"Surliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greeting is in the expression of the eyes. This is so nearly spontaneous that the most guarded cannot altogether veil the spirit that looks out of these "windows of the soul." The studied attitude and genuflection fail to hide surliness or contempt; and hostility, bitter and implacable, may reveal itself by the smoldering spark of anger in the eye, and destroy the effect of the most artful obsequiousness of manner. Since we cannot control this one impulsively-truthful medium of expression, it becomes a matter of policy ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... and defiant surliness before, now all had become obedience and worship. He understood enough of the barbarian psychology to know that power, strength and dominance—and these ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... reduce me to the level of an inn-keeper, or one who received boarders. I wished to command a ship, not to take in lodgers; persons whom you are bound to treat with a certain degree of consideration, and, in one sense, as your superiors. Still, it had too much of an appearance of surliness, and a want of hospitality, to refuse a respectable man a passage across the ocean, when he might not get another chance in a month, and that, too, when it was important to himself to proceed immediately. In ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... said the cowpuncher, "but maybe they're worth the price." For all his surliness, however, Shorty was her ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... were exhibiting or working on. He received a call from some of his humble companions, and in their presence he lamented the insolence of the younger generation, their disrespectful attacks, with the surliness of a famous artist who is getting old and thinks that talent has died out with him and that no one can take his place. Then the drowsiness of digestion seized him, as it did Cotoner, and he submitted to the bliss of short naps, the happiness of doing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... months after the death of Louis XV. that the Court of Vienna obtained his recall. The avowed grounds for requiring it were, first, the public gallantries of Prince Louis with some ladies of the Court and others; secondly, his surliness and haughtiness towards other foreign ministers, which would have had more serious consequences, especially with the ministers of England and Denmark, if the Empress herself had not interfered; thirdly, his contempt for religion in a country where it was particularly necessary ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... straightness, outstretch, overstretch. STYRAN, to steer—steer, steerage, steersman, stern (the hind part of a ship), astern. STYRIAN, to stir—stir, bestir. SUR, sour—sour, sourish, sourness, sorrel, surly, surliness. SWERIAN, to swear—swear, swearer, forswear, answer, unanswered. SWET, sweet—sweet, sweetbread, sweeten, ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... effectually subdued to the dominion of his wife as the person whose submission he then ventured to condemn; with this difference of disposition—, Trunnion's subjection was like that of a bear, chequered with fits of surliness and rage; whereas Pickle bore the yoke like an ox, without repining. No wonder, then, that this indolence, this sluggishness, this stagnation of temper rendered Gamaliel incapable of withstanding the arguments and importunity of his friends, to which he at length ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... too far, Polly," he admitted. He was mild, but he preserved a little touch of surliness in order that she might not conclude that her victory was won. "But seeing that I brought you off to sea to get you away ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... up against an unexpected difficulty. Old Man Bright received them with considerable surliness. He considered himself as the originator, discoverer, inventor, and almost the proprietor of Bright's Cove and all it contained. Therefore, when he first heard of the new strike, he walked up to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... kindly. "Sir Percival is indeed fortunate to have a page, who while so young, yet is so loyal. So shall we see you again. Kind Merlin," and the King turned to the Wizard, "awaken you this sleeping knight whose only sin seems an undue amount of surliness and arrogance, which his bravery ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... the other side of the world." Surliness had given place to depression in the boy's voice. Sympathy, albeit from an unknown quarter, moved him to confidence. "But it isn't that I mind," he said, a moment later. "I should be ready enough to clear out if ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sick, and in his sickness, had an equal share of my attention; but if, after his recovery, I took the liberty to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore-feet, spring forward, and bite. He was, however, very entertaining in his way, even his surliness was matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with such a solemnity of manner, that in him, too, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... smiled at Dennis. "They can't find out that it's not I, but the ward. So every time there's trouble they lay it against me, and it's hard to keep them friendly. And I hate quarrels and surliness." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... result in a riot with which the city authorities would not be able to cope, Chief of Police George S. Riley recommended to the civil service commission that forty magazine rifles be purchased for the police department.[78] At that time the police had only their pistols and clubs. It was said that surliness then existed among certain negroes and the police wanted to be able to cope with any situation that might arise. The City Council, thereafter, raised the license fee for labor agents to $25,000, requiring also that such an agent be ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... a week, and when that was done, whether it were of set purpose or no, the dame forgat her other promise, to give Birdalone more holiday, and kept her close to her work about meadow and acre. Otherwise her mistress nowise mishandled or threatened her, though she had gone back to the surliness and railing which was her wont. At last, on a morning when the dame had bidden her to nought of work, Birdalone took her bow in her hand and cast her quiver on her back, and went her ways into the wood, and forgat not the tress of Habundia's hair; but she ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... the old, cord breeches that disfigured me, hideous in themselves and rendered more so by numerous darns and ill-contrived patches. Here then, as it seemed, was the explanation for the brutality, surliness and odious familiarity I had been subjected to; for my voice and manner being out of all keeping with my appearance, I must naturally become an object of suspicion, coarse ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... landlord, a little brought down from his dignity by the stranger's surliness, 'is a Maypole story, and has been any time these four-and-twenty years. That story is Solomon Daisy's story. It belongs to the house; and nobody but Solomon Daisy has ever told it under this roof, or ever ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... but the vacant look of his two eyes gives you to understand that he could never run out of his wits, which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want employment; they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering. He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often saved him from being treated like a cur, till some more sagacious than ordinary found his nature, and used him accordingly. Unhappy being! terrible without, fearful within! Not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a sheep in ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the pamphlet Common Sense, he censured it because it attacked the English form of government. John was for independence because he expected to be made great by it; but it was not difficult to perceive, for the surliness of his temper makes him an awkward hypocrite, that his head was as full of kings, queens, and knaves, as a pack of cards. But ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine |
