"Meddling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not continue pouring after the lye had become "too weak to bear up an egg," was a part of Betsey's daily duty for some weeks. Then came the soap-boiling in great iron kettles over the fire in the wide fireplace. Apparently, this was not always a certain operation. Science had not yet put her meddling but useful finger into the soap-pot, for madam sadly records that on the twenty-first of May she had superintended the soap-boiling, but had not been blessed with "good luck;" and on the third of June we find the suggestive entry, "Finished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... take heed how he behaves. If he persists in saying to me what he likes, he'll be hearing things that he don't like. Am I meddling with these matters or interesting myself? Can you not endure your troubles with a patient mind? For as to what I say, whether it is true or false what I have heard, can soon be known. A certain man of Attica, a long time ago,[94] his ship being wrecked, was cast ashore at Andros, ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... is it?" asked the baronet, with a sulky and deprecatory look. "Why are you following me about and taking the command, and meddling in my affairs, Major Pendennis? I've never done you any harm, have I? I've never had your money. And I don't choose to be dodged about in this way, and domineered over. I don't choose it, and I won't have it. If ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Frontier into Austrian Silesia, and find themselves there in safety. Permitted to buy arms, to make preparations, issue orders: at Sulkowski's Bilitz, in the Duchy of Teschen, supreme Managing Committee sits there; no Kaunitz or Official person meddling with it. About the beginning of next year (1769), it is, ostensibly, a little discountenanced; and obliged to go to Eperjes, on the Hungarian Frontier [See Busching: for Eperjes, ii. 1427; for Bilitz, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... are right," said Lady Mary. "It would really be a very nice thing for Blanche. At all events, we are out of the Chipchase girls for to-day." And, so saying, she rose somewhat comforted, little aware, poor woman, that another ringer was meddling with the ropes. ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... all satires on particular persons. He insisted upon weekly communions, desired to rebaptize Dissenters who abandoned their Nonconformity, and exercised his pastoral duties in such a manner that he was accused of meddling in every quarrel ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... and honest to realize it," said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; "and in doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn't meddled; I'm meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don't give Howard his conge for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the impulse of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... have sat down in the middle of the treacherous carpet, but Utsuken pulled him aside and seated him on the edge of the felt. Meanwhile a woman was meddling with the horse and cut off its left stirrup. Belgutei, who noticed it, drove her out, and struck her on the leg with his hand, upon which one Buri Buke struck Belgutei's horse with his sword. The nine Orloks ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... we all have for meddling in the affairs of others, and what a delicious zest we find in faithfully applying our surplus energies to business that is not strictly our own! I had become a part of the Sir George-Dorothy-John affair, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... him; 'tis a meddling friar; I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord, For certain words he spake against your Grace In your retirement, I had swinged ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... you. But I give you this warning: if what I hear is not what you expect me to hear, I promise to put a bullet into your meddling head." ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... for the maintenance of the rights which belong to our fellow-subjects, resident in Greece, let us do as we would be done by, and let us pay all respect to a feeble State and to the infancy of free institutions.... Let us refrain from all gratuitous and arbitrary meddling in the internal concerns of other States, even as we should resent the same interference if it were attempted to ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... before, Arnold Greatson," she said, "that you were meddling with greater concerns than you knew of, and that harm would come to you for it. Now you have chosen to shield a murderer, and to use your strength upon a woman. These things will not ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... used it for years. It had the advantage that it could be used inside a gravity field, where a Lawlor drive could not. It had the other advantage that commercial spacecraft could not mount such gadgets for defense, because the insurance companies objected to meddling with Lawlor ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... is the lore which nature brings; Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... comment from me. Who was it that crushed in embryo, the reform which was in progress thirty-five years ago? It was the abolitionists, and every one is aware of it, who is informed on the subject; and intelligent men among the abolitionists know it, as well as any one else. The officious inter-meddling of abolitionists with Southern slavery, never has, and never can effect anything for the slave; it has served but to retard emancipation, and to rivet the chains of slavery. This opinion has been expressed a thousand times, by the wisest and best men, that our nation has ever produced—men, who ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... next day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were being disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would shrink and the worst panic in the history of the country would follow unless the socialistic meddling with business ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... The man who could utter such a prayer was no Christian, and unfit for religious teaching. Since then I have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of undue and very impertinent meddling with the heathen; who are entitled to their own mode of worship as well as of government, and who I think are not ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... "who cares for him? and Meta, prying, meddling, tell-tale Meta's worse than nobody. But there! don't look so shocked, as if I had said an awfully wicked thing. I really don't hate her at all, though she got me into trouble more than once with grandma and Aunt Sophie that winter ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... reasons for making the fight as hard as possible; for she, as well as Rose, had already discerned in the ungainly figure of one of the party the same suspicious Welsh gentleman, on whose calling she had divined long ago; and she was so loyal a subject as to hold in extreme horror her husband's meddling with such "Popish skulkers" (as she called the whole party roundly to their face)—unless on consideration of a very handsome sum of money. In vain Parsons thundered, Campian entreated, Mr. Leigh's groom swore, and her husband danced round in an agony of mingled ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... begged, too, but he threatened us, and struck the dog again with all his might and knocked one of his eyes out, and he said to us, 'There, I hope you are satisfied now; that's what you have got for him by your damned meddling'—and he laughed, the heartless brute." Seppi's voice trembled with pity and anger. I guessed what Satan would say, and ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... that," she said, with a note of reproof in her voice. "'T'ud be real dangerous. Folks could be sent to prison for meddling wi' ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... his own point, than to consider the good that might flow from a more urbane spirit. Not that the man was devoid of ability—few, indeed, could set forth a more plausible tale; but he was continually meddling, keeking, and poking, and always taking up a suspicious opinion of every body's intents and motives but his own. He was, besides, of a retired and sedentary habit of body; and the vapour of his stomach, as he was sitting by himself, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... differ," said Stafford dryly. Rising with a yawn, he went on: "Half the marital troubles one hears about are the fault of the wife. She is often too exacting, too fond of meddling in her husband's affairs. A man who respects himself bends to no one—not even to his wife." With another yawn he added: "Will you two excuse me for a few minutes? I have a letter ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... she thought wistfully. "I hate to do it. I always did hate meddling. My mother always used to say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and them she meddled with was worse than the first. But I guess it's my duty. I was Margaret's friend, and it is my duty to protect her child any way I can. ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... countenance, briar pipe, knickerbockers and white spats had already become a familiar object in the streets of the town, when a terrible uproar at the Club—one of those periodical, approximately monthly, rows at which the police, who hated meddling with foreigners, were reluctantly compelled to intervene—suggested to her that something might be done in that direction. She got him elected President for that year, President for the next, the next, and the next; in spite of the fact that, according to the rules, a new President ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... who wished to arrest or soften a painful interview. "General McClellan is not to blame; it is Seward's work. He is constantly meddling with what is none of his business, and (alluding to the Pickens expedition) makes mischief in the war and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... addressing the girl, 'unless you want to be thrown out the same way you were thrown in! The sooner I see your back, my sulky Madam, the better I shall be pleased. No more meddling with petticoats for me! This comes of working with fine gentlemen, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... break out in a new method of grafting raspberries on a rosebush, in the comfortable cut of a pilot-coat, or the safest machinery for a steamer. Ne sutor ultra crepidam is a rule of moderation it repudiates; incessant energy provokes unabated meddling, and its intuitive qualities of penetration, adaptation, and concentration, are only hindered by the accidents of life from carrying any one thing out to the point at least of respectable attainment. Look at Michael Angelo; poet, painter, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... at least, and I beg you to bear with me if I seem unduly meddling with your affairs; they are our friend's affairs too, and I believe he has been ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... consider of no consequence; for it was our intention, had she conducted herself properly and returned with us, to have given her freedom. She has taken her freedom; and all I wish is, that she would enjoy it without meddling with me. ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... idea and habit of "Hands off" the sex organs. The little child is taught this by his mother, and it becomes second nature. The pre-pubescent boy and girl may receive some slight but impressive additional perception as to the danger of meddling in any way. They should also be warned strictly against any other person who offers to tamper with their sex organs or adjacent parts of the body. Let them understand that they are justified in any means of defense, the fist, a club, or a stone; ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... just the one to do it, and that it is your obvious duty, and all that?" said Mrs. Swan. "Now, just take my advice, and don't burn your fingers meddling with other people's affairs, nor do any such foolish ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... between you that he shall by no means think of doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would wantonly sit down on one of these bandbox reputations. A Prince-Rupert's-drop, which is a tear of unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it from meddling hands; but break its tail off, and it explodes and resolves itself into powder. These celebrities I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's-drops of the learned and polite world. See how the papers treat them! What an array of pleasant kaleidoscopic phrases, that can be arranged in ever so many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... you? We may amuse ourselves without your meddling. What odds to you if he loses, so long as I win. I am ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... but say, such a Law wou'd be of great Use in so naked a Country as this, where one wou'd imagine many of us were descended from the Ringleaders in the Building the Tower of Babel; and that by their being then punished, for meddling too much in Stone and Morter, we have contracted an Aversion to all Building ever since; but whenever such a Law is to be pass'd, I could wish they wou'd add another to it, that wou'd not only build our Country, but plant ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... "was, for a long time and always, the object of his wishes and mediations.... It is not his aim[5124] to change the faith of his people; he respects spiritual objects and wants to rule them without meddling with them; his aim is to make these square with his views, with his policy, but only through the influence of temporal concerns." That spiritual authority should remain intact; that it should operate on its own speculative domain, that it to say, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment and a living wage was the "right to organize." Assure to labor that right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial relations—and the stimulated activities of the "legitimate" organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far better Reconstruction than a thousand paper ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... material was crape or India gauze. "Shall we talk of rags at such a solemn moment?" she retorted; and then proceeded with her direct plea for Magdeburg. In the midst of her eloquence, when the Emperor seemed almost overcome by her importunity, her meddling husband most inopportunely entered the room. He began to argue and reason, citing his threadbare grievance, the violation of Ansbach territory, and endeavoring to prove himself to be right. Napoleon at once turned the conversation to indifferent themes, and in a few moments ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... unimpeded operation,—at any moment it may be set in action, in any one of those "pretty family scenes" which "Puck" depicts,—while we are solemnly warned against admitting the comparatively mild peril of a political difference! It is like cautioning a manufacturer of dynamite against the danger of meddling with mere edge-tools. Even with all the intensity of feeling on religious matters, few families are seriously divided by them; and the influence of political differences would ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... like Mrs. Octagon—I never did," said Mallow, impetuously, "but I don't care two straws for her opposition. I shall marry Juliet in spite of this revenge she seems to be practising on you. Though why she should hope to vex you by meddling with my ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... not interfere any further. Whatever I have said I have always meant to be for your good." Then Alice got up, and kissing her aunt, tried to explain to her that she resented no interference from her, and felt grateful for all that she both said and did; but that she could not endure meddling from people whom she did not know, and who thought themselves entitled to meddle by ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... if it pleases you? Women must aye be meddling with pins and barbs. If they be not pricking velvets or home-spun, they must be thrusting sharp points into those that love them best. Why shouldst thou differ from others of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Traddles and I met again. He had the same simple character and good temper as of old, and had, too, some of his old unlucky fortune, which clung to him always; yet notwithstanding that—as all of his trouble came from good-natured meddling with other people's affairs, for their benefit, I am not at all certain that I would not risk my chance of success—in the broadest meaning of that word—in the next world surely, if not in this, against all the Steerforths living, if I ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... live in order to be near them. And now she has no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... want legs and I won't have legs. I was meant to be a flower and a flower I will be, but if you could keep that meddling, chattering cuckoo away from this tree for a time I should be ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... myself anything I jolly well like," returned Talbot. "If I choose to dodge reporters, that's my pidgin. I don't have to give my name to every meddling busybody that—" ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... come home with a vague notion of playing the part of Lady Bountiful and putting things right, but had got a jar soon after she began. Her father's idea of justice was elementary: he resented her meddling, and was sometimes tyrannical. When it was obvious that he had taken an improper line he blamed his agent; but perhaps the worst was he seldom knew when he was wrong. Then the agent's main object was to extort as much money from the tenants ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... Northern people that the system of slavery was filled with the spirit of aggressiveness and determined to spread itself into all the Territories. Consequently there arose for the first time a powerful anti-slavery party, which, while denying that it had any purpose of meddling with that institution in the States where it already existed, declared that it should never be extended into any more of the national domain. At the same time this was a stronger party in favor of the protective tariff than had ever before existed. This organization, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the road law, and some others, are deficient in their present form, and require alterations. But considering the great probability that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer [not] meddling with them, unless they were first attacked by others, in which case I should feel it both a privilege and a duty to take that stand, which in my view, might tend most to the advancement ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience,—not to live always in the precincts of the law courts,—but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions—to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... furlough. They also took possession of four of Mr. Anderson's horses. They made no attempt to tear up the railroad, having no doubt had enough of that business at Beaver Dam last Sunday. They did not interfere with the telegraph wire through prudential motives, shrewdly guessing that any meddling with that would give notice of ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... the young man. The presence of the satiric and unsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if he might. The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what was outside his business gave him an uncomfortable ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... belong to the individual. So sacred is this right held to be, that not one of those who stood by, and saw le Bourdon fell his tree, and who witnessed the operation of bringing to light its stores of honey, appeared to dream of meddling with the delicious store, until invited so to do by its lawful owner. It was this reserve, and this respect for a recognized principle, that enabled the bee-hunter to purchase a great deal of popularity, by giving away liberally an article so much prized. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed to forget himself, the subject and the company, and to become absorbed in the process of his thought; the look was wholly impersonal: I have seen the same in the eyes of portrait-painters. The counts upon which whites have been deported are mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of the sinews of his power, 'peaking, and political intrigue. I felt guiltless upon all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in a gift: how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as I have said, they will have those who will lead them blindly to their loss and ruin. Men of no great native power of intellect, and of imperfect and superficial knowledge, are the most mischievous of all—none are so busy, meddling, confident, presumptuous, and intolerant. The whole of society receives the benefit of the exertions of a mind of extraordinary endowments. Of all communities, one of the least desirable, would be that in which imperfect, superficial, half-education ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... of religion and the dishonor of God. We are bound to say, however, that none among the priesthood encourage or take a part in them, unless those low and bigoted firebrands who are alike remarkable for vulgarity and ignorance, and who are perpetually inflamed by that meddling spirit which tempts them from the quiet path of duty into scenes of political strife and enmity, in which they seem to be peculiarly at home. Such scenes are repulsive to the educated priest, and to all who, from superior minds and information, are perfectly aware that no earthly or ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Constituent Assembly might act with what delicacy and diplomacy it would; declare that it abjured meddling with its neighbours, foreign conquest, and so forth; but from the first this thing was to be predicted: that old Europe and new France could not subsist together. A Glorious Revolution, oversetting State-Prisons and Feudalism; publishing, with outburst of Federative ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... that this love of pounding things small, this passion for small blessings, is found in all his work. His God is so difficult to content, so scrupulous, so meddling, that no one would ever get to heaven if they believed what he said. This God of his is the fault-finder of eternity, the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... wakened at the sounds. He heard all, but he chose to seem to be asleep, and, would you believe it? he was only the more provoked! Paul's exertion made his neglect seem all the worse, and he was positively angry with him for 'going and meddling, and poking his nose where he'd no concern. Now he shouldn't be able to get the stuff to-morrow, and so make it up; and of course mother would go and dock Paul's ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... both within and without; consequently all fear of intrusion from that quarter was entirely removed. However, at times, I could not help ruminating on the malpractices that might have been committed by evil-disposed persons, through this communication; and "busy meddling fancy" was fertile in conjuring up imaginary horrors. Every thing, however, was quiet, and agreeable to my wishes, for some months after my arrival. One moonlight night, in the month of June, I retired to my bed, full of thought, but ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... courteous or cruel or cowardly, and don't drink too often, [E] or be too lofty or anxious, but friendly of cheer. [G] Hate jealousy, be not too hasty or daring; joke not too oft; ware knaves' tricks. Don't be too grudging or too liberal, too meddling, [N] too particular, new-fangled, or too daring. Hate oaths and [P] flattery. [Q] Please well thy master. Don't be too rackety, [S] or go out too much. [V] Don't be too revengeful or wrathful, and wade not too deep. The middle path is the best ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... surprised, he said, as any of them at what had occurred. Had the men turned the other way and robbed the parson he would have been less surprised. He acknowledged that he had called the parson a turn-coat and a meddling tell-tale, in the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... handiwork of Jack Parrot (otherwise called Jack the Grinder), who broke into the palace of the Bishop of Norwich. Jack was a comical scoundrel, and made a little too free with his grace's best burgundy, as well as his grace's favourite housekeeper. The Bishop, however, to show him the danger of meddling with the church, gave him a dance at Tyburn for his pains. Not a scar but has its history. The only inconvenience I feel from my shattered noddle is an incapacity to drink. But that's an infirmity shared by a great many ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... suites; was singularly, nay, rabidly devout, if we may coin the adverb; in her own eyes she was perfection, in those of her neighbours slightly objectionable; and she was altogether a droll, and by no means an unusual compound of piety, censoriousness, charity, proscription, gossip, kindness, meddling, ill-nature, and decency. ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... responsibilities attached to his office, and resolving to fulfil them whatever might happen, hastened to consult with the other magistrates, but as they all gave him very excellent reasons for not meddling, he soon felt there was no dependence to be placed on such cowards and traitors. He next repaired to the episcopal palace, where he found the bishop surrounded by the principal Catholics of the town, all on their knees ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... meddling," said Mrs. Bates. "I got what I went after, and that was all I wanted. I've told her an' told her to come to see you during the last three years, an' I know she WANTED to come; but she just had that stubborn Bates streak in her ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... if you run against Mr. Parsons, you'll never abstain from telling him of his stray lamb, nor from condoling with him upon the wolf in Cat-alley. Now there's a fair hope of his having more on his hands than to get his fingers scratched by meddling with the cats, and so that this may remain unknown. So consider yourself ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was resolved to get time enough, and so up, and with W. Hewer, it being the first frosty day we have had this winter, did walk it very well to W. Coventry's, and there alone with him an hour talking of the Navy, which he pities, but says he hath no more mind to be found meddling with the Navy, lest it should do it hurt, as well as him, to be found to meddle with it. So to talk of general things: and telling him that, with all these doings, he, I thanked God, stood yet; he told me, Yes, but that he thought ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and write, books of wretched precepts and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, and new ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... all let her alone, behave as she might. We saw that there could be no meddling without marring. She had been too conscious of us all, before anybody spoke. We could only hope there was no real mischief ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... crowd, a sense of the splendor of the part he was being called upon to play flowed through him like some elixir; he felt that he was transcending himself, that his inspiration was drawn from the hidden springs of the spirit, and that he could neither falter nor go astray. "You don't know what you are meddling with! This man has plotted to lay the South in ruins—he has been arming the negroes—it—it is incredible that you should all know this—to such I say, go home and thank God for your escape! For the others"—his shaggy brows met in a menacing frown—"if they force our hand we will ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... by which two different orders of truth, religious and scientific, had been recognized, in order that a schoolman might say that two and two make four without being burnt for heresy. But the nineteenth century, steeped in a meddling, presumptuous, reading-and-writing, socially and politically powerful ignorance inconceivable by Thomas Aquinas or even Roger Bacon, was incapable of so convenient an arrangement; and science was strangled by bigoted ignoramuses claiming infallibility ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... go to meddling in this affair," laughed Ted. "Well, here we are at the colonel's. I reckon he didn't count on this addition ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... will, stranger. I don't say as they'll use their knives over the job, and I don't say as they won't, but what I do say is that I shouldn't like to be yew.' There, Mister Officer, that's about what's the matter with me, and now yew understand why I don't keer about meddling with my neighbours' business." ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... here no place; At council set as foils on Danby's[56] score, To make that great false jewel shine the more; Who all that while was thought exceeding wise, Only for taking pains and telling lies. But there's no meddling with such nauseous men; 80 Their very names have tired my lazy pen: 'Tis time to quit their company, and choose Some fitter ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... knew it! Why didn't you tell me long before? Blocked 'em off—snuffed 'em out. Meddling with wildcat stocks—asinine any way you figure it! Well, I don't know that I blame you. The first success was too sweet to leave untried again, eh?" He chuckled as if something amused him. "We'll close out to ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... notions was his belief in the necessity of his "meddling"—so his father put it—in the affairs of the town, the state, and the nation, as well as those of the Lossing furniture company. But, though he was pleased to make rather cynical fun of his son's ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... fair way to be settled. The fiscal, Salazar y Salcedo, has died; and the Audiencia has appointed temporarily to that post Rodrigo Diaz Guiral, whom Acuna highly commends. The governor complains that the archbishop has been meddling with his appointments of chaplains for the galleys. He also asks for money to maintain galleys for the defence of the islands. In a third letter Acuna complains of the unjust and tyrannical conduct of the auditor Maldonado, and asks for redress from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... and disclosed to me a somewhat consoling prospect of increasing my influence as musical conductor at a time when my disgust was daily growing stronger at the constant meddling with our opera repertoire, which made me lose more and more influence as compared with the wishes of my would-be prima donna niece, whom even Tichatschek supported. Immediately on my return from Berlin I had begun the orchestration of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... eager to give the mummer a lesson in courtesy, even, as he said, if he had to visit his sin upon the rest of the company, not barring the Emperor himself. Sancho did his best to warn his master that there was great danger in meddling with actors, as they were a favored class; but had the King himself interfered in their behalf, it would not have stayed the ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... had not been like that. She let you go to the devil in your own way, without meddling, but she irritated you all the while by holding herself to a mark. She had too many lofty Ideas about her own duties and principles,—much such uncompromising fancies as had led his father to get rid of that little Nelchen.... No, there was no putting up with these rigid virtues, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... out with his relatives, and found himself surrounded in the corridors of the theater, and even in the street, with people congratulating him or kissing him. That displeased him greatly, for he did not like being kissed, and did not like people meddling with him without asking ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... us take advantage of the absence of this American, to talk over our affairs; some things don't concern him at all, and I don't care to have him meddling with them." ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... suffered one cold winter. This quacke appears to have been a novelty and therefore fashionable, affected by the tenderlings of that era, "as the proper thing to have." The quack-doctor, continues the writer above mentioned, must have been a fashionable style of man, not meddling much with the poor, and familiar with boudoirs, curing the new disease with ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... were, it could not be supposed to extend to a prior right any other person had derived from as good authority. But in the mean time I shall not take the trouble to say any more on the subject than to desire you will from this time desist from meddling with any sticks that have been cut for me, and also relinquish what you have already ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... 'qui veut bien se charger du soin de vous eduquer'? And have you had any occasion of representing to her, 'qu'elle faisoit donc des noeuds'? But I ask your pardon, Sir, for the abruptness of the question, and acknowledge that I am meddling with matters that are out of my department. However, in matters of less importance, I desire to be 'de vos secrets le fidele depositaire'. Trust me with the general turn and color of your amusements at ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to go to the bridge, and I made no effort to prevent him. Meddling mars more frequently than it mends, and when the Fates are leading, a man is a fool to try to direct their course. Whatever was to be would be. Fate held Max by the hand and was leading him. I almost feared to move or to speak in his affairs, lest I should make a mistake and offend these capricious ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... are a serious man now, a legislator! As for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... fighting him. Your discretion will naturally prevent your talking of this; but I thought you would like to be prepared, if this affair should any how happen to become your business, though your late discussion With the Duc de Chaulnes will add to your disinclination from meddling ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... that dispense man's fortune and his hours, How am I to you all engag'd! that thus By such strange means, almost miraculous, You should preserve me; you have gone the way To make me rich by taking all away. For I—had I been rich—as sure as fate, Would have been meddling with the king, or State, Or something to undo me; and 'tis fit, We know, that who hath wealth should have no wit, But, above all, thanks to that Providence That arm'd me with a gallant soul, and ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... of any laws, which might be made respecting them, and their own prospect of success in the undertaking. For, by aiming at the abolition of the Slave Trade, they were laying the axe at the very root. By doing this, and this only, they would not incur the objection, that they were meddling with the property of the planters, and letting loose an irritated race of beings, who, in consequence of all the vices and infirmities which a state of slavery entails upon those who undergo it, were unfit for their freedom. By asking ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... insisted that no meetings should be held without a light; and the Brethren set their faces against superstition. They forbade ghost-stories; they condemned the popular old-wives' tales about tokens, omens and death-birds; they insisted that, in case of illness, no meddling busybody should interfere with the doctor; and thus, as homely, practical folk, they aimed at health of body and ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... unlike yourself? And did that person time after time return to the charge, till you would have liked to poison him? There is nothing more disagreeable, and few things more mischievous, than a well-meaning, meddling fool. And where there was no special intention, good or bad, towards yourself, you have known people make you uncomfortable through the simple exhibition to you, and pressure upon you, of their own inherent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... roof for another place of residence? Or, on entering upon the married state? Or, upon the commission of some great act of outward transgression, shall we pronounce the covenant to be dissolved? Do we not see that we are meddling with a divine prerogative, if we assume to act in such cases? Expostulations, warnings, entreaties, from parents, pastor, brethren of the church, may always be in place; but further than ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... you are officious or meddling or anything of the sort, I think you are one of the best and kindest-hearted women in the world. But—bless your motherly soul, Polly! the thing is utterly preposterous. Of course, Patricia is young, and likes attention, and it pleases her to have men admire her. That, Polly, is perfectly ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... thinkers "miscreants," because ideas and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and practice. This would be all very well if the dislike and neglect confined themselves to ideas transported out of their own sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life of intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the mind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... thing, they dared not to go against the import of its meaning, and immediately buried the hatchet as it respected the people of the United State; and smoked the pipe of peace. They, however, resolved to punish Allen for his officiousness in meddling with their national affairs, by presenting the sacred wampum without their knowledge, and went about devising means for his detection. A party was accordingly despatched from Fort Niagara to apprehend him; with orders to conduct ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... soul in the main, only, like so many of us, she needed rousing up to her duty. She had got the rousing now, and it did her good, for she could not bear to be praised when she had not deserved it. She had watched Molly's efforts with lazy interest, and when the girl gave up meddling with her affairs, as she called the housekeeping, Miss Bat ceased to oppose her, and let her scrub Boo, mend clothes, and brush her hair as much as she liked. So Molly had worked along without any help from her, running in to Mrs. Pecq for advice, to Merry for comfort, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... lasts an instant, A meddling man's for two hours, A base man's a day and night, A ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... or at any rate an anticipation. What the Invisible King actually does, without meddling with phenomena, is to assume the "captaincy" of the "racial adventure" in which we are engaged (p. 76). "God must love his followers as a great captain loves his men ... whose faith alone makes him possible. It is an austere love. The Spirit of God will not hesitate to send us to ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... that maybe, after all, I'm a peacemaker and your friend, hunh? I don't set up to be your only friend or only your friend or your friend only for your sake. Frankly, my ruling passion is for the community as a whole; the old Jacksonian passion for the people, sir. If I'm meddling it's because I see a situation that right on its surface threatens one misfortune, and at bottom another and bigger one, to them, the people—a public misfortune. I don't want to avert just the cholera, here ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... himself, "and he treats us to an idyl of the genuine Gessner stamp! An imperial Damon who spends his time twining wreaths of roses with his Philis! Well—he had better be left to play the fool in peace; his pastoral will keep him from meddling in state affairs. Men call me the coachman of European politics; so be it, and let no one meddle with my coach-box. That noble empress is of one mind with me, but this emperor would like to snatch the reins, and go careering over the heavens for himself. So much ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... all; that is why I am meddling with it. Aren't you well enough acquainted with me to know that nothing in the world pleases me so much as to interfere in other people's business? I have found out all about the girl who kept you in, and a mighty plucky ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... the little green and yellow patches down there increased in number and size; rood after rood was cut out of the heathery waste, little houses sprang up with red-tiled roofs and low chimneys breathing oily peat-reek. Men and their meddling everywhere! ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... forgotten all about her raid upon Uncle Ewen's affairs. Her thoughts floated to a little cottage on the hills, and its two coming inhabitants. And in her dream she seemed to hear herself say—"I oughtn't to be meddling with other people's lives like this. I don't know enough. I'm too young! I want somebody ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... virtuous and intelligent and loving but she has her faults. There are lovelier women. I could easily get a divorce for you.' We would quickly throw such a man out of the door. A man's country is like his wife. If she is virtuous and well-disposed he should permit no meddling, odious person to come between them, or to suggest to him that he put poison into her tea. Least of all should he look for perfection in her, knowing that it is not to be found in ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... Polish Catholics against the intolerable meddling of foreigners was crushed by the troops of Catherine, with the single result that the Russians, in pursuing some fleeing insurgents across the southern frontier, violated Turkish territory and precipitated a war between the Ottoman ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Government, municipal or national, likes to use us, we can save them more than half of what they now spend upon their poor and criminal classes, and do for these far more than Christian Government officials, however excellent, ever hope to do. They are invariably so bound to avoid any meddling with religion that they cannot bring to bear upon those most in need of it, the heavenly light and love and power, in which we place all our confidence ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... a word, not so much as a name, did they say of each other. I'd 'a' writ and asked 'em the rights of the fuss if I could, in hopes of patching it up, but I can't write now—my hand is too shaky—and mebbe it was just as well, for meddling is terribly risky work in a love trouble, Nora May. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and them she meddles with is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... before eleven o'clock and never settled down to work before three o'clock. The interim was spent in puttering over the exchanges, gossiping with visitors, of whom he had a constant stream, quizzing every other member of the staff, meddling here, chaffing there, and playing hob generally with the orderly routine of affairs. He was a persistent, insistent, irrepressible disturber of everything but the good-fellowship of the office, to which he was the chief contributor. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the time you planted that bomb on us. Anyone who tried to work any changes in his own past would be almost certain to end up finding himself never having been born. So we don't do any meddling. What we have discovered is a way not only of moving back into the past, but also of making our own choice of spatial references while we do it, and of changing our spatial anchor ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher
... which the Marchese had made to him, his lawyer, were not likely to dispose such a man to meet the eyes of his fellow-citizens. Had Fortini known that the Marchese had been made aware of the purposed excursion of his nephew with the singer—as the reader knows that he had been by the officious meddling of the Conte Leandro,—it might have seemed strange that he should have chosen just that day and hour for the declaration of his intention. Was it that he hastened to acquire such an authority over Bianca, as might enable him to put an end to any such escapades ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... routine of the House and in the care of the farm, the more peacefully flowed the current of their life. It seriously annoyed the Captain at intervals when he came upon his daughter directing operations in barnyard or byre. That her directing meant anything more than a girlish meddling in matters that were his entire concern and about which he had already given or was about to give orders, the Captain never dreamed. That things about the House were somehow prospering in late years he set down to his own skill ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... internal grievances, the Commons proceeded to take into consideration the state of Europe. The King flew into a rage with them for meddling with such matters, and, with characteristic judgment, drew them into a controversy about the origin of their House and of its privileges. When he found that he could not convince them, he dissolved them in a passion, and sent some of the leaders of the Opposition to ruminate ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eyes. "Ah, now, I have blundered," she said. "'Tis what you would say, sir. 'Tis what you would do. I have only made matters worse. A woman's meddling often results in the destruction of those she—those she don't care ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... his patriotic view of this work did not commend itself to his brother travellers. He found that they had no feeling but one of contempt for people whom they regarded as meddling amateurs. Occasionally, when some convent, under a bustling Mother Superior, advanced from the region of half-charitable sales at exhibitions into the competition of the open market, contempt became dislike, and wishes were expressed in quite unsuitable language that the good ladies would ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... persisted in abusing his powers; he began finally to really interfere with me, to call me off of important tasks and humiliate me with futile assignments, and I realized that I was threatened with failure through his meddling. This may sound trivial to you"—the speaker raised his eyes to his audience—"but, take my word for it, there were many instances of the kind over there. Jealousy, intrigue, malevolence, petty spite, drove more than ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... others. It was almost impossible to hear each other speak—and what was there to say? Each boy and girl realized the situation in which Ferd's meddling ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... followed them, Irene stood by the open window, and the 'fellow' close to her by a big chair. Soames pulled the door to behind him with a slam; the sound carried him back all those years to the day when he had shut out Jolyon—shut him out for meddling with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
