"Hard to please" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have had no marriages or giving in marriage here. We might have had, but a certain young lady, whom you know, is hard to please. The children are all well, thank God! Charley is going to Eton the week after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. Kate is quite well, and unites with me and Georgina in love to you and Mrs. Cerjat and Haldimand, whom I would give a good deal (tell him) ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... your dreams, it means that you will meet with ill success in your affairs. Lovers will be quarrelsome and hard to please. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... are very hard to please. She is not only remarkably handsome but she has a vigorous personality—a sort of native force that is sure to ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough "not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world." Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... that we shall get along nicely together," continued John. "If you are chumps enough to turn out of your comfortable beds at this time of the morning simply to see me, you can't be very hard to please. We shall hit ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... beyond the limits of patience. "Oh, oh," she sobbed, "I fear we are going to drift apart! If he can't endure to talk with me about such things, what chance have I at all? I hoped that the hour, the beauty of the evening, and the evidence that I had been trying so hard to please him would make him more like what he used to be before he seemed to take a dislike. There's only one way to account for it all—he sees how I feel and he doesn't like it. My very love sets him against me. My heart was overflowing tonight. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... also it would be hard to find many men to like of one mans choise in the limitation of times and quantities of words, with which not one, but euery eare is to be pleased and made a particular iudge, being most truly sayd, that a multitude or comminaltie is hard to please and easie to offend, and therefore I intend not to proceed any further in this curiositie then to shew some small subtillitie that any other hath not yet done, and not by imitation but by obseruation, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... was a cheering time, and the man or woman would have been hard to please who found nothing to delight or to amuse at Messer Folco's festival. To speak for myself, I had never known better diversion. There was a whole world of pretty women assembled within Messer Folco's walls, and I may as well confess here, if I have not confessed ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... opinion's highly favorable," Lisle announced with a smile. "I'd be uncommonly hard to please ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... make a Church and a Bible of their own? Accordingly they have gone to work, and in a very short time have prepared a variety of ungodly religions, so various that the worldly-minded man who can not be suited with one to his taste must be very hard to please. Discordant and contradictory in their positive statements, they are agreed only in negatives; denying the God of the Bible, the resurrection of the dead, and judgment to come. Nevertheless each discoverer or constructor ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... before Si an' his brood came to this place. Even supposin' the parsons weren't up to the mark, we would have got along all right. Country people, as a rule, are not hard to please, an' will put up with ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... straight, and a little turned up at the end. He was blue-eyed and bright-eyed, and ruddy-cheeked. His hair thick, and of good hue, and hanging down in comely curls. The most courteous of men was he, of sturdy frame and strong will, bountiful and gentle, a fast friend, but hard to please when making them. He was wealthy in goods. His brother's name was Kolskegg; he was a tall strong man, a noble fellow, and undaunted in everything. Another brother's name was Hjort; he was then in his childhood. Orm Skogarnef was a base-born brother of Gunnar's; he ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... Sairmeuse? I will win him over to my side. With the daughter my course is plain. Profiting by my unfortunate experience, I will, in the future, be as timid as I have been bold; and she will be hard to please if she is not flattered by this triumph of her beauty. D'Escorval remains to be ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... opinion Tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments The consequence of common examples There are defeats more triumphant than victories They can neither lend nor give anything to one another They have yet touched nothing of that which is mine They must be very hard to please, if they are not contented Things that engage us elsewhere and separate us from ourselves This decay of nature which renders him useless, burdensome This plodding occupation of bookes is as painfull as any other ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... Hard to please in point of dinner, Flings he grumblings at his wife, Breaking her dear heart—the sinner! Inch by inch ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... my money on my dress for the party to-morrow night, I'd give each of them a half-dollar. As I can not, I'll hunt up the other things they wanted, for it's a shame they shouldn't have a bit of Christmas, when they tried so hard to please the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... long rides into the Navajo pine forests, bought turquoises and silver bracelets from the wandering Indian herdsmen, and rode twenty miles to Flagstaff upon the slightest pretext. Thea had never felt this pleasant excitement about any man before, and she found herself trying very hard to please young Ottenburg. She was never tired, never dull. There was a zest about waking up in the morning and dressing, about ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... master is hard to please, and threatens and punishes more than he ought, what is the servant to do?—A. 'Do ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... if we may judge from the various styles and fashions of Hats, Caps, &c., presented in his card on the cover of our "Magazine." His establishment is a favorite place of resort for all who desire to be well fitted; and they must, indeed, be hard to please, who cannot find something there to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... certainly. Tiens, there"—and unbending his elbow he makes an indicative gesture like a flag-signaler—"'Villa von Hindenburg.' and there, 'Villa Glucks auf.' If that doesn't satisfy you, you gentlemen are hard to please. P'raps there's a few lodgers in the basement, but not noisy lodgers, and you can talk out aloud in front of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... fixed upon Welf of Bavaria, presumably the "dux Noricorum," who, as Bishop Otto tells us, "in the war with the Emperor, destroyed the cities of Freising and Augsburg." Their union did not last long, for Matilda seems to have been hard to please in the matter of husbands; but the fact of his selection looks as if he had been a persona grata with the Papal See. It is somewhat significant, too, that Machiavelli regards the contest between Henry IV. and the Papacy as having ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... serpent's, oily like a negro's, changeable like a chameleon, with a turned up nose and disproportionate mouth." Yet I hardly believe that, like my cousin, I would say anent a rival: "Whoever would not be satisfied with him, would be hard to please." ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... is fond of strange adventures, he will find enough in this volume to delight him all winter, and he will be hard to please who is not charmed by its graphic ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from calculation to please her, ungracious girl as she was, who was so hard to please? But he never could have known that she would see it. She walked through the little station to the pony carriage, feeling that all the eyes of the people about were upon her. They were all sympathetic, all equally aware that ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... secular disputes which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux, Quatremere on the one hand,—on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer, Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please." ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... there is plenty of time," she went on hastily; "that is what your father says, and I think he is right. You are too young for this sort of thing yet. You must see the world; you must look about you; you must have plenty of choice," continued the anxious mother. "I shall be hard to please, Dick, for I shall think no one good enough for my boy; that is the worst of having only one, and he the best son that ever lived," finished Mrs. Mayne, with maternal pride ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... performed all kinds of tricks; he balanced knives on his nose; he built up a pyramid of glasses and bottles with wonderful ingenuity; he sang new songs; he imitated the cries of various animals. In fact, Croustillac knew so well how to amuse the captain of the Unicorn, who was not very hard to please, that when supper was concluded the latter clapped the ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... able to catch a glimpse of some jewelled and turbaned sultana, of dazzling beauty, attended by her maid, who does not always possess a sinecure, for the mistress is often haughty, proud, and petulant, very hard to please, and exacts great deference from her inferiors. Many of them live in regal splendour, and everything that wealth and pampered luxury can bestow is theirs, as long as their personal charms remain; ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... interrupting, with a little toss of her head, 'young ladies weren't quite so hard to please in my time, and I can't see or hear that he's so ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... picked horses came faster, until by noon they had ten hobbled in the open pasture. Two of these were Pan's. He had been hard to please. ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... spite of a certain little air that she had, was by no means easy to marry. The "parentage unknown" on her birth certificate was the real bar to her entrance into the sphere where her godmother's affection stove to establish her. Mlle. de la Haye, ignorant of her real position, was very hard to please; the richest merchant in L'Houmeau had found no favor in her sight. Cointet saw the sufficiently significant expression of the young lady's face at the sight of the little lawyer, and turning, beheld a precisely similar grimace on Petit-Claud's countenance. Mme. de Senonches and Francis looked ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... think she was made on purpose for me. If there's anyone else that understands that turn of her head as I do, I'll give her up without scruple. I have made up my mind to this, never to dream of another woman, while she even thinks it worth her while to REFUSE TO HAVE ME. You see I am not hard to please, after all. Did M—— know of the intimacy that had subsisted between us? Or did you hint at it? I think it would be a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when I go back? Advise a fool, who had nearly lost ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... "Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps to say, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like the look ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... us a great deal of good to have a little amusement just then, for this part of the voyage was a trial of patience more than anything else. Possibly we were rather hard to please, but the south-east trade, which we were expecting to meet every day, was, in our opinion, far too late in coming, and when at length it arrived, it did not behave at all as becomes a wind that has the reputation of being the steadiest in the world. Besides being far ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the Deathless, "but some of us are certainly hard to please." And now Jurgen was already intent to shrug off his display of emotion. "In selecting a wife, sir," submitted Jurgen, "there are all sorts ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... As he was not hard to please, he fished, as it were, in troubled waters, went after the ugly ones and the pretty ones alike, was bold even to impudence, was not to be kept off by mistakes, nor anger, nor modesty, nor threats, though he sometimes fell ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... sat in his comfortable porch chair in the cool of the evening, at peace with all the world. His frame of mind was enviable; indeed, that person would be hard to please who could look down the vista of pleasant probabilities which stretched before his mental vision and not ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... family. The descendant of old John Hyrcanus of Idumaea—a Jew only by compulsion—had no understanding of the children of Moses. He tripped every day on the barriers of ancient law, and often his generosity was taken for defiance. Caesar was not so hard to please. He had vanity and laws not wholly inflexible. Herod's family, with its evil sister, its profligate sons, its voluptuous daughters, its wives, of whom it is enough to say they were nine, its intrigues and jealousies, gave him greater trouble than either the kingdom ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... very hard to please. If I were you, I should take a course of ventriloquism. Then you can ask yourself questions and give yourself any perishing answers you like. At times you might even ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... common sense—he would have them read what they would read in no one but himself, or he would not give a rush for their applause. He is to be "a chartered libertine," from whom insults are favours, whose contempt is to be a new incentive to admiration. His Lordship is hard to please: he is equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning praise. He tries the patience of the town to the very utmost, and when they shew signs of weariness or disgust, threatens to discard them. He says he will write ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... salvation before I left England. I was thus enabled to impart it to this poor man and to others. His idea was that if he could but be very sorry for all his misdeeds, and commit no more, and work away hard to please God in some sort of fashion, he might have a chance of going to heaven at last. He would scarcely believe me when I told him that I found nothing of that sort throughout the Gospels and Epistles; that Christ, the anointed One, had done all that was required for us sinners; that all we have to ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... with a large hat all smothered in pink feathers. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, and felt alarmed. Mrs. Polter told me afterwards she was 'just a lady,' rolling in recently acquired wealth, and 'as hard to please as if she had never washed her own doorstep.' It was then I learnt the difference between 'a lady' and ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... regrets. She was content. She was in love, she was loved. Doubtless she had not felt the intoxication she had expected, but does one ever feel it? She was the friend of the good and honest fellow, much liked by women who passed for disdainful and hard to please, and he had a true affection for her. The pleasure she gave him and the joy of being beautiful for him attached her to this friend. He made life for her not continually delightful, but easy to bear, and at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hard to please, fastidious: "a finely chosen epithet, expressing at once curious and squeamish" (Hurd). It is used by Comus in contempt: comp. ii. Henry IV. iv. 1, "Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch"; and see the index to the Globe Shakespeare. the Indian steep. In his Elegia ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... would show me everything.—I was hard to please: she would not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all her laces one after another before me;—unfolded and folded them up again one by one with the most patient sweetness.—I might ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... big for him. His soul was earnest, his courage great, his training good, his intelligence none too brilliant. Timothy, our cook, was pure Swahili. He was a thin, elderly individual, with a wrinkled brow of care. This represented a conscientious soul. He tried hard to please, but he never could quite forget that he had cooked for the Governor's safari. His air was always one of silent disapproval of our modest outfit. So well did he do, however, often under trying circumstances, that at the close of the expedition Billy presented him with a very fancy knife. To her ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... am taught the poorness of our invention, the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury have early learned that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this original beauty. I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall be hard to please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance: but a countryman shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... is not that desire to enter upon the cares of matrimony, which is to be observed in many other countries. The opprobious epithet of "old maid" is unknown. A girl is not the less admired because she has been ten or a dozen years in society; the most severe remark made on her is that she is "hard to please." No one calls her passee, or looks out for a new face to admire. I have seen no courting of the young men either in mothers or daughters; no match-making mammas, or daughters looking out for their own interests. In fact, young people have so few opportunities of being together, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... However, I suppose in time we will get accustomed to our new surroundin's and environment. The Prince of Wales, they say, is hard to please, but I have no doubt that he will be glad to meet Lady ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... coils of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for anything more exciting."—Pall ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... "How do you feel after the concert? You must be hard to please indeed if you were not satisfied with the accompaniments ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... they would see us humiliated! Honest folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, ay, and very good reason they have too. National vanity, sir, wounded—we have beaten them so often." My dear sir, there is not a greater error in the world than this. They hate you because you are stupid, hard to please, and intolerably insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman yesterday, who asked the way to a street of which he pronounced the name very badly to a little Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... could change or add to Luigi's story. It was quite evident that he was telling just what he saw, and had no interest in coloring it to make it appear different in any way. He admired Miss Van Allen, he said she was a pleasant lady and not hard to please if her orders were faithfully carried out. He expressed no personal interest in the question of her guilt or innocence, he simply told what he had seen. I didn't altogether like his stolid indifference, it seemed impossible there should be so little ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... to find a place that suited both us and the Precious Ones. Not that they were hard to please—they welcomed anything in the nature of change—but at most of the fine places children were rigorously barred, a rule, it seemed to us, that might result in rather trying complications between landlord ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... lowering his eyes in a comical manner, for he did not fear Latin quotations. However, he declared himself very hard to please in that matter; he dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What he did not tell them was, that a dressmaker's little errand-girl, with whom he had tried to converse as he left the law-school, had surveyed him from head to foot and threatened him ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... flag at the head of one of the tables where the speaker stood, but he read from the American Revised Version of the Scriptures. The sermon was commenced by some remarks to the effect that man is hard to please. Nothing earthly satisfies him, but Thomas expressed the correct idea when he said: "Show us the Father and it sufficeth us." The minister then went on to speak of God as "the God of patience," "the God of comfort," "the God of hope," and ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... not proof against this very downright question. "I should be hard to please," she said laughing, "if I didn't enjoy my visit to ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... she said, "Susy used to cry a great deal whenever she was hurt or punished. When she was sick she was very hard to please. When she sat down to learn to sew and to read and to write, she would break her thread in anger, or throw her book on the floor, or declare she never could learn. But now she has left off crying when she is hurt, and tries to bear the pain quietly. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... having a person in our family who should be on the footing of a friend, yet do the duties of a servant, and that we never could make it work well. These half-and-half people are so sensitive, so exacting in their demands, so hard to please, that we have come to the firm determination that we will have no sliding-scale in our family, and that whoever we are to depend on must come with bona fide willingness to take the position of a servant, such as that position is in our house; and that, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... appeal, just because you are a little tired of looking but are bound to live in the country anyway. Real estate dealers and would-be helpful friends may have rallied around and, after showing you a score or more parcels of land, begin hinting that you are hard to please. Possibly, but just remember that your money purchases the place and that you, not they, will have to live there. Two people once spent years looking for a place within easy commuting distance of Philadelphia. Friends and brokers became exhausted and fell by the way. Word ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... mind that she meant the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I suppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of self-contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are critical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... resist his advances, and with more than one the resistance had been very slight. It was no false report which affirmed that he had peopled the district with his illegitimate progeny. He was not hard to please, either; strawberry-pickers, shepherd-girls, wood-pilers, day-workers, all were equally charming in his sight; he sought only youth, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... very uncalled-for remark about a Jew not understanding the feelings of a gentleman. I must say you Gentiles are very hard to please. You say we are no gentlemen when we lend money; and when we refuse to lend it you say just the same. I didnt mean to behave badly. As I told him, I might have lent it to him if he ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... took James's part, and scolded Benjamin for being so saucy and so hard to please. But Benjamin would not go ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... fighting, moreover, in defence of its home and country and, as it fully believed, of its religion. The young general was thoroughly alive to the numerical weakness of his force, but that he rejoiced in its efficiency is evident from his letters, and he was hard to please. "If valor can make amends for want of numbers," he wrote to Pitt, "we ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... apt to be selfish and to have no thought but for themselves. She must not be hard to please when it will be to save and to serve her family and to keep up respect for their ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... remove the opinions you have of my niceness, or being hard to please, let me assure you I am far from desiring my husband should be fond of me at threescore, that I would not have him so at all. 'Tis true I should be glad to have him always kind, and know no reason why he should be wearier of being my master, than he was of being my servant. But it is very ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... reproof, "I believe you think it a fine thing to be hard to please! I know a fellow that calls it a kind of suicide. To allow a spot to spoil your pleasure in a beauty is to be ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... don't know Sarah's temper, or you would wonder no more. I tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had to part. I don't want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah." ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... you don't like the business, Miss Lee." He added dryly: "But then you always were hard to please. You weren't satisfied when I was ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... was charming! He talked a great deal to you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... for it will all be ours," rejoined Tommy promptly. "Who wants a big room, anyway? I don't. Bobby, I'd be hard to please if I wanted more than ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor; not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another; in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle, and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character; that by self-cultivation, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... town which they named Jerusalem, the Home of Peace. As for Moses, he was no longer the leader of his people. He had been allowed to see the mountain ridges of Palestine from afar. Then he had closed his tired eyes for all time. He had worked faithfully and hard to please Jehovah. Not only had he guided his brethren out of foreign slavery into the free and independent life of a new home but he had also made the Jews the first of all nations to ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... hat store and asked to see the latest styles in derbies. He was evidently hard to please, for soon the counter was covered with hats that he had tried on and found wanting. At last the salesman picked up a brown derby, brushed it off on his sleeve, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... him for his forgiveness, and promised to work very hard to please him; and the good-natured king took them all up in his arms, and carried them safely home to his palace. From that time, I suppose, it has been part of Jack Frost's work to paint the trees with the glowing colours we see in the autumn; and ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... many hard and unpleasant things about her new life. There were so many things to learn, and she was so awkward at work of all kinds! Her hands seemed so small and inadequate when she tried to wring clothes or scrub a dirty step. Then, too, her young charge, Elise Hathaway, was spoiled and hard to please, and she was daily tried by the necessity of inventing ways of discipline for the poor little neglected girl which yet would not bring down a protest from her even more undisciplined mother. If ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... understand a man so hard to please. Maybe it was from being a southerner. Lantier didn't like anything too rich and argued about every dish, sending back meat that was too salty or too peppery. He hated drafts. If a door was left open, he complained loudly. At the same time, he was very stingy, only giving the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... ability. She sang badly, acted indifferently, and was uncertain what to do with her hands. All these things might have been forgiven her, but she supplemented them by the crime known in stage circles as 'throwing her weight about'. That is to say, she was hard to please, and, when not pleased, apt to say so in no uncertain voice. To his personal friends Walter Jelliffe had frequently confided that, though not a rich man, he was in the market with a substantial reward for anyone who was man enough to drop a ton of iron ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the West Indies (Ira Aldridge?), who spoke in English, while all the other characters delivered their speeches in Russian. The result was a curious cacophony. She thought the Othello good, nay, very good, for, she observes, "On returning from China one is not very hard to please." ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... cause the despair of many a modern housewife who has attempted the same thing. It must not be supposed, however, that the course of this domestic life was without annoyance, as even here at this early day servants were inclined to be exacting and hard to please. At least, that is the inference which may be drawn from a letter by an old notary of Florence, Lapo Mazzei, wherein he takes occasion to say, in inviting a friend to supper, that it will be entirely convenient to have him come, inasmuch as he has taken ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger |
