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More "Ill-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rare as the reasonable mother is the sick child who can stand this treatment and survive with those traits of character which it above all others requires to make its crippled life happy, not to say useful. The child thus unrestrained and foolishly indulged must needs become ill-tempered. It loses self-control, and yet no one will need it more. It learns to expect no disappointments, and life is to hold for it less than for others. Disease has crippled its body and the mother has crippled ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... a short, stout, ill-tempered fellow, was thoroughly disliked by every one who knew him. He glared at Charlie for a moment as if he had committed some terrible offence, and then shouted fiercely 'What did you ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... interrupt them, when John's rudeness compelled him to appear. The excuse 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... warm, but I like it that way. It was good indeed, and I'm sorry, Madame, that you have such a violent and ill-tempered husband. Maybe your next will be a much ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... something," she said, as Patty stood waiting, brush in hand. "I don't really want to tell you a bit,—but Jim says I must," and Daisy looked decidedly cross and ill-tempered. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... change in Sir John Oxon's look. His face had been so full of rage but a moment ago that, at Sir Chris's second sally, Lady Betty had moved slightly in some alarm. Town manners were free, but not quite so free as those of the country, and Sir John was known to be an ill-tempered man. If the two gentlemen had quarrelled about her ladyship's own charms 'twould have been a different matter, but to come to an encounter over a mere drinking-bout would be a vulgar, ignominious thing in which she had no mind to be ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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, and had communed visibly and audibly with himself in a manner which ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... would seem that the species of anger are unsuitably assigned by the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 5) where he says that some angry persons are "choleric," some "sullen," and some "ill-tempered" or "stern." According to him, a person is said to be "sullen" whose anger "is appeased with difficulty and endures a long time." But this apparently pertains to the circumstance of time. Therefore it seems ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... of riding in a locomotive cab, where, with the constant rattle and roar, conversation is very difficult, the engineman, Truman Stump, had become a most reticent man, who rarely spoke unless it was necessary. He had thus gained the reputation of being ill-tempered and morose, which was exactly what he was not. Everybody admitted, though, that he was a first-class engine-driver, and one who could always be relied upon to do exactly ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... to this village, anyway, doesn't she?" he queried, still trying to speak calmly. He had risen to his feet and stood with squared shoulders, legs wide apart, and hands buried in the pockets of his tightly-fitting trousers. An ugly, ill-tempered, masterful man, who showed in every line of his attitude that he meant to be supreme lord in his ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... corner of my eye I could see Blythe down in the garden, munching his lettuce leaves like an ill-tempered rabbit, and daubing away at his picture ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... little girl who had been so much indulged in her infancy, that by the time she arrived at her sixth year, every one disliked her. She was proud and ill-tempered, she wanted whatever she saw, and when any thing was refused her, she immediately began crying and teazing her mamma for it, who being at last quite tired of her importunity, generally gave up the point, and Fanny obtained what she wished for. Now, though the ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... cathedral clergy will be harped upon; you will make some small mistake, which will be a falsehood, or some admission, which will be self-condemnation; you will find yourself to have been vulgar, ill-tempered, irreverend, and illiterate, and the chances are ten to one, but that being a clergyman, you will have been guilty of blasphemy! A man may have the best of causes, the best of talents, and the best of tempers; he may write as well as Addison, or as strongly as Junius; but even ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... city was being hoodwinked, and I spoke out repeatedly, protesting and forbidding you to sacrifice Thermopylae and the Phocians: {30} and the men to whom I refer were those who then said that a water-drinker[n] like myself was naturally a fractious and ill-tempered fellow; while Philip, if only he crossed the Pass, would fulfil your fondest prayers; for he would fortify Thespiae and Plataeae; he would put an end to the insolence of the Thebans; he would cut a canal through the Chersonese at his own charges, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... will, dishonor shall be humor. O Cassius, you are yokd with a lamb That carries anger, as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforcd, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again. Cas. Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him? Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered, too. Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. Bru. And my heart too. Cas. O, Brutus! Bru. What's the matter? Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash humor, which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... While she considered her ill-tempered husband her eyes had been hard and almost shallow. While she considered Colonel Grey, they grew soft and deep. Her lips had been set and almost thin; now they ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... have gravitated into journalism in any case; but it was poor old Dr Kenealy, who was afterwards famous as the intrepid, if ill-tempered, counsel for the Tichborne Claimant, who gave me my first active impulse towards the business. The Borough of Wednesbury had just been created, and my own native parish was a part of it. The Liberals chose as their candidate ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... all these trials, I sometimes become impatient, inaccessible to compliment, and—since the truth must be told—a little ill-tempered. My temperament, as my family and friends know, is of an unusually genial and amiable quality, and I never snub an innocent but indiscreet admirer without afterwards repenting of my rudeness. I have often, indeed, a double motive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... 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, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 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 cloak and dowdy ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... She was crying, and I asked what was the matter, and she said my sister Ethel said she was ill-tempered." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... moods, while Mrs. Carlyle fought against hers; moreover, he had the instinct for translating thoughts, instantaneously and volubly, into vehement picturesque speech. How he could bite in a picture, an ugly, ill-tempered one enough very often, as when he called Coleridge a "weltering" man! Many of his sketches are mere Gillray caricatures of people, seen through bile unutterable, exasperated by nervous irritability. And Mrs. Carlyle had a mordant wit enough. But still both of them had au fond a deep need of ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was a tall, thin, ill-tempered old man, as well-known in Exeter as the cathedral, and respected after a fashion. No one liked him. He said ill-natured things of all his neighbours, and had never earned any reputation for doing good-natured acts. But he had lived in Exeter for nearly seventy years, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... lamb That carries anger as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again. Cas. Hath Cassius lived To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, When grief, and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him? Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered, too. Cas. Do you confess so ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of a novelist, though his miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novel in letters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. His Travels are also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... ill-tempered at times," said Miss Stiles with satisfaction. "I thought when I came in that she looked out of sorts. Troubles never come ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... rather ill-tempered-looking housemaid, with a cap of obtrusive respectability and a spotless white apron. I fancied that she looked just a little superciliously at my boxes, which I daresay would not have ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... fell in the Cotswolds, but it was all gone by eight o'clock. In spite of the weather, May is "the brightest, merriest month of all the glad New Year." Everything is at its best. Man cannot be morose and ill-tempered in May. The "happy hills and pleasing shade" must needs "a momentary bliss bestow" on the saddest of us all. Look at yonder thoroughbred colt grazing peacefully in the paddock: if you had turned him out a month ago he would have galloped and fretted himself to death; but now that the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... its habits when the hunter changed his, and now, if an estanciero puts down ostrich hunting on his estate, in a very few years the birds, although wild birds still, become as fearless and familiar as domestic animals. I have known old and ill-tempered males to become a perfect nuisance on some estancias, running after and attacking every person, whether on foot or on horseback, that ventured near them. An old instinct of a whole race could not be thus readily lost here and there on isolated estates wherever a proprietor chose ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Seth's keen desire to return forthwith to Virginia. Seth, in short, was seldom able to express himself adequately, emotion scarcely ever sounded in his voice, and the expression of his face was a fixed and unchangeable one, somewhat dour and ill-tempered in aspect and reflecting nothing ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... Kate, confidentially, that Charley was a great happiness to him; and we are quite sure that the pipe had something to do with the felicity of his existence. But the old gentleman said that Kate was the only joy of his life, and that is all we have to do with at present. Several ill-tempered old ladies in the settlement said that Miss Kennedy was really a quiet, modest girl—testimony this (considering the source whence it came) that was quite conclusive. Then old Mr. Grant remarked to old Mr. Kennedy, over a confidential pipe, that Kate was certainly, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... speak about being sanctified; but if his actions indicate in some form or another that he is jealous, or ill-tempered, or selfish, everybody will say, 'No matter what that person may say about himself, testimony or no testimony, profession or no profession, he still needs ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... that it is of good size. The fact is, I wouldn't have it a bit smaller if I could. If it were any smaller, I should miss many a good meal, and if I were forced to do that, I am afraid I should be very ill-tempered indeed. The truth is, I am very proud of my big mouth. I don't know of any one who has a ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... go in the dead of winter? Who would hide me, shelter me? I could not make my way to an English settlement. Ill clad, exposed to the merciless climate, and the end death. But that was freedom—freedom! I could feel my body dilating with the thought, as I paced my dungeon like an ill-tempered beast. But kill Gabord, who had put himself in danger to serve me, who himself had kept the chains from off my ankles and body, whose own life depended upon my security—"Come, come, Robert Moray," said I, "what relish have you for that? That's an ill game for a gentleman. Alixe ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... violin were sitting at their favourite table, drinking a glass of punch, when the schoolmaster entered, carrying under his arm a parcel which he carefully hid in an empty hamper in a cupboard used for all sorts of lumber. He was ill-tempered and ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... just passed though since her girlhood. Five years ago, Alexander Forsyth, her uncle, had brought her to this spot—then a mere log cabin on the hillside—as a refuge from the impoverished and shiftless home of his elder brother Thomas and his ill-tempered wife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason of his more dominant character and business capacity, had prospered until he became a rich and influential ranch owner. Notwithstanding her father's jealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture that followed ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... the kind of wounds which they inflict on each other. Every one recognizes the vicious appearance which the drawing back of the ears gives to a horse. This movement is very different from that of listening to a sound behind. If an ill-tempered horse in a stall is inclined to kick backwards, his ears are retracted from habit, though he has no intention or power to bite. But when a horse throws up both hind-legs in play, as when entering an open field, or when just touched by the whip, he does not generally ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... 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, selfish fool.. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... not seem ill-tempered. I have long since healed from the chaos and revelations of building. It brought me a not too swift review of life as I had met it afield and in the cities for many years. The fact that one little contract for certain interior installations was ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... inherited science, more exact in reasoning, more refined in psychological distinctions, raised to a higher plane by Christianity, by the invention of printing, and by the favour of a great monarch. La Fontaine in his charming Epitre to Huet, La Bruyere in his Caracteres, Boileau in his ill-tempered Reflexions sur Longin, rallied the supporters of classicism. Gradually the fires smouldered or were assuaged; ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... reasonable 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 life, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... shan't we resume our stroll? People might notice us standing here—you with your teeth bared like an ill-tempered dog.... ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... quietly, so apparently without feeling or passion, that Sir Francis was agreeably astonished. He should have less trouble in throwing off the mask. But he was an ill-tempered man; and to hear that the letter had been found to have the falseness of his fine protestations and promises laid bare, did not improve his temper ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Egil's father Olaf, who was so ill-tempered that Egil dared not go home and confess that he had become a Christian? Gunnlaug Starkadsson returned this morning from visiting his wife, and she says that last night the old man's horse threw him so that his head hit against a stone, and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... can be whose marriage was in itself a fault. However, he had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and in each of them she sympathised ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... Twenty minutes! During all this time, Bagshaw—but who would attempt to describe anguish indescribable? At length he was relieved by the return of Mrs. Snodgrass; but, to the horror and consternation of himself and of all present, she introduced the aforesaid Master Charles,—an ugly, ill-tempered, blubbering little brat of seven years old, with a bloated red face, scrubby white hair, and red eyes; and with the interesting appendage of a thick slice of bread and ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... general's wife departed when Martha asked the general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere. The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life. He began to receive, almost daily, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... incalculable degree—a degree little appreciated by some worthy people, who think roughness a proof of sincerity, and that rudeness marks the honest truth of their affections. And where there is little kindness of nature, and a great deal of selfishness and ill-tempered indulgence, as in this cross, old man before us, still the habit of politeness was not without avail; it kept him in a certain check, and certainly rendered him more tolerable. He was not quite such a brute bear as he would have been, left to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the river, in approaching Kariba Rapids, they came upon a herd of upwards of thirty hippopotami. The canoe-men were afraid of venturing among them, asserting that there was sure to be an ill-tempered one who would take a malignant pleasure in upsetting the canoes. Several boys on the rocks were amusing themselves by throwing stones at the frightened animals. One was shot, its body floating down the current. A man hailed ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... delighted at the progress made by those left in our hut under Dr. Simpson, everything was in order, the scientific programme in full swing, and nothing in the shape of bad news beyond the loss of an ill-tempered pony called Hackenschmidt, and one more dog that appeared to have died from a peculiar disease—a minute thread-worm getting to his brain, this according to Nelson who ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... the dolls' houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered. They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... not 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
... Longarine, "worse than that, we shall become ill-tempered, which is an incurable disease; for there is not one among us but has cause to be exceeding downcast, having ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... so he thought it would be best to sell his furniture and go to lodgings. It seems he had not been very fortunate in his choice, for according to Charlie's account Mrs. Wood, the landlady, was often ill-tempered. ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... trained to little acts of obedience, they will soon become habitual and pleasant to perform; but if improper indulgence and foolish kindness be practised towards children, they must, of course, grow up peevish, fretful, and ill-tempered, obstinate, saucy, and unmanageable. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap." Let this truth be ever engraved upon the minds of all parents. A constant exercise of parental love in allowing all that is fit and proper, and a firm and judicious use of parental authority, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... and the new era of perpetual spring festival soon became an era of brainless indecency. Even the wit of the Restoration was bitter, acid, sardonic (as Charles's own death-bed apology for being an unconscionable time a-dying). Generally it was ill-tempered, and employed to inflict pain. And there was not even wit in most of the plays. It is hard to see what even the worst age could discover to laugh at in Shadwell's Libertine, the story of Don Juan told in English, and, in a ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... candle on the sideboard, and finally vanished. The good-tempered, who formed the greater part of the company, smiled to each other, and emptied the last drops of their toddy first into their glasses, and thence into their mouths. The ill-tempered, numbering but one more than MacGregor, growled and swore a little, the weaver declaring that he would not go home. But the rest walked out and left him, and at last, appalled by the silence, he rose with his wig awry, and trotted—he always trotted when he was tipsy—home ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... enough to supply the wants of a family; good health; children—not too many, nor too few, nor all of one sex; a continuance in each other's society, till both pass away gradually as the twilight into darkness: but, if chilly poverty exert its influence; if the husband or the wife be ill-tempered; if he or she be unfaithful or jealous; if love be followed by hatred; if one be taken, and the other left in solitude; if children be imperfect in birth, or habitually sickly, or drop off in early years as unripe fruit; if sons prove vicious, and ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... those rapid, lithe, and sinuous serpents do. Did I ever tell you that the people at the rice plantation caught a young alligator and brought it to the house, and it was kept for some time in a tub of water? It was an ill-tempered little monster; it used to set up its back like a cat when it was angry, and open its long jaws in a ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... 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
... in her disposition, that none of her attendants were sure of a moment's quiet, neither day nor night. She grew up, I am sorry to say, a very unamiable person, ill-tempered, proud, stubborn, and, in short, unfit to make those around her happy, or to be happy herself. Let every little girl, who has been taught self-control, and a due regard for the rights of others, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this reason he was never satisfied with a lesson until he understood it, unless we except the study of grammar. He formed his opinions of all his associates, and knew one to be selfish, another to be ill-tempered, another generous, and so on. He was probably attracted by Patrick Henry's study of men, on account of this disposition in himself, although he was not altogether conscious of it. But this quality enabled him to learn much that otherwise he would not have known. For when he was not reading ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... the two carriages were ready, and Malingan, his wife, his daughter, and the two gentlemen got into the first vehicle, and I had to get into the second with the ladies from Liege and the Charpillon, who seemed to have become very intimate with them. This made me ill-tempered, and I sulked the whole way. We were an hour and a quarter on the journey, and when we arrived I ordered a good dinner, and then we proceeded to view the gardens; the day was a beautiful one, though ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of Ladak," says Major Cunningham,[55] "is the well-known shepherd's dog, or Thibetan mastiff. They have shaggy coats, generally quite black, or black and tan; but I have seen some of a light brown colour. They are usually ill-tempered to strangers; but I have never found one that would face a stick, although they can fight well when attacked. The only peculiarity that I have noticed about them is, that the tail is nearly always curled upward on to the back, where the hair is displaced by ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... friendly 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 highest ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the usual ill-tempered artist man, with whom I have learned how to deal. You know," she added, teasingly, "that you are calm and god-like, usually—and when you suddenly became ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... do me more good than a long sermon, I know," said Susan; "except on a Sunday, of course," she added apologetically. This was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta's admirer. But then why had Hetta been ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... his crossness. Priests were notorious for being the most ill-tempered, obstreperous, and unstable of men. They were not at all like the clerics of Earth, whom everybody knew from legend had been sweet-tempered, meek, humble, and obedient to authority. But on L'Bawpfey these men of the Church had reason to be out of sorts. Everybody attended Mass, paid their ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... loved him he could not doubt, and they were married, as he intended to return to England. But her fondness was that of a child, and sometimes grew very wearisome. She was petulant, but not ill-tempered; the thing she cried ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... have made his majesty very angry. The favour of the Court was completely withdrawn from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honour at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife watched ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The giant was very ill-tempered and impatient, continually crying for his supper, like little Tom Tucker, and complaining of the loss of his wonderful hen, which we verily believe he would have eaten, disregarding the treasures ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... 'How ill-tempered you are! The "old nuisance," as you call him, has behaved very nicely. He sent his son over here to thank us for our kindness, and to ask me to accept a dozen extra cards from himself. The son is a very respectable-looking man, but rather shabby. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... 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 a broadside, at the same ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... will be said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fretfulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse—not, indeed, a complete one, ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "Ill-tempered and capricious!" Can the girl he loves so ardently be guilty of these faults? It seems incredible to Sir Adrian, as he remembers her sunny smile and gentle manner. But then, is it not her dearest friend who is speaking of her—tender-hearted ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... bought their breakfast and dispersed themselves about the city and vicinity, heartily hoping that this state of things might continue. But it was too good to last. When they returned at evening they found their old enemy in command. He looked more ill-tempered and sour than ever, but gave no explanation of his and Pietro's absence, except to say that he had been out of the city on business. He called for the boys' earnings of the day previous, but to their surprise made no inquiries ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... impossible that a long, white-hooded spectacled duenna could stir up or excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the world that escapes being ill-tempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt, then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of figures of duennas with spectacles ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... little Queen-bee, our eldest daughter, just turned ten years; and you will see a grave, fair girl, not handsome, but with a round, sensible face; from which I hope, by degrees, to remove a certain ill-tempered expression. She is uncommonly industrious, silent and orderly, and kind towards her younger sisters, although very much disposed to lecture them; nor will she allow any opportunity to pass in which her importance ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... 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 ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... club of the "Cheeryble Sisters," to which all three little girls belonged, Gracie's overweening self-conceit and irrepressible desire to be first had led her into conflict with another of her classmates, Lena Neville, in which she had proved herself so arrogant, so jealous and ill-tempered that she had excited the indignation of all who were present. But if they had known what followed after Gracie had been left alone in the room where she had so disgraced herself, how would they have felt then? How she had stood by and seen ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... shorthorn majesty was therefore even more than usual out of patience with the whole world. The corrals were between the bull and Patches, so that the animal had not noticed the man, and the Dean, chuckling to himself, and without attracting Patches' attention, quietly drove the ill-tempered beast into the enclosure ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which shall at the least amuse them. But as you carefully ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... this world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss—a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world.' There is plain truth, too, in the next, though it is not likely to be much remembered by those who are most in need of it:—'An ill-tempered man often has everything his own way, and seems very triumphant; but the demon he cherishes, tears him as well as awes other people.' In another place, and from another point of view, he indicates the admirable benefits of human, sympathy. 'Often,' says he, 'all that a man ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... liable to a disease that causes the tail to drop off, but the people here have discovered a very artful trick of fastening it on again, and it needs a vigorous pull to expose the fraud. Among other tricks of the country is that of drenching an ill-tempered and unmanageable horse with two litres of wine before taking him to the fair. He then becomes as quiet as a lamb. I heard the story of a cure, who was thus imposed upon by one of his own parishioners. He wanted a ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... through the salons where they were playing whist, where the ladies played show pieces at the piano, and where they spoke a language he did not understand. He was quite aware of his worldly inaptitude, and that he was considered awkward, dull, and ill-tempered, and the knowledge of this fact paralyzed and frightened him still more. He could not disguise his feeling of ennui sufficiently to prevent the provincial circles from being greatly offended; they declared ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... The most fastidious traveler could not have found fault with it; nevertheless, this ill-tempered individual was not sparing in his signs and words of dissatisfaction—especially signs, for he did not appear to be very loquacious. One could hardly help wondering whether this fault-finding was due to a poor digestion or a bad temper. The soup of cherries ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the existence of little Mrs. Sheridan of East Orange. Norma knew in a second that the social ripples had closed over her head; she was of no further possible significance in the life of either. Leslie was pretty, bored, ill-tempered; Annie her usual stunning and radiantly satisfied self. The conversation speedily left Norma stranded, the chatter of engagements, of scandals, of new names, was all strange to her, and she sat through some ten minutes ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... team at the well, with the sound of oaths. He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamed wrathfully ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... fired revolvers and guns or threw clubs into crowds of prisoners, or knocked down such as were within reach of their fists. These exhibitions were such as an overgrown child might be expected to make. They did not secure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that such ill-tempered fools could be given any position ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him, really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,—the power of a narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to inflict pain on a noble ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... those which were manufactured in the beginning of the century; and the same judgment may be pronounced upon almost every article of hardware. The razors, knives, scissors, hatchets, swords, and other edge-utensils, prepared for exportation, are generally ill-tempered, half finished, flawed, or brittle; and the muskets, which are sold for seven or eight shillings a-piece to the exporter, so carelessly and unconscientiously prepared, that they cannot be used without imminent danger of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... two till a turn in the road concealed them from his view, and then went back to his work. But his thoughts could not help dwelling on the rash youth who had placed himself at the mercy of this ill-tempered steed, and he heartily wished he could be sure of ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... much ashamed, and hung his head as he answered: "My lord, I was tired and ill-tempered, and I said foolish words, which I trust thou wilt ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... reached,—and no alchemist ever looked more eagerly for the moment of projection which was to give him immortality and omnipotence,—a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and an order to desist; and I well recollect looking back, for long after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation; nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and myself had been ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... everything had changed to her. Her days, which had been empty, were full of dreams, her heart grew tender, glad, hopeful, with a sweet unreasonable content. Even George seemed less disagreeable to her; she began to think she had been often ill-tempered, and must try to make amends. Christian had found means—or Bailey had found them for him—to make her believe herself as much to him as he was to her. She knew that the whole party had left London, and were moving from place ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... three gave him anything, so that the poor boy was soon in the most miserable condition. Being almost starved to death, he laid himself down at the door of one Mr. Fitzwarren, a great, rich merchant. Here he was soon perceived by the cook-maid, who was an ill-tempered creature, and happened just then to be very busy dressing dinner for her master and mistress; so, seeing poor Dick, she called out, "What business have you there, you lazy rogue? There is nothing else but beggars; if you do not take yourself ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... child could reach them, an old woman came running out after him, and seizing him by the arm dragged him roughly back to the house. She was a bony, ill-tempered looking old woman, and before she retired, grumbling at the child and shaking him, she favoured Cherry with such an evil glance that the poor girl felt more than half inclined to ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... manner was peevish and fractious, its tones sharp and harsh, and its actions rough and hasty. I took it for a mother's sickly favourite, deformed in character to compensate for physical deformity. Watching them for a short time, I saw the little creature repeatedly break out in all the humours of an ill-tempered, over-indulged youngest-born in an ill-managed family; snatching toys from the others, and now and then slapping or pinching them. But they never returned either word or blow, even when pain or ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the Harlowes, I said, thought me ill-tempered: and I was contented that they should, who could do as they had done by the most universally acknowledged sweetness ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... 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
... middle of 1761, the Duke of Douglas was unexpectedly taken ill, and his physicians pronounced his malady to be mortal. Nature, in her strange and unexplained way, told the ill-tempered peer the same tale, and, when death was actually before his eyes, he repented of his conduct towards his unfortunate sister. To herself he was unable to make any reparation, but her boy remained; and, on the 11th of July 1761, he executed an entail ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... probably imaginary," I interrupted. "The insult of the ignorant, ill-tempered woman was purely an accidental display of those qualities, and the slight recognition of your old friend the consequence of the other, for your face certainly expressed the state of your feelings, and your friend was surprised into silence by seeing ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... investigating; but only to seat myself upon a mossy block, dreading the search lest it should prove unfruitful, and so dash my golden visionary thoughts. But at length I was about to commence, when a throb of joy sent the blood coursing through my veins, for Tom said, in his dry ill-tempered way: ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... furnished; I could see nothing but some tubs and barrels, the mast of a boat, and a sail or two. Seated upon the tubs were three or four men coarsely dressed, like fishermen or shipwrights. The principal personage was a surly, ill-tempered-looking fellow of about thirty-five, whom I discovered to be the alcalde of Finisterra. After I had looked about me for a minute, the alcalde, giving his whiskers a twist, thus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... in one way to restore the fallen fortunes of his house. Another zemindar, named Ganesh, dwelt in the Haripur district; he had one unmarried daughter, Hembati, who was given to Debendra in marriage. Hembati had many virtues; she was ugly, ill-tempered, unamiable, selfish. Up to the time of his marriage with her, Debendra's character had been without stain. He had been very studious, and was by nature steady and truth-loving. But that marriage had been fatal to him. When Debendra came to years of discretion ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... of patients was that most of their troubles from early childhood arose from disordered stomachs, and if human beings suffered so much from only having one, what must it be to have a plurality of these necessary organs like a camel! Enough to make anything ill-tempered, he ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... education, to which has been superadded the flattery of University parsons, led captains, and Treasury dependants. Without this, he would have been a pleasant companion. He has parts, information, and a good share of real wit, and (is), I believe, not an ill-tempered man by any means. But with all this, he has un commerce qui me rebute. As to what he says, or promises, it is sur la foi de Ministre and credat Judeus, but I never ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... pity was so intense that her eyes filled with tears, awakening the tortures of jealousy in her lover. After these interviews, Desnoyers was more ill-tempered ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... there! I simply can't bear it. It's a wicked, cruel untruth, that's what it is; and besides, you can't be going to eat all the whole of what she's put down for you." Excitement was coming on again, and she ended with a loud ill-tempered mew. ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... indulging his genius. Plymley, though very amusing, and, except in the Canning matter above referred to, not glaringly unfair for a political lampoon, is distinctly acrimonious, and almost (as "almost" as Sydney could be) ill-tempered. It is possible to read between the lines that the writer is furious at his party being out of office, and is much more angry with Mr. Perceval for having the ear of the country than for being a respectable nonentity. The ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... old mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second, brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... they were her torment. Her inability to manage or keep them in order fretted and irritated her excessively. Monsieur, as a philosopher, could not understand the anomaly, that a woman who was perpetually unhappy and ill-tempered, while her children, young, buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with and care for them when sick. He could not understand her conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... been killed by elephants in this country that of late years the idea has been steadily gaining ground that elephants are naturally ill-tempered, and vicious to a dangerous extent. Under fair conditions, nothing could be farther from the truth. We have seen that in the hands of the "gentle Hindu" the elephant is safe and reliable, and never attacks man except under the circumstances already stated. In this country, however, many an elephant ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... the 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 awe-inspiring ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Epicurean in his tastes, he was agreeable, clever and fond of enjoyment, and he approved of everything that went the way he desired. He sniffed the breeze light-heartedly and allowed it to swell his sail and his self-love. He did not like ill-tempered people, people who frowned or were discontented or gloomy. Having a good digestion, he could not understand the possibility of disordered stomachs. A free-liver, he could not realize that hungry people should ever think of better food. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... 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 specifically ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... swiftly for Betty. Shortly after her parting with Yorke an opportunity had occurred for her return to Litchfield, and although Clarissa lamented her departure Betty was eager to fly home. Gulian had done his best to smooth over his ill-judged and ill-tempered effort to arrange her matrimonial affairs, and one of Betty's minor annoyances was her sister's evident disappointment at Yorke's rejection. Only once had she forgotten herself and flashed out upon Clarissa, peremptorily ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... Burns threshing his team at the well, with the sound of oaths. He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamed wrathfully ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... which he croons over as he lies there alone, till one feels sure that they are working into his heart. The people in the house say that though he has been ill these three years, he has never spoken an ill-tempered word; and if any one pities him, he answers, "It is the Lord," and seems to wish for no change. He lies there between dozing and dreaming and praying, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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, over a dark skirt, by name, Nastasya Karpovna Ogarkov. Shurotchka was an orphan ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Lady Thistlewood, 'you would not have that poor lad wedded to a pert, saucy, ill-tempered little moppet, bred up that den of iniquity, Queen Catherine's court, where my poor Baron never trusted me after he fell in with the religion, and had heard of King Antony's calling me the ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scolding the children, Mary,' replied Mrs. Ellis, peevishly. 'It isn't my fault, surely, that Mabel is so ill-tempered and disobedient, and yet you and Arthur just talk to me as ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... sought in one way to restore the fallen fortunes of his house. Another zemindar, named Ganesh, dwelt in the Haripur district; he had one unmarried daughter, Hembati, who was given to Debendra in marriage. Hembati had many virtues; she was ugly, ill-tempered, unamiable, selfish. Up to the time of his marriage with her, Debendra's character had been without stain. He had been very studious, and was by nature steady and truth-loving. But that marriage had been fatal to him. When Debendra ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... Welsh farmer was a poor pirate but a born soldier. He was described by one who knew him as being morose, sour, unsociable, and ill-tempered, and that he "knew as little of the sea or of ships as he did of the Arts of Natural Philosophy." But it is recorded to his credit that he was not cruel. He started life in a merchant ship bound for India, and ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... prepared for an ill-tempered answer, but not for what Keyork actually said. The little man got upon his feet ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... and jewelled, magnificently unaware of the existence of little Mrs. Sheridan of East Orange. Norma knew in a second that the social ripples had closed over her head; she was of no further possible significance in the life of either. Leslie was pretty, bored, ill-tempered; Annie her usual stunning and radiantly satisfied self. The conversation speedily left Norma stranded, the chatter of engagements, of scandals, of new names, was all strange to her, and she sat through some ten minutes of it uncomfortably, longing ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... in the woods. It was quickly seen that Cheetham was no match for him. He had neither the finish nor the venom. Compared to the sentences of "Aristides," as polished and attractive as they were bitter and ill-tempered, Cheetham's periods seemed coarse and tame. The letters of Junius did not make themselves felt in English political life more than did this pamphlet in the political circles of New York. It was novel, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... buttered toast, a middling-sized dish of beef and ham cut thin, and the Protestant Manual in two volumes post octavo. Like some other ladies who in remote ages flourished upon this globe, Mrs Varden was most devout when most ill-tempered. Whenever she and her husband were at unusual variance, then the Protestant ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, 