"Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stayed to answer him, and only two or three gave him anything, so that the poor boy was soon in the most miserable condition. Being almost starved to death, he laid himself down at the door of one Mr. Fitzwarren, a great, rich merchant. Here he was soon perceived by the cook-maid, who was an ill-tempered creature, and happened just then to be very busy dressing dinner for her master and mistress; so, seeing poor Dick, she called out, "What business have you there, you lazy rogue? There is nothing else but beggars; if you do not take ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... opposite to us a not very amiable-looking man of thirty, who might be of the superior class of mechanics, and who evidently regarded us with an evil eye, either because we were suspected Anglais or aristocrats. I resolved that he should become amicable. Ill-tempered though he might be, he was still polite, for at every stopping-place he got out to smoke, and extinguished his cigar ere he re-entered. I said to him, "Madame begs that you will not inconvenience yourself so much—pray continue ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... expect to enjoy the luxury of being ill-tempered without having to pay the price for it. I only ask that you may not make the price too heavy. When you choose to return to the Abbey you ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... singularly attached to Francesca. A man is but weak and foolish, carried away by the merest trifle, and a coward every time that his senses are excited or mastered. I clung to this unknown girl, silent and dissatisfied as she always was. I liked her somewhat ill-tempered face, the dissatisfied droop of her mouth, the weariness of her look; I liked her fatigued movements, the contemptuous way in which she let me kiss her, the very indifference of her caresses. A secret bond, that mysterious ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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
... diamonds on her head. But nothing could disguise the fact that she was an ugly little fright. Her hair was black and greasy, she was cross-eyed and bow-legged, and in the middle of her back she had a big hump. Moreover she was ill-tempered and sulky, and ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... the old 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 about any danger ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... relations, to an incalculable degree—a 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, left to his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... 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 did not hold ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... preparations for the assembling of the convention, or for the accommodation and pay of the members. The debate in the legislature on the bill for appropriations for these purposes was insulting to the convention, the more ill-tempered and ill-bred secession members intimating that such a body of 'submissionists' were unworthy to represent Missouri, and undeserving of any pay. The manifest ill feeling between the two bodies—the legislature elected eighteen months previously, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Captain Stroke had taken such a 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 ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... imprisoned patron, which, if they came to the knowledge of the King, would certainly have made his majesty very angry. The favour of the Court was completely withdrawn from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honour at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a week of hazy weather after this. I spent it chiefly in my study and in Connie's room. A world of mist hung over the sea; it refused to hold any communion with mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it folded itself in its mantle and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... from the informal exchange of opinions and views indulged in across the dinner table or on the trolley car. It does not correspond with the usual meaning of argue and argument which both so frequently suggest wrangling and bickering ending in ill-tempered personal attacks. Argumentation is the well-considered, deliberate means employed to convince others of the truth or expediency of the views advocated by the speaker. Its purpose is to carry conviction to the consciousness of others. This is its purpose. Its method is proof. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... 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 ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... of the accident to his little son had angered Pargeter, and made him feel ill-used, but that it should have been followed by this mystery concerning his wife's whereabouts seemed to add insult to injury. So it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anxious man who joined Vanderlyn on the worn steps of the huge frowning building wherein is housed that which remains the most permanent and the ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... many ideas to think 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 not been for the box, our ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... was a great pile of shining yellow corn. There was another pile of plump ripe acorns, and three little piles of dainty looking brown seeds. But the thing that Happy Jack couldn't keep his eyes off was right in the middle. It was a huge pile of big, fat hickory nuts. Now who could remain ill-tempered and cross with such a lot of goodies spread before him? Certainly not Happy Jack or his cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel. They just had to smile in spite of themselves, and when Striped Chipmunk urged them to sit down and help themselves, they did. In three minutes they were so busy eating ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... 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 in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... you can do without me," muttered the old man, feeling as though a weight of anger were being lifted from his heart. "Let somebody else look after you now! I am stingy and ill-tempered. . . . It's nasty living with me, so you try living with other people . . . . ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... some 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,' ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... and a gentleman; but, oh, what an ill-tempered one, apparently! He was dark, with fine features, and black hair with a slight inclination to wave or curl (as far at least as could be judged when the extremely well-cropped state of his head was taken into ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... something," she said, as Patty stood waiting, brush in hand. "I don't really want to tell you a bit,—but Jim says I must," and Daisy looked decidedly cross and ill-tempered. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... describe anguish indescribable? At length he was relieved by the return of Mrs. Snodgrass; but, to the horror and consternation of himself and of all present, she introduced the aforesaid Master Charles,—an ugly, ill-tempered, blubbering little brat of seven years old, with a bloated red face, scrubby white hair, and red eyes; and with the interesting appendage of a thick slice of bread ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... 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 of it uncomfortably, longing to go, and not quite ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... man who is, according to popular prejudice, a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, or conceited, or trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... carefully placed the guests. As a result, Morris, to whose lot it had fallen to take in the wealthy Miss Layard, a young lady of handsome but somewhat ill-tempered countenance, found himself at the foot of the oblong table with his partner on one side and his cousin on the other. Mary, who was conducted to her seat by Mr. Layard, the delicate brother, an insignificant, pallid-looking specimen of humanity, for reasons of her own, not unconnected ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Ormiston!" With that, she tried herself to look at Mrs. Ormiston, but found she could not help watching the clever way he went on cleaning the goggles while his eyes and attention were fixed otherwhere. There was something ill-tempered about his movements which made her want to go dancingly across and say teasing things to him. Yet when a smile at some private thought suggested by the speech broke his attention, and he began to look round the hall, she was filled ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... solely for his wife's sake that he had made any effort at all to give a helping hand to surly Phil Sparks, for whom he entertained no personal regard. But Ned managed to keep his mouth shut. Although a passionate man, he was not ill-tempered, and often suffered a great deal ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... form anger becomes irritability, a reaction common to the neurotic and the weak. When anger is not frank, but manifests itself by a lowered brow and sidelong look, we speak of sullenness or surliness. The sullen or surly person, chronically ill-tempered and hostile, is regarded as unsocial and dangerous, whereas the most lovable persons are quick to anger ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... his team at the well, with the sound of oaths. He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamed ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... "Why should I be ill-tempered about anything that concerns you and me?" says she, very gently still. She has grown even whiter, however, and has lifted her head so that her large eyes are directed straight to his. Something in the calm severity ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... at the sight of so many new faces, and half proud of being a Randlebury boy, with a right to a seat in the chapel. And as he looked he saw some faces he thought he should like, and some that he thought he would dislike; there were merry, bright-eyed boys, like himself, and there were ill-tempered, sullen-looking boys; there were boys haggard with hard-reading, and boys who looked as if their heads were ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the double line—twelve in all—pausing now and then to take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... with what love and gaiety. Her heart turned cold when she saw Kitty sitting on a low chair near the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather ill-tempered expression of her face ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... untechnical, unlearned, sometimes ungrammatical, but generally right. The daily life of Jackson as a frontier judge was hardly less active and exciting than it had been when he was a prosecuting attorney. There were long and arduous horseback journeys "on circuit"; ill-tempered persons often threatened, and sometimes attempted, to deal roughly with the author of an unfavorable decision; occasionally it was necessary to lay aside his dignity long enough to lend a hand in capturing or controlling ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... I demanded irritably, for I was ill-tempered from the heat. "It's perfectly clean out here in mid-stream and there is no danger from sharks here, as there was at ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... and soon became a fine sailor. But he was still headstrong and ill-tempered; and he was often in trouble with ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... 1761, the Duke of Douglas was unexpectedly taken ill, and his physicians pronounced his malady to be mortal. Nature, in her strange and unexplained way, told the ill-tempered peer the same tale, and, when death was actually before his eyes, he repented of his conduct towards his unfortunate sister. To herself he was unable to make any reparation, but her boy remained; and, on the 11th of July 1761, he executed an entail of his entire estates in favour of the heirs ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... had sat down to dinner, and, conscious of her poverty and her ignorance, she imagined that a great deal of the Demon's conversation had been directed against her; and, choking with indignation, she only heard indistinctly the reproaches with which the other little boys covered her—"nasty, dirty, ill-tempered thing, scullery-maid," etc.; nor did she understand their whispered plans to duck her when she passed the stables. All looked a little askance, especially Grover and Mr. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... 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. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... hand, who had been near the door when her father appeared, gave one glance at his ill-tempered face, and skated in the opposite direction. She thought that he had not seen her. Not that it would have made any difference, for his family were wont to avoid their head when he was what his wife called 'put out about something'—which, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... no! You also took your place with the defenders of the nation; Subordinate positions to my own, but meritoriously filled, though a little more style would have well become so great an occasion. That malevolent old Moke—may his next thistle choke him!—disgraced us all with his jibbing—the ill-tempered old ass! Young Neddy is shaggy and shy, but not amiss, if he'd held his ears up, and not kept his eyes on the grass. Nothing is more je-june (I may say vulgar) than to seem anxious to eat when the crisis calls for public spirit, enthusiasm, and an elevated ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a subject is easy out when folks get to going confidential," pursued the persistent Brophy. The suggestion that he would ever be on confidential terms with Flagg provoked an ill-tempered rebuke from Ward, but Brophy paid ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... her father said, quietly, "unless you wish to leave the room. I mean to say this—that when you have persuaded yourself somehow that you would rather reconsider your promise to Sir Keith Macleod—am I right?—that it does seem rather hard that you should grow ill-tempered with him and accuse him of being the author of your troubles and vexations. I am no great friend of his—I disliked his coming here at the outset; but I will say he is a manly young fellow, and I know he would not try to throw ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... woman who acted as servant to Abbe Mouret. In addition, she cleaned the church and kept the vestments in order; on occasion, it was said, she had even served the Mass for the Abbe's predecessor. She was garrulous and ill-tempered, but was devoted to Mouret, of whom she took the greatest care, and she was also kind to his weak-minded sister, Desiree. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... Such words from ill-tempered dowagers and faded beauties were no unfrequent interruption to her brief-lived and wearisome triumphs. She heard manoeuvring mothers caution their booby sons, whom Constance would have looked into the dust had they dared but to touch her hand, against her untitled ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... said the doctor; "you're an ill-tempered, ungrateful, soured, discontented young beggar. You deserve to surfer.— And as for you, sir," he continued, turning to me, "you're ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... absence. The doctor bethought himself, too, that there might be very natural explanations of the curate's escort. How else, to be sure, could she have got home on a dark winter night through that lonely road? Perhaps, if he himself had been less impatient and ill-tempered, it might have fallen to his lot to supersede Mr Wentworth. On the whole, Dr Rider decided that it was necessary to make one of his earliest calls this morning ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... 'How ill-tempered you are! The "old nuisance," as you call him, has behaved very nicely. He sent his son over here to thank us for our kindness, and to ask me to accept a dozen extra cards from himself. The son is a very respectable-looking man, but rather shabby. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody—from the mayor to the poorest mill hand—loved and respected. How often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the class-room, only to have that droll face of his father's and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity and indignation into laughter and consequent ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... liking his looks, I did not inquire of him where Mrs. Horlick lived, but went down the Mews till I met with a woman, and asked her. She directed me to the right number. I knocked at the door, and Mrs. Horlick herself—a lean, ill-tempered, miserable-looking woman—answered it. I told her at once that I had come to ask what her terms were for charing. She stared at me for a moment, then answered my question ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... It would seem that the circumstances of his childhood must have been singularly unhappy. His father, sprung from a well-connected family, was but a shiftless and idle adventurer; nor was the great astronomer much more fortunate in his other parent. His mother was an ignorant and ill-tempered woman; indeed, the ill-assorted union came to an abrupt end through the desertion of the wife by her husband when their eldest son John, the hero of our present sketch, was eighteen years old. The childhood of this lad, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... the general's wife departed when Martha asked the general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere. The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life. He began to receive, almost daily, letters from different parts ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... could not doubt, and they were married, as he intended to return to England. But her fondness was that of a child, and sometimes grew very wearisome. She was petulant, but not ill-tempered; the thing she cried for to-day ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... trusted by such a man—I know the confidence on his part which such an arrangement implies—and you may add, that if he will only extend to me his usual indulgence for human folly and frailty, I will do every thing that is in the power of an ill-tempered, good-for-nothing, selfish old fellow, to prevent him repenting his bargain. And tell Lettice she's a darling, excellent creature; and I have thought so long, though I have said little about it, and she has been like an angel of love ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... those which are a grade above them. She had loved 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... to lose her place at the top of the class. It should be mentioned that all the boarders, as well as the senior day pupils, were taught by Miss Blake, and that Samuel taught the second class. The very small pupils were instructed by the second lady-teacher. Martha grew thin and ill-tempered. On several occasions she was very impertinent to Miss Blake. In church, or when singing after evening prayers, she hardly ever took her eyes from Samuel. This was, of course, remarked by the other girls, but a chaffing allusion ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... smoke, And chiding wives, make 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 ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. With her second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him her slave—that she had only to show him a little flattery, a little encouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as he was truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And her vanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse—yes, there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she alone of his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth she could have kept him hanging ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Whatever the cause, just at the entrance of the Route de la Revolte the dreaded outburst of temper on the part of the irascible Tom took place. At first merely fidgety, and managed with the greatest delicacy by the English postilion, then ill-tempered and capricious, swerving from side to side, necessitating in self-defence the use of the whip—"But only gently and lighthanded, as one's obliged to do sometimes, just to show 'em who's master," was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... thumping noise, and presently he came in sight of Gobobbles, who proved to be a large and very bold-mannered turkey with all his feathers taken off except a frowzy tuft about his neck. He was tied fast in a baby's high chair, and was thumping his chest with his wings in such a violent and ill-tempered manner that Davy at once made up his mind not to aggravate him under any circumstances. As Gobobbles caught sight of him he discontinued his thumping, and, after staring at him ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... a shallow stream, the doctor's scraggy, ill-tempered horse took a fit of kicking quite frantical. For some time it seemed likely that either the doctor himself, or his saddle-bags, would be deposited in the bottom of the creek, but after a severe spell of whipping and kicking on the part of the rider, the animal moved on again. What ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... I should have gravitated into journalism in any case; but it was poor old Dr Kenealy, who was afterwards famous as the intrepid, if ill-tempered, counsel for the Tichborne Claimant, who gave me my first active impulse towards the business. The Borough of Wednesbury had just been created, and my own native parish was a part of it. The Liberals chose as ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... purpose. For they have acquired no pleasures, by the hope of enjoying which it was that they were inflamed to undertake so many great labours. There are others, of little and narrow minds, either always despairing of everything, or else malcontent, envious, ill-tempered, churlish, calumnious, and morose; others devoted to amatory pleasures, others petulant, others audacious, wanton, intemperate, or idle, never continuing in the same opinion; on which account there is never any interruption to the annoyances to ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... 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
... 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
... 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
... and then his irritability was at its height. He would scarcely bear any observations, even if made in his favour, and I am convinced that it is to this uncontrollable irritability that he owed the reputation of having been ill-tempered in his boyhood, and splenetic in his youth. My father, who was acquainted with almost all the heads of the military school, obtained leave for him sometimes to come out for recreation. On account of an accident (a sprain, if I recollect rightly) Napoleon ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... shows all the time. You see the sort of man I am. I've a broad streak of personal vanity. I fag easily. I'm short-tempered. I've other things, as you perceive. When I fag I become obtuse, I repeat and bore, I get viciously ill-tempered, I suffer from an intolerable sense of ill usage. Then that ass, Wagstaffe, who ought to be working with me steadily, sees his chance to be pleasantly witty. He gets a laugh round the table at my expense. Young ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... young people will not listen to that warning voice of God. They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by their sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched. Oh, how many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come from ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... a novel as far as masque and domino are concerned,—though indirectly it touches another of George Sand's curious personal experiences—that with Chopin. Un Hiver a Majorque is perhaps the most ill-tempered book of travel, except Smollett's too famous production, ever written by a novelist of talent or genius. The Majorcans certainly did not ask George Sand to visit them. They did not advertise the advantages of Majorca, as is the fashion with "health resorts" nowadays. She went there of her ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... repays him by allowing him to be seen in his company. Gram gambles away the money, but I don't know what the soap-boiler does with his distinguished honours. However, you can see that the poor wretch is delighted with his bargain. There are the three Banellic girls, the most ill-tempered, ugly cats in England. But each will have a large marriage portion, so they have no fears, I warrant me. I wonder the elder has the effrontery to show her face here so soon if it is true that the waiting-woman died of her injuries. Little Wax ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... respect—their garments consisting of a checked shirt, white trousers, and white jacket, though their feet were shoeless, and they generally dispensed with hats. They looked neat and clean, and had no reason to complain of want of physical comfort. Probably, in other cases where the master was ill-tempered, they would have been liable to punishment, deserved ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... variety of the bull-dog, and others reject 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 ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... 