Overfierce

So he wrote to the squire, showing the letter to Catherine when it was done, lest there should be anything overfierce in it. It was the simple record of twelve months’ experience told with dignity and feeling. Henslowe was barely mentioned in it, and the chief burden of the letter was to implore the squire to come and inspect certain portions of his property with his own eyes. The rector would be at his service any day or hour.

In other respects also his book is a severe and overfierce indictment against the century for its still-continued failures and its wonderful achievements and correspondingly wonderful advantages.

To-morrow (Friday), about eleven o'clock, let there be a good (not an overfierce) fire lighted in both rooms ; have everything well dusted, and remove the coverings from the furniture, taking especial care not to scratch the gilding, or to soil or burn the carpet while lighting the fires.

Even when the Indian brandished his tomahawk and seized the visited one by the hair of the head, it never seemed to be anything more than might be expected, nor did he ever appear overfierce in his threats and gestures.

Overfierce crane and wheels skidding; contactor adjustment and additional resistance required.

Wasn’t this suspicion of what was to happen in the very air everybody breathed, in the way each person looked at the other, in Winifred’s overfierce confidence and bragging defiance, and in Wilders’s solemn or hangdog, dispirited mien.

She had written that we were on a trip east and might drop by. That was all. Out where we lived people just arrived and were offered the hospitality of the house, whether it was for an hour or for a week. Even in the days of television and space flights, customs were not too different from what they had always been. Formal invitations were seldom given, times of arrival rarely set. Besides, as I realized later, by leaving the moment her letter had been mailed and setting no time of arrival, Mother had neatly forestalled any refusal. Along with the rest of the world I consistently underrated my mother. I was also ashamed of her. And my guilt over that had a lot to do with the way I acted: my pride, my secret embarrassment, my overfierce loyalty.

Whether in truth the doctor had said all this, a trifle overfierce for his own meek self, I cannot say, but what he next said certainly rang true.