"Truculent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to which constant shaving had imparted a hard glaze. His eyebrows were thick and his nostrils wide, and when he was uncovered, in the saloon, it was visible that his grizzled hair was dense and perpendicular. He might have looked rather grim and truculent hadn't it been for the mild familiar accommodating gaze with which his large light-coloured pupils—the leisurely eyes of a silent man—appeared to consider surrounding objects. He was evidently more friendly than fierce, but he was more diffident than friendly. He liked to have you in sight, ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... are considerations which strike every one. If for two years a bloody insurrection had been plotted, and the outbreak at Morant Bay was the first stroke to toward its accomplishment, is it credible that these truculent rebels should submit themselves as sheep to the slaughter,—that not one band should be found to strike a manly blow for life and liberty? If such an insurrection had its roots in every part of the island, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... song well bethought on by—by better men nor you, for all your size!" says he, glancing at me over his bottle with a truculent eye, and though his glance was steady, I perceived the drink was affecting him more and more. "Aye, many a ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... lesser note were hanged daring the week-among others, Matthew Doucet, the truculent man of gingerbread, whose rage had been so judiciously but so unsuccessfully directed against the Prior of Saint Vaast. Captain Ambrose, too, did not live long to enjoy the price of his treachery. He was arrested very soon afterwards by the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... people looked very much alike. They were all a bit fantastic, and the scene reminded him of a fancy-dress ball where all the men represented brigands. Many of them were, or seemed to be, of truculent countenance; some wore piratical ear-rings, others had shawls wrapped about their heads as if for concealment. Any one of them might have been a brigand, for all he knew, and he saw how easy it would be for a handful of evil-intentioned persons to mingle ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to kill him. My name is Graham. I live a mile up the river and this coon has just about ruined my cornfield," was the truculent answer. ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... when I'm handled right, but if I'm handled wrong—" Stickney did not finish his sentence; but his truculent air ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the direction indicated, and was surprised at the appearance of the redoubtable Fetters, who walked over and took his seat at the table with the judge and the lawyers. He had expected to meet a tall, long-haired, red-faced, truculent individual, in a slouch hat and a frock coat, with a loud voice and a dictatorial manner, the typical Southerner of melodrama. He saw a keen-eyed, hard-faced small man, slightly gray, clean-shaven, wearing a well-fitting city-made business suit of light tweed. Except for ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... narrow Flemish streets of tall houses with projecting upper stories, and showed them that seminary which was popularly supposed in England to be the hotbed of truculent plots, but where they only saw a quiet academic cloister and an exquisite garden, green turf, roses and white lilies in full perfection, and students flitting about in cassocks and square caps, more like an Oxford scene, as Mr. ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I went home to The Hague with the clear conviction that one nation in Europe was ready for war, and wanted war, and intended war on the first convenient opportunity. But when would that be? Not even the most truculent government could well venture a bald declaration of hostilities without some plausible pretext, some ostensible ground of quarrel. Where was it? There was none in sight. Of course the danger of a homicidal crisis in the insanity ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... not surprising that the secret societies began to look up again with so promising a field to work in, and a new association, known as the Green Water Lily, became extremely formidable among the truculent braves of Hoonan. But none of these troubles assumed the extreme form of danger in open rebellion, and there was still wanting the man to weld all these hostile and dangerous elements into a national party of insurgents against Manchu authority, and so it remained ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at Tanuga- manono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself, in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was, with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... out of fifteen hundred in a single campaign, would appall any but the grim Virginian soldiers. They are veterans now. They learn the art of war in fields like Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. Even Pryor, as chivalric in action as truculent in debate, now admits that the Yankees will fight. Fredericksburg's butchery is a victory of note. All the year the noise of battle rolls, while the Eastern war is undecided, for the second Manassas and awful Antietam balance each ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... influenced by Caravaggio, in turn influencing Ribera—Juan de las Roelas (el Clerigo), Del Mazo—son-in-law of Velasquez, and responsible for dozens of false attributions—Carreno de Miranda, Jose Leonardo, Juan Rizi V. Iriarte, the two Herreras, the elder a truculent charlatan, the younger a nonentity, and others of the Spanish school may be ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Zechariah, who had succeeded to his father's place and likewise to his heroism, and who, with the Spirit of God upon him, stands up and pointing out his wickedness, rebukes the fallen monarch for his apostasy. Joash, doubtless stung to the quick by Zechariah's just reproaches, allowed the truculent princes to slay him in the court of the Temple, even between the very ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... success, he entered a third, which, it appeared, belonged to the barber-surgeon of the village. This personage having just completed his dinner, was seated in an arm chair within his doorway, when Victoriano made his appearance. He was a man about thirty-five, of a savage truculent countenance. On Victoriano's offering him a Testament, he took it in his hand to examine it, but no sooner did his eyes glance over the title-page than he burst out into a loud laugh, exclaiming:- "Ha, ha, Don Jorge Borrow, the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... great book in the world of smaller compass than The Prince of Machiavelli. There is no book more lucidly, directly, and plainly written. There is no book that has aroused more vehement, venomous, and even truculent controversy from the moment of its publication until to-day. And it is asserted with great probability that The Prince has had a more direct action upon real life than any other book in the world, and a ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... if she could have questioned her own instinctive love, she could not question her antipathy, when she beheld, partly concealed by a pillar immediately in the rear of the woollen-draper, the dark figure and truculent features of Jonathan Wild. As she looked in this direction, the thief-taker raised his eyes—those gray, blood-thirsty eyes!—their glare froze the life-blood ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... know this woman?" His tone was hard and truculent. It conveyed the suspicion of the jealous old male. Iemon's former profession stood him in good stead. He had a glib tongue, and no intention to deny what had been made perfectly obvious—"It is fact, and nothing to be ashamed of on the part of Iemon; except as to attendant conditions beyond control. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... as may be,' Mr. Dunborough answered. And he took his first airing in a sedan next day. After that he grew so reticent about his affairs, and so truculent when the tutor tried to sound him, that Mr. Thomasson was at his wits' end to discern what was afoot. For some time, however, he got no clue. Then, going to Dunborough's rooms one day, he found them empty, and, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... During his mission into Abyssinia his natural demands for support were completely ignored, and he was left to whatever fate might befall him. When he succeeded in extricating himself from that perilous position, he found that the Khedive was so annoyed at his inability to exact from his truculent neighbour a treaty without any accompanying concessions, that he paid no attention to him, and seized the opportunity to hasten the close of his appointment by wilfully perverting the sense of several confidential suggestions made to his Government. The plain explanation ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... were worth we descried a horse flying along the road at break-neck pace towards us. As it approached we saw it was carrying Dr. Ascher. When he drew up to us he stopped. The guards were holding forth in their most truculent manner at the moment. The doctor rapped out a few words, and the guards instantly dropped their hostility and arrogance to become as meek as lambs. Turning to us the doctor ordered every man to drop the ropes. We did so and fell into line at once ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... her hysteria subsided, and after a brief repose she switched off the truculent side and sought the pity of the man whose life she had set herself to make one long ache if he did not yield to her arrogant pretensions. She had written in a perpetual scream of his iniquities, and was thrown over by her former associates, who saw clearly enough that no real ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... to Dorothy that this was the Pepin Quesnelle of whom and of whose tame bear Rory was wont to tell tales. Dorothy noticed that Katie had a brief whispered conference with the truculent Pepin before entering. The result of it was somewhat unexpected; the half-breed girl took Dorothy by the arm and led her into a low room, which was scrupulously clean, at the end of the passage. There was no one in it. Katie seemed strangely nervous as she shut the door, and the girl wondered ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... good. Practically, then, as Bishop Butler predicted, we act as the world acted when it supposed the evil deeds of its criminals to be the products of free-will.' [Footnote: An eminent Church dignitary describes all this, not unkindly, as 'truculent logic.' I think it worthy ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... between Mrs. O'Grady and himself, and many messages, questions, and answers, which she carried up and down stairs, at length set Furlong's mind at ease respecting his personal safety, and finally admitted him into the presence of the truculent lord of the castle—who, when he heard that Furlong had been staying in the enemy's camp, was not, it may be supposed, in a sweet temper to receive him. O'Grady looked thunder as Furlong entered, and eyeing ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... wrote on, smiling to himself as he added line after line to his manuscript. His beard shone with a truculent blue-black lustre. For the moment the aged look had quite gone out of his face. His cheek appeared flushed with the hues of youth and reinvigorated hope, yet withal of a youth without innocence or charm. Rather it seemed as if fresh blood ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... glanced at the impossibility of those particular bullocks loafing on his paddock. If they came across the river again, he would hunt them back into Mondunbarra—he would do that much—but Muster M'Intyre's orders were orders. Two bullock drivers (here a truculent look came over the retainer's face) had selected in sight of the very wool-shed; and now all working bullocks found loafing on the run were to be yarded at the station—this lot being specially noticed, for Muster M'Intyre had a bit of a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and his wolf's eyes fixed before him, there was that in his air which was ominous of danger, and, springing to my feet, I drew my sword and stepped towards him. He saw me too, and came up like a truculent dog. We both reached the horse almost at the same time, and I fully expected him to draw on me at once; ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... of the small, truculent Mike in frenzied revolt with a club against the idea of being decked with jewelry.... Mike turned to the two big men ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... these verses, especially the last, with a truculent frown, and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly encouraged the hearts of his little armament; and with a general murmur of enthusiasm, the warlike band marched ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mr. Billy Warner of Ponape with his entourage of sixteen truculent, evil-faced Solomon Islanders was not regarded with enthusiasm by the chief officer and the native ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... 1351, and made the patron saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up the infamous practice till a late date. One of the Earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as "Earl Brant," in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right (the literal translation of droit de ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... appeals," said the Major, with a truculent look. "No man shall appeal to Dick Querto till he ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... opposite side of the coulee, the boys seemed to be laboring quite as fruitlessly with the other herder. They heard Big Medicine's truculent bellow, as he leaned from the saddle and waved a fist close to the face of the herder, but, though they rode with their eyes fixed upon the group, they failed to see any resultant movement of dogs, sheep ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... decided that it was high time for some other institution to shelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the case before the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to the Committee at ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... districts. My white neighbor glares elaborately. I walk softly, lest I disturb him. The children jeer as I pass to work. The women in the street car withdraw their skirts or prefer to stand. The policeman is truculent. The elevator man hates to serve Negroes. My job is insecure because the white union wants it and does not want me. I try to lunch, but no place near will serve me. I go forty blocks to Marshall's, but the Committee of Fourteen ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The Third legion,[393] since it had crossed from Syria into Moesia, he could reckon as his own, and there was good hope that the other legions of Illyria would follow its lead.[394] The whole army, indeed, was incensed at the arrogance of Vitellius' soldiers: truculent in appearance and rough of tongue, they scoffed at all the other troops as their inferiors. But a war of such magnitude demands delay. High as were his hopes, Vespasian often calculated his risks. He realized that it would be a critical day for him when he committed his sixty summers ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... incipient mother was a being of the highest rank. She had forgiven Mary everything for the sake of her black-eyed boy; now she took the news that Rose was what she called "interesting" to Deb, and demanded that action should be taken upon it, with an air that was almost truculent. Deb, of course, did not believe in being spoken to, even ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... one is called upon to contribute a few sous to the fund for making cannon. When I got there it was about 8.30. The venerable Blanqui was seated at a table on the tribune; before him were two assessors. One an unwholesome citizen, with long blond hair hanging down his back, the other a most truculent-looking ruffian. The hall was nearly full; many were in blouses, the rest in uniform; about one-fifth of the audience was composed of women, who either knitted, or nourished the infants, which they held in their arms. A citizen was speaking. He held a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... his death thou thyself diest!... O lamentable day of Venus! O cruel planet! this day has been thy night, this Venus thy venom; by her wert thou vulnerable!... O woe and more than woe! O death! O truculent death! O death, I wish thou wert dead! It pleased thee to remove the sun and to obscure the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... time—would you believe it?—the poor Master of the Shell was sitting in his study, very bashful, and wondering whether he would get a chance of speaking to Daisy during the day at all. She had been spirited away from under his very eyes, in the most truculent manner, by her graceless brother; and it seemed very doubtful ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... to her husband at night that she had expected better things from Archibald; but if she had gone suddenly into Bauldie's room—for that was his real name, Archibald being only the thing given in baptism—she would have found that truculent worthy sobbing aloud and covering his head with the blankets, lest his elder brother, who slept in the same room, should hear him. You have no reason to believe me, and his mother would not have believed me, but—as ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... hoarse voices were heard without, demanding immediate admittance. A short consultation took place between my friend and their host, who agreed that no resistance could be offered, that the door should be opened, and they must all submit to their fate. Then the banditti rushed in with fierce gestures; truculent men, with shaggy hair and beards, wrapped in dark capotes, with long guns in their hands, and daggers in their belts and bosoms. “Spare our lives, and take our money, and all that we have,” was the cry of some of the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... upon by society, with nearly every necessary of life highly taxed, and yet entirely loosened from the deference of feudal manners, the Frenchmen of this class have, in general, become what they who wish to ride upon their fellow mortals love to represent them as being, truculent, violent, greedy of gain, and but too much disposed to exaction. There is great bonhomie and many touches of chivalry in the national character; but it is asking too much to suppose that men who are placed in the situation I have named, should ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... beaver skins cheaply, afterwards selling them on his account to the English. Frontenac rejoined by accusing the intendant of having his own warehouses at Montreal and along the lower St Lawrence, of being truculent, a slave to the bishop, and incompetent. Behind Duchesneau, Frontenac keeps saying, are the Jesuits and the bishop, from whom the spirit of faction really springs. Among many of these tirades the most elaborate is the long memorial sent to Colbert in ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... termination. When they had gone and laid before the patricians the message of the commons—while the other decemvirs, since, contrary to their own expectation, no mention was made of their punishment—raised no objection, Appius, being of a truculent disposition and the chief object of detestation, measuring the rancour of others toward him by his own toward them, said: "I am not ignorant of the fate which threatens me. I see that the contest against us is only deferred until our arms are delivered up to our adversaries. Blood must ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... head rested on the knee of the night porter, a personage wearing a kind of livery, a strongly built, truculent-looking villain, whose duties, no doubt, comprised the putting of people out as well as the letting them into ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... of the race and have brought us tidings of the promised land. How many thundering spirits have commanded us to march by the tongued and livid lightning of their prophetic souls, but how few of us have done so! Why, to me, this world is a halting hell of hitching-posts and of truculent troughs for belching swineherds. The universe has no goal that we know of unless Eternity be the aim; let us then have the modesty of the Cosmos, and no other modesty, and be content to know our course, and ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... becomes subject to the power of Phrenzy. Then winged Pegasus is shut up in the stall of Corydon, and eloquent Mercury is strangled. Then wise Pallas is struck down by the dagger of error, and the charming Pierides are smitten by the truculent tyranny of madness. O cruel spectacle! where you may see the Phoebus of philosophers, the all-wise Aristotle, whom God Himself made master of the master of the world, enchained by wicked hands and borne in shameful irons on the shoulders of gladiators from his sacred home. ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... lozenges, and become the Herod of the village innocents. One of his many eccentricities is a love for flowers, and he visits me often to have a look at my greenhouse and my borders. I listen to his truculent and revolutionary speeches, and take my revenge by sending the gloomy egotist away with a nosegay in his hand, and a gay-coloured flower stuck in a button-hole. He goes quite unconscious of my ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... to the prisoner, unbound his hands, and struck him on the breast and back. Science now continued, in a serious manner, the truculent examination of the executioner's eye. During this time a servant in the livery of the house of Guise brought in several ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... and he will soon be opposed to this truculent and dishonest court, who have kept me here as an instrument to accomplish their own wishes, but who have never intended to keep their promises and place me on the English throne. I will give you letters to Conde and recollect that whatever general you ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... had led to the feud of the Count of Brabant against him, for he doubted not that this truculent knight was at the bottom of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... doubtful language, interpreted by my colleague of "Le Temps," who knew Turkish, what they would be glad to do with us. As we sat eating our lunch in the shelter of a hovel by the roadside, while the horses were baiting, a party of the fanatics watched us with growing malignity and a truculent interchange of sentiments of an evidently unfriendly nature. To puzzle them as to our status, I took the pains to repeat in conversation with my colleague the formula of adherence to the faith as it is in Islam, a scrap of Arabic I had learned in Crete, the repetition of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... Mrs. Podgers. But there was consolation in the sound of Wayland, with its far call to Wayland's smithy and Walter Scott. And—Cohocton! The name to me had a fine Cromwellian ring; and Blood's Depot—what a truculent sound to that!—if you haven't forgotten the plumed dare-devil cavalier who once made a dash to steal the king's regalia from the Tower. Again—Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But—Cohocton. ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... had seemed to see—the confederate of him who had entered Number 9; a sentry to forestall interruption? If so, the fellow lacked discretion, though his determination that the American should not interfere was undeniable. It was with an ugly and truculent manner, if more warily, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the present attitude of subservience to all other Powers, great or small, were regarded as the first desiderata of the country. The Turks, too, who since the revolution of 1908 had become particularly truculent toward the Italians, especially in Tripoli, also came in for rough treatment, and various speakers demanded that the Government should secure adequate protection for Italian citizens and trade in the Ottoman Empire, and that a watch should be kept on Tripoli lest others seized it before ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... family house, and all those doubts about Popenjoy had, she thought, been fully satisfied. The Marquis to her thinking was now almost a model Marquis, and this dear son, this excellent head of the family, had been nearly murdered by the truculent Dean. Of course the Dean was spoken of at Cross Hall in very bitter terms, and of course those terms made impression on Lord George. In the first moments of his paternal anxiety he had been willing to encounter the Dean in order that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... made no answer. His profession; he was silent. Several other questions were put, to none of which he returned any reply. Pleydell wiped the glasses of his spectacles and considered the prisoner very attentively. 'A very truculent-looking fellow,' he whispered to Mannering; 'but, as Dogberry says, I'll go cunningly to work with him. Here, call in Soles—Soles the shoemaker. Soles, do you remember measuring some footsteps imprinted on the mud at the wood of Warroch on—November 17—, by my orders?' Soles remembered ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... on to say that Mr. Cassall placed a kennel on the lawn with a very large and truculent brindled bulldog as tenant; over the kennel he coiled a garden hose, and above the bulldog's portal appeared the words, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Visitation, Purification, and Assumption—any one of which might be made the starting-point of the fast either by the choice of the votary or by the cast of the die. A third method is instanced in the "Popish Kingdom" of Barnabe Googe (1570), actually an English metrical version of a truculent German satire by one Thomas Kirchmeyer, who was scholar enough to Latinize, or Graecize, his homely patronymic into the more imposing correlative "Naogeorgus." The passage is ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... apologetic all day, and got her reward; especially from the boy, who was an adventurous and rather truculent baby, much she fancied, as his father must once have been, and who took to her more quickly than the girl did. Indeed, the second Rodney fell in love with her almost as promptly as his father had done before him. But little Portia wasn't very far ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... confess however that the sight of him gave me a little check. He appeared to me more truculent than I had ever seen him. He had his hands behind him, with a great whip in them; he hardly smiled to me, but nodded only, fixing his fierce eyes on my face. He had, more than I had ever noticed it before, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... an arrogant man, for had he not routed the army of Bosambo? That Bosambo was not in command made no difference and did not tarnish the prestige in Tumbilimi's eyes, and though the raids upon his territory by Mimbimi had been mild, the truculent chief, disdaining the use of his full army, marched with his select column to bring in the head and the feet of the man who ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... conversation with Byrnes, that was considered, of course, very truculent, on the government's evidence. But when explained by Mr. Minns, what is it? The defendant knows that the cause in which he is engaged, by a strange revulsion of public feeling, is unpopular. It is unprofitable, and whatever is unprofitable is unpopular. ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... silence while the Minister of War permitted this exhortation to sink in. Then, apparently reassured, he sat up in bed and eyed his untimely visitor with a glare little short of truculent. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... made of handkerchiefs fastened to the end of rulers. A band, equipped with combs covered with tissue-paper torn from their drawing-books, played the strains of the "Marseillaise." They advanced towards the seniors in a very truculent fashion. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the Nanking treaty, the five treaty ports were opened to all foreigners on the same footing as to Englishmen. Long before this, the Russians had already established themselves in certain parts of China. The smouldering resentment against the white men found vent in the truculent doings of the anti-foreign society of the "Green Water Lily" in Hoonan. Now trouble broke out in the Punjab. Jankoji Bao Sindia had died in February, and his widow, a girl of twelve, now ruled over the Sikhs. She outwitted her native Minister, who was supported by the British. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... 13th.—Mr. K—— called and told us that some arrangement had been made with the truculent creditor of our poor manager by which we shall not lose any more in this unlucky business. My father will be quit for about a hundred pounds. I am very sorry for Mr. Brunton, but he should not have placed us in such an uncomfortable position. My father ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... through a crack in the hut, I saw the messengers arrive, and they were great truculent-looking fellows. There were four of them, and evidently they had travelled night and day. They entered with a swagger ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... profligate as his thin blood permits, but the dissipation in which he indulges only makes him a disreputable member of society, and calls for none of the manly virtues which make the Malay attractive to those who know and love him in his truculent untamed state. On the East Coast, things are different, and the Malay States are still what they profess to be—States in which the native element predominates, where the people still think boldly from right to left, and lead much ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... into his field of vision the lad was in full stride, running like a whippet, chart under one arm, water-jar under the other. He checked himself to ease the door behind him just as the truculent captor of the Royal James brig reached the foot of the ladder and let his gaze rove about the cabin. Sinking to the floor of the storeroom, Joe was afraid that for once he was about to swoon like a silly maid ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... attack, my husband contrived to keep his temper, and simply denied the accusation. This denial was indorsed by the editor of the newspaper in which the articles had been published, and the disagreeable incident was expected to end there. But this would not have satisfied the truculent M. Tremplier, and in the next number of his paper he expressed in arrogant terms an utter disbelief in Mr. Hamerton's denial, and venomously attacked him for his nationality, literary pretensions, etc., winding up his diatribe, as usual, by a challenge. This ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... anything but truculent and anything but apologetic. It had the unconscious and spontaneous quality of the delight of the collector who finds a new specimen in ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Tropics tropiko. Tropical tropika. Trot troti. Trot troto—ado. Trouble konfuzi, cxagreni. Troublesome malfacila. Trough trogo. Trousers pantalono. Trousseau vestaro. Trout truto. Trowel trulo. Truant kusxemulo, forkuranteto. Truce interpaco. Truck manveturilo. Truculent kruelega. True vera. Truffle trufo. Truly vere. Trump (cards) atuto. Trumpery cxifajxo senvalora. Trumpet trumpetadi. Trumpet trumpeto. Trumpeter trumpetisto. Trunk (animal or insect) rostro. Trunk (tree) trunko. Trunk (box) kesto, vojagxkesto. Trunk (of ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... desirous of attaining Pre-eminence in places where they play, Don't supply the smallest spoonful of the pleasing or the tuneful Or you'll chuck your very finest chance away. But be truculent, ferocious and ungentle And the critics will infallibly acclaim Your work as unalluring, elemental But arresting and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... was now pulled down over his eyes, and his chin was hidden in the upturned collar of his tattered coat. As McGraw approached him, he drew back out of the deafening clatter of the riveting-machines. McGraw followed, his heavy face of a sudden grown truculent. He came up ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... woman's clothes were hanging on the line (and very common-looking clothes they were), so she could not have been a casual guest. Moreover, she was pacing the hard ground in front of the house, and staring at us with a truculent yet uneasy air. Curiosity was strong, and a sort of anger possessed me against the place and everybody connected ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... by agonized squirming on the part of official Austria. That an upstart, a masquerader, a mountebank of a King, should actually have traversed Austria from west to east, without ever a soul cased in uniform knowing anything about him, was ill to endure, and the minions of Kosnovia's truculent neighbor swore mighty oaths that no bottle holder from Paris or elsewhere should be allowed to follow. So Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir was watched from Passau to Maria Theresiopel, and telegrams flew over the face of the land, and Alec's British ally was hauled from the train at Semlin ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the slender branches like big birds' nests. There was a stunted oak tree, creeping along the earth with gnarled and lumpy limbs like a miniature dinosaur; it waved in the air a clump of demensurate leaves with the truculent mien of boxing-gloves or lobsters' claws. In the centre of the rectangle formed by this audience of trees, and raised on a long table, was a tiny wisteria arbour, formed by a dozen plants arranged in quincunx. The intertwisted ropes of branches were supported on shining rods of bamboo; ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... "not quite nice." The apothecary's assistant was a bold young man, who did not seem to realize his menial position. He was certainly intelligent, and Grimstad would have overlooked the pills and ointments if his manners had been engaging, but he was rude, truculent and contradictory. The youthful female sex is not in the habit of sharing the prejudices of its elders in this respect, and many a juvenile Orson has, in such conditions, enjoyed substantial successes. But young Ibsen was not a favorite ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... they had to go, on those terms; and Pollnitz, making for his Majesty's apartment next morning as usual, was twitched by a Gens-d'arme, 'No admittance!' And it was days before the matter would come round again, under earnest protestations from the one side, and truculent rebukes from the other." [Pollnitz (abridged), ii. 50.] Figure the Crown-Prince, figure the poor sick Majesty; and what a time in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... deepened. And all this was aggravated by what went on in private. A system of espionage, whisperings, backbitings, and miserable tittle-tattle, sometimes of the most slanderous or the most ridiculous kind, was set going all over Oxford. Never in Oxford, before or since, were busybodies more truculent or more unscrupulous. Difficulties arose between Heads of Colleges and their tutors. Candidates for fellowships were closely examined as to their opinions and their associates. Men applying for testimonials were ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... fluency. It is difficult to realise that the same actor who set before us that perfect image of comic perplexity, the bland and benevolent Dean, in Dandy Dick, could ever have been the bantering companion of Romeo and truculent adversary of fiery Tybalt. Yet this contrast but faintly indicates the versatile character of his mind. Fisher was upon the American stage for thirty-eight years, from August 30, 1852, when he came forth ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Nature," page 113), it will not seem too severe.) I had a dim perception of the truth of your profound remark—that he wrote in fear and trembling "of God, man, and monkeys," but I would alter it into "God, man, Owen, and monkeys." Huxley's letter was truculent, and I see that every one thinks it too truculent; but in simple truth I am become quite demoniacal about Owen—worse than Huxley; and I told Huxley that I should put myself under his care to be rendered milder. But I mean to try and get more angelic in my feelings; ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... of our laager hated the verdamnt Englaender and lost no opportunity of bulldozing and threatening us. One of the Canadians who had been in the American Navy was unusually truculent. The German purposely bunted him one day. "Don't do that again!" The German repeated the act. The sailor jolted him in the jaw so that he went to dreamland for fifteen minutes. The prisoner was taken to the guardroom and we never heard his ultimate ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... befell the members of that tribe. Already Trotting Wolf could distinguish the murmurs of his young men, who were resenting the charge against White Cloud, as well as the tone and manner in which it was delivered. Most gladly would he have defied this truculent rancher to do his worst, but his courage was not equal to the plunge, and, besides, the circumstances for such a break ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... do put an end to this senseless scheme of yours!" he muttered, but with a sudden change from a truculent tone to one of entreaty as he caught me by the hand. "Do you know what is likely to come of it? Merely further unpleasantness. You will agree with me, I am sure, that at present I ought to move with especial ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... briskly as, cocking his hat, he assumed a still more truculent air. Then, spreading out his hands, he ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... procession began, a straggling procession of the dirtiest, meanest-looking ruffians ever seen. There was waggon after waggon, swarming with ragamuffins of both sexes and all ages. The men were mostly on foot, casting furtive glances to right and left, evident snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, truculent, ragged, wearing evil-looking knives by their sides. During their transit the village had shut itself up, as Coventry did for Godiva's ride. When we all ventured forth again the talk was of missing poultry and rifled fruit trees. The ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating. But in those things the treatment was no different from that which they accorded any ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ascetic frame and mobile features of the Hindu dreamer in his plain garment of white home-spun, and, beside him, one of his chief Mahomedan allies, Shaukat Ali, with his great burly figure and heavy jowl and somewhat truculent manner and his opulent robes embroidered with the Turkish crescent, I wondered how far Mr. Gandhi had succeeded in converting his Mahomedan friend to the principle of Ahimsa. Perhaps Mr. Gandhi guessed what was passing in my mind when I asked him how the fundamental antagonism ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Narrangansett in. The moment the anchor was down, an armed boat's crew dashed aboard the Leonora and took possession. The officer in command had a surprise in store for him, when, entering the brig's cabin, he saw seated at the table not the truculent, piratical ruffian he expected to see, but a quiet, stout man of herculean proportions, who bowed politely and said, "Welcome on board the Leonora, sir. Have you come to seize my ship and myself? Well now, don't apologise, ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Phil have had a fleeting vision of what lay before them, even he might have hesitated about going on. But he fully believed that he was carrying an olive branch of peace that could not fail to subdue the truculent nature of the dreaded McGee. And it was in that confident ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... men and arms, why, at last, gave over King Bello the hope of reducing those truculent men of Vivenza? One reason was, as Mohi said, that many of his fighting men were abundantly occupied in other quarters of Mardi; nor was he long in discovering that fight he never so valiantly, Vivenza—not yet its inhabitants—was wholly unconquerable. Thought Bello, Mountains ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... He was in ferocious spirits, indeed, over the breakfast-table, and bolted quantities of buttered toast and eggs, swallowed cups of tea, one after the other, almost at a single gulp, all the time gabbling with a truculent volubility, and every now and then a thump, which made his spoon jingle in his saucer, and poor, little Mrs. Sturk start, and whisper, 'Oh, my dear!' But after he had done defying and paying off the whole world, and showing his wife, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Y secretaries scattered over Italy who vehemently disclaimed that John Calhoun spoke for them or their sentiments. Among this number was his brother-in-law, John Cornwall, and two truculent and undiplomatic secretaries who had charge of the work with the Twenty-seventh Army Corps ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... benefits of bread and water, it was the author of a Discourse of Freethinking,'[187] and that 'he should omit no endeavour to render the persons (of Freethinkers) as despicable and their practice as odious in the eye of the world as they deserve.'[188] But we find almost as truculent notions in writings where we might least expect them. It was, for example, a favourite accusation of the Tories against the Whigs that they favoured the Deists. 'We' (Tories), writes Swift, 'accuse them [the Whigs] of the public encouragement ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... forks, spoons, and sugar-tongs, filled the salt-cellars, replenished the pepper-boxes and other paraphernalia of the dining art. The gabble in this close apartment was terrific. Joseph, the maitre d'hotel, rapped in vain a dozen times for silence. The chef poked his head of a truculent Gascon through the door and indulged in a war of wit with a long fellow from Marseilles,—called the "mast" because he was very tall and thin, and had cooked in the galley of a Mediterranean trading brig. From time to time ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... success he entered a third, which it appeared belonged to the barber-surgeon of the village. This personage, having just completed his dinner, was seated in an arm-chair within his doorway when Vitoriano made his appearance. He was a man of about thirty-five, of a savage, truculent countenance. On Vitoriano's offering him a Testament he took it into his hand to examine it; but no sooner did his eyes glance over the title-page than he burst into a loud laugh, exclaiming: 'Ha, ha, Don Jorge Borrow, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... did not. There was the truculent woman who voted as she thought fit, and who loudly advertised this fact; the man who voted for Henderson because he lived in the district; and the woman who supported Leslie Walker because he was rich and would be able to subscribe liberally to all local institutions. A shallow-pated ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... ideals under the aegis of the Union Jack. The Natives of the Union shudder at the possibility of the Damaras, who are now under the harsh rule of the Germans, being placed under a self-governing Dominion in which the German rule will be accentuated by the truculent "Free" State ideas of ruling Natives. And they think that in the existing state of circumstances, Portuguese or French rule would be infinitely better for the Damaras than a Government which, although protected by the Union Jack, yet is inspired from Pretoria and Bloemfontein. And it is to be feared ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... herself with careering about, taking a last leave of her beloved steed-a mangy-looking pony-and performing various freaks with it, then singing a truculent song of revenge, in pursuance of which she hid herself to await the bridal procession. And as the bride came on, among her attendants Dolores detected unmistakably those eyes of Gerald's! She squeezed Miss Hackett's hand, and saw little more of the final catastrophe. Somehow the bride was stabbed, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hawker, in unlaced gymnasium shoes, "leathers," and a brown sweater (warranted not to show the dirt), looked quite definably what he was, a Commercial Road ruffian; and his foreheadless face, greasy cow-lick "quiff" (or fringe), and truculent expression, inspired more disgust than ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... sulkily, "and it won't be too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark, twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of the Orange ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... tenth day I assured the people that we were close to food; cheered the most amiable of them with promise of abundant provender, and hushed the most truculent knaves with a warning not to tempt my patience too much, lest we came to angry blows; and then struck away east by north through the forest, with the almost exhausted Expedition dragging itself weakly and painfully behind me. It was a most desperate position certainly, and I pitied ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... discovered and compassed the demolition of those innocent baby fowls? Then again there are rabbits in the stable and very tame pigeons and the tiniest of bantams. It would be very dreadful to introduce a truculent kitten (and all felines are naturally truculent) into such society. And our blood fairly congeals when we think that perhaps (oh, fearful possibility) that kitten might nose out and wantonly destroy the too lovely butterflies stored away in yonder closet, which we have appropriately ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... at being disturbed, yet with an uneasy air, half comical, half ashamed, as of being—caught. He took on a truculent, aggressive attitude, as though he knew he would have to explain himself and did not want to do so. He turned and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... increased the terrors of the scene, is now softened into a low and mournful murmur, emblematical of the dismal tranquillity that reigns around. The smiling face of nature is bloted and defaced by the truculent works of men. The rich and reviving green that carpeted the ground, now presents to the view an ensanguined plain, and the smiling flowers, emblems of innocence and peace, bear no longer in their calice the pearly moisture of the morn, but display the crimson evidence of man's ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... race" in one remarkable tolerance—as the superior race, as one, indeed, superior enough to own slaves, collectively, if not individually; and the exponents of this doctrine look with a resolute, truculent, but slightly indistinct eye to a future in which all the rest of the world will be in subjection to these elect. The ideals of this type are set forth pretty clearly in Mr. Kidd's Control of the Tropics. The whole world is to be administered ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... humped over slightly, his head thrust a little forward as though on the point of launching a truculent challenge. He was lean, gray, with bushy, overhanging brows, eyes with glinting metallic surfaces, had long sinewy hands, and a carved granite and inscrutable face, His few words of greeting revealed his voice as ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... a certain generic resemblance to that species of poetry. The ballad of "John Gilpin," for example, is too broadly and simply ludicrous; Swift's "Lines on the Death of Marlborough," and Byron's "Windsor Poetics," are too savage and truculent; Cowper's "My Mary" is far too pathetic; Herrick's lyrics to "Blossoms" and "Daffodils" are too elevated; "Sally in our Alley" is too homely and too entirely simple and natural; while the "Rape of the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... character. It is the same in politics as in literature. Our novelist critic said of the rage for Christmas cards, some years since, "The truth is that art must obey the popular will or cease to be." There was not much art certainly in Christmas cards; but nothing could express better the truculent spirit of ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... me your grief for your insolence," he suggested, with truculent condescension, "you will save ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... closely followed by the Alsatian captains, who, with tremendous oaths in their mouths, and slashing blades in their hands, declared they would make minced meat of any one opposing their progress. Sir Thomas was equally truculent in expression and ferocious in tone, and as the whole party laid about them right and left, they speedily routed the defenders of the garden, and drove them towards the house. Flushed by their success, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... when he rang the bell, but John, who let him in, did not seem to find anything remarkable in his choice of a companion. Pete looked very big and rather truculent in his rough, wet clothes, but ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... speech. He ripped up the foreign corset in a truculent manner. He said that American corsets were far superior, only American women had not the sense to see it. The effect of taking off the duty on corsets would be to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... in every right-minded woman's eyes. I shall speak to him myself—I will have the truth from his own lips if I have to wring it out by main force," said Caspar speaking more to himself than to Mary Trent, and quite unaware how truculent an appearance he presented at that moment to that quiet ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Jesson's manner became truculent. He pulled some papers from his pocket, and selecting a plain correspondence card, handed it ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Warren. I'm going to torture you," he announced with a truculent scowl and a suggestive ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... a tall man, of massive and powerful build, with somewhat harsh features, black hair and beard just touched with grey, and a sallow complexion sunburnt as brown as a berry. According to the prevalent fashion in those latitudes, he wore truculent-looking boots up to his knees, and a big sombrero hat slouched over his brow. There was a stern, hard expression about his face, except when he smiled or looked at Barbara Thorne. He did not look stern ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... more truculent trade of housebreaking was winning a lesser triumph of its own. Never, save in the hands of one or two distinguished practitioners, has this clumsy, brutal pursuit taken on the refinement of an art. Essentially modern, it has generally been pursued in the meanest spirit of gain. Deacon Brodie ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... The truculent Dowler figured before in "The Tuggs at Ramsgate"—a very amusing and Pickwickian tale—under the title of Capt. Waters, who exhibits the same simulated ferocity and jealousy of his spouse. Cruickshank's sketch, too, of the Captain ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... themselves face to face with the lines of Mataafa in the German plantation of Vaitele. The armies immediately fraternised; kava was made by the ladies, as who should say tea, at home, and partaken of by the braves with many truculent expressions. One chief on the King's side, revolted by the extent of these familiarities, began to beat his followers with a staff. But both parties were still intermingled between the lines, and the chiefs on either side were conversing, and even embracing, at the moment, when an accidental, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answered, his manner half wheedling, half truculent, "'tis no time for messages and trifles and the like now, Colonel. No time at all, I tell you. Ye can see that for yourself, I'm thinking, such a ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... so," she said shortly. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him then and there that she was through,—like Matt, the cook, that memorable afternoon, "completely an' ab-sho-lutely through." She refrained. There was no use in being truculent. But that drunken crowd looked formidable ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... business and friendship. Mr. Smith gives us, as an explanation of a note to him, dated 14th July, that he alluded to the stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was, as he described it, "almost a work of art"—a truculent-looking eagle seated on a rock and scattering rays over ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... lady disarmed his truculent spirit, and the usually collected and determined young man was at a loss how to proceed. The girl, however, was obviously impressed and pleased by his evidence of interest, whatever its nature; so in a manner vastly different from the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Cadet looked quietly truculent. He drew Bigot aside. "There are more ways than one to choke a dog, Bigot," said he. "You may put a tight collar outside his throat, or a sweetened roll inside of it. Some course must be found, and that promptly. We shall, before many days, have La Corne ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... for more, Mr. Burne-Jones was a resolute opponent of the Royal Academy, as resolute, though not so truculent, an opponent as Mr. Whistler. When he became a popular painter Mr. Agnew gave him a commission of fifteen thousand pounds—the largest, I believe, ever given—to paint four pictures, the "Briar Rose" series. Some time after—before he has exhibited in the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... be briefly told. The story of the events here described spread through the kingdom. Thomas de Marle was put under ban by the king and excommunicated by the church. Louis raised an army and marched against him. De Marle was helpless with illness, but truculent in temper. He defied the king, and would not listen to his summons. Louis attacked his castles, took two of them, Crecy and Nogent, and in the end forced him to buy pardon by a heavy ransom and an indemnity to the church. As for the burghers who had taken refuge with him, the king showed ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... picturesquely expressed, "The mask should be torn from the villain's face. Why should a man be allowed to stab his neighbour in the dark!" As a matter of fact, I am convinced that anonymity makes, not for irresponsibility but for responsibility, and that there are many men who, though truculent, offensive, and personal when they write with the "I," will show a true sense of moderation and responsibility when they use the editorial "we." The man who writes for a newspaper very soon gets a strong sense of what is right and proper to ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... put it to his mouth, and swallowed three great gulps hurriedly. Then he breathed a deep breath, seemed to say with Macbeth, "Ourselves again!" drew himself up in a chair, and glanced around him with a look of gathering arrogance. A kind of truculent question was in his eyes—as much as to say, "Now then, what do you make of it all? What's your candid notion about me and my extraordinary behaviour?" After a ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... his eloquence, his thundering voice, his bitter pen, he could wreck any policy, but would not even trouble to suggest an alternative. As he sat before me with his face of an old prizefighter (he is remarkably like Jim Mace as I can remember him in his later days), his angry grey eyes and his truculent, mischievous smile, he seemed to me a very dangerous man. His conversation, if a squirt on one side and Niagara on the other can be called conversation, was directed for the moment upon the iniquity of the English rate of exchange, which seemed to me very much like ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and self-centered in any field were likely to be the butt of his humor, and he could imitate so many phases of character so cleverly that he was the life of any idle pleasure-seeking party anywhere. To this day I recall his characterization of an old Irish washerwoman arguing; a stout, truculent German laying down the law; lean, gloomy, out-at-elbows actors of the Hamlet or classic school complaining of their fate; the stingy skinflint haggling over a dollar, and always with a skill for titillating the risibilities ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... everything else, and Mir Jafar, probably remembering the kindness he had received from the grandfather of his prisoner, was at first disposed to spare him, but afterward consulted with his higher officials, some of whom advocated a policy of clemency, while others, including Mir Jafar's son, Miran, a truculent youth, not unlike Suraj ud Daulah in disposition, urged that the only security against a fresh revolution lay in the death of the prisoner. The latter accordingly was made over to Miran, by whose orders he was brutally murdered in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... "Here's the last verse of the (p. 147) last chapter of the last Book of Kings." This would seem to be but one specimen of the freedom of political speech in which Burns at this time habitually indulged,—the truculent way in which he flaunted defiance in the face of authority. It would not have been surprising, if at any time the Government had ordered inquiry to be made into such conduct, much less in such a season of anxiety and distrust. That an inquiry ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... a close and long observer of wild things wishes it distinctly understood that while the common black-snakes and racers are practically harmless to birds, the Pilot Black-Snake, —long, thick and truculent,—is a great scourge to nesting birds. It seems to be deserving of death. Mr. Upp speaks from personal knowledge, and his condemnation of the species referred to is quite sweeping. At the same time Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars points out the fact that this serpent ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... skins were not made for mere slitting and slashing! You that are for war, cannot you go abroad, and fight the Papist Spaniards? Over in the Netherlands there is always fighting enough. You that are of ruffling humor, gather your truculent ruffians together; make yourselves colonels over them; go to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... rambles along the beach. Sometimes I let you stroll with her under the elms in the moonlight, for you are great friends by this time, I take it, and see each other every day. I know your ways and your manners! Then I fall into a truculent mood, and would like to destroy somebody. Have you noticed anything in the shape of a lover hanging around the colonel Lares and Penates? Does that lieutenant of the horse-marines or that young Stillwater parson visit the house much? Not that I am pining for news of them, but ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... reminder from friends that he was very well off, etc. If he had been caught by Dissenters, as he should have been, he might by this time have had salvation, and an occupation for life, in founding a new truculent sect of Borrovians. As the Rev. the Romany Rye he might have blazed in an entertaining and becoming manner. As "a sincere member of the old- fashioned Church of England, in which he believes there is more religion, and consequently less ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... and his sounding boasts that he had "only seen the backs of his enemies," and that he had "gone to look for the rebel, Jackson"—were really taken to mean what they said. When Pope did at last "find the rebel, Jackson," the hopeful public over the Potomac began to believe that their truculent pet might have ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... head of which sat the coroner, while one side was occupied by the jury; and I was glad to observe that the latter consisted, for the most part, of genuine working men, instead of the stolid-faced, truculent "professional jurymen" who so often ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... brow creased, his eyes sombre, every line and fibre of his person advertising him the prey of morose disgust. But when he saw Maria Dolores, he hastily straightened up, unpocketed his hands, took off his hat (giving it a flap that set the brim at a less truculent angle), and smiled. And when, the instant after, he caught sight of the flying form of Annunziata, his smile turned into ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... silk handkerchief, and surmounted by a broad-brimmed straw hat, his body clad in a red and yellow striped worsted shirt, confined at the waist by a cutlass-belt, into which a long-barrelled pistol was thrust, and his legs encased in sea-boots reaching nearly to the thigh, was a particularly truculent-looking ruffian; and a powerful negro, somewhat similarly clad, who seemed to be his chief aide, was little ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... footed to this truculent chant, had no warlike features; beginning with a march, or rather a tripping walk, it ended with feats in which each dancer defied his neighbour to out-spring him; nor did the vocalists appear to expect representations of strife and doughty deeds. The words, Roman by origin, as is clear from ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... can tell you, sir," said the Captain, elevating at once his voice and his nostrils, and snuffing the air with a truculent and indignant visage, "that I will not permit you or any man to throw any such scandal on my character.—I thank Cot, I can bring good witness that I am as good a Christian as another, for a poor sinner, as the best ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... mood (induced by a string of cocktails and a hearty lunch), he started a conversation with Jones, the elevator boy. Jones was a slender, mop-headed, man-grown, truculent flame of an individual who seemed to go out of his way to insult his passengers. It was this that attracted Daylight's interest, and he was not long in finding out what was the matter with Jones. He was a proletarian, according to his own aggressive ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... CANADA GOOSE. In essaying to illustrate the home defense spirit, my memory goes out to one truculent and fearless Canada goose whose mate elected to nest in a horribly exposed spot on the east bank of our Wild-Fowl Pond. The location was an error in judgment. As soon as the nest was finished and the eggs laid therein, the goose took her place upon ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... clatter of scabbards, clamouring, with astonishment and wonder. But since they did not immediately proceed to plunge their swords into his breast, the brazen side of his character asserted itself. Passing the sleeve of his uniform over his face he pulled himself together, His truculent glance turned slowly here and there, checked the noise where it fell; and the stiff body of the late Senor Hirsch, merchant, after swaying imperceptibly, made a half turn, and came to a rest in the midst of awed murmurs and ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... dances of a modern ball. In the Forty-Five, some foraging Highlanders from Prince Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in the dawn. The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little child; him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and uncouth speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, and with this they made their brose in high delight. "It was braw brose," said one of them. At last they made off, laden like camels ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could not help reflecting on the change that had come over him since he first spoke to her on the night following his release from prison. Then he was rude, almost truculent; now, even while he seemed angry, his demeanour suggested a refinement of feeling which did not manifest ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... present. At table the conversation turned entirely upon my act of daring. They insisted on hearing the whole story over and over again from my apprentice Cencio, who was a youth of superlative talent, bravery, and extreme personal beauty. Each time that he described my truculent behaviour, throwing himself into the attitudes I had assumed, and repeating the words which I had used, he called up some fresh detail to my memory. They kept asking him if he had been afraid; to which he answered that they ought to ask me if I had been afraid, because he felt precisely the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of the Malakoff-takers, Such were the soldiers that scaled the Redan; Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty Quakers, Brave not the wrath of the sweet ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... faces too—faces dark, truculent, and smiling; the frank audacious faces of men barefooted, well armed and noiseless. They thronged the narrow length of our schooner's decks with their ornamented and barbarous crowd, with the variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Verde, in most ways like the negroes of the Senegal but "not obedient to that kingdom and abhorring the tyranny of the negro Princes, having no King or laws themselves, worshipping idols, using poisoned arrows which kill at once, even though they drew but little blood,"—in short a most truculent folk, but very fine of stature, black and comely. The whole coast east of C. Verde was found unapproachable, except for certain narrow harbours, till "with a south wind we reached the mouth of a river, called ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... Summit coach flashed, rattled, glittered, and snapped, like a disorganized firework, up to the door of the company's office. A familiar figure, but more than usually truculent and aggressive, slowly descended with violent oaths from the box. Without seeing Jeff, it strode into ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... into the fastnesses of the southern slopes of the Big Horn, and that their punishment had been heavy. Among the chiefs killed or seriously wounded was this new, vehement leader whom Captains Blake and Ray thought might be Red Fox, who was so truculent at the Black Hills conference the previous year. Certain of the men, however, who had seen Red Fox at that time expressed doubts. Lieutenant Field, said Webb, had seen him, and ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... all the insect pests that beset an unseasoned European the most provoking by far is the truculent mosquito.[1] Next to the torture which it inflicts, its most annoying peculiarities are the booming hum of its approach, its cunning, its audacity, and the perseverance with which it renews its attacks however frequently repulsed. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... amongst these people of 1896, when my life was more than once in jeopardy during their orgies. However, the natives of Erktrik (as this place is called), were so openly hostile that even the usually truculent Mikouline, who once, under the influence of his favourite beverage, had offered to accompany me to a much warmer and remoter place than this, was paralysed with fear. I therefore resolved to push on early the following day (April ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt |
