"Meddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neutrals, then it was the armies of the provinces, and now it is Ducrot. As for his famous plan, that has entirely fallen through. It was based, I understand, upon some impossible manoeuvres to the north of the Marne. The members of the Government of National Defence meddle little with the direction of affairs. M. Picard is openly in favour of treating at once. M. Jules Favre is very downcast; he too wishes to treat, but he cannot bring himself to consent to a cession of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... their name from Christian Rosencreutz, their founder; and to answer the latter charge, they repeated that they knew not what thirst was, and had higher pleasures than those of the palate. They did not desire to meddle with the politics or religion of any man or set of men, although they could not help denying the supremacy of the pope, and looking upon him as a tyrant. Many slanders, they said, had been repeated respecting them, the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... mighty Wasis," she replied, "and there he sits; and I warn you that if you meddle with him you ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... exists, all animals from the smallest seen by the microscope to the largest gigantic creatures in pairs and fully grown, seems to solve the problem of the egg and the hen, but has long since been refuted by science, so that we need not further meddle with it, and so much the less as thereby the question of the origin of life is not even touched. Let us now make a violent leap from man out into infinite space and back millions of years before the origin of man upon the earth. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... diffused over the whole nation, to render it a country like France; where men, who behave with decency and decorum, may live, or pass through, without the least apprehension or inconvenience on the score of religion; if they do not meddle ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... children have you?"to another. To that one, "When did you come here?" or, again, "When are you going away? He places himself in front of a French lady, well-known for her beauty and wit and the vivacity of her opinions, "like the stiffest of German generals, and says: 'Madame, I don't like women who meddle with politics!'" Equality, ease, familiarity and companionship, vanish at his approach. Eighteen months before this, on his appointment as commander-in-chief of the army in Italy, Admiral Decres, who had known him well at Paris,[1137] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... bed of roses, made for him by Lieut.-Col. Lay—the lieutenant-colonel being absent in North Carolina, sent thither to compose the discontents; which may complicate matters further, for they don't want Virginians to meddle with North Carolina matters. However, the people he is sent to are supposed to be disloyal. Gen. Pillow has applied to have Georgia in the jurisdiction of his Bureau of Conscription, and the Governors of Georgia, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... scornfully and passionately. "If will not deliver us nor save the treasure. I tell you the schooner is fixed—as fixed as the damned in everlasting fire. Be it so!" he cried, clenching his fist. "But you must meddle no more! The Boca del Dragon is mine—mine, d'ye see, now that they're all dead and gone but me"—smiting his bosom—"and if ever she is to float, let nature or the devil launch her: no more explosions with the risks your failure has made ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... took very great notice of, that this valley was as quiet while he went through it, as ever I knew it before or since. I suppose these enemies here had now a special check from our Lord, and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... who presided over the mysteries of my initiation as a member of the human fraternity, say that I was born with a caul over my face. Now, what I want to know is, why didn't they leave that caul where they found it? What business had they to meddle with the veil which beneficent nature gave me as a shield to my infirmity? Had they respected her intention, they would have let it alone—poked a hole in it for me to eat and breathe through, and left the veil which she kindly ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... with no man's business," said he. "So long as he means honorable, and car'ies out his actions fa'r and squar', I don't begrudge him his chance nor meddle in his affa'rs." ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Puss durst not meddle with rats for a long time after this, but at length she got stronger and would kill them and many other such vermin. She had plenty of work, for there were many rats at the farm house. While pursuing a large rat one day, she set her foot into a trap which had been set to catch them, and though ...
— The Life and Adventures of Poor Puss • Lucy Gray
... said quietly, "an' if it wasn't for grandma I wouldn't come back. You've been bullyin' an' rough- ridin' over men-folks and women-folks all your life, but you can't do it no more with ME. An' you're not goin' to meddle in MY business any more. You know I'm a good girl—why didn't you go after the folks who've been talkin' instead o' pitchin' into Gray? You know he'd die before he'd harm a hair o' my head or allow you or anybody ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... to be made to the Audiencia. As a sample, they cite an appeal made by the friars of St. Augustine from the edict, issued at the petition of the city, ordering all the Sangley shopkeepers to be collected in the Parian. Although that was a necessary measure, and the royal Audiencia had no right to meddle in a matter so manifestly belonging to the government as the residence of the Sangleys in this or in that part yet I am not doing nor did I do what they say in this matter, about preventing the report to be made—as will be seen by the acts which I enclose herewith, and which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... with some consternation. 'I was not in the least aware of that. I thought so long as I let no one meddle with them, they were ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... may lead to deceitful answers," sullenly returned the squatter; "I have dealings of my own with that trapper, that it may not befit an officer of the States to meddle with. Go, while ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was taken 'Pity you ain't a man, Joanna, with some of the notions you've got.' Well, maybe it's a pity and maybe it isn't, but what I've got to do now is to act up proper and manage what is mine, and what you and other folks have got to do is not to meddle with me." ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... clear glass with Canada balsam, as suggested by Mr. Woodworth, I found in practice to be open to two formidable objections. One of these was that Canada balsam used in this manner is a sticky, unpleasant substance to meddle with, and takes a long time—nearly a month—to harden when confined between plates in this manner. The other objection was of extreme importance, namely, that, in consequence of commercial gelatine plates not being prepared on perfectly flat glasses in all cases, I found that, after ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... unable to direct them. And many things are directed by the Divine law, which human law is unable to direct, because more things are subject to a higher than to a lower cause. Hence the very fact that human law does not meddle with matters it cannot direct, comes under the ordination of the eternal law. It would be different, were human law to sanction what the eternal law condemns. Consequently it does not follow that human law is not derived from the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Hebrew, Greek, and French, And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench. I had no peere if to myself I were true, Because I am not so, divers times do I rue. Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at will If I were wise and would hold myself still, And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining, But ever to be true to God and my king. But I have such matters rowling in my pate, That I will and do—I cannot tell ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... filled pro tempore by Mr. Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana. He was a man of fine presence, fair abilities, and a fluent speaker, thoroughly devoted to the Democratic party as then controlled by the South. He regarded the anti-slavery movement as the offspring of a wanton desire to meddle with the affairs of other people, and to grasp political power, or —to use the words of one who became an ardent Republican—as the product of hypocritical selfishness, assuming the mask and cant of philanthropy merely to rob the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "You don't like it to go out of your own hands. Well, you must just act 'dog in the manger' if you will, my boy. It is for yourself to judge. I never meddle with other people's affairs, whether about toys or big things! You shall do exactly as you like with your boat, my boy; and I daresay it won't be so very long before you and Walter will be able to go down to the beach together. By-the-by, did I tell you I met Dr. Grierson, ...
— The Good Ship Rover • Robina F. Hardy
... to hope that the time has come for unity, by the fact that the European system has not as yet felt itself strong enough to meddle in any direct manner in our affairs to the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... only going in search of eggs and would, of course, like to catch a flea—a penguin-flea, I mean," said the professor; "and I should not advise you to meddle with any of the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "it cannot be then—I am such an auld fool, that everything I look on seems the thing I want maist to see. But the East Indies! that cannot be—Weel, be what ye will, ye hae a face and a tongue that puts me in mind of auld times. Good-day—make haste on your road, and if ye see ony of our folk, meddle not and make not, and they'll ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... trouble, since there were at least a hundred gallons of it within reach. The brandy, however, was nothing to me; and the great cask might as well have contained vitriol, for aught I cared for it. There were several reasons why I did not meddle with it. First, because I did not relish it; second, because it made me feel sick, and nauseated both my palate and stomach. I suppose it had been of an inferior kind, intended, not as an article of commerce, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Buccleuch sound trumpets when the castle-roof was scaled; in fact it was not scaled. The ladders were too short, and the Scots broke in a postern door. The Warden's trumpet blew "O wha dare meddle wi' me," and here, as has been said, I think Scott is the author. Here Colonel Elliot enters into learning about "Wha dare meddle wi' me?" a "Liddesdale tune," and in the poem an adaptation, by Scott, of Satchells' "the trumpets ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... Giddings, "but if there is, it is nothing concerning you, sir, at least. We thank you for your attention to our machine, and wish you to take the best care of it while it is here. Don't let anybody meddle with ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... daughter. "Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these children while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of clerics is concerned with better things than corporal slayings, namely with things pertaining to spiritual welfare, and so it is not fitting for them to meddle with ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... fully realized that he was angry at himself and that his anger at himself was growing more acute from the fact that he realized that the anger was justified. For he woke to the knowledge that he had allowed himself to grow selfish. He resented the fact that anybody should expect him to meddle with public affairs—to get into the muddle of politics. And he knew he ought to be ashamed of such selfishness—and, therefore, he grew more angry at himself as he continued to harbor resentment against any agency which threatened to drag him ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the coolest thing I ever saw!" exclaimed Mr. Ketchum mentally, and, feeling that he had made a great discovery, was at first for sharing it immediately with Parsons's mistress; but on reflection he thought differently. "It is her funeral: I guess I had better not meddle: there would be a great scene," he thought. "At any rate, I'll wait until they are leaving before putting her on her guard." He went back to the dining-room to his newspaper, and sat there until the others ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... heard, and that justice be done in that tribunal; but I also believe that your Majesty will be pleased to guard the dignity of an office as important as mine, and the servant in whom your Majesty has placed so much confidence. I say this because from Mexico they meddle with my government—giving me orders as to the corregidors whom I am to keep, and addressing private individuals in regard to the supplies, directing them to keep watch over that matter. This gives much occasion for those who are here to lose ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... Ellstowe; it would seem very impertinent in me—a stranger—to meddle in such a matter; and, besides, they may be aware of it, and not thank ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... Martin Luther exchanged our rings, mine fell from his hand to the ground; at which he was evidently troubled, and taking it up, he blew on it; then turning round, exclaimed—'Away with thee, Satan! away with thee, Satan! Meddle not in this matter!' And so my dear lord was taken from me in his forty-fifth year, and I was left a desolate widow." Here she sobbed and put her ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... to the French revolution, and seldom rose in the house for several years without volunteering some abuse of it. "Mr. Speaker," said he, in a mood of this kind, "if we once permitted the villanous French masons to meddle with the buttresses and walls of our ancient constitution, they would never stop, nor stay, Sir, till they brought the foundation-stones tumbling down about the ears of the nation! There," continued Sir Boyle, placing his hand earnestly on his heart, his powdered head shaking ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... assure you. They seem rather to rasp them with the rough surface of their tongues, getting off a fine flour, which they swallow eagerly, together with the oil of the seed. I have nothing further to tell you about them just at present, except to say that these are not comfortable ants to meddle with, for they sting almost ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Utes meddle with us we will give them fits. But I reckon they will know better than to interfere ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... meddle in this worke with the Nauigations onely of our owne nation: And albeit I alleage in a few places (as the matter and occasion required) some strangers as witnesses of the things done yet are they none but such as either faithfully remember, or sufficiently confirme the trauels ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... men chosen to meddle in matters concerning "Hefty" Harris, perhaps the latest suitable, in some ways, was his classmate and comrade lieutenant, though in different arms of the service—Hal Willett of "The Lost and Strayed," so called from the fact that they had been sent to desert wilds in '65, scattered ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... yet fully satisfied that she had left with her own consent, and that she was now where he could take no legal steps to reclaim her from any false position in which she might have placed herself. Leslie had, and knew that he had, no right whatever to meddle with the movements of the suspicious parties, except that he might have obtained some description of Columbus' right by discovery. However, the reasons being what they might, the fact was patent—they were now in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... They had reduced their universe to a series of relations to themselves. They had reduced themselves to motion in a universe of motions, with an acceleration, in their own case of vertiginous violence. With the correctness of their science, history had no right to meddle, since their science now lay in a plane where scarcely one or two hundred minds in the world could follow its mathematical processes; but bombs educate vigorously, and even wireless telegraphy or airships might require the reconstruction of society. If any analogy whatever existed between ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... escape did he meddle again with the stupendous development of the Food of the Gods he of all men had done most ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... you can be dissatisfied with Garibaldi's progress. Louis N. could have stopt [sic] him, and ruined his hopes for ever, by one word to Austria as soon as Garibaldi landed in Sicily. On the contrary, he has sternly forbidden Austria to meddle at all in Italy, and has allowed Cavour to proclaim in Parliament that L. N.'s greatest merit to Italy is not the great battle of Solferino, but his having avowed in his letter to the Pope that priests shall no longer rule ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... reverence," said my husband, who was quivering with fury, "but my wife is perfectly capable of answering for herself without your assistance, and as for your parish you would have done better to stay there instead of coming to meddle in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... had its defenders. Representatives from South Carolina argued that their entire economic life rested on slave labor and that the high death rate in the rice swamps made continuous importation necessary. Ellsworth of Connecticut took the ground that the convention should not meddle with slavery. "The morality or wisdom of slavery," he said, "are considerations belonging to the states. What enriches a part enriches the whole." To the future he turned an untroubled face: "As population increases, poor laborers ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... all to sit down. And when they had a while surveyed, and taken a perfect view of us, they came to all such as had any coloured clothes amongst us, and those they did strip stark naked, and took their clothes away with them; but they that were apparelled in black they did not meddle withal, and so went their ways and left us, without doing us any further hurt, only in the first brunt they killed eight of our men. And at our departure they, perceiving in what weak case we were, pointed us with their hands which way we should go to come ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... 14:34,35): A command that is necessary enough for that simple and weak sex:[8] Though they see it was by them that sin came into the world, yet how hardly are some of them to this day dissuaded from attempting unwarrantably to meddle with potent enemies, about the great and weighty matters that concern eternity ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... our hands—not in mine, any way,' said Jacinth quietly. 'All you have told me makes no difference to me. I am not going to meddle, and I shall not mention the Harpers at all, ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... these pages, such as they are, have we not two mere Poets, if not deified, yet we may say beatified? Shakspeare and Dante are Saints of Poetry; really, if we will think of it, canonised, so that it is impiety to meddle with them. The unguided instinct of the world, working across all these perverse impediments, has arrived at such result. Dante and Shakspeare are a peculiar Two. They dwell apart, in a kind of royal solitude; none equal, none second to them: in the general feeling of the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... not meddle with hens' nests, robins' nests, and all the nests, big and little, that we find about our homes, for they are the "potatoes" of a subject like this, but will try and find some nests that are a little out ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... sorry for you, my child, but I refer you to my agent, Dr. Flynch. I do not like to meddle with these things, as I have given him the whole care of my houses. You will find him a very good man, and one who will be willing to consider your case. He will extend to you all ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... reckon he knows himself. I'm afeard to praise huntin' much to him; he might get on my trail. Tell you these army chaps is resky. I never wanted to meddle with them kind o' close. You know I said so. I said so, fair an' square, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... was the fate of poor Bailly, First National President, First Mayor of Paris: doomed now for Royalism, Fayettism; for that Red-Flag Business of the Champ-de-Mars;—one may say in general, for leaving his Astronomy to meddle with Revolution. It is the 10th of November 1793, a cold bitter drizzling rain, as poor Bailly is led through the streets; howling Populace covering him with curses, with mud; waving over his face a burning or smoking mockery of a Red Flag. Silent, unpitied, sits the innocent old man. Slow faring ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... want you to promise to study more. Of course, I know it sounds cheeky, West, but I don't mean to meddle in your ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... husband their resources. Munificence is a benefit to society, that we grant willingly. Let us even allow that the prodigality of certain rich men is a safety-valve for the escape of the superabundant: we shall not attempt to gainsay it. Our contention is that too many people meddle with the safety-valve when to practice economy is the part of both their interest and their duty: their extravagance is a private ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... a nation And her people most loyal and true, And all others take care how they meddle Or insult her colors of blue. San Berdoo and the counties around Come in for their share of the fun And have rolled up the numbers most nobly And ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... circulation to the country, and it will be observed that I am not about to overstep my limits and discuss this as a question of currency. In what form the best paper currency can be supplied to a country is a question of economical theory with which I do not meddle here. I am only narrating unquestionable history, not dealing with an argument where every step is disputed. And part of this certain history is that the best way to diffuse banking in a community ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... through any other means, I suppose. The Wise Man says, "He that keepeth his tongue keepeth his soul from trouble." He also says, "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water." You know how it runs in every direction, so that you can not gather it up again nor confine it. Never meddle with the strife of others. You are sure of an abundant crop of trouble if you do. It is written, "He that passeth by and meddleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears." You know how that is: if he holds fast he will get into trouble, ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... to know, ma'am, who requested you to put in your oar!" she said with arms akimbo. "Anybody wouldn't think from your lofty airs that you lived in the poorhouse; I'll thank you to mind your own business in the future, and not meddle ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... my marster don't 'low nuttin like dat—I'se too val'eble er nigger. Nobum, dey ain't none ob 'em gwine ter pester me, an' I ain't gwine ter meddle wid dem—dey kin des fight hit out ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... would have neither the temptation nor the ability to interfere in the political conflicts of the country. Not deriving their charters from the national authorities, they would never have those inducements to meddle in general elections which have led the Bank of the United States to agitate and convulse the country for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... unless thy heart less beauteous be Than thy sweet face, mar not my pious care; Take my steel buckler, this I give to thee, And take that horse, which flies so fast in air, Nor meddle with my castle more; or free One or two captive friends, the rest forbear — Or (for I crave but this) release them all, So that ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... see him again. There were bad hearts between us. There were good ones, too, who were at a loss what to do. There were frivolous ones who preferred not to meddle with such ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... town straightway ignored and discounted the experience of their many years. They tried, by the most ancient of all methods, to teach the young man modesty. But they gave it up. Peter Jorgensen had the strength of three men and the courage of ten. It was not good to meddle with one who had stolen his capacities from God himself, or perhaps was in league with Satan. So they resigned themselves, and avenged themselves by calling him the "Great Power"—and they put their ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in their Fits tempted to be Witches, are shewed the List of the Names of others, and are tortured, because they will not yeild to Subscribe, or meddle with, or touch the BOOK, and are promised to have present Belief if ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... last, recovering his dignity and somewhat peevishly,—"sir, I don't know why people should meddle with my family affairs. I don't ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew that I ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the man in office; and as an experimentalist in several out-of-the-way provinces of life, I may say it has but to be felt to be appreciated. Well, this golden age of which we are speaking will be the golden age of officials. In all our concerns it will be their beloved duty to meddle, with what tact, with what obliging words, analogy will aid us to imagine. It is likely these gentlemen will be periodically elected; they will therefore have their turn of being underneath, which does not always sweeten men's conditions. The laws they will have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Now to meddle with theatrical matters is one of the eternally perennial ambitions of the lesser bourgeoisie. Always, therefore, the successive saviours of the Odeon feel themselves magnificently rewarded if they are given ever so small a share ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the woman, pointing toward Pinky, from whom she had sprung back the moment she heard the word police. "She came in here drunk and got up a row. I'm a decent woman, as don't meddle with nobody. But she's awful when she gets drunk. Just look at her—been tearing ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the old lady, reflectively, "she'd suspect what was at the bottom of my interest. She's a sharp one. I've found that out. I reckon it will be better for me not to meddle with her. I came very near quarreling with her last night, and that ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... to his brother. "This is what comes of letting a woman meddle in business," he said bitterly. "We ought to have taken things in our own hands years ago. But she liked to run things, and we humored her. We thought you had good sense, Alexandra. We never thought ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... charging them with want of fidelity or gross carelessness in their office. Accordingly, each of them indignantly denied the imputation, and testified that Wyman had no power or authority to authorize the discount or to meddle with the funds. When the Government case closed, the counsel asked the court to rule that as the funds were never entrusted to the possession of Wyman he could not be convicted of embezzlement. The court so held and directed an acquittal. This is another instance, not unusual in trials in ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Cosmos and all time: as if he foresaw that on him mainly would devolve the task of upholding spiritual ideas in Europe through the millenniums to come. He dwelt apart, and taught in the Groves of Academe outside the walls. Let Athens' foolish politics go forward as they might, or backward—he would meddle with nothing. It has been brought against him that he did nothing to help his city 'in her old age and dotage'; well, he had the business of thousands of coming years and peoples to attend to, and had no time to be accused, condemned, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Saxon churls," said Front-de-Boeuf, "their ransom will depend upon other terms than thine. Mind thine own concerns, Jew, I warn thee, and meddle not ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... forbidden, monsieur, to meddle in your affairs; but Madame de Saint-Esteve is in business, and will attend to your orders," ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... in the afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even such are they who are fretted to hear something to have been ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... would only mind the house, and not meddle with what does not belong to them!" exclaimed ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... name," he said. "If I used my own some of these dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... do or not, my dear, is my own business. Furthermore, I do not like to have any one meddle ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... act in every way which does not limit the corresponding freedom of his fellow-man. But I fail to connect that great induction of political science with the practical corollary which is frequently drawn from it: that the State—that is, the people in their corporate capacity—has no business to meddle with anything but the administration of justice and external defence. It appears to me that the [228] amount of freedom which incorporate society may fitly leave to its members is not a fixed quantity, to be determined a priori by deduction from the fiction ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... to meddle in Rose's concerns, and he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, at his office. There ensued some pretty plain speaking as to the late hero between the two men. Edmund Grosse half drawled out far the worst comments of the two; he liked the lawyer ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... the young inventor disconnected the electrical detonating switch. "I'll come along and have a look too," he added. "Don't let anybody meddle with the wires, Jack," he said to the young Englishman who was in charge of ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... are never very serious so long as a third party does not come between them.—But that was bound to happen: there are too many people in this world ready to meddle in the affairs of others and ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... interference with the legal and constitutional rights of their brethren at the South. The Quakers have always been distinguished for minding their own business, and permitting others to attend to theirs. They would be the last people to meddle with ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... really shocked, "what will you do next? It was very, very wrong for you to meddle ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... his hands to his face, and his voice softened. And at that I passed silently from the room, leaving those two together, for this was not a meeting in which I had wish to meddle. Erling came with me, and we sat in the council chamber for half an ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... I am grown to man's estate I shall be very proud and great, And tell the other girls and boys, Not to meddle with my toys." ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... Cresser he wrote: "If the courts wish to govern the churches in their own interests, God will withdraw His benediction from them, and things will become worse than before. Satan still is Satan. Under the Popes he made the Church meddle in politics; in our time he wishes to make politics meddle with the Church." (21b, 2911. Translations ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... his seat, when, slowly stooping down for his tumbler, he brought it deliberately to his mouth, and took a prolonged sip. Then shaking his head, he observed, "Politics are awful things to meddle with—the very thought of what I endured, turns my throat into a dust-hole." Again he sipped, and again he shook his head. "Young gentlemen," he said solemnly, "if ever any of you rise to the top of the profession, and I hope you may—and should his Majesty, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... unarmed holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle with the colossal abuses of the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... reproached the women of one of the South American Indian tribes for the practice of infanticide, McLennan says he was met by the retort, "Men have no business to meddle with ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... houses of Spaniards; their suits shall come first before the governor of the Parian, with appeal to the Audiencia, and that neither auditors nor municipal officials shall begin such suits; the Audiencia shall not meddle with the affairs of the Parian, which shall be in charge of the governor of the islands; and assessments of fowls shall not be made upon the Chinese. The governor is ordered to promote agriculture among them, and not to exact personal services; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... to meddle with our slaves as our rightful property? I answer no, I think not.'—[African ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... are, though I believe them not, Who say you meddle in affairs of state: That you presume to prattle like a busy-body, Give your advice, and teach the lords o' the council What fits the ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... am right," said Vorticella. "The fact is that no critic in this town is fit to meddle with such subjects, unless it be Volvox, and he, with all his command of language, is very superficial. It is Volvox who writes in the 'Monitor,' I hope you noticed how ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... "Don't meddle with me," said he, as she attempted to wrest it from his grasp. "Why does that girl stand glowering ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... statement is quoted by Bernhardi with approval, that "the end all and be all of a state is power, and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face should not meddle with politics." To this Bernhardi adds that the State's highest moral duty is to increase its power and in so doing "the State is the sole judge of the morality of its own action. It is in fact above morality or, in other words whatever ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... was a knight, and must be treated as such, although an enemy. As for the burgher—well, we have discussed the case. As for the friar—they did not like to meddle with the Church. They dreaded excommunication, men of Belial though ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... here with Alan's button? and what kind of a black-foot traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig? Here is a forfeited rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life, and ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye're a Whig! I have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I've kennt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... twixt ye an' Birt. I hain't got no call ter meddle," said the obdurate Byers. "Ye kin bide with the tanyard an' finish this job yerse'f, of so minded. I'm ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... it, Vincent; but I cannot believe for a moment that this Jackson or any one else would venture to meddle ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... glad to drink your honor's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... must be advantageous. From generation to generation, men are the dupes of words; and it is painful to observe, that so many of our species are most tenacious of those opinions which they have formed with the least consideration. They who are the readiest to meddle with public affairs, whether in Church or State, fly to generalities, that they may be eased from the trouble of thinking about particulars; and thus is deputed to mechanical instrumentality the work which vital knowledge only can ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... servants and such mistresses are ill to meddle with. Say, what answer has the Hesea sent to your report of our ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... canoes, and sink them alongside the vessel, just to get rid of the natives; and another time when we had some aboard who were somewhat obstreperous when shut up in the hold, he shot them down as if they had been a parcel of rats, and threw some overboard with life still in them. If he does not meddle with us, he'll treat the natives in this place in a way which will make them turn against all white men. For you see they cannot distinguish one from the other; and we shall find it unpleasant, to say the best of it, ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Mason, WISDOM or INTELLIGENCE, FORCE or STRENGTH, and HARMONY, or FITNESS and BEAUTY, are the Trinity of the attributes of God. With the subtleties of Philosophy concerning them Masonry does not meddle, nor decide as to the reality of the supposed Existences which are their Personifications: nor whether the Christian Trinity be such a personification, or a Reality of the gravest ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... that. A teacher of the art of love, and never meddle with anything but the spirit? Never use the opportunities your office ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... it. Vengeance be God's awn, an' mercy be God's awn. 'Tedn' for no man to meddle wi' them. Us caan't be aught but just. She'll have justice from me—no more'n that. 'Tis all wan now. Wanton or no wanton, she've flummoxed me this day. The giglot lied an' said the thing that was not. She'm not o' the Kingdom—the fust Tregenza ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... mean?" she laughed, meeting squarely the challenge that passed between them under Mrs. Amherst's puzzled gaze. "Well, if I take advantage of my reputation for discretion to meddle a little now and then, at least I do so in a good cause. I was just saying how much I wish that you would take Bessy to Europe; and I am so sure of my cause, in this case, that I am going to leave it to your mother to give ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... considered by the Indians of our tribe, that Allen was an innocent man, and that the Niagara people were persecuting him without a just cause. Little Beard, then about to go to the eastward on public business, charged his Indians not to meddle with Allen, but to let him live amongst them peaceably, and enjoy himself with his family and property if he could. Having the protection of the chief, he felt himself safe, and let his situation be known to the whites from whom he suspected no harm. They, however, were more inimical than our ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... are asked to meddle with astronomy—a science which, of all the branches of human knowledge has yielded the most accurate information, afforded the most mathematically correct data, and of the achievements in which the men of science ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... attention of working naturalists as it has done. We have no idea even of opening the question as to what work the Darwinian theory has incited, and in what way the work done has reacted upon the theory; and least of all do we like to meddle with the polemical literature of the subject, already so voluminous that the German bibliographers and booksellers make a separate class of it. But two or three treatises before us, of a minor or incidental sort, suggest a remark ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... amongst the raced foundations of old Rome, it were heere friuolous to specifie: since he that hath but once drunke with a traueller talkes of them. Let mee bee a Historiographer of my owne misfortunes, and not meddle with the continued Trophees of so olde a ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... creeping only of a ghostly fancy. Old superstitions of the coast recurred to me,—old vague warnings of peril in the time of the passage of Souls. I reflected that were any evil to befall me out there in the night,—meddling, or seeming to meddle, with the lights of the Dead,—I should myself furnish the subject of some future weird legend.... I whispered the Buddhist formula of farewell—to the lights,—and made ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... subject to fits of disgust. Your French friend intrudes upon you at all hours; he stuns you with his loquacity; he teases you with impertinent questions about your domestic and private affairs; he attempts to meddle in all your concerns, and forces his advice upon you with the most unwearied importunity; he asks the price of everything you wear, and, so sure as you tell him, undervalues it without hesitation; he affirms it is in a bad taste, ill contrived, ill ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... be afraid," said Travis bitterly. "If he will leave my ditch-banks alone, I shall not meddle with him. Tell him, if there are no more breaks there will be nothing to report. This break is mended—the break in ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... rejoined Galen Albret, "the point is that I intend to keep it. I've had you sent out, but you have been too stupid or too obstinate to take the hint. Now I have to warn you in person. I shall send you out once more, but this time you must promise me not to meddle with the ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... serve. If He wants me, He will use me. If He does not want me, He will use some one else. Who am I, that God cannot govern the world without my help? My business is to refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a weaned child, and not to meddle with matters too high for me. My business is to do the little, simple, everyday duties which lie nearest me, and be faithful in a few things; and then, if Christ will, He may make me some day ruler over many things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of doing good to my ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and spend their lives helping in the great work of feeding, clothing, and housing their fellow men. I've no desire to leave my job or take them from theirs, to start a lazy, shiftless life of self-indulgence. I don't meddle much with the Bible, but I have a profound BELIEF in it, and a large RESPECT for it, as the greatest book in the world, and it says: 'By the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,' or words to that effect. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Mabel, sighing. "And so, I doubt not, is Winston, although he will not own it, and affects to ignore the fact of her failing health and spirits. It is one of these miserably delicate family complications with which the nearest of kin cannot meddle. They are very kind to me, and I think my visits have been a comfort to Clara. The solitude of the great house is a terrible trial to one so fond of company. For days together sometimes she does not exchange a word with anybody except the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... payment of his mortgage, and made over the title of the property to Cuthbert Burbage. Thus Brayne's widow was legally excluded from any share in the ownership of the Theatre. Myles deposed, in 1592, that henceforth Burbage "would not suffer her to meddle in the premises, but thrust her ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... a look, as much as to say—You must meddle with every thing. "Yes," replied he; "and, if you had ten lives, it would be as much as they are all worth to enter this swamp without torches." So saying, he struck fire, and selecting a couple of pine splinters from several lying in the boat, he lighted them, doing every thing with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various |
