pursiness

“A trifle more impressible, he might have imagined the smoky figure and magnum of pursiness barring the City against him.”

One of Our Conquerors — Volume 1

“Then with one big fellow, the collapse of pursiness, he abandons his pedestal of universal critic; prostrate he falls to the foreigner; he is down, he is roaring; he is washing his hands of English performances, lends ear to foreign airs, patronises foreign actors, browses on reports from camps of foreign armies.”

Celt and Saxon — Volume 2