"Temper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen; and then she poured forth her gratitude for her many blessings, as she always did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that if at her age I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider myself ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Eames had continued his career in London without much immediate satisfaction—to himself, or to the lady who boasted to be his heart's chosen queen. Miss Amelia Roper, indeed, was becoming very cross, and in her ill-temper was playing a game that was tending to create a frightful amount of hot water in Burton Crescent. She was devoting herself to a flirtation with Mr Cradell, not only under the immediate eyes of Johnny Eames, but also under those of Mrs Lupex. John Eames, the blockhead, did not like it. He was ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... half-castes, etcetera,—and whatever good qualities these men might possess in the way of hewing timber and bush-life, they were sadly deficient in the matters of morality and temperance. But Jack was a man of tact and good temper, and played his cards well. He jested with the jocular, sympathised with the homesick, doctored the ailing in a rough and ready fashion peculiarly his own, and avoided the quarrelsome. Thus he ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... nationalists. But it suited the French Emperor to aver that the quarrel was about Poland rather than the Continental System, and the scene just described is a good specimen of his habit of cool calculation even in seemingly chance outbursts of temper. His rhapsody gained him the ardent support of the Poles, and was vague enough to cause no great alarm to ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... out of temper that Cyrus finally slunk off, uncomforted and afraid to meet Gussie's eye, even under its ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... was never of hasty or violent temper, it was quite as well that I failed to gain a sight of De Croix as I passed the posts and the sentry clanged the gate behind me. The Frenchman's scurvy trick would have heated cooler blood than mine; nor was my spirit soothed by the harsh fall I suffered. But De ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... shanty shop, making various household implements and articles of furniture for her. Mary sat with him, usually, at such times, knitting by the side of the great, blazing fire, made partly for the sake of the light that it afforded, and partly for the warmth, which was required to temper the coolness of the autumnal evenings. Mary took a very special interest in the progress of Albert's work, every thing which he made being for her. Each new acquisition, as one article after another was completed and delivered into ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... attraction was the 'dear little garden' behind the house, where the best hours of her lonely child-life were spent. Within the house, everything, she says, was socially utilitarian; her books told of a proud world, but in another temper were the teachings of the little garden, where her thoughts could lie callow in the nest, and only be fed and kept warm, not called to fly or sing before the time. A range of blue hills, at about twelve miles' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... not believe that, in 1860, a majority (or even a respectable minority) of the American people desired the manumission of the slave; it is evident, from the temper of the political discussions of that time, that the combination of parties out of which, in 1856, the Republican party was formed, desired to do no more than to confine the institution of slavery within the territory then occupied. There was certainly ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... & Fle hem, & make hem clene, an hacke hem in gobettys, & sethe hem in Watere & Salt a lytylle; an take Pepyr, an Safroun, an Brede, y-grounde y-fere, & temper it wyth Ale. an take Oynonys & Percely y-mynced smal to-gederys, & sethe hem be hem self, & afterward take & do er-to a porcyon of vynegre, & dresse in. (See also the recipe for "Harus in Cyue" in Liber Cure Cocorum, p.21, & that for "Conyngus in ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... my poor father such a turn, and when I got in and found him sitting in his chair taking a glass of spirits, and my mother standing looking anxious at him, I couldn't keep from bursting out and making confession where I'd been. But he didn't seem to take on, not in the way of losing his temper. 'You was there, was you? Well did you see it?' 'I see everything, father,' I said, 'except when the noise came.' 'Did you see what it was knocked the Dean over?' he says, 'that what come out of the monument? You didn't? Well, that's a mercy.' 'Why, what was it, father?' ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... of his arm, which has gained us a glorious victory, and slain the chief of our enemies. In short, I am undoubtedly Sosie, son of Dave, an honest shepherd; brother of Arpage, who died in a foreign land; husband of Cleanthis the prude, whose temper drives me wild; I, who received a thousand cuts from a whip at Thebes, without ever saying anything about it; and who was once publicly branded on the back for being too worthy ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... grow like other folkses. They don't come up at all, or if they do they wither or spindle away," he said, losing his temper, and tearing up some of the vines by the roots. Then he went into the cottage, angrily, and began to pound away, driving in big hob-nails. With the twilight, his mother called him to the simple meal, but he was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... best way of knowing what she is. For then the inward self that we conceal springs out, and often that self is armed with claws, like a devil. Oh, child, I have had much experience, and have seen many things. I can tell by the way a woman puts out a candle what she is, and what kind of a temper she has; she who puts it out hurriedly as she goes by, regardless of whether it blows sparks or sputters or not, she is one who prides herself upon her bustling industry, and who does things only by halves, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... wilt not reject; thy steel, forged in the furnace of pure truth and power, shall not lose its temper in these small fires of temptation and become a rusted chain to bind thee to another woman's breast—until it canker ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... second in command, Major Hector St. Hilaire, was no whit inferior to him in sternness. Harry had expected that this old descendant of Huguenots, reared in the soft air of Charleston, would be lax, or at least easy of temper, but whatever of military rigor Colonel Talbot forgot, Major ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... which are shrewdly, sometimes delicately, observed, with quite a pretty wit. I commend it as a sound, unpretentious, honestly-written book. Sir Julian Verny, a baronet with brains and a very difficult temper, falls a captive to Marian's proud and compelling beauty. Then, just before the War flames up, secret service claims him, and he returns from a dangerous mission irretrievably crippled. Marian fails him. True, she disdains to be released, but out of pride not out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... peculiarities of great historical figures which appertain to them as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he sustains relations to friends and acquaintances; he has passing impulses and ebullitions of temper. "No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre," is a well-known proverb; I have added—and Goethe repeated it ten years later—"but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet." He takes off ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Mr. Upton, in remorseful recognition of an unsuspected devotion; "then I'll say what I've got to say in front of him, for you're both my friends, and I'll unsay all I said just now. Bear with my temper, both of you, if you can, for I feel beside myself about the boy! It was all I could do to keep my hands off that smug little lump of London inhumanity! Kept me waiting while he finished his breakfast, he did, and then came in polishing a hat as sleek as himself, and saying ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... miscellaneous writings is marked by the same qualities of mind and temper which have given celebrity and influence to his novels. An earnest man, with strong convictions springing from a fervid philanthropy, fertile in thought, confident in statement, resolute in spirit, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... actuated by no malice to one party or the other may be excused; I trust that I shall meet with this indulgence, when your Lordships consider, that, as far as you know me, as far as my public services for many years account for me, I am a man of a slow, laborious, inquisitive temper, that I do seldom leave a pursuit without leaving marks, perhaps of my weakness, but leaving marks of that labor, and that, in consequence of that labor, I made that affirmation, and thought the nature of the cause obliged me to support and substantiate it. It is true ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... child, you'd rather see A bit of temper, off and on, A greedy grab, a silly spree— And then a brave thing said or done Than hear your boy whine all day long About the things he musn't do: Just doing nothing, right or wrong: And God may feel ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... thine own knight's sword," said Ebbo, unbuckling that which he had so long worn. "Friedel," he added, "thou wouldst give me thine. Let me take up thy temper with it, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moreover, highly conservative after his early democratic fever had passed off, grew more and more liberal with advancing years. I do not mean that he verged towards the Reformers,—but that he became more enlarged, tolerant, and generally sympathetic in his political views and temper. It thus happened that society at a distance took up a wholly wrong impression of the two men,—supposing Southey to be an ill-conditioned bigot, and Wordsworth a serene philosopher, far above being disturbed by troubles in daily life, or paying any attention ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... his irritating course had much, too much, to do with the matter. But that was not for me to hint at, even. I rather said, "Well, you say you got mad and have been in the solitary. See what you have suffered for getting mad. How much better for you to govern your temper. You know where you are, what you did to bring yourself here. You understand what is required, and that refusal on your part is of no avail. Now, why not govern yourself, no matter what they say? If you really ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... note no goot, sir?"' spak the Heelandman, a second time; but the cratur, instead of answering him, only gi'ed anither of his wise shakes, as much as to say, "I'm no very sure about it." At this Donald lost temper. "If the note doesna please ye, sir," quo' he, "I'll thank ye to gie me it back again, and I'll gang to some ither place." And he stretchit out his hand to tak hand o't, when my frien' wi' the tail, lifting up his stick, lent him sic a whack ower the fingers as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... the sisters was seen in their outward conduct; for Emma's reading of the Bible would have been in vain if the effects had not been shown in her temper and daily life. I do not mean to say that she never went wrong; for Emma had still an evil nature, and a sinful heart, often leading her to forget the commands of God. But she was truly sorry when this had been ...
— Aunt Harding's Keepsakes - The Two Bibles • Anonymous
... rage (for Porson was of violent temper) when, having written the statement that "the crowd rent the air with their shouts," his printer made the line read "the crowd rent the air with their snouts." However, this error was a natural one, since it occurs in the "Catechism of the Swinish Multitude." ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... I change? Brain cells weren't meant to be worn out trying to decide between pink and blue or princesse and polonaise. We have to wear clothes, a requirement of custom, but more time, temper, character, and peace of mind, not to mention money, have been sacrificed to them than to any other altar on this green earth, and for what? Most women look like freaks. Their garments are travesties on grace and ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... being in the minority, and the Indians being a fierce athletic set of rascals, "suffered much annoyance and insult" without retaliating. What a trial to the temper of Oregon men who used to shoot all Indians who came within range of their rifle as vermin in California ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... From the day on which I shipped him—an entire stranger—until this eve of our separation—as friends, through scenes of occasional discomfort, and circumstances which might sometimes have tried both temper and spirits—shut up as we were for four months in the necessarily close communion of life on board a vessel of eighty tons,—there has never been the shadow of a cloud between us; henceforth, the words "an Icelander" can convey no cold or ungenial associations to my ears, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... it; partaking of the nature of the calm and docile cattle with whom so much of his time was passed. But under the spur of an intolerable menace the warrior's blood which slumbered in Adone leapt to action; all at once the fierce temper of the lords of Ruscino displayed its fire and its metal; it was not the peasant of the Terra Vergine who was before him now, but the heir of the seigneury of ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... the professor, "your ineradicable disposition to temper justice with mercy has doubtless much to do with it, although," he added slyly, "there is a feeling abroad that there have been occasions when you have permitted this national tendency to run riot and carry you to quite ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... never very large, had been shattered by early dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat exacting temper, he actively felt the mortifying consequences of his poverty. The want of what he felt ought to have been his position and influence in the county in which he resided, fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful and bitter ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the purpose of one sweeping anathema. The hundredth time will bring you wisdom. You will do the anathema—rueful rather than enraged—from the tent opening. Then you will plunge boldly in and get wet. It is not pleasant, but it has to be done, and you will save much temper, not to speak ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... a camel in a bad temper, Mr. Jim," said Dave Boone darkly; he had put in a weary time in Egypt. "For downright wickedness them snake-headed ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... me jool!" growled Barney, whose temper was started a bit. "An' it's mesilf thot loikes to be suspected av such a thing. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... at home it was no better; indeed, it was worse. He seldom spoke, less than ever; and often when he did speak, they were sharp angry words, such as he had never given her formerly. Her temper was high, too, and her answers not over mild; and once in his passion he had even beaten her. If Sally Leadbitter or Mr. Carson had been at hand at that moment, Mary would have been ready to leave ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... saddle, once more laid hold of the plume, and stuck it under the gold band of his hat. Then, turning a defiant glance upon the officer, he said, "Don't lose your temper, Captain Roblado. A jealous lover makes but an indifferent husband." And transferring his look to Catalina, he added with a smile, and in a ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... period during which the porcelain clay was exposed to temper long held its ground, and probably was only dispelled by the publication of the details of the King-te chen manufacture by Pere ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... friendliness; nay, and I had a fondness for her, such as I defy any man (man I say, not woman) to have escaped. But she tried me sorely, and while we ate she plied me with new challenges and fresh incitements to anger. I held my temper well in bounds, and, when I was satisfied, rose with a bow, saying that I would go and enquire if I could be of any ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... king, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away—for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want also a bountiful reward. But the earl finding himself overreached, recollected a better temper, and went calmly on his trial, when he held the company until seven at night. But who had seen the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat he saw landing at the bridge, cursing all that came without tidings, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 249) advocates coitus not only at the end of menstruation, but even during the latter part of the period, as being the time when women most usually need it, the marked disagreeableness of temper often shown by women at this time, he says, being connected with the suppression, demanded by custom, of a natural desire. "It is almost always during menstruation that the first clouds appear on ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... unsuspecting, so easily deceived as the child had been. She understood what her cousin and her aunt were about; they were trying to take her lover from her! She understood her aunt's looks and tones, her cousin's temper and hysteria. She sat down upon the floor and cried with a breaking heart. The injustice of it! The meanness of it! The wickedness of a world where even her sweet cousin, even her loving aunt were wicked! She sat there on the floor a long time, abandoned to the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Piper?" he exclaimed half aloud; "Holstein laid waste by Denmark, Gottorp Castle taken, and the duke a fugitive? And my council dares to temper and negotiate? Ack; so! Arvid Horn, we must be in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the madam!" said Jane, shrugging her shoulders. "I expect she's in a temper;" and she rose from her knees and ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... as slave-masters had bred in them an arrogant temper and a reckless spirit. They were more practised at the rifle, better used to horsemanship, and more familiar with field sports, than the men of the North. And they fondly boasted that one Virginian ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... at the Country Club with papa," said Miss Felton. "The prisoner engaged in an altercation with my male parent on the subject of religion, said parent being a man of strong views and short temper. Said parent, however, being a man of the world as well, tried to evade an argument and escape, but was penned up in a corner for ten purple minutes. Said afterward that he had never been so affronted ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... of circumstance and the frailty of human resolution. Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honourable defeat to be a form of victory. Hope is a kind old pagan; but Faith grew up in Christian days, and early learnt humility. In the one temper, a man is indignant that he cannot spring up in a clap to heights of elegance and virtue; in the other, out of a sense of his infirmities, he is filled with confidence because a year has come and gone, and he has still preserved ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that I have forgotten household linen and Kid's boots, but determine not to let this spoil my good temper. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Because of Mamma's trying weakness. Yet this thou didst still bear with meekness, And ever from the first thy cries Had for companions tearful eyes, And such a mournful, piteous mien As is not in bad temper seen. When I saw this thou may'st be sure, I felt quite ready to endure Thy tediousness by night or day, While mother on a sick-bed lay. Now, as reward for all my toil, Thou cheerest me by many a smile. And while I gaze on thy ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... its leg. At night it went to roost; and by the next morning it was perfectly tame, and willingly took the fruit and nuts offered it. Its plumage was blue and yellow; and though not so pretty as some of its more gaily-coloured relatives, as its temper improved it became a ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... partly, because he savoureth only the doctrine of this world, [1 John 4:5] (therefore he always goes to the town of Morality to church): and partly because he loveth that doctrine best, for it saveth him best from the cross. [Gal 6:12] And because he is of this carnal temper, therefore he seeketh to pervert my ways, though right. Now there are three things in this man's counsel, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... Clive gave it up. The matter ended in a compromise, Clive surrendering the fort to Watson on condition that it was afterward handed over to the representatives of the company. In this, and in other disputes with Watson, Clive appears to have kept his temper, while acting with firmness. Writing to Mr. Pigot, Clive describes this affair in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... of the truth, and Forrester flushed to the roots of his hair, but he kept his temper admirably. He even managed a laugh as he turned to ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... this slighting remark. For more than a fortnight the General had profited of every opportunity to make himself as disagreeable as possible, and the young detective feared he would be unable to control his temper if the discussion continued. It would be better to remain silent, and to work and wait for success. To succeed would be revenge enough! Moreover, he was impatient to see these unwelcome visitors depart; believing, perhaps, that ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... by the hand; her husband followed with the taller Miss Willett; two of the Canadians, at the instance of Mrs. Macallister, came forward and politely asked the honor of the other young ladies' hands in the dance; their temper was infectious, and the cotillon was in full life before their partners had time to wonder at their consent. Mrs. Macallister could sing some of the Canadian songs; her voice, clear and fresh, rang through those of ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... and depression of the weather, and the effect grew stronger as the day proceeded. It was in vain that I resisted; in vain that I set forth upon my customary morning's walk; the irrational, unchanging fury of the storm had soon beat down my strength and wrecked my temper; and I returned to the residencia, glowing with dry heat, and foul and gritty with dust. The court had a forlorn appearance; now and then a glimmer of sun fled over it; now and then the wind swooped down upon the pomegranates, and scattered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... keep that temper, which is so difficult and yet so necessary to preserve, you may please to consider, that nothing can be more unjust or ridiculous, than to be angry with another because he is not of your opinion. The interests, education, and means, by which ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... ampler seems to rise? Where thou, O Tyre! didst awe the subject seas of yore, Acre even now, and ancient Carmel, hears The cry of conquest. 'Mid the fire and smoke Of the war-shaken citadel, with eye Of temper'd flame, yet resolute command, His brave sword beaming, and his cheering voice 350 Heard 'mid the onset's cries, his dark-brown hair Spread on his fearless forehead, and his hand Pointing to Gallia's baffled chief, behold The ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... condition, and improve with the coming of that cavalier. I find certain objections [to him] in accounts, emanating from Terrenate, of the trouble experienced by the infantry because of the harshness of his temper and the ill-treatment that they have received in word and deed. During the first week after his arrival in this city he has manifested the same disposition toward several persons who made the expedition, in depriving them of certain military posts in order ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... the notes from her hand, with a horrible oath, and dashed them on the ground; then growing so pale she thought he must have fallen, seemed to recover his temper and his presence of mind, picked them up, returned them very quietly, and stood aside on the narrow ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... a man who sought after glory, and whose gloomy temper took umbrage at everything, Rousseau complained that his Emile did not obtain the same success as his other writings. He was truly hard to please! The anger of some, the ardent sympathy of others; on the one hand, the parliamentary decrees condemning the book and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... stay at Naples, we often returned to this cave, sometimes alone, skimming the sun-lit sea, and each time added to our store. Since that period, whenever the world's circumstance has not imperiously called me away, or the temper of my mind impeded such study, I have been employed in deciphering these sacred remains. Their meaning, wondrous and eloquent, has often repaid my toil, soothing me in sorrow, and exciting my imagination to daring flights, through the immensity of nature ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... evidently the very first to neglect or otherwise maltreat them. She did not give them enough water, or left the door of her fern-ease open when she was cooking her dinner at the gas stove, or kept them too near the paraffin oil, or other like folly; and as for her temper, see what the gazelles did; as long as they did not know her "well," they could just manage to exist, but when they got to understand her real character, one after another felt that death was the only course open to ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... commingled and fused together in the revolutionary mold, so that his soul may take the form and rigidity of trenchant steel. Suppose this an animated blade, feeling and willing in conformity with its temper and structure; it would delight in being brandished, and would need to strike; such is the need of Saint-Just. Taciturn, impassible, keeping people at a distance, as imperious as if the entire will of the people and the majesty of transcendent reason resided in his person, he seems ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... how loud and unpleasing his voice is! The eternal malice in the depths of our soul pounces upon this tendency of grass to be "a common weed," of gnats to bite, of dogs to bark, of shadows to flicker, of a man to have an evil temper, of a woman to have an atrocious shrewishness, or an appalling sluttishness; and out of these annoyances or "faults" it feeds its desire; it satisfies its necrophilistic lust; and it rouses in the grass, in the earth, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... two of the dogs had the tips of their tails bitten off by piranhas as they swam, and the ranch hands told us that in this lagoon one of their hounds had been torn to pieces and completely devoured by the ravenous fish. It was a further illustration of the uncertainty of temper and behavior of these ferocious little monsters. In other lagoons they had again and again left us and our dogs unmolested. They vary locally in aggressiveness just as sharks and crocodiles in ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... to clear the tables, cursed the house, incautiously commended it to the enemy of mankind, and went off immediately to attend to some law-business at Castor. Then one of the servants, who had tried unsuccessfully to light a fire, lost his temper, and (following the evil example of his superior) cried out, "Veni, Diabole, et insuffla ignem." Forthwith the flames rose, and reached to the roof, and spread through all the offices to the town. The whole church was consumed, and the town as well, all the statues (or perhaps signa ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... obediently lay down on his mattress and closed his eyes. Judging from the expression of his face and whiskers, he was displeased with himself for having lost his temper and got ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... strong and as cruel as you are. That is Nature's law: and is it not at first sight a fearful law? Internecine competition, ruthless selfishness, so internecine and so ruthless that, as I have wandered in tropic forests, where this temper is shown more quickly and fiercely, though not in the least more evilly, than in our slow and cold temperate one, I have said—Really these trees and plants are as wicked as so ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... with what he had already done, he began to grieve and persecute her still more, saying one day to her, seemingly much out of temper, "Since thou hast brought me this son, I am able to live no longer with my people; for they mutiny to that degree that a poor shepherd's grandson is to succeed, and be their lord after me, that, unless ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... you, my brother-men, it has become too much the fashion in these latter days to sneer and jeer at the old-fashioned ways of the old-fashioned American household. Something too much of iron there may have been in the Puritan's temper; something too little of sunlight may have come in through the narrow windows of his house. But that house had foundations, and the virile virtues lived in it. There were plenty of red corpuscles in his blood, and his heart beat in time with the eternal ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... so lightly masterpieces of which I had such reason to be proud was due to the fact that certain personages of exalted station and of choleric temper, quick and able to revenge any imputation upon their honour were concerned in the adventures of the casket, so that I deemed it prudent during their lifetime to withhold a recital which I trust my present reader may ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Bertram. The lad was perhaps not fit to be sainted, and gave Mrs. Wilkinson the usual amount of trouble as regarded his jackets and pantaloons; but, on the whole, he was a good boy, free and generous in his temper, quick in his parts, affectionate in disposition, and full of humour. Those who examined him most closely (among whom, perhaps, Mr. Wilkinson was not included) might have observed that he was hardly as steady as he might have been in his likings and dislikings; that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... condemned as mistaken, admitting a point of temper. It is hard to forgive the younger generation their youth, the infinite attraction of their ingenuous freshness, the fact that they have the ball at their feet. Hence she avoided the society of the young of her own sex—as a rule. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... said one of the soldiers. "Just be silent about the load we are carrying. Tell no one. Our Captain is in the deuce of a temper. He would punish anything today." He drew on his gloves and mounted to his seat. The other soldier swung up ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... superstition mixed with intellectual unbelief.] In the highly civilized cities of Greece they encountered on the one hand the full tide of heathenism with all its degrading vices and superstitions, and on the other, Pagan philosophy with its hard sceptical temper and intellectual pride. Influences such as these may account for the comparatively small results which seem to have followed the preaching of St. Paul at Philippi, Thessalonica[21], and Berea, and the prominence given to women as being more easily touched ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... the box and lit a spill for her; and as the flame flashed up into her face she glanced at him with laughing eyes and said: "What do you think of me in a temper?" ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... of Lords, for he made upon that occasion a very favourable impression, and the world was disposed to praise the appointment. Since this his manifestation of a desire for pomp and grandeur and an expensive display has drawn ridicule and odium upon him. His temper has been soured by the attacks both in Parliament and in the press; he has been stung, goaded, and tormented by the diurnal articles in the 'Times,' and he has now made himself obnoxious to universal reproach and ridicule by an act which, trifling in itself, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... too," laughed Faith, "no five—you haven't a temper, mummy. Come along, Audrey." She hurried along the narrow corridor and opened a door at the other end, "There—that is our room— won't it be jolly? I am sorry it is so untidy now, but it will be lovely when we have ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... element may now and then "relax" you almost to ecstasy; but a season of sirocco would be an overdose of morbid pleasure. You may at any rate best feel the peculiar beauty of the Campagna on those mild days of winter when the mere quality and temper of the sunshine suffice to move the landscape to joy, and you pause on the brown grass in the sunny stillness and, by listening long enough, almost fancy you hear the shrill of the midsummer cricket. It ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... faltered from hers. He gave his hard laugh. "You're a little out of temper," he said soothingly. "That's natural, though. You had a ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... this hypothesis is most in accordance with the temper of our age, partly because it obeys the law of parsimony, and partly because it [negatives] a priori the possibility ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... constantly referred to Sir Charles for advice as to the temper of the House of Commons, though in this case he supported Sir William Harcourt, and might be excused for failing to see what was plain to Sir Charles as a practical House of Commons politician, that, apart from principles, a Liberal Ministry would be sadly embarrassed if it had to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... and amusing character. He understood the temper of the House very well and had great influence in accomplishing anything he undertook. He prided himself on the fact that he never missed answering to his name at roll call during his whole term of service. He understood very well the art of pleasing his constituents. He made it a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... in every page of my history. I feel an irresistible impulse to open my whole heart to you, my dear Leonora. I ought to be awed by the superiority of your understanding and of your character; yet there is an indulgence in your nature, a softness in your temper, that dissipates fear, and ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... ago quarrels of the Toyotomi and Tokugawa Houses. Heinai was loyal, and Sho[u]setsu a traitor; but Kibei tries the old man and officer by supporting the prowess of the latter. Besides the sake is cold and Kwaiba at start was in a very bad temper. He has thought for naught but his drink and disappointment. Cajole him by agreeing with him, but don't get into a quarrel with Kibei. He is expert with the sword, has a temper as ugly as his face, and would willingly ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... verses for the Baroness Bildermann. Hippolyte Ceres offered an indistinct opposition to everything the Prime Minister proposed. In a word, he was a madman. One faculty alone escaped the ruin of his intellect: he retained his Parliamentary sense, his consciousness of the temper of majorities, his thorough knowledge of groups, and his certainty of the direction in which ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... inconsiderate pressure from the girl's parents of brothers; and he promptly told me to be damned. I told him I thought he ought to know that an ambitious man might as well drown himself at once as get a fast woman in his path. Then he showed a faculty for temper and profanity that stunned me. But the up shot was that I found the case straight enough to all appearances. The woman was a foreigner and not easy to win; was beautiful, had a fine voice, loved admiration, and possessed a scamp ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... States citizens may be maltreated and murdered in Bulgaria or in China, the United States will not go to war on their behalf. Her mission is confined to the Western Hemisphere, and over its borders no insult, no cajolery will avail to tempt her. Within her own sphere her temper is quick, and her arm strong to avenge. Across the ocean she is long suffering and slow ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... celebrity; and, though he hesitated, he stayed. To stay was, after all, the thing which at the moment he most wanted to do. And the thing which Tanqueray most wanted to do at the moment that he invariably did. This temper of his had but one drawback, that it left him at ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... often let his temper get the better of his prudence, but he could not resist saying mildly: "Kingship is like the musk-bag, friend, that was broken at the royal child's birth. It diffuses its perfume over the habitable world, and ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... "On the carpet, eh? Temper a little short? Don't worry." Grimswitch's beefy hand made unpleasant contact with the Personnel man's shoulder. "Your old friends won't ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... Among Roland's letters was another signed, "Henry, king not by usurpation, but by the grace of God, to Hildebrand, false monk and anti-pope." This was couched, if possible, in language more insulting than the former. One sentence will show the temper of the document, and prove that the king was struggling to build up a monarchy of divine rights and appointment. "A true Pope, Saint Leo, says, Fear God! honor the king! But as you do not fear God, neither do you honor me whom He has appointed king." Can any expression more clearly ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... "You know, Wenna, I have not been free from blame, either. That letter—it was merely a piece of thoughtless anger; but still it was very kind of you to consider it canceled and withdrawn when I asked you. Well, I was in a bad temper at that time. You cannot look at things so philosophically when you are far away from home: you feel yourself so helpless, and you think you are being unfairly—However, not another word. Come, let us talk of all your affairs, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... nice woman," said Chatty. "Oh, Theo, don't look as if you were going to strike her! She doesn't know what she is saying. She has lost her temper. It is just ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... action during the war—successfully closed under the gallant military leadership of men whom we gladly welcome and honor—were of vast advantage to the national cause. The moral, political, intellectual temper, which dominates in them, as years go on, will touch with beauty, or scar with scorching and baleful heats, extended regions. Their religious life, as it glows in intensity, or with a faint and failing lustre, will be repeated in answering image from the ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... so many pleasant masquerades, and the instrument of so much of his artifice, had not a fortitude equal to the buoyant temper of the smuggler. The counterfeit bowed his head by the side of the silent Alida, without reply. The 'Skimmer of the Seas' regarded the group, a moment, with manly interest; and then touching the arm of Ludlow, he walked, with a balancing step, along the spars, until they had reached a ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the west, He'll scarcely have a minute's rest. He felt his temper quickly rise, Thinking his slave too rich a prize, To be allowed to slip away, Without a trial ...
— Amusing Trial in which a Yankee Lawyer Renders a Just Verdict • Anonymous
... too much of this throat-cutting business between merchants. The storekeeper who can hold his own temper can generally ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... Taft was leaving he informed Mr. Wilson that the plan for his visit and that of the other speakers had originated with the American Ambassador to Great Britain. This, however, did not improve the President's temper. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... I was in tears, Soeur Therese told me to avoid the habit of allowing others to see the trifles that worried me, adding that nothing made community life more trying than unevenness of temper. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... abruptly. Somehow or another he must end this absurd interview while he could yet hang on to his temper. Some one of these miserable agitators—he suspected who it might be—had influenced the girl, was using her for a tool. He had heard, of course, of the intimacy between Miss Gordon ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... eighteenth century are thus in some sort a comment upon the system established by the Revolution; and that is, in its turn, the product of the struggle between Parliament and Crown in the preceding age. But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic. From no accusation were its statesmen more anxious to be free than from that of a belief in democratic government. Whether Whigs or Tories were in power, it was always the great families who ruled. For them the Church, at least in its higher ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... was you, skipper, I'd hold my temper until I got to port; then I'd git jingled an' forgit my ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... than paint glowing pictures of glorious possibilities. It is required that his idealism shall be shown to be practicable. It is of no use to tell a drunkard that Christ wants sobriety, or a liar that the Lord wants truth in the inward parts; it is of no use preaching about the conquest of temper and of passion; about the crucifixion of covetousness and envy and jealousy; about patience, gentleness, kindness, love, unless, along with the demands of this new scheme of living, the great evangelical ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side, whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Spain with his troupe, had met the pretty daughter of a Spanish shopkeeper and eloped with her,—she had certain qualities of both, a Yankee shrewdness and capacity that made her a capable nurse, complicated by occasional outcroppings of southern Europe, furious bursts of temper, slow and smouldering vindictiveness. A passionate creature, in reality, ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it is that of one who has the assurance of a Divine love which has gone deeper than all his sins, and has taken on itself the responsibility of them, and the responsibility of delivering him from them."... "Take away the certainty of it and the New Testament temper expires. Joy in this certainty is not presumption; on the contrary, it is joy in the Lord, and such joy is the Christian's strength. It is the impulse and the hope of sanctification; and to deprecate it, and the assurance from which it springs, is no true evangelical humility, but a failure ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... observ'd in those characters taken from the Roman History; and of this, the fierceness and impatience of Coriolanus, his courage and disdain of the common people, the virtue and philosophical temper of Brutus, and the irregular greatness of mind in M. Antony, are beautiful proofs. For the two last especially, you find 'em exactly as they are describ'd by Plutarch, from whom certainly Shakespear ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!'' "He would gladly have agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, "that every one should be free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.'' Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity of purpose which ever let "I dare not wait upon I would,'' and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and as superficial as that of my little girl; a feather or a fiddle are their pursuits and their pleasures through life, even to their ripest years, if such men may be said to attain any ripeness at all. But let us survey those whose understandings are of a more elevated and refined temper; how empty do they soon find the world of enjoyments worth their desire or attaining! How soon do they retreat to solitude and contemplation, to gardening and planting, and such rural amusements, where their trees and they enjoy the air and the sun in common, and both vegetate with very little ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... applied, "they were not show-shops, nor he a showman." When he did grant permission he always gave the obliged parties fully and unmistakably to understand that he was conferring upon them a great favour. His temper was suspicious. I recollect being told of a person calling on him, to pay a long over-due rent account for another person, when, as Williamson was handing over the receipt, and about to take up the money, he suddenly fixed ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... overmastered Napoleon as that with which he had been tormented since Tilsit. By his command Talleyrand and Caulaincourt were to drop the remark before Alexander that the matter of the divorce was a European question; he wished to test, he said, the temper of his ally. Both ministers suggested that a contemplated match between the daughter of Paul I and the King of Sweden had fallen through because of the confessional difficulties, the latter being a ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... before Holden. It seemed to his bold and ferocious temper, that he could not, without cowardice, hear assailed and not vindicate, a principle that had been inculcated upon him from youth, and formed a sacred portion of his creed. As he stood up, the blanket fell in graceful folds from his shoulders, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... thought was to take in the points of Kells's horse. She had been used to horses all her life. Kells rode a big rangy bay—a horse that appeared to snort speed and endurance. Her pony could never run away from that big brute. Still Joan had the temper to make an attempt to escape, if ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... conclusion, however, differs very considerably, and if it appears less true to the rude temper of the rugged days of the sea-rovers, its superior spiritual qualities make it more attractive. According to Tegner's poem, Frithiof was urged by the people of Sigurd Ring to espouse Ingeborg and remain amongst them as guardian of the realm. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... but not unknown among the Kayans. The principal grounds of divorce are misconduct, desertion, incompatibility of temper and family quarrels; or a couple may terminate their state of wedlock by mutual consent on payment of a moderate fine to the chief. Such separation by mutual consent is occasioned not infrequently by the sterility of the marriage, especially ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... day the pirates "plied to and fro in sight of the port," hoping that the Spaniards would man the ships in the bay, and come out to fight. They reinstated Sharp in his command, for they had now "recollected a better Temper," though none of them, it seems, wished for any longer stay in the South Sea. The Arica fight had sickened them of the South Sea, while several of them (including Ringrose) became very ill from the exposure and toil of the battle. They beat to windward, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... into nasty arguments or disputes. Give and take. Be fair. Be square. Keep your temper. Stoop to conquer. Cut out all thoughts ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... old Mr. King whispered back, but very distinctly, "that your old Granddaddy is an idiot, Phronsie, and that he has been rude, and let his temper run away ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... You're in a nice temper now, my dear. But just take a look at this, said Arni, throwing down the brown fox ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... looking about for the nurse, first over one shoulder and then over the other, like a hunted thing. Evidently they have weighed his food, measured his exercise, and bought his amusements; his only free will and vent is to get in a temper. They give him no chance to sweat off his irritation, only to fume; while that shaking, snorting teakettle of an automobile they bowl him about in, puts the final touch ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... did you fly Chill'd Friendship's dark disliking eye, Or Mirth's untimely din? 15 With cruel weight these trifles press A temper sore with tenderness, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering prototypes requiring individual attention from more than usually competent site personnel, and thus had significant reliability problems. Poole's legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not help matters. By the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in 1983 Foonly's proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the {Mars}, and the company never ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Billette," remarked Grace, a trifle shortly, for her natural good temper was becoming ruffled ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... English at all. They put her at scrubbing floors for twelve dollars a week. About 4 that afternoon she appeared on our floor, all agitated. She needed a Spanish girl there to tell the boss she was leaving. She was one exercised piece of temper when it finally penetrated ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... piercing eyes, he stood, a man of dauntless courage, quick and energetic in action, with a resolution in the performance of duty that no opposition could thwart; yet, withal, of gentle manner, and of an even temper, proof against the many attacks made upon it. His disposition was to think well of men, and to believe what they said. Deceit he hated, it was the one thing he could not forgive. He trusted men implicitly; and this probably accounted for ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... the enterprise against Kingston was not feasible, Brown fell into the not unnatural mistake of construing the Secretary's other letter to present not merely a ruse, but an alternative line of action, more consonant to his active martial temper than remaining idle in garrison. Accordingly, he left Sackett's with his two thousand, an event duly chronicled in a letter of Drummond's, that on Sunday, March 13, three thousand five hundred left Sackett's for Niagara; a statement sufficiently characteristic ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... physician who deals with this class of ailments, with the nervous and feeble, the painworn, the hysterical, is one of the utmost gravity. It demands the kindliest charity. It exacts the most temperate judgments. It requires active, good temper. Patience, firmness, and discretion are among its necessities. Above all, the man who is to deal with such cases must carry with him that earnestness which wins confidence. None other can learn all that should be learned by a physician of the lives, habits, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... can keep the flames off it. The Sergeant is now 'camped on some island, and will not come in until morning. If we hold the block, we can give him timely warning, by firing rifles, for instance; and should he determine to attack the savages, as a man of his temper will be very likely to do, the possession of this building will be of great account in the affair. No, no! my judgment says remain, if the object be to sarve the Sergeant, though escape for our two selves will ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... who could not be passed over on any account. Nothing would have so seriously offended her. From her high nose to her high voice and her particularly high temper, every thing about her was decidedly prononc. There was no extinguishing her or putting her into a corner. Rather than be unnoticed—if such a thing she could ever believe possible—she would make herself noticeable ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... postponed the decision of the campaign brought new strength to his enemies. Merely to keep the French in their camp until a Prussian force was ready to assail their communications seemed enough to ensure the Allies victory; and such was the counsel of Kutusoff, who made war in the temper of the wariest diplomatist. But the scarcity of provisions was telling upon the discipline of the army, and the Czar was eager for battle. [117] The Emperor Francis gave way to the ardour of his allies. Weyrother, the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Thirty pieces of silver! He could easily have gotten a thousand. Judas did love money greedily, and doubtless was a good bargainer too, but anger was in the saddle now, and drove him hard. Without doubt it was in a hot fit of temper that he made this proposal. His descendants have been coining money out of Jesus right ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... had seen no one except at mid-day when a little mannikin had come and begged for a piece of bread, that he had given some to him, but that the mannikin had let it fall and had asked him to pick it up again; but as he did not choose to do that, the elf had begun to lose his temper, and that he had done what he ought not, and had given the elf a beating, on which he had told him where the King's daughters were. Then the two were so angry at this that they grew green and yellow. Next morning they went to the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... wonderfully fine woman; indeed, he told me this at least once every day, and sometimes oftener. He was greatly struck—just as everybody is who lives for any length of time in the same house with Susan—by her capable ways, and by her unfailing equanimity and sweetness of temper. Even when the colored girl fell down the well, carrying the rope and the bucket along with her, Susan was not a bit flustered. She told me just where I would find the clothes-line and a big meat-hook; and when, with this hastily-improvised ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... larger and his flock smaller. Yvonne's nose and temper waxed sharp and her talk blunt. Her pans and kettles grew dull, but her eyes had caught their flash. She pointed out to the poet that his neglect was reducing the flock and bringing woe upon the household. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... heart, plays experiments with life, trying knowledge, pleasure, dissipation, one after another, and hating them all; and then hating life itself as a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable mockery. The temper exhibited here will probably be perennial in the world. But the remedy for it will scarcely be more clear under other circumstances than it is at present, and lies in the disposition of the heart, and not in any propositions which can be addressed to the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... stretch beyond the measure of one moon. To dig for water on the spot, the Captain Landed with a small troop, myself being one: There I reproached him with his treachery. Imperious at all times, his temper rose; He struck me; and that instant had I killed him, And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades Rushed in between us: then did I insist (All hated him, and I was stung to madness) That we should leave ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Some said it was *long on* the fire-making; *because of * Some saide nay, it was on the blowing (Then was I fear'd, for that was mine office); "Straw!" quoth the third, "ye be *lewed and **nice, *ignorant **foolish It was not temper'd* as it ought to be." *mixed in due proportions "Nay," quoth the fourthe, "stint* and hearken me; *stop Because our fire was not y-made of beech, That is the cause, and other none, *so the'ch.* *so may I thrive* I cannot tell whereon it was along, But well I wot great strife is us among." ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... temper every change, And soften all surprise, And, misty with the dreams of earth, The hills of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Princhester had first made sensitive, was deranged. He was suffering chemically, suffering one of those nameless sequences of maladjustments that still defy our ordinary medical science. It was afflicting him with a general malaise, it was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and comfort of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful. He was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of detachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... edge. It is not my own fault that I am living a bad life, but other people's. My parents ought to have brought me up better. I have had no chance. My companions taught me too much harm. I have too much trouble to get my living; or, I was born with a bad temper; or, I can't help running after pleasure. Why did God make me the sort of man I am, and put me where I am? God is hard upon me; He is unfair to me. His ways are unequal; He expects as much of me as He does of people who have more opportunities. He threatens ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... Before he concluded he had given "one word of advice to Lord Byron"—"When he attacks me again, let it be in rhyme. For one who has so little command of himself, it will be a great advantage that his temper should be obliged to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... thereupon. In this survey it approves of one, disapproves of another, and towards a third is affected in neither of these ways, but is quite indifferent. This principle in man, by which he approves or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions, is conscience; for this is the strict sense of the word, though sometimes it is used so as to take in more. And that this faculty tends to restrain men from doing mischief to each other, and leads them to do good, is too manifest to need being insisted upon. Thus ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... inner council of four in Temple's Scheme of Government. "In him," says Macaulay, in a somewhat highly-coloured character-sketch, "the political immortality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by which all his vices had been nursed ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... who did not relish interruption, and was a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spectacles on his brow. But I said to him, "Excuse freedoms, James, and be so good as resume your discourse." Then wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way of compliment—"Do go on; for you really are ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... settlers in Asia Minor. Out of his colossal egalo-megalomania, of which we know more now, he thought that any request which the All-Highest should deign to make must instantly be granted. But he met with a perfectly flat refusal, and the baffled All-Highest left Constantinople in an exceedingly bad temper, which quite undid all the good that the balm in Gilead and the sacred associations of Jerusalem had done him. It is pleasant to think of the Pan-Islamic merriment with which Abdul Hamid must have viewed the indignant exit of his Christian ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... the vital seed). The spouse of Rudra, however, at this endeavour of the deities to stop procreation, became highly incensed. In consequence of her being of the opposite sex (and, therefore, endued with little control upon her temper) she used harsh words, thus, 'Since ye have opposed my lord in the matter of procreating a child when he was desirous of procreating one upon me, as the consequence of this act, ye deities, ye all shall become sonless. Verily, since ye have opposed the birth of issue from me, therefore, ye shall ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of the Sea Islands, when found by us, had become an abject race, more docile and submissive than those of any other locality. The native African was of a fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and untamable. The master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner, now at Port Royal, and formerly a resident of South Carolina, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... one visiting Florence can better prepare for a just appreciation of the temper and spirit of the place, than by studying Mrs. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... could he have seen the hot blush which spread over her face and neck, he would have known that he had roused the quick Welsh temper. He was unconscious of it, however, and strode on in silence, until they reached a rough-built, moss-grown bridge, and here they both stopped as if by mutual consent. Leaning their elbows on the mossy stone wall, they looked down to the depths below, where the little river Berwen babbled ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... mingle their own vapours with the motions of the soul, and are blended with them, they produce all sorts of diseases, more or fewer, and in every degree of intensity; and being carried to the three places of the soul, whichever they may severally assail, they create infinite varieties of ill-temper and melancholy, of rashness and cowardice, and also of forgetfulness and stupidity. Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... leading personages of the republic. The emissary was looked upon with great distrust. All schemes of substantial negotiation were regarded by the public as visions, while the monk on his part felt the need of all his tact and temper to wind his way out of the labyrinth into which he felt that he had perhaps too heedlessly entered. A false movement on his part would involve himself and his masters in a hopeless maze of suspicion, and make ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for me, I was pleased to meet with a man of so singular a temper, whom I also knew to be truly courageous; and I was willing to amuse myself further with him. "But," I said, modestly, "I have had some affairs with M. de Rosny, and I have never found him ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... petit maitre, death must have ensued: but mark what followed—The Athenian, far from resenting the outrage, in what is now called a gentlemanlike manner, said, "Do, strike if you please; but hear me." He never dreamed of cutting the Lacedemonian's throat; but bore with his passionate temper, as the infirmity of a friend who had a thousand good qualities to ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... who engaged him in taking base methods to obtain money wherewith to purchase baser pleasures. This Lion was a large masculine woman, and Shepherd a very little slight-limbed lad, so that whenever he had been drinking and came to her quarrelsome, Bess often beat him into better temper, though Shepherd upon other occasions manifested his wanting neither courage nor strength. Repeated quarrels, however, between Shepherd and his mistress, as it does often with people of better rank, created such coldness ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... follows a long winter spent together by two people, no matter how much in harmony. Emma pulled herself up now and then, horrified to find a rasping note of impatience in her voice. Buck found himself, once or twice, fairly caught in a little whirlpool of ill temper of his own making. These conditions they discovered almost simultaneously. And like the comrades they were, they talked it over and came ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber |
