"Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accident to his little son had angered Pargeter, and made him feel ill-used, but that it should have been followed by this mystery concerning his wife's whereabouts seemed to add insult to injury. So it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anxious man who joined Vanderlyn on the worn steps of the huge frowning building wherein is housed that which remains the most permanent and the most ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... approach. But I was told that ill health had made him unsociable and somewhat morose and testy, and, indeed, there was often the trace of suffering and weariness in his face. It was also remarked in the Senate that at times he was ill-tempered and inclined to indulge in biting sarcasms and to administer unkind lectures to other senators, which in some instances disturbed his personal intercourse with his colleagues. But there was not one of them who did not hold him in the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and I regard five as tea-time. But as you wish, dear Virginia." Aunt William pulled the bell with manly vigour and ill-tempered hospitality. ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... 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 one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... attendant will show Sully's private cabinet and antechamber, with the rich decorations as they were left by his successor, including a ceiling painted by Vouet. Many an intimate outpouring of the Victor of Ivry's domestic woes did Sully endure here—complaints of his ill-tempered Marie's scoldings, the contrast between his lawful wife's sour greetings and the endearing graces and merry, roguish charms of his mistresses; their quarrels and exactions. All of which the great ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... truer than the truest friend, He must be tenderer than a woman's love, A father better than the best of sires; Kinder than she who bore us, though we sin Oftener than did the brother we are told We—poor ill-tempered mortals—must forgive, Though seven times ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... haughtiness of our cabin companion is something of a relief in this terrible heat. For it is hot. I am writing in the cabin, and in spite of the fact that there are two electric fans buzzing on either side of me, I am hotter than I can say, and deplorably ill-tempered. Four times this morning, trying to keep out of Mrs. Albert Murray's way, I have fallen over that wretched hat-box, still here despite our hints about the baggage-room, and now in revenge I am sitting on it, though what the owner would say, if she came in suddenly ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... good man, of a cheerful, happy disposition, always making the best of everything, and when accidents did happen, always more inclined to laugh than to look grave. His name was Osborn. The first mate, whose name was Mackintosh, was a Scotsman, rough and ill-tempered, but paying strict attention to his duty—a man that Captain Osborn could trust, but whom he ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... scold, Xantippe; porcupine; spitfire; fire eater &c (blusterer) 887; fury &c (violent person) 173. V. be irascible &c adj.; have a temper &c n., have a devil in one; fire up &c (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; bad-tempered, ill-tempered; irritable, susceptible; excitable &c 825; thin-skinned &c (sensitive) 822; fretful, fidgety; on the fret. hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, techy^, tetchy; like touchwood, like tinder; huffy, pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and the splashing of countless cataracts where overloaded gutters spilled their surplus on mosaic pavement fifty or a hundred feet below. No light showed, saving at the guard-house by the main gate, where a group of sentries shrugged themselves against the wall—ill-tempered, shivering, alert. However mutinous a Roman army, or a legion, or a guard might be, its individuals were loyal to the ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... being could object to," declares Monica, with such an amount of vigor as startles Kit. "But of all the ill-tempered, bearish, detestable men I ever met in my ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... taken with her, and in foreign hotels was even more shown about, flattered and snubbed, petted and neglected, than she had been when at home in London. Everything that could be done was done to make her vain, wilful, ill-tempered; and the little creature came to know that she might have anything she pleased if only she could make ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... and to talk about, whenever she had anybody to listen! When she was in good humour, 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, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... who is, according to popular prejudice, a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, or conceited, or trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... same as if the causes were strictly moral ones. For instance, if you know that by sitting up at night an hour or two later than usual, or by not taking regular exercise, or by eating of indigestible food, you will put it out of your power to avoid being ill-tempered and disagreeable on the following day, the failure is surely a moral one. That the immediate causes of your ill-humour may be physical ones, does not at all affect the matter, seeing that such causes are, in this case, completely under your own control. From ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... 