"Churlish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up here. I dismissed all the servants save the two you have seen, and have for years refused to mix with my fellows. I grew churlish and bitter. I talked strangely, until stories were circulated about me, wild and foolish, of course, but still making me become more a misanthrope than ever. Why I gave you admittance yesterday I do not know, but acting on sudden impulse I did so, and then was led to allow you to see those confessions, ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... "have much to say about themselves—'Deeds, not words,' is a good motto for all. But as I would not be churlish, and as I have agreed, as well as the rest of my companions, to tell my story, I will mention what few things worth relating I ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... stick, the next that comes to hand, Which if it straight and even be, and have no knots at all, A gentle husband then they think shall surely to them fall; But, if it foul and crooked be, and knotty here and there, A crabbed, churlish husband then they earnestly ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who had been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years—only she, of all the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face toward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over toward her and with hesitating, trembling ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the House of Lords has made provision for the appearance of lovely woman, which contrasts most favourably with the curmudgeon and churlish arrangements of the House of Commons. In the House of Commons women have to hide themselves, as though they were in a Mahommedan country, behind a grille—where, invisible, suffocated, and crowded, they are permitted to see—themselves unseen—the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... between us, and I often found myself depressed and only feigning cheerfulness. With the set which comprised Iwin and "the aristocrats," as they were generally known, I could not make any headway at all, for, as I now remember, I was always shy and churlish to them, and nodded to them only when they nodded to me; so that they had little inducement to desire my acquaintance. With most of the other students, however, this arose from quite a different cause. As soon as ever I discerned friendliness on the part of a comrade, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... words before I regretted them. It was a foolish speech and a churlish one as well. She pretended not to notice it, however, but bade her maid go down to the concierge's office, and take the bag to the room that had been allotted to her. The girl disappeared, and when she had gone Miss Kitwater ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... himself come to Banneker with any such project, it would have been curtly rejected. Ives kept in the background. The proposal came from Marrineal, and in such form that for the recipient of the honor to refuse it would have appeared impossibly churlish. Little though he desired or liked such a function, Banneker accepted with a good grace, and set himself to write an editorial, special to the event. Its title was, "What Does Your Newspaper Mean to You?" headed with the quotation from the Areopagitica: and he ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a whisper if not audible to all the Pnyx. Quickly he warmed. His gestures became dramatic. His voice rose to a trumpet-call. He swept his hearers with him as dry leaves before the blast. "When he began to weave his words, one might have deemed him churlish, nay a fool, but when from his chest came his deep voice, and words like unto flakes of winter snow, then who could with him contend?" Thus Homer of Odysseus the Guileful, thus as truly of Themistocles saviour ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... vigor, and affluence of his genius are not more evident in the "Old Curiosity Shop" than in "Great Expectations," the novel he is now publishing, in weekly parts, in "All the Year Round." Common as is the churlish custom of depreciating a new work of a favorite author by petulantly exalting the worth of an old one, no fair reader of "Great Expectations" will feel inclined to say that Dickens has written himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... unreasonably; she does but suggest what may be, although that may be is, as we all know, next to impossible, particularly now when nature has fortified this pleasant lodge even as would a garrison of some hundred men. Come, be not so churlish in thy favors, good my liege; give her the pledge she demands, and be sure its fulfilment ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... this device was inoperative, M. Testu, after about an hour and a half, allowed the balloon to descend to earth in a corn field, when, without quitting hold of the car, he commenced collecting stones for ballast. But as yet he knew not the ways of churlish proprietors of land, and in consequence was presently surprised by a troublesome crowd, who proceeded, as they supposed, to take him prisoner till he should pay heavy compensation, dragging him off to the nearest village by the trail ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... and critics called him hard, churlish, and cynical—him, for whom the richest thing in Nature's splendid dower had been obliterated, except a soul, which never in its deepest sufferings lost its noble faith in God and man, or allowed its indomitable courage to be one whit weakened. That there were periods of utterly rayless despair ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... guide-books about her, some on large paper at ten guineas the volume. I have sometimes fancied, indeed,' he added, doubtfully,' that it was their own capacity for admiring Nature that they admired, but that were a churlish thought. For, do they not run innumerable excursion trains for the purpose of bowing at her shrine? Epping Forest must be one of Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who come here to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... ship, and once, in a moment of severe depression, induced by five days' heavy rain, spoke affectionately of Mrs. Stobell. To Mr. Chalk's reminder that the rain had enabled them to replenish their water supply he made a churlish rejoinder. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... will, and all alone, cannot be thrown around a boat pulled by the nose while you are sitting in her all day. The Rob Roy, with mast down, and tied by a tow-rope, was like an eagle limping with clipped pinion and a chained foot. Still, for the man not churlish, there is scarcely any time or place or person wholly devoid of interest, if he is determined to ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... little noise at the door, trying to get in. At any rate, Ephraim, who was waiting for such a signal, came forward with a churlish glee to rate me. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... pleased to say, it is decent for a priest "to be sober and sad;" "a judge to be incorrupted, solitary, and unacquainted with courtiers or courtly entertainments... without plait or wrinkle, sour in look and churlish in speech; contrariwise a courtly gentleman to be lofty and curious in countenance, yet sometimes a creeper and a curry favell with his superiors." "And in a prince it is decent to go slowly and to march with leisure, and with a certain grandity rather ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... hour sufficiently preternatural to deprive us of a portion of our legitimate sleep. We rose early in Kimberley—long before the lark—to our credit be it sung; but four o'clock was too far removed from breakfast time, and four was commonly the hour chosen by the churlish Boers to commence operations throughout the tedious months of our investment. The whiz and the explosion were not invariably audible, but the boom was always heard. Our "friends" rarely missed making a noise, and, to secure ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... his lordship could answer before God and man for what he had done to a wretched man like myself and to my child? But he answered, saying, Why had I come with her? And when I told him of the rude people here, item, of the churlish miller's man, he said that it was not his fault, and threatened the people all around with his fist, for they were making a great noise. Thereupon he commanded my child to get down and to follow him, and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... yielded themselves to King Arthur, saying that Perceval had overcome them in knightly combat, and had given them their lives on condition that they went to King Arthur's court and yielded themselves up to him and his mercy. The king and all his court reproved Kay for his churlish manner, and for his having driven so splendid a youth ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... venerable piece of furniture hung round with human crania, of which only the roofs remained. King Blay, however, eventually sent us home a boma, and it was duly exhibited in town. Kikam was the only place in Apollonia where we met with churlish treatment; no hospitality, however, could be expected when the strangers were supposed to be mixed up ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... half-hour we had wandered in the park. The sunshot glades hung out an invitation it would have been churlish to refuse. And so in and out of the tall bracken, under the spreading oaks, close to the gentle-eyed deer, we had roamed for a while at will, carelessly, letting the world slip. Sir Peter and his ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... official visit to a dying neighbor, who was a very churlish and universally unpopular man, put the usual question—"Are you ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... There were the same trees, the same glades and streams, as on the well-remembered Midsummer day of the preceding year; but nature and man alike were in a different mood. The trees were leafless and churlish, the glades ragged and colourless; the turbid, dusky streams bore but small resemblance to the limpid rivulets of June; the native youths were absent, engaged in military service; the maidens, headed by Suzanne Falla, had ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... aroused, for from this time he managed to be with me, on one pretence or another until noon. Moreover, his manner grew each moment more churlish, his hints plainer; until I could scarcely avoid noticing the one or the other. About mid-day, having followed me for the twentieth time into the street, he came to the point by asking me rudely if I did not ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No produce here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword: No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain's ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... James McMurrough, who had come from the house in search of the kinsman he dared not suffer out of his sight. He had approached unnoticed, and his churlish tone showed that what he had overheard was not to his liking. But Asgill supposed that James's ill-humour was directed against his enemy, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and I am almost disposed to join with poor Robin, in his malediction on every churlish enemy ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... days, set a silver basin before us, wherein there was the leg of a beaver, and desired all the nations to come and eat of it,—to eat in peace and plenty, and not to be churlish to one another; and that if any such person should be found to be a disturber, I here lay down by the edge of the dish a rod, which you must scourge them with; and if your father should get foolish, in my old days, I desire you may use it upon me as ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... vain doubts oppressed. Oh if but once compassion smote thee for My darkened life, conceal it not from me, I pray thee; let the memory console me, Since of their future our young days were robbed!" And she: "Be comforted, unhappy one! I was not churlish of my pity whilst I lived, and am not now, myself so wretched! Oh, do not chide this most unhappy child!" "By all our sufferings, and by the love Which preys upon me," I exclaimed, "and by Our youth, and by the hope that faded ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... on the slave route, we found the people more churlish than usual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We have been made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity of death having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken their sympathies. They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent us hoes, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the dissipation and pleasure of civilised life—to the life of fashionable society, where the refinements of luxury have multiplied their artificial wants beyond the proportion of the largest fortunes, and have brought most men into the class of the necessitous, inducing that churlish habit of the mind, in which every feeling is considered as a weakness, which terminates not in self, unlike those generous sympathies of the Arabs, where every individual seems impelled to seek, as they express it, (e dire el khere fie nes) "to do good to men." The ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... them by an anathema from the neighborhood, because their songs interrupted his nocturnal meditations. But the memory of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, (once proprietor of Knole,) the best poet of his time, and 'the immediate father-in-verse of Spenser,' sufficiently redresses the stigma of so churlish a proscription, and the nightingales may well claim perpetual franchise under sanction of a name to which the ancient inscription ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... calm them down with Horace. He received all manner of new books and periodicals, and gradually gained an interest in the events of the passing time. Yet he remained almost a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his neighbors, nor even churlish towards them, but on the other hand not cultivating ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bones," laughed the host. "You were always a churlish, ungentle knave. There's the wine, an it's not better than your temper, beshrew me for the enemy of true hospitality. But to show I am none such, here's something to sup withal; prime head of calf. Bolt ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... diuorce betwixt my loue and me; For in the late conflict with Portingale My valour drew me into dangers mouth Till life to death made passage through my wounds. When I was slaine, my soule descended straight To passe the flowing streame of Archeron; But churlish Charon, only boatman there, Said that, my rites of buriall not performde, I might not sit amongst his passengers. Ere Sol had slept three nights in Thetis lap, And slakte his smoaking charriot in her floud, By Don Horatio, our knight-marshals ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... which there were awakenings only for train-changings or a word of talk now and then with Cummings. The deputy warden was a reticent man; somber almost to sadness, as befitted his calling; but he was neither morose nor churlish. Underneath the official crust he was a man like other men; was, I say, because he is ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... of the three kindled answering emotions in David's breast. It would be a churlish soul that was not warmed into some faint replica of such self-sacrifice, and most of us would be ashamed of ourselves if we were unmoved by such love. But does the supreme example of it affect us as much as the lesser examples of it do? How many of us stand before it like ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... walks seven years disconsolate, moping, because he cannot enjoy his miss, insanus amor is his melancholy, the man is mad; delirat, he dotes; all this while his Glycera is rude, spiteful, not to be entreated, churlish, spits at him, yet exceeding fair, gentle eyes (which is a beauty), hair lustrous and smiling, the trope is none of mine, AEneas Sylvius hath crines ridentes—in conclusion she is wedded to his rival, a boore, a Corydon, a rustic, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... certain rocks or low crags that a little way off rose like a reef out of the treeless plain; then said he: "Shipmate, underneath yonder rocks is our resting-place for to-night; and I pray thee not to deem me churlish that I give thee no better harbour. But I have a charge over thee to bring thee safe thus far on thy quest; and thou wouldst find it hard to live among such housemates as thou wouldst find up yonder amongst our folks to-night. But to-morrow shalt ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... golden fruit, he was fearful lest the slayer of the Medusa might destroy the dragon which guarded it, and then rob him of his treasures. He therefore refused to grant the hospitality which the hero demanded, whereupon Perseus, exasperated at the churlish repulse, produced from his wallet the head of the Medusa, and holding it towards the king, transformed him into a stony mountain. Beard and hair erected themselves into forests; shoulders, hands, and limbs became huge rocks, and the head grew up into a craggy ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the semblance of tacit acquiescence in Mendouca's lawless vocation; while, on the other, I undoubtedly owed my life to the man, and therefore shrank from the idea of behaving in a manner that might appear churlish. Moreover, it appeared to me that by rendering the trifling service demanded of me, I should find myself in a position to very greatly ameliorate in many ways the condition of the unhappy blacks down in the dark, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... principle, which contains within it, as in an embryo state, the rudiments of all true virtue; which, striking deep its roots, though feeble perhaps and lowly in its beginnings, silently progressive; and almost insensibly maturing, yet will shortly, even in the bleak and churlish temperature of this world, lift up its head and spread abroad its branches, bearing abundant fruits; precious fruits of refreshment and consolation, of which the boasted products of philosophy are but sickly imitations, void of fragrance and of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... much of moods and too little of matter to create any lasting attachment to his poetry. But the music of it rang in all ears, and the rush of its popularity could not be resisted by any but downright churlish persons. I remember how ladies, in morning calls, recited passages of Byron to each other,—and how gentlemen, in water-parties, whispered his short poems to their next neighbor. If a man was seen walking with his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... APEMAN'TUS, a churlish Athenian philosopher, who snarled at men systematically, but showed his cynicism to be mere affectation, when Timon attacked him with his own weapons.—Shakespeare, Timon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... undergo, be he professional or a strolling amateur, is the immediate demand for the picture. The mysteries of dark rooms and developing are not to be lightly explained, and the refusal to show the picture, for which the vain Montenegrins have so willingly stood, is accounted churlish. They are only appeased with a promise of a picture a few weeks later. Their names and addresses are hurriedly scribbled and handed with many peremptory requests for the picture to be sent as soon ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... he says, "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ." But who among us is ever heard thanking God for the piety of his brethren? On the contrary, how many of the prayers that are offered up in our social meetings resemble the errands of a churlish man, who never visits his neighbor's house without entering some complaint against his children! Yet, we are under greater obligations for the least exhibition of gracious fruits in the lives of his people, than for the daily ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... he turned away, hurt. This churlish attitude on the part of one returning to God's country on one of God's own mornings surprised and ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... very heart will break, Quoth she, to hear this churlish bird thus speak Of Love, and of his holy services; Now, God of Love! thou help me in some wise, That vengeance on this Cuckoo ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... And makes them frantic even to all extremes, To my content I never should behold, Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold. Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover Thy men, and rocky are thy ways all over. O men, O manners, now and ever known To be a rocky generation! A people currish, churlish as the seas, And rude almost as rudest savages, With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when Rocks turn to rivers, rivers ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... his grace, that he hath changed his style? No more but, plain and bluntly, 'To the King!' Hath he forgot he is his sovereign? Or doth this churlish superscription Pretend some alteration in good will? What's here? [Reads] 'I have, upon especial cause, Moved with compassion of my country's wreck, Together with the pitiful complaints Of such as your oppression feeds upon, Forsaken your ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... London on certain conditions, which I would inform him of. He then asserted that it was a friendly gift, and made use of this phrase in the newspapers after the second concert, without giving me the most remote hint on the subject. As Maelzel is a rude, churlish man, entirely devoid of education or cultivation, it is easy to conceive the tenor of his conduct to me during this time, which still further irritated me. Who could bear to be forced to bestow a friendly gift ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... reveal the very discovery he was eagerly seeking. Besides there could be no danger; both he and Sexton were armed, and apparently the invitation was innocently extended. To refuse to accept would be churlish. ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... isch (German), denotes a quality; like rakish, knavish, churlish, Danish. Ish is also ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... that, but for the interference of Don Gaspar, they would have perished from starvation and ill treatment. He was by no means a favorite guest at the governor's house; the ladies of the family detested him, not so much for his cruelty, for they heard but little of that, but for his morose and churlish disposition, and, perhaps more than either, on account of the general belief that his wife, a lovely woman, and much younger than himself, had fallen a victim ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... us back his sword And doth renounce our service. Now, by heaven! He thus hath rid us of a churlish man, Who insolently sought to lord it ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, Laertes; and its signification is once exquisitely alluded to in that brother's last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A ministering angel shall my sister be, when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with "homely" the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione ([Greek: erma]), "pillar-like," ([Greek: ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 14:30 Notwithstanding, when Maccabeus saw that Nicanor began to be churlish unto him, and that he entreated him more roughly than he was wont, perceiving that such sour behaviour came not of good, he gathered together not a few of his men, and withdrew himself ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... the actor, and the composer, challenged admiration and won it in large measure at the Manhattan performances. From the ordinary theatrical point of view it would not be easy to pick a quarrel with the drama. It would be almost churlish when there is so much to be grateful for, to pick flaws in M. Massenet's score. In the first place, compared with the vast volume of stuff poured forth by his younger colleagues of Italy, and even by some of his confrres ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... me very shortly that he did not know his grandson, that he did not wish to know him, and that they had nothing to do with one another in any way. It was a churlish letter. He seemed to think that I wanted to marry Mr. Hine," and she laughed as she spoke, "and that I was trying to find out what we should have to live upon. I suppose that it was natural he should think so. ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... life Borrow was hypnotised by independence. Like many other proud natures, he carried his theory of independence to such an extreme as to become a slave to it and render himself unsociable, sometimes churlish. It was this virtue carried to excess that drove Borrow from London. He must tell men what was in his mind, and his one patron, Sir Richard Phillips, he had mortally ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... be expressed; you should send to all the neighbouring Churches a pattern, and erect for after-ages a monument of self-denying tender zeale; you shall disburden the Land of the many outcasts, who will follow over their Ministers; and you shall make it appear, that the churlish bounty of the Prelats, which at first cast some of these men over to us, is not comparable with the cheerful liberalitie of a rightly constitute General Assembly, to whom we are perswaded, the Lord will give seed for the loane which you ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... to priestesses? I would swear that that is a pretence, and that this churlish Hittite, instead of going to a feast with women, is going to some meeting ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... the grouch get richer quicker than the friendly sort of man? Can the grumbler labor better than the cheerful fellow can? Is the mean and churlish neighbor any cleverer than the one Who shouts a glad "good morning," ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... the ball, if you had been dressed out in that damned coat, which would have made you look just like the village bridegroom to whom we sold it? and yet how you stormed at London when you thought it lost; what fine stories you told the king about the quicksand; and how churlish you looked, when you first began to suppose that this country booby ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... ho!"—his henchman came; "Give our safe-conduct to the Graeme." 810 Young Malcolm answered, calm and bold, "Fear nothing for thy favorite hold; The spot, an angel deigned to grace, Is blessed, though robbers haunt the place. Thy churlish courtesy for those 815 Reserve, who fear to be thy foes. As safe to me the mountain way At midnight as in blaze of day, Though with his boldest at his back Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.— 820 Brave ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... him was cooled by a sudden frost. He said as carelessly as possible: "You are a churlish fool; but it is likely you have seen Robert Sans-Peur in Nidaros. He was there shortly before ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... That churlish season never frown'd On early lovers yet: O no—the world was newly crown'd With flowers when ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them[T]." From such visitations, northern latitudes are generally exempt, and the constant struggle which man has had to maintain with the elements and a churlish soil, has so whetted his faculties as to render the return for his labour not only more ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... is a mortal maid who robs me of my honors in yonder city. Avenge your mother. Wound this precious Psyche, and let her fall in love with some churlish creature mean in the eyes of ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... uttered a peevish "Halloo!" which might have passed for a greeting, or might have been a slight protest at finding the door closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim had just risen before the fire, shook his wet clothes like a Newfoundland dog, and sat down. Yet he was by no means churlish nor coarse-looking, and this act was rather one of easy-going, selfish, youthful familiarity than of rudeness. The cabin of Uncles Billy and Jim was considered a public right or "common" of the camp. Conferences between individual miners were ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... November came in churlish humour and raged in storms of wind and rain, until before their time to let fall their leaves the woods were stripped of their gay colours. On the fourth day of November the Squire voted the Fremont electoral ticket, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... and then turned white with vexation at the words. "It is in truth great honor to the house of Loring," said she, "yet our roof is now humble and, as you have seen, our fare is plain. The King knows not that we are so poor. I fear lest we seem churlish and niggard in ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... favoured with the purchase of it, on equitable terms; and though that worthy gentleman, in the handsomest manner, for which Lord Nelson ever after highly respected him, paid all possible attention to the wish of his lordship; a churlish farmer, who was Mr. Axe's tenant, on lease, of the whole adjoining estate, where he had acquired a considerable fortune, opposed so many objections, and evinced so rude and unaccommodating a disposition, notwithstanding his lordship had condescendingly treated him ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... to see Joan depart was de Baudricourt, who then made amends for his rudeness and churlish behaviour on her first visit by presenting her with his own sword, and bidding her heartily god-speed. 'Advienne que ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... glimmers through the music of Max Reger. No sturdy bardic spirit vibrates in it. This Reger is a sarcastic, churlish fellow, bitter and pedantic and rude. He is a sort of musical Cyclops, a strong, ugly creature bulging with knotty and unshapely muscles, an ogre of composition. He has little delicacy, little finesse of ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... style and matter. You may argue that the blunt, rough man's demeanour is unfair to his tenderness. I do not think so. For his churlishness is really very trying and painful, even to the man's wife, though a moment's tenderness will make her and you forget it. The man really is churlish, and much more often than he is tender. His demeanour is merely just to his character. So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode against his style. You must ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... nothing dreadful about it," said Novodvoroff, overhearing the conversation. "The masses are always churlish ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... must be temperamental in order to be artists, and temperaments differ widely. Had I not known something of Jason Jones' history I might have felt, on making his acquaintance to-day, that he is not an ordinary man. For, gruff and churlish though he proved, it is undeniable that he has selected a charming and retired spot ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... five. It is now six. But you are always churlish and inconsiderate towards women. You haven't once wanted to be alone with me—or guessed that I desired it!" She spoke calmly, rather coldly, gazing obstinately into the fire, her cheeks cupped between her narrow palms. "You are ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... returned also, they journeyed to an Indian village, where a priest laboured. Him they besought; and when spring came they set forth to Lonely Valley again that the woman and the smothered dead—if it might chance so—should be put away into peaceful graves. But thither coming they only saw a grey and churlish river; and the poppet-head of the mine of St. Gabriel, and she who had knelt thereon, were vanished into solitudes, where only God's cohorts have the rights ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... praise of thee? For twenty years I have only seen thee in French, and in this English text thou comest to me like an old love, at once a surprise and a recollection. Dear little book, I would say nothing about thee if I could help it, but a publisher pleads, and "No" is a churlish word. So for him I will say that I like thy prattle; that while travelling in a railway carriage on my way to the country of "Esther Waters," I passed my station by, and had to hire a carriage and drive across ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... I have naught against her Majesty, who truly is most fair and gracious—quite other than Carlotta—whom I love not at all! And if I held some grudge against the King for seizing of my father's lands (which broke his heart before he died) one cannot long be churlish in presence of our Janus, who hath a matchless fashion of grace with him, so that all think to have won his favor. Verily, that is a King for Cyprus!—he mindeth one of Cinyras. I must tell thee the tale of our hero ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... in darkness,— Rights, which the heavy drapery of the scaffold Now hides beneath its black and ample folds; Rights which, if my intent deceive me not, My sword shall one day rescue. To be brief:— I have received from churlish Fortune nothing But air, light, water,—Nature's general boon. Choose, then, between us two, for you must choose;— Say, will you wed ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... and setting it on edge. I, therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for no wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you twist the sides of your hair into a curl or pull up your shirt-collar while you are waiting for the door to be opened; we never saw that knocker on the door of a churlish man—so far as our experience is concerned, it invariably bespoke hospitality and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... ostentatious friends; for he thought a good companion emphatically the greatest benefactor. I know there are people in the world who cannot feel grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish disposition. A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; do you think the service would be greater, if he had made the manuscript ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lovelier than yon star is he, And lighter thou than cork—ah why? More churlish, too, than Adria's sea, With thee I'd ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... believe me, my mind is made up. I have taken root here. Such work as I can do from my study is, as it always has been, at your service. But I myself have finished with actual political life. Don't press me too hard. I must seem churlish and ungrateful, but if I listened to you for hours the result would be the same. I have finished ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... whether to feel grateful for the churlish advice or to resume his wonted attitude of self-reliance and hold himself unprejudiced by Presby's condemnation of the Croix d'Or. He wondered if Bully Presby suspected him of having been friendly with the mob of drunken ruffians at the road house, but ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... occurred of strengthening their own colony with an accession of Puritans, and at the same time of weakening Virginia. The sturdy and prosperous Puritan colony on the Nansemond River were driven by the churlish behavior of Governor Berkeley to seek a more congenial residence, and were induced to settle on the Severn at a place which they called Providence, but which was destined, under the name of Annapolis, to become the capital ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey, 165 Where rougher climes a nobler race display; Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil[23] for scanty bread. No product here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword:[24] 170 No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May: No Zephyr fondly sues the ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... and swelling impetuosity of the moral declamations in Juvenal, while the former have all the keenness and caustic severity of the old Stoic philosophers. The soul of Diogenes appears to have been seated on the lips of Apemantus. The churlish profession of misanthropy in the cynic is contrasted with the profound feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldierlike and determined resentment of Alcibiades against his countrymen, who have banished him, though this forms only an incidental ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... "You're one and all determined to see me go down. You've watched me drop two hundred, and not one of you's going to give me a hand to help me pick it up. It may be high-minded, but it's hardly cordial. Some people might call it churlish.... Upon my soul, you are a cold-blooded crowd. Have you ever known a deal I wouldn't come in on? And now, because you are virtuous, I'm to lose my fun.... Ugh! Hymn Number Four Hundred and Seventy-Seven, 'The Cakes and Ale ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... That at least is the opinion of the sagacious Pepys on the later of these incidents. 'Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at anything that looks strange.' Defoe says that the English are 'the most churlish people alive' to foreigners, with the result that 'all men think an Englishman the devil.' In the 17th and 18th centuries Scotland seems to have ranked as a foreign country, and the presence of Scots in London was much resented. Cleveland thought ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,[38] A ministering angel shall my sister be, When ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... was friendly and receptive, as though he listened to brilliant suggestions. He had a nice courtesy, and Miss Hinsdale felt continually that she was cleverer than usual this evening, and no one took his silence to be churlish, though they all innocently wondered why he did not talk more; however, it was probable that a man who had been so interestingly and terribly shot would be rather silent for ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... a man sometimes met with in society, whose business, when he talks, seems to be the administration of rebuke, in a spirit and with a tone of voice churlish and sarcastic, by which he would stop the increase of knowledge, check the development of mind, and arrest the growth of heroic souls. He is far from amiable in his disposition, or happy in his temper. He is a knotty piece of humanity, which rubs ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... drunk a drop. You may be sure so strange a sight, Put the old people in a fright: Philemon whisper'd to his wife, "These men are—Saints—I'll lay my life!" The strangers overheard, and said, "You're in the right—but be'nt afraid: No hurt shall come to you or yours: But for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, They and their village shall be drown'd; Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, And grow a church before your eyes." Scarce had they spoke, when fair and soft, The roof began to mount aloft; Aloft rose ev'ry beam and rafter; The heavy wall went ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional claim to be the objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, trees contort themselves has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