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 serenity of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... who probably was no party to the murder of his young wife, though otherwise on bad terms with her, married for his second wife a coarse German princess, homely in every sense, and a singular contrast to the elegant creature whom he had lost. She was a daughter of the Bavarian Elector; ill-tempered by her own confession, self- willed, and a plain speaker to excess; but otherwise a woman of honest German principles. Unhappy she was through a long life; unhappy through the monotony as well as the malicious intrigues of the French court; and so much so, that she did her best (though without ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 but beggars; ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... good man, of a cheerful, happy disposition, always making the best of everything, and when accidents did happen, always more inclined to laugh than to look grave. His name was Osborn. The first mate, whose name was Mackintosh, was a Scotsman, rough and ill-tempered, but paying strict attention to his duty—a man that Captain Osborn could trust, but ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... any reasonable being could object to," declares Monica, with such an amount of vigor as startles Kit. "But of all the ill-tempered, bearish, detestable men I ever met in my life, he is ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... stood looking at the house, the thundering at the door of the smithy ceased. Presently they heard voices in altercation. One voice was that of the smith, quieter than when last they heard it, but ill-tempered and growling as at first. The other seemed that of a woman. She had been able so far to quiet him, probably, that he remembered he had the key in his pocket; for they thought they heard the door of the smithy open. Then all was silent, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... calling and value to his utterance. It serves to dispel the popular conception of a critic as a disappointed litterateur who begrudges his more brilliant fellow craftsmen their success and who dogs their triumphs with his ill-tempered snarling. Interpretative criticism needs few rules and no system; yet it serves a noble purpose as a guide and monitor ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... A non-juror, consecrated in 1693 suffragan bishop of Thetford by three of the deprived non-juror bishops. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xvii. 450. Burnet (Hist. of his own Time, iv. 303) describes him as 'an ill-tempered man, who was now [1712] at the head of the Jacobite party, and who had in several books promoted a notion, that there was a proper sacrifice made in the Eucharist.' Boswell mentions him, ante, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... of this little scene, Winn Caspar was not an ill-tempered boy. He had not learned the beauty of self-control, and thus often spoke hastily, and without considering the feelings of others. He was also apt to think that if things were left to his management, he could improve upon almost ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... Lady Thistlewood, 'you would not have that poor lad wedded to a pert, saucy, ill-tempered little moppet, bred up that den of iniquity, Queen Catherine's court, where my poor Baron never trusted me after he fell in with the religion, and had heard of King Antony's calling me the Swan ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by his crossness. Priests were notorious for being the most ill-tempered, obstreperous, and unstable of men. They were not at all like the clerics of Earth, whom everybody knew from legend had been sweet-tempered, meek, humble, and obedient to authority. But on L'Bawpfey these men of the Church had ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... ill-tempered as weeks went by, and one day waited to quarrel with Olifant's dog instead of going in so that Molly Cottontail was able to take possession of the ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 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 men, or which shall at the least ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... "An ill-tempered Irishman," said Frank, "the most disagreeable animal alive, once a rare bird on the earth. His father, after having taught him some Irish and less Latin, together with an immoderate hatred of the English, sent him abroad at the age of sixteen to serve the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... set spurs to Sphinx, and at the same time cut and cracked away as hard as he could, holding in the reins with all his might, striving to make the creature plunge and show some uncommon diversion. But sulky and ill-tempered was Sphinx at the time: she plunged indeed—such a devil of a plunge, that she dashed him in one jerk over her head, and he fell precipitately into the water before her. It was in the Bay of Biscay, all the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... considerable difference between the crew of the Primrose and that of the Polly. They were generally a hearty, merry set; but, alas! he soon heard oaths and curses coming out of the lips of most of them. Some, too, were morose and ill-tempered and discontented with their lot, and all seemed utterly indifferent about ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... ill-tempered king; and, in any matter of less moment, he would have let the queen have her own way, with all his heart. This, however, was ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... darling of herself and my father, 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 most anxious ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... managed to get herself married to the wrong man—she was trying to escape her mother, or some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange sexual tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself—a rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically—and her eventually meeting ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the female tale is often a poor, frivolous, easily led person. When he can escape from his wife's eye, he speculates heavily on Stock Exchange, goes in under the influence of evil advisers for any sort of polite swindling, and forgets, or is ill-tempered towards, the inestimable treasure he has at home. On such occasions the heroine of the feminine novel shines out in all her majesty. She is kind and patient to her husband's faults, except that when he is more ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Louise was the youngest daughter of Louis XV.; and, very different from her sisters, who were ill-tempered, political intriguers. She, on the contrary, was deeply religious, and had, some years before, taken the vows of the Carmelite order; and had fixed her residence at the Convent of St. Denis, where she was more than once visited ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... guessed more. After that day, however ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very patient and kind towards ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Ladak," says Major Cunningham,[55] "is the well-known shepherd's dog, or Thibetan mastiff. They have shaggy coats, generally quite black, or black and tan; but I have seen some of a light brown colour. They are usually ill-tempered to strangers; but I have never found one that would face a stick, although they can fight well when attacked. The only peculiarity that I have noticed about them is, that the tail is nearly always curled upward on to the back, where the hair is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... whole evening did he pore patiently over one of them till A B, setting to C D, crossed hands, poussetted, and whirled round "in Sahara waltz" through his throbbing head. Bed-time, but no rest! Whether he slept or not he could not tell. Who could sleep with that long-bodied, ill-tempered-looking parallelogram A H standing on the bed-clothes, and crying out, in tones loud enough to waken the house, that it never had been, nor never would be equal to the fat jolly square C K? So, in the morning, Sam woke to the consciousness that he was farther off from ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... than the wife of a struggling man who has all the refined tastes and sensitive nerves of a gentleman, without a gentleman's income. I should see him growing more and more careless, more and more haggard, day after day; I should see myself growing old, ugly, ill-tempered, and sick, hour after hour. I have not the moral force of mind, or the physical force of body, to make a cold, half-furnished house seem a haven of rest, a piece of corned-beef and potatoes continued indefinitely through the week seem a delicious ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... love, 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... again. But the old feelings will come back again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of piquet again. But it is a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece of furniture, a record of better days; the young thing that has succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have something ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... begins to get right again, 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 itself ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... disease that causes the tail to drop off, but the people here have discovered a very artful trick of fastening it on again, and it needs a vigorous pull to expose the fraud. Among other tricks of the country is that of drenching an ill-tempered and unmanageable horse with two litres of wine before taking him to the fair. He then becomes as quiet as a lamb. I heard the story of a cure, who was thus imposed upon by one of his own parishioners. He wanted a very quiet horse, and he found one at the fair; but the next day, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... morning; of course, if he did you must come in,' and so on; and if the stars were propitious, by-and-by the punt was got afloat. These sculls were tilted up against the wall, and as you innocently went to take one, Wauw!—a dirty little ill-tempered mongrel poodle rolled himself like a ball to your heels and snapped his teeth—Wauw! At the bark, out rushed the old lady, his housekeeper, shouting in the shrillest key to the dog to lie still, and to you that the bailiff would be there ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... travel, tailors, and dressmakers? Ah, no! good breeding is far less costly, and begins far earlier than those things. Let our little ones be nurtured in an atmosphere of gentleness and kindness from the nursery upwards; let them grow up in a home where a rude gesture or an ill-tempered word are alike unknown; where between father and mother, master and servant, mistress and maid, friend and friend, parent and child, brother and sister, prevails the law of truth, of kindness, of consideration for others, ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... intrigue, obtained in two instances, the Andria and the Eunuchus, by rolling a couple of his originals into one. The titles of certain of the lost plays indicate the comic illumining character; a Self-pitier, a Self-chastiser, an Ill-tempered man, a Superstitious, an Incredulous, etc., point to suggestive ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... condescension made me proud. Moreover, all the directors show me a marked degree of kindness and politeness. It seems that there was a discussion with regard to me at the meeting of the board, to determine whether I should be kept or dismissed like our cashier, that ill-tempered fellow who was always talking of getting everybody sent to the galleys, and whom they have now invited to go elsewhere to manufacture his cheap shirt-fronts. Well done! That will teach him to be rude to people. So far as I am concerned, Monsieur the Governor kindly consented to overlook my ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... you "Diogenes," as you have no books; Hookham was so ill-tempered as not to send the ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... and, though he has shown little love for me, I am not without affection—and strong affection—for him; but I must and will speak frankly. You could not, I don't think anyone could be happy with Stanley for her husband. You don't know him: he's profligate; he's ill-tempered; he's cold; he's selfish; he's secret. He was a spoiled boy, totally without moral education; he might, perhaps, have been very different, but he is what he is, and I don't think ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... only, for she is a diamond. Her voice goes through me like a knife, and all voices seem loud but thine, which is so mellow sweet. Stay, now I'll fit ye with tidings; I spake yesterday with an old man that conceits he is ill-tempered, and sweats to pass for such with others, but oh! so threadbare, and the best good ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... think, Ned, it was rather hard to insist on her going back to that ill-tempered, ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... 