"Ill-natured" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hair, an accomplishment in which she excelled many a noted coiffeur. The important evening came, and she exercised all her skill to adorn the two young ladies. While she was combing out the elder's hair, this ill-natured girl said sharply, "Cinderella, do you not wish you ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... distinct kinds—our native brownish-black bees, and the Italians imported by Mr. S. B. Parsons and others about fifteen years ago. There is a cross or hybrid between these two kinds that are said to be so ill-natured that it is unsafe to go anywhere near ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... be expected, for he seems to have had absolutely no experience to qualify him for the post. Senator Crawford intimated that in instructing his naval officers Hamilton impressed upon them the desirability of keeping their superiors supplied with pineapples and other tropical fruits—an ill-natured comment which, true or not, gives us the measure of the man. Both Monroe and Gallatin shared the prevailing estimate of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy and expressed themselves without reserve to Jefferson; but the President with characteristic indecision hesitated to purge his Cabinet ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Lettres d'une Peruvienne" and found herself famous. She wrote "Cenie," which was played at the Comedie Francaise, and her success was established. Then she wrote another drama. "She read it to me," says one of her friends; "I found it bad; she found me ill-natured. It was played; the public died of ennui and the author of chagrin." "I am convinced that misfortune will follow me into paradise," she said. At all events, it seems to have followed her to ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... sad want of other and more valuable qualifications, commits an error, the wretched effects of which will be experienced through life. When this outward beauty loses its charm and passes away, as it will in a brief space of time, what has he left? A cross-grained, ill-natured, fault-finding, petulant, selfish wife, who will prove a "thorn in his side," during all his days, rather than a loving ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... inferred from such strictures on the administration of justice, a matter on which, as an upright lawyer, Lauder was keenly sensitive, that he was an ill-natured critic of his professional brethren or of public men. On the contrary, the tone of his observations, though shrewd and humorous, is kindly and large-minded. He admired Lockhart, who was his senior at the bar, and whom he perhaps regarded more than any other man as his professional leader ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... persecute, oppress, grind; maltreat; illtreat, ill-use. wreak one's malice on, do one's worst, break a butterfly on the wheel; dip one's hands in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood; have no mercy &c. 914a. Adj. malevolent, unbenevolent; unbenign; ill-disposed, ill- intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived; evil-minded, evil-disposed; black-browed[obs3]. malicious; malign, malignant; rancorous; despiteful, spiteful; mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent; unamiable, uncharitable; maleficent, venomous, grinding, galling. harsh, disobliging; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... than he had bargained for. However ill-natured he felt towards the squire for his proposal to send him to Jacob Wire's, it never occurred to him to retaliate by committing a crime. His ideas of Christian charity and of forgiveness were but partially developed; and though he ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... must do Dr. Johnson the justice to contradict a very absurd and ill-natured story, as to what passed at St. Andrews. It has been circulated, that, after grace was said in English, in the usual manner, he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it to be no grace in an university, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... such a plight as this, and I don't mean to take it as quiet as you think. I let you lead me on, from one thing to another, because we had been mixed up together in a certain sort of a way, and if you had liked to be ill-natured you might perhaps have hurt the business, and if you liked to be good-natured you might throw a good deal in my way. Well; if all goes right now, that's quite correct, and I don't mind it; but if anything goes wrong, then times ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... rascals, as round and plump as foot-balls. As for poultry, the only kind that had not done well was her turkeys. And of this there was visible testimony in four dyspeptic young ones that walked sleepily around two old ones, kept up a very ill-natured whimpering, and in addition to being featherless were quite as much bedowned as the face of a freshman. The major, who had a remedy for everything, set at once to prescribing for their distempers, which he swore by his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... of the muslin dress on which Carrie's eye had all the while been resting, disappeared, and as there was no longer an incentive for ill-natured remarks, the amiable young lady adroitly ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... common-sense, without bumptiousness. These qualities, added to the highest standard of morality (not angular and morose, but cheerful morality), are conceded to Frenchwomen by whoever knows something of French life outside of the Paris boulevards, and Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot even so ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... again became purple, and she protested vehemently: 'I shall leave the room, May. I will not suffer it one moment longer. I can't think how it is you dare speak to me in that way; and, what is worse, attribute to me such ill-natured remarks.' ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... pray don't think your time lost; for, willing, nilling, you'll be forced to stay, unless you are resolved to encounter Juno, Neptune, Doris, Aeolus, and his fluster-busters, and, in short, all the pack of ill-natured left-handed godlings and vejoves. Do but resolve to be cheery, and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... her away, if she knew how late Phebe sometimes calls us in the morning,' Jacinth used to say. 'There's nothing that would vex her more than laziness, and it is very tiresome. But then, very likely, she'd get us some prim maid that would be ill-natured and crabbed, and perhaps not ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... There are often well disposed natures who, after troubles, express themselves in the manner described. It very frequently happens that suspects, especially those under arrest, alter completely in the course of time, become sullen, coarse, passionate, ill-natured, show themselves defiant and resentful to even the best-willed approach, and exhibit even a kind of courage in not offering any defense and in keeping silent. Such phenomena require the most obvious caution, for one is now dealing ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... people would say ill-natured things if you did not keep one of them," said Clarissa. "Matilda has a temper; but she ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... seldom be driven to have recourse to the advice of the pious Nicole in his Essay, "des moyens de profiter de mauvais sermons." The various modes in which different preachers enforce or illustrate the same great truths, and the diversities of their style and manner, may afford you matter—not of ill-natured criticism—but of useful reflection. Some colleges require their under-graduates to give every week in writing a summary of the sermon which they have heard at St. Mary's. If you adopt this practice, you will find it contribute greatly to fix ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an ill-natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian "as Parisians ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... that, among other ill-natured remarks, they had been reproached with having strewn a path of roses to lead them to Heaven, and with having brought our Saviour down from the Cross; meaning that they did not practise many corporal austerities. Those who said this quite ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... should I be ill-natured to you? I heartily wish you to be well and happy. I daresay M. Urmand will make you a good husband. Good-bye, Marie. I shall be off in a few minutes. Will you not say ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... an ill-natured little cat, and the man that marries her will find that it is she who will hold the reins and ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... a river bank smoking a pipe and awaiting a bite? It had a spice of intellectuality about it too, for did it not foster a spirit of meditation, contemplation, and even of philosophical speculation—when he chanced to be awake? Moreover, it saved him from harder labour, and shut the mouths of those ill-natured people who objected to drones, and had a tendency to reproach them, for was he not assiduously procuring for men and women a portion of that nourishment without which labour ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... to conceal the figure with drapery. I wanted to run away and hide myself. If I analyzed my feeling, it did not seem to arise so much from the consciousness of any particularly heinous secrets, as from the knowledge of a swarm of fatuous, ill-natured, and unseemly thoughts and half thoughts concerning those around me, and concerning myself, which it was insufferable that any person should peruse in however benevolent a spirit. But while my chagrin and distress on this account ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... were seeking to oppose, their swart was a peculiarity of birth, a racial sign. Recognizing them, the spectators near by shouted: "Gypsies! Gypsies!" and the jeer passed from mouth to mouth far as the bridge over the creek at the corner of the bay; yet it was not ill-natured. That these unbelievers of unknown origin, separatists like the Jews, could offer serious opposition to the chosen of the towns was ridiculous. Since they excited no apprehension, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... not possible to repeat all the particular fruits of this sinful root. Therefore, it is no marvel that Mr. Badman was such an ill-natured man, for the great roots of all manner of wickedness were in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... passages, who can hold that he failed to see the consequences of his own premises. No one could have seen more clearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to show a sympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even when ironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merely amusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimate irony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom he appeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... himself growing out of the intended change, beyond that of gratifying Emily, and securing freedom to her and the children. He knew enough of the North to feel convinced that he could not expect to live there openly with Emily, without being exposed to ill-natured comments, and closing upon himself the doors of many friends who had formerly received him with open arms. The virtuous dignity of the Northerner would be shocked, not so much at his having children by a woman of colour, but by his living with her in the midst of them, and acknowledging her ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... saw him when the news was brought to us. Edith is not ill-natured. She would not be prone to make a story ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... in Europe, a series of letters, entitled Notions of the Americans, by a Travelling Bachelor, in which he gave a favorable account of the working of our institutions, and vindicated his country from various flippant and ill-natured misrepresentations of foreigners. It is rather too measured in style, but is written from a mind full of the subject, and from a memory wonderfully stored with particulars. Although twenty-four years have elapsed since its publication, but little of ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... world would be relieved: For not to wish is not to be deceived. Revenge would into charity be changed, Because it costs too dear to be revenged: It costs our quiet and content of mind, And when 'tis compass'd leaves a sting behind. Suppose I had the better end o' the staff, Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh? 30 'Tis all alike to them, who get the day; They love the spite and mischief of the fray. No; I have cured myself of that disease; Nor will I be provoked, but when I please: But let me half that cure to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Deshler's brigade; meeting Garland, a quarrel and some recrimination followed between him and Churchill, as to where the fault of the surrender belonged, which was rather promptly silenced by General Sherman, who hurried to the scene of trouble. There, after some ill-natured talk, Deshler ordered his men to lay down their arms. I rode into the fort, and found the parapet badly torn up by the fire from the fleet. On going to the embrasure where I had seen the gun while on the river-bank talking to Captain Shirk, the piece ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Countess Juan de Montalvo. Indeed of this there could be no doubt, since she was married with some ceremony by the Bishop in the Groote Kerk before the eyes of all men. Folk had wondered much at these hurried nuptials, though some of the more ill-natured shrugged their shoulders and said that when a young woman had compromised herself by long and lonely drives with a Spanish cavalier, and was in consequence dropped by her own admirer, why the best thing she could do was to marry as ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the spiteful old man, and completely cured him of all his ill-natured tricks. He is now one of the ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... scraps of gossip retailed by one person to another and from one set to another. The French Press took it up, and so did the English Press. In spite of my happy disposition and my contempt for ill-natured tales, I began to feel irritated. Injustice has always roused me to revolt, and injustice was certainly having its fling. I could not do a thing that was not ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... widow in his immediate vicinity greatly enraged the old Squire; but as he possessed no power of denouncing women as traitors, he was obliged to content himself by pouring forth, on every occasion, the most ill-natured invectives against his ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... by brothers! There are properties now well invested and yielding income for the support of sisters and younger brothers, because the older brother rose to the leadership from the day the father laid down to die. Whatever you do for your brother will come back to you again. If you set him an ill-natured, censorious, unaccommodating example, it will recoil upon you from his own irritated and despoiled nature. If you, by patience with all his infirmities and by nobility of character, dwell with him in the few ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... epithets of ancient criticism; he contents himself with wishing not to be in their skin, for he would be disgusted with himself, and esteem himself the vilest of scribblers thus to calumniate a poor little book which is not in the style of any spoil-paper of these times. Ah! ill-natured wretches! you should save your breath to cool your own porridge! The Author consoles himself for his want of success in not pleasing everyone by remembering that an old Tourainian, of eternal memory, had put up with such contumely, that losing all patience, he declared in one of his prologues, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... we do not find occupation for thoughts and hands, the rhyme tells us who will. The devils of cruelty and uncleanness will be ready to enter the empty house, and fill it at least with unwholesome talk, and thoughtless if not ill-natured "ragging." Yet work and games, whatever keenness we arouse and encourage in these, cannot fill a boy's whole time and thoughts—or, if they do, his life, whether he is student or athlete, or even the occasional combination of both, is still ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... green spectacles, kept the virtues (or vices) of this woman's nature a profound secret until she opened her lips. When she used her voice, she let out the truth. Nobody could hear her speak, and doubt for a moment that she was an inveterately ill-natured woman. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... the desire to show her new shoes; and away she went marching primly along as vain as a little peacock, as she watched the bright buttons twinkle, and heard the charming creak. Kitty saw her coming; and, being an ill-natured little girl, took no notice, but called out to ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... arduous expeditions men are apt to become irritable and ill-natured, and oftentimes fancy they have more labor imposed upon them than their comrades, and that the person who directs the march is partial toward his favorites, etc. That man who exercises the greatest forbearance under such circumstances, who is cheerful, ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... I know, some derive from their being of a more bloody inclination than the males. On which account they apply to the nose, as to the part whence blood may most easily be drawn; but this seems a far-fetched as well as ill-natured supposition. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... had been passed at court; it was Macrin who had exiled her. And with the whisper filtered another—that she was rich; that she had lumps of gold, which she would give gladly to whomso aided in placing her Antonin on the throne. There were gossips who said ill-natured things of this lady; who insinuated that she had so many lovers that she herself could not tell who was the father of her child; but the lumps of gold had a language of their own. The disbanded army espoused the young priest's cause; there was a skirmish, Macrin ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... convention at Syracuse was perhaps the noisiest, most rowdy, ill-natured, and riotous body of men which ever represented the ruling party of a great Commonwealth."—The Nation, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... thing—the ill-natured loon! Were it ever sae rightly, he 'll no let it be; And I rubbit at my e'en, and I thought I would swoon, How the carle had come roun' about our ain Bessie Lee! The wee laughing lassie was a gudewife grown auld, Twa weans at her apron, and ane on her knee, She was douce too, and wise-like—and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... so ill-natured that the tanner sold him to a coal miner. He was lowered into a coal mine, where he had to pass his time pulling loads of coal. The mine was dark, and he was kept ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... was a success. He was a good bear, but then, it was objected, he was an objectless bear—a bear that meant nothing, signified nothing, simply stood there, snarling over his shoulder at nothing, and was painfully and manifestly a boorish and ill-natured intruder upon the fair page. All hands said that none were satisfied; they hated badly to give him up, and yet they hated as much to have him there when there was no point to him. But presently ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nothing is an excuse for being lazy and ill-natured. I was brought up in the old school, I suppose," she answered, and I wished to goodness she ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... proud and often unsuspected reserve. She had made a confidante of no one. That her relation to Manisty was accepted and understood in Rome; that it was regarded as a romance, with which it was not so much ill-natured as ridiculous to associate a breath of scandal—a romance which all kind hearts hoped might end as most of such things should end—all this she knew. She had been proud of her place beside him, proud of Rome's tacit recognition of her claim upon him. But she had ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... more nor less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. And while the three-headed Cerberus was fawning so lovingly on King Pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... nothing but laugh at his freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears, and retired. His first compliment when he saw her a little time afterwards was, "Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last?" To which she replied with the greatest good humor, "No, Mr. Dean; I will sing for you now, if you please." From this time he conceived the greatest esteem for her, and always behaved with the utmost respect. Those who knew Swift, took no offence ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... killed, a shoulder or two dislocated, and about half a dozen legs and arms 8broken, belonging to people who were not at all known in high life, nothing worthy of notice may be said to have happened on these occasions. 'Tis true, some ill-natured remarks appeared in one of the public papers, on the "conduct of coachmen entrusting the reins to young practitioners, and thus endangering the lives of his majesty's subjects;" but these passed off like other philanthropic ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... unjustifiable! Everybody knows Glashruach is the property of Major Culsalmon!"—Here the laird sought the relief of another oath or two.—"I entreat you to moderate your anger, my dear sir," Fergus resumed. "The thing is hardly worth so much indignation. Some animal has been playing the poor fellow an ill-natured trick—putting him up to it for the sake of a vile practical joke. It is exceedingly provoking, but you must forgive him. He is hardly to blame, scarcely accountable, under the natural circumstances.—Get ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the old gentleman considerably changed. There were, occasionally, flashes of his former customary, sarcastic pungency; now and again he would rouse himself to be ill-natured, antagonistic, and self-willed. But old age and illness had sadly told upon him; and he was content for the most part to express his humour by little shrugs, shakes of the head, and an irritable manner he had lately acquired of rubbing his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... laid out in my advancement in the army, and shortly afterwards I was preferred to the rank of a lieutenant in my regiment, and ordered to Gibraltar. I noticed that Amelia's sister, Miss Betty, who had said many ill-natured things of our marriage, now again became ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the girl went on, "and unfortunately the colonel of his regiment is here, and some ill-natured person—we fancy it is a rival of his—has told the colonel. He is furious about it, and declares that he will catch him and have him tried by court-martial for being absent without leave. The only thing is, he is not certain as ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... unusual events at the De Commarin mansion had caused a great stir in society. A thousand stories were circulated, talked over, corrected, and added to by the ill-natured and malicious,—some abominably absurd, others simply idiotic. Twenty people, very noble and still more proud, had not been above sending their most intelligent servants to pay a little visit among the count's retainers, for the sole purpose of learning something positive. As it was, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... creature that Rem Van Ariens is!" thought Hyde, "and with all the good temper in the world I affirm it. I wonder what he is on the street for at this hour! Shall I watch him? No, that would be vile work. I will let him alone; he may as well play the ill-natured fool on the street as in the house—better, indeed, for some one may have a title to tell him so. But I may assure myself of one thing, when I met him he was building castles in the future, for he was looking straight before him; and if he had been thinking of the past, he ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... will go on then; and though I hold it a sufficient thing to abstain from ill-natured remarks, yet I propose to use a remedy, which I am told was employed by a great swearer, who repenting of his bad habit, made it a practice to pinch his arm, or kiss the ground as penance, whenever an oath escaped him; ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... so often been the subject of flippant and ill-natured criticisms, that they can readily appreciate any liberal estimate of themselves in whatever form it may be placed before their kindred in Great Britain. It is a fact, as natural as it is undeniable, that they are very ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... fatal adventure. Immediately the two eldest set up lamentable outcries, and in a reproachful and malignant tone said all manner of ill-natured things to Beauty, who did ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... than he who is always exalting himself. An indifference to popular applause does much to soften the bitterness of political controversy, while on the other hand a love of distinction often leads men to be ill-natured and spiteful to others, a fault which Aristeides entirely avoided, and to which Cato was peculiarly liable. Aristeides saved Athens by supporting the authority of Themistokles on several critical occasions, and even ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... it was by means of a series of funny articles in The Dry Goods Gazette—articles so violently humorous that the author's father thoroughly appreciated them. Mr. HAMBLIN'S fun, let me add, is never ill-natured. Even bilious grocers will not resent his jovial invasion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... confidence that this is the best excuse people who are unwilling to learn have to offer for refusing. They do not know what learning may lead to, and what a pity it would be if they could no longer be greedy, or ill-natured, or selfish. What would become of us all in ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... were hungry at this period for more money and felt themselves martyrized by the whim of an ill-natured old man who had arbitrarily made them wait to be wholly happy. They talked perpetually about what they should do with themselves "after" the great event,—the sort of touring-car they should buy, the kind of establishment they should keep, the best place to live in, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... There are hard, ill-natured beings, goaded by distress or disease into active malignity, that yet entertain diametrically opposed sentiments with a like degree of vehemence. If Richelieu was a good hater, he was no less a good friend. Fraisier, in his gratitude, would have ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... counter, he rudely took her arm, opened the door, and pushed her into the street. Katy's cheek burned with indignation at this unprovoked assault, and she wished for the power of ten men, that she might punish the ill-natured fellow as he deserved. But it was all for the best, for, in pushing her out of the shop, the clerk threw her against a portly gentleman on the street, whose soft, yielding form alone saved her from being tumbled into the gutter. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... of incurring debts which he could not pay. Then he took to drinking hard, and finally went to New York, and died after a career of dissipation. But everybody liked him. Drunk or sober, he was the best company in the world, full of anecdote flavored with a shrewd and not ill-natured wit. There was a manufacturer in a village near Worcester who had failed in business owing large debts all about. He was a man of enormous bulk, the fattest man in the whole region round-about, weighing considerably over three hundred. He left the State to avoid ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... even intelligent human being; that as soon as one talked of anything not eatable, for instance, of politics or science, he would be completely at a loss, or would expound a philosophy so stupid and ill-natured that there was nothing else to do but wave one's hand in despair and go away. Even when Startsev tried to talk to liberal citizens, saying, for instance, that humanity, thank God, was progressing, and that one ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured persons called ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... cook employed by Ragon, perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, Paris, towards the end of the eighteenth century; about 1793 she took in hand the amorous education of Cesar Birotteau, the little Tourraine peasant just employed by the Ragons as errand-boy. Ill-natured, wanton, wheedling, dishonest, selfish and given to drink, Ursule did not suit the candid Cesar, whom she abandoned, moreover, two years later, for a young Picardie rebel, who owned a few acres of land. He found concealment in Paris, and let her ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... his thoughts. If criticised, he must ask himself whether the criticism is just or unjust. If just, he must learn to accept and act upon it; if unjust, he must learn to classify the critic, as unreasonable, thoughtless, or ill-natured, place him in the appropriate mental compartment, throw the criticism into the intellectual waste-basket, and proceed upon his way. This practice, difficult at first, will, if assiduously cultivated, become ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... ill-natured Miss Kitty Cat," Spot exclaimed. "She has a big family of kittens. And she's terribly touchy about anybody's coming near them. Although she's keeping them in my basket, she hasn't even invited me to have a look at them.... I ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... been written up from the beginning to the last page) it had been coming for something like six years—and now it had come. The complication was there! I looked at his unshaken solemnity with the amused pity we give the victim of a funny if somewhat ill-natured practical joke. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Hilda after a moment's pause. 'No eloquence in the world would convince me that you and I should sacrifice our lives for an idea, merely to save ourselves from the possibility of a few ill-natured remarks hereafter. That is all it comes to in the end. I will tell you the history of ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... happened that Mary, when she left the synagogue and proceeded homewards, was scoffed at by her ill-natured neighbours, who gave her to understand that she might take herself off, and the sooner the better. She said nothing, but bade her weeping heart ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... it, though the name of the man might make it go down. The E. R^s. have not performed their task well; at least the literati tell me this; and I think I could write a more sarcastic critique on myself than any yet published. For instance, instead of the remark,—ill-natured enough, but not keen,—about Macpherson, I (quoad reviewers) could have said, 'Alas, this imitation only proves the assertion of Dr. Johnson, that many men, women, and children, could ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... a great many things to us that afternoon. For instance, that she was greatly troubled by what she called "the ill-natured attacks on Mr. Wrackham in the papers," the "things" that "They" said about him (it was thus vaguely that she referred to some of our younger and profaner critics). She was very sweet and amiable ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... for such as were known to be employed upon it the entree of houses where, if they had had a private existence only, their faces would never have been seen. But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of this sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of that same society into whose charmed precincts he was but so lately a comer that much was to him interesting which ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... engrossing all the talk, though he could not help listening with pleasure. Brougham is certainly one of the most remarkable men I ever met; to say nothing of what he is in the world, his almost childish gaiety and animal spirits, his humour mixed with sarcasm, but not ill-natured, his wonderful information, and the facility with which he handles every subject, from the most grave and severe to the most trifling, displaying a mind full of varied and extensive information and a memory which has suffered nothing to escape it, I never saw any man whose conversation ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... character tells more in the long-run than talking French or playing on the piano. Her companions might like Bessie Fairfax, or they might let liking alone, but very few would venture a second time on ill-natured demonstrations either towards herself or towards any ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... with that clear, disarming gaze that she knew how to achieve so perfectly. He felt a great yearning overwhelm him ... a desire to meet her halfway ... a vagrant displeasure at his ill-natured irritation. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... make companions of my messmates Sills and Broom. Their education was very limited, and the few ideas they possessed were frequently erroneous. Sills was not ill-natured, though weak, and easily led by anybody who would take the trouble to lead him. Broom I found at times surly and quarrelsome, and inclined always to grumble. However, as I had been a good many years at school, and had often met similar characters, though ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... hold up for your own people," said one of the soldiers approvingly. "The boy's all right, Coggins," to the ill-natured soldier. "You had no ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... decree in which my name was set down as exempt from the draft because my father had served as a Liberal Volunteer in the late war, and because, in addition, I was born in the Basque provinces, I had supposed that the matter had been disposed of. One of those ill-natured, dictatorial officials who held sway in the offices of the Board, took it upon himself to rule that the exemption held good only in the Basque provinces, but not in Madrid, and so, in fact, for the time it ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... better have told you of the heart-aches and discontent that generally fall to the lot of beauties." "How can that be?" inquired the astonished girl, "surely being courted and caressed by others, must make one anxious to please and oblige in return. I should be too happy to be proud and ill-natured." Poor Amaranthe spoke the truth at the time. Her innocent mind was unacquainted with the failings, that the fairy had stated as being usually attendant on beauty. Having never met with competitors, she had not experienced the grievances ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... opposing tendencies is to give evidence of the most consummate scientific training. It is from the want of such a balance that the recent great work of Mr. Cox is at times so unsatisfactory. It may, I fear, seem ill-natured to say so, but the eagerness with which Mr. Cox waylays every available illustration of the physical theory of the origin of myths has now and then the curious effect of weakening the reader's conviction of the soundness of ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Mercy Pecksniff, the two daughters of the "architect and land surveyor." Charity is thin, ill-natured, and a shrew, eventually jilted by a weak young man, who really loves her sister. Mercy Pecksniff, usually called "Merry," is pretty and true-hearted; though flippant and foolish as a girl, she becomes greatly ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... little bit more. Disturbed her temper truly! why, her temper is always disturbed, I think. And at Tholouse too I have heard my lady talking of you and Mons. Valancourt to Madame Merveille and Madame Vaison, often and often, in a very ill-natured way, as I thought, telling them what a deal of trouble she had to keep you in order, and what a fatigue and distress it was to her, and that she believed you would run away with Mons. Valancourt, if she was not to watch you closely; and that you connived at his coming about ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... "The reason these ill-natured gentlemen laughed at you as they did was because of the lax way they have brought me up," Nancy explained. "They've let me 'gang my ain gate' since I was five. I've had no right raising," she said, and the very sweetness ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Society I do not know. Perhaps 'he of the countenance of a lion,' of whom we read in the forty-fifth chapter of Lavengro, scarcely knew what to say about it; but the precise-looking man with the ill-natured countenance, no doubt, forbade his family to read The Bible ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the week, and detailed the disgusting treatment to which she had been subjected to a numerous acquaintance, who, it is needless to say, appeared during the narration as indignant and sympathetic as she could have wished, but who are declared by some ill-natured persons to have been precisely those who in secret chuckled over the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... was able in counsel. She was catholic in faith, most patient in hope, and of widespread charity. Though her face was always cheerful, she never broke into hilarious laughter. No one ever heard an ill-natured remark fall from her lips, and the sun never went down upon her wrath. Though she provided food and drink with the greatest liberality for others, she was very moderate herself; and the cup from which she used to drink ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... Churchill, a clergyman of the Establishment, but as open a contemner of decency as Wilkes himself. For some years, his poetry had proved as bad as his sermons, his time being spent in low dissipation. An ill-natured criticism on his writings called forth his energies, and he started, all at once, a giant in numbers, with all the fire of Dryden and all the harmony of Pope. Imagination, wit, strength, and sense, were crowded into his compositions; but he was careless of both matter and manner, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... that he and Byron had very little in common. Byron disliked his familiarity and his airs of equality; while he himself was not long in discovering Byron to be egotistical to the verge of insanity, childishly vain of his rank, ill-natured, jealous, coarse, inconsiderate, disloyal, a blabber of secrets, mean, deceitful. But the glamour of Byron's fame, the romance that surrounded him, his rank, which Leigh Hunt valued almost pathetically, kept the amiable invalid—for such Leigh Hunt ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ill-natured rebuff, the sensitive woman sat down the next evening with her baby in her lap, and half-blinded by her tears, wrote "An Apology for my Twilight Rambles," in the verses that ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... said these new-fangled plans would not answer, and now they are sure they were right. Well, I forgive them their croaking, though most of them have dined at my table and drank my wine. I forgive them their croaking, for so they were bred up from childhood. Were I ill-natured, I might even smile at them, for they are failing and leaving their farms by the dozen, which seems a pretty good proof that their antiquated system is at best no better than mine. But I can see what they cannot see—signs of improvement. The steel industry is giving men work; the iron ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... who was an ill-natured fellow, being in a terrible rage at Tom for frightening and scalding him with the porridge, went straight to the King, and said that Tom had jumped into the royal porridge, and thrown it down out of mere mischief. The King was so ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... and we might have gone on very well had not one, a Bristol fellow, come here. He is unanimously alloyed to be a queer fellow, and is generally characterised as a foolish boy, and by most of us as an ill-natured one. In my learning I do Xenophon every day, and twice a week the Odyssey, in which I am classed with Wilberforce, whom all the boys allow to be very clever, very droll, and very impudent. We do Latin verses trice a week, and I have not yet been laughed at, as Wilberforce ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... up, and smiled with ill-natured significance; for Cratinus, the ribald, had openly declared in the theatre, that Pericles needed only to look in his mirror, to discover a model for the sloping roof of the Odeum. Athenian guests were indignant ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... some Hours, without any Corps to bury. Russell, after three days' Expectance of Orders for Embalment, without receiving any, waits on Lord Jeffreys, who, pretending Ignorance of the Matter, turn'd it off with an ill-natured Jest, saying, "Those who observed the orders of a drunken Frolick, deserved no better; that he remembered nothing at all of it, and he might do what he pleased with the Corps." On this Mr. Russell ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... acknowledge having experienced. A celebrated English traveller was so annoyed by the urgent invitations of the Philadelphians to visit the Fairmount Water Works, that he resolved not to visit them, so that he might have the characteristic satisfaction of recording the ill-natured fact. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... there was a pleading look in John's lifted eyes that changed the little woman's smile to an expression of real solicitude. "I have sent for you," continued John, "to ask of you three great favors. Please be seated while I enumerate them. First—I want you to forgive and forget that ill-natured, uncalled-for grumbling of mine this morning when ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... very intimate with us, and amused us with lively descriptions and stories of most of the great people whom we saw upon the terrace. I liked her more and more every minute. Her gossip without being ill-natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had been so long out of the great world. I thought what life she would give to our ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "Some ill-natured people gossip about Sir Henry," he remarked presently, as he made another long cast up-stream and allowed the flies to be carried down to within a few yards from where he stood. "They say that his source of income is mysterious, and that it is ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... suppose, what human nature really is, that no one is a firm friend, neither among our intimates, nor of our kindred; nor do they preserve that kind disposition when God advances men to great prosperity, but they are still ill-natured and envious at those that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of the ledge, and waited for the dispute to end. It was evident to him that Cudjo was not half so ill-natured as he appeared; but, feeling himself in a position of something like official importance, he had the human weakness to wish to ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... really do make ill-natured jokes or not, I don't know; but anyhow, Mrs. Ess Kay keeps hinting that they do, which is almost as disagreeable for me. She says that they have nicknamed the bronze man "Lady Betty's Hero"; and this has made me so self-conscious that I can't bear to go near the ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... hateful, ill-tempered, surly, churlish, disagreeable, ill-conditioned, morose, unamiable, crabbed, dogged, ill-humored, sour, unlovely, cruel, gruff, ill-natured, sullen, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... yourself?—No price shall part us—but I will leave the terms to you and my wife, if you please. And also whether for board or not. Only please to take this for earnest, putting a guinea into her hand—and one thing I will say; my poor wife loves money; but is not an ill-natured woman. She was a great fortune to me: but, as the real estate goes away at her death, I would fain preserve her for that reason, as well as for the love I bear her as an honest man. But if she makes too close a bargain with ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Ports. Miss. Valley') has also received several generous and laudatory notices; one from the U.S. Literary Gazette, printed at Boston. I saw Gov. Clinton, also, who spoke very highly both of the book and the author. He thought that Mr. W.'s ill-natured critique would not do any injury either here ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... began to taste pleasures, from which their animosity to each other had hitherto debarred them. They all sat looking pleased on their companions; their faces borrowed beauty from the calmness and goodness of their minds; and all those ugly frowns, and all that ill-natured sourness, which when they were angry and cross were but too plain in their faces, were now entirely fled; jessamine and honeysuckles surrounded their seats, and played round their heads, of which they gathered nosegays to present ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... Cold Baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested I was utterly lost for want of that method; upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned; and so escaped being lashed into a linguist till sixteen, and being married to an ill-natured wife till sixty, which had certainly been my fate had not the enchantment between body and soul been broken by this philosopher. Thus, till the age I should have otherwise lived, I am obliged to watch the steps of men; and, if you please, shall accompany you in your present walk, and get you ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... found that his master and owner, Ben-Ahmed, was a stern and exacting, but by no means an ill-natured or cruel, man. He appeared to be considerably over sixty years of age, but showed no signs of abated vigour. In character he was amiable and just, according to his light, ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... some of us, deviating towards it, become like wolves, faithless and insidious and mischievous; others like lions, wild and savage and untamed; but most of us like foxes, wretches even among brutes. For what else is a slanderous and ill-natured man than a fox, or something still more ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... (Medoctec) I had been cutting wood and was binding it up with an Indian rope in order to carry it to the wigwam when a stout ill-natured young fellow about 20 years of age threw me backward, sat on my breast and pulling out his knife said that he would kill me, for he had never yet killed an English person. I told him that he might go to war and that would ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... the ill-natured old fellow still kept his seat upon my neck. When I had recovered my breath, he thrust one of his feet against my side, and struck me so rudely with the other that he forced me to rise up, against my will. Having arisen, he made me carry him under the trees, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... must say farewell, Redwald. In better days I will not forget your service," and then she smiled a little, and gave me her hand to kiss as I knelt before her, adding: "I think that I have been an ill-natured travelling companion at times." ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... the fortune of war—and discovery," put in Mr. Hardy, one of the party who seemed the least ill-natured. "Your luck might have been ours, Professor ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... arranged the ends of his gracefully tied neckerchief. "We come to another point. It was very kind of you, my dear madame, to bring me the news—to tell me something of that sort had been said; but you know what ill-natured people will remark. You get no ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... neighbouring paragraphs. Who was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank—if he was trying to do anything? They told that pretty clearly. What was Quarrier going to do to Plank? That, also, they explained in lively detail. A few clergymen who ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... men love her, they say. Many a poor girl's sweetheart has been false through her—and I thought she was cruel and ill-natured. Know you the servants that wait on her? Would you dare to ask one for me, if he thinks she would deign to see a poor girl who would crave the favour to be allowed to speak to her ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had been the occasion of the tumult. He was knocked down by one of our soldiers, who had cut his throat but that the fathers prevented it: he then restored the cords, and was more tractable ever after. In all my dealings with the Moors, I have always discovered in them an ill-natured cowardice, which makes them insupportably insolent if you show them the least respect, and easily reduced to reasonable terms when you treat them with ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... that a great lack of discretion had been shown by the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities of the palace. A particularly awkward question had been raised ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... wife the pathway came down, And the mischievous Brier caught hold of her gown; "O dear, what a tear! My gown's spoiled, I declare! That troublesome Brier!—it has no business there; Here, John, grub it up; throw it into the fire." And that was the end of the ill-natured Brier. ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... nothing but these, instead of having but a modicum of these, for the most part mauled and illset, among a crowd of contributions of an altogether inferior kind; the whole collection being often such that if an ill-natured critic were to assert that the compilers had degraded and limited the old music in order to set off their own, it would be difficult to meet him ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... "ill-natured or ill-mannered" to think that parents will not be fortunate if "their children fall under the elevating influence of Dr. Sanderson's ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... begin with your postscript concerning the idea that I wished your present Ministers to retire, because they had become disagreeable to France. The people who avancent quelque chose de la sorte probably have some ill-natured motive which it is not always easy to guess; perhaps in the present instance does it mean, let us say, that? whatever opinion he may then express we can easily counteract it, representing it as the result of strong partiality to France. Let us therefore examine what France has to gain ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... superb necklaces; they placed the coronet of Chosroe on her head, and tiaras round her forehead. They lighted brilliant and scented candles before her—the perfumes were scattered—the torches blazed—and Ibla came forth in state. All present gave a shout; while the malicious and ill-natured cried aloud, "What a pity that one so beautiful and fair should be wedded ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... his turn, did not always treat Kathleen well, any more than he did anybody else. He was ill-natured with her and he played tricks on her that were not pleasant at all, and yet he wanted to be always with her. Perhaps it was partly because she was more kind to him than anybody else, except Ellen. For nobody else liked him. And if he was bad-tempered and unkind to other people, it made ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... Pisgah when they take their stand, To mark the weakness of that Holy Land, 190 With needless truths their libels to adorn, And hang a nation up to public scorn, Thy generous soul condemns the frantic rage, And hates the faithful, but ill-natured page. The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not, then, in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here? If, by low supple arts successful grown, They sapp'd our vigour to increase their own; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... an angry, nay, in an ominous tone, but the praetorian prefect was a powerful personage, whose importance made him almost invulnerable. Yet the praetor Lucius Priscillianus was ready with an answer. He was the most malicious and ill-natured scandal-monger at court; and he hated the prefect, for he himself had coveted the post, which was the highest in the state next to Caesar's. He had always some slaves set to spy upon Macrinus, and he now said, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
