picque

Updated: May 21, 2025

For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have of vigorous and fine, within that term or never, "Si l'espine rion picque quand nai, A pene que picque jamai,"

Michel de Montaigne - The Essays of Montaigne — Volume 08

I was, however, unwarily drawn in to give my word, and he then made me the confident of a passion, which, he said, had received its birth from the first moment he beheld the Belle Angloise, for by that term, pursued he, bowing, he distinguished the adorable Louisa: that he had made some discovery of his flame, but that finding; himself rejected, as he thought, in too severe a manner, and without affording him opportunity to attest his sincerity, he had converted his addresses, tho' not his passion, to a lady who, he perceived, had the care of her, acting in this manner, partly thro' picque at your disdain, and partly to gratify his eyes with the sight of you, which he has reason to fear you had totally deprived him of but for this stratagem.

Eliza Fowler Haywood - The Fortunate Foundlings: Being the Genuine History of Colonel M——Rs, and His Sister,: Madam Du P——Y, the Issue of the Hon. Ch——Es M——Rs,: Son of the Late Duke of R—— L——D. Containing Many Wonderful: Accidents That Befel Them in Their Travels, and Interspersed with: the Characters and Adventures of Several Persons of Condition,: In the Most Polite Courts of Europe. the Whole Calculated for: the Entertainment and Improvement of the Youth of Both Sexes.