"Surliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woolen shirt was somewhat incongruous, and, for some inexplicable reason, the same face and figure which did not look inconsistent in rags and extreme poverty now at once suggested a higher social rank both of intellect and refinement than his workman's dress indicated. This, added to his surliness of manner and expression, strengthened a growing suspicion in the mind of the party that he was a fugitive from justice—a forger, a derelict banker, or possibly a murderer. It is only fair to say that the moral sense of the spectators was ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... captive—with the same wondering surliness. Nor could he understand another thing which was evident. After the first shock of resistance the major had exhibited none of the indignation of a betrayed man, but actually seemed to accept the situation with a calmness that his captor lacked. His voice was quite ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the best defense against such a cataract. The rain could not enter bodily, but it beat through the canvas in a fine drizzle, that wetted us just as effectively. We sat upon our saddles with faces of the utmost surliness, while the water dropped from the vizors of our caps, and trickled down our cheeks. My india-rubber cloak conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the ground; and Shaw's blanket-coat was saturated like a sponge. But what most concerned us was the sight of several ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... impartiality, because, as he liked the French, he always gave the pirates of that nationality the credit for most of the bravery displayed on their expeditions, and all of the magnanimity and courtesy, if there happened to be any, while the surliness, brutality, and extraordinary wickednesses were all ascribed to the English. But be this as it may, Esquemeling's history was a great success. It was written in Dutch and was afterwards translated into English, French, and Spanish. It contained a great deal of information ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... up against an unexpected difficulty. Old Man Bright received them with considerable surliness. He considered himself as the originator, discoverer, inventor, and almost the proprietor of Bright's Cove and all it contained. Therefore, when he first heard of the new strike, he walked up to the Lost Dog to see what it looked like. The Babes, panic stricken at the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... stains, and the same cause is now removing what is repulsive among those who toil with their hands. I cannot believe that coarse manners, boisterous conversation, slovenly negligence, filthy customs, surliness, indecency, are to descend by necessity from generation to generation in any portion of the community. I do not see why neatness, courtesy, delicacy, ease, and deference to others' feelings, may not be made the habits of the laboring multitude. A change is certainly ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... can never wholly coincide. Hence follow thwartings of the will, bickering and misery. No man is always cheerful and kind. We manage to correct a stranger with urbanity and good humour. Only when the intercourse is too close and unremitted do we degenerate into surliness and invective. In an earlier chapter Godwin had formulated a general objection to all promises, which reminds us of Tolstoy's sermons from the same individualistic standpoint on the text, "Swear not at all." Every conceivable mode of action has its tendency ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... mean to be,' he answered, with added surliness. 'If the speech and the clothes and the vittles as have been good enough for me ain't good enough for any young upstart as may follow after me, ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... side the crowd, who, accustomed to the sedate and courteous order of Rienzi's guard, fell back too slowly for many of them to escape severe injury from the pikes of the soldiers and the hoofs of the horses. Our friend, Luigi, the butcher, was one of these, and the surliness of the Roman blood was past boiling heat when he received in his ample stomach the blunt end of a German's pike. "There, Roman," said the rude mercenary, in his barbarous attempt at Italian, "make way for your betters; you have had ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... indignity that the ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in our circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his Bible; but there was ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... compassionate glance from the younger, although at the meeting of their eyes her glance was instantly withdrawn and succeeded by fiery blushes. He stayed as long as he had the least excuse for doing so, and then arose to take his leave, half smiling at Hannah's inhospitable surliness and his own perseverance under difficulties. He went up to Nora to bid her good-by. He took her hand, and as he gently pressed it he looked into her eyes; but hers fell beneath his gaze; and with a simple "Good-day, Nora," he ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... not happen to be of that number whom the world calls people of fashion and distinction. However, I said, that as he seemed sensible of his error, and had asked pardon, the lady would permit him to put his hat on again if he chose it. This he refused with some degree of surliness, and failed not to convince me that, if I should condescend to become more gentle, he would soon grow more rude. I now renewed a reflection, which I have often seen occasion to make, that there is nothing so incongruous in nature as any kind of power with lowness ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... abrupt surliness completed the recognition, and, seizing his hand, Louis cried, 'Tom! how are you?' You have turned into a thorough Spaniard, and taken me ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dismal passages, some officers of the jail who are in waiting there, congratulate him, in their rough way, on his release. The newsmonger is of the number, but his manner is not quite hearty—there is something of surliness in his compliments. He looks upon Kit as an intruder, as one who has obtained admission to that place on false pretences, who has enjoyed a privilege without being duly qualified. He may be a very good sort of young man, he thinks, but he has no business there, and the sooner ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... his gratification beneath a mask of surliness. "Waste o' money," he growled, and stooping to the cask drew himself an-other glass ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... small, leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic—the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows—comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... respectfully, but with a dogged surliness that revealed no loyalty. Yet there was in his look a hint of fanatical intensity. Outside in the passageway he smiled grimly. For once the errand on which the duke had sent him fell in with his own inclinations. He opened a window and looked out through the gratings ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... one's boots tingle; and yet in all the shops there is a cringing assiduity to get all the silver and pennies from the outside barbarians that is possible. In the streets there was a most unmistakable surliness exhibited that would have broken into forcible demonstration as we passed through them only for the instinctive cowardice of the Asiatics. It is quite impossible to express what a strange sea of life these narrow Canton streets exhibited, as we floated through them in palanquins ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... in his restless, wild-animal eyes, smoky like the rest of him, and a surliness about his long, high-ridged nose which came down over his mustache like a beak. He wore a cloth cap with ear flaps, and they were down, although the heat of summer still made the September air lively enough for one with blood ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... word, as Bostil thought he would do. Cordts and Hutchinson mounted their horses and rode off, somewhat to the left of the scattered crowd. But Sears remained behind. Bostil thought this strange and put it down to the surliness of the fellow, who had lost on the races. Bostil, wishing Sears would get out of his sight, resolved never to make another blunder like ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... laconically. Clearly I was to take it or leave it, and I took it. We did not find our fellow-republicans flatteringly polite, but we found them firm, and, for all I know, honest. At least they seemed as honest as we were, and that is saying a great deal. What struck us from the beginning was the surliness of the men and the industry of the women; and I am persuaded that the Swiss Government is really carried on by the house-keeping sex. At any rate, the postmaster of Villeneuve was a woman; her little girl brought the mail up from the railway station in a hand-cart, and her old mother helped her ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... a word during the morning meal, except to demand the food he required, and his surliness had a damping effect on those about him, and it was with a sigh of relief that his mother at last rose from the table and began to gather the plates preparatory to clearing away. Once, as Hervey moved slowly towards the door to return to his guns, she looked as though she were ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... croft to bring back a bag of turnips for her "coo" during this unforeseen spell of fierce weather. The storm had come on suddenly, and provender was low; so Peter had volunteered his services in his characteristically shy way (which a southron, perhaps, would have taken for an indication of surliness), and his sister, in equally characteristic Scottish fashion, had accepted the offer with the air of one who had a right to it. Yet all the while (I am sure, for I know the type well!) Peter was full of tender compassion for the poor beast, and Maggie Jean's heart overflowed ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... mind. Four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks; why, if I was lucky, it would carry me through to the holidays! At all events, school was already very far away, like a nightmare remembered at noon. I said good-night to my brother, and received an irritated grunt in reply. I did not mind his surliness; tomorrow when I woke up, I would begin ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... surliness lightened a bit by the time he had speared his tenth cake and walloped it in the bacon grease before sprinkling it thick with sugar and settling the eleventh cake on top. Casey was eyeing the fourteenth ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... Ceroebrus. This writer has a manner sui generis, purely his own; but it is somewhat surprising, how he becomes so well informed of the actual state of things, and of the feelings and opinions of both parties in our country. His acuteness, his wit, his logic, and his surliness, form, altogether, a curious portraiture of an English politician. We, now and then, get sight of American papers; but they are almost all of them federal papers, and contain matter more hostile to our government than the English papers. The most detestable paper ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... him either. Rose said nothing. He had indeed left her nothing to say. But there was a look of perplexity in her eyes—as if she were casting about for some stupidly tactless act or omission of her own to account for his surliness—that made him ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... and to reduce me to the level of an inn-keeper, or one who received boarders. I wished to command a ship, not to take in lodgers; persons whom you are bound to treat with a certain degree of consideration, and, in one sense, as your superiors. Still, it had too much of an appearance of surliness, and a want of hospitality, to refuse a respectable man a passage across the ocean, when he might not get another chance in a month, and that, too, when it was important to himself to proceed immediately. In this particular instance, I became the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... respects as effectually subdued to the dominion of his wife as the person whose submission he then ventured to condemn; with this difference of disposition—, Trunnion's subjection was like that of a bear, chequered with fits of surliness and rage; whereas Pickle bore the yoke like an ox, without repining. No wonder, then, that this indolence, this sluggishness, this stagnation of temper rendered Gamaliel incapable of withstanding the arguments and importunity of his friends, to which he at length surrendered. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett |