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[obs3], tetchy; like touchwood, like ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is to be thus trusted by such a man—I know the confidence on his part which such an arrangement implies—and you may add, that if he will only extend to me his usual indulgence for human folly and frailty, I will do every thing that is in the power of an ill-tempered, good-for-nothing, selfish old fellow, to prevent him repenting his bargain. And tell Lettice she's a darling, excellent creature; and I have thought so long, though I have said little about it, and she has been like an angel ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... "you are behaving like a foolish and ill-tempered child. I am fully able to take care of myself. We will talk of this later. Meantime you will ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... more, but nothing could surpass what that man made his crew feel while he was out of sight of land. The first mate, Mr Crosby, who, with Captain Gale, had appeared a quiet sort of man, though rather sulky and ill-tempered at times, imitated the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... rude to her once, when she said, quite out loud, that Father is very ill-tempered, and that, if Mother had not the temper of an angel, the house could never hold together. Mother was very angry, but Father did not mind. He says our house will hold together much longer than most ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... reject this opinion. His round head, grotesquely abbreviated muzzle, and small, tightly curled tail, they think, entitling him to a place of his own among dogs. Authorities state that he is a cross, ill-tempered little dog, but my own experience contradicts this. The two with whom I have come in frequent contact, have been remarkably playful and good-natured. One was the pet of a lady; and his bringing up ought to have made him gentlemanly; but he had several ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... to-morrow morning, and when ye are come across Whitewater westwards, mind and slouch thy hat well over thy brows. Then men will ask who is this tall man, and thy mates shall say, 'Here is Huckster Hedinn the Big, a man from Eyjafirth, who is going about with smith's work for sale.' This Hedinn is ill-tempered and a chatterer — a fellow who thinks he alone knows everything. Very often he snatches back his wares, and flies at men if everything is not done as he wishes. So thou shalt ride west to Borgarfirth offering all sorts of wares for sale, and be sure often to cry off ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... said Lady Harriet. 'I wanted to have come early, and here we are as late as this. I'm so cross and ill-tempered, I should be glad to hide myself in bed as soon as you ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... can possibly say. You see, we have not known much of what is passing outside our prison. Some of the guards were good natured enough, and would occasionally give us a scrap of news; but we heard most from the ill-tempered ones, who delighted in telling us anything they knew ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... he found himself as badly off as before; and being almost starved again, he laid himself down at the door of Mr. Fitzwarren, a rich merchant. Here he was soon seen by the cook, who was an ill-tempered creature, and happened just then to be very busy preparing dinner for her master and mistress; so she called out to poor Dick: "What business have you there, you lazy rogue? there is nothing else but beggars; if ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... wholly, that of a novelist, though his miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote his best novel in letters and that perhaps it is one of the best so written, has been mentioned. His Travels are also of the letter-kind—especially of the ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we have not much. But the following has always seemed to the present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of literature" ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... boys all I was feeling or thinking; they could hardly have understood the depth of my anger and wounded pride, though I really don't think it was a very bad kind of pride. I had always been trusted at home. When I was cross or ill-tempered, mother spoke seriously to me, sometimes even sternly, but she seemed to believe that I wanted to be good, and that I had sense to understand things. And now to be spoken of behind my back, and before my face ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... remarkable incident occurred. There was seated opposite to us a not very amiable-looking man of thirty, who might be of the superior class of mechanics, and who evidently regarded us with an evil eye, either because we were suspected Anglais or aristocrats. I resolved that he should become amicable. Ill-tempered though he might be, he was still polite, for at every stopping-place he got out to smoke, and extinguished his cigar ere he re-entered. I said to him, "Madame begs that you will not inconvenience yourself so much—pray continue to smoke in here." This melted him, as it would ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... her diamonds on her head. But nothing could disguise the fact that she was an ugly little fright. Her hair was black and greasy, she was cross-eyed and bow-legged, and in the middle of her back she had a big hump. Moreover she was ill-tempered and sulky, and was for ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... on the following morning he was not a little surprised to note the change. As the weather was raw, and he had been in-doors a good deal during the winter, Lord Howe felt the cold very keenly. He went to the window and looked at the Americans, but he would come back chilly and ill-tempered to the fire each time. Finally he hitched up and went away to Halifax, where he ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... was an old Boer named Niekerk; he owned a farm in the Lydenburg District, but spent most of his life wandering about in search of game. Niekerk's companion was an ex-man-of-war's man named Rawlings, one of the most ill-tempered and pessimistic beings I have ever met. He was small, hatchet faced, and foxy in appearance. His face was much disfigured by a bullet-wound through both jaws received, so he said, in a skirmish with slavers near Zanzibar. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... noise, and presently he came in sight of Gobobbles, who proved to be a large and very bold-mannered turkey with all his feathers taken off except a frowzy tuft about his neck. He was tied fast in a baby's high chair, and was thumping his chest with his wings in such a violent and ill-tempered manner that Davy at once made up his mind not to aggravate him under any circumstances. As Gobobbles caught sight of him he discontinued his thumping, and, after staring at him for ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... son of Bias's Amalekite friend gladly rendered him the help and guidance for which he had been reluctant to ask his ill-tempered slave, and he soon became accustomed to the simple fare of the nomads. Bread and milk, fruits and vegetables from his neighbour's little garden, satisfied him, and when the wine he had drunk was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... administer the oaths, I saw how the city was being hoodwinked, and I spoke out repeatedly, protesting and forbidding you to sacrifice Thermopylae and the Phocians: {30} and the men to whom I refer were those who then said that a water-drinker[n] like myself was naturally a fractious and ill-tempered fellow; while Philip, if only he crossed the Pass, would fulfil your fondest prayers; for he would fortify Thespiae and Plataeae; he would put an end to the insolence of the Thebans; he would cut a canal through the Chersonese ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... lasted still four months, thanks to the energetic perseverance of Coligny and the inexhaustible spirits of Conde, both of whom excelled in the art of keeping up the courage of their men. "Where are you taking us now?" asked an ill-tempered officer one day. "To meet our German allies," said Conde. "And suppose we don't find them?" "Then we will breathe on our fingers, for it is mighty cold." They did at last, at Pont-a-Mousson, meet the German re-enforcements, which were being brought up by Prince John Casimir, son ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which shall ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... a man's 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 wild protestations ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... the normal sunshine of her disposition. She smiled and she coaxed answering smiles from the severest mortal; she dimpled and laughter bubbled up to meet her chuckling mirth. It was impossible to remain cross or ill-tempered when Shirley danced into a room and it is to be feared that her gifts of cajolery bought her off from often needed reproofs. It was never easy to ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... rarely sufficient to account for the torture which the animal seemed to endure, and often with not the slightest discoloration of the integument, came before us almost every day, and under its influence the dog became ill-tempered, dispirited, and emaciated, until he sunk under its influence. All unguents were thrown away here. Lotions of corrosive sublimate, decoction of bark, infusion of digitalis or tobacco, effected some little good; but the persevering use of the iodine of potassium, purgatives, and the abstraction ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... stand up and speak about being sanctified; but if his actions indicate in some form or another that he is jealous, or ill-tempered, or selfish, everybody will say, 'No matter what that person may say about himself, testimony or no testimony, profession or no profession, he still needs the blessing of ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... widow Longarine, "worse than that, we shall become ill-tempered, which is an incurable disease; for there is not one among us but has cause to be exceeding downcast, having regard to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... 1000 killed and wounded; but I have the satisfaction of knowing that, as far as mortal can see, six months will see the end of this rebellion, while if I had continued inactive it might have lingered on for six years. Do not think that I am ill-tempered, but I do not care one jot about my promotion or what people may say. I know I shall leave China as poor as I entered it,[3] but with the knowledge that through my weak instrumentality upwards of eighty to one hundred thousand lives have been spared. I ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... to begin investigating; but only to seat myself upon a mossy block, dreading the search lest it should prove unfruitful, and so dash my golden visionary thoughts. But at length I was about to commence, when a throb of joy sent the blood coursing through my veins, for Tom said, in his dry ill-tempered way: ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... strange likeness did not recommend him. But it had a great effect on the men who fought under him. Though he was a brutal leader, they were ready to follow him anywhere, and had been known to call him le gros caporal, so strong and obvious was this likeness. He was a splendid soldier, though ill-tempered, cruel, and overbearing. He was a man to be reckoned with, and so the amiable Prefect found. Having himself plenty of scruples, plenty of humanity, and a horror of civil war, he found a colleague with none of these difficult to ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... to the place. I don't like it. My uncle sometimes shuts himself up here for quite a long time. We have an idea, Gerald and I, that things happen here sometimes which no one knows of. When he comes back, he is moody and ill-tempered, or else half mad with excitement. He isn't always the amiable creature whom you have met. He has the face of an angel, but there ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... course Carlyle indulged his moods, while Mrs. Carlyle fought against hers; moreover, he had the instinct for translating thoughts, instantaneously and volubly, into vehement picturesque speech. How he could bite in a picture, an ugly, ill-tempered one enough very often, as when he called Coleridge a "weltering" man! Many of his sketches are mere Gillray caricatures of people, seen through bile unutterable, exasperated by nervous irritability. And Mrs. Carlyle had a mordant wit enough. But still ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of those gay city people annoyed her, and when, at she sang the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde and the coal-black eyes of the brunette, turning wonderingly toward her, she was ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... she is very disagreeable. All ill-tempered people, I observe, have the character of being good-hearted; or else all good people are ill-tempered, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... infusion, perhaps of impatience toward the one and of admiration for the other—but he is likely to view both Leonatus and Iachimo with considerable indifference; he will casually recognise the infrequent Cymbeline as an ill-tempered, sonorous old donkey; he will give a passing smile of scornful disgust to Cloten—that vague hybrid of Roderigo and Oswald; and of the proceedings of the Queen and the fortunes of the royal family—whether as affected by the chemical experiments of Doctor Cornelius ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she merely replied with a Welsh "Eh! come si ha da far?" and declared that if I was in her place I should do just the same, which excited my wrath to a ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... 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 ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... what to do for the best. He had no relation who could take charge of Charlie and of his house, so he thought it would be best to sell his furniture and go to lodgings. It seems he had not been very fortunate in his choice, for according to Charlie's account Mrs. Wood, the landlady, was often ill-tempered. ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... the window-blind to look out. And as soon as she was dressed she was only too delighted to join Rosy and Colin for a run before breakfast. Children are children all the world over—luckily for themselves and luckily for other people too—and even children who are sometimes ill-tempered and unkind are sometimes, too, bright and happy and lovable. Rosy was after all only a child, and by no means always a disagreeable spoilt child. And this morning seeing Bee so merry and happy, she forgot her foolish and unkind ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... that it is London that has put me out of temper. Otherwise, it must be I myself who am ill-tempered. I have not yet been one whole day in the Staveleys' house, and they have offended me already. I don't want Helena to hear of this from other people, and then to ask me why I concealed it from her. We are to read each other's journals when we are both ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... sensation of the general shabbiness and duskiness of your whole appearance is so strong as to overcome all other considerations, not to mention your devotional feelings. In this attire you have to stand for a couple of hours amongst a perspiring and ill-tempered crowd, composed of tourists and priests, for the Italians are too wise to trouble themselves for such an object. During these two mortal hours you are pushed forward constantly by energetic ladies bent on being ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... old home where her parents had died, a year and a half before, she had received shelter at the Red Mill, belonging to her great uncle, Jabez Potter, at first as an object of charity, for Uncle Jabez was a miserly and ill-tempered old fellow. The adventures of the first book of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret," narrate how Ruth won her way—in a measure, at ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... matter of fact," the Princess continued, "nothing of the sort happens. Life is often a very cruel and a very difficult thing. We are given tastes, and no means to gratify them. How could I, for instance, face life as a lodging-house keeper, or at best as a sort of companion to some ill-tempered old harridan, who would probably only employ me to have some one to bully? You yourself, Jeanne, ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... An ill-tempered letter, once sent, will sometimes embitter a life-time. We once saw an old gentleman, with a wise, fine head, calm face, and a most benevolent look, beg of a postmaster to return him a letter which he had dropped into ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... can tell you. Do not deceive yourself—do not deceive me! In the name of God, who proves all hearts, answer me, and speak the truth. Is it from the full and entire heart that you come thus to me? Do you think, Eva, angel of God, that I, the ugly, infirm, ill-tempered old ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... enormously rich, and had a magnificent palace, garden, and conservatory, in which she gave balls and concerts. At all the evening parties in Paris the best bedroom was lighted up for reception like the other rooms. Madame de Rumford was capricious and ill-tempered; however, she received me very well, and invited me to meet a very large party at dinner. Mr. Fenimore Cooper, the American novelist, with his wife and daughter, were among the guests. I found him extremely amiable and agreeable, which surprised me, for when I knew him in England ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... George the First and his two ugly old mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second, brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust might mingle ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... a daughter, to whom he married me, and he presented me with a hundred dinars as her dower. After some time my wife unveiled her disposition, which was ill-tempered, quarrelsome, obstinate, and abusive; so that the happiness of my life vanished. It has been well said: 'A bad woman in the house of a virtuous man is hell even in this world.' Take care how you connect yourself with a bad woman. Save us, O Lord, from the fiery trial! Once she ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... a week of hazy weather after this. I spent it chiefly in my study and in Connie's room. A world of mist hung over the sea; it refused to hold any communion with mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it folded itself in its mantle ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... prospect as well as did Otto himself, and he was of the belief that a resolute effort should be put forth to recover the horse. When the matter was stated to Deerfoot, his own knowledge of the ill-tempered German caused him to urge the attempt. In fact he would have done so, had the case been otherwise, for the value of the animal was considerable. Furthermore, Deerfoot was of the opinion that the colt could be regained without serious difficulty, and he told them they had little ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... as "the spleen of the gods"—the symbols of their wrathful emotions and vengeful desires. Bel Enlil, the air and earth god, was served by the demons of disease, "the beloved sons of Bel", which issued from the Underworld to attack mankind. Nergal, the sulky and ill-tempered lord of death and destruction, who never lost his demoniac character, swept over the land, followed by the spirits of pestilence, sunstroke, weariness, and destruction. Anu, the sky god, had "spawned" at creation the demons of cold and rain and darkness. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... I did not inquire of him where Mrs. Horlick lived, but went down the Mews till I met with a woman, and asked her. She directed me to the right number. I knocked at the door, and Mrs. Horlick herself—a lean, ill-tempered, miserable-looking woman—answered it. I told her at once that I had come to ask what her terms were for charing. She stared at me for a moment, then ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... it." The charm of Philip was the charm of extreme ingenuousness combined with daring insight. He never seemed to be shocked or distressed by anything. He said one day, "It was not the sensual or the timid or the ill-tempered boys who used to make me anxious. Those were definite faults and brought definite punishment; it was the hard-hearted, virtuous, ambitious, sensible boys, who were good-humoured and respectable and selfish, who bothered me; one wanted to shake them as a terrier ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a considerable difference between the crew of the Primrose and that of the Polly. They were generally a hearty, merry set; but, alas! he soon heard oaths and curses coming out of the lips of most of them. Some, too, were morose and ill-tempered and discontented with their lot, and all seemed utterly indifferent ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 minister would ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... hysterical shudder. New York, good-tempered, lenient, free New York, was millions of miles away and Nigel was so loathly near and—and so ugly. She had never known before that he was so ugly, that his face was so heavy, his skin so thick and coarse and his expression so evilly ill-tempered. She was not sufficiently analytical to be conscious that she had with one bound leaped to the appalling point of feeling uncontrollable physical abhorrence of the creature to whom she was chained for life. She was terrified at finding ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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 highest esteem ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Burnet. Sterne, Archbishop of York, died in the 86th year of his age: He was a sour ill-tempered man, and minded chiefly the enriching his family.—Swift. Yet thought author of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... a stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... new generation, which has become so extraordinarily wise and wide-awake, opened her eyes and wondered why David was so unlike his usual self. Mr. Roy, too, to whom he behaved worse than to any one else, only the elder man quietly ignored it all, and was very patient and gentle with the restless, ill-tempered boy—Mr. Roy even remarked that he thought David would be happier at his work again; idling was a bad thing for young fellows at ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... heard her voice at the window, and to his surprise it was not at all ill-tempered, only as usual peremptory, but Arina Prohorovna could not speak ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... 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
... my dear Son. And I pray thee, pardon me that I spoke harshly to thee. For indeed I am ill-tempered by reason of my infirmities; and as for thee, GOD will reward thee for thy goodness to me, as I never can. Moreover, I believe it is thy modesty, which is as great as thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling me of all that thou hast done ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... during her absence. The 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 ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... and, as the only child, a favourite amongst the 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
... the little Queen-bee, our eldest daughter, just turned ten years; and you will see a grave, fair girl, not handsome, but with a round, sensible face; from which I hope, by degrees, to remove a certain ill-tempered expression. She is uncommonly industrious, silent and orderly, and kind towards her younger sisters, although very much disposed to lecture them; nor will she allow any opportunity to pass in which her importance as "eldest sister" is not observed; on which ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... we had 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 ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man," said Nathan Rothschild. "He tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, 'Grunt, grunt,' then 'Squeak, squeak.' But this does me no harm. I am always ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... a marshal, who had served me long and faithfully, and who determined to get a wife, and was married to the most ill-tempered woman in all the country; and when he found that neither by good means or bad could he cure her of her evil temper, he left her, and would not live with her, but avoided her as he would a tempest, for if he knew she was in ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... I should have gravitated into journalism in any case; but it was poor old Dr Kenealy, who was afterwards famous as the intrepid, if ill-tempered, counsel for the Tichborne Claimant, who gave me my first active impulse towards the business. The Borough of Wednesbury had just been created, and my own native parish was a part of it. The Liberals chose as their candidate one Brogden, who ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... 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 ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... causes, the sin must still remain the 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 this it follows that it must be a duty ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the several parts of a comedy. I played the innocent, but was not so, at least in that affair. The Cardinal acted the part of one who thought himself secure, but was much less confident than he appeared. The Queen affected to be good-humoured, and yet was never more ill-tempered. M. de Longueville put on the marks of sorrow and sadness while his heart leaped for joy, for no man living took a greater pleasure than he to promote all broils. The Duc d'Orleans personated hurry ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... be further from scientific fact than that cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its vis a tergo might have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far milder action ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... trees in Latin literature; but he talked of it flippantly, as though it were a pastime of no great importance, like billiards, which engaged his leisure but was not to be considered with seriousness. And Squirts, the master of the Middle Third, grew more ill-tempered ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Montespan was cross, capricious, ill-tempered, and of a haughtiness in everything which, readied to the clouds, and from the effects of which nobody, not even the King, was exempt. The courtiers avoided passing under her windows, above all when the King was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... less perky when we were all settled at a table in a perfectly charming restaurant, the most restful place to eat in that I ever saw. I can't imagine even a fiend being ill-tempered in it for long; and it was deliciously cool, as if we had come into a shadowy green wood after the blazing, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... 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 feelings. If Henry, or Emma, or William, from any exuberance of happy feelings, were noisy ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... have startled her, I'm afraid. Hoot-toot, hoot-toot, silly old man that I am. Where's that ill-tempered fellow off to?" he went on, glancing round. "Can't he fetch a glass of water, or make himself useful ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... not want love grown old, which came in and put on its slippers, and grumped: "Can't those kids keep quiet?" if it heard the voice of the children of love, and which hid itself behind a hedge of daily paper, or flung out again from home, in the ill-tempered senility ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... and half proud of being a Randlebury boy, 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 ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time, when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the arrival of her husband at Aix-la-Chapelle, Madame Napoleon had lost her money by gambling, without recovering her health by using the baths and drinking the waters; she was, therefore, as poor as low-spirited, and as ill-tempered as dissatisfied. Napoleon himself was neither much in humour to supply her present wants, provide for her extravagances, or to forgive her ill-nature; he ascribed the inefficacy of the waters to her excesses, and reproached her for her too great condescension to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... do you know you're the most obstinate, pig-headed, prejudiced, ill-tempered little beast I ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... think any girl would look at a sickly, ill-tempered fellow like me?' was the somewhat bitter reply; and Mrs. Ross's kind heart ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he said to himself. "I don't think he's so strong as I am, and that makes him ill-tempered. And I'd been promising father that I'd take care of him; and then I've got such a brutal temper that I go and begin knocking him about.—Oh, I wish I wasn't so hot and peppery! It's too bad, ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... way of shuffling off their responsibilities, or they are men who have been caught in a net of distasteful circumstances. For instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or a tradesman finds himself bound for life to a locality and an occupation of intolerable monotony. Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, who, after the amiable fashion of a certain type of woman, thinking that her husband is pinned down without a chance of escape, gives a free rein to her temper. The man puts up with it for years, ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... hearts and not before; He must be 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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... grade above them. She had loved her children, too, although they were her torment. Her inability to manage or keep them in order fretted and irritated her excessively. Monsieur, as a philosopher, could not understand the anomaly, that a woman who was perpetually unhappy and ill-tempered, while her children, young, buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with and care for them when sick. He could not understand her conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, however, and a wise man in many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... with unseemly levity. However, the chill 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 ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... 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 ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... 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. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... was 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
... said to the disturbed looking reflection that confronted her, "you're a silly, childish old thing to feel disappointed because you weren't chosen to be Spirit of the Sea! And you're a mean-spirited, ill-tempered GOOSE to feel as you do, because Daisy Dow has that part. She'll be awfully pretty in it, and Guy Martin had a perfect right to choose her, and she had a perfect right to change her mind and say she'd take it, even if she HAD told you ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Beelzebub at their head; he set spurs to Sphinx, and at the same time cut and cracked away as hard as he could, holding in the reins with all his might, striving to make the creature plunge and show some uncommon diversion. But sulky and ill-tempered was Sphinx at the time: she plunged indeed—such a devil of a plunge, that she dashed him in one jerk over her head, and he fell precipitately into the water before her. It was in the Bay of Biscay, all the world knows a very boisterous sea, and Sphinx, fearing he would be drowned, never turned ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... my good woman, you are all right enough in your own way, but we have nothing in common; and this proposed evening of enforced companionship will leave us both exhausted and ill-tempered. We shall grin and shout meaningless phrases over the fish, entree and salad about life, death and the eternal verities; but we shall be sick to death of each other in ten minutes. Let's cut ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... now understood how the queen he had had for some time past had been so ill-tempered. He at once had a sack drawn over her head and made her be stoned to death, and after that torn in pieces by untamed horses. The two young fellows also told now what they had heard and seen in the queen's room, for before this ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... the domestic relations, to an incalculable degree—a degree little appreciated by some worthy people, who think roughness a proof of sincerity, and that rudeness marks the honest truth of their affections. And where there is little kindness of nature, and a great deal of selfishness and ill-tempered indulgence, as in this cross, old man before us, still the habit of politeness was not without avail; it kept him in a certain check, and certainly rendered him more tolerable. He was not quite such a brute bear as he would have been, left to his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the kitchen and sat up like a dog to beg. A bear is a foolish looking beast at best, unless it becomes ill-tempered; and this big brown thing, so his smiling master said, "had ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... tell you something," she said, as Patty stood waiting, brush in hand. "I don't really want to tell you a bit,—but Jim says I must," and Daisy looked decidedly cross and ill-tempered. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... 