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 or a bad temper. The soup of ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... ill-tempered, Guido!" she exclaimed, then remembering she had addressed him by his Christian name, she turned to me and added—"I always call him Guido, en famille; you know he is just like a brother ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... 9,000 m. in length. Some 4,000 m. farther down we came to a very bad rapid. My men were extremely tired of unloading and reloading the canoe all the time with the heavy baggage which still remained. They became most ill-tempered when this new rapid appeared before us, blaming me, as it were, for the rapid being there. I told them that if they did not care to unload all they had to do was to shoot the rapid. They quarrelled among themselves. When we got near it my men became ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the good news to Oscar, and back came another letter from him, more ill-tempered than the first, saying he had never thought I would take his scenario; I had no right to touch it; but as I had taken it, I must really pay him ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... print, which he croons over as he lies there alone, till one feels sure that they are working into his heart. The people in the house say that though he has been ill these three years, he has never spoken an ill-tempered word; and if any one pities him, he answers, "It is the Lord," and seems to wish for no change. He lies there between dozing and dreaming and praying, and ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a row on the lake, all by himself. Not that this is a very prodigious aquatic feat, seeing that three or four good strokes either way take you either into the bank, or on to the heels or tails of a couple of very ill-tempered, and irascible swans, who appear to think, and with some reason, that there's not too much waterway as it is, and resent the intrusion of the boat on their domain as a ridiculous superfluity. However, the effort is one that the Dilapidated ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... the usual ill-tempered artist man, with whom I have learned how to deal. You know," she added, teasingly, "that you are calm and god-like, usually—and when you ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... he refrained from trying. Only he did look so sleek! "What much wiser people we are than the swells!" Kavanagh thought. "We enjoy ourselves without being ashamed of it, and we endure crowding and semi-suffocation without getting ill-tempered!" ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... on their spare and ill-tempered horses passed to and fro, wild men under an untamed leader whose heart was hardened to stone by bereavement. The cobbler looked at them with a countenance of wood. It was hard to say whether he preferred ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details and modifications which a further progress would bring to their knowledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered and rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. (Good humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.) From both of those classes ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... were of vast proportions, hedged in by high palisades, through the interstices of which many a black muzzle now protruded, sniffing like ill-tempered women, or uttering shrill whines of despair. As Yorke, with his hands buried in his pockets, for they were cold, though his head was too well provided with clustering hair to be conscious of the absence of a hat, was contemplating this spectacle with cynical amusement, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... it, and shook their heads. They advised him to be cautious and gain time; to lead Ratcliffe on, and if possible to throw on him the responsibility of a quarrel. He was, therefore, like a brown bear undergoing the process of taming; very ill-tempered, very rough, and at the same time very much bewildered and a little frightened. Ratcliffe sat ten minutes with him, and obtained information in regard to pains which the President had suffered during ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... his carriage, that their master was not in the best of humors: the result of their discernment was, that his orders were executed with that exactitude of maneuver which is found on board a man-of-war, commanded during a storm by an ill-tempered captain. The carriage, therefore, did not simply roll along—it flew. Fouquet had hardly time to recover himself during the drive; on his arrival he went at once to Aramis, who had not yet retired for the night. As for Porthos, he had supped ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... abscess broke out on him, when he was served with a plate of cold soup. Glafira Petrovna again reigned over everything in the house; again clerks, village bailiffs, common peasants, began to creep through the back entrance to the "ill-tempered old hag,"—that was what the house-servants called her. The change in Ivan Petrovitch gave his son a great shock; he was already in his nineteenth year, and had begun to reason and to free himself from the weight of the hand which oppressed him. He had ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... off their responsibilities, or they are men who have been caught in a net of distasteful circumstances. For instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or a tradesman finds himself bound for life to a locality and an occupation of intolerable monotony. Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, who, after the amiable fashion of a certain type of woman, thinking that her husband is pinned down without a chance of escape, gives a free rein to her temper. The man puts up with it for years, but at last it becomes unbearable. Then he suddenly disappears; ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... temper for indulging his genius. Plymley, though very amusing, and, except in the Canning matter above referred to, not glaringly unfair for a political lampoon, is distinctly acrimonious, and almost (as "almost" as Sydney could be) ill-tempered. It is possible to read between the lines that the writer is furious at his party being out of office, and is much more angry with Mr. Perceval for having the ear of the country than for being a respectable nonentity. The main argument, moreover, is bad ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... neither mere fancy nor is it ridiculous. It colours the whole of our relations to one another; it gnaws at my feelings, and then I torment her, make you angry, and lead an idle, empty, ill-tempered existence— ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... ill-tempered fellow, was thoroughly disliked by every one who knew him. He glared at Charlie for a moment as if he had committed some terrible offence, and then shouted fiercely 'What did you do that for, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the castle like a croaking raven, and the old knight, Wolf of Hammerstein, sat by a cheerful fire and peevishly nursed his gouty limbs. In spite of the most assiduous attentions of his daughters he remained in a most surly mood. The pretty maidens however kept hovering round the ill-tempered old fellow like so many tender doves. Then the porter announced two strangers. Both were wrapped in their knightly mantles, and in spite of his troubles the hospitable lord of the castle prepared to welcome his guests. Into the comfortable ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... ill-tempered elder sister was very jealous of this good luck, and determined to get a bag of gold for herself. So she in her turn packed up a bundle and started to seek service by the same road. But when she came to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... position of leading lawyer in his native town of Steubenville in Ohio and acted as reporter of the Supreme Court of that State. He was a solemn reserved young man, with a square fleshy face and a strong ill-tempered jaw. His tight lips curved downwards at the corners and, combined with his bold eyes, gave him an air of peculiar shrewdness and purpose. He did not forget that he came of good professional stock—New England on one side and Virginia on the other—and that he was college-bred, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... in the library, innocently reading a book, when Mr. Carruthers came in. He looked even better in evening dress, but he appeared ill-tempered, and no doubt found ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... directly down on the little bird. Perhaps he was scarcely aware of the fatal consequences of his act, perhaps he thought that the falling book would only frighten the bird, which would fly away and save itself. We cannot bear to suppose that, ill-tempered as he was, he could have meditated the destruction of his gentle sister's little favourite. People often do not consider the sad results of their ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... and 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
... distinctly controlling appetite. Nevertheless it is less the appetite that absorbs his mind than the environment. And so long as he can keep himself clear of the "external relation," to use Mr. Herbert Spencer's phraseology, he has much less difficulty with the "internal relation." The ill-tempered person, on the other hand, can make very little of his environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions, there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate his irascibility. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... 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 Chief ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... social visit was paid to his maternal grandmother, the dowager Lady Capel. She was not a nice old woman; in fact, she was a very spiteful, ill-hearted, ill-tempered old woman, and Hyde had always had a certain fear of her. When he landed in London with his wife, Lady Capel had fortunately been at Bath; and he had then escaped the duty of presenting Katherine to her. But she was now at her mansion in Berkeley Square, and her claims upon his ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to remain: but he had other thoughts—and simply said, in an ill-tempered tone of voice, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... "They are beastly ill-tempered looking brutes," Willcox said. "When I was walking in the streets there the other day a string of them came along, and they grumbled and growled like wild beasts, and one showed his teeth and made as if he was going right at me. If ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss—a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world.' There is plain truth, too, in the next, though it is not likely to be much remembered by those who are most in need of it:—'An ill-tempered man often has everything his own way, and seems very triumphant; but the demon he cherishes, tears him as well as awes other people.' In another place, and from another point of view, he indicates the admirable benefits of human, sympathy. 'Often,' says he, 'all that a man wants ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... branches. She was now firmly fixed in the centre of the group of stones, a slender, swaying pine-tree, which creaked and croaked, and snapped and snarled with every gust of wind, as the princess had hardly ever done in her most ill-tempered moments. And as her limbs stiffened under their magical transformation, the hideous figure of the wood-wife might have been seen hovering round the charmed circle, her arms half changed into bird's ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse—not, indeed, a complete ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... 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 the head, and so rendered it restive and bad-tempered. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... who was in the employment of the 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 return ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... seen a good deal of cruelty, and injustice, and suffering in the navy, and had heard of more, but nothing could surpass what that man made his crew feel while he was out of sight of land. The first mate, Mr Crosby, who, with Captain Gale, had appeared a quiet sort of man, though rather sulky and ill-tempered at times, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston |
