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More "Officious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Officious ass!" said the stout man. "A typical touch that black tie! A decent-minded person would have felt this appalling tragedy far too much to think of such a trifle. I hope I shall ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... that, her father being no longer alive, a guardian stands in his place. To him (who is not acquainted with me) busybodies and officious gentlemen must have no doubt brought all sorts of reports, such as, that he must beware of me, that I have no fixed income, that I would perhaps leave her in the lurch, etc., etc. The guardian became very ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... on duty, in harness; up in arms; on one's legs, at call; up and doing, up and stirring. busy, occupied; hard at work, hard at it; up to one's ears in, full of business, busy as a bee, busy as a one-armed paperhanger. meddling &c. v.; meddlesome, pushing, officious, overofficious[obs3], intrigant[obs3]. astir, stirring; agoing[obs3], afoot; on foot; in full swing; eventful; on the alert, &c. (vigilant) 459. Adv. actively &c. adj.; with life and spirit, with might and main &c. 686,with haste &c. 684, with wings; full tilt, in mediis rebus[Lat]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... you, Miss Baron. May God help and guide you, for you may have trouble of which you little dream. What you say about your side and my side has no place in my thoughts. I'll help settle such questions with soldiers. Neither do I wish to be officious, but there is something in my very manhood which protests against a fair young girl like you being ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... jealous, they like to keep her all to themselves," grumbled Cicely. "Eleanor Wright was quite rude when I offered to lend Monica a pencil yesterday. She said I was 'officious'." ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... much of Mr. Chester Downes; but she did mention the fact that when she had returned to Darringford House Mr. Hounsditch had been very officious in attending upon her and in showing her that she was a good deal tied down by the provisions of grandfather's will and that the lawyer was to advise her at every turn. Especially did she complain that Mr. Hounsditch had been officious ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... this, Grassette?" asked the Sheriff, brusquely. His official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of the little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, would have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but now it was met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... fell upon the obsequious servant of Creusa, who with such officious attention had filled his cup. He violently seized the old man, and accused him of his murderous intentions. Unprepared for this sudden attack he admitted his guilt, but pointed to the wife of Xuthus as the instigator of the crime. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... my own vanity. As a very natural result I felt that I was at liberty to laugh at my mishap, and that nobody could possibly guess whether my mirth was genuine or only counterfeit. Sophism is so officious! ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to Vienna, I, by a friendly interference in behalf of a woman whose fears rather than guilt had brought her into danger, became suspected myself; and the very officious officers of the police had me imprisoned as a coiner without the least grounds for any such accusation except their own surmises. I was detained unheard nine days, and when, having been heard, I had entirely justified myself, was again restored to liberty; public declaration ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... upstairs after me, always officious and eager, manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on beholding the careless reception accorded by Chrysantheme to her lord and master, and ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... head is quite confused and giddy. Do press it with your friendly hand." A female attendant, as she uttered these words, drew near to obey them. "Go, go," exclaimed Imogen, with a feeble tone, and at the same time putting by the officious hand, "you naughty girl. You are not my mother. Do not think to ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... to him always of his pretended misfortunes, under the fore-mentioned principles, without having had it in his power to tell a single word, or give him the least hint, that he might know the truth and state of things; because the negro Babo, performing the office of an officious servant with all the appearance of submission of the humble slave, did not leave the deponent one moment; that this was in order to observe the deponent's actions and words, for the negro Babo understands well the Spanish; and besides, there ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... charm in this—namely, that each to the other, even while friendship deepened, should remain something of an undiscovered country. Moreover, had she not told him that he rested her? To ask questions, however sympathetic, to volunteer consolation, however delicately worded, is to risk being officious; and to be officious, in however mild a degree, is to drive away the shy and illusive spirit of rest. And so Dominic Iglesias was coming, in the good nautical reading of that phrase, simply "to stand ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... with a mark, and he was a child upon whom the hardest and most commonplace among them could not look without a secret joy. Therefore they took him under their protection. The first who came to see Stephen Fausch was the teacher, an enlightened young man, and accordingly more officious. He greeted the smith a little condescendingly, a trifle masterfully. Then he blurted out at once the errand that had brought him. "You must change your boy's name, Fausch. He can't let every one call him by a shameful name like ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... at him, and puts it in the Power of every insignificant Enemy to disquiet him. Nay, he will suffer from what has been said of him, when it is forgotten by those who said or heard it. For this Reason I could never bear one of those officious Friends, that would be telling every malicious Report, every idle Censure that [passed [4]] upon me. The Tongue of Man is so petulant, and his Thoughts so variable, that one should not lay too great a Stress upon any present Speeches and Opinions. Praise and Obloquy proceed very ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for Trimalchio, "What the hell's next?" he gritted out, "this Syrian dancing-whore don't remember anything! I took her off ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... affairs of great moment which I have not enumerated in this brief letter, because I felt some little delicacy and timidity about appearing to be at all dictatorial or officious about a matter wherein the public ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... despot would be for ever broken. We then entered enthusiastically into his views. He observed that delays were dangerous; 'the barring-out,' he said, 'should take place the very next morning to prevent the possibility of being betrayed.' On a previous occasion (he said), some officious little urchin had told the master the whole plot, several days having been allowed to intervene between the planning of the project and its execution, and, to the astonishment of the boys, it appeared they found the master at his desk two hours before ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... dead and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and sufferings. "He was a good man, but very officious," says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to laugh at' [over] 'it. A plain man it seems he was; I cannot find ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and as officious as I could wish. When I had asked him the news of the day, and had pleaded my ignorance of the recent occurrence that had filled everybody with astonishment, he stepped back two paces, and exclaimed, 'Whence do you come, that the iniquities of that dog the mollah Nadan are unknown to you? He ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... is my duty to make sure," persisted the officious spinster. "My conscience will never be easy in the thought that perhaps if I had spoken, I might have saved the boy from ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... smallest error. No act of yours will ever be in private, but all of them will be performed in the midst of many persons. And all the remainder of mankind somehow take the greatest delight in being officious with respect to what is done by their rulers. Hence, if they once ascertain that you are urging them to one course and following a different one yourself, they will not fear your threats, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... pretended to be struck with terror, smote their thighs, and fell upon their knees to ask him pardon. The poor man, seeing them thus humble themselves before him, thought them in earnest, and said he would forgive them; for some were so officious as to put on his shoes, and others to help him on with his gown, that his quality might no more be mistaken. When they had carried on this farce, and enjoyed it for some time, they let a ladder down into the sea, and bade him go in peace; and if he refused to do ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... no officious voice to whisper to Rosalie Sherwood the story of the doubtful position which she occupied in the world. She was an orphan, the adopted child of the lady whom she devoutly loved with all a daughter's tenderness; this she knew, and it was ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... in another artillery encounter, our detachment received a very peremptory and officious order from Major Shoemaker, commanding the artillery of the division. My friend and former messmate, W. G. Williamson, now a lieutenant of engineers, having no duty in that line to perform, had hunted ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... acknowledged as the chief pastor of Christendom. About that time we see him writing letters to some of the most distinguished bishops of the East [571:1] directing them to call councils; and it does not appear that his epistles were deemed unwarranted or officious. Unity of doctrine was speedily connected with unity of discipline, and an opinion gradually prevailed that the Church Catholic should exhibit universal uniformity. When Victor differed from the Asiatic bishops relative to the mode of observing the Paschal festival, he was only ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... what happened next. Pidorka made a vow to go upon a pilgrimage, collected the property left her by her father, and in a few days it was as if she had never been in the village. Whither she had gone, no one could tell. Officious old women would have despatched her to the same place whither Peter had gone; but a Cossack from Kief reported that he had seen, in a cloister, a nun withered to a mere skeleton who prayed unceasingly. Her fellow-villagers recognised ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... at Lexley; not that he required other society than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... other. As his remarks had a conciliating and obliging tendency towards the stranger, Peveril concluded he was one of those idle persons, who, unable or unwilling to supply themselves with the means of indulgence at their own cost, do not scruple to deserve them at the hands of others, by a little officious complaisance; and considering that he might acquire some useful information from such a person, was just about to offer him the courtesy of a morning draught, when he observed he had suddenly left the yard. He had scarce remarked ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a fat officious-looking boat, came sneaking round the near point of the cliff. The air was so still, and the sea so calm, that you could hear the sides of the boat grate against the cliff. And the air was so clear that ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise, for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the officious ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... immediately threatened with mob violence by the metropolitan press in case he ventured to "lecture in favor of immediate Abolition," and to be warned that: "If our people will not suffer our own citizens to tamper with the question of slavery, it is not to be supposed that they will tolerate the officious intermeddling of a foreign fanatic." Then as if by way of giving him a taste of the beak and talons of the American amour propre, he and his family were put out of the Atlantic Hotel in deference ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... for a fee, and almost capering about in his appeal to your attention. What has become of the soul of San Gimignano who shall say?—but, of a genial modern Sunday, it is as if the heroic skeleton, risen from the dust, were in high activity, officious for your entertainment and your detention, clattering and changing plates at the informal friendly inn, personally conducting you to a sight of the admirable Santa Fina of Ghirlandaio, as I believe is supposed, in a dim chapel of the Collegiata ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... root in the earth; it requires more strength to do this without such an opening; very many have failed, and their imperfections have been in every one's way. They have been more partial, more harsh, more officious and impertinent, than those compelled by severer friction to render themselves endurable. Those who have a more full experience of the instincts have a distrust as to whether the unmarried can be thoroughly human and humane, such as is ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with ridicule to the old women of former days, than would the custom I have here cited to the comforters of modern times. If I cannot say that, amongst some bold remedies, I have recommended it, I have, at least, avoided, on all occasions, officious endeavours to counteract the oppressing burden, by wrenching the mind from the engrossing thought—a process generally attended with no other result than making it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... 1832, I attended a Miss M., sick of fever. After an illness of a few days, the fever abated, and I directed a simple, unstimulating diet. Business called me from the town two days. During my absence, a sympathizing, officious matron called; found her weak, but improving; and told her she needed food to strengthen her; and that "it would now do her good." Accordingly, eggs and a piece of beefsteak were prepared, and given to the convalescent girl. She ate heartily, ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... no secret that, while they would acquiesce perhaps in the law because they could not do otherwise, the officious legislator should never escape their vengeance; and the announcement of Quintus Pompeius, that he would impeach Gracchus on the very day of his resigning his tribunate, was far from being the worst of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... this Miss Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice of all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two nights, and now utterly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... [271] The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious power of virginity that has ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... four or five men, who stamped into the already crowded hallway from the porch outside, claimed the attention of the quartette. Among them was the doctor who, they were soon to discover, was also the coroner of the county. A very officious deputy sheriff was also in ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... into an office, and as I wanted to speak to him before we were marched off, I walked in after him. "Hi!" exclaimed the officious underling, "you mustn't go in there." But I went in, nevertheless, followed by the fussy officer, who was quietly told by the Governor that he "needn't trouble." I explained to Colonel Milman that my position was peculiar. "Yes," he said, "I know; I saw you at the Old Bailey yesterday," ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... express the smallest part Of what I feel, and suffer in my heart For you, whom best I love and value most; 780 But to your service I bequeath my ghost; Which from this mortal body when untied, Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side; Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep offend, But wait officious, and your steps attend: How I have loved, excuse my faltering tongue, My spirit's feeble, and my pains are strong: This I may say, I only grieve to die, Because I lose my charming Emily: To die, when Heaven had put ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... see her traitor face again!" The baroness withdrew in terror; and Edward, calling Sir Piers Gaveston, commanded him to place himself at the head of a double guard, and go in person to bring the object of his officious introduction to meet the punishment due to his crime. "For," cried the king, "be he prince or peasant, I will see him hanged before my eyes, and then return his wanton paramour, branded with infamy, to her ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "Some custard, friend Vesey?" "No—batter made easy." "Some cheese, Mr. Foster?" "—Don't like single Glo'ster." Meanwhile, to top table, Like fox in the fable, You see silver dishes, With those little fishes, The whitebait delicious, Borne past you officious; And hear rather plainish A sound that's champagnish, And glimpse certain bottles Made long in the throttles; And sniff—very pleasant! Grouse, partridge, and pheasant. And see mounds of ices For patrons and vices, Pine-apple, and bunches Of grapes for sweet munches, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... very easy to explain! All I can say is that young Mr. Burton is making himself very officious, and very disagreeable. He has adopted a profession which here, at the Prefecture of Police, we naturally detest"—the Russian smiled, but not at all pleasantly—"I mean that of the amateur detective! He is determined to find Mr. Dampier—or perhaps it would be more true to say"—he shrugged ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the old Saxon laws of Alfred and of Athelstan, which he called the customs of his grandfather. In a matter of trial for heresy, or a question of doctrine, he was the obedient servant of Rome; but when the Pope laid officious hands on the venerable customs of England, and strove to dictate in points of state law, he found no obedient servant in Henry ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... the fire The griddle heats as you desire. Be careful that the coals are glowing, No smoke around its white curls throwing; Apply the suet, softly, lightly; The griddle's black face shines more brightly. Now pour the batter on; delicious! Don't, dear James, think me officious, But lift the tender edges lightly; Now turn it over quickly, sprightly. 'Tis done! Now on the white plate lay it: Smoking hot, with butter spread, 'Tis quite enough to ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in an instant the cobweb tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all to flight. The heroine ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... care had of them, but there is no possibility that they can subsist, if the heart perish: and so, when we seem to begin with others, in such assistances, indeed, we do begin with ourselves, and we ourselves are principally in our contemplation; and so all these officious and mutual assistances are but compliments towards others, and our true end is ourselves. And this is the reward of the pains of kings; sometimes they need the power of law to be obeyed; and when they seem to be obeyed voluntarily, they who do it do it for their ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... one-fifth of the prisoners were Roman Catholics. In these rooms a Protestant reader was appointed, and there was no disturbance about this arrangement until the arrival of a few Fenians, and a zealous or rather an officious priest. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... foolishly at another; that his advice to Laertes is very excellent, and his advice to the King and Queen on the subject of Hamlet's madness very ridiculous. But he gives the one as a father, and is sincere in it; he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In short, Shakspeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other characters, only because he has kept up the distinction which there is in nature, between the understandings ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... "originating and producing" truth, or true "ideas," if any but the Divine Being is so, has surely no need to be trained into such truth by any factitious scheme of education. In all that he thus originates, he is himself a Novum Organon of knowledge, and capable of teaching others, especially those officious men who would help him with their second-hand authorship, and their paltry catechisms of common-places. I allude here to the fundamental principle of what in some books is called "The Productive System ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... approval to Margaret in a rather officious manner, much as if she were congratulating her pupil on having soundly beaten ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Davies was very brief and decidedly grave. Sanders had at first assumed the light air of superiority of the old cadet toward the plebe, and, to head off questioning, plunged into that species of deprecatory and officious advice which is generally prefaced by, "Now, my dear boy, let me as a friend," etc., etc. Like the chaplain's wife, Sanders started with the best intentions, and just as she had excited Mira's resentment so had ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Lodging for the Night." He sat bolt upright and held tired babies on his knees, or tumbled into a seat and wooed the drowsy god. The third night out he tried sleeping flat in the aisle of the car on the floor until the brakeman ordered him up, and then two men proposed to fight the officious brakeman if he did not leave the man alone. To save a riot Robert Louis agreed to obey the rules. It was a ten-day trip across the continent, filled with discomforts that would have tried the constitution of a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... nature, are friendly souls, good fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, though two-thirds of the population are Calvinists. Under such conditions, though there are the usual disadvantages of life in a small town, and each one lives under the officious eye which makes private life almost a public concern, on the other hand, the spirit of township—a sort of patriotism, which cannot indeed take the place of a love ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... mover in every enterprise: to be chairman of the committee; to settle every question that comes up; to "run" things according to his own ideas. Such people are often very useful. It is generally wisest not to meddle much with them. The work may not be done in the best way by these officious people; but without them a great deal of public work would never be done at all. The vice, however, seriously impairs one's usefulness. The officious person is hard to work with. Men refuse to have anything to do with him. And so he is left to do his work for the most part alone. Officiousness ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... possible was said about past disagreements, as much as possible about future agreements, and the end of it was that Gordon agreed to take the field again. At the same time the I.G. took care to suggest the removal of an excuse for future misunderstandings in the person of an officious, inefficient interpreter whom Robert Hart himself described as a "'Talkee talkee, me-no-savey,' the sort of person whose attempt at Mandarin [official Chinese] is even ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... mona kolektado. Office (divine) Diservo. Office (function) ofico. Office, printing presejo. Office oficejo. Office, post posxta oficejo. Officer (military) oficiro. Officer, non-commissioned suboficiro. Official oficisto. Official oficiala. Officiate agi. Officious agama. Offspring ido, idaro. Often ofte. Oh! ho! Oil oleo. Oilcloth vakstolo. Ointment sxmirajxo. Old (not new) malnova. Old (aged) maljuna. Old, to grow maljunigxi. Old, to make maljunigi. Old age maljuneco. Olden (time) antikva. Oldness malnoveco. Oligarchy ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... half an hour after that the French landlady was receiving her new guest; and so eager was she to show to the English gentleman her gratitude for his substantial presents, that her officious kindness was almost burdensome. ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... there was nothing of the nervousness observable in either the official or the officious repositories of the nationality which one sees in Continental countries, and especially in Germany. It was plain that England, though a military power, is not militarized. The English shows of force are civil. Nowhere but ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... this year is the decoration of the Pit-tier Lobby. DRURIOLANUS, feeling happy at the Opera prospects, and rejoicing in a full subscription, said to the Committee, "Gentlemen, let's have 'glasses round'!" Some officious person, hearing this, mistook the meaning of the great Chief, and straightway ran off and ordered looking-glasses all round for the Lobby! Grand effect! brilliant! dazzling!—too much so, in fact; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... expected that she would refuse to see us and was quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things began to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... boy was incredibly assiduous and alert; far from neglecting the little particulars of his duty, and embarking in the mischievous amusements of the children belonging to the camp, he was always diligent, sedate, agreeably officious and anticipating; and in the whole of his behaviour seemed to express the most vigilant sense of his patron's goodness and generosity; nay, to such a degree had these sentiments, in all appearance, operated upon his reflection, that one morning, while he supposed the Count asleep, he crept softly ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... easy enough," he said to himself. "If he were not, some of those officious planters would have demanded his discharge long ago. If we turn him away without a cause, they will say that we are persecuting him on account of his principles, and that would be bad for us. The man will have to stay ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend" forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics yet forgiven Mr. John ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... discovers a broad space, firm and wellnigh unimpresslonable. The barefooted traveller may walk for miles and be trackless, so tough and elastic the moist sand. It is not an officious thoroughfare, made formal and precise by coarse hands working to plans correct to a hair, but subject to economic deviations of some soulless contractor. It was not laid with the foundation of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... giving circulation to lies; and had I been aware of his intentions to meddle in my affairs, I should most assuredly have treated him as a foe in disguise. For enemies I care nothing; from friends I have much to fear, it seems. There never was a more scandalous insult to my feelings than this officious misstatement.... I am no beggar; for my income is L36, and though I have had no final settlement with Taylor, I expect to have one directly.' The letter, after going into the details of his commercial transactions both with Mr. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Begin with mathematics—by and by put her shawl round her shoulders and button her overshoes. Take her home in the evening. Drink her health and kiss her when Gurli is sure to see it. If necessary, be a little officious. She won't be angry, believe me. And give her a big dose of mathematics, so big that Gurli has no option but to sit and listen to it quietly. Come again in a week's time and tell ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... cities are so full,—our whole country is so overrun,—with these officious middle-men whom the world does not truly want; chiffonniers of trade, who only pick up a living out of the great press and waste and overflow; and our boys are so eager to slip in to some such easy, ready-made opportunity,—to ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... fire; even on a hot summer's day the kitchen fire had great attractions for him. But when Mrs. Twiss came in, and he, as was his duty and business of course, went to the door to see who it was, that officious Dymock shut him out again, and actually when he whined and scratched in the politest manner to be let in Grandmamma ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... Robinson.' A man feels a strange desire for some sort of vegetable milk, and crash comes down some unexpected cocoa-nut from some undiscovered monkey. A literary man feels inclined to pen a sonnet, and at once an officious porcupine rushes out of a thicket and shoots ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of silk and silver thread. The driver and footman were clad in livery which corresponded with the elegant style of the equipage. They turned in a broad, aristocratic-looking square, and drew up in front of a handsome and spacious mansion. The officious footman sprung to the pavement, swung back the carriage-door, and held out his gloved hand to assist a lady, who was within to ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... America, to be a stranger is to be a subject for insult. So much I must say in justice for the French of the very lowest condition, that I never received any thing like an insult, and that they no sooner understood me to be a stranger, than they were officious in their ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... lamp must be put out as quickly as possible and measures taken to get rid of the officious person who strove to keep it alight. The scheme was darkly plotted with the old maids who owned my house and who saw the abomination of desolation in these new educational methods. I had no written agreement ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... scheme had been simplicity itself—so easy that the Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had never thought of it. On nights when the air must be pumped, and officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief's first sleep to shut off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked the bolted drawer in his desk. First he took out the woman's picture and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the back—written out of a sore heart, ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... woman! Who can fathom some women's whims and fancies? She thinks her immature ideas, imbibed in an out-of-the-way corner of the world, the immutable laws of nature. Of one thing at least she is absolutely certain—she can get on without me. I must be kept at too great a distance to be officious." ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... towards the end of the month of March to repeat his despatch of March 3d in a more terse and peremptory form. As a final preliminary to this step, however, Mr. Frelinghuysen was induced to avail himself of the unusual and officious intervention of his most distinguished living predecessor in the State Department, Mr. Hamilton Fish. After measuring the gravity of the situation, Mr. Fish at the end of March sent a despatch to an eminent public man, well known on both sides of the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... for a moment how much the cultivated intelligence of a few does to render the society in which we move more enjoyable: how it converts "the random and officious sociabilities of society" into a quickening and enjoyable intercourse and stimulus: everybody can recall instances of such a happy result of education. This can only be done by educated women. How much more might be done if there ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... that his own case had been made worse by the intervention of Mr. Temple, the British minister and brother of Lord Palmerston; not in the least as blaming him or considering it officious. He adopted the motto, 'to suffer is to do,' 'il patire e anche operare.' For himself he was not only willing—he ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... preface. But, thank heaven, there is not. In saying this, I refer to a particular critic; for I would not, for the sake of a tenth edition, malign in such a wholesale manner those capital good fellows of the press—those verbal accoucheurs who are so pleasantly officious at the birth of each new genius. Not ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Oct. 9 states, more sarcastically, that "the general is said to have manifested the utmost composure, and with the true spirit of heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even his life, rather than gratify the officious inquiries of the Governor." ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Diana's reception of him and his attentions, as yet it did not seem to have the desired effect. In truth, though Will could never suspect it, her brain was so heavy with other thoughts that she was only in a vague and general way conscious of his presence; and of his officious gallantries scarcely aware. So little aware, indeed, of their bearing, that on two or three occasions she suffered herself to be conveyed in Will's buggy to or from some gathering of the neighbours; Mrs. Starling or Mrs. Flandin had arranged it, and Diana had quite blindly fallen ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... My officious friend lifted the nugget from the bucket and laid it before me, and for a few minutes I gloated over and passed my hand over its unequal surface, and weighed it in my imagination until I was roused from my reverie by those ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... intelligible to me, could be distinctly heard by no other person: "Mind your own business, my lad, and let the leaks take care of themselves! Go about your work; and if you whisper a syllable of what you have told me to any other person, I WILL THROW YOU OVERBOARD, you officious, intermeddling little vagabond!" And he indorsed his fearful threat by an oath too ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... official, or officious, manoeuvres, the German Government sent Socialist leaders into Italy to urge the Italian Socialists not to consent to a war in behalf of the Allies; but they, too, seem to have met with a chilly reception. The Italian Socialists, like the ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... the striking traits by which one's nature distinguishes and defines itself. She was kind, but had little sensibility; charitable, without any of the charms of benevolence; eager to aid the unhappy, but without seeing them, for fear of being moved; a sure, faithful, even officious friend, but timid and anxious in serving others, lest she should compromise her credit or her repose. She was simple in her taste, her dress, and her furniture, but choice in her simplicity, having the refinements and delicacies of luxury, but nothing of its ostentation nor its ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... bastard kneel And call me father? better burn it now, Than curse it then. But, be it; let it live:— It shall not neither.—[To ANTIGONUS.] You, sir, come you hither: You that have been so tenderly officious With Lady Margery, your midwife, there, To save this bastard's life,—for 'tis a bastard, So sure as this beard's grey,—what will you adventure To save this ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... pang for these. Their own bad hearts Impelled them, not the influence of the stars. 'Twas they who strewed the seeds of evil passions 70 In his calm breast, and with officious villainy Watered and nursed the pois'nous plants. May they Receive their earnests ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... overtaxed. He deliberately allowed his attention to wander, until he felt rather than actually perceived the steady tramp-tramp of the men, swinging, fours right, into column, the occasional "hep! hep!" of an officious file-closer, the endless succession of fours winking past him, like the palings of a gray fence seen from the window of a train, the intervals narrowed by short-step, widening again at the "Forward—march!" the blare of ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... live and multiply undisturbed in my garden. They are such pretty things, some of them, such charmingly audacious things, and it is so particularly nice of them to do all their growing, and flowering, and seed-bearing without any help or any encouragement. I admit I feel vexed if they are so officious as to push up among my tea roses and pansies, and I also prefer my paths without them; but on the grass, for instance, why not let the poor little creatures enjoy themselves quietly, instead of going out with a dreadful instrument and viciously ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in peace. In another moment yet a fresh struggle was commencing. And each was worse than the last. And it was always Clara to whom he turned for succour. Not Maggie, who had spent nearly forty years in his service, and never spoke ill-naturedly of him; but Clara, who was officious rather than helpful, who wept for him in his presence, and said harsh things behind his back, and who had never forgiven him since the refusal of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... clothes, and accompanied only by his son and nephew. The first time we saw him there, he was making some enquiries of a manager of the Theatre de l'Odeon, whom he met in the lobby; and the modesty and embarrassment of his manner were finely contrasted with the confident loquacity and officious courtesy of the Frenchman. He is known to be exceedingly averse to public exhibitions, even in his own country. He had gone through all the hardships and privations of the campaigns, had exposed himself with a gallantry bordering on rashness in every engagement, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... there's been a run on the red! and your excellency's stake has doubled each time. It has been 4—8—16—32—64—128—256; and now it's 512!" quickly rattled a little thin man in spectacles, pointing at the same time to his unparalleled line of punctures. This was one of those officious, noisy little men, who are always ready to give you unasked information on every possible subject, and who are never so happy as when they are watching over the interest of some stranger, who never thanks them for their ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... been let pass, and only Jeremiah detained, which makes the charge more evidently a trumped-up excuse for laying hands on him. Jeremiah calls it in plain words what it was—'a lie'—and protests his innocence of any such design. But the officious Irijah knew too well how much of a feather in his cap his getting hold of the prophet would be, to heed his denials, and dragged him off ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... in confidence with you, Herr Carruthers,' he said, speaking low. 'You won't think me officious, I hope. I only speak out of keen regard for your friend. It is about the Dollmanns—you see how the land lies? I wouldn't ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... it was inconsiderate, to depart from Port Jackson in the Cumberland, more to give proof of an officious zeal, more for the private interests of Great Britain than for what had induced the French government to give you a passport, which I shall unfold at a proper opportunity, had already given me ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... live on the same equality with the people as can other classes of European or American residents. The trader can close his doors and have his family circles sacred from the intrusion of officious, meddlesome natives; but this course would defeat the very object which the missionary has in view. It would shut him out from the confidence and sympathy of those whose hearts he wished to reach. It would place between ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... Gilbert once what he was writing and he replied, "My publishers have demanded a fresh batch of corpses." The little detective-priest ("I am very fond," said one reader to Chesterton, "of that officious little loafer") became a feature in crime anthologies, and when Anthony Berkeley in 1929 wanted to found the Detective Club he wrote that it "would be quite incomplete without the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... busy, officious way, and with us to help him, brought our stores ashore, while the Indians prepared their own camping-place some ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... if you've got anything to say! I don't see what you mean, and you are damned officious. Yes, that's it—damned officious." The peevishness was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a troubled countenance. "Surely, young Clyde will not be so inconsiderate, so officious, as to induce those ladies ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... poor sinner says, "O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us: but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name" (Isa. 26:13), your officious Pickthanks are always ready to bear testimony against him; and a blessed testimony this is; it is well worth living to gain, and dying in the cause of. If we are real disciples of Christ, we shall, as He did, testify of the world that the works thereof are evil, and the world will hate ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to conclude. "Why did you not speak about this sooner?" he interposed with haste. "I have long entertained this suspicion; but as, whenever I met you, this conversation was never broached, I did not presume to make myself officious. But if such be the state of affairs just now, I lack, I admit, literary qualification, but on the two subjects of friendly spirit and pecuniary means, I have, nevertheless, some experience. Moreover, I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he reached the parsonage, to which an officious young person of whom he had inquired his way conducted him, he had attained a pitch of angry excitement which drove all theological arguments out of his mind. Alfaretta greeted him with a blank stare, and then a sudden brightening of her face as ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... softened and disarmed. The executioner brought that book which had been published in elegant Latin, of his great military actions, and tied it with a cord about his neck. Montrose smiled at this new instance of their malice. He thanked them, however, for their officious zeal; and said, that he bore this testimony of his bravery and loyalty with more pride than he had ever worn the garter. Having asked whether they had any more indignities to put upon him, and renewing some devout ejaculations, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... been too lavish of his praise. He seems to have thought, that never to mention his benefactress would have an appearance of ingratitude, though to have dedicated any particular performance to her memory would have only betrayed an officious partiality, that, without exalting her character, would have depressed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... through the country that was acquainted with Arndt's antecedents, and being a dirty dog he thought it was his duty to inform the farmer that his hired man was an ex-convict, horse-thief and a desperado of the worst type. Some men are so officious and are so anxious to do their duty when it is in their power to injure a fellow-man who is trying to earn an honest living. Gus immediately got the "bounce." He was informed by his employer that he did not want to make his home a harbor ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... just before they started her feelings really were a little hurt: it happened that in trying to help Eleanor pack, she was close enough to her to notice a thread on her hair; instantly, she put out a friendly and officious thumb and finger to remove it—at which ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... thoughts of this kind, they went in a body into the room, and taking him amongst them, conducted him towards the sea-side; on his way to which, though everyone was very officious to him, and all made what haste they could, yet a considerable time was likely to be lost. For the grove of Marica, (as she is called,) which the people hold sacred, and make it a point of religion not to let anything that ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... give; No legal guards shall keep enthrall'd my mind, No Slaves command me, and no teachers blind. Tempted by sins, let me their strength defy, But have no second in a surplice by; No bottle-holder, with officious aid, To comfort conscience, weaken'd and afraid: Then if I yield, my frailty is not known; And, if I stand, the glory is my own. "When Truth and Reason are our friends, we seem Alive! awake!—the superstitious dream. Oh! then, fair ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... that they would do nothing. It proved of excellent advantage to me now, that when I was a boy I used to take great delight in standing at a basket-maker's in the town where my father lived, to see them make their wicker-ware; and being, as boys usually are, very officious to help, and a great observer of the manner how they worked those things, and sometimes lent an hand, I had by this means so full knowledge of the methods of it, that I wanted nothing but the materials; when it came into my mind, that the twigs of that tree from whence ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... through a sort of dumb-bell exercise on a bridge. On extreme L. enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Antonio, who observe, with mild surprise, that there are several other persons present, and proceed to point out objects of local interest to one another with the officious amiability of persons in the foreground of hotel advertisements. (Here a Small Boy in a box, who has an impression he is going to see a Pantomime, inquires audibly "when the Clown Part will begin?" and has to be answered and consoled.) Bassanio ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... did he experience any qualms of regret that he was not able to imitate them. He regarded Flossy and her husband with the tolerant gaze of one content to allow other people to work out their salvation, without officious criticism, provided he were allowed the same privilege, and ready to enjoy any features of the situation which appealed to his sense of humor or to his human sympathy. Flossy's frank, open nod and ingenuous face won his favor at once, especially as he appreciated that she and Selma had found ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... darkness of the night, uncertain of their road, and apprehensive of some unknown danger, till they awakened by their cries the inhabitants of a neighboring village, the property of the widow of Bleda. A bright illumination, and, in a few moments, a comfortable fire of reeds, was kindled by their officious benevolence; the wants, and even the desires, of the Romans were liberally satisfied; and they seem to have been embarrassed by the singular politeness of Bleda's widow, who added to her other favors the gift, or at least the loan, of a sufficient number of beautiful ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... assure her officious friend that the time of her return was altogether uncertain; resolving rather to abide a guest with Mrs. Pritchard than to have Dr. Quackenboss hanging upon her motions every day of her being there. But in the mean time the doctor got upon Capt. Rossitur's subject; then came ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... called. At last the desired summons was brought: Shelley drew forth some bank notes, hurried to the bar, and returned as hastily, bearing in triumph under his arm a mahogany box, followed by the officious waiter, with whose assistance he placed it upon the bench by his side. He viewed it often with evident satisfaction, and sometimes patted it affectionately in the course of calm conversation. The solar microscope was always a favourite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... Offertory mona kolektado. Office (divine) Diservo. Office (function) ofico. Office, printing presejo. Office oficejo. Office, post posxta oficejo. Officer (military) oficiro. Officer, non-commissioned suboficiro. Official oficisto. Official oficiala. Officiate agi. Officious agama. Offspring ido, idaro. Often ofte. Oh! ho! Oil oleo. Oilcloth vakstolo. Ointment sxmirajxo. Old (not new) malnova. Old (aged) maljuna. Old, to grow maljunigxi. Old, to make maljunigi. Old age maljuneco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... glories, her true honour and substantial dignity, are sacrificed. France, my lords, has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris—in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... tied a very white scarf round his neck, and Karna, who wanted to be motherly to him, went over his face with a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, which she moistened with her tongue. She was rather officious, but for that matter it was quite conceivable that the boy might have got dirty again since his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... prose, O Charles! thy death defend? A furious foe unconscious proves a friend. On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know, A weak officious friend becomes a foe. While he but sought his author's fame to further, The murderous critic has ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... the bath. Their zeal on this occasion was perhaps sharpened by curiosity, since every one desired to know who the knight was that had gained so many laurels, yet had refused, even at the command of Prince John, to lift his visor or to name his name. But their officious inquisitiveness was not gratified. The Disinherited Knight refused all other assistance save that of his own squire, or rather yeoman—a clownish-looking man, who, wrapt in a cloak of dark-coloured felt, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... God help and guide you, for you may have trouble of which you little dream. What you say about your side and my side has no place in my thoughts. I'll help settle such questions with soldiers. Neither do I wish to be officious, but there is something in my very manhood which protests against a fair young girl like you being so beset ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... would sweeten Diana's reception of him and his attentions, as yet it did not seem to have the desired effect. In truth, though Will could never suspect it, her brain was so heavy with other thoughts that she was only in a vague and general way conscious of his presence; and of his officious gallantries scarcely aware. So little aware, indeed, of their bearing, that on two or three occasions she suffered herself to be conveyed in Will's buggy to or from some gathering of the neighbours; Mrs. Starling or Mrs. Flandin had arranged it, and Diana had quite blindly fallen ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the weak fear of offending a silly acquaintance, would hazard the happiness of their family. They had heard of a house in the country which was likely to suit them, and they determined to go directly to look at it. As they were to be absent all day, they foresaw that their officious neighbour would probably interfere with their children. They did not choose to exact any promise from them which they might be tempted to break, and therefore they only said at parting, "If Mrs. Theresa Tattle should ask you to come to her, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... Avoid an officious offer of advice or your own opinion, and if you do give an opinion, be sure it is given as such and not ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... are! Begin with mathematics—by and by put her shawl round her shoulders and button her overshoes. Take her home in the evening. Drink her health and kiss her when Gurli is sure to see it. If necessary, be a little officious. She won't be angry, believe me. And give her a big dose of mathematics, so big that Gurli has no option but to sit and listen to it quietly. Come again in a week's time and tell ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... country; how comes it that they make me a prisoner upon my parole?" "How comes it?" said the Chevalier de Grammont, "it is because you yourself are far more unaccountable than all their customs; you cannot help disputing with a peevish fellow, whom you ought only to laugh at; some officious footman has no doubt been talking of your last night's dispute; you were seen to go out of town in the morning, and the Marquis soon after; was not this sufficient to make her Royal Highness think herself obliged to take these precautions? The Marquis is in custody; ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... persons alleged to be suspected, in domestic inquisitions, in the corruption of the friends, relations, and servants of the man marked out for destruction might be much better employed. The espionage of opinion, created, as I have said, by the revolutionary troubles, is suspicious, restless, officious, inquisitorial, vexatious, and tyrannical. Indifferent to crimes and real offences, it is totally absorbed in the inquisition of thoughts. Who has not heard it said in company, to some one speaking warmly, "Be moderate, M——— is supposed to belong to the police." This police enthralled ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... bawled the officious Spartan, never relaxing his grip. "Hark you, friends, it's plain as day. Dexippus of Corinth has a Syrian lad like this. The young scoundrel's robbed his ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and looking up, with a toss of his head, said quickly, "You hear, my people! No more of these little games." This decree was received in profound silence. A rather heavy man, evidently in a position of confidence, with intelligent eyes, a bony, broad, very dark face, and a cheerily of officious manner (I learned later on he was the executioner), presented to us two cups of coffee on a brass tray, which he took from the hands of an inferior attendant. "You needn't drink," muttered Jim very rapidly. I didn't perceive the meaning at first, and only looked at him. He took a good sip ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... who had come upstairs after me, always officious and eager, manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on beholding the careless reception accorded by Chrysantheme to her lord and master, and advanced ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the poor sinner says, "O Lord our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us: but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name" (Isa. 26:13), your officious Pickthanks are always ready to bear testimony against him; and a blessed testimony this is; it is well worth living to gain, and dying in the cause of. If we are real disciples of Christ, we shall, as He did, testify of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to you intolerably prying and officious," I said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the happiest man alive; go ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham, while he took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but with him the most officious, fidgety little body possible. I often wished she would mind herself and be tranquil; but no—herself was forgotten in him: he could not be sufficiently well waited on, nor carefully enough looked after; he was more than the Grand Turk in her estimation. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... picture of the confusion in Italy during the last years of the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire in the peninsula. It is hardly likely that the Emperor ordered the death of the pontiff as recorded, and more probable that his over-officious representatives regarded it as a means of ingratiating themselves with their master. The passage is strictly contemporaneous, as the Liber Pontificalis, at least in this part, is composed of brief biographies ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... should say that this is a visible summons to us all to thankfulness, especially we that were under the terror of its increase, perhaps it may be thought by some, after the sense of the thing was over, an officious canting of religious things, preaching a sermon instead of writing a history, making myself a teacher instead of giving my observations of things (and this restrains me very much from going on here, as I might otherwise do); but if ten lepers were healed, and but one returned to give thanks, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... Hope!' It was very hard that the good fortune and mere good nature of an indifferent person should push him where the quiet curate so much wished to be. Albinia would have liked to have had either a little impudence or a little tact to enable her to give a hint to Ulick to be less officious. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who had no rivals in the love Which to himself he bore, Esteem'd his own dear beauty far above What earth had seen before. More than contented in his error, He lived the foe of every mirror. Officious fate, resolved our lover From such an illness should recover, Presented always to his eyes The mute advisers which the ladies prize;— Mirrors in parlours, inns, and shops,— Mirrors the pocket furniture of fops,— ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... home-created, comes [2] to heal That grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food; for only then, when memory 10 Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain; Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel The officious touch that makes ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... this officious scandal-monger to one of those glances of his which seem to me so eloquent of noble scorn, and replied to the effect that he was "not in love with any little coquette." His whole bearing so delighted me, that directly I caught sight of my father, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... were hurrying up the steps. They found Dangle, hatless, standing up with cut hands extended, having his hands brushed by an officious small boy. A broad, ugly road ran downhill in a long vista, and in the distance was a little group of Botley inhabitants holding the big, black horse. Even at that distance they could see the expression of conscious pride on the monster's visage. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... was comparatively more dependent than himself—making much of her womanhood, nothing of her situation. Prompt to aid her whenever occasion offered, and full of delightful petits soins at all times, he was not officious. In this way he irresistibly won for himself a position as her friend, and the more easily in that he allowed not the faintest symptom of the old love ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... may turn to dangerous insanity? So the least provocation from you would cause me to send him to a pauper asylum for idiots!" she cried, warningly, as she hurried from the room to make sure that none of the officious servants should dare to harbor ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... days all is cleared away again, and Bernini's great fountain faces Borromini's big Church of Saint Agnes, in the silence; and the officious guide tells the credulous foreigner how the figure of the Nile in the group is veiling his head to hide the sight of the hideous architecture, and how the face of the Danube expresses the River God's terror lest the tower should fall upon him; and how the architect retorted upon ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... supposed that as usual he was to post it, and was running downstairs with it in his hand when he met Barkley coming up. 'What have you got there?' he asked. 'I am taking your letter to the post,' he said; whereupon Barkley flew into another rage, called him an officious little beast, gave him a box in the ear, and took the letter from him. I asked the boy if he noticed to whom the letter was directed. He said he had, and that it was to you. Knowing nothing about the suppression of a letter of Norris's, and thinking that perhaps Barkley had written ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... so much of Mr. Southey's justice from his abuse, that I should be ashamed of myself, were this person ever to disgrace me by his praise; which might happen, did he wish to gain money, or fame! by becoming the officious editor of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... did he look and wander, but all his friends and neighbors arose and began to suggest and search for a suitable wife for him, with as officious alacrity as if he needed help, which he certainly did not. In March Madam Henchman strongly recommended to him "Madam Winthrop, the Major General's widow." This recommendation was very sweet to the widower, who had turned his eyes with such special approval on this special widow, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible business have ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... hospital or on leave. In the latter case, when you had succeeded in the superhuman task of convincing the orderly-room clerk that your name was next on the roster, there came first a long trek across country to railhead. Here you were harassed by an officious person called the R.T.O. who inspected your papers and then scrutinised your person in order to satisfy himself that you were not a criminal escaping from justice. Then you were handed over to an underling who led you to a glorified cattle-truck, whose ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... liberality; and, perhaps, he has, even in this, been too lavish of his praise. He seems to have thought, that never to mention his benefactress would have an appearance of ingratitude, though to have dedicated any particular performance to her memory would have only betrayed an officious partiality, that, without exalting her character, would have depressed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... already practised in India; and that if they were once suffered to get footing in the country, China might experience the same fate as Hindostan. Fortunately for the concerns of the British East India Company this officious interference and the malevolent insinuations of Bernardo Almeyda took a very different turn to what he had expected. The intelligence of a hostile force so near the coast of China coming first from an European missionary, implied a neglect in the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... prince to come into even the empty name of power was to become subject to the evil eye of his fraternal lord and rival, for whose favor officious friends and superserviceable lackeys contended in scandalous and treacherous spyings of the Second King's every action. Yet, meanly beset as he was, he contrived to find means and opportunity to enlarge ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman's back was turned, as may be taken for granted, "Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull's-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we're aboord the Active, Tom, an', sure, we'll hev no more ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... were captured by an officious and unsympathetic police (Moussa was sent to what he dreamed to be Heaven and later perceived to be a hospital) and while they went to jail, a number of bristly-haired Teutonic gentlemen at the Freidrichstrasse, Arab gentlemen at Muscat, and Afghan gentlemen at Cabul, were made to exercise ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... winding approach, the entrance being flanked by two mounds on one of which I planted a small flag improvised from a piece of cardboard which I unearthed. Directly I had set up the little flag I fell foul of authority. The hated emblem was torn up by an officious sentry ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... buried with her ancestors, made a letter of the following import necessary, which I prevailed upon the Colonel to write; being unwilling myself (so early at least,) to appear officious in the eye of a family which probably wishes not ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... complete delirium. Already her senses had been severely stunned by the full explanation of what was required of her—of what she had to prove against her son, her Jem, her only child—which Mary could not doubt the officious Mrs. Heming had given; and what if in dreams (that land into which no sympathy or love can penetrate with another, either to share its bliss or its agony—that land whose scenes are unspeakable terrors, are hidden mysteries, are priceless treasures to one alone—that land ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the signal agreed on for pulling off all their clothes, a scheme which the heat of the season perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant's officious assistance, undressed ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... color. General Lee, for example, had the buttons on his coat covered with cloth. But frequently the Federal commander, after issuing the orders, paid no more attention to the matter and such conflicts as arose on account of the uniform were usually caused by officious enlisted men and the Negro troops. Whitelaw Reid ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... was in high good-humour. He rejoiced in seeing the pert and officious young clerk of the works put in his proper place; and Sir George had lunched at the Rectory. There was a repetition of the facetious proposal that Sir George should wait for payment of his fees until the tower should ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... king's command a crowd of officious guards dashed forward, and with the hardened copper blades of their spears quickly severed Inaguy's bonds, whereupon the latter strode forward and, puffed up with pride at again being made the mouthpiece of a god, stood before the grovelling figure of Jiravai, haughtily awaiting ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... of people, men, women, and children, travelling onward to the residence of the dead. But he observed that they were all very heavily laden with axes, kettles, guns, meat, and other things, and that each one as they passed uttered loud complaints of the grievous burdens with which the officious and mistaken kindness of their friends had loaded them. Among others, he met a man bowed down by age and infirmity, wearily journeying to the land of the dead, who stopped him to complain of the burthen his friends had imposed upon him, and this aged man concluded ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... on such pickings as she could induce her neighbours to leave her, and who had constantly profited by the liberality of this well-established mistress, a ticket for a large tea, and was informed by some officious person that the husband also had procured a ticket at her expense, said, "He's a poor old crab-stick. It'll do him no harm to have a good tea ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... honourable name Attribute; wherefore, save that not one gleam 180 Of Truth did e'er discover to themselves Their little hearts, or teach them, by the effects Of that parental love, the love itself To judge, and measure its officious deeds? But man, whose eyelids Truth has fill'd with day, Discerns how skilfully to bounteous ends His wise affections move; with free accord Adopts their guidance; yields himself secure To Nature's prudent impulse; and converts Instinct to duty and to sacred law. 190 Hence Right and ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... informed us, after both the mules were dead, that he knew they would die; for the land there had been often tried, and nothing would live on it—not even a pig. He said he had not told us so before, because he did not like to appear officious! ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... uses, without regard to the notions of the schools. It is said that M. Kalkbrenner advised Chopin to attend his classes at the Paris Conservatoire, that the latter might learn the proper fingering. Chopin answered his officious adviser by placing one of his own "Etudes" before him, and asking him to play it. The failure of the pompous professor was ludicrous, for the old-established technique utterly failed to do it justice. Chopin's ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... whose life since the beginning of the war, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soldier's lot, and his comfort in the hospitals. She is a young lady, petite in figure, unpretending, but highly cultivated, by no means officious, and so wholly unconscious of her excellencies, and the great work she is achieving, that I fear this public allusion to her may pain her modest nature. Her sweet, young face, full of benevolence, pleasant ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... a dissension between two parties, was dining with one of them, in company with several others. This guest spoke to the hostess disparagingly of the enemy of her husband, who, hearing the remark, rebuked his officious guest by remarking to him: "Doctor, my lady and myself would prefer to find out the foibles and sins of our neighbors ourselves." The rebuke was effectual, and informed the doctor, who was new in the country, of an honorable feeling in the refined ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a conjunction between two in no way fitted for each other, either in external circumstances or similarity of character. But let us trace the progress of this artificial passion, fanned into a blaze by the officious Mrs. Martindale. After having agitated the heart of Mary with the idea of being beloved, while she coolly calculated its effects upon her, the match-monger sought an early opportunity for another interview ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... dignified manner of the brave colonel rebuked the officious priests, and they returned without venturing to utter any of the contemptuous remarks which they had bestowed on his less ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... thing, she runs immediately, "Oh, dear love, it can't do it, it can't!—I'll do it for it, so I will!"—If the child be trying the difference between pushing and pulling, rolling or sliding, the powers of the wedge or the lever, the officious nurse hastens instantly to display her own knowledge of the mechanic powers: "Stay, love, stay; that is not the way to do it—I'll show it the right way—see here—look at me love."—Without interrupting a child in the moment ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... The officious cousin to whom he alluded in this threatening letter had been so bold as to sue for my hand, although possessed of no property. Ever since that time he remained, as I knew, my enemy, though I did not know, nor ever ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... "—The officious Mateo interrupted my meditations and destroyed in an instant the cobweb tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he had gathered facts concerning the scene, which put my fictions all to flight. The heroine of my romance was ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... I could give it to you," said Tackleton. "As I can't, thankee. Between ourselves (as I told you before, eh?) I don't much think I shall have the less joy in my married life because May hasn't been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! Take care ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... lost his life in some one or other of the bloody encounters that frequently took place between the smugglers and the revenue officers, why, so much the worse for the "gauger." He was an unnecessarily officious sort of a person, who had better have kept out of the way. In fact, popular sentiment was entirely with the smugglers, who by the bulk of the population were regarded with the greatest admiration. Smuggling, indeed, was so much a recognised trade or profession that there was ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things began to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... are more or less liable greatly depends on the state of their general health and the natural temper and character of the individual; but it can be greatly aggravated, and may often be excited by circumstances or officious persons. Let me, then, urge upon you the important necessity of keeping the mind as tranquil and cheerful as possible, particularly during the first four months of pregnancy. A judicious course of this kind will produce the most beneficial and well-balanced ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... that the coals are glowing, No smoke around its white curls throwing; Apply the suet, softly, lightly; The griddle's black face shines more brightly. Now pour the batter on; delicious! Don't, dear James, think me officious, But lift the tender edges lightly; Now turn it over quickly, sprightly. 'Tis done! Now on the white plate lay it: Smoking hot, with butter spread, 'Tis quite enough to turn ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... character, in light-hearted amateur enthusiasm, does all the work. But of course, in a tale of this kind, the only thing that really matters is the one question of spotting the criminal, or who killed Cock Robin. Naturally I am not going to spoil your fun over this by any officious whisperings. As you probably know, the one safe rule in such matters is to concentrate upon Caesar's wife; and even in repeating this antique maxim I may have betrayed too much. Forget it, and you may find what happened In the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... "cinquante cavaliers bien faits" ("fifty handsome gentlemen on horseback") is a more familiar picture than fifty knights. "L'officieuse Dinarzade" (Night lxi.), and "Cette plaisante querelle des deux freres" (Night 1xxii.) become ridiculous only in translation—"the officious Dinarzade" and "this pleasant quarrel;" while "ce qu'il y de remarquable" (Night 1xxiii.) would relieve the Gallic mind from the mortification of "Destiny decreed." "Plusieurs sortes de fruits et de bouteilles de vin" (Night ccxxxi. etc.) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Quakers have rejected upon the principle, that it has no connection with true civility. They consider it as officious, troublesome, and even embarrassing, on some occasions. To drink to a man, when he is lifting his victuals to his mouth, and by calling off his attention, to make him drop them, or to interrupt two ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... unamenable to them. It is a respect we owe to their authority, to leave to those acting under that the transaction of their affairs, without an intermeddling on our part, which might justly appear officious. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fifty yards long, headed by a paunchy, elderly man, who greatly reminded us of Caleb Balderston. If there was a word said by any of the lookers-on—for many came to have a gaze at the lions—he was out in a moment, and brought the offender to account. In short, by his officious attention he afforded us much amusement, and greatly contributed to our proper enjoyment of the dinner. Our candles were original ones—a few threads of cotton drawn through a ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... writing verses; to be told he had no real enthusiasm; or to have his desk broken open, and its compromising contents sent to the persons for whom they were least intended. The smouldering elements of discontent may have been fanned by the gossip of dependants, or the officious zeal of relatives, and kindled into a jealous flame by the ostentation of regard for others beyond the circle of his home. Lady Byron doubtless believed some story which, when communicated to her legal advisers, led them to the conclusion that the mere fact of her believing it made reconciliation ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... o'clock this morning. Mr. North and Dr. Clerke and all the great company being gone, I found myself very uncouth all this day for want thereof. My Lord dined with the Vice-Admiral to-day (who is as officious, poor man! as any spaniel can be; but I believe all to no purpose, for I believe he will not hold his place), so I dined commander at the coach table to-day, and all the officers of the ship with me, and Mr. White of Dover. After a game or two at nine-pins, to work all the afternoon, making ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... visible success reassured Mrs. Hill or not, I do not know, but anyhow she departed that night for Berlin, leaving us loaded with endless instructions, extra money, and a tiny red German dictionary. I never felt so officious in my life as when I called a cab and ushered Jess and Anne into it after the train had pulled out. I can see now why it is that Thomas Cook and Son have ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... how much the cultivated intelligence of a few does to render the society in which we move more enjoyable: how it converts "the random and officious sociabilities of society" into a quickening and enjoyable intercourse and stimulus: everybody can recall instances of such a happy result of education. This can only be done by educated women. How much more might be done if ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... Verazzani, for whom I already begin to feel a most bitter enmity, is a native of Florence, and everybody knows the crafty wiles of these losel Florentines, by which they filched away the laurels from the brows of the immortal Colon (vulgarly called Columbus), and bestowed them on their officious townsman, Amerigo Vespucci; and I make no doubt they are equally ready to rob the illustrious Hudson of the credit of discovering this beauteous island, adorned by the city of New York, and placing it beside their usurped discovery of South America. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... prudential motives, but rather by the desire to fly as far as possible from the scenes of his vexations and disappointments, and because he had heard that the metropolis was a place in which a man might conceal his poverty, and suffer and starve at his ease, untroubled by impertinent curiosity or officious benevolence; and, above all, believing it to be the spot where he was least likely to fall in with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... they were very officious in going back to assist," observed the Major; "a pretty mess we should be in, if we were in an enemy's country, and without ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... was known personally to Varney,—a contemporary of his own, and in earlier youth a pupil to his uncle. But, since then, he had made way in life, and retired from the profession of art. This younger Stubmore he knew to be a bustling, officious man of business, somewhat greedy and covetous, but withal somewhat weak of purpose, good-natured in the main, and with a little lukewarm kindness for Gabriel, as a quondam fellow-pupil. That Stubmore ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... contain More plenty than the sun that barren shines; Whose virtue on itself works no effect, But in the fruitful Earth; there first received, His beams, unactive else, their vigour find. Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries Officious; but to thee, Earth's habitant. And for the Heaven's wide circuit, let it speak The Maker's high magnificence, who built So spacious, and his line stretched out so far; That Man may know he dwells ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... athirst for gold and blood, you traffic with the monarch, with our fortunes, with our rights, with our liberties, with our lives!"—"The second legislative corps is no less rotten than the first one."—In the Convention, Roland, "the officious Gilles and the forger Pasquin, is the infamous head of the monopolizers." "Isnard is a juggler, Buzot a Tartuffe, Vergniaud a police spy."[3130]—When a madman sees everywhere around him, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I think you will soon call me 'Les FitzGeralds' as Madame de Sevigne called her too officious friend 'Les Hacquevilles.' However, I will risk that in sending you a Copy of that first Draught of an opening to Hyperion. I have got it from that Finsbury Circus Houghton, who gave me the first Copy, which I keep: so you ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... through Casey county, the bushwhackers were unusually officious. The advance-guard, which for some reason had gone on some distance in front, reached Liberty about two hours before the column, and during that time were fairly besieged in the place. Colonel Morgan himself made a narrow escape. One fellow, more daring than ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... civility, to which the least cultivated Indian is no stranger, induced them sometimes to give to their answers the turn that seemed to be suggested by our questions. Travellers cannot be enough on their guard against this officious assent, when they seek to confirm their own opinions by the testimony of the natives. To put an Indian alcalde to the proof, I asked him one day, whether he did not think the little river of Caripe, which issues from the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Acts of the officious character, which I have been describing, were uncongenial to my natural temper, to the genius of the Movement, and to the historical mode of its success:—they were the fruit of that exuberant and joyous energy with which I had returned from abroad, and which ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... for he was fairly high up in the Sixth, and others of his set, Welch, Thomson, and Tony Graham, who were also in the Sixth—the two last below him in form order—had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... an officious old colleague, taking him by the elbow, "jes' quiet down now; ye air a-cussin' yer ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... man, I should expect officious and quite gratuitous commiseration over the fate of the late Empire. You, however, will readily perceive it to be possible that I should rather be congratulated. You would not exchange your dignified ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling hands. Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman with her garment. An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning. But as for Trimalchio, "What the hell's next?" he gritted out, "this Syrian dancing-whore don't remember anything! I took her off the auction block and made ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... and distrust. He had only just warned her how Jacqueline had kindled Maximilian's Austrian hopes in order to get him out of Mexico, and here he was borrowing that woman's guile. And here was Maximilian, too, softening under the enervating blandishment, softening behind his frowns for the officious meddler. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... England needed him at the head of affairs. In February, 1778, it was believed that he and Bute were engaged on some scheme of coalition which might again put him in power. The report was merely the outcome of the officious meddling of his physician, Addington, and one of Bute's friends.[136] No one was more anxious than North for a change of ministry. He begged the king in vain to accept his resignation. On the 17th he brought in two bills for a scheme of conciliation to which George had at last given ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... discretion still held, and, subduing the mad impulse, she watched with dilating eyes and heaving breast the slow passage of this fatal note through the now rapidly thinning crowd, its delay as it reached the open space between the last row of seats and the judge's bench and its final delivery by some officious hand, who thrust it upon his notice just as ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... so you will be unless you kick. Well, I'm off now," added he, taking up his hat. "I dare say I've offended you, and you'll call me an officious humbug. I may be a fool for concerning myself about a young muff like you; but anyhow I've told you what I think of you. So ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Sumter. It is unnecessary to follow the repeated consultations that took place. There were preparations for possible expeditions both to Fort Sumter and to Fort Pickens, and various blunders about them, and Seward made some trouble by officious interference about them. An announcement was sent to the Governor of South Carolina that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter and he was assured that if this was unopposed no further steps would be taken. What chiefly concerns us is that the eventual ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... room without excuse and went to bed. She not only ran to fires when the humour seized her, but she commanded her quartette to rush every time the alarm sounded, that they might be at her beck in the event of officious policemen. As fires are frequent in San Francisco, these enamoured young men were profoundly thankful when they occurred at such times as they happened to be in their tyrant's presence: they were willing ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and thank the men who had rescued them in his most genial manner, and Erica's happiness would have been complete had not the coast guardsman stepped up in an insolent and officious way, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... his manner anything to suggest—which was, nevertheless, the simple truth—that he had been attentively listening to as much of their recent conversation as could be gathered through the imperfect channel afforded by the key-hole of the door. Carteret cursed La Cloche's officious meddling all the way to his own quarters, and on arriving there sent a sergeant to the unfortunate clergyman, who deported him to France by the next boat ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... Leaning its roses on my faded eyes. The wind had blown above me, and the rain Had fall'n upon me, and the gilded snake Had nestled in this bosomthrone of love, But I had been at rest for evermore. Long time entrancement held me: all too soon, Life (like a wanton too-officious friend Who will not hear denial, vain and rude With proffer of unwished for services) Entering all the avenues of sense, Pass'd thro' into his citadel, the brain With hated warmth of apprehensiveness: And first the chillness of the mountain stream Smote on my brow, and then ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... [140] The archbishop of Alexandria, for whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of superstition had peopled with daemons and savage monsters. The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... He comes roun' inquirin' 'bout my business so officious I thought sure he was one o' dese Gov'ment folks, and I done had 'nough to ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
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