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 often ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... some lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole house is miserable; or mother, for some reason unexplained to the children of the family, for days together allows ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... though otherwise on bad terms with her, married for his second wife a coarse German princess, homely in every sense, and a singular contrast to the elegant creature whom he had lost. She was a daughter of the Bavarian Elector; ill-tempered by her own confession, self- willed, and a plain speaker to excess; but otherwise a woman of honest German principles. Unhappy she was through a long life; unhappy through the monotony as well as the malicious intrigues of the French court; and so much so, that she did her best (though without ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... love as that. There was no longer any uncertainty; there was none of the keenness of pursuit dear to the old hunting instinct inherent in man; there was not even the charm of variety in her moods. She was always the same to him; always she pouted a little at first, and looked ill-tempered, and reproached him; and always she came round again at his very first kind word, and poured out her heart in a torrent of worship at his feet. Maurice knew it all by heart, the sulks and the cross words, and then the passionate denials, and the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... of transforming into an open and declared enemy, owing to the influence the Marechal exerted over others. Tormented with agitating thoughts, every day that delayed his nomination seemed to him a year. Dubois became doubly ill-tempered and capricious, more and more inaccessible, and accordingly the most pressing and most important business was utterly neglected. At last he resolved to make a last effort at reconciliation with the Marechal, but mistrusting ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... life's energy seems to have been expended in trying, often with success, to frustrate every single practical reform which she suggested. To the objection that Mr. Strachey has depicted the heroine as "an ill-tempered, importunate spinster, who drove a statesman to his death," he might conceivably reply that if history, grown calm with the passage of years, does so reveal her, it is rather absurd to go on idealising her. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... as the boys laughed at this story—a true one—"we cannot accuse any of our men here of being ill-tempered. They are using this haul as they have for maybe a hundred years or so. This is the Hudson's Bay Company's idea of getting its goods north. With the use of a few hundred dollars and the labor of a few men they could improve all these portages through here so that they ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... Prince came. So she went away, and when she had walked a short distance she came to a little hut which stood all alone in a small wood, hard by the King's palace. She entered it and asked if she might be allowed to stay there. The hut belonged to an old crone, who was also an ill-tempered and malicious troll. At first she would not let the Master-maid remain with her; but at last, after a long time, by means of good words and good payment, she obtained leave. But the hut was as dirty and black ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... saying, "Well, here I am; what do you want me to do?" A beating is the last thing that they would think of. I am not now speaking of Bronti and Fiddy in particular, but all the dogs that ever I had. The reason is, that the dog is the very fondest creature that breathes; and any but a really ill-tempered dog may be managed by means of this fondness; while, as I before remarked, a really bad-tempered one should not be kept to be punished, ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... more may unreservedly be said for the Indians while they were under the control of the fathers. That there were occasionally individual cases of harsh treatment is possible. The most loving and indulgent parents are now and again ill-tempered, fretful, or nervous. The fathers were men subject to all the limitations of other men. Granting these limitations and making due allowance for human imperfection, the rule of the fathers must still be admired for its wisdom and commended ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... a right way of talking, Lady Caergwent," gravely said Mrs. Lacy; and Kate gave herself an ill-tempered wriggle, and ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the process was such, that he forgot even the hunger that was rendering him faint. He had often seen cows in the city, but had never suspected what they were capable of. When the girl caught sight of him, staring with open mouth, she was taken with such a fit of laughter, that the cow, which was ill-tempered, kicked out, and overturned the pail. Now because of her troublesomeness this cow was not milked beside the rest, and the shed where she stood was used for farm-implements only. The floor of it was the earth, beaten hard, and worn into hollows. When the milk settled in one ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... which shake the world, and others the tiny tubes which make a feeble cry, almost unheard. No one of us must sound his note save in that proper place and at that proper time which Duty indicates. We mar a perfect harmony by ill-tempered silence, and perhaps ruin the labors of our associates by a continuous sounding of our own ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... 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 servants knew to ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... be a work of supererogation to describe it here. But strange mutation of disposition!—Mr. Pelby could bear these fits of perverseness with a philosophy that would have astonished even himself, could he have for a moment realized his former state of mind. When Henry became ill-tempered from any cause, he had, from loving him, learned that to get into an ill-humour also would be only adding fuel to flame; and so, on such occasions, he sought affectionately to calm and soothe his ruffled ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... non-juror, consecrated in 1693 suffragan bishop of Thetford by three of the deprived non-juror bishops. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xvii. 450. Burnet (Hist. of his own Time, iv. 303) describes him as 'an ill-tempered man, who was now [1712] at the head of the Jacobite party, and who had in several books promoted a notion, that there was a proper sacrifice made in the Eucharist.' Boswell mentions ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... I believe," answered Martha. "People hereabouts wonder at their keeping the ill-tempered, arbitrary hussy. They say she rules the whole house ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... It was in this garden that Schiller placed the little drama he describes in Der Handschuh. Schiller gives the Spanish version of the story, where the gallant smacks the lady's face with the glove he had retrieved for her from among the lions, and then struts away for evermore. Romantic, but ill-tempered, whereas the local version here is that the gallant married the lady—perhaps she became insistent; anyway, a useful ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... attached members of our household, my wants had been all anticipated, and every pleasure suited to my age had been planned for me so ingeniously, that I had never had the chance of showing myself selfish or ill-tempered. She feared that when for the first time I found myself not first considered in all arrangements, I might fail in those particular points of conduct in which she was most ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... considerations, there are reasons why persons of the same disposition should not be united and wedlock. An amiable wife to a choleric man is like oil to troubled waters; an ill-tempered one will make his life a misery and his home a hell. The man of studious habits should marry a woman of sense and spirit rather than of erudition, or the union will increase the monotony of his existence, which it would be well ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Now the ill-tempered elder sister was very jealous of this good luck, and determined to get a bag of gold for herself. So she in her turn packed up a bundle and started to seek service by the same road. But when she came to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... 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 ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... was accepted; and James soon occupied the seat recently vacated by poor John. So well did he avail himself of the circumstances, that he succeeded in convincing Nelly that his brother was a very ill-tempered person, whom it would be well for her to avoid. On this, with the true instinct of a flirt, she endeavored to persuade him that she had never really cared for John's attentions. James was but too willing to be convinced of this; and he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... slightly out of countenance with the butt and trigger-guard of my pistol. Again I must apologise, dear Baron, for so unceremonious and ill-tempered an approach to your hospitality. You will confess it is a sort of country the foibles of whose people one has to grow accustomed to, and Bethune gave me no guidance for such an emergency as banditti on the fringe ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... with a right to a seat in the chapel. And as he looked he saw some faces he thought he should like, and some that he thought he would dislike; there were merry, bright-eyed boys, like himself, and there were ill-tempered, sullen-looking boys; there were boys haggard with hard-reading, and boys who looked as if their heads were ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... dear," said Caroline, with flushed cheeks. "I'm often hasty and ill-tempered, and make Herbert worse than he might be if I ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... some whiffling husky cachinnations as if they were laughing through wool. Of none such comes good." A young lady must not speak too loud or be too boisterous; she must even tone down her wit, lest she be misunderstood. But she need not be dull, or grumpy, or ill-tempered, or careless of her manners, particularly to her mother's old friends. She must not talk slang, or be in any way masculine; if she is, she loses the battle. A young lady is sometimes called upon to be a hostess if her mother is dead. Here her liberty becomes greater, but she should always ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Your ill-tempered child destroys everything he touches. Do not vex yourself; put anything he can spoil out of his reach. He breaks the things he is using; do not be in a hurry to give him more; let him feel the want of them. He breaks the windows of his room; let the wind blow upon ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... darkness of an early March morning, and all round me the invisible drip of the trees was as persistent as ever. Very slowly and shakily I scrambled to my feet. My head ached savagely, I was chilled to the core, and every part of my body felt as if it had been trampled on by a powerful and rather ill-tempered mule. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... my position of dependence upon Aunt Eliza too unspeakably galling. What a monstrous injustice it seems that I—who if I had been born a boy, must have been Earl of Gaverick, should be at the mercy of an ill-tempered, miserly, old woman who may leave the home of my forefathers to a crossing-sweeper if she pleases. I suppose it ought to go to Chris, but one doesn't feel called upon to arraign Fate on behalf of a distant cousin who by rights has no business to ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... 