Quarrelling

“ He had put up a hand to the chimney-shelf and leaned forward with his gaze bent on the embers.
'Doctor?'
'Ma'am?' after a long pause.
'Do you really reckon smuggling so very sinful?'
'It is not a question of smuggling, ma'am.'
'Oh, yes, it is!' she insisted. 'Once you get mixed up in that business you have to deceive at times—if 'tis only to protect others.'
'I can understand, ma'am,' said the doctor, after another pause, 'that to dabble in smuggling is to court many awkward situations. You need not remind me of that, who am fresh from misleading that young man. ”

“ What have you done, anyway—except to commit this crime against yourself?"—touching him on the wrist. "I'm not aware of any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You're clean as you stand—except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself! Can't you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites itself. Is that why you are doing it?—to arouse the amusement and contempt of your hunter?" [Pg 390]
"Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me——"
"Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?" ”

“ The old quartermaster came up at this moment, and Harry, shaking him by the hand, said to him, “I believe we must have you tried by court-martial, for disobedience of orders. However,” he added, more seriously, “I believe, had it not been for your disobedience of orders, we should have all been in the state of that poor fellow,” pointing to Bill.
“Ay,” said the old quartermaster with a sigh, “a braver fellow never stepped in a black leather shoe. However, it’s a road we must travel once; and where die better than fighting for one’s country? ”

“ If you quarrel with your neighbour, and the quarrel be indeterminable by law, and mortal, you and he do not send your footmen to Battersea fields to fight it out; nor do you set fire to his tenants' cottages, nor spoil their goods. You fight out your quarrel yourselves, and at your own danger, if at all. And you do not think it materially affects the arbitrement that one of you has a larger household than the other; so that, if the servants or tenants were brought into the field with their masters, the issue of the contest could not be doubtful? ”

“ Domestic quarrels and combats are much more frequent. We have already seen, in the cut No. 75, two dames of the kitchen evidently beginning to quarrel over their cookery. A stall in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon gives us the group represented in our cut No. 77. The battle has here become desperate, but whether the male combatant be an oppressed husband or an impertinent intruder, is not clear. The quarrel would seem to have arisen during the process of cooking, as the female, who has seized her opponent by the beard, has evidently snatched up the ladle as the readiest weapon at hand. ”

“ Definite causes of quarrel a statesman may know how to deal with, inasmuch as the removal of them may help to settle the dispute. But it must be a puzzling task to negotiate about instincts; to which class, as it seems to me, we must have recourse for an understanding of the present abhorrence which everybody on the other side of the Channel not only feels, but makes a point to boast of, against the name of Britain. ”

“ Have you ever seen a quarrel, a real quarrel, Dikran? When some one is so bitterly and intensely angry that he loses all hold on everything but his wretched desire to hurt, and unchains a beast which in a second maims him as deeply as his enemy—no, it maims him more.
"The old Frenchman was my guardian," she said, "and the last of a name which you can find here and there in Court Memoirs, in the thick of that riot of gallantry and intrigue which passed for life at old Versailles. ”

“ The sympathy of the country-side was with the smuggling fraternity. Magistrates were at times terrorised, juries were too frightened to convict. In short, the evil had grown to such an extent that it was a most difficult problem for any Government to be asked to deal with, needing as it did a very efficient service both of craft and men afloat, and an equally able and incorruptible guard on land that could not be turned from its purpose either by fear or bribery. ”

“ If two members of the same class were engaged in a quarrel, and one of them made a peculiarly improper assault upon the other, the assailant was only fined, the fine being larger if the quarrel was between members of the upper class. ”

“ It was thus with the quarryman; the wretch trembled at the idea of committing a murder in cold blood, "all alone." The preceding scene had passed very rapidly; amongst the companions of the quarryman, nearest to the railing, some did not understand an impression, which they would themselves have felt as strongly as this bold man, if it had been said to them: "Do the office of executioner!" These, therefore, began to murmur aloud at his weakness. "He dares not finish the poisoner," said one. ”

“ An evil example gives rise to licence, and reason conquers him who knows it. A certain person had an arquebus in his hut, and a friend of his loaded it, and pointed it to fire at the natives. The other took it out of his hands, and asked him what he was going to do with so much diligence. He replied, that his diligence was to kill, because he liked to kill. “It is not right,” replied his friend, “that you should show such readiness to cause the death of men. What harm have these natives done to you that you should treat them with such cruelty? ”

“ You may give your torturers orders to kill me--orders that a fatal accident shall occur within the fortress--but I tell you frankly that my death will neither erase nor conceal your own offenses. There are others, away in England, who are aware of them, and who will, in order to avenge my death, speak the truth. Remember that although Elma Heath has been deprived of both hearing and of speech, she can still write down the true facts in black and white. The Czar may be your patron, and you his favorite, but his Majesty has no tolerance of officials who are guilty of what you are guilty of. ”

“ If you bee affronted, it is better, in a forraine country, to pass it by in silence, and with a jest, though with some dishonour, than to endeavour revenge; for, in the first case, your credit’s ne’er the worse when you return into England, or come into other company that have not heard of the quarrell. But, in the second case, you may beare the marks of the quarrell while you live, if you outlive it at all. ”

“ Once or twice a quarrel arose as to how we should be dealt with; the more mild of our conductors saying that we ought to be taken to the magistrate’s office, but others wishing to kill us at once without appeal to any authority. ”

“ The shack delivered his ultimatum. Either we should dig up two dollars, or he would lock us in and turn us over to the constable at White River--and that meant ninety days and the quarries. Now, gentle reader, just suppose that the other door had been locked. Behold the precariousness of human life. For lack of a dollar, I'd have gone to the quarries and served three months as a convict slave. So would the gay-cat. ”

“ Sometimes it is nobody's fault when two quarrel, and then again one alone is to blame for the quarrel of two. Now take my old shrew, for instance, she's running around at home scolding for dear life all by herself when I am away, they tell me. Besides, this is not just a quarrel, but a full-fledged criminal case, and in most such one party is complainant, or the one that has been wronged, and the other is defendant, or the one that has committed the crime. ”

“ I offered to return him the money; but this he refused: he insisted upon my paying him the keep of the horse besides: upon which a new quarrel ensued, in which arguments were used on both sides which convinced neither party, and consequently we immediately adjourned to the daroga or police magistrate, who, we agreed, should decide the question. ”

“ To this end it is for their interest to foment a quarrel in the royal family, or, if the germ of a quarrel appears, arising from some domestic or other cause, to widen the breach as much as possible, and avail themselves of the dissension to secure the name and the influence of the prince or princess thus alienated from the king as their rallying-point and centre of action. ”

“ An occasional crime, or quarrel, which is terminated by a resort to knives and copious phlebotomy, sends him several times every year to the public prison, where he is faithfully visited, fed and consoled by his spouse or amiga. As he passes along the streets with the manacled chain-gang to sweep the town, he begs a claco with such bewitching impudence that the man who refuses the demanded alms must be insensible to humor. ”

“ It sounds cheap and nasty. I think it's much nicer to quarrel."
"Call it what you please, but we won't do it any more, will we?" He cleared his throat nervously, for her eyes advertised the immediate beginning of hostilities. "I beg your pardon," he hurried on. "I should have spoken for myself. What I mean is that I refuse to quarrel. You have the most horrible way, without uttering a word, of making me play the fool. ”

“ Gironde and Mountain are now in full quarrel; their mutual rage, says Toulongeon, is growing a 'pale' rage. Curious, lamentable: all these men have the word Republic on their lips; in the heart of every one of them is a passionate wish for something which he calls Republic: yet see their death-quarrel! So, however, are men made. Creatures who live in confusion; who, once thrown together, can readily fall into that confusion of confusions which quarrel is, simply because their confusions differ from one another ”

“ Then the husbands were called, and each asked his wife the cause of the quarrel. Each tried to make the other in the wrong, without telling the real cause, and set their husbands against each other so that they fought, and the sergeants came and sent them to cool their heels in prison. ”

“ So we must both of us leave this place immediately, for the king, when he hears of it in the morning, will punish us as thieves. For we are both known to be skilled in mechanical contrivances. And I have here a chariot with a pneumatic contrivance, which quickly goes eight hundred yojanas, if you press a spring. Let us go by means of it to-day to a distant foreign land, though exile may be disagreeable; for how can an evil deed, that is done in despite of good advice, bring pleasure to any one? ”

“ To seize such a man, like a common criminal, in the midst of the guards by whom he was surrounded, and in a city apparently devoted to him; to convert the object of this deep and habitual veneration into a subject of compassion, or of contempt, was a commission calculated to make even the boldest hesitate. ”

“ The Quakers had conquered, and the magistrates suddenly became conscious that such strength as theirs need never have dreaded the power of this feeble folk, and that their institutions could never fall before an attack from any hands save those of the King himself, toward whom they now turned with an alarmed deprecation. ”

“ Leave her alone in secret, and act as you will, appeal to the Baron, to the Czar, but do not attempt, m'sieur, to rescue a prisoner from here, for it is an impossibility. The man who brought you here from Abo will not dare to accept such responsibility. ”

“ Every quarrel arising between two individuals was treated as a communal affair--even the offensive words that might have been uttered during a quarrel being considered as an offence to the community and its ancestors. ”

“ But nothing was touched, sir, except—that is—of course—” He stumbled.
Quarrier silenced him with upraised hand.
“I didn’t suspect, Harrison—I knew,” he said. “And I heard, through the keyhole of that connecting door, the ticking of that watch of yours; it’s big enough. That helped, of course. But that was afterward. There was one little thing you overlooked, and, for the matter of that, so did I—nearly.”
There came the sound of heavy footsteps on the concrete flooring of the corridor, voices: His guards, summoned by Quarrier’s “light-bombs.” ”

“ With these arms in their hands, and organized, our citizens can repel any raid which brutal marauders like Quantrill and his band may attempt, or punish, instantly and severely, those who shall aid or abet them. I have confidence only in organized action, and, satisfied both of your ability to lead our forces and your resolve to punish the guilty, I shall be happy to place the military of the State at your disposal. ”

“ My quarrel is not with individuals, my [Pg 20] quarrel is with the system—it is an evil system. It might have been necessary at one time. It has done its work and is no longer necessary. It hampers our growth at the present moment—anything which stands against our growing nationality, I have no hesitation in describing that as an evil. ”

“ Conjurer. Swallows it.
Doctor. Then we all agree there shall be no quarrel.
Smith. May I say a word? I have a great dislike of a quarrel, for a reason quite beyond my duty to my cloth.
Morris. And what is that?
Smith. I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument. May I bring you back for a moment to the argument? You were saying that these modern conjuring tricks are simply the old miracles when they have once been found out. But surely another view is possible. When we speak of things being sham, we generally mean that they are imitations of things that are genuine. ”

“ But now, by the lack of such good rectors, strifes, quarrels, dissensions, actions and pleas are multiplied and prolonged, and thus the money, which might have gone to good works, owing to the number of the quarrels goes to the lawyers, advocates, and counsel; whence by the multiplication of such dissensions and actions, the number of these lawyers, jurists, advocates and defenders of evil (who defend evil for love or for fear of evil) is far greater than it need be. ”