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More "Asperity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one, except of course to my relatives, for fifteen years," rejoined Mrs. Carr a trifle tartly. Then her manner lost its unusual asperity, and she added excitedly, "They're coming now, Jane. There's Cousin Jimmy and he's bringing ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... "his answer was satisfactory," the President, on reaching the last paragraph of Mr. Motley's letter, in which he begged respectfully to resign his post, "without waiting to learn what Mr. Seward had done or proposed to do, exclaimed, with a not unnatural asperity, 'Well, let him go,' and 'on hearing this,' said Mr. Seward, laughing, 'I did not read my dispatch.'" Many persons will think that the counsel for the defence has stated the plaintiff's case so strongly that there is nothing left for him but to show his ingenuity and his friendship for the late ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... with asperity. "Somebody had a property there once—either one of our family or a friend. Why don't your family become Esthonians? You'd find it much more convenient. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... it to read by," Grandmother announced, with considerable asperity, "and you don't need to hunt around for no more lamps, neither. I've ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... to leave us here in rags and beggary, while you are amusing yourself in London?" replied Mrs Rainscourt, with asperity. "With your altered circumstances, you will have no want of society, either male or female," continued the lady, with an emphasis upon the last word—"and a wife ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... well say that, Mr Ramsden," replied the lady, with asperity; "he is the greatest fool that ever God made! Every one knows what a sweet temper I was before I married; but flesh and blood cannot bear what I am ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... me so," said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: 'Turnips should never be pulled; it injures them. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... year older than Joe," Mrs. Newbolt corrected him, with some asperity, "and she's one of the kind that'll keep. Well, I was married myself, and had a baby, when I was nineteen. But ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding the destroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, in writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham people "will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second time, to ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... replied Stillwell, with asperity. "His orders. Are you forgettin' orders? Wal, you're a fine cowboy. You an' Nick an' Monty, 'specially, are ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... what Mr. Adams said," retorted Mrs. Adams, with some asperity, "and I told him that I would rather the dozen policemen were in evidence before I was shot and robbed than after. I had on all my rings, and ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... said Charles, with some asperity. "Now, by the great God of Heaven, who sees all our hearts, I will not give in to such a horrible doctrine! I will not believe it; and were death itself my portion for my want of faith, I would this moment die in my disbelief of anything so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Bull Onuphis was worshipped at a place in Egypt, which he could not specify on account of its asperity. AElian de ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... dark from an Irish literary, or even "Irish Ireland," point of view. It was before the Gaelic movement, and before we had such things as "intellectuals" and the "economic man," or even the Irish Literary Theatre. Leamy's gentle and loyal soul could have taken no influence from the asperity of some of the intervening ferment, "Parliamentarian" though he was. Had the impulse to write this volume come to him in this later period he would only have drawn from the time the nourishment which the atmosphere ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... however, she knew the deference due to the commanding officer, even though she did not choose to show it, and when bidden to say her say and tell what things "was goin' on" Mistress McGann asseverated, with the asperity of a woman who has had to put her husband to bed two nights running, that the time had never been before that he was so drunk he didn't know his way home, and so got into the back of the bachelor quarters instead of his own. "And to think av his bein' propped ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... suppose that, after this introduction, I made haste to explain every particular. My mother was surprised and grieved. She rebuked me, with some asperity, for my reserves. Had I acquainted her with my brother's demands, she could have apprized me of all that I had since discovered. My brother, she asserted, was involved beyond any one's power to extricate him, and ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... excellent purchase, on account of the great charm and felicity of much of their incidental criticism; to say nothing, as I hinted just now, of their being extremely amusing. Nothing in fact is more comical than the familiar asperity of the author's style and the pedagogic fashion in which he pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads toward this, rapping their knuckles for that, sending them to stand in corners and giving them Scripture ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was but a secondary consideration; as a Lawyer you were not obliged to advance it till due; as a Friend the request might have been complied with. When it is required at Xmas I shall expect the demand will be answered. In the course of my letter I perhaps have expressed more asperity than I intended, it is my nature to feel warmly, nor shall any consideration of interest or Fear ever deter me from giving vent to my Sentiments, when injured, whether by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... say it was quite empty?" Miss Bride asked, with some asperity. "To be sure, there are always people. But she'll miss the best of it. She ought to be there for the Patrick's Ball and the command nights at the theatre. The last time I was at the Theatre Royal I was ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... novels. Its most important offices aside from this were perhaps to present large and kindly views of literature and literary characters, especially through biographical essays; and to ameliorate somewhat the prevailing asperity of periodical criticism. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... will be very well, sir!" she retorted, with a distinct trace of asperity. "I am not a heathen, I'd thank you to remember—and when I'm a wife I shall be my ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... in the sumptuous state chamber proper to her rank; and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself now on one foot, now on the other; if she repeats two or three times the reply she gives thee; if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from asperity to tenderness; if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though it be not disarranged. In short, my son, observe all her actions and motions, for if thou wilt report them to me as they were, I will ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... shut that door?" said Mrs. Davis, unprimming her mouth slightly to say it, but speaking with asperity. "I have something important to say, and I can't say it with ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some asperity,— ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... will!' said his mother with asperity. 'I don't read the papers for nothing, and I know men all move up a stage by marriage. Men of her class, that is, parsons, marry squires' daughters; squires marry lords' daughters; lords marry dukes' daughters; dukes marry queens' daughters. All stages of gentlemen ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... The ice was wonderful. Oh, come on! Fanny skated very well. But she hesitated. Mrs. Brandeis, dozing on the couch, sensed what was going on in her daughter's mind, and roused herself with something of her old asperity. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... bath and out of the bath; more tender in their regard for another generation, they recommend all nurses to undergo a slight course of the springs to keep their milk from turning sour, yet will curdle the milk of human kindness in our lacteals by instilling therein the sour asperity which they entertain towards each other, and which, notwithstanding the efforts of the ladies to keep peace between them, by christening one their "beau medecin," and the other their "bon medecin," has arrived at such a pitch that they refuse to speak ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... talk. Who cares?" Lucy replied, with a good deal of asperity of manner for her, for that very morning the old housekeeper at Prospect Hill had ventured to remonstrate with her for "running after the parson." "Pray, where is the wrong? What harm can come of it?" and she tossed ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... is rebuked more forcibly upon another occasion, when the nymph bids the priest with asperity to ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the change of commanders, for the campaign from Louisville on was looked upon generally as a lamentable failure, yet there were many who still had the utmost confidence in General Buell, and they repelled with some asperity the reflections cast upon him by his critics. These admirers held him blameless throughout for the blunders of the campaign, but the greater number laid every error at his door, and even went to the absurdity of challenging his loyalty in a mild way, but they particularly charged incompetency ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... sat reading in his own rooms, he was much surprised at hearing a well-known voice at the door, inquiring with some asperity whether Mr. Le Breton was at home. He listened to the voice in intense ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... "dinner" was announced, and we all paired off with the utmost ceremony, and I found myself seated between Frank Lovell and dear old Mr. Lumley, and opposite the elder Miss Molasses, who scowled at me with an asperity of which I should have believed her unmeaning face incapable, as if she hated me on this particular evening more than all the other days of the year. I soon discovered the cause. Frank was more attentive to me than I had ever known him, although there was a something in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Scot of Haining, from the ruins of a cottage on the opposite side of the Yarrow. There was extant, within these twenty years, some verses of a song on his death. The feud betwixt the Outlaw and the Scotts may serve to explain the asperity, with which the chieftain of that clan is ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... fair Bella, with just a soupcon of asperity in her tone,—as much as she ever allows herself when in the society of men. She makes up for this abstinence by bestowing a liberal share of it upon her maid ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... chaise. But, without allowing time for an answer, and striking his boot impatiently with a riding whip, he hoped I was ready. "Not until he has gone up to my mistress," replied my old protectress, in a tone of some asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and directions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, naturally I have forgotten. The most memorable circumstance to me was, that I, who had never till that time possessed the least or most contemptible coin, received, in a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... plainly furnished, but represented the romance of her life to old Susanna. Memories of her youth came back and softened the asperity of age, her wrinkled face taking on gentler lines and her harsh voice a tenderer tone. But to-day she was in haste. She felt herself needed at The Maples, even with the capable Deacon Meakin left to "hold the fort," as he expressed it. Going to a chest of drawers she opened the top one and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold, who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing-room, and ordered Harry off to bed, with some little asperity of tone. The boy rose at once, rang the bell, bade them all good night, and went. A servant met him at the door with a candle, and ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... would be glad enough to have the money, when you have gone off like the prodigal son, and wasted health and substance in foreign lands," said grandmother with some asperity. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the least nor reply to her appeal for forgiveness; he only waited until she was quiet, and then went on with increased asperity veiled ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... really seems to have been a very charming young woman, modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly; a Royalist, as was to be expected from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard; religious, and occasionally gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... requires nothing further from me; but your administration, the theme of your own solitary praise, might not improperly have been touched upon, but that it is a field too extensive for me, and that I have not asperity enough in my nature to do justice to the subject. I will yet observe upon some matters in your pamphlet, not in direct connexion with one or the other subject; but which are extremly[TN] demonstrative of a temper in the writer ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... was profoundly true that since the disclosure the chaplain's reticence had become remarkable. When his own wife questioned him on the subject (very naturally), he checked her with some asperity, and read her a lecture on feminine curiosity that moved the poor woman, even to weeping. Mrs. Danvers was greatly surprised and disconcerted by the decision with which Mr. Fullarton rejected her suggestion, that he should aid and abet in thwarting Keene's supposed designs. "He had thought ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... rather surprised at the asperity with which his friend spoke. He little knew how easily acquaintances, who call themselves friends, can change, when their interest comes, in the slightest degree, in competition with their friendship. Hurried by his impatient rival, and with his hand so much benumbed that ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of April, Mr. Wilberforce made his motion. He began by expressing a hope, that the present debate, instead of exciting asperity and confirming prejudice, would tend to produce a general conviction of the truth of what in fact was incontrovertible; that the abolition of the Slave Trade was indispensably required of them, not only by morality and religion, but by sound policy. He stated that ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... attack any of them with cynical asperity, or with the ambition to establish any new dogmatical tenets in the place of old received opinions. It can, however, do no harm to discuss this important subject with proper reverence and humility. Without alarming those mothers, who declare themselves above all things ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... collected outside, by which its retreat may always be known. The burrow leads to a chamber in which is collected a bed of small pebbles on which it sits, the thick close hair of the belly protecting it from the cold and asperity of such a seat. Its food appears to be vegetable. In its habits it is monogamous ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... it hurts the boys for us to have a dance," rejoined Judith with asperity. "If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it wouldn't fetch 'em back on the mountain any quicker." Then with a teasing flash, "I'll tell 'em when they git ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... of patience with her more tender sister, yet at this moment her love and her patriotism—by which is meant her heart and soul—were violently in conflict. Fearing lest the former might prevail, she replied with greater asperity: ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... that passeth understanding; it's for the like o' them, an' maybe no' even sae muckle worth, folk daunton God to His face and burn in muckle hell; and it's for that reason the Scripture ca's them, as I read the passage, the accursed thing.—Mary, ye girzie," he interrupted himself to cry with some asperity, "what for hae ye no' put out the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... condemnation, or the mere placing in its way of an impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling when my venerable sire would ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... the hereditary bitterness against the English has lost much of its asperity, or rather has become merged in a new source of jealousy and apprehension: I allude to the incessant and wide-spreading irruptions from New-England. Word has been continually brought back to Communipaw, by those of the community who return from their trading voyages in cabbages and oysters, of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... of strangeness in her ideas which is often noticeable in characters that have developed late, in savages, who think much and speak little. Her peasant's wit had acquired a good deal of Parisian asperity from hearing the talk of workshops and mixing with workmen and workwomen. She, whose character had a marked resemblance to that of the Corsicans, worked upon without fruition by the instincts of a strong nature, would have liked to be the protectress of a weak man; but, as a ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... it has to do with; that is what I shall be obliged if you will find out," answered Sir Robert with some asperity. "One can't divide a matter of this sort into watertight compartments. It is true that in so important a concern each of us has charge of his own division, but the fact remains that we are jointly and severally responsible for the whole. I am not sure that ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... small poet; and some of the most savage lampoons which were handed about the coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many enemies, said that he consulted his personal safety ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed. Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the value of the Falkland ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... was not unsuitable to his appearance. I lost some of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Farlow the truth, of course," Ida answered with asperity; "then he can judge for himself. It will relieve us of responsibility in the matter. It is the only ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Blake that his uncle looked ill, which might account for his asperity, and he made ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... reception, that SALLO had the satisfaction of seeing it, the following year, imitated throughout Europe, and his Journal, at the same time, translated into various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute critic, the animadversions of SALLO were given with such asperity of criticism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... have accepted. Indeed, we regretted her obduracy. It would have been such a capital way out, with no sacrifice of her scruples nor waiver of our collective impressiveness. So Harwood came in for mild reprehension, the Sage Dennis remarking with some asperity that when the gods have provided us with farces, comedies, and tragedies in from one to five acts it is unseemly to string them out to six ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... that?" asked the sharp-tongued little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine. Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in private, so postponed telling her news till ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to the "conversations" between leaders which had taken place during the winter, said that since no definite agreement had been reached the Government had decided to reopen the matter in the House. This meant, as Redmond pointed out with some asperity, that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for taking the initiative in making proposals to meet objections whose reasonableness he did not admit. The Opposition, he thought, should have been left to put ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... than by weight of character. His large benignity repressed the expression of any small or mean thought in his presence; and his arrival was sufficient without his saying a word to elevate the tone and manner of any discussion in which he was expected to participate. He was incapable of asperity. ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so near his end," said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the roseate curves of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... said Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are a Governor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming home before I go? Sometimes I don't ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... subject to religious or moral consideration, it is dangerous to be too rigidly in the right. Sensibility may, by an incessant attention to elegance and propriety, be quickened to a tenderness inconsistent with the condition of humanity, irritable by the smallest asperity, and vulnerable by the gentlest touch. He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and submits to endure nothing in accommodations, attendance, or address, below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the crowd of life, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Franklin was subjected at a time when the inevitable anxieties and severe labors of his position were far beyond the strength of a man of his years. He showed wonderful patience and dignity, and though he sometimes let some asperity find expression in his replies, he never let them degenerate into retorts. Moreover, he replied as little as possible, for he truly said that he hated altercation; whereas Lee, who reveled in it, took as an aggravation of all his other injuries that his opponent was ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... liquid with no great favour. I was a little surprised at his choice of a drink, for I had never before known him care for any other refreshment than spirits; but I did not like to make any reference to the change. Looking thus, with great disgust, upon his pint, he began to talk with some asperity ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... me," said Rampson with asperity; then correcting himself quickly, and with a rather ghastly smile, "I say, you ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... more put out than it became a philosopher to be. "I came," he cried, with a kind of asperity, "for a very different purpose, not to be corrected in my Italian. I came——" but here his feelings were too strong for him, "to lay my life and my heart at your feet. Do you understand me now? To tell you that I love you—no, that is not enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... it a hundred and sixty dollars. "The devil is in the money!" exclaimed the horse-dealer; "I'm certain I counted right." "And so am I!" said the woman; "I can not be mistaken. It is you who have made the mistake. You always were a stupid old fool about money!" This she said with some degree of asperity, for she was evidently displeased at the whole proceeding. "A fool, eh? A fool!" muttered the old man; "you do well to call me a fool before strangers!" "Ja, that's the way! I always told you so!" screamed the woman, in rising ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the newspaper to pour forth compliments of condolence.—Mrs. Somers tore the piece of paper as he approached the table, and said, with some asperity, "One would think this was a matter of life and death, by the terms ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... I was sun-broiled upon this causse, I was interested at every step by the flowers that I found there. Dry, chaffy, or prickly plants, corresponding in their nature to the aridity and asperity of the land, were peculiarly at home upon the undulating stoniness. The most beautiful flower then blooming was the catananche, which has won its poetic French name, Cupidon bleu, by the brilliant colour of ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... I do meet with him," he continued, "I shall take great pleasure in giving you my impressions by letter, or in person, of your nephew-in-law." "Don't call him that!" exclaimed the old lady with much asperity. "I don't acknowledge the title. But I won't say any more about him," with a grim smile, "or you may think I don't ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... been led to depart from them under circumstances that might very well have afforded me an ample shield for refusing satisfaction to a too eager and pressing adversary? It was precisely because I hold the duel in such contempt that I spoke with such asperity to the deceased when he pronounced Lord Wellington's enactment a degrading one to men of birth. The very sentiments which I then expressed proclaimed my antipathy to the practice. How, then, should I have committed the inconsistency of accepting ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... pass bright remarks that we non compree but enjoy just the same, for we know you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics when hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the air. And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the untactful, inefficient, bulldozing ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked with those jewels, paid a visit to the old ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... against errors on both sides, I must enter a caveat against another misapprehension, of a kind directly contrary to the preceding. M. Comte, among other occasions on which he has condemned, with some asperity, any attempt to explain phenomena which are "evidently primordial" (meaning, apparently, no more than that every peculiar phenomenon must have at least one peculiar and therefore inexplicable law), ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... trees for the recent favorable season of 1880. The previous autumn was unfavorable for the ripening of young wood, and the trees in an unprepared condition were exposed during a great part of December, 1879, to an asperity of climate unprecedented in this latitude. This might have led one to expect a falling off in the growth of wood, and it appeared, from comparison of measurements, that, with very few exceptions, the growth of wood last year was even more below the average ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... me to do it," said Susy with a touch of asperity. There were moments when her duty to Clarissa weighed on her somewhat heavily; whenever she went off alone with Nick she was pursued by the vision of a little figure waving wistful farewells from ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Dobbs' for a cemetery, Mr. Parmalee?" demanded Captain Dobbs, with asperity. "Who's ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... their accusations made a deep impression on a certain class, and the tyranny of the settler magistrates, of whom thirty were dismissed from the commission, was denounced with increasing boldness and asperity. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... is rarely popular, and some absurdities, as, for example, the imputations upon the American Federalists, in the Sketches of Switzerland. The book on England excited most attention, and was reviewed in that country with as much asperity as if its own travellers were not proverbially the most shameless libellers that ever abused the hospitality of nations. Altogether the ten volumes which compose this series may be set down as the most intelligent ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... severity, tartness, asperity, malignity, sharpness, unkindness, bitterness, moroseness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... college," he retorted with the merest hint of asperity, "is at the bottom of all that people call higher education. The church was founding colleges and supporting them before the State thought even of primary schools. Look at Oxford and Cambridge—church colleges. Look at Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the smaller New England colleges—church ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... other side of the Seine, when I perceived the woman of the Jardin des Plantes approach. Tyrrell (for that, I afterwards discovered, was really his name) started as she came near, and asked her, in a tone of some asperity, where she had been? As I was but a few paces behind, I had a clear, full view of the woman's countenance. She was about twenty-eight or thirty years of age. Her features were decidedly handsome, though somewhat ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... asperity—"and you must have known quite well it was me. Who else could get into the Close after the gates ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was the same woman after that terrible day, nor do I remember that the nose, that was turned awry by the fall, was ever straightened. When I spoke to her of the new law and her removal to a stand near the counter, she said it was a good thing. "No woman of proper feeling," she said with some asperity, "would have borne it as long as I did. I never wanted to stand there and be gazed at by men, it looked so bold. As for those women of brass that like it, it is all very well, but I couldn't stand it. Admiration can never ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... any prospect of solving this mystery, Mr. Holmes?" she asked, with a touch of asperity in ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... you mean by that?" Evelyn inquired with a trace of asperity. Though she was not prepared to pose as Vane's advocate, she was conscious of a growing antagonism ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... rejoinder—not a word—scarce giving him the grace of a look. Which a little nettling him, his smooth tone changed to asperity, as addressing himself to the soldier, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of the sort,' I interposed with extreme asperity of manner. 'Am I to understand that ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... authors' stings, would derive comfort from the consciousness of accompanying honey. These hopes generally proved fallacious, and the authors, falling to the ground between the two stools of American sensitiveness and British asperity, were regarded in the light of stern warnings by many of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... pleasant but impossible task of accounting to myself for her mood. I went over all we had said and done together that day, and at last, after perhaps half an hour of unbroken silence, fell back on what seemed the only possible explanation. She was thinking of her father. But why that suspicion of asperity on her face? Was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... complained, with his usual vehemence and asperity, of the indignities to which innocent and honourable men, highly descended and highly esteemed, had been subjected by Aaron Smith and the wretches who were in his pay. The leading Whigs, with great judgment, demanded an inquiry. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... aplomb, apostasy, apparatus, apparition, appellate, appertain, appetency, apposite, approbation, appurtenance, aquatic, aqueous, aquiline, arbitrary, archaic, arduous, aromatic, arrear, articulate, ascetic, asperity, asphyxiate, asseverate, assiduity, assimilate, astringent, astute, atrophy, attenuate, auditory, augury, auscultation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... sincerity; for the Dictionary was duly read aloud to her, betwixt sleep and waking, as it proceeded towards an infinitely distant completion; and the Doctor was a little sore on the subject of mummies, and sometimes resented an allusion with asperity. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some asperity; 'and I rose early to make the best of it—I have been here alone this ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... allow, anything "which he thought diverting or interesting." Then Lear read the debates of the Virginia Assembly on the election of a Senator and Governor. "On hearing Mr. Madison's observations respecting Mr. Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold before mentioned, which ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... as they held action to be the criterion of oratory, made the best actors their models; nor was this a groundless opinion adopted by a few or superficial men; for Demosthenes having remarked with some asperity that the worst orators were heard in the rostrum in preference to him, the celebrated actor SATYRUS, in order to show him how much grace, dignity, and action add to the celebrity of a public man, repeated ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... California has carried the ducking-club idea to the limit where it is claimed that it constitutes an abuse. Dr. Palmer says that one or two of the club preserves on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley contain upward of 40 square miles, or 25,000 acres each! With considerable asperity it is now publicly charged (in the columns of The Examiner of San Francisco) that for the unattached sportsmen there is no longer any duck-shooting to be had in California, because all the good ducking-grounds are owned and exclusively ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... to retire, my lord," observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: "I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs Lascelles for ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to withdraw him, it is to place him out of danger," he retorted with asperity. "Not because I wish to mortify him, naturally. Is that clear? Does he want to pass the next thirteen ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... to say, Miss De Haro," returned the Senator, rising with some asperity, "that you seem to have been unfortunate in your selection of acquaintances, and still more so in your ideas of the derivations of the English tongue. The—er—the—er—expressions you have quoted are not common to Boston, but emanate, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... dish of good cow-heel and bacon something soothed the asperity of the artist, which wholly vanished before a choice capon, so delicately roasted that the lard frothed on it, said Wayland, like May-dew on a lily; and both Gaffer Crane and his good dame became, in his eyes, very painstaking, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... to the former; for although there is much laxity of principle among Irishmen, naturally to be expected from men whose moral state has been neglected by the legislature, and deteriorated by political and religious asperity, acting upon quick passions and badly regulated minds—yet we know that they possess, after all, a strong, but vague undirected sense of devotional feeling and reverence, which are associated with ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... mio, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly by those ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to see Mr. Hegan personally," Montague answered, with just a trifle of asperity, "If you will kindly take in this ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to the steeple, and look out—But—no—follow me to the house; and remember," she added, with all the asperity of a person who is conscious of having permitted temper to overcome judgment, "that we are in the house of mourning, and ought not to indulge in any thing like jest—say nothing of my alarm—I mean of what I heard, to your companions: ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Sir: but, after my former letter to you, and your ungenerous perseverance; and after this attempt to avail yourself at the expense of another man's character, rather than by your own proper merit; I see not that you can blame any asperity in her, whom you have so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Hamlet as the amiable and accomplished young prince, too weak to support the burden of a great action, did not recommend itself either to Schlegel or Coleridge, who take the mental rather than the moral disposition to task. Schlegel, with some asperity, speaks of "a calculating consideration that cripples the power of action;" and Coleridge, with more subtlety, applies Hamlet's antithesis of thought and resolution to the elucidation of his own character, concluding that Hamlet "procrastinates ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... have been behaving as a gentleman should," replied Harley, with some asperity; "and if I have been unlucky enough to incur her dislike, I shall endure it as ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... getting too personal, Brayle," interrupted Mr. Harland, quickly, and with asperity—"Santoris, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Tydeus, Diomede, perceived, Heroic Chief, by chariots all around 435 Environ'd, and by steeds, at side of whom Stood Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus. Him also, Agamemnon, King of men, In accents of asperity reproved. Ah, son of Tydeus, Chief of dauntless heart 440 And of equestrian fame! why standest thou Appall'd, and peering through the walks of war? So did not Tydeus. In the foremost fight His favorite station was, as they ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... have to be very careful not to overfeed that child, or you will have her down sick," remarked Mrs. Scrimp with asperity, addressing Violet. "She ought never to eat anything at all after three o'clock ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... not think him high-tempered beyond the requisites of manhood," she replied, with something like asperity in her tone. "I cannot endure your meek, mild mannered men, who seem to forget their sex, and almost make me long to change my own with them, that their sweet ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... what was on the Professor's mind; in fact, she had known it for some time, but had assured herself that he would never have the courage to put his hints, and suggestions, and allusions, into an actual declaration. So she replied with some asperity, "What made you think I was looking ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... so," replied Cynthia indifferently, emptying the coffee-grounds into the kitchen sink. The asperity of her tone was caused by the entrance of Lila, who came in with a basin of corn-meal dough tucked under her bared arm, which showed as round and delicate as a child's ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the constable with asperity; "but I think you haven't half searched. Maybe he's hiding somewhere up in ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... in so flagrant a case, to allow myself a severity of animadversion little congenial with the general spirit of these papers. I hesitate not to submit it to the decision of any candid and honest adversary of the proposed government, whether language can furnish epithets of too much asperity, for so shameless and so prostitute an attempt to impose ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... of every description had made me, much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... pathetically that I could but laugh, seeing that there was so much incongruity between the remark and the situation all about us. My laughter must have jarred her, for she said with some asperity, "You are laughing now, but in a minute you will be laughing on the other ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... splendid war-horse, gaily caparisoned, and attended by a groom whose sole duty was to see to my wants. How different is my present condition! I wish I had never given up the battlefield for the mill." The Miller replied with asperity, "It's no use your regretting the past. Fortune has many ups and downs: you must just ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... harmonizer of faiths, is not likely to accomplish much that will be permanently good. Religions to-day have lost much of their asperity one toward the other. The study of Comparative Religion has led men everywhere to magnify the assonances, rather than the dissonances, of the Great World Faiths. Theosophy magnifies into a cult this function of bringing religions together. It ignores, however, the fundamental ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French Company—for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication. These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... home. When we next encounter the decayed virtuoso, he has grown a beard (very badly kept), and set up as a philosopher of the hyper-virtuous Jaques school. Of course he lectures us upon every vice which we have not, and every little frailty which we have, with a pointed asperity that upsets our temper for the day, and causes us long afterwards to bewail the evil hour in which we rescued such an ill-conditioned grumbler from the kindly ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... other time Sarah would have defended her own sex with much asperity; instead, there was something oddly wistful ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Minister (with some asperity). "Members are well aware what Home Rule meant. It was a plan—or rather it was a scheme—that is to say, it was an act of parliament, or I should say a bill, in fact, Mr. Speaker, I don't mind confessing that, ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... receiving the stipulated reward on my return." Akaitcho did not seem prepared to hear such declarations from his brothers, and instantly changing the subject, began to descant upon the treatment he had received from the traders in his concerns with them, with an asperity of language that bore more the appearance of menace than complaint. I immediately refused to discuss this topic, as foreign to our present business, and desired Akaitcho to recall to memory, that he had told me on our first meeting, that he considered me the father of every person attached ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... you must argue or discourse with me, I will endure your asperity for the sake of your acuteness; but it appears to me a more philosophical thing to avoid what is insulting and vexatious, than ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the act of removing his muffler from Rosemary's neck. He had already taken his thin overcoat from Harold's shoulders, so she missed that part of his personal sacrifice. She asked with considerable asperity if he was ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... over the rims of his glasses inquiringly, and with a suggestion of asperity, but the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... sort of strangeness in her ideas which is often noticeable in characters that have developed late, in savages, who think much and speak little. Her peasant's wit had acquired a good deal of Parisian asperity from hearing the talk of workshops and mixing with workmen and workwomen. She, whose character had a marked resemblance to that of the Corsicans, worked upon without fruition by the instincts of a strong nature, would have liked to be the protectress of a weak ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... of Newcastle, he found obdurate in another direction, speaking with great asperity against Lord Derby and his party; he would make no vows as to junction, not even that he would not join Disraeli; but he thought this government must be opposed and overthrown; then those who led the charge against it would reap the reward; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... buts about it," broke in Tilda with swift asperity. "Think what you'd feel like if you ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... sand I had rubbed or the ashes of my pipe. I lived in dread of these entrances, but at last I found that they chanced only within certain hours, and I arranged my times of work accordingly. Once or twice, however, being impatient, I scratched the stone with some asperity and noise, and was rewarded by hearing my fellow stumbling in the hall; for he had as uncertain limbs as ever I saw. He stumbled upon nothing, as you have seen a child trip itself up by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous serpents, and been stabbed cruelly ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Akaitcho did not seem prepared to hear such declarations from his brothers, and instantly changing the subject, began to descant upon the treatment he had received from the traders in his concerns with them, with an asperity of language that bore more the appearance of menace than complaint. I immediately refused to discuss this topic, as foreign to our present business, and desired Akaitcho to recall to memory, that he had told me on our first meeting, that he considered me the father ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... heard of a king who made the sign to put a captive to death. The poor wretch, in that state of desperation, began to abuse the king in the dialect which he spoke, and to revile him with asperity, as has been said; whoever shall wash his hands of life will utter whatever he may harbor in his heart:—"When a man is desperate he will give a latitude to his tongue, like as a cat at bay will fly at a dog"—"at the moment of compulsion when it is impossible to fly, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... to his appearance. I lost some of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... sell out," continued the Judge, with a trifle of asperity, "why on earth didn't you go to Bob Standish? Why didn't you go to an expert? And why didn't you have an audit made of Mix's company—why didn't you get a little information—why didn't you know what you were buying? Oh, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... following the capture of New Orleans he gave positive instructions to Dayton in Paris and Adams in London to propose the withdrawal of the declaration admitting Southern belligerent rights. Thouvenel replied with some asperity on the folly of Seward's demand, and made a strong representation of the necessity of France to obtain cotton and tobacco[633]. Adams, with evident reluctance, writing, "I had little expectation of success, but I felt it my duty at once to execute the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Rampson with asperity; then correcting himself quickly, and with a rather ghastly smile, "I say, you two ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... cordiality at its true worth and was unresponsive. "So you've got the job. They'd be sorry to part with Maggie." Then pursing her lips, she placed her season ticket in her purse, and said with condescending asperity: "I want to go ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Brisac laid down the newspaper to pour forth compliments of condolence.—Mrs. Somers tore the piece of paper as he approached the table, and said, with some asperity, "One would think this was a matter of life and death, by the terms in which it ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... dangerous to be too rigidly in the right. Sensibility may, by an incessant attention to elegance and propriety, be quickened to a tenderness inconsistent with the condition of humanity, irritable by the smallest asperity, and vulnerable by the gentlest touch. He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and submits to endure nothing in accommodations, attendance, or address, below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the crowd of life, be harassed with innumerable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... you heard me!" Fairchild spoke with some asperity. "I said that he had disappeared, and I want some help in hunting for him. He may be injured, for all I know, and if he 's out here in the mountains anywhere, it's almost sure death for him unless he can ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... are we to see the world unless we go round it?" exclaimed the Baron, with some asperity in his tone. "That is what I thought we ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... went on to remark with asperity that Murillo painted like an ignoramus. But all at once he stopped short in the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the Peripatetics; they cling to words with great tenacity; and as they cannot bear to have them taken from them one after another, they become more fierce, and rough, and harsher both in their language and manners. But Panaetius, wishing to avoid their moroseness and asperity, would not approve of either the bitterness of their sentiments, or their captious way of arguing: and so in one respect he was more gentle, and in the other more intelligible. And he was always quoting Plato, and Aristotle, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Joseph, with great asperity, 'the cord of existence—my affairs would be found, I hope, in ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... on the subject was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold, who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing-room, and ordered Harry off to bed, with some little asperity of tone. The boy rose at once, rang the bell, bade them all good night, and went. A servant met him at the door with a candle, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... obscured by a capricious and despotic temper. His plans for the advancement of the colony were bold and judicious, his representations to the government of France fearless and effectual, his personal conduct and piety unimpeachable, but he exhibited a bitterness and asperity to those who did not enter into his views little suited to the better points of his character, and it is said that ambition and the love of authority at times overcame his zeal for the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... it made you think of me, whom you never saw, to see another woman's profile," she retorted, with the faintest touch of asperity in her childlike voice. "But," she added, more gently and with a relapse into her adorable naivete, "most ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... be incredulous without being cruel, I should think," said Mittie, with asperity. She felt the reproach, and could not believe it accidental. Poor Mittie! ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to fool me!" said Silas, with asperity. "It ain't creditable to deceive a man old ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... that Americans have retorted with some asperity upon criticisms in which any approach to such insolent insularism is even remotely or ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... know about it?" James answered her with asperity. "It's a pretty mess at this time of night, too!" He lapsed into silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to say: 'I can't tell—I don't know; I knew how it would be!' But he did ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... "Memoirs of a Cavalier." This book attempts to give a picture of the Parliamentary war; but in some places an unfair, and everywhere a most superficial account. I said so; and my uncle, who had an old craze in behalf of the book, opposed me with asperity; and, in the course of what he said, under some movement of ill-temper, he asked me, in a way which I felt to be taunting, how I could consent to waste my time as I did. Without any answering warmth, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... she answered with asperity. "Somebody had a property there once—either one of our family or a friend. Why don't your family become Esthonians? You'd find it much more convenient. Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... observed rather uncautiously that the smell of it was enough, at which Mrs. Portheris remarked, with some asperity, that she hoped Mrs. Wick would never be obliged to be indebted to the "smell." "It is quite excellent," she said, "most cordial. I really think, as a precaution, ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... not wish from a man so nearly allied to me by marriage; for all he could talk of, was the dignity of their house, when the reason of the thing was strong with the other; and it fell to my lot to answer what he said; which I did with some asperity; and this occasioned a coolness ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the Court in his own defence, Magee had occasion to allude to some public character, who was better known by a familiar designation. The official gravity of Clonmel was disturbed; and he, with bilious asperity, reproved the printer, by saying, "Mr. Magee, we allow no nicknames in this court,"—-"Very well, John Scott," was ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... State, was present to give it his personal supervision. In the course of Mr. D.'s argument, he let fall some profane language, for which he was promptly checked and reprimanded by the Judge. Mr. D., accustomed to unrestrained license of tongue, retorted with great asperity, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... perhaps the last man in Christendom to have accepted the testimony of Mr. Bayne's heart-throbs. He intimated with some asperity that he knew better than anyone else what Lady Clare did say, and he pointed out that she had just cause for resentment against a mother who had placed her in such an embarrassing position. The controversy is one of the drollest in literature; but what is hard to understand is the mental ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... said of VAUCANSON, that he was as much an automaton as any which he made. HOGARTH and SWIFT, who looked on the circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company; but their grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being the greatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners in his way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and it would cease to be itself were it ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... returned with some asperity. "Why should he get married with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house for Mr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that time he's never found his beef overdone or a ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... twelve people packed into a rocky landscape of cardboard portmanteaus and umbrella- peaks; twenty-four legs, and urgent need of stretching-room as the night wore on. There was jostling, there was asperity from those who could sleep and from those who would; there was more when two shock-head drovers—like First and Second Murderers in a tragedy—insisted on taking off their boots. It was not that there was little room for boots; indeed I think ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... changed being. All his asperity of temper was gone; he was as gentle as a child. Whole days he would sit in the chair where his wife used to sit in the happy days of her young wifehood, speaking to no one, smiling sometimes to himself, as though he heard some inner whisperings ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with some asperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenstone Demilt is her brother." She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I have some hope—remote, alas! but there—of becoming ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Spenser Hale?' I inquired with some asperity, forgetting for the moment that the man invariably became ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed, till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations, where no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... as briefly as possible," said the merchant, with a little asperity, for there was not as much deference in the manner of the other as he thought there should have been. Like most new men, he was jealous of his position, and solicitous lest he should not be treated ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... disappointment. His own was slightly marked with annoyance, and, suddenly ceasing to arrange some folded law papers that he held in his hands, and had gathered up from the table at which he was standing, he exclaimed in tones of mingled surprise and asperity: "Still at the old song! still harping, harping, harping! Peace, no more of it. Heaven would be insufferable with but one hymn, hell thrice horrible with but one howl, earth uninhabitable with but one evil. Oh, variety, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... received—the former from the Protestant, and the latter from the Catholic, historian—the praise that party spirit failed to weaken; the heroic gallantry, the indomitable perseverance, and the patient and resolute endurance under suffering, of both, having deprived political partizans of their asperity—compelling them, for once at least, to render justice to their opponents; all having readily subscribed to the opinion that "Derry and Limerick will ever grace the historic page, as rival companions and monuments of Irish ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... "are the work of a young newspaper artist who belongs here. A clever fellow. He has caught the expressions of these men wonderfully. His only failure, indeed, is that picture of myself." He regarded it with distaste, and a touch of asperity crept into his manner. "I don't know why the committee lets it stay there," he said, irritably. "It isn't a bit like." He recovered himself. "But all the others are excellent, excellent, though I believe many of the subjects are under ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... you be always riding," said Mrs. Macpherson, with some asperity, for there was a little natural jealousy between these ladies on the subject ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... cheerfully. As she turned away, however, she tossed her head. "A new pose, indeed!" she muttered, with some asperity. "Just as if there could be a new pose after all those ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... with frigid asperity as to my meaning; but the very iciness of his manner satisfied me that he understood perfectly, and, believing that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himself all details of his machine—whatever it might ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... the hopes of Miss Ada Bishop. Meanwhile Flossie (hitherto regarded from a merely decorative point of view) became a person of considerable importance in the boarding-house. It was not merely that she was an engaged young lady; for, as Miss Bishop pointed out to her with some natural asperity, anybody can be engaged; but she had now the privilege, denied to any other boarder, of going in and out of Mr. Rickman's study. She said that she went in to tidy it; but strange to say, the more Flossie tidied ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... "conversations" between leaders which had taken place during the winter, said that since no definite agreement had been reached the Government had decided to reopen the matter in the House. This meant, as Redmond pointed out with some asperity, that the Prime Minister had accepted responsibility for taking the initiative in making proposals to meet objections whose reasonableness he did not admit. The Opposition, he thought, should have been left to put forward ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... seen a more ill-ordered youth, and he experienced an increasing difficulty in keeping a marked asperity from his speech and conduct. Eliza Provost shortly came down, and the three strolled out into the ruddy light of late afternoon. Howat Penny consumed a long time dressing for the evening; and, in the end, irritably ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are a Governor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming home before I go? Sometimes I don't believe you have ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... between surprise and terror—Hazlewood mistook the nature of my alarm, and, when Brown advanced towards me as if to speak, commanded him haughtily to stand back, and not to alarm the lady. Brown replied, with equal asperity, he had no occasion to take lessons from him how to behave to that or any other lady. I rather believe that Hazlewood, impressed with the idea that he belonged to the band of smugglers, and had some bad purpose in view, heard and understood ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... flash of his old asperity, "nobody can't bluff me. You never ast me. You made your spiel, and you t'rowed me out, and I let it go at dat. And, say, friend, dis chasin' cows is outer sight. Dis is de whitest bunch of sports I ever travelled with. You'll let me ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... reprehensible? The old dispute as to conduct rises in full intensity: Does the end justify the means? Two parties are sure to appear with views just opposite; the one excuses, the other condemns, often with no little asperity. The Odyssey has been denounced even as an immoral Book and both its hero and heroine have been subjected to a burning ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... of his narrative, relates his arrival at the island of AEolus, his departure thence, and the unhappy occasion of his return thither. The monarch of the winds dismisses him at last with much asperity. He next tells of his arrival among the Laestrygonians, by whom his whole fleet, together with their crews, are destroyed, his own ship and crew excepted. Thence he is driven to the island of Circe. By her ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... was quite evident that there was nothing in the world else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could hardly get up ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... he saw him entered upon the dire life of idleness and dependence, partial or entire, which he had known so many Americans even willing to lead since the first great hard times began; and he spoke to him with the asperity ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... mind the pit-saw!" exclaimed MacSweenie, with a touch of asperity. "All the planks we want are sawn, an' if they were not, surely we could mend—tut, man, I wonder ye can play the fuddle. It always seemed to me that a goot fuddler must be a man of sentiment, but ye are the exception, Tonal', that proves the rule. Away wi' you an' gie my orders to ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... said Mrs Griffith, with some asperity, feeling the doubt almost an affront to her—'I'm sorry to say that I ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... related that, in 1832, while he was at Paris, an article was shown him in an American newspaper, purporting to be a criticism on one of his works, but reflecting with much asperity on his personal character. "I care nothing," he is reported to have said, "for the criticism, but I am not indifferent to the slander. If these attacks on my character should be kept up five years after my return ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... pupils with an ardour of manner and of expression proportioned to his own conviction of the truth. The detection of long-established errors is apt to inspire the young philosopher with an exultation which reason condemns. The feeling of triumph is apt to clothe itself in the language of asperity; and the abettor of erroneous opinions is treated as a species of enemy to science. Like the soldier who fleshes his first spear in battle, the philosopher is apt to leave the stain of cruelty on his early ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... Welsh's sister that Charley Welsh was out this morning, and drew his own pay," came back the manager's familiar tones, crisp with asperity. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of such an arrangement, or want of arrangement, is obvious; and it must have caused much friction in the House. We can imagine the officer in charge of the finances resenting the intrusion of his brother of the library with an asperity not wholly in accordance with fraternal charity. And yet, so strong is the tendency of human nature to put up with whatever exists, rather than be at the trouble of changing it, no effectual steps in the way of remedy were taken until the fifteenth century. In that century, however, we find that ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... propensities are formed, Tom had a mother who watched over his health, his well-being, and every part of education in which a female could be useful. You had lost a mother who would have cherished you, whose talents you inherited, who would have softened the asperity of our father's temper, and probably have prevented his unaccountable partialities. You have always shown a noble independence of spirit, that the pecuniary difficulties you often had to encounter could not induce you to forego. As a public man, you have been, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... it strike her as strange that a taxi, with its flag up for hire, should be standing opposite the bank door, blocking the way for arriving vehicles; or that, having persistently refused many irate would-be hirers, and patiently listened to the asperity of their remarks, the driver should have opened the door and held it back as she walked straight across the pavement, got in, and, without hesitating gave the address of the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... such an awful faux pas," Blue Bonnet said with asperity. "They always have afternoon tea at Oxford. Alec Trent has a friend there and he told ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... they not so much differ from the temperature of those countries: unless upon the out-coast lying open unto the ocean and sharp winds, it must indeed be subject to more cold than further within the land, where the mountains are interposed as walls and bulwarks, to defend and to resist the asperity and rigour of the sea and weather. Some hold opinion that the Newfoundland might be the more subject to cold, by how much it lieth high and near unto the middle region. I grant that not in Newfoundland alone, but in Germany, Italy and Afric, even under the equinoctial line, ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... you don't know whar she is," retorted the other, with asperity; "you never keep a eye on 'er. Ef you'd a-watched 'er better an' kept 'er more at home thar never would 'a' been the talk that's now goin' about an' makin' you an' her the laughin'-stock of the settlement. I told you all along that John Westerfelt never had ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... that the Bull Onuphis was worshipped at a place in Egypt, which he could not specify on account of its asperity. AElian de Animalibus. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... so pathetically that I could but laugh, seeing that there was so much incongruity between the remark and the situation all about us. My laughter must have jarred her, for she said with some asperity, "You are laughing now, but in a minute you will be laughing on the ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... seemed dug and little bits of some vitreous substance left at the bottom. "Well, mate," cried he harshly, "what do you want that you stick to us so tight?" This was addressed to a peddler who had been standing opposite showing the contents of his box with a silent eloquence. Now this very asperity made the portable shopman say to himself, "wants me out of the way—perhaps buy me out." So he stuck where he was, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... interesting subjects of the time, religious, or political; in which the titles of the books or pamphlets prefixed furnish only the name and occasion of the disquisition. I do not arraign the keenness, or asperity of its damnatory style, in and for itself, as long as the author is addressed or treated as the mere impersonation of the work then under trial. I have no quarrel with them on this account, as long as no personal allusions are admitted, and no re-commitment (for new trial) of juvenile ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... what you're drivin' at," Bert said with asperity. "An' all I can tell you is, livin' or dead, in a job or out, no matter what happens to me, if you will lead that way, you will, an' there's nothin' ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... follow Comrag's tracks," she said, pointing toward the spot where the hoof-prints emerged from the brush. "You'd better leave your rifle here," she added with some asperity, "You might take a fancy to shoot Comrag if he strayed ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... said," replied Stillwell, with asperity. "His orders. Are you forgettin' orders? Wal, you're a fine cowboy. You an' Nick an' Monty, 'specially, are to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... had wished that," replied the lady, with some asperity, "I would have asked you to do so. As it is, I asked you to fix ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... played a meaner one now." Mr. Wiggins made the assertion with asperity and looked at the same time directly at Octavius Buzzby. "I know all about their free dispensaries that'll draw trade away from my very counter and take the bread and butter out of my mouth; and as for the fees—there won't be a chance for recording a homestead site; there isn't any counting on such ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... if I were the young gentleman who shared his post chaise. But, without allowing time for an answer, and striking his boot impatiently with a riding whip, he hoped I was ready. "Not until he has gone up to my mistress," replied my old protectress, in a tone of some asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and directions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, naturally I have forgotten. The most memorable circumstance to me was, that I, who had never till that time possessed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... things, what way shall we take in giving men counsel of comfort? If the faith were in our days as fervent as it hath been ere this in times past, little counsel and little comfort would suffice. We should not much need with words and reasoning to extenuate and diminish the vigour and asperity of the pains. For of old times, the greater and the more bitter the pain were, the more ready was the fervour of faith to suffer it. And surely, cousin, I doubt little in my mind but what, if a man had in his heart ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Buenaventura, I have seen promising ledges of copper ore. Copper carbonates predominated, the green ore known as malachite and the beautiful blue ore azurite were quite common, and white quartz, which on being broken showed little specks of native copper, was also to be found. The asperity of the region, the absence of roads and the uncertainty as to the extent of these deposits caused the attempts at working them to be but feeble until recently, when extensive works of development were undertaken in the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... coadjutors, and the literary exercises and curious researches of others, we cannot but applaud that strict and conscientious devotion to the interests of his employer, and to what he considered the true objects of the enterprise in which he was engaged. He certainly was to blame occasionally for the asperity of his manners, and the arbitrary nature of his measures, yet much that is exceptionable in this part of his conduct may be traced to rigid notions of duty acquired in that tyrannical school, a ship of war, and to the construction given by his companions to the orders of Mr. Astor, so little ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... more notion than you how long it is to last," Holmes answered with some asperity. "If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us. As to what it is we—Well, THAT'S what we ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... when one hears of such things as these, it becomes a duty, perhaps, a little to soften that extreme asperity with which most men speak of murder. To hear people talk, you would suppose that all the disadvantages and inconveniences were on the side of being murdered, and that there were none at all in not being murdered. But considerate men think otherwise. "Certainly," says Jeremy Taylor, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... to say why you were so eager to go on guard out of your turn?" said Canker, oracularly. "That in itself is sufficient to convince any fair-minded court of your guilt, sir." Whereat Gordon winked at Billy and put his tongue in his cheek—and Billy stood mute until ordered, with much asperity, to go back ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... experience on that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the presence of any member of the family. My nervousness was fully warranted. The gloom on Alan's brow deepened, and after a very short "They say so" he turned full upon me, and inquired with some asperity why on earth I had developed this ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... I don't know how it may be now," would reply Mrs. Peedles, with some slight asperity; "but in my time we ladies of the legitimate stage used to look down upon dancers and such sort. Of course, no offence to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... still more attracted by the controversy that then raged in Edinburgh and elsewhere on the value of Phrenology and Animal Magnetism. Hamilton, as all students of contemporary philosophy are aware, denounced the pretensions of Phrenology with curious vehemence and asperity. It was the only doctrine, his friends said, that he could not even tolerate. On Animal Magnetism he held a very different opinion, and he wrote to Greg encouraging his enthusiasm in that direction. 'There has always,' he said, 'seemed ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... but I am for Fox against Pitt. The King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend;" and to Burke, when he was a candidate for a seat in the new Parliament, he wished, as he told him with a smile, "all the success that an honest man could wish him." Even towards Wilkes his asperity was softened down into good humour by their meeting together over a plentiful table at the house of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... if you made so insulting a speech to Herr Hardy," said the Pastor, with some asperity, "that it should be withdrawn. To tell a man that he is a coward and has false pride is too galling, and when not a single ground for it exists the more so. You might thereby have tempted him to risk his life, to say ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... of all the players at every change of fortune. Even the young ladies, all but Miss Simmons, seemed to be equally sensible of the passion of gaining money with the rest; and some of them behaved with a degree of asperity which quite astonished him. After several changes of fortune, it happened that Miss Simmons and Harry were the only remaining players; all the rest, by the laws of the game, had forfeited all pretensions to the stake, the property of which was clearly vested in these two, and one ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... to its rotten roots the social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Where has the human machine gone wrong? It has gone wrong in the brain. What, is he 'wrong in the head'? Most assuredly, most strictly. He knows—none better—that when his wife employs a particular tone containing ten grains of asperity, and he replies in a particular tone containing eleven grains, the consequences will be explosive. He knows, on the other hand, that if he replies in a tone containing only one little drop of honey, the consequences ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... his eyes. The blood rushed into his pale face, as he replied with great asperity of look and tone, 'Margaret, you have taken an unfair advantage, and abused the confidence I reposed in you; I did not expect this ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... be wise to get her into things. It might keep some others out if we made her prominent," put in Lila Cary with some asperity. "We must have some social ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... the personal characteristics of the householder with an asperity which was still restrained. She had a hairy chin, said Mrs. Makebelieve: she had buck teeth and a solid smile, and was given to telling people who knew their business how things ought to be done. Beyond this she would not say anything.—The amount of soap the lady allowed ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... facts in this narrative are confirmed by Lord Clarendon.—'Continuation of his Life', p. 33. It is difficult to speak of the persons concerned in this infamous transaction without some degree of asperity, notwithstanding they are, by a strange perversion of language, styled, all men ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... influence of the Oxford writers came next: on this subject I knew we should not agree, though of course it was interesting to me to hear Mr. Kingsley's opinion. He spoke with some asperity of one or two of the leaders, though his chief objection was to certain young men who had put themselves forward as champions of the movement. Of Mr. Keble he spoke very kindly. He said he had at one time been much under the influence of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... we are getting at my character at last," observed Brook with some asperity. "You've discovered my vanity, now. By-and-by we shall find out some more ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... many loud complaints from the forts of Terrenate, written by religious and laymen, of the governor there, Lucas de Bergara Gaviria—not only of his asperity and harsh government, but of his lack of balance in other things. Since these complaints were so numerous, I was obliged to get the opinion and resolution of the members of this royal Audiencia; but at the same time came letters from Lucas de Bergara Gaviria, asking permission to resign his post. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... she said with asperity, "you may go after your practicing, as I said, but you will be ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... after this introduction, I made haste to explain every particular. My mother was surprised and grieved. She rebuked me, with some asperity, for my reserves. Had I acquainted her with my brother's demands, she could have apprized me of all that I had since discovered. My brother, she asserted, was involved beyond any one's power to extricate him, and his temper, his credulity, were such ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... esteemed an orator. Q. Capio too had a great deal of spirit, and was a brave citizen: but the unlucky chance of war was imputed to him as a crime, and the general odium of the people proved his ruin. C. and L. Memmius were likewise indifferent orators, and distinguished by the bitterness and asperity of their accusations: for they prosecuted many, but seldom spoke for the defendant. Sp. Torius, on the other hand, was distinguished by his popular way of speaking; the very same man, who, by his corrupt and frivolous law, diminished [Footnote: By dividing great ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling when my venerable sire would ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... direction with the novels. Its most important offices aside from this were perhaps to present large and kindly views of literature and literary characters, especially through biographical essays; and to ameliorate somewhat the prevailing asperity of periodical criticism. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... The wife, dressed with a certain haste and carelessness, was carrying in her arms her third child, yet unweaned, and she expected a fourth in the early autumn. Clara had matured, she had grown stronger; and despite the asperity of her pretty, pale face there was a charm in the free gestures and the large body of the young and prolific mother. Albert Benbow wore the rough, clay-dusted attire of the small earthenware manufacturer who is away from the works for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... turned from the path of right by pleasure, by lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his pride and resentment for the monitions of conscience, and deceived himself into a belief that, in treating friends and foes with indiscriminate insolence and asperity, he was merely showing his Christian faithfulness and courage. Burnet, by exhorting him to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made him a mortal enemy. "Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest, "to mind his own business, and to let me look after mine." ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with a touch of asperity. "Oh, yes. Pish, sir! Friends, I am learning, have their own hides to consider. And those gentlemen of yours are Gentiles with goods for Salt Lake Mormons. Are they going to throw all business to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... he would have lain in this state of felicity it is impossible to say, for his slumbers were rudely interrupted by a slight lurch of the schooner, which caused the blocks and cordage attached to the sheet of the jib to sweep slowly, but with rasping asperity, across his face. Any ordinary man would have been seriously damaged—at least in appearance—by such an accident; but this particular sea-dog was tough in the skin,—he was only awakened by it—nothing more. He yawned, raised himself lazily, and gazed round with ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the Edinburgh Review with a warmth which I am willing to believe sincere, because he qualified his compliments with several very sensible cautions. My great danger, he said, was that of taking a tone of too much asperity and contempt in controversy. I believe that he is right, and I shall try ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... handed about the coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many enemies, said that he consulted his personal safety even in his most ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nationalism will of course appear biased to anyone who has been in the habit of rating German Culture high in all its bearings, and to whom at the same time the ideals of peace and liberty appeal. Indeed, such a critic, gifted with the due modicum of asperity, might well be provoked to call it all a more or less ingenious diatribe of partisan malice. But it can be so construed only by those who see the question at issue as a point of invidious distinction between this German animus on the one hand and the corresponding ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... in the morning came her sister, her ambassadress. Then began the usual phrases: 'She is in a terrible state. What is the matter?' 'Why, nothing has happened.' I spoke of her asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the better! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and determinedly, in ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... vapid, if negligence were not sometimes roused, and sluggishness quickened, by due severity of reprehension. But acids unmixed will distort the face and torture the palate; and he that has no other qualities than penetration and asperity, he whose constant employment is detection and censure, who looks only to find faults, and speaks only to punish them, will soon be dreaded, hated ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... sharp, the chin round and sometimes retreating. The body is angular and generally convex in outline, with sharpness at all angles. This temperament is usually accompanied with great activity of mind and vivaciousness of disposition, and sometimes develops great energy and asperity. It is very likely ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... Treaty under the guarantee of all the Great Powers. This project was opposed by Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers as an encroachment on the Sultan's sovereignty, and its rejection led the King to write with some asperity to his ambassador in London that he should seek the welfare of Prussia in absolute neutrality. [468] At a later period the King demanded from England, as the condition of any assistance from himself, a guarantee for the maintenance ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... he has to protect the escort. Christians are looked upon as dogs by all the self-satisfied natives, and treated so by some of them when they can be saucy with impunity. It was my lot to be called a dog by a small fanatic, who hissed at me with the asperity and industry of a disturbed gander, and pelted me with stones. But two can play at that game, and that boy will think twice before he lapidates a full-grown Christian again. But he will hate him for ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... was also distressed by an attack make in The Times upon the memory of her husband by Colonel Grant, who declared that Burton had treated both Speke and their native followers with inhumanity. Lady Burton replied with asperity—giving the facts much as we have given them in Chapter ix. Grant died ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had that moment discovered that her best porcelain saucepan was cracked; she therefore answered with some asperity. "Indeed, then, Miss Margaret, what is good enough for Mr. Montfort must be good enough for his nephew or any other young gentleman. My supper is all planned, and I can't be fashed with new things at this ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... healthful. The asperity of winter is softened by the ocean streams coming from the south; the heat of summer is reduced by the high latitude and the mountains. Withal the Lord has blessed this celebrated country with rare natural ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... be the result, Philip?—what will be the result?" added Venner, with a curious mingling of exultation and asperity. "If our victims appeal to Nick Carter for help—are we not also already in his good graces? Have we not insured his confidence in us by this little move of to-day? Will he not reveal himself and his suspicions ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... she didn't mean it but she made it clear even with a touch of asperity that she did. "Oh, all right," he growled and reached for the ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... himself into difficulties, and charitable even to a fault. It was not that he was free from the failings of humanity, but he had the tenderness of it, too, which made everybody excuse whom everybody loved; and even the asperity of his verses seems ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... "I tell you what," said the Straussian, with some warmth, "sooner than believe all the absurdities of such an hypothesis as that of Paulus, I could believe Christianity to be what it professes to be." "I may say the same of that of Strauss," said the other, with equal asperity; "if I had no better escape than his, I could say to him, as Agippa to Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" "For my part," exclaimed the Deist, who was perfectly contented with his ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the understanding whereof, we may consider, that there is in mens aptnesse to Society; a diversity of Nature, rising from their diversity of Affections; not unlike to that we see in stones brought together for building of an Aedifice. For as that stone which by the asperity, and irregularity of Figure, takes more room from others, than it selfe fills; and for the hardnesse, cannot be easily made plain, and thereby hindereth the building, is by the builders cast away as unprofitable, and troublesome: so also, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... wealth, who would dare to insult Upper Canada with the official presence, as its ruler, of such an equivocal character as this Mr. What-do-they-call-him—Francis Bond Head." Ever and anon the Tory press retorted on him in a spirit by no means calculated to soften the asperity of his heart. The most contemptuous epithets were freely bestowed upon him, and he was from time to time taunted with his humble origin. It seems almost unnecessary to say that those who indulged in such ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... be explained. The balmy night, the time for talk, the amusement of Paris, the memory of younger passages, gave a lift to the occasion. Nick had already forgotten his little brush with Julia on his leaving Peter's tea-party at her side, and that he had been almost disconcerted by the asperity with which she denounced the odious man he had taken it into his head to force upon her. Impertinent and fatuous she had called him; and when Nick began to plead that he was really neither of these things, though he could imagine his manner ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... writing of Thoreau, says: "He improves with age—in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity, and fully ripen him. The world likes a good hater and refuser almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter—only it ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... demanded the old woman, with some asperity. "Whaur but in's ain room, sair cast doun for ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. [80] The health ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... little pig!" returns Red Umbrella, with maternal asperity. She looks up to the fair vision that stands on high amongst the poppies, and nods and smiles. "However I am to thank you!... Such a turn when we missed her!..." She utters these incoherences with a great deal of eye-play, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... refinement he was a man punctual and precise in his habits. Associating constantly with fashionable folk his naturally dignified behavior was increased. He was an aristocrat- -there is no other word—and he did not care to be hail-fellow- well-met with the musicians. A certain primness and asperity did not make him popular. While teaching, his manner warmed, the earnest artist came to life, all halting of speech and polite insincerities were abandoned. His pupils adored him. Here at least the sentiment was one of solidarity. De Lenz is his most censorious critic ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... amiable. They might have angered another man; but Cardo detected a tremor in the voice and an anxious look in the eyes which softened their asperity. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... encouraged her. After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity. "If all the editors," he said, "of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press exists were to be assembled, we should have a crew to which you would NOT confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour and reputation." On the functions of a monarch, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... about to retire, my lord," observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: "I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... heard a great deal of nonsense, Madge!" said Hilda with some asperity. "Come! you would like to see something of the island before the steamer comes to take you back. I will get the canoe and take you for ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
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