"Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... company. Gram gambles away the money, but I don't know what the soap-boiler does with his distinguished honours. However, you can see that the poor wretch is delighted with his bargain. There are the three Banellic girls, the most ill-tempered, ugly cats in England. But each will have a large marriage portion, so they have no fears, I warrant me. I wonder the elder has the effrontery to show her face here so soon if it is true that the waiting-woman died of her injuries. Little Wax is talking to them. He ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... direction, I was sure, she took for the purpose of misleading us at the Hall, and I felt confident she would, when once out of sight, head her mare straight for Overhaddon. Within an hour Dorothy was home again, and very ill-tempered. ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... I demanded 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 ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... peremptory tone. What! disturb the duke! before he had 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
... offers. The girl herself, too, began to have an opinion. It was said that she had absolutely rejected Lord Grasslough, whose father indeed was in a state of bankruptcy, who had no income of his own, who was ugly, vicious, ill-tempered, and without any power of recommending himself to a girl. She had had experience since Lord Nidderdale, with a half laugh, had told her that he might just as well take her for his wife, and was now tempted from time to time to contemplate her own happiness and her own condition. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... 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, that I am ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in Padua a gentleman named Baptista, who had two fair daughters. The eldest, Katharine, was so very cross and ill-tempered, and unmannerly, that no one ever dreamed of marrying her, while her sister, Bianca, was so sweet and pretty, and pleasant-spoken, that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand. But Baptista said the ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... of Ladak," says Major Cunningham,[55] "is the well-known shepherd's dog, or Thibetan mastiff. They have shaggy coats, generally quite black, or black and tan; but I have seen some of a light brown colour. They are usually ill-tempered to strangers; but I have never found one that would face a stick, although they can fight well when attacked. The only peculiarity that I have noticed about them is, that the tail is nearly always curled upward on to the back, where the hair is displaced by the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered. They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... in a joyful mood. He had thought the king and queen charming at the ball. It is true the cardinal had been particularly ill-tempered. He had retired at one o'clock under the pretense of being indisposed. As to their Majesties, they did not return to the Louvre till six o'clock ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fir-needles, and her arms became branches. She was now firmly fixed in the centre of the group of stones, a slender, swaying pine-tree, which creaked and croaked, and snapped and snarled with every gust of wind, as the princess had hardly ever done in her most ill-tempered moments. And as her limbs stiffened under their magical transformation, the hideous figure of the wood-wife might have been seen hovering round the charmed circle, her arms half changed into bird's wings, and her hands into claws. And as the king's daughter fairly turned into a pine-tree, ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 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 with ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... 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
... dropping heavy rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when there was no special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was necessary to go to her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to light a candle. The women in the kitchen were depressed, and that made them more ill-tempered than ever. Becky was driven like ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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 out and ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Cattle are liable to a disease that causes the tail to drop off, but the people here have discovered a very artful trick of fastening it on again, and it needs a vigorous pull to expose the fraud. Among other tricks of the country is that of drenching an ill-tempered and unmanageable horse with two litres of wine before taking him to the fair. He then becomes as quiet as a lamb. I heard the story of a cure, who was thus imposed upon by one of his own parishioners. He wanted a very quiet horse, and he found one at the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... then, taking my uncle's cap which had fallen off, trampled it under foot, going round and round the tree and trumpeting loudly. It was evidently a rogue elephant, an ill-tempered brute who had been driven from the herd to spend a solitary existence. Such are always the most dangerous, as they appear to have a greater hatred of man and to be more cunning than the elephants found in herds. It seemed to ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... stout, 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 that ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... through the salons where they were playing whist, where the ladies played show pieces at the piano, and where they spoke a language he did not understand. He was quite aware of his worldly inaptitude, and that he was considered awkward, dull, and ill-tempered, and the knowledge of this fact paralyzed and frightened him still more. He could not disguise his feeling of ennui sufficiently to prevent the provincial circles from being greatly offended; they declared unanimously that young de Buxieres was a bear, and decided to leave him alone. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 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 ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hand-writing, alike with choice of subject and style and method of their treatment, illustrate, in one word, the author's mind. These things being so, what hinders it from occupying, as in honesty it does, the king's place in this pack of sonnets? Nevertheless, forasmuch as by such occupancy an ill-tempered sarcasm might charge it with conceit; know then that my humbler meaning here is to put it lowest and last, even in the place of wooden-spoon; for this also (being mindful of the twelve apostle-spoons from old time antecedent) is a legitimate thirteener: and so, while in extricating my ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... could have bitten his tongue out. What was he? And why should he stab her with her shame in this way? How evil he was to-night; possessed by ill-humour at being detained so long from her; irritated by the mention of some name, because he thought it belonged to a more successful lover; now ill-tempered because he had been unable to cope, with a light heart, against one who was trying, by gay and careless speeches, to make the evening pass pleasantly away,—the kind old friend to all parties, whose manner by this time ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a little ill-tempered at times," said Miss Stiles with satisfaction. "I thought when I came in that she looked out of sorts. Troubles ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... any one who hadn't. If you fell into chance talk with him, in ignorance of his identity, he could not let three minutes pass without informing you. And then, if you appeared not adequately impressed, he would wax ill-tempered. He was genuinely convinced that his person and his actions were affairs of consuming interest to all the world. To be something, to do something, perhaps he honestly aspired; but to seem something was certainly his ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... The Horse took youth, and hence young men are high-mettled and impatient of restraint; the Ox took middle age, and accordingly men in middle life are steady and hard-working; while the Dog took old age, which is the reason why old men are so often peevish and ill-tempered, and, like dogs, attached chiefly to those who look to their comfort, while they are disposed to snap at those who are unfamiliar or ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... same lesson still. Mark how the world, full nine times out of ten, To abject drudgery dooms its married men: A slave at first, before the knot is tied, But soon a mere appendage to the bride; A cover, next, to shield her arts from blame; At home ill-tempered, but abroad quite tame; In fact, her servant; though, in name, her lord; Alive, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Bayard and Du Gueselin became great captains, from having been the most ill-tempered and most intractable children that ever existed; in the same way, too, the swineherd, whom nature had made the herdsman of Montalte, and whose genius had converted him into Sexte-Quinte, became a great pope, because he had persisted in performing his duties as a swineherd ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... A man is but weak and foolish, carried away by the merest trifle, and a coward every time that his senses are excited or mastered. I clung to this unknown girl, silent and dissatisfied as she always was. I liked her somewhat ill-tempered face, the dissatisfied droop of her mouth, the weariness of her look; I liked her fatigued movements, the contemptuous way in which she yielded to my desires, the very indifference of her caresses. A secret bond, that ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... The giant 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 ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... above them. She had loved her children, too, although they were her torment. Her inability to manage or keep them in order fretted and irritated her excessively. Monsieur, as a philosopher, could not understand the anomaly, that a woman who was perpetually unhappy and ill-tempered, while her children, young, buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with and care for them when sick. He could not understand her conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, however, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... the third day he took out of the furnace a magic heifer, with horns of gold and the most beautifully-shaped head. But she was ill-tempered and would not stay at home, but rushed through the forest and swamps and wasted all her milk on the ground. So Ilmarinen cut the magic heifer in pieces and threw them back into ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... clothes, laid out on the bed by his valet, seemed to be waiting for him in a domestic and obsequious attitude. He began to dress himself with a somewhat ill-tempered alacrity. He was impatient to leave the house. He opened his round window, listened to the murmur of the city, and saw above the roofs the glow which rose into the sky from the city of Paris. He scented from afar all the amorous flesh gathered, on this winter's night, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... it is neither mere fancy nor is it ridiculous. It colours the whole of our relations to one another; it gnaws at my feelings, and then I torment her, make you angry, and lead an idle, empty, ill-tempered existence— ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... and ill-tempered than ever, and I could not help suspecting that if he had an opportunity, he would still try to do me an injury. Discipline was now perfectly restored, but the ship was still not a happy one. No liberty was allowed, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... go to Cahir, across the pass, through the Knock-me-le-Down Mountains. Took a car for this journey which was driven by the only sullen and ill-tempered driver which I had seen on my journey through Ireland. The road passed through Lismore, a little town about four miles from Cappoquin, which is in a red hot state of excitement just now; the bitterest feelings rage about the land question. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... not the only unpleasant discussion Nancy Nelson had with her ill-tempered roommate. But it was one of those that hurt Nancy ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... time does man come so near being omnipotent as when, by the tremendous powers given him, a new life is called into existence. And yet, whether strong or weak, refreshed or exhausted, healthy or diseased, sober or intoxicated, sweet or ill-tempered, yielding or resisting, a new life is begun which may be either of two extremes. How great are such questions! The human mind seems appalled when ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... week of hazy weather after this. I spent it chiefly in my study and in Connie's room. A world of mist hung over the sea; it refused to hold any communion with mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it folded itself in its mantle ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... time, but the Walpi again grew ill-tempered; they encroached upon the Hano planting grounds and stole their property. These troubles increased, and the Hano moved away from the mesa; they crossed the west valley and built temporary shelters. They sent some men to explore the land on the westward to find a suitable place ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... would not tell the boys all I was feeling or thinking; they could hardly have understood the depth of my anger and wounded pride, though I really don't think it was a very bad kind of pride. I had always been trusted at home. When I was cross or ill-tempered, mother spoke seriously to me, sometimes even sternly, but she seemed to believe that I wanted to be good, and that I had sense to understand things. And now to be spoken of behind my back, and before my face ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... alchemist ever looked more 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
... some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange sexual tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself—a rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically—and her eventually meeting Mr. ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... when he was unable to read, but he had learned how to read with inexhaustible pleasure and unfailing profit, and he had learned how to write. When he was seventeen he had run away from his birthplace, Boston, and the home of an ill-tempered brother, and made his way as best he might to Philadelphia. As he tramped into the city with a loaf under each arm for provender, a young woman leaning in a doorway laughed at the singular figure. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... their study he begins to get right again, as he watches Arthur's intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and gluing them carefully on to bits of cardboard, and notes the anxious, loving looks which the little fellow casts sidelong at him. And then he thinks, "What an ill-tempered beast I am! Here's just what I was wishing for last night come about, and I'm spoiling it all," and in another five minutes has swallowed the last mouthful of his bile, and is repaid by seeing his little sensitive plant expand again and sun itself ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... 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 ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... as you might think. But that wasn't a nice thing to do. It's all right to play tricks, but I hope you won't be so cruel as to use a spur on a dumb animal, the way you did, even if he is an ill-tempered broncho. You might ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... you "Diogenes," as you have no books; Hookham was so ill-tempered as not to send ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... 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
... 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 possibly pass muster: they think ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... know that I have not gained a little. It is something, Jo, to know that I am not in the power of a bad, or even an ill-tempered man. I can sit by my fire and know that no one will come home to fret at me,—that I shall encounter no cold looks, no sneers, no bursts of anger, no snarl of stinginess, no contempt of my opinion and advice. I know ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... from this, but remained firm and defended his position, quibbled, sought for subterfuges, replied by the eternal and vague: "What would be the good of it," which nearly sent Charlotte mad, made her furious and caused her to say angry and ill-tempered things. But he remained passive and listless, with his back bent like a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Ilmarinen, First of all the metal-workers, Downward bent and well examined, On the bottom of the furnace; There be saw a heifer rising, Golden were the horns of Kimmo, On her head the Bear of heaven, On her brow a disc of sunshine, Beautiful the cow of magic; But alas! she is ill-tempered, Rushes headlong through the forest, Rushes through the swamps and meadows, Wasting all her milk in running. Ilmarinen, the magician. Is not pleased with this creation, Cuts the magic cow in pieces, Throws them in the fiery furnace, Sets the workmen at the bellows, Thus to forge the ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... deliver the red, tall clock to Betsy Hale, who lives on the road to Waterbury Hill, and kindly take that cheerful youngster from Connecticut—the one with the walnut case and a brass pendulum—to Mrs. Henry Watson. You remember that ill-tempered Dutch thing, with a loud gong and a white dial, please take that to Harry Warner, I put some work on them all but there's no charge. The other clocks belong to me. Do with them as thou wilt and with all that is mine. The rent is paid to April. Then kindly surrender the key. Now can ye ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... had sought 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 to him. When Debendra ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... received it. He drew more and more within 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, infinitely bored, while Collins tortured some ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... his eyes, at least—disgraced, it was knowing that he thought me pretty poor truck, without giving me a chance to be anything better. I humped over the rail at the stern, and watched the waves slap at us viciously, like an ill-tempered poodle, and felt for all the world like a dog that's been kicked out into the rain. Maybe the medicine was good for me, but it wasn't pleasant. It never occurred to me, that night, to wonder how dad felt about it; but I've ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... revolvers and guns or threw clubs into crowds of prisoners, or knocked down such as were within reach of their fists. These exhibitions were such as an overgrown child might be expected to make. They did not secure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that such ill-tempered fools could be given ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... 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 ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... breeze in two or three days," said Kenneth Harper, who could not resist the temptation to chaff this ill-tempered young person. "Say by Tuesday or Wednesday, I should think a capful of wind might puff up ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... the King of Portugal's[34] letter, which, as your Majesty observes, is very rough and ill-tempered with reference to Lord Howard.[35] Lord Melbourne read it with much concern, as it shows so much dislike and alienation, as renders it very improbable that they should ever go on together well and in a friendly spirit. Lord Melbourne fears that the epithets applied to Lord Howard, though ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... fox-trotters and shimmy-shakers were sensitive or interesting people, that Christy Minstrels were great musicians, or that pub-crawlers and demi-mondaines were poets, there sprang simultaneously into existence a respectable, intelligent, and ill-tempered opposition which did, and continues to do, gross injustice to the genuine artists who have drawn inspiration, or sustenance ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... expect to enjoy the luxury of being ill-tempered without having to pay the price for it. I only ask that you may not make the price too heavy. When you choose to return to the Abbey you shall find ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... too,' 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 soon as you ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details and modifications which a further progress would bring to their knowledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered and rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. (Good humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.) From both of those classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof, as you would from ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... will see the face full of sunshine. But look at the face of a child who has done something wrong; who has told a lie, or done some cruel, mean, or dishonest act. There is no sunshine on that face. There is nothing but a dark heavy cloud. The ill-tempered child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a dark cellar. The discontented child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a black dungeon with Giant Despair. My children, ask God to keep you innocent; or if you have done wrong, ask God to forgive you for Jesus Christ's sake, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... westwards, mind and slouch thy hat well over thy brows. Then men will ask who is this tall man, and thy mates shall say, 'Here is Huckster Hedinn the Big, a man from Eyjafirth, who is going about with smith's work for sale.' This Hedinn is ill-tempered and a chatterer — a fellow who thinks he alone knows everything. Very often he snatches back his wares, and flies at men if everything is not done as he wishes. So thou shalt ride west to Borgarfirth offering all sorts of wares for sale, and be sure often to ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... Plummer. "Don't attempt violence. He's a powerful man. Why, my chauffeur saw him break the chain on our back gate as if it had been nothing but twine. Just gave it a push—and snap it went. Oh, he's strong as a bull. Ill-tempered, too." ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... overturned. One would have said that there had been an earthquake "for one." The covers were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the grave-digger had made a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the little Queen-bee, our eldest daughter, just turned ten years; and you will see a grave, fair girl, not handsome, but with a round, sensible face; from which I hope, by degrees, to remove a certain ill-tempered expression. She is uncommonly industrious, silent and orderly, and kind towards her younger sisters, although very much disposed to lecture them; nor will she allow any opportunity to pass in which her importance as "eldest sister" ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... some men, a small Red Cross shelter and two or three hundred soldiers sitting under the trees by the road resting—most of them sleeping. The doctor in the Red Cross place—a small fussy man—was ill-tempered and overworked. There were at least thirty dead men lying in a row outside the shelter, and the army sanitars were bringing in more wounded every minute. "Why weren't there more wagons? What was the use of coming with so few? Where was the other ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... in a letter to Spalatin a letter intended to deceive: "It was believed without reason that he was at the Wartburg. He was living among faithful brethren. It was surprising that no one had thought of Bohemia;" and then came a thrust—not ill-tempered—at Duke George of Saxony, his most active enemy. This letter Spalatin was to lose with well-planned carelessness so that it should come into the hands of the enemy. But in this kind of diplomacy he was certainly not logical, for as soon as his leonine nature ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... 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 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Coyote saveys wolves, he's a heap dark on badgers that a-way. An' also thar's a badger who lives clost to Coyote's dug-out. One day while this yere ill-tempered anamile is cocked up in the mouth of his hole, a blinkin' hatefully at surroundin' objects. Coyote cuts down on him with a Sharp's rifle he's got kickin' about his camp an' turns ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Elizabeth, bending down to pat him, "he's a trusty cat." But the ill-tempered animal would not be propitiated, but erected his back, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... your power of coloring depend much on your state of health and right balance of mind; when you are fatigued or ill you will not see colors well, and when you are ill-tempered you will not choose them well: thus, though not infallibly a test of character in individuals, color power is a great sign of mental health in nations; when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their coloring always gets dull.[50] You must also take great care not to ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... wife or his children laid sacrilegious hands on the holiest of things. He also said that he had rather be a good husband than a great statesman, and that what he especially admired in Sokrates the Philosopher was his patience and kindness in bearing with his ill-tempered wife and his stupid children. When his son was born, he thought that nothing except the most important business of state ought to prevent his being present while his wife washed the child and wrapped it in swaddling clothes. His wife suckled the child herself; ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... 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 ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... dear Anasuya, I have done my best; but what living being could succeed in pacifying such a cross-grained, ill-tempered old fellow? However, I managed to ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... 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
... too much of it; and be ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which shall at the least amuse ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... peculiar to misunderstood people. Perhaps I had been taken for a robber—perhaps something I had said in my broken Italian had been thought insulting. I grew quite morose; thought of nothing else all the afternoon; was set down as an ill-tempered fellow at dinner; and on retiring to bed, could not help perpetually stating this question—"Why should that pretty girl, toward whom my heart had expanded, have left me in so abrupt a manner; and on my ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... bad enough to love some one who don't love you, but to have them told of it is perfectly awful. It makes me wild just to think of it. Oh, Fan, I 'm getting so ill-tempered and envious and wicked, I don't know what ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... stood looking at the house, the thundering at the door of the smithy ceased. Presently they heard voices in altercation. One voice was that of the smith, quieter than when last they heard it, but ill-tempered and growling as at first. The other seemed that of a woman. She had been able so far to quiet him, probably, that he remembered he had the key in his pocket; for they thought they heard the door of the smithy open. Then all was silent, and the outcasts pursued their quest of ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... would seem that the species of anger are unsuitably assigned by the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) where he says that some angry persons are "choleric," some "sullen," and some "ill-tempered" or "stern." According to him, a person is said to be "sullen" whose anger "is appeased with difficulty and endures a long time." But this apparently pertains to the circumstance of time. Therefore it seems ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the First and his two ugly old mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second, brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... favoured share and to be treated with tender, increasing tolerance—not to be loved. Since the death of her parents none had loved her, though many had borne gently with her spoiled fancies. But her coming in had brought no light, and her going out had left nothing dark. She was old and ill-tempered and bitter of speech, and, though all doors opened hospitably at her approach, all closed quickly when she was gone. Her spoiled youth had left her sensitive to trivial stings, unforgivable to fancied wrongs. In a childish oversight she detected hidden malice and implacable ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... really would go without one kind word. She thought of all the years they had been together, and how he had been her only thought and love. What had become of her brother?—the Moses that once she used to know—frank, careless, not ill-tempered, and who sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the best little girl in the world? Where was he gone to—this friend and brother of her childhood, and would ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expression of poor Hepzibah's brow. Her scowl,—as the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it,—her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office, in establishing her character as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear improbable that, by often gazing at herself in a dim looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her own frown with its ghostly sphere, she had been led to interpret the expression almost as unjustly ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... many a kitten, too; and morose and ill-tempered as he was, found in them much amusement. His love for them, however, was not that unselfish love which led Mahomet to cut off his sleeve; but simply a selfish desire for passing amusement. He cared nothing for that most interesting process, the development of a kitten into a cat, and ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... him on the back with his hand, until he perceived that he no longer snorted so wildly, when, dropping his cloak, he lightly leaped upon his back. He now steadily reined him in, without violence or blows, and as he saw that the horse was no longer ill-tempered, but only eager to gallop, he let him go, boldly urging him to full speed with ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... do you know you're the most obstinate, pig-headed, prejudiced, ill-tempered little ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... spleen of the gods"—the symbols of their wrathful emotions and vengeful desires. Bel Enlil, the air and earth god, was served by the demons of disease, "the beloved sons of Bel", which issued from the Underworld to attack mankind. Nergal, the sulky and ill-tempered lord of death and destruction, who never lost his demoniac character, swept over the land, followed by the spirits of pestilence, sunstroke, weariness, and destruction. Anu, the sky god, had "spawned" at creation the demons of cold and rain and darkness. Even Ea and his consort, Damkina, were ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... us. He will soon set things right. He knows all about horses. Jolly may have thrown his leg over his halter, and got furious. He's rather an ill-tempered horse." ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that I should have gravitated into journalism in any case; but it was poor old Dr Kenealy, who was afterwards famous as the intrepid, if ill-tempered, counsel for the Tichborne Claimant, who gave me my first active impulse towards the business. The Borough of Wednesbury had just been created, and my own native parish was a part of it. The Liberals ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Hippolyte Fortoul, of the climbing genus, of the worth of a Gustave Planche or of some Philarete Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who had become Minister of the Marine, which caused Beranger to say, "This Fortoul knows all the spars, including ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... gaiety nor gentleness; under the pressure of this insoluble mystery she became ill-tempered as a wife ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... his wife, his daughter, and the two gentlemen got into the first vehicle, and I had to get into the second with the ladies from Liege and the Charpillon, who seemed to have become very intimate with them. This made me ill-tempered, and I sulked the whole way. We were an hour and a quarter on the journey, and when we arrived I ordered a good dinner, and then we proceeded to view the gardens; the day was a beautiful one, though ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... (which sometimes happened in that Part of the Kingdom) both Parties certainly came to her for Advice. Every Body knows, that Martha Wilson was a passionate scolding Jade, and that John her husband, was a surly ill-tempered Fellow. These were one Day brought by the Neighbours for Margery to talk to them, when they fairly quarrelled before her, and were going to Blows; but she stepping between them, thus addressed the Husband; ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... 