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, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... he talked of it, and shook their heads. They advised him to be cautious and gain time; to lead Ratcliffe on, and if possible to throw on him the responsibility of a quarrel. He was, therefore, like a brown bear undergoing the process of taming; very ill-tempered, very rough, and at the same time very much bewildered and a little frightened. Ratcliffe sat ten minutes with him, and obtained information in regard to pains which the President had suffered during the previous night, in consequence, as he believed, of an over-indulgence in fresh lobster, a ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... looked over from the stall beyond; the ears were laid back, and the eye looked rather ill-tempered. This was a tall chestnut mare, with a long handsome neck. She looked across to ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson Mingott's English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself an important position in the world of ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... If the foregoing appear ill-tempered pray forget it. Remember rather that I have sought to leave my friend Sir William Wallace, holding Helen Mar on his breast as long as possible. And yet, I also loved her! Can human nature ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... His Majesty very angry. The favor of the court was completely withdrawn from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune might indeed have been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly jealous. She had herself been a maid of honor at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity was held among the fine gentlemen there, and watched her town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife watched his country wife. The ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so quietly, so apparently without feeling or passion, that Sir Francis was agreeably astonished. He should have less trouble in throwing off the mask. But he was an ill-tempered man; and to hear that the letter had been found to have the falseness of his fine protestations and promises laid bare, did not improve his ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of a family; good health; children—not too many, nor too few, nor all of one sex; a continuance in each other's society, till both pass away gradually as the twilight into darkness: but, if chilly poverty exert its influence; if the husband or the wife be ill-tempered; if he or she be unfaithful or jealous; if love be followed by hatred; if one be taken, and the other left in solitude; if children be imperfect in birth, or habitually sickly, or drop off in early years as unripe ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... good of you. I am hasty as an ill-tempered child in my judgments! Mr. Dalton"—she stopped before the neat iron gate in the low fence, which he was holding open for her to pass through, and barring the way, said rapidly, "as we will have ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the general's wife departed when Martha asked the general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere. The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life. He began to receive, almost daily, letters from different parts of Russia, for Martha ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... man, indeed, and a gentleman; but, oh, what an ill-tempered one, apparently! He was dark, with fine features, and black hair with a slight inclination to wave or curl (as far at least as could be judged when the extremely well-cropped state of his head was taken into ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... daughter, and the two gentlemen got into the first vehicle, and I had to get into the second with the ladies from Liege and the Charpillon, who seemed to have become very intimate with them. This made me ill-tempered, and I sulked the whole way. We were an hour and a quarter on the journey, and when we arrived I ordered a good dinner, and then we proceeded to view the gardens; the day was a beautiful one, though ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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 ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... reached home utterly exhausted after the burden of the day's work. The Manager had been more than usually brutal, unjust, ill-tempered, and Jones had been almost persuaded out of his settled policy of contempt into answering back. Everything seemed to have gone amiss, and the man's coarse, underbred nature had been in the ascendant all day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused, ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... is the same with the means of locomotion. The peasant driving in a cart, or a sledge, must be a very ill-tempered man when he will not give a pedestrian a lift; and there is both room for this and a possibility of doing it. But the richer the equipage, the farther is a man from all possibility of giving a seat to any person whatsoever. It is even said plainly, ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the sick child who can stand this treatment and survive with those traits of character which it above all others requires to make its crippled life happy, not to say useful. The child thus unrestrained and foolishly indulged must needs become ill-tempered. It loses self-control, and yet no one will need it more. It learns to expect no disappointments, and life is to hold for it less than for others. Disease has crippled its body and the mother has ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... the man's heavy, studied indifference to all about him was ruffled. During the afternoon something had gone wrong and no one yet, save "Cookie" Wilson, had an inkling of what had plunged the foreman into one of his ill-tempered fits. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... I believe," answered Martha. "People hereabouts wonder at their keeping the ill-tempered, arbitrary hussy. They say she rules the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the coachman, and I, had had a quarrel that morning, and he told me uncle 'would never care for me any more after Cousin Bernard came, for he was a much finer boy than I, and looked like a young English lord, with his blue eyes and white skin, but I was a little, dark, ill-tempered foreigner (my mother was Italian, you know), and he wondered how uncle could ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous
... lay for four long, weary months, before he could rejoin big regiment; during much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him, really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,—the power of a narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to inflict pain on a ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... hand, until he perceived that he no longer snorted so wildly, when, dropping his cloak, he lightly leaped upon his back. He now steadily reined him in, without violence or blows, and as he saw that the horse was no longer ill-tempered, but only eager to gallop, he let him go, boldly urging him to full speed with his ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... only, for she is a diamond. Her voice goes through me like a knife, and all voices seem loud but thine, which is so mellow sweet. Stay, now I'll fit ye with tidings; I spake yesterday with an old man that conceits he is ill-tempered, and sweats to pass for such with others, but oh! so threadbare, and the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... entirely different. She was close-mouthed, ill-tempered, and a great stay-at-home. She never visited her neighbors, and they, in turn, called on her very rarely. In the village she was spoken of as a snob and a hypocrite. Peter was afraid of her as of the plague, especially in his sober ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... pleasant to 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
... 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 ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the monkeys who washed their hands and faces in pitch, and so were caught. But from all the stories which are told about monkeys, I fancy that we think of them too much as clever, and noisy, and mischievous, and sometimes very ill-tempered and revengeful; so I want to tell you something of their good and gentle ways, and especially of their love for their ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... a man 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
... half-past three, 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
... was paid to his maternal grandmother, the dowager Lady Capel. She was not a nice old woman; in fact, she was a very spiteful, ill-hearted, ill-tempered old woman, and Hyde had always had a certain fear of her. When he landed in London with his wife, Lady Capel had fortunately been at Bath; and he had then escaped the duty of presenting Katherine to her. But she was now at her mansion ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... a hard tussle that morning with an ill-tempered horse he was breaking, and he felt tired out. He had no idea of compelling a horse with a whip. Sir Shawn had bought this horse at a fair a short time before. He was jet-black and they had called him Mustapha. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... 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 ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the retort was invariably, "Who sent the press-gang after her own husband?" or, "Who cut off the tail from her husband's back? Wasn't that a genteel trick?" All this worried my mother, and she became very morose and ill-tempered; I believe she would have left the alley, if she had not taken a long lease of the house. She had now imbibed a decided hatred for me, which she never failed to show upon every occasion, for she knew that it was I who had roused my father, and prevented her escape from his wrath. The consequence ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... land was seen spread out below him beyond the Christina; and the Swedish, Dutch, and English farms smiled from their loamy levels on sails which moved with scarcely perceptible motion through the narrow dykes planted with greenest willows. Before his door the teamsters, ill-tempered with lashing and swearing at their teams in the ruts of Iron Hill, schoolboys from Nottingham, millers' men from Upper White Clay, and bargemen and stage passengers, recovered temper to see the sign of the great paunch with a timepiece set so naturally in it indicating ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... whose marriage was in itself a fault. However, he had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In both cases our friend ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... also, your power of coloring depend much on your state of health and right balance of mind; when you are fatigued or ill you will not see colors well, and when you are ill-tempered you will not choose them well: thus, though not infallibly a test of character in individuals, color power is a great sign of mental health in nations; when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their coloring always ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... 'Ugly,' however, either by Mick or myself, the ill-tempered brute evidently keeping out of our way; and it was not till late in the afternoon that I saw him again aft, when both watches were called to treble-reef the topsails, and we boys belonging to the ship had to go aloft to ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the prince passed all his leisure hours in turning and carving, particularly while travelling, and when the carriage came to bad ground, where the horses had to move slowly, he was delighted, and went on merrily with his work; but when the horses galloped, he grew ill-tempered ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
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