"Ruffianly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... absolutely ruffianly. His head was knotted in a red, white-spotted handkerchief; his grizzled beard was tangled; he wore a black and rusty cloak, ragged at the edges, and his feet were often bare; at his side would lie his wooden right hand. As a rule, the place of his forearm was taken by a long, thin, steel ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... that the proceedings of the American Congress, while in the main conducted with becoming propriety and decorum, have occasionally been dishonored by angry personal altercations and scenes of ruffianly violence. These disorders increased as the great political struggle over the slavery question grew in intensity, and reached their culmination in a series of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... against long natural hair,—the "disguisement of long ruffianly hair,"—as did also President Chauncey of Harvard College; while Mr. Wigglesworth's sermon on the subject has often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the General Court: that "the men wore long hair like ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... half turned his head, sheered a little in the direction of the voice, and landed stiffly on the sand-bar below the bridge. Then you saw what a ruffianly brute he really was. His back view was immensely respectable, for he stood nearly six feet high, and looked rather like a very proper bald-headed parson. In front it was different, for his Ally Sloper-like head and neck had not a feather to them, and there ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... Madame takes it into her head to toddle along up here to-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz or whatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settle your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of you, and no ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... whom—with the exception of Paolo Orsini—he now met face to face for the first time since their rebellion. Here were Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, with Paolo and the latter's son Fabio; here was Oliverotto, the ruffianly Lord of Fermo, who had won his lordship by the cold-blooded murder of his kinsman, and concerning whom a rumour ran in Rome that Cesare had sworn to choke him with his own hands; and here was Vitellozzo Vitelli, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... took their cue from the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never took his part openly. The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was socially above them. The majority of the seamen were even more ruffianly than the specimens he had seen at the Waterman's Rest—the scum of Wapping and Rotherhithe. His only real friend on board was Bulger, who helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work, and often protected him against the ill treatment of his mates; and, in spite of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... But it confused a worthy and respectable country doctor, and misled the jury. The best citizen of a country village, or his wife or daughter, who had to testify against a thief or burglar who had broken into a house had to encounter his ruffianly treatment on the witness stand. So Butler became a terror, not to evil-doers but to the opponents of evil-doers throughout the county of Middlesex. Few lawyers liked to encounter his rough speech ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... seemed happily to be quite fresh and not affected by the sultriness of the day. It had cost her small effort to adhere to her statement that she had had no share in the escape of the sisters, when catechised by the ruffianly negro; but she found it hard to defy Othman's benevolent questioning. However, there was no choice, and she succeeded in proving that she had never quitted Memphis nor the house of Rufinus at the time when the Arab warriors ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... three generations before the Council of Clermont; but, from the first, the southward advance against the rulers of Cordova foreshadows the age of the Crusades. In Spain, as in the German marks, the pioneers of Christendom were often ruffianly, and always fought with an eye to the main chance. Among them are mere desperadoes like the Cid Campeador (d. 1099), who serves and betrays alternately the Christian and the Moorish causes, founds a principality at the expense of both religions, but is finally ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... viscount was furious, seized by the sleeve the monk who was inveighing, and dragged him by force out of the monastery. His fellows were frightened, and took to flight; and Adhemar immediately had the monks from Cluni sent for, and put them in possession of the abbey. It was a ruffianly proceeding; but the reform was popular in Limoges ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... raised himself tremulously and looked around, the turf was cut and spoiled by the trampling of many feet. All his life of the last few months floated before his memory, his residence in his father's hovel with ruffianly comrades, the desperate schemes he heard as he pretended to sleep on his lowly bed, their expeditions at night, masked and armed, their hasty returns, the news of his father's capture, his own removal to the house of some female in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... their rounds, the frightened murderers carried the stiffened body up the lane and placed it bolt upright, near a dim oil lamp, at a neighbour's door. There the watchmen found it; but there was no clue to guide them, for nearly every house in the lane was infamous. Years after, two ruffianly fellows who were confined in the King's Bench were heard accusing each other of the murder in Shire Lane, and justice pounced ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... subdued by his noisy entrance and ruffianly conduct, and seeing that an assumption of dignity would only draw down on her some fresh impertinence, appeared to resign herself to her position. All this time Quennebert never took his eyes from the chevalier, who sat with his face towards the partition. His elegantly cut ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... surprise, on dragging the man back to the carriage, to find, instead of the ruffianly assassin I expected, a gentleman as far as could be judged from face and manner. Fine eyes, white hands, careful speech, all the signs of refinement and the dress of a man ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... skipper, and I was not a very bad imitation of him—barring the whiskers. The only things perhaps that a too captious critic might have objected to were the spotless purity of our clothing, and an utter absence of that ruffianly manner which distinguishes the genuine pirate; but, as Ryan observed, the first of these objections would grow less noticeable with every day that we wore the clothes, while the other was not necessary, or, if it should become so, must be ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... is not the time and place to reproach you with other misconduct; and yet I could almost regret that it is not possible to put you once more in the dock, and try you for conspiracy and incitement to riot; as in my own mind I have no doubt that you are in collusion with the ruffianly revolutionists, who, judging from their accent, are foreigners of a low type, and who, while this case has been proceeding, have been stimulating their bloodstained souls to further horrors by the most indecent verbal violence. And I must here take ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... they ran the boat ashore in the midst of dense woods which fringed the farther bank, and there they forced him to land, and led him upwards until, deep in the woods, they came upon an old timbered house. They knocked at the door, which was speedily opened by a man of gigantic stature and ruffianly countenance, by whose side snarled a mastiff as ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... a feast waiting for him. He was not the only one who was there to enjoy it. For there were three ruffianly red squirrels and a half-dozen chipmunks who appeared on the spot ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... throne, and had I been older I should have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was young—a mere boy—and so I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion went swiftly ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... night not long ago when you were flying from a ruffianly mob and you sought the shelter of my house? But may be you've a short memory. Mine isn't so fleeting. Men's kisses are lightly bestowed. Women are different. I shall never forget the tender touch ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... man endued with a scrap of reason, or a grain of goodness. Would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the Almighty, such boisterous insulting over the received laws and general notions of mankind, such ruffianly swaggering against sobriety and goodness. If gentlemen would regard the virtues of their ancestors, the founders of their quality; that gallant courage, that solid wisdom, that noble courtesy which ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a pandemonium, as the more ruffianly part of the mob hurled furniture out of windows, or ran off with anything they could carry. The ricks had been fired, and the food of man, the labour of years, devoured in aimless ruin, when some one shouted: "The yeomanry!" And at that sound a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... plaintiff's shrieks, The ruffianly defendant speaks - Upon the other side; What HE may say you need not mind - From bias free of every kind, This ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... she said. "I knew that it was death to serve the Gods any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... particulars of his shame, and to sport with his jealous agonies. Congreve was the first dramatic author who put an English seaman on the stage; and, after his characteristic fashion, he made his Ben Legend a selfish, coarse, and ruffianly lout. But if one cannot admire many of Congreve's characters, on the other hand one cannot help admiring every sentence they speak. The only fault to be found with their talk is that it is too witty, too brilliant, for any manner of real life. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... slouching figures whose clothes and arms seemed to encumber them.... I thanked my friend for his politeness, and returned to my carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say: 'Is he not a fine fellow?' I thought he was; and there may be other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly mass ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Masham's ruffianly blow and kick had evidently done far more damage than he or any one supposed. As we waited in silence for the doctor to come our alarm increased, and it even seemed doubtful whether, as we stood there, we were not destined to see a terrible end ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... remains at Rheims; in all, one hundred and twenty thousand at the outside, including the cavalry, Bonnemain's and Margueritte's divisions. When the sergeant took a hand in the quarrel, however, speaking of the army in terms of the utmost contempt, characterizing it as a ruffianly rabble, with no esprit de corps, with nothing to keep it together,—a pack of greenhorns with idiots to conduct them, to the slaughter,—the two bourgeois began to be uneasy, and fearing there might be trouble ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... was no sound in the room without, and I believed that the two ruffianly followers were ignorant of what had happened, and had not dared to return ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... most part by a cupuliform membranous calyx. I have only seen however withered specimens. Reached Bahawul ghat at 1 P.M. The Khan visited Mr. Macnaghten in the afternoon, his visit was preceded by one from his Hindoo minister, and another man, Imaam Shah, who is a very fat ruffianly- looking fellow. The Khan was attended by numerous suwarries; he is a portly looking, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... way home, and, when opposite the bar-room door, she heard her father in loud conversation with some one inside. Impelled by an impulse to rescue him from impending evil, she opened the door and walked in. She found herself in the midst of a bar-room full of drunken, ruffianly-looking men, a long row of whom were standing at the bar, with glasses in hand, while one of their number was proposing a toast of the grossest character. To her dismay her father was among them. She stood for ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... art. Even criticism was confined almost entirely to {583} variations of praise. In the realm of autobiography Benvenuto Cellini attained to the non plus ultra of self-revelation. If he discloses the springs of a rare artistic genius, with equal naivete he lays bare a ruffianly character and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... dirty in appearance. He sat upon an angarep, surrounded by his people; lying on either side upon his seat were two brace of pistols, and within a few yards stood his horse ready saddled. He was prepared for fight or flight, as were also his ruffianly looking followers, who were composed of Abyssinians and Jaleens. After a long and satisfactory conversation I retired. Immediately on my arrival at camp I despatched Wat Gamma with a pair of beautiful double-barrelled ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... reasonable demands of the people (as he called them) were granted. Marie Antoinette alone was undaunted and calm; or, at least, if in the depths of her woman's heart she felt terror at the sanguinary and obscene threats of her ruffianly enemies, she scorned to show it. When the firing began, M. de Luzerne, one of the ministers, had quietly placed himself between her and the window; but, while she thanked him for his devotion, she begged him to retire, saying, with her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... them. Therefore, what chiefly concerns me to know, is, whether thy master will embrace a traffic which hath such a fair promise of profit with it. I am well convinced that, with a scout like thee, who hast been in the cavaliers' quarters, and canst, I should guess, resume thy drinking, ruffianly, health-quaffing manners whenever thou hast a mind, he must discover where this Stewart hath ensconced himself. Either the young Lee will visit the old one in person, or he will write to him, or hold communication with him by letter. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... waged as fiercely over Pope's poetry as erst it did in his own Homer over the body of the slain Patroclus. Stout men took part in it, notably Lord Byron, whose letters to Mr. Bowles on the subject, though composed in his lordship's most ruffianly vein, still make good reading—of a sort. But the battle is over, at all events for the present. It is not now our humour to inquire too curiously about first causes or primal elements. As we are not prepared with a definition of poetry, we feel how impossible it would be for us to deny the rank ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... But even under the rule of Rome it would not be easy to find thirty cases of martyrs burned at the stake by "the bloudie Bishops," between the fifteenth century and the martyrdom of Myln. By 1560 the old Church was in such a hideous decline—with ruffianly men of quality in high spiritual places; with priests who did not attend Mass, and in many cases could not read; with churches left to go to ruin; with license so notable that, in one foundation, the priest is only forbidden to keep a constant concubine—that faith had waxed cold, and no Catholic ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... objection to tell you how I came there," Ronald said. "I was walking on the old wall, which, as you know, runs close by the house, when I saw an ill looking loon hiding himself as if watching the house, looking behind I saw another ruffianly looking man there." Two gasps of indignation were heard from the porch at the back of the court. "Thinking that there was mischief on hand I leapt from the wall to the dormer window to warn the people ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... be gratifying to me," Stanwood remarked, in the half-satirical tone he found easiest in conversation with this near relative; "in fact, I may say it is gratifying to me, to find that the impression is mutually favorable. Halstead, the ruffianly looking sheep-raiser who called you 'Madam,' confided to me that you were the first woman he had ever met who knew the difference between a horse and a cow; and Simmons, the light-haired man who looks like a deacon, but who is probably the worst ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... all his sympathy aroused for this poor pale-faced lad, put on the airs of a ruffianly bully. He did not wish that message to be taken indoors by the lad, for the concierge might get hold of it, despite the boy's protests and tears, and after that Blakeney would perforce have to disclose himself before it would be ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... be confronted with his innocent victims; when he fixed his gaze of concentrated power upon him, the strong man's face relaxed; his eyes faltered and fell; until, at length, unable to bear up under self-conviction, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited a picture of ruffianly audacity cowed beneath the spell of true ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... regiment on Pine Knob was recruited from the Bowery. I happened to be with Kemp, their surgeon, when sick call sounded, and I never saw such a line of impudent, ruffianly malingerers as filed before Kemp. One, I am convinced, had deliberately shot off his trigger finger; but it couldn't be proven, and he'll get his discharge. Another, a big, hulking brute, all jaw and no forehead, came up and looked ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... what it meant. In a moment more Ramona followed,—only a moment, hardly a moment; but when she reached the threshold, it was to hear a gun-shot, to see Alessandro fall to the ground, to see, in the same second, a ruffianly man leap from his horse, and standing over Alessandro's body, fire his pistol again, once, twice, into the forehead, cheek. Then with a volley of oaths, each word of which seemed to Ramona's reeling senses to fill the air with a sound like thunder, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... mandarin, named Kwang—one of much higher rank than his visitor of the previous day—came on board. He was attended by thirty of the most ruffianly-looking scoundrels—even for Chinamen—that the captain had ever seen. They were all well armed, and came off in a large, well-appointed boat, which, the mandarin intimated with a polite smile, was to be towed, if she was too heavy to be hoisted aboard. A couple ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... general sense, the protectors against harm of the country: and, in fine, how the two orders of neighbours lived in long and happy communion of kind offices with one another; until, upon one unfortunate day, the ill-renowned freebooter, Aymerigot Marcel, with his ruffianly men-at-arms, having approached, by stealth, from his near-lying hold, stormed the romantically seated rock-mansion of the bountiful pigmies: who, scared, and in anger, forsook the land. Ever since the foul outrage, only a straggler ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... but there was a considerable smashing of breakable objects in the pantry and in the staterooms. Mr. Bunter, who was so greatly respected on board, found himself treated scurvily by the Southern Ocean, which, bursting open the door of his room like a ruffianly burglar, carried off several useful things, and made all the others ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... returning to the shelter of my humble roof, a dirty hairy fellow—but why should I describe him to you?—leapt out and fired at me point-blank with a huge old-fashioned horse-pistol, and missed. I give you my word he singed half an inch off my left whisker. Of course they say he was a ruffianly suitor offended by my just decision in favour of his opponent, but I know better. 'Sweet Hal, by my faith!' thinks I to myself, says I, and what I says I sticks to. I know he ought to have been taken alive, and returned to you postage-paid, with an insulting message inviting ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Boston Port Bill in Parliament, April 15th, 1774, Colonel Barre referred to the ruffianly attack made on Mr. Otis, and his treatment of the injury, in a manner that reflects honor ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... wars. While it lasted, the conduct of the combatants on either side was represented in the blackest colors by the other. Even the ordinary and legitimate doing to death was considered criminal if the deed was done by a ruthless rebel or a ruffianly invader. Non-combatants were especially eloquent. In describing the end of a brother who had been killed while trying to get a shot at a Yankee, a Southern girl raved about the "murdered patriot" and the "dastardly wretch" who had anticipated him. But I do not criticize, for I remember ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... among them. I will see what they are about." And as he spoke he hurried to the oriel window which looked out upon the wharf, exclaiming—"Ay, ay,—'t is as I thought. Dick is among them, and at their head. 'Fore heaven! they are attacking those ruffianly braggarts from Whitefriars, and are laying about them lustily with their cudgels. Ha! what is this I see? The Alsatians and the myrmidons are routed, and the brave lads have captured Sir Francis Mitchell. What are they about to do with him? I must ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... for some reason, had been recently walled up; and it became necessary for them to go round to the main entrance in front. Scarce, however, had the horse of Don Rafael doubled the angle of the wall, when he and his little band were suddenly confronted by a score of horsemen of ruffianly aspect, who opposed the passage, the leader ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... we drew in or picked up our pickets, including the ruffianly Wyandotte, or Erie, as he was now judged to be, and, filing as we had filed the night before we crossed the Ouleout ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... that the slavers knew—a man terrible in his anger. Having taken from the ruffianly Arabs who had so cruelly treated the little children, their slaves, their stolen cattle, and their ivory, he would have them stripped and flogged, and driven ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... Norse—not English. But Kingsley did not write about the Vikings, nor about his Elizabethan heroes in "Westward Ho!" in a perfectly simple, straightforward way. He was always thinking of our own times and referring to them. That is why even the rather ruffianly Hereward is so great an enemy of saints and monks. That is why, in "Hypatia" (which opens so well), we have those prodigiously dull, stupid, pedantic, and conceited reflections of Raphael Ben Ezra. That is why, in all Kingsley's ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... for all that. These fellows know that when they get to Malta they will be set to work in the yards, and if there was an opportunity, however small, for them to break out, you may be sure that they would take it. These Moorish pirates are about as ruffianly scoundrels as are to be found, and if they don't put their prisoners to death they only spare them for what they will ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... to do this. I have been desperately sorry, Kit, about the other night. It was a ruffianly thing to do—to kiss you, ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves? Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... book as your companion? I should recommend a visit to the ruins of St. Bridget's Church, a very interesting relic of the early Norman era. By the way, there is one objection which I see to your going to Croxley on Saturday. It is upon that date, as I am informed, that that ruffianly glove fight takes place. You may find yourself molested by the blackguards whom it ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a pandemonium. The more ruffianly part of the mob—and alas! there were but too many of them—hurled the furniture out of the windows, or ran off with anything that they could carry. In vain I expostulated, threatened; I was answered by laughter, curses, frantic ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... when both sons were forced to flee; when the elder was taken and imprisoned; when the most atrocious public extortion was practised; and when ruffianly officials regarded the defenceless widows as their prey. Their house had to be mortgaged, and then first one and then the other of their two vineyards; and finally one of their fields was seized by the mortgagees. And thus it came about that ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... who had thus cleverly gained possession of the barque were as ruffianly a set of scoundrels as could well be met with on the high seas. Their leader, a brawny, thick-set Spaniard, with a skin tanned to the hue of well-seasoned mahogany, his ragged black locks bound round with a filthy red silk handkerchief, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... great multitude of infantry and cavalry, as though he were marching to battle. But he injured no one, and gave abundant alms to the poor. Thirteen years later, the King's rebellious son, Henry, Court Mantel, pillaged the sanctuary of its treasure in order to pay his ruffianly soldiers. This memorable sacrilege had much to do with the insurmountable antipathy of the Quercynois ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker |