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 hills of Twin Islands hid in ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... tell me the story of the monkeys who washed their hands and faces in pitch, and so were caught. But from all the stories which are told about monkeys, I fancy that we think of them too much as clever, and noisy, and mischievous, and sometimes very ill-tempered and revengeful; so I want to tell you something of their good and gentle ways, and especially of their ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... an opportunity had occurred for her return to Litchfield, and although Clarissa lamented her departure Betty was eager to fly home. Gulian had done his best to smooth over his ill-judged and ill-tempered effort to arrange her matrimonial affairs, and one of Betty's minor annoyances was her sister's evident disappointment at Yorke's rejection. Only once had she forgotten herself and flashed out upon Clarissa, peremptorily forbidding ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... bring any amelioration to poor Tom's lot. It was "like going from the frying-pan into the fire;" for, now, my unfortunate chum, being immediately under the control of the skipper, who was a surly, ill-tempered brute at bottom, he paid him out for his laziness in "shirking work," as he termed the constitutional nervousness that he was powerless to fight against—Tom coming in for "more kicks than halfpence" by his promotion ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... better. That shows all the time. You see the sort of man I am. I've a broad streak of personal vanity. I fag easily. I'm short-tempered. I've other things, as you perceive. When I fag I become obtuse, I repeat and bore, I get viciously ill-tempered, I suffer from an intolerable sense of ill usage. Then that ass, Wagstaffe, who ought to be working with me steadily, sees his chance to be pleasantly witty. He gets a laugh round the table at my expense. Young Dent, the more intelligent of the labour ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... And I pray thee, pardon me that I spoke harshly to thee. For indeed I am ill-tempered by reason of my infirmities; and as for thee, GOD will reward thee for thy goodness to me, as I never can. Moreover, I believe it is thy modesty, which is as great as thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... indeed almost wholly, that of a 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 ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... queen's dignity from some humiliation when wrangles took place, and accusations of cheating were made in her presence. The gaming-table is a notorious leveler of distinctions, and the worst-behaved of the guests were too frequently the king's own brothers; they were rude, overbearing, and ill-tempered. The Count de Provence on one occasion so wholly forgot the respect due to her, that he assaulted a gentleman in her presence; and the Count d'Artois, who played for very high stakes, invariably lost ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... doctor; "you're an ill-tempered, ungrateful, soured, discontented young beggar. You deserve to surfer.— And as for you, sir," he continued, turning to me, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... say'st, that dropping houses, and eke smoke, And chiding wives, make men to flee Out of their owne house; ah! ben'dicite, What aileth such an old man for to chide? Thou say'st, we wives will our vices hide, Till we be fast,* and then we will them shew. *wedded Well may that be a proverb of a shrew.* *ill-tempered wretch Thou say'st, that oxen, asses, horses, hounds, They be *assayed at diverse stounds,* *tested at various Basons and lavers, ere that men them buy, seasons Spoones, stooles, and all such husbandry, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... a farm. His father had a number of mules, which he used in plowing his fields. Two of the young mules were very ill-tempered. Milton's father was very careful to keep the little pigs and calves out of their way, for fear the mules would ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... who could take charge of 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
... been naturally ill-tempered Vincent would probably have failed, but, as he happened afterward to learn, its first owner had been a hot-tempered and passionate young planter, who, instead of being patient with it, had beat it about the head, and so rendered it restive and bad-tempered. Had Vincent not laid aside his whip ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... "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
... 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 ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ill-tempered piece I ever saw!" remarked Rosie, aloud, as the door closed upon Lulu for ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... curiosity when I should come again. But the old feelings will come back again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of piquet again. But it is a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece of furniture, a record of better days; the young thing that has succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... imperative, in the treatment of lacerated tendons, to obtain as perfect a state of immobility as can be obtained compatibly with the disposition of the patient; the natural opposition of the animal, sometimes ill-tempered and fractious at best, under the necessary restraint causing at times much embarrassment to the practitioner in applying the necessary treatment. Without the necessary immobility there can be no close connection of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... delivered a sharp blow with that hammer on my foot which made me writhe with pain. Nothing vexed him more than any appearance of gentleness or tenderness. I loved my pony, Lily, and did not like to beat her when she was doing her best, and she had hard work to keep up with my father's ill-tempered mare, so he would say, "D—n it, can't you whip her? Can't you whip better than that? The strokes of that whip of yours are so feeble that they wouldn't kill a fly!" Nobody could say that of his hitting. I had a little young dog that was very dear to me, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... but I like it that way. It was good indeed, and I'm sorry, Madame, that you have such a violent and ill-tempered husband. Maybe your next will be a ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... proceeded in the following years, but not their domestication. It was their nature to be ill-tempered and treacherous and only the threat of the spears in the hands of their drivers forced them to work; work that they could have done easily had they not diverted so much effort each day to trying to turn on their masters and kill them. Each night they were ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... raised tones already showed to be impending, by sweet words; at another, by smoothing an invalid's pillow; at another, by soothing a sobbing child; at another, by humoring and softening a father who had returned weary and ill-tempered from the irritating cares of business. None but she saw those things. None but a loving heart could see them. That was the secret of her heavenly power. The one who will be found in trial capable of great acts of love, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... Duke of Monmouth's apartments, wondering in what mood I should find him after last night's rebuff. Little did he think that I had been a witness of it. I entered his room; he was sitting in his chair, with him was Carford. The Duke's face was as glum and his air as ill-tempered as I could wish. Carford's manner was subdued, calm, and sympathetic. They were talking earnestly as I entered but ceased their conversation at once. I ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the king and queen had failed to invite a spiteful and ill-tempered old witch. The old witch was very angry, because she had not been invited ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... intellectual interest first, and very little of the small interests revolving upon it." The charm of Philip was the charm of extreme ingenuousness combined with daring insight. He never seemed to be shocked or distressed by anything. He said one day, "It was not the sensual or the timid or the ill-tempered boys who used to make me anxious. Those were definite faults and brought definite punishment; it was the hard-hearted, virtuous, ambitious, sensible boys, who were good-humoured and respectable and selfish, who bothered ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... crammed down our throats has modified our ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the Vicarage are ever oppressed by the ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... misinterpreted Seth's keen desire to return forthwith to Virginia. Seth, in short, was seldom able to express himself adequately, emotion scarcely ever sounded in his voice, and the expression of his face was a fixed and unchangeable one, somewhat dour and ill-tempered in aspect and reflecting nothing of the ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... comical-looking one in the town belonged to a cross, ill-tempered, ugly brute of a hunchback, who, as soon as he learned that the artists wanted to paint him, asked such a price for his loan that they found themselves obliged to give up all hopes of taking his portrait. One morning, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... himself as badly off as before; and being almost starved again, he laid himself down at the door of Mr. Fitzwarren, a rich merchant. Here he was soon seen by the cook, who was an ill-tempered creature, and happened just then to be very busy preparing dinner for her master and mistress; so she called out to poor Dick: "What business have you there, you lazy rogue? there is nothing else but beggars; if you do not take yourself away, we will see how ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... exasperating persistence. Whereas Mrs. Elderfield had scrupulously obeyed every direction given by her lodger, Mrs. Jordan was evidently resolved that her husband should live, move, and have his being in the strictest accordance with her own ideal. Not in any spirit of nagging, or ill-tempered unreasonableness; it was merely that she had her favourite way of doing every conceivable thing, and felt so sure it was the best of all possible ways that she could not endure any other. The first serious disagreement between them had reference to conduct at the breakfast-table. ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... the general's wife 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, almost daily, letters ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... whenever she had anybody to listen! When she was in good humor, she could admire the bright polish of its sides and the rich border of beautiful faces and foliage that ran all around it. Or, if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it with her naughty little foot. And many a kick did the box (but it was a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got) many a kick did it receive. But certain it is, if it had ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... together. She was no more used to considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why an ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers and need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had a headache in India she had done ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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 |
