"Churl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shop there was a little dark room for the shop-boy. There sat Petter Nord of to-day and came to an understanding with Petter Nord of yesterday. How pale and cowardly the churl looked. Now he heard what he really was. A thief and a miser. Did he know the seventh commandment? By rights he ought to have forty stripes. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... most valuable prose contributions to English literature of the century; his letters to Mr. Carlyle carried into all our homes the charm of a most delightful personality; the quaint melody of his poems abides in many ears. He would, indeed, be a churl who ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... welcome due to a kinsman of the Imperial house, and to a representative of the good cause of absolutism. He was received by Metternich with great interest, and his fortunes were taken under the protection of the Austrian Court. In due time, it was hoped this savage and ignorant churl would do yeoman's service to Austrian principles in the Peninsula. But the Regency and the new Constitution of Portugal had not to wait for the tardy operation of Metternich's covert hostility. The soldiery who had risen at Miguel's bidding in 1823 now proclaimed him King, and deserted ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... that arch-churl Diabelli when the French copy of the Sonata in C minor [Op. 111] is to be published. I stipulated to have five copies for myself, one of which is to be on fine paper, for the Cardinal [the Archduke Rudolph]. If he attempts any of his usual ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... duke's fool had heretofore been filled with bitterness upon witnessing festal honors to a mere presumptuous free baron, what now were his emotions at the reception accorded him? From king to churl was he a gallant noble; he, a swaggerer, ill-born, a terrorist of mountain passes. Even as the irony of the demonstration swept over the jester, from above fell a flower, white as the box from whence it was wafted. Downward ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the threshold of a modest 'career,' of a sort, after all," he thought, "and she will never give it up for me. Would she be willing to combine me with the career, and how would it work? I shouldn't be churl enough to mind her singing now and then, but it seems to me I couldn't stand 'tours.' Besides, hers is such a childlike, winsome, fragrant little gift it ought not to be exploited like ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... course, but in his own impatient pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... CARLOS EUAN-SMITHEZ! basely have they borne thee down; Thousands, thirty, would they tip thee as a churl they'd tip a crown? Thou at home hadst shown that Sultan with emphatic toe the door; In Morocco thou didst coolly turn thy back upon ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... one would go before and show him the way he would be the first to follow. The soldiers and courtiers hesitated at this suggestion, and looked at one another with doubt and dread. But standing among the crowd was one Brithmar, a churl or serf, who was nicknamed Budde, or Pudding, from his stoutness. He was a native of the island of Ely and doubtless familiar with its waters, and when the courtiers held back he stepped forward and said he would go before and show ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... Hence it is, that a miser, though he pays every body their own, cannot be an honest man, when he does not discharge the good offices that are incumbent on a friendly, kind, and generous person: for, faith the prophet Isaiah, chap. XXXII. ver. 7, 8. The instruments of a churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal soul deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand. It is certainly honest to do every thing the law requires; ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... will have it so, be it as you please. I have offended: you have a right to punish me, and play the churl to-night; ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... yet not quite able to grant it. Far away though he stands to the left of the good host, he has yet something in common with that third person discernible on the right—that speck yonder, which I believe to be Lucullus. Nothing that we know of Lucullus suggests that he was less inhuman than the churl of Arden. It does not appear that he had a single friend, nor that he wished for one. His lavishness was indiscriminate except in that he entertained only the rich. One would have liked to dine with ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... but the oyster—Art's the pearl: Our DICK is neither sycophant nor churl. Not as he was but as he might have been Had the Unkind Gods been poets of the scene, Fired with our fancy, shaped and tricked anew To touch your hearts with love, your eyes with rue, He stands or falls, ere he these boards depart, Not as dead ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... goods good end will never have. The Sabine gauntlets were too dearly won, That unto death did press the holy nun. 50 The son slew her, that forth to meet him went, And a rich necklace caused that punishment. Yet think no scorn to ask a wealthy churl; He wants no gifts into thy lap to hurl. Take clustered grapes from an o'er-laden vine, May[195] bounteous love[196] Alcinous' fruit resign. Let poor men show their service, faith and care; All for their mistress, what they have, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... him and his family. "There he goes," was the saying about any one who passed the door at any time without coming in to take a spoon—"there he goes; I'll warrant he's a miser at home to be so much of a churl abroad" The very gipsy claimed the cleanest bed in a Glenman's house whenever he came that way, and his gossip paid ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart. It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of "the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was present again, but how much more sober and autumnal—like your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a company, and dies without a shirt. The only thing that may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, that churl my brother. He loves not his country for this unnatural custom, and would have long since revolted to the Spaniard, but for Kent[19] only, which ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... himself inwardly for a brute—it rushed over him how difficult to Lady Agatha her position on board the Jasper B. must seem. She must regard herself as practically a pensioner on his bounty. And he had been churl enough to show a spark of temper—and that, too, after she had repeatedly ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... the heart of the churl, which can never be made bountiful," said the indignant young priest. It was not a fit sentiment, perhaps, for a preacher who had just written that text about the wicked man turning from the evil of his ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Pike, branded on the forehead, without hands, without feet, without tongues, lived as an example of the danger which attended the commission of petty crimes, and as a warning to all men who had the misfortune of holding no higher position than that of a churl.[29] Wealthy people might do wrong with impunity. It has been clearly shown that there was one law for the rich, and another for the poor, in England during the four centuries which preceded the ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... will they not remember us with the old love?—my kinsmen will receive us with the affection of the olden time, which lives in those distant glens, where the Gael still dwell in their nobleness, unmingled with the churl Saxons, or with the base brood that are ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... sort of madness, whereby persons assume to themselves whatever of accomplishment they discern in others. Thus the happy rich churl in Seneca, who had so short a memory, as he could not tell the least story without a servant standing by to prompt him, and was at the same time so weak that he could scarce go upright, yet he thought he might adventure to accept a challenge to a duel, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... town! I long to see the flowers in Martin Place, To meet the girl I write to face to face, To hold her close and teach What in this Hell I'm learning—that a man Is only half a man without his girl, That sure as grass is green and God's above A chap's real happiness, If he's no churl, Is home and folks and girl, And all the comforts that come in ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... born of a simple churl, And a serving-wench for my mate, I had whistled as blithe as yon knave that ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... followed by twenty men; and when she came there he went out to meet her, and bade her come stay with him with ten of her folk. She answered in anger, and said she had not known that he was such a churl; and she went away, being minded to find Bjorn, her brother in Broadfirth, and when he heard she was coming, he went to meet her with many followers, and greeted her warmly, and invited her and all her followers to stay with him, for he knew his sister's high-mindedness. She liked that right ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... churl," Kanine added in agreement, the while the frightened, suffering-laden eyes of his wife again gave expression to terrifying horror, as if she momentarily expected a deadly blow. Gorokoff began to pack his luggage in preparation for the journey with ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... known as an expression of sexual love; it would appear to have been a refinement of love only practiced by the more cultivated classes. In the old ballad of Glasgerion the lady suspected that her secret visitor was only a churl, and not the knight he pretended to be, because when he came in his master's place to spend the night with her he kissed her neither coming nor going, but simply got her with child. It is only under a comparatively high stage of civilization that the kiss has been emphasized ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in a hurry," said his uncle, coolly. "Let me think this over again. After all, we are of the same stock, although your father always flouted me for a mean-spirited churl. Poor Gavan, we may forgive ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Christy Minstrels, would, if thrown together for a sufficient period of time, and utterly dependent on one another for daily intercourse, fall into the places allotted to each by temperament and heredity. Each little community would own a wit and a butt; the sentimentalist and the cynic. The churl by nature would appear through some veneer of manner, if only to bring into relief the finer qualities of his fellows; lastly, and most surely, one other would jingle a merciful cap and bells, and mingle ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... "Churl!" said an officer of dragoons, "how know you that our payments are light? The emperor takes nothing without payment; surely not from such as you. But a propos of ransoms, what now might be Holkerstein's ransom for a farmer's barns stuffed with a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... and after he pitched Nak over the cliff, there was but one. But tell me this: was he noble or a churl?" ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... prisoner, Lieutenant Preville. "If we could but fall in with two or three more fat prizes we should be able to set up as independent gentlemen when we get back home again, and I should be able to regain the lands of the McAllisters from the southern churl who has dared to ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the youth who scour'd His master's armor; and of such a one He ask'd, "What means the tumult in the town?" Who told him, scouring still, "The sparrow-hawk!" Then riding close behind an ancient churl, Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam, Went sweating underneath a sack of corn, Ask'd yet once more what meant the hubbub here? Who answer'd gruffly, "Ugh! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... mounting guard for the first time. "See yon two bowmen—mark their bearing! One is the youth who beat thy Squintoff, and t'other, an I mistake not, won the third prize at the butts. Both wear the same uniform—the colors of my house—yet wouldst not swear that the one was but a churl, and the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with hardened splinters torn. Yea, Lycus and Helenor came alone of all their peers Alive to earth: Helenor, now in spring-tide of his years: Bond-maid Licymnia privily to that Maeonian king Had borne the lad, and sent him forth to Troy's beleaguering With arms forbidden, sheathless sword and churl's unpainted shield. But when he saw himself amidst the thousand-sworded field Of Turnus, Latins on each side, behind, and full in face, E'en as a wild beast hedged about by girdle of the chase 550 Rages against the point and edge, and, knowing ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... love. She liked him, but at the same time her attitude was so frank and straightforward that his intended words of endearment and confessions of love always froze upon his lips before he had half uttered them. He felt that she belonged to a higher breed of women, inaccessible to such a "churl" as he often frankly called himself; but precisely because of his lowly origin he loved her all ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... the other, you crooked churl," replied one of the crippled beggars. "The Sheriff is returned from London with his daughter, and the folk are giving him a welcome, such as you will never have from the city! Stand back, for there is no room for you there. Four of us as it is are too many, ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... and Tudors; doctors were not believed in; even empirics had to praise their wares with much wit, and Morrison himself must have mounted a bank and dressed in Astleyian costume in order to find a customer; sack and small-beer were harmless, when homes were not comfortable enough to keep earl or churl by the fireside, and 'out-of-doors' was the proper drawing-room for a man: in short, sickness came in with civilization, indisposition with immoral habits, fevers with fine gentlemanliness, gout with greediness, and valetudinarianism—there is no Anglo-Saxon ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... I am Covetousness, begotten of an old churl, in a leather bag: and, might I now obtain my wish, this house, you, and all, should turn to gold, that I might lock you safe into my chest: ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... himself the object of the exclusive attachment of a strong-minded and noble-hearted woman: and when, in addition to this, her society affords the delight of mental accomplishment and personal beauty, such as Hester's, he must be a churl indeed if he does not greatly enjoy the present, and indulge in sweet anticipations for the future. Hope also brought the whole power of his will to bear upon his circumstances. He dwelt upon all the happiest features of his lot; and, in his admiration of Hester, thought as little as he ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... is not commonly called a Transcendentalist, but is known colloquially as a "crank." The person who does not thank, by word or look, the friend or stranger who has pulled him out of the fire or water, is fortunate if he gets off with no harder name than that of a churl. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... churl And the Rommany girl To-morrow shall hie To poison the sty, And bewitch on the mead ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... "The brawnier churl, who brags at times To front and top the rankest crimes, - To paunch a deer, Quarter a priest, or squeeze a wench, - Scuds from thee, clammy as a tench, He knows ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... with old Ill-pause, the devil's orator, and another with Captain Anything, and another with Lord Willbewill, and another with that notorious villain Clip-promise, by whose doings so much of the king's coin had been abused, and another with that so angry and so ill-conditioned churl old Mr. Prejudice, with his sixty deaf men under him. Dear Mr. Wet-eyes, with his rope upon his head, will have a fit congregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another. We shall have another painful but profitable evening before a communion season with Mr. Prywell, and so we shall eat ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... of all the world—ah, why did she not say so then!" said the churl. "What would I not do for her! Money—no, it is nothing, but the Lajeunesse, I myself would give my horse to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... myself for a churl, I wrote and wished her good luck. The next morning I received a letter from Uncle Bob asking me to go to Wimberley; and early in the following week I travelled up to Cumberland. I received a warm welcome from the old General. As a boy I used to spend the greater part of my holidays with him, ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... van had stolen out of my hard-earned hoard. I had risked our lives a score of times to win each one of them. And now an ill-natured churl had ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... he do or say against it all without seeming a churl and an ingrate? But before he could formulate the inwardly grudging yet outwardly appreciative reply he felt forced to make, Jarvis himself had interposed with a flow of lively talk, explaining to Sally various details of arrangement, and sparing Max the necessity of making any insincere ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... three; But we bring them to dinn-er, Our master dare we not see. Bend your bows," said Little John, "Make all yon press to stand! The foremost monk, his life and his death Is clos-ed in my hand! Abide, churl monk," said Little John, "No farther that thou gone; If thou dost, by dere-worthy God, Thy death is in my hond. And evil thrift on thy head," said Little John, "Right under thy hat's bond, For thou hast made our master wroth, He is fast-ing ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... because I prefer your drawings to every thing in the world, that I am such a churl as to refuse Mrs. Bentley's partridges: I shall thank her very much for them. You must excuse me If I am vain enough to be so convinced of my own taste, that all the neglect that has been thrown upon your designs cannot make me think I have overvalued them. I must think that the states of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... unto mine ears; Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around As it may please her, and the churl his mattock." ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... thighs and breast, and all over his body; and therewith he said: "In our days and the olden time it was the wont of fathers to bless their children in this wise; but for thee, thy father is dead, and thy nighest kinsman is little-hearted and somewhat of a churl. Thus then have I done to thee to take the place of a father to thee, I who am of the warriors of while agone. And I think it will avail thee; and it is borne in upon me that before very long thou wilt need this avail, if thou art to live and do the deeds ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... glad words Be sure all greeting that mine house affords Is yours.—Ye followers, bear in their gear!— Gainsay me not; for his sake are ye dear That sent you to our house; and though my part In life be low, I am no churl ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... so. My father has been robbed; his people have been foolish; it is not a new thing in the Highlands of Scotland, Count Victor. You must not be thinking him a churl to be moping and leaving you to my poor entertainment, for it is ill to keep the pipes in tune when one is ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... geographical discoveries in the North. He gave a West-Saxon form to his selections from Baeda. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of the priest, the thegn, and the churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold Providence of Boethius gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgement of the goodness of God. As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and he talks as ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... is at home and happy with a book, sitting by his fireside, he must be a churl if he does not communicate that happiness. Let him read now and then to his wife ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... And a churl he surely were if he find it not; for a right pleasant book it is to read—genial and full of the real Lowell humor, almost as characteristic as Jean Paul's, der einzige. 'Cambridge Thirty Years Ago' will carry many of our most distinguished men back to the sunny days of youth, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... stall, And read, as he'd devour it all; Which, when the stall man did espy, Soon to the boy I heard him call, 'You, sir, you never buy a book, Therefore in one you shall not look.' The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh He wished he never had been taught to read, Then of the old churl's books he should have ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... obstructions which impeded their intercourse, that the two nations can now scarcely be considered as divided. As a natural consequence, their knowledge of each other has improved; and, as will always happen with generous people, they begin to see that the one was neither knave or fool, nor the other a churl or a boor. Thus has mutual respect arisen from mutual intercourse, and those who hitherto approached each other with distrust are beginning to perceive, that in spite of political or religious prejudices, no matter how ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... made of melody, Hears not the voice of mirth.—The shrill-tongued shrew, Meek as the turtle-dove, forgets her chiding. Here are the wise, the generous, and the brave; The just, the good, the worthless, the profane; The downright clown, and perfectly well-bred; The fool, the churl, the scoundrel, and the mean; The supple statesman, and the patriot stern; The wrecks of nations, and the spoils of time, With all the lumber of six thousand years. 540 Poor man!—how happy once in thy first state! When yet but warm from thy great ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... hour, as I see in his fine speeches to you. But it could not be Mr. B. if he did not: your merit extorts it from him: and what an ungrateful, as well as absurd churl, would he be, who should seek to obscure a meridian lustre, that dazzles the ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... be as I am, tortured still with cares and fears; but out of peevishness, and not out of truth." That which St. Austin said of himself here in this place, I may truly say to thee, thou discontented wretch, thou covetous niggard, thou churl, thou ambitious and swelling toad, 'tis not want but peevishness which is the cause of thy woes; settle ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... might love, it would have been another thing! But this headstrong girl seemed to think she had as good a right to be happy in her own way as a peasant! True, the man of her choice was not a reprobate: he was not even a low-born, unmannerly churl: Don Fernando de Velasquez stood foremost among the young cavaliers of Spain, in gallantry and in that nobility of mind which, should ever accompany gentle birth. But yet it was in that very gentle birth that all the offence lay, for Fernando's ancestors had long been at enmity ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... picture for the soldier who so loved his queen! Him the kiss maddened! Measuring Pascal with his een, He thundered, "Peasant, you have filled my place most sly; Not so fast, churl!"—and brutally let fly With aim unerring one fierce blow, Straight in the other's ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... that would ricochet From the tufts of grasses before them, yet— Like bold Antaeus—would each time bring New life from the earth, barely touched by his wing; And the swallow and martlet that always knew The straightest way home. Here a Saxon churl drew His breath—tapped his ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... great edition of Chaucer.[A] It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitae meae at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his pen, he must be a churl (even if he be also a competent critic) who will allow no pause for admiration. And where, churl or no churl, is the competent critic to be found? The Professor has here compiled an entirely new text of Chaucer, founded solely on the manuscripts and the earliest printed ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... they do, and quite right! Had I my will, there shouldn't be a place of Protestant worship left standing, or a Protestant churl allowed to go about with a ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... the son of Sualtam and Dectera of Dun Dalgan! and comest hither without chariots and horsemen and a prince's retinue and guard. Nay, thou art a churl and a liar to boot, and hie thee hence now with wings at thy heels or verily with sore blows I shall beat thee off ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... lords, till night fall, when he returned to the palace, preceded by all the folk. He rode forth thus every day to the tilting ground, returning to sit and judge the people and do justice between earl and churl; and thus he continued doing a whole year, at the end of which he began to ride out a-hunting and a-chasing and to go round about in the cities and countries under his rule, proclaiming security and satisfaction and doing after the fashion of Kings; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... the Miller was ruddy; A heart like a lord and a hue like a lady: The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl; She's left the guid-fellow and ta'en the churl. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... then slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears. "The Danes set fire to my father's castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen. The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to them,—though he had been my father's man for four seasons. It was from him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue. They took me while I slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats. They carried out also the young maidens who attended my mother,—Editha among ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... jailer," he called, "let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight's mouth, and have, as it were, a flavor of bacon. Give me a stoop of wine, as jolly Prince John would say, that I may wash ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... grace evinced in its redemption, will be then clearly seen. Oh, how trifling will that money which has been squandered or grudgingly withheld from charity then appear, contrasted with the results in glorified souls of what was cheerfully and prayerfully bestowed. The condition of the churl and the liberal, how different then! He who hoarded most will then be found the poorest; and he who gave most with the greatest sacrifices, ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... theorem to its conclusion,—"unless you particularly aspire to seem—and to be—an absolute barbarian, a bear, a boor, a churl, and a curmudgeon,"—each epithet received an augmented stress,—"you must call at Craford New Manor with the least possible delay. As I find myself in rather good form just now, and feel that I should shine to perhaps exceptional advantage, I ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... should I be such a niggard as to omit so good an opportunity of pointing out the way to others. The very basis of true peace of mind is a benevolent wish to see all the world as happy as one's Self; and from my soul do I pity the selfish churl, who, remembering the little bickerings of anger, envy, and fifty other disagreeables to which frail mortality is subject, would wish to revenge the affront which pride whispers him he has received. For my own part, I can safely declare, there is not a human ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... mammon, not God. If thy hope of well-being in time to come, rests upon thy houses, or lands, or business, or money in store, and not upon the living God, be thou friendly and kind with the overflowings of thy possessions, or a churl whom no man loves, thou art equally a server of mammon. If the loss of thy goods would take from thee the joy of thy life; if it would tear thy heart that the men thou hadst feasted should hold forth to thee the two fingers instead of the whole hand; nay, if thy ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... one day, dragging one foot after the other, and a poor, wizened face on him, and he was as cross as two sticks. When he was rested and had got something to eat, he told them how he had taken service with the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance, and that the agreement was whoever would first say he was sorry for his bargain should get an inch wide of the skin of his back, from shoulder to hips, taken off. If it was the master, he should ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... horizon enlarged. There was more scope for a man of parts. Things moved more rapidly. The world seemed full of philanthropists, anxious to "dress his front" and do him other little kindnesses. Mr. McEachern was no churl. He let them dress his front. He accepted the little kindnesses. Presently, he found that he had fifteen thousand dollars to spare for any small flutter that might take his fancy. Singularly enough, this was the precise sum necessary ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'Tis dead level among the dead, Antilochus; strength and beauty are no more; we welter all in the same gloom, one no better than another; the shades of Trojans fear me not, Achaeans pay me no reverence; each may say what he will; a man is a ghost, 'or be he churl, or be he peer.' It irks me; I would fain be a servant, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... touched the dissolute and brutal husband, who besides was an excellent man and warm-hearted. The modesty of his wife, after a while, made her attractive in his eyes. He loved her, so to speak, on the strength of his respect and admiration for her. He would indeed have been a churl to find fault with a wife who interfered with him so little and who was a perfect housekeeper, as we shall see later on when we come to her life at Cassicium. In one point, where even she did not intend it, she forwarded the interests of her husband by gaining ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him: it can hardly have a good word in that end of the town where he dwells, through him—a saint abroad, and a devil at home! His poor family find it so. He is such a churl; such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for him nor speak of him. Men that have any dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him, for fairer dealings they ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a sense almost amounting to a title of dignity, of a young man of noble birth, probably preparing for knighthood. In the York Mysteries of about 1440 (quoted in the New English Dictionary) occurs "be he churl or child," obviously referring to gentle birth, cf. William Bellenden's translation (1553) of Livy (ii. 124) "than was in Rome ane nobill childe ... namit Caius Mucius." The spelling "childe" is frequent in modern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... like Gunnar, helped their tenants and neighbours, often, as we see in Gunnar's case, till they had neither hay nor food enough left for their own household, and had to buy or borrow from those that had. Then, too, it was that the churl's nature came out in Otkell and others, who having enough and to spare, would not part with their abundance for love ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... shouts that arose from the group around were all in favour of Nero, who was a general favourite—as he was one of those large, peaceable, benevolent fellows, belieing his name, whom all liked, while there was something of the churl and savage about Rover, that caused him ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... for a churl!" said the smith; "Sir Osmund grudges every mouth about him; but"—and here he looked wondrous knowing—"he may happen to be ousted yet, if Earl Thomas should come by ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. And it came to pass, about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died." One can imagine the picture for oneself. The rich churl sitting there in the midst of all his slaves and his wealth as one thunderstruck, helpless and speechless, till one of those mysterious attacks, which we still rightly call a stroke, and a visitation of God, ends him miserably. And when he is ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... the part of a churl to bring danger upon a host, sahib, and I have many enemies. Is it possible that there are those without who demand that I should be yielded ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... taller, when they sat down Odysseus was more stately. But when they spake, Menelaus' words were fluent, clear but few; Odysseus when he spoke, fixed his eyes on the ground, turning his sceptre neither backwards nor forward, standing still like a man devoid of wit; one would have deemed him a churl and a very fool; yet when he sent forth his mighty voice from his breast in words as many as the snowflakes, no other man could compare ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... troubled that he knew not what countenance to make, and scarce might he get a word out of his mouth a long while. At last he said: "Lord, I see that I must needs do thy will if this be no trap which thou hast set for me. But overwonderful it is, that a great lady should be wedded to a gangrel churl." ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... and in 1404 but thirty. In 1535, on the eve of the Suppression, Battle Abbey was visited by the infamous Layton who reported to Thomas Cromwell that "all but two or three of the monks were guilty of unnatural crimes and were traitors," adding that the abbot was an arrant churl and that "this black sort of develish monks I am sorry to know are past amendment." Little more than two years later the abbot surrendered the abbey and received a pension of one hundred pounds. The furniture ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips one breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low churl thy husband. ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... his fellows rode up to his side. "We are within a mile of Highstead," he told him. "Better go warily, for the King's law runs limpingly in the fanlands. I counsel that a picket be sent forward to report if the way be clear. Every churl that we passed on the road will have sent news of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... old wild road whereon we stray, Meseems, might bring us face to face with one Whom seeing we could not but give thanks, and pray For England's love our father and her son To speak with us as once in days long done With all men, sage and churl and monk and mime, Who knew not as we know the soul sublime That sang for song's love more than lust of fame. Yet, though this be not, yet, in happy time, Our father Chaucer, here we praise ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... for some sure hour of revenge; the fierce Angevin temper turned in him to restlessness and petulance in the long series of revolts which filled his reign with wearisome monotony from the moment when he first rode out to claim his duchy of Normandy, and along its southern frontier peasant and churl turned out at the sound of the tocsin, and with fork and flail drove the hated "Guirribecs" back over the border. Five years after his marriage, in 1133, his first child was born at Le Mans. Englishmen saw in the grandson of "good Queen ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... Her conduct would have shocked the Apostle who laid such stress on the motto, "Wives, obey your husbands." "What little reason we have to value the wealth of this world," says the historian, "when such a churl as Nabal abounds in plenty, while such a saint ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... mystery! To the eternal shame of the Pharisees and lawyers, a common mariner of the Lake of Tiberias, who by his gross cowardice had become the laughing-stock of the kitchen wenches who warmed themselves with him in the courtyard of the high priest, a churl and a dastard, who denied his master and his faith before slatterns certainly not so pretty by far as the chamber-maid of the bailiff's wife at Seez, wears the triple crown, the pontifical ring on his finger and rules ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... accepted by very many of our readers. Brother Jonathan thinks and talks of cotton, and flour, and dollars, and the ups and downs of stocks. Poetry doesn't pay: he can not appreciate, and does not care for it. "Let me get something for myself," he says, like the churl in Theocritus. "Let the gods whom he invokes reward the poet. What do we want with more verse? We have Milton and Shakspeare (whether we read them or not). He is the poet for me who asks me for nothing;" and so ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Major Bridgenorth, turning from his daughter to her lover,—"you sir, have well repaid the liberal confidence which I placed in you with so little reserve. You I have to thank also for some lessons, which may teach me to rest satisfied with the churl's blood which nature has poured into my veins, and with the rude nurture which my father allotted ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... courtesy, Barbara, for I have sought thee to say that I deserve none at thy hands. I, to whose protection and comforting thou hast come across the sea, have treated thee as no base-born churl hath warrant for treating the meanest of woman-kind. I, to pride myself upon gentle blood and knightly training, and then throw insult and taunt upon a woman's unshielded head! Nay, Barbara, had any man three days agone forecast my doing ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... On shores invaded, When shorewards waded The lords of fight; When churl and craven Saw hard on haven The wide-winged raven At mainmast height; When monks affrighted To windward sighted The birds full-flighted Of swift sea-kings; So earth turns paler When Storm the sailor Steers in with a roar in the race of ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... abundance lies, Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... "Fetch the English churl, and ask him if he knows who these are," said the Dane. "Then shall we see if this is a ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... spot is mean that they begem; No nosegay fair that holds them not; They melt the pride and stir the phlegm Of lord and churl, in court and cot, And weave a ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... seek suburban airs, Desire, of course, a more extended "radius;" But, Cabby, it is clear, Thinks quite otherwise. I fear The controversy's growing rather "taydious." Whether by night or day, A fair fare the fare should pay, And Cabby should not overcharge unduly; But this is what riles me, When churl Cabby will not see A would-be fare, but ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... the signal is given, the dog obeys the mandate, and the poor sheep flies round the field to escape from the fangs of him who should be his protector, until it becomes half dead with fright and exhaustion, while the trembling flock crowd together dreading the same fate, and the churl exults in this cowardly victory over a ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... rendered the entertainment almost sumptuous—in my imagination. A cup of water cheerfully given to the weary and thirsty traveller, by him who has no more to part with, is worth a cask of wine grudgingly bestowed by the stingy or the ostentatious churl. Notwithstanding we preferred sleeping on our own blankets, these poor people would not suffer us to do it, but spread their own pallets on the earth floor of their miserable hut, and insisted so strongly upon our occupying them, that ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... devote a little more time to such serious topics, and less to such frivolities as fighting and making love. The latter is a fine art, no doubt, and, when done according to rule, is well enough; but as for fighting, getting oneself grimed with dust and sweat, and very likely some vulgar churl's common blood to boot—pah! it is intolerable ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... heavy-laden Christian, panting sore, Had gained the home of the Interpreter, He saw a sorry fellow with great stir Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; And the more mire the churl raked, the more He smiled, although a winged messenger Floating aloft was eager to confer On him the crown that in her hands she bore. So is it with those fools that waste their days In raking stores of dross and minted gear, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... invitation. The expression mai, or komo mai, this way, or come in, was the most common of salutations. The Hawaiian sat down to meat before an open door; he ate his food in the sight of all men, and it was only one who dared being denounced as a churl who would fail to invite with word and gesture the passer-by to come in and share with him. This gesture might be a sweeping, downward, or sidewise motion of the hand in which the palm faced and drew toward the speaker. This ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... horn, announcing all ready, interrupted our colloquy, and prevented my learning any thing further of my fellow-traveller, whom, however, I at once set down in my own mind for some confounded old churl that made himself comfortable every where, without ever thinking of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... born near Athens, B.C. 420. He declared himself the enemy of the human race, and had a companion named Apeman'tus, who possessed a similar disposition. The latter asking him one day why he paid such respect to Alcibi'ades, "It is," said the churl, "because I foresee he will prove the ruin of the Athe'nians, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... 'roof,' the 'home,' the 'hearth.' His 'board' too, and often probably it was no more, has a more hospitable sound than the 'table' of his lord. His sturdy arms turn the soil; he is the 'boor,' the 'hind,' the 'churl'; or if his Norman master has a name for him, it is one which on his lips becomes more and more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 'villain.' The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the 'plough,' the 'share,' the 'rake,' the 'scythe,' the 'harrow,' the 'wain,' the 'sickle,' ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... person; frizzles his hair like a fool, and does not cut it off. And all this I have, a thousand times, reprimanded; but all in vain, and no improvement in nothing (KEINE BESSERUNG IN NITS IST). For the rest, haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to nobody but some few, and is not popular and affable; and cuts grimaces with his face, as if he were a fool; and does my will in nothing unless held to it by force; nothing out of love;—and has pleasure in nothing but following his own whims [own KOPF],—no use to ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... said Robin, "not a penny will I touch. Many a false churl comes hither, and disburses against his will: and till there is lack of these, I prey not ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... upon dead carcasses, although their bellies are full, and although they are conscious that in the end they will tear one another to pieces over them. Why should you prepare their prey? Were your fire and effulgence given you for this? Why, in short, did you thank this churl? Why did you recommend him to his superiors for preferment on the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... in his name some Ron...Ronte... Or...Oronte... No. Ge...Geronte. Yes, Geronte, that's my miser's name. I have it now; it is the old churl I mean. Well, to come back to our story. Our people wished to leave this town to-day, and my lover would have lost me through his lack of money if, in order to wrench some out of his father, he had not made ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... what—the worser part to view— Of wanton waste and reckless gambling, What darker paths shall he pursue With sacrilegious step and shambling? What coarse defiance, haply, hurl At lights beyond his comprehension— An attitudinising churl Who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... in displeasure. "It is easy to see thou art but a Saxon churl," he said. "And moreover, where is thy sense of time? This day were gone; ay, and the next before we had entered every house in one hundred and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger |
