumbered, if by disunion the States should be placed in a situation, with respect to each other, resembling that of France with respect to her neighbors. The arbitrary and vexatious powers with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... us. Paris was blockaded eight hundred years by the deer, and its environs, now so rich, so fertile, did not yield bread enough to support the gamekeepers." [Footnote: The following details from Bonnemere will serve to give a more complete idea of the vexatious and irritating nature of the game laws of France. The officers of the chase went so far as to forbid the pulling up of thistles and weeds, or the mowing of any unenclosed ground before St. John's day (24th June), in order that the nests of game birds ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Often, in order to add to our collections of new mineral substances, we found ourselves obliged to throw away others, which we had collected a considerable time before. These sacrifices were not less vexatious than the losses we accidentally sustained. Sad experience taught us but too late, that from the sultry humidity of the climate, and the frequent falls of the beasts of burden, we could preserve neither the skins of animals hastily prepared, nor the fishes and reptiles ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... What vexatious things one's children are! A hundred thousand naughty ways! What I tell my daughter Betty might as well be told ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the promises made to private firms that early sought to open up business in its land, the Government itself has become a great trading corporation, with monopolist rights which close great regions to private traders and subject the natives to vexatious burdens. This system took definite form in September 1891, when the Government claimed exclusive rights in trade in the extreme north and north-east. At the close of that year Captain Baert, the administrator ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... unhappy visitor heard within the shuffling slippers and vexatious scraping cough of the detestable master. Marneffe opened the door, but only to put himself into an attitude and point to the stairs, exactly as Hulot had shown him the door ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... wear the British uniform I have never felt grief like this." The prisoners publicly declared that had they continued under our hero's command they would have escaped their doom, "being the victims of unruly passions inflamed by vexatious authority." ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... and reminiscences of public men are published that this personal side of history becomes known. Senator Cullom of Illinois in his "Fifty Years of Public Service" gives an account that doubtless fairly displays Cleveland's way of handling his vexatious problems. "I happened to be at the White House one day, and Mr. Cleveland said to me, 'I wish you would take up Lamar's nomination and dispose of it. I am between hay and grass with reference to the Interior Department. Nothing is being done there; I ought to have some one on duty, ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... unpleasant. Many render [Greek: duocheres] 'inauspicious', 'ill- omened'; but as we do not know exactly what was in Demosthenes' mind, it is better not to give the word a meaning which it does not bear elsewhere. It may, however, mean 'vexatious'. ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... they might have been so happy! There is nothing that depresses a man so much as the conviction of bad fortune. There seemed, in this sudden return, great wealth, and impending marriage of Henrietta Temple, such a combination, so far as Ferdinand Armine was concerned, of vexatious circumstances; it would appear that he had been so near perfect happiness and missed it, that he felt quite weary of existence, and seriously ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... 'I am compelled to consider this a vexatious business. For, look you, the butterfly I just now admire flits over this wicket, and then her twin flutters over that wicket, and between them there is absolutely no disparity in attraction. Hoo! here ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... conceited nor too restrained, Be not too haughty nor yet too meek, Too tattle-tongued or too loth to speak, Neither too hard nor yet too weak. If too wise you appear, folk too much will claim of you, If too foolish, they still will be making fresh game of you, If too conceited, vexatious they'll dub you, If too unselfish, they only will snub you, If too much of a tattler, you ne'er will be heeded, If too silent, your company ne'er will be needed, If overhard, your pride will be broken asunder, If overweak, the folk will ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... eastern side, it was in 862 that the Russians invited help from their less dreaded neighbours around Upsala against their more vexatious neighbours around Kiev, and in September of the same year Ruric arrived at Novgorod and founded the Mediaeval Kingdom of Russia, which in the tenth century under Oleg, Igor, and Vladimir was first the plunderer, then the open ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another, on the part of one of those young men? You never heard ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... inadequate trestle or stool against the wall at the furthest end of the room from his bed. Here was a very curious thing: the portmanteau was not to be seen. It had been moved by officious servants; doubtless the contents had been put in the wardrobe. No, none of them were there. This was vexatious. The idea of a theft he dismissed at once. Such things rarely happen in Denmark, but some piece of stupidity had certainly been performed (which is not so uncommon), and the stuepige must be severely spoken to. Whatever it was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... symptoms of fear. Then, with a long and strong expiration, his chest appeared to collapse, and with the great gasp with which he refilled his exhausted lungs the vertigo left him and he knew that so intently had he listened that he had held his breath almost to suffocation. The revelation was vexatious; he arose, pushed away the chair with his foot and strode to the centre of the room. But one does not stride far in darkness; he began to grope, and finding the wall followed it to an angle, turned, followed it past the two windows and there in another ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... apostle, the only way of reasonably accounting for so strange and outre a proceeding, is to suppose that St. Paul actually labored either under entire deprivation of vision, or under some severely painful and vexatious disease of the eyes: The meaning being, that so keenly did the Galatians sympathize with the apostle in his affliction, that they would willingly have become his substitutes by taking all his suffering ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... adoption," he said, cheerfully, "and I am going to speak to you as a grandfather might. Elizabeth, my opinion is, that if you want to avoid vexatious delays, you had better get married to this gentleman here before you present yourself in Scotland at all. You have no idea how much it would simplify matters. Brian won't suggest such a thing; he is afraid ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vexatious delays as this which had kept them always a day's ride or more behind their quarry, and Luck's hand trembled with nervous irritability when he turned back and banded Applehead one of those small, shrill police whistles whose sound carries so far, and which are much used by motion-picture producers ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... is not to be measured by the mere gratification it affords. It adds undoubtedly to the happiness of the teacher in his work, to know that his scholars love him. Nor is this a small consideration. The teacher has many vexatious rubs. He encounters much toil and self-denial; and whatever tends to mitigate these asperities, and to make his labor sweet, is for that very reason important. The teacher has, for a part at least of his reward, the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... honor whenever and by whatever enemy assailed. They should be protected from the grasping speculator and secured, at the minimum price of the public lands, in the humble homes which they have improved by their labor. With this end in view, all vexatious or unnecessary restrictions imposed upon them by the existing preemption laws should be repealed or modified. It is the true policy of the Government to afford facilities to its citizens to become the owners ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... borrowed book, and I can hardly return it in this condition. It is really vexatious," she replied, wondering how to lead the conversation back to the place where it was interrupted. She might have succeeded, but fate seemed against her. A passenger, who knew them both, strolled ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... three must act and endure together, or we delay and maybe imperil victory. We ought to requisition the aid of every man who can handle metal. It means that the needs of the community in many respects will suffer acutely vexatious, and perhaps injurious, delay; but I feel sure that the public are prepared to put up with all this discomfort, loss, and privation if thereby their country marches triumphantly out of this great struggle. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... there came a war which, unlike all wars that Mary could remember, did not stay decently outside England and in the newspapers, but intruded on the lives of people whom she knew. As she said to Miss Fowler, it was 'most vexatious.' It took the Rector's son who was going into business with his elder brother; it took the Colonel's nephew on the eve of fruit-farming in Canada; it took Mrs. Grant's son who, his mother said, was devoted to the ministry; and, very early indeed, it took Wynn Fowler, who ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... (1516), and the Algerine Moors seized their chance. They stopped the tribute, and called in the aid of Salim, the neighbouring Arab sheykh, whose clansmen would make the city safe on the land side. "But what are they to do with the two hundred petulant and vexatious Spaniards in the fort, who incessantly pepper the town with their cannon, and make the houses too hot to hold them; especially when they are hungry? Little would the gallant Arab cavalry, with their fine Libyan mares and horses, rich coats-of-mail, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... that, had she been of the blood royal of France, it had been overweening; and when she went abroad, she gave herself so many airs that she did nought but make wry faces, as if there came to her a stench from whomsoever she saw or met. But, letting be many other vexatious and tiresome fashions of hers, it chanced one day that she came back to the house, where Fresco was, and seating herself near him, all full of airs and grimaces, did nothing but puff and blow; whereupon quoth he, 'What meaneth this, Ciesca, that, to-day ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... strangers did arrive, the readiness with which they conformed to the numerous, and in most cases vexatious, port regulations, their quiet behavior on shore, and the many novelties and luxuries that they freely distributed to the port officers, completely blinded them to the instinctive disposition to trade that characterizes my beloved countrymen, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... language. Spain for many centuries has been the country of error; she has mistaken stern and savage tyranny for rational government; base, low, and grovelling superstition for clear, bright, and soul-ennobling religion; sordid cheating she has considered as the path to riches; vexatious persecution as the path to power; and the consequence has been, that she is now poor and powerless, a pagan amongst the pagans, with a dozen kings, and with none. Can we be surprised, therefore, that, mistaken in policy, religion, and moral conduct, she should have fallen into ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... country,—but we may point to the significant fact recently laid in a laconic letter by 'Railway TRAIN,' that while everything is done in England to preserve a 'strict neutrality,' as regards the North, and while the most vexatious hinderances are placed in the way of exporting aught which may aid us,—much gratuitous pains being taken to prevent any material aid to the Federal government,—vessels are allowed to load openly with all contraband of war, even to arms and ammunition, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... models all the morning, and how wearisome and vexatious, and even, towards the end, how repulsive that becomes! The wearying search after something that corresponds to the perfect ideal in one's brain, the constant raising of hope and ensuing disappointment as a misshapen foot or crooked knee destroys the effect of neck and ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... away just before falling asleep; and, indeed, previously to my last journey to the trap, I had been able to remember the exact spot where I had deposited them. But now I endeavored in vain to call it to mind, and busied myself for a full hour in a fruitless and vexatious search for the missing articles; never, surely, was there a more tantalizing state of anxiety and suspense. At length, while groping about, with my head close to the ballast, near the opening of the box, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... want of silver, may appear as ridiculous, as for a man to be impatient, about a cut finger, when he is struck with the plague; and yet a poor fellow going to the gallows, may be allowed to feel the smart of wasps, while he is upon Tyburn Road. This misfortune is too urging,[7] and vexatious in every kind of small traffic, and so hourly pressing upon all persons in the country whatsoever, that a hundred inconveniences, of perhaps greater moment in themselves, have been timely[8] submitted to, with far less ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "The delay is vexatious," he said, "and my friend the Prefect shall pay for it, one of these days. But at any rate, the thing is now in our own hands, and there can be no cheating. Report and letter are what they should be—I might have guessed that the old villain would put ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... management. Such commissions, responsible as they are to an insistent and uninformed public opinion, and possessed as they inevitably become of the peculiar official point of view, inevitably drift or are driven to incessant, vexatious, and finally harmful interference. The efficient conduct of any complicated business, be it manufacturing, transportation, or political, always involves the constant sacrifice of an occasional or a local interest for the benefit of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... take a vacation. A man who is summoned to his last long voyage may set his house in order in an hour: a few words, written or dictated, will dispose of his possessions, and his heirs will gladly attend to the details. This done, he may fold his hands on his chest and depart this vexatious life in peace. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... under the shadow of a tree, which, until six years ago, threw its leafy arms over St. Anne Street, from the Anglican Cathedral Church yard. While this fort-building, vessel seizing, and unchristian feeling were rending the infant colony to pieces, interfering with trade, and proving vexatious to all, a union had been formed in France between the old and new companies. The coalition was not productive of good. There was so little cordiality and so much contention between the parties, that Montmorenci threw up his viceroyalty in disgust, that is to say, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... does not impel you to any dangerous excesses. Nevertheless, devotion often causes strange metamorphoses. Unquiet, agitated, miserable within yourself, it is to be feared that your temperament will change, that your disposition will become acrimonious, and that the vexatious ideas over which you have so long brooded will sooner or later produce a disastrous influence upon those who approach you. Does not experience constantly show us that religion effects changes of this kind? What are called conversions, what devotees regard as special acts of divine grace, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... the reader also, that this work was not composed in the pleasant tranquillity of retirement, but under such untoward circumstances, that the mind was subject to continual interruptions and vexatious distraction." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... dispatched up-stairs to find out what was amiss; and then, for the first time, she heard from the nurse the history of the Tod family, the children's devotion to them, and their present vexatious grief about the loss of a solitary one of what she called ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... feudal chiefs. But when the system of sankin kotai had been in operation for some time, and when the power of the Tokugawa Bakufu had been fully consolidated, this practice of exacting hostages became superfluous and vexatious. It was therefore abandoned in the year 1665 and the hostages were all ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... indeed, father, for there are always unusual and vexatious delays at the beginning of a great work; besides, some of the greatest difficulties in connexion with such buildings are encountered in the preparation of the foundations. I suppose Mr Smeaton means to dress the stones on shore, ready for laying?" continued Potter the younger, ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... stay in Paris; finally abandoned his native land in 1629, and betook himself to seclusion in Holland in order to live there, unknown and undisturbed, wholly for philosophy and the prosecution of his scientific projects; here, though not without vexatious opposition from the theologians, he lived twenty years, till in 1649, at the invitation of Christina of Sweden, he left for Stockholm, where, the severe climate proving too much for him, he was carried off ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the severe losses which we have been forced to sustain by the emancipation of our slaves, and the vexatious laws which ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... are perplexing: bills come back protested—bad news from England—sudden and unlooked-for failures—no one can tell where it will end. We have been obliged to stop our works at Clyde Farm, and there are from ninety to a hundred laborers thrown out of employment. This is peculiarly vexatious to me, as they made out before to earn a living in their own humdrum way, and they now accuse me of having taken the bread from their children's mouths, to promote my own speculations, though, while I employed them, I gave them ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... discourse was concluded—the extemporaneous prayer was at an end—the congregation broke up, and Maltravers pushed his way, as well as he could, through the dense and serried crowd. But every moment some vexatious obstruction, in the shape of a fat gentleman or three close-wedged ladies, intercepted his progress. He lost sight of the party in question amidst the profusion of tall bonnets and waving plumes. He arrived at last, breathless and pale as death (so great was the struggle within him), at the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... One of the most vexatious periods of student life is examination time. This is almost universally a time of great distress, giving rise in extreme cases to conditions of nervous collapse. The reason for this is not far to seek, for upon ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... sheets, to make up a few complete remaining copies! I have now given him fair warning, and if he plays such tricks again, I must either get an injunction, or call for an account of profits (as I never have parted with the copyright), or, in short, any thing vexatious, to repay him in his own way. If the weather does not relapse, I hope to be in town in a day or ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Basilian fathers commenced in earnest the task of Church reform, and passed several decrees of a character vexatious to the Pope, particularly one for the total abolition of annates. A second breach was the consequence. Eugenius, under pretence of furthering the negotiation then pending for the reunion of the Greek and Latin branches of the Church, published in 1437 a bull dissolving the Council ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Joseph that last night there had been stirs and quarrels among the disciples regarding his boats, and John's and James' boats too, he said, and by the jealous and envious, he muttered, who would like to come between us and the Master. Joseph asked who had raised the vexatious question, but Peter avoided it, and went about the wharf grunting that none could answer it: was it to Matthew, the publican, he was to give his boats? one, he said, who never was on the water in his life till I took him ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... were closed up and incapable of supporting the light, and occasioned me such acute anguish that I could get no sleep but by the effect of laudanum. This misfortune at this crisis was peculiarly vexatious and mortifying for me, as it put it out of my power to accompany the Pasha, who departed with the army for Dongola on the 26th, taking his route on the west bank of the river, and leaving the Divan Effendi and a small party of soldiers to expedite the loading and forwarding ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... the mob is the most sanguinary, that of soldiers the most expensive, and that of civilians the most vexatious.—Colton. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... to him and remind him who I am. It's that Mr. Eager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go and say we are sorry. Hadn't I better? Then ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... "In the case of the fascinating Sylvie, I do not know when I have had so much trouble about a woman. It is interesting, but vexatious. Sometimes I think I shall have to give up and gallop off ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... cause for rejoicing, and for applauding the might of your sorceries, Messire Manuel, whereas you are plainly thinking of vexatious matters." ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... most vexatious thing is that the fowl Gnekker shows himself much cleverer than the eagle professor. Knowing that my wife and daughter are on his side, he takes up the line of meeting my gibes with condescending silence, as though ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... muses, exasperated at this vexatious perseverance of the painter, who he imagined had come to tease and insult him, "I would," said he, "sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, were I assured that any person had been taken up for extirpating such a troublesome ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... spirited & decisive, I yet flatter my self, notwithstanding the present vexatious Situation of our Affrs at the northwd we shall humble our Enemies this Campaign. I am truly mortified at their leaving this place because I think we were fully prepared for it, & I believe the Cowardly Rascals knew it. May Heaven prosper our ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... horses, every family was compelled to take charge of one, which was provided, together with its food, by the government. There was a system under which money payments were substituted for the old-fashioned and vexatious method of carrying on public works by drafts of forced labourers; and again another under which warehouses for bartering and hypothecating goods were ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... in such an uppish and unpleasant manner that Ted could scarce restrain an angry reply, for he was tired out with the long drive, which had been unusually full of dangers and vexatious delays. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... have been undertaken with so much gusto as that which consisted in efforts for the suppression of Heresy and Blasphemy. Here was the natural outcome of the Presbyterianism with which the Parliament was charged, and here also the Parliament was very vexatious to the soul of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... splashing me with water, and sometimes even starting Jerry into a leap aside, he more than once brought me into imminent danger of being tossed into the stream. It was in vain that, after one or two such adventures, I learned to hold back and give the vexatious little animal the precedence. His passion seemed to be to go into the water precisely at the moment Jerry did; and I was obliged at last to make a bargain with young Roy to dismount and hold him at every stream until I had got ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie |