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 ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... suitable prey, or it establishes itself upon the branches of a tree which overhangs the water or the track of game. Being eminently aquatic this snake is viviparous. It is the only large boa which is decidedly ill-tempered. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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, as Caper was walking out of the inn-door, he nearly tumbled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Tired, ill-tempered, and covered with muck as we all were, there was a tendency among us to resent this late arrival of Master Dandy Jack's; and this feeling, you may be sure, was not lessened by a contemplation of the extravagant cleanliness and daintiness of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... labor, to arrive at that quiet enjoyment which they own without struggle, and which our anxious strife unfits us to enjoy when the means for it are obtained. The general, popular idea, that an Italian is quarrelsome, and ill-tempered, and that the best are only bandits in disguise, is quite a mistake; and when studied as they exist out of the track of travel, where they are often debased and denaturalized, they will be found to be simple, kind-hearted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... know Mr. Lear,' Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... him ill-tempered, must not play at all. He certainly cannot win, since loss of temper involves loss of judgment. A game like Poker, which it must be confessed is not calculated to rouse the finer feelings of humanity, is only tolerable when played under ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... a ropemaker, was b. at Saffron Walden, ed. at Camb., and became the friend of Spenser, being the Hobbinol of The Shepheard's Calendar. He wrote various satirical pieces, sonnets, and pamphlets. Vain and ill-tempered, he was a remorseless critic of others, and was involved in perpetual controversy, specially with Greene and Nash, the latter of whom was able to silence him. He wrote treatises on rhetoric, claimed to have introduced hexameters into English, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... him in a temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody—from the mayor to the poorest mill hand—loved and respected. How often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the class-room, only to have that droll face of his father's and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity and indignation into laughter and consequent ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... wants to work and prosper. And the hard fact is, that Adam's sons are not yet cherubs, nor their homestead, among the stars, just yet an outlying field of paradise. It is a planet whose private affairs are badly muddled. Its tenants for life are a quarrelsome, ill-tempered, unruly set of creatures altogether. As things go, they will break each others' heads sometimes. It is very unreasonable. I can see that. But men are not always reasonable. It is not for their own interest. I can see that too. But how often does interest, the best and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... cannot bear the thought of his daughter marrying, on account of the dowry he would be expected to give with her, and he will not even allow her to see any visitors, lest her beauty should become known, and he tells all who ask for her that she is very ugly and ill-tempered, so no one will marry her on that account; but if you love Khadijah, my mistress, go to the Sheikh and say that you will take her without any dowry, and then he will, perhaps, be tempted to give ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... were not many people in Fentown Falls, and when much money was made by the lumber trade, Bartholomew Toyner's father grew rich. He was a Scotchman, not without some education, and was ambitious for his son; but he was a hard, ill-tempered man, and consequently neither his example nor his precepts carried any weight whatever with the son when he was grown. The mother, who had begun life cheerfully and sensibly, showed the weakness of her character in that she ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... 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
... group Alpha is, or how the group Beta; again let him salute the group Rho; the name of the letters following its own proper sign. And upon the simpler and more guileless place the name Iota; and upon those who are more ill-tempered and less righteous the letter Xi. And thus in harmony with the principles and the life and manners of them arrange the names of the letters, only the spiritual understanding ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... The bus-drivers used to be past masters at it, poking their quiet fun impartially at their fellow-drivers and ordinary citizens. Whether it is that the drivers of motor-buses realise that no joke could be heard above the din, or whether it is that they feel as ill-tempered as they look, their arrival has made fatal inroads on the geniality of London. An artist with uncut hair can still awaken a spark of the old wit if he goes down a back street, and women and children will revive for his benefit the ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... Franciscans and Theatins did not attend the conference, nor did they send their opinions—excusing themselves by letter, with various pretexts, which did not taste like honey to him. The archbishop wrote to the guardian of St. Francis an ill-tempered letter, threatening him with vengeance; but the guardian was not asleep, nor did he forget the rule of "interrogation and reply," etc. At the said conference were present the Troyan, the Augustinian and Recollect provincials, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... and better nature of Iris recovered its influence at these words. "It is I who ought to beg pardon," she said. "Oh, I wish I could think before I speak: how insolent and ill-tempered I have been! But suppose I turn out to be right, Hugh, what ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to remain: but he had other thoughts—and simply said, in an ill-tempered tone of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to the wrong man—she was trying to escape her mother, or 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. Right, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... without any outward complaint, but with many an inward groan, the penance which she had imposed upon herself: the extent of it can be comprehended only by those who have been doomed to live with a thoroughly ill-tempered woman. The reward was surely proportioned to the sufferings. Miss Turnbull received a smile, or a nod, or something like a curtsy from Lady Pierrepoint, whenever she met her in public; her ladyship's cards were ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy, and ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, some of the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and the whole FEEL of the place miserable and unhappy. The Kingdom of God is not thee, for ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... Heron!" she cried, jumping up with a dainty movement of coquetry and embarrassment. "Why did not Aunt Marie announce you?... It is indeed remiss of her, but she is so ill-tempered on baking days I dare not even rebuke her. Won't you sit down, citizen Heron? And you, cousin," she added, looking down airily on Armand, "I pray you maintain no longer ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... and what is not, anything to make me question my senses.... We tumbled quite suddenly on to 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 doctor, some one ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the same complaints about us. They put us down as contentious, ill-tempered faultfinders. But these are the crafty passes of the devil, with which he seeks to overthrow our faith. We answer with Paul: "A little leaven leaveneth the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... ever been ruled by a woman, and the Empress Maude, as she still called herself, was a proud, disagreeable, ill-tempered woman, whom nobody liked. So her cousin, Stephen de Blois—whose mother, Adela, had been daughter of William the Conqueror —thought to obtain the crown of England by promising to give everyone what they wished. ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as I trudged on, my mind was exercised on the question as to whether this part of the world was peopled only by ill-tempered bullies, surly wretches, or bovine fools. So came I to a place where the ways divided and I was deliberating which to follow when I heard a shrill whistling and glancing about, beheld a large woman who ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... than the wife of a struggling man who has all the refined tastes and sensitive nerves of a gentleman, without a gentleman's income. I should see him growing more and more careless, more and more haggard, day after day; I should see myself growing old, ugly, ill-tempered, and sick, hour after hour. I have not the moral force of mind, or the physical force of body, to make a cold, half-furnished house seem a haven of rest, a piece of corned-beef and potatoes continued indefinitely through the week seem a delicious repast, or an old-fashioned ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... were true," returned Hatty sorrowfully, and then her ill-humor vanished. "No, don't pet me, Bessie; I don't deserve it," as Bessie stroked her hand in a petting sort of a way. "I have been cross and ill-tempered all the week, just unbearable, as Christine said; but oh, Bessie, it seemed as though I could not help it. I was so miserable every night to think you were going away, that I could not sleep for ever so long, and then my head ached, and I felt as though I were strung on wires when I came down ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... be absurd to say of Mr. Quinn that he was an ill-tempered man, but it would also be absurd to say that he was of a mild disposition. William Henry Matier, a talker by profession and a gardener in his leisure moments, summarised Mr. Quinn's character thus: "He'd ate the head off you, thon lad would, an' beg your ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "an ill-tempered girl can make matters very unpleasant; but such people pay very highly, as I pointed out only yesterday to one of our most promising Brothers. 'She is rather a common girl,' I said, 'but you know you were very unlucky at Newmarket lately; ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... for luncheon or dinner, and then, as she listened, some thought would occur to her, and, although she did not dream, her definite tracking of her idea would lead her to forget all time. Soon there would be Martha's knock on the door and her surly ill-tempered voice: ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... never idle. He had no associates; indeed from his earliest days he had kept aloof from boys of his own age. It was not that he was morose, or proud or ill-tempered, but he appeared to have no sympathy with them, and thus, though possessed of many qualities which would have won him friends, he had not a single friend of his own rank or age in the neighbourhood. Whenever he was not out fishing, he was engaged ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... harmlessly for the most part, with the inexperience and idiosyncrasies of various newcomers. After tiring themselves with the freaks of a mad Irish boy who had entered into the spirit of his own cross-examination with a high sense of buffoonery which refused to grow ill-tempered, they were now playing on the extreme gullibility of a heavy, open-mouthed, bullet-headed fellow, named Plumber, from whom the most astounding information could extract no greater evidence of sensation than a little wider stare of the eyes, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... her sweet 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 an aggressor, threw off restraint and plunged into the traffic that soon made him infamously ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 none of these difficult to manage. Nothing, for instance, was ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... and in consequence of several of the remarkable spoors of these animals having been seen the evening before, had taken four mounted Hottentots in my suite, all excepting Piet had, as usual, slipped off unperceived in pursuit of a troop of koodoos. Our stealthy approach was soon opposed by an ill-tempered rhinoceros, which, with her ugly old-fashioned calf, stood directly in the path, and the twinkling of her bright little eyes, accompanied by a restless rolling of the body, giving earnest of her mischievous intentions, I directed Piet to salute her with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... article of his creed is that children should have a reverence for their parents which would be exaggerated in the slave of an Eastern despot. We can pardon Clarissa for refusing to die happy until her stupid and ill-tempered old father has revoked a curse which he bestowed upon her. But we cannot quite excuse Sir Charles Grandison for writing in this fashion to his disreputable old parent, who has asked his consent to a certain family arrangement ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... 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, and when it pleased my father one ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... great surprise I had become singularly attached to Francesca. 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 let me kiss her, the very indifference of her caresses. A secret bond, that mysterious bond of physical love, which does not satisfy, bound me to her. I told Paul ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... which met her entrance with an ill-tempered jangle. From somewhere in the black depths of the shop the dealer came forward. He had a clammy white face, with a sparse black beard, and wore a skull cap and spectacles. Mrs. Wilton spoke to ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... answered, passing his arm round her waist in a momentary embrace of reassurance. "It is I that am ill-tempered. I couldn't help thinking from the way this Burr pursues you that there must have been something in the story about your having been engaged, ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... a lady of uncertain temper, and she was on this occasion so ill-tempered, and put herself to so much anxiety and agitation, aided and abetted by her shrewish hand-maiden, Miggs, that next morning she was, she said, too much indisposed to rise. The disconsolate locksmith had, therefore, to deliver himself of his story of the night's experiences to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... great deal of crying, and punishments, very hard things to learn, and no fun any more. If that's what it really is going to be, I shall get so unhappy that I shall soon run away home again! And then you think I shall have to grow cross and ill-tempered, too—that is the ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... will not listen to that warning voice of God. They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by their sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched. Oh, how many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by ungodliness, and the ill-temper ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... dogged,—to shows signs of very bad nature. Knowing this was most unprofitable to him I yielded indulgence. To be good-natured in cases of Emergency is a most valuable trait; and to whip a man for being ill-tempered, when nothing can be made ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... all I would say. I 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 too, as if I was a regularly naughty child who didn't want to be ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... sleep under the same roof again;" to which John replied, with much, "Whare the deil can your honour be ganging?"] On the other hand, when spoiled by the indulgence or indolence of their superiors, they were very apt to become ill-tempered, self-sufficient, and tyrannical; so much so, that a mistress or master would sometimes almost have wished to exchange their crossgrained fidelity for the smooth and accommodating duplicity of ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... an ill-tempered king; and, in any matter of less moment, he would have let the queen have her own way, with all his heart. This, however, was ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... tender pressure of the honey-moon. But women wear out, like other things, with time; and one fine morning Mr. Waldron woke up with a doubt in his mind whether he had not acted like a fool. He was an ill-tempered man; he was discontented with himself; and of course he made his wife feel it. Having begun by quarreling with her, he got on to suspecting her, and became savagely jealous of every male creature who entered the house. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... and the "coronet" of which Arline had been so proud; and mingled with it was an undercurrent of shuffling feet, a mere whisper of sound, cut sharply now and then by the sharp commands of the floor manager. They were dancing—in her honor. And she was a fool; a proud, ill-tempered, ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... as rich as Leonora longed for him to be. She was glad Dumont seemed to be putting him in the way of making a fortune. He was distasteful to her, because she saw that he was an ill-tempered sycophant under a pretense of manliness thick enough to shield him from the unobservant eyes of a world of men and women greedy of flattery and busy each with himself or herself. But for Leonora's sake she ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... had a long consultation as to the best method of proceeding to obtain employment, for O'Brien was anxious to be again afloat, and so was I. I regretted parting with my sister, but my father was so morose and ill-tempered, that I had no pleasure at home, except in her company. Indeed, my sister was of opinion, that it would be better if I were away, as my father's misanthropy, now unchecked by my mother, appeared ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... should,—should you not know another woman from Laura, if you got into bed with two women in the dark?" said she to Fred. "I am not sure for the moment if with a woman just her size, and as much hair on her cunt," said he. "I tell you what Fred, I won't have it," said Laura ill-tempered, "talk about some one else, I won't have beastly talk about me." "I'll bet," said I, "that if the ladies were to feel our pricks in the dark, they would not tell whose they each had hold of." Roars of laughter followed. "I should like to try," said Mabel. "So would I," said another. "Would ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... of mankind has led to the opinion, that there are few more disagreeable beings in creation than ill-nurtured bears,—bears that have been ill-licked,—those great, fierce, sullen, cross-grained and ill-tempered beasts, that are, unhappily, to be found in every part of this various world; but when all these unhandsome qualities are found in one individual of the species, and that one happens to have a sore head into the bargain, it is easy to believe the at home which he honours or ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... ashamed of the survival of our old beliefs and try to hide them, but let nobody say that as a people we believe no longer in charms, and the evil eye, and good spirits and bad. I know we do. It would be easy to give you a hundred illustrations. I remember an ill-tempered old body living on the Curragh, who was supposed to possess the evil eye. If a cow died at calving, she had witched it. If a baby cried suddenly in its sleep, the old witch must have been going by on the road. If the potatoes were blighted, she had looked ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... was about two years old—a girl; its eyes were nearly closed with inflammation caused by dirt and neglect; it was naked, with the exception of a filthy rag that hung in tatters scarcely below its hips; and as its ill-tempered and over-worked mother alternately raved, or cried, the child, which even at this age depended mainly upon her nursing for its food, joined in a perpetual yell, which at length terminated in a faint and wearied moan, until it laid itself down upon the bare, hard stones, and fell asleep. It ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... 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 that he had not only got ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... 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
... as are made by any town in France. The tradition of its founding lies hidden in the mists of heroic legend, and is the more momentous because it is so impressively vague. Over its very name the etymologists wrangle with such violence that one is lost in amazement at their ill-tempered erudition; and over its structure the archaeologists—though a bit more civil to each other—are almost as violently at cross-purposes. The best esteemed of those antiquary gentry—at least the one whom I esteem the most, because I like the fine boldness of his claim—is the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... 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
... Lazarus,"—quietly said the Roman, playing with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his hands. But thou art stout, and, as the great Caesar used to say, fat people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is late, and I ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Lady Rowley was greatly grieved and thoroughly dismayed. It was not only that Mr. Glascock was the eldest son of a peer, but that he was represented by the poor suffering wife of the ill-tempered man to be a man blessed with a disposition sweet as an angel's. "And she would have liked him," Emily had said, "if it had not been for this unfortunate young man." Lady Rowley was not worse than are other mothers, not more ambitious, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the Sunday excursionists began to return from all over the South-Western "lung"—Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth—at unnaturally early hours; but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... of the farm, which had been bought by both, was assumed by the surviving brother. This man had a selfish, ill-tempered wife, and a family of great boys. Minnevich himself was naturally a good, honest man; but Frau Minnevich wanted the entire property for her own children, hated Carl because he was in the way, and treated ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... "Light and knowledge, in what manner soever afforded us, is equally from God."—Butler's Analogy, p. 264. "For instance, sickness and untimely death is the consequence of intemperance."—Ib., p. 78. "When grief, and blood ill-tempered vexeth him."—Beauties of Shakspeare, p. 256. "Does continuity and connexion create sympathy and relation in the parts of the body?"—Collier's Antoninus, p. 111. "His greatest concern, and highest enjoyment, was to be approved in the sight of his Creator."—Murray's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... about with him under his cloak. During the seven years' war, he was pursued by a party of Austrian dragoons, and compelled to take shelter, with his favourite, under the dry arch of a bridge. Had the little animal, that was naturally ill-tempered and noisy, once barked, the monarch would have been taken prisoner, and the fate of the campaign and of Prussia decided; but it lay perfectly still, and clung close to its master, as if conscious of their ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... been able to gather from the butler, who had immediately repaired to Daphne's room for instructions, and was labouring under great excitement, my sister's orders had been but grudgingly obeyed. Mrs. Chapel had been ill-tempered and obstructive, and had made no attempt to disguise her suspicion of the chef. The latter had consequently determined to be as nasty as the circumstances allowed, had eyed her preparations for dinner with a marked contempt, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... another pile of plump ripe acorns, and three little piles of dainty looking brown seeds. But the thing that Happy Jack couldn't keep his eyes off was right in the middle. It was a huge pile of big, fat hickory nuts. Now who could remain ill-tempered and cross with such a lot of goodies spread before him? Certainly not Happy Jack or his cousin, Chatterer the Red Squirrel. They just had to smile in spite of themselves, and when Striped Chipmunk urged them to sit down and help themselves, ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... 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 ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... proportions, hedged in by high palisades, through the interstices of which many a black muzzle now protruded, sniffing like ill-tempered women, or uttering shrill whines of despair. As Yorke, with his hands buried in his pockets, for they were cold, though his head was too well provided with clustering hair to be conscious of the absence of a hat, was contemplating this spectacle with cynical amusement, up strode the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... be vulgar, some might be ill-tempered, some might be ugly; others might be burdened with disagreeable connexions. I can understand that you should object to a daughter-in-law under any of these circumstances. But none of these things can be said of Miss Robarts. I ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... within the past ten minutes the spaniel had tried to bite Kerry, nor was Kerry blind to the amusement which his burden had occasioned among the men of K Division whom he had met on his travels. Finally, as he came out into the riverside lane, the ill-tempered little animal essayed a fourth, and successful, attempt, burying his wicked white teeth ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... so cross and fierce that I should be afraid of him: he was dreadfully ill-tempered when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... It 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 that anger can be differentiated ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... 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 pride and gladness of his heart —sometimes tearing up the earth ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... coachman, opening the door; "no offence, I hope—but you have the most ill-tempered rascal of a dog! Since you put him into my coach, he has never ceased howling like a roasted cat, and looks as if he would eat us all up alive!" In fact, My Lord, who detested solitude, was yelling ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... her room, surrounded by her little court. It consisted of five creatures almost equally near to her heart; a big-cropped, learned bullfinch, which she had taken a fancy to because he had lost his accomplishments of whistling and drawing water; a very timid and peaceable little dog, Roska; an ill-tempered cat, Matross; a dark-faced, agile little girl nine years old, with big eyes and a sharp nose, call Shurotchka; and an elderly woman of fifty-five, in a white cap and a cinnamon-coloured abbreviated jacket, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... born for solitude: In all the freedom of youth and gaiety, She scrupled not to treat as ridiculous many ceremonies which the Nuns regarded with awe; and She was never more happy than when her lively imagination inspired her with some scheme to plague the stiff Lady Abbess, or the ugly ill-tempered old Porteress. She looked with disgust upon the prospect before her: However no alternative was offered to her, and She submitted to the decree of her Parents, though not ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... the old trader, came to me after a sitting of the precious Legislative Council. We were very friendly, and I had done all I could to get the Government to listen to his views. He was a dour, ill-tempered Scotsman, very anxious for the safety of his property, but perfectly careless ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... that day, and perhaps that was the reason that Speug grew sulky and ill-tempered, taking offence if anyone looked at him, and picking quarrels in the corridors, and finally disappearing during the dinner-hour. It was supposed that he had broken bounds and gone to Woody Island, that forbidden Paradise of the Seminary, and that while the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... on 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 ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... will I tell: God let his soul never come into hell. And yet was he to me the moste shrew;* *cruel, ill-tempered That feel I on my ribbes all *by rew,* *in a row And ever shall, until mine ending day. But in our bed he was so fresh and gay, And therewithal so well he could me glose,* *flatter When that he woulde have my belle chose, Though he had beaten me on every bone, Yet could he win again my ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... had 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 |
