"Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eloquence, and virtue, generally "close their concerns" by marrying sots, fools, gamblers, rakes, or brutes; they seem to choose their husbands as old maiden ladies do their lap-dogs; which are invariably the most cross, ugly, ill-tempered, filthy, noisy, little scoundrels, that the entire canine family can muster. But their practice is at variance with their profession. It is physically and morally impossible that women, whose chief strength consists in external ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the past ten minutes the spaniel had tried to bite Kerry, nor was Kerry blind to the amusement which his burden had occasioned among the men of K Division whom he had met on his travels. Finally, as he came out into the riverside lane, the ill-tempered little animal essayed a fourth, and successful, attempt, burying his wicked white teeth in the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... that the species of anger are unsuitably assigned by the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) where he says that some angry persons are "choleric," some "sullen," and some "ill-tempered" or "stern." According to him, a person is said to be "sullen" whose anger "is appeased with difficulty and endures a long time." But this apparently pertains to the circumstance of time. Therefore it seems that anger ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... of romantic perfection. It was no worship of a secluded and distant object of loyalty: the men who thus flattered knew perfectly well, often by painful experience, what Elizabeth was: able, indeed, high-spirited, successful, but ungrateful to her servants, capricious, vain, ill-tempered, unjust, and in her old age, ugly. And yet the Gloriana of the Faery Queen, the Empress of all nobleness,—Belphoebe, the Princess of all sweetness and beauty,—Britomart, the armed votaress of all purity,—Mercilla, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... her ill-tempered husband her eyes had been hard and almost shallow. While she considered Colonel Grey, they grew soft and deep. Her lips had been set and almost thin; now they ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... and, as the only child, a favourite amongst the attached members of our household, my wants had been all anticipated, and every pleasure suited to my age had been planned for me so ingeniously, that I had never had the chance of showing myself selfish or ill-tempered. She feared that when for the first time I found myself not first considered in all arrangements, I might fail in those particular points of conduct in which she was ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... weariness and irritation at being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night for the kitchen-maid; so that at the sight of those very sufferings, the printed account of which had moved her to tears, she had nothing to offer but ill-tempered mutterings, mingled with bitter sarcasm, saying, when she thought that we had gone out of earshot: "Well, she need never have done what she must have done to bring all this about! She found that pleasant enough, I dare say! She had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... kitten, too; and morose and ill-tempered as he was, found in them much amusement. His love for them, however, was not that unselfish love which led Mahomet to cut off his sleeve; but simply a selfish desire for passing amusement. He cared nothing for that most interesting process, the development ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... counted for much with Voltaire, and her chief title to fame lies in his long and devoted friendship. He found the "sublime and respectable Emilie" the incarnation of all the virtues, though a trifle ill-tempered. The contrast between his kindly portrait and those of her feminine friends ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... men to flee Out of their owne house; ah! ben'dicite, What aileth such an old man for to chide? Thou say'st, we wives will our vices hide, Till we be fast,* and then we will them shew. *wedded Well may that be a proverb of a shrew.* *ill-tempered wretch Thou say'st, that oxen, asses, horses, hounds, They be *assayed at diverse stounds,* *tested at various Basons and lavers, ere that men them buy, seasons Spoones, stooles, and all such husbandry, And so be pots, and clothes, and array,* *raiment But folk of wives make ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novel in letters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. His Travels are also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... intended to deceive: "It was believed without reason that he was at the Wartburg. He was living among faithful brethren. It was surprising that no one had thought of Bohemia;" and then came a thrust—not ill-tempered—at Duke George of Saxony, his most active enemy. This letter Spalatin was to lose with well-planned carelessness so that it should come into the hands of the enemy. But in this kind of diplomacy he was certainly not logical, for ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... approach. But I was told that ill health had made him unsociable and somewhat morose and testy, and, indeed, there was often the trace of suffering and weariness in his face. It was also remarked in the Senate that at times he was ill-tempered and inclined to indulge in biting sarcasms and to administer unkind lectures to other senators, which in some instances disturbed his personal intercourse with his colleagues. But there was not one of them who ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... their breakfast and dispersed themselves about the city and vicinity, heartily hoping that this state of things might continue. But it was too good to last. When they returned at evening they found their old enemy in command. He looked more ill-tempered and sour than ever, but gave no explanation of his and Pietro's absence, except to say that he had been out of the city on business. He called for the boys' earnings of the day previous, but to their surprise made no inquiries ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Archbishop of York, died in the 86th year of his age: He was a sour ill-tempered man, and minded chiefly the enriching his family.—Swift. Yet thought author of "The Whole ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... river, in approaching Kariba Rapids, they came upon a herd of upwards of thirty hippopotami. The canoe-men were afraid of venturing among them, asserting that there was sure to be an ill-tempered one who would take a malignant pleasure in upsetting the canoes. Several boys on the rocks were amusing themselves by throwing stones at the frightened animals. One was shot, its body floating down the current. A man hailed them from the bank, advising them to let him pray to ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... get on with; do not expect too much of it; and be ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... trick, too, of retiring within himself, even when smiling at her sallies or banteringly evading her challenge to a duel of wits. At such times he no longer looked very young; she had noticed that more than once. He looked old, and ill-tempered. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... jerk, galling his tender limbs and irretrievably ruining his temper,—it is all the same; there is no help for it. And really, to look around the world and see the people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling,—the narrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ill-tempered, fretful, peevish, passionate, careworn, harassed men and women. Even we grown people, independent of them and capable of self-defence, have as much as we can do to keep the peace. Where is there a city, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... convinced that the only way as yet discovered of getting through hard tasks is to set to work and do them; also, that grumbling, as things are at present arranged in this world, does not always, nor I may say often, do good; furthermore, that an ill-tempered child is not, on the whole, likely to be as much loved as a good-tempered one; lastly, that if you wait long enough, winter will go ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... miracle that children gay Have happiness and goodness too, Caressed by destiny are you, Charming you are, if you but play. But we with living overwrought, And full of grave and sombre thought, Are snappish oft: dear little men, We have ill-tempered days, and then, Are quite unjust and full of care; It rained this morning and the air Was chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky Have passed. Things spited me, and why? But now my heart repents. Behold What 'twas that made me cross, and scold! All by-and-by ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... delighted—everybody, that is, but the Chamberlain who had had hopes of marrying his own daughter to the Prince. His daughter was an ugly ill-tempered girl and the Prince had never even looked at her. The Chamberlain was sure, however, that with a little more time he could arrange the match to his liking. So the appearance of this beautiful girl who came from Heaven knows where threw him into a fearful rage and he ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... not to cause me unnecessary pain by his taunts. He apologised lamely and told me that I was to proceed on board ship. This very much surprised me, and I remarked that I had already been taken from home and hearth 500 miles. This ill-tempered creature then lent back arrogantly in his armchair, puffing at his cigar, and said: "Well, ah, you are banished, don't you know. You are to be sent to St. Helena, or as we call it, 'The Rock.' You will shortly embark. It is a large ship you are going in; it is called—ah, let me see, oh, yes, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... of, and to talk about, whenever she had anybody to listen! When she was in good humor, she could admire the bright polish of its sides and the rich border of beautiful faces and foliage that ran all around it. Or, if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box (but it was a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got) many a kick did it receive. But certain it is, if it had ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... ladies in waiting—bosom friend of her Highness, and chosen repository of all her secrets. Personally, not likely to attract you; short and fat, and ill-tempered and ugly. Just at this time, I happen myself to get on with her better than usual. We have discovered that we possess one sympathy in common—we are the only people at Court who don't believe ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... off their dinner in our bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she merely replied with a Welsh "Eh! come si ha da far?" and declared that if I was in her place I should do just the same, which excited my wrath ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... regiment; during much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him, really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,—the power of a narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to inflict pain on a noble ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... which was to give him immortality and omnipotence,—a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and an order to desist; and I well recollect looking back, for long after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation; nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and myself had been rescued from ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... in a greater degree, the necessity is imperative, in the treatment of lacerated tendons, to obtain as perfect a state of immobility as can be obtained compatibly with the disposition of the patient; the natural opposition of the animal, sometimes ill-tempered and fractious at best, under the necessary restraint causing at times much embarrassment to the practitioner in applying the necessary treatment. Without the necessary immobility there can be no close connection of the ends of the tendons. To fulfill this necessary ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... has been greatly misunderstood, and his 600 biographers have in turn invested him with the glory of the religious hero and the contumely of the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer. An impartial critic must admit, indeed, that he was something of both, though more of the hero than the adventurer, and that his biographers have erred considerably in what Mr. R. L. Stevenson would call ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... know that I have not gained a little. It is something, Jo, to know that I am not in the power of a bad, or even an ill-tempered man. I can sit by my fire and know that no one will come home to fret at me,—that I shall encounter no cold looks, no sneers, no bursts of anger, no snarl of stinginess, no contempt of my opinion and advice. I know that now men treat me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... An ill-tempered, captious man might have suggested that Malcolmson ought to have taken his place with his men—a regiment of volunteers I suppose—a little sooner. According to his own account, the peril had been real a week before, but ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... could, if read by any man of common sense, produce such a coxcomb, whose spiritual ancestors would rather have been Gabriel Harvey and Lord Oxford,—if indeed the former has not maligned the latter, and ill-tempered Tom Nash maligned ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... magnificently furred and jewelled, magnificently unaware of the existence of little Mrs. Sheridan of East Orange. Norma knew in a second that the social ripples had closed over her head; she was of no further possible significance in the life of either. Leslie was pretty, bored, ill-tempered; Annie her usual stunning and radiantly satisfied self. The conversation speedily left Norma stranded, the chatter of engagements, of scandals, of new names, was all strange to her, and she sat through some ten minutes ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... in all her life Agnetta was feeling not superior to Lilac as usual, but shy of her. She did not know what to say to her nor even whether she should be welcome, for she was conscious of having been very ill-tempered lately. Now that Lilac was in trouble, cast down from her high position as Queen, she no longer felt angry with her, and would even have liked to make herself pleasant—if she could. As she came near, however, and stood staring ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... idea that her part in the play was not an easy one, and was minded to spare her for that night. But she had promised to try, and she must be reminded of her promise. Hitherto she certainly had not tried. Hitherto she had been ill-tempered, petulant, and almost rude. He would not see her himself this evening, but he would send a message to her by his wife. 'Tell her from me that I shall expect to see smiles on her face to-morrow,' said Michel Voss. And as he spoke there ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... she's a little ill-tempered at times," said Miss Stiles with satisfaction. "I thought when I came in that she looked out of sorts. Troubles ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... efforts along the righteous path, but he writhed beneath the yoke of poverty. His pride suffered because he was unable to provide her with more of the luxuries of life; in his selfish way, he loved her. Failure to advance made him surly and ill-tempered, despite her amiable efforts to lighten the shadows around their little home. When the baby boy was born to them, and she suffered more and more from the unkindness of privation, James Bansemer, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... time does man come so near being omnipotent as when, by the tremendous powers given him, a new life is called into existence. And yet, whether strong or weak, refreshed or exhausted, healthy or diseased, sober or intoxicated, sweet or ill-tempered, yielding or resisting, a new life is begun which may be either of two extremes. How great are such questions! The human mind seems appalled ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... ill-tempered as a rule. She smiled at him. "Good man, Jack! No one can say you're an idler, anyway. I've got rather a nice supper for you. I shouldn't wonder if Fletcher Hill turns up to share it. I hear he ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of nice perceptions will here perceive that, it being morning, Turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but Nippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous sentence, Nippers' ugly mood was on duty ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... guns or threw clubs into crowds of prisoners, or knocked down such as were within reach of their fists. These exhibitions were such as an overgrown child might be expected to make. They did not secure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that such ill-tempered fools could be given any position ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... a breeze in two or three days," said Kenneth Harper, who could not resist the temptation to chaff this ill-tempered young person. "Say by Tuesday or Wednesday, I should think a capful of wind might puff up in ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... joyful mood. He had thought the king and queen charming at the ball. It is true the cardinal had been particularly ill-tempered. He had retired at one o'clock under the pretense of being indisposed. As to their Majesties, they did not return to the Louvre till ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it flippantly, as though it were a pastime of no great importance, like billiards, which engaged his leisure but was not to be considered with seriousness. And Squirts, the master of the Middle Third, grew more ill-tempered every day. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... too,' said Lady Harriet. 'I wanted to have come early, and here we are as late as this. I'm so cross and ill-tempered, I should be glad to hide myself in bed as soon ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Paris, where an attendant will show Sully's private cabinet and antechamber, with the rich decorations as they were left by his successor, including a ceiling painted by Vouet. Many an intimate outpouring of the Victor of Ivry's domestic woes did Sully endure here—complaints of his ill-tempered Marie's scoldings, the contrast between his lawful wife's sour greetings and the endearing graces and merry, roguish charms of his mistresses; their quarrels and exactions. All of which the great minister would listen to reprovingly, and exhort his dejected royal ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... described him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time, when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... not why I love him so; It is enchantment, surely! He's dry and snuffy, deaf and slow Ill-tempered, weak and poorly! He's ugly, and absurdly dressed, And sixty-seven nearly, He's everything that I detest, But if the truth must be confessed, I ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people. And yet it was a most desirable match for Janet at the time. We were all delighted. She could not do otherwise than accept him, for he was rich, and she had nothing; but he turns out ill-tempered and exigeant, and wants a young woman, a beautiful young woman of five-and-twenty, to be as steady as himself. And my friend does not manage him well; she does not seem to know how to make the best of it. There is a spirit of irritation which, to say nothing worse, is certainly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... from a chosen prospective employer; do not even flinch from him, however ill-tempered and repellant he may appear. You cannot possibly lose so much by standing your ground as you would forfeit by running away from this chance to demonstrate your salesmanship. Countless thousands of men have failed because at the first sign of antagonism they surrendered ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... sure, she took for the purpose of misleading us at the Hall, and I felt confident she would, when once out of sight, head her mare straight for Overhaddon. Within an hour Dorothy was home again, and very ill-tempered. ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... a right way of talking, Lady Caergwent," gravely said Mrs. Lacy; and Kate gave herself an ill-tempered wriggle, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... experience with police stations had consisted chiefly of uncomfortable stays as an invited, reluctant guest. To a hard-drinking man, such invitations are both frequent and inescapable. So Tod Denver was uneasy in the presence of such an obviously ill-tempered desk sergeant. Memories are tender documents from past experience, and Denver's experiences had induced extreme sensitivity about ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... the young widow Longarine, "worse than that, we shall become ill-tempered, which is an incurable disease; for there is not one among us but has cause to be exceeding downcast, having regard to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... comet, threatening war and disaster, perplexing even emperors and princes, and filling them with apprehension and dismay. But Dee was somewhat fallen from this high and dangerous celebrity. He was become querulous and ill-tempered. Never satisfied with his present condition, but always aiming at some greater thing, he generally contrived to lose what he already possessed. At one time, to control the destinies and acquire the supreme direction of affairs, either as the High Priest or the Grand Lama of Europe, was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... in lowering to its level the superiority which obscures it, where one finds so many small men for a single great one, so many nobodies for one Talma, so many myrmidons for one Achilles! This sketch will seem ill-tempered perhaps, and far from flattering; but does it not fully mark out the distance that separates our stage, the abode of intrigues and uproar, from the solemn ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... was very rude to her once, when she said, quite out loud, that Father is very ill-tempered, and that, if Mother had not the temper of an angel, the house could never hold together. Mother was very angry, but Father did not mind. He says our house will hold together much longer than most houses, because he swore at the workmen, and went to law with the builder for using dirt instead ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was able to make not very slow progress. He frequently walked to Peebles, four miles, and back again, in one day. His arms had no motion at the elbow-joints, but were active enough otherwise. He was not generally ill-tempered, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... ill-tempered nor yet under the ban of fear, but Master Busy vowed unto himself that she was suffering from ill-concealed melancholy, from some hidden secret or wild romance. She seldom laughed, she had spoken with discourtesy ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... library, innocently reading a book, when Mr. Carruthers came in. He looked even better in evening dress, but he appeared ill-tempered, and no ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... elder daughters were idle, ill-tempered, and proud; therefore people soon forgot that they were beautiful, and only ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Emily was very different from that of Jane. She was always pleasant and kind, willing to confer favors upon others, even though she should not receive the same in return. Jane was ill-tempered, told wrong stories, and did many things which rendered her a very disagreeable companion. Her parents could see no fault in her, therefore she was permitted to give way to her temper, which was the cause of her losing friends ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... himself as badly off as before; and being almost starved again, he laid himself down at the door of Mr. Fitzwarren, a rich merchant. Here he was soon seen by the cook, who was an ill-tempered creature, and happened just then to be very busy preparing dinner for her master and mistress; so she called out to poor Dick: "What business have you there, you lazy rogue? there is nothing else ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... what use am I in the world? Think what some lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole house is miserable; or mother, ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... yourself—do not deceive me! In the name of God, who proves all hearts, answer me, and speak the truth. Is it from the full and entire heart that you come thus to me? Do you think, Eva, angel of God, that I, the ugly, infirm, ill-tempered old man can make ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... to be imposed upon the members."—Junius, p. 6. "Light and knowledge, in what manner soever afforded us, is equally from God."—Butler's Analogy, p. 264. "For instance, sickness and untimely death is the consequence of intemperance."—Ib., p. 78. "When grief, and blood ill-tempered vexeth him."—Beauties of Shakspeare, p. 256. "Does continuity and connexion create sympathy and relation in the parts of the body?"—Collier's Antoninus, p. 111. "His greatest concern, and highest enjoyment, was ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... District, which included Ashtabula County, Wade's county, there were fierce words and then with few dissenting votes, a resolution, "That the recent attack upon the President by Wade and Davis is, in our opinion, ill-timed, ill-tempered, and ill-advised . . . and inasmuch as one of the authors of said protest is a citizen of this Congressional District and indebted in no small degree to our friendship for the position, we deem it a duty no less imperative than disagreeable, to pronounce upon ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... slobland reclaimed from the Atlantic. Slobland is land reclaimed from the sea. This piece is on Donegal Bay. It was protected by a great dyke after the Dutch style. But the Atlantic is sometimes angry, and then he becomes unmanageable. He was ill-tempered one night (being troubled with wind), and he just washed down the dyke and inundated the reclaimed meadows, upon, which I have seen the most beautiful crops. The landlord, the Reverend James Hamilton, a Protestant rector, insists on rent being paid for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the nasal-voiced gunner's mate, with the hare-lip; and Cylinder, his stuttering coadjutor, with the clubbed foot. But you will always observe, that the gunner's gang of every man-of-war are invariably ill-tempered, ugly featured, and quarrelsome. Once when I visited an English line-of-battle ship, the gunner's gang were fore and aft, polishing up the batteries, which, according to the Admiral's fancy, had been painted ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... must not be supposed that her nature was so changed by her illness that she became at once a good and agreeable little girl. This is not easy when one has become used for a long while to be tiresome and ill-tempered, for "habit," as Mrs Winslow had said, is a "giant power." The longer we have done wrong the more difficult it is to do right. And yet in some ways she was altered; she was not quite the same Sophia Jane who had said, "I like to vex 'em," ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... supernatural tinge, for the adored girl seems more like an angel or a fairy than a common mortal. The lover's heroine is as fictitious as any heroine of romance; he considers her the most beautiful and lovable person in the world, though to others she may seem ugly and ill-tempered. Thus love is called romantic, because it is so great a romancer, attributing to the beloved all sorts of perfections which exist only in the lover's fancy. What could be more fantastic than a lover's stubborn preference for a particular individual and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a gentleman named Baptista, who had two fair daughters. The eldest, Katharine, was so very cross and ill-tempered, and unmannerly, that no one ever dreamed of marrying her, while her sister, Bianca, was so sweet and pretty, and pleasant-spoken, that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand. But Baptista said the elder daughter must ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... facts did not inculpate General Stone. But instead of writing to Mr. Sumner to correct the statements made in his speech, General Stone, most unwisely and most reprehensibly, addressed to the senator on the 23d of December an ill-tempered and abusive letter. Mr. Henry Melville Parker of Massachusetts investigated all the facts and incidents of the case, and came to the conclusion that Mr. Sumner, as an act of revenge for the insolent letter, had caused General Stone's arrest. But the facts do not warrant Mr. Parker's ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... so slow as you might think. But that wasn't a nice thing to do. It's all right to play tricks, but I hope you won't be so cruel as to use a spur on a dumb animal, the way you did, even if he is an ill-tempered broncho. You might ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... he answered, passing his arm round her waist in a momentary embrace of reassurance. "It is I that am ill-tempered. I couldn't help thinking from the way this Burr pursues you that there must have been something in the story about your having ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... who beat his wife or his children laid sacrilegious hands on the holiest of things. He also said that he had rather be a good husband than a great statesman, and that what he especially admired in Sokrates the Philosopher was his patience and kindness in bearing with his ill-tempered wife and his stupid children. When his son was born, he thought that nothing except the most important business of state ought to prevent his being present while his wife washed the child and wrapped it in swaddling clothes. His wife ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... horse been naturally ill-tempered Vincent would probably have failed, but, as he happened afterward to learn, its first owner had been a hot-tempered and passionate young planter, who, instead of being patient with it, had beat it about ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... 'You're a hot-headed young fool, sir: you're an ill-tempered ferocious young ass. Can't you see another young donkey without joining company in kicks-eh? Sit down, and don't dare to spoil the fun any more. You a tailor! Who'll believe it? You're a nobleman in disguise. Didn't your friend say so?—ha! ha! Sit down.' He pulled out his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... passing through the little town which you may remember near Ragnall, they met a travelling menagerie that was going to some new encampment. At the head of the procession marched a large bull elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-tempered brute that had already killed a man and should never have been allowed upon the roads. The sight of the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast, which trumpeted. The pony ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... negligent air, stuck one of the buds into the band of his broad-brimmed hat that lay on the table, and allowed the rest to fall upon the rushes that strewed the stone floor. Marguerite, with a slight and mocking grimace, watched the ill-tempered action without taking any audible notice of it. Then resuming her seat, she took up her wool and needles and applied herself to her ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... milliner, and it will be better to say nothing at all about the arduous artistic labours of the chorus-singer. The family only met together at dinner-time, and then they