"Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their feet were shoeless, and they generally dispensed with hats. They looked neat and clean, and had no reason to complain of want of physical comfort. Probably, in other cases where the master was ill-tempered, they would have been liable to punishment, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... it were true," returned Hatty sorrowfully, and then her ill-humor vanished. "No, don't pet me, Bessie; I don't deserve it," as Bessie stroked her hand in a petting sort of a way. "I have been cross and ill-tempered all the week, just unbearable, as Christine said; but oh, Bessie, it seemed as though I could not help it. I was so miserable every night to think you were going away, that I could not sleep for ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Welsh farmer was a poor pirate but a born soldier. He was described by one who knew him as being morose, sour, unsociable, and ill-tempered, and that he "knew as little of the sea or of ships as he did of the Arts of Natural Philosophy." But it is recorded to his credit that he was not cruel. He started life in a merchant ship bound for India, and was accidentally left behind in Madagascar. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... female tale is often a poor, frivolous, easily led person. When he can escape from his wife's eye, he speculates heavily on Stock Exchange, goes in under the influence of evil advisers for any sort of polite swindling, and forgets, or is ill-tempered towards, the inestimable treasure he has at home. On such occasions the heroine of the feminine novel shines out in all her majesty. She is kind and patient to her husband's faults, except that when he is more than usually idiotic her eyes flash, and her nostrils dilate with ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she merely replied with a Welsh "Eh! come si ha da far?" and declared that if I was in her place I should do just the same, which excited my wrath ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... years older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and in each of them she ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... But it had a great effect on the men who fought under him. Though he was a brutal leader, they were ready to follow him anywhere, and had been known to call him le gros caporal, so strong and obvious was this likeness. He was a splendid soldier, though ill-tempered, cruel, and overbearing. He was a man to be reckoned with, and so the amiable Prefect found. Having himself plenty of scruples, plenty of humanity, and a horror of civil war, he found a colleague ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... there are no people about much, and it felt like being alone in a graveyard, or Pompeii after dark. We almost expected bandits and wolves or jackals. We started, holding on our hats and feeling very ill-tempered, but we had not got a hundred yards on our climb, when a motor tore down upon us, and Gaston and the Senator jumped out; they had been getting quite anxious at our non-arrival and come to look for us. Tom, of course, being an English husband, was sure nothing had happened; and when we got ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... The doctor bethought himself, too, that there might be very natural explanations of the curate's escort. How else, to be sure, could she have got home on a dark winter night through that lonely road? Perhaps, if he himself had been less impatient and ill-tempered, it might have fallen to his lot to supersede Mr Wentworth. On the whole, Dr Rider decided that it was necessary to make one of his earliest calls this morning at ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... with the gout, and dreadfully ill-tempered and peevish; however, I keep out of the way as much as possible. I dined yesterday at Lady Roseville's: she praised you very much, said your manners were particularly good, and that you had already quite the usage du monde. Lord Vincent is, I understand, at Paris: though very tiresome ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a little boy who was so unfortunate as to have a very bad man for his father, who was always surly and ill-tempered, and never gave his children either good instructions or good example; in consequence of which this little boy, who might otherwise have been happier and better, became ill-natured, quarrelsome, and ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... passing through the little town which you may remember near Ragnall, they met a travelling menagerie that was going to some new encampment. At the head of the procession marched a large bull elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-tempered brute that had already killed a man and should never have been allowed upon the roads. The sight of the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast, which trumpeted. The pony becoming ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... what they can." As rare as the reasonable mother is the sick child who can stand this treatment and survive with those traits of character which it above all others requires to make its crippled life happy, not to say useful. The child thus unrestrained and foolishly indulged must needs become ill-tempered. It loses self-control, and yet no one will need it more. It learns to expect no disappointments, and life is to hold for it less than for others. Disease has crippled its body and the mother has crippled ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... middle of 1761, the Duke of Douglas was unexpectedly taken ill, and his physicians pronounced his malady to be mortal. Nature, in her strange and unexplained way, told the ill-tempered peer the same tale, and, when death was actually before his eyes, he repented of his conduct towards his unfortunate sister. To herself he was unable to make any reparation, but her boy remained; and, on the 11th of July 1761, he executed an entail of his entire estates in favour of the heirs ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... two or three times; after which he stirred the fire a little more, and examined it carefully to see that it was all right; but he did not seem quite satisfied, and was proceeding to re-adjust the coals when Bob Croaker, one of the big boys, who was a bullying, ill-tempered fellow, and had a spite against Martin, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... in one way to restore the fallen fortunes of his house. Another zemindar, named Ganesh, dwelt in the Haripur district; he had one unmarried daughter, Hembati, who was given to Debendra in marriage. Hembati had many virtues; she was ugly, ill-tempered, unamiable, selfish. Up to the time of his marriage with her, Debendra's character had been without stain. He had been very studious, and was by nature steady and truth-loving. But that marriage had been fatal ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... stretching its arms across a ruined moat in the direction of its absent father. This was in the nature of an absurd prologue, but when she finally came to the Solitary she grew serious; for she made him in the bygone days a sensitive child and a dreamy, impetuous youth, with a domineering, ill-tempered father who was utterly unable and unwilling to understand or to sympathise with him. His younger brother (for Rhoda insists on a younger brother) lived at home, while he, the elder, spent, or misspent, his youth and ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time, when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they had to complain that when they 'could not get the passage,' the assistant would ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... do without me," muttered the old man, feeling as though a weight of anger were being lifted from his heart. "Let somebody else look after you now! I am stingy and ill-tempered. . . . It's nasty living with me, so you try living with other people . . . ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... heroine endured for a whole season, without any outward complaint, but with many an inward groan, the penance which she had imposed upon herself: the extent of it can be comprehended only by those who have been doomed to live with a thoroughly ill-tempered woman. The reward was surely proportioned to the sufferings. Miss Turnbull received a smile, or a nod, or something like a curtsy from Lady Pierrepoint, whenever she met her in public; her ladyship's cards were occasionally left at the Yorkshire heiress's door; and she sometimes ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... though otherwise on bad terms with her, married for his second wife a coarse German princess, homely in every sense, and a singular contrast to the elegant creature whom he had lost. She was a daughter of the Bavarian Elector; ill-tempered by her own confession, self- willed, and a plain speaker to excess; but otherwise a woman of honest German principles. Unhappy she was through a long life; unhappy through the monotony as well as the malicious intrigues of the French court; and so much so, that she did ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... only to seat myself upon a mossy block, dreading the search lest it should prove unfruitful, and so dash my golden visionary thoughts. But at length I was about to commence, when a throb of joy sent the blood coursing through my veins, for Tom said, in his dry ill-tempered way: ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... knowing after whom the Child can take, [see [2]] one to incline to Stealing, another to Drinking, Cruelty, Stupidity; yet all these are not minded. Nay it is easy to demonstrate, that a Child, although it be born from the best of Parents, may be corrupted by an ill-tempered Nurse. How many Children do we see daily brought into Fits, Consumptions, Rickets, &c., merely by sucking their Nurses when in a Passion or Fury? But indeed almost any Disorder of the Nurse is a Disorder to the Child, and few Nurses ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Jones could be all the time in the state of wrath against everything in general which her sharp tongue and her angry voice evinced, but she gave that impression. Her little blond face looked like that of a doll which has been covered with angry pin-scratches by an ill-tempered child. Whenever she spoke ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... come to crush, to subjugate or to enchant, she had failed in every respect and Gregory saw that her failure was not lost upon her. Her manner, as the consciousness grew, became more frankly that of the vain, ill-tempered child, ignored. She ceased to speak; her eyes, fixed on the wall over Sir Oliver's head, enlarged ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... hot in the schoolroom," she said, "and some of the girls, poor things, are so ill-tempered at rehearsal—I have made my escape. I hope you got your breakfast, Miss de Sor. What have you been ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... duskiness of your whole appearance is so strong as to overcome all other considerations, not to mention your devotional feelings. In this attire you have to stand for a couple of hours amongst a perspiring and ill-tempered crowd, composed of tourists and priests, for the Italians are too wise to trouble themselves for such an object. During these two mortal hours you are pushed forward constantly by energetic ladies bent on being placed, and pushed back ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... had some idea that her part in the play was not an easy one, and was minded to spare her for that night. But she had promised to try, and she must be reminded of her promise. Hitherto she certainly had not tried. Hitherto she had been ill-tempered, petulant, and almost rude. He would not see her himself this evening, but he would send a message to her by his wife. 'Tell her from me that I shall expect to see smiles on her face to-morrow,' said Michel Voss. And as he spoke there certainly were ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... expressed their indignation: nay, they proceeded so far as to assault Lycurgus with stones, so that he was forced to fly from the assembly and take refuge in a temple. Unhappily, however, before he reached it, a young man named Alcander, hasty in his resentments, though not otherwise ill-tempered, came up with him, and, upon his turning round, struck out one of his eyes with a stick. Lycurgus then stopped short, and, without giving way to passion, showed the people his eye beat out, and his face streaming with blood. They were so struck with ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... even louder than before. Monsieur Bernheim ordered him to step out. 'You tell me to do what is impossible,' he again replied, and he did not move. He had to be allowed to go to bed again, and the whole time the experiment lasted he maintained an obstinate and ill-tempered air." ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... my mother went out, or had words with any of her neighbours, the retort was invariably, "Who sent the press-gang after her own husband?" or, "Who cut off the tail from her husband's back? Wasn't that a genteel trick?" All this worried my mother, and she became very morose and ill-tempered; I believe she would have left the alley, if she had not taken a long lease of the house. She had now imbibed a decided hatred for me, which she never failed to show upon every occasion, for she knew that it was I who had roused my father, and prevented her escape from his wrath. The consequence ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... stranger to experimental godliness, and only obtained the knowledge of the truth in his last moments. The occasion of her return to her parents was probably his increasing age and infirmity, as the only impression she retained of him in after life was that of a somewhat crusty and ill-tempered old man, with a huge bobwig, who always laid in bed. His last words to her, which were vividly impressed upon her mind, were, that it was a pity she should go home to be spoiled by Methodism. The few months she spent at Sandygate were not however without some good and permanent ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... said, quickly and passionately, "forgive me for the way in which I have spoken. I am an ill-tempered brute. It is my anxiety for you that makes me seem so savage. I cannot bear to see you look as you do: ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sitting on another!" Mr. Crow exploded. "Get out of my tree this instant!" It always made him ill-tempered to be awakened from a sound sleep in ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... ailment, put him more and more in the right atmosphere and temper for indulging his genius. Plymley, though very amusing, and, except in the Canning matter above referred to, not glaringly unfair for a political lampoon, is distinctly acrimonious, and almost (as "almost" as Sydney could be) ill-tempered. It is possible to read between the lines that the writer is furious at his party being out of office, and is much more angry with Mr. Perceval for having the ear of the country than for being a respectable nonentity. The main ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was not ill-tempered or irritable. Perfectly conscious of his own sound integrity, he was unmoved by this taunt; and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... sorts of capers. A mamma sat tending her baby, and looking so like a little old woman that I laughed till the gray monkey with the blue nose scolded at me. He was a cross old party, and sat huddled up in the straw, scowling at every one, like an ill-tempered old bachelor. Half-a-dozen little ones teased him capitally by dropping bits of bread, nut-shells, and straws down on him from above, as they climbed about the perches, or swung by their tails. One poor little chap had lost the curly end of his tail,—I'm afraid the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Women pausing in washing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such were the observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped at the village shoemaker's. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it all in a very ill-tempered ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy, and ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, some of the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and the whole FEEL of the place miserable and unhappy. The Kingdom of God is not thee, for IT is peace. It is the Kingdom of the Devil that ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... have found him worthy of our love, Tried by our own poor hearts and not before; He must be truer than the truest friend, He must be tenderer than a woman's love, A father better than the best of sires; Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin Oftener than did the brother we are told, We-poor ill-tempered mortals-must forgive, Though seven times sinning threescore times ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his fist, and hold down by the horns a young bull, however furious. He had had several encounters with bears; and although on two occasions only armed with a knife, he had come off victorious. His nerve and activity equalled his strength. He was no great talker, and he was frequently morose and ill-tempered; but he had one qualification which compensated for all his other deficiencies—he was devotedly attached ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... new faces, and half proud of being a Randlebury boy, with a right to a seat in the chapel. And as he looked he saw some faces he thought he should like, and some that he thought he would dislike; there were merry, bright-eyed boys, like himself, and there were ill-tempered, sullen-looking boys; there were boys haggard with hard-reading, and boys who looked as if their heads ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... restless activity, made him take physic, applied blisters to him, went back and forth in the house, while old Amable remained at the edge of his loft, watching at a distance the gloomy cavern where his son lay dying. He did not come near him, through hatred of the wife, sulking like an ill-tempered dog. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... habits when the hunter changed his, and now, if an estanciero puts down ostrich hunting on his estate, in a very few years the birds, although wild birds still, become as fearless and familiar as domestic animals. I have known old and ill-tempered males to become a perfect nuisance on some estancias, running after and attacking every person, whether on foot or on horseback, that ventured near them. An old instinct of a whole race could not be thus readily ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... good woman, you are all right enough in your own way, but we have nothing in common; and this proposed evening of enforced companionship will leave us both exhausted and ill-tempered. We shall grin and shout meaningless phrases over the fish, entree and salad about life, death and the eternal verities; but we shall be sick to death of each other in ten minutes. Let's cut it ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... irritably, for I was ill-tempered from the heat. "It's perfectly clean out here in mid-stream and there is no danger from sharks here, as there was ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... strong mixed tea, a couple of rounds of buttered toast, a middling-sized dish of beef and ham cut thin, and the Protestant Manual in two volumes post octavo. Like some other ladies who in remote ages flourished upon this globe, Mrs Varden was most devout when most ill-tempered. Whenever she and her husband were at unusual variance, then the Protestant ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... some considered as a variety of the bull-dog, and others reject this opinion. His round head, grotesquely abbreviated muzzle, and small, tightly curled tail, they think, entitling him to a place of his own among dogs. Authorities state that he is a cross, ill-tempered little dog, but my own experience contradicts this. The two with whom I have come in frequent contact, have been remarkably playful and good-natured. One was the pet of a lady; and his bringing up ought to have made him gentlemanly; ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... which, if they came to the knowledge of the King, would certainly have made his majesty very angry. The favour of the Court was completely withdrawn from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honour at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might not love an ill-tempered, jealous child belonging to somebody else," he said, as if half in jest, half in earnest; "but you are my own," drawing her closer and repeating his caresses, "my very own; and so I have to love you in spite of everything. But, my little ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... old trader, came to me after a sitting of the precious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had done all I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was a dour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of his property, but perfectly careless ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole house is miserable; or mother, ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... eagerly for the moment of projection which was to give him immortality and omnipotence,—a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and an order to desist; and I well recollect looking back, for long after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation; nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and myself had been rescued ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... manner than inviting friendly approach. But I was told that ill health had made him unsociable and somewhat morose and testy, and, indeed, there was often the trace of suffering and weariness in his face. It was also remarked in the Senate that at times he was ill-tempered and inclined to indulge in biting sarcasms and to administer unkind lectures to other senators, which in some instances disturbed his personal intercourse with his colleagues. But there was not one of them who did not hold him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... because it was solely for his wife's sake that he had made any effort at all to give a helping hand to surly Phil Sparks, for whom he entertained no personal regard. But Ned managed to keep his mouth shut. Although a passionate man, he was not ill-tempered, and often suffered a great deal for ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... and tried to shelter him with her own body. How she must love the ugly yellow creature, and how he loved her! and how they would feel it, if they were parted. What a life they'd lead, if they had to go back to the van and that ill-tempered, grumbling pair! ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... called for him! it would be as much as his life was worth to do it; he would as soon venture unarmed into the cage of a furious lion, or the den of a royal tiger. The duke was always more or less surly and ill-tempered on first waking in the morning, even when he had gone to bed in a good humour, as his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... carriage, that their master was not in the best of humors: the result of their discernment was, that his orders were executed with that exactitude of maneuver which is found on board a man-of-war, commanded during a storm by an ill-tempered captain. The carriage, therefore, did not simply roll along—it flew. Fouquet had hardly time to recover himself during the drive; on his arrival he went at once to Aramis, who had not yet retired for the night. As for Porthos, he ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Trois Couronnes a painful thing was happening. Germain Boily, the horse-trainer, fresh from his disappointment with the widow Plomondon, had driven his tamed moose up to the Trois Couronnes, and had drunk enough whiskey to make him ill-tempered. He had then begun to "show off" the animal, but the savage instincts of the moose being roused, he had attacked his master, charging with wide-branching horns, and striking with his feet. Boily was too drunk to fight intelligently. He went down under the hoofs of the enraged ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I heard Mr. Petulengro talk in this manner, which I had never heard him do before, and which I can only account for by his being fasting and ill-tempered, I had of course no other alternative than to accept his challenge; so I put myself into a posture which I deemed the best both for offence and defence, and the tussle commenced; and when it had endured for about half an hour, Mr. Petulengro ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... which God is not asked to heal but is be- sought to take the patient to Himself, do not benefit the sick. An ill-tempered, complaining, or deceit- 395:18 ful person should not be a nurse. The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... very cruel and a very difficult thing. We are given tastes, and no means to gratify them. How could I, for instance, face life as a lodging-house keeper, or at best as a sort of companion to some ill-tempered old harridan, who would probably only employ me to have some one to bully? You yourself, Jeanne, are fond ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... some might be ill-tempered, some might be ugly; others might be burdened with disagreeable connexions. I can understand that you should object to a daughter-in-law under any of these circumstances. But none of these things can be said of Miss Robarts. I defy you to say that she is not ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart —sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Priming, the nasal-voiced gunner's mate, with the hare-lip; and Cylinder, his stuttering coadjutor, with the clubbed foot. But you will always observe, that the gunner's gang of every man-of-war are invariably ill-tempered, ugly featured, and quarrelsome. Once when I visited an English line-of-battle ship, the gunner's gang were fore and aft, polishing up the batteries, which, according to the Admiral's fancy, had been painted white as snow. Fidgeting round the great thirty-two-pounders, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... understood how the Queen he had had for some time past had been so ill-tempered. He at once had a sack drawn over her head and made her be stoned to death, and after that torn in pieces by untamed horses. The two young fellows also told now what they had heard and seen in the Queen's room, for before this they had been afraid to say anything about it, ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... shafts of ridicule, but she counted for much with Voltaire, and her chief title to fame lies in his long and devoted friendship. He found the "sublime and respectable Emilie" the incarnation of all the virtues, though a trifle ill-tempered. The contrast between his kindly portrait and those of her feminine friends is ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Tired, ill-tempered, and covered with muck as we all were, there was a tendency among us to resent this late arrival of Master Dandy Jack's; and this feeling, you may be sure, was not lessened by a contemplation of the extravagant cleanliness and daintiness of apparel ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the good-natured debate and was longing to speak her mind. She was, however, wisely silent, and reflected half amused that she had lost the right to express herself on the question which was making politics ill-tempered but was now being discussed at her table with such well-bred courtesy. John soon ceased to follow the wandering talk, and feeling what for him had the charm of romance in the flight of Josiah sat thinking over the scene ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... good news to Oscar, and back came another letter from him, more ill-tempered than the first, saying he had never thought I would take his scenario; I had no right to touch it; but as I had taken it, I must really pay him ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to remain: but he had other thoughts—and simply said, in an ill-tempered tone of voice, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... departed when Martha asked the general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere. The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life. He began to receive, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... weep or cheer; but a silent, unnoticed, almost ignominious summons, scarcely less sudden and far more painful than the bullet or the sword-cut. The Egyptians, in spite of their fatalistic creed, manifested profound depression. The English soldiers were moody and ill-tempered. Even the light-hearted Soudanese lost their spirits; their merry grins were seen no longer; their laughter and their drums were stilled. Only the British officers preserved a stony cheerfulness, and ceaselessly endeavoured by energy and example ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... much more favourably of her than I do; she evidently took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over whose mind he could gain great ascendency: he thinks her a woman of violent passions, unbridled imagination, and ill-tempered, but not malevolent: one who has been so torn to pieces that she now turns upon her enemies, and longs to tear in her turn. He says she has certainly great powers of pleasing, though I neither saw nor felt them. But you know, my dear aunt, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... A few days afterwards my mother saw Napoleon, and then his irritability was at its height. He would scarcely bear any observations, even if made in his favour, and I am convinced that it is to this uncontrollable irritability that he owed the reputation of having been ill-tempered in his boyhood, and splenetic in his youth. My father, who was acquainted with almost all the heads of the military school, obtained leave for him sometimes to come out for recreation. On account of an accident (a sprain, if I recollect rightly) ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... not seem ill-tempered. I have long since healed from the chaos and revelations of building. It brought me a not too swift review of life as I had met it afield and in the cities for many years. The fact that one little contract for certain ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... room. It was rather scantily furnished; I could see nothing but some tubs and barrels, the mast of a boat, and a sail or two. Seated upon the tubs were three or four men coarsely dressed, like fishermen or shipwrights. The principal personage was a surly, ill-tempered-looking fellow of about thirty-five, whom I discovered to be the alcalde of Finisterra. After I had looked about me for a minute, the alcalde, giving his whiskers a twist, thus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... such, that he forgot even the hunger that was rendering him faint. He had often seen cows in the city, but had never suspected what they were capable of. When the girl caught sight of him, staring with open mouth, she was taken with such a fit of laughter, that the cow, which was ill-tempered, kicked out, and overturned the pail. Now because of her troublesomeness this cow was not milked beside the rest, and the shed where she stood was used for farm-implements only. The floor of it was the earth, beaten ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... of patience. It rebukes our softness and intolerance of pain. How easily we are made to cry out; how peevish and ill-tempered we become under slight annoyances! A headache, a toothache, a cold, or some other slight affair, is supposed to be a sufficient justification for losing all self-control and making a whole household uncomfortable. Suffering does not always sanctify. It ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... our fast, ere the sun is up, on chunks of yesterday's half- dressed beef and mutton. If I am seen seeking for a morsel not half raw, I am rated for dainty French tastes; and the same with the sour smallest of beer. I know now what always made me ill-tempered as a child, and I avoid it, but at the expense of sneers on my French breeding, even though my drink be fair water; for wine, look you, is a sinful expense, save for after dinner, and frothed chocolate for a man is an invention of Satan. The meal is sauced either with blame of me, messages ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my position of dependence upon Aunt Eliza too unspeakably galling. What a monstrous injustice it seems that I—who if I had been born a boy, must have been Earl of Gaverick, should be at the mercy of an ill-tempered, miserly, old woman who may leave the home of my forefathers to a crossing-sweeper if she pleases. I suppose it ought to go to Chris, but one doesn't feel called upon to arraign Fate on behalf of a distant cousin who by ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... unhappy as most other married people. And yet it was a most desirable match for Janet at the time. We were all delighted. She could not do otherwise than accept him, for he was rich, and she had nothing; but he turns out ill-tempered and exigeant, and wants a young woman, a beautiful young woman of five-and-twenty, to be as steady as himself. And my friend does not manage him well; she does not seem to know how to make the best of it. There is a spirit of irritation which, to say nothing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... up in a home where rude gestures, or ill-tempered words are unknown, where truthfulness, kindliness, forgetfulness of self and careful consideration of others, permeates the very atmosphere, and they will go forth into the world armed with the integrity ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... of its members, though we welcome everyone, and, like all the girls of the village, she enjoys the use of our library. She is not clever, however. She is an envious and a rather ill-tempered girl, with very little of the spirit of sisterhood in her. And she nurses her defect of isolation and self-sufficiency. I hope that we may win her over to wider, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Cassius, you are yokd with a lamb That carries anger, as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforcd, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again. Cas. Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him? Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered, too. Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. Bru. And my heart too. Cas. O, Brutus! Bru. What's the matter? Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash humor, which my mother ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... himself, became morose, and brooded much. All of which was spiritually unhealthful. He, who had been so merry-hearted, even merrier- hearted than his brother Jerry, began to grow saturnine, and peevish, and ill-tempered. He no longer experienced impulses to play, to romp around, to run about. His body became as quiet and controlled as his brain. Human convicts, in prisons, attain this quietude. He could stand by the hour, to heel to Collins, uninterested, ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... ill-tempered fellow, was thoroughly disliked by every one who knew him. He glared at Charlie for a moment as if he had committed some terrible offence, and then shouted fiercely 'What did you do ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... defiance of light and higher instinct. Even our own morality, on which we pride ourselves, how confused and topsy-turvy it is in many respects! How monstrous it is that a hungry man should be punished legally for theft, while an ill-tempered and unjust parent or schoolmaster should be allowed, year after year, to make the lives of the children about them into misery and heaviness. Life is full of such examples, where no agency whatever is, or can be, brought to bear by society upon a notorious wrecker of human happiness, so ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... your selection. You see how much depends upon it. The happiness and concord of our native household, which will probably consist of sixty or seventy people, may be destroyed by her, if she should be ill-tempered and arrogant. If she should be weak and vain, she will probably form connections that will ruin her morals and her reputation. I am no preacher, as you very well know; but I have a strong sense of the responsibility ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... fellow, and damaged a lot, But I am a Great Gun, and got off like a shot; Indeed all were well, but for cold Colonel FORD, Who blames me, the Rover! Too bad, on my word! The Pirate of Elswick shall not be the sport of a fussy Commission's ill-tempered Report. To bring me to book is all fiddlededee— I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... do you know you're the most obstinate, pig-headed, prejudiced, ill-tempered little beast ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... blindman's buff; elegant dandies diverted the elder girl who was in the employment of the milliner, and it will be better to say nothing at all about the arduous artistic labours of the chorus-singer. The family only met together at dinner-time, and then they would sit round the table with sour, ill-tempered faces, the younger ones grumbling and whining at the meagre food, the elder girls with their appetites spoilt by a surfeit of sweetmeats, every one moody and bored, as if they found each other's company intolerable, and all of them eagerly awaiting the moment when they might return ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... young wife was pale and ill-tempered. She began at once to take riding-lessons. The world scented mischief and waited. The man looked as if he were guilty of a base act and was ashamed of himself. It all came out ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... with inherited science, more exact in reasoning, more refined in psychological distinctions, raised to a higher plane by Christianity, by the invention of printing, and by the favour of a great monarch. La Fontaine in his charming Epitre to Huet, La Bruyere in his Caracteres, Boileau in his ill-tempered Reflexions sur Longin, rallied the supporters of classicism. Gradually the fires smouldered or were assuaged; Boileau and ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... dressmakers? Ah, no! good breeding is far less costly, and begins far earlier than those things. Let our little ones be nurtured in an atmosphere of gentleness and kindness from the nursery upwards; let them grow up in a home where a rude gesture or an ill-tempered word are alike unknown; where between father and mother, master and servant, mistress and maid, friend and friend, parent and child, brother and sister, prevails the law of truth, of kindness, of consideration for others, and forgetfulness of self. Can they carry into the world, whither we send ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... aunt,' cried Lady Thistlewood, 'you would not have that poor lad wedded to a pert, saucy, ill-tempered little moppet, bred up that den of iniquity, Queen Catherine's court, where my poor Baron never trusted me after he fell in with the religion, and had heard of King Antony's calling me the Swan ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the usual ill-tempered artist man, with whom I have learned how to deal. You know," she added, teasingly, "that you are calm and god-like, usually—and when you ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... having again bought their breakfast and dispersed themselves about the city and vicinity, heartily hoping that this state of things might continue. But it was too good to last. When they returned at evening they found their old enemy in command. He looked more ill-tempered and sour than ever, but gave no explanation of his and Pietro's absence, except to say that he had been out of the city on business. He called for the boys' earnings of the day previous, but to their surprise made no inquiries about how they had supplied themselves with supper or breakfast. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... right way of talking, Lady Caergwent," gravely said Mrs. Lacy; and Kate gave herself an ill-tempered wriggle, and ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... find the professor rather ill-tempered at my interference, but I found him inclined ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... Roman, playing with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his hands. But thou art stout, and, as the great Caesar used to say, fat people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is late, and ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... everything was so changed. Do not throw away my letter in despair of your friend, dearest Mary; only read to the end, and perhaps my character may be in some measure redeemed. There was a weight on my spirits I could not, because I would not, remove. I became ill-tempered and petulant without cause; before papa and mamma I tried to restrain it, but did not always succeed. Percy and Herbert both spoke to me on this unwarrantable change; and I think almost for the first time in my life I saw Percy seriously angry with me, for I had even shown my irritation at ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... brabbler^, Tartar; shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, scold, Xantippe; porcupine; spitfire; fire eater &c (blusterer) 887; fury &c (violent person) 173. V. be irascible &c adj.; have a temper &c n., have a devil in one; fire up &c (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; 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^, tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy, pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... irretrievably ruining his temper,—it is all the same; there is no help for it. And really, to look around the world and see the people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling,—the narrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ill-tempered, fretful, peevish, passionate, careworn, harassed men and women. Even we grown people, independent of them and capable of self-defence, have as much as we can do to keep the peace. Where is there a city, or a town, or a village, in which are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... about to step forward, when a dark form shot out from between two orange-trees and stopped near him with a muffled growl. It was the house dog, an ugly, ill-tempered animal trained to ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Charlie and of his house, so he thought it would be best to sell his furniture and go to lodgings. It seems he had not been very fortunate in his choice, for according to Charlie's account Mrs. Wood, the landlady, was often ill-tempered. ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... novelist, though his miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novel in letters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. His Travels are also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of literature" ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... you administer chastisement to another, signifies that you will have an ill-tempered partner either ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... the other hand, who had been near the door when her father appeared, gave one glance at his ill-tempered face, and skated in the opposite direction. She thought that he had not seen her. Not that it would have made any difference, for his family were wont to avoid their head when he was what his wife called 'put out about something'—which, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... regiment; during much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him, really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,—the power of a narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to inflict pain on a noble and ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... upon the members."—Junius, p. 6. "Light and knowledge, in what manner soever afforded us, is equally from God."—Butler's Analogy, p. 264. "For instance, sickness and untimely death is the consequence of intemperance."—Ib., p. 78. "When grief, and blood ill-tempered vexeth him."—Beauties of Shakspeare, p. 256. "Does continuity and connexion create sympathy and relation in the parts of the body?"—Collier's Antoninus, p. 111. "His greatest concern, and highest enjoyment, was to be approved in the sight ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... above all others, which often she does not know herself and which he has need to know, the lass leaves him like a red leper. She is quite right. No one can blame her for so doing. When this happens some men become ill-tempered, cross, and more wretched than you can possibly imagine. Have not many of them killed themselves through this petticoat tyranny? In this matter the man distinguishes himself from the beast, seeing that no animal ever yet lost his senses through ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... their favourite table, drinking a glass of punch, when the schoolmaster entered, carrying under his arm a parcel which he carefully hid in an empty hamper in a cupboard used for all sorts of lumber. He was ill-tempered and unusually irritable. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... large and very bold-mannered turkey with all his feathers taken off except a frowzy tuft about his neck. He was tied fast in a baby's high chair, and was thumping his chest with his wings in such a violent and ill-tempered manner that Davy at once made up his mind not to aggravate him under any circumstances. As Gobobbles caught sight of him he discontinued his thumping, and, after staring at him for a ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... social visit was paid to his maternal grandmother, the dowager Lady Capel. She was not a nice old woman; in fact, she was a very spiteful, ill-hearted, ill-tempered old woman, and Hyde had always had a certain fear of her. When he landed in London with his wife, Lady Capel had fortunately been at Bath; and he had then escaped the duty of presenting Katherine to her. But she was now ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... (1545?-1630).—Poet, s. of a ropemaker, was b. at Saffron Walden, ed. at Camb., and became the friend of Spenser, being the Hobbinol of The Shepheard's Calendar. He wrote various satirical pieces, sonnets, and pamphlets. Vain and ill-tempered, he was a remorseless critic of others, and was involved in perpetual controversy, specially with Greene and Nash, the latter of whom was able to silence him. He wrote treatises on rhetoric, claimed to have introduced hexameters into English, was a foe to rhyme, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... the club of the "Cheeryble Sisters," to which all three little girls belonged, Gracie's overweening self-conceit and irrepressible desire to be first had led her into conflict with another of her classmates, Lena Neville, in which she had proved herself so arrogant, so jealous and ill-tempered that she had excited the indignation of all who were present. But if they had known what followed after Gracie had been left alone in the room where she had so disgraced herself, how would they have felt then? How she had stood by and seen the source of contention, a composition, which she believed ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... was very ill-tempered and impatient, continually crying for his supper, like little Tom Tucker, and complaining of the loss of his wonderful hen, which we verily believe he would have eaten, disregarding the treasures which she produced. Jack therefore rejoiced that he had not only got possession ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... of a huge nuisance, which is a type of the worst nuisances of what an ill-tempered man might be excused for calling the Century of Nuisances, rather than the Century of Commerce. I will now leave it to the consciences of the rich and influential among us, and speak of a minor nuisance which it is in the power of every ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... said Lady Harriet. 'I wanted to have come early, and here we are as late as this. I'm so cross and ill-tempered, I should be glad to hide myself in bed as ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good-temper! My mother was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill-temper. I was an ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill-tempered now, and when I die it ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... years her sweet influence kept his efforts along the righteous path, but he writhed beneath the yoke of poverty. His pride suffered because he was unable to provide her with more of the luxuries of life; in his selfish way, he loved her. Failure to advance made him surly and ill-tempered, despite her amiable efforts to lighten the shadows around their little home. When the baby boy was born to them, and she suffered more and more from the unkindness of privation, James Bansemer, by nature an aggressor, threw off restraint and plunged into the traffic that soon made ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... morrow it had cleared up and flashes of blue sky were appearing. Augustus and Mr. McCormack had both had too much to drink the night before, at dinner, and were looking, and no doubt feeling, mixed and ill-tempered. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... appear. The excuse was accepted; and James soon occupied the seat recently vacated by poor John. So well did he avail himself of the circumstances, that he succeeded in convincing Nelly that his brother was a very ill-tempered person, whom it would be well for her to avoid. On this, with the true instinct of a flirt, she endeavored to persuade him that she had never really cared for John's attentions. James was but too willing to be convinced of this; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... with the beautiful Hopoe to feteh prince Lohiau to the court of Pele. They have come by a steep and narrow path to the brink of the Wai-lua river, Kauai, at this point spanned by a single plank. But the bridge is gone, removed by an ill-tempered naiad (witch) said to have come from Kahiki, whose name, Wai-lua, is the same as that of the stream. Hiiaka calls out, demanding that the plank be restored to its place. Wai-lua does not recognize the deity in Hiiaka and, sullen, makes no response. At this ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... said, quietly, "unless you wish to leave the room. I mean to say this—that when you have persuaded yourself somehow that you would rather reconsider your promise to Sir Keith Macleod—am I right?—that it does seem rather hard that you should grow ill-tempered with him and accuse him of being the author of your troubles and vexations. I am no great friend of his—I disliked his coming here at the outset; but I will say he is a manly young fellow, and I know he would not try to throw the blame ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... for amusement and Hetty was taken with her, and in foreign hotels was even more shown about, flattered and snubbed, petted and neglected, than she had been when at home in London. Everything that could be done was done to make her vain, wilful, ill-tempered; and the little creature came to know that she might have anything she pleased if only she ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... should,—should you not know another woman from Laura, if you got into bed with two women in the dark?" said she to Fred. "I am not sure for the moment if with a woman just her size, and as much hair on her cunt," said he. "I tell you what Fred, I won't have it," said Laura ill-tempered, "talk about some one else, I won't have beastly talk about me." "I'll bet," said I, "that if the ladies were to feel our pricks in the dark, they would not tell whose they each had hold of." Roars of laughter followed. "I should like to try," said Mabel. "So would I," said another. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... only a small part of its head above the surface, waiting for any suitable prey, or it establishes itself upon the branches of a tree which overhangs the water or the track of game. Being eminently aquatic this snake is viviparous. It is the only large boa which is decidedly ill-tempered. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... natural outgrowth and expression of a beautiful, harmonious, and lovely character In order to behave beautifully, we must cultivate assiduously the graces of the spirit. We must persistently strive against selfishness, ill-temper irritability, indolence. It is impossible for the selfish or ill-tempered girl to win love and friends. Generosity, kindness, self-denial, industry—these are the traits which inspire love and win friends. These are the graces that will make the humblest home beautiful and happy, and without which the costliest mansion ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... to find out their habits; and I will tell you what they are. All very young animals like to sleep a good deal, and to be let alone. It both frightens and hurts them to be pulled about, and makes them fretful and ill-tempered; spoils their growth, and prevents their loving you. A puppy or a kitten is very fond of play, and will jump and bounce about with you for a long while; but the moment they begin to get tired, they should be left alone, to rest as much as they like. You may suppose, that if, when you are comfortably ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... feel towards those bold, wanton, ill-tempered girls at the next door, who jeer and mock you ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... of Emily was very different from that of Jane. She was always pleasant and kind, willing to confer favors upon others, even though she should not receive the same in return. Jane was ill-tempered, told wrong stories, and did many things which rendered her a very disagreeable companion. Her parents could see no fault in her, therefore she was permitted to give way to her temper, which was the cause of her losing friends and gaining ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... restless kaleidoscope of colors blending with the foliage, and from their turmoil they might have been quarreling myriads, and never birds of a paradise. Little red monkeys grinned down at her as they raced clutching among the branches, while a big bandy-legged sambo, an exceedingly ill-tempered member of the same family, bawled his reproaches in a tone gruesomely human. Now and then her horse reared from an adder squirming underfoot, or she would see a torpid boa twined sluggishly around a limb, as about a victim. Once in a jungle-like place she experienced ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse—not, indeed, a complete one, but one that may ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Florence Nightingale called him the Bison, and his life's energy seems to have been expended in trying, often with success, to frustrate every single practical reform which she suggested. To the objection that Mr. Strachey has depicted the heroine as "an ill-tempered, importunate spinster, who drove a statesman to his death," he might conceivably reply that if history, grown calm with the passage of years, does so reveal her, it is rather absurd to go on idealising her. Why not study the real Eagle in place of the fabulous Swan? It is difficult to condemn Mr. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... concluding words of the sage and the story are, as indeed might be expected from Xanthippe's husband, not entirely optimist: "If your wife is well conducted and amiable, you will be a happy man; if she is ill-tempered and a coquette, you will become a philosopher—so you must gain in any case." An "obvious," perhaps, but a neat and uncommonly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... choose to turn ill-tempered, you may go where you like," the students said, releasing him. "We can do ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... how they had decorated the room the year before together, with what love and gaiety. Her heart turned cold when she saw Kitty sitting on a low chair near the door, her eyes fixed immovably on a corner of the rug. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold, rather ill-tempered expression of her face ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... not by. He could not know that the man was hungering for him, perhaps without knowing it himself, and that his restlessness and that strange wild hunger, that his shut-in nature hid under a rough, ill-tempered manner, had today driven him to follow ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... probably, in his openheartedness, have made each creditor a present, over and above, for "his trouble." But, failing the roll of notes, he only staved off the difficulties in the best way he could, and grew cross and ill-tempered on being applied to. His chief failing was his impulsive thoughtlessness. Often, when he had teased or worried Lady Augusta out of money, to satisfy a debt for which he was being pressed, that very money would be spent in ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... took your place with the defenders of the nation; Subordinate positions to my own, but meritoriously filled, though a little more style would have well become so great an occasion. That malevolent old Moke—may his next thistle choke him!—disgraced us all with his jibbing—the ill-tempered old ass! Young Neddy is shaggy and shy, but not amiss, if he'd held his ears up, and not kept his eyes on the grass. Nothing is more je-june (I may say vulgar) than to seem anxious to eat when the crisis calls for public spirit, enthusiasm, and an elevated tone; And ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 'How ill-tempered you are! The "old nuisance," as you call him, has behaved very nicely. He sent his son over here to thank us for our kindness, and to ask me to accept a dozen extra cards from himself. The son is a very respectable-looking man, but rather shabby. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... pile of plump ripe acorns, and three little piles of dainty looking brown seeds. But the thing that Happy Jack couldn't keep his eyes off was right in the middle. It was a huge pile of big, fat hickory nuts. Now who could remain ill-tempered and cross with such a lot of goodies spread before him? Certainly not Happy Jack or his cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel. They just had to smile in spite of themselves, and when Striped Chipmunk urged them to sit down and help themselves, they did. In three minutes they were ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... of five children—three girls and two boys. My father is a mechanic, but sometimes he's out of work, and then didn't he used to scold! Just as though we were to blame! Poor Mother! I've often pitied her for marrying my father, who was naturally cross and ill-tempered even when things didn't go wrong. Half the time mother daren't say her soul was her own, and, besides, she was naturally one of those meek, timid kind that would put up with anything for the sake ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... his knees adores This Princess of the air; The lone pine-barren broods afar and sighs, "Ah! come, lest I despair;" The myrtle-thickets and ill-tempered thorns Quiver and thrill within, As through their leaves they feel the dainty touch Of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... "you are behaving like a foolish and ill-tempered child. I am fully able to take care of myself. We will talk of this later. Meantime you ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... cartwright's hut more quickly than he had entered, and not exactly with the air of a conqueror. In the evening the three gentlemen met in the spare room of the tavern where they took their meals, and were remarkably taciturn and ill-tempered. On the third day the slender, handsome first lieutenant called on the cartwright's wife. He was a far-famed conqueror of women's hearts, which he was accustomed to win with as little trouble as a child gathers strawberries in the woods, and was envied by the whole regiment for his numberless ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... little, and guessed more. After that day, however ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very patient and kind towards ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the day—the mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass (saith the psalmist). Ay, an' 'tis so. I remember the day: the wet moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea, wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of feeling; the great ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... are good cooks are sometimes ill-tempered and refuse to exercise their art. But discomfort in the matter of dinner usually comes from a different kind of housekeeper. There are some women who think it is a weakness to care about food. Their rule is, "Eat what is set before you, asking no questions," a ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... sleep. Her mood was different in the morning, and it was not until she had paid a couple of visits to the blue Swiss mountains that she became again taciturn. Dick did not as yet suspect his wife of confirmed drunkenness; he merely thought that she had grown lately very ill-tempered, and that a jealous woman was about the most distressing thing in existence; and, anxious to avoid another scene, he hurried through his breakfast. She watched him eating in silence, knowing well he was counting the minutes till he could get away. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... done my best; but what living being could succeed in pacifying such a cross-grained, ill-tempered old fellow? However, I managed to mollify ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa |
