"Sour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he ain't squealin' none," pursued Dexter; "but there is the fiddle a-hangin' behint th' bar an' Joe's beginnin' ter look mighty sour when ye mention it ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... They spent a sour twenty-five minutes waiting for the connection. Roger went out to talk with Warner, while Aubrey fumed in the back office. He could not sit still, and paced the little room in a fidget of impatience, tearing his watch out of his pocket every few minutes. He felt ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... shoulders. There seemed to be many preliminaries to an audience with this Captain Carew. Through the door the Jap held open he saw the outlines of a bed, and a rag of carpet. When he stepped through the door, the musty, sour air of the room smote ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves his hands into his pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked them out like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit of ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... no direct and open opposition was made, the spirit of insurrection was not subdued. A sour and malignant temper displayed itself, which indicated, but too plainly, that the disposition to resist had only sunk under the pressure of the great military force brought into the country, but would rise again should that force be withdrawn. It was, therefore, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... then sang "We'll Hang the Damned Old Kaiser to a Sour Apple Tree," but at that time I never heard any parodies on the "Gott Straffe Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many different nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown together for ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... red riding-hood, isn't she?" whispered Hugh, to his brother, after taking a survey of the prim, little black-eyed miss before him. Then looking sour and angry, he added, "But why does Jessie take the beggar's brat ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... we sighted Butaritari Island—one of the largest atolls in the North Pacific, and inhabited by a distinctly unamiable and cantankerous race of Malayo-Polynesians whose principal amusement in their lighter hours is to get drunk on sour toddy and lacerate each other's bodies with sharks' teeth swords. In addition to Ah Sam, the agent for the Chinese trading firm, there were two European traders who had married native women and eked out a lonely existence by buying copra (dried coco-nut) ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... difference. He knows nothing about them; his acquaintance with them is born and dead in a moment. I like my garden better than any other garden, for the same reason. It is my own. And ownership in such a matter implies a great deal. When I first settled here, the ground around the house was sour moorland. I made the walk, planted the trees, built the moss-house, erected the sun-dial, brought home the rhododendrons and fed them with the mould which they love so well. I am the creator of every blossom, of every odour that comes and ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... and heavy laden; a metaphor taken from beasts drawing a full cart,—which both labour in drawing, and are weary in bearing. But my text speaketh to those that are like undaunted heifers, and like bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke. The same Christ is a sweet and meek Christ to some, but a sour and ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... behind them. Everybody looked up, smiling—even the second violin. His children always smiled when Mr. Roderick Birch came in. It would have been a sour temper which could have resisted his ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... handicrafts, Christopher Bert could earn his keep, and make in a year almost as much as he used to give away, or lend without redemption, in a general day of his wealthy time. Hard labor tried to make him sour, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... she said reproachfully, putting her hand on his arm, "don't thou talk in a tone like that and look so sour; it don't become thee; it's not natural, too, and thou knows it." Then she went on anxiously: "Thou knows what is troubling me; thou art the maister's private servant, and he must have told thee what has ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... some little time, Jarper,' said he kindly to the sour old verger, 'so if you give me the keys I'll lock up and you can go home to ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... by fire is no less certain: the fire evaporates and disperses all that is innocent and pure, leaving only acrid and sour matter which resists its influence. The effect produced by poisons on animals is still more plain to see: its malignity extends to every part that it reaches, and all that it touches is vitiated; it burns and scorches all the inner parts with a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... good old gold as much as hath been spent, bought, and sold in Paris, since its first foundations were laid, to this hour; all of it valued at the price, sale, and rate of the dearest year in all that space of time. Do you think the fellow was bashful? Had he eaten sour plums unpeeled? Were his teeth on edge, I pray you? The other wished Our Lady's Church brimful of steel needles, from the floor to the top of the roof, and to have as many ducats as might be crammed into as many bags as might be sewed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... an honor, anyhow, to live in the farmhouse. You ought not to complain about the food, even if it is a bit scarce at times. I'd be glad to live there. And I dare say I'd find a plenty to eat. The farmhouse is where the sour milk comes from." ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... like a fool, child: sour grapes are all very well but it's a woman's business to be married. As for Dorothy, she is five-and-twenty, and she breaks my heart. Such a match, too! Ten thousand to her fortune, the best blood in the north, a most advantageous person, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... fire last nicht, and there was the head o' your hoose, the gallant Marquis—peace to his soul. Now there's the Carnegies and the Gordons and the rest o' the royal families in the Northeast, and the sour-blooded Covenanters down in the West, and it's no in the nature o' things that they should agree any more than oil and water. As for me, the very face of a Presbyterian whig makes me sick. But there's the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... "Ho! Sour grapes!" returned the judge, stung to a biting wit by the coarse form of address. But Dave played music ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the epical magnitude of War and Peace, study that other epic of souls, The Brothers Karamazov, which illuminates, as if with ghastly flashes of lightning, the stormy hearts of mankind. Tolstoy wrote of life; Dostoievsky lived it, drank its sour dregs—for he was a man accursed by luck and, like the apocalyptic dreamer of Patmos, a seer of visions denied to the robust, ever fleshly Tolstoy. His influence on Tolstoy was more than Stendhal's—Stendhal ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... tea-spoonful of baking powder; beat the eggs and sugar together, mix the cream of tartar with the flour, and dissolve the soda in the milk. Dark part: One cup of brown sugar; half a cup of molasses; half a cup of sour milk; the yolks of four eggs; two and a half cups of flour; half a tea-spoonful of soda; half a tea-spoonful of clove and of cinnamon. Put a layer of the dark batter in the pan, then a layer of light, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... thing, To hear the mandates of his king. 'Ungrateful creatures, whence arise These murmurs which offend the skies? Why this disorder? say the cause: For just are Jove's eternal laws. Let each his discontent reveal; To yon sour dog, I first appeal.' 'Hard is my lot,' the hound replies, 'On what fleet nerves the greyhound flies, 20 While I, with weary step and slow, O'er plains and vales, and mountains go. The morning sees my ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... not answer. While he sat, with knitted brows, turning over some of the papers in front of him. Singleton looked about. Hitherto his life had been spent in comfortless and shabby English lodgings, in the sour steam of tropic swamps, and in galvanized iron factories that were filled all day with an intolerable heat. As a result of this, his host's library impressed him. It was spacious and furnished in excellent taste; a shaded silver lamp stood on the table, ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... Morrison. He gazed at the sour faces of the listeners. "Great Scott! Doesn't Duchesne's battle to the death with a settee get even a grin? What's the matter with all ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... hours, when washed and cleaned, bone and chop. To one herring take one onion, one sour apple, a slice of white bread which has been soaked in vinegar, chop all these; add one teaspoon oil, a little cinnamon and pepper. Put on platter in shape of a herring with head at top and tail at bottom of dish, and sprinkle the chopped white ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... about the middle and all the rest of her as her husband was rotund; who was as remarkably sharp-spoken as he was soft-spoken; who was as ceaselessly energetic as he was unceasingly idle; and who had been born with a taste for the world as sour in her mouth as ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... me a cold meat pie, a cold goose, a cheese, and a tall flagon of cider. But my appetite was gone. I ate the goose, but found that after I had finished the pie I had but little zest for the cheese, which I finished without enjoyment. The cider had a sour taste, and after having permitted Horrod to refill the flagon twice I found that it induced a sense of melancholy and decided to drink ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... mournful croakers, Smoking is a dirty habit. Brainless are ye, sour non-smokers, As a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... Kabba Rega sent a present of twelve elephants' tusks, forty-one loads of tullaboon, twelve pots of sour plantain cider, and thirty-four cows. At the same time, he complained that some of Abou Saood's people were taking slaves in the neighbourhood of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... sour smell is inseparable from a sago factory, but the health of the coolies, who live in the factory, does not appear to ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... head. Warn'd by another's fate, vain youth be wise, Those dreams were Settle's[164] once, and Ogilby's[165]: The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise, To some retreat the baffled writer flies; Where no sour criticks snarl, no sneers molest, Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest; There begs of heaven a less distinguish'd lot, Glad to be hid, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... climates, to behold how vegetable life struggled with the hostile skies, and, in an atmosphere as chill and damp as that of a cellar, shot forth the buds and blossoms upon the pear-trees, called out the sour Puritan courage of the currant-bushes, taught a reckless native grape-vine to wander and wanton over the southern side of the fence, and decked the banks with violets as fearless and as fragile as New England girls; so that about the end of June, when the heavens ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... inviolate, and served as an austerer mistress who can make life very beautiful to such as feel her worth and deserve her delights. Adam taught me this, for though Geoffrey took you from him, he still held fast his friend, letting no disappointment sour, no envy alienate, no resentment destroy the perfect friendship years of mutual fidelity ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... may remain. Put it into a stewpan, with the yolks of three eggs beat up, and a little flour, and thicken it over the fire. Then dip your veal rumps into it, and cover them with grated bread; put them upon a dish, and brown them with a salamander. Serve them with sour sauce, for which see the part that treats ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... infinitely nearer resemblance to tallow. The mixture presented to us by way of tea was absolutely undrinkable; and when I begged for a glass of milk, they brought a tumbler covered with dust and dirt, full of such sour stuff that I was obliged to put it aside, after endeavoring to taste it. Thus refreshed, we set forth again through the eternal pine-lands, on and on, the tall stems rising all round us for miles and miles in dreary monotony, like a spell-land of dismal enchantment, to ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... mountain-plain, Flaming the darkness with his mystic wand, And great in Hellas.—List and understand, King Pentheus! Dream not thou that force is power; Nor, if thou hast a thought, and that thought sour And sick, oh, dream not thought is wisdom!—Up, Receive this God to Thebes; pour forth the cup Of sacrifice, and pray, and wreathe thy brow. Thou fearest for the damsels? Think thee now; How toucheth this the part of Dionyse To hold maids pure perforce? In them it lies, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... a "sour-dough." He had seen the pranks that Alaskan winters play with men and women, he had watched the alteration in minds and morals made by the Arctic isolation, and he had considered himself proof against the malice that rides the north wind—the mischief that ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... she said; "I hope it'll come out before you're both old and sour with waitin', that's all! I don't want such true-love as your'n to be like firkin-butter at th' end; for as fresh, and firm, and well-kep' as you please, it ha'n't got the taste o' the clover and the sweet-grass; but ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... bill of fare at his hotel then," Mr. Ferrars said with a laugh. "I have had nothing but lard and bread, sour heavy bread too, or lard and biscuit, or biscuit without the lard, since I arrived at Seal Cove. But I think he need not have charged such high prices for the stuff if he ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... be rescued. What a grand idea! It is Ibsen's, as is the interpretation of the Third Kingdom. It should have been Nietzsche's. Why this antinomianism? Why this eternal conflict of evil and good, of night and day, of sweet and sour, of God and devil, of Ormuzd ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... over the bewitching face of Lady Hamilton as it shone back at him from the prints of John Jones, of Cheesman, of Henry Meyer. Was not Corinna's place among those vanished beauties of a richer age, rather than among the sour-faced reformers and the Gideon Vetches of to-day? The wonderful tone of the old prints, the silvery dusk, or the softly glowing colours that were like the sunset of another century; the warmth and splendour ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... and the sweat of mortal agony are upon the face of Beauvayse, thrown back upon the pillow, and looking upwards to where the deluging rain makes thunder on the tarpaulined roof. The atmosphere is heavy with the sour-sickly smell of blood, and lamp-fumes; he draws each breath laboriously, and exhales it with a whistling sound. Through his clenched teeth, revealed by the lips that are dragged back in the semi-grin ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... because it is, thank God! more familiar; but it is not less disliked and 'blasphemed.' A total abstainer from intoxicants will not get the good word of the distiller or brewer or consumer of liquor. He will be called faddist, narrow, sour-visaged, and so on and so on. 'You may know a genius because all the dunces make common cause against him,' said Swift. You may know a Christian after Christ's pattern because all the children of the flesh are in league to laugh at him and pelt him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... mind. I am of a patient and forgiving disposition, so I'll overlook it. I have a very funny bit of news to write. Stanley Forde, the hateful old tyrant, has gone and engaged himself to be married again. Just like that! Don't think this is a case of sour grapes. I am de-lighted. I am sorry for the poor party of the second part, though. I know her well. She is a pretty but foolish young person who was in love with Stanley ages before he became betrothed to me. Of course ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... covered with long fish, smoked hams, stuffed fowls, boxes of sprats, pickled savouries of various sorts, and a number of bottles of vodka and wine; there was a smell of smoked sausage and of sour tinned lobster. Old Tsybukin walked about near the tables, tapping with his heels and sharpening the knives against each other. They kept calling Varvara and asking for things, and she was constantly with ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... as that course led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by the roots. But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the several inches ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... lives in ilk family, and we'se add fifty mair to make even numbers, and ye hae five hundred souls, the tae half o' the population, employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion, wi' some chance of sour-milk and crowdie; but I wad be glad to ken what the other ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... thousand, and think myself lucky if I taste fresh vegetables once a week during the summer. Say, Leslie, do you think it's possible to assimilate the humble but useful hog by means of a steady diet of 'sour-belly'?" ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... rust-stained, weather-worried face, Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race; And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil, Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil; Made harder by their gloom than flints that gash their harried hands, And harder in the things they call their hearts than wolfish bands, Perpetuating faults, inventing crimes for paltry ends, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... him. Suppose she has five children. Having a fish to cook, she makes different dishes out of it. She can give each one of the children what suits him exactly. One gets rich polow with the fish, while she gives only a little soup to another who is of weak digestion; she makes a sauce of sour tamarind for the third, fries the fish for the fourth, and so on, exactly as it happens to agree with the ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after-ages. That these and these be the causes of these and these effects, time hath taught us; and not reason: and so hath experience without art. The cheese-wife knoweth it as well as the philosopher, that sour rennet doth coagulate her milk into a curd. But if we ask a reason of this cause, why the sourness doth it? whereby it doth it? and the manner how? I think that there is nothing to be found in vulgar philosophy, to satisfy this and many other like vulgar questions. But man to cover his ignorance ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... deserving, shall his destruction be attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness? If we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and follies? It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented. It is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected. If froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate anything but themselves? Does evil so react upon good, as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature? If it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Miss Lee. "When anyone does anything for you, suppose you try to be truly thankful. When anyone teases you, see if you can be patient. If others are cross, see how kind you can be. When others are sour, you must be sweet. I really think you will have ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 8, February 22, 1914 • Various
... our position pending the decision would be as mischievous to myself as to the parishioners. It would destroy any fitness to be their Vicar, whether we gained or not. The holding the Rectory is in itself an abuse; and now that the grapes are sour, I am glad not to encounter the question of conscience, and so shall not adopt any means—to my mind doubtful—for bringing it on myself. This being the case, you will see that the idea of alarming Fulbert Underwood falls to the ground. Supposing he were coerced into the compromise, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... afterward. McCook bustled along from table to table, sticking a long skewer into a boiled ham, smelling of it to see if the interior of the meat was tainted; breaking open a loaf of bread and smelling of it to see if it was sour; examining the coffee before it was put into the kettles, and after it was made; passing his judgment on each, in prompt, peremptory manner as we went on. The food was, in the main, excellent, though, as a way of supporting an army, it was quite ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... at Valladolid in Old Spain. Far from being injurious to health, this slight moisture is reckoned an infallible cure for headaches. This part of the country produces the same kinds of fruit as are found in Spain, particularly oranges, citrons, and lemons of all kinds, both sweet and sour, with figs and pomegranates. It might assuredly have produced grapes in great abundance, if the discords which have prevailed in this country had allowed the colonists to plant and cultivate the vine; as it already has several thriving vine ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... reek that arose from all about me. The place was one big, horrid stink. It smelled of ether and iodoform and carbolic acid—there being any number of improvised hospitals, full of wounded, in sight; it smelled of sour beef bones and stale bread and moldy hay and fresh horse dung; it smelled of the sweaty bodies of the soldiers; it smelled of everything that is fetid and rancid ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... why so sour? I might well look sour, since you and your little daughter lately chose to play blind-man's-buff with your lawful Prince, making a mock of him. But I pardon you, and hope you have come to your senses since. Come, sit down; drink my ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... long in dressing, and on going down we found Mr Gunson waiting for us, and looking more sour, fierce, ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... fox, my dear Charlie, who thought the grapes were sour when he could not reach them. Now the Prince's misfortune consisted in this, that he had everything on earth he could want or desire, and a little more. He had a fine palace and a fine country, obedient subjects and servants, and true friends. When he got ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... sad, and sore. I realized that I was destined to do nothing but harm in this world, and to hurt people I was fond of, and be misunderstood by every one, and to live on—if I wasn't lucky enough to meet with a premature and sudden end—into a sour, lonely, crabbed old age, when I would wish to goodness I had married anybody, and might even finish by applying to a ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man got pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after a fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I found Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the servant-girl in her Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the demure Buergermaedchen with her new Easter hat and her voluminous-waisted Frau Mama; the sedate school-master or shopkeeper, leading his toddling child; sour-faced officials; grey-locked and spectacled professors and 'town-fathers' discussing the world's news or some local grievance—all flocking countryward, with some Waldhaus or Forsthaus Restaurant as their ultimate goal. And those who know Frankfurt will recognize the scene ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... butler's pantry we desire, Although no butler do we hire; Nell's life will be one round of gloom Without a closet for the broom, And mine will dreary be and sour Unless the bathroom ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... two friends found their way to the sea-coast as quickly as possible, and set sail for England without delay? We think not. But it may be as well to state that, on his arrival in England, Frank found his old uncle in a very sour condition of mind indeed, having become more bilious and irascible than ever over his cash-books and ledgers,—his own special diggings—without having added ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... to his friend's "theft," though he admits that the robbery is still sour. Then come four sonnets in which he is content to forget all about the wrong he has suffered, and simply exhausts himself in praise of his ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... sandy-haired and sour-looking woman, began by scowling at Kathleen; but soon the girl's pretty face and merry eyes appeased her. She and Kathleen had almost a quarrel as to who was to carry up the tray, but Kathleen won the day; and when Mrs. Tennant made ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... days," I said. "But not when you're being a sour old goat. You're just sore at her because she said you'd ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... had been bad too. Not to mention that the vinegar had been bad too, the vegetables bad too, the cooking accommodation insufficient (if there had been anything worth mentioning to cook), the water supply exceedingly inadequate, and the beer sour. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... on us all three, in turn, with a very sour face, and walked out. "Surely," I thought to myself, "this brother of Oscar's is not beginning well! First, the daughter takes offense at him, and now the father follows her example. Even on the other side of the ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars—a' liars, I think—I'm a great liar often ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... Squills, Squills, Squills! Knowledge perverted is knowledge no longer. Vinegar, which, exposed to the sun, breeds small serpents, or at best slimy eels, not comestible, once was wine. If I say to my grandchildren, 'Don't drink that sour stuff, which the sun itself fills with reptiles,' does that prove me a foe to sound sherry? Squills, if you had but received a scholastic education, you would know the wise maxim that saith, 'All things the worst are corruptions from things originally designed ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of crooked old ladies who were righteous overmuch, and several sour old maids whose only occupation seemed to be to make remarks on any person who had anything different in dress, manners, or appearance from what they considered the type of the becoming. If it is not good that man should live alone, it is equally true that women should not live together. Jacqueline ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... Joseph Hooper had excellent cause for being a sour old man, and in a measure was to be pitied because of his attitude toward the young of his species. He had not been well-used by his own children, although it is no more than right to explain that they were hardly what any one save a ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... and dreary. The long willow leaves were quite yellow. The damp mist fell off the trees like rain, one leaf dropped after another from the trees, and only the sloe-thorn still bore its fruit; but the sloes were sour and set one's teeth on edge. Oh, how grey and sad it looked, out in the ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... have we not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... climbing vines that never take on a shade of pallor in an Italian winter, and that adorn every Roman balcony, one could see into the penetralia of a dozen Roman families and wrest thence the most vital secrets—even to how much Romano Alfredo drank at dinner or whether lemon-juice or sour wine gave piquancy to Rosina's salad. Entirely unacquainted with these descendants of ancient patrician or pleb, the Leatherstonepaughs ventilated original and individual theories concerning them, and gave them names ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... called to mind the scenery of a Parisian theater: and the painter criticised the colors, mercilessly remarking on the awkwardness of their combination, and declaring that to him they had a Swiss flavor, sour, like rhubarb, musty and dull, a la Hodler; further, he displayed an indifference to Nature which was not altogether affectation. He ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... our afternoon cordial;or I will show you the controversy upon Ossian's Poems between Mac-Cribb and me. I hold with the acute Orcadianhe with the defenders of the authenticity;the controversy began in smooth, oily, lady-like terms, but is now waxing more sour and eager as we get onit already partakes somewhat of old Scaliger's style. I fear the rogue will get some scent of that story of Ochiltree'sbut at worst, I have a hard repartee for him on the affair of the abstracted AntigonusI ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of his own acquisitions and losses and of his own dominions. He should feed those that have not been fed, and enquire after those that have been fed. Possessed of sweet speech, he could speak with a smiling (and not with a sour) countenance. He should always wait upon those that are old in years and repress procrastination. He should never covet what belongs to others. He should firmly follow the behaviour of the righteous and, therefore, observe that behaviour carefully. He should never take ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... way, was made up in another, and that was universal peace in our little church. We had no disputes and wrangling about the nature and equality of the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity, no niceties in doctrine, or schemes of church government; no sour or morale dissenters to impose more sublimated notions upon us; no pedant sophisters to confound us with unintelligible mysteries: but, instead of all this, we enjoyed the most certain guide to Heaven; ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... necessary; I suppose we shall have to see the Professor, after all; but hold on; I have seen sour milk ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... thing nor the other: it will not take fire; it will not let the taper burn; it puts out the combustion of everything. There is nothing that will burn in it in common circumstances. It has no smell; it is not sour; it does not dissolve in water; it is neither an acid nor an alkali; it is as indifferent to all our organs as it is possible for a thing to be. And you might say, "It is nothing; it is not worth chemical attention; what does it do ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... congratulated myself on the prospect of a good dinner. By the aid of a stone I managed to crumble 'two shingles' of hard bread into a cup of the milk, and then, with an appetite such as I never enjoyed in America, sat to work. I took one mouthful, when, lo! the milk was sour! Hurling cup and contents toward the hospitable mansion, I fell back upon my ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... body's power To keep, at times, frae being sour, To see how things are shar'd; How best o' chiels are whiles in want. While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ken na how to wair't; But Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, Tho' we hae little gear, We're fit to win our daily bread, As lang's we're hale and fier: "Muir spier na, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Mademoiselle de Montpensier to his colony of monks, he desired at any rate to induce her to withdraw from the world, and counselled her to enter a Carmelite convent. Mademoiselle's ardent passion for M. de Lauzun seemed to the Trappist Abbe a scandal; in fact, his sour spirit could brook no scandal of any sort. "I attended her father as he lay dying," said he, "and to me belongs the task of training, enlightening, and sanctifying his daughter. I would have her keep silence; she has ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... news and whence?" said the sheriff, who was a small, wiry man, with a sour look, as I thought. Men ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... the publicans—and in these latter days by colonial beer, the washiest drink a nation was ever drenched with. the origin of bad beer dates from the repeal of the sugar duty in England; before that time beer was brewed from malt and hops, and that we had "jolly good ale and old," and sour pie. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... how you sour woman's nature,—remember that, once soured, all the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process? ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not been for the desperate tenacity with which the peasant clung to his own soil, and the efforts of the pastors, men of contracted views, of dogmatic habits of mind, and of a somewhat narrow and sour morality, but staunch and faithful in the hour of need, who continued to preach and pray amidst blackened ruins to the miserable remnants of their flocks, and sustained something of moral order and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... but a cockerel,' he muttered, 'but 'twere pity thou wert knocked off the perch before seeing a little more of the sweet and sour of this world—though, faith, if thou hast the usual luck of it, the best way were to leave thee to the chance of a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... back, a couple of old, sour-looking WOMEN were standing on the steps that were built for them to climb a fence, who, seeing so many blacks, inquired what we were taking them for. "To work," was the reply. "The rebels were about to run them South, and we wanted them to ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a religious republic. Serried closely together on land, they had a strange mixed following on the sea. Lair of heretics, or shelter of martyrs, La Rochelle was ready to protect the outlaw. The corsair, of course, would be a Protestant, actually armed perhaps by sour old Jeanne of Navarre—the ship he fell across, of course, Spanish. A real Spanish ship of war, gay, magnificent, was gliding even then, stealthily, through the distant haze; and nearer lay what there was of a French navy. Did the enigmatic "Admiral," the coming ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... he asked. 'You are—a dirty Protestant—and you dare to come here into my own house, and insult me and trample on my religious convictions. I'm a Catholic and a member of the League. What do you mean, you Souper, you Sour-face, by talking to me about Irish manufactures? Get out of this house, and go to the hell ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... meat, like other Brassicae, or dressed with white sauce, after the French manner. It is much used as a pickle, either by itself, or as forming an ingredient in what is called 'mixed pickles.' It may also be preserved a considerable time when pickled in the manner of 'sour-krout.' It also forms an excellent addition to ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... nothing of wounds on wrists and ankles. There was quite a clearing in the middle, with soft, mossy grass and clumps of hemp agrimony, and actually a small apple-tree with nine apples upon it. They were green and very sour, but the girls each sampled one, with a kind of feeling that by so doing they were taking formal possession of the territory, though, with Paradise for an analogy, it should have ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... wild poetry that keeps alive the soul of the amateur horse coper. He had never met the pony of his dreams, but he had not lost faith in it, and though he would range through the Bantry fair with a sour eye, behind the sourness there was ever a kindling ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... is he atoning for the renewal of glory in which he shone during the seventeenth century, when the Jansenists, in their inveterate obstinacy, identified him with the defence of their cause? The reputation of sour austerity and of argumentative and tiresome prolixity which attaches to the remembrance of all the writers of Port-Royal, save Pascal—has that affected too the work of Augustin, enlisted in spite of himself in the ranks of these pious schismatics? And yet, if there have ever been any beings ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... tall and thin and sour-lookin'—looked like a director of a institution; and the other was short and fat and pussy and was dressed real elegant. One had a silk hat and he wore one gray glove and carried another in his hand with a cane. That was the skinny one. The pussy one wore a gray vest—that's ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... his reasons for not going to a gentleman's dinner. He thought that a man ought to be allowed to choose where he would go and where he would not go, and that questions such as these were very uncommon. Mr. Kennedy was sitting opposite to him, looking more grave and more sour than usual;—and now his own countenance also became a little solemn. It was impossible that he should use Lady Laura's name, and yet he must, in some way, let his persecuting friend know that no further invitation would be of any use;—that there was something ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... tepee-poles, and with the hope of trade with the wandering trapper bands. To be sure, the Bat had no skins of ponies to barter with them, but good fortune is believed to stand in the path of every young man, somewhere, some time, as he wanders on to meet it. Delayed ambition did not sour the days for the Indian. He knew that the ponies and the women and the chieftainship would come in the natural way; besides which, was he not already a warrior worth ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... When every state took charge of its markets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a rapid advance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could I force my mind into complete absorption of some new combination of chemicals, while the gastric juice in my stomach was battling with sour or adulterated food? Nature would compel me to pay some attention to the discomfort of my digestive organs, and it might happen at a time when I was on the verge of a revelation in science, which might be lost. You may think it an insignificant matter to speak of in connection with the grand enlightenment ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... begin to watch him the first time I saw him. And from the beginnin' he's always conductin' when the band starts in. The dame is usu'lly wit' him and she don't like it. She tries to stop him, but he don't see her for sour apples. He keeps right on like now, beatin' time wit' his hands. Look, the poor nut's growin' excited. Daffy. Can you beat it? There he goes. See? That's on account of Jerry. Jerry's the black one on the end wit' the saxophone. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... everything in its place. Thus we see that as an apple originally brought sin and ignorance into the world, the same fruit proved thereafter the cause of vast knowledge and enlightenment;—and indeed we may doubt whether any other fruit but an apple, and a sour one at that, would have produced these great results;—for, had the fallen fruit been a pear, an orange, or a peach, there is little doubt that Newton would have eaten it up and thought no more on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... dish of raw animalcula in a wicker cage. A cheese had been surrounded with little twigs and strings; then a hole made in it and a little sour wine poured in. This speedily bred a small but numerous vermin. When the cheese was so rotten with them that only the twigs and string kept it from tumbling to pieces and walking off quadrivious, it came to table. By a malicious caprice of fate, cage and menagerie ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... there, quiet and still, and I hear some laugh at me, and now and then some one say a good word to me that make me shut my hands tight, so the tears not come to my eyes. But I felt alone—so much alone. The world does not want a sad man. In my shop I try to laugh as of old, and I am not sour or heavy, but I can see men do not say droll things to me as once back time. No, I am not as I was. What am I to do? There is but one way. What is great to one man is not to another. What kills the one does not kill the other. Take away from some ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
