"Snappish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mother and daughter—"whose tears were near her eyes"—had both followed her example. Something serious had occurred; but when she had gone to the house to pick up further information, old Betta, who was particularly snappish with her, had refused her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mouth, and roll in any direction with the utmost facility. The viper was at one time supposed to have an envenomed tongue, and although this error has been exploded, it is as well to avoid his jaw if possible, as, when irritated, he is very snappish. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... had come downstairs that morning in a mood of depression, irritable—almost snappish depression. His sister Eleanor had seldom seen him so unlike himself. Being an affectionate sister, she was sorry for him; though, as she rightly guessed, it was that very news which had brought such great relief of mind to herself which was almost certainly ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the bridge and, I think, smiled; and the other was standing at an open door, making an unremunerative investment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is years ago, and I dare say they have both grown stout and snappish since that time. Coming back, I saw an old man breaking stones, and it roused such strong longing in me to use my arms that I offered him a drink to let me take his place. He was a kindly old man and he humored me. I went ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... bad-tempered, ill-tempered; irritable, susceptible; excitable &c. 825; thin-skinned &c. (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy[obs3], tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy,; pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish, " sudden and quick in quarrel " [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish[obs3]; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) 720; cantankerous, exceptious[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fret your pretty self, Mrs. Jones—for dinner passed and tea-time came, but no Jones. Mrs. Jones began to get snappish, and by ten o'clock she had bitten all the ends from her taper fingers, besides dreadfully scolding the servants, all around. Mrs. J. finally retired—the clock had struck 12, and no Jones was to be seen; Mrs. J. was worried out; ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... they were snappish at times. I suppose all old people get like that. But, on the whole, you managed to jog along ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... of admirers," said Irma, in her bitter-toned, snappish way, "and has no reason to wait for one who only may be rich ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mill-life gives Mrs. Campbell opportunity to express herself characteristically in behalf of down-trodden "labor." The whole story is simple, natural, sweet, and tender; and the figures of Connie, poor little cripple, and Miss Medora Flint, angular and snappish domestic, lend picturesqueness to its ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each other ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... followed in our kennels with complete success. Breed only from stock that you know comes from an ancestry noted for this particular feature. Many dogs are naturally of an affectionate nature, but have been made snappish by ill treatment, or teasing. This can be bred out by judicious care, but where a vicious tendency is hereditary, look out for trouble ahead. Damages for dog bites come high, and he must be either a very rich man, or a very poor one, that can afford to keep ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... stare. "I don't feel kind just now. James has given me a horror of things of the sort. I don't believe he meant it. I think he felt snappish and thought he would relieve his feelings that way. But there it is. He has made it all rather disgusting. It's become like a kind of intrigue of ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... with a letter he had received from the Major, asking him to take charge of Isobel on the voyage, Mrs. Hannay conceived a violent objection to him. He had, in fact, been by no means pleased with the commission, and had arrived in an unusually aggressive and snappish humor. He cut short Mrs. Hannay's well turned sentences ruthlessly, and aggrieved her by remarking on Helena's want of color, and recommending plenty of walking exercise taken at a brisk pace, and more ease and comfort in the ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... went and joined them. Very young she looked, but I suppose married, from her pearls and clothes—American probably, as she was perhaps too well dressed for one of us; but quite a lady and awfully pretty. Hector was so snappish about it, and would not tell her name, that it makes me sure he is very much in love with her, and Jack thinks so too. So, dear Aunt Milly, you need have no more anxieties about him, as she can't have been married long, she ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... I think she does—her corresponding with her sister can do no harm. She wrote at great length the same day; cried profusely over her own epistolary composition; and was remarkably ill-tempered and snappish toward me, when we met in the evening. She wants experience, poor girl—she sadly wants experience of the world. How consoling to know that I am just the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... were at dinner, and paid a visit to a rose-headed parraquet (Palaeornis rosa), mounting up on Polly's perch, and sitting down to supper in the tin receptacles for food at each end. She generally treated them with silent contempt, or gave a snappish little peck if they were too familiar; sometimes, when they were too sky-larky, she retreated to her ring above, where she swung and looked down at them from a coign of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage is marvellous. They have ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... with, "I hope you are good this morning;" or "I hope you have recovered from the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;" and if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he says so at once and is condoled with accordingly. Indeed, the straighteners have gone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at the Colleges of Unreason), to all known forms of mental ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Hawkes whether he should take out a Free Status registration, the gambler replied with a quick, snappish, ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "damn," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... teething, not consumptive, baby—fast asleep; and even the recalcitrant "Matildy Jane" tolerably pleasant and good-natured beneath the fascinations of a handsome, sturdy urchin four years old, who, undaunted by her hard face and snappish voice, insisted upon following her around, and "helping" her in her manifold occupations. He was a boy who did not know how to be snubbed, and had fairly won his way with his ungracious aunt, by sheer persistence in his unwelcome attentions. To all her hospitable ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence to the level of the bench, where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angry growls shot up here and there, snappish, menacing, and bestial. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... he said, or rather snapped—he had never been snappish before—'since you took the confounded thing off last evening I haven't seen it and I haven't touched it, and I don't know ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... daylight and by torchlight, and anarchy hatefuller than death. How insubordinate Troopers, with drink in their heads, meet Captain Dampmartin and another on the ramparts, where there is no escape or side-path; and make military salute punctually, for we look calm on them; yet make it in a snappish, almost insulting manner: how one morning they 'leave all their chamois shirts' and superfluous buffs, which they are tired of, laid in piles at the Captain's doors; whereat 'we laugh,' as the ass does, eating thistles: nay how they 'knot two ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... like that sweet-tempered Muriel, to whom he seems so warmly attached; and it is all your own fault, for he was disposed to like you when he first came home. Ulpian loves quiet and amiable people, who are never rude and snappish; and it appears to me that you are trying to see how hateful and spiteful you can be. Why upon earth did you not shake hands with those strangers, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... question, "you've put it pretty much in the natyve character of the religious truth. Hurry has not been able, and that is the long and short of it. I've seen many squalls, old fellow, both on land and on the water, but never did I feel one as lively and as snappish as that which come down upon us, night afore last, in the shape of an Indian hurrah-boys! Why, Hetty, you're no great matter at a reason, or an idee that lies a little deeper than common, but you're human and have some human notions—now I'll just ask you to look at ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... graceful and most amiable women whom I know will persist in loving some men whom I also know, is more than I know. I will not call their love an exhibition of perverseness, though it looks like it; but that these men with these rich, sweet hearts in their hands, grow sour and snappish, and surly and tyrannical and exacting, is the most unaccountable thing in the world. If a pig will not allow himself to be driven, he will follow a man who offers him corn, and he will eat the corn, even though he puts his ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... make up again his watch, thereby being taught what I never knew before; and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am mightily pleased and satisfied with it. So I sat talking with him till late at night, somewhat vexed at a snappish answer Madam Williams did give me to herself, upon my speaking a free word to her in mirthe, calling her a mad jade. She answered, we were not so well acquainted yet. But I was more at a letter from my Lord Duke of Albemarle ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... he should do what while her sovranty lasted. Then, turning to the company, she said, "Dioneo willed yesterday that we should discourse to-day of the tricks that women play their husbands and but that I am loath to show myself of the tribe of snappish curs, which are fain incontinent to avenge themselves of any affront done them, I would say that to-morrow's discourse should be of the tricks that men play their wives. But, letting that be, I ordain that each ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... by his being so remorseful as frequently to moan 'Sixty threepennorths.' This imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce at him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm him with ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... through wrath or pride, The Council all espouse his side And will our missives con no more; And who that knows what savants are, Each snappish as a Leyden jar, Will hope to soothe the wordy war 'Twixt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... you to let me alone!" was the snappish retort. "It was your fault we upset, anyhow. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... display unwonted activity, showing, at the same time, signs of considerable agitation. He was yet uncommunicative and morose, spoke only at rare intervals; often he did not reply at all to the questions addressed to him, and when he did answer it was only in gruff, snappish monosyllables. He went from place to place uneasily, frequently leaving the cabin and gazing peeringly and stealthily into the forest as if he expected some one or was looking for some secret signal known only to himself. He glanced at ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... dogs, stood erect on his hind feet at his master's word of command, jumped a chair with exquisite grace and agility, and in a variety of other ways exhibited both wonderful suppleness and remarkable docility. The collie was handsome, beautifully groomed, and rather snappish. The Stone bulldog made a picture of good-humored British stolidity, and if his hind quarters had been equal to his superbly massive front and marvelously "smashed-up" face he would have been tolerably sure of a win in any class. The Dandie Dinmont had the most delightful ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... and raising his expressionless face to hers, asked in almost a snappish tone, "Well, and who has heard ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... we had a more beautiful word than "art" for so beautiful a thing; it is in itself a snappish explosive word, like the cry of an angry animal; and it has, too, to bear the sad burden of its own misuse by affected people. Moreover, it stands for so many things, that one is never quite sure what the people who use it intend it to mean; ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... living, began to keep earlier hours. He turned out at nine o'clock instead of eleven and twelve, hours which had formerly matched his languid fancy. These energetic doings bred alarm in both Matzai and Mr. Pickwick, evoking snappish protests from the latter, who, being of a nocturnal turn, held that the day was meant for sleep. On the morning after he had been honored with the privilege of the veranda door, Richard was borne upon by something akin to gloom. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... right!" replied the snappish professor. Soon, however, recovering his equanimity, he continued: "It is fortunate that the earth was only touched obliquely; if the comet had impinged perpendicularly, it must have plowed its way deep below the surface, and the disasters ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... sons, gentlemen-farmers on sleek hunters, and humbler tenant-farmers on their stiff cobs, butchers and innkeepers, all eager for the chase. All was life, gaiety excitement, noise; the hounds, giving forth occasional howls and snappish yelpings, expressive of an impatience that was almost beyond endurance; the huntsman cracking his whip, and reproving his charges in language more forcible than polite; the spirited horses pawing the ground; the gentlemen exchanging the compliments of the season with the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... VILLAGE Cur, of snappish race, The pertest puppy in the place, Imagined that his treble throat Was blessed with music's sweetest note; In the mid road he basking lay, The yelping nuisance of the way; For not a creature passed along, But had a sample of ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific men are called infidel ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... well at all—was he, Freya?" old Nelson went on moaning. "Perhaps it was that which made him so snappish, hey, Freya? He looked very bad when he left us so suddenly. His liver must be ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... guest. But the next morning Justina, having had time to consider that Emily must on no account be annoyed, came down all serenity and kindliness. She was so attentive to the lame old aunt, and though the poor lady, being rather in pain, was decidedly snappish, she did not betray ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... needn't be so snappish about her," insisted Maria. "If you are in that temper often, I don't wonder the young woman ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... gentle lady, in a tone half snappish, half harsh, "do you think I am made of iron, to tell you my story and be calm? I hate him! I hate him! I would kill him if I could: and if you, Sir Norman, are half the man I take you to be, you will rid the world of the horrible ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... phrase, short and snappish enough, was not worded as an invitation for me to sit down, I accepted it as such, and took the chair which a lean boy of some nine or ten years old had hurriedly vacated. In such cases, I had learned by experience, it is not best to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... wickedness, and pray that God would forgive them the sins that they got from Adam; but I do not know that I ever heard a father in family prayer confess that he had a bad temper. I never heard a mother confess in family prayer that she was irritable and snappish. I never heard persons bewail those sins which are the engineers and artificers of the moral condition of the family. The angels would not know what to do with a prayer that began, "Lord, thou knowest that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that something affected his master's spirits; though he did not betray any ill-bred sympathy with Harry's agitation of mind. When Harry began to dress himself in his out-of-door morning costume: he was very hard indeed to please, and particularly severe and snappish about his toilet: he tried, and cursed, pantaloons of many different stripes, checks, and colors: all the boots were villainously varnished, the shirts too "loud" in pattern. He scented his linen and person with peculiar richness this day; and what ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door. Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... fastened upon both. "But,'' continued Windthorst, "the chancellor will have to get up very early in the morning to outwit us in this matter.'' There was a general outburst of laughter as the two leaders eyed each other. It reminded one of nothing so much as a sturdy mastiff contemplating a snappish terrier. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... learned, on the first day of his visit, that it would be well-nigh as safe to play with a handful of dynamite as with Lad's gold-and-white mate, Lady. Lady did not care for liberties from anyone. And she took no pains to mask her snappish first-sight aversion to the lanky Cyril. Her fiery little son, Wolf, was scarce less formidable than she, when it came to being teased by an outsider. But gallant old Lad ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... secrets, for she is at once a virgin and an experienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, before such powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to the good principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is always stern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refuses to be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires, such frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the young innocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a little family compact, which is ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... has put the worst of his genius into his poetry. His verses have brazen "go" and lively colour and something of the music of travel; but they are too illiberal, too snappish, too knowing, to afford deep or permanent pleasure to ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... grounds of Ascot, Epsom, Newmarket, or Goodwood, or traverses the moors of Scotland and Ireland in pursuit of grouse. But once a year they indulge their filial virtues in a visit to the old squire. The old squire, we are sorry to say, has grown of late years queer and snappish, and does not look on this visit quite as gratefully as he should. "If they would but come," he says, "in a quiet way, as I used to ride over and see my father in his time, why I should be right glad to see them; but, here they come, like the first regiment of an invading army, and God ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... for an opportunity to smoke, which did. Elderly men, their equilibrium a little upset by champagne in the afternoon, fell quite in love with the bride, were humorous and jovial until the entertainment was over, and very snappish to their wives ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... You just collar the money, and the woman's in your hands. And then should she ever turn snappish you'd be able to ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... freedom for her own dreams, and prohibited any occasion for an expression of feelings or opinions of her own as to the captain. But Miss Sally's symptoms were observed by old Mr. Valentine, who, inferring their cause, underwent much unrest on account of them, became snappish and sarcastic towards the lady, watchful both of her and of Peyton, and moody towards the others in the house. It was the old man's disquietude regarding the state of Miss Sally's affections that ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Not, indeed, that quarrelling took its place; there was no quarrelling; only an uncomfortable feeling in the air, and looks that were no longer pleased and pleasant. Mrs. Bartholomew wore a discontented face, and behaved so. Judy was snappish; not a new thing exactly, but it was invariable now. David was very quiet and very sober; however in his case the quiet was quiet, and the soberness was very serene; all the old gloom seemed to be gone. Norton, Matilda thought, was cross; and she failed to see the occasion. Even Mrs. Laval ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... the same time free of clumsiness, as speed and endurance, as well as power, are very essential. They must be neither cloddy or cobby, but should be framed on the lines of speed, showing a graceful racing outline. TEMPERAMENT—Dogs that are very game are usually surly or snappish. The Irish Terrier as a breed is an exception, being remarkably good-tempered, notably so with mankind, it being admitted, however, that he is perhaps a little too ready to resent interference on the part of other dogs. There is a heedless, reckless pluck about the Irish Terrier which ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... to tell one another why that unhappy pilgrim's faith was so small, and how both their own faith and his might from that day have been made more. Hopeful, for some reason or other, was in a rude and boastful mood of mind that day, and Christian was more tart and snappish than we have ever before seen him; and, altogether, the opportunity of learning something useful out of Little-Faith's story has been all but lost to us. But, now, since there are so many of Little-Faith's kindred among ourselves—so many good men who are either half asleep in their religious ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... with her, and tolerably so with Katy. They found him, as Mr. Eels said, "a bright fellow," and pleasant and good-humored enough when taken in the right way. Lilly always seemed to take him wrong, and his treatment of her was most disagreeable, snappish, and quarrelsome ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... I hear her humming to herself, sometimes in one room, sometimes in another. I wish I knew how she amuses herself, for I find self-amusement the hardest drudgery I ever tried. I could stamp, I am so impatient of doing nothing but lounge about; I am as snappish as a chained cur, as cross as a caged bear. And while I gnaw my nails, and stretch, and yawn, I hear that contented, bee-like murmur, and now and then a light, rapid step on the stairs, or about rooms which I do not ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... That's my gift. I play the violin beautifully," cried Norah modestly, and when Rex laughed aloud she grew angry, and protested in snappish manner, "Well, you said yourself that we could not help knowing our own talents. It's quite true, I do play well. Everyone says so. If you don't believe it, I'll get my violin and let ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... but the Knight of the Sun did but put in a word here and there, and that most often a sour and snappish word. As for Ralph, he also spake but little, and strayed somewhat in his answers; for he could not but deem that she spake softlier and kinder to him than to the others; and he was dreamy with love and desire, and scarce ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Theatin, or Minim will bestow any personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he hath ordained nothing for them in his latter will and testament. The devil take me, if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. What the deuce moved him to be so snappish and depravedly bent against the good fathers of the true religion? Why did he cast them off, reject them, and drive them quite out of his chamber, even in that very nick of time when he stood in greatest need of the aid, suffrage, and assistance of their ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Miss Pridden, shook the little man with a snappish word, to bring him to attention. She got him together sufficiently for him to give a lame version of the story; flat until he came to his heroine's behaviour, when he brightened a moment, and he sank back absorbed in her principles and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... move all springs himself, that he seems to have exercised little pains and less discretion in appointing his subordinates. Good fortune sent him a gentle, wise, and noble woman as superintendent; but the other teachers were less capable, some snappish, some without authority. The housekeeper, who should have been chosen with the greatest care, since in her hands lay the whole management and preparation of the food of these growing children, was a slovenly, wasteful woman, taken from Mr. Wilson's kitchen, and much believed in ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... usual, inelegant. Junius cannot manage a long sentence; it has all the 'ins' and 'outs' of a snappish figure-dance. ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... in her hard, sharp, snappish way. "And why, and wherefore, if you please? If my mistress smacks my cheek with one hand, she gives me handkerchiefs to wipe it with the other. My good mistress, my kind mistress, my pretty mistress! I, the servant, bear malice ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... meet them half-way; his repeated repulses by the Doctor and all the difficulties that beset his return to freedom had made him very sulky and snappish. He had not patience or adaptability enough to respond to their advances, and only shrank from their rough good nature—which naturally checked the current ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... nest, to be startled out of their love-dreams by the great lamp-eyed, beaked face of a horrible monster with horns, picked out of feathered bed, and wafted off in one bunch, within talons, to pacify a set of hissing, and snappish, and shapeless powder-puffs, in the loophole of a barn? In a house where a cat is kept, mice are much to be pitied. They are so infatuated with the smell of a respectable larder, that to leave the premises, they confess, is impossible. Yet every hour—nay, every minute of their lives—must ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... presently, but Carol did not give her the invitation. Instead, she was almost snappish to her idol, and the Princess soon went out again ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a sad life his wife must ha' led, Vor so snappish he's leaetely a-come, That there's nothen but anger or dread Where he is, abroad or at hwome; He do wreak all his spite on the bwones O' whatever do vlee, or do crawl; He do quarrel wi' stocks, an' wi' stwones, An' the rain, if do hold up or vall; There is nothen vrom mornen ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... Ascension-day at night, [Footnote: In 1664 Ascension-day fell on the NINETEENTH of May] after a play in the palace, upon a slight occasion of snappish words, unless there were something of old grudge or rivalship in the case, the Marquis of Albersan, challenging Don Domingo Guzman, and he fought under the palace, near the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo's house in the Florida, where Don Domingo gave the Marquis ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... said the bear, snappish like. "Get ready. Here I come!" and he started toward Uncle Wiggily, who was so frightened that ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... satisfied that you something know," said the count, in his snappish military fashion, and he shut the last book, and never from that day referred in any manner to Nino's extent of knowledge, taking it for granted that he had made an exhaustive investigation. "And now," ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... in a garb like this? Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng To thaw him into feeling, or the smart And snappish dialogue that flippant wits Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile? The self-complacent actor, when he views (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) The slope of faces from the floor to the roof, As if one master-spring controlled them ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well perhaps as the length of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... were forms that came and went; there were two that seldom were away—the tall and supple one of the dark face and the easy tread, and his yellow shadow—the ever unpopular, snappish, prick-eared cur, that held by force of arms all territories at floor level contiguous to, under, comprised, and bounded by, the four square legs ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... days dragged by. Patty had hard work to keep her own temper when her employer was unreasonably cross and snappish, but she stuck to her plan of flattering her, and it worked well more often ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... this powerful animal, with his double row of formidable pointed fangs, which he seemed to take delight in displaying as he opened his large jaws, Mrs. Grivois could not help giving utterance to a cry of terror. The snappish pug had at first trembled in all his limbs at the Siberian's approach; but, finding himself in safety on the lap of his mistress, he began to growl insolently, and to throw the most provoking glances at Spoil-sport. These the worthy companion ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of dismissal miss his guardians. They, who had been co-lords with his father, withdrew confused and perplexed. Messrs. Davidson and Slocum were on the point of resolving their perplexity into wrath, as they went down the great stone stairway to the waiting carriage, but Mr. Crockett, the testy and snappish, muttered ecstatically: "The son of a gun! The little son of ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... this opportunity of mentioning that Ellis, though in the main one of the best-tempered fellows in the world, whenever he was particularly interested or excited, became extremely cross and snappish, and was certain at such times to scold every one who fell in his way, without the slightest regard to age, sex, or station. However, it was always over in two or three minutes, and I have seen him laugh till the tears ran down his face, when the rude things he had ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... speak so abruptly before. Her manner, in a girl less noticeably pretty, might almost have been called snappish. George, however, did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. He filled his pipe and followed her ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... "She grows more snappish each day," whispered Miss Slowcum to Mrs. Dredge; but just then the attention of all the good ladies was diverted by a ringing peal at the hall door-bell, followed by eager voices in the hall, and then by the entrance of Poppy, alias Sarah, who broke in upon the quiet ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... obnubilation from wind and indigestion. Ninth month, 28. An over-dose of whisky. 29. A dull, cross, cholerick day. First month, 1757—22. A little swinish at dinner and repast. 31. Dogged on provocation. Second month, 5. Very dogged or snappish. 14. Snappish on fasting. 26. Cursed snappishness to those under me, on a bodily indisposition. Third month, 11. On a provocation, exercised a dumb resentment for two days, instead of scolding. 22. Scolded too vehemently. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... more they approved him. His harshness was then only considered as habit; and strong sense and active benevolence were uppermost in the recollection of his familiar acquaintance. His conversation, when he condescended to lay aside his snappish, rude, and abrupt half-sentences, became flowing in diction, and uncommonly amusing with regard to its substance. He combined, with weightiness of expression, a dryness of characteristic humour, that demonstrated at once the vividness of his observation, and the force of his understanding. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... wit and war the bully race Contribute to their own disgrace. Too late the forward youth shall find That jokes are sometimes paid in kind; 10 Or if they canker in the breast, He makes a foe who makes a jest. A village-cur, of snappish race, The pertest puppy of the place, Imagined that his treble throat Was blest with music's sweetest note: In the mid road he basking lay, The yelping nuisance of the way; For not a creature passed along, But had a sample of his song. 20 Soon as the trotting steed he hears, He starts, he cocks ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... for the slightest attempt to approach the subject—even an honest effort to assure her that Bob's safety should be his first care in the future, for her sake—brought back at once the sense of constraint, and made her manner hard and impatient, not to say snappish. Their final parting took place in public, but this was Gerrard's own fault, for he could not trust himself alone with her. He might have been a weak fool to hang about her for so long, but to offer himself as a bearer ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... such like purpose, who, on the halt, would amuse his comrades for hours in performing gymnastic feats upon out-spread blankets. Another, who at home flourished deservedly under the sobriquet of "Clever Billy," became, in a few brief months of service, the most surly, snappish, and selfish of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... the neighbours who came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people sooner or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the chaplain's stories, and to doze at her whist and over her dinner, and to be very snappish and sarcastic in her conversation with her Esmond nephews and nieces, hitting out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her scornful ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prudence and timidity reigned supreme. Though the Czar uttered some snappish words at the threatening increase to the Duchy of Warsaw, he still posed as Napoleon's ally. The Swedes, weary of their hopeless strifes with France, Russia, and Denmark, deposed the still bellicose Gustavus IV.; and his successor, Charles XIII., made peace ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... whereupon he would repeat it a hundred times in the day—even though the word happened to express neither his thoughts nor his feelings. Again, I would try to get him to talk about his children, but always he cut me short in his old snappish way, and passed to another subject. "Yes, yes—my children," was all that I could extract from him. "Yes, you are right in what you have said about them." Only once did he disclose his real feelings. That was when we were taking him to the theatre, and suddenly he exclaimed: "My ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... it, but something told him his fate hung on this: "These two men will come home on Monday. I am sure of it. Ay, Monday morning, before we can wed. I will not throw a chance away; the game is too close." Then he remembered with dismay that Susan had been irritable and snappish just before parting yester eve—a trait she had never exhibited to him before. When he arrived, his heart almost failed him, but after some little circumlocution and excuse he revealed the favor, the great favor, he was come to ask. He asked it. She granted it without ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... beautiful Dorine! how amiably affectionate and attached to thy mistress wert thou! The poor animal still exists; for I would have you know that I am speaking of a most faithful little dog; now indeed grown old, asthmatic and snappish; but fifteen years since, distinguished for her lightness, swiftness, and grace, for her pretty little countenance, white teeth, large sparkling eyes, long tufted tail, and above all, for her snow-white coat, spotted here and there with the most beautiful brown. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... short to-night!' cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. 'Short and snappish we are! But we're out of sorts for want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs, haven't us, deary? But this is the place to cure 'em in; this is the place where the all- overs ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... first spoken to; and if, in the exuberance of child-nature, she transgressed this rule, especially at meal-times, Aunt Jemima's mouth would open like a pair of nut-crackers, and she would give utterance to a succession of such snappish chidings, that Marian would almost be afraid she was going to be swallowed up. A hundred times a day the child incurred the righteous ire of this cast-iron aunt. From morning to night the little thing was worried almost out ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... command. Dorothea's light, so to speak, was only a tallow-candle, yet to put it out was to leave the poor woman very desolate in the dark. So Mr. Bargrave ventured one morning to ask if she felt quite well; but the snappish manner in which his inquiries were met, as though they masked a load of hidden sarcasm and insult, caused the old gentleman to scuffle into his office with unusual activity, much disturbed and humiliated, while resolved never ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... a pretty Poll— A monkey too, what work he made! The sister introduced a Beau— My Susan brought a favorite maid. She had a tabby of her own, A snappish mongrel christen'd Gog— What d'ye think of that, my Cat? What d'ye think ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... soft, the peer replied— "A famous king of Egypt, sir, of old." "Oh, poh!" th' instructed monarch snappish cried, "I need not that—I need not ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... make in order to avoid a rupture with England. This dislike they were now determined to gratify, by thwarting my views as much as possible. I had an interview with Ofalia on the subject uppermost in my mind: I found him morose and snappish. "It will be for your interest to be still," said he; "beware! you have already thrown the whole corte into confusion; beware, I repeat; another time you may not escape so easily." "Perhaps not," I replied, "and perhaps I do not wish it; it is a pleasant thing to be persecuted for the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... such a snappish thread in you!" said Mr. Motley yawning—"only it sits better on George than it does on you. But I like it—it rather excites me to be snubbed. However, here comes Linden—so I hope they'll not ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... "Don't be snappish, old boy!" laughed Errington gaily. "Put on that other sock and listen. I don't want to tell those other fellows just yet, they might go ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... nervousness and peevishness of our times are chiefly attributable to tea and coffee. The digestive organs of confirmed coffee drinkers are in a state of chronic derangement which reacts on the brain, producing fretful and lachrymose moods. The snappish, petulant humor of the Chinese can certainly be ascribed to their immoderate fondness ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... Anderson in Florida, who has but 8000 men, opposed by 15,000, were referred by the Secretary of War to Gen. Bragg, who returned them with the following snappish indorsement: "The enemy's strength seems greatly exaggerated, and the instructions too much on ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Well!—he has often spurned me like a toad, But yesterday was worse than all;—at last I overtook him, Sirs, my Babe and I, And begged a little aid for charity: But he was snappish as a cottage cur. Well then, says I—I'll out with it; at which I cast a look upon the Girl, and felt As if my heart would burst; and so I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... which it lay, were, by the increasing light, indistinctly seen on the opposite shore. But not their savage cry of hunger alone was heard. Ever and anon, in reply to their fierce howling was heard the snappish bark of Loup Garou, as, leaping on the body of his unconscious master, he lashed his tail, and seemed to bid defiance to those whose errand he ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... you may let him fall in love with you. But at present we are talking about marriage. Never marry a man with the artistic temperament. By the artistic temperament one means morbid tastes, uncertain temper and excessive vanity. It may be witty at dinner; it must be snappish at breakfast. It never has any money. In its dress it is dirty and picturesque, unless under the pressure of an occasion. It flirts well, but marries badly. I have described, of course, rather a pronounced case of artistic temperament. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... Peggy, we would not leave you alone!" Mellicent's eyes were wide with horror, she stretched out entreating hands towards the unresponsive figure. To see Peggy cross and snappish like—any other ordinary mortal was an extraordinary event, and quite alarming to her placid mind. "They will ask you, too, dear! I am sure they will—we will all be asked together!" she cried; but Peggy tossed her head, refusing ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... deprived also of the domestic society to which he had been habituated, began to suffer in body as well as in mind. He had formed the determination of setting out in person for Dumfriesshire, when, after having been dogged, peevish, and snappish to his clerks and domestics, to an unusual and almost intolerable degree, the acrimonious humours settled in a hissing-hot fit of the gout, which is a well-known tamer of the most froward spirits, and under whose discipline ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... considerable power of mimicry, and rarely tells a story without imitating several different accents. His familiar tone, his declamatory tone, and his pathetic tone are quite different things. Sometimes Scotch predominates in his pronunciation; sometimes it is imperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snappish and quick to the last degree; sometimes it is remarkable for rotundity and mellowness. I can easily conceive that two people who had seen him on different days might dispute about him as the travellers in the fable ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... they'd do me more good than a long sermon, I know," said Susan; "except on a Sunday, of course," she added apologetically. This was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta's admirer. But then why had Hetta been so snappish? ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... morning a railroad train starts out, and approaching within a mile, disappears among the hills with a slight buzzing and squibbing, like the fly on the window; and then after it has gone, as we suppose, there is another squib, very smart and snappish, and we hear nothing more of it till the train comes down, frets a little again as it passes by, and goes on to discharge its contents in the great city. To all these things we say, 'Pass on!' the world is various, and must be amused; but for us, we respectfully withdraw. We have had ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... Of course they had abundance of ridiculous pride, though having nothing to be proud of; and one of the daughters, Miss Belinda, was remarkable for holding up her head as if she had been the finest lady in the land, besides having a curt, snappish way of speaking, that made me habitually afraid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... occupied ever since Kate's return from the Clancys' in the morning. She had been too long under fire, and was wearied. Even the cheery visits of the garrison gallants had proved of little avail, for Mrs. Rayner was in very ill temper, and made snappish remarks to them which two of them resented and speedily took themselves off. Later Miss Travers went to her room and wrote a letter, and then the sunset gun shook the window, and twilight settled down upon the still frozen earth. ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... in the war he was in command of the "Hornet," a snappish vessel with more stings than one, and while cruising in South American waters he met the British man-of-war "Peacock." Now, when a hornet and a peacock quarrel, lively times are likely to ensue, and so it happened ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... entrance into a house is supposed to bring a blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the beast and worship him. Then his flesh is roasted and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... It is after the same manner that the censorious treat deserving men. They first immolate them in the most savage mode of sacrifice, and then declare the relics of their victims to be sacred. Crabbed members of churches and other societies will quarrel a pastor or leading member away, and with snappish tone will complain of his absence, invidiously comparing him with his successor, and making the change they have caused the occasion of a still keener fight, simply to indulge the unslumbering malice of their unfeeling heart. The rancour with ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... of that gone already, perhaps there will be some peace in the house for the time to come." My aunt always complained that her brother had one very serious fault, he was prodigal of time, and took too little thought for the future, and on this ground she replied in rather a snappish voice: "Well, at any rate, if every one was as slack and careless as you, they would hardly survive for one life time; and I can tell you one thing Nathan Adams, this old house has got to be painted, and that right away, for it ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... Good-natured Little Girl, the Thoughtless, the Vain, the Orderly, the Slovenly, the Snappish, the Persevering, the Forward, the Modest, and the Awkward, Little Girl. ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... pride in this; but bless God, and your good examples, my dear parents, that I have been enabled so to carry myself, as to have every body's good word; Not but our cook one day, who is a little snappish and cross sometimes, said once to me, Why this Pamela of ours goes as fine as a lady. See what it is to have a fine face!—I wonder what the girl will come to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... however, were in vain. Mr. Macready persisted in his determination to have the stage arranged solely with reference to himself, and I was obliged to satisfy myself with a woman's vengeance, a snappish speech, by at last saying that, since it was evident Mr. Macready's Macbeth depended upon where a table stood, I must contrive that my Lady Macbeth should not do so. But in that scene ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... paper published there, by an ambitious youth, called the "Clarion," which contained snappish editorials about its neighbors, aspiring criticisms upon the publications of different authors, always ending in an unmistakable "puff," if they were at all popular, or a feeble attempt at discriminating censure, if the unlucky scribe was ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... The Ox took under his patronage the next term of life, and therefore man in his middle age is fond of work, devoted to labor, and resolute to amass wealth and to husband his resources. The end of life was reserved for the Dog, wherefore the old man is often snappish, irritable, hard to please, and selfish, tolerant only of his own household, but averse to strangers and to all who do not administer to his ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... angrily. "I am sure I don't care," she said; "and if you are going to be stuck-up and snappish and disagreeable just because you happen to call yourselves the Specialities, you needn't expect me to take an interest in you. I am just off for a game of tennis, and shall have a far better time than you all, hobnobbing in this ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... private trials for these industrious young crochet creatures in which the thread of the most equable female existence is necessarily worsted. Miss POTTS, then, although looking up from her trying worsted occupation at the servant who entered with a rather snappish expression of countenance, was guilty of no particularly hypocritical assumption in at once suffering her features to relax into a sweetly pensive smile upon learning that there was a gentleman to see her in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong projectile, that goes singing on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful messenger, and goes on its appointed errand in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... water ready for shaving, and, without fail, to have their boots polished in time and left at their room doors;—to all which injunctions he severally received the answer of—"Certainly, sir;" and as the bed-room doors were slapped-to, one by one, the last sound of the retiring party was the snappish voice of the indefatigable little man, shouting, ere he shut his door,—"Early—early—don't forget, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Pop's pretty snappish anyway. He's working late nearly every night, getting stuff cleared up before vacation. He doesn't want any extra problems, especially not Cat problems. Mom's been having asthma a good deal lately, and we're all pretty jumpy. It's always like ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... and bud by my plate, were silent but eloquent appeals to my interest on behalf of my would-be page; and when Joe himself appeared, fresh from an hour's self-imposed work in my garden, I saw he had become quite one of the family; for Bogie, my little terrier, usually very snappish to strangers, and who considered all boys as his natural enemies, was leaping about his feet, evidently asking for more games, and our old magpie was perched familiarly on ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... was the rather snappish answer, and the man turned his face away. "I beg your pardon," he went on, as if conscious that he had acted rudely, "but I am suffering very much. The steward knows just what I want. I have had these attacks before. I am a poor sailor. If you will send the steward to me I will be obliged ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... dear, how and when he persuaded you," inquired Belle. Selene grew snappish. "Oh, you read the papers. We were married last month with Val as witness; then some fool got hold of the story; it was printed. Sig came home after the opera and told me that he was ruined because he had expected a fortune from Mrs. Madison—you know the old bleached blonde ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... sent me by a kind correspondent—a learned Professor in India—as a sample of squabbling between Scottish servants. A mistress observing something peculiar in her maid's manner, addressed her, "Dear me, Tibbie, what are you so snappish about, that you go knocking the things as you dust them?" "Ou, mem, it's Jock." "Well, what has Jock been doing?" "Ou (with an indescribable, but easily imaginable toss of the head), he was angry at me, an' misca'd me, an' I said I was juist as the Lord had made ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, and absented himself ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... that was glad to see Mr. Turtle. He was a snappish, surly old chap. And he was forever finding fault with everybody and everything. It seemed as if you couldn't please him, no matter how much you tried. He had spent less than a week in Cedar Swamp before every one voted him a nuisance. And he had invitations, daily, to ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... different from what you get at home," said Mrs. Jenkins, in her curt, snappish, but really not inhospitable way, as she handed the muffins to Roland. "I know what it is when things are left to servants, as they are at your place; they turn out uneatable—soddened things, with rancid butter, nine times out of ten, instead of good, wholesome fresh. Servants' cooking ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sister. She is of a snappish temper, but dresses in the most juvenile style, and is persuaded that anything can be accomplished if persons will only "make an effort."—C. Dickens, Dombey ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... beauty in his time. Froll was still a prodigious favourite with his mistress, although I confess my feelings towards him were rather those of fear than any other, for to touch him was quite sufficient to evoke a growl, or perchance a snap, from this pet of a dozen years or more. A cross, snappish fellow he was at best, and well he knew the length of Trusty the house-dog's chain, which less favoured quadruped was never let loose by day, from a well-grounded fear that he might, if allowed, resent, by summary punishment, the constant insults he was ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... inclined to be talkative, and Mrs. Ogilvie, partly because she had a sore feeling in her heart with regard to her husband's departure, although she would not acknowledge it, was inclined to be snappish. She pulled the little girl up several times, and at last Sibyl subsided in her seat, and looked out straight before her. It was then that Lady Helen once more put ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... "Ah, indeed—snappish, are you?" said the young man, attempting to turn himself a little, the better to see his companion. "Confound that leg!" he continued, as a fierce twinge gave him warning not to try many experiments. "I know her name is Maggie Miller, and I supposed she lived in a house; but who is ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... another question, after a while, very cautiously, and was surprised to find Mr. Crittenden no longer snappish, but quite friendly. It occurred to him as the pleasantest possibility that he might find his liking for the other man returned. That would be a new present hung on the Christmas tree ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... perfect temper I ever knew; I suppose he has never known a hard word or blow since he was foaled, and all his pleasure seems to be to do what you wish; but the chestnut, I fancy, must have had bad treatment; we heard as much from the dealer. She came to us snappish and suspicious, but when she found what sort of place ours was, it all went off by degrees; for three years I have never seen the smallest sign of temper, and if she is well treated there is not a ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappish answer when she wrote recommending some further invention in the realm of ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... a snappish little demon, and you spoil him so," said the other voice. This was attended by the sound of movement as if the party were getting ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... to any to know the fact, we may as well state at once that this adaptation of new names to old beliefs is not peculiar to the Norsemen, but is found in all the popular tales of Europe. Germany was full of them, and there St Peter often appears in a snappish ludicrous guise, which reminds the reader versed in Norse mythology of the tricks and pranks of the shifty Loki. In the Norse tales he thoroughly preserves ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... At least every one supposes I am civilised, and my whole being has changed. I cannot so much as look upon a great many books in a library or any other heaped-up place, without feeling bleak and heartless. I never read if I can help it. My whole attitude toward current literature is grouty and snappish, a kind of perpetual interrupted "What are you ringing my door-bell now for?" attitude. I am a disagreeable character. I spend at least one half my time, I should judge, keeping things off, in defending my character. Then I spend the other half in wondering if, after all, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... think he must have been. How else could he have written "The Critique of Pure Reason"? Tobacco is the handmaid of science, philosophy, and literature. Carlyle eased his indigestion and snappish temper by perpetual pipes. The generous use of the weed makes the enforced retirement of Sing Sing less irksome to forgers, second-story men, and fire bugs. Samuel Butler, who had little enough truck with churchmen, was once invited to stay a week-end by the Bishop of London. Distrusting ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... snappish as the girls were, they managed to spare Kitty, and to stand in front of her to conceal her idleness from the floor-walker, and give her a few minutes' occasional rest sitting down. She went through the first hours of the morning as ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... did it in Spight to Venus, who, upon her Return home, always found her Husband in a good or bad Humour, according to the Reception which she met with from his Dogs. They lived in the Temple several Years, but were such snappish Curs that they frighted away most of the Votaries. The Women of Sicily made a solemn Deputation to the Priest, by which they acquainted him, that they would not come up to the Temple with their annual Offerings unless he muzzled his Mastiffs; and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... seemed to rebel in her throat against her bonnet-strings. What did she think in those sacred moments? Let us not profane her worship with too minute inquiry. Whatever she thought, those emotions were perfectly valid. She might be snappish, limited, and say ugly things during half the week, but there was something underneath all that which was in communication with the skies. The church was the only mental or spiritual education which Miss Tippit ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... by no means improved Mrs. Cameron's temper. She came downstairs the next morning so snappish and disagreeable, so much inclined to find fault with everybody, and so little disposed to see the faintest gleam of light in any direction, that the children almost regretted Scorpion's absence, and began to wonder if, after all, he was ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... dead," and other like expressions. Such is awful language, but it has escaped the lips of many a mother. Before the public they like to appear gentle, mild and sweet tempered, while in the privacy of their homes they are snarly, snappish and cross. When it pleases God to remove one of their little ones to a more peaceful home above they mourn most bitterly; more because of remorse of conscience than from a fountain of pure love. There is, however, many a mother who ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... came of an evening to play his flute acceptably, while Winona accompanied him in many an amorous morceau. Lyman, in the speech of Newbern, had for eight years been going with Winona. But as the romantically impatient and sometimes a bit snappish Mrs. Penniman would say, he had ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... however, having as sharp an edge as her temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, very soon informed her that the footsteps passed her door, and appeared to have some object quite separate and disconnected from herself. At this discovery she became more alarmed ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of Mr. Wharton's enthusiasm and loftiness of aim, but with a greater realization of people's capacities. He too had made a study of elderly ladies, who are always such an important branch of congregations. He could see that what Miss Symons was in his drawing-room, touchy, incompetent, and snappish she would be in any work she did in the parish. But he was also made to see her extreme generosity, of which she herself was entirely unconscious. He liked and was touched by her humility. "Oh no, ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... me where she is, or I will break his head. I will teach him that he can't trifle with me, if he can with you," replied Tom, in snappish tones. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... other dearly, these two—but to-night they were tired, and when people, not children only, big people too, very often—are tried, it is only a very little step to being cross and snappish. And when aunty, tired too, and annoyed by the unamiable tones, turned round to beg them to "try to leave off squabbling; it was so thoughtless of them to disturb their grandmother," two or three big tears welled up ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... Bettina and German philosophy, and drove the luckless young man at last to the blackest desperation. But youth asserted itself: one fine morning he woke up with such a furious hatred for 'his sister and best of friends' that he almost killed his valet in his passion, and was snappish for a long while after at the slightest allusion to elevated and disinterested passion. But from that time forth Tatyana Borissovna began to avoid all intimacy with ladies of the neighbourhood more ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... fit to teach them," saith Mother Ada—in a tone which I am sure people would call cross and snappish if she were an extern—"for her fancy all runs to playing with them, rather than teaching them ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... to draw him into the conversation, forcing him to give opinions on various subjects connected with the art of which he was professedly a follower. He was very reluctant to speak at all; and when compelled to do so, his remarks were curt and almost snappish, so much so that my wife made a laughing comment ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... mother, "you want to relieve Uncle James's disagreeable feelings all you can, and don't you see that you increase them when you do things to annoy him? His snappish feelings are just like a sore that is smarting and aching all the time, and when you get in their way it hurts as if you rubbed the sore. Keep out of his way when you can, and when you can't and he snaps at you, say: 'I beg your pardon, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... you were to me, on the day when you were sketching in the summer-house?" Francine asked with snappish playfulness. "I expect you to make yourself agreeable this time—I am going to pay ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... to comfort him. And a story of her lending shoes and stockings while those of the young lady were drying. He has the dreadful snappish humourous way of recounting which impresses it; the table took up the subject of this remarkable young lady, and whether she was a lady of the neighbourhood, and who she could be that went abroad on foot in heavy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in a particularly complaisant mood that day. He was cross and snappish at trifles; irritable and out of humour with himself. As he waded through the narrow defile, the dumb assistant behind him whistled faintly, and perhaps inadvertantly. The fisherman looked back ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... was snappish. "The best authorities say it isn't so. There's plenty of room on Earth. But if ever ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis
... ope out Like windows to the shining day, Oh, miracle that comes about, The miracle that children gay Have happiness and goodness too, Caressed by destiny are you, Charming you are, if you but play. But we with living overwrought, And full of grave and sombre thought, Are snappish oft: dear little men, We have ill-tempered days, and then, Are quite unjust and full of care; It rained this morning and the air Was chill; but clouds that dimm'd the sky Have passed. Things spited me, and why? But now my heart repents. Behold ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... pointed muzzles, tails curling upward, and long shaggy hair. They are half-wild, snappish, and surly, as it is possible for dogs to be. They attack strangers with fury, and it is as much as their masters can do to rescue even a friend from their attack. Even when wounded, and unable any longer to keep their feet, they will crawl along the ground and bite the legs of those ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid |
