The old navy in its last days earned a fame that no belittling malevolence dare cavil at.

His posture--flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation--the strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil .

Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, though most luxurious in his taste, will start, cavil , or be offended, because I have named but one article.

Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows, had never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom.

You will tell me, I know, that this may or may NOT have happened; but I will listen to no cavil , unless you can point out any other method of understanding the affair as satisfactory at this.

It might even have occurred to them, that where a disposition to cavil prevailed, their neglect to execute the degree of power vested in them, and still more their recommendation of any measure whatever, not warranted by their commission, would not less excite animadversion, than a recommendation at once of a measure fully commensurate to the national exigencies.

This was the third RIGHT hand found; therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil or question.

The lad was too thirsty by now to cavil at anything even remotely resembling water, so he drank his fill while Akut stood with raised head, alert for any danger.

Anne, far from wishing to cavil at the pleasure, replied, "I can easily believe it.

They ought not to have wandered into inflammatory declamations and unmeaning cavils about the extent of the powers.

There have been times and moods when I have had my questions, and made my cavils , and when it seemed to me that the poet was less than I had thought him; and certainly I do not revere equally and unreservedly all that he has written; that would be impossible.