Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Agitating   Listen
adjective
agitating  adj.  
1.
Causing or tending to cause anger or resentment.
Synonyms: agitative, provoking.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Agitating" Quotes from Famous Books



... will never right themselves if they are let alone. It is idle to say peace when there is no peace; and the concealed imposthume is more dangerous than an open wound. The law in this country has postponed our trial, but cannot save us from it; and the questions which have agitated the Continent are agitating us at last. The student who twenty years ago was contented with the Greek and Latin fathers and the Anglican divines, now reads Ewald and Renan. The Church authorities still refuse to look their difficulties in the face: they prescribe for mental troubles ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... did, and was not so much used to them; but he dealt with her in his quiet, straightforward way. 'You are exaggerating now, Albinia, and I do not wonder at it, for you have had a great deal to startle and to try you. Walking up and down is only heating and agitating you more; sit down here, and let me hear ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... habit to encourage the boys to discuss any question of interest freely amongst themselves, he listening in silence the while, and later on giving them the benefit of his opinion. All the three turned to him now to see what he would say upon a point that was already agitating the country, and was preparing the way for a shaking that should lead to an altogether new state of existence both in Church and State. Even out here in the garden, in the sanctuary of their own home, with only their friend and spiritual pastor to hear them, the boys spoke ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... this somewhat agitating day I returned to my tenement lodgings as to a haven of rest. There was one other lodger besides myself: she was studying music on borrowed money at four dollars a lesson. Obviously she was a victim to luxury in the same degree as the young women with whom I had lunched at the bakery. Nothing ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... efficacy of bells in storms by their simple use in stirring the faithful to prayer, and in the concession made by sundry theologians, and even by the great Lord Bacon himself, that church bells might, under the sanction of Providence, disperse storms by agitating the air. This gained ground somewhat, though it was resisted by one eminent Church authority, who answered shrewdly that, in that case, cannon would be even more pious instruments. Still another argument ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... are wasted every year in the United States. Can't something be made out of them? This is the question that is agitating the chemists of the Carbohydrate Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture at Washington. They have found it possible to work up the corn cobs into glucose and xylose by heating with acid. But glucose can ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... Harry had agitating scenes with his mother besides; these two had never been placed against each other before, and the contest between them was neither gracious nor good ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... acquaintance by the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub that the old man winks with both eyes for ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... town. Liza played alone, and with great precision; Lemm grew animated, excited, rolled a piece of paper into a baton, and beat time. Marya Dmitrievna laughed, at first, as she watched him, and then went off to bed; as she said, Beethoven was too agitating for her nerves. At midnight, Lavretzky escorted Lemm to his lodgings, and sat with him until three o'clock in the morning. Lemm talked a great deal; his bent shoulders straightened up, his eyes opened widely and sparkled; his very hair stood upright above his brow. It was such a very ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... extremely depressed, my dear Lucy. The agitating scenes through which I have lately passed have broken my spirits, and rendered me unfit for society. Major Sanford has visited me, and taken his leave. He is gone to the southward on a tour of two or three ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... the Germans was thus, by its own weight, descending into the level flats of thought, a political movement was agitating Germany. Simple-minded poets were celebrating atheism with an enthusiasm which seemed sincere; and, at the same time, men who are not simple-minded, journalists and demagogues, were laying hold of the irreligion as a lever with which to make a breach in the social edifice. In the year 1845, the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... of the legitimated princes, the king of Spain, and his imbecile agent, the prince of Cellamare; the body was formed by those brave and clever men who were now in the Bastille; but the tail was now agitating in Bretagne among a people unaccustomed to the ways of a court, and it was a tail armed with stings like those of a scorpion, and which was the ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... performed to render the effect perceptible to the eye. If the difference of potential between the terminals is raised, the dielectric breaks down. But with very high frequency impulses there is no necessity for such breaking down, since any amount of work can be performed by continually agitating the atoms in the exhausted vessel, provided the frequency is high enough. It is easy to reach—even with frequencies obtained from an alternator as here used—a stage at which the discharge does not pass between two electrodes in a ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... don't want you to forget this—that all the trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... made them strangers to the republic?' Such reasonable and liberal sentiments were combated by members who asserted that the signatures could not belong to law-abiding citizens, since they were actually agitating against the law of the franchise, and others whose intolerance was expressed by the defiance of the member already quoted, who challenged the Uitlanders to come out and fight. The champions of exclusiveness and racial hatred won the day. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the Cabinet (Graham included) wanted to confer office upon O'Connell, and that they were only induced to forego that design by the remonstrances of Lord Lansdowne and the Duke of Richmond, who insisted upon a further probation before they did so. O'Connell got nothing, and soon after took to agitating and making violent speeches. This exasperated Lord Grey, who, in his turn, denounced him in the King's Speech, and hence that feud between O'Connell and the Whigs, which was only terminated by the attempt of the Tories to retake office in 1835. This ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... shake of the hand at her arrival, and another one when she left, seemed to them quite natural. Still for her part she scented that he was shy, and at times she looked at him fixedly, with the wondering perturbation of unconscious passion. But as yet nothing ardent or agitating spoilt the pleasure they felt in being together. Their hands remained cool; they spoke cheerfully on all subjects; they sometimes argued like friends, who feel sure they will not fall out. Only, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... to return, and the young girl thought it best not to oppose her wish. Little by little, she began to suspect herself that the journey might be important for Fanfaro; who could tell what thoughts were agitating the mad woman's brain; and, perhaps, the unexpected recovery of her son might have awakened ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... elections for the Presidency. On this point, Mr. Justice Story states: "The inconvenience of such frequently recurring elections of the chief magistrate, by generating factions, combining intrigues, and agitating the public mind, seems not hitherto to have attracted as much attention, as it deserves." And Chancellor Kent remarks, that "the election of a supreme executive magistrate for a whole nation affects so many interests, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... minstrel," said Greenleaf, after looking carefully round, "that we may prosecute together the theme which we were agitating before we came hither; is it not your opinion, that the Scottish natives have fixed this very morning for some of those dangerous attempts which they have repeatedly made, and which are so carefully guarded against by the governors placed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... and then sweeping gently round the shoulder of the hill, exposed a beautiful deer park—he had before his eyes a fine Elizabethan house, rising grey upon a little eminence at the distance of some four or five hundred yards,—it seemed that some old remembrance, some agitating vision of the days gone by, came over the horseman's mind. He pulled in his rein, clasped his hands together, and gazed around with a look of sad and painful recognition. At the end of a minute or two, however, he recovered ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... a mile out there is a sort of boiling, agitating the surface of the sea, and showing some deep trouble in the waters. I was then near the rail on the starboard quarter, and, smoking my cigar, was looking at the harbor disappearing behind the point round Cape ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... on ocean routes why not palm off their vessels upon the Government? A highly favorable time it was; the Government, under the imperative necessity of at once raising and transporting a huge army, needed vessels badly. As for the other question momentarily agitating the capitalists as to what new line of activity they could substitute for their own extinguished business, Vanderbilt soon showed how railroads could be made to yield a far ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... in agitating the subject of a church and it tickled Crowheart's risibilities, since she was the last person to be suspected of spiritual yearnings—her personality seeming incongruous with religious fervor. But while they laughed ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... working-men, who persistently shared the conditions of the proletariat; fanatics who gave away their week's wages if they met a man who was poorer than themselves; hot-headed enthusiasts who awaited revolution. Several of them had been in prison for agitating against the social order. There were also country people among them—sons of the men who stood in the ditches and peat-pits out there. "The little man's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... he is a truly good man, and our sentiments upon this whole melancholy business were the same. But otherwise, the weariness of a great length of visit daily from a person so slow and methodical in discourse, so explanatory of everything and of nothing, at this agitating period, was truly painful to endure. He has often talked to me till my poor burthened head has seemed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... Pentateuch is just now agitating the learned classes in Germany. Bonn is an ancient stronghold of theological learning, and two of the professors of its famous university have recently exhibited a courage in Biblical criticism and interpretation which has further extended the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... of November 14, 1907, published an interview with Dom Carlos which embittered feeling and alienated many of his supporters. "Everything is quiet in Lisbon," declared the King, echoing another historic phase: "Only the politicasters are agitating themselves.... It was necessary that the gachis—there is no other word for it—should one day come to an end.... I required an undaunted will which should be equal to the task of carrying my ideas ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... attendants, who, roused by the old woman, had come in search of him. Aubrey could no longer support himself; his rage not finding vent, had broken a blood-vessel, and he was conveyed to bed. This was not mentioned to his sister, who was not present when he entered, as the physician was afraid of agitating her. The marriage was solemnized, and the bride ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... the young girl had passed through an agitating and unpleasant scene, and if the prospects for her future life had been sensibly narrowed within the preceding half hour, the depths of her being had not been stirred as they were to be before she slept. Perhaps she had occupied the position of depression ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... he speaks up then. He was a young man. Old Doctor Park had died the year before, and this was a young fellow just out of college. 'Mrs. Miller is not strong,' says he, kind of severe, 'and she is quite right in not agitating herself.' ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... by playing the game, and made up my mind to go to the poll on the political questions which were agitating the public mind, as I was informed, by a simple honest candidature, thinking that in political as in every other warfare honesty is the best policy. On that noble maxim I entered into the contest, believing in Barnstaple, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... surrounded by wooded hills,—while the moon shone so brightly on the lake, that the distance was perfectly clear, and we could distinctly see the large flocks of wild fowl, as they passed over our heads, and then splashed into the water, darkening and agitating its silvery surface; in front of us blazed a cheerful fire, round which were the dark forms of the natives, busily engaged in roasting ducks for us; the foreground was covered with graceful grass-trees, and, at the moment we commenced supper, I made the natives ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... returned from Count Bezukhov's the money, all in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess' little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something was agitating her. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... been posted since her receipt of his mother's recent letter, it proved that Lady Susan had a sense of his growing dignity, which was good in its way. He smiled at a recollection of the time when a seat at those people's table had seemed a desirable and agitating thing. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... although it would have been no unnatural occurrence between rivals of equal rank, had never occurred to me. For a moment I could not comprehend the singular and unheard-of proposal; but a glance at my challenger's countenance, on which the passions agitating him were plainly legible, solved the mystery of his motives. He was a prey to jealous fury; and, moreover, the chivalrous generosity of his character, combined, perhaps, with the fear of irretrievably offending Bertha, prevented his pursuing ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... Friday had been an exciting day to the girls of V.a., it had certainly proved a most agitating one to the Medical Officer of Health for Seaton. Upon his energy and organization depended the prevention of a serious epidemic in the city, and he had shown himself admirably able to cope with the sudden emergency. The Corporation had lately set up a camp for children ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... country considered impenetrable. Their intentions were, however, frustrated by the sudden disappearance of the crocodile, which dived the moment he perceived the canoe so near him, making a loud plashing noise, and agitating the water in a remarkable manner in his descent. They waited some time, in hopes he would rise again, but they were not again gratified with the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... ordinary circumstances, Elsa would have been quite competent to deal with the situation, but the fear of over-agitating Adrian complicated it greatly. About the reality of his feelings at the moment, at any rate, it seemed impossible to be mistaken, for the man was shaking like a leaf. Still, she must make an ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... said after a little while, "you are agitating yourself quite unnecessarily, and gravely jeopardising your prospects of getting a comfortable little income through keeping your fingers off my person. Who said I wanted to meddle ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... room followed by Captain Stanhill and Caldew, to the manifest trepidation of two maidservants outside, who had plainly no business there. It was apparent that Milly Saker had been talking, and that strange rumours were agitating the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... architectural journeys I used to entertain, people with these wondrous subjects; and one evening I had the honour of agitating even the Bishop of Exeter himself, who, in his enthusiasm, bade me write a book, and dedicate it to him. I did so. "The Cross and the Serpent" is the title of it, and it was duly ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... and went on with his work. He was glad that Jake imagined it was the thought of arrest which was occupying his mind. He did not wish any one to have the least idea of the secret thoughts which were agitating his heart. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... impossible, but which are found in vital agencies and in all deep-laid systems of truth—that the same scheme of belief which is the most settling, freezing, tranquillizing for one purpose, is the most unbinding, agitating, revolutionary in another? Christianity is that religion which most of all settles what is perilous in scepticism; and yet, also, it is that which most of all unsettles whatever may invite man's intellectual activity. It is the sole ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... and all around, many enemies to fight and many campaigns to re-open. Even amongst the Germanic populations, which were regarded as reduced under the sway of the king of the Franks, some, the Frisons and Saxons as well as others, were continually agitating for the recovery of their independence. Farther off towards the north, east, and south, people differing in origin and language—Avars, Huns, Slavons, Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen—were still pressing or beginning to press upon the frontiers of the Frankish dominion, for the purpose of either ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... men (the Boers) are told to keep on agitating in this way, for a change of Government in England may give them again the old order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of English politics than such an idea; I tell you that there is ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... was agitating the little world within the Tonquin, the good ship prosperously pursued her course, doubled Cape Horn on the 25th of December, careered across the bosom of the Pacific, until, on the 11th of February, the snowy peaks of Owyhee were seen brightening ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... addition of AEschylus, consisted in the vivacity and spirit of the action, sustained by the dialogue of the persons of the drama introduced by him; in the artful working up of the stronger passions, especially of terror and pity, which, by alternately afflicting and agitating the soul with mournful or terrible objects, produce a grateful pleasure and delight from that very trouble and emotion; in the choice of a subject, great, noble, interesting, and contained within due bounds by the unity of time, place, and action: in short, it is the conduct and ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort in this way. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... held largely, had promised well for a time, and would doubtless pay well in the end; but in the meantime, the big men of Fosbrooke, who had been allowed to say less than they wished to say as to the location of the road, were agitating the subject of another road to connect more directly with the Grand Trunk, and with other lines on the south side of the border, and "Hawkshead and Dunn Valley" stock ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... couple sank down on their knees beside me. I left them, and beckoned from the door to Tom, who flew up, and in a moment was in their arms. I assisted him to put his mother into her chair, and then went out to recover myself from the agitating scene. I remained about an hour outside, and then returned. The old couple seized me by the hands, and invoked blessings ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... "pleasing pain," "delicious misery," and in many other terms of a like contradictory character; nor is it possible that this should be otherwise: love is a passion, wayward and impetuous in its very nature—agitating and disquieting in its effects, rendering its votary the slave of circumstances—a mere shuttlecock alternating between the extremes of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, confidence and mistrust—a thing which a smile can exalt to the highest pinnacle ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk forcibly together; and shrouded-up his tremors and flutterings, of what sort soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming Stolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core of his heart, he did ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... For thirty months many hundreds of them, thanks to Mr. Balfour, have enjoyed an additional income of fifteen shillings a week, but they have not paid their rents any better than before. They have so many people agitating for them, both here and in England, that whatever they do or fail to do, they know they are sure of substantial support. While Irishmen only were working for them, they felt less secure, but now Mr. Gladstone and his following have taken ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... greatly concerned him. Indeed, after hearing it, he had had good cause for doubt and dismay; for mental anguish as well as resolution. While the colloquy between Mr. Atterbury and his dying penitent took place within, an immense contest of perplexity was agitating ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... Ravenna, and unfolded before them the state of things. It was not merely the man of genius versed in the knowledge and skilled in the control of men's hearts, whose brilliant eloquence shone forth and glowed in this agitating crisis of his own and the world's destiny; nor merely the generous commander-in-chief and the victorious general, addressing soldiers, who had been called by himself to arms and for eight years had followed his banners ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... of being included in such company brought him early in the evening to the door of the restaurant, where he paused to scan the ranks of diners approaching down the brightly lit terrace. There, while the Brys hovered within over the last agitating alternatives of the MENU, he kept watch for the guests from the Sabrina, who at length rose on the horizon in company with the Duchess, Lord and Lady Skiddaw and the Stepneys. From this group it was easy for ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... previously referred to men's clubs as a boon to wives, and so they have always appeared to me. But evidently this opinion is not generally held, as a number of women have recently expressed in print their intention—when they get the vote—of agitating for complete abolition, or at least compulsorily early closing, of all men's clubs. It seems sadly ridiculous that women should want their husbands compelled by Act of Parliament to return to them at a fixed hour. Let me endeavour to convert these misguided wives, if any of them should deign ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... "looking fierce," but agitating fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... in Paris in his treatment of Mehul, the Belgian composer, then a youth of sixteen, who had just arrived in the gay city. It was on the eve of the first representation of "Iphigenia in Tauris," when the operatic battle was agitating the public. With all the ardor of a novice and a devotee, the young musical student immediately threw himself into the affray, and by the aid of a friend he succeeded in gaining admittance to the theatre for the final rehearsal of Gluck's opera. This so enchanted him that ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... the hammock, agitating itself again, and showing a glimpse of a smooth throat and a ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... the process of churning is very simple. By violently agitating the milk or cream the little vesicles, or bags containing the butter, are broken, and, the fatty matter adhering, lumps of butter are formed. The operation of churning also introduces atmospheric air into the milk, which, aided by the high temperature to which the fluid is raised, converts ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... later on, while these things were agitating his mind, that, curiously enough, something darkened the window just as they finished breakfast. Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted on horseback, and straining his neck forward, as he ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... restitution by the bullet, and said Morton would be assassinated if he refused. At this time a man named James A. Wilkinson was Grand Seignior of the temple. The question of supplying our quota to avoid the draft, agitating the community, it was proposed to resist the draft, and all the members were required forthwith to arm themselves with firearms, and Charles W. Patten and Wilkinson both offered to supply all who could ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... under the difficulties by which she was beset; and on one occasion, when she had retired to her closet, after having occupied herself for a time with the transaction of public business, she gave way to a train of thought so agitating and so painful that she suddenly rose and summoned the ladies of her suite to her presence. Mesdames de Conti, du Fargis, and de Fervaques hastened to obey her commands; and as the tapestry fell behind them, the Queen-mother silently, but with an imperious gesture, motioned them to be seated. ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... publick discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency; they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each, perhaps, without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... attend to certain outside business than the sisters could do it, and showing how, in a manner, I proposed to become a brother of the House of Martha. Thus only could I defend myself against her irrational and agitating suppositions. ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... could recover from the agitating happiness of such an hour as was formed by the last thirty minutes of expectation, and the first of fruition; it was some time even before her happiness could be said to make her happy, before the disappointment inseparable from the alteration of person had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... that these questions, which are agitating us to-day, have agitated the world ever since it has been a world of life at all. The difference is that whereas we seek to deal with them consciously, voluntarily, and deliberately, throughout by far the greater part of the ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... herself that every shred of instinct and experience that each furious little head contained bade the owner of it to fly as fast and straight as possible, in squawking company with as many friends as possible, away from those horrible personages in green and silver with the agitating red flags, and up that quiet slope which, at the worst, only emitted sudden noises. A reflective grouse would perhaps (and two out of three did) consider that he could fly faster and be sooner hidden from the green men with red flags, if he slid crosswise down the valleys on either side. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... answer, but went on with what I was doing; scooping up the gravel and sand, and agitating my hand till the light sand was washed away and only the stones remained. It was in imitation of what I had seen Gunson and Quong do scores of times, and in the idlest of moods that I did this, partly, I think, because the water felt cool and pleasant to ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... here," said Father John, "for a moment," and he leaned against a gate. "My dear Tom, it seems to me you're agitating yourself a little unnecessarily about Ned Kavanagh and his wife—I mean the girl he ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... of her voice, the exaltation of her look, and the extreme realism of the words she used were indescribably awing and agitating to her companion, to whom such evidences in connection with religious feeling were utterly unprecedented. She saw that the source of this deep emotion was utter despair of earthly happiness, as, in truth, it was. From the moment that Christine had noted the change in her companion, which ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... opinions may be, is among the very best means of education. I need only remark that the apostles appear to have refrained from discussion of immediate politics, and to have been little concerned in some questions which were agitating the sister University. They have nothing to say about Apostolical Succession and the like; nor are there any symptoms of interest in German philosophy, which Hamilton and Mansel were beginning to introduce. At Cambridge the young gentlemen are content with Locke and Mill; and at most know something ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... intended to give more, but that numerous clauses in the bill made it possible to evade it, and it was evaded by unscrupulous men in many cases. "The necessity of a large measure of land reform, we admit," he says; "we must get this by constitutional means. Real wrongs must be redressed by agitating lawfully, persistently, continually and patiently, till they are redressed constitutionally. We must remain steadfast and never give in, but never transgress the law in any case or take it into our ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... storm, agitating to unimaginable depth the mystery of the past within us. Or we might say that it is a prodigious incantation, every different instrument and voice making separate appeal to different billions of prenatal memories. There are tones that call up all ghosts ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... very dark; and as I looked at him I remembered him; but I could see he did not remember me, and no wonder, for he had only seen me once, on a very agitating occasion, for a short while. He was riding a very good horse, which was going lame, but without any servant, and he had his valise strapped on the crupper. In appearance he was a country-squire on ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... his companion was a man of merely ordinary intelligence. One day, however, as Greif grew no better, Rex determined to startle the good man, by ascertaining what he knew. In order to lead the conversation he threw out a careless remark about an unsettled question which he knew to be agitating the scientific world, and concerning which it was certain that the great doctor would have a firm opinion of his own. To the astonishment of the latter, Rex disputed the point, at first as though he cared little, but gradually and with matchless skill disclosing to his adversary ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... Thus: "Never at the beginning of great periods in history was insurrection so successful as that. It has made it apparent that slavery can and must be abolished; it has set every press and every tongue in the land to agitating the subject of slavery, and has made the pillars of that institution to rock and reel. It has diminished the value of slave stock. Two hundred million dollars, says a Southern paper, John Brown destroyed that Sunday night, and ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe

... elected delegates to a convention to consider the questions now agitating the Country. I hold in my hands a telegram, stating that a very large proportion of the delegates ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... Cambridge on the 18th of the month. Although I had but little time for preparation, I accepted the invitation upon the understanding, or rather upon his request, that I was to deal with the questions then agitating the country. Among my hearers was the venerable Josiah Quincy, formerly President of the College. My address was so radical that the timid condemned it, and even Republican papers deprecated the violence of my language—they then living in ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... felt for her from the first moment. He understood instantly that she would not wish to show her emotion. Of course it was agitating for her to see him, whom she had longed for so long, but it was her weakness that had made her betray herself. She naturally would not like him to pay any attention to it. And so he began on ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... other men were hanging about, and a low buzz of conversation filled the tent. Gerrard was known by name to most of those present, and he was soon in possession of the chief item of interest which was agitating the camp. That morning's reconnaissance had been pushed as far as Ratan Singh's tomb, which had been occupied without opposition, and a careful search had revealed the shallow grave in which the dishonoured remains of Nisbet and Cowper had been hastily hidden after the tragedy ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... Lambert, now coming into the hall, 'I can't have any brawling here. You must be so good as to leave the house. My mother is not fit for any agitating scene. Come now, why rage at poor Miss Palmer? Pretty girls like her are sure to get suitors and set them by the ears. I daresay you did the same in your day, may do it now ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... agitating the upper air, and the thunderous echoes reverberated through the mountains, the work on the plain went rapidly forward. However the scholars and the theologians might decide the questions at issue between them, the working forces were profoundly convinced ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... desperately ill during rehearsals, and his wife divided her time between watching at his bedside and going to the theater. Of course, the newspapers were filled with the account of the event which was agitating all society, and it added greatly to popular interest ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... toward Paris, planning to get there the best way he could. He came upon corpses everywhere, but they were not all the gray-green uniform. Many of his countrymen had fallen in the gallant offensive. Many would still fall in the last throes of the battle that was going on behind them, agitating the horizon with its incessant uproar. Everywhere red pantaloons were sticking up out of the stubble, hobnailed boots glistening in upright position near the roadside, livid heads, amputated bodies, stray limbs—and, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... relief. She was quite sufficiently well versed in Lady Caroline's tactics to appreciate the force and wisdom of this reserve. "It is so much better, of course," she said to herself, as her maid dressed her hair, "that we should not have any agitating scene just before dinner. I dare say I should cry—if they were all very grave and solemn I am sure I should cry!—and it would be so awkward to come down with red eyes. And, of course, I could not stay upstairs to-night Perhaps mamma will come to ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... as "dumping." The American ironmasters were now dumping on the British market. The British employers were, of course, taking their loss out of their workpeople as much as possible, but in addition they were agitating for some legislation that would prevent—not stupid relative excess in production, but "dumping"—not the disease, but the consequences of the disease. The necessary knowledge to prevent either dumping or its causes, the uncorrelated ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution,—African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. JEFFERSON, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... as I replied; and I was afraid of blushing, and betraying certain feelings which had long been agitating my bosom. I was soon sufficiently recovered to attend the dinner-table, at which Master Elliot, in his employer's absence, presided. Among the guests, much to my satisfaction, I found Captain Rover, as well as Captain Davis who had brought us over. The latter ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... A vague agitating idea rose in her mind, but she put it from her, and they walked on for some minutes, both silent. They entered the wood, and feeling the silence awkward, and afraid that he should perceive her embarrassment, and that he should suspect her suspicion, she exerted herself ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... conjectures of my friend the peace-officer were constantly agitating my brain. Since I thought I had discovered a mystery in my existence, I indulged in all sorts of fancies, and was momentarily expecting some extraordinary occurrence, some compensation of destiny, and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring forth. If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have left strict directions to be called immediately. I should have sat up, indeed, but the agitating events of this day have been too much ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the noise of the night-breeze agitating the window curtains," remarked Fanny, at length, with ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... in his turn gravitated to the side of Mrs. Carr, who was being lightly swung along in the second palanquin some twenty yards behind Miss Terry's. Shortly afterwards they observed a signal of distress being flown by that lady, whose arm was to be seen violently agitating her green veil from between the curtains of her hammock, which immediately came to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... himself, seemed to get into line during that winter. He stopped sneering at Walky Dexter and for some inexplicable reason he began agitating for ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... which is almost a specialty of the Parisian gamin. That Boy immediately copied it, and added greatly to its effect by extending the fingers of the other hand in a line with those of the first, and vigorously agitating those of the two hands,—a gesture which acts like a puncture on the distended self-esteem of one to whom it is addressed, and cheapens the memory of the absent to a very ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... their remarks to David or to each other, their free glances were more and more directed to Pepeeta who began to be embarrassed by them and gently drew David away to more retired places. He went with her reluctantly, for he was in need of excitement. The thought of his crime was constantly agitating his heart, the prostrate form of the doctor with the bloody wound on his forehead was never absent from his mind, and through all the ceaseless rumble around him he could hear the dull thud of the stone ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... the chair and her head drooped fainting to one hand. There was something in the scent of the various plants blossoming around that reminded her of that wedding-morning when the air was literally burthened with like fragrance. She was about to see her husband for the first time since that agitating day, to see him thus, crouching as a spy among those delicate plants, her heart beat heavily, she loathed herself for the seeming meanness that had been forced upon her. Yet there was misgiving at her heart—a vague, sickening apprehension ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... did write to Lady Thomson, cautiously. Lady Thomson replied that she was coming up to town on Thursday, and could so arrange her journey as to have an hour and a half in Oxford. She would be at Ascham at three-thirty. Mildred rushed to Tims with the agitating news and both were greatly upset by it. However, Aunt Beatrice had got to be faced sometime or other and Mildred's ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... that is agitating me," declared Dave Darrin, to whom these other members of the third class looked as a leader when there was a ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock

... degree of relationship to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to sparrow pillagers in ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... cascades. And those birds, bhringarajas, and upachakras, and herons are pouring forth their notes charming to all creatures. And, lo! with their mates, these elephants furnished with four tusks, and white as lotuses, are agitating that large lake of the hue of lapises. And from many cascades, torrents high as several palmyra palms (placed one upon another) are rushing down from the cliffs. And many argent minerals splendid, and of the effulgence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... slavery had been agitating the minds of Christian people. Cincinnati being near the border-line of Kentucky, was naturally the battle-ground of ideas. Slaves fled into the free State and were helped into Canada by means of the "Underground Railroad," which ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... pekoe in a comfortable little circle of gossipers round Mrs. Tempest's gipsy table. "He has very little else to do with his life. He is a young man utterly without views or purpose. He is one of our many Gallios. You could not rouse him to an interest in those stirring questions that are agitating the Catholic Church to her very foundation. He has no mission. I have sounded him, and found him full of a shallow good-nature. He would build a church if people asked him, and hardly know, when it was finished, whether he meant it for ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... persons, or some other way, perhaps, beyond even the reach of the physicians themselves, which effluvia affected the sound who came within certain distances of the sick, immediately penetrating the vital parts of the said sound persons, putting their blood into an immediate ferment, and agitating their spirits to that degree which it was found they were agitated; and so those newly infected persons communicated it in the same manner to others. And this I shall give some instances of, that cannot but convince those who seriously ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... sins, and be as miserable as she will: to-morrow I will see her once again, and know something more about her. The interview may be serviceable to her, or it may not. At any rate, it will give a breath of excitement to the life she has doomed to stagnation, and may calm with certainty some agitating thoughts.' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... been in Elizabeth's power. Elizabeth had held her captive for the sufficient reason—amongst others—that were she outside of England and free from restraint, there was nothing to prevent her from actively agitating the Catholics of Europe to assert her claim to the English throne. No monarch having in his grip a claimant with an undeniably strong title to his throne would have allowed that claimant to escape from his clutches. Few would have hesitated to concoct ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... was full of many and somewhat agitating thoughts. She went upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to condemn, to the room where the others were congregated, when they had laid Mr. May on his bed with no small ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... Tiberius refused; and he refused, Tacitus tells us, above all because he was afraid that this marriage would still further irritate Agrippina. The emperor is supposed to have told Sejanus that too many feminine quarrels were already disturbing and agitating the house of the Caesars, to the serious detriment of his nephew's sons. And what would happen, he asked, if this marriage should still further foment existing hatreds? Quid si intendatur certamen tali conjugio? The reply is significant, because it proves to us that Tiberius, who is accused ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... that has appeared during the last century, possesses the power of agitating the passions, and interesting the feelings in an equal degree to Pizarro. From a child of the brain of Kotzebue, trained and corrected by Sheridan, much might be expected. And the piece before us is worthy of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... only manner of agitating for anti-parliamentarism that succeeds, and is without danger, is before and after electoral periods—showing constantly to the elite of the proletariat the insufficiency and dangers of parliamentarism in general ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... moment rest in such fallacious theories, or accept the belief of Darwin and Huxley, with a few active agitating disciples, that animals, and even plants, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... involved in the study of Mr. Gallatin's actions and opinions in matters of finance. Every one knows that he ranks among the distinguished financiers of the world, and problems which he had to consider are still agitating the present generation. He was opposed alike to a national debt and to paper money. Had the metallic basis of the United States been adequate, he would have accepted no other circulating medium, and would have consented ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... was taken up with his own affairs! That was only to be expected in a man. He ran about going to meetings and agitating, and had a great deal to do; his thoughts were continually occupied, so that there was no time for familiar gossip as in the old days. He was engaged, moreover, so that what time was not devoted to the Labor movement was given to his sweetheart. How the boy had grown, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... platform a few moments, communing with himself and agitating his mind over the subject of Divine Retribution, and then he went up and leaned against the truck. Finally, he somehow got his arms under the handles of the truck as it stood up between his back and the wall. He still continued to think of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... to shuffle off his own complicity was held to be both lame and unhandsome. As for the correspondence with the colonels, his defence was hardly more successful, and rested upon a general recrimination upon the Prince of Orange. As that personage was agitating and turbulent, it was not possible, the Governor urged, that he should himself remain quiet. It was out of his power to execute the treaty and the edict, in the face of a notorious omission on the part of his adversary to enforce the one ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and the lifelong headache she had experienced disappeared. It remained only to inform Madam Hawthorne of the engagement which had been so long concealed. He felt some trepidation, since, he says, "almost every agitating circumstance of her life had cost her a fit of illness." But his fears were groundless; she came out of her chamber to meet him as soon as he arrived, looking better and more cheerful than usual, and full of kindness. "Foolish me," he writes happily to Sophia, ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... kindled, in the breast of Mr. Joseph Haslewood, a prodigious ardour to pursue the subjects above-mentioned to their farthest possible limits. Not Eolus himself excited greater commotion in the Mediterranean waves than did my bibliomaniacal friend in agitating the black-letter ocean—'a sedibus imis'—for the discovering of every volume which had been published upon these delectable pursuits. Accordingly there appeared in due time—'[post] magni procedere menses'—some very ingenious and elaborate disquisitions upon Hunting and Hawking ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... author discusses the lot of the slave, accounting for his tendency to escape from bondage, the traffic in human flesh, the free people of color, the colonization movement in the South, and abolition in the North. This chapter culminates in a discussion of the efforts of William Lloyd Garrison, the agitating editor of the Liberator, of Wendell Phillips, the abolition orator, of Prudence Crandall, the sacrificing worker, and of Elijah Lovejoy, the martyr in the cause. Prof. Channing does not go into details as to the achievements of the abolitionists. His account is merely sufficient to connect this ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... you have read on sex information, no matter what question is agitating your mind, the information given in this wonderful book will solve your problem. Dr. Robinson not only gives a full treatise on the delicate formation of woman's wonderful body, but he also explains the changes which follow the intimate experiences of ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... therefore, after my friend's death I gave up everything for the purpose of carrying on the work he left me, and beat wearily up and down the three kingdoms, holding meetings, organizing practical work, agitating for the greater legal protection of the young, afterwards embodied in two Acts—one for removing children from dens of infamy and one known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which have done much to educate the public sentiment of the country; but always making it my chief object to rouse ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... attachment? He taxed his memory to recall every word she had used, with the appropriate looks and gestures which had enforced them, and ended by finding himself in the same state of uncertainty. It was very late before sleep brought relief to the tumult of his mind, after the most painful and agitating day ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... compliance. Her uncle's order for her admittance to the prison, she determined only to use occasionally, and as circumstances pointed out, for fear of exciting suspicion; but to reserve it as a sort of sheet anchor for the perfection of a half-formed scheme that was already agitating ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... connexion with some big railway scheme in Estremadura—a line between Toledo and Merida. It is badly wanted, and has been talked of for years. There is a huge stretch of country south of the Tagus as far as Villa Nueva without any railway communication. The King himself has been agitating for the development of that rich agricultural region for the last ten years. And now it seems as though your great financier, Monsieur De Gex, is here to consult ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... New Jersey and the Prudential Life Insurance Company in the United States Senate, introducing a bill for Federal supervision of life insurance, and the "System's" hirelings throughout the land are clamorously agitating the passage of some such measure. It behooves the public to scrutinize carefully the form of reform which these patriots approve. It may be taken for granted that they will initiate nothing that will interfere with their grip on the millions ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... enjoyable, and it cannot be either unless the bathroom is properly equipped and is ready for service when wanted. Even at some extra cost, it should be made possible to secure hot water promptly, and without agitating the whole household, at any reasonable hour of any day of the week. No family that we ever knew went bankrupt on account of the cost of hot water for bathing, and if they did they would have a pretty ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... of the Books is of present value, as it affords information upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has been agitating the literary world ever since. In it Swift compares Dryden, Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James's Library, where the battle of the books is said to have ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... our opinion the emancipation and elevation of our enslaved brethren depends in a great measure upon their brethren who are free, remaining in the country; and we will remain to be that 'agitating element' in American politics, which Mr Wise, in a late letter, concludes, has done so ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... largely upon us. There were pictures, on the walls of music-rooms, of gray-bearded, helmeted warriors holding mailed blonde women in their arms, of queens with golden ornaments on their arms leaning over parapets and agitating their scarves, of women throwing themselves into the sea upon which ghastly barks were dwindling, of oldish men and young girls conversing teasingly through a window by a lilac-bush, that were Wagner. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... his hand, and she gave him hers a moment—a moment long enough for him to bend his handsome bared head and kiss it. Then, still agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase, he walked rapidly away. He ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... of our provincial society towards Varvara Petrovna, and consequently towards Stepan Trofimovitch. He had already had time anyway to make some disagreeable though valuable observations, and seemed very apprehensive alone without Varvara Petrovna. He had an agitating suspicion that he had already been mentioned to the governor as a dangerous man. He knew for a fact that some of our ladies meant to give up calling on Varvara Petrovna. Of our governor's wife (who was only ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Agitating such matters as these, Cally Heth got into bed and pulled up the covers. She repelled the thought of the Works, as she had done, all evening. Nevertheless the last thing she thought of as she dropped off to sleep was Dr. Vivian, as he stood and looked up at her from the dingy sidewalk. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Sayre, was just about to leave for America, and at Peary's request he transferred to the Roosevelt with his typewriter, to help the Commander with a few of his many notes and records. I dare say that he got an inside view of the question then agitating the world from Washington to Copenhagen; but if so, he has remained forever silent about it. For our part we were glad that some one had found the Pole, for it has been a costly quest in both fine men and valuable time, energy, and money. It has caused lots of trouble and sorrow, and so ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... agitating, the National Assembly stood in the most perilous and critical situation that a body of men can be supposed to act in. They were the devoted victims, and they knew it. They had the hearts and wishes of their country on their side, but military authority they had none. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Restoration to divert the attention of the people from public discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency; they were published at a time when two parties—loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views—were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolic and the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... days running, a hollow noise, somewhat loud, was heard to reach from the sea to the Illinois; which arose from the west. In the afternoon it was heard to descend from the east, and that with an incredible quickness; and though the noise seemed to bear on the water, yet without agitating it, or discovering any more wind on the river than before. This frightful noise was only the prelude of a most violent tempest. The hurricane, the most furious ever felt in the province, lasted three days. As it arose from ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... was convened in the District of Columbia, for the express purpose of agitating the subject of colonizing us in some part of the world, Mr. Clay was called to the chair, and having been seated a little while, he rose and spake in substance, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... scarcely a soothing subject; but we might find calm in something less agitating and more familiar. Perhaps you can recall something too firmly imprinted on your memory to be disturbed ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... really alive in our sense of the word, that is, human with the exception of her transparency? and was her shape like that of ordinary mortals, or did she end in some monstrosity like a mermaid? Such were the questions agitating me when interruption came with a knock at the door. My captive awoke and instinctively started away, at the same time giving a low, articulate cry; but I held her firmly, and called to Rachel to bring me a certain relic of slavery which had been brought from the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... inquired Ishmael, with forced calmness, for he wished quietly to draw out the woman's story without agitating and confusing her. "There was a ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... warn: that was the question mainly agitating Members. The majority appeared to think that some system of sound-signals was desirable; others pointed out that many threatened raids proved abortive, and that sirens would interfere with business, as in the leading case of Ulysses. Thanks to the HOME ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various



Words linked to "Agitating" :   provocative, provoking, agitative



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com