would sit round the table with sour, ill-tempered faces, the younger ones grumbling and whining at the meagre food, the elder girls with their appetites spoilt by a surfeit of sweetmeats, every one moody and bored, as if they found each other's company intolerable, and all of them eagerly awaiting the moment when they might ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... so great a company, that one may be asked who is the second in each, how group Alpha is, or how the group Beta; again let him salute the group Rho; the name of the letters following its own proper sign. And upon the simpler and more guileless place the name Iota; and upon those who are more ill-tempered and less righteous the letter Xi. And thus in harmony with the principles and the life and manners of them arrange the names of the letters, only the spiritual ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... tone. What! disturb the duke! before he had called for him! it would be as much as his life was worth to do it; he would as soon venture unarmed into the cage of a furious lion, or the den of a royal tiger. The duke was always more or less surly and ill-tempered on first waking in the morning, even when he had gone to bed in a good humour, as his servants knew to ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a witch, and cover my many delinquencies with the cloak of hypocrisy. It is true that if some esteem and honour me as a good woman, there are many who bawl in my ear the name imprinted upon your mother and me by order of an ill-tempered judge, who committed his wrath to the hands of the hangman; and the latter, not being bribed, used his plenary power upon our shoulders. But that is past and gone; and all things pass, memories wear out, lives do not renew themselves, tongues grow ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... rearranged them two or three times; after which he stirred the fire a little more, and examined it carefully to see that it was all right; but he did not seem quite satisfied, and was proceeding to re-adjust the coals when Bob Croaker, one of the big boys, who was a bullying, ill-tempered fellow, and had a spite ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Cobham, and was much disappointed with his reception, for Cobham—angry that Grafigni had brought no commission from the King—had refused to receive Parma's letter to the Queen, and had expressed annoyance that Bodman should be employed on this mission, having heard that lie was very ill-tempered and passionate. The same evening, he had been sent for by Lord Burghley—who had accepted the letter for her Majesty without saying a word—and on the following morning, he had been taken to task, by several counsellors, on the ground that the Prince, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reprehensible interest. He was a stout, red-faced man, stepping firmly into the fifties, with a beard that even the most converted must envy, and a frown sat on his brows all the way, proving him possibly ill-tempered, but also one of the notable few who can think hard about one thing for at least five consecutive minutes. Many took a glint at him as he passed, but missed the frown, they were wondering so much why the fur of his heavy top-coat was on the inside, where it made little ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... backward and forward, the burning cigarette balanced between his fingers, turning his handsome head from time to time to answer Portlaw's ill-tempered questions. Now he halted, dark eyes roving about the room. They fell and lingered on a card-table where some empty glasses ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... back to her the fugitive unharmed, and I would never return to her empty-handed, confessing failure. Michael's queer behaviour disconcerted me. From the outset of the chase he had turned sour and inaccessible, and now he was so ill-tempered that I feared he would pick a quarrel at the slightest ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... with the gout, and dreadfully ill-tempered and peevish; however, I keep out of the way as much as possible. I dined yesterday at Lady Roseville's: she praised you very much, said your manners were particularly good, and that you had already quite the usage du monde. Lord Vincent ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... early morning of May 12th, 1897, more than an inch of snow fell in the Cotswolds, but it was all gone by eight o'clock. In spite of the weather, May is "the brightest, merriest month of all the glad New Year." Everything is at its best. Man cannot be morose and ill-tempered in May. The "happy hills and pleasing shade" must needs "a momentary bliss bestow" on the saddest of us all. Look at yonder thoroughbred colt grazing peacefully in the paddock: if you had turned him out a month ago he would have galloped ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart —sometimes tearing up the earth with his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... It was most good of you. I am hasty as an ill-tempered child in my judgments! Mr. Dalton"—she stopped before the neat iron gate in the low fence, which he was holding open for her to pass through, and barring the way, said rapidly, "as we will have to work together in all that is done here, I may as well ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... be vulgar, some might be ill-tempered, some might be ugly; others might be burdened with disagreeable connexions. I can understand that you should object to a daughter-in-law under any of these circumstances. But none of these things can be said of Miss Robarts. I defy you to say that she is not in all respects what ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... degree little appreciated by some worthy people, who think roughness a proof of sincerity, and that rudeness marks the honest truth of their affections. And where there is little kindness of nature, and a great deal of selfishness and ill-tempered indulgence, as in this cross, old man before us, still the habit of politeness was not without avail; it kept him in a certain check, and certainly rendered him more tolerable. He was not quite such a brute bear as he would have been, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... her children, too, although they were her torment. Her inability to manage or keep them in order fretted and irritated her excessively. Monsieur, as a philosopher, could not understand the anomaly, that a woman who was perpetually unhappy and ill-tempered, while her children, young, buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with and care for them when sick. He could not understand her conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, however, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... let it hang for a few seconds each time. This throws the chest forward and exercises the lungs. What is more, this small amount of gymnastic work is thoroughly enjoyed. It helps to build strength and good temper. The crying helps to make the baby ill-tempered and fretful. A little crying now and then is all right, but much indicates discomfort, disease or a spoiled child. It would surprise most mothers how good babies are when they have a ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... unseemly levity. However, the chill haughtiness of our cabin companion is something of a relief in this terrible heat. For it is hot. I am writing in the cabin, and in spite of the fact that there are two electric fans buzzing on either side of me, I am hotter than I can say, and deplorably ill-tempered. Four times this morning, trying to keep out of Mrs. Albert Murray's way, I have fallen over that wretched hat-box, still here despite our hints about the baggage-room, and now in revenge I am sitting on it, though what the owner would say, if she came in suddenly and ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... through the doorway. The front yard of Dame Betsy's cottage was like a little grove with lemon-color and pink hollyhocks; one had to look directly up the path to see the eldest daughter sitting on the bench eating honey-cakes. She was a very homely girl. All Dame Betsy's daughters were so plain and ill-tempered that they had no suitors, although ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... to step forward, when a dark form shot out from between two orange-trees and stopped near him with a muffled growl. It was the house dog, an ugly, ill-tempered animal trained to bite before ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Though he was a brutal leader, they were ready to follow him anywhere, and had been known to call him le gros caporal, so strong and obvious was this likeness. He was a splendid soldier, though ill-tempered, cruel, and overbearing. He was a man to be reckoned with, and so the amiable Prefect found. Having himself plenty of scruples, plenty of humanity, and a horror of civil war, he found a colleague with none of these difficult ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... cannot confirm what Mr. Holden says," he answered, reluctantly. "The horse is very ill-tempered, and is blind of ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... story of The Ghost Wife, a wife who had died is persuaded by her husband to come back from the Spirit Land to dwell again with himself and her child. All goes well until he takes a second wife, who turns out ill-tempered and jealous of the first wife. Quarrelling with her one day, she reproaches the latter with being nothing but a ghost. The next morning when the husband awoke, his first wife was no longer by his side. She had returned to the Spirit Land; ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... more advice. She likewise informed us, quite incidentally and "by the way," that Mrs Ross had disliked my hat and Mrs Bruce had asked if Charmion were anaemic—such a colourless skin!—and Mrs Someone Else thought it so "queer" that we should live together! Altogether she behaved like a spoiled, ill-tempered child, but she looked so young and worried and pretty through it all, that on the whole I felt more sorry for her than myself. As for Charmion, she smiled, with an air of listening from an illimitable distance, which I can quite understand ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... this opinion. His round head, grotesquely abbreviated muzzle, and small, tightly curled tail, they think, entitling him to a place of his own among dogs. Authorities state that he is a cross, ill-tempered little dog, but my own experience contradicts this. The two with whom I have come in frequent contact, have been remarkably playful and good-natured. One was the pet of a lady; and his bringing up ought to have made him gentlemanly; but he had several low tricks in the eating way; such as ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... had no associates; indeed from his earliest days he had kept aloof from boys of his own age. It was not that he was morose, or proud or ill-tempered, but he appeared to have no sympathy with them, and thus, though possessed of many qualities which would have won him friends, he had not a single friend of his own rank or age in the neighbourhood. Whenever he was not out fishing, he was engaged with ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... a Welsh farmer was a poor pirate but a born soldier. He was described by one who knew him as being morose, sour, unsociable, and ill-tempered, and that he "knew as little of the sea or of ships as he did of the Arts of Natural Philosophy." But it is recorded to his credit that he was not cruel. He started life in a merchant ship bound for India, and was accidentally ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... was certainly good. The most fastidious traveler could not have found fault with it; nevertheless, this ill-tempered individual was not sparing in his signs and words of dissatisfaction—especially signs, for he did not appear to be very loquacious. One could hardly help wondering whether this fault-finding was due to a poor digestion ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... little court. It consisted of five creatures almost equally near to her heart; a big-cropped, learned bullfinch, which she had taken a fancy to because he had lost his accomplishments of whistling and drawing water; a very timid and peaceable little dog, Roska; an ill-tempered cat, Matross; a dark-faced, agile little girl nine years old, with big eyes and a sharp nose, call Shurotchka; and an elderly woman of fifty-five, in a white cap and a cinnamon-coloured abbreviated jacket, over a dark skirt, by name, Nastasya Karpovna Ogarkov. Shurotchka was an ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... hard things to learn, and no fun any more. If that's what it really is going to be, I shall get so unhappy that I shall soon run away home again! And then you think I shall have to grow cross and ill-tempered, too—that is the worst part of ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked whether the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Sisters," to which all three little girls belonged, Gracie's overweening self-conceit and irrepressible desire to be first had led her into conflict with another of her classmates, Lena Neville, in which she had proved herself so arrogant, so jealous and ill-tempered that she had excited the indignation of all who were present. But if they had known what followed after Gracie had been left alone in the room where she had so disgraced herself, how would they have felt then? How she had stood by and seen the source of contention, ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Miss Crutty: I am not sorry for it though. She was a nasty, ugly, ill-tempered wretch, and I've always said ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the magic power of chastity and give it an entirely new seriousness and beauty. The notion of Mr. Newbolt that there were two Miltons, one before and the other after the Civil War, and that the one was "sincerely engaged on the side of liberal manners" while the other was an ill-tempered enemy of civilization and the arts of life, is a complete delusion. The "Lady of Christ's" who was unpopular on account of his severe chastity, was already a strict Puritan of the only sort he ever became; and the author of Paradise Lost, as all the evidence ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... which were rendered still more savage from the ill-humour they were in. They now became openly angry; and in very unequivocal terms ordered us away. Fortunately the Indian that carried the spear was the least ill-tempered of the party, or we should not perhaps have retreated without being under the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... help of the kreelmen the Nancy was soon loaded, and we again sailed for the southward. Matters did not improve. The captain, having abstained from liquor while on shore, recompensed himself by taking a double allowance, and became proportionably morose and ill-tempered, never speaking civilly to me, and often passing a whole day without exchanging a word with his poor mate; and when he did open his mouth it was to abuse. The brig, though tolerably tight when light, now that she had a full cargo, as soon as a sea got up began to leak considerably, so that each ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... seen cows in the city, but had never suspected what they were capable of. When the girl caught sight of him, staring with open mouth, she was taken with such a fit of laughter, that the cow, which was ill-tempered, kicked out, and overturned the pail. Now because of her troublesomeness this cow was not milked beside the rest, and the shed where she stood was used for farm-implements only. The floor of it was the earth, beaten hard, and worn into hollows. When the milk settled in one of these, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... persistent as ever. Very slowly and shakily I scrambled to my feet. My head ached savagely, I was chilled to the core, and every part of my body felt as if it had been trampled on by a powerful and rather ill-tempered mule. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... mingled with it was an undercurrent of shuffling feet, a mere whisper of sound, cut sharply now and then by the sharp commands of the floor manager. They were dancing—in her honor. And she was a fool; a proud, ill-tempered, selfish fool.. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... trader, came to me after a sitting of the precious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had done all I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was a dour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of his property, but perfectly careless ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... how the Queen he had had for some time past had been so ill-tempered. He at once had a sack drawn over her head and made her be stoned to death, and after that torn in pieces by untamed horses. The two young fellows also told now what they had heard and seen in the Queen's room, for before this ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... spectacled duenna could stir up or excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the world that escapes being ill-tempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt, then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of figures of duennas with spectacles and lace-cushions, as if at ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... as he watches Arthur's intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and gluing them carefully on to bits of cardboard, and notes the anxious, loving looks which the little fellow casts sidelong at him. And then he thinks, "What an ill-tempered beast I am! Here's just what I was wishing for last night come about, and I'm spoiling it all," and in another five minutes has swallowed the last mouthful of his bile, and is repaid by seeing his little sensitive plant expand again and sun ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... Tried by our own poor hearts and not before; He must be truer than the truest friend, He must be tenderer than a woman's love, A father better than the best of sires; Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin Oftener than did the brother we are told, We-poor ill-tempered mortals-must forgive, Though seven times sinning ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... place where we were treated with disrespect during our trip was in Hebron," said one of a group around a table in the library. "There the natives were an ill-tempered set. They scowled as if resentful of our presence, and when we were driving away some hoodlums of the town threw chunks of mud and stone after ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... "not to see that Popery—" he never called it anything else—"is the true faith! Curse me but Priest M'Cabe is a famous fellow!—Zounds, what an Orangeman he would make!—he's just the cut for it, an' it's a thousand pities he's not one—but!—what the hell am I sayin?' They say he's cross and ill-tempered, but I deny it—isn't he patient, except when in a passion? and never in a passion unless when provoked; what the d—l more would they have? I know I let fly an oath myself of an odd time (every third word, good reader), but, then, sure the faith is never injured by the vessel that ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton |
