"Bad temper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sterling, who is to be your new driver, and I want you to behave yourself with him." Then to Derrick he said, "Harry has the reputation of being the most knowing, and at the same time the most perverse, mule in the mine. I believe though he only shows bad temper to those who abuse him, and I have selected you to be his driver because I know you will treat him kindly, and give him a chance to recover his lost reputation. If he does not behave himself with you, I shall put him in the tread-mill. Now stand there out ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... low class are unfortunately easily led by words. Alcides, who could not get over his bad temper, once more incited the men to revolt. While I was busy taking altitude observations with the hypsometrical apparatus I kept my eye on them, as I saw plainly that I ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... fine milker, with a bad temper, and a comically short tail. It had got chopped off by some accident when ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... sitting with his back to the door, did not hear her enter. Before he could turn, she had sprung forward, her arms were round his neck, and the roses under his nose. He drew his face away from their damp fragrance, but did not look up, and, without removing his cigarette, asked in a tone of extreme bad temper: "What are you doing here, Lulu? What nonsense is this? For God's ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a back yard where he can walk of a morning. These spinsters, although loving sisters, no longer go about together, Caligula’s nerves being so shaken that solitude upsets them. He would sooner expire than be left alone with the servant, for the excellent reason that his bad temper and absurd airs have made him dangerous enemies below stairs—and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... rich, and lived in great splendour. She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air. She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive. When somebody asked her if she said the Pater, she replied, yes, but that she passed by without saying it the clause respecting pardon for our enemies. She did not like her kinsfolk, the Matignons, and would never see nor speak to any of them. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... spoken with great disrespect about the turning out of His Royal Highness's toes, and the King that he did not lay on taxes enough; whereon the north-country lord was turned out of office and sent to his own estate. There he lived for some weeks in very bad temper. The servants said nothing would please him, and the people of the village put on their worst clothes lest he should raise their rents. But one day, in the harvest time, his lordship chanced to meet ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... merriment over their cooking operations next day, and when all were completed, both girls came to the conclusion that working for the good and happiness of others, was in itself an excellent cure for irritability, and all forms of bad temper. ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... been in the same kind of a temper too?" demanded Lily, firmly but kindly. "I think most troubles of this kind come from bad temper on both sides. Don't you? Have you done your share at being kind ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... terrible tiring job, teaching children, and some of them are that stupid you feel provoked enough to slap the hands off them! I'm nearly afraid of myself sometimes with the stupid ones, for fear I'd lose my temper with them and hurt them hard. Mr. Cairnduff says no one should be a teacher that has a bad temper, and dear knows, Uncle William, I've a fearful temper! He's a quare wise man, Mr. Cairnduff: he doesn't let any of his monitors use the cane, for he says it's an awful temptation to be cruel, especially if you're young and impatient the way ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... her cleverness. They feel bitterly their position at Fairclose, and make matters worse by their querulous complainings. I never go into the house unless I am sent for professionally, for their peevishness and bad temper are intolerable. If things had gone differently, and they had made good marriages, they might have turned out pleasant girls enough. As it is they are as utterly disagreeable as any young women I ever ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... you idiot!" said Rosewarne, now in a thoroughly bad temper. "You've been asleep and dreaming. Here, take your ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... silent all the way home. The junior did not dare to speak to him—scarcely to look up in his face. Yet it did occur to him that if any one had a right to be in a bad temper over that afternoon's proceedings it was Mrs ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... time Lancelot saw Mary Ann he did not remember having seen her before. This time she was a biped, and wore a white cap. Besides, he hardly glanced at her. He was in a bad temper, and Beethoven was barking terribly at the intruder who stood quaking in the doorway, so that the crockery clattered on the tea-tray she bore. With a smothered oath Lancelot caught up the fiery little spaniel ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... time to rid himself of the pests, and returned to the fire. Nobody now disputed the right of ownership to the log, for it was fairly alive with ants. Joe was sore all over and in a bad temper, until some one offered to give him some whiskey to rub in his wounds. Joe bargained he should drink it in preference, which he did and was ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... longer than most houses, because he swore at the workmen, and went to law with the builder for using dirt instead of mortar, so the builder had to pull down what was done wrong, and do it right; and Father says he knows he has a bad temper, but he does not mean to pull the house over our heads at present, unless he has to get bricks out to heave at Lady Catherine ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Roosevelt later, "we had all learned that, no matter how bad things were, grumbling and bad temper can always be depended upon to make them worse, and so bore our ill-fortune, if not with stoical indifference, at least ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... one thing, Monsieur! You see, I owe you a compliment for calling me such a pretty name as this!" With a mischievous smile she touched the roses nodding in her girdle. "And very autocratic for another, with a very bad temper. If you can't get your way you ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... you bodily, and feel the impossibility of keeping step with you. Besides, Man, who was a savage only yesterday, has his infirmities, and finds a poetic pleasure in the touch of the woman he loves. And I may add that you have been in such a bad temper all the afternoon that I suspect you of an itching to box my ears, and therefore feel safer with your arm in ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... their superior strength of faith, ought to have made them more able to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and with the passing moods, however provoking, of one another. But no. And their impatience and contempt and bad temper all came at this crisis to such a head with them that they could only be cured by the small cords and the stinging words of the Shining One. The true key to this so painful part of the parable hangs at our own girdle. We who have been ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... at once. The man was tall and dark, and his voice and bearing were unmistakable. The woman was fair, petite, and apparently very sleepy. She wore magnificent furs, and she had the air of being in a very bad temper. ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... afraid I have very bad manners, and a very bad temper. But I intend to be good now, and to remind me I give you permission when I am haughty or disagreeable to call ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... a bad time,' said I one day to a great dark bargee who was streaming from every pore, as much from bad temper as from the exertion of cracking his whip, and whose haggard horse looked as if he would soon break off in the middle from the strain of trying to move the barge, which was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... people in authority and stir up strife in every way possible. Bianca was naturally furious. Some say that it was her sudden rage on hearing this that caused her to burn her children to death; others say her act was merely due to bad temper owing to a sick headache. Anyhow, as later events go to show, she had chosen the very worst time to murder her children. More ugly rumours were at once noised abroad by those who were jealous of her. Upon ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... I was some one whom we never mention except when in a bad temper, and he was more and more puzzled when he found that at every stoppage I knew how much ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... he looked very ill the last time I saw him. And he came here solely to benefit you! Well, you have a good deal to answer for, and your face is not only your own misfortune, but other people's too. But it will never do for your father to see Mr. Davenport. He went off in a very bad temper this morning, and if he comes back and finds him here, there'll be ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... doing so," said Roy, hesitating a little. He wanted to speak of the conduct of Lish Kelly, but on second thought he decided not to; the man might merely have had a fit of bad temper on him. His threats might ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... hands on her jutting hips, only added to Chris's laughter. At last, sobering up somewhat as he realized that his behavior was rude, to put it mildly, Chris stopped and caught his breath, shaken only now and again by a diminishing paroxysm. Seeing the spark of bad temper in the red face of the enormous woman, Chris decided to pour oil ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... a little; and that though he should send expresses, yet it was impossible they could reach the distant parts in such time as to allow the several persons concerned the benefit of the indemnity within the space limited; besides, that some persons having put the Highlanders in a bad temper, he was confident to persuade them to submit, if a further time were allowed. Sir Thomas presented this letter to the Council on the 5th of January, 1692, but they refused to give any answer, and ordered him to ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... usual. Don't mind me. I'll probably end in a roaring bad temper and smash something. My moody spells often break ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... me through the school, I noted everywhere a happy and courteous relation between pupils and teachers. They spoke pleasantly to one another. I heard no nagging or scolding. I saw no one sulking or pouting or in bad temper. And yet there was every evidence of respect and obedience on the part of the pupils. There was none of that happy-go-lucky comradeship which I have sometimes seen in other modern schools, and which leads the pupil to understand that his teacher is there to gain his ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... certain, that by degrees the young woman's faults lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable bad temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made her and Miss Selina sometimes not on speaking terms for a week together. But she simply "sulked;" she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work just as usual—with a kind of dogged struggle not only against the superior ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!—for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the morning after her arrival, awoke in a bad temper, notwithstanding the fact that sweet little gentle Agnes was lying close to her, with her pretty head of fair hair pressed against the elder girl's shoulder. But when she went downstairs, and took her place in the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... wouldn't show myself for an empire when I'm in a bad temper. You wouldn't recognize your agreeable friend when he has the gout;—that's why ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... with an equability he did not feel. Nothing bored him more than bad temper. "We'll soon be dead—I mean, we'll soon be ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... a moment of chill silence. A swift surprise had flared into the eyes of the foreman. The last thing in the world he had expected was to have his bad temper resented so promptly by this smooth-faced little chap. Since Yankie was the camp bully he bristled ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... charms, and in Eastern jests this is abundantly shown. For instance, a Persian poet, through the importunity of his friends, had married an old and very ugly woman, who turned out also of a very bad temper, and they had constant quarrels. Once, in a dispute, the poet made some comparisons between his aged wife and himself and between Night and Day. "Cease your nonsense," said she; "night and day were created long before us." ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Barr, who was evidently in a bad temper and also in a furious hurry, as the launch ranged alongside, "bear a hand here and rig a sling and get this ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... journeyed inland to the savage territory in order to make terms with the cannibals for future emergencies. Unfortunately the chiefs refused to listen, and would have nothing to do with the agreement prepared for their signature. The Consul was irritated by their obstinacy; he had a bad temper and a glass eye, and when he lost the first, the second annoyed him. Under great stress of excitement he occasionally slipped the eye out for a moment, rubbed it violently on his coat-sleeve, then as rapidly replaced it—and this he did there in the council hut, utterly forgetful ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... wife, who had recently been assassinated by a Serbian fanatic somewhere in Bosnia. Reggie was furious at having to undertake this mission. For the mountains were soothing to him, and he was not yet ready for encounters. When he arrived in Tokyo, he was in a very bad temper. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Bob's words were the words of wisdom, but when did a lover—even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene—ever listen to the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous and propose to give his friend a chance when he thought ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... Turner began her long slant toward the Marquesas. For'ard, all were happy. Being only seamen, on seamen's wages, they hailed with delight the news that they were bound in for a tropic isle to fill their water-barrels. Aft, the three partners were in bad temper, and Nishikanta openly sneered at Captain Doane and doubted his ability to find the Marquesas. In the steerage everybody was happy—Dag Daughtry because his wages were running on and a further supply of beer was certain; Kwaque because he was happy whenever his master was happy; and Ah Moy because ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... by the topic and strove to change it; but Foster's propensity for mimicry and his ability to imitate Mrs. Clancy's combined brogue and sniffle proved too much for their efforts. Kate was in a royally bad temper by the time the youngsters left the house, and when Nellie would have made some laughing allusion to the fun the young fellows had been having over her morning caller, she was suddenly and tartly ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company, and the ticket-agent and his bad temper ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... swung shoreward I turned to look at the Englishman. All night I had heard no sound from him, nor glanced his way. My thoughts of him had been bitter, for he was a sore weight on my hands. Yet this I knew was unjust, and I was shamed for my own bad temper. My surliness must have pricked him, as he sat silent through the long hours of dark and cold; and now that the approaching sun was putting me in a better humor, I could see that I had been hard, and I determined to speak ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... words, and the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was too late. Seeing my daughter in the room with me (I had been afraid to let her out of my sight after what had happened the day before) he ordered her away. They neither of them liked each other, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... her soul was her own. Mr. Lewis couldn't be cross to people when they came for their mail so he saved it all for Mrs. Lewis. That doesn't seem quite fair, does it, for people to be pleasant to outsiders and save their bad temper for ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... Street. If you put their noses together, they'd reach to Legare Street. It runs in the family. Julian Pringle, he died in '70, he was just the same. Now why should a long nose run through a family like that, or a bad temper, or the colour of hair? I don't know. The world's a puzzle and the older one grows, ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... but in truth he was a fellow of six feet, as hairy as a brock and in the same straight bristly fashion. He put out his arms at full reach to keep back his clansmen, who were stretching necks at poor MacLachlan like weasels, him with his nostrils swelling and his teeth biting his bad temper. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Jefferson's maxims is as follows: "When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred." I once knew a man to square his conduct by this rule, with a most gratifying result. Jacob Scolliver, a man prone to bad temper, one day started across the fields to visit his father, whom he generously permitted to till a small corner of the old homestead. He found the old gentleman behind the barn, bending over a barrel that was canted over at an angle of seventy degrees, and from which issued a cloud of ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... de Sallus, evidently in a bad temper. He looks for a moment at Mme. de Sallus and at Jacques de Randol, who is taking his leave; ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... to find Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. The obstinate Canadian refused, and I could clearly see that his tight-lipped mood and his bad temper were growing by the day. Under the circumstances I ultimately wasn't sorry that he refused. In truth, there were too many seals ashore, and it would never do to expose this impulsive fisherman to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... natural instincts too violently denied. Thoughts of obscene words and gestures came unasked to torment the pure soul of Catherine of Siena.[68] St. Teresa complained that the devil sometimes sent her so offensive a spirit of bad temper that she could eat people up.[69] Games and sport of a combative or destructive kind provide an innocent outlet for a certain amount of this unused ferocity; and indeed the chief function of games in the modern state is to help us avoid occasions of sin. The sinfulness of any deed depends, therefore, ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... homes of men, like the Brown Rat, but he causes a great deal of damage by stealing grain in the shock. He eats all kinds of grain, many seeds, and meat when he can get it. He is very destructive to eggs and young of ground-nesting birds. He has a bad temper and will fight savagely. Mr. and Mrs. Cotton Rat raise several large families in a year. Foxes, Owls and Hawks are their ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... deviation from truthfulness because of what they call commercial custom. In other words, the multiplication and universality of a sin turns it into a virtue. There have been large fortunes gathered where there was not one drop of unrequited toil in the wine; not one spark of bad temper flashing from the bronze bracket; not one drop of needle-woman's heart-blood in the crimson plush; while there are other great establishments in which there is not one door-knob, not one brick, not one trinket, not one thread of lace, but has upon it the mark of dishonor. What ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... her fingers. "Fava has been in a bad temper ever since that American heiress came to Rome. She fears that Miss America will cut ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... "I'm not a bad temper," said Pussy; "and I never quarrel with people unless they quarrel with me." So saying, she opened her eyes wider, and looked round. She liked the warm sunshine, and the scent of the flowers, and the soft ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... We cannot say that we admire the hurdy-gurdy, that synthesis of a grindstone and a Jew's-harp, yea, of all that is detestable, musically speaking, which must have owed its origin to a desire on the part of Jupiter Musicus, in a bad temper, to invent a suitable purgatory for expiating the sins of delinquent musicians; affording, on this supposition, an exquisite illustration of the perfect adaptation of means to an end—one well worthy the attention of all future writers on that subject. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Maizie," said Suzanna; "you never can slap or be cross. I have a bad temper and sometimes get mad. But because of what you are You always have ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Mrs. Carteret said that evening to her husband. "Bad temper is one of the worst signs. Men in ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... I hope—that no one will ever call me "highly strung." I wish good old-fashioned bad temper was still the word for highly strung ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... Lesser Slave, when a smiling couple drew five dollars for a baby one day old, a Cree bystander dubbed the baby "dat little meal-ticket." A young girl who came up to claim her money was nicknamed "Pee-shoo," or "The Lynx," because of her bad temper. So we see where all the old cats ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... perhaps," he suggested, "what caused the mysterious light? I could have told you this morning, but I fear I was in a bad temper, Petrie. It's very simple; a length of tape soaked in spirit or something of the kind, and sheltered from the view of any one watching from your windows, behind the trunk of the tree; then, the end ignited, lowered, still behind the tree, to the ground. The operator swinging it around, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... "paid off'' is sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency, is discharged. In consequence every workman knows that his place does not depend upon the whim of his immediate superior, but that faithful service ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... some on the typewriter—those, you see, that don't require a very particular answer—and he says it shortens his work very much. And," she added with a sigh, "I have given my dear father so much trouble in past days by my bad temper and wilfulness, that I feel I can never do enough to make up to ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... we inspanned, and I mounted my horse in a bad temper. I had some fever on me, I think, and I hated this lush yet frigid tableland, where all the winds on earth lay in wait for one's marrow. Lawson was, as usual, in great spirits. We were not hunting, but shifting our hunting-ground, so all morning we travelled fast to the north along the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... was not passed over, for Dick thought that her bad temper might be made better by a ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... cried Richard in alarm. "I could plainly see that he was in a bad temper, and you'll ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... performing lions, and jump through hoops whenever I ask them. But I must warn you beforehand that I shall tell Sybil everything. She is coming to lunch with me to-morrow, to talk about bonnets, and if Mr. Podgers finds out that you have a bad temper, or a tendency to gout, or a wife living in Bayswater, I shall certainly let ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... modes, was true on this occasion to her theatrical calling, for to Ringfield's eye at least she appeared like some Oriental personage, caught and brought home in native garb, coupled with a very bad temper. Red and black was her habit and black and red her eyes ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... I said she had a bad temper, and told what was not true, and slapped her little brothers and sisters, that would be a falsehood. And if I said she understood the song of the birds and the sough of the wind among the trees, and the running, tumbling little streams that are always ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... vestigial organs which have come down to us only for harm. In general we inherit bodies and brains fairly well organized for our welfare; but there are still atavisms to be ruthlessly stamped out. The craving for stimulants or drugs, sexual perversions, kleptomania, pyromania, and the other manias, bad temper, jealousy- there is a good deal of the old Adam in us which is just wholly bad and to be utterly done away with; rebellious impulses that are hopelessly at war with our own good and must go the way of cannibalism and polygamy. Morality is the stern exterminator ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... racing up to challenge. It was rising to get the "drop" on us. We carried an aerial gun, but hesitated to fire, as we wanted all our speed to get above our rival. Our engine lost its bad temper for a change. Round and round we began to circle like game cocks spoiling for a fight; rising, forgetting, in the excitement, the cold of the upper air—higher and higher, till Nap shouted, "We'll get her beneath us in the next round and then for a 'cough-drop' ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... not drunk, but in bad temper, for he had been drunk the night before. He swore at me, and told me to take the whip and help him. We tried for a little time, then I told him it was no use, they could never do it. He swore louder and called to the leaders to come on with their whips, and together they lashed. There ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... so formidably that Jane could have cried out, "For goodness' sake go and marry her and leave off venting your bad temper upon me." ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... was holiday on the farm; Richard Burke allowed his men a day off once every half year when he paid his rent. They would almost rather not have had it, for he made himself particularly unpleasant both before and after. On this morning he had got up in a bad temper, and managed to find half a dozen occasions for grumbling at Desmond before breakfast, so that the boy was glad to get away and walk off his resentment and soreness ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... often responded in English to the priest's Italian; and he added half musingly in his own tongue, after a moment, "but I don't think it would be safe to count upon her. I'm afraid she has a bad temper. At any rate, I always expect to see smoke somewhere when I look at those eyes of hers. She has wonderful self-control, however; and I don't exactly understand why. Perhaps people of strong impulses have strong wills to overrule them; it ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... arising out of arrears of rent and leading on to mutual character sketching, before Mr. Polly could be brought to the necessary pitch of despair to carry out his plans. He went for an embittering walk, and came back to find Miriam in a bad temper over the tea things, with the brewings of three-quarters of an hour in the pot, and hot buttered muffin gone leathery. He sat eating in silence with his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... on his legs, Claude had felt sorely tempted to push aside the screen and to take a look at his guest. This self-condemned curiosity only increased his bad temper. At last, with his habitual shrug of the shoulders, he was taking up his brushes, when he heard some words stammered amidst a rustling of bed-clothes. Then, however, soft breathing was heard again, and this time he yielded to the temptation, dropping his brushes, and peeping from behind the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Under the rules which the convention had adopted, he could not reply, so he had to sit and take it. The only feeling or evidence of being hurt by his punishment was in exclamations at different points made by his assailant. They were: "Remarkable!" "Extraordinary!" "What an exhibition!" "Bad temper!" "Very bad temper!" ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... weigh me out two ounces, my good woman; I don't object even if you make it a quarter of a pound." The woman, who hoped to have met with a good customer, gave him all he wished, and went off grumbling, and in a very bad temper. ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... worked like a knife trying to leap from its sheath. But although he occasionally ventured upon a retort when goaded too far in conversation, he was able to curb his just indignation when the Chamberlain was in a bad temper. In that vague gray under winking stars in their last watch, Rezanov seemed to tower six feet ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Skunk went. Yes, Sir, that was just as far as Jimmy Skunk went. You see, no sooner did he start to enter that old house of Johnny Chuck's than he was met by a lot of those Yellow Jackets, and they were in a very bad temper. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be produced voluntarily; and with a horse of bad temper involuntarily? ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... resource. I myself am looking forward to the delightful change Jacobus may have at Hyde Manor. It will make a new life for him, and also for me. This afternoon something is vexing you. I shall take no offence. You will regret your bad temper to-morrow." ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... castle. He had to exchange greetings first on one side, then on the other, grasping many a horny hand. Behind his back the people broke out into kindly excuses—"A good man, with no fault except a little bad temper. . . ." And in a few minutes Monsieur Desnoyers was basking in the delightful ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... altogether unmindful of the reported bad temper of the Indians, and had we not taken precautions against surprise, we might possibly have been attacked; but at night two of the party were always on watch, accompanied by a blood-hound, to give notice of the approach of a foe. We put up rough tents, which afforded ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... now! Can we not have our opinions whatever they are without this bad temper and this bad language? It is too ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... know if it was on account of Dan arguing with him, or if it was because there was no bread for dinner, that Dad was in a bad temper; anyway, he swore at Joe for coming to the table with dirty hands. Joe cried and said that he could n't wash them when Dave, as soon as he had washed his, had thrown the water out. Then Dad scowled at Dave, and Joe passed his plate along ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Miss Feely, I've got such a bad temper; it's very bad of me. I was trying on Miss Marie's dress, and she slapped my face; and I spoke out before I thought, and was saucy; and she said that she'd bring me down, and have me know, once for all, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the way that Barlas dropped the damper on the hot ashes and swung round on his heel that he was in a bad temper. "And so you think, Cadi," said he, "that we squatters and bushmen are a strong, murderous lot; that we hunt down the Myalls—[Aborigines]—like kangaroos or dingoes, and unrighteously take justice in our own hands instead of handing it over ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... great mass of modern fact and fiction, it seems very necessary indeed; most of our realists and sociologists talk about a poor man as if he were an octopus or an alligator. There is no more need to study the psychology of poverty than to study the psychology of bad temper, or the psychology of vanity, or the psychology of animal spirits. A man ought to know something of the emotions of an insulted man, not by being insulted, but simply by being a man. And he ought to know something of the emotions of a poor man, not by being ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... make me think there is a God, after all. I have been doubting everything. I feel it is a judgment on all my discontent and bad temper. I often used to tire of him, and wish he were different; and now I feel it would be heaven itself to see him standing before me ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... alarmed the eyes. Red predominated in them, mottled with violent tints of blue, yellow, and violet of a barbaric charm. On the mornings when she pinched Marjolin, and teased him till she made him cry, she made up fierce-looking bouquets, suggestive of her own bad temper, bouquets with strong rough scents and glaring irritating colours. On other days, however, when she was softened by some thrill of joy or sorrow, her bouquets would assume a tone of silvery grey, very soft and subdued, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Majesty was sending one of his ministers to Holland. He had been placed at that post by the Prince of Orange, who put entire confidence in him. Heinsius had not long before been sent to France to confer with Louvois, and, in the discharge of that commission, he had experienced the bad temper of a minister more accustomed to speak harshly to military officers than to treat with foreigners; he had not forgotten that the minister had threatened to have him put in the Bastille. Consummate master of affairs, of which he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... no Japanese traits either in manner or appearance. At first she seemed to be in a genuinely British bad temper, but Brett excelled in the art of smoothing ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... and marriage was approaching, but his request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention of the young Countess Rostova the old prince (who apart from that was usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her consternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas some symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told herself that she must not ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... do be right. Will I lose all the good we have gained for the sake o' bad temper? The end's in sight,—the blessed end o' the secrecy, an' the weary struggle o' keepin' me gineral's nose to the grindstone, and now to leave go? Not while Cleena Keegan draws a free breath, an' can handle a silly gossoon, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... parting from his Dulcinea of Tabora—to be, bereft of all enjoyment now, nothing but marches—hard, long marches—to go to the war—to be killed, perhaps, Oh! Inspired by such feelings, no wonder Bombay was inclined to be pugnacious when I ordered him to his place, and I was in a shocking bad temper for having been kept waiting from 8 A.M. to 2 P.M. for him. There was simply a word and a savage look, and my cane was flying around Bombay's shoulders, as if he were to be annihilated. I fancy that the eager fury of my onslaught broke his stubbornness more than anything else; ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... keep off all the things that make people unhappy—jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was made. Don't you think it would be nice ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... Jahweh's bad temper is constantly displayed in the Bible. Jahweh made a man, whom he supposed to be perfect. When the man turned bad on his hands, Jahweh was angry, and cursed him and his seed for thousands of years. This vindictive act is accepted by ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... up their minds that it might be better to eat dinner than tear each other to pieces, Mr. Owl was eating the rat, and they were obliged to go hungry for that day at least. If a person is not only a glutton, but has beside a bad temper, he is very likely to miss many good things which he might enjoy without much labor. Yet I don't like to see people too soft, and smiling too sweetly, for then I always think of the time when Mr. Wolf called on Mrs. Hog, professing to be such ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... the lack of some acid lotion which would have eased the pain of their stings. The Major did his best to console him by reminding him of the fact that they had only to do with one species of insect, among the 300,000 naturalists reckon. He would listen to nothing, and got up in a very bad temper. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... instruments again made itself heard, and again the procession emerged from the narrow by-ways where the blessing had been plentifully strewn, and moved up the quay toward the three-arched bridge. By this time the poor little saints and angels were pretty tired and draggled. The small St. John, in a very bad temper, was banging about him with his cross, while the queen of heaven, reduced to tears of anguished fatigue, had been picked up in the strong arms of her father, where she was on the point of dropping asleep. "Pickle Johnny," too, was getting fretful again, having exhausted the charms of scent-bottle ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... youngster," he cried. "You and me's going to be good friends, I see. No, my lad, there's no brag in my make. I've got plenty of faults, including a bad temper; but sham was left out when I was made. But about the 'Jason': I did contrive her for ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... and flora vie with the blues of ocean and sky in resting the eye and in filling the soul with that harmony which is said to make for sound living. Yet to a child, Fred's schoolmates are experts on patent medicines and on the heredity that is alleged to be responsible for bad temper, running sores, tuberculosis, anaemia, and weak eyes. Freddie is particularly favored. His well-to-do parents have supplied him with ponies, games, and bicycles. Nothing prevents his breathing salt ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... outhouse of a wretched half-caste shanty, and the thing had given me the horrors. Well, one night I was told to put out a tipsy Lascar who was making himself obnoxious; he had come ashore and lost all his money and was in a bad temper. Of course I had to obey if I didn't want to lose my place and starve; but the man was twice as strong as I—I was not twenty-one and as weak as a cat after the fever. Besides, he had ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... a far corner of the cage. The manager thought with despair that if this loyal disposition remained with the lion until the evening the contest with the whip would be a failure; for to fight a lion who slinks away needs no more art than to eat a lobster from his tail. The bad temper of the proprietor became still worse when he learned from the ticket seller that he was disposing of no seats in the "gods;" that the Cahuillas evidently had spent all their money that they had earned in the vineyards for drinks, and that they came to ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... speak at all," said Miss Teenie, who by this time was in a very bad temper. "I never could mind the names of the Royal Family, let alone the aristocracy. I always thought there was a weakness about the people who liked to read in the papers and talk about those kind of folk. I'm sure when I do read about them they're always doing something kind of indecent, like getting ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... fit of bad temper," said the doctor, "because the big fellow's night, was disturbed. Here, what's the matter, Denham?" he continued, as they reached the shady pasture where the sleek bullocks were knee deep in rich grass, evidently laying in a store for emergencies when fodder ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... physiologists disclaim corporate responsibility, formulate no code of vivisectional ethics for laboratories to post up and enforce, appoint no censors, pass no votes of condemnation or exclusion, propose of themselves no law, so long must the antivivisectionist agitation, with all its expensiveness, idiocy, bad temper, untruth, and vexatiousness, continue, as the only possible means of bringing home to the careless or callous individual experimenter the fact that the sufferings of HIS animals are somebody else's business ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... would hate herself for her bad temper, and the nasty things she said. She knew she was making herself unlovable, and she did so long ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rang out amidst the old lady's bad temper. Why, indeed, show one's sores to foreigners, whose visit is possibly prompted by hostile curiosity? One always ought to look beautiful; Rome should not be shown otherwise than in the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... deal of it's bad temper. Anyhow, I've felt that rather than truckle with that fellow Horsfield I'd like to pitch him down the stairs. But all this ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... against himself. My father says that he was born in a bad temper. Why, he won't even say 'Good-morning' sometimes, only gives you a surly scowl or a snap as if ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... all for me," said Insie, looking as if she had known him for ten years, "you will do exactly what I tell you. You will think no more about me for a fortnight; and then if you fancy that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by teaching you how to plait reeds for a bat, and how to fill a pitcher—perhaps I might be able to come down ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... none of their kind will ever associate with them. They live, consequently, morose and solitary lives, and are always the most dangerous to attack. He was captured like the rest, and as a proof of his bad temper, as he was dragged by one of those lying on the ground, he attacked him furiously with his tusks, and would have injured him severely had he not been torn away from him. No one trumpeted and screamed louder at ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... that he noticed that even a king could not always have his own way was on a day when he went hunting. It happened that he got no game. This put him in such a bad temper that he grumbled and scolded all the way home. The little gold ring began to feel tight and uncomfortable. When he reached the palace his pet dog ran to ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... tree trunk, and, rushing up it for a yard or two, stop suddenly, absolutely still, with fearful eyes, and ears intently and intensely cocked. If you stand equally still the squirrel will stay there, motionless, like a piece of the tree, for a minute or so, and then, in a very bad temper, disappear from view on the other side of the trunk, and probably, though you run round the tree quickly several times and search every branch with your eyes, never come into sight again. It is a good thing to sit under a tree some distance from the beech trees, making as little movement ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... starving with hunger, dead tired and soaked to the skin, and wish you could just lie down and die, MacKenzie simply bubbles over with good humour. It's a hateful characteristic. When I'm in a bad temper, I much prefer everyone else to be ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... over the ground his proposer had taken, so that, bating the bad temper, the pith of his speech was much the same, quite as much deprecating the political views of his opponent, and harping on O'Grady's worn-out catch-word of "Having chalked out a line ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... much to his relief, was ordered to allow the Earl's car to proceed, un-searched. The chauffeur, who was accustomed to be dry and warm, caught a nasty chill, and was in a bad temper for a week. He wrote to the Secretary of his Union complaining of the brutal way in which the military tyrannised over the representatives of skilled labour. The people of Dunedin felt that they had enjoyed a novel and agreeable show. Lady Ramelton made a large quantity of rhubarb ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... standing on the edge of a narrow eroded ravine, ten feet deep, with perpendicular sides. The rhinoceros came on bravely to the edge of this ravine-and stopped. Then he gave an exhibition of unmitigated bad temper most amusing to contemplate-from my safe position. He snorted, and stamped, and pawed the earth, and tramped up and down at a great rate. I sat on the opposite bank and laughed at him. This did not ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... class of persons condemned as sinners by theologians, but considered by us as invalids. We have constant reasons for noticing the transmission of qualities from parents to offspring, and we find it hard to hold a child accountable in any moral point of view for inherited bad temper or tendency to drunkenness,—as hard as we should to blame him for inheriting gout or asthma. I suppose we are more lenient with human nature than theologians generally are. We know that the spirits of men and their views of the present and the future go up and down, with the barometer, and that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... His wife's sullenness and bad temper continued that day, for she cowered away from him and hid under the sofa, nor could he persuade her to come out from there. Even when it was her dinner time she stayed, refusing resolutely to be tempted out with food, and lying so quiet that he heard nothing ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... which is often tacitly inferred between a bad temper and a religious course of life, there seems to be an instinctive recognition of this peculiar vice being so much the necessary result of physical organization, that the motives proving effectual against other sins are ineffectual for the extirpation of this. Perhaps, if this recognition were distinct, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... at me for a moment, then he lit his pipe. It was quite true that I was in a bad temper, and ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... where nothing so dreadful as that occurs, always these miseries are the chief hinderance of the self-reforming drunkard, and the commonest cause of his relapse. It is certain, also, that misanthropic gloom and bad temper besiege that class, by preference, to whom peculiar coarseness or obtuse sensibility of organization has denied the salutary warnings and early prelibations of punishment which, happily for most men, besiege the more direct and obvious frailties ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... nobody knows how much I am indebted to my crooked back. If it weren't for that I might have a bad temper and never know it. But that drives it out of its hole, and when I see the ugly head of it I know it's there, and try once more to starve it to death. But oh dear! it's such a creature to burrow! When I think I've built it in ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the temper, the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control. Dr. Johnson says men grow better as they grow older, and improve with experience; but this depends upon the width, and depth, and generousness of their nature. ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... then, to Ambrose's great excitement, stepped on to the offered finger, and allowed himself to be drawn down from the tree. After this, his cage being brought out with no signs of the stranger, and some choice morsels of food placed in it, he showed no more bad temper, but marched in at the door, and ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... frankly. "I'm sorry! You are right, and I am wrong. I'm in a bad temper, and can't see things in their right light to-day. Of course, if one really settled down to it, there would be plenty to do; it's when one is only playing with the position that ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... no doubt that there is nothing in the world more selfish, more absorbing, more disagreeable to every one excepting the players, than chess. Mr Gwynne began his game half asleep; Rowland began his in a very bad temper. The former was glad of anything that could keep him awake, the latter was disgusted at having been made the victim of Miss Gwynne's anxiety to preserve her father from falling fast asleep in the midst of his guests. But, by degrees, the one was thoroughly ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... province of woman; minor annoyances her burden. Dullness, bad temper, mal-adroitness, are to her the cause of a thousand petty rubs, which too often spoil the euphony of a silver voice, and discompose the symmetry of fair features. But the confidence which reposes on divine affection, and the charity which covers human ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... this, looked at him hard for a moment. She then diagnosed his case as, one of bad temper rather than of malice, and could forgive it in one who had failed to interest the great woman and been discarded in consequence; Mercedes, she knew, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... union, with a tragedy. He began a bully and a scold; and so far from being mollified by her gentleness, his bad temper increased by indulgence, until he absolutely prevented her from eating, bathing, or entering the cage when he was about. At this point providence—in the shape of the mistress—interfered, bought a new cage as big as the old one, and, in ